Dear Intarwebs

[truepenny]

It seems ages since last we talked.


I.
At 7:15 A.M. Wednesday morning, I am awoken by a noise like a walrus being eaten by a windmill--or possibly a windmill being eaten by a walrus. After some confusion and alarm (Tornado? Martians à la Wells? Did mirrorthaw decide to start ripping off the roof today and just forget to mention it?), I determine that, as part of the extensive renovations underway at the house next door, they've decided to knock down the garage.

mirrorthaw and our next door neighbor on the other side make book on whose attic the displaced colony of bats--currently flapping around our backyard in the bright 7:15 A.M. sunshine--will end up in. I snarl a general Fuck you very much at the world and take a shower.

II.
Upon coming downstairs, I discover that the lowest setting on the torchiere by my computer has burned out, thus proving conclusively that cleanliness must be loved for its own sake if it is to be loved at all. The second setting is so bright that it grays out the monitor. I experiment briefly with draping my dragon sarong over the lamp, but while this does solve the problem--and creates rather an attractive lighting effect--there is also a very quickly evident drawback, in that the sarong starts getting quite hot. The odds of the sarong being flame retardant I figure to be exceptionally low, so I give up on that idea and turn the lamp off. The study more than ever resembles a cave.

III.
Not very many minutes later, the Elder Saucepan hocks up a hairball the approximate size of my thumb next to my desk.

IV.
I decide that Mercury is in retrograde and make the first of several unsuccessful attempts to call mirrorthaw and whine. This will become significant later.

V.
Although the bats are not in any way shape or form likely to invade our house proper (that's happened only once, a couple of years ago now, and was due to overly cavalier blocking of a window around an air-conditioning unit), they have reminded me that the formerly feral ninjas need to go in for their annual checkup and vaccines. I got the postcard some time ago (*cough*most of a month*cough*) and have been putting it off because last year there was carnage and mayhem and I have the scar on my arm to prove it. (No, nobody bit. The ninjas have never bitten, nor offered to bite, anyone. Nor, in fact, have they ever scratched anyone on purpose. But the First Ninja has claws of really praise-worthy length and sharpness, and she panicked.) I tell myself to stop being a wuss and call, fully expecting to make an appointment for sometime next week, which is comfortably in the future. I am bouleversée to be told they have an opening today at three.

I may be reluctant, but I'm not a fool. I take it.

VI.
After feeding self and cats, I go get the crate out, so as to lull the ninjas into a false sense of security. Not that it will work, but some gestures have to be made.

VII.
Bonus Irony: some time later, having heard an odd noise, I get up and go do a cat check. No explanation for the noise is found--probably something else going on next door--but I discover that the crate is now occupied. By the Elder Saucepan. Who looks quite pleased with himself, thank you.

VIII.
I have lunch. The Elder Saucepan comes to stand on me and suggest, very politely, that if I had even the smallest shred of decency, I would share my ham sandwich with him.

I have no decency.

Also, since I am wearing black and the Elder Saucepan is a cream-colored cat, I have to change shirts.

IX.
At 1:15, I start preparing to leave. This gives me a window of about forty-five minutes to get the ninjas into their crates. I expect to need it. However, comma, five minutes later, both ninjas are crated and making noises like air-raid sirens. Stay me with flagons, quoth I, and decide that (a.) there is no possibility of letting them out again (see above re: not a fool), (b.) I am not leaving two crated air raid sirens just lying about the house for forty minutes, (c.) if I get to the clinic early, there's at least a reasonable possibility they'll be able to work me in early. After one last unsuccessful attempt to call mirrorthaw, I load 'em up and head 'em out.

X.
On the way to the car, the following dialogue ensues in classic call-and-response form from one crate to the other (for the full effect, you must understand that while the Second Ninja is a soprano, the First Ninja is a throaty contralto worthy of Marlene Dietrich herself):

SECOND NINJA: We've got to get out of these boxes!
FIRST NINJA: No shit, Sherlock.
SECOND NINJA: What's the plan?
FIRST NINJA: Plan?
SECOND NINJA: Don't you have a plan?
FIRST NINJA: I don't have a plan. Do you have a plan?
SECOND NINJA: I thought you had the plan!
FIRST NINJA: But it's your turn to come up with the plan!
SECOND NINJA: Oh god oh god oh god what're we gonna do?
FIRST NINJA: Woe is us, we have no plan!
SECOND NINJA: Woe!
FIRST NINJA: Doom and despair and the perfidy of bipeds!

XI.
Our vet has moved recently. I am well aware of this. It is only after we are underway that I remember I intended to get the postcard with their new address (and handy map!) off the fridge, where we put it so as to be sure we wouldn't lose it.

XII.
In the car.

FIRST NINJA: Woe!
SECOND NINJA: Woe!
FIRST NINJA: Woe!
SECOND NINJA: Woe!

For obvious reasons, I am more careful about the speed limit than usual on the way to the vet.

XIII.
Are you my vet clinic?

No. I am not your vet clinic. I am a new housing development.

Are you my vet clinic?

No. I am a defunct bank.

Are you my vet clinic?

No. I am a medical practice specializing in women's health.

Are you my vet clinic?

No. I am a restaurant.

Are you my vet clinic?

No. I am still a new housing development.

Are you my vet clinic?

No. I am an empty field.

XIV.
The vet's new building, once I find it, is exceptionally lovely and EXPONENTIALLY LARGER than their old space. I meet a water spaniel who is delighted to be making all these new friends and a venerable marmalade gentleman who is exceptionally mellow--not to say stoned--on the remainders of the anesthetic from his surgery.

The ninjas hate me and all my works, but they are well-behaved, as these things go for cats, and in excellent health. Next year, I will organize myself better and give them the tranquilizers the vet prescribed after last year's carnage and mayhem. They could really use some of the venerable marmalade gentleman's mellow.

XV.
On the way home, the radio plays, "Money for Nothing." I will later decide it was trying to warn me.

Also on the way home, there is guilt. The ninjas emit it in waves. The First Ninja is no longer speaking to me. The Second Ninja is only speaking to me to tell me what a rotten excuse for a biped I am.

XVI.
On reaching home, my first action is to release the ninjas. They flee upstairs, to sulk under the futon and instruct Catzilla in the perfidy of bipeds. (N.b., Catzilla clearly takes this lesson to heart, for he is unusually suspicious of me all evening.)

Then, once I have unloaded crates and a ten-pound bag of cat food, I go back into the study and discover that the email I sent matociquala on my way out the door has been sitting here failing to send the entire time I was gone.

Phooey ratso, quoth I, and send it again.

No joy.

I look at the router and discover that more than just email is fucked. The DSL light is flashing in a stately sort of way that strikes fear and foreboding in my heart. I do what any sensible person does at this point and reach for the phone to call my technogeek spouse.

The phone line is out.

I immediately feel as if I am trapped in a horror movie.

XVII.
There ensues a moment (let's be charitable and call it a "moment," okay?) of vapor lock, in which my brain devolves into an infinite loop. The phone's out, I'd better email mirrorthaw. Wait, the DSL's out, I'd better phone him instead. Lather, rinse, repeat.

Finally, I kick free and cross the street to beg the neighbors for the use of their phone. Wacky hijinks ensue, based mostly on the theme of my inability to cope with these newfangled modern phones. I leave voice mail for mirrorthaw, since he is once again not answering his phone and return to the house, whereupon it occurs to me for the first time in the whole of Wednesday that maybe I should have tried his cellphone instead.

I can't face the first set of neighbors again, but go grovel at a different set instead. More wacky hijinks ensue. I begin to suspect I shouldn't be let out alone.

mirrorthaw answers his cellphone. Hallelujah! He finds our service provider's number, which I had forgotten to equip myself with, and I gird myself for combat.

After languishing in voice mail hell for a while, I talk to a nice young man who promises to get somebody out either tonight (unlikely, since it's already 4:30) or tomorrow morning. ("Is there a phone number you can be reached at?" No, twinkle-toes, I think, but do not say. THAT'S WHY I'M CALLING.) I thank the neighbor profusely and return home.

XVIII.
I would never actually call anyone "twinkle-toes," except possibly a cat.

XIX.
No technician appears. I didn't actually expect one tonight.

XX.
The Brewers play some truly abysmal baseball.

XXI.
At least five times during the evening, I make an instinctive mental reach for the internet and have to dope smack myself. I want my MTV!

XXII.
I'm rereading Sarah Caudwell and have found the line that describes me like a dissecting knife:

'Julia is admittedly unobservant--'

'It's not exactly,' said Selena, 'that she's unobservant. It's just that she doesn't always notice what's happening.'

(Thus Was Adonis Murdered, p. 311)

XXIII.
mirrorthaw informs me that, no, I couldn't reach him via his office phone because, in point of fact, there at the moment is no phone there.

What is the sound of no phone ringing?

XXIV.
This chapter will never end, because Felix and Kay will not SHUT. UP.

XXV.
The ninjas forgive me in increments, and with frequent reminders that their charity comes from the goodness of their hearts, and not because I deserve it or anything.

XXVI.
Thursday morning, in the shower, I first dropped the shower gel into the grotty corner behind the tub where the dust bunnies go to die, and then discovered that--as usual--when I dumped my towel in the laundry yesterday, I forgot to provide myself with a clean one. Wet footprints ensued. Clearly, Thursday aspires to be a repeat of Wednesday.

XXVII.
And now I'm sitting here, typing this entry in WordPerfect, and waiting to hear from our service provider. I confess to some slight trepidation, because while mirrorthaw left me the cellphone, the number of which I had duly given the nice young man, our reception out here is the pits. So it seems to me possible that they can try to call, and I won't even know it. I hope that they'll have the nous to come fix the problem ANYWAY, but I am not sanguine.

XXVIII.
Also, I am going into internet withdrawal, and the consolation that at least I can get a lot of writing done without being distracted--which was a pretty cold consolation to begin with--is beginning to pall. The Law of Diminishing Returns is ever so much in effect.

XXIX.
On the other hand, as of 11 A.M. Thursday, although I still have no communication with the outside world, I do have a complete draft. I refuse, however, to feel that the universe has done me a favor.

XXX.
At least the ninjas love me again. I was accosted for snuggles in the accustomed manner this morning.

XXXI.
I want my MTV.


Will post this when I can. Hope you and all your little weblings are well.

Love and kisses,
truepenny

P.S. 1:15 P.M. Hallelujah! Intarwebs I love you! Never leave me again!

Comments

[malinaldarose.livejournal.com]

I would like to take this opportunity to point out that although I am 39 years old, my grandmother calls me "twinkle-toes" ALL THE TIME. Except when she's calling my by my mother's, sister's, nieces' or aunt's names.

She has yet, however, to call me "Rutabaga."

Also? Sorry you had such a horrible Wednesday.