Rotten with Cats

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Everywhere you turn in my neighborhood, you will be greeted by a skanky looking cat--maybe a cat with one eye, or a mangled back leg, or a tumor the size of Indonesia on its brain. They crawl across the brick backyard walls. I suppose I could start naming them. There's the black cat, we'll call him "Nearly Dead"--he's the one who has a bad back leg and worms crawling out of his behind. Then there's a gray and white spotted cat with runny eyes who stares at me and runs away when I step outside. A sort of orange and white cat, another bad leg, she limps across the wall. They all appear to have been thousands of battles. I put Ernesto in the back window to show him what his life could have been like were he not rescued.

Thanks to all of my lovely work friends, Liz and I were able to go to Ikea yesterday afternoon and buy several of the things that will help to make my living situation more comfortable. We got: a rectangular kitchen table with black legs and a white top. I might use this to put the sewing machine on because I'm thinking I might want a "real" table at some point for the many dinner parties I will be hosting; a blonde coffee table with a shelf underneath. It's a little unsteady because I couldn't get the screws to go in all the way, but it's fine; a sort of ugly hanging thing for the bathroom; white mesh piece to dangle wine glasses from; a set of three pots for only $9.99!!; impulse buy tiny bird lights for the front window and batteries; a white blind for the back window. I attempted for many minutes to hang it, but one of the screws was stripped and it also required more math than I was capable of handling. I did at one point get it to hang for several seconds. Then I foolishly attempted to pull the blinds up and it fell off. I gave up after I took a nose dive off the sink during my fourth try. It's going back to Ikea. What I really need to do is mop the floor. It is pretty cruddy.

Now I'm at this local coffee shop, the South Philly version of Rocket Cat, except the women working here seem happy. Lots of tattoos and black leggings, but I'm trying not to judge. My dream for today is to buy the Sunday paper for the crossword. I'm also going to see how long it takes to walk to South Street. Haven't yet made it to Washington (this coffee shop is a few blocks away), but it's within sight.

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