Who we gonna end up bein'?

As I was examining Bambino's latest attempts to redesign my curtains, they started to buzz violently, shaking here and there as though a lilliputan lawnmower with wings was trapped behind them. I may have limited decorating savvy, but you don't have to be Lynette Jennings to know that curtains don't normally do that. So I was largely unsurprised when I peered behind a panel to see a wasp the size of a golf ball banging drunkenly against the window.

It's kind of funny, what things will set you off and what things won't. For example, the one time I saw a centipede in this apartment, I think the technical term for my reaction was "freaking the hell out." I have never been good with centipedes, but this one was a beast, fully two inches long, fat as a caterpillar, and--perhaps worst of all--ginger colored. It was the "ginger" that did it in. It was being able to label it that clearly that made it vastly more terrifying. My brain doesn't want to be that intimately aware of the details when it comes to centipedes. So when the little ginger monster came on a leisurely stroll out of my bathroom, my rational self and my survival instincts abruptly did a chinese fire drill in my head, the survivalist temporarily seizing control and the rational self dispassionately observing that "seizing control" looked a lot like "jumping up and down, pointing, and shouting in a shrill voice to the cat, 'kill it kill it kill it oh kill it please' while the cat watches with interest." I managed to regain my senses enough to half stomp it, but the uninjured half just dragged its flat backside away, probably giggling evilly. It's gonna come back with a posse some day. I just know it.

Did I really expect Bambino to understand one flipping word I said, and smite the little demon? I really think I did, for a minute there.

So given that I am prone to reacting a bit strongly to centipedes, you'd think I'd get a little jittery around wasps the size of a preying mantis. Funnily enough, I just sighed, said "oh what do you want then," and caught it in a cup and let it go outside. It just looked so pathetic. It would've been one thing if it was zinging around the room, buzzing and droning and flying straight for my face. That makes it a worthy adversary. That's a battle, there. This thing? It was like going into the backyard and finding John Rambo, drunk and weeping, trying to chop down a tree with a hoe. Or finding out the assassin sent to kill you is mentally retarded. This wasp was like that. This was the Inspector Clouseau of wasps. Killing it never even crossed my mind until after I went back outside to get the cup back, which I had to leave on the porch because it was too stupid to figure out how to fly away when I first brought it out.

Not like I really want to invite killerdeathwasps into my home, because I don't, and I'm not. I'm not looking for fights here. It's just that, if a fight comes looking for me, it might as well be worth it. If I'm going to have to muster up whatever needs mustering in order to engage in battle with a dang bug, it'd better be a wolverine with wings, you know?

Will we get to do something?

She's baaa-aaack.

Didja miss me?

It's not that I actually have the internet back, because I don't. But mom tracked down a laptop for me on craigslist (I didn't even know mom knew about craigslist) so I can hit up coffee shops for their internet. I'm typing this at home in my apartment, but if you're reading this, I probably went to Muddy Waters. Or the Tea Garden. Or the Spyhouse. The Spyhouse is my favorite, but it's a fifteen minute walk. I don't know. We'll see where I wind up.

As it happens, the Tea Garden. Iced green lychee tea with tapioca pearls. On a couch. With the internet in my lap.

I don't even know what to say, to catch up on. Hm. I got a subpoena in the mail not long ago, which was terrifying. I hadn't even opened it up, the envelope itself was scary enough. It was like being called to the office in school, and that whole long walk through the halls you were turning your whole bank of memories inside out trying to remember, in a state of near panic, what it was you did, and if you can't actually think of anything, that makes it somehow worse. And of course I couldn't think of any good reason why I should be getting anything with OFFICE OF THE COUNTY ATTORNEY stamped on it. I had to take a minute to wave my arms and shout "what, what?" to my cat. He had nothing helpful to offer. Aside from that time he peed on that Ayn Rand book, he never does.

As it turns out, I was called as a witness in that angry-guy-on-the-bus incident that I wrote about probably not so many entries ago (note from the tea garden: I see it was actually the last entry. well that's good for continuity's sake), although it was long enough ago real time that I'd all but forgotten it. My first reaction, upon realizing that I was being called to appear in court for some as-yet unremembered event, went something like this:

court?! why? who? where do I go, what do I do, what am I going to wear? and then I spent a good long time wondering what people wear to court, mentally putting together a few sensible options before I went back to trying to figure out why I was even supposed to be there. I am not sure what this says about me as a person.

The lady who runs the subpoena show down at the government center was supposed to call me on the 19th to tell me if I had to be in on the 20th or the 21st to testify, but since the guy failed to show up to court on the 19th, I get to wait to receive ANOTHER subpoena at an unknown future date because now they have to go issue a warrant for his arrest and haul him in there themselves. Unngh.

I am so not excited for this.

I think Bambino ate part of a stick of gum earlier. I keep waiting for him to fart a bubble, but he has so far failed to produce.

Have I previously explained Bambino here? Come to think of it, I probably haven't. I haven't updated since before I moved, have I? Well. Bambino is my cat. His previous owners, the family of gremlins next door, tossed him out into a nice, cozy December snowbank one day because apparently they are the kind of people who find it much easier to let the family pet freeze to death outside than take him to the humane society or, you know, get him fixed so he and his sister cat don't have kittens. They kept his sister. I later learned that his name was Cotton and her name was Candy. Anyhow, the neighbor lady upstairs found him outside and took him in, but couldn't keep him because they already had, like, four cats. Maybe five. I happened to bump into her in the hall shortly afterward, and I think the conversation went something like this:

"Oh, hi, you must be the new neighbor!"

"Hi, yep, that's me, I'm Betsi."

"I'm Nicole, this is my daughter, we live upstairs, and do you want a cat?"

So I got a cat.

And I think I can fairly say, with no particular need to exaggerate, that he is maybe the worst cat I have ever owned in my life. He pees on everything. He claws the curtains. In one death-defying stunt, he actually peed on the curtains. I say death-defying not in the sense that the act itself involved any danger, but because he did it directly in front of me. If you pet him too much, he drools. He likes to wait until you're good and busy with something sizzly in a frying pan and then he jumps on your back, all claws at attention. When he poops I have to open the windows and find something to do outside for fifteen or so. I named him for his strangest habit, which is attempting to suckle off your earlobes like you're a mother cat and he's an enormous kitten. It's every bit as creepily uncomfortable as it sounds. And he never stops meowing. I have to shut him in the kitchen every night so I can fall asleep, relying on the heavy pocket doors to muffle the howls and keep him away from my blankets, which he finds particularly satisfying to pee on.

I guess he's cute, though.

...

Well this is strange. I can't click the "publish post" button. I'm a little confounded. Is it some kind of wacky Macism I'm unfamiliar with because I've only ever used PCs? Or is there somehow something hinky with my computer, that it can clink links but not buttons? That doesn't even make sense. But it doesn't make sense that Macs can't click buttons either. NOTHING MAKES SENSE AAAAAH. I guess if you're reading this, I got it to work, and if you're not reading this, I didn't get it to work, but you're not reading this so you wouldn't know that and I don't even know what I'm talking about anymore. We'll see.