Friday, February 26, 2016

A Different Kind Of Douche Bag, It's Regional

I know, I don't post very often these days.  It doesn't mean I'm dead or that I've totally given up.  Ideas for blogging come to me every day, but these days I just let them pass.  I was thinking of my March 2015 Sick Day post, the one about how I hate Toyotas because their drivers have no concept of the evils of driving up on you at a high rate of speed and tail gating.  Still to this day any bad driver I see coming up on me in the rear-view mirror is in a Toyota.

My point here is that this seems to be a regional malady.  I went back to New Jersey last October for my mother's 95th birthday.  More stories about the trip may come up in the future, but for now I want to talking about driving in the Garden State and in the Empire State.

Having lived here in Oregon for the last 27 years I had forgotten what toll roads were.  Actually I had forgotten how to get anywhere after all this time and I relied on the GPS for every move.  There are people there that refuse to ever take a toll road.  I gave in and let the GPS take me from point A to point B on the shortest route.  Though the toll roads have an Easy Pass system I paid cash at every toll.  There was one exit  from one highway that exited onto the Jersey Turnpike where I paid 60 cents to drive three hundred feet to the next exit off of the Turnpike.

We also drove on the Garden State Parkway which has toll boots set up every fifteen miles or so.  I think it is so cool that the only toll road in Oregon is the Bridge of the Gods in Hood River.  I think it is also very cool that once the Astoria Megler Bridge was paid off they removed the toll in Astoria.

But I digress... The point of this post is Douche Bag drivers. I found that the drivers in New York and New Jersey were oddly very courteous; even the Toyota drivers.  You don't see many casual pick-up trucks back there so there were no little trucks with big tires.  Those with pick-up trucks were contractors.  These are working trucks, not show trucks with untethered dogs and a half rack of Hams.  Those who drove Toyota cars were actually OK.  The Douche Bags of New Jersey drove Ford Mustangs.  When I lived there the Douche Bags drove Camaro IROC-Zs, but times have changed.  The new muscle-stangs bring out the beast in the drivers and these folks can easily stand proud with the Toyota drivers of the Pacific Northwest.

Wednesday, February 17, 2016

A Sign of Spring

It was in the spring four years ago when someone dumped off two ginger tom kittens at our place.  One was pretty friendly and I named him Puff.  Puff would come to us and let us pet him.  His brother was skittish and he always hang in the background and scurry away when ever we approached.  We named him Creamcicle.  The two cats hung around for a month or so.  Having three cats at the time we didn't want to adopt more, but as they matured we wanted to capture them and have them neutered.  Oddly they both disappeared and weren't seen again as we attempted to trap them.  We would have kept them as outdoor cats.

The following year Puff returned in the spring.  He didn't miss a beat. It was as though he never left taking up residence on our steps; his favorite place to lay in the sunshine.  He would come to us and let us pet him.  He was still a tom so where ever he spent the last ten months it looked as though he was being fed will, but no one had him neutered.  We were curious as to where he lived, so we tied a string around him with a note asking his family to contact us so we would know he actually belonged to someone.  He hung around for another two weeks with his note still attached, but then he disappeared again like he had the previous year.  We thought this time he was dead.

Last year he appeared again in early spring.  Again it was as though he never left.  He took up residence on the steps again.  He was still a tom, but we noticed this time he was spraying, which is unacceptable.  He was also scratching himself quite a bit, so after a few days I got him some flea drops and got ready to capture him to get him neutered, but then Puff was gone, again.

This morning I let our cats out as I always do at around 4:30AM, and they are usually ready to come back in by 5:30, but they weren't standing by the door as usual.  No big deal; it wasn't raining so I figured they were both perambulating the parameter in the drier than normal conditions.  I saw the true reason they hadn't returned when I went out to feed the horses at 6:15.  Puff was back and our cats were hanging out with him hearing of his adventures last ten months.  Puff looked fat and I couldn't see if he was still intact, but I'm sure I'll have the opportunity to make a closer inspection before he disappears again until next spring.