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The Sure Thing was a great movie.

Submitted entry: I’ve decided, and I think that Sage will agree with me on this one that John Cusack should just retire. Surely he has enough money now for a lovely retirement in the country and a small income to live off of for the rest of his life. Instead he seems to get himself into worse and worse movies.

Take High Fidelity for instance. Sage and I rented that one a few days ago and were so disappointed. His character was so unlikable it wasn’t funny. But, the movie did provide some amusement for us. I don’t know if anyone else noticed this but we certainly noticed the number of times the director tried to evoke some of the feelings from his other movies by shooting him from a second story window or in the rain (or both!). Yes, we all wished that this movie was Say Anything but keep trying - the movie’s nowhere near as good.

And tonight we saw, oh god, a movie so unmemorable that I’m going to have to ask Sage to insert the movie title here because I can’t remember it an hour after having seen it. You do remember, right Sage? [”American Sweethearts”. Maybe John Cusack never had any charisma, and the crying-in-the-rain scene in “Say Anything” was touching because we were in the midst of raging hormones. Kind of like how I still love “One More Night” by Phil Collins. It’s a mystery. - Sage] If not, I’m sure anyone who cares will remember. Anyway - once again he plays a not-so-likable character in a dumb movie (Billy Crystal should stay away from writing screenplays).

Of course I still keep getting tricked by these sorts of things. I still think Prefab Sprout is going to put out another decent album. Or Depeche Mode for that matter. I still turn on the “alternative” radio station in hopes that something truly alternative will be played instead of the same four songs. But no, it isn’t meant to be. So here I am, like Charlie Brown and the football falling for the same old tricks time and time again.

Of course I’ve talked about this before, haven’t I, in more serious ways? About how going into anything with any expectations is a bad idea - expecting bad things usually taints the situtation with one’s constant internal questioning of “has it gone south yet? Surely this movie (conversation, meeting, job) is going to be dumb like I expected.” and if you have positive expectations of any sort you’re almost always setting yourself up for disappointment.

So the trick is to give up our expectations. How do we do that you ask? Well, if you read the books I read the answer is always meditation. And to be truthful I believe it too. Yet what am I doing when everyone else is asleep? If it’s morning I’m making coffee and checking and catching up on my email. If it’s evening I’m reading or catching up on email. What am I waiting for? I don’t know, to be truthful. Perhaps I think of the time meditating as time “not mine.” Or perhaps cutting into time that I could be spending doing fun things that I can only do alone. I think I need an attitude adjustment. Of course I realize that I could just sit down and start now and put this aside. Or I could do it after I finish (but I won’t - tonight’s excuse? Too tired). So there you go. Mr. Procrastination, that’s me.

So how are things going, you ask? Very well, for the most part. Sage and I have just conquered a small flea invasion without resorting to chemical warfare. I just didn’t want to resort to “flea bombs” as most everyone we know has” and so looked far and wide for more holistic alternatives. What did we finally find? Simple, actually. Vacuum, steam clean the carpets (boiling and drowning them), and then bathe the cats. Not in flea shampoo but just regular cat shampoo as that’ll drown the fleas.

Of course it wasn’t easy, bathing six cats. And my usual solution in this situation is to just get on the net and look for tips. But due to the widespread proliferation of a joke by email I figured I’d only find the silly “how to bathe a cat” post that involves a cat and a large garbage can with water. So we just dove in so to speak.

At the start, after the steam cleaning everyone was outside. So we brought in Shelly, my cat, and one of the more gentle as our first victim, I mean patient. I did her by myself which was a mistake as two extra hands came in handy later and would’ve here as well. She yowled as if her heart would break (she’s “my cat” and was being betrayed don’t you know) But soon it was done.

Going up the ladder of difficulty we went to Harriet next. Harriet’s not a particularly crabby cat but she has quite a voice on her. So we expected great yowls of betrayal. And she didn’t disappoint us. But she also had some surprises we didn’t count on. No, she didn’t scratch - worse, actually. She just exuded the most foul smell imaginable. We were told once that this smell (previously only created by Habanero and his deceased sister) comes from a gland charmingly known as the “anal gland” of the cat and is done when a cat is distressed. Fortunately her bath was short or I would’ve become distressed and who knows what would’ve happened then!?

Anita was pretty nondescript - lots of yelling, a little squirming but not much else. Habanero, on the other hand. He was a challenge. But first a bit about our method. My job was to hold the cat. Depending on the cat that could be anything from a gentle hand on the back to the feline version of a full nelson. Sage, meanwhile would first pour water over their heads and bodies with a one quart pitcher. Then she’d soap them up, pour more water over them and dry them off. Paul, meanwhile, would offer words of encouragement “You’re doing a great job, Shelly!” “It’s alright Anita!” and so forth. Habanero hated the whole affair (who wouldn’t?) and expressed it not by exuding a smell like Harriet (as I was expecting) but instead leaping with all his strength - easily stronger than Paul - every time Sage poured water on him. Fortunately I held him well enough to get the job done. But then was the matter of getting him out. With his strength Sage couldn’t dry him off without worrying about being eviscerated so we forgot about that. So expecting a possible bolt over us to get out we told Paul to get far away and let him go.

Karma, on the other hand, our biggest cat at easily 25 pounds - probably 5 lbs or more in excess of Habanero was the proverbial kitten. He sat in the water, had his bath almost enjoying the extra attention and then was done.

Claire, I’m told was something else again. I was away when she came home and Sage bathed her but she tells me that Claire was the worst of the six. And I believe it. She’s wiry and strong. Not only that, she’s not very steady on her feet and for her being in the water is actually life threatening. Were she to fall in Paul’s pool she’d likely drown as she couldn’t get out where the other cats would just leap out.

Meanwhile back in the working world…I’m not working yet. But I’ll probably start on Monday - I talked with my client and got the information I need and as soon as I receive a fax of what I’m looking for I should be ready to start. Which is a good thing as we’ve spent more money.

Yes, you guessed it, or probably you didn’t, we got another car. The Malibu was just being too balky and even after a new thermostat seemed to still overheat. So rather than troubleshoot a car that probably needs even more work we just thought about what we wanted and started looking. We were hoping for a small car, good on gas and fairly reliable. After a search we found a 1995 Geo Metro in “Tropical Green” for only $2,000. It does have high miles on it - 114K to be exact and burns oil on hard accelleration but it still runs great, has a manual transmission (we’re both glad about that) that works great and gets great milage. Not only that, it’s a small car which is what we’re really appreciating. I figure an engine rebuild or purchasing a new rebuilt one is in order but we’ve already priced a factory rebuild at about $1,500. Still way cheaper than a new car but almost as reliable. We might be able to get away with rings or even just valve seals being replaced which could be fairly expensive in labor but our mechanic is cheap ($35/hr) and fast so we’re hoping for the best.

So we haven’t been living the simplest these days for sure but we’re hoping that the purchases we made will be ones that last us quite a while.

Meanwhile it’s getting really late and I should get to bed. Paul is so unpredictable these days as far as when he wakes up. He could wake up anywhere between 5:30 and 8:30 tomorrow morning with no easy way to predict which one. It sure stinks to get the 5:30 wakeup call after a midnight bedtime for me I can tell you!