Since the roommates went away on vacation, I decided to hold
Miss Kitty's First-Ever Parcheesi Party!

Parcheesi is probably my favorite board game, and I'm sure that once you try it, you'll agree. The plan: get here by, say, 4:00. I'll teach you the rules until about 4:10, and then we'll play until late into the night. We can order unagi and other nifty meats and pretty much eat and Parchees until we puke.
I live in Fremont. We're the townhouse with the interesting-smelling air conditioner. I know you live all over the world, but I'll try to give directions from a few key locations.

London, England
Indore, India
Gaoxiong, Taiwan
Kobe, Japan
Djougou, Benin
Yellowknife, Canada
Nizhni Novgorod, Russia


It would be nice if you'd RCMP by leaving a comment here (if you plan to bring food, mention it in your comment), but feel free to just drop by. We'll just punch through a wall or something if the place gets too crowded.



Unfortunately, finding out how to do the sparkly text for the announcement took way too long, and what with my roommates having been back for three days now, I guess the party is
canceled!

Sorry.

HTML Code Segments Provided by UK Auction Help

Today is my birthday. Thank you to everyone who has wished me a good one. I'll give you a general rundown on how it has been.

First, I'm feeling okay. I'm not feeling great, but I'm okay. I like my pillow. Actually, I love it. I don't know how I've managed to live without this. Thank you, J & J!

Unfortunately, the company that manufactures unagi for sale in the United States seems to have recalled their supply, so I wasn't able to eat any today. I'm looking forward to some treats, though.

My parents called about a week ago to wish me happy birthday. I'll try to convey as clear a sense of the conversation as I can. To get as close to reality as I can, imagine that my dad is played by Walter Matthau, my mom is played by Jack Lemmon, and I'm played by Dooley Wilson (not credited).

ME: Hello?

MOM: Hi, Sweetie!

DAD: Now what kind of way is that to talk to WOTC Tech Support?

MOM: It's Miss Kitty, you idiot!

DAD: I have a question about the Necropotence card. Can you--- Wait, Miss Kitty? How the Hell are ya, son?

ME: I'm fine.

DAD: Oh.

ME: I've got cancer.

MOM: Can it be treated?

DAD: I'm not paying for it.

MOM: Miss Kitty wasn't going to ask for help. You weren't going to, were you, Dear?

ME: No, I'm fine. I'm getting treatment.

DAD: Damnit.

MOM: Don't say things like that.

DAD: Do you want me to lie?

MOM: Well, I lie. Mommy's very sorry about your... cancer, was it?

ME: Yeah. Cancer.

MOM: Does the treatment hurt?

ME: Yeah.

MOM: ... ... That's... really... um... Anyhow, we're just calling to wish you a happy birthday.

ME: My birthday is next week.

DAD: We kinda figured that, but we probably won't have time to call you next week, whenever it may be. The TV is broken right now, so we've got nothing else to do. Happy birthday!

ME: Gee, thanks.

MOM: Honey, I see a squirrel through the window. We've got to go. I'm glad you are doing well.

DAD: Bye.


I got a card from them yesterday. I'm kind of touched that they thought of me enough to send one, even if it does say, "Sorry you've got the mange!" I was really surprised when they called again this morning. It went something along these lines.

MOM: How's Mommy's little moron?

DAD: That's how you talk to Tech Support! Moron!

ME: It's Miss Kitty.

MOM: Who?

DAD: From Gunsmoke?

ME: Your daughter.

MOM: Oh, yeah. Whoops.

DAD: Make yourself useful, son. Tell Daddy how to make the damn VCR clock stop flashing.

MOM: Come on, Sweetie. Tell us how to make the nasty clock stop flashing.

ME: I'm not sure. I think you have to set it or something like that. It's my birthday, you know.

MOM: Oh. So you can't really help? Bye.

DAD: I knew we should have called collect!


So yeah, my birthday was pretty good. I got a card. I got to talk to my parents. I'm going to get treats at some point. I've got an awesome pillow. It doesn't get much better.

Here's how things work where I live. We have a big couch, but it's not big enough for me and all four of my roommates at once. This, of course, leads to a game of musical couches in which four lucky people (usually the winners) get to sit on the couch in the living room and one person (usually the loser) gets the stairs near the living room. There are times when the raging stupidity in the living room gets to be too much for my intelect to stand, so I yield the couch and head off to the stairs. However, I usually like my own spot on the couch. I get it, too, even though I take frequent breaks to stare at a wall or use the litterbox or something like that. Basically, my secret is to wait for someone else to get up for a drink, go stare at a wall for a minute or so, and then grab the open spot when I see them coming back. The seat is mine, fair and square: I nab it seconds before anyone else's butt hits the cushions. However, everyone around here tries the old "I was sitting there!" trick. I'm tired of it. I really don't know why people only want the seat once I'm sitting there. It seems kind of mean, actually. Folks, if you'd wanted the seat before I was sitting in there, you could have tried getting to the couch before I'm sitting there.

I've read more about nunneries, and the more I learn, the more I realize I'm not interested. Plus, I think I've missed rush week by a few months. Anyhow, I've got my witty response prepared. I don't want to get hit by l’esprit d’scalion, after all. Let me know what you think:

I AIN'T GETTIN' MYSELF TO NO NUNNERY! I PITY THE FOOL WHO TRIES TO GET ME TO A NUNNERY!

I got into an argument with one of the doofusi with whom I live, and in the end he shouted, "Get thee to a nunnery!" At first I wasn't that concerned, but when he calmed down, he explained that it was for my own protection. I was quite aware that this isn't Hamlet. We're not in Canada's Elsinore Brewery and thus, I reasoned, I was not in danger of falling into water and thus ending my life. I'm not really into the watery death thing, after all. "I'm Miss Kitty, not Ophelia," I said, but he explained that "Ophelia" was an example of bad transliteration from Canadian to English. Canadian, as you might know, uses characters to represent whole words rather than letter sounds, so people make mistakes. "Ophelia" is really "O Feline," in the same way that "Peking" is really "Beijing" and "Nova Scotia" is really "New Scotland." Anyhow, now that I know that Hamlet was talking to a cat, I'm a lot more worried.

The solution, of course, is to pick a nunnery and hurry off to it. Which one, though? There are so many and I know nothing about them. All I've heard are rumors, and they aren't that complimentary. I tried a Google search, but it brought up a site that required some sort of dumbass plugin for my browser. No dice there. Then, since nunnery is just the female version of a monkery, which linked to a bunch of questionable sites. I suspect that it is a secret place where all of those Shaolin monks train, so naturally the web is full of fake monkery sites to throw off potential Ancient Enemies of the Shaolin who might try to Google them. One site did suggest that "monkery" meant "a monastery," which is something I have heard of before. I know that Oda Nobunaga killed everyone affiliated with the monastery on Mt. Hiei in 1571. Apparently the monks were causing trouble, partying, raping people, and generally lowering the tone of the neighborhood. Pretty much the same thing has been said of nuns, though. They spend their time drinking with their fellow sisters, vomiting, cheating on tests, and trying to get noticed by monks at parties.

I'm not sure what to do at this point. I don't want to die in water, but I'm not sure I'm cut out for a nunastic life. Can I get a little help here?

I went to the DNA Lounge in San Francisco last night to maintain my goth street cred and hear one of my favorite musicians, Tom Lehrer. I liked this guy long before I knew I was a goth, and I always thought of him as more of a folk singer or something like that. However, he's obviously goth when you think about some of his songs: "Poisoning Pigeons in the Park," "The Masochism Tango," "We'll All Go Together When We Go," "The Vatican Rag," "The U.S.S. Make Shit Up," "So Long, Mom (A Song for World War III)," "I Hold Your Hand in Mine," and "The Sexy Data Tango." I remember that back in 1959 the New York Times wrote:

The tide of "sick jokes" may be ebbing but Tom Lehrer's "sick songs" are still at flood. At Town Hall on Saturday evening Mr. Lehrer regaled a large and appreciative audience with his merry ditties of disease, dismemberment and death. It was the sort of program in which "necrophiliac" is a very funny word.

Mr. Lehrer's muse was not fettered by such inhibiting facts as taste as he eulogized that lovable character, the old dope peddler, or sung of the joys of poisoning pigeons in the park. Yet, despite his obsessive interest in disintegration, Mr. Lehrer has a worthily witty song or two in his repertory and an occasional perceptive comment crept into his monologues between songs.

Well, it's been just over 6.5 cat years since then, but a few things haven't changed. For one thing, Tom is looking pretty darned youthful for his age. I suspect he has a picture of Zane Grey in his attic. He's also kept to his musical ideals, although he had a lot more bum jokes in his set list last night. That's just fine with me. As a cat, I just love bum jokes. Bum. Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha! It's just so funny. He has changed instruments, though. He used to rely on a piano, but he now plays a stripped-down 88-string guitar.

The concert was pretty darned nifty. Tom had a few songs that were new to me, like "Ex-Lover's Lover," "The Vampire Club," and "Goodnight, Demon Slayer." One guy kept asking him to play "Freebird," but Mr. Lehrer does not like to be told what to play. Tom finally asked the guy to get him a beer from this one 7-11 in Oakland, and after the audience started to laugh at him, the guy left in a hurry. He seemed a little annoyed, possibly because he realized that Tom hadn't told him which 7-11 he wanted the beer from. Assuming he found the right one and didn't get shivved in Oakland, he should be getting back with the beer any time now. I'm glad that guy asked first, since I was going to ask him to sing "The New Math."

I didn't realize that Mr. Lehrer had such a suitcase full of sarcasm and a belly full of bile, all directed at George Lucas. I think it's nice that a famous singer is willing to come forward and say that the most recent Star Wars movies were totally Bush. I mean, really, you'd almost think that the only thing Lucas can do these days is throw together dull 90-minute cinematic advertisements for cruddy Star Wars toys. On the other hand, the new Red Dwarf movie that he wrote and directed, Serenity, was just head and shoulders above The Phantom Menace. Maybe there is hope for the guy. Until we can be sure, I think Tom Lehrer will be singing a wonderful song that mocks Star Wars and is chock full of bum references, of which this cat highly approves and feels that there should be more of in our musical lexicon.

On the style front, I was the only one at the club with fangs (I think), but I was not the only one to wear a tux. I was, as you might guess, the only one to look good in a tux. One fellow had a top hat of sorts, but he didn't manage it with anything close to the style and grace that one would associate with Red Skelton's Freddy the Freeloader. I was just so much more hip than the rest of the club that it wasn't funny.

You are sitting on a couch in a dark room full of boxes. To the north is a sliding glass door that leads to the patio. To the northeast is an exit that leads to parts unknown. To the east is a door that leads to the downstairs bathroom.

Yesterday my roommates and I got lost in the townhouse and I had to get them out using only my keen brain and my awesome knowledge of orientating. Consider the clues:

1. couch
   
2. door to the downstairs bathroom
   
3. door to the patio
   
4. dark room full of boxes

Yep, we were in the root cellar! Well, people started to panic when I told them this. "But Miss Kitty, there's no root cellar in this townhouse!" Well, obviously the townhouse does have one, because we're in it. While I was trying to think our way out of this with my superior inteligence, my roommates went out the northeast exit and to Todai for dinner.


> d
You get off the couch.
You in a dark room full of boxes. To the north is a sliding glass door that leads to the patio. To the northeast is an exit that leads to parts unknown. To the east is a door that leads to the downstairs bathroom. Above you is a couch.
> e
You are in the downstairs bathroom. Kitty litter covers the floor. To the east, in a cabinet under the sink, is a litterbox. To the north is another litterbox. To the west is a doorway.
> e
You are in the litterbox. It is sandy.
> use litterbox
You deposit a George W. Bush in the litterbox, bury it, and leave.
You are in the downstairs bathroom. Kitty litter covers the floor. To the east, in a cabinet under the sink, is a litterbox. To the north is another litterbox. To the west is a doorway.
> plover
You are in a large room, with a passage to the south, a passage to the west, and a wall of broken rock to the east. There is a large plover on a rock in the room's center.
> eat plover
You eat the plover. It is mighty tasty.
You are in a large room, with a passage to the south, a passage to the west, and a wall of broken rock to the east. Blood and feathers cover a rock in the room's center.
> plover
You are in the downstairs bathroom. Kitty litter covers the floor. To the east, in a cabinet under the sink, is a litterbox. To the north is another litterbox. To the west is a doorway.
> w
You are in a dark room full of boxes. To the north is a sliding glass door that leads to the patio. To the northeast is an exit that leads to parts unknown. To the east is a door that leads to the downstairs bathroom. Above you is a couch.

That was not quite what I had expected, but clearly I was back in the living room. Consider the clues:

1. couch
   
2. door to the downstairs bathroom
   
3. door to the patio
   
4. dark room full of boxes

That's our living room! I don't know why the same door connects the root cellar, downstairs bathroom, and living room. It's probably a glitch. Anyhow, when my roommates finally waddled home, I was there to greet them in our rediscovered living room. What would they do without me?

I recognize the signs around me. People are cleaning. There are boxes. There are lots of boxes, and books are going into them. In fact, one bookshelf is already empty. Trash is getting thrown out. This can only mean one thing: we're finally moving to Canada! I've seen all of this before. I mean, I haven't actually seen anyone pack up to move to Canada itself, but I've seen people move plenty of times. They've always moved within California, but where else would you move these days?

I need to read up on Canada. I'd look foolish if I showed up and started talking about John George Diefenbaker or something like that.

I decided to go to Berkeley to get some unagi. There's this restaurant called Kirala on Shattuck, and I've been told it's got some fine food. Well, I hopped the BART and headed up there. When I got there, they were closed. I sat down on a copy of the San Francisco Chronicle and waited. While I was sitting there, a couple of the Berkeley PD came walking by. One of them noticed me and started asking for my identification. Cats, as a rule, don't hold with wearing pockets or carrying ID. As I was trying to explain, one of them said, "Hey, you know there's alligators loose after that big storm in Florida. I'll bet this is one of them." Now, as luck would have it, I was sitting on the science section of the Chronicle, which included an article entitled "How to tell a cat from an alligator." I tried to point out to the police that it was a case of mistaken identity. I even tried to show them the newspaper article. They just pulled my tail and eventually took me to jail. They put me in the escaped reptile tank, along with three humans and a parakeet. Eventually, somebody pointed out to them that none of us was a reptile. I started yelling at the two people who had arrested me, but they said that everybody seems to have a newspaper article showing that they are actually innocent, and if they actually kept up with the news, they'd never get a chance to push anybody around. However, they did make the helpful suggestion that I not leave home until all of those alligators get recaptured.

The upside to all of this was that by the time they finally let me out and I got back to Kirala, it was open. Every upside has a downside, though, and the downside to this upside was that the people at Kirala wouldn't give me a table because I was a cat. Where were they when the cops were pushing me around? Well, I asked them if they would serve me if I was a one-ton, four-meter long alligator. They said they'd probably have no choice. Dangit. Dangit. Where were the herpetological geniuses of the Berkeley PD when I needed them?

I wonder if Berkeley's Finest would have picked on me if I was an all-white cat rather than a tuxedo cat. I'm thinking of sueing for a case of unagi. While I'm at it, I might also request another case for Stancy Nesby. I've heard that she was also mistaken for an alligator by the Berkeley PD. Anyhow, the Berkeley Police can suck my cute little paws.

I've been in physical training ever since Saturday. See, right after I finished with my post, I was attacked by this... thing. Now those of you who have read more than a few of my posts will know that I'm rarely at a loss for words. In fact, I don't think I'm botswain at all when I say I can find words for any occamism. However, I have no words to describe the horror that attacked me from under the pile of sheets on the bed where I was sitting. I didn't get a good look at it, since it attacked through the sheet and never actually showed itself. wintersweet tried to get it, but it apparently grabbed her hand and wouldn't let go. It must have been quite strong, since she's bigger than I am and couldn't let go. There we were, wintersweet with her hand under the covers screaming "Get it, Miss Kitty," the thing under the covers holding onto her and going after me, and me on top of the covers batting it with my paws and biting. Eventually, I had to make a strategic retreat. I was pretty sure it couldn't do that much to wintersweet, and I certainly couldn't take it down. When I ran, it must have decided to follow me and release wintersweet's hand. Fortunately, I gave it the slip. However, I've been careful about sitting on sheets since then.

I think I've developed enough martial arts skills to take it, should I ever see this thing again.