Would You Like a Cup of Tea?

I have a sty in my eye so large that as I type I can feel it pressing into my eyeball. In case you're wondering, this is not a pleasant state of affairs. What's more annoying is that I had my first work meetings with the faculty advisors at two of my high schools this morning. I't the first time I'd seen them face-to-face and nothing says "professional demeanor" like a blazing eye infection.
I deal, I deal. At least it's not an anti-biotic resistant staph infection or leprosy. I figure it's hard to hide your identity while doctors race against the clock to stop the progress of your flesh eating bacteria.
Oh boy, oh boy, do I increasingly hate not having health insurance. When the student loans finally come through I am so getting my teeth cleaned. So bourgois. Really, though, if I get promoted enough in this job to ever get healthcare I worry it'll make me soft. Honest. If I ever forget that my primary fear about car accidents and super germs is oh my god i'll go bankrupt then I'll forget how much the American healthcare system fucking sucks.
So thank you eye infection. You press into my eyeball with integrity.

This whole affair led to a beer soaked discussion about the importance of personal responsibility in anarchy. Part of what is actually hard about trying to live out the idealogy that nobody gets to be in charge of your life is accepting all the unpleasantness of actually being in charge of your life. But that's a boring discussion. You want to hear about blood and guts and drama, dont' you?

So I wake up Thursday morning to hear that one of my compound-mate's dog had escaped in the wee morning hours and eaten two of our most beloved chickens, including Megan christmas hen and, not satiated by that, had to be physically pulled of one of our turkeys.
On the list of people whose repsonsibility this is, I am like, so far on the bottem. It's not my dog; it's not my turkey; it's not my seven year old that didn't slam the door; it's not my job to watch the seven-year old. I'm not even sleeping with anyone who fits any of these qualifications. I go off to work with clean concious, confident the turkey issue will be taken care of by the time I get home. Ha. You can, of course, see where this is going.
I get home around 4 o'clock. The turkey's owner is in Chicago. The dog owners are at work. As much as I don't want to have to drive a wounded turkey all the way over to the east side, I call the vet, who tells me that it's not worth it to do surgery on a turkey. fair enough.
So I sit on the front porch, hoping that if I don't say anything for a while it will become somebody else's problem. Then Patrick comes out with the homesteading encyclopedia in one hand and a cleaver in the other. He says, "if you'll help me I'll kill the turkey and pluck it so it doesn't go to waste." We sit on the front porch studying the homesteading encylopedia and sharpening the cleavers for a while. At some point a crack head wanders up and announces it is his birthday and he needs some spare change. I try to be really polite and friendly to roaming crack addicts, 'cause why not. But I was not in the mood. I was little curt and on the off chance that the he reads this blog; i'm sorry and happy birthday.
I gather up the turkey and carry him over to the chopping block (note: this requires me to walk about 25 feet down the sidewalk on a busy stree, carrying a turkey and following a man with a cleaver) I hold the turkey and Patrick chops off his head, spraying blood all over my sandals, which are fortunatly my Official Poultry Killing Sandals.
We get about half-way done plucking the body when it's obvious that the dog did such a number on the poor guy that he's not fit for human consumption (the maggots and the gangrene smell were our major clues) so we dig a whole in the side lot. I go and pick up the head, because Patrick doesn't want to, "see him lookin' at me" and toss it in the whole with the body.
"Shouldn't we say a few words?" Patrick asks.

"Sorry turkey" I say.

As I'm sure the entire internet knows by now, Cara and I experienced our first Balto-mugging friday night. I won't rehash details because any interested parties can cross reference this with the rest of the internet.
We spent most of the rest of friday night barricaded in Cara's house with a variety of goofy weapons. I, personally, rotated between the big ol' u-lock and the fireplace poker. I felt that it was very much like every zombie movie ever made. After asking Dina if she would be offended if, due to her almost sexual passion for fire arms, I cast her as practical minded redneck, allowing all of us to fullfill Night of the the Living Dead archetypes. I was given a brief opening to expound, as I will do at any given situation, of the total fucking brilliance of George Romero's zombie movies after I commented to Tracy that his archetype would live the longest in a faithfully adapted zombie attacked. "How progessive" He said. Well, sort of progressive. All the women characters are essentially passive screamers who get eaten alive about half-way through. But maybe I'm too critical. My mugger fighting technique was just to scream and scream and scream. I think dude was pretty amatuer, 'cause unlike with zombies, screaming totally worked.

But the mugging was hardly the high light of m Balto-adventure. I attended a fabulous dance party featuring some of the most amazing pants I have ever seen before collapsing in stupor on a bed constructed entirely of milk crates and fouton mattress. I also got to hang out with a certaincelebrity terrier. Oh Baltimore, you've stolen my heart.

My new grown-up shoes have given me blisters, but what the hey, I've got a per diem. I left in a hurry early monday morning and played a mean prank on Keith by leaving him in charge of our finances after I'd moved the finance binder. Her forgave me. I also played a prank on the whole house by fermenting kefir in the fridge. They'll all be living to ripe old age like those peasants in the caucuses so they'll have plenty of time to hold a grudge against me for leaving fermented foods.
I feel like such a hillbilly. During my layover at Grand Central I was so busy staring at the stars on the ceiling that I walked right into a trash can. Lukily I didn't walk right into the terrorism sniffing german shepherd standing 3 feet from the trashcan. Blush Blush Blush. A whole massive building full of people and I'm convinced they are all staring at me.
I'm debating right now whether or not to buy a train ticket to balitmore this weekend. It sure beats sitting around the faux-tudor decor of the Vassar alumnae house on the other hand I'm broke. Tonight's mission is to question my boss as to whether or not any travel expenses will get reimbursed.

I got a grown-up as of thursday, a job so grown up that they are paying for my plane ticket to job training. I found out that I got the job while I was at my current job and was in the process of pretending not to notice my client vomiting all over the sidewalk for no apparent reason other than that she was kind of bored. whee!
I fly out tomorrow morning to go to two weeks of training. I having this inner dialogue with the optimistic and pessimistic parts of my brain:

"It's going to be great! I'll make friends, maybe I'll find a boyfriend!" (optimistic Leah is really into getting a boyfriend lately)
"It's going to suck. You'll be surround by earnest liberals all day. You hate earnest liberals"
"Shut up. They hired us, after all. They must have a pro-wingnut policy"
"Oh goody. I cant' wait to hear how peace is patriotic and how nostalgic we all are for Bill Clinton and how that war in Kosovo was so totally justified and how George Bush is totally the worst thing to every happen to the world and gun control...can't you just wait to hear about gun control????"
"We've decided to be open minded and friendly to all sorts of people, remember?"
"Lexus and the Olive Tree!!! lalala lalala! John Kerry RULZ!!!

Optimistic me is going to win out here, honest. I need a non puke-oriented job and considering that Earnest NonProfit Inc. totally, totally knew what wingnut I was when they hired me, I figure I can't be the only one.
I'm arriving at the training late. They originally had me leaving early Sunday morning but I demured, saying I had, "a few loose ends to tie up". I'm still unsure about exactly how pro-wingnut they are so I didn't mention what those ends were. You see, I needed time to find a substitute goat milker and to rack off my honey wine into glass bottles.

It's been so damn hot this summer. We've been considering throwing enviromental responsibility right to the wind and installing central air. What's holding us back is a) we're broke and b) the compound would explode with that amount of electrical current run through it's original 1890 electrical system.
I have floated the idea of dragging all our matresses into the library and buying a window unit...but the connotations are too creepy.
A relatively well-dress 50-something stopped by about a month ago and treated Megan and me to a rambling monologue about all the good time he had at the compound in the early seventies, probably back when the dumb fucks were dropping acid and doing roof "repairs". grr. About ten minutes into the monoglue he said, "yeah, those were crazy times. I heard once everyone who lived here dragged mattresses to the third floor and just had orgies all day long."
There was a brief dramatic pause, after which Megan replied, " ew. "