Wednesday, July 28, 2010

here kitty

There's a smallish black cat behind the sofa, and two boys are sitting on the sofa discussing possible names.

Late last night Momma and I were sitting on her back porch.  She'd worked late, and I just didn't (yet again) go to bed at a reasonable time.  We were not drinking too much, for what it's worth.

The dogs had been out and in and out and were back in as the older one was off her lead and kept wanting to sneakily dissappear around the house and into the darkness.  Had any of the dogs been out it's likely the cat wouldn't have stopped by or would have gotten chased off before we realized.

But the dogs were inside, and the cat showed up.  It's all black, and his/her (don't know yet) tail seems extra long.  The poor thing had obviously not eaten recently but didn't seem in too bad a shape.  Of course we didn't have any cat good, but I brought out a little dog food which was very quickly gobbled up.  I worried that the cat would eat too quickly and end up throwing the food back up, but that didn't happen.

The dogs still don't quite know what to think of the cat.  The older dog might remember her old cat friend who we all miss, but the two smaller dogs don't likely have a clue about the new person in their midst.  Of the two small dogs only one is ours.  The other is a friend's and will hopefully soon be leaving us.  The friend needed her two dogs watched for the last month as she worked to find a new living situation.

So we may have a cat now.  If we get a reason to believe someone has lost this cat and wants it back we'll do the right thing.  But for now the right thing seems to be to give the cat a safe place and to feed it and get some meat on it's bones.  And we also have to think of a name.

shouldn't oughta ate it

Liverwurst!  Let's just get that out of the way.  I hate it.

Maybe I've shared my childhood trauma with you, and maybe not.  Either way, I'm not going into the long version right now.  The quick version involves household rules requiring us to eat whatever our mouther cooked.  She and I were the only two people out of the nine that did not like liver.  Dinners that involved liver for us involved her eating something else and me getting the shaft.

Have you ever eaten something that so disgusted you that you would gag the entire time it was even in your mouth?  Did you continue to eat it?  Okay, I once voluntarily did, the first time I tried octopus.  Momma makes sushi, though this particular time was the first either she or I had tried it, and she now realizes that the octopus we had that time was not prepared well and was cut too thick.  The flavor wasn't the worst thing then but the fact that no amount of chewing seemed to effect the composition of the piece of octopus.

Liver has the effect on me that I gag while my body tries to relieve itself of this infernal organ and expell it far, far away.  It's a memory that still sort of pisses me off, and too much dwelling on the subject can actually make me nauseous even today, and before today I haven't eaten liver in nearly twenty years.

I came home from work a bit later than usual today and immediately needed to visit the bathroom to take care of some business I'd been unable to transact throughout the day.  I wouldn't mention this, but it did give a later start than I'd have liked to the taking-care-of-kids half of my day.  Following the waste removal operation I fixed the cup of coffee that I also needed.

Somewhat off topic, I really can't stand the coffee at work.  I've been drinking water in the morning lately, waiting for ten when the servers start coming in and someone finally makes tea.  The coffee there sucks and comes from a machine that makes coffee from packs of some sort of coffee concentrate.  It's a big red machine that I like to claim was stolen from the big local politician/business family's local chain store.  After choosing your coffee you press the appropriate button while holding your cup under the appropriate nozzle.

And then I needed to relax with my coffee, check Facebook and my email.  I needed also to keep the idea of supper in the back of my mind so that I could decide what to get at the store that I needed to soon visit.  Eventually I realized the time and the fact that I needed to just move.  I hustled the boys into shoes and found some myself.

There are four grocery stores within reasonable driving distance, though it's really a question of two stores represented twice each with a regular version close to the house and the slightly nicer versions being slightly farther away.  I chose the nicest of the four because they have a better produce section, and my idea was to just grab some vegetables that the boys would eat while formulating a protein plan.

Though it hadn't occurred to me till we got there, another advantage of the nicer store is the number of samples strewn throughout the deli area.  I'm not sure what all the boys ate, but I do know there was muenster cheese, cold cuts that looked like turkey and some sort of ham and that damn liverwurst.

I thought Big Brother would probably like the liverwurst because he likes a lot of stuff.  I had no idea how The Boy would enjoy it or whether he would have a meltdown over this ghastly thing that was in contact with his person.  They both enjoyed it, and knowing how time can effect our tastes I took a tiny nibble.

And this is where my entire being went into a whirlpool of despair.  I suggested to the boys that they share a single piece thinking that they might not like it, and I ate a tiny piece, a piece roughly the size of my pinky fingernail.  At first it wasn't bad, and then I suddenly, actually tasted it.  And again within another short second I most certainly did taste it and was revolted.  I forced it down as quickly as possible.

And then I almost had to wipe my tongue.  I might have whined a little, and I certainly did almost reach for my shirt to wipe the gruesome off my tongue, and then I saw myself being the guy in the store licking his shirt, and that didn't seem like it could possibly make the situation better.  I finally did what I do, sucked it up, shivered up my spine, felt my head do that thing where it cocks a little to the side. 

We were finally moving away from the produce/deli area.  The taste of the liverwurst was still in my mouth but hopefully fading, and as I walked that same old feeling started coming over me.  Even as the taste of it grew weaker I felt I could still taste it on my breath.  That horrid deep in the throat feeling, that rough stomach feeling was slipping up, and I was afraid that I was going to cough and throw up a little.  And still I could taste that damn liverwurst on my breath.

I finally stopped and explained to the boys that I needed them to be extra cool, to move quickly with me.  I quickly explained about my liver issues, that I shouldn't have eaten it and told them how I felt.  We needed to continue the shopping, and thankfully I was forming more ideas for supper as we walked, but more than anything I wanted to figure out where the hell the damn water fountain was.

The taste slowly seemed to go away, and eventually, mercifully, I did find the water fountain.  We were mostly done by this point, and though the taste seemed to have completely been taken care of I still had that same feeling, that same worry that I'd start gagging and coughing and lose control.

Fuck I hate liver!