It’s been almost three and four years since Rattle & Hum, The Twins™, have died. Friends and family have repeatedly asked if I was going to get another pet and when. I took care of Mike’s cat, Aris, for a while last summer and that was fun, he is a great cat. But being unemployed at the time I didn’t think it a good idea to take on another expense. I watched the black alley cat, Mama Kitteh, for weeks while she nursed her four kittens. I desperately wanted to do a smash-and-grab on the two gray ones. But again, being only partially employed at that time, economics won out and I had to let them move on as well.

A third opportunity has presented itself. My neighbor Kevin got a kitten for his daughter but his baby-mama said the kitten wasn’t working out so he took the cat back. I volunteered weekend before last to cat sit while he was out of town for the weekend. I assumed this would involved me coming into his apartment to feed and care for the cat. Instead, he brought the cat to me. He either didn’t want the unattended kitten to tear up his apartment or it was a sly way to make me fall in love with it. When he brought the cat over I had just woken up from a nap so I was a little out of it. He said something to the effect of “keeping the cat if I wanted to” but in my sleep/haze I wasn’t sure if he had said it or not.

Over the weekend the cat snuggled up to me and seemed to enjoy her surroundings. His daughter named the kitten Princess, a name I would have to change if I was to become the food FoodGiver. Her pretty eyes are the color of butterscotch pudding so I’ve named her ‘Scotch (note the apostrophe). ‘Scotch is loving and cute and still a kitten. This last aspect is the only thing that irritated me over the weekend, with her hyperactivity, jumping (on me) with claws full-on, etc. And then I needed to remember that this is what kittens do, and in time she will mellow out.

Come Monday when Kevin came back to pick-up/discuss said kitty’s residency I told him that I just needed a few more days with her, through the full week and next weekend to make my decision. Well I think that decision has already been made because I went to the grocery store on Saturday and picked up a big bag of dry food, cans of wet food and some kittie litter.

Ladies and gentlemen, I present to you: ‘Scotch.

I’ve owned four computers in my life: a Performa 630 CD, the very first bondi blue iMac, a PowerBook (Pismo) and my current iMac G5. Sixteen years ago, while owning that Performa, no one thought of backing up their files in case their hard drive crashed. It was just a given that the computer would continue to run as expected. And you could always transfer files to a diskette if you needed to keep them extra special.

Now that my iMac is an achingly old (in computer lifespans) five years I’ve decided it’s time to back up all those old files just in case there is an impending hard drive crash (or monitor outage, logic board death, etc). So now I’ve got all that info saved. I was going to write about this experiencing concerning an Apple product that I’m using but I’ve decided against that so this post may be a little abbreviated from what it was once going to be. Sorry about that. But all’s well with the backup. And it’s being done wirelessly.

Here’s your weekly gross-out. It’s getting better, but still can’t fully bend my knee. There’s a doctor appointment next Monday so maybe I’ll get some anti-inflammatory pills. And hopefully an xray on my right hand, which I really think is broken now because it stills hurts so much.

In a fortnight, Season Four of Mad Men starts up. If I burn through an episode of Season Three a day, I can be all primed for the debut.

Mad Men’s official website is here, which contains sneak peaks and cast interviews, recaps and full episodes from last season as well as a cocktail guide. The official iPhone app can be downloaded here.

AMC brilliantly whipped up interest and hype last summer before its Season Three premiere by allowing users to “Mad Men Yourself” which just about everyone on the planet did. The avatars were able to be used on Facebook and Twitter and everybody was a cartoon character for a while. If you were one of the few that didn’t, you can still do it here.

Bring it on, Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce!

Obtaining groceries without a car can be somewhat cumbersome. Thankfully there are now (within the last few years) online services that will deliver groceries to you, just like on those ’50s television shows. But then when you lose your job those convenient online services tell you that they don’t take the EBT Card as a form of payment. That means I’ve been walking (or biking, or evening Zipcarring) to the local Safeway to get my groceries for the past 18 months. Ah, I do miss that EBT Card though…

So now that I am working 55 hours/week in order to make up for all that moola I didn’t make in ’09, and I’ll mention The Crash which has put the bike out of commish, it’s a little difficult to get to the grocery store. I decided to pull up my Peapod account and take a look at what they’re offering now that I’ve been shelf-shopping for the past 18 months. I found that I had an unplaced order already tallied up that I hadn’t set for its delivery schedule when I got the pink slip back in December ’08. Oddly enough, it seems pretty much in par for what I’d be ordering today. I’d have to add a couple of items to get that additional $1 off on the delivery fee though (on orders over $100)—like frozen entrees that I could take to work instead of spending $8 a day on lunch! I’ve still got a pretty well-stocked pantry, due to the EBT system providing much more purchasing power than I would use in a month, $200. So I’ve got boxed goods and canned goods for a while. Bomb shelter!

Item	Size	Qty	Item Price*		Total Price*
Produce Stand
Apples Granny Smith	1 EA	2	.99		1.98
Banana Green	1 EA	3	.39		1.17
Banana Yellow	1 EA	3	.39		1.17
Carrots Baby Peeled Organic	16 OZ BAG	1	1.99		1.99
Lettuce Red Leaf	1 EA	1	1.99		1.99
Lettuce Romaine	1 EA	1	1.99		1.99
Onions Yellow Organic	3 LB BAG	1	3.79		3.79
Meat & Seafood
Ground Beef 85% Lean Big Buy	APX 2.5 LB	1	11.22		11.22
Deli
Cabot Cheese Cheddar Sharp 50% Reduced Fat	8 OZ BAR	1	3.39		3.39
Deli Ham Virginia Style Cooked (Thin Sliced)	APX 1/2 LB	1	2.99		2.99
Beverages
Deer Park Spring Water - 24 pk	16.9 OZ BTL	1	6.49		6.49
Bread & Bakeshop
Nature’s Promise Naturals Bread 100% Whole Grain	24 OZ PKG	1	1.99		1.99
Nature’s Promise Naturals Bread Multigrain	24 OZ PKG	1	1.99		1.99
Cereal & Breakfast Foods
Kellogg’s Pop-Tarts Frosted Strawberry - 12 ct	22 OZ BOX	1	3.00		3.00
Snacks, Cookies & Candy
Doritos Tortilla Chips Nacho Cheese Family Size	17 OZ BAG	1	4.89		4.89
Giant Saltines Fat Free	15 OZ BOX	1	1.50		1.50
Snyder’s of Hanover Pretzels Sourdough Hard Fat Free	16 OZ BAG	1	2.50		2.50
Grains, Pasta & Side Dishes
Barilla Pasta Rigatoni	16 OZ BOX	1	1.79		1.79
Barilla Pasta Spaghetti Thin	16 OZ BOX	2	1.79		3.58
Betty Crocker Hamburger Helper Cheesy Enchilada	7.5 OZ BOX	1	2.19		2.19
Baking Goods
Guaranteed Value Sugar Cane Granulated	4 LB BAG	1	2.29		2.29
Condiments, Oils & Dressings
Giant Olive Oil Spanish Olives Extra Virgin	17 OZ BTL	1	6.29		6.29
Ken’s Steak House Dressing Fat Free Sun-Dried Tomato Vinaigrette	8 OZ BTL	1	1.00		1.00
Ken’s Steak House Dressing Healthy Options Parmesan & Peppercorn	8 OZ BTL	1	1.00		1.00
Sauces, Spices & Seasonings
McCormick Oregano Leaves	1.37 OZ BTL	1	3.49		3.49
Laundry, Paper & Cleaning
Brawny Paper Towels Big Roll 2-Ply Prints	6 CT PKG	1	8.99		8.99
Health & Beauty
Softsoap Liquid Hand Soap Antibacterial with Light Moisture Pump	7.5 OZ BTL	1	1.50		1.50

I guess not a lot has happened in the last week. Sleep, bus, train, train, work, train, train, walk, work, eat, repeat. It’s difficult trying to make up for all that money I didn’t make last year. But both jobs payroll have taken to my direct deposit which is really convenient so there’s fewer bank trips depositing actual checks.

To check progress and possibly still have a grossout, here’s some pix of the crash burns, two weeks out. The arm’s coming along fine but the knee is still problematic. The skin is still not very pliable and the flexibility of my knee joint is very limited. So even though there’s not a lot of pain, it’s still a nuisance to hobble around with one non-bending leg.

Today I walked by the scene of last week’s bicycle crash-up on Maryland Ave NE. Repeating the sequence, I was headed to the p/t from the f/t.

Here are pix of the worst of the bang-ups, and also the huge (from bicycle standards) bump in the road that took me down. The only part that really hurts much is the knee, and that’s pretty much because I can’t bend it due to the tautness of the skin that is there while the wound heals. Needless to say, it’s taking the longest to make it to the healing point of scabbing over and closing the flesh wound. Gross, I know, but the facts.

But on the flipside, I now have health insurance! I received my membership card in the mail today, and apparently it’s a pretty good healthcare system from what I’ve been hearing the folks at work say: very little co-pays and I can see any doctor I want at any time. Time to schedule an appointment and get these wounds (and still a hand that can’t grasp well) looked at. Maybe get some meds too. I think the fun painkiller meds are out of the realm now but perhaps I can get something that will help me heal quicker.

And I love that my medical card has The Logo on it.

From brendee, whom I met doing the fabulous 2007 New York City Blarg Crawl.

I know I haven’t written anything in a while, what with working 55-hours a week and all (gotta make up for all that $ I didn’t make last year). And while exciting things have been happening at The Orchard, I didn’t want to bore you with that or turn this into a fanboy-obsessed blog. So I was thinking that tonight when I got home after both work shifts that I would possibly write about

Last Saturday. I caught a whiff on Twitter that Rana Sobhany, the world’s first iPad DJ, was going to be “spinning” a set at Bluebrain, a special night at The Fridge, which is a new (to me at least) little art gallery on Capitol Hill. I was working last that night but I tweeted her and she said she wasn’t going on until 11 or so and that worked with my timetable of getting back on The Hill. The show included a downloadable iPhone app where the audience could twist the knobs and affect the sound output of the DJ, but unfortunately I missed that portion of the art show. But on the good side, I got in without paying the $5 cover. Rana was on when I got there and I listened and grooved to the rest of her set. It was pretty poppy but still fun. I talked with her afterwards and she seems like a nice person, really warm and conversational. There was some other fun art showing there too, and a live painting in process that anyone could add to. Fun.

Or I could have written about

Last Sunday. Eric H, sky mattress extraordinaire, art curator and sometimes blogger, was celebrating his 40th birthday. And what better way to do that than to get 30 friends together, start them drinking mimosas at 11:00 am and then throw them into a disco bus and take them out to the Virginia wine country for the afternoon? Some bottles of champagne made it onto the bus and there was a wide selection of yummy nibblies being passed around. We stopped at two wineries, sampled some wine, bought some wine and sat out in the hot sun. The 2nd winery had lawn bowling setup under some shady trees and that provided some recreation as well as relief from the sun. Needless to say, knowing this crowd, we all had a good wine buzz going by the time we rolled back into DC. Then topping the evening off with La Lomita? Perfect.

Or I could have written about

Today. I’ve been thinking about Mom all day, as this would have been her 73rd birthday. I miss you Mom, not only today but everyday.

And then this happened:

I’m biking down Maryland Avenue, on my way from the full-time to the part-time. Apparently I am not paying too much attention to the road as I hit a major bump and am sent flailing head-first over the bike, at 20 mph. I crash down on the pavement in a twisted heap with the bike twisting up my legs so that when I realized I’ve stopped on the street I’m not sure which way I’m facing and I cannot move. I remember at that moment being in extreme pain, yelling out “Fuck! Fuuuuuck!” and having visions of dropping florescent lighting tubes from four-story buildings, tomatoes and what it would feel like when you think you’re standing in your life and all of a sudden the walls, ceiling and floor get stripped away and you’re then standing on nothing in darkness wondering where the fuck everything went.

Luckily the kind folk who live on Maryland Ave came to my rescue. An older gentleman from across the street, who had seen the whole crash happen, came over and helped me untangle myself from the bike and get me to stand up and get out of the street and onto the sidewalk. A woman came out of her house asking if I was okay and went back in to get me a bottle of water and a wet towel. After realizing I was basically okay with only flesh wounds (no broken bones, no head injuries) and telling them I was only going one more block down the street they reluctantly left but took many thanks with them.

I hobbled on down to The School and immediately looked for a first aid kit, finding supplies and getting into the shower to rinse the blood (and hopefully the gravel too) off and clean my wounds. My left elbow and left knee took the worst of the fall, which is weird because I think I remember the wheel turning left as I fell, meaning I would have fallen on my right side. I guess it all happened so quickly those details might not be clear.

So I’m pretty beat up but at least no broken bones in this old body and thankfully there were no cars directly behind me that might have run me over. As the man from across the street said “It may hurt now but you’ll really feel it in the morning”. That’s what I’m afraid of.