fatrockstar

Ethan asked me yesterday if I was up for a gig on Sunday. I said sure, the rest of his band said okay, and then he had to quickly throw together a rehearsal. He then said that it would be tonight, and late. Given the series of events that happened this afternoon I don't think I'll be at that show on Sunday. Around 4 he texted me that the garage door wouldn't shut and he had to leave. I called him right back and he was already on the freeway -- why he didn't call me when he realized it wouldn't close I have no idea. I thought I'd have to go home early to fix it, but Ken stepped in. He's one of those people who does the 6 - 3 shift, so he was available. Problem solved.

Ethan wouldn't open the garage if he didn't need something out of it. In this case it was his amplifier. I guess I won't be at any rehearsal. Not that I'm upset, but man... what is it about humans that makes communication so difficult? Grady is better at this than we are, and he speaks NO LANGUAGE KNOWN TO MAN. True facts.

Anyway, the door is fixed, I'm at home, and things are okay. If anyone is interested, Ethan will be playing the early show at The Skylark Cafe this Sunday. I'm not sure if I'll be performing with him or not.

( In case you've been skimming )

In the year 2000, I had just begun my relationship with Garret. In the course of two weeks I started a new job, attended a family reunion, and had my 19-year-old sister join me in my one-bedroom apartment. It was a little crazy.

I promised my sister I would not bring up anything about the month she stayed with me to her, mainly because it was a difficult time and I was stressed out by her visit. I wrote a lot of things on my then-blog, wynnec.com, vented with Garret, and butted heads with her. Not that it helped much, but in an effort to set a good example of not dwelling in the past I told her I didn't want to discuss it anymore because there wasn't a damn thing either of us could do to change what had happened. All we could do was move on.

Ken was getting acquainted with my art supply cabinet recently and found one of my old sketchbooks. It had a lot of old sketches in it that I had forgotten about. A lot of them were of Garret, back when I was all memegoo over him. Some were of Teamun in all his turtley goodness. I think there were some character sketches for a comic I wanted to do in there, too, but I digress...

( Behind the cut is a strip I did of a daily occurrence in my apartment while my sister stayed with me. )

On my way home tonight I realized I hadn't given Grady any dry food. Shit. He was going to be a royal pain in the ass until I put some gushyfood on a plate for him, so I hurried. When I got in he was noisy and whiny, and I talked to him, saying things like "I know I know, don't freak out on me I'll get you your food..."

...and then I walked into the dining room.

The dining room is where Teamun's tank is. I just bought a new one at the end of November -- a 55 gallon acrylic that gives him a fuckton of space to swim around in. I had to buy another wire shelf to elevate his basking rock, the water was so deep. His basking rock is heavy enough that the shelves don't move easily, so I wedge the tubes from his tank filter behind them so they don't go anywhere. This method has worked for years. Until now.

My dining room was a shallow sea of turtle water all pooled under my dining set and only two inches of water remained in the tank. Teamun was sitting at the bottom, staring at me like a cranky old man. Grady was still howling about food nonstop, which made my shock worse. I barked at him to shut up, but he wouldn't. I got louder, he got louder. Because I was irritated by his meowing I couldn't see through my shock to what had really happened. I ended up throwing him into a bedroom so I could think straight.

A few deep breaths later and I figured out what happened. Teamun had worked himself into a small gap between the shelving and the wall of the tank and PUSHED. This moved the shelving several inches from the wall of the tank, releasing the output tube of the filter. Without something to hold it down it flew out of the top of the tank onto the floor, where it proceeded to spew "filtered" turtle water onto the floor until the tank was mostly empty. Guessing by the amount of water on the floor, I can only guess it happened around noon. I got home at six.

Yay.

What a great start to the evening. I had planned to do some recording tonight, maybe some claywork -- anything but watch TV. Instead I have been mopping up my dining room floor with old towels and replacing the felt feet on my dining set. Crap.