Grady is a little shit!

Well he IS! I have caught him jumping on tables and countertops (he's never done that before) and he is getting more aggressive about the food I'm eating, when I'm eating it. He is also jumping up on shoulders whenever he gets an opportunity to. I admit I pick him up and hold him -- I always have, and now he seems to ask for it when I don't -- but scrambling up to my shoulders so he can spin his butt on my head a few times is irritating.

I think the Twitter account may have gone to his head. That, or it's time to buy that cat a tree made of carpet.

It's been a long time since he's seen Flea (The Bird), and I think he may be a little jealous that Flea sits on Ethan's shoulder when he's out of his cage, and even more jealous that he can't sit on Ethan with Flea around. I'm told that it's Flea's M.O. to terrorize cats. So far, Grady has been unfazed by Flea's aggressive posturing. This frustrates Flea, so now Flea is wary of Grady. I'm a little surprised that Grady has not tried to bop Flea with a paw yet.

Tomorrow is Thanksgiving Day. I will have lots of people food around. I really hope I don't have to lock Grady up in the bedroom for it.

The Magic of the Internet Bites Another Ass

In 1985 (I'm guessing here, but I know these events were in the year before I left Alabama in 1986) I hung out with some shady characters. It was a small town and there wasn't much to do aside from cruising up and down the mile-and-a-half stretch of road down the center of town known as "Main Street" and hang out at the Jr. Food Mart to play pinball.

I briefly dated an homely but sweet guy named Charlie. Charlie was a loser-with-a-heart-of-gold type, always in trouble with the teacher and smoking weed. It was Charlie and his sister that took me to see ZZ Top in Birmingham that year. There was so much pot smoke in that arena that when he asked me what time it was I ended up pouring my drink in his lap as I showed him my watch. As much as we liked each other it just wasn't going to work, so we parted ways.

A month or so later I was at the Jr. Food Mart and met Jerry. Jerry and Charlie were friends. Jerry was the loser-redneck type, but hardly had a heart of gold. He was charming, smoked cigarettes and rode a motorcycle. He also pressured me for sex, which was something I wasn't about to do. "But Charlie said you did it with him!" This was a lie. Whose lie it was I may never know, but I gave him the 1985 equivalent of "oh HALE naw" and ended it. He hung around a bit trying to get back in good favor with me, gave me a necklace, things like that, but I was done. He had crossed the line by assuming I was a whore.

Shortly after this I left Alabama to live with my Dad in Washington, and Jerry was barely a blip in my memory. It was a short-lived romance anyway. No feelings involved, just a motorcycle and small-town adolescent stupidity.

Twenty years later he found me on Classmates.com. I never saw the message he sent because the site is a scam and I wasn't curious enough to pursue it. Now it's twenty-FIVE years later -- guess where he found me? Where everyone else from that era of my life did: FaceBook. I got an email and a friend request. The email says "I have something I want to tell you -- don't worry, it's a good thing." The friend request says "I would love to chat with you." Maybe it's harmless, but I am squicked out.

Part of me does not want to encourage this guy after his treatment of me when we were teenagers. The other part knows how much people can change over 25 years.

What would YOU do?