Who... Wants... KITTEN???

The story is, this is a stray that has been spayed, tested, dewormed, and unsuccessfully placed with my coworker's daughter... apparently she still needs to be litter-trained, ahem, which will be hopefully remedied by a short stay in Kitty Gitmo.

She's a little less than a year old, and very sweet, provided you feed her (funny, that).

Evil, Yes. Practical. Um. No.

So, my car tried to kill me, but like so many other things in my life, it had poor timing.

The other day, after a work-delaying trip to the ghetto-ass Post Office which offers something only vaguely resembling service to my neighborhood, I was on my way to the airport for mysterious reasons which I shall not dwell upon, and I stopped at a red light.

When the light changed, I did what any non-Baltimore driver would do*, and accelerated. Briefly. A split-second after I hit the gas, I heard a horrible noise and the car lurched forward and down and left; you see, my wheel had fallen off. This, I can honestly say, was unexpected.

I shut my new tricycle off and got out to see what the hell? A bunch of sketchy passersby stopped passing by and offered assistance in changing my tire, which would've done little good as the wheel was clinging to the axle by a greasy thread and my suspension had completely given up. I told them, yeah, thanks, my wheel fell off, and they industriously set about shouting at the people waiting behind me "YO, GO AROUND, HIS WHEEL FELL OFF!" which was actually surprisingly helpful. Given that I was broken down in front of the Upton Metro stop (map it yourself, you lazy bastards, or better: look in the Crime Blotter for "Upton Market"... good times), I was secretly hoping my car would be stripped to the point that I could deny ownership and could walk home. Sadly, my car is not even of value to junkies.

I called the police and told them I was blocking traffic, and they'd send someone out, then I called AAA and they promised a tow truck "within the hour" but I wasn't worried; they Red Flagged it. A very nice and yet quite frightening female police arrived almost instantaneously; it transpired that she was, ahem, in the area, because she and some fellow officers had just arrested seven people for dealing in the market. We talked for awhile, made fun of my car, talked about lighting it on fire and going home, and it became rapidly apparent that she knew EVERYONE within a wide radius. I mean EVERYONE. She told me how she used to be based in my neighborhood, which is where some dealer had tried to throw her down some stairs. She didn't give details, but I'm guessing he wasn't particularly conscious when he got to Central Booking. And a good job too. I can honestly say I've never had a better police experience in Baltimore. Hooray!

We stood around for half an hour or so, until a couple of ginormous officers arrived and lit some flares for no clear reason (although I have to say, if my job allowed me to light flares, I'd do it pretty much continuously). The tow truck arrived at about the same time as some senior officer who basically stood around and acted like he was in control, although he was more or less completely useless, and had been there about 30 seconds.

My car towed without incident to Anderson Honda up on Howard, I walked back to the Light Rail and went to work. My coworkers expressed vague sympathy, but troublingly did not offer to buy me a new car, nor to help me disassemble mine into small untraceable pieces. Pity. After work, I went back up to Anderson, paid them $650 (cough, sputter) and drove very gingerly home. A couple days later, it has become apparent that I need new brakes. Either that, or the other front wheel is about to fall off. I'm carrying a lighter just in case.

UPDATE BEFORE ACTUALLY POSTING: I still have the address & phone number of the guy that sold me this piece of shit; I was pleased when I bought it, because it was sold at blue-book value with less than blue-book mileage, but given that the mechanic gently told me "it might be time to start looking for a new car" I can tell you, it was NOT in "excellent" or "good" condition. It's not enough money to sue, and I wouldn't want to testify as to how carefully I've been driving it anyway, but I am considering driving it up and putting it in his driveway before I light it on fire. Of course, knowing my luck, the other three wheels would fall off on the Beltway.
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* the Baltimore driver either didn't stop in the first place, or is now napping/conversing/rocking out/dead

I Have Been Remiss...

in not following through with my plan for dueling iPod babies...



And while we're at it (although I must warn you, there shall be no kittens on Friday) here is what Stan Laurel looked like as an infant:



Hee.

If I Am Disappeared

...this is why. In response to the Joint Chiefs' asinine letter of protest against the Tom Toles cartoon in Monday's WaPo, I sent this note via their comment website:

Sirs,

While I certainly agree with you that an image of a multiple-amputee soldier is an extremely unpleasant one, particularly as I have both friends and family on active duty, I cannot believe that you feel it's more important to scold a cartoonist than to address the problem raised by the cartoon in question (Washington Post, 1/30/2006).

Regardless of our reasons for being in Iraq, our troops have been woefully underprepared since their initial deployment. While I am sure this has been and continues to be addressed, there is no excuse for family members having to take up collections to send proper body armor to their loved ones, and no excuse for that body armor beating military supply chains. There is no excuse for troops having to weld scrapmetal to their vehicles to provide semi-adequate protection. Tasteless or not, Toles is perfectly correct. He is not mocking soldiers, and he is not trivializing their suffering, but is trying to draw attention to Rumsfeld's own callous disregard for troop safety.

I was very proud when the JCS refused to jump up and applaud the President at various points in the last several State of the Union speeches; I thought that was very brave. I realize that you've all worked very hard to get to your current positions, but you must continue to do your jobs and speak truth to power. Presidents come and go, but career soldiers do not. You of all people must know this.

Very sincerely,

jwer