Sometimes you're in the shade, sometimes you're in the light.

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Tigger

Sadly, when I was eighteen years old, one night I came home after getting stoned on weed (but, not that stoned, you know how it wears off) and accidentally ran her over.

We had two cats, Tigger, and Loco. They usually both immediately moved out of the way when I pull up. But, I guess Tigger didn't make it in time, this time. I got out of the car and our next-door neighbor, my friend Parris, came running over to me and said, "Kathleen, I think you ran over your cat!" I got out and looked under my car, she wasn't there. Quickly we discovered she had made it over underneath my mom's car already parked next to my car. My mom, hearing what was said from inside the house, came out the front door with a flashlight just in time as we saw Tigger take her few last breaths. One of the most worse feelings in the world is killing someone you love.

I had to work the next day. So did mom. My parents had just divorced a few months earlier. The next early morning my mom called up my dad and asked him to please come over to take Tigger to be cremated. We placed her on a blanket in the garage that night before. He agreed.  

P.S. I took that photo on a film camera and developed the film and print it myself in Torrance High's Photography classroom with Mr. Steinberg. That's where I spent most of my time in high school - in the darkroom.

Finger shootin

2009 mini video with Photoshop effects and an error Final Cut effect that worked out for this sequence.

B L U E W A V E . . .

B L U E   W A V E   C O M E   O N 

W A S H   A W A Y   A L L  T H A T  I S   F A L S E

L E T   U S   A L L   L E A R N   T H E   T R U T H

Drawing

Have you ever been in a Hotel Conference meeting room for a Corporate business that you happen to be working for and are bored out of your mind? Me too.

Pinkie Pinkie Pinkie

Then came Pinkie and how to replace carpet with laminate tiles.

We got Pinkie for half price when we bought Jaspurr at a no-kill animal shelter in Redwood City, CA. We had a nice large apartment on the El Camino Real in Burlingame, CA. Beautiful town. Jaspurr and Pinkie were perfect together. They minded each other's space, bathed each other's top of their heads like cats do. An odd thing we noticed was Kellie's underwear being covered over the cat's food bowl after we returned from going out. Sometimes it was a sock. Sometimes, whatever it was didn't make it all the way to the bowl, but halfway from the kitchen door to the cat food bowl. We suspected it was Jaspurr's actions.

Soon we moved to San Jose county in the town of Campbell, CA to be the Resident Managers of the La Mancha Luxury Apartments. The apartment complex was a nice place. One three-bedroom, many two and one-bedroom apartments all surrounding, in a U-shape, a 70 foot gated pool, bicycle gate, poolroom, and laundry room. The neighborhood, a different story. Kellie decided she needed a puppy. Along comes Piglet from NARF (Nike Animal Rescue Foundation). He was maybe 6 months old. Scared. And STANK like the towel that came with him. Piglet had a short history of abuse. Long enough to cause behavior issues. NARF does not give out information such as where their animals come from, obviously to prevent normal good people with rage to retaliate against the animal abuser. That wasn't us. Live and let live, right? Karma's gonna get them. Piglet was a cute little grayish-brown chihuahua with scared watery little eyes and a mean bite. He once almost bit my hand in two when I tried to get him from one room to another.

Then came Lucy, a puppy chihuahua mix with "Honey I shrunk the German Shepherd" breed look came to join us to help keep Piglet company while the humans were at work - even though we already had two adult cats to mind the pups.

David, Kellie's friend, called Pinkie the way Bette Davis might have said, "Oh PINKA, PINKA, PINKA." You had to have been there. It was totally Bette. Because that's who Pinkie was even before she started to shit and urinate all over the carpet of our condo-style apartment. Oh! Pinkie, pinkie, pinkie!

That area seemed to be one of the spots for gang member families who received section 8 vouchers, a federal government's program for assisting low-income families ... until their kid(s) did something so bad that they lost their housing privileges. At least that's what one cop told me. We were living in a, I'll be nice, arm-pit neighborhood. Kellie, my girlfriend, didn't mind the place. She liked the apartment space and all the areas she could set up her plants and herbs whilst I cried and shat bricks regularly the 3 years I lived in that barrio. Oh yeah, Kellie and I were selected to manage the complex upon her request from the property manager after the previous manager was fired. She wanted it because it appeared to have more space than our 1000 sq ft apartment in Burlingame. It actually did not have that much more space, but if you counted the stairs, so maybe like 24 more feet. Me, being temporarily unemployed at the moment of the opportunity had no choice but to go along with the decision.

At least I got to make some friends in the building. Pat and Dave, the friends I made were very cool, educated, evolved, kind, and creative. They now live near me in an undisclosed location. I'm not super gregarious, so I found myself fortunate to have met them. They're like my kind of peeps. Art-, animal-, and movie-loving intellectuals.

Yeah, back to pee-pee Pinkie. And pee-pee Piglet. I think she caught on from pee-pee Piglet. I know Piglet started peeing in the apartment first. I don't know which odor is worse, female cat, or male dog. Neither animal was trainable. And neither odor could be removed no matter what we tried. Not even bleach. That only turned the carpet brighter. Later - as in much later, like after 10 years after leaving that apartment, I had heard from a young dude carpet cleaner, who was cleaning my carpet, that hydrogen peroxide is great for eliminating urine odor. First, you blot-up the urine (if you catch it wet!) with paper towels with the bottom of your shoe - or better use a wet-vac. Then, pour the hydrogen peroxide all over the area the urine had been. Then with a few paper towels, blot that up a bit after it has soaked in to cover the bottom-most layer of piss. No smell left behind at all. Amazing. Had I known this then, all I needed was 1024 sq. ft. worth of hydrogen peroxide and paper towels, and wet vac. Actually, no, that would not have prevented the two infamous pee-pee Ps to continue to piss (and shit) any and everywhere. That solution is just for special accidents. Pinkie and Piglet were out to fill the rugs with pee and poo, where ever there could, as often as they could. As if it was a contest.

At the time I was working 10 hours a day in Potrero Hill, CA. (San Francisco). Besides her perhaps territorial or bipolar behavior of not using the litter box, Pinkie was a super sweet cat. She was supposed to be my cat and my responsibility, so I was to take care of her, not necessarily Piglet. She was not one of those flimsy fluffy furry cats with mostly bones. She was all muscle. "Ohhh! Rocky!" I'm glad we never got into it. Her claw tips were thin and sharp. No, we wouldn't have had a brawl. She truly loved me. I would put my face right up to hers, wait a few seconds until I got one small tender lick on my lips. This was just about daily. And, I loved Pinkie. There was no way I would give Pinkie back to an animal shelter. And Kellie wasn't going to let Pinkie or Piglet go either.

Our solution was to rip up the carpet and padding and replace it with 1' x 1' inexpensive laminate tile. Cheap imitation stone looking tile with adhesive on the other side.

If you ever need to do this yourself, here is how we did it: Buy some good pair of gloves, an Olfa knife with lots of blades, a dust mask or two to guard the dust particles of the pure stink that's going to emanate when you cut up the carpet and papping, a pair of goggles, and many large trash bags that you will need to fill little by little of about 1.5' x 2' shaped stinking carpet and padding. You will need a couple other tools; pliers, preferably needle-nose, a mini 5.5" crowbar, and a step stool. You do not want to be sitting on that floor. Maybe some good music or podcast to help you make it through the two or three days of scooting along to get the dirty deed done.

You start from one end of the floor to the other end. Simply cut sections of carpet into roughly 1.5' x 1.5' to 2' strips. The padding is much more difficult to cut, so I just ripped it up. It rips up unevenly and there will be small pieces that will stay in place by the staples the carpet installer used. Those needle-nose pliers work extremely well to remove those patches of stapled down padding. Not all staples will have padding stuck to them, so watch out for those random staples. I became obsessed looking for the dang staples. Just when I thought I got them all, I found more. The mini crowbar works well to lift up all those thin track strips at the edges of the walls that were there to stretch the carpet down. Once finished with moving everything sweep the floor. Vacuum the floor, sweep the floor, and vacuum some more. Wipe down the floor leaving no particle of anything behind. Otherwise, the laminate tile will show a bump from the tiniest of whatever flake is left behind.                                                                                                                                          

Laying down the tile is easy, except for the uneven sections near the doorways. That takes some measuring and patience, and you'll be good. I'd suggest starting in the center of the floor and match each tile perfectly even in one direction. Then come back to the first tile that you laid down matching the edges perfectly heading in the opposite direction.

And, don't forget the upstairs. It came out looking pretty good. Pinkie had no choice but to use the little box. However, Piglet continued to lift his leg on anything that didn't move. I moved back to Burlingame so I cannot continue the story of Peepee Piglet.

Squee, the Scrub Jay

In September 2002 I had the opportunity to raise a Scrub Jay. For a month I house-sat for friends who were living in Ashland, Oregon. Prior to agreeing to house sitting, they had taken in a baby bird that had fallen from a nest. Nests, there are in pine trees, so it was a high fall. It obviously had some kind of trauma to her/his head and legs. Of course, I still agreed to house sit along with the disabled baby bird. After a month caring for Squee, as I name the baby bird, they let me keep her/him.  

So, we came to find out he did have a broken leg and cerebellum damage that wasn't that easy to diagnose until he was a teenage bird. The leg had to be amputated because it had grown sideways in the way of the good working leg. I never understood what he said, but he often tried to copy what I was saying with a cute little crow-like speaking voice. He was also affectionate. His poop was too big a slimy, otherwise, I would've let him sleep with me.  

Yes, I know I was supposed to take Squee to a wildlife rehabilitation center, where all injured wild animals are supposed to be taken. But we had already bonded. I loved the little guy. The knowledgeable bird caring people call it imprint. I call it human-bird love. By the way, if you ever find yourself in the position as I did, mealworms alone will not suffice their diet. My vet, who did not report me to the wildlife rehab. informed me worms are mostly mineral. They need more protein and cat food would do.

(To be continue).