Austin360 blogs > Globe-Jotting > Archives > 2007 > June
June 2007
Only the good …
I plunked her cage and the big Apple computer box (her second home) into the trunk, threw out the snacks from the fridge, then held her, stroking her into that familiar nap-coma, in which her eyes close, whiskers stop dancing, and her body gently pumps to the beat of her breath.
I told her goodbye. I told her a lot of things.
It was time. That time. Her time. All the rubbish you hear of someone’s “time.” No, it wasn’t her time. Becky got screwed. A relentless tumor tore her up.
I brought Becky to the vet today, one last time. She was 2.
A pair of surgeries and worlds of heartache. I’ve put a couple of pets “down” before. Some reason, this one’s the worst. Looking at me, a nurse asked if I wanted some water.
Back home, I held Becky for a while. Her paws and ears, always ridiculously pink, had gone white.
I’m going to miss the little turd, that rambunctious beauty. Already do. More than you know.
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Sleeping beauty
So you go to an excellent show, as we did Saturday at Emo’s — shredding all-female AC/DC tribute band Hell’s Belles — and have a good, rowdy-ish time.
Colleague slash writing whiz Pat Beach shows up with a friend, and the four of us rawk, a vibe sparkplugged by opener Broken Teeth’s molar-cracking Judas Priest cover of (yesss) “Devil’s Child.” I steal the show’s cool poster off the wall and give it to Pat.
And then reality sets in (the next day, after sleeping from 5 a.m. till 2 p.m.). Mine being Becky the Wonder Rat, who, a few weeks after major, heartbreaking chest surgery is on the mend and acting feisty and omnivorous and digging up the house plants.
But when people ask about her, here’s what I say (straight from a recent email): “Becky is OK, not great. She behaves mostly normally, but she seems excessively tired, almost exhausted. The tumor that was removed — twice — has returned and is ballooning and will soon start making her uncomfortable, if it doesn’t kill her outright. I’m babying her as much as I can and trying to let go bit by bit. It hurts like hell.”
Becky is so sleepy now, she crashes out, arms spread like a high-diver, in my lap or on my feet when my legs are curled up on the sofa. She can stay there as long as she wants.
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Nightmares on Elm Streets
Not sure what it is about real estate agents that prompts me to reassess all humanity and the purpose of life, but that’s not the point here. The point is touring Austin neighborhoods I would never visit had my brother and his wife not come in last weekend to browse homes. In curt, inarguable terms, it answered the question of why I don’t leave downtown and Edenic South Congress. (Because it hurts.)
My brother is Craig, who is two and a half years older. His wife is Cynthia, who works at enduring me. I’ve known her since I was 15 and and she was 17. (Oddly, I’ve known my brother longer.) I used to inadvertently terrify her by blasting King Diamond records, a whole other, completely outstanding story.
Digression: a hoot.
So, Craig and Cyn. In a swan dive of imagination and a sad sloughing off of beloved ideals, the Californians-turned-East Coasters are looking at Austin as an affordable alternative to Ew Jersey. It’s a kid thing. They have a pair of tiny Rumplestiltskins, who are viewable in two blog entries down. The children frighten me. Each of them could beat me up and wound me. Even Natalie. She’s 2.
The point … Our winsome real estate lady drove us around in her bullet-proof SUV fortress, which was so bedecked that my brother actually thought it was one of the homes they were looking at.
Circle C, Steiner Ranch and some other unholy planned village ripe for a David Lynch molestation — that is where we toured. I did pretty well in these areas. It took a full 20 minutes for nausea to set in.
The hot, soul-hobbling day concluded at The Oasis, which people seem to love because you can go blind looking at the sun reflecting off miles of open water. I don’t know. The sun, margaritas, fans with misters, gobs of shorts and flip-flops and people so laidback they might blow away — you couldn’t concoct a worse nightmare for me, Count Drag-ula.
Seven dollar margaritas that provided me seething, bone-cracking brain freeze? Thank god for real estate agents. They get to expense everything.
My boss, Michael Barnes, stole one of the photos I took of Janeane Garafolo on Monday at the Four Seasons and posted it on his blog. (I had to let him under threat of firing.) They’re for an interview with the comedian running in a week or so.
I like the pictures. And I like her. She’s as camera-phobic as I am.
As I do this, I’m eating my first cannoli ever — thank you, Courtney — which is thick and cheesy, chocolatey and nutty. Hello, sugar rush. So long, dinner.
Yet this bit is about live music that, coincidentally, includes Courtney. We saw the kickass Hold Steady show at Emo’s last Friday and are seeing female AC/DC tribute band Hell’s Belles at Emo’s on Saturday. Then it’s Wolfmother at Stubb’s next week. That’s like more live music than I usually see in a year.
Now here’s the cincher: I was at the ritzy-ditzy, glammy-clammy blowout birthday party at The Belmont on Sixth Street a couple weeks ago, where a tiny, foundation-wearing fella named Prince played for about 45 minutes.
Prince. Playing an intimate patio birthday party. On Sixth Street. My friends Margaret, Paul and Caroline were there.
He played bits of “Little Red Corvette” and “Raspberry Beret.” I hardly fit in at that bash, but free drinks, sushi and Prince go fine together. (The clowns on stilts out of Cirque du Soleil, greeting arrivals, were something else entirely.)
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