Season's Bleatings
Penny, for one, won't stand for much more of this! ...And I don't blame her.
So, December has started off quite... eventful, to put it mildly.
The evening of Friday the 1st, Athennia stopped home after work to get Riley, and they went over to pick up Kassie and bring her back for a sleepover.
We ordered pizza from Bambino's for dinner; and while we were sitting eating it at the kitchen table, we heard a loud car stereo and a bunch of commotion down in the parking lot.
I went to the window to investigate... and who else could it've been, but the assclown with 73% of a silver BMW, whom I'd come dangerously close to punching in the face less than 24 hours prior!
I looked back at Athennia with a mischievous grin...
Ha! Guess who it is, Kitten?
It's the guy who was supposed to... how did he phrase it? ..."slap my bitch-ass" last night—except THIS TIME, our daughter and our cats are safely inside, and I'm unencumbered.
I wonder if he's still tough...
I never get to do anything!
Granted, Kassie's parents already think we live in a terrible neighborhood—and they're not wrong.
Wouldn't it have been comical, when we dropped her off in the morning, to be able to say that I had started cleaning things up last night?
You know, like one of those "Adopt a Highway" type of deals, where wealthy people and praise-seeking corporations put up signs bragging about how they'll be controlling the litter for the next two miles (even though you'll typically find an endless stream of garbage all along the roadside)?
I'd love to post a big bright sign out by the mailboxes...
"The adoption has commenced: ONE piece of trash has been cleaned up so far!
Rest assured, I have since ordered one of those stabby-stick thingies that ex-cons use to skewer soda cans and old milk jugs when they're doing their community service making trash kebabs on the side of the highway...
And, once Amazon drops that thing off, I expect that I'll be a LOT more efficient. I'm gonna be, like, the illegitimate love child of Mr. Clean and The Shredder. Filth will not stand a chance, and I will not stand for filth.
—probably someone
—probably someone else
I didn't claim to have worked out all the logistics yet. This brainchild is still in its infancy; okay? Sheesh! Give it some time to mature.
I didn't even get fitted for my Shredder armor yet. And I'm pretty sure Mr. Clean has his ear pierced; so, I'll need to get on that as well. And I definitely have to map out an entire battle plan in crayon on an enormous roll of paper like Macaulay Culkin did in Home Alone (which sucks, 'cause I don't know where to get paper that big, and I can't draw).
So, these things take time; you know? Be patient.
Aaaanyway...
In the morning, Athennia and I went down the street to Dunkin to procure some coffee, hot chocolate, and doughnuts to bring back to the apartment.
After breakfast, we let the girls hang out for a few more hours before we finally had to take Kassie home... because we had already made plans to look into adopting later in the afternoon.
Not adopting a highway, mind you, but adopting nonetheless.
We headed over to Cat Tales in Warrington, where we had an appointment to meet "Otis" and his foster mom Wanda.
And, of course, we've already reported how this ultimately ends :)
wintermute (Kevin)
Predictably, Riley bee-lined for the Garfield-esque cat as soon as we walked in...
...but Otis was like, "Hey, what gives? I thought you guys came to meet ME!"
We had a lovely visit—and a great time swapping stories with Wanda, once we realized she had also fostered Penny five years ago.
And then (as reported last week) Wanda mentioned that she was under the impression that we were already pre-approved since I'd adopted from Cat Tales before... So, I fired off an email to Carrie—with whom I'd been conversing for nearly a week by then—to request some clarification.
God, just look at him...
Don't you just need to pet him?
We figured it just made sense to dine with my parents, since we'd already be over in their neck of the proverbial woods anyway...
We all ordered our usual pizza and cheesesteaks from Taormina's in Richboro, and then we had a tea party with the girls...
It seemed 100% legit and not suspicious to me in the slightest; you know? But now, I wish I'd never touched the thing. If only there'd been some clue!"
—someone whose IQ is also his shoe size
Carrie got back to me just after 7:00 A.M. on Sunday the 3rd and confirmed that we were indeed good to go on the adoption front; so, as soon as Athennia got out to the laundromat and back, it was go-time!
But, Riley has a need to primp for an hour and a half before she'll step outside for any reason whatsoever—lest she be subjected to the self-imagined judgments of perfect strangers...
So, after repeated warnings from both me and Athennia that we needed to leave NOW in order to make the appointment we'd set with Wanda—Riley had a choice to make.
Do I take literally two seconds to throw on a T-shirt and a pair of sweatpants?
...Or, do I whine, throw my parents a bit of unwarranted 'tude, and pretend I'm somehow the victim here even though I knew from the beginning that we don't have all the time in the world for me to get dolled up like I'm going out clubbing?
But Riley chose a different path... and forfeited her chance to tag along—which was fine by me, if that's how she wanted to play it. A lesson learned for next time, perhaps.
Damn.
So, Athennia and I drove all the way back over to Cat Tales...
...And we met Betty (who was facilitating the adoption) and Wanda (who had brought Otis over again)...
...And we paid the $150 adoption fee—hardly a drop in the bucket, considering that Otis's extensive medical history practically makes him a million-dollar cat at this point...
...And we finally took delivery of the newest member of our family!
We stopped by my parents' on our way home—just for a minute so they could meet their new grandcat.
Then we called in an order for a couple pizzas at Bambino's, popped in to grab them when we got back to our area, filled our bellies, and spent the rest of the evening helping Odin settle in.
We tried to do the customary thing and set him up in the bathroom—a tiny space where he could feel safe while he acclimated to his new environment...
But, that lasted about five minutes, and then we realized that Odin is by far the happiest, most fearlessly-courageous little furball we've ever seen!
So, we took a gamble and threw him into the lion's den with Penny, since they'd be roommates soon enough anyway.
That went... mostly well?
All-righty.
You're a scrawny one; aren't you? Lucky's at least in my weight class. I'm even less impressed with you!"
All in all, Penny handled it like a champ—and, of course, Odin was thoroughly unfazed, having just come from a foster home full of cats of all sorts.
We did put him back in the bathroom overnight, since we didn't want to take any chances of an incident occurring between them while we were sound asleep.
But, by mid-afternoon the next day, we knew things were fine...
...Well, things were fine in our household, at least...
Monday overnight into Tuesday morning, Lou and Taylor blew up Athennia's phone several dozen times between 1:00 A.M. and 5:00 A.M...
...And then Riley's phone, when they couldn't reach Athennia.
...And then my phone, when they couldn't reach Riley.
Fortunately, this has happened more than enough times over the years, to the point that Athennia and Riley know to silence their phones at bedtime.
And, as for me...
I've had you both blocked for nearly two years now, for precisely this sort of behavior—which even my three-year-old niece would be liable to frown at and say, "My heavens, what childish antics."
Soooo...
When Athennia finally awoke with her alarm on Monday morning, she discovered that she had 15,437,282 missed calls—accompanied, of course, by zero voicemails or text messages offering any insight at all into the "problem"—
But, Athennia called Lou back—
...You know, just once, as you do...
—to get the scoop.
And, what a scoop it was!
Now, to be fair, this is all one gigantic game of "Telephone," where the details have come from Taylor, to Lou, to Athennia, to me, to you; but, from what I understand, it all started when CJ confided in Taylor and Ahlina to profess her love for the girls' mutual friend Alex—with which they took issue, on account of the fact that CJ is 21 and Alex is only 17.
Now, you might think an objective assessment of the situation would've been in order here—especially considering that Taylor was a minor when she and Ahlina started dating!
Something akin, perhaps, to...
...Granted, we all treat Alex as a peer despite her technically being a bit younger than the rest of us are...
But, we're not quite sure how we feel about this new development bringing a romantic aspect into the fold. We think we'd really need to be convinced that there's no manipulation or other predatory behavior going on before we could give this relationship our blessing.
At any rate, let's definitely talk it out a bit before we do anything rash that will irrevocably obliterate our friendship. Agreed?"
But, no.
Instead of taking a rational approach, Ahlina opted to fly into a chaotic rage—berating CJ for her "disgusting" conduct, and calling her a "pedo."
CJ was understandably incensed at this; and, Ahlina being Ahlina, her modus operandi is to keep Pac-Manning—running her mouth like a kindergarten bully with a Napoleon complex...
So, despite Taylor's best efforts to mediate between the two, Ahlina just continued instigating until she had CJ cornered in the bedroom—at which point CJ ended up kicking Taylor (and leaving a bruise the size of a dinner plate) in an attempt to flee the confrontation.
This of course brought Ahlina to a rolling boil—ever yearning to matriculate to the next level of becoming a two-bit thug like her dad is...
So, she did what two-bit thugs do best, and went absolutely apeshit on CJ—sending her to the emergency room with a black eye and at least two visible sets of bite marks (and God knows what other possible injuries hadn't even yet become apparent through bruising or other indicators)...
...But, midway through the assault, CJ managed to call the police—who promptly came to arrest Ahlina, threw her in a holding cell for a few hours, and charged her with some kind of misdemeanor or another.
In the blink of an eye, you've all turned on each other—and full-on assaulted each other—and sent the only member of the household who actually has a job and an income to the E.R.?
Who in the world is going to stoke these flames for higher viewership under the guise of ostensibly mediating the conflict?
And this brings us to the part where it was suddenly our problem (you know, by Lou and Taylor logic).
Spoiler alert: It wasn't. It isn't. It won't be.
Fast-forward to 5:00 A.M.:
Lou and Taylor were driving aimlessly around Langhorne on an empty tank of gas—looking for a nonexistent police station located on a nonexistent street that they swore was called "Munch, or Munich, or something."
As your GPS-enabled phones with unlimited data plans could've told you, you were looking for the Middletown police department, on 3 Municipal Way.
Municipal. MUNICIPAL!
Not Munich.
(Granted, it would be highly beneficial to everyone involved, if Ahlina's toxicity were 4,000 miles away; but tragically, they're not deporting her.)
But, here came the punchline...
Since she had assaulted CJ inside Lou's trailer (where CJ resided), the police said Ahlina was forbidden from returning there, and they would only release her to her "home address."
And, despite having moved into Lou's trailer way back in June of 2022—eons ago at this point—neither Taylor nor Ahlina have done anything to establish legal residency there in the 18 months since.
So that meant, as far as the cops were concerned, Ahlina's last known home address was...
Here.
As in, our apartment.
...The very same apartment that Ahlina and Taylor trashed back in 2021 and 2022, over the course of a year of unbridled defiance and disrespect orchestrated by Ahlina the puppetmaster, to steadily undermine Athennia while she was still an only parent with no choice but to go off to work and leave the house and the kids unattended for nine or more hours a day.
Now, we've long since made it as crystal clear as crystal clarity can be that Ahlina will NEVER set foot in this apartment again for ANY reason...
And so, Taylor already had to know full well what the answer would be when Athennia finally returned her 5,000 missed calls.
Of course your narcissistic menace of a junior master manipulator of a two-bit thug of a girlfriend can't come stay with us.
Why is that even a question that you think needs asking?
Have you somehow forgotten about that time just earlier this year when she tried to take a swing at Athennia in Lou's trailer?!
No, she still can't come even if she sleeps on the floor in the corner of the living room like the little lost mutt that she is.
No, not even just for "a day or two" (which we have to assume would inevitably stretch into years—since she's recently jobless yet again, with no apparent plans to change that).
Seriously, why would you even waste your time calling to ask this of us once—let alone several dozen times?
Now, you may be holding out hope that, with Taylor being an "adult," she at least had an adult response to being told no.
Well, of course she did...
THIS IS OUTRAGEOUS! I CAN'T BELIEVE YOU'RE DOING THIS TO ME! YOU'RE ABANDONING ME WHEN I NEED YOU MOST! <click>
Are you dense? Are you five? Are you a dense five-year-old?
Semantics very much matter in Grown-Up Land. Sorry.
It's a bold strategy. Let's see if it pays off for you.
By mid-afternoon on Tuesday, CJ's mom had driven down from Connecticut to pick CJ up and take her back home—along with all of her stuff from Lou's.
Incidentally, however, that took care of the whole "Ahlina can't go back to Lou's while CJ's there" issue; and so, the cops did eventually give Ahlina her rabies shots and release her back into the wild...
But, like the Big Tough Girl she is, she immediately ran to the girls' friend Jeremy's house to lay low on account of being too scared-shitless to show up at Lou's in case they came back to look for her there.
They gave you a court date... and they've forgotten all about you until then.
Honestly, get over yourself.
Athennia had been looking forward to preparing Tuscan chicken for dinner that evening; but, shortly after she got home from work, she got sidetracked talking on the phone with her mom for well over an hour.
So, I stepped in and whipped up a quick batch of nachos instead; and we spent the rest of the evening hanging out with Penny and Odin and watching a couple episodes of Fringe... 100% Ahlina-free :)
To be fair, my family isn't without its share of drama and dumb problems...
My mom had been "whining" (I use that term very jocularly here) about not getting her emails on her phone for a couple weeks now, and asking if I could fix it at some point.
A decade back, when she and I worked about five feet away from each other, he used to make his presence known all the time!
She'd step away to the water cooler just for a minute or two, and BAM—hacked (or rather "haked" as he called it, with his poor grasp of the English language)!
Quick montage, anyone?
I enlisted The Russian's expertise, and he had since confirmed that the problem was not on my mom's end, but on Comcast's end; however...
...you are probably can just stop at Xfinity store for fix, and it are be faster and less headache to both you and me."
Just remember, an inordinate number of Tor nodes are secretly operated by NSA and FSB. Always cover your ass with lots of redundancies, and don't try this at home!
Be careful out there :)
So, my mom asked if I would accompany her to an Xfinity store Wednesday morning.
She stopped by the apartment to visit Odin... and Penny... and to crash the school day to say hi to Riley and Lucky...
And then we proceeded onward on our mission to hake Comcast customer service and get them to do our bidding...
I explained the issue to a super-helpful guy named Tommie, and the whole ordeal probably wasted six or seven minutes of my day by the time we got it all sorted out.
God, Mom!
But as a thank-you, she treated to lunch at Red Robin afterwards.
I got to behold this masterful brilliance on the way to our table...
And I'm 100% sure all of Michelangelo's contemporaries called him "Mikey" (or at least "Mickey").
I got to devour my burger in a totally vacant restaurant though!
"I get my own private Red Robin?! I don't have to 'people' today? THIS IS THE GREATEST DAY OF MY LIFE!"
Like maybe, used an old Pringles can as an antenna to eat the burger remotely, from the comfort of the parking lot across the street—where we wouldn't be recorded by Red Robin's security cameras ;)
Hopefully, in that case, we wouldn't have been dumb enough to show up in a modern car and bring along our cell phones, which would've completely torpedoed any expectation we had of privacy!
After lunch, my mom and I headed to the Oxford Valley Mall, to see what remains of one of the last vestiges of life in 1991 (the last time that going to malls was still "a thing").
Aaaand, I was mildly saddened but mostly unaffected to learn that the Oxford Valley Mall has become a warzone of violence and lawlessness where everyone is either a combatant or a future corpse—as you can clearly deduce from the verbiage on this sign...
Now, you know we're going to have to take a moment to pick this apart.
After all, it wouldn't be a proper wintermutian ...wintermutant? ...wintermuted blog post if I didn't mercilessly mock... well, pretty much everything worthy of mockery.
So, let's get into it.
Either way, I feel like a bit of iterating may be in order. A revamp would probably be a good idea.
I suppose it's fair that, if you're going to the mall like it's 1991, you might still be driving a car from 1991. In that case, yeah; I guess go full-blown Edward Scissorkeys and pop those bad boys between your fingers like you're Wolverine <shrug>
(Pro tip: Don't actually do that. You're more likely to hurt yourself than your assailant.)
So, whoever's perpetrating all this violence against... cellphone-using, non-door-locking, keys-not-in-their-hand, valuable-package holders?
Joke's on you, bud: I'd anticipate coal for Christmas.
(Ohhhh; so, no wonder you're stealing other people's gifts: It's a vicious cycle! That kind of makes a bit more sense now.)
Later that evening, Athennia finally had time to cook, and we finally got to enjoy our Tuscan chicken (and it was awesome).
Then Riley asked Athennia for some help with her math homework.
So, a few minutes later, Athennia asked me for help with Riley's math homework.
Halfway through the homework though, who do you suppose started religiously spamming Athennia's phone?
I'll give you one hint: It starts with 'L'... and ends with 'ou and Taylor.'
Apparently they blew a fuse—
—so, half of Lou's trailer no longer had electricity, and they were worried the whole thing was going to catch on fire.
But, wait. We need to properly mock this—because, as usual, it's ridiculously mockable. Let's examine the facts...
Well, Lou was "having a bad day" and her legs just hurt too much to get up and drive to the store.
Okay. Where's CJ? She's licensed. Oh, THAT'S right: You guys chased her away to Connecticut when Taylor's psycho girlfriend beat the everloving crap out of her!
Well, where in God's name is wonderful old Ahlina then? She isn't licensed; but, let's be realistic... When has that ever stopped a two-bit thug from driving? (The rest of us are all more than overjoyed to pay for "uninsured motorist" coverage all our lives in case one of her kind T-bones us someday; right?) But oh, THAT'S right: She's cowering in fear at Jeremy's—so, you know SHE'S not coming to the rescue!
So... what? You guys have no other contacts? No other friends?
No one else in your social network with a car?
No ability to hop on YouTube and watch a few videos on how to go about diagnosing the problem to determine whether or notyou can safely take a crack at it yourselves—which is exactly what we and every other not an electrician by trade would do in this situation?
No money to pay an actual professional to come out and have a look, in the event that the issue does prove to lie outside your comfort zone?
No one at all in the entire world left to turn to but Athennia; eh?
She's the only person you can call when you need something...
...and the person you only call when you need something.
...The person Taylor rudely hung up on not 24 hours before.
...The person who got so fed up with the incessance of this behavior that she all but quit the family not even a year ago.
Truly, this is the mark of a household of grown adults.
It would almost be poetic, if it wasn't so pathetic.
So, Athennia caved and decided to head over to Lou's "real quick."
But, she went to save the day...
She pulled up some YouTube videos.
She diagnosed the problem.
She rushed over to Home Depot just before closing time and found a sales associate who could give her a crash course in replacing fuses... then raced back to Lou's only to find that it was all for nothing, because the replacement fuse didn't work.
And, by the time she got back home at 10:30 P.M., our evening was shot: 10:30 is about when we typically manage to get to bed.
Should Taylor one day fail out of Lou's house like everyone else is at the moment—and beg to come back home at some point, now that she's all alone—not only will she not be bringing any members of her extensive zoo with her... but, this narcissistic horseshit that she likes to think is the only card she needs to keep in her deck is going to stop real quick as well.
...Or she can turn around and march right back out the door, and go be an I'm a Big Kid Now elsewhere.
And then, we went to bed.
Or at least tried to.
It isn't always the easiest thing to do when you're wired.
Thursday the 7th, Athennia got up for work to find that one of her tires was totally flat and riding on the rim.
I would've assumed she'd comb through her Rolodex in search of someone, anyone—perhaps a classmate from kindergarten, or a distant cousin in Utah—onto whom she could shift the responsibility.
Isn't that how one handles one's problems?
But, for some reason, she suited up, went outside and tried to put her spare on by herself (as she's done countless other times over the years)!
Half of her lugnuts turned out to be swollen to the point that she couldn't undo them though; so, she ended up carefully driving to Tires Plus just a few blocks away.
I'm really not sure why car manufacturers do this—pair a metal that's prone to expansion and contraction with another metal that isn't.
(But, I suppose a few new $8 lugnuts are preferable to the routine $1,200 head-gasket replacements that both my old Pontiacs used to require, with aluminum heads on a cast-iron engine block.)
Once we got the car back, we suddenly had an unexpected free day—and on a weekday no less, when the world might not be so clogged with all the zombies that swarm everywhere and everything on the weekends.
What to do; what to do?
We decided to head out to Ross in search of a few finishing touches for our Christmas gifts to my parents and my sister's family; and, while we were out, we decided we should first pop into the T-Mobile store...
Athennia has been receiving monthly invoices from T-Mobile for nearly a year now (despite not being a customer of theirs for far longer than that); and, if these invoices are to be believed, T-Mobile somehow actually owes her a penny.
And naturally, the non-zero balance on the account precludes customer service from just being able to do the sensible thing...
So yeah, if you're cool with forfeiting the penny that our system has convinced itself we owe you, I can definitely go ahead and tick this box that says 'Stop mailing pointless crap to Athennia immediately.'
Oh, no need to thank me at all. I'm happy to help!"
But, no. Instead, she got...
So...
Enter T-Mobile store.
(P.S. That's not a stage direction for the actual T-Mobile store to waddle its enormous cubic ass into the scene; it's merely what Athennia and I did next.)
The girl in the store was just downright giddy when she realized we were only there for customer support (thereby guaranteeing that not a single sales commission would be generated by interacting with us).
And, what do you suppose was the first thing out of her mouth once we'd explained the issue?
Oh, I can't help you with that: You'll have to call customer support.
So, we decided to call while we were still in the store; and, over the course of the next few minutes, we actually managed to get Phone Guy and Store Girl to turn on each other!
(P.S. That's "turn on each other," not "turn each other on.")
Store Girl ended up taking Athennia's phone and reiterating the issue to Phone Guy herself... and, while she didn't explicitly add the words, "Understand now, moron?" to the end of every sentence, they were 100% there in her tone.
It was pretty glorious, actually.
In the end, Athennia never did get her penny—much less with a full year of interest tacked on.
(Sheesh; we're tryin' to buy a house here, Darreeq! And the process has been woefully suboptimal, all things considered. Every little bit helps!)
But Phone Guy assured us that the problem was fixed...
So, when his boss receives the update sometime in the coming days that Athennia would like to "cancel her account," perhaps the invoices will stop coming, or perhaps we'll find our cell service cut (since our provider Metro is owned by T-Mobile).
Finally we made it across the parking lot to Ross—which, on a Thursday afternoon, didn't have a population rivaling a small city.
The store was actually quite tolerable.
Moreover, we scored pretty big on some pretty awesome stuff... but obviously, just about all of it was for Christmas gifts; so, you'll have to wait a couple more weeks for the juicy details.
I'm sure the suspense is killing you.
We had a pleasant rest of the afternoon and evening...
Staged everyone's Christmas gifts to see how the final presentations will look.
Whipped up a scrumptious sausage and tomato pizza for dinner.
Settled in to watch some Fringe.
And then a fire alarm went off. Or actually, like, ten fire alarms went off... because, you know... the joys of apartment living.
If one unit's alarm goes off, it has to trigger the whole building.
If one building's alarm goes off, it has to trigger the entire block.
And, by the time the entire block goes off, you're pretty much wishing that you were actually being actively Vesuvius'ed—which would be less unpleasant by comparison, because your corpse would be done medium-well by that point, and you wouldn't be enduring all that clang-y, chime-y whining coming at you from every direction.
But, 'twas a fortnight before Christmas; so, let's see if we can songify this part of the story...
subwoofers were thumping. ("Ay-yo! Check my beats; they be ill!")
...When out in the stairwell there arose such a clatter,
We sprang from our bed to see what was the matter.
To the living-room window we flew like a flash,
tore open the... well, we don't have 'shutters,' and I don't even know what 'sash' means in this context.
The glow from still-flaming grease on the asphalt
threatened paint damage to the Corolla and the Cobalt...
But a mass evacuation, until the 'all clear.'
"Jesus Christ, Superstar!" I exclaimed to myself.
"Of course it's the guy with the IQ of an elf!"
Not content with the solution baking soda could provide,
he carried the flames down the stairs and outside!
So out to the lot, every last neighbor came,
And you all know by now that I call them by name!
"Hey, there's Hardhat and Ditz, and Speed Demon too...
But no sign of Shovelwhomps, or Drew from Drew's Crew."
How else can we expect these yo-yos to learn?"
The ado was short-lived; it wasn't much of a scorch.
Soon everyone was gone except Superstar on the porch.
He just rocked back and forth... was it PTSD?
(Or was he simply tweaking from the amphetamine?)
I didn't much care, and we never would know.
But at least we could go watch the rest of our show.
And so—for anyone who didn't feel like parsing the stanzas of an early-19th-century-styled poem to figure out what the heck happened—the guy I call "Superstar" from the adjacent building somehow started a grease fire... and, rather than smothering it the way everyone learns how to do in 6th grade home-economics class, he carried the flaming pan through his apartment, out into the hallway, down the stairwell, and outside.
Then he dumped the grease in the parking lot and walked away, and some other woman I don't know came out and blasted it with a fire extinguisher...
They say that where there's smoke, there's fire; and, while the logical converse of a statement isn't necessarily true, it did happen to be true in this particular case:
Where there was fire, there was smoke...
So, yeah... Not exactly on par with Catherine O'Leary's cow, all things considered; but, I doubt my family and I will ever forget the Great Morrisville Fire of 2023...
We pretty much already forgot it.
Friday the 8th, I got some great pics of the cats...
...And finally, "The Yin Yang: Two Races of Furball Living in Perfect Harmony"...
I was craving nachos for dinner; so I started whipping up a batch when I knew Kitten would be close to arriving home.
She got here just in time, too!
I can never remember... Do I saute the onion in olive oil until it's caramelized to my liking? Or do I use butane, light the whole God-damn pan on fire, and carry it all around Morrisville like it's the Olympic torch?
I thought it was a pretty tasty batch. Hopefully Superstar didn't mock me on his family's blog!
I be usin' REAL smoke in my nachos. 'At's how I roll!
Ay! Five-alarm chili? Bish, please. I make TEN-alarm chili."
Friday evening, Riley was gaming with Kassie; so Athennia and I took a drive over to offload some family Christmas presents and visit with my parents for an hour or so.
Then we came back home, watched a couple episodes of Fringe, and got to bed late... only to wake up early, when Riley knocked on our door to tell us that Taylor was at St. Mary hospital in excruciating pain and wanted Athennia to come.
Naturally, part of me rolled my eyes—another day, another Lou and/or Taylor problem.
But, at the same time, this was for once a reasonable request and a seemingly-legitimate issue; so, of course I would expect Taylor to reach out to her mom, and I would expect Athennia to want to go comfort her daughter.
Who wouldn't?
Part of me also had to wonder though...
(And besides, CJ's gone now! So, who's gonna pay to put gas in the tank of Lou's car that I'm not licensed to operate but still drive anyway?!)"
—Ahlina
Taylor's pain turned out to be a kidney stone—and so, standard hospital protocol for kidney stones applied...
Fortunate thing that they released her though... because later that evening, Taylor called to ask if Athennia could come pick her up at Jeremy's and give her a ride to Lou's.
Apparently, the girls' two cats managed to escape from the bedroom and had access to the rest of the trailer; and Lou's limited mobility would be no match for their speed if she were to leave to go out anywhere and the cats decided to bolt for the open door.
So, clearly, this was an issue to be rectified ASAP!
Well, when Taylor and Ahlina had Riley's cat Lucky in their custody last summer and they let him get outside (and then waited two days to tell us about it), we found a way to get over there in the blink of an eye to rescue him the moment we were made aware of the situation.
So, a few thoughts come to mind...
First, why does it seem like every animal in that household is so desperate to get out of that household?
Second, just how much do the girls care about these cats—given that they're now both hiding out at Jeremy's?
And third, while we've returned to the subject of Ahlina, what exactly is that loving girlfriend of yours doing while you're in such terrible pain, Taylor? Why can't she find a way to get over to the trailer and take care of the cats? The cats belong to both of you; so, why is it only your problem (and then, magically, our problem) while she sits around doing nothing?
And so, Athennia and Riley left the apartment at 8:20 P.M. to go grab Taylor, take her to Lou's, wait outside while she wrangled the cats, and finally drop her back off at Casa Jeremy.
They got back just after 9:00.
What a lovely way to spend the better part of an hour...
After having spent the better part of a day at the hospital...
...And the better part of a week fielding one imbecilic non-problem after another...
"We're all avidly looking forward to plenty of time spent with family over the coming weeks,"
...this is not quite what I'd been envisioning.
Taylor treats Ahlina like she hung the moon, but the girl has brought nothing but trouble and toxicity to Athennia's family.
We understand that their plan, for now, is for Taylor to finish high school in June and then follow Ahlina and move up to Connecticut; but, with any luck, perhaps the girls will drift apart during their separation and Taylor will end up moving on and getting her life back on track.
And finally, on an entirely unrelated but bittersweet note, I'd like to take a moment to congratulate my childhood doctor on his upcoming retirement after about 300 years as a general practitioner and then a pediatrician.
Dr. Abir has been very, very good to my family over the years (or rather, over nearly five decades, I guess, starting with my oldest cousin)...
Lots of... not-so-fond memories, if I'm going to be honest... when my mom would take me and Kelly to a routine appointment for one of us, and play it off like she didn't know full well that the other was due for six dozen booster shots.
Lots of Abir-isms quoted in our family over the years—like "drink lots of liquids" (said, of course, in a thick Iranian accent).
But most importantly, lots of empathy, individualized attention, and sound diagnoses over the years, from an extraordinarily brilliant man with a compassionate disposition and a degree of integrity that's increasingly difficult to find anywhere in the world today (and much less in the medical world).
In lieu of a recent photo of my own, I managed to bum this one off of my cousin Pete...
Enjoy your much-deserved retirement :)