Malnutrition All Around – Wesley’s Return

My body must loathe me. Aside from the eighteen pounds of chocolate and caramel that I’ve consumed this weekend in the traditional Hallowe’en way, I’ve been getting lazier than usual with feeding myself.

This is a delicate way of saying that I’ve sunk to the lowest of the low: worse than K-D, faster than a PBJ, more unhealthy than KFC, and generally surpassing in badness any other foodstuff exclusively referred to by capital-letter abbreviations. Yes, it has come to this. Powdered instant foods.

Instant tea. Soluble protein. Easy-Mac microwaveable mac & cheese. Ramen noodle soup in a bowl. ‘Just add water’ is my catchphrase of the week. Put away your conventional ideas of self-abuse, and welcome to the new world of intestinal harm.

Oh my God! Speaking of malnutrition!!! WESLEY!!! I have just now, JUST NOW, mid-entry, found our cat. She has been missing since September 20th. That’s seven weeks of terror, angst, despair, and finally resignation at her loss. And now she’s sleeping contentedly wrapped up in a ball on my pillow, purring as though nothing had happened. It’s bizarre.

The tale of Wesley’s mysterious return:
Today, on my way out to get dinner with Darcy, we paused in the hallway because there was an ungodly howling coming from the stairwell. I couldn’t tell if it was one of Art’s cats having a fit on the second floor, but it sounded desperate enough to need attention, so I told Darcy to hang on and went to find the source of the noise.

As I got closer to the stairs, I could tell it was coming from below them, not above them, so I asked Darcy to come with me to investigate. We crept downstairs into my Texas Chainsaw Massacre-style stone and dirt basement, and I discovered that someone had installed a new and frightening door down there since the last time I’d paid the cellar a visit. Which was, naturally, during the Great Wesley Hunt of a month ago. The meows were coming from behind this new second door, with frantic scratching now and soft thuds of a tiny body throwing itself forwards.

I cautiously reached out to turn the handle, worried I was about to be attacked by a feral cat who had climbed in through one of the basement window wells and trapped itself. But no! A familiar black and white streak shot by me on the steps back to the first floor, and Darcy and I took off after her.

She fled all the way up to the door to my apartment, and once I’d opened the door, up and into my bedroom. Once I got a good look at her I could see she was skin and bones, and dirty as all hell to boot. I went into shock, my body temperature dropping and knees shaking and heart palpitating. My poor, poor kitten has been starving and alone for over a month and a half. Never mind the searching and the worrying, and the fact that she’s miraculously bright eyed and active still: I was responsible for her and I failed to keep her safe.

I don’t know what became of her in the seven weeks she’s been missing, but she’s only been keeping body and soul together with mice and rainwater by the looks of it. Maybe she ran outside and then crept back in by the window well and couldn’t find her way out of the basement. Maybe the workmen who were installing the new door down there shut her in by accident. Maybe she just wanted some time to herself, or went on some sort of kitty vision quest. Who knows? I’m just happy she’s back, drinking milk and ravenously eating her carefully-rationed-to-avoid-regurgitation nosh.

The truly spooky thing is that I was on the phone with Chrissy earlier this evening, making plans to meet Tuesday with the not-so-hidden agenda of me spending some quality time with her kitty, Cleo, who was caterwauling while we were talking on the phone. We discussed my sad lack of feline companionship around the house, and I spoke Wesley’s name aloud for the first time in weeks. Perhaps she heard me from all the way downstairs and decided to make her presence known.

Mari thinks it was the ritual Samhain spell, calling on lost souls to return home, that summoned her back to us. Anything’s possible, I guess. Strong magic, indeed. Lastly, I got strongarmed into opening a LiveJournal page so that I can read the “locked” or hidden entries of my friends who write there. The upshot of this is, now anyone who wants to leave comments about what they read here (or there, if I actually start writing in the darned thing — O, the solipsism!) may do so. Woot, here it is…

http://www.livejournal.com/~pipesdreams/

Carving Up a Storm and Watchin’ CSI

Happy All Hallows Eve!

Tonight was all about preparation for the party at ‘Casa del Horror’. I lugged my enormous bag o’ wicca goodies, which weighed about twelve tonnes, out to the west end to avoid carrying it tomorrow when I’m all geared up in my fetching bunny outfit. It shouldn’t have been so heavy, but I persuaded myself that if I was going to trek over my own chalice, athame, and casket of white sage, I might as well bring the altar stone, too. Not to mention any number of tools of divination for the more curious party goers: fortune telling teacup, tarot deck, bag of runes, and a scrying bowl.

It was a great night, and very productive. Four of us ladies spent four hours sitting on the floor, scooping and carving 5 large, 2 medium and 4 small pumpkins. So many guts. So much mess. Ye Gods.

I spent most of the evening feeling particularly medical, performing meticulous surgery on my big orange gourd while parked in front of the telly watching some freaky-assed CSI episode. It involved this weird counter-culture where people get off on wearing plush furry animal costumes. I was completely grossed out by the visuals of the PFA (Plush Furry Animals) convention, and appalled that they went into some detail regarding terminology for the sexual encounters of these freaks.

Appalled, that is, until I realized 1) I am also a counter-culture convention-attending freak, and 2) tomorrow I am dressing up *to go to work* as an enormous pink bunny in a full-body plush suit complete with pink plush mitts to cover my hands, spats to cover my shoes, and a headpiece with ears that leaves only my face exposed to view. I mean, sure, it’s Hallowe’en, but I’ll be traveling on public transit in this getup for goodness’ sake. At that realization, I pretty much went back to carving my pumpkin.

Ah, my pumpkin. A modern masterpiece of jack-o-lantern style. Amy took about a whole roll of film post-carve, so there will be pictures posted here shortly. I tried to think of the scariest face possible, and then at work today it came to me in a flash. Underworld! Kraven! Complete cranial bisection! I sliced my pumpkin in two on a diagonal and carved a horrifying creased vampire face onto it, pupils looking disbelievingly downward at the widening incision that is slowly separating his forehead, eyes and nose from his mouth and chin. It’s hilarious, scary, weird and awesome. I also did a mini-tealight pumpkin, no bigger than my fist, which is a little mini-galaxy of moons and stars.

Alyssa’s piece de resistance was a struggle against the oppression of the traditionally carved pumpkin and it’s slavish adherence to the arrangement of the human visage. A Picasso homage, it involved many oddly sized and cubist facial features migrating to new and different areas of the head. She also did a number of smaller pumpkins, usually involving the ‘boo!’ round eyes and mouth concept, which were truly adorable.

Amy got out the big guns, and tackled the two gigantic mofos with great aplomb. She turned the tall, lanky gourd into a street sign indicating the house number; while the round, portly gourd became a monster whose gaping maw gapes so gapingly that you can actually see its TONSILS. Fabulous.

Christie departed from her usual role as Designated Scooper and Cheering Squad, and produced several menacing vegetable creations of her own. The big project was a fellow I like to call “the greasy Mexican” in honour of my long-lost friend Gustavo. It has a jaunty chapeau and a long, curvaceous moustachio that flickers greasily with the light of its internal flameio. Her tiny pumpkin (or ‘pumpster’, as they are colloquially known) was more of a psychological piece. It features an “X” on one side and a “Y” on the other, in a nod to chromosomal labelling. Reflective of the inner horror of studying for the MCAT, it can be interpreted on a deeper level as exploring the horrors that women have suffered through the ages at the hands of the male of the species. Deceptively simplistic in its execution, this is truly the most scary pumpkin of all.

Time to get to bed, although I’m sure I won’t get to sleep for ages yet. I am one excited little witch right now! Hurrah for Samhain!!!