Tag Archives: Alan

Oh Lady Dum-Dum.

21 Aug

Back in 2020, the year that will live in infamy for all it unleashed on us, my cat Miss Moneypenny died unexpectedly. At the height of the pandemic, Alan and I were living like hermits and not seeing anyone, so she was my primary source of companionship most days. Combined with the fact that she was an awesome cat – friendly, chatting, easy going, snuggly – losing her left a big hole in my world.

So I did what pretty much every expert will tell you NOT to do: I rushed out and adopted myself another cat, precisely 30 days later. Based on only two data points, I believed that torties were the sweetest breed of cat, so I went on Petfinder and found one that had just been rescued from a kill shelter in North Carolina and was being fostered in Arlington. She looked very similar to Miss Moneypenny, but – at only 7 lbs – about 3/4 MMP’s size.

Because this was peak-pandemic, there was no opportunity to meet the cat before adopting. Instead, I got to “zoom” with her one time, then I showed up with a carrier and the next thing I knew, this little terrified cat was mine. She spent most of the first week flattened between the wall and my desk, only sneaking out to eat and use her litterbox at night when I was asleep.

This was the opposite of how Miss Moneypenny arrived on the scene – she had jumped out of her carrier and straight onto my bed, purring and friendly. This new cat quickly let me know that there is no such thing as a “replacement” pet.

The good news: by the end of her first week, the new cat had warmed up to me and was – while still very skittish and prone to wedging herself behind my desk when I wasn’t around – very snuggly. The bad news? We hadn’t yet landed on a name for her. Alan and I had very different thoughts. Artemis. Diana. Pancake. Nancy Drew. Ramona Quimby. Nipsey Hussle. I’ll let you guess which selections were mine.

In the end we – I – went with Ramona Quimby because, like her namesake, the cat was pesky and a bit prone to trouble. If a rose by any other name wouldn’t smell as sweet, then I now worry that I may have hexed myself when naming her, because Ramona is quite a little handful.

For starters, she’s a one-person cat. While Miss Moneypenny was a friend to anyone she met, Ramona Quimby only has eyes for me. She follows me around and sleeps under my chin, but if another human – except Alan – enters my house, she quickly retreats to hide in the closet. She might warm up (barely) over time, but at best she tolerates other people, and more often hides from them. She’s made an exception for Alan, but we think that’s only because he feeds her when I travel. She might grudgingly allow him a few pets, but it’s equally possible that she will pee on his pillow to let him know she is not thrilled by his presence.

I KNOW!

Anyone who has visited my house knows I pride myself on keeping things tidy and having floors clean enough to eat off. So how do I reconcile that with having CAT PEE ON MY BED?! Well, I’ll be honest. Initially I established a three-strike rule and threatened to return her to the rescue agency where I’d gotten her. But that felt like conscripting her to eventual euthanasia and she really was a sweet cat. So instead, I bought a waterproof mattress cover + pillowcases and rationalized that most people have to deal with children peeing the bed (often frequently and in the middle of the night!) so what is an occasional accident by an otherwise very sweet (and mildly neurotic) cat?

I KNOW. My friend Susie tried to convince me to rename her Lady Dum-Dum, but I honestly wasn’t sure whether she was talking about Ramona or ME.

So here we are, almost three years later. Ramona Quimby is a very sweet companion who only rarely pees on the bed. (Honestly, that’s probably how I’ll describe Alan one day, assuming our relationship lasts another couple decades!)

I share all of this as context for my next post, which – by way of foreshadowing – I’m considering titling:

  • A No-Good, Terrible, Very Bad Idea
  • Dogs Are a Bridge Too Far
  • Whelp. That Didn’t Go So Well.

Or, if I want to eliminate any suspense, may just be titled:

  • Cat Meets Dog, Cat Shits Herself and Hangs from the Newly-Replaced and Now-Damaged Window Treatment

On second thought, maybe I don’t even need to write that post. If you’ve seen one cat evacuating its anal glands while launching itself vertically, you probably can finish that story.

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Summer Shovin’ – Happened So Fast…

8 Aug
SUMMER SHOVIN’ – The Pink Slay-dies vs. The T-Birds, July 29, 2023

The last few weeks were super hot in Richmond – we had temperatures in the high 90s and the humidity easily bumped us up into the hundreds. I’m obsessive about hitting 10k steps per day, so this meant I was usually out at 6am trying to log my miles, water my plants and do any other outside activities before the mercury started to climb.

The heat still hadn’t broken by Saturday when Alan came over, so I knew I wouldn’t be able to sell him on any outdoor events (I had my eye on the free production of “Something Rotten” at the Dogwood Dell amphitheater). We rarely hit any crowded indoor events (apparently I’m the last living human who believes covid still carries any risk?) but I decided to see what was on offer that might involve A/C…

Which is how we came to be seated rink-side at Richmond’s Convention Center for – drumroll please – ROLLER DERBY. As you’ve probably intuited, the Convention Center does NOT actually house a skate rink (or velodrome, for that matter). Rather, they create a rink by taping the lines whenever there’s a match. We had no idea what to expect, other than women on rollerskates and presumably some pushing, and we were not disappointed.

We did, however, quickly realize that we knew NOTHING ELSE about the sport. After each team’s introduction, which consisted of them taking laps huddled together in a crouch with each woman popping up to clown when her name [Beast! Sigmund Feud! Baddy Long Legs!] was called, they quickly got down to business.

Each round starts with the two teams creating human barriers, trying to lock the other team’s “jammer” in place so she can’t skate away from the pack. We surmised that scoring occurred when the jammer made it out of the pack and was able to lap it. This means that each time they come around and approach the pack, they have to try different tactics to get through. Sometimes their teammates would be able to help create an opening for them, but more often they had their hands full trying to stop the other team’s jammer from getting through.

It sounds simple, but I’m not exaggerating when I say we watched the scoreboard quickly climb to a 68 point tie and couldn’t figure out what either team was doing to wrack them up. We resorted to googling “roller derby rules” at the first intermission. (Roller derby has two 30 minute periods with a 15 minute intermission. At this match there was a band set up that played and kept the crowd pumped while the athletes rested.) And in case you’re curious, they get a point for every member of the opposing team that they pass.

Only marginally related: when I started to reflect on rollerskates, I felt like there was a well-known joke in the corner of my brain that I couldn’t quite pull. So I googled, and found that there IS, in fact, a rollerskate joke that (pun intended) seems to do the rounds. Maybe you can think of it?

If not, in closing, here it is (sorry, not sorry):

Three men at the pearly gates….

Three men have died and arrive together in the pearly gates.

St. Peter asks the first man “Have you ever cheated on your wife?”

The man proudly answers “Not once in 40 years of marriage.”

“You are a good man” St Peter tells him. “Here are the keys to your brand new Porsche. ” He Revs the engine and drives off.

St. Peter asks the second person “Did you ever cheat on your wife?”

The man shrugs his shoulders sheepishly “Uh, yes sir. But only once at a party when I was drunk!”

St. Peter hmms… “Well we have all erred in our life. Here are the keys to your Buick.” And the man, grateful he’s not being sent to hell, hops in the car puts it in gear and drives off.

The third man is sweating bullets. Before even hearing the question he falls down on his knees and begs forgiveness. “I’m sorry St. Peter. I cheated on my wife many times. I was a traveling salesman, I had a woman in every city, on every business trip, at every airport and field office in the lower 48 and most of Europe. Please, Please forgive me…“

St Peter looks in the book and reflects. “Alright. The good news is you can come in. The bad news is here’s your Bicycle. You have reaped what you have sown.”

The man sighs, and starts peddling, weaving back and forth a bit. He comes to the first guy in his Porsche, on the side of the road crying.

“What the hell do you have to be crying about?,” he asks. “I’m tooling around heaven on a rusty bicycle, and you’ve got a sports car. What gives?”

The first man blows his nose and looks up. “My wife just went by on one roller skate.”

AND SCENE.

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Women are from Jupiter.

30 Jul

Last night, as we walked through Whole Foods to pick up items for dinner, Alan asked, “Did you get new shampoo?”

I responded, “Why? Does my hair smell different? Does it have more body?” I fluffed it for effect.

Alan said, “No. I just see the shampoo here and thought you might still be out.”

Men. Am I right?

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In which my house almost became a landmark…

15 Mar
Photo by Deon Black: https://www.pexels.com/photo/blue-denim-jeans-on-the-table-6376544/ Banana hanging out of the fly of a pair of jeans as if it is a penis

One thing that attracted me to Richmond: its arts scene. VCU is just down the street from me and it’s ranked among the top 5 fine arts schools in the United States. One way this spills out into the community is through murals. I’m not sure what the official count is, but the downtown development district alone boasts at least 150.

So imagine my excitement when, after only a few weeks in my house, someone slid an envelope through my mail-slot, asking if I’d have any interest in letting an artist put a mural on the side of my row house. (I’m on the end of the block and have a good-sized two-story brick surface.) The artist organizing this project was actually not looking to do the work himself, but is trying to create something of an exchange program with foreign artists – bringing them here to diversify our arts scene, and in turn creating opportunities for Richmond artists to leave their mark abroad. Cool, right?

I was really impressed by the thought the organizer has given the project. In the initial letter he presented three different options for supporting the project: 1) Offering up your wall as a venue; 2) Offering your wall + $2k to cover the cost of materials and a lift; 3) Sponsoring the artist with $10k so they would be compensated for their efforts. I responded by letting him know that I’d be open to having a mural on the side of my house and I’d be willing to cover costs, but I was not at a full sponsorship level of patronage because I’m, uh, a bit broke after buying a house. He was cool with that and excited that I was up for a mural.

I’m a planner, so I asked, “What’s the process for reviewing/approving the design? Would I get to suggest themes or choose from artists, or how does this work?” He explained that you only get those privileges at the $10k sponsorship level (fair enough – he’s found a meaningful incentive for full sponsorship).

I followed up by asking if I would at least get to see/approve the image before it goes on my house. In my mind, I was imagining someone having free rein and painting an enormous penis on my house, but I didn’t tell him that because I didn’t want to seed any ideas. PERHAPS, he offered. It would depend on the artist. The artist might be someone who is inspired by the act of painting itself and changes designs on the fly, so I couldn’t necessarily count on it.

That prompted me to pause and consider: as a big-time control freak, might it be sort of a bucket-list item to cede control over something this big? To just give someone carte blanche to paint on the side of my house – as long as I generally liked their portfolio? When I shared this with Alan, his answer was immediate. “Absolutely not.” He looked at me like I was crazy. “It’s your HOUSE. You’re not going to let someone just paint whatever they want on your HOUSE. You won’t even let someone other than you caulk your bathtub. Are you serious?”

Fair point. But I was enjoying the idea of being Alison 2.0 who supported the arts and let someone indulge their muse… until the organizer emailed me with good news. “I’ve got an artist coming to town and we think your house would be perfect for him. He’s in NYC now, but will be here within a week. Are you still interested?”

Gulp. I was excited and nervous. Who was the artist? What did he want to paint? Any chance it would be something related to a cause I’m passionate about – like reproductive rights, BLM, the environment, banned books? The organizer wasn’t sure, but he provided me with a link to the artist’s previous work in Europe so I could get a sense of his style and prior projects. I checked him out and was intrigued. His style was interesting. The subject matter didn’t necessarily resonate for me (oversized people doing different things) but it was still cool. There were one or two abstract images that could possibly be interpreted as being a wee bit phallic, however, so I decided that I wouldn’t feel comfortable moving forward without seeing a sketch.

“I mean, it’s not as permanent as a tattoo, but it’s also a lot more expensive than a haircut, so if I don’t like it, I won’t have to live with it forever, but it will be up there long enough that my house could become a landmark known as ‘The Big Dick’ or something,” I explained to a friend.

“You’re being ridiculous,” she laughed.

I waited on pins and needles for a few days, hoping the artist would be able to provide a sketch. Finally, Sunday evening, he came through. I’d like to post a copy of the image, but I don’t want to violate his copyright, so I’ll do my best to describe it:

Imagine a cartoon man with his back to you, arms and legs out as if mid-jumping jack. He is up against what appears to be an open window. His face is turned to the side, mouth open as if – just speculating here – orgasmic. Oh, and he is completely naked, with a small but very obvious penis pointing down between his legs right in the middle of the frame. I mean, there was nothing ABSTRACT about it. The penis even had a SHADOW.

TLDR: It would like two-story naked cartoon man humping my house.

I imagined my neighbors’ reactions as they watched it going up. I haven’t even had a chance to meet all of them yet, and I’m pretty sure this would NOT be a friend-maker. More like a slow-motion smile turning to horror as they realized I’ve conscripted our entire block to a terrible nickname. “What’s next?” I imagined them asking, “Is she going to add a ‘Tiny Dick Alley’ street sign to the side of her carport?”

I forwarded the image to Alan, whose response was, “Seriously? Are they roasting you? This can’t be real, right?” (To his credit, he didn’t use this as an “I told you so moment.”)

I responded to the project coordinator and said, “Thanks, but I’m going to pass. Hope you find a home for this guy in the Fan because I think it would be fun to have a ‘humping man’ somewhere in Richmond.”

To which he corrected me. “He’s not humping. More like skydiving on an empty picture frame.”

TomAto, ToMahto. There would still be a very visible, embarrassingly small cartoon penis on my house. I’m excited to be part of this neighborhood, but I don’t need my house to become an unfortunate landmark.

“Well look on the bright side,” my friend offered, still trying to get me to make a very bad decision, “It would be easy to give people directions to your house – they wouldn’t even need to know your house number!”

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City Mouse/Country Mouse

13 Mar

I’ll spare you the details of how we made the decision, but the move to Richmond was something Alan and I landed on together. And in keeping with the deal we brokered 13+ years ago, the vision wasn’t for us to buy a place and live together down here. We had very different ideas of what would make us happy…

For me: a place “in the city” that was walkable/bike-able for my daily errands, where I could leave my car for a weeks at a time without needing it, and where I could get to know my neighbors.

For Alan: a place in the country with enough land to hunt, grow fruit and vegetables, and stick a bee hive. And where his closest neighbors would be far enough away that he could walk around naked if he chose.

And so now we’re here – me in a row house in The Fan and Alan in a TinyHouse™ on some acres about 45 minutes outside the city. We explain it to people by referencing Country Mouse/City Mouse, which is a Disney book from my childhood.

Alan might be rethinking this reference after the last week, when he texted me with some alarm:

“I had a packet of emergency rations in my emergency kit in the truck. Went out there for batteries this afternoon, and something has gnawed it open and eaten about a quarter of the pack. Could I have a f*cking mouse in my truck?”

Reader, the answer – as you likely suspected – was apparently yes, based on the text I received from Alan the next morning:

My response? “Aww. Poor little guy, just wanted some peanut butter…” Which I could say with full sympathy for the mouse because he was NOT EATING MY FOOD AND POOPING IN MY CAR.

It seems Alan was NOT sympathetic to the mouse, because he responded, “…and probably some seat cushion and electrical wiring and a perfectly good pack of survival rations…”

“He was an Adventure Mouse,” I texted. “Chasing the dream of a Ranger.”

Crickets.

The lesson here: It is ok to BE the Country Mouse, but not ok to HAVE a Country Mouse. Which makes me wonder if maybe we need to rename our situation after something that isn’t inspired by rodents?

Just a thought.

—

PS: I was going to propose Green Acres, but then I watched the show opener and – I did NOT remember the possessive yank and declaration of “my wife” that ripped Eva Gabor out of her happy habitat and into the muck of farm-living. I am glad to be living in the year 2023 and not treated as some man’s chattel in 1965.

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