Boy oh boy a fresh sheet to write on.
It's about time I tell you about my new job.
But I also want to tell you about a recent protest.
So I'll start with three pictures that make my heart feel fizzy. Susan was throwing out old photos, so I snagged a handful of Big Bubba Brett when he was the opposite. Look at those little legs! And that belly!
It's strange to be able to see Brett in this very blonde teenager. I don't know him, and yet there he is.
Speaking of blonde teenagers, Brett, Erik and I went to a little pub to watch one of the World Cup games, and we were just minding our business, playing bingo (I won $15!) and eating fries when a seventeen year old boy plopped himself next to me at the bar and struck up conversation. I was shocked! The audacity! Erik was sitting between me and Brett so I got to see Brett lean forward to size up the little Casanova with an expression of disbelief. Erik laughed out loud while looking the kid in the eyes. Nothing shook Leo's nerve though and I had to talk to him for two hours.
During that time I learned that Leo wants to be a screenwriter or psychologist. He had recently returned from a school trip to Peru where he met a girl he thinks will wait for him. He talked on and on about himself and was shocked every time he found out that I have done many of the things on his radar. "Oh wow, you've also been to England?", "People had house parties when you were in high school?", "Really, you dated in college?" I began to wonder if there is something about me that suggests an unsocialized existence. I pleaded for help with my eyes, but Erik and Brett were busy enjoying the outing.
Then Leo, who lacked the attention-span for a round of Bingo (I've never seen anything like it), pulled the cap off his Bingo marker with such gusto that the whole thing exploded. It splashed across his shirt and puddled in the crotch of his pants. It went all over the bar and dripped down onto the floor. He reacted with childlike confusion and looked to me, suddenly a mother-figure, to find a solution. I dabbed him off with napkins but the ink had stained his fingers blue. There was a blue puddle on the floor that he was unknowingly twirling his feet in and tapping around his chair. Erik laughed loudly at the explosion, offering no help and possibly embarrassing the child.
Moreover, the permanent ink splashed onto my white jeans and Leo was so focused on himself that he hadn't noticed the others affected by his ineptitude. I was not going to say anything or make him feel bad about ruining my pants but the more time that passed without him acknowledging it, the more miffed I became. When Leo went to the bathroom to wash his hands, I scolded Brett and Erik for leaving me alone with him but they didn't care one bit. Leo came back from the bathroom and rebounded from his blunder the way a seventeen year old boy would. He simply moved on. "You've had jobs before too? Wow. Interesting."
Finally, I threw Erik under bus and made some comment about his assorted girlfriends and Leo became enlivened by the future possibility of being a ladies-man. He was enthralled with Erik, as though it had never occurred to him that one might be dating multiple people at the same time. Erik was surprisingly pleased by the awe bestowed on him by this child and began showing off. It was when Erik showed Leo a picture of a big-boobed girl he met in Georgia that Leo made fun of Erik for falling for an "AI bot" and then the two of them got into a spat about whether it was a real girl or not. I was still stuck between them, dabbing at my pants and checking the time, while Erik insisted he had made out with this person.
We finally left Leo at the bar eating chicken wings, and within 4 seconds of stepping outside, a collection of blood-curdling screams ripped through the night air. My legs buckled. Brett froze. Erik leapt backwards. Turns out it was just a table full of my old pet shelter coworkers, with several dogs circling the table, who were especially excited to me. I received a barrage of hugs and rapid fire updates about several dogs and humans. Once the three of us recovered from the shock, I found it very flattering.
Here's a grandma Ruth style picture of Pipps sitting in front of the garden.
Last year I got mad when I was driving Downtown on a day when my car thermometer read 103˚ and I found myself behind a carriage horse. The city has a "rule" about stopping the tours when it's over 95˚ but four different thermometers on breezy rooftops (not the hot asphalt where the horses are pulling overcrowded carriages) each have to show the temp for 20 minutes before the carriage companies will take them off the street. The result is that they rarely have to stop tours. The carriage companies are one of the biggest tourist attractions in town, and they pay certain city officials to ignore crazy rules about welfare. Well! I don't like that one bit. I found a group of other outraged locals (and tourists) and now we participate in peaceful harassment efforts to get the temperature threshold lowered to 85˚ - knowing they will still have the horses out when it is 90+. It's all were asking.
I brought some of my chicken group to my first carriage horse protest, and let me tell you, it is a contentious issue. The majority of people are either not interested or they agree that 95˚ is too hot. Fine.
The carriage companies and guides (understandably... I guess?) disagree. They go on and on about how well the horses are treated "at the barn", except that's not what were arguing about, is it? A tourist told us that if we really cared about the horses, we wouldn't protest in the shade. (Great point, Sir. You really got us with that one!) One tour guide said "the horse's muscles would atrophy if they didn't pull that carriages and that would make them depressed." Another said that the horses would be killed if they couldn't have jobs. (But wait, I thought you said you loved them. It's almost like you're just... using them?) One outraged "horse-lover" called for a counter-protest that day, but no one showed up. Instead she came to pick a fight with us and I'm man enough to admit to you that my knees started knocking as she yelled.
I'm accustomed to receiving The Finger or being shouted at from a moving vehicle, but no one ever confronts us. We aren't usually asking for things that anybody disagrees with (except the folks making money off of it - but they're never around). When this combative horse woman came over with her video camera trying to get a rise out of us, I felt like a little kid on the playground before a brawl was set to begin and girls would tear at each others weaves. I got scurred. Then she looked right at me as asked if I owned any horses. Everything I know about animal welfare left my mind and I smiled at her as though she'd given me a thoughtful complement. Why did I do that? Someone else had to jump in and respond to her.
The next day she plastered photos of us on the interwebs, calling the twelve of us "uneducated lunatics" and claiming someone spit on her. Commenters chimed in that unemployed people like us should be thrown in jail. Someone else said we were paid protesters - wouldn't that be wonderful?
Here I am laughing in the face of fear! (If I keep smiling, maybe she won't hit me.)
Now here I've rambled on so long, I'll save the rest for later. In the meantime enjoy this photo of all four animals sitting in the same room. This is quite an accomplishment.
Also, see how Cam doesn't stand out against the rug? This has become problematic in the kitchen. He likes to lay in there while we're cooking and we just can't see him.
We constantly kick and step on him, but he never wises-up. He just keeps taking the hits.
Spot the cat in this photo.
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