The Fiery One Returns, A Reality Blog, An Illusion, Gordon, Wellingtons In Particular, and Rubber Boots Generally

The Fiery One returned! It happened two days ago. During my whole day at work on Thursday, I tried to stay away from the coffee, because my excitement and tension levels were already peaking at a level just below manic. I kept updating my coworkers on the hours left until his plane touched down on home turf, which I am sure they were needing to know. When I arrived home, he was already waiting for me in the apartment. He looked radiant. It’s funny how twenty-two days apart can make your mate so incredibly, intoxicatingly good-looking to you. (I know, I know. This is drivelly mush, to say the least, because the whole world is not nearly so in love with the Fiery One as I am. It’s just that his return has been the most exciting thing to happen to me for nearly a month, and so I must share it). So now I am no longer living single with all the hours of my free time available for the obsessive learning of html. The semblance of a more balanced and coupled life can return with all the book-reading, beer-swilling, and sex-having that it has to offer.

An interesting reason for a blog, but not surprising in this day of reality television. It’s a little gross, at least to me, because I hate the fact of other people’s bodies and their horrible growths and whatnot.

You have got to check this out. Remember to wait until the animation is done, because it is a little slow, but the proof is in the pudding.

Gordon, the rabbit, was introduced to the greater portion of our apartment last night, the living room. When I first lifted the top of his cage away, he stood in the bottom portion of his cage looking over the brim as though there was no sense to be made of this turn of events. It took him about ten minutes to figure out that, yes, he could step over the edge, and then it took another good hour before he screwed up his courage to venture more than five feet away along the living room’s perimeter. Everything touching the ground was suspect as a possible predator, and so was approached with extreme caution. His huge feet would be stretched out behind him, and he would strain his super-twitchy nose forward, trying vainly to maintain distance while still being close enough to taste each object. When I put him back in his cage for the night, he thumped his foot rather soundly and became nasty for a few minutes, which of course threw me into feelings of terrible guilt. I know that’s stupid, but I am used to cats as pets, and they do not show a whole hell of a lot of emotions, aside from feed-me, pet-me, and I-think-I’ll-kill-you.

Here is another sexual fetish thing that I was completely unaware of until I recently stumbled across it quite accidentally during a googling adventure – rubber Wellingtons. There are Wellington slaves, Pat has a love/hate relationship with her rubber Wellingtons, and you can start a beautiful thing with your own pair here.

Rubber Boot Facts and Links:
* Wellington rubber boots are called such presumably because they look like the high boots worn by the famed Duke of Wellington (1769 - 1852), although his boots were not made of rubber.
* Rubber is a highly elastic substance polymerized by the drying and coagulation of the milky juices or latex of various plants, especially the tropical rubber plant.
* The first rubber boots were made by South American Indians, who used to pour latex, from the Hevea brasiliensis (rubber tree), over their legs and feet to form water-resistant footwear.
* Take a look at some good vintage fire boots from American fire departments.
* These Japanese rubber boots claim to be different from their American cousins, but there is only a slight difference in style that I can see.
* The decomposition rate of rubber boot soles is fifty to eighty years.
* “Leather vs. Rubber Boots: The Scientific Difference”
* This is just a small example of the horrible clothing we inflict upon children.

Wallowing, Gordon, Shoe, Bathing In The Stream, And Dust

When the Fiery One goes away on these work trips, I end up living like an eighty-year old man who refuses to move into a home. The apartment looks worse than I have ever seen it. Gordon, the rabbit, has kicked wood shavings all over the floor, which instead of sweeping up, I have chosen to track throughout the apartment. I haven't washed a single dish in three weeks, except for that knife that I had to clean when all the others were too gross to consider re-using. So, I'm spending this evening doing dishes and cleaning up in the computer area, and tomorrow it's the living room, bathroom, and laundry. When the Fiery One gets back, he will never see the level of unwashedness to which I am willing to descend. He knows that I do this, but at least he will never have to experience my dirt-wallowing first-hand.

Gordon had not been out of his cage for a couple of days, so I let him run around the kitchen for a couple of hours this afternoon. I usually block off the kitchen entrance with a couple of collapsed cardboard boxes so that he doesn't get out and end up electrocuting himself by chewing on cords or some such thing. This had proved to be effective in the past, but I now doubt its future abilities. I was in the middle of a long distance telephone call when I heard this loud scrabbling of bunny feet on cardboard. I leapt up and ran to see what was up. There was Gordon, hanging on to the top of the wall with his little front feet and kicking up a storm in an effort to make it over. He is only about three-and-a-half months old, but the jackrabbit in him means that he is already about a foot long, so this wall-vaulting episode is not all that surprising. There will be no more unsupervised bunny playtime. At some point, he will be allowed to run around the living room and whatnot, but he is still figuring out what he can and cannot chew on. I do value some of our furniture.

Watch the Urban Shoe video, which you will find under "Shoe Features." It reminds me of a much smaller, indoor game I used to play with Starcat called Table. (I think I got the name of the game all wrong, but Starcat will surely correct me).

Last night after work, I dropped by my favourite watering hole to see what it looked like, because it was closed for a month for remodelling. I only intended to stay for a couple of pints while I read Corpse: Nature, Forensics, and the Struggle to Pinpoint the Time of Death by Jessica Snyder Sachs. (A fabulous read, by the way. I recommend it very highly). I ended up staying for most of the evening, because I ran into this woman I run into now and again there, and we were eventually joined by a friend of hers and some girl that the friend bumped into on the street and decided to bring along. StreetGirl seemed really nice and intelligent, and I was beginning to think that maybe I really could be making a female friend, which is almost unheard of in the life of Schmutzie. You can probably hear the "but" in there. Just before I decided that it would be best for me to leave, StreetGirl asked me if I was a Christian. I told her that I wasn't, and she started telling me about this zealous religious group she has been a part of for three weeks. Apparently, they have this ritual called "Bathing in the Stream" that is repeated over a period of several weeks to initiate new members into the faith. She said that these people play a video of some kind of leader, and everyone sits quietly and opens their minds to him. StreetGirl said that it gave her an amazing feeling. I warned her about the dangers of a group like that, because having been raised by Christians, I never came across this Bathing-in-the-Stream business. I knew at that point that it was best for me to leave, and I think my exit was quite abrupt. Why must the women who try to befriend me always be crazy or overzealously Christian?

Dust Facts and Links:
* The major cause of allergic reactivity to dust is dust mite waste and not the dust itself.
* The primary cause of lead poisoning is tiny particles of lead dust from deteriorated paint or from painted surfaces disturbed during remodelling, repair, or renovation. Lead dust is invisible and is so tiny in that it passes through most masks and filters.
* Get your own dust mite detector kit today!
* Read The Secret Life of Dust: From the Cosmos to the Kitchen Counter, the Big Consequences of Little Things by Hannah Holmes. I haven't read it, but it actually looks pretty good.
* Crawling infants can ingest 10 grams of dust per day in a dusty home. Visit this link for more "Key Facts About Dust and Cleaning."
* Shelley Long, the actress, is allergic to household dust.
* Why is the dust on your television radioactive?
* One-third of the weight of a ten-year-old pillow is dust mite carcasses and faeces.
* A dust mite molts several times during its life, producing two hundred times its weight in waste. Each mite produces forty to one hundred faeces pellets a day. Their droppings are coated in an enzymatic substance, which after drying become mixed with other particles to create household dust.
* Dead skin cells make up approximately 90% of household dust.
* Check out "The Microbiophobic Household." Hee hee.

Sucky Pets And Fortune Cookies

So, I have succumbed to the cuteness that is bunnies. I am wondering if this is a terrible thing or not. I have never liked rabbits. I have known people with rabbits and thought their pets sucked, and now I am a bunny-owner. Here’s how it happened: The Fiery One, another couple, and I were out for breakfast yesterday, and I had this brilliant idea that we should all go look at the pile of bunnies before parting ways, because I have been privy to rumours that the humane society was coming to exterminate the critters this coming week. We drove over to find that all the bunnies but one were missing. The mother and her nine babies were all gone, and this little grey one was huddled up alone in the back of the cardboard box, shivering from the wet and cold. After a few minutes of trying to think rationally and pretending to be weighing this decision logically in my mind, and with help from the Fiery One, I ended up spending the next few minutes chasing this little ball of fuzziness through the bushes and attempting to coax him out from under a metal protuberance with a stick. I jammed him into my coat, and our friends drove us over to the pet store to spend too much money on a rabbit cage and accessories. The ladies at work have been watching these rabbits for months and believe that the father is half jackrabbit, so that makes tiny Diego three-quarters cottontail and one-quarter jack. I am imagining him growing to some ungainly size, and that one morning I will wake up to a cage filled with a monstrous rabbit. (My pet history is a terrible one overall, so I am always filled with worst-case-scenario thoughts with the arrival of a new dependent until things have settled down). The crazy things that made me grab Diego and stuff him in my coat were: 1) the humane society was the most probable culprit in the theft of nine members of his rabbit-family, 2) his life was unfairly in danger if they came back for him, and 3) little Diego was the only one left out of all of them, and he was the one that I had kind of grown attached to and molested every day. It was fate. Now he’s in my living room, happily hopping about in his cage. Actually, I am not sure what sex it is yet, and I think I will wait a while before attempting to find out. I still don’t know if I like rabbits, but Diego is the cutest bunny-wunny dat ever did wiv.

The Fiery One and I have been out for asian food twice this weekend already, and both times my fortune cookie gave me multiple fortunes. This happens to me more often than not. Does that mean anything? My five fortunes read as follows:

Your talents will be recognized and suitably rewarded. (But what if my talent isn’t very good, and is in fact offensive? Do I want a suitable reward?).

You will be awarded some great honor. (Is that like the honour of committing hara kiri?)
You will have gold pieces by the bushel. (This one I like).

A liar is not believed even though he tell the truth. (This is the boy-who-cried-wolf thing. I could not decide whether this statement referred directly to me or to the Fiery One. I chose to take it as a general wisdom type of statement).

You will attract cultured and artistic people to your home. (Yay for me! I have friends in my future. Either that, or cultural revolutionaries that will one day be responsible for having my home raided and my head put on a pike).
One of the strangest fortune cookies that I ever opened told me that I would take guitar lessons. I never did.

Fortune Cookie Facts and Links:
* The predecessor to the fortune cookie was biscuits with messages inside, consumed by Chinese labourers working on the railroads in the mid-1800's. They ate them during the annual autumn Moon festival, since the traditional Chinese festive food, mooncakes, weren't available.
* The Moon Festival and its mooncakes.
* Hankering for the homemade variety? Here's how to make fortune cookies.
* Fortune cookies are not even Chinese! The fortune cookie was invented by Los Angeles noodle manufacturer David Jung in 1919 if you go by some sources, or by Makota Hagiwara, manager of Golden Gate Park's Japanese Tea Garden in San Francisco in 1909 if you go by others. The true original inventor of the fortune cookie is lost to history.
* The first fortune cookie factory opened in China in 1993.
* The nutritional value of the fortune cookie.
* One version of fortune cookie history.
* There is little question about the intention of these fortunes.