Spanks a lot

New word: spanks

"That fruit and nut naan bread is so good, it spanks."

It means something is very cool. Replaces the need to use: Rad, killer, money, dope, awsome, etc. I'm giving you a lot of creative lattitude cause I want it to catch on.

Someone I know jumped into a San Diego pedicab with a gaggle of cute girls. Rumor is, there was a spatula-shaped paddle involved and a $21 bet. I took no part whatsoever. I didn't see it. I didn't need to. I got a strong sense of the incident standing 1/2 block away.

You know who you are.

There was a lot of excitement. A LOT. I also got the sense that this is some kind of pedicab shtick, tradition, ritual, whatever. Can someone confirm please?

I am not here to judge. I'd spank some pedicab driver for free. I bet the San Diego pedicab union has to officially vote in a new "safe word," every year. YES I JUST SAID THAT, and no I'm not into that. I am 35 and just learned what that means from a bad joke I heard last month. It's just that the puns are irresistible thanks to this handy list of road biking lingo: roadbikerider.com

apex
bonk
chondromalacia
corncob
echelon
endo
fartlek
hammer
reach
road rash
snakebite
wheelsucker

These safe words SPANK!

Cat Tales - Eau de Toilette

I just looked in the toilet. I know, TMI, but this gets even better.

I saw what I thought was mold around the waterline. I thought this was strange. I just scrubbed it this weekend. I grabbed the toilet cleaner and brush, leaned in get a better look. That "mold" was a bunch of little muddy kitty paw prints.

Gross! What the hell. I've never heard of this. But apparently it is quite common. Just Google "cat drinks from toilet" and check out the images. I love this one. This one too.

Here's what concerns me. We desert dwellers have a saying, "if it's yellow, let it mellow, if it's brown, flush it down."

90% of the time, our toilet is "mellowing," in order to conserve water. I wonder if this will damage the cat. They say a cats mouth is the most filthy thing in the world. This is probably why.

It made me think of this movie I saw when I lived in England years ago. We were on a family trip in Illfracomb, a beach town on the coast. Typical, it was raining. England has something like 4 TV channels so, nothing was on. My brother and I settled on this French (or English? i can't remember), movie about a man and a woman (maybe he was French, she was English) in this erotically dysfunctional relationship. The woman has reached her break point and is leaving him. He begs her to stay, professing his deep love for her. She denies, says he's lying. To prove his love, he drinks her urine out of the bedpan. We nearly hucked our crumpets.

i reckon this is another proof point of Anton's deep love for us, even though it's a really fu..-ed-up way of showing it. In a way, I return this love by scooping out his kitty litter every week. That is both urine and feces so, I think love's scale is balanced on this one.

Cat Tales

I got a kitty cat for mother’s day. I’ve not posted anything yet because when you adopt a pet from the Humane Society, you have to temper the desire to form a gushing bond until it’s obvious your pet has adopted you. (Cats are known to just re-runaway).

I knew Anton was ours forever when he saw me taking a nap. Decided to do the same. Jumped on the bed, crawled across my head, then stuck his ass in my face while he found a comfortable spot where he could snug down right next to my nose.

Anton is a Russian Blue cat. We named him after Anton Chekhov. Our former pet, a black cat named Poe, died last year. So in a way, we’re paying homage to her by adopting a silly “famous writers” theme for naming our pets.

I also like to think of Anton as Anton Chigurh:

Anton Chigurh is an emotionless, compassionless killing machine. His inability to comprehend human life is matched only by his ability to take it, as he does with ruthless abandon throughout the running of No Country For Old Men.

My Anton isn’t this mean. But he’s not milquetoast either. He bit me the first time we met. This might be why he had the longest running sentence at the Humane Society. He likes to stand at the top of the stairs and when you switch back to the the second flight, he waits for you to get in his sight line then swats at your head with ruthless abandon.

Like this:


I’ll take him! I thought. He’ll fit right in. The Johnson household could use a little moxie.