So for some reason our company did not give us the day off. I guess it's because 4th of July falls on Saturday this year, and Saturday is still not officially a 'day off' like Sunday is. This seems pretty stupid to me, it's like everyone silently agrees not to call Saturday a holiday even though most 9-to-5ers would blanch at the idea of working on a Saturday. So my company seizes on this opportunity to wuss out on a Friday off by giving us a 'floating holiday.' This means we're given the right to take a day off at some point this year ... just probably not today. I found out about this too late (apparently) to get Friday off, so now I'm trying to weasel out of here early. Then it's off to the Brooklyn Historical Society to determine what we can about the history of our house. I don't know what information might be available, but we're gonna check it out in any case. Worse case, we don't find anything useful but we still get to go to Sahadi's after for big tubs of the best hummus in town!

I think we're seeing the Fresh Kills at Union Pool on the 4th, aside from that I never get that excited about this as a holiday. I hate fireworks for some reason, so I rarely look forward to it. Meanwhile, the kids in the neighborhood LOVE fireworks, and express this by amassing explosive devices in the weeks leading up to the 4th, from those annoying little things you throw that pop, to elaborate sky blossoms that they shoot off in the street. Miraculously nobody has set their house on fire yet, though there was a fire truck out on our street for a while last night. I kind of hope it rains on Saturday. I'm such a wet blanket.

Labels: History, Holidays

One of the things that sold me on our house (aside from the fact we couldn't afford anything else we looked at) was the size of the kitchen. It's a 22x11 foot room with a lot of counter space and one really old sink. Its only downside was its lack of light. It's on the ground floor and the only light came through a tiny window (and a little from the open vent in the wall meant for a range hood.)

The back door was a big metal exterior door. Soon after we moved in I decided to change the lockset on it, as the existing one was rusty and rinky-dink. The same night I chose to irrevocably remove the old knob (I had to pry it out in pieces) was the same night the people who lived behind the hosue on the next street decided to have a loud argument, which led to a loud fight, which led to a loud round on gunfire. It was our first "on the block" experience with shootings, and definitely the first time we literally didn't have a door to hide behind. I will never forget that night, standing half in and half out of the house, struggling to remove the old hardware while somebody protected their precious reputation (the argument involved the oft-elusive 'respect' one participant was not receiving in kind from others.) At no time did I think, "I've made a huge mistake buying this house," after all we'd explored the neighborhood a lot before committing to buy. No, what I thought was, "I hate this fucking door." I got the new knob in and engaged the deadbolt, safely inside. The crisis was over but I never stopped hating that ugly-ass door.

So it's been nearly 3 years since then and while the door still hasn't gotten me shot, it's proving hateful right back at us. Its wood frame warped in humid weather, which as you know, has been pretty much every day so far in 2009. You have to literally slam against it to get it open, at which time a bunch of cats would either run in or out, depending on which side had food left. The door sucked, we needed more light in the kitchen ... a glass door seemed obvious.

Actually it seemed obvious over a year ago, when I first got a guy out for an estimate. Disagreement between me and my lady led to apathy and we never got the door. So this year, when we got our tax refunds we committed to get rid of the old door, so I got the same sad-sack salesman to come out and measure the door again (did it grow or something?) and pick out a glass door and accompanying security door.

It took them 6 weeks to get back out to install it (after a gentle reminder) and after a few false starts we finally have it! It's a total generic door, I guess there's not a whole lot of creativity at this level of industry, but it's doing the trick. Having two doors is a little cumbersome, but at least I can open both with a couple of fingers instead of concentrating all my force onto my shoulder as I try to bash my way outside.

The cat are fascinated by it; Stymie tried to jump 'through' the glass door and received an unfortunate lesson. They line up at the door to peer into the yard. And the feral cats line up outside to peer in. We still have to get some kind of curtain for it, but for now I don't want to do anything to obstruct the view.

I've spent all morning downloading applications of dubious utility to my company-owned Blackberry. The reason: the company has seen fit to start blocking all manner of websites AGAIN. They did this before, blocking nearly every site that one might find entertaining or distracting. But then they relaxed the restriction and allowed some site, like Gmail (though they blocked the gChat feature). Then a few months ago, restrictions seemed to really relax, and we had unfettered access to all but the most offensive and evil sites (ie, hotrepublicansex.com, etc.) But over the last few days, they have been systematically clamping down again. I have a theory that you can gauge how well a company is doing by how much leeway they allow their employees online. So I guess the company is hitting the skids again. Oh well.

I now have Facebook, Twitter, Gmail, Yahoo Mail, Flickr and the Opera Mini Browser installed. It's not as easy to use as their Web counterparts, but at least I don't have to feel marooned at the office. Honestly without these distractions (plus selected blogs), how could I be expected to survive a day at this Mediocrity Factory? Well, I could probably live without Twitter but maybe I'm just not following enough interesting people. Story of my life.

P.S. Don't forget! See SPIKE the Angora cat at the North Shore Adoption Van this SUNDAY in Park Slope, outside NYC Pet, 5th Ave @Union/President, Brooklyn.

Labels: Bad Stuff, Gadgets, Job, Tedium

Labels: Adoption, Cats

I don't have much to add to this story but I wanted to note it on my blog, if only so I could look back in the future and note the moment in history when the Port Authority decided it had the right to round up a bunch of animals that had done absolutely nothing wrong and kill them. This goose thing is amazingly stupid. It is proven the birds most often getting caught in jet engines are migratory geese, not this bunch that live here (sure a few may be from the 'dangerous' group but come on). Even if every goose killed could somehow be guaranteed to get sucked into a plane's rotors, it still isn't a long-term solution, unless they plan on killing every single goose, gull, pelican and egret in the country. They're going to kill a bunch now, but of course, more will come to take their place. That's an ECOSYSTEM; gassing a bunch of geese isn't policy, it's distraction.

Yet somehow with almost everyone (except the NY Post) against them, they have already begun the mass slaughter. I don't care what you think about geese, but this should be at least mildly annoying to all of us.

Labels: Animals, Bad Stuff

You people with cars won't understand this, but sometimes we sit around and discuss all the things we could do if we had one. How we could go to Ikea, to Costco, to the Catskills (I don't know why we bring that up, neither of us knows anything about the Catskills). The idea that we could have something to not only transport us around but also hold heavy items so that we may bring them to our door, well, let's just say we understand the allure.

Eventually these conversation descend into all the reasons we SHOULDN'T ever have a car: the costs, the worries about theft, the moving from one side of the street to the other all the time. So we end feeling pleased we are still reliant on mass transit. But this weekend we were able to tool around and block the box like all those SOBs who act like they don't see me jaywalking on 23rd St.

Empty Cages had put out a request for a washing machine, and a woman offered up her washer and dryer for free. Someone would need to go get them, but nearly every member of the group was working an adoption event scheduled for the same day. They needed a Transporter.

I saw this not only as an opportunity to help out the group but to turn the whole thing to my selfish advantage and take the van out shopping after my chores were done. So I picked up the van at my favorite Uhaul spot in East New York where the receptionist calls everybody "Honey" and your transactions are constantly interrupted by people buying bags of ice (their other business) and people yelling at each other loudly. I got the van and an appliance dolly and started up to the BQE. Before getting on the highway, I stopped off at a friend's house to finally pick up the air conditioner she said I could have months before. Originally I intended to use this AC myself, but somehow I promised it to Empty Cages along the way (maybe it's a cult). With the AC stowed, I was off to Bay Ridge.

I got there way faster than I thought (thank you Robert Moses), located the apartment and found the donators ready for me. The woman's burly son, along with his burly friend, were ready with the washer/dryer. These things were huge, front-loading machines, the washing machine itself weighing almost 250 pounds. With effort we got them into the van with millimeters to spare.

As I headed up to the shelter space, I was already doing the math: 2 Burly Guys + Me = Barely got it into the van, therefore me + [UNKNOWN] = spinal injury. I got up to the space and amassed a few people to help move them. It didn't look good, unfortunately it appears that cat rescue attracts few really muscular people. But lucky for us, some truly tough guys were right down the block.

There's been a big bus on the block for a while now, all painted and graffiti-covered, and big dudes are always around working on it. It's one of those biodiesel conversions, which is better for the environment (even better for it is the fact that it hasn't moved in weeks). We asked a couple of the guys if they would help and they agreed.

We tried to pitch in but they basically did all the work, strapping the machines to the dolly and lugging it up the narrow stairs. Their only remuneration: they wanted to meet the roosters (liberated from cockfighting dens in the Bronx). They said they hear them crowing all the time and had wondered where it came from. The rooster complied loudly.

With the machines dropped off, the job was essentially over. This gave me the perfect excuse to commandeer the van and use it to my own nefarious purposes. I drove home, picked up Jeannie and we drove to the Sunset Park Costco.

I haven't been in a wholesale store in years and Jeannie had never been. It's pretty overwhelming at first. We got memberships and ID card and waded through the enormous crowds with our oversize cart. We knew we wanted cat supplies but we didn't have a list or even a clear idea of what Costco carried. I was convinced they would have 'everything' from kitty litter to furniture, while Jeannie thought it would be far more limited. The truth was somewhere in the middle, an odd collection of stuff with no discernible theme. You could buy 20-packs of bar soap, but they didn't carry Ivory. You could select from a huge variety in brands of laundry detergent but no one brand had the oil-drum size I was searching for. However in some areas they had exactly what we were looking for.

I had been told by Lisacat that Costco carried a decent-quality cat food, and indeed, it is higher quality that it has any need to be. It's all chicken and rice, no wheat and no meat by-products. It's sold in 25-lb. bags, of which we bought 5. They also had cases of canned Friskies which we also picked up. But there wasn't much else in the way of cat supplies, just some Iams and 40-lb. buckets of Scoop Away litter (we bought one even though I find Scoop Away overly perfumey). I still can't figure out why the cat food was so premium when they don't appear to have much interest in cats beyond these few supplies, but I'll take it.

After getting that, everything else was gravy. The place is huge; at first I thought it was merely big until I realized there was a whole other floor to the place. We bought as much stuff as we could justify and by the time we got to the check-out, we both had to push the cart, it was so heavy. We lucked with a short check-out line and got back to the van in plenty of time (and oh yeah, we stopped at the liquor store next door and bought a couple of huge bottles of Jim Beam, just in case we need several gallons of whiskey soon).

We got the stuff home and dumped it off (the cats were very excited to see the cat food so it had to be stowed in the bathroom until we could deal with it). We got the van back before the office closed, so we didn't have to worry about getting up in the morning to return it. I can't believe it all went down without any mishaps, usually these vehicle encounters always result in some injury, however small. But I managed to drive without running into anything/anybody, and near as I can figure the equipment we transported suffered no real damage. Mission Accomplished.

So it was fun having an excuse to drive around and do stuff in a car, but by the end of the day I was happy to return it and walk away. There's just too many things to worry about when you own a car, and I got enough stuff to obsess over these days. But maybe I will sign up for that Zipcar thing, although I'm not sure it's worth it when the Uhaul van is closer and cheaper. And really, is there anything cooler than driving a cargo van that tells everyone how cheap you are?

Labels: Cats, Empty Cages Collective, Good Stuff, Mass Transit

We're happy to announce that Izzy the non-feral yard cat has found a permanent (indoor) home! We're very glad to get this guy off the street for good, he'll be moving up to the north side of the neighborhood where, we're told, all the fun stuff happens.

It's been a while since we had an adoption go so smoothly; the guy answered Izzy's ad and actually provided the info I asked for. It's pretty simple, I ask that anybody who's interested in a cat to write in with their own background info. I just ask for some sense of their living and work situation and what kind of history they have with pets. I think it's pretty reasonable. You know how many people respond in kind to these questions? Maybe 20%. Everybody else sounds evasive or just plain stupid. One person said "I don't divulge my financial information to strangers." What? Did I ask for your W-2s? No, I asked what you did for a living. I've had my share of Craigs-List paranoia, but come on. I guess people think if I know they live in a studio apartment somewhere in Manhattan that I can leverage this hot info and swear out some credit cards in their name.

I guess some people think of pets on Craigs List the same way they think of the Free Stuff section: if they respond first they'll get the gear, no questions asked. You always know when an adoption isn't going to work out when their first questions is "How much is the adoption fee?" That should be the LAST question they ask. Then you get other weirdos who write you a novel initially about how much they want a cat, but despite all the content, they don't actually give you any other useful info except that they're leading very sheltered lives.

Anyway, I couldn't be happier about this latest adoption. Izzy was far too sweet to spend his life outside, and the guy adopting him seems like a good fit (Izzy was all over him the moment they met). But it underscores how random this thing can be; Izzy's ad was put up Thursday and now he's got his person. Meanwhile, poor Spike continues to languish on the vine, despite a PR campaign full of cute photos, amusing videos and clear-eyed testimonials. Meanwhile, a simple black cat gets snatched up like he was dipped in chocolate. If Spike knew, imagine how appalled he would be!

Labels: Adoption, Cats

The local falafel cart has several chefs, and they all suck, except for this one kid. Bad acne and indecipherable accent, for some reason he takes this stuff seriously, dressing up a standard falafel on rice with a ton of vegetables, both raw and grilled. While other guys are content to throw some iceberg lettuce on rice and toss in some dessicated falafel balls, he always fries the falafel at order, and jazzes up the salad with red cabbage, peppers, scallions, carrots and broccoli. Oh yeah, and french fries and eggplant! I skip the mysterious 'white sauce' and ask for liberal amounts of hot sauce, although he put so many jalapenos in already I have to towel off my head, I'm sweating so much.

The other guys who work there on other days merely toe the line to an indifferent lunch crowd, why does he give so much extra effort when he clearly doesn't have to? I dunno. I certainly can't imagine doing the same thing at my day job. Maybe he actually likes what he does for a living; what a foreign concept!

Labels: Food, Good Stuff, Job, Lunch, Vegan