Tuesday, September 20, 2011

Cat Names and Unusual Departures

Since the arrival of Dexter the kitten, I've been bombarding the little Englishman with stories about previous cats I've owned. I can't help it, having a kitten again reminds me of all the other times I'd taking care of a tiny little fuzzy thing. So, to spare him some listening trouble, I'm going to impart some of it onto whatever audience I have out there.

Dexter is the 9th cat I've owned. This number isn't high because my parents enjoyed having multiple cats living in their house. It's high because somehow, cats don't last long at the house I grew up in. We always took good care of the cats we had and loved them each but some of them have just disappeared and others have died of unusual causes. I can't really figure it out but our house should be on some Cracked.com list about weird cat stuff.

The first cat that my family had was named Rosie Roosevelt Rainbow Cook. My eldist sister named him when she was about 8. I don't really remember much about Rosie except he had one leg missing, he really liked American cheese slices, and he died in a fucked up way. My parents usually tell the story about me dragging him by the hind legs so I could watch him hop along on the front one and how they had to buy me a stuffed animal version of Rosie to keep me from cutting his hair off with safety scissors. I was three, alright?! Anyway, I was 8 when Rosie died. You see, Rosie was an outside cat. He'd meow at the door when he wanted to get in and did the same when he wanted to roam out in the woods behind our house. One day Rosie decided to wait by the garage door in order to get in, rather than the back door like usual. My mom watched as he came in when she opened the garage door and, as her story goes, when she started closing the door again, Rosie decided he didn't actually want to come back inside and darted for the yard. Rosie didn't make it to the yard because he was crushed by a garage door. Supposedly my mom didn't do it on purpose but she complained about the cat all the time. If you're a parent and you're wondering about traumatizing your kids when telling them about death, try not to savagely murder their childhood pet.

After about a year of mourning (on my sister's part, I was fine the day after Rosie died because I was a sociopathic kid apparently) we decided that it was time for a new cat. For some reason, I decided I wanted to play the day they went to go get the kitten and even though my mom told me they were going right that minute, I figured they would wait for me. Well, they didn't and in my grief of missing out, I kicked my shoe off so hard it hit the ceiling. There is still a mark from where it hit. My sisters and mother returned with two kittens: a black kitten and her orange pile of fluff brother. We named them Cosmo and Elaine after the Seinfeld characters because Elaine was the smart one and Cosmo was literally retarded. It's not his fault though. I'm ashamed to admit this but as I said before, I was a sociopath as a kid, or rather super ADD and stupid when bored. Anyway, one day while in a fit of this ADD boredom, I decided to pick up my cute, sweet little orange kitten and start yelling loud noises while holding him about six inches away from my mouth. I guess I just wanted to see his ears twitch. We figured out fairly quickly after that that Cosmo was deaf. His deafness didn't make him stupid but not being able to properly function and learn because of it did. Elaine took pity on her idiot brother and would catch mice for him so he could prance around proudly with it in his mouth while we climbed on couches to get away from him. Now of the two, which do you think has the survival skills to go outside and not get snatched up by some animal? If you thought Elaine, you are seriously mistaken.
Cosmo and his serious survival skills in action.


Elaine, like Rosie, liked to venture outside. She was a supremely clever cat and would always come back to the house after a couple of hours. She would climb up on the railing of the steps leading up from our back yard and, with an immense amount difficulty given the distance from the railing, tap on the window where she worked out that we would most likely be while meowing her head off. Elaine was also partial to human food in the form of potato chips and became quite fat because of it. This probably made her a tasty treat to a predator in the woods behind our house because one night, she just disappeared. Elaine wouldn't have run away because she seemed to have the impulse to take care of her idiot brother and god damn she loved potato chips. Her disappearance still bugs me because she was probably the smartest cat we ever had. Meanwhile Cosmo would get outside occasionally, revert to freak out mode, and hide under the overhang of our back porch, hissing at us when we tried to bring him back inside.

After Elaine disappeared, we had a run of female cats, all in an effort to control Cosmo and the mouse population of our house. (continued in Part II)

New Kitten!

I have just recently acquired a darling little kitten. (----[tttt48888888888888888qqqqqqqqqqqqq -- she noticed my fingers on the keyboard and had to attack them thus typing the last sentence.) A woman had came into the store I work at and asked me if I knew anyone that wanted a kitten. The little Englishman had promised me a kitten so I jumped at the serendipitous encounter. Apparently our kitten just wandered into their yard on a rainy afternoon and the woman was going to bring her into the house but her own cats didn't appreciate their new found company. The kitten had to stay in the cold garage until the woman took her to the humane society but luckily, we picked her up.
Dexter on her first night at the apartment


Her first duty upon entering her new home was to have the most foul diarrhea in the corner. It couldn't be held against her though, she was scared and we only had newspaper for her to use at the timeWe set up a big box from our futon for her to stay in until we got the place cleaned up and newspaper put down in all the corners. Needless to say, she didn't stay in there long. The first night she was the most cuddly kitten I'd ever encountered. We could barely move because she was either sleeping on my chest or on the little Englishman's shoulder. We only had wet food to give her but she ate an entire can in just that night. I called my friend ( her blog here: Frootroops) for some advice on our little rescue. She told me, among many other helpful tips, to look at the kitten's tummy for fleas. No sooner than I had turned the kitten over did one crawl across her fur. I freaked out so much that I had to get off the phone and try and pick what I thought was just some random insect out of her fur. I quickly realized, however, that my kitten had a pretty serious infestation. I slept in the living room that night so she could keep warm against me while I slept. She woke me up by treading on my with poop sodden paws and batting at my eyelids.

The next morning I scoured the internet for tips on bathing a kitten and took my friends advice on using Dawn dishsoap to clean her. The kitten actually seemed pretty okay with this first bath, barely trying to escape and not howling like cats usually do when they encounter water. We didn't see any fleas on her so I figured I was right about it being just a random bug. We also decided to name her Dexter because at the time we didn't know her gender and said we'll stick with it regardless. Dexter was a bit more playful throughout the day, especially after getting the proper kitten chow mixed with kitten milk. It seemed though that she couldn't quite figure out where her new litterbox and food/water dishes were. Whenever she was cuddling with us, she wouldn't wander over to either for long spaces of time. I was getting a little worried that she was blind or didn't realize that she could eat and go to the bathroom without us putting her in front of either. Thankfully, she's sorted it out since we've had to leave her here when we go to work or school though every once in a while she still forgets where her litter box now is and tries to go where it was previously.

The second bath I gave her was slightly more eventful. We'd purchased a flea comb and flea spray. I started in with the dawn and found that the fleas had wised up since the last bath and quickly rushed to Dexter's face. It is incredibly freaky, if you've never seen it, to watch fleas walk across your pets eyes while you frantically try to comb and pick each one you see out. The little Englishman kept holding her by the scruff in order the get the fleas off her tummy and rinse out the tiny amount of flea spray we used (she isn't old enough for most flea treatments) and I thought the prolonged dangling might have damaged her because she was barely moving while in the towel, not even shaking. She came around eventually but then I made the mistake of looking online about common problems with found kittens and saw something about earmites. Her ears are filled with this dark brown goo and it looks just like all the reference pictures on the internet. I knew at this point that we needed to get her to a vet as soon as possible.

Most cats, especially kittens, hate driving. Hate. We had a cat that would hide under the seats when we took him to the vet and we had to pry him out from his safety spot with all our might. Little Dexter, however, seemed to really enjoy it. She sat perched on the little Englishman's shoulder or inside his pocket just watching curiously as everything passed by. Everyone at the vet thought she was the cutest kitten. (--While I'm typing this she is making it known that she needs serious cuddles but meowing at my nose and nuzzling my eyebrow--). When we told them we didn't know her gender, everyone tried to figure it out. The nurse was all up in her junk and rubbing it with her finger and still couldn't tell. When the vet walked in, she took on quick look and dubbed Dexter a female. Dexter was also found to have no earmites and to be 5-6 weeks old. She was dewormed and we got pills for her fleas because she was too young to get a standard flea treatment. They told us to make her a soft food meatball and stick the pill in it. The little Englishman did this when I dropped him off at home and I guess she ate it right up. Dexter may be pretty fearless but while at the vet we encountered a large yellow lab mix of a dog and Dexter immediately started growling. The dog seemed really curious about her and had an expression that read "Hello little fuzzy thing, I am dog. I want friend. Be my friend? I like little fuzzy thing. Please be friend." Dexter was having none of that.

 Dexter is strange for a female cat. All the female cats I've had before ranged from cautiously apathetic to downright unfriendly. They would only allow you to pet them on their terms which were usually them being in an awkward positing behind some barrier so they could get loving but you couldn't get them. Dexter, however, is as playful as a kitten should be but whenever she's a bit tired or hasn't seen you for a while, she will come and lay either next to you or on your shoulder. Today is the most loving she's been since her first night. Rather than purely cuddling up to me for warmth, she got right in my face and started meowing at me and licking my nose and would only stop when I pet her. She wouldn't let me type for more than a minute but now she's asleep with her head on my shoulder and her body inside the collar of my sweater. She sounds like she's snoring and she sleeps like she's flying like Superman.
 
Dexter after her baths



Friday, September 9, 2011

Adventures in Driving

I'm sitting in the computer lab at my school, waiting for the little Englishman to get done at work and researching what we need to bring to his adjustment of status interview. Whenever I research this sort of thing I get really anxious especially since it's on Monday and I just found out we have to bring some additional documentation that might be difficult to get. Therefore, I'm going to take a blog break.

I always think of blog ideas when I'm driving but they usually go out of my head before I have the chance to actually write about them. Today, however, I figured I'd write about my driving experience. It sounds really boring, I realize, but just hang in there.

Unlike most people, I got my license at 17. I missed the day where everyone signed up for driving lessons I guess so I had to take them well after I was eligible to get my license. The day I took my driving test, we decided to go to a little town called Chadwick because they were easier there. Supposedly. I guess I wasn't the only one with this idea and they'd started to crack down. The tester said I drove well but there were enough minor mistakes that made me fail. He said if I practiced I could even take it the same day in my hometown. Well, my mom and I went and practiced 3-point turns and coming to a complete halt at stop-signs (I guess I was rolling a bit before) and then we went back and I took the test again and passed with the tester that everyone claims is the hardest bitch they have.

Now, I've only been driving for three years. During those years I've had four cars. It's not that my parents like giving expensive gifts to me every birthday. No, it's because I have somehow manage to wreck all three previous vehicles.

My first car was a navy 2000-something Volkswagon Bug. I got that as a present for graduation and a little bribery for me to continue playing golf when I got to college. My parents had even christened it with the license plate "DABUG10," because that's their nickname for me. In hindsight, I really like the car, but at the time it was terrible. There was always something going wrong with it. It had left me stranded in Iowa after a successful job interview and meant I had to go work at the golf course. I could take too many people in it because the backseat was so small. The undercarriage was so low that I got stuck every time it snowed and it was a massive ordeal to get out. I think I liked it more for the cuteness than the practicality. At that time, I lived about two hours from home and I liked to shave that time down to about an hour and a half. Combine that with the fact that my i-pod had died and I'd been taking my laptop in the car and hooking it up to the stereo, you have a recipe for disaster. The road going home was really curvy and at one point has a curve you have to take at 20mph over some train-tracks. While changing a song on my laptop and bombing it about 70mph, I noticed the curve coming up and smashed down the brake pedal. There was some loose gravel on the road and that doesn't usually mix well with emergency braking. I swerved out of control, into a ditch where I narrowly missed a control box, and then bounced up onto the tracks. Some nice people stopped and let me sit in there car while some country boys acted manly and pulled my car off the tracks (in the process triggering some bloodcurdling bells to chime that indicated a train was coming). It was the day before Thanksgiving and my dad usually gets very very upset when he has to come pick one of us because of car trouble.  However, he was happy I was okay (though slightly seething in his mind, you could tell) and took me home. Sidenote: the sheriff that came to the scene had a two-toned mustache. One half of it was white and the other half was light brown.

(Intermission: Some guy in the lab is watching videos and commenting on them, even though the rest of us can't hear them, while snorting snot loudly every five minutes. I gag every time)

The car that I got to take home after that crash had been my grandmother's but since she couldn't drive any longer, it was mine. This car was pretty fantastic. It was a 1996 Chrysler Cirrus. It had amazing acceleration and was in great condition. I could drive it through thick drifting snow at 50mph and wouldn't even falter off course. Snow that my old car got stuck in, this new one blasted through. It even got pretty good gas mileage. I adored that car. After I dropped out of Platteville and went to live with my sister, I would occasionally meet my mom at the halfway point between Sterling and Freeport to pick up things I needed. For some reason, on Memorial Day (less than a year after my previous crash) I had to get something from Freeport and rather than my mom meeting me halfway, she talked me into driving all the way up. This was a trip I was long familiar with and could make it in about 30 minutes if I sped. I got into Freeport and turned onto this road we took every single time we came back from Sterling since I was born. I reached the first intersection and I swear on my life I looked both ways before advancing. WHAM! Escalade to the driver side, just in front of my window. I remember saying "Oh fuck no!" before it hit and raising my arms to block my face before it hit. I blacked out briefly before paramedics helped me out of the car. Someone shouted "Did someone lose some glasses," and I feebly responded "Here." Those things are durable: completely fine after being flung from a car and I still have them today. I was taken by ambulance to a hospital. When we came in, there were a few people in the lobby getting treated for minor cuts that yelled "Hi!" sarcastically as I passed in the gurney. They must have been the Escalade's owners and I want to know where they get off saying that when they hit me. When my mom came into the emergency room it must have looked terrible: her youngest daughter laying in a bed with a neck brace and blood from my arm and oil from my car splattered on my shirt. I told her I was fine and asked for my purse because I'd been getting a slew of text messages from a boy I dubbed "Wizardboy." Unfortunately for me, I had gotten one seconds after the crash and when the cop came in and asked to look at my phone, the previously read message from that time implied my guilt in it all. Also, unfortunately, my dad has a dispatcher friend, more on that in a bit. I was gushing blood from a few severe cuts on my arm but had not concussion and the neck brace was soon deemed unnecessary. I was hoping to have some wicked scars from stitches for all my trouble but sadly they used medical glue to seal me back up. I have scars still but they don't look badass, they just look like I tried to commit suicide improperly. When my parents took me home and my sister arrived to take me home, my parents and I had a "chat," by the creek in my backyard. I thought, from previous experience, that this was going to end with my dad yelling and me in fits of sobs and snot. Strangely though, it was stern but calm and my dad said he loved me and didn't want me to die and it felt like he actually meant it since he rarely tells me. He also said that I wouldn't be getting another car for a while.

He was true to his word and for the next several months I'd been riding the Senior bus to and from school with some backwards rednecks. There was a woman who sounded like the female equivalent of Bobcat Goldthwait (look it up if you don't get the reference) and had eyes facing the opposite direction of where they should, one faced completely to the right while the other faced slight to the left. She was a major bullshitter. Every day she had some crackpot story like how her parents owned a ski resort and she could have been a professional snowboarder. She claimed she had a twin sister who lived in the Sears Tower in Chicago at $200 rent a month ("That's really expensive," she said after this stinkbomb) and that her twin was really smart and was studying Marine Biology ("That's super hard, that shit is,") but Bobcat lady said she was better at math than this genius twin. She also aparently had a baby boy who died shortly after childbirth who she named Angel. I have a feeling that children services took him away though because we passed the DCFS (Dept. of Children and Family Services) building one day and she said "I call them the "babysnatchers," cuz they're always taking kids away from their moms," to which I replied, "They only take them away if the parents are awful." She fell silent after that. Yeah, I have a sister and a mom who work for DCFS, I wasn't about to let her pull a comment like that because she's a shit mom and has shit mom friends.

Anyway, after I met the little Englishman and he decided to visit, I used that as my bid to get the car. My mom didn't want to tell my dad that a man from a foreign country I'd met on the internet was going to visit so it ended up being a no go but my sister reluctantly let me borrow her car so I could go to his hotel for hours and hours on end. After I got my grades for that semester, however, my dad eased up and I got my mom's old car. It was a 2004 Hyundai Sonata. She'd gotten the newer version of it because she liked it so much. It was my favorite car so far. Sure it smelled like my mom's trigeminal noralgia breath, had a bajillion miles on it and the acceleration on it was horrible and jerky because my mom is really hard on cars but dammit that car looked like a luxury car. They'd made  it a beacon for cops though by putting the license plate "TOTALD get when your parents own your car and all the ones beforehand. I had some early run ins with this car. I'd scraped the dumpster twice, the second one resulting in the loss of a sideview mirror (passenger side, which I think is worthless anyway). However, this car took me places. It took me to Rockford to pick up the little Englishman on his second trip to the states. It took us all around Sterling. It took us most of the way through the blizzard for which we hadn't seen forecast because the trip was on such a whim. It then took us into a ditch but thanks to it we got  to stay in a hotel for less than we would've normally been charged. The next day, it took us home. Because of the blizzard and my shitty landlord, I couldn't park in my parking lot and had to park on the street. At this point I'd become such a safe and timid driver that some outside influence would have to take the life of my Sonata. It came in the form of a  drunk 18-year-old behind the wheel of a massive ford  GM seems to have it out for my cars or something. Anyway, the little Englishman and I were just about to go to bed at 2 A.M when a knock came on our door. We didn't answer at first because we had drug dealer, thievish, possibly gang banger neighbors. They kept knocking and I made sure he was unarmed from the peephole. He informed me that my car had just been crashed into. I made him repeat this a couple of times because I was subconsciously keeping myself from hearing those words. It was so surreal. The little Englishman and I went outside and my car had been moved from its parking spot about 25 yards forward and up  onto a snow bank about five feet high. This truck must have been going ridiculously fast for it to push my car that far and also completely destroy the tail end of my car (as pictured at intermission because my computer sucks and won't let me move it down here). The cops were really nice and caught the truck driver who was apparently unharmed by the accident he'd just caused. The most damning piece of evidence against him was the headband I am currently wearing, which flew out of my back seat and into the bed of his truck. Luckily they returned it to me after his trial.

This has all resulted in my Saturn. It's the ugliest gold with tan interior but it's got a V-6 engine which my dad said "should get me out of bad situations in the future."

Friday, September 2, 2011

Night at the Yellow Dog

As I mentioned in my last post, not only does the little Englishman need his regular intake of rum or something with a proof, he can also scrounge up money in our worst financial times to accomplish this. About a week ago, he put on a fabulous show of this and we ended up with a thoroughly memorable night at a local bar called the Yellow Dog.

I'd just finished work and was walking home when my specially attuned senses alerted me that the little Englishman might want to drink. I knew we had enough rum to get a bit of a buzz going and there was a special event taking place at the bar. How special was shortly to be revealed. Sure enough, when I walked in the door, the first question out of his mouth was "Fancy a drink?" Now when he says "a drink," it means a night long boozy session of multiple drinks. We made a plan to drink really quickly while playing Tiger Woods golf where you had to take a drink every time you didn't make it in the fairway or on the green and it was double drinks for any hazard and down your drink if you get anything over par. It took probably about an hour or two to finish off the rum and make our way to the ATM. We were planning to limit ourselves to only $10 at the bar but when he told me to take out a 20, I knew we weren't coming home with any of that left.

The first thirty minutes or so were uneventful. We just sat around on the patio and people-watched while racking up the mosquito bites. I have a cluster of them on my leg that were so close together, they swole into one monster bite. When everyone decided to go inside is when the crazy train dumped off its passengers. I'd noted outside how many 40-year-old women were there dressed in hooker clothes and looking like Barbie's more plasticy mom. One in particular was Crystal and I found out her name in a lovely, not at all slutty way.

Crystal was clearly trolling for male companions that night. The little Englishman and I had been sitting quietly while music boomed through the tiny shack of a bar. A particular song seemed to have gotten Crystal's attention because she chose that moment to start booty dancing with the lesbian owner of the establishment. Crystal's white dress went up and everyone saw her matching lace thong and ass tattoo. I asked her after the little show who's name that was on her ass and she replied with "Mine. I'm Crystal. I love me," in the most valley girl-esque tones imaginable for someone with mature vocal chords. Crystal was tattooed so large on her ass and surrounded with so many cheesy roses and swirls that I somehow doubted she loved herself and more likely had daddy issues.

From this point on, an audience of middle-aged men were staring at her carefully, hoping for more shows, which they got...on top of a table. More ass was shown and the lesbian owner decided this was the cue to show her own ass.

After all this, a woman introduced herself as Barb and started rubbing my shoulders before pointing to a younger woman and whispering in my ear "That's my daughter. She hates my guts."

We saw two pairs of tits before the evening was through and when those left the bar, so did most of the men. The little Englishman and I spent a few hours talking to a rather fascinating couple named Dave and Krista (I think). I saw Dave a couple days later and had no clue who he was until he mentioned that night.

Anyway, we're probably going back to the free strip club tomorrow so there may be more stories later.

Thursday, September 1, 2011

New Place, Same Ignorance

I haven't posted in a while but I only have four followers so I don't think it really warrants an apology. An explanation, however, shall commence:

During my last little blogging stint, I'd applied for Southern Illinois University in Edwardsville. My friend Kim had gone there and rather than researching colleges too in depth, I decided to check this one out. Luckily it had the major I was interested in (advertising) and I kept it in mind. I looked at a couple of other colleges, including U of I and University of Illinois in Chicago, but they either didn't have an Advertising major or the major was so competitive that with my previous college follies I wouldn't even be considered. Besides, they were massively expensive and I'll already be paying off loans for the rest of my life so no thank you. Seriously, how does anyone come out of college with a good credit score? Anyway, to my subtle surprise, I was accepted. This meant two things: copious amounts of work and serious drinking in preparation for leaving the shithole I'd lived in for the last two years of my life.
Now blogging takes a backseat when the aforementioned conditions start applying. I had a little Englishman to look after and he dries and shrivels if not supplied with fermented and distilled sugar cane every two days. I also had to begin working 30+ hours a week as to pay for the rent on our apartment there, the bills we still had, and for trips to Edwardsville in order to find both an apartment and a new job. The little Englishman also began visiting my tiny southern grandma daily at the behest of and income supplied by my mother. He ended up making more money in three days than I made in a week and provided the capital we used to pay the first month's rent and bills as well as buy some lovely food and drink.
 This capital, however, dried up fairly quickly. For the last couple of weeks we've been scrounging for gas money and eating the cheapest food we could get. We bought two weeks of groceries for $40, which is rather impressive. Despite our economic situation, the little Englishman still managed to budget enough to get his rum on.

The place we are living now is about twelve miles from Edwardsville. On paper this seemed fine, I'd be able to get to school in a reasonable amount of time and get to whatever job I got from campus afterward. This location turned out to not be so prime. My mother had been paying for my gas weekly while up north and so it never entered my mind that going 24 miles or more daily would eat up gas so quickly. A half a tank is about $20 and I have to put that much in every two days, so there's that money gone from our allotted $100 a week. Nevermind the fact that all the grocery stores around us price gauge. Also, I found a job in our 950 population town so I can't really stay on campus as long as I might like and my Spanish teacher has mandated that we spend 10 hours a week in the language lab. It's better now because the little Englishman has finally gotten his work authorization and is working as a cleaning lady so we can afford all the gas, but he can't drive which means I have to drop him off in Edwardsville by 7:30 every morning, this one included, and then find something to do until I have to start class at 10 am or 12 pm depending on the day.

I work at the only grocery store in Worden (pronounce War-den but I didn't know that so I'd been pronouncing it Whir-den to everyone). It's also a deer and game processing plant so about the meat section there are several mounted deer, moose and, I believe to be, antelope heads. I guess once deer season starts I'll get to shove a hook in the deer's necks and then hoist them so the blood drains out. I also get to cut off their hooves. I am really looking forward to this. Feel the sarcasm.
This gives you an idea of what the townspeople are like. They might describe themselves as a countryfolk but I'd say ignorant is probably a more accurate description. Not all, but some. Twice while in there, I've had the n-word uttered in my presence to describe the only black teacher at the local school, once by a guy that I'd mentally described as deep-seeded intolerance man just by the way he looked and then had my description confirmed. What I don't understand is how some white, redneck who relies on foodstamps to feed his family and has never stepped foot in a college let alone earned the qualifications it takes to be a teacher can possibly think he's better than this black teacher. Somehow because his skin has less melatonin in it, that secures his status as superior Aryan despite having the vocabulary of a four year old. One of Intolerance Man's buddies, who'd been laughing along when the n-word was uttered, made the comment when his total came to 17.76 "That's George Washington's birthday." When his friends laughed, he came back with "No wait, that's when he was elected president. That's right." His friends laughed again but I don't think any of them actually knew the significance of 1776 until I said "No, that's the year of Independence." They are so patriotic with their Ford trucks and Confederate flags yet they don't even know the year their country was essentially born . Hell, they are so into the Confederacy but I doubt any of them could actually name the first stated that seceded.

Anyway, I have a bit more free time now that I'm not supporting an invalid Englishman so I will possibly be updating this blog more often. The little Englishman and I have also been toying with the idea of starting up a foodblog based on the restaurants in the St. Louis and Metro East area so I'll put up a link to that when it starts.