September 4, 2005
Big storm blew through last night. We were at Mother Radina’s for dinner. Stopped at Tommy’s Chicago Style Bar-b-que on Dunlap for takeout. Got the beef brisket, chicken, rice and beans, corn on the cob, potato salad and apple and peach cobbler for dessert ($27 cash). Food was awful. All of it. Roast beef out of a can, smothered with mediocre sauce. But the worst was the cobbler, absolutely unedible, basically canned peaches floating in some half-baked pie custard. I’ll never go back there again.

Left Betty’s house at 7:30 and waded up 51st Ave in a torrential downpour. Windshield wipers on high, with the usual Phoenix drivers blasting by us. I don't exactly know why but about every tenth driver in Phoenix seems to think that rain means to speed up and change lanes as often as possible. Saw a white Toyota spun out and facing the wrong direction on the eastbound shoulder of the 101 (where else?). A teenaged girl was standing next to it with an indignant look that said, “I don’t know what’s wrong with this car! I was only dong 85!” She probably hydro-planed, which is so dangerous. At my high school reunion I heard the story of one of my classmate’s sister who was killed near Burro Creek on treacherous 93, along with her kids, as a truck hydro-planed right into her.

Met Deena’s old roommate, Diane, at Albertson’s at Desert Ridge. She has a cat named Guapo (Handsome) that they were giving away (Her roommate is allergic to cats). We’ve got roof rats, kangaroo rats and the worst of the worst, pack rats. Those sticky traps seem so inhumane and messy so we decided to call in a professional rat-buster. It’s a male cat, sandy colored, but we’re considering a name change. My first nomination was “Blondie” as in Clint Eastwood’s character in The Good, The Bad and the Ugly. Kathy said nothing, but after 26 years of marriage I got the message that she thought the name was El Lame-o. My next Old West obsessed idea was to rename him Kitty Carson, or Kit for short. Same look from Kathy. She said she might consider Custer. Actually her name is probably the more accurate handle since the ratio of cats to coyotes and the odds of him surviving out here in the high Sonoran desert are about as good as Custer’s at the Little Bighorn.

Woke up this morning and took the dogs for a bike ride at about eight. Whipped out ten sketches for a new project we’re developing.

I just checked on Kitty Custer, and he's completely taken over Deena's old room. Gave me that look, "You can live here another day or so, but after that, I want to see you gone."

Mark Boardman and his girlfriend are down in Tombstone attending the makeover charrette deal they are running this weekend. I encouraged Mark to go heeled but I don’t think he took my advice.

”If man could be crossed with the cat, it would improve the man, but it would deteriorate the cat.”
—Mark Twain

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