The Men in my Life who are Either Not Men or Not in my Life

I had this date on Saturday. One of the best ever! We had sammiches for dinner, and I got onion rings even though they make me toot (not in the good way. Actually, in the toxic and most likely fatal way) because I just knew he wouldn’t care. I think he would even have been impressed.

We went to see Transformers, and they actually ARE more then meets the eye! Lots of excellent explosions and hot chicks and cool cars and did I mention the explosions? And their excellence? Man, I wish someone would give me just a little brick of C4 for Christmas… My date was so about sharing. Every twenty minutes or so he would nudge me and tell me “This is awesome.” And you could tell he really meant it. Plus also he shared his candy, and didn’t ask me to share mine at all. Possibly because he didn’t like peanuts, but still it was sweet.

After the movie we went back to my place and I watched him play my ancient Nintendo 64 game Yoshi’s Island. Love that game. I’ve been playing it for probably a decade and I’ve never completed the final level, mostly because I only play it about 5 times a year. But when I do play it? LOVE that game! And so did my date, which makes him just that much more cooler.

We had such a great time that he slept over! And we had yummy diner breakfast the next morning, where in he introduced me to the concept of a Bacon Waffle. “Waffle accompanied by some strips of bacon?” you ask? Exactly what I thought too! And that idea gets three thumbs up on the yummy-o-meter, to be sure! But no. A Bacon Waffle is a waffle. With bits of bacon in the batter.

Sayin’ that again: waffle chocked full of baco-bits. In the waffle. Inside it’s normally waffle-y goodness. And this is something he always gets, smackin’ his lips and makin’ “goody, goody!” noises.

Now he tried ninja logic about how “I like waffles. I like bacon. So why wouldn’t I like a bacon waffle?” And so I countered with “I like chocolate. I like mashed potatoes… you can see where your crazy ninja logic has brought us now!” But he insisted, through overflowing mouths of bacon-waffle-happiness, that it was good.

All of this date story to say this: If all of my dates could be like the one with my 9-year old nephew I might just find wove. I’ll have to settle for movie candy and bacon waffles for now.

*****

Dr. Cyanide is married. Married with cats. Doesn’t sound as impressive as “married with children” but anyone who is a true cat enthusiast (and who possibly participates within a cat blog ring, or has been invited to do so) knows that cats are every bit the serious, life-long commitment that kids are. Plus cats never grow up or gain knowledge. Knowledge such as how to stop pooping in the flower bed, or that the vacuum isn’t a predator. Or to drive. Whatever. The bottom line: he’s so totally not available as to be covered in bees and filled with poisoned gas.

But still he winks.

And so my decision is just to use him as the carrot (dirty) to make me take extra pride in how I dress to come to work, and make me arrive to work on time and make me stay chipper and excellent in my work persona. Forever to earn the occasional off-limits, not-for-me wink. See how I found the pony there?

*****

My 13-yr old nephew is in a rock band. Well, he’s in a band. And they hope someday to rock. Right now they’re way too involved in remembering the chords and beats and words. To watch them perform is like watching someone taking their driving test: they’re concentrating 100% of the time, they’re completely focused on the mechanics of what they’re doing and they don’t look like they’re having any fun. At all. Let alone stage dives or throwing the drumsticks or mighty, mighty windmills!

My sister and I are trying to help them with the coolness thing, but it’s not sticking. We told them that they don’t need to be nearly as actually cool in their performance if they look cool standing there, and so we think they should all wear ties. All of them. Not necessarily button-down shirts or anything, but over whatever they decide to wear they should all be wearing ties.

So far they don’t get it. Silly boys…

Still, I go to all the performances. I go for three very good reasons:

1. My nephew is family! You support family. You want to make sure that they keep doing the cool things and you do your part by being there, and by screaming when they have a drum solo and by saying things like “I was really impressed at how LOUD the CYMBALS were!”
2. They are doing something cool, and how often can you say that the things that your adolescent nephew likes to do are actually cool?
3. Hot band teacher.

The guy who is leading the rock-and-roll way for these future Johnny Rottens and Axl Roses is a minor local celebrity from a band of his own. So he already knows how to be super cool. He rocks the sun glasses and the black jeans and the occasional soul patch (which normally I hate – looks like you’ve been eating crummy things and have no napkin. Or mirror. Or nerve endings between your lip and chin.) and probably rocks breakfast cereal and bunny slippers because hey, the dude is a rocker! He’s got rocker cred! Anything he does, it rocks.

And when I go to see the boys do their thing I get to watch Mr. Rockstar rock stuff from afar. And that rocks too, so… (some day he will discover that I’m alive and I will squeal and preen and then I will throw undergarments at him, because I hear that’s how you show love to rockstars. Right? Granny-panty-cannons? Hello?) Hello Cleveland!

*****

My little Mr. Man turned 1 on Sunday. By which I mean that when I got him (on the 23^rd of December) they told me “this kitten is 3 months old” and I did some quick math (December minus 3 months, carry the leap year, add Tuesday…) and decided that his “birthday” from now on is on September 23^rd.

And happy birthday to Mr. Man!

For his birthday I did the three things I knew he’d most love:

• I gave him chicken-flavored IAMS wet food for dinner.
• I gave him some dairy-flavored treats on the top of his wet food.
• I got out the cat dancer toy and let him HAVE. IT.

It’s kind of not right how much this cat loves this cat toy. It’s basically stiff (but pliable) wire w/ little paper dowels skewered upon it, and for him it is the best thing man has ever made. He loves to grab one end, and then grab the other end. Except that due to the laws of “this is how this works” you can’t grab one end and the other end, because when you grab one end and then move toward the other end the other end moves AWAY from you. Always. Move part A = part B moves, out of sympathy. So that results in hours and hours of a small (except that he is so not small anymore!) black kitty zooming in a perfect circle, round and round and round, on the living room floor.

Fun fact: kitties get dizzy, but they don’t puke. At least not from the dizzies.

I also let him watch me flush every time I used the facilities. He’s always been fascinated with flushing. The second my rump is no longer blocking his view he’s there, front paws up on the seat, watching. Transfixed. On the edge of his- er.. edge of my seat waiting for the big finish. And then I flush!

And then he runs away because water got flicked onto his head.

Fun fact: kitties don’t have much of a learning curve. Water flicked on your head the first time and the second time probably means water flicked on your head every time. But he will continue to stick his little kitty head into the jaws of water-splashery death.

Finally, I gave him his first taste of “organic catnip.” Boy oh boy did he not care. Not at all. I kept pointing to the little pile, and he’d sniff it and then look at me like “what? What do you want me to do with this sad little pile of dust and twigs? And more importantly, what did you do with my beloved cat dancer? CAT DANCER!!!! GIMMEEEE!!!!!”

Luckily Lulu was happy to clean up that sad little pile for him. She is SUCH a giver.