Bruce is a little cat. Petunia and I conclude that he is still a kitten (though Petunia keeps referring to Bruce as ‘she’ then laughs and corrects herself and says, “I don’t know why I associate cats with females!”). The Mista thinks we’re wrong. He asks if I remember how big Noah was, as if Noah is an appropriate barometer for cat size. Noah was my mom’s cat, and well-known to be the runt of the litter. Bruce’s size is really of no consequence. It’s his presence that has made for an eventful weekend.
Bruce showed up on Friday morning. Attracted to our outside boiler closet. By the late afternoon, the Mista (working from home) began to worry about this cat’s whereabouts.
Why is it here?*
The Mista skyped me, “There’s a cat outside. It won’t leave. I called its owner. It’s name is Bruce. The owner says he roams, so he’s not worried. It’s driving Butters crazy.”
Seemingly intent on driving Butters crazy, Bruce has stayed all weekend. Butters pouts as she loiters outside whichever door or window from which Bruce has decided to taunt her. She whines. She won’t take her eyes off Bruce. Bruce is an unexpected cause of stress for our poor sweet dog. Poor Butters. She just wants to play.
So now I have to admit something, which I didn’t tell Bruce’s owner just now when I called him to tell him his cat is still here.
The Mista, Petunia and I did try to make Bruce and Butters friends. We coaxed Bruce in with dog food. Bruce is very friendly to humans. He purrs and bashes his head into your palm just asking for affection. Bring Butters into the picture, however, and Bruce becomes a little bitch. Butters is nothing but nice. Bruce is a snot.
There was a time when I would have said I was a cat person.
Not anymore. Butters has reformed me. Bruce has been the icing on the cake. Dogs are so much nicer than cats. Nice has become more important to me than clever or independent. I wonder if that’s an age thing.
Bruce’s owner doesn’t pick up the phone when I ring. I leave a message. 5 minutes later our phone rings. It’s Bruce’s owner. Obviously sleepy. Possibly hungover.
“Um, yes, I have gotten a little worried. Has he moved in with you?”
I bristle a bit under the possibly paranoid interpretation of that question. As if we are cat nappers and Bruce is the victim. As if we coaxed him into our lives. I feel a bit guilty that we did feed him some milk and shrimp after he finished the morsels of dog food we gave him.
“No, no. He’s nestled on our outside boiler. The truth is we have a Rottweiler. Bruce is driving her crazy.”
Bruce’s owner chuckles. He suggests that he should come by and collect Bruce from our boiler. I agree that it would be a good idea. I give him our address, hang up, and wonder if I have to get out of my pyjamas for the arrival of company. I wonder what the protocol is. Does this have to mean the end to my lazy Sunday?
*The first time in this blog that I use italics to interject myself into the Mista’s head! Wahoo!
A year ago, I got this advice:
“Throw the poop at her? Oh wait, that’s uncouth.”
– Jezebel
“Pick up the shit and put it in her yard.
Over and over again.
I guarantee it will work.”
– Betty
“I am with Betty. Not in the biblical sense but on this issue. There was a bloke who lived down the road from me who was a real James Blunt. His poxy dog shat outside my house contstantly. In the end I collected up his dog shit and any other I could find and deposited it on his doorstep under the cover of darkness (very SAS) every day for a week. He got the message eventually.”
– Billyboy
“Post every “find” to the high end retro furniture shop with an untraceable little note saying “returned to owner”
– BoyOnTop
“I think Billyboy has the solution.
She has a shop? A classy one too? Well then..smear her dog poop at the shop entrance early in the morning.”
– Wendz
“Scoop the poop onto her property, preferably her front door!”
– Maritza
Two wrongs don’t make a right. Two wrongs don’t make a right. Two wrongs … ah Shut up!”
The straw that broke the camel’s back was stuck between the Mista’s teeth. He was spittin’ mad. I was in shock.
What? Dog shit on our side of the gate? Intentionally?
The Mista was about to go into an apoplectic fit. I had to come to — if only to save him.
Two wrongs don’t make a right.
SHUT UP!
Somehow I must have attuned myself to the sage advice dished out more than a year ago.
“Put it in her yard. We’ve taken enough. Put it in her yard.”
The Mista looked at me as if he was weighing his options.
“Is anyone coming?”
I looked up the street. I looked down the street. I saw a woman a good distance off.
“All’s clear.”
The Mista tossed the crap over the low wall that separates us from our good neighbours.
I feel as if I should be ashamed. But, I am not.
“It must be convenient living next to the shop. They can hold onto packages delivered when you’re not home – I mean, supposing you get on. Do you get on?”
My relationship with the speaker is new enough that I hesitate with my honesty.
Who are you kidding, big mouth? When have you ever held back from such an obvious opportunity to bitch?
“Well, on the face of it we get on; but, truthfully, I can’t stand that lady. She’s such a . . . . “
“Snot!”
“bitch!”
“Yes!”
My relationship with the speaker has just grown stronger! There is nothing like a common dislike to bring two people together.
I elaborate on my dislike for my neighbour, the ass-faced, high-end-retro-furniture-shop-owner with proper examples – just to prove I’m not mean-spirited or petty. I explain how the Mista cunningly tracked the scat that was frequently found on our stoop to the arse-faced neighbour’s pesky dog.
“Oh, that dog’s horrible!” my new-found friend explains. Turns out that new-found friend has got stories of her own about my neighbour and the little dog with the loud bark and the tendency to shit on our doorstep.
I explain about the gate and how it was a gambit to keep the pooh at bay.
I explain how we secretly hope Butters will bite onto pooping-on-our-doorstep-dog’s scruff and shake the little fucker until he’s too scared to bark or poop.
New-found friend and I commiserate in the shocking inconsiderateness of bad neighbours.
I explain how, despite the gate, little dog poop still occasionally makes an appearance.
“You know, the postman sometimes leaves the gate open so the dog will find his way in from time to time.”
The next morning, the Mista and I lie in bed awake despite the early hour. We hear the squeak of our opening gate. Normally, this sound heralds the rubbish collectors or the post man or the girl who lives upstairs.
It’s not rubbish collection day. It’s not the hour for post to be delivered, and the girl who lives upstairs is out of town. We scratch our heads. We peek out the blinds. We see the ass-face waiting for her dog to do his business!
A woman at work says the boss of the bosses (The Big Boss) is a ‘strange old codger.’
Teehee: I agree.
But I dare not say so, because I’m on my way up.
He is a strange, old codger; a strange, old codger who likes me and is clearing my path for professional advancement. He’s convinced I’m a leader, a do-er, a make-things-happen-type-of-girl. I don’t disagree with his opinion, but there’s not much of a basis for him to have formed any such conclusion. He hardly knows me. He’s not had much exposure to my moxie moments. He operates on instinct. Maybe he sniffed my ass when I wasn’t looking. At any rate, he’s formed a postive opinion and wants to see me rise. He also likes women. Cute girls with self-confidence. He must not have sniffed out my darker moments when he was doing his sniffing. I will admit that I do a commendable job of keeping my vulnerabilities firmly compartmentalised. They stay at home or in this blog.
I’ve taken a detour. It was the word codger that did it.
This post was supposed to be about me and my fear of becoming an old codger: an old bastard resisting change.
When I saw the installation of new signage at Earl’s Court, my reaction was displeasure.
What do they have to go messing with the signs for?
When I got the email that my Swedish friend was leaving London after 6 years, my reaction was displeasure.
Why can’t she just settle down?
When the boiler broke, and the Mista proclaimed that we need a new one — no fixing the current one — my reaction was displeasure.
GOD DAMN IT I WAS LOOKING FORWARD TO A HOT BATH AND NEED TO SHAVE MY LEGS.
When the neighbour said she thought Right Said Fred had moved neighbourhoods, my reaction was displeasure.
You’re just trying to upset me. I always knew you were a bitch.
When I caught myself in a quiet moment dismaying, “Why all this change?” my reaction was displeasure.
What’s wrong with you, you old codger!
For a long time it was a mystery.
The Mista and I scratched our heads, looked at each other, and rhetorically – for we certainly didn’t expect the other to have the answer – asked, ‘Who? Who? Who would do that?’
Truthfully we shouldn’t have been so surprised. We’ve been around the block. We know the world is full of ass holes, or arse holes, depending upon in what part of the world you are.
For a long time I thought it was the curmudgeonly old man who hobbled down the pavement with a cane in one hand and a leash in the other. The leash was attached to a floppy-eared Cocker Spaniel.
That Curmudgeon would have a list of excuses to exonerate his poor behaviour:
First, and foremost, he was a curmudgeon; and curmudgeons by their nature are prone to a streak of unfavourable manners.
Secondly, he was a member of an altogether different generation; a generation, I reckoned, that hadn’t grown up during the age of pooper scoopers.
Finally, and most importantly, I was sure the curmudgeon wasn’t physically up to the task of bending down, not even to pick up his dog’s shit.
The Mista wasn’t convinced by my detective work. He felt I was casting spurious blame. It wasn’t the first time The Mista disagreed with an assessment I put forth; and it wasn’t the first time that The Mista would be right to disagree with my assessment.
The Mista had a plan. He proposed to work from home*, more specifically from the front room of our flat where he could monitor (spy on) the passers-by, canine and human alike.
His plan worked. Not 3 days into “working from home” and he caught the culprit empty handed, meaning she carried neither plastic bag nor any device with which she could collect her best friend’s excrement.
So who was it? The slothful fuck of a woman who let(s) her dog crap in our yard? The ass-faced neighbour/high-end retro furniture shop owner, of course.
The Mista caught her, caught her eye, and, trying to be a gentleman smiled when he asked, “You are going to pick up after your dog, aren’t you?”
Ass-faced high-end retro furnitrue shop owner looked bashfully embarrassed when she replied, “Oh, of course I am.”
You know what? The shit stayed there all week until The Mista stooped to pick it up.
We’re still plotting as to how to curtail ass-face’s unacceptable conduct. Suggestions?
*I do not believe the Mista shared his plan with The Man**.
**The Man = corporate headquarters.
I might have misled when I exuberantly intimated that — by virtue of my neighbourhood — I rub elbows with the likes of Right Said Fred.
The absolute truth is: I only rub elbows with 1/2 of Right Said Fred. If you must be a stickler about such things, it might be that I don’t actually “rub elbows with”, but occasionally spot a fraction of Right Said Fred from varying distances; the distances of which depend upon my luck at the given moment.
The fraction of Right Said Fred that I spot is either 1/3 or 1/2 depending upon your point of view. You see, Right Said Fred is not 1 man. Right Said Fred is the misinforming name of a musical group that may or may not be made up of three men. Fred isn’t even the name of the ‘front man’ of the group. It’s Richard; Richard’s brother is Fred. There seems to be a mysterious third (Bob) who has occasioned the group here and there. I didn’t know any of this in the early 1990′s (?) when the radio waves disseminated an arrogant message from a man whom I thought was called Fred and who considered himself to be too sexy for just about everything including his shirt, his cat, and his street, which just so happens to be my street also!
I only began researching Right Said Fred when proximity peaked my interest.
Hallelujah Internet! What a most friendly research tool!
The Internet informed me that the fraction of Right Said Fred with whom I “rub elbows”is the Front Man, Richard. Something the Internet might not disclose, but that I can state with a certain authority: Richard of Right Said Fred truly is too sexy for his street.
I am easily starstruck
Unfortunately, I lose my well-practiced veneer of the studied urbanite when I’m anywhere near celebrity. Any celebrity: big or small; A-List, B-List, C-List or X-List; politician; sports figure; star of the silver screen or boob tube floozy.
The OH (“Other Half”) would tell you that I’m downright uncouth in the presence of greatness such as Sandy from Big Brother, Series 3.
2002.
On this particular brush with greatness, The OH and I are treating my father to a pizza at the Pizza Express on St. Christopher’s Place. I know, I know: Pizza Express isn’t exemplary London dining. But, my Dad is over from America. What’s he know? He’s lucky that the OH and I are willing to be seen with him and his white socks and trainers and money-pouch hung around his neck in public. And his luck doesn’t stop there: an outing in London and a celebrity siting!
I’m suffering all the symptoms of Celebretititus. My eyes bulge, my neck cranes, I chew on my lower lip. I stammer, ‘Dddaaad. Tha tha that guy over there … ‘ my nod in the direction of Sandy is not as subtle as I would like. ‘He’s been on TV.’
Dad twists around in his seat to get a good look, turns around, with a shrug grunts ‘Never seen ‘em before.” then returns to his pizza.
The OH, having been born and bred in NYC is a true urbanite. He shakes his head in humiliation.
I’m certain Dad will be suitably impressed if I fill him in on the level of fame to which Sandy has reached.
‘See, Dad, he was on Big Brother. He used to wade around the swimming pool for exercise every morning; he couldn’t take it any more so he escaped the house by climbing up the roof.’
Dad looks at me like I wasted his hard earned money on my university education. He just keeps chewing on a slice of his 2nd rate pizza.
A brush with Sandy is but a small test. These days, my aspirations to stay cool in the presence of fame are being sorely tested. Right Said Fred live in my neighbourhood!
