Nothing to see here, move along, move along. The ICEholes didn’t get Miss Mia Sopaipilla.
However, she was plucked from beneath the rumpled comforter in our bed, unceremoniously stuffed into a carrier, and whisked away via Scary Noisy Rattlebox to the vet yesterday for a vaccination, a mani-pedi, and a quick looksee because — like so many of us — Miss Mia is Of a Certain Age. In this case, 19, which means she’s pushing 90 in our years.
Ninety. Holy hell. I’m neither half as spry nor a quarter as cute as she is, and I’m barely 72. She’s got more hair, too, though our whiskers are about the same shade of white.
Mia’s no longer the champion jumper she once was, but then neither am I. Since breaking that second ankle I hop onto and off of things about as well as Mr. Hilltop in “Young Frankenstein.”
But she’s only on the one medication — methimazole, for an overactive thyroid — whereas I would be on an even half-dozen if I could get any of the fun ones without risking a longish stretch in the cage myself.
As we rolled into the parking lot I noticed one vehicle with a Trump sticker, and once inside I glanced around, trying to I.D. the owner. But I didn’t see anyone with an ailing turkey buzzard, desert warthog, or vampire bat, so I couldn’t in good conscience slip the doc a double sawski and recommend a candidate for euthanasia.
“Oh, sure, you’re all about a rabies vaccination for your three-legged pit bull but the rest of us should be ‘free’ to croak of the COVID Measles,” I mumbled to no one in particular.
Miss Mia just rolled her lovely green eyes, which is her way of saying: “Can we get on with it, please? You may win the war of words in here, but you’re gonna lose the fight in the parking lot afterwards, and I want to get home to finish my nap without a side trip to the ER and/or jail.”
Mad Blog Media 
I keep wondering if someone will rip down the big RESIST sign Meena put up in the front yard. Been up a couple weeks now without someone putting buckshot through it.
Sometimes it is better to sneak across no-man’s land rather than fire a shot, recalling that movie Joyeux Noël. At least then the cat gets home alive.
A little over a week ago (while I was in a temporary reprieve from this raging snot-fest) a fellow gun guy and I (I’m on the executive board of an 1,100 member gun club) sat down over coffee with two of the local Moms Demand Action folks, one of whom lost a son to gunshots. We had a cordial, hour long conversation at a local coffee house and exchanged some commonalities as well as policy ideas. It helped that one of the Moms recognized me from our exchange of comments on a variety of issues in the local fish wrapper. So we knew each other a little even if we had never met in person.
Maybe sitting down at a table is what it takes. But you gotta get to that table. My fear is without a little effort to tone down the nastiness, we really are on a road to ruin. And damned if I want to lose my Socialist Security check if the nation falls apart.
We have an unofficial détente here in the cul-de-sac. Nobody puts up signs and there are hardly any window/bumper stickers on the vehicles. We have to talk to each other to figure out what we’re all about.
I’ve put out yard signs for candidates elsewhere, but I’ve never been a big fan of bumper stickers. I want people to dislike me for who I actually am. Just because I voted for Hillary doesn’t mean I want to join her for a moonlight stroll along the beach, down to the old Pedo Pizza Parlor for a dirty dogpile with the Bilderberg Group.
I’m with you on the yard sign/bumper sticker politics stuff. My better half wanted the sign, so we got the sign.
One of the funnier things that happened with me was when a fellow member of the Bike Advisory Committee up here who I worked with for a couple years found out I was a bit of a gun nut. She was shocked. Her comment was along the lines of “wow, and all this time I thought you were normal!”. I just about burst out laughing and responded, “well, maybe you were right all along”. Stereotypes are sometimes true, sometimes not.
She eventually nominated me for a board position on a state animal protection 501c3. Unfortunately, some of the existing board members went by the stereotype rather than meeting with me. c’est la vie. I probably would have been a thorn in their side anyway. I would have argued that we ban factory farming, rather than commit to half-measures.
I’ve seen that look before. I call it the “pillar of salt” look. Perhaps the Medusa stare would be more accurate? If you don’t do what I ask right now, I will take you down to the ground. As in a 150 pounds of ground round.
Miss Mia has some really great expressions she can whip on you. There’s the side-eye, the soft eyes, the wide eyes of disbelief, the wary Monty Pythonesque squint of “What’s all this then?” and finally that pillar-of-salt stare you mentioned. You want to be wearing long sleeves and heavy gloves for that one. Maybe a catcher’s mask and a helmet.
Perhaps the owner of the vehicle with the world’s biggest loser president sticker on it had their pooch in the back room of the vet’s office getting it’s stomach pumped because it had gotten into the mega size bag of maga brand ultra processed cheeseburger flavored chocolate chip cookies. I believe those are the cookies where all the sales proceeds go toward feeding the groundskeepers of Mira Lago. Of course the sales proceeds are offered in bags of cookies – the rejected seconds of course.
I hope that Miss Mia is well and is now relaxing in the sunshine of home.
Her Majesty had a rough day yesterday after the rabies vaccine and the travel to and from the vet (about 10 minutes total in the old rattletrap). But she’s back to her usual routine this morning, and says thanks for asking. Extra treats for being a good kitty helped.
Hatch, the 13 lb tomcat, had a rough day after his rabies shot too. Worried me at first, but then a couple hours later he went tearing across the house, up on his perch in a single bound, and looked at me with this “where’s dinner?” look.
Somewhat disappointed. You’d a whipped that Trumpers ass and then some. You’re a scrappy, wiry auld fella and coulda head butted him/her into the next county. But as noted would have likely had to hire a legal eagle to spring you. Sigh…MAGA stickers, hats and shirts deserve more than just a middle finger in my book. It says so on page 67 in the Book of Herb. “He who hath been shod in MAGA toggery shall be shamed whilst being beaten about the lips and gums with 5 irons and old Kenda MTB tires”.
Well … I gotta admit, if there’s one thing the rest of us can share with that crowd, it’s a love of critters. I wish they cared more about the two-legged beasties, but whadda ya gonna do?
The Trumper in the cul-de-sac has loved and cared for his dogs (three since we’ve been here). Also his mom and daughter and grandkid. He likes us, and the folks on either side of us. Pretty much everyone else can go and fuck themselves as far as he’s concerned.
Gotta meet people where they are, I guess. And try not to punch/club/knife/shoot them unless it’s absolutely necessary.
There was an article a year or two ago in one of the left leaning magazines about a very liberal lady who moved from NYC to a rural community in Upstate NY. She at first was a little worried about living in Magaville, but the whole point of the article was her recognition of the humanity of her conservative neighbors, who would be, without being asked, plowing her driveway, pulling her car out of the ditch, and doing all the kind things you expect of rural neighbors. Gave her a whole new perspective on people, even if they are right wing. Aha. Found it. Seems to be paywalled now, but I recall reading the whole thing.
Whatever Happens, Love Thy Neighbor, by Larissa Phillips
https://www.thefp.com/p/whatever-happens-love-thy-neighbor-trump-kamala
Of course in NYS, where I grew up in a small rural town, the separation of the sides has gotten ghastly-wide since I was a sprout up there. Seems both the left and right would rather tweak each other’s noses than cooperate on steering the ship o’ state. It’s sad, as far as I am concerned. In NYS, the hubris is bipartisan.
I’ve had plenty of opportunity to rub elbows with the other side of the aisle, which may be what turned me into a commie Back in the Day®. Couldn’t quite understand the disparities in earnings, lifestyle, and education between the officers and the troops, the suits and the bib-alls, the owners and the renters.
On Randolph AFB we lived in officers’ quarters but it was no problem to meet and hang out with NCO kids. In the B-burg we lefties were an endangered species, so quite a few of my riding buddies were more conservative than me. Yet we got along just fine, possibly because we were too busy doing Phil-and-Paul imitations to discuss politics.
In CrustyTucky there were more than a few real lulus, one of whom spoke of his caches of grub, guns, and ammo in the Sangres and asked if we would be “ready to kill” when the Brown Hordes of Pueblo came boiling up Hardscrabble Canyon looking for food, drink, and white women. Him we tried to avoid; not a lot of middle ground there.
But more than once some country type would slalom his beater F-250 to a halt to ask if I needed tools, a hand, or a ride when he saw me fixing a flat on the ol’ two-wheeler. And a three-tour Green Beanie had a shit-ton of prime acreage locked away in a conservancy to keep the land whores from burying it in ticky-tacky. He also ran out patrols during hunting season to see that no tipsy out-of-towners drove their ATVs through anyone’s fences or shot their cows, horses, dogs, spouses, children, outhouses, or bicycles.
Miss Mia’s adventure is a solid reminder that I need to take my 10-year-less old identical looking cat in for his annual checkup. 19 eh? She’s still looking spry. I was told that the breed (Chartreux) lives for usually 8-13 years. But 19 is VERY good! Must be all the love and long low stress naps in warm places. Hoping she’s around for many more years.
Miss Mia is a champ, for sure. She was losing weight there for a while and we feared the worst, but the thyroid med is definitely on the job. She’s put on weight and once again can leap onto The Chair of Love, where she will permit a backrub and a soupçon of brushing, though her days of clearing a tall building in a single bound are behind her.
She has an endearing quirk that she may have picked up from the late Mister Boo, our departed Japanese Chin. After a particularly gratifying No. 2 in the litter box she will step out, look around, go, “Rrrrr!” and then dash around the house — through my office, into the podcasting studio, into the living room, through a side table next to the couch, and like that there until she remembers, “WTF, I’m 90 years old,” and settles down to catch her breath.
Hope your kitty is happy and healthy too. They’re such interesting critters, each one an individual. I was a dog guy for the first half of my sentence in this Marvel Universe timeline, but it’s been delightful to share the second half with Miss Mia, The Turk, and Ike and Tina.
I fondly remember Mr. Boo taking the hot laps around the house on brick floors. A burst of acceleration at the beginning of the straightaway followed by his back drifting out under full power as he counter steered around the curves. Doc would have been proud. Mr. Boo the hot rodder!
O yeah. The Boo could really rally once he’d dropped a deuce.
Funny thing: Hal and I were just discussing Thomas McGuane’s “The Bushwhacked Piano” in which a Hudson Hornet is prominently featured.