Edgy Mama

For those few of you who are new to Edgy Mama, welcome! Just to catch you up, pnav stands for “posh North Asheville villa,” which is what Ash christened my humble bungalow a while back.

The photo is of one of my two kitties, Rocky, aka Sumo Cat.

If you want to read past wild animal chronicles, you’ll have to Google “Edgy Mama rat.” Then you can learn all about the mad Roscuro, chewed-up dishwasher hoses, and the Bucket of Death.

Or you can just read this. The continuing chronicles.

I’ve written before about the Wild Cat. He looks a bit like my guys in that he’s an orange and white marmalade, but he has a huge bulls-eye design on one side. Which would be good for target practice if I had a shotgun. And if I could shoot well. O, and he also has balls. Which my cats don’t have. Any more.

He’s quite an attractive Tom, but feral as Will. Over the past couple of years, the Wild Cat has gotten into our home and broken two lamps, one vase, one window screen, and ripped the floor molding off both our downstairs doors. He also has terrorized my boy, scared the shit out of me (I reached into a pile of stuffed animals and one of them hissed) AND he has cost us over $1,000 in vet bills.

He and Rocky keep getting into territorial battles and my sweet pussy always loses. You’d think he could just plop his close to 21 pounds of feline flesh down on the Wild Cat and the battle’d be done. Well, if the Wild Cat wasn’t equipped with teeth and claws. Right now Rocky has a huge draining absess on his back. Last month he had one on his heinie plus three fang holes. He’s on antibiotics again.

My vet tells me I have to catch the Wild Cat and have him done in. He (the cat) won’t stop breaking into our basement and home. He won’t stop beating up Rocky. And there is a rabies epidemic in this area. Not to mention feline leukemia and AIDS.

So the vet lent me a humane small animal trap. Last night, I set it up in the basement with some yummy Purina Healthy Weight Management crunchies in there.

Anyone want to guess what we caught?

Occasionally, I share one of the fluffy articles that I write for pay with you, lovely readers. Here’s one that I think you’ll like on the Tango scene in Ashvegas. Anyone ever tried the dance? It’s lovely to watch, but quite complicated.

because I say so.

Between, Georgia by Joshilyn Jackson.

A Field of Darkness by Cornelia Read.

Kay?

Enjoy.

Testosterone is a potent drug. Growing up with sisters, I had no clue as to its true potency until I had a son. Well, that’s not quite true. I have had lots of boyfriends, but, I’ve never examined their behavior as closely as I do that of my son. With good reason.

This morning, my sartorial five-year-old boy told me he wanted to wear his plaid button-up polo shirt, given to him by his grandmother, because he wanted to look “handsome” at school.

“Who do you want to look handsome for?” I asked.

“Well, you think I’m handsome,” he said, batting those impossibly long, black lashes at me (avoiding direct answers seems to be a Y-chromosome trait–or maybe that’s testosterone at work as well).

“Yes, I do think you’re handsome.”

Long pause, then a bit sotto voce, he said: “So does Ana.”

Yes, Ana–the reason I now have to pick him up from school early so he can have five minutes of playground time with the lovely Ana before we have to run to the bus stop to meet his sister. Ana, of Greek descent, with long brown curls and huge brown eyes. She and the boy hug, they play tag, they play hide and seek. Early courting rituals at work.

“So is Ana your girlfriend now?” I asked.

His eyes lit up. He hadn’t thought of that. “Yes. I just made her my girlfriend.”

“Have you told her that yet?”

“Not yet,” he said. “I’ll have to think how to tell her.”

“Just ask her sweetly if she’ll be your girlfriend,” I said. “I bet she’ll say yes.”

He smiled, then proudly buttoned up his handsome shirt. All by himself. Then he forgot to take his Teddy with him, and I had to run down the street, barefoot and in my pajamas, to make sure Teddy made it to school as well.

I’ve seen buttons on a couple bloggies that say something like “Keep the Internet Civil.” Have you seen one? I remember seeing it and wondering what the heck it meant. Seems a bit vague. And most of the folks I know via blogging are highly civil.

Unfortunately, I’m beginning to understand. It seems that there are people out there who want or need to foment hate for NO good reason. Not to get too much into the psycho-babble, but I think the folks who randomly throw hate comments or anonymous e-mail at others are hiding a wide streak of bitter and self-hate that is just NOT healthy. For anyone.

I got blasted by a hater today on Ash’s blog. Don’t all go running over there to see because although he responded at first–by defending me (the chicka obviously didn’t realize she was messing with a close friend of his–not that he would put up with that kind of shit, regardless)– but then, he decided to delete the comment completely because, really, who wants random hate toxifying their bloggie?

Anyway, the comment that sent the hater off was a fun and silly little response to one of Ash’s posts. I mentioned how cute Heath Shuler is (former pro-footballer running for Congress in my district–I call him Heath Bar). I mean, hell, we all know I’m a sucker for a pretty face. So, out of the blue, this chicka posts a comment calling me rude names, insulting my intelligence, and accusing me of venom. What? Nothing worth repeating really, or even getting riled up about, but, even so, it hurt.

I immediately wondered if she would have the guts to say something like that to my face. I doubt it. Which brings us back to the civility issue.

Being able to post, anonymously, to fire off the first mean, jealousy-inspired remark that enters your head–not a good idea, peeps. I’m not entirely innocent here. I’ve done it. Well, once. And I regretted it. Still do.

I NEVER have commented or e-mailed anonymously. I’m not proud of everything I’ve said or written, but dammit, you, and everyone else, knows it was me.

That’s not to say that steath blogging is a bad thing. Some of my dearest blog buddies are stealth–either because of what they write about or family dysfunction or another excellent reason. But those who are dear to me, stealth or otherwise, do not attack other bloggers or commenters.

I’ve had a couple nasty comments left on this blog like steaming piles of dog poop. I immediately scooped them up and deposited them in the trash can. I will not condone that kind of behavior on my sweet little soundboard. Unfortunately, it seems to come with the territory. Some folks have nothing better to do, I guess.

Ironically, I was reading Dooce just yesterday. And she is ironic. She’s not one of my regulars, but because she is the QUEEN, I do check on her every once in a while. She’d written a post where she excerpted a bunch of hate mail she’d received. She really didn’t comment much on what the rude ones said. She didn’t have to. Their messages reeked of self-hate. None of it was really about Dooce. It was about finding a scapegoat, needing to vent and not knowing how, about unleashing, often anonymously, because this has become an easy forum to do so. Made me sad.

If you know where I can get one of those civility buttons, let me know.

And, I’m going to sound like an old hippie here, but let’s spread love, not hate. Kay? Life’s too short to hate.

And okay, I am an old hippie. But a cute one.

Saw the glorious Avett Brothers last night at Asheville’s Orange Peel Social Club. They rocked and wailed and exuded sex appeal.

This is the third time I’ve seen these North Carolina boys perform, and the third time, as they say, is the charm. This time, the Avetts headlined to a sold-out crowd and practically everyone there knew their songs. There was an intergalactic energy between the band and the fans–the kind of synergy that makes the small hairs stand up on the back of your neck. The boys drank it up and poured it back as liquid fire.

Ash took this photo of the boys when I was out-of-town and posted it to the bloggie. Way to make me jealous, guy.

For a sampling of their music, check out the Avetts MySpace page.

Don’t you just want to eat them up?
I’ll take credit for turning Ash and a number of others on to the Avetts. I like turning people on. I’ve turned some of you on to Joshilyn Jackson’s novels and to Eliot Perlman. Now if only I could figure out a way to get paid, other than the obvious, for turning folks on.

My buddy, Neil, has dubbed today Blogger Appreciation Day. The idea is that you take a picture of someone’s blog on your computer screen and e-mail it to them. The farther away the better. Above is the shot Neil sent to me from sunny Los Angeles.

I sent him this photo (which I should have lightened up):

I’m getting to this a bit late, but if you’re so inclined to spread the love, go for it. Let’s just make it Blogger Apreciation Weekend!

Our dishwasher is still flooded, but the appliance guy is coming back with a Wet Vac tomorrow to clean out the drainage hose. Which, I hope, will solve the problem.

While the app dude was here, I asked him why our fridge pops open every time I close the freezer. It seems that the seal has split on one side. He can fix that too. I became so excited at this point that I asked if he could fix the broken lamp in the living room and repair the holey screens on the porch.

“I fix appliances, lady. You need a handy man.”

O, I do.

There was an article in the New York Times recently about why so many women fall into bed with construction guys. The article was titled “The Allure of the Tool Belt.”

One dude whose wife ran off with his home renovation foreman said something like: “Construction workers and women: it’s like shooting fish in a barrel.” My BIL, who is a home renovation guy up in Boston says this kind of stuff never happens to him. But his wife was in the room when he said that.

I totally see the appeal. You’re a woman who wants to renovate or add on to your house. You’ve been thinking about it, planning it, for months or even years. Suddenly, you have this guy in your home, all day, who listens to you (it’s his job even). This guy, who is all muscled and sweaty, is helping you build your dream house. He also can and will fix any and all of the little nagging problems that have been plaguing you for years. He doesn’t say, “Later.” He doesn’t sigh and roll his eyes. He does whatever you ask and does it well. The first time you ask.

Sigh.

We’ve been talking about adding on to our house pretty much since we moved in five years ago. I keep putting it off, mainly because I know how much of a time commitment it will be for me. But the plan just slipped from my “in the future” pile to my “priority-now” pile.

Ashvegas wrote an edgy post today about Marisha Pessl, based on Gawker ’s dissing the author of Special Topics in Calamity Physics, labeling her only “book hot,” whatever that means, based on a not great photo. Later in the day, Gawker actually apologized (is this a first?), and labeled her “TV hot,” based on her author photo.

Poor girl. All she wants is to be taken seriously as a writer, yet no one can stop discussing her looks. But all publicity is good publicity, and you can bet her novel is selling like funnel cakes at a country fair. In fact, at this moment, her Amazon sales rank is #15. Yes, #15. Big sigh.

Having met her a couple of weeks ago here in Asheville, I’d rate Marisha as hawt, though a bit on the thin side. Girl needs to eat some nachos.

Meanwhile, I woke up this morning to a flooded diswasher AND “someone” had locked Sumo Cat on the screen porch all night forcing him to poop all over the sofa cushion. Kind of made me wish my looks were being dissed on Gawker.

One of my tastier journalistic forays of late.