One of the beautiful things about being me is that I am surrounded by love and humor. The love comes from people who appreciate that I feed them. The humor is to be found anyplace I choose to look.
One of the drawbacks that comes with living in a row home is that you can’t control who lives on either side of you. At least 3 times a year I have to pack up Bonnie & Clyde and the house to fumigate. What can I say… everyone ain’t clean.
It’s how Onyx the cat came to live with us. Every time I turned around there was a mouse. I got tired of catching them and bought a living breathing mouse catcher. I should have known that she was gonna be special when a week into her new home she took this photo:
Yes that is my black pussy, and yes she is sticking her tongue out at you. As you can see she fit right into our special level of insanity we call home.
The cat got rid of the mice, and keeps them away even now… for the other things we need to fumigate.
The process means I have to pack shit up and tarp shit, and come home and clean shit, but the alternative is living with things that crawl and that is simply no alternative at all.
I picked today to do our last of the year.
All yesterday afternoon the conversation with Bonnie pretty much went – we have to bomb the house tomorrow so let’s get up early and get on it okay.
Friday’s wake up call was promptly ignored and a leisurely stroll downstairs came at about 11:30am.
*&(#*&%()*&(*#&(*
On a good day it can be a challenge to get Bonnie and Clyde dressed at the same time to leave the house.
Today was spent with Clyde insisting he was going to wear cargo shorts in 38 degree weather and Bonnie vetoing every outfit in her closet.
By 1:30 everyone was dressed but me, and I realized that god bless America the kid had hidden all of the socks in the house again. Fuck it – YOLO – who needs socks?
I get them into the share car and then the fun begins. The funny thing about fumigating with a cat in the house, is… well… you can not leave the cat in the house. If it kills a spider it will kill a cat. The other funny thing about cats is they don’t like to do things you want them to do, ever. If you’ve ever read How to Give a Cat a Pill, you can translate that into how to get the cat into the travel case so she doesn’t die while in the house you are fumigating.
Finally though we hit the road. First stop food. IHOP for pancakes and french fries. While at the IHOP I realized that all of our waitstaff had the geigh and I waited for showtunes and vogue-ing to break out. I was not so fortunate. The partners in crime did behave themselves long enough though for us to leave without police and news cameras meeting our departure. I am grateful for small favors.
Back into the car we go for stop #2 – get mom a walker. I forgot to pack the wheelchair before setting off the poisonous gas, and with what I hoped to have planned for the day I would need assistance with mom walking.
We had a grand old time on the boulevard with the Adele play list. A funny thing happened though. Clyde was bored so he snatched the iPhone to scroll to his favorite riding song:
Apparently the introduction of Jay to the musical mix put Bonnie in a good mood because foot tapping happened and somehow all four of us – yes even the cat – were in a rhythmic head nod that I wish I could have caught on camera.
Once it was clear that the safe family music I’d selected was not acceptable, things began to go downhill swiftly.
Taking a Q from her grand, Bonnie decided that she would have her own way with my iPhone’s music. Considering some of the music I carry it could have ended worse.
Bonnie found Adina Howard and Clyde prayed that the car would swallow him as he watched his grandmother wiggle to the beat in her seat.
When she located Bobby Brown on the phone she was in rare form, and Clyde and I were both looking for the exit as she began to wave to the people in the cars next to us.
It would not have been terrible I mean we all need a little Bobby Brown in our life. It’s got a good beat and you can dance to it, as they said on American Bandstand. The issue happens is when you are stopped at a red light, and Bonnie rolls down her window and says to the man in the next car: “I can make you bounce”.
sigh
Well that is not terrible I suppose. I think. I simply was not prepared for what came next.
If you know me you know that I had it BAD for Rick James. He would not have had to kidnap me as long as he promised me that he would not get jherri curl juice on me. Apparently I get it from my momma because a few red lights later with Rick on the speakers the window goes down again. Bonnie apparently wants to give a different man her phone number. I know this because she turns to me and asks what is our phone number.
By now I am determined to blow every red light between there and the movie theater. I settle instead for putting the child lock on the windows. A faint meow from the cat reminds me I should have done that 15 minutes earlier. Clyde stops trying to waive down police officers and pretending to be kidnapped and we are off to see Black Nativity.
The comedy of trying to get the two great loves of my life pales with the tragedy that happens inside the theater.
We settle into the handicapped row with our snacks and on comes the previews. Apparently since we came to Black Nativity, we are into kids movies and god movies. Neither is actually the truth, but Hollywood thinks that it is. During the preview for Son of God as my mother sits and nods in her Baptist rapture my son – my clone – my mini me in the quiet of the theater as White Jesus calls to one of those saints to walk on the water shouts out
NO
The NO would appear again as the loaves and the fish circulate and the man on the screen asks what if he really is who he says he is??
In the dark and in a clandestine manner I give my child a fist bump. The people around us stare quizzically at this humming child who shouts out no at the proof that jesus is lord.
As the movie goes on and we get to the scene where they first go to the church I listen to my humming child and while I have no direct proof of it I swear I can make out the bars to
400 Degreez indeed.
To top it off during the end scene of the movie I was happily reminded to the point that a tear or 12 hit my tear ducts of my grandmother Catherine. She would often ask me to sing for her. When she was still alive I didn’t smoke as many Marlboro’s and hadn’t swallowed as much penis so I still had a bit of a singing voice. She requested this song from me so much it was eventually recorded for her. I sent it out as a demo once, but that is another story for another time:
On the ride home – exhausted – but smiling at the two people who mean so much to me I finally said fuck it when they chimed in for a duet for this song:
And if that was not ‘enough’ they refused to get out of the car until this song was over:
I unpacked the car and I swear…yes I swear… the cat was twerking.
And maybe I was a little bit too.
Aphrodite Brown