The Jungle of Despair

I popped Squoosh in the forehead with a bizzy ball. I am a bad kitty mommy.

Well, I hadn’t *meant* to; he was running towards me to ARGH! on my toes some more, and I tossed it to distract him so that I could pull my feet up under the afghan, but I mis-aimed and popped him in the forehead pretty hard (the bizzy ball is made of a harder plastic, not like the flimsier plastic ones). When that happened, Squoosh just sat right down and looked at me; I think that I gave him a headache. Poor baby! I am so sorry, my Squooshable! Mommy didn’t mean to do that!!

I think he is ok, though; if I had any reason to think he wasn’t, Paranoid and Overprotective Moi would have him at the emergency vet right now. :-)

Butsoanyway.

They have had trucks in the loading dock area of Eviljob for the past almost-week (we’re getting new stuff in or shipping stuff out; which I shan’t say), and I’ve not seen Mehitabel in a few days, but I am 99.999% sure that she’s hiding from the traffic because the food I am putting out is going away at the same rate, and I have heard *nothing* about kitty carnage ::knock wood::, plus Mehitabel’s like that—when the going gets busy, Mehitabel hides. Smart kitty.

My lawn has become The Jungle of Despair, and it is only getting worse. I lost my lawn guy(s), the previously-mentioned Harley David and whatever friend, employee, or co-conspirator he brought along when they decided to get drunk (and, knowing Harley, probably high) in my backyard. Sigh.

Now, I am generally an easy-going girl. Do I care if they do this? No. I only care when their actions encroach my freedoms, and as long as my yard looks good when I pull into the drive, my concern in the matter is over. Harley is (was) fairly famous for trying to shake lizards and other animals out of hedges before he went at them with the trimmy-thing; I seriously doubt someone who does this is going to accidentally run over someone’s child with a lawnmower whilst drunk. Plus, it’s not as if he is going to quit doing it if I ask. Ergo, I don’t care; there’s no point in caring.

Butsoanyway.

The (retired) Colonel next door (with whom Mummers has been enamoured for several years, but enough on her silly besotted ass) recommended someone (how convenient…I think the two of them ran a freaking sting operation) that I’ve been trying to get hold of by phone—Darcel, Montel, Kal-El, Jor-El, whatever the El—and I have a tentative appointment for an estimate sometime this week, so I will just cross my fingers and hope that I don’t have to buy a machete and hack my way out of my garage any time soon. I am going to start wearing a pith helmet, and I already am refusing to collect my mail from the box at the end of the driveway in protest.

Well, I am afraid of snakes, jungle rot, and necrotising facsiitis; being the paragon of femininity that I am, I have a fragile fucking constitution. I am a god damned delicate flower, for christ’s sake. :-D Plus, every time I peek out my front door, Father Excess screams at me.

What are you doing at the Amazonas near Manaus, full of piranhas?

Butsoanyway.

Tonight was not too terrible; I did have one point where I sort of became a little…sad, depressed, lonely, or whatever. Which I actually do relatively often, but I am really trying to not focus on that. But I had to sit through watching this couple (that I am, of course, seated facing) snogging all over each other, and I am really happy for them and all, but the breaking point was when he started with the petting her and playing with her hair, and—check this out—she didn’t even ask, or anything, and here *I* have to go back to the Amazonas near Manaus, Full of Piranhas, alone, past all the torches and little guys in grass skirts and tiki masks beating on congo drums, so that I can get my toes chewed on by a tiny black cat, and hit in the face with a meezer tail.

It’s almost too much to bear sometimes, is what I’m saying.

:-) So that’s when I started singing Chilliwack songs. How can anyone not be happy singing My Girl? Huh? It is *impossible*. Really.

Of course, no one joined in with me. Losers. So I had a brownie sundae. If you listen closely, you will find that brownie sundaes actually *do* sing with you. Brownie sundaes know all the words to every song ever written; they are magical like that. Order one and listen sometimes.

No, rilly.

So I got back home and beat the path with my walking stick to scare off snakes as I made my way to the boat dock near the river. As I waited for Cap’n Halfnut to pilot the African Drag Queen back to the dock to pick me up, I changed my socks three times, swatted twelve thousand mosquitoes, and hoped that I wasn’t sitting on or near a big furry tarantula six times. Then I watched the campfires of the native settlements flicker across the water; they were really pretty, but more than that, they were comforting, ‘cos seeing the fires and hearing the far-off drums, I knew I didn’t have to worry about any of the local tribesmen trying to shoot poison darts at me through their blowguns, and that’s always a nice thing to not have to worry about; the poison-tipped darts they use come from the Xohacho plant, and everybody around here knows that one poke and you turn into a zombie for six hours. It’s bad—you come to, and all of a sudden you’re in a Starbucks in downtown Seattle, wearing a three-piece suit and holding a half-caf, talking to some soccer mom about what a bad mother Britney Spears is and how you sure hope Brad and Angelina stay together for the sake of the kids, and the thing is, for a couple minutes there, you actually care.

That Xohacho plant is not to be fucked with. Eew.

As I sat and watched the fireflies and the fires reflected on the river, I wished I had a cool-ass safari jacket and a spiffy cravat, or at least a nifty parasol. If Banana Republic didn’t suck as bad as they do now, and they still had their mail-order catalogues with the blurbs by Ferlinghetti and such, I thought, I would probably have bought a cool-ass safari jacket by now. Probably a wrinkle-free one even. Or maybe tarantula-proof; if Charles Bukowski were writing a blurb for a cool-ass safari jacket in a Banana Republic catalogue, he’d probably promise you that it was tarantula-proof. And I would believe him. After a while, I saw the spangles and heard the familiar putt-putt of Cap’n Halfnut. The boat itself is pretty quiet and non-descript; it’s Halfnut that tends to draw attention.

The ride down the river was pretty uneventful, save a small engine stall-out, a little spear-chucking, and a minor crocodile attack. If I’d had a nifty parasol to smack the croc with, he might not have eaten the outboard motor. This is what being prepared is all about, I guess.

Though I amn’t certain, ‘cos all we girls learn about growing up is how to push cookies off on people once a year and sing songs that we don’t mean about liking friends. I would have preferred to have learnt how to fend off crocodiles.

Sexist bastards.

When I arrived home, I paid Halfnut in papaya; he left grumbling, and I brought out my walking stick to cut through to the front door. Even the loud noise of the stick cutting into the foliage couldn’t overcome the cacophonous serenade of the frogs and crickets. Off in the distance, I could hear a monkey shrieking. Damn. That means I have to set out more Raid Monkey Hotels tomorrow, I thought to myself; and if I have to go out, I might as well pick up a machete and some D-Con Pygmy Spray. Sigh. My mental list-making was interrupted by a booming voice:

“What are you doing at the Amazonas near Manaus…”

“Oh, shut up,” I interrupted.

“What?” [BURP!]

“I said shut up. I am not in the mood for this right now.”

“But…”

“I’m just not in the freaking mood! Get lost!”

Just as I got close enough to see the torches lighting the path to the front door up ahead, a sure indicator to leap to the left of the 600-year old cypress tree to avoid the quicksand, I saw a flash of fire spit up in my path and then vanish! “Damn it!” I yelled, throwing down my stick, “It’s only a matter of time before the Rodents Of Unusual Size take up in may damned front yard! AAAAUUUUUGGGGHHHHH!”

“Too late,” boomed Father Excess, “They’re already here.”

“What?!? When?”

“This afternoon, after you left; they pulled up to the dock with a U-Haul boat” [BURP!]

“Aw, shit.”

“Tell me about it; they smell.”

Irritated as all hell, I gathered my walking stick and cut through the fleshy leaves towards the torches lighting the overgrown walkway, now on the look-out for ROUSs in addition to everything else. Damnation. Just when I thought things couldn’t get any worse.

The natives were wearing grass skirts, shell necklaces, and wooden masks, chanting Putz Karam Sheoba Kitch Daboum, and happily drumming away by my front door as I pulled the vines off and then searched in my purse for some WD-40 for the lock, rusted over from days of disuse. A few spritzes, and I was in!

I cranked down the A/C, and did a quick First Response Malaria Test. The little strip showed a skull, but…no crossbones! Yay! So I am malaria-free…at least for now.

I need a new lawn guy. Fastly-like.

[Fin]

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Great Mission, by Yello (which, ironically, sounds just like my yard)

The jungle near Manaus The Amazonas full of piranhas The birds of paradise Disappear into the green desert For years and years We are hungry and desperate For the only thing worth living The excess We end our Great Mission Exhausted and sad And there is no hope left When suddenly In a cloud of golden smog The Father of Excess Jumps out of the water ofThe Amazonas full of piranhas And screams to the lost souls What are you doing at the Amazonas Near Manaus full of piranhas [burp!]You will not find excess in the jungle And then He opened the green curtain Made of fleshy leaves and said I show you the excess of the Asphalt a Montmartre The excess of the belly-dance In Abu Dhabi And the excess of the everlasting night in Manhattan [burp!] Are you ready for the sensation del tango a Rosario? Leave him, the gorilla Leave the jungle of the Amazonas Near Manaus full of piranhas And follow Father Excess...


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