I'm Shocked! Shocked I Tell You!

Netflix does not have the Leif Garrett movie Skateboard.  Or the Linda Blair movie Born Innocent. 

Really--what's a child of my generation supposed to do.  They both had "parental advisory" warnings before they came on channel 7 at 9 pm on a Sunday sometime in the late 70s.  And now that I'm actually old enough to watch them--I can't get the damn things on DVD.  And, just in case you were curious, the VHS with Korean subtitles is not as good as the original.

I did do a little google search a while back and found that the bitch with the toilet brush in Born Innocent now designs high end hand bags.  Good for her!  Proof that anyone can get beyond their prison experience.

I think I'm just going to have to let this go and see what BadKitten has for us tonight.

I Think This is Hilarious

Mostly because I LOATHE Neil Young.  It may have something to do with my fourth grade music teacher who made us all sing The Needle and the Damage Done for an assembly.  Fer chrissakes--we were nine years old.  And we were wearing plaid.  And I had on one of those cross over ties with the mother of pearl snap.  And I was standing--in height order which meant I was in the way back--singing a stoner song about heroin addiction for the entire school.  Needless to say, she (and her leather vest, long hair and Indian arm band) only lasted for half the year.  And, by the way, thank you very much Miss Hippy Dippy music teacher.  For the other half of the year we had a really odd music teacher who taught us music theory--very relevant for a fourth grader--and ruined all the fun of music class for us.  I'm surprised that we didn't all pool our trick-or-treat-for-Unicef money and buy some smack to get through that class.

Or maybe it had something to do with the boss I had a few years ago.  Good God, the man was a tool.  I threw a fabulous fundraising party for the organization that he was in charge of and--get this--I booked Grand Master Flash as our DJ.  The man is an icon.  He is absolutely THE definitive NY DJ of all time and, honestly, if he was spinning at your house on Thanksgiving, the turkey carcass would be up dancing.  But the day before the party, my tool (did I mention that he was a tool) of a boss called me into his office where he told me that he had made up a playlist for Grand Master Flash.  Including--you guessed it--some Neil Young.  Yeah.  Okay.  I'll get right on that.  Nothing like a really nasal depressing song to get this party started.

So anyway, this made me laugh.



And while we're at it, let's check out BadKitten Day 23.  This is an awesome song.

And Then There Were Three

Babycat died this morning.  She died at home, very comfortably in her little nest.  I knew she was going.  She stopped eating about a week and a half ago and she stopped grooming herself about the same time.

But damn.  It was still really sad.  I was petting her and talking to her while she went and it really really sucked.

So let me tell you a little bit about this lovely little cat.

First of all, her name wasn't originally Babycat.  It was Zelda.  But I lived in a great apartment in Sag Harbor. It was half of the second floor of a converted Victorian house.  So I had nine gorgeous windows that wrapped around from my kitchen to my bedroom (which sat on top of the porch roof).

I had my sister's cat (long story) whose real name was Tish but she had been bounced around so many times that everyone always said "how is that orange cat"?  Well that orange cat hated living alone.  She licked all the fur off her belly and legs and the vet told me that I had to get her a kitten because she needed a baby to take care of. 

So I dropped "that orange cat" off at home and went to work.  At the time, I was working for the East Hampton Star and one of my coworkers said "Hey--one of the partners in my husband's architectural firm has a houseful of kittens who will be ready for adoption in a week" so off I went.  It was Saturday of Memorial Day weekend and I drove out to Hampton Bays to check out these kittens.

And they all looked exactly alike.  Almost like the Baldwin boys.

But one of them was just as gray and fluffy as the rest of them but the tip of her tail was as white as white can be.  So I picked her.  And she rode home in my lap.  (I actually stopped and did a radio remote on the way home but that is a whole other lifetime and I don't really feel like getting into it right now.  Suffice it to say--she was famous on the radio for five minutes).

So we went home to the great apartment with the nine windows and the older cat who just wanted to love her. And then her life got even better.

You see, my downstairs neighbor was a Japanese ex-sumo wrestler who was working as a sushi chef in town.  And he fell in love with her.  And, like a good little kitten, she fell in love with him.

Every night, she would wait in the kitchen window for him to come home and she would follow him from window to window and, when he got to the front door, I would have to let her run down the stairs to meet him.  Of course, he would have little treats for her.

They were best friends.  But his English stunk.  So as they did their window walk every night, he would chat to her in Japanese and call her Babycat.

And that is how she got her name.

Of course, at that point, it seemed to make a lot of sense to start calling the orange cat, Orangecat.  And when I adopted a really tiny cat I named her Tinycat.  So now, all of my cats have --cat names.  Sadly, it's a little like the Ramones now.  All of the originals are gone. I have three cats left--Heatherthecat, Maxthecat and Smokeythecat.  But they all had established names when I got them so all the original cat cats are gone.

Let's get back to Babycat.

She was  a good girl.  She really liked people, especially children, and was a very friendly but undemanding cat.  About six years ago, she went deaf and got scared and moved into the linen closet for three years.  I called the vet and they said as long as she is happy, leave her alone.  My neighbor--who hates cats but is the best next door neighbor you could ever ask for--came over when I got stuck in DC in a blizzard and actually got her out of the closet for about five minutes.

She was as happy as I could make her in the closet but I knew it wasn't ideal.  There was someone in my life for a while who actually got her out of the closet and helped her live as a deaf cat in a hearing cat world.  I will always be grateful to that person.  It was very special and kind.

A few weeks ago, she stopped eating and stopped grooming herself.

And this morning she died.

She was a really good cat.

Here's BadKitten Day 22

BadKitten Day 21--ish

BadKitten Day 20

BadKitten--Almost at the halfway point

I was planning on a longer post tonight but I'm on the run.  Have to answer a few emails and then scram out of the door for book club.  We read The Help this month and we all know how I feel about that book so it should be really great. 

I do feel the need to apologize for the hit and run (and might I add very poorly written) posts lately but life has been busy busy busy and lots of fun (for the most part).  Hopefully we'll be back to normal soon.

I really like today's choice from BadKitten.  It's a cool song but I had a really hard time finding a version that I could share on YouTube.  Sometimes they won't let you embed the official video so you have to go scrambling through the rest of the unofficial ones trying to find one that will work.  We're going a little multicultural today. 

P.S.  I've been asked if I choose the song from the list each day but, honestly, I'm just going in the order that BadKitten gave them to me.  Although I will admit that the Lily Allen song a few weeks back was shockingly appropriate for the day. 

Enjoy.



  

What a Wonderful Day.

Yesterday two of my neighbors got married--to each other.  And it was wonderful.  On Friday night, I picked up the groom's sister, brother in law and niece at the airport.  Cocktail Party in a Box was a huge hit!  Although I do think that they may have thought I was a bit of a loon when I opened the bottle of sparkling cider on the barricade in short term parking at Laguardia.

It was an afternoon wedding with a desperately elegant cocktail party and dinner.  I think I can speak for every woman there when I say that the party made us feel like Katharine Hepburn.  It was that kind of cool.  We will not discuss the arrival of the police or Sarah Palin's slutty older sister.  Just know that we had a great time.

When I got home, I found this waiting for me at my front door.

Really--can a day get any better. 

Of course it can--if it's BadKitten day 18.

Cocktail Party in a Box

I have the absolute pleasure of picking up wedding guests at the airport tonight.  The wedding is tomorrow and it's going to be wonderful so I am just delighted to be able to help people get there.  Of course, there will be some celebrating going on at the hotel tonight so I thought it would be a good idea to start the party in the car as soon as they arrive.

I give you, Cocktail Party in a Box!

 A nice tupperware, cheddar, crackers, grapes, a little shrimp cocktail, some sparkling cider and a CD of good cocktail party music and voila!  It's a party!

Of course airlines are unpredictable so I'll also have my knitting bag in case I have to wait.  Although I do love the online flight status check thingy that all the airlines have now.  You can actually look at the map and see where the plane is.  Tres cool.

But wait, before I go galavanting around, here's BadKitten Day 17. 

I Heart Green Day BadKitten Day 16

I love love love love love this song.  I love a lot of things right now but I really truly madly deeply love this song.

Hmmm...not sure what happened

Let's try this again.  BadKitten Day 15   Thank you Margret for being on top of it!