chicken bones

when i see chicken bones strewn all about the street, there's this picture of bluto in my mind. you know the guy, popeye's nemesis. a big, fat, really mean man with a mean laugh. i picture him with a KFC bucket in his hand, inhaling one chicken leg after the other, and haphazardly tossing the bones wherever they may land.

which is where they were five seconds before my dog got them into her mouth. sometimes i even have to go in and dig deep into her throat to pull them out. and. i. just. don't. understand.

well i didn't understand. not till a coupla weeks ago, when i saw bluto's twin on the corner, wearing the biggest size emergency vest the wmata makes, with his arm cuddling an entire bucket 'o chicken. i didn't stick around long enough to see if he took bites or just stuck the meaty end of the chicken leg into his mouth and gnawed off all the meat in a single gulp, but i've stuck around the neighborhood long enough to see that bluto has a dozen twins on u street...

~k

choo choo douchebags

i take the subway to work. i love taking the subway to work because i feel like i'm really living up the whole city life thing, and i love the metro etiquette i've found underground.

fer instance, when the train is coming in everyone lines up, and when it stops, the lines move to either side of the doors so that when the doors open, the folks getting off the train have free access onto the platform, then we waiters file on.

so today, i was lined up, the train stopped, and i moved a wee to the right to open up the platform to the exiting people, and some dickface cut in line in front of me (i assume everyone reading this knows me, but in the event you don't, i walk with a cane (long story)). after everyone had exited the train, and we started getting onto the car, said dickface proceeded to ready himself to take the only available seat on the train.

i was like, "excuse me, but do you think maybe i can have that seat?" when i looked around, everyone was staring at him with a "what a fucking douchebag" look on their faces. and boy weren't they right.

~k

the hidden pieces of new

i changed my blog layout for the first time (sans an experimental phase i went through when we first went live). i haven't been feeling the old scroll look lately. it just doesn't fit anymore. like so many things that made me me yesterday.

my life is so different today than it was three months ago. i know: duh. but it isn't just the general scenery change, it's that i feel lighter. like i guess one might feel when they finally escape a life that didn't fit anymore.

there will always be a special place for los angeles in my heart, but it's the last place on earth i'd want to be. and whilst i am going to love every single second of living in the district, explore her every inch, wander far from her beaten path, and savor the rich flavors of the neighborhood i now call home, this isn't where i belong either.

i belong in the middle of the country. them's my people, and that's where i want to spend my days as a bona-fide-ish grown up (i mean, some people are never _really_ meant to be "old"). i dunno if it's the timing, the people in my life, if it's because i've truly been granted an escape and with it a fresh start, or if it's all of the above, but i have never felt more at peace with where i am and where i'm going.

~k

the oddities of dog

miss scarlet is the first dog i've ever had, so i'm new to everything "dog". which is probably the primary reason i find her so utterly fascinating.

i returned from a long bout of errand running this morning with a small bone for the little miss (her first non-nylabone), and she has been 100% occupied since the hand-off. when she finished her first round of bone-gnawing, she put its remains in her mouth and ran all over the apartment whining whilst seemingly looking for a place to bury the thing.

unsatisfied with her ability to bury her bone deep into the cushions of the couch, she proceeded to scope out her crate, the bottom of her toy box, and seemed to've found a winner of a spot underneath my reformer, way back towards the wall - away from everyone (everyone being me).

out she crawled, no bone in her mouth. ran around to the other side of the couch, jumped up onto the back of the couch and peered down into the nooks of the reformer (the high view, if you will), and then jumped off the couch, ran back around to the front of the reformer, crawled underneath and into her hide-a-bone spot, retrieved said bone, and is back to chewing underneath the coffee table.

awesomeness.

~k

fridays should be cakedays

everything was hard today!

first off, going into today i knew there was going to be some serious work drama. so i took lotsa deep breaths and pretty effectively controlled damage. but it was hard.

and there were computer issues - firmwide. and i have such little patience for technological irritants, the amount of stress i feel (admittedly asinine) is probably unhealthy.

and the paycheck fiasco. this is no one's fault, just an unbelievably ginormous comedy of misfortune. i just moved to a new city (in case you hadn't heard). my city has no chase bank (fer reals!?). so i had to open a new bank account. and whilst my original plan involved an auto deposit this week into my old account at chase and my end of the month paycheck going into the new one, turns out there's this pesky "live" check in the middle.

so the live check could only go to the new bank cuz there are no old banks within a 50-mile radius. and apparently new banks put holds on the checks of customers with new accounts (if i'd've understood the implications of this inconvenience, i'd've cashed my paycheck at bank of america and walked across the street with cash for said new bank account). so it's friday, my very last car payment was due today, and i had access to $8.33.

the worst part about that is that i have money everywhere, just nowhere i could get to it.

so, my company (being the awesomest most supportive, understanding place on earth) gave me a check from a petty cash account for a grand as a loan till my check clears. awesome, right!? so i do all the paperwork for that (which was doubly hard with all the computer mishaps), get the check, walk over to shitibank, and they wouldn't cash the check.

i have a california id, a check from a company right down the street, a new signature, ugh. so for 20 minutes i sat there while they figured it out, which they couldn't do until i called our LA office to put the hammer down.

yay! money!

and i got into a cab driven by the nicest cabbie possible. and i got home to a big dose of puppy love, a glass of wine, good company with good friends. and cutie texts from someone i love.

all's well that ends well.

~k

busboys and poets

i got completely drenched today by an unexpected downpour, choosing to leave the warmth and comfort of a neighborhood favorite to brave the torrential rains so my puppy wouldn't have to be alone in thunder (team so cal is having a wee trouble adjusting to this whole weather bit).

i was finally dining at this fabby place i've had my eye on. such a cool place, with its loungey vibe, shelves full of books, computers in action at every turn, folks dining in a total conversational setting, and the best part is that the bar is super fun too!. i pass this place every day on at least one of my walks, finally made it in, and even got a seat in the window. a little slice of new life heaven.

until the winds brought in a monsoon. i mighta had another glass of wine or even indulged in some sugary decadence whilst waiting out the storm, but thunder cracked the sky in half and off i went to save my scarlet. and though i had about half of sonya's umbrella, and a decent chunk of the walk was covered-ish, i kinda didn't hate getting rained on.

in fact, it was kind of amazing. just giving in. to rain.

~k

*in*

my furniture came today. it got picked up on the 17th of june and arrived today. odd start to my morning, with an oil spill having closed my street, my dog rolling around in the sand that DDOT threw down to soak up the goo, and a wee-morning trip to the vet (dudes, my vet is two blocks from here. TWO BLOCKS!) before the movers arrived with my boxes of life.

my vet surprised me. he is younger than me, has removed those giant rings that stretch out the bottoms of ear lobes of former punkers, and was wearing a backwards baseball cap (i didn't catch the team) with shorts and a t-shirt. (incidentally, this is the DC i've been looking for!) he dug my dog (extolling the all-too-familiar "i usually don't like small dogs, but yours..."), explained the swampy impact of DC on pets with just the right hint of snark, and pulled up his facebook page to introduce me to his dog. in a word, my vet _rocks_!

came back to meet the movers. my firm went balls to the wall on this move. it's made a very complicated (see quick) move so much easier. but it's still moving. and moving fucking sucks. i've spent the entire day unpacking, organizing, getting my 1,000 square foot apartment into 650 square feet.

and it looks _uh_may_zing_!

i'm not done. there are still boxes a plenty, pile up on pile of , "what the fuck do i do with this?", pictures left unhung, coffee cups without a place, and more shit than i'm sure i've got space for. but the place looks great. my things look fabulous in here, and whilst we're a few days shy of _home_, we're most of the way there. and i couldn't have done it without sonya like lasagna and her beau derek.

it. all. makes. me. so. happy.

the journey into my new life is rocking: new city, new job, new home, new boyfriend. and for the first time in a really long time, it all feels right.

~k