hmmm... I wonder if the Google ads ^ are all about tanks and cows. I always forget to look.

Not to be all f---y or anything, but I do have one more animal/anthropomorphism rant for y'all today. (Don't worry, I haven't started drawing bunny pinups or anything. Ew.)
I have been in a pretty ill mood for the last few days. Could you tell? There are several reasons, but one of the big ones (and isn't this always the case?) is the whole "cages" issue. Hate 'em. Forget not the tale of the insane bobcat*, O children, lest ye find yourself mindlessly pacing...
*sigh*
Today I feel more like a hedgehog. Sure, they're hardy. That's because they are completely inedible. Their only natural predator is Autobus Sillius Anglicus, and their only real enemy is themselves. And my late cat. Their little faces are almost ridiculously cute, and their bodies are shaped like a small child's rainy day craft project. They're friendly and trainable and likeable and homebodies. Despite all this, when they get mad or feel threatened in the very least, they ball up and tense up and make the most bizarre little angry sound. They become these little quivering, hissing balls of angry sharp spikes. However, in order to get them to be like this, you have to come at them. They don't growl, ball up and fling themselves at your ankles. They wait until you harass them and then they just curl up into a mad, scared little mass of pointiness. They are ineffectual at being offensive, despite their natural danger-factor** and obvious dislike of being
! @#$'ed with. I wonder if they think they're scary and tough, too?
*siiiigh*

I want to be like Delilah. Delilah is a goat. THE goat, in fact that lives next door to us. She comes and goes as she pleases all day, most often grazing in the kudzu across the street from her house. Sometimes you see her sitting or standing on her mom's car, sometimes on the porch rail, and occasionally you find her lying right in the middle of the road, on the very steep hill in front of her house. Oh, and I think she think she's a dog. She's always with the dogs. When I give people directions to Casa de Luna, I often tell them "first house on the left, past the goat." She is a small goat, not much bigger than a breadbox on legs***, but this doesn't seem to really matter to her. She was lying in the middle of the road - on the steepest part of the hill, of course - when I was driving home from work today. I put the truck in neutral and stood on the brake (because, of COURSE two other cars pulled over the bridge just then and tried to come up the hill behind me) and waited for her to get up, as usual. She did get up, in that funny little knee-knuckling way that they have, and then she faced my truck, lowered her head and waggled it at me, and then CHARGED. Can you believe that? I drive a 1988 f150. It's a big truck. And she just didn't want to give up her nice warm spot in the road, dangit. The people behind me were unhappy, but Delilah's dad finally had to come out and pull her out of the road. When I told him "She charged me!" he looked at me like I was crazy, and he probably thinks I'm going to try to sue them now, or call animal control. How could he know that I was bragging on her?
I admit, for a second there I wondered: "Do goats get rabies?", but I instantly knew that Delilah must have been feeling the same thing I feel sometimes. "Don't push me just because I'm small, just because I'm not your species. Dangit. I'm just trying to hang with the dogs, chew a little kudzu and keep my knees warm..."
*siiiiiiiiiiiiggghhhhhhhh*

Keep your knees warm, peeps. And if you ever decide to charge an F150 - metaphorically speaking, I mean - I'll be proud of you.
much love (and some head-waggling),
-Sam


*see 01/18/03 rant
**those little spikes are ! @#$ SHARP.
***just about the right size for a snack, as Luna let on the day she jumped out of my car window ONTO poor Delilah as she was walking up to the car window hoping for a french fry handout! :O