table...

Things are falling into place here. Sorry to have kept all my faithful readers out of the loop for over a week. Just so you know, everything is good. Pretty much everything has found it's place in our little apartment, including me and Nikki. I think we're going to be pretty content here for the next 8 months, if everything goes as planned. I finally found a job at Circuit City selling TV's and home theater systems and stuff. It's really close to our house and should work out great with my schedule. I hope. And if I get any fraud relay calls I'm going to give them hell. In fact, for any of you relay operators out there reading this, the next fraud user that tries to place a call through you just go ahead and change the number to 480) 464-8588 and ask for Stoker. I'm sure I can make it entertaining for you. I know just the right things to say to 'get their goat' and make your job more interesting. So go ahead and do that. Nobody will know...

Last night we were over at the pool, picking leaves and pine needles out of the water. Another thing about Nikki that you all should know is that she's very persistent if she thinks she wants to do something. We got to the pool and there was a fair amount of leaves and debris in the water. So we got in and started picking it out and throwing it onto the side. After about 15 minutes of that we had the majority of the muck out. But not every single twig/leaf. Of course there were still tiny bits of stuff, and Nikki wanted to get it all out. I spent the next 5 minutes or so trying to convince her to just swim around with me. But instead we ended up playing some sort of game where I would push her around to the sticks and then to the edge of the pool. And then to another stick or leaf or grasshopper (gross, I know), and then to the edge again. I guess it was at least as fun as Marco Polo.

So anyway, we were at the pool and would occasionally hear a cat meowing. Kind of a lonesome, I-need-a-friend meow. It found it's way near the pool and started walking around this kid's chair. He was the only other one at the pool. Nikki struck up a small conversation with this kid (maybe 16 years old or so) and found out that this cat hangs around the pool quite a bit. He even said that sometimes people throw it in the water.

Well me and Nikki love cats. We really do. So we played with it for a little while there by the water. It was surprisingly trusting of us, considering what that kid had said about being thrown in. So we played with it for a while, and then slowly lured it back towards our apartment. Once here I came in and found a little piece of cheese and a small piece of raw bacon. I think that cat was happier about it's new friends and tasty snack than anything for quite some time.

Nikki had clipped out a coupon for 1 dollar off any 3.15 lb. bag of Meow Mix. Don't ask me why she did this, but she found it and sent me off to buy some dry cat food. In about 15 minutes I was back and we filled a little bowl with some food and took it out onto the patio. It was really great to sit there and watch it eat. Very fulfilling.

And what kills me out of all of this is that some people actually think it sounds like a good time to throw an innocent, skinny cat into a pool. Now usually when I do something there are thoughts going on in my head. For example, if I'm cooking some bacon to eat with a baked potato I might be thinking, "Is this bacon cooking too fast? Is the temperature on our new electric skillet set right? I have to remember that Nikki likes her bacon crispy. Should I turn it again?"

Usually we're thinking something at all times, even if they seem like insignificant thoughts. My question is: What is a person thinking at the moment that they lift a cat into the air and throw it into a pool? Do they really have no sense of respect for a living thing? I seriously can't believe it. It baffles me, and if I think about it enough it makes me feel kind of sick to my stomach. I don't really like dogs or snakes, but if I saw a dog or a snake walking/slithering along, I would never even think of maybe picking it up and throwing it into a pool. It's disgusting.

At any rate, I hope that cat realizes that it found a patio where it can feel safe and fill it's belly. The cat food that we left in the dish last night is gone this morning. I haven't seen any other cats around so I hope it's our new cat who ate it all. It's a seafood mix, and I bet he really loves it.

I'm trying to think of a name for him. Nikki doesn't seem really interested in the idea of naming him, but I think it's just because she's afraid we'll never see him again and it will have been a waste to try to bond with him and everything. It would just end up hurting her. Maybe I'm over-emotionalizing everything (is that even something you can say?) and she just doesn't really think a name is important.

He must have a bad diet because this cat was putting out some serious stink-bombs. I mentioned that we could name him Gaseous. Nikki said we could pronounce it like Cassius Clay. Gaseous Clay. I kind of like it.

But we probably won't ever see him again.

And also, I'm sorry about some of the poor writing in this post. It's hard to get back into the swing of things, you know?