by Richard Timothy | Sep 14, 2010 | I Think There's a Point, Non-Fiction, Observationally Speaking, When I Was a Kid
I suppose that if there were ever a really bad B style horror movie made about Tippy and her insatiable craving for attacking the human race, this next story might be a good starting point. I’d like to say it’s about a good kitty gone bad, but to be as accurate as possible we better make it a bad kitty gone worse, well the same I guess. Tippy was always Tippy that never changed. due to relentless teasing by angst filled youth. Part two of Tippy’s attack cat memoirs begins with a sleepover my brother Dave was having with a few of his friends.
Being prepubescent boys there is a certain amount of mischievousness that, when you are of that age, seems funny. However, in the overall scheme of things it turns out not to be such a good idea. Enter Steve. Steve was one of the friends staying the night. While wandering around the house he noticed Tippy in the kitchen drinking out of her water dish. He called some of the other boys over to show them the brilliantly hysterical idea he just had. As the boys gathered around Steve bent over and tapped Tippy on the back of the head so that her face when into the water.
She pulled her head back, shook off the water that covered her face and in her best nonchalant manner, looked up at Steve. She stared at him for a few seconds and then went back to drinking. Steve did it again, and the group of boys giggled. Again Tippy just took a few moments to stare at Steve and when back to drinking. This process continued for a few more cycles, but the cat’s lack of response caused the boys to venture into a different room in the house to find something else to entertain them.
Eventually the phrase that has haunted and derailed the endless joy of having a sleep over with your friends was uttered… it was “time of bed.” A unanimous sigh of disappointment rose from the boys like a cloud of steam rising off the roads after a random rain storm in the middle of summer. But the adults had spoken, so Dave’s group of friends filed into the television room and climbed into their sleeping bags.
With five boys covering the orange shag carpeted floor, Dave cracked the door open to get a little air flow into the room. Then he flipped off the lights and climbed into his sleeping bag. Just as he was about two thirds submerged in his sleeping bag he felt a soft brush of fur against this arm. The cat was in the room with them. Dave jumped up, stumbled across the floor of boys as fast as he could and flipped on the light. It was too late. Tippy had taken her revenge.
Tippy had her front paws wrapped around the side of Steve’s head. Her back paws were wrapped around Steve’s neck, and she was biting his forehead. Steve attempted to scream out, but because the cat was wrapped around his face the second he opened his mouth to scream all he got was a mouth full of fur. So instead of a scream you got a lot of spitting sounds as he tried to get the fur out of his mouth. The second Dave took a step towards the cat she leapt off Steve’s face and dove out of the room.
After a thorough going over, Steve only had a few light scratches and a little bit of a twitch every time you said Tippy. As everyone calmed down and got ready for bed once again, Dave made sure the door was tightly closed this time. The others had laughed when her face kept getting tapped into the water so there was no telling how far she would go to get where she considered things to be even.
Turns out she was rather content with just biting Steve’s face and calling it even. As I recall, Steve never did bothered her again. In fact I’m not sure he came over much after the incident, just as a precaution.
Sadly, I have no idea what happened to Tippy. We had our cousins stop by to feed her while we went away on holiday one summer. When we got back, she was gone. Our cousins told us that they had not seen her for the latter part of the week. They would come over but fill her dish, but it had remained full for three days in a row. There are many possibilities as to what happened to her.
Perhaps the mothership came to take her home because her race of attack felines needed a champion. Maybe she picked a fight with a person who had a concealed weapons permit who didn’t like the way she was eyeballing them. Personally, I like to think that after four days of not having anyone to terrify and spontaneously attack for the sake of attacking, which she did do a lot, she set out on a walk about to reek terror on the world one Tippy attack at a time. It really does seem like the only logical explanation.
Image Sources:
Google Images, keywords: attack cat and wet cat.
by Richard Timothy | Sep 13, 2010 | I Think There's a Point, Non-Fiction, Observationally Speaking, When I Was a Kid
Pets, I’ve had plenty growing up… a few dogs, some fish, even some gerbils, but mostly cats. Yes cats, not necessarily because we were cat people, but because we weren’t pet people. When you own a cat it’s more of a living arrangement where one party takes care of the food and taking out the trash, while the other fills the roll of eating the food and contributing to the trash fill by my making processed food deposits in its very own box of rocks.
Let’s see, when it came to cats the ones I remember clearly are Bertha, TJ, Cosmo, Tigger, Tippy, and Evil… well my friends and I called it Evil, but my sister who actually brought the little thing home called it Misha. Crazy thing is she’s still around. She’s twenty people years old now and going strong. Granted she sleeps about twenty hours a day, but for those four hours she’s awake she’s eating cat food with her one remaining tooth and hiking up and down the stairs trying to find a nice warm spot to take a nap. Still, out of all of the cats we’ve had over the years the one that gets talked about the most when the family gets together is the one we called Tippy.
Tippy was more of an obvious name than a clever name. She was a fluffy little gray kitten, except for the tips. Every tip of the little fur ball looked like it had been dipped in bleach. The tips of her ears, her nose, her tail, her paws, even her tummy were all white. I’m not sure what it was about this cat, but if I had to pick just two words to describe it, juvenile delinquent are first ones that come to mind. Tippy had the memory of an elephant and the personality of a vindictive super villain that always got even. To compare it to the great felines in literary history, Tippy was the type of cat that would give Greebo a run for his money.
If you wronged this cat in any way, it remembered who you were and WOULD get even. The first example that comes to mind is my mom. She was in the kitchen one afternoon getting lunch ready. When Tippy saw someone bigger than her with opposable thumbs who could actually reach the cupboards were all the food is, she would wander into the kitchen with the intention of making herself noticed. This was in hopes that the human she was pestering would get her a little shack or even some scraps in place of her crunch dry cat food.
My mother had already kicked everyone, kids and pets alike, out of the kitchen. Tippy managed to run back in the house as all of the kids were filing out of sliding glass door into the back yard. It didn’t take long before there was a clatter of pots and pans and a yell from inside the house. The back door sudden slid open and there was my mom, holding Tippy cat by the immobilizing scruff of her neck. Then in one valiant heave, like a valkyrie doing the one handed underhand tree stump toss at the Valhalla Olympics, let go of the cat while yelling her infamous battle cry, “Stupid cat!” and slammed the door shut, which takes a lot of skill when you are stuck using only a sliding door.
Tippy made the kitty equivalent cry of someone jumping out of a plane without a parachute. As she spun and flew through the air her claws were and paws were out stretched in hopes that she would eventually catch hold of something tangible to hold on to and could then eventually make her way back to the ground. Instead Tippy landed about twenty feet from the back door. The second her paws touched the ground she was in a full sprint dashing away from the house and my mom.
It wasn’t until that evening, after dinner had been eaten and most of the kids were huddled around my mom on the living room couch to have a story read to us, that the cat had decided she had waited long enough. It was time for words to be exchanged between the two ladies of the house. My oldest brother was sitting in a chair across from the couch and watched the whole event transpire. Tippy, in the ultra silent ninja mode that comes to naturally to cats in general, scaled up the back of the couch. Once on the head-rest portion of the couch Tippy crouched as low as she could. Her complete and total attention was focused on my mom’s head. She would move an inch, then stop, then another inch, and then stopped again. She continued this stalking method until she was about four inches from my mom. Then, as her claws dug into the couch, she leaned forward so that her head was about three inches from my mom’s ear and hissed as loud as she could.
My mom screamed and threw the book in the air while yelling, “Stupid cat!” As soon as the book began its impromptu assertion out of my mom’s hand and toward the ceiling, Tippy leaped off the couch away from my mom and hid out the rest of the night. In the morning the cat walked into the kitchen and sat next to her food bowl. My mom noticed the cat, put some eggs into some boiling water, and then put some food in Tippy’s bowl. They came to a sort of truce I believe. If my mom was alone in the kitchen, Tippy would come in, but always stayed close to her bowl making sure she was out of my mom’s way. In return my mom would give her a little something in return, usually either an egg yolk or the juice from a can of tuna. Of course if any of us kids were in the kitchen, you can be assured that she was in there with us, underfoot and trying to get a sample of whatever it was that we were creating for an after school snack.
There is one more Tippy story that really does need to be shared. My favorite of all the Tippy stories that we acquired in the short time we had her. Come back tomorrow and I’ll tell you all about the slumber party were Tippy tried to eat Steve.
Do you have any revenge cat stories?
Image Sources:
Google Images, keywords: gray kitten, attack cat, falling cat, and cat food bowl.
by Richard Timothy | Sep 10, 2010 | I Think There's a Point, My Cutie Baby Sweetie Pie, My List of Things that Don't Suck, Non-Fiction, Observationally Speaking
Sleep… it’s one of those things that make us all the same. Granted, what we do in our sleep varies dramatically from person to person. Take me for example, now according to my sweetie-baby-cutie-pie, I flip over more times than a flapjack competing for a gold medal at an event where such things get people gold colored metals, or a blue ribbon at the very least. As for Angela, I really can’t say, I’m usually asleep before she is. Unless I can’t sleep, then I sneak out of bed, go to my office and work… or play, until I’m exhausted and ready to sleep.
I think one of my favorite things about sleep is how people react when they reach that deep state of slumber where Michael Stipe and his band mates begin making your eyes twitch rapidly. One of my favorite experiences of this happened during the first year Angela and I were together. We would take turns crashing at each others place because it was way too soon to get a place together. Anyway, one morning, a good twenty minutes before I was to hit my snooze button for the first or many times that morning, Angela woke up to the sound of singing, muffled, face in pillow singing, but singing just the same. She sat up and looked at me. Apparently, I was jerking my body around in little movements along with the incoherent song I was mumbling out of the side of my mouth. She then asked me, “Are you singing?”
This question pulled me right out of my dreamy rehearsal and into a reality where my dream was interfering with my honey’s sleep time. In a half sleep stupor and replied honestly and directly, “Yes, we were rehearsing for the big show that opens tomorrow. We only have one more dance to get through before we’re done.” She started laughing, and I went back to sleep so I could get back to rehearsing because I knew everyone was waiting for me.
She was kind enough to return the experience a few months later. It was probably three in the morning and Angela starts shaking me with one hand, and in a very concerned and worried voice told me, “Richard… Richard, there’s a bug on me. Get it off. I’m not even kidding. Get it off of me. It’s huge. I can’t move.”
I got out of bed, walked over to the light switch. As I flipped on the slights, Angela squeezed her eyes such and feinted away from the lights overhead. Seeing nothing on the blanket on top of her I asked, “Where’s the bug?”
Angela answered with laughter. She told me she was having a dream that we were camping and, well, you can probably guess what happened. We still laugh about that one from time to time, particularly the “I’m not even kidding” part.
There are times when sleeping can be a touch more dangerous than you would expect it to be. I have one friend that would have ninja battles in his dreams. The problem was that his wife turned out to be his opponent. He’d be facing off with some evil warrior and start kicking… in both his dream and real life, resulting in accidentally kicking his wife out of her sleep and onto the floor. Because his dreams were so vivid if she would get back in bed, he thought that the opponent was coming after him and would try to kick her out of bed again. When he woke up in the morning and found his wife asleep on the couch he was a touch confused. When he found out it was because she was afraid to get back in bed with the Sleeping American Ninja he talked to some people to get things sorted out. It’s now an incredibly rare occurrence as opposed to a once a week event.
One thing about sleep is when it’s good it’s like dessert for your brain… a sort of crunchy topped creamy yummy thing that the French are just crazy about, or that Italian cream filled cake that people who love the flavor of coffee just can’t seem to get enough of… or a combination of the two like some sort of tiramisu flavored Crème Brulee. Of course when it’s bad, it’s like a lot like poring yourself a tall glass of fresh brewed ice tea and half way down your realize you just poured yourself a glass of the vegetable soup stock that was made the night before, which has two key flavors that you’ve been gulping down, garlic and onions. It’s not an experience I’d wish on anyone, and it’s really not the way one should start off their day, but it sure will wake you up. Even after brushing my teeth three times I still couldn’t get the flavor out of my mouth… The point is you end up waking up tired, which I’ve always considered it to be a complete waste of time. It’s always a disgruntled morning when sleep leaves you tired.
Sleep is maintenance for your body and mind. Getting some sound sleep is like running your virus scan on your computer daily. It does help. And if you do find yourself a bit under the weather, get more sleep. Your body will thank you, your brain will thank you, and the people that could catch whatever it is you had will thank you for staying home to get some extra sleep until you felt well enough to come back to work. One last thing, when sleep comes over for the night, trust me… do not kick it out of bed. You deserve it.
What is one of your sleep stories that always puts a smirk on your face?
Image Sources:
Google Images, keywords: couple sleeping, dance rehearsal, ninja battle, and crème brulee.
by Richard Timothy | Sep 8, 2010 | Holiday Banter, My Cutie Baby Sweetie Pie, My List of Things that Don't Suck, Non-Fiction, Observationally Speaking, Reviewed and Recommended
“Those are big sheep,” Angela said from the passenger’s side of the front seat.
I made a quick glance into a field and as my eyes returned to the road I chuckled a bit and said, “Um, honey, those are llamas.”
She turned around to look out the back window and double checked. “Oh! Well I only saw their woolly backs.”
It wasn’t my cutie-baby-sweetie-pie’s first animal misidentification of the trip and it wasn’t going to be the last. The first happened as we were traveling along the freeway across some sagebrush infested plains. She looked out the window and said, “Oh look, deer.”
Focusing more on passing a Winnebago than looking at what she saw I made one small assumption and asked, “Are you sure they’re not antelope?”
“They could be. They are funny looking deer.”
People have different strengths, identifying animals in nature is really not one Angela’s. But she still tries… and I love that about her. Plus it keeps us laughing as the miles roll by.
For Labor Day weekend this year, we did something that we had not done in years… we left town. It was actually a joint effort. Three of our dear friends, one of which grew up in the same town in Wyoming as I did, and Angela and I decided to go to Star Valley for Labor Day weekend to do some hiking, and so our friend and I could introduce them to the place we identified as our “hometown” on our Facebook profiles. Our friend’s parents, who still lived in town and had the extra space, were kind enough to put us up for two nights (Saturday and Sunday).
We all arrived at our friend’s parent’s house within the same half hour. After we got our cars unpacked, we all piled into Angela’s car and headed up the canyon to go on a hike to see the world’s largest intermittent spring. Sure there were a lot of cowboy’s and jacked up trucks I had to deal with growing up, but the water… it’s liquid perfection. Whenever I have the treat of being able to drink some, it always takes me back. It is the flavor of my youth… well that and Mountain Dew.
After our hike, which is now mostly a stroll due to a lot of trail reformation thanks to excessive use of a CAT, we made our way to a little chocolate shop on Main Street. We even parked next to the only street light in town; a flashing yellow light where a crosswalk is in the middle of Main Street. It just so happens to be resting on right under a mammoth (as in large and not the extinct animal of the woolly variety) arch made of elk horns that spans across the entire four lane width of Main Street. The claim is that it’s a largest elk horn arch in the world. I don’t know if this is true or not, but it’s always stricken me as an odd source of town pride… and it’s been there as long as I can remember making the people of Afton very proud.
Star Valley is beautiful… I will give it that well deserved credit. I say Star Valley instead of Afton because Afton is in Star Valley. See there are about nine or ten little towns in the forty mile stretch that makes up Star Valley. So even though there are a bunch of elementary schools there is only one junior high school and high school, both of which bare the title Star Valley. So when I say Star Valley I do mean Afton as well, but I also mean all of the other towns that make up the valley as well.
One thing I did manage to do while driving everyone around town was to show them all of the buildings I had climbed on top of and thrown tomatoes, water balloons, and eggs off of. There was that one Molotov cocktail that was thrown off the movie theater once, but I had nothing to do with… I mean I was there, but I didn’t help make the thing, or light it… or throw it… I might verbally suggested that the culprit give the thing a toss once it had been lit, but that’s it, I swear. It was late at night too, so most everyone was asleep and the flames only lasted about five minutes anyway. The police never even showed up to investigate… and the flames were only about 100 yards from the dispatch center, so it’s not like they would have far to go if they had noticed.
It’s funny, but after almost 20 years of not living there, most things still look the same. There are a few new buildings that are pretty and a few remolded ones that are the kind of eye sore that had your eyes their own appendages they would poke themselves in the eye just so they wouldn’t have to look at it. I’m talking about you Courtesy Ford.
Saturday consisted of enjoying dinner with our friend’s parents, followed by a discussion about post-modern movement of philosophy. It was actually a lovely discussion, which we rewarded ourselves but getting shakes at the local drive-in restaurant the Red Baron, which is still as good as I remember. Well done and thank you for not letting my nostalgic taste buds down. Then went and caught the late show at the only theater in town, which is part of that same eye sore car dealership of a building.
Because Star Valley was settled by religious folk, and the offspring of these said religious folk still make up 95+% of the entire valley’s population this can only mean one thing… nothing is open on Sundays. So to address this issue, we went to Jackson (Jackson Hole) for the day instead, because in Jackson, tourism trumps religion every time. It was a bit blustery, but we still made it to some nice spots and took lots of pictures of the illustrious Tetons. We even had another Angela animal sighting… turned out to be an elk… pretending to be a moose.
We stopped at the grocery before leaving town so we could A) get some food for dinner because the grocery in Star Valley was closed and B) so we could buy some wine for dinner. Let’s just say liquor stores in Star Valley are not renowned for their wine selections… unless you consider all of the flavors of Boone’s Farm flavored malt beverages to count as wine. For my ‘take home and save for a special occasion’ find I scored a bottle of ‘Old Codger’ an Australian Port. I have no idea if it’s good or not, but seriously, how could you pass up a port called ‘Old Codger.’ I smile every time I look at the bottle.
Sunday evening ended with us sitting around the dinner in the guest kitchen, eating cheese and bread, enjoying aged balsamic vinegar with the cheese and bread and filling the night with sips of wine and conversation about how we came out of a small Wyoming town ‘normal’ and with a liberal perspective. We then topped the evening off with a few eyefuls of stars thank to our friend bringing his telescope.
I do have to say though, that there was one thing that kept cracking me up the whole trip. I’m sure I was the only one to notice, but it was the constant use of the phrase, “I’ve got 3G coverage here,” or the other just as used phrase, “I’ve got no signal here.” I guess when you use your phone as a paper weight with a monthly payment plan phrases like that never come to mind. But for those that use their phones to update Facebook, use the GPS so we don’t miss our turn, or Google one of the little sites we are seeing to get a more in-depth history about it, I can see how that could be important.
All in all, it was a brilliant Labor Day weekend… and I only scared the hell out of my wife about 23 different times passing cars on the small back highways the lead out of Wyoming back to Utah… but for the record, we did make good time, and that nervous twitch in her eye is gone now. As for Star Valley, I’m glad I don’t live there anymore, but it is a groovy little place to spend a weekend…. you know, before the snow sets in. Thanks for the memories you little valley of stars.
How was your Labor Day weekend?
Image Sources:
Google Images, keywords: road trip couple, periodic spring, elk horn arch, Courtesy Ford, Cunningham’s Cabin, Old Codger port, and Star Valley.
by Richard Timothy | Sep 7, 2010 | Holiday Banter, Non-Fiction, Observationally Speaking, Public Service Announcement
The end of labor is to gain leisure. ~Aristotle
Have you ever wondered about Labor Day? I know I haven’t. It has always been one of those things that I never cared about when I had a job that made me work on the holiday and that I took for granted when I finally had a job that paid me not to come to work on that day.
So I finally did it this year, I looked it up. Turns out Labor Day is a US holiday and is always celebrated on the first Monday of September. Because I’ve never taken the time to learn anything about Labor Day, I always made something up when the topic came up. I decided that it was a holiday for the working class. It is a day to celebrate all those people in the US that have jobs. It came was originated by corporations who traditionally treat their employees like crap. In an attempt to keep the workers calm, corporations would give them a paid day off once a year. This would appease the workers and pacify them enough to keep them organizing and attempting some type of upheaval… Hey it sounded pretty good the first time a made that up to explain what Labor Day was all about.
Having actually looked it up there were a few things about the holiday that I did not know. Things like the holiday being around since 1894. Turns out the true origins of Labor Day have something to do with President Grover Cleveland trying to make things better after a number of works were killed during a strike by police and military. I think the truly amazing thing is that the government was able to rush legislation of making Labor Day a national holiday and having it pass unanimously and become a law in only six days after the strike ended. When was the last time the US government was able to do that? And for the record, that was a rhetorical question.
Upon further reading about the topic, turns out after 100+ years the holiday has adopted a number of additional symbolic meanings. For most people these days, Labor Day marks the end of summer. This helps explain why so many people try to get out into the wild for one last camping weekend before the season changes. Another Labor Day meaning I discovered, the beginning of football season… who knew? I even asked a few of my football watching friends if this was true. They neither confirmed nor denied it, but I did get a few looks. It was the look you give people when they say something that is so obvious that you’re not sure want to get to close to them because you are afraid that some of their lack of obviousness might rub off on you and bring you closer to a live action version of Homer Simpson.
Due to getting this look a lot in my life due to my completely and utter lack of sports knowledge, I’ve learned a trick when this situation occurs. I simply count, in my head, to ten and then say out loud in my best “matter-of-fact” voice, “The Packers rock.” This is either accompanied by nods of agreement or shaking side to side, questioning my choice of team patronage. Still, because I have praised a team in this sporting genre, the people tend forgive and forget my previous sports knowledge blunder. You’d be surprised how many times that little trick has come in handy in my life.
And that’s Labor Day for you. Personally, I like my origin better… and so do the conspiracy theorists.
As for my Labor Day this year I did something I had not done in years… I went on a bit of a weekend holiday… in the town I grew up in! Come back tomorrow and I’ll tell you all about it.
Image Sources:
Google Images, keywords: Labor Day, end of summer, and Packers.
by Richard Timothy | Sep 1, 2010 | I Do Suggest, My Cutie Baby Sweetie Pie, My List of Things that Don't Suck, Non-Fiction, Observationally Speaking, Reviewed and Recommended
Last week I went to see Norah Jones in concert at a lovely little place in Salt Lake called Red Butte Gardens. They always put on a concert series, but only during summer due to it being an outside venue. It is a beautiful, and always a great show… unless you have allergies… or a freak rain storm blows in… or if any other extreme and tedious weather mishaps occur. For my night with Norah, it was perfect.
The other groovy thing about concerts at this particular location is that it is an open bar venue… as long as you bring the bar. So with a cooler in hand, well, it was a cooler on wheels so I just had to hold on to the handle and let the thing roll along behind us, we found a spot on the lawn and began to enjoy our dinner and some wine as the warm up band began warming up. It was almost the perfect evening…
There was a collection of little nuances that helped sculpt this evening into a night that will not be soon forgotten. First was the wine, all very yummy, but a little difficult to get to at first. For the record we remembered the Swiss Army knife. The down side is that we grabbed the one without the cork screw. This was easily rectified thanks to the couple sitting next to us. They, being wine drinkers as well, were kind enough to lend us their de-corking apparatus. So in a fit of brilliance, I opened all three bottles at once so we would not need to bother the couple again each time we wanted to open a bottle. This would have worked perfectly had we not been so pressing in our re-corking of the freshly opened bottles. One of our reds had the cork returned a little too much. Then trying to remove the cork by hand, the little thing tore right off. But the nice couple retained their nice trait and lent us the wine opener again. (We even gave them cookies to as an offering of our gratitude.)
At one point in the evening while we were still enjoying our wine and cheese, and before the sun had completely set and Norah had come out, there was a bug that had chosen to nestle in my hair without my consent. I didn’t care because I couldn’t feel it. My sweetie-baby-cutie-pie on the other hand did notice it and felt very adamant that this bug was crossing the social etiquette line. So in response she reached up and swiped at the bug to get out of my hair. The bug was a trifle petite and suffered from an incredibly weak constitution and from Angela’s little swipe jumped out of my hair, landed in my ear and proceeded to instantly die.
At this point Angela began laughing and tried to get the dead bug by sticking her finger in my ear, hence pushing the newly deceased insect deeper into my ear. I then acquired the disposition of an ex-junkie with a permanent tic having an acid flashback. I started out with shaking my head from side to side. The dead bug remained. Next, I started banging my head again my open hand while tilting my head so the ear with the bug in it was facing the ground. Then I started fanning my ear with my hand in an attempt to create a small breeze that would dislodge the bug and let it slide out of my ear. Eventually this, along with the occasional banging my head against my hand freed my ear of the deceased intruder. Angela was kind enough to continue laughing though this entire debugging process.
Finally, Norah joined us all and came out on stage. Spirits were high, and two bottles were now completely empty. As her set played on, I did notice something, as Norah was playing her set I was enamored with the songs she was playing. They were from her newest album, which I’ll admit I’ve not listened to as much as I would have liked. Then, when she got to her tried and true songs that people who listen to her know and love, I wasn’t nearly a smitten. I enjoy her recent stuff a lot more than the music that got me hooked on listening to her in the first place… I’m not sure that has ever happened to me before.
Then at one point during her set, as she finished one song and the audience started clapping, and cheering, and woo hooing, one of the friends we were with, would had topped off most of the third bottle all by himself at this time, belted out, “I love you Natalie!” This was followed by his wife briefly explaining to him that Norah Jones was on stage and not Natalie Merchant, which was followed by a round of giggling from our corner of the audience.
The only mishap apart from the bug in the ear was when I finally got to my car during the mass exodus after the show ended. The white SUV I had parked next to was long gone by this point, but they had been kind enough to leave a white strip of rubbed off bumper along the driver’s side of my car. If ran the length of both doors. I guess the driver was lacking in the “backing straight out” skill that helps compile the “competent driver” skill set that I thought was necessary for people to get their drivers license. Wishful thinking on my part I guess. The white bumper streak wiped off pretty easily though, and since my car is a tool that gets me to work and back and not something I pamper and wash once a week, and weep when it gets violated as such, I’m not all that emotionally attached to it. It wasn’t that big of a deal. Still, it certainly added to the overall experience of evening.
All in all, it was a great night and a brilliant concert. If you get chance, by all means check out one of her shows. I recommend three bottles of wine per four people, but feel free to play with that number depending on your budget and your consumption level limits as a professional drinker. Oh, and don’t forget your cork screw!
What was one of your more memorable concerts?
Image Sources:
Google Images, keywords: Red Butte Gardens, Swiss Army knife, bug in ear, Norah Jones, and bad drivers.
I suppose that if there were ever a really bad B style horror movie made about Tippy and her insatiable craving for attacking the human race, this next story might be a good starting point. I’d like to say it’s about a good kitty gone bad, but to be as accurate as possible we better make it a bad kitty gone worse, well the same I guess. Tippy was always Tippy that never changed. due to relentless teasing by angst filled youth. Part two of Tippy’s attack cat memoirs begins with a sleepover my brother Dave was having with a few of his friends.
With five boys covering the orange shag carpeted floor, Dave cracked the door open to get a little air flow into the room. Then he flipped off the lights and climbed into his sleeping bag. Just as he was about two thirds submerged in his sleeping bag he felt a soft brush of fur against this arm. The cat was in the room with them. Dave jumped up, stumbled across the floor of boys as fast as he could and flipped on the light. It was too late. Tippy had taken her revenge.
Sadly, I have no idea what happened to Tippy. We had our cousins stop by to feed her while we went away on holiday one summer. When we got back, she was gone. Our cousins told us that they had not seen her for the latter part of the week. They would come over but fill her dish, but it had remained full for three days in a row. There are many possibilities as to what happened to her. 
