Whinging

Today is sort of unnecessarily in beautiful in San Francisco, sunny, bright and cool without being chilly.  The yoozh.  I do not care.  I am sick.   A weird, deep ache that is everywhere in my body and no place in particular has taken over, bringing with it wracking shivers and a throat that feels like I have taken to gargling hot ground glass.

I have things to do, notably, changing Saki's cat box and the laundry.  They are not getting done.

Houseboy: decorative, but useless.

It is at these rare times that I most miss R Man.  Not that he was any great shakes at nursing, but at least I could be fairly confident if I died he would keep the cat from eating my decomposing corpse.

On that cheerful note, I take to my bed.  Again.

The Brunch Project, episode 1

Dress code: ties not required.

MJ has called me out on my lack of blogging.  I attempted to claim I was actually blogging by mime, but I knew the bitter truth would out eventually.  So let me just admit now that I was abducted by aliens.  Again.  Fucking aliens.

Fortunately, I was able to escape long enough to nip out for brunch with Secret Agent Fred and our dear friend Anne, the Fashion Sensation.  Unfortunately, brunch was at the Four Seasons hotel.  Many years ago, when the earth was new and so was the Four Seasons, the joint was a chi-chi place of asian fusion cuisine and lots of gorgeous deco inspired furniture in luxurious finishes like silk and marquetry in a beautiful palette of gold and verdigris and taupe.  Now asian fusion has run its course and the menu has settled down to eggs and bacon and french toast, which is ok with me, and the furnishings are looking a little tatty and worse for wear.  Here's a free tip from mreeenee Decorating Services, ltd.:  if you go for a luxe look, you need to keep that shit up.  Chipped inlays and frayed velvet are only okay if you're old money.

The service?  Bad.  We were there late, so they only had two other tables to work and yet they managed to avoid us adroitly.  Miss Sensation thought our waiter looked like "Maria Callas's ugly niece,"but he reminded me of Eric Blore and sounded like Peter Lorre.  You know he watches cop shows and titters a little too knowingly to himself "Oh, right, like that's how they question serial killer suspects."

Food?  I suppose there was food, I don't really recall, something about eggs benedict with a sauce that strongly resembled mayonnaise.  Drinks?  The Creature from the Blore/Lorre Lagoon denied they could make a Pimm's Cup even as I looked past his shoulder to the bar where Miss Sensation and I had settled in a couple of weeks ago to discuss over Pimms Cups the sorry state of our respective lives.  or "lives."

On the plus side, there was a very attractive guy near us for Fred and me to ogle.  At different points during the afternoon, it seemed likely he was going to mount the young woman he was with.  Tragically, it was no go.

In summary, the Brunch Report gives the Four Seasons a C.  And an expensive C to boot.

Cat Tales, Cat Teeth

Saki, the Evil and Adorable Cat, had to go in for his annual check up (which, I'd just like to point out in passing, costs more than mine does.  Not that I mind, no of course not.)  The very cute vet pressed vigorously for me to bring him back and have his teeth cleaned.  Possibly he needed to make an extra mortgage payment this month, maybe his membership in the transvestite hooker gambling morphine ring was coming up, who knows?   R Man and I had always resisted having our cats' teeth cleaned since it requires general anesthesia and that seems to involve so many more risks than reward.

But this time, Dr. Curtis batted his blue eyes at me and added that Saki had a ginormous cavity in there and needed to have the tooth pulled.  Oy.  Coincidentally this was the same time NormaDesmond and  Designing Wally were both suffering through dental crises and their pitiful cries were still echoing in my pointy little head as I thought about Saki putting up with a toothache for who knows how long.  So I gave the go ahead Thursday.

It's been a rough couple of days for both of us.

Saki

Designing Wally

Norma Desmond

Some other guy.

When I picked him up after the procedure, I noticed a huge handwritten "CAUTION!!!" on his chart.

"What's that?" I asked.

"Oh, he was not happy about this," the receptionist assured me airily.

I had no trouble translating that "Who did he bite?"

"Everybody."

When we got home he was growling and crazy, and I could barely get him to settle down long enough to take the stupid little plastic cone collar off.  I was going to take a picture, because I am a bad person, but it was already traumatic.

 The vet also sent home some pain medicine that I'm supposed to shoot from a syringe onto his gums, but the two times I tried that only got him more freaked out and didn't seem to help, and now he seems to be recovered so I'm thinking of using the leftovers on myself or shipping them off to Norma and her dry socket.  Cause I'm a giver.

Brunch and More. Or Less.

How mortifying that my drink of choice is a Cascade Ice Pink Grapefruit flavored sparkling water with an Alka Seltzer thrown in, cause I am a Wild Man.  Just a regular panic, I tell ya.  It's sparkling!  It's grapefruit-y!  It makes me burp!  Sort of like a now,  happenin' Fresca.

How did Max Veneziano get in here?

Speaking of surveys, I have decided to create The Brunch Project since going out to brunch seems to be the highpoint of my week (which also raises the question "Is it really 'brunch' if it lasts eight hours and includes three bars and two restaurants?'  To which I can only reply "Fuck yeah.")

The Brunch Project will report back about these bacchanals with details on where we went, what we ate, which drinks were the tastiest, who was the cutest queers spotted and any police action involved.  But impertinent monkeys that you are, I am sure mrpeenee readers will want more, so here's the deal.  You send me the questions you want us to include on the Project Report and I'll be sure to use them in the survey which brunch participants will be asked to complete.

Stupid Back

My back, never terribly cooperative at the best of times, has been giving me grief all week.  I took to my bed with ice packs and muscle relaxants, hounded my chiropractor, prayed to the Psychic Friends - nothing helped.  Then this morning I dragged my sorry ass of to a "late brunch" (which is code for drinks and vicodin) with Secret Agent Fred and several friends and now, many hours later, I feel ever so much better.   Maybe it was the pizza.

A graphic representation of my backache this week:

Ick.

Much better.

Worthless.

Much better.

Done

I just love crossing things off my little OCD To Do list.

1) Get my creaky old Mac upgraded and all the bugs lurking around in its depths expunged so that watching porn wouldn't be so annoyingly slow.  I had planned to haul the old dear all the way down to a very inconvenient part of downtown where the very idea of parking is to be laughed at when I remembered Secret Agent Fred's boyfriend Duane works for Apple.   He knows all the kinds of tech stuff required and which is at the fingers of an ordinary 6 year old, but beyond mrpeenee.

We had a very amusing afternoon as he beat the computer into submission and then we went over to Fred's and rearranged his kitchen because we're all gay and stuff.  And now that my computer is blazing along, I realize how sluggish it's been and how resigned I had gotten to it.  No more, mutha.

2) Go see Dark Shadows.  Also with Secret Agent Fred.  I loved it, it looks great, so very Tim Burton-ish with lots of visual gags.  Michelle Pfeiffer is very tough bitch, which I love, especially when she parks herself at the top of some stairs with a shotgun anchored on her hip, blazing away.  Johnny Depp, of course, is wonderful.  I had worried after seeing the trailer that he would just be some halfassed cross between Captain Jack Black and the Michael Jackson imitation from Willy Wonka, but nope.  Interesting and funny and sexy, even under a couple of pounds of kabuki/dracula makeup.

3) Find a Christmas card, just to get ready.

Check, Check and Check.

Where's Norma's Drink?

Miss Desmond is waiting.

via Ivan Garcia