Saturday, December 8, 2012

ROW 80 POST 38 – THE RAT WHISPERER – A LOVE LETTER


Being homeless broadens one’s horizons. Yeah, no shit. That makes it sound like a candidate from MissManner’s School of Perfection chipped her nail polish and ended up on the wrong side of the tracks. Well, if you want to look at it like that, be my guest, but you will have missed out on all the stupidity, catastrophe, fun, yes fun, and peril that put my dumb ass in this predicament, in the first place.

I would also like to climb further out on this metaphorical limb and perhaps break the branch altogether and say, that life is one hell of a lot more entertaining post-homeless, than pre-. Along with all of the attendant annoyances, Food Stamps, and the idiots of the FDC, Medicaid and the non-existent elves of “medically needy," and “costshare,” plus, all the redundant nightmares of the state and federal bureaucracy, we get what has to be the King of all Bad Governors, Ever.


Am I Sparkly Enough?

We have the ever evanescent presence of Florida Governor Rick Scott of the Sparkly Pluto Party, who along with his mendacious, shit-witted, and mostly stupidly-named minions of the state government who have never met a state or federal program they couldn’t fleece. Turns out one HUNTING DEUTSCH, Rick Scott’s “Job Czar,” whatever that is supposed to be and do, resigned after being paid unemployment benefits?!?!?


 On second thought, I am rather dim-mish here. Truthiness, y'all...

I KNOW!!!! What       The     Fuck???? How come Rick Scott is still alive? How come Hunting Fucking Deutsch just gets to resign? Seriously? Does this Scott have a reason to inhabit air molecules? And how come all of this malfeasance is just explained away, like, no biggie. No big deal. Imagine for a minute if you or I did something vaguely, oh, I don’t know… criminal? Maybe, steal a loaf of bread, because we’re hungry? That shit happens here all the time. I’ve seen people get arrested at my grocery store. I don’t know that they’re prosecuted, but they take them away.

We’d end up like our pal Quandarious Hammond… Really. And here is Hunting Deutsch, just waltzing off to the, I guess, the Black Forest, with a freaking Nazi-sounding name like that. No German-Bund hate mail please. And just why is it, that the GOP always has people with the stupidest names imaginable? That one guy, Crpsx Grpn, or something. I can’t find him on Google, anyway, you know who I mean, honestly. Another toad. Well, I’m too busy or lazy to look for him and my eyes are still trying to get over Hunting Deutsch for God’s sake!

Geeze, I wasn’t even going there, but I remembered that and that’s all it took. I was going to talk about “The Rat Whisperer.” Our kitty-cat, so proudly displayed here on my blog, was a gift that showed up late one night, when JC was sitting outside. He doesn’t always sleep all through the night and he doesn’t like to be inside all the time. It’s quiet here at night; blessedly quiet. During the day, it’s all boom boxes and Latino music and hurly-burly. We love it, but it do get raucous, so night time is a good time to sit out and reflect.

JC has had troubled times; as have we all. I dealt with mine by doing the go crazy-on-the-installmentplan. When the ARM bubble payment was due, man was that a bitch! But, it came right, I think. It's been almost a year, since that part and JC has been by my side for 2 years now. For him, with all of his goodness and purity, he was let down and hurt badly. No one should ever have their trust used and broken the way he did and as long as I’m alive, that will never, ever happen.

JC’d had a little dog once, and when he had to go, he had to leave her behind. I’ve heard lots about that little dog and how he loved her so. When we were all over at the homeless shelter, of course, we couldn’t have dogs. Cats would show up, and they would get fed, with whatever scraps, were around. One of the guys there still cares for the strays. I remember him hollering, “Who’s feeding these cats spaghetti! Cats don’t eat spaghetti!”  Meanwhile, the cats and possums were wolfing down spaghetti, donuts, cheerios and ramen noodles. Basically, anything anyone put on the ground, by the kitchen. 

Being in our homeless shelter was nothing so much as like being in high school; a very dangerous high school at times, but high school. You had cliques. I guess once a nerd, always a nerd, because that’s where I ended up; with the nerds. JC, H, D and a few others. Out on the outskirts, not doing drugs, or drinking, just kind of hanging out between doctor’s appointments, physical rehab, trips to SSA, parole offices, grocery stores, part-time jobs, or vocational rehab classes. Man, we lived there. Live-in school of hard knocks.

So, being nerds, we were also kinda, but not really, easy prey; we sat where we could watch ALL of the goings-on, keeping our backs to the wall, so to speak. We sat in the back in a row in porch chairs along what had been an old hotel on a cement easement. Underneath the easement, there was a family of rats. There were about 2 or 3 generations of rats living under there. They came and went, and JC started feeding them. The rats brought their kids and grandparents along to feast on the plenty.

We had been sitting out there for months and people were bringing out their sandwiches and crackers and here’s JC collecting all of this and feeding these rats and making pets out of them.  They would hear his voice and come out and wait for him to bring them “treats.” The owner came by one day. “Hey! Who’s been feeding these damned rats? If I find out, that person’s going to be kicked out of here!” This from the guy who is renting to burglars and dopers. So, we had to cool it on feeding the rats. 

When Buttercup, Butterball, Butterscotch or Mama came to us, she was very, very shy. I think she may have been abused. There is damage to the right cornea of her eye. It took JC a long time to get her to the point where she would let him pet her. She is still leery of people she doesn't know; I’m grateful for that, because she still is not keen on being a totally indoor kind of cat.

She’s really a charmer and so funny; it's been years since I've had a cat. The most fun though, is watching the interaction between Mama and "The Rat Whisper." She loves him to pieces and follows him around. She looks up into his face, when he talks to her. He gives her directions with his hand and he uses American Sign Language. I may not know what he's saying, but she does. Lately, she’s been after his shoes. She gets her claw caught in his shoelace and the shoe “follows” her and then she takes off! It’s hilarious the way she zooms out of the room. JC is used to dogs and he said once, “Do you think she likes us?”

I said, “She likes me, but she adores you.” It’s the truth. And I love him, unreservedly and forever; the way it should be.

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