woah

yes, i did change my blog's skin. sexy, isn't it?

anyhow, down to business. this morning was the fourth period exam, and this exam was the only one that i wasn't exempt from/hadn't taken early. today was my last day as an enrolled student at Hunter Huss. graduation is in five days, roughly; then i will be done forever with high school.

i dunno whether to be nostalgic or overjoyed. at the moment, i'm a mix of both. as i strolled the halls of the school to say my final good-byes to beloved teachers, i was close to tears. i have had both good times and bad since ninth grade; overall, as i look back, i can say with confidence that in all they were four years well spent. i've grown a lot since entering Huss; in knowledge and in valuable life experience.

i just want to say, to everyone who has been a part of my life these past four years: thank you. thank your for the laughter, for the tears, for every moment that will linger in my memory. even if the names and faces fade, i will still remember what you have done. i won't start naming people, because i know i'll never be able to list everyone who has contributed in some way to my development since that August in 2005 when i first walked through Huss' front doors.

just open your eyes
just open your eyes and see that life is beautiful
will you swear on your life
that no one will cry at my funeral

that's a good way to sum up my current outlook on life. listen to the rest of the song to get the proper idea of the mood. perhaps it's a bit twisted, if you listen to the lyrics, but it's a kind of bitter optimism. i can't say i see the world as a place of rainbows and butterflies where everyone gets along, but the world is full of opportunities, and which ones you take dictate how it turns out. it can be good or bad, depending on your attitude when you start. if you're smiling, then life will be fairly good. if you wear a frown on the way in, then a dark cloud will follow you. so i am determined to plaster a big grin on my face and make the most of it as i segue into this new era of my life.

more when i finish making sense of what i'm feeling. at the moment, it's too vague to articulate.

Hymn 43

Marcus and company may not appreciate the awesomeness of Jethro Tull, but they can't deny that they can't sing worth shit and than i can hand their asses to them on vocals on Rock Band II. i lost count of how many times me and Dave (and Kelsey when she had the drums) had to save their sorry asses when they had the mic. hearing Marcus try to sing Journey made my soul bleed.

while i was singing Hymn 43, i could barely hear myself for his derogatory comments. still, i hit 83% of the notes. an 83 is good no matter what, but i was on bloody expert mode. EXPERT MODE, BITCHES. the other three (playing guitar, bass and drums) got scores in the 90s, but none of them were on expert mode. -preens- i'd like to see any of THEM try to sing Ian Anderson on expert mode and last more than ten seconds.

-chuckles- i defended my title of bass guitar Jesus last night. Marcus and Dalton are such pathetic singers. some songs, they died at least twice and i had to rez them. even Dave, who can take most every song on Rock Band on expert, was murdered by some of the solos. -cracks knuckles- and i played medium on most of the songs. granted, bass is easier than lead guitar, but i'm not nearly as adept on those guitar controllers as i am singing. and i'm far from a good singer when my voice box decides it's had enough of A7X, but that's beside the point.

the story behind my title, in case anyone is wondering and unfamiliar with Rock Band: when one of the band members misses too many notes and fails, one of the other band members can use some of their star power and resurrect them. at the end of each song, the scores for each band member are displayed, and sometimes you get little comments under them. if one of your bandmates fails and you save them, you can get the comment "Savior" or "Band Savior" under your score. thus, Jesus.

anyway, i'm off to get more sleep. staying up playing Rock Band and making late IHOP runs until one in the morning and then getting up at the crack of dawn to go to work is not conducive to good sleeping habits, even after a two-and-a-half-hour nap this afternoon. -yawns- i need to rest my brain up well if i wanna have a chance of passing the IB test Tuesday and the AP test Thursday. TT^TT my poor brain wil be fried by this time next week.

-foamsatmouf-

Noblitt is very good at giving me stuff that makes me think. and what i think of makes me very pissed. watching that thing by Naomi Wolf the other day in class (Patrick & Co. remember it, if you'd bothered to pay attention) started it, and reading this chapter in the Cold War book is bringing back that outrage.

here's my problem: "Those who would sacrifice their rights for safety deserve neither." i wish i could remember who Noblitt quoted when he said that. that's been in my head for the past three-ish years, because i agree wholeheartedly with it. i won't go into the rant about how much bullshit the Patriot Act and such was, but that was my problem watching the lecture documentary thing in class.

reading the Cold War book added another, similar one. when you compromise people's rights in order to defend yourselves from authoritarian governments, you become NO better than your enemies. i can't emphasize that enough. Machiavelli may have been smart, but for the love of God if you violate the Constitution, we've got some problems. the President is NOT above the law, gawddamit! -veinthrob-

Patrick, i really wish you had paid attention to that movie. this is stuff that happened in your lifetime, and will probably continue to happen. apathy is what has allowed horrible things to happen before, and if you don't learn from history's mistakes, you'll end up shit outta luck and wondering how in the hell your world just got turned upside down.

-deep breath- i needed to get that out. i was really pissing me off. now i'll finish reading my homework.

mrow

not too incredibly much to report since my last post. i'm sure there's been enough to fill up a few paragraphs, but since i haven't gotten around to (forgotten to) post i've mostly forgotten the stuff i planned on posting. ain't ADD grand?

anyhow. there is one thing i remember in sufficient detail: the ordeal of the IB Internal Assessment. Ma, Patrick and co. have already gotten an earful of that, but i'll repeat it for the sake of complaining.
one thing is certain: NONE of the other people in the 20th Century class have ANY right to grouch about doing theirs. if they do i might start ripping throats out. -eyetwitch-

okay, here's what happened: about two weeks before the end of March, Noblitt told me that of the people who are taking the IB history test this May (i'm the only one taking the class this semester who's also sighed up for the test) six of the Assessments from those people are going to be sent in and actually graded by the IB folks. the history ones are headed to Ghana.
here's the fun part: they were supposed to be ready to send out on April 1st. Noblitt told me that morning that he'd just found out, so he couldn't have let me know sooner.
at that point, i was very frustrated. it was all well and good for the ones who took the class first semester, 'cause theirs were done already. but this semester hadn't been in but for three months. since it's IB (keyword being international) it might have been that they didn't factor in the fact that there was a new batch of kids taking the class who'd barely started working on it, since a lot of other countries have a much more logical way to run their schools, but that seems like a stretch. and if they were aware of the semester change, would they really have just assumed that the teachers would make all of us taking the test do this project whether we had the class then or not? it makes no sense.
the kicker for me was that Noblitt had set the due-date for the first two sections of the Assessment for April 2nd.
so i basically had two weeks to do most of this Assessment. and this Assessment isn't like the research essays we're used to, either. i wish it had been, it would've been much easier to get done on time. but nope! the point of this was to pick an event in history, take a certain viewpoint, and pick it to bit. the parts went so: introduction, a basic overview of the event, doing an OPVL on two sources, analyzing the event from your viewpoint, conclusion, and bibliography. no less than 1500 words, no more than 2000. in two weeks. Noblitt had said before that we'd need to look outside our usual places to find sources -- the detail we'd go into, we'd need a more extensive collection of info than the Huss or Gaston library, and something more reliable than the crap on the intarwebs.
so the 28th, i took a roadtrip to UNCC. that trip was a saga in and of itself that i'll get to. but it took the rest of Saturday and Sunday to make sure i had my resources and research in the right place, and Monday and Tuesday to write it. i managed to turn it in to Noblitt on the first like a good little bean. i got word week before last that mine was one of the six being sent to Ghana -- joy.
like i said before, after i had to do pretty much the while damn thing and turn it in when the first half was due for them, no one else in that class has room to complain about the deadline. at all.

and now, to my adventure at UNCC. it was pretty much my first time driving on the interstate after that rather nervous few passes when i was still in driver's ed, so there was that. needless to say i didn't leave the house without taking my pill.
i chose to go on Saturday for several reasons: on weekends, parking is free in UNCC. also, Saturday morning is one of the less busy times when driving on I-85. so the drive up wasn't especially bad, except for the few times when people decided to play musical-lanes right in front of me.
it took me a minute of wandering and a phone call to find a parking deck in UNCC. it took me about half an hour of wandering in the drizzle to realize i wasn't getting anywhere, so i found a map of the campus, which is what i should've done in the first place. after consulting the map, i found a new parking deck and scampered across to the Atkins library.
i had never been in ten stories of books before. it was amazing. i decided, as i was hanging out in the UNCC library and doing my research, that when i got to UNCA i might live in the library there.
i needed to make copies of the books i'd found. i went up to a copier, but it needed a card of some sort. this frustrated me for a minute or three, until i asked a desk and the chick pointed out a rather brightly-colored machine on the far wall that would give me a card to use if i gave it money. so i gave it a $5 bill and it gave me a card, out of which i could get over fifty copies. so i copied the snot out of the two books.
in the process of doing this, i ended up helping out a guy who came over to the copy/printer and asked me how to work it. i asked him what he was trying to do, and he said he had something on the computer he needed to copy. copy onto paper, i asked? he said yes. so i pointed to the laminated paper on the wall next to the copier and helped him figure out how to make the copier print. when he thanked me, i admitted to him that i had never been here before -- he looked flabbergasted. i felt a sort of sympathy for him, because he obviously was unused to technology; i know he drove the library folks to distraction trying to figure out how to work the computer.
the drive back from UNCC was a different ordeal from getting there. it was mid-afternoon, so traffic had picked up again. in and of itself, that wasn't so bad. but it had started drizzling shortly after i got to Charlotte, so i had to drive back in the downpour. not cool. if it had been raining any harder, i would've pulled over and either waited it out or called Mom and Mike to rescue me. on top of that, as is usual for the people in this area, they completely went nuts. the drove even more idiotically than normal, in the rain, with the cars packed more tightly in some places than was really necessary.
under normal circumstances, it bothers me when people play musical-lanes and merge across several lanes all in one swoop and apparently without looking. usually, when they do this, they come far closer to the cars in front of them, behind them, or both, than is good for my nerves. but when they do it in the rain, it's downright scary. i really don't know what possesses these people to ride each other's asses going sixty-five or seventy miles an hour. it's a pile-up waiting to happen. and i especially don't like it when an eighteen-wheeler is involved. and why in the wide world of sports they disregard the rain and the effects it could have on their wheels and brakes is totally beyond me. i managed to keep my head through this whole mess and sighed in intense relief when i turned onto New Hope, where the speeds were sane again. and, after this, i can at least say that i have driven on I-85 in the rain and come out alive, which is more than far too many people can claim.

that seems to be all, i think, besides the fact that the more i visit UNCA the more i love it. i'll blog about the admitted student day this past Friday. eventually.

-veinthrob-

disclaimer: i will cuss a lot now. because i am angry.

i am a very pissed midget, as you can tell. the explanation for those of you who weren't there:

i divide up the people who take japanese I into two groups. the minority take it because they want to learn japanese. the majority take it because it's a crap-class (my term for a class they take just to fill up a slot in their schedules). people in the latter classification never give a shit about the class, so they are always the most disruptive and disrespectful and downright irritating. my problem was with one of the people in this group.

of the idiot brigade this semester, this guy is one of the noisiest. he's been on my nerves since the first day. he never shuts up. he badmouths sensei (under his breath, which is why sensei hasn't caught him yet) and is generally an ass all period long. today was no different.

he and his fellow buttfaces were kicking up a racket as usual. sensei was yelling "shizukani! shizukani!" at them, but of course they didn't really know what she was trying to say so they didn't listen. i heard one of them ask (loudly) "what's that mean?" it came from behind me so i assumed it was the particular asshole aforementioned, since he'd been relocated to the corner of the room by sensei.

by now, i'd had it up to here with them. i'd had enough of it. so i turned around and told the guy that it means shut the hell up. of course, the self-absorbed ass had to turn it into an argument, and he demanded why i was talking to him like that. i replied that i'm talking to him like that because he won't shut the hell up. the ijjit started muttering indignantly, but by then my short burst of temper had faded enough for me to regain control of my tongue, so i ground my teeth and didn't respond.

sensei pushed the button, and asked for an administrator to come down and talk to some of her students who were arguing. hearing the plural just made my temper worse. i'd said nothing but the truth, why get me in trouble? i could understand her reasoning for involving both squabblers, but it still didn't help how irritated i was. so a minute or two later, Suratt (can't spell his name for the life of me) pokes his head in, and sensei calls me and assbreath up there to have a word with Suratt.

i admitted that it was wrong of me to have lost my temper like that, but i lost it for good reason, because buttface and his cronies won't shut up. Suratt asked assbreath why he wouldn't be quiet after sensei kept telling him, which only elicited some half-intelligible mutters. Suratt left after warning us to not raise our voices, and the last twenty minutes of class went by pretty much as normal.

okay. i know why sensei got me involved too, but what was my fault besides giving that asshole a taste of his own medicine? he's been nothing but disrespectful since the beginning, it's about time he got bitched at back. it's his problem if he is too childish to leave it at that. true, i didn't necessarily have to yell, but that's the only thing ijjits like that really listen to. he more than deserved to get someone giving as much snark as they get. sensei has told him to sit outside once before, and i really hope (though i doubt) that she'll do anything worse to the ass. he was the one at fault, i was only speaking the truth. not my fault he got his inflated ego hurt.

i don't regret snapping like that. it didn't make me feel even a little bit better, not on any level, but i don't wish i hadn't said what i did. i won't say i'd do it again, because i'd get ISS and i don't intend on explaining three days of ISS to the admissions folks at UNCA.

you peeps who know me know that i'm not at all the type to lose my temper. or if i do, i usually keep it to myself. that little outburst did nothing to alleviate my irritation -- being called out made it worse if anything. but i'm sorry, when people are being goddamned assholes, there's only so many times i can sit there and keep my mouth shut. as tolerant as i am, even i have a threshold.

so. i'm going to do something mindless for the rest of the day to readjust my attitude.

=D

-does a victory dance- no more braces! no more brackets! WHEE~!

i FINALLY had those eight brackets taken off my lower front teeth today! squee! but to keep my teeth in place, they cemented a little chain-looking wire thing to the backs of those eight teeth. it feels so weird! my tongue won't leave it alone! it's this little smooth bulge behind the teeth, i keep thinking i have something stuck to them until i remember it won't come off. maybe my tongue's distraction with the permanent retainer is what's keeping it from spazzing too much about the lack of brackets. either way, i'm gonna be messing with it for a few days until my mouf gets a grip.

i got out about fifteen minuted into 2nd period, which was good. 2nd is art, and Cronin wasn't here today, so were watching a movie. the same movie most of us have seen at least once, probably two or three times for some of the art III/IV folks. the whole kit 'n' caboodle took around forty-five minutes, so i got out of there around 11:15, 11:20.

now, my 3rd period is on C-hall, which means i have first lunch. first lunch starts as soon as you get out of 2nd and goes for about half an hour -- it's scheduled to end around 11:50. so i realized i could get food! mostly real fast-food and not the questionable school food! gasp! so we stopped by Mickey D's and i got fries and a soda. om nom nom.

the only problem was, right when we pulled up and i opened the car door, i heard the bell for 2nd lunch. BAH. still, i wasn't about to toss out my fries and Coke; even though i don't particularly remember Mrs. Chaney objecting too strenuously to a few of the people nibbling in class, i still think it's pretty rude to be chomping away while the teacher's trying to teach. i was already gonna be a bit late anyway, waiting for the ijjit in front of me at the control room to shut up, so while i stood around to check back in, i figured, "ah, screw it." so once i was officially back in school, i took my noms into the cafeteria. one of my chums Amanda has 2nd lunch, i found out just today, so i sat with her for ten or so minutes while i munched on my fries.

the awesome thing about my 3rd period: it's a Huskins class. the teacher, therefore, often has a more lenient policy about attendence and such than a normal high school teacher. Mrs. Chaney told us the first day or two of the semester that she quote: "didn't care why we're late or absent," unquote. because of that, i wasn't unduly bothered coming into class fifteen minutes late. i'd remembered that we had a quiz today first thing, but i also knew that her quizzes were fairly easy and it wouldn't take me any time at all to finish. i was right -- even though i showed up late, i wasn't even the last person to turn a quiz in. (the teacher usually gives us a few minutes for last-minute studying before giving us quizzes) so it was all good.

that's pretty much all my news for now. this cough is slowly but surely fading, which is good. i got Miranda to take my shift last week so i didn't have to tromp around at the barn with this chest cold thing, and this week we're trading shifts since i'm feeling better and she has a sports-related thing that takes up Saturday afternoons. so yeah, i think that's it. peace.

-coffhack-

bad week so far.

Friday night was awesome. i'm not much of a partier, but every now and then i just need to screw around until three in the morning playing mindless video games and visiting IHOP at the wee hours of the morning. we need to get Kelsie back, peeps. she was cool. DOCTOR OCTOGONOPUS BWAAH!!

i wasn't sure how to set the alarm clock on the blackjack, so it didn't go off Sunday morning when i needed to get up for work. i woke up at 7:10; that was a major OH SHIT moment. i dunno if Dad was awake, but if he was he'd have heard my profane growl to the tune of "oh fuckitall!"

so i rushed to work, getting a call from Alethea halfway there at around 7:30 so i could reassure her that i remembered i was working, i just failed at setting my alarm, please forgive me. she forgave me -- it wasn't like the horses would starve to death if i was forty-five minutes late. so i scrambled into work, glad it was unseasonably warm (for once) since for some as-yet inexplicable reason my throat felt like it was lined with sandpaper.

it turned out that the barn's resident dumbass horse Chello was a bit lame on his left front hoof, so on the orders of his mom Carol he was stall-bound. Carol's other horse Dandy was inside as well to keep Chello company, since the big ijjit flips out if he's alone in the barn. i fed those two first (meaning i ended up feeding the other three gelding in 2 at the same time since i didn't want to run the risk of Chello choking on his food AGAIN if Misha was missing from the stall next to him) and proceeded through the day in a slightly braindead blur. good thing the chores i've got in my job require little thinking. at the end i got the lovely job of mucking out Chello's and Dandy's stalls, which were both FULL of crap and piss thanks to their overnight stay. miraculously, when i wrote down my hours and worked it out, i somehow spent about the same time on it that day that i do on a normal morning shift in full possession of my wits and no full stalls to muck.

the rest of Sunday i did my level best to imitate a vegetable. i had another of my after-work epic naps, and by the time i sluggishly gathered up my stuff and made it home from the apartment at around seven-ish, i had lost the will to move and the joints in my legs seemed to hate me. i thought the flu -- LOVELY.

since Monday this whatever i've got has developed into an annoying dry cough. i think it's just an upper respiratory infection, since the weird aches i had Sunday didn't last the night. Monday and Tuesday nights the meds i took to stifle the coughing made my sleep just as sporadic. instead of draining down my throat to make me cough, the meds diverted the mucous into my nose. i dripped all night, waking up several times in time for epic sneezes that have probably crusted the edge of my bed with slick mess. i'm kinda glad it was too dark for me to see it. as i told Ma on the way to school today: i probably left slug trails all over my bed.

both Niquil and a combination of this Tylenol Cold PM stuff and melatonin did the same thing. usually melatonin knocks me out all night, but it didn't seem to be a match for my nasal explosions. both last night and the night before i woke up at around midnight and again at about four am; last night, i didn't get back to sleep, so around 5:30 i gave in and got up to take my shower. predictably, once i had gotten back out and dressed and snuggled back under the covers, i dozed off for another hour and a half or so.

so yeah. i'll probably irritate the everliving crap out of my classmates all day today with my constant hacking, like i have for the past few days. i think i gave Heather my ick, she's been sounding a bit hoarse since yesterday. where i got it, we're not sure. i have a sneaking suspicion it came from something Friday night.

meh

i'm posting mainly 'cuz i know if i don't now chances are i won't for the rest of the month. but really there's not much to write about, besides new semester crap.

my new schedule:
20th Century History with Noblitt
Art II
Huskins Psychology
Japanese III

20th Century promises to be interesting. a lot of reading and writing, Noblitt said. i'm good at writing. =3 and the mere fact that Noblitt's teaching will make this an entertaining class, at least some of the time.

Art was a space-filler, i never expected too much. this first part we're doing is drawing, which is both good and bad. good because i likw drawing, bad because i tend to be a perfectionist and thus take too long, and also bad because some things i can't draw to save my life. next will be sculpting, and i couldn't say whether i'm excited or hesitant about that.

Psych so far is a bit boring, since it's a lot of lecturing and we haven't gotten into the overly interesting stuff yet. we will and that's gonna wrawk, 'cuz some of the stuff in just this first six weeks of general psych is fascinating to a geek like me.

Japanese... ooh boy. Japanese III student = Japanese II sensei. Hayashi-sensei has three levels of Jap'nese in one classroom. she focuses most of her energy on the Jap'nese I who have no clue what they're doing, and give the II and III worksheets to keep them occupied. since she has three III students and four II students, the III students are charged with helping the II kids.
i will say one thing: without Chris Brown and the idiot brigade in there, it's not nearly as bad. Eric and Strepo, two of the guys who always kicked up a racket last semester, are actually not as bad without the influence of Chris and his posse.
still, when Kepaato-san is in a misanthropic mood, she makes a bad sensei. even though she remembers a lot of the stuff that Dan-san forgot from his Jap'nese II last year and even the stuff Rongu-san forgot from last semester. granted some of the stuff escapes me, but Patrick still fails at remembering days of the month. -shakes head-

by the way. Kepaato-san = me. translating english into katakana and back into romaji makes for a garbled end result. ((romaji = english characters))

IN OTHER NEWS. i am now addicted to Breaking Benjamin. thanks for showing me their music, Garrett. =3 'tis awesome.

oh yeah, i just remembered something else. my old Nokia piece of junk phone has been acting the spazz lately. i think the battery is going dead. either way, i hate the damn thing. and after Ma's old Blackjack took a swim, she had to get a new one, right? but the old one, after it dried out, still works perfectly. so it was a simple matter of prying the back off my old phone, retrieving the SIM, and slipping the SIM into the old Blackjack. Ta-da, i has a snazzy new phone!

i like this thing much better than my old one, and even figured out how to customise the profiles and home screen and whatnot. yay for me! but i'm an indentured servant for a few weeks to pay for the use of her old phone. i'm not complaining 'cuz i know it's fair, even though i hate dusting and vacuuming with a passion.

anyhow, that's it, i think. peace owt.

i am a cupcake.

first post of the new year, whoopee! -does a dance-

anyhow. first update: work was an adventure today! =D

because it had been raining and storming all night long, so the whole stretch of land Diamond Pointe takes up was mostly swamp. a lot of the pasture-space has been scarred clean of grass by years of horse hooves and people boots stomping all over it. and some places, like in front of the gates and water troughs, have been pounded into fine dust. which inevitably turns to quicksand-esque mud whenever it rains.

it was drizzling and mizzling and dripping for the first half of my shift, and for the better part of it i was walking to and fro in the pastures laden with whatever. so i was out in the wet and the muck all morning. most sane people would find this unpleasant.

my inner five-year-old was jabbering euphorically most of the time i was at the barn. i was getting to play in the mud and rain! and i was getting paid money to do it!! that is any child's dream job. and since i'm such a kid at heart, i was having way too much fun. is there any rule against having fun at work? if so, i broke it. majorly.

oh, i forgot one of the entertaining parts. for some inexplicable reason, when i first got to work there was no power for half the street. why, i still have no clue. but the streetlamps were out, and the lights in the barn wouldn't go on. and since i got there at about six fifty or something, it was still pretty dark and dusky out there. 'specially because it was raining and cloudy.

also. Alethea made a bad call last night and opted to leave the horses out. and it stormed all night. so everyone was wet and grumpy. some of the horses, i found out today, have fur that curls when it gets wet. the old man Flare is one of them, and he earned himself the nickname Curly-Q today.

if you're wondering about the title for this post, it's because i wore my cupcake beanie Kelsey gave me for Christmas. =3 it is cute. and i love it.

anyhow, enough rambling from the spaz. -salutes- peace owt.

a day at the shelter

random short story i wrote about TCAR. enjoy. [i sized down the font 'cuz thing this is kinda long to stuff into one post.]

***

I park the car -- sloppily, I suck at parking -- near the far end of the lot, because all these ijjits in big SUVs take up so damn much room. Phone in my pocket, it reads 2:15. I need to remember to keep checking it, 'cuz I hafta be back home before six.

I go through the automatic doors and stroll directly through the store to the back, and there's the familiar chaos: dogs barking, people chatting, volunteers standing around waiting for something to do.

The two folding tables first, closest to the door, holding Judy's laptop and all the paperwork and stuff. A few chairs behind it for the volunteers, and some chairs on the other side for people to sit while the adoption papers are filled out.

Judy's got the mop, cleaning up Brad's latest slug-trail. When he whizzes and craps, he leaves them behind like a snail's slime trail. That beagle is such an attention junkie, and he's a pig -- he's so fat! Not surprising, since he can't use his back legs. Got hit by a car, messed up his back. He could walk after the accident, but he jumped off the roof of the doghouse in his run, and now he has his own doggy wheelchair. Judy made a plywood cover for the chair, and Bradley the beagle has a sleigh for the holidays. Cute.

Judy looks up as I approach and smiles, her round face creasing around her eyes, peering through shaggy sandy-blonde bangs. "Hey there, Ann!" she greets me, cheerful as always.

I grin back. "Hey Judy. Hey Brad," I add, leaning down to scratch the beagle's liver-and-white head. He's out of his chair for the moment, dragging his fat self along by his front paws. He does the greatest sea lion impression -- all I have to do is scratch under his chin, and Brad points his nose up at the ceiling.

There are two crates closest to the tables. One is empty, the other has a reddish lab-mix curled up in it, and a black and white Jack Russel terrier. "Handsome," reads the lab's papers, and "Ted" is the Jack. As I pass, I poke my hand into the crate.

"Hey Teddy!" I croon at the Jack, smiling at Ted's enthusiastically wagging stub-tail. "What's up wit'chew, little spaz?" Teddy licks my fingers and wiggles, his brown eyes bright.

"Ann!" calls the volunteer in the big pen. One side of the big pen is attached to the two crates up front, and the opposite side similarly clipped onto two more crates.

"Hey Sydney! Long time no see," I tell the volunteer, smiling at the lanky girl. "I see you have a lapful," I observe wryly, looking at the black and tan knot on her folded legs.

Sydney rolls her eyes. "Yep. Gabby wouldn't leave me alone until I let her get up here." She strokes the back of the dog in her lap. Another beagle -- Tri County was originally a beagle rescue, so there's a lot of beagles and small dogs.

Except for the bony, rail thin lab-boxer mix in one of the far crates. His name is Romo, and as big as he is, that mutt should be sixty or seventy pounds. He's likely closer to forty, because he's emaciated. He eats like a horse, but getting him back to fighting weight is a long process.

Speaking of fighting -- the tiny, dark scars on his face and legs make me think his former owner fought him. Romo is certainly agressive enough to have been fought, though only in certain circumstances. He doesn't like men on the other side of the fence from him. Other than that, Romo is a sweetheart.

The rattling of the big pen's fence wakes me up, and a smile comes to my lips. "Hello Tracy," I croon, stepping up to the fence to pet the blue heeler mix about to turn herself inside out in excitement. Her head is mostly black, but the rest of her has the heeler's salt-and-pepper mix of black, gray and white hairs. Her fur is so thick and soft. Tracy seems about to knock the fence over, so I unhook the gate and slip inside so she can claw me and not the fence.

As soon as I'm inside, predictably half the dogs in the pen come to say hello. I sink into a crouch to let them investigate, and Tracy promptly tackles me, making me overbalance and fall onto my back. Tracy sits on my chest and covers my face with saliva.

Sydney laughs and tries to pull the enthusiastic mutt from me. "Tracy, c'mere, silly girl. Let Ann breathe."

"Naw, it's okay. Yes, I love you too, Tracy. Yes. Lick lick lick, liiiiick lick lick, wag tail tail. Tail wag, wag tail. Tail. Lick lick, yes. Lick." My monologue only seems to encourage Tracy. It takes a few moments for her to stop licking every inch of my face she can reach. Finally, I can sit up, and I use my shirt sleeve to remove the worst of the slobber.

***

"Hey Aaaann, guess whaaaat?" Judy says in a sing-song voice, grinning hopefully at me with the cat keys in hand.

With a sigh of mock long-suffering, I remove Gabby the beagle from my lap and stand up. "You need me to clean the cat cages," I respond, smiling. Cat duty has been my job since about the time I started volunteering.

Judy hands me the keys, and I make my way through the store toward the cat room, swerving around Petsmart shoppers. The thing in my hand is actually a collection of about five keys -- only three of which work on the padlocks on the cat cages -- attached to what I suspect used to be one of the toys like you'd hang in a parrot cage. It's several loops of thick rope, with square blocks seeming embedded in the rope, and someone has written the letters T-C-A-R on those blocks. "TCAR" is the initials of the shelter: Tri-County Animal Rescue. Also attached to the rope keychain is one of those gray, shapeless plastic things that makes the detectors at the front of the store squeal in case someone tries to steal the keys, though why someone would steal the cat keys is beyond me.

The cat room is a small closet-like space set into one wall of the store. The wall that faces the store is glass, so that people can look in and see the cats. There are ten cages stacked up in two rows against the far wall, and a space between the cages and the glass wall that is barely wide enough for two people to walk. This makes more than two people standing in the cat room a bit awkward, even though the room is ten feet or so long.

As soon as I enter, the stuffy climate of the room makes me wince inwardly. There's poor ventilation, and the only way to keep the cat room from getting unbearably close (and smelly) is to keep the door open. Here's the rub: you have to keep the door closed while you're cleaning the cages, or else a cat might get out into the store. The Airwick puffer-dispenser thing perched on top of the cages does nothing to mask the scent of feline bodily waste.

The first thing I do is to unlock all the cages, checking the bowls of food and water on the cage doors to see if anyone needs a refill. One of the cats is a young adult black DSH male named Sammy Lee. Sammy kicks up a racket when I walk in, meowing and begging to be paid attention to. Sammy is an attention junkie, just like Brad. Sammy Lee doesn't like other cats, but he loves people. He won't shut up if someone's in the room until he gets petted.

Because Sammy is so sweet and loveable, I open up his cage and sit in it (it's on the bottom row) and let Sammy climb into my lap. He starts purring as soon as I open the cage door, and immediately stops meowing. He has what he wants. I sit there for a few minutes, loving on Sammy. He sprawls out on my lap, happy as a clam, his eyes narrowed to slits and purring like a motor. Happy Sammy.

But I have a job to do, so eventually I have to peel the cat off my lap and get to work. Sam yowls again when I close the cage door. I ignore him and start cleaning -- getting the crap and wee out of the litterboxes and putting more litter in there if needs be, exchanging dirty laundry (the cats have beds in each cage and a blanket between them and the metal floor) for clean laundry, sweeping the grit off of the cage floor if I need to; general maintainence. I sweep the cat room floor, put the dirty laundry into a black trash bag I got from Judy and double-bag the dirty litter in the flimsy white trash bags that are the only kind I could find in the cat room, and I'm done cleaning. Now it's time to play with the kitties.

I take Sammy Lee out of his cage and hold his black, purring, fat self in my arms for a while. Sammy just chills; he'll sit in your arms for as long as you're willing to hold him. But since Sammy is a little fat, my arms get tired before Sam is ready to go back. He meows accusingly at me when I put him back in his cage.

"Get over yourself, Sammy, you've had your turn," I tell him sternly. He just keeps meowing.

Next, I play for a little bit with a lanky several-week-old black DSH kitten named Bunker. Bunker is a spaz. He has more personality and energy in his little toe than a dog Romo's size has in his whole body. I love Bunker.

I take Bunker out of his cage and put him on the floor, and play with the feather-toy that all the cats salivate over. They adore the feather toys, and rip them up. Bunker has a blast chasing the feather toy around in circles and figure-eights. I laugh hysterically at his antics. Bunker's legs are too long, so he sometimes trips over them. His kitten-ness is adorable.

When it looks like Bunker is a bit pooped, I pick him up again. Bunker is very affectionate; he starts purring when I hold him. He lets me cradle him on his back. Bunker also likes it when I let him hang out on my head. I lift him up there and he chills out, his chest resting on the top of my head. I cup my hand behind his bum to keep him up there. His front paws hang in my eyes, and I blow my breath on them to tease him. I can see his little chin just above my brow. It's too cute. Bunker tries to eat my hair while he's parked out on my head.

***

When I get back to the dog pen, Matt, one of the younger volunteers, is tormenting Pepper with a lazer-pointer. Pepper is a six-month-old border collie owned by Anne, one of the adult volunteers. Being a border collie, Pepper has strong chase-and-herd instincts. She is fixated on the spot of red on the floor, and Matt makes her spin in circles trying to eat that damn redbug. Anne watches in amusement. "If you ever wondered how to drive a border collie crazy...," she remarks wryly.

Matt has two lazer-pointers. He tosses me the other one, and between the two of us we drive poor Pepper to distraction, because now there's two redbugs. She can't figure out which one to chase. Eventually Anne takes pity on her dog and tells us to stop making Pepper nuts. Matt goes to answer the phone. Sydney has left by this time, so I'm on my own in the dog pen.

It's the after-lunch-and-bathroom-break naptime for the dogs. I managed to escape the extra chaos of feeding time when I was cleaning cats. Lunchtime for TCAR's dogs at Petsmart is always eventful for the volunteers, because about ten minutes after the food is put down the inevitable flood of excrement is unleashed. What goes in must come out....

But by now the food bowls have already been mostly taken up and the food knocked onto the floor by klutzy dogs swept up, so now everyone is dozing. And all the volunteers breathe a sigh of relief at the calm and quiet. Because all is peaceful in the big pen, I decide to spend some quality time with Romo.

For all his bark, Romo is a big softie. He wags his tail as I crawl into the crate with him, and I see in his dark eyes how happy he is that someone decided to make him not so lonely. We have to keep Romo in a crate because it's easy for him to climb out of the big pen.

Romo's bony self is a bit sharp. His hipbones, hocks and elbows are pointy and hurt if they dig into you. His tail is long and whip-like. Some of the younger volunteers who are familiar with him joke that Romo's tail is a deadly weapon that could slice things. It hurts to be hit by Romo's tail.

Despite this, I pull Romo into my lap when I'm comfortably seated in the crate. He's a pushover, so he lets me shove him around and pull on him without batting an eye. But when a man strolls around the big pen, a growl rumbles from Romo's muzzle, puffing out his tawny jowls.

I wrap my hand around his muzzle and pull Romo's face against my own to look sternly into his eyes. "Hush, Romo," I tell him. There's no problem with me putting my hands around Romo's face and mouth, because I know Romo won't hurt me. If I didn't trust him, I wouldn't be in the crate. But despite the bite-scars on his face and legs -- the usual places dogs are bitten in illegal dogfights -- and the warning growls that bubble up from his chest when men walk by, I trust Romo.

When Judy notices Romo's growling, she sighs and remarks that Romo would be a perfect dog for a single woman who wants a living security system. And she's right, that would be Romo's perfect home. Judy sees how I can pull Romo all over the place and shakes her head, smiling. "Look at that! He's putty in your hands, Ann," Judy says. And he is.

I check my phone regularly, and sigh with regret when it tells me the time is 5:30. Time to head home. I worm my way out of Romo's cage, pulling his head to me to plant a last fond kiss on the knob on his skull that some dogs have. "Bye Romo," I say, scratching the tan mutt's ears one last time before I leave. Romo wags his tail, looking at me with wide eyes that seem to say, "I don't want you to leave."

I wave to Judy and Anne and Sandy as I stroll toward the doors. "Bye everybody!"

"See ya, Ann! Thanks for coming!" Judy says, grinning at me.

I walk through the now-dark parking lot and find my car, the little blue Prius looking small and dapper next to the huge Ford truck parked next to it. I slide into the driver's seat and punch the "on" button, and hum to the Sugar Ray CD playing instead of the Christmas tunes that took over my favorite radio station.

"Avarice. The avarice never ends!"

"I want golf clubs, I want diamonds, I want a pony so I can ride it twice, get bored, and sell it to make glue!!"

i wanted to hug Jim Carey when i first saw that movie.

is it just me, or has Christmas nowadays become less about celebrating the birth of Jesus Christ and more about materialism? 'cause it seems that way to me.

i know i'm hardly the most religious person around, but this trend really pisses me off. it just serves to reinforce my suspicion that the good in human kind is slowly leeching out of society.

i long ago gave up the cherished, naïve assumption that everyone in the world is kind and selfless and compassionate. i long ago formed the opinion that a lot of the people in this world are greedy, self-centered, and maybe, just maybe, don't give a shit.

so even though this trend comes as no surprise to me, it still rubs salt in the wound, because i truly want to believe that humanity as a whole still retains some shred of... well, humanity. so it makes me sad and no little bit angry that people would do this.

here's my deal: even though i'm not very religious, i still respect religion and all it does to help people's lives, and some aspects i do admire. so when something like this - like Christmas becoming nothing more than a chance for the rich company owners to suck more money up into their bank accounts to sit on and hoarde like a sleepy dragon - happens, it doesn't sit well with me.

maybe i'm just being idyllic and naïve still, expecting people's virtues to overcome their vices, but when i was a little kid and i was taught what Christmas meant, they never mentioned extravagant decorations and piles of expensive gifts and people getting trampled to death in front of a Walmart. so what i hear and what i see aren't matching up.

here's the gist of a quote from Sra. Depew from when i took Spanish from her: "your actions are so loud that I can't hear your words."

the morals of all those beloved Christmas stories are being drowned out by the screaming, wailing avarice all around me. i can't hear it anymore.

so that's why, for the past few weeks, i've decided that i very nearly hate Christmas. the charm it held for me when i was little has faded, and now all i see is greed. it's frankly a bit sickening. that's why i've become such a Scrooge. it's not because i don't believe in Christmas -- exactly the opposite. i still believe in it, when most of the world has forgotten what it really means.

i will hold on to those stories i learned as a child. i will hold in my heart the true meaning of Christmas, in spite of the rest of the world and their avarice and greed.

i don't need gifts. i don't need a tree. i don't need any of that. all i need to enjoy Christmas are things i already have for myself - my family, my friends. and the true meaning of Christmas.

Wishing on a neon star

i... can die happy now. i have witnessed the inhuman awesomeness that is a Trans-Siberian Orchestra concert.
oh my GAWD!

there aren't words to describe how mind-blowingly, orgasmically amazing that was. suffice it to say, i wouldn't have missed it if immediately after the show was over i would be skinned alive and dimmed in hydrochloric acid in retribution for attending.

a basic rundown of the show in Mike's words: "the first half was 'Oh Holy Night', the second part was 'oh holy shit!'"
they did traditional Christmas tunes (my favorites were Hark! The Herald Angels Sing, Joy to the World and Carol of the Bells) and remixed them in kick-ass rock/metal style with their own embellishments thrown in here and there.
then the second part featured classical music (like Marriage of Figaro and Beethoven's 5th) that they remixed TSO style -- and i swear, Mozart and Beethoven were way before their time, 'cuz their compositions make perfect rock music -- with more of their own stuff.

the lights strobed me out a few times, and from out seats we could feel the blasts of heat from the pyrotechnics, and my ears were still ringing by the time we got home from the loudness of the speakers.
but it was so utterly worth it.

and i'll stop gloating now, or try to at least. it might take a while for me to recover full hearing.

goofball

Sam is such a doofus, bless 'is heart.

for those who don't know, Sam is one of the horses at the barn. he's four or five years old, so he's still young. i've been riding him lately, both in lessons and on my own time. i'm not leasing him though, he's still all Dawn's horse.

so, why am i riding him? well, simply this: Dawn has slightly less experience riding than i do, and she's a bit nervous. Sam is young, and even though he's trained, he's inexperienced. little things like consistent speed around the arena, keeping his head in one place at the trot, picking up his feet so he doesn't trip over himself every five minutes, flexing around turns, that sorta thing. he's laid back for such a young horse, but riding him isn't at all like riding Diamond or Romeo or one of the older lesson horses.

so, we have an underconfident rider and an inexperienced horse. see where it's going? Dawn gets nervous riding him, so she doesn't ride him much, so he doesn't get experience. when she does ride him, she's not sure what she's doing sometimes. it snowballs, and it's frankly kinda sad, since Dawn obvious loves Sam and wants to give him a good life, and Sam likes his work.
he does enjoy being ridden, believe it or not. yes, he gets tired and tried to pull my arms out of their sockets, but he doesn't get frustrated and throw temper-tantrums like Roxy does sometimes.

Dawn rides about the same time i have my lessons (when she does ride him), and Alethea told me when she explained the setup that Dawn started to admire my riding. Alethea must've recommended me to her, too. either way, a few weeks ago Alethea asked me if i wanted to ride Sam for a while. i'd get to ride a horse for free when i rode him on my own time, it would give Sam a much-needed workout with a more confident, more experienced rider, and it would hopefully make Dawn more confident when she'd get on him. a win-win-win situation, as i saw it. so i accepted.

Sam is entertaining to ride. his little "baby-horse" habits, as Alethea calls them, keep me on my toes. the few times i've been able to work with him, he's been getting better. he's getting used to flexing and doing serpentines and figure-eights, which are the bane of stiff horses. yesterday when i had my lesson on him, he did his best yet with the serpentines and rounding.

yesterday, we also did something relatively new: poles. Alethea put the big lengths of PVC-piping we use for jumps flat on the arena floor and had me walk and trot him over them. Sam got really into it, he was having so much fun! you should've seen him, it was a hoot. sometimes he can get a bit sluggish going into the turns and on the short sides of the arena, but rounding the turns at C he was stepping out like i've never seen him do before. he was having a blast going over those poles! it was so cute. once we graduate to actually raising the poles off the ground with the blocks, i can already tell Sam's gonna love jumping. he's still got the youngster's energy.

part of it may be the cold, but i think it was mostly enthusiasm. last night he didn't start yanking on the reins like he usually does when it gets close to time to end the lesson; he does that when he gets tired. and i didn't have as much trouble getting him going as usual, though i'm sure that was the cold.

he did spook when Haley, the one who had the afternoon shift at work today, dumped a wheelbarrow of stall-mucking refuse in the piles behind the arena. it took fifteen or twenty minutes to get him back on track and to make him stop shying away from that corner of the arena, but eventually he got over it. goofy horse.

y'know, it was really cold last night. down below fifty, almost forty degrees. but when you're riding you don't notice the cold. despite the common belief, the rider works just as hard as the horse. i work harder riding Sam than riding Roxy, 'cos Sam is the baby horse. (really he's not a baby anymore, but Alethea's pet-name stuck. Dawn calls him "Little man," which doesn't really help.) when i was grooming him after the lesson and putting his sheet on, i could see my breath. still inside the barn, though the only thing that does is protect from the wind. there's no temperature insulation in that place.

that's pretty much all i've got to say. spent the whole blog talking about something half or more of my readers don't understand much of besides the articles and conjunctions. oh well.

OH EM EFF GEE -falls over-

y'know what the election(s) remind me of?

i think only Kate would know what i'm talking about, but if anyone besides her has read the Mode series by Piers Anthony (i think that's his name), you'd know what i'm getting at.

the book i'm thinking about is Fractal Mode, i forget which number in the series it was. Anyway, the struggle was between the Despots which were patriarchal, and the despots came into power for every inhabited planet in that mode by a certain male going to the "first of the first" node and pushing it. the Amazons were matriarchal, and they came into power one planet at a time by a certain female going to the "ninth of the ninth" node and pushing it. the Despots had been in power on the planet on which our bunch had fallen for time out of mind, and thy had to help the chosen woman to break their reign so they could leave. that's a basic summary of the plot for you peeps who haven't read it.

Kate, maybe you've already seen where my epiphany came from. but the story about how the dude in the story brought the Despots into power for all the planets reminds me VERY strongly of this election: Obama was elected and it seems like almost every seat in the legislature that people are running for is being won by Democrats. can anyone else see the similarities? i just now did, and i almost choked on my bagel-bite.

that's all for now, i just had to get that out of my system.

and Kate, that's a very shmexy tattoo. -nodnod- everyone who reads this blog who hasn't seen her tat, go look.

heh heh

sorry if i've been a moody grumpy-fart lately peeps. i think it's hormones. -shrug-

anyhow, it's application time. ooh, fun. (boring as hell, and these people are so damn nosy! yeesh.)
but it dredged up a few things that i thought i'd gotten mostly over, but apparently it wasn't entirely gone. maybe i'm being a bit of a bitch by bringing this up, but i feel like expressing it. so bear with me here.

the question was the marital status of my parents. now, i'd thought that that whole deal was comfortably past and i'd gotten over it, but when my throat tightened, it told me that i thought wrong.
don't ask me why i'm getting back on this now, i haven't much of an idea either. may be the same hormones that have made me act more like the snappy thing i was in Grier. and yes, Patrick and you guys who've been wondering, the way i've been acting these past few days is a lot like i was at Grier. a snappy, antisocial misanthrope.

but yep. apparently the separation/divorce thing has decided to come back and gnaw away at me some more.
here's the gist of it: that sucked. i don't have it in me to get terribly mad at either of my parents, since despite outward appearances i love them both to death, but that fucking sucked. maybe if they'd figure out the stress it's caused me, maybe they won't be that stupid anymore.
several times, y'know, i've thought to myself, i wish they'd grow the fuck up. they aren't the only ones in the universe, think of me and Kate!
pardon all the French, but it serves my purposes well enough to get the point across.

i'll quit while i'm ahead, maybe take a break from this irritating application. half the stuff i don't have the answers to immediately anyway. -rolls eyes- nosy bastards. why do they care about half this crap?

one more thing: this is just me ranting for no good reason, indulging in a self-pity party. i'll get over it here soon, and with the mood i'm in attempts at sympathy may be taken wrong. sorry to slip back into the pissy misanthrope persona, but there it stands.

-sniffle-

by thinutheth are nod habby wiff be. dey're infecteded. i've been thneezing an' thiff'ling an' thuch for de patht tree dayth. an' typing thith phoedetic'lly ith hard. if you need a translation: my sinuses are not happy with me. they're infecteded. i've been sneezing and sniffling and such for the past three days. and typing this phoenetically is hard.

anyway, latest news: Carrousel? me? what?! -facedesk- i know Seester will be beside herself and Mum is excited, but i'm not. it's not technically supposed to be a beauty pageant, but it's close enough that i'm not too sure if i want to do it. nice how they don't give you a choice, isn't it? >_>
'sides, everyone at Huss knows that Kara will walk away with it, that's a given.

and today, when we were hiking on Crowders, the weirdest thing happened. on the way back down from the peak on the ultra-steep Backside trail, we came across this very skinny, very young squirrel. it was hanging out eight feet or so up the trunk of a tree, and was unnaturally calm around the people (and dogs). it even came down from its perch, low enough that if i wanted to i could've reached out and plucked it from the bark! it even came down to the ground, and followed us! the squirrel frekkin' followed us! it was like a Steven King novel!! it kept following after us for a good few hundred feet, completely ignoring the nuts we tossed down for it. i couldn't tell if it was just craving another living thing's company or if it had rabies or something. it was kinda creepy...

Whether or not you find your own way, you're bound to find some way.

"If you happen to find my way, please return it, as it was lost some years ago. I imagine by now it's quite rusty."

the school library has Phantom Tollbooth. ohmgush. i'd picked up a Steven King for AR reading for English, and i saw Phantom Tollbooth and i nearly tripped over myself getting it to the check-out desk. i got it halfway through third period, and about an hour and a half after getting home from school i finished.

don't worry, i paid attention to class when we were doing things. not very enthusiastically and not always with my eyes open, but i paid attention. i'm so cool i can have my head down and eyes closed and still listen. i'z an audio-learner. aren't i special.

in other news, here's an update on my state of mind: BARG -collapse-

i've been tired and grouchy and blegh all day, and in a state of lethargy since Monday. why, i haven't an extraterrestrial clue. i took a nap yesterday afternoon after school. i never take naps during the day.

egh. not a good omen for the first week of school. >_O otherwise, the world of the pissy blonde midget is boring. for now, peace.

oh my God IT'S STILL ALIVE!

aaaah okay, forgive me, but I just hafta get this out. if you have an aversion to descriptions of violence and such, don't read much past the next paragraph. i won't post the link to the video 'cos it's just too disturbing. i couldn't finish watching it.

someone sent me one of those chain-letter-esque messages, stop the fur trade. it was accompanied by a video of a fur farm, somewhere I'm guessing like Russia. they're skinning foxes.

ALIVE. the foxes are still a-fucking-live (excuse the profanity but it's warranted this time). I see one moving and struggling as they pull the hide off. and they leave it alive, too. in the video one of the skinned foxes is in what looks like the bed of a truck, LOOKING AROUND. it's alive and looking around, but it has no skin.

y'know how people say they don't wanna watch but they can't look away? I had one of those moments with the skinless fox. after that I just couldn't watch anymore, I had to stop.

my inner self was curled up in the corner puking and shivering and sobbing. my outer self was about to puke. i'm still very disturbed. i'll have the image of the skinless fox burned into my mind's eye now.

i'm going to go do something else now. if someone of my readers has an affection for fox fur, i suggest you reassess your wardrobe. or at least be sure it's faux fur.

all my eloquence is gone now, since my Muse has joined my inner self in the corner. I don't blame either of them. anyway, I'll stop rambling. peace out.

EL OH EFFIN' EL

George Carlin is my hero. look him up on Youtube, the man's a genius. too bad he's dead.

Clicky for a hilarious video.

oh my gawsh. and the thing about that video, half of what he says happens to me. o_o it's creepy.

i can't think of much else to say, i'm about to laugh my ass off.

Trials and Tribulations part II

here's the second half of this chapter. look to the post below this for the first half.

***

At that moment, Howl trudged in. He looked slightly more disheveled and considerably more miserable than when he left as he shooed Michael from the chair and slumped in it dejectedly, his face a study in tragedy.

“I love her dearly, more’s the pity. No matter how she rages and raves I can’t help but be captivated by her – but love is a cruel mistress! Why did the arrow have to strike when I was looking upon that ill-tempered witch?” Howl moaned, gesturing limply with one hand.

“This witch is only ill-tempered when you try to slither out of things, Howell Jenkins!” Sophie spat as she prowled back into the castle, an armful of groceries in tow.

Howl cringed – she only used his full real name when she was very angry at him. “You sound so much like Megan, Sophie.”

“Well maybe you should go back to listening to your sister and I’ll just keep up the flower shop here.” Sophie remarked, her voice cold.

Howl’s face fell, the color draining out of it. He leaped from his chair in a flurry of whatever garb he’d worn to bed and went to the red-haired witch, wrapping his arms soothingly around her. “Now now, you don’t mean that, do you love?” He said, desperation tingeing his words. “If you do that I’ll end up covering the whole of Market Chipping with green slime!” He buried his face in her mane of reddish hair, making pitiful mewling noises.

Sophie left off slicing bacon and put the knife down, staring forward with her jaw set belligerently. Michael looked on with wide eyes – he feared Sophie would follow through with her threat and they’d all drown in slime.

She sighed heavily and folded her own arms over Howl’s, leaning against the taller wizard resignedly. “You’re pathetic, Howl. Why do I keep falling for your charms?” She grumbled.

He immediately brightened up and planted a fond kiss on her cheek, beaming as if he hadn’t just been in green-slime-mode. “It’s because you love me, of course. And I love you too, my dear Sophie. Despite all your faults.”

Sophie turned around and shoved him playfully away, a smile threatening to curve her lips. “Oh, geroff, you great fraud. You’ve twice as many faults as I!”

“Isn’t it the sad truth!” Howl said, splaying a hand on his chest nobly. “It’s a wonder anyone bothers to stay around, really!”

Sophie rolled her eyes, shoving Howl away again. “Go on then, spend your two hours in the bathroom to go see the King. And if I find you eyeing any ladies on the side…” She trailed off menacingly.

“I wouldn’t think of it, Sophie dear!” Howl protested with an air of injured innocence, fleeing from Sophie’s stick into the bathroom, calling at Calcifer for hot water.