Parallax

My outgoing voicemail thinger explains that I am not around and encourages people to leave their messages as poetry. This means the messages I get are usually entertaining, though they're not necessarily poetic. That is, until last week, when I got the following message: "My name is Al! And everything's gonna be all right because Al is your pal! That's my poem!" Al then went into the business part of the leaving-a-message (I'd called for information on a thing, etc etc), but that? That was brilliant. I am saving that message FOREVER.

Your mission, should you choose to accept it: out-poet Al. I accept limericks, sonnets, and haiku. I'm in favor of epic poetry, but I think the voicemail thing has a time limit. You're welcome to find out for yourself.

Those of you on the twitter and the facebook already know this, but I'll retell the story here: I got a hamster. His name is One Eyed Jack, because he has one eye. He was a rescue/rehome from Craigslist, and my telling this story prompted one of my internet friends to look at Craigslist herself, where she wound up getting a bicycle. He's the rodent that keeps on giving. Jack fits nicely into my Rest Home for the Broken & Deranged, being slightly both himself; he tends to veer to his blind side when on the wheel, and has a habit of falling asleep anywhere, like a dog: legs splayed, flat on his belly, head propped on anything convenient. Being a male rodent, he has balls as big as his skull. I find them a bit alarming really, but it's better than a surprise pregnancy. He's a brown/black hamster, short haired, with white on his chin that streaks down his throat and leads to a little trail of interrupted dots on his belly. Other than the missing eye, he's in fine shape, and has spent his time running, burrowing, chewing, grooming, nomming, and not biting me despite me being huge and unfamiliar.

Dave took me to a Rays game last week, which was fun. I'd been before, but more in the sense of "socialize and drink beer while a game happens in the background," and since my understanding of baseball is just the Elementary School Rules version, I felt I was missing out on quite a bit. Dave's even more into baseball than hockey; while he may not have written the book on the sport, he wrote a book, for his graduate thesis. He also loves to explain things. This makes him the perfect person to teach me about cycling pitchers when you're two runs down in the eighth, and the moveability of stadiums, and adjusting the outfielders to allow for scatter patterns (I think that's the name of it? the places where batters tend to hit?), and why some of the more elaborately dressed fans had brooms with them, and what bases are made of. I don't feel a burning need to get back to another game as soon as possible, like I do with hockey, but it was a fun way to spend an evening and I'd be happy to go again.

I advise you all to avoid the philly cheesesteaks, though. Eieeew. Dave was done halfway through. I was done after stealing one piece of meat. It was crunchy like bacon. That can't be right.

Yesterday Bleu and Jen and I hit the flea market, which is a lot more fun when it is cold than when it is hot. Bleu got a big metal pole that looks like it should be used to herd sheep, to hang things in the yard. Jen got a watermelon and a fishing pole, which I got to carry around. (The pole, not the watermelon. I called not-it on the watermelon.) I again struck out on an Estonian flag; screw it, I'm buying one online instead.

I also offer a challenge: any global-warming deniers are invited to sit on my deck. The rules are thus: from 11AM to 6PM, no shade, water only for drinking, bring your own towel or chair. I'll time you and see how long you last before you need to come inside. Which is to say: it is a hundred and stupid outside and has been all week. This isn't supposed to happen until August, damnit.

It's thundrous and hopefully going to rain, which will help - and which reminds me. All locals should see last week's Mythbusters - they tested whether or not you can get fatally electrocuted in the shower, or while on the phone, if your house is hit by lightning. You can. I AM VINDICATED. Having the house properly grounded helps, but you know that sometimes that gets screwed up. (And then you get electrocuted in the shower, and you are no longer visible to motion detectors and touch screen do-thingers. If you're me, anyway.)

Time to go lie around like... my hamster. It is too hot to do anything else.

Yesterday I got surprise hockey with Dave. YAY. And then they won. MORE YAY. And Ryan Malone got a hat trick. EVEN MORE YAY.

To give full sports-superstitious credit where it is due: Badger really is good hockey luck. Keep being entertaining, darlin'.

Going to hockey with Dave is always an adventure. Doing anything with Dave is an adventure, but hockey doubly so.

Related, though it won't seem so at first: I got a new bag. It's neat. It's a Soviet gas-mask carry-bag, and the 2.0 sent me a link to the website where they sold it, because there was a hell of a sale. I got it for something like a buck fifty, and after the sale the original price was revealed to be twenty-two dollars. ( It is here. )

On our way up I dug through said bag and offered Dave some mints. I always carry mints around and 75% of them get nommed by Dave. I don't know how this got started, but he is a mint junkie and always expects me to have them. He is sad when I don't. So I always carry mints around.

Now. Dave hates it when I bring a bag to hockey, because then you have to go through what he calls the Girl Line. You wait in a line to put your bag on a table and open it and have someone with a weird metal poky-stick stuck to a flashlight poke through the things inside the bag. I guess to make sure you're not bringing improvised explosives or something.

Once we found parking, I dug through said bag, transferring the Emergency Pill Kit (never go without!) and wallet to pockets, and slung Vera over my shoulder. When we got to the Ice Palace, Dave was very pleased: "You didn't bring a bag!"

... if you're thinking that, halfway through the second intermission, he asked me for a mint, you are right.

INDI: "They're in my bag. Which is in the car, because you hate it when I bring a bag."
DAVE: "But mints are tiny! You could've brought them in your pocket!"
INDI: "I barely have pockets in these stupid girl pants."
DAVE: [jams his hand in his pocket up to the elbow, gives me a Look]
INDI: "Oh come on. If I started pulling stuff out of my bag and telling you to carry it you'd give me hell."
DAVE: "Not if they were mints! Mints are small! I don't mind holding small things!"
INDI: "Fine, then hold my wallet."
DAVE: [realizes he's set himself up for this and takes it with an Eyebrow]

And this is why he is my honorary brother.

( A lot of hockey happened, too. )

When Malone got the empty-net goal towards the end of the game, the whole arena went WOHHHH because we could see the puck sliding lazily towards the goal with nobody around to stop it. If you'd filmed me and Dave, you'd see us do the exact same thing: half-standing, arms halfway up, waiting for the red light and the sirens.

You don't celebrate until you know it's in.

Dave: Vinny's always eating his mouthpiece.
Indi: He seems to have instructed Stamkos in the fine art of mouthpiece gnawing, too.
Dave: Maybe.
Indi: He was asked to take the kid under his wing and teach him all his tricks. I guess that's one of them.
Dave: "How to earn assists" > 1) Pass to Marty. 2) Get out of way.
Indi: When you have the puck, lead with your butt. It is also fun to upend Prospal that way.
Dave: Say "well uhhh" a lot in interviews.
Indi: Yeah, but say it French.

--

Things that get the most hits on my Flickr:
- Vinny chasing Ovechkin.
- A jujube fruit on the branch.
- Karri Ramo all ready to hunt zombies.
- The Stormtroopers are very sad that they come in fourth behind three hockey players and a tree.

--

What's the difference between a png image that's 806 pixels wide, with forty of them transparent on the left side, and a png that's 806 pixels wide with forty-one transparent pixels? I don't know either, but Dave swears there is one.

--

Paraphrased:

Dave: The twitter, huh? We should get a twitter for the site. I think that's the done thing these days.
Indi: I already got one. I locked in the name about two months ago because I knew you'd ask this.
Dave: ... send me the login again?

It is here, if you wish to add it: http://twitter.com/boltsbay

--

That's all. Have a frog.

I'm ripping this straight from Dave's latest hockeyblog post because it is just too funny to keep to myself.

"So with massive street closures and a generally gigantic presence of foot traffic around downtown, Vinny says he is actually hitching a ride on a police boat. But he says that will only get him so close, so Vinny will take a 'golf cart, or something' the rest of the way to the arena."

Only here, y'all. ONLY HERE. I love this fucked-up city.

I wonder if they're gonna put an eye patch on him?

grubbygirl: you deserve a good face-mauling today. and by that I mean witnessing one, not suffering one.

It's hockey-with-Dave time.

Later, y'all.

"Vinny is not untouchable."

His no-trade agreement doesn't kick in until July.

Indi: If they ditch him or Marty I quit.
Dave: I might have to go with you. I can cheer for San Jose just fine. They are winning and have as many bolts with 2004 stanley cup rings as the lightning do.

And y'all KNOW what a couple of homers we are.

Say it ain't so, V4....

I got this for Dave. Amazingly, he didn't know it was out on DVD. He thinks it is so awesome that he used four exclamation points to tell me so. I usually have a hard time with presents, so I am excessively pleased about this.

On to more stinky matters. Namely, my dog. I've got the basics of the "wait for the behavior and then reward it" training down, but I don't know how to apply them to the following, and I hope someone out there has ideas.....

1. The Wookiee noise. This cracks me up. She only yodels at me when she thinks I'm ignoring her. If I'm on the phone, that's a prime time for Wookiee howling. The problem is, as soon as I praise her for it (and liberally repeat the cue I want her to associate it with) she STOPS, because now she has my attention. I think the solution there is go back to whatever behavior I did that triggered hers, and wait for her to do it again. The cue, by the way, is "Whatcha thinking?" Because I do really want to turn to my dog, ask her what she thinks about something, and have her perform the Star Wars version of Carmina Burana.

2. The flat-faced door problem. My house was designed by drunken gnomes and as such, the doorways are tight and strangely configured. Usually they're next to a wall. Buster, Piglet, and Sadie never had a problem, because they were normal dogs with pointy faces and they could nose the door open. Riley tries, but she can't get her big manatee head into the space, and usually winds up clicking the door shut entirely. My thought was to tie something to the knob that she could pull to open the door. I have no idea how to get her to do that, though; I don't know if her little jellybean brain can handle something this complex. I'm thinking the procession of behaviors goes, pull on rope/cloth/whatever, then pull while backing up, then pull while backing up and it's attached to the door, then LEAVING IT ALONE once the door is open. That last will be tricky, too; she'll want to play Tug and pull the door (and the house) down.

Thoughts? Ideas? Am I setting myself up for a nonstop Boxer concerto and a demolished house?

Dave: "blah blah defense blah blah depth blah blah"
Indi: "We don't need any more defense. We have depth there. Tons of depth."
Dave: "No we don't. We don't have depth at all. We have bodies."
Indi: "In this town? Same thing."

--

Today, Colby and I went on... a hunt for some kind of test-prep book, I forget what, except it has to do with math, which is probably why I can't remember, because math kills brain cells if they're mine, and I really need all the ones I have LEFT. Along the way we took a wrong left turn and teleported into the Restricted Section at Hogwarts. I saw a ten-book compendium on the History of Magic & Experimental Science, which I photographed because there is no other way I could convince you I had not made it up. Then we sashayed back out to the non-magical world where this mythical practice test text did not exist, and thus went hence to Ybor where the booksellers assured us they had it.

Getting to that campus took about 25 minutes of driving and 15 of looking for a single parking space, and we found one but Colby refused to try to parallel-park behind a cop car with the cop in it. I don't know why they put a college campus where there's no parking at all and the streets are more like alleys with lane lines painted on. On the way from the parking a million miles away to the campus we found streetcorner evangelists. One woman was talking, and three or four people were listening to her most intently. As we approached her voice gradually appeared, like turning up a radio.

She was saying this: "....with the powah of the LAWD!"
I made a noise kind of like this: "skkkknnnngggghhhhhhh wuhhhh BWEEEHEEEHEEEEEE-- GYIHHH!"

Colby had decided to grab me most pinchingly by the funny spot in my elbow and HAUL ME DOWN THE STREET, muttering at me, you little shit, you know we're already going to hell, I can't take you anywhere can I, it's not like they tried to talk to us and good for them too because you'd probably hit them in the mouth - YEAH, POP 'EM IN THEIR LYING MOUTHS! says I, in my best Hanson Brothers voice - and Colby goes christ Indi will you STOP THAT in his Very Serious Voice, and he pinched my elbow harder so my hand went tingly. So I shut up.

We crossed the ragged brick streets without further incident. We also found the bookstore, first try, and found the stupid evil useless numbers book thing that Colby needed, and even paid for that without a problem. (Note: Money is the root of all evil. Money is made out of numbers. Therefore, numbers are evil.)

On our way out we found ourselves behind one of The City's Finest, who was talking in a low voice to someone who worked at the college, who was saying "yeah, and also the heavyset guy in green," and the cop was scanning the street outside and nodding understandingly. Colby pointed out that we were about to walk right into a cop busting somebody up, so we did what anyone would do: took a table outdoors and waited.

And waited. I was itchy and it was hot. While we were waiting.

Eventually we located The Heavyset Guy In Green, who - oh, delight! - had crossed the street and was conversing with the LAWD lady, their posture and proximity implying they had a previous acquaintance of some duration. The cop was, predictably, nowhere to be found. Fuck this, announced Colby, and we headed the fifty frillion miles over twisty brick roads that were laid during the Taft administration and have not been touched up since. The LAWD lady glared suspiciously at me as we passed her. I smirked athiestically at her in return.

After we regained the car AND THE SWEET SWEET AIR CONDITIONING OH YES YES YES I persuaded Colby to do a loop around the block where the evangelists were. They were nowhere in sight. That made me happy. So happy, in fact, that I took the hockey gloves out of my backpack and put them on and then sang Queen at Colby the whole way home. (It's a wonder I have friends, really.)

Joey loved the prank, by the way. When he walked in the door I jumped out at him from the porch, fists up in the gloves the size of my head, and said: C'MON! YOU WANNA GO, HUH? C'MON! S'KONOW! And then I dropped 'em. A classic moment.

Today is the first official day of Fuck Me, It's Summer, because today is the first day my glasses fogged upon exiting a car.

There is a stunt, caused by an in-joke, that I've been meaning to pull since last September. For this I needed Dave's help; specifically I needed the gloves he wore when he played beer-league hockey back up in the Panhandle. He finally found them, and I got them tonight. I told him if Riley ate one I'd replace them. He said you go ahead and keep them, if I ever play again I'm getting new ones.

So now I have my non-brother's beat-up old hockey gloves. I'm sure they contributed to global warming in their prime, but by now they mostly smell like the trunk of a car. I brought them in and took them out of my backpack. Riley eyed me curiously. They are as big as her head. They are almost as big as my head. I experimentally bonked her in the face with one, the way I do with her chew toys. She wiggled. I did it again. She wiggled more. I'm sure you can guess what happened next.

ANNND A RIGHT! ANNND ANOTHER RIGHT! RILEY'S GOING FOR THE SWEATER! INDI NAILED THAT DOG RIGHT IN HER MIND!

This is our new favorite game. I may need new furniture.

(Also, today we saw an alligator and a bunch of birds in the swamp, and had Chinese food, and spent the second and third periods of the Pens-Flyers game discussing the Lightning. Dave days are the best.)

"This is a roadside attraction," said Wednesday. "One of the finest. Which means it is a place of power."



"Come again?"

( Lotsa photos. Dialup beware. )