I has one.

I looked and looked, but the closest rescue to have English angoras was in Portland, OR.

I went to the county fair with ayse, expecting to find some 4H kids might have raised some angoras. I was not entirely wrong. There was a gaggle of English angoras in one area of the small animals' barn. They had some large male rabbits who were pretty cute, but I really liked the coloring on an eight week old little one. Turns out she's a she. I did want a buck, because the neutering is less awful on them, but she really was the pick of the bunch. I might name her Phoebe, after an old family joke.

Zero likes her as much as he likes Ozzy. Beanie was mildly curious. Ozzy was very curious and then, when he tried to mount her, I removed him. That ticked him off. So, he's a little angry at her right now. Fortunately, rabbits are short on brains. He tries to get into altercations with her through the bars of the pen. She just jumps back and then moves forward to nose him again. He'll get over it. I'm doing cooperative feeding like they do at the zoo. He may learn to associate her with fresh lettuce and raisins.

Thinking of which...she probably weighs half what he does, but is no slouch in the output department. I'm going to have some bangin' compost this winter. I also hope to be able to harvest some very nice fiber.

Photos later, when I feel like dealing with them. Right now, its nighty night time.

My cousin died not too long ago. I now have no one I can comfortably share fart jokes with. Then, I found a very sick, old cat outside my office. I am hoping Alameda Animal Control at least kept him comfortable. I had to let that one go, emotionally. I have enough pets. Then Ethan's cat died. Freaky was a lovely cat. Then, my boss' dad died. Various celebrities died (I liked two of them and will now never see someone at my door with a giant check.) The family had a little scare when GMA Sharpe went to Akron General. (False alarm. Dental infection, poor Mame.) Sunday, my coworker's mom died. I never met Dora's mom, but through Dora, I learned to shop at the farmers' market like a Chinese grandmother. Now, Ayse's cat died. I've been having nightmares about other old celebrities kicking off. No, I do not want to go to Leonard Nimoy's or John Cleese's funeral, thank you Little Miss Subconscious.

Just fucking stop it, people. Tell all of your 50 year old celebrity friends to stop having sudden heart attacks. Tell your 80ish friends to stop getting sick and hold off on the dying thing. Please tell your pets to stop kicking off.

And will some of you please go take in some kittens, puppies or small babies for a change?

Thank you.

(Ayse, I might come over for more baby bird cuddling.)

Lots of the more intellectual pundits and correspondents on the internets are already throwing their hands up, rolling their eyes, and tut-tutting over the hoopla about Michael Jackson's unexpected and sudden demise.

Now, I'm not standing outside Neverland or UCLA Med Center with candles, but I'm also not dismissing the impact he's had on lots of people.

He was an amazing entertainer as a younger man. I recall seeing him in "The Wiz" on Broadway back when I was in college. My mother and I got into the city, missed the opening number (as always - she was 20 minutes late for everything), and settled in to watch the show. Here was a kid who was a year or two younger than me, up on a Broadway stage, acting like a professional. I was sitting there, fuming and huffing, because I was too stupid to grab the ticket from my mother's purse and just take the fucking subway and he was up there kicking ass.
His voice was clear and pure, he moved like a scarecrow, and he did not blow a line or have one off note or gesture. I remember sitting there, watching a scene, where he was kind of "pflumped" on the floor of the stage like a man made of straw. He was in a cheerleader's type split, sitting there for an entire musical number. As someone who has tried that in yoga or just for the hell of it... well...ow.

His songs hit the radio and he hit MTV and they were always in the background for quite a few years. He got pretty damned rich and lots of people loved him. When his music hit the DJ at the club or bar where I was imbibing in the 1970s, the dance floor suddenly would become full and really rocking. He was the anti-Bee Jees. There was nothing sucky or soppy about his music. My sister and I tried to moonwalk just for the hell of it. (I think she actually figured it out.)
The guy was so popular, he merited his own zip code.

Let's pause for a minute, here.

This is a black man who had his own zip code.

You may, in your sophistication, say that he was just an entertainer. But seriously, he was a self made man, an industry, a man who broke racial barriers by being the first nonwhite act on MTV and having his own goddamned zip code. I think the only black man to have his own zip code after that is Mr. Obama, but I could be mistaken. The White House might not have its own zip code.

Of course, everyone had their paws on Jackson, and he turned out to have a lot of problems personally and financially. He acquired children and zoo animals in a rather bizarre fashion and made some unfortunate choices at the plastic surgeon's office. (At least, I discovered, he and his staff found good homes for every single member of the menagerie when his fortunes went to hell. ) Although, I'm certainly not going to join the moony eyed mourners holding candles in paper cups outside various buildings in LA, I will say that he was nontrivial a character on the American landscape.

The weather has me down. I need sunlight. I get up and its grey outside. I have to convince myself that I may as well get up, because it might not get sunny that day. Today, the sun came out at 3PM thereabouts. What a bowl of Suck.

I've been obsessing about the old cat I rescued. It may be a sweet relief if the animal shelter calls and tells me they put him down to ill health. There is only so much I can do to help animals. I decided to just disconnect from the situation.

I think the mood started Sunday when some kid was screaming at a sleeping lion. I said, "Hey, would you like it if someone stood outside your house and yelled all day." His father said, "Yeah, if they were paying my rent." I did not say "OK, Fuckface, the door's over there." I just said, "That's and interesting take on it." The kid kept yelling. I told him the lion was not going to turn around and look at him. The guy went off in a huff. The three little girls who were with him looked at me sympathetically. Later, I told another volunteer about it and her response was, "Oh what a *great* example for the children. Ugh!"

Later, some girls came up to the gibbons. One girl said, "Huh. They don't have tails." I explained that this was because they are lesser apes. I gave a brief description of the differences between monkeys and apes. The whole family watched and the adults commented that that was an interesting distinction. The mom took the stroller in hand and said, "OK, kids. Let's go look at the other m...apes". I loved that she caught herself like that. My fellow volunteer smiled and whispered, "See, its not that bad." But seriously, Sunday was Bad Behavior Day. Kids were yelling and climbing fences and rocks. Parents were being very la-ti-da about it. If people were not so litigious, I'd view it as a good source of food for the carnivores.

Later, at the animal shelter, I managed to avoid the customers. I had a nice chat with a very gay man who wanted to work or volunteer there. After we finished chatting, I looked for kittens. There were few in the main area, so I went to the infirmary. Back there were kittens ready to be fostered or "fixed". I had a lot of fun with one cheeky little ass pants who bit and bit and bit and bit and purred and bit and purred. He was all of three weeks old. I cleaned his little nose (he had been stage diving into his food) and kissed him. He bit my nose and I laughed. I spent time with the most beautiful kitten I'd seen in ages. She was cowering in her litter box and hissed at me. I petted her till she purred. I stopped. Reached in. She hissed. Lather, rinse repeat. Lovely coat, though.

At home, I kissed my uncomplicated cats. I let Zero roam around the yard. He's less of an asshole when he's had outside time. The long days are great because traffic dies down at 7PM and it is still light for a couple of hours afterwards. Alas, today, he's decided to fence jump, so I guess I will be sleeping with the window open tonight.

I am beset by animals. There was the cat I found at the office on June 4th. I took him to the SPCA, but the Alameda Animal Services took him. I called them and ascertained that they do a hold for 10 days and then put animals up for adoption. They aren't into just euthanising them. I went to visit the cat last Thursday and got a good look at him. He's not doing well. Actually, I think he is terminal. He has a severe eye infection and has a strange plantigrade stance. The weird way of standing is often a result of a neurological impairment. He could have severe neuropathy from diabetes, spinal deterioration or some other such thing. Given his age and health, I honestly would not be very upset if they did decide to put him down. If I were his owner, I'd get him on antibiotics and insulin, but would not expect more than 6 months before I'd have to put him down. At least he has a safe place to sleep, food and water, clean litter and a nice towel. That's a better way to go than dying under a bush. Sigh.

I am also beset by pet sitting requests. Its kind of a karmic kat kompanion gig. My neighbors, the Zuckermans and Missy Charlotte have visited my animals and my friends in Alameda, Ayse and Noel, have also helped out. So, I hit the multiplefecta of weekend 1 being the Zuckercats, this weekend, the Alameda cat, the next weekend is Missy Charlotte's cat and I think another lightning round of Zuckercats to round out the month. Everyone has better libraries than I do, so this is bonus in terms of reading material.

My own animals are fine, thank you. I have, however, started to lock the cats out of the bedroom because of their regularly scheduled hi-jinks.

The dog in this deluge is my sweet "nephew", Toby the Miniature Schnauzer. Toby took a bad turn last night. They'd had a nice evening of watching movies and retired to bed. When my brother in law got up, he found Toby unable to move. They put him down this afternoon. My sister is bereft, of course. He was a fine little dog. However, it sure sounds like a stroke to me. I think they made the wise choice.

Of course, tomorrow, it is back to the Zoo and the animal shelter, where I will get to enjoy some more animals. I think I am going to go against my own rule and spend more time cuddling kittens. I could use a kitten break.

(Weird... the spell checker built into my browser thinks that plantigrade and neuropathy are not words. Heh.)

This morning was a special morning for the lions. Someone thoughtfully provided a large quadrupedal cat toy. It was probably as tall as a person and made of carpet and whatever else. It managed to stand on its four "legs" with its fake head held high. Actually, it looked suspiciously like the lions' next door neighbors, the camels.

The lions were let out, one by one. The two tawny sisters came out first. One raced to the toy immediately, grabbed it in her mouth and delivered the killing bite into the mass of carpet. She turned and faced us, holding the massive toy in her jaws. Let's just say that I don't think zoo cats forget their heritage. I could not help but criticize her technique. "The neck, dear. Not the back. You still get the kicking." Her sister came up to join in the fun and was roared at. After some swipey pattycake, the original sister hauled the toy to the farthest depths of the exhibit, with her sister in hot pursuit.

The fatter, um, more pleasingly plump lioness took advantage of the other cats' level of distraction and methodically found all of the hidden food in the exhibit. Her brother, who'd just had a checkup ambled up afterwards and took his station in a warm spot. Those two are very orangey cats, compared to the huntress sisters.

Many pictures were taken and much chuckling and pointing occured among the primates, who were as entertained as the lionesses.

In other news, the cat that I had found in Alameda was claimed by Alameda animal control, despite the protestations of the staff at the SPCA. The truth is that the cat was very dehydrated and her eye was gummy. She is quite old. They assured me that Alameda has my contact information. I am going to follow up with them Monday. I asked that if it came down to my needing to bail the cat out, could I bring her back to the SPCA? Apparently, I can. I have a fantasy that there is a lost cat flyer in their binder and that I can go there and find it and say, "Call these people." The plan B is that the cat was just dehydrated because of being loose for a while and she'd recover. The sad thing is that a cat who has suffered dehydration and that degree of hunger at an advanced age could incur some really severe and terminal problems, like kidney failure and hepatic lipidosis.

I can only save so many animals, alas. I hope that the cards line up for this one.

Thinking of old cats, I checked the animal inventory at the zoo and realized that most of the animals are quite geriatric. A tiger is 19, another 12. 4 lions are 18. A giraffe just turned 20. One of "my" hornbills passed away recently at 22. That zoo is definitely a good place to be a geriatric animal. I think some of them were candidates for the Guiness book, like Gerta, the sheep who arrived at the zoo sometime in the 1980s as an adult. (She recently passed away - she was looking pretty poorly at Christmas.)

I am known for several things. It is an open secret that I have two awesome super-powers. One is finding parking (grown men have wept) and staying employed. I also have some major interest that everyone knows about, such as animals, cats, artsy stuff, cats, chocolate, cats...

Today, I arrived at work at 9:30, which is my usual hour. Instead of going in the front door, I headed along the side to the back entrance of the building because, I love walking along the side of the building, listening to the bird songs in the trees. The call of the white crowned sparrow, the little peeps from finches, meow, the honk of a goose in the distance, more finches, meow, ducks...wait, what? Meow. At the side entrance, a skinny black cat was meowing at the door. A coworker came out with a little half and half. The cat's eyes were mostly closed, which lead me to think it was blind. Nope. The cat saw me, rushed over and rubbed my legs as if I were the finest primate on the planet. The coworker thought the cat was diseased. I figured the cat was dumped and very hungry. After popping in to send email explaining what I was about to do, I took the cat with me to the Oakland SPCA. When I picked the cat up, I got a whiff of cologne. Someone had held the cat. An abandoned pet? Senile and lost? The cat was totally placid, purring, and insisted on sitting on my lap for the drive. We stopped to get gas, and the cat watched me while sitting on the passenger chair. I hoped the cat would not pee in the car. When I got back in, the cat curled up on my lap and resumed purring.

I planned the speech in my mind to deliver to whoever was there. I've volunteered there for years, yada yada yada. I figured I'd raise cain to get the cat admitted. I put on my volunteer apron for good measure and took the cat in. The facility was closed, so I went in the side entrance and immediately met a staffer.We scanned her (I think its a her) for a chip. We agreed the cat was very elderly. Poor thing only had one tooth left. (Which means it had been getting vet care.) Kitty was taken to a nice, big condo in the clinic room. I gave her a pile of tasty food and the kennel lady set her up with a comfy towel and water. I left info on where the cat was found and they'll contact Alameda to see if there's a lost cat report. My take is that if the cat is sick or too old and they put her down, at least she's not starving to death. I've seen them place out old cats in the past, so was hoping that might be an alternative. After settling her in and peeking at some really cute kittens going to foster, I returned to work.

I sat down to my email at 10:30 and saw a note that our company had been sold to Intel. I promptly dumped some stock on etrade and went looking for my manager. The grand boss was there and I got a group of us together so we could talk about it.

The buyout, where the company I work for will be a subsidiary, should complete in a couple of months. It might be good, as folks who work for Intel tend to stay there, or it could be really bad. All I know is that I do not have a Plan B right now and that makes me worried. I need to pull myself together and use my superpowers to stay employed. I suspect the first thing to do is inventory my skills and figure out what people are looking for these days....

I love warm weather, but 89 degrees was too much for the tigers to want to come out. They took their sweet time. The lions had melted into invisibility. Various other animals wilted in the heat, as it crept to the mid 90s very quickly. The squirrel monkeys, however, were very active and delighted us with two new babies this week and a third on the way.

At the animal shelter in the a/c, I enjoyed feeding three four week old kittens being fostered by a staffer and later drowned myself in the most amazing and buttery yellow eyes I'd ever seen on a cat.

I was sitting on the floor next to the back door, enjoying the dying sunlight. I'd put on clothing that I did not mind the rabbit nibbling on. I did not expect him to solidly bite me. If my life had cliche sound effects, you would have heard that crunchy chomp noise. I used a great deal of profanity and got a chair to sit in. The rabbit then stood on his back feet, wondering how to continue to bite me. Hah. He was thwarted.

I never had kids, least that I know of, and my own mother is long gone. I will never get a mother's day card nor send one again. I don't call my pets "fur kids", so I don't assume that kind of relationship. So, I am not subject to the merriment of the Hallmark holiday.

However, I like what my dad told me once, "You don't have to be a woman to be a mother."

So all you mothers out there - happy mother's day, you mothers.

As you know, from my profanity laced posting, my cousin died. Various of us are plotting to mail flowers and so on. I get email from my sister saying that our father sent her a different address than she had in her address book.

(Cue sound of head hitting desk.)

My cousin had sent a nice gift to my nephew and niece in law. She was upset because she never got a thank you note. I told her my sister and nephew (yes, the man sends his own thank you notes) were fastidious about sending correspondences like that and it had to be a mistake.

There's no way to reach into the aether and tell Julie what happened.

So, the moral of the story is: check your snail mail lists. Do it several times. No one notices things like Christmas cards, so that can get lost in the shuffle. I'm sure there are folks not on the internet (there still are some) who'd love to hear from you. Send postcards to everyone and then ask them on the phone if they got your postcard. I'm sure there are postcards from even the most pragmatic towns. "Greetings from Sunnyvale!", "Having a great time here in Fremont!"....

At least my package got to her before she died. She apparently really enjoyed doing the word puzzles while in the hospital.

In August of 1954, two miracles were born. One was my older sister and the other, my cousin Julie. Joan grew up to be a respectable and very much in control Navy wife. Julie grew up to be a funny, somewhat out of control, vulgar to a fare-the-well, chef's wife.

Julie and I would get together as kids during summers in Rhode Island and peel the paint off the walls with profanity. Little girls were not allowed to say fuck, fart, poot, shit, cunt, asshole, smegma, and all those other deliciously little taboo words. However, we'd go out into the little wooded patch and just let forth. If adults were not in the room, we'd let forth. We'd wind up paralysed with laughter. Julie could also fart and belch at will, both enviable skills for a 13 year old. Her family had a load of semi-feral cats who lived in the woods in Providence. This was back before everyone realized what an ecological menace freely breeding cats were. I learned a lot about cats from Julie and her sister Christine. If a cat bit or scratched you, you hold your hand very still to mitigate the damage. Cats purred when happy. They liked to be petted this way. They got ticks and fleas, so you had to take the ticks off just like this...

I went to college, Julie had kids. I visited after my divorce, feeling the need for family and when I got out of the car, I heard this voice saying, "Jesus fucking Christ, its my goddamned doppelganger." I looked at myself, only with curls and a cigarette. We hung out in the snow, did donuts at the local swimming pool park (which was empty for the winter), peeled the paint off the wall with relentless vulgarity, dandled her eldest daughter, Jenny, on our knees, made her mother (my aunt) laugh, and fed table scraps to a flatulent beagle. (The beagle slept with me at nights and snored in my ear.)

Julie and I valiantly attempted to stay in touch via mail until that tapered off. Finally, I went out to visit, just because I needed to. Julie looked different. She'd been smoking for years and was pretty thin. We were no longer identical, but we were definitely partners in crime. We watched fireflies, joked about our incessant vulgarity, watched bunnies in the yard and birds in the feeder. We went to the Worthington pool with her two younger daughters. A man about 50 yards from us was lying on a recliner with his arms over his head, staring at us fixedly. I explained that I'd read a book by Julius Fast on body language and that the man was courting us because he was showing us his pits. We started joking about "The Pit Flap" and started discreetly showing our pits to the guy, which amused us endlessly. Her husband, Aarne cooked magnificent things for us, which had us all purring and flashing our armpits at each other.

A later visit for New Year's continued the hilarity, with my tracking her escaped Shiba Inu by looking for footprints in the snow and then singing "Who Let The Dogs Out" along with the TV set afterwards while Aarne laughed and shook his head. Julie never learned German, but found a note on his email session to his sister that we put in the Google translator. It said, "Julie's cousin Elaine is here and we are having fun." In German, I think it was "haben spass". So, we got a lot of mileage out of "we are haben spazz!"

Some time later, she discovered email and we continued to make each other laugh very hard. She got me onto Facebook and got me hooked on Scramble. We, and some of her friends from a Harry Potter chat group, played the game regularly. Her friend, Michael Bombu, surprised us all when he suddenly died of a heart attack at 45. Julie was spooked because she was having severe problems breathing. She was diagnosed with COPD and was given a short time to live. A second doctor told her the first was full of it and changed her prescriptions. Unfortunately, the first doctor was right. Julie passed out and went to the ER some weeks ago and was struggling. She was put in a hospice/convalescent situation and was starting to improve. But, she caught bronchitis a day or two ago and died today. Her eldest girl sent me the email.

I'm going to miss the fuck out of her, dammit. She was goddamned awesome.

Last night for dinner:
Tomales Bay oysters delivered by friend to party (boiled the night before and refrigerated)
Artichokes (tiny - pre-aphid season) from backyard (organic!)
Lemon juice for artichokes from backyard (Woot!)
Two tender asparagus stalks from backyard.

For the rabbit:
Fresh grass of about a dozen species, a litle valerian, California poppy, valerian.

For the cats:
420 !!!11eleventy!!! from the backyard. (Discovered when removing overgrown weed, pre-fire season)


That's pretty much it for the season. The rest of the yard is wildflowers, which is going great guns.

The temperatures really soared today, and it was quite a surprise to me. However, the warm, clear weather and the Earth Day celebration really brought people to the zoo. Since I'd been watching the birds for months, I felt very comfortable talking about them with visitors, so I volunteered to present "biofacts" about birds. There were a few talking points to take up with people, and I felt very pleased that I was able to tailor what to talk about with visitors, based on their ages and facility with English.

With the really little kids, I'd show them feathers from the blue and yellow macaws and talk about how pretty the colors are. Other kids would get ticked with ostrich feathers.

I also took an ostrich feather and a vulture or Canada goose feather and have some of the kids wave them and ask which feather worked for flight. Most kids who got it wrong understood the difference after I told them about paper airplanes and air resistance. One little kid insisted that it was the ostrich feather because it was lighter. She reminded me of a manager I once had.

There were lucite cubes with things like bird skulls and feet, as well as an ostrich and emu egg. Everyone liked it when I put the cube with the hummingbird egg next to the ostrich egg.

There were too many grabby hands, so I wound up piling all of it closer in. Many parents were just great, telling the kids to handle things gently and playing together with the little guessing game props. But there was one octogenarian who started rapping really hard on the ostrich egg. Like, what the hell? I guess its never too late to be a vandal.

With the bigger kids and adults, I showed them wings from a macaw (I suspect it had been a zoo bird that died of natural causes), an owl (ditto) and a flicker (probably found in the woods). The cool thing about owl wings is that the feathers are fluffy at the ends, which makes their
flight completely silent. You don't hear that whooshing sound like you do with crows and geese.

Later, I found out from the more experienced docents that they don't put out nearly as much stuff on the table (the person I took over from put *everything* out). The Many Grabby Little Hands Syndrome is very well known to zoo educators and parents.

It was kinda fun, but I was glad to get home and sit with a tumbler full of ice and watered down juice. Phew!

I've been in the process of making a style of Egyptian necklace called an Usekh collar. The beads are Sculpey. I took three colors and mixed a little glittery grey into each color so that they would not look plasticky. I made a template and have been poring over web pages, trying to get details on construction. It looks like there are several ways to do it. I'm going to make panels and link them together. It should be quite an interesting piece when its done. I can see why nobility wore those things. Its taking an enormous amount of time.

After getting some Chinese speaking people to stop shouting "HELLO?" or "(UNINTELLIGIBLE COMMENTARY)" or just pressing the "talk" button on and off into our radio band, I managed to relax by actually talking to visitors without feeling testy from all the snap, crackle, pop and "ni ha HELLO?" on the radio.

Near the tiger exhibit is a sky ride, which is the best deal in town. For two bucks, you get to ride up and down a hill for twenty minutes. You start by travelling up and over the bamboo near the tiger exhibit, the tigers, the path, the giraffes, the lions the bisons, the elephants, the concrete pad at top (with the very young and bored guy with a walkie talkie to prevent walkabouts), the camels, lions, path, giraffes, tigers and Huge Fucking Swarm Of Bees.

I hopped the fence and told the juveniles running the ride to stop putting people on it. "Oh, they were there yesterday." "That's nice, but two girls are screaming and several visitors have wrapped their coats over their faces. Stop letting people on and call your boss." I normally am not good at managing people, but they complied. I told the visitors waiting to get on the ride to hang on until we got the bee thing squared away and the ticket girl to stop selling tickets. I jollied up some of the visitors as they came off the ride and made sure no one was stung, despite the histrionics of some of the girls up there. Being the clueless sort that I am, I only later realized the histrionics were, in part, to convince the boys with them to do a bang up job of Comforting the Shrieking Girlfriend. There's a certain kind of shimmy, shriek and giggle you don't see with genuine fear.

The supervisor came by and said it was a good idea to stop putting people on the ride. I suggested the zoo call a professional beekeeper (there are many, with hats and smokers in the trunk this kind of year.) He assured me that facilities had a way to deal with it. I radioed the back office just in case and sauntered over to the tigers. The bees, apparently, followed. I radioed again and suggested they let the keepers know that the bees were swarming over the tigers. I had no idea if the recumbent animals would get stung. This was probably not going to happen, but its good for the keeper to know. I watched the tigers recline under the swarm of bees. To the left, I noticed the ride was empty, except for one teenager wearing a huge pair of Converse sneakers and the requisite beige Hawaiian style garb, emptying a can of bug spray into the tops of bamboo while the swarming bees remained unmolested over the tiger exhibit. I realized the place was in the hands of teenagers on Sundays and decided my work was done. I ran into a fellow volunteer I had not seen in a month and we had a pleasant stroll away from the drift of Raid and bees.

I told the back office to see if the Director would let me put him on my speed dial. They looked at me for a moment and laughed politely.

I get newsletters from my mutual funds and normally ignore them. However, the latest one for Baron Funds had a cover article about Madoff. The guy who runs the Baron funds didn't trust the idea that Madoff's fund would consistently return high amounts to customers, regardless of the market. After reading that article I decided to actually skim the rest.

Here is an interesting entry for the Retirement Income Fund

"Church & Dwight's personal care and consumer products fit the bill. The company's Arm & Hammer baking soda keeps your refrigerator smelling fresh; its cat litter keeps the rest of your home smelling the same way; and its Trojan condoms keep your house quiet for months and years after use."

I was walking down the street with my morning pastry and a box of milk in my tote bag and a man standing next to the bus stop said, "If you believe in Jesus, he will wash you clean from tippy to toe!"

This leads me to wonder if the guy got the memo that Jesus was raised by a carpenter and a housewife and spent time hanging out with fishermen. I guess he got the message that JC ran a car wash or a bath house, or perhaps a Merry Maids franchise.

I kept walking.

No, I did not check my pits. I know I don't need a bath.

I love to post about animals and found that this weekend, while away from my volunteer work, I was afforded an opportunity to have an interesting animal interaction.

This is Houdini, who's a very rare cat. He's a male tortie. I've seen other photos of male calico/tortoiseshell cats and thought that you really can't tell from looking at their cute little faces that they're male cats. (You can click this and the other photo for larger images.)

So, Houdini's owners, who have a good sense of humor, were kind enough to embarrass the cat so that I could take a photo of his "manhood". Even though he was neutered, Houdini, like many neutered male cats, still has a scrotum. In order to satisfy everyone's pervy curiosity, here is a photo proving he's a boy.

Houdini was very good about this silly pose and didn't complain. He was later rewarded with a lot of petting and kisses. One of his owners was associated with the SPCA at the time and, when the cat was found in their population, she decided it'd be wise to take him home so he wouldn't be exploited, but could just be a cat. I suggested he has mosaicism, adding that he was two cats in one. We joked about how he ate his brother. (He's a big cat.)

His markings are fascinating. Here is a description of the male tortie phenomenon on "messybeast"...http://www.messybeast.com/mosaicism5.htm

years ago, a guy was born in the Midwest. Fourscore years after that,that guy's kids descended upon him from three points (south, east and west) and rang the doorbell, party horns at the ready.

He did not suffer a heart attack, but grinned like a pumpkin. Much schmoozing was had, culminating in a dinner involving seafood items, which always makes said guy very happy.

Toot toot!