A Wish for an Ounce of Talent

I’m attempting to redesign the site again because, let’s face it, my current design is probably the ugliest thing ever created.

I’ve actually started mocking up a new look, so maybe it will actually happen this time. I have a rough idea in my head of what I want things to look like. I just cannot make it happen.

Honestly, though, I’m really not sure if what I’ve managed to produce looks like total crap. It could be that it is equally as horrifying as what I’ve currently got going on. At least is will be something new. New ugly is better than old ugly. Right?

I have several friends who are designers. And I work in an office full of designers. I’ve probably made their eyes bleed with some of the things I’ve created. None of them have offered to help me stop making their eyes bleed. If I were good at something, I could probably work out some kind of trade-off thing. My only talents are complaining, yelling, and eating chocolate. Not really the types of things one can barter with.

Crap, the Real Kind

Herb, our old nasty tabby, lives on the back porch. We make him stay there most of the time because he’s old and nasty. His old, nasty habits include vomiting and crapping outside of the litterbox.

He developed these bad habits last year. He was sick. Lost a lot of weight. The vet couldn’t figure what was wrong with him. We sort of expected him to die. The vet put him on a “chicken should be the main ingredient” diet. It has been a slow process, but Herb has bounced back.

He doesn’t throw up very often any more. For awhile it was once a day. It’s been months since his last vomit.

The crapping whenever and whereever is the bigger issue. He’ll go a couple weeks deligently using his litter box. Then one day, SPLAT! Just for the hell of it, he’s crapped whereever he happened to be standing.

For this reason, he’s only allowed to come into the house on supervised visits.

Lately, he’s been pretty good about using the box. I can’t remember when he had his last “acccident.”

So, this past weekend, we decided it was time to throughly clean the back porch. I’d been cleaning up messes as they happened. But it’s not easy to thoroughly clean Herb’s liqui-poo off the concrete. Stains had built up over the last year. So, Saturday we rented a pressure-washer and de-stained the porch.

I was confident Herb would be thrilled. Clean porch, clean litter box, clean lounging areas. What more could a cat ask for?

Well, the answer to that is “crap.”

Bright and early Easter morning, Herb crapped on the porch. He crapped right next to his clean litter box.

That Looked Painful

“That looked painful.” Not something you want to hear when your Sa Bum Nim is watching you perform a technique. Yet, that is what I heard last night from my instructor as we worked on jumping, spinning, back kick. Yes, it was painful, in oh so many ways.

Physically painful to execute. My lower back just can’t handle jumping while tucking one leg under and throwing the other leg straight out behind…oh yeah and turning in mid-air at the same time.

Mentally painful to execute. My brain didn’t understand how it was supposed to coordinate the turning,jumping, spinning, kicking, while keeping the hands tucked close to the body. So naturally, it just sent the message to arms and legs to make everything look like crap.

Visually painful to watch, at least for Sa Bum Nim. Although I didn’t actually see it myself, I know it looked horrendous. However, the looks of amusement on the faces of people watching class lead me to believe they were seeing something bordering on comical.