Garbage Bin %#$#$%^!!!!!!

I can't very well title this post garbage bin bastards, but I can dang well think it.
Politeness and manners dictates I use caution with my words, temper my temper with a dash of sanity and not just say '"oh bugger it all" and curse the blog air blue with inventive phrases that would have my Mother warning of the minister hiding in the bushes.
If there's 2 things my Mother taught me, it's not to point (I still wave with a fist to indicate something, which can make people think I'm starting a fisty cuffs scuffle) and also not to curse because you never know who might be listening. Meanwhile since I am obeying the "no pointing" rule I curse a little more often than is strictly lady like. But you can be sure I do an impressive imitation of a horror movie creature, head swiveling 360 degrees to see if any one, including ministers in the bushes, heard me.
But all of this is besides my point, which I admit I am either very good at or bad at.
Getting beside my point I mean.
There are times I look to the right and left of me and my point is sooooooo far down the line of things I am yakking on about I can hardly see it. Sometimes we wave at each other and my point will shrug in an embarrassed sort of way, wordlessly asking "how did I end up here?" I'll tell you how point, it's because I got side tracked thinking of curses when I was meaning to expose the seamy dark underside of a garbage bin crime world.
Our bins have been...stolen....no less than 3 times.
Now, call me crazy, but a full bin seems more interesting than an empty one.
Should I be embarrassed that the bin thieves don't think my garbage is good enough for them? Should I be grateful that they don't dump the bins out, thank goodness, but rather wait until after the garbage trucks have come and gone and apparently mosey on down our private road and load up on bins to their little heart's delight as if we're hosting a fricking bin buffet, an all you can steal blue bin special, ya bunch-o-thievin-buggers. The bin thieves not you.
I no longer cast suspicious glances at the neighbors, having learned they have been victims of the bin thieves as well.....so they say......I suppose they could be ultra clever and are eluding my accusing eye and finger of judgment (the pointy "j'accuse" finger, not the middle one) by including themselves in the barbaric bin business going on around here, but meanwhile every night they go out to their secret bin hideaway and glory over their stash of stolen plastic containers.
I shudder when I think of that...of some stranger running their fingers over my grey garbage can....or worse....the brilliant blue plastic of the recycling bin.
WHY THE RECYCLING BIN?????? Are ye thieves with an environmental conscious? Does that make me feel better or worse? How do the scales of justice weigh that out?
On the one hand they stole private property, on the other hand they might be recycling. Does that even out? Aggghhh...
So anyways I've been trying to figure out how to install a gps device on my new bins that were dropped off by Edco. I think this is a brilliant idea. I make my bin trackable, wait for it to get stolen, then I locate it using what ever doolybobber-thing-a-ma-jig one uses with their garbage can gps, (hence forth called gcgps) go to my poor abducted bin and NOT only steal it back but....but.....
This is where my plan falls apart. I am not sure what I want to do, something heinous like unleashing my look of supreme disapproval that clearly states through nothing but facial muscles and exquisite eyebrow control that says, "You are going to hell buddy. HELL. Pitchforks will be jabbing your azz for eternity and you shall choke on the fumes of melting plastic, surrounded by all the bins you've purloined."
OR something subtle like just start watching those people for the REST OF THEIR LIVES. Waiting, biding my time until one day I introduce myself, make friends with them, get invited to their bbq's and birthdays, wait for years to go by and then when they least suspect it I will tell them I hate them, take back all of the Christmas presents I've given them and spit in their face. See, it'll hurt more if they don't understand why AND they care. Muaaaah ahhh ahhhh.
In the mean time life goes on.
I have not taped a row of thumbtacks with their pointy parts poking out under the edge of the garbage bin handle.
I have not set up a secret spy web cam in the bushes so I can see the comings and goings on around my precious, precious bins on garbage day.
I have not joined the volunteer sheriff's program in my community, though if truth be told that's ONLY because it's for seniors and I don't think they let you arrest people.
In the mean time I gather my trash and take it down every week. And try not to obsess over how I can attach a gps doolie to my can so that it remains hidden as well as active.
I also no longer name my bins. I do not let myself grow attached......
But...if truth be told, on Fridays when we go down for our cans and we round the end of the driveway and walk past the cactus that conceal the bit of road where we place our bins...my heart speeds up...just a little. And I find myself holding my breath, and when my bins are there, EXACTLY where they should be, I feel relieved.
And so should the bin thieves........

Trixies terrible trip aka why she needs to twitter

(Just moments before the deed was done, pre cat carrier.)

There are those rare days you hope like hell your cat is not psychic.
The days when you whistle mindless, tuneless songs under your breath hoping to add to the atmosphere of normality, even though that's not normal. You try not to stare at the cat too often, or overwhelm her with pets or ignore her too much, trying very hard to strike the perfect balance of casual, every day affection. You grin through teeth and wonder if that looks aggressive but the nerves that sizzle along your limbs won't let anything close to a natural smile stretch across your face.
I do not know how people have kids let alone keep 'em.
Because even taking a sick kitty to the vet for a check-up is a little taste of emotional hell on earth.
Trying hard not to drown her fur in salty tears, lest the vet think we live in the ocean.
Trying to think of the perfect way to insert her into the "case of horror and damnation", aka the kitty carrier.
Coming precariously close to drawing up detailed plans in photoshop about how Alan will hold the kitty and distract her with bright idle chatter and possibly some close up magic and I will grab the carrier, carefully opening the gated door and some how we will insert one suspicious and now pissed off feline into one tiny case with out hurting her. We may end up in scratches and pain but that is the lot of a feline mama.
I wonder if human mamas feel the same, jamming their kids into kid carriers for a visit to the doctor, unmindful or caring if they get beat up in the process because the entire focus is on your young furry charge. Kids are furry right? We don't hang out with them as often as we do our cats so my information may be outdated.
As luck would have it, or perhaps telepathically communicating calmness to Trixie (the afflicted cat) would have it, or perhaps even the 23 minute feline hypnosis procedure that I invented and dispensed would have it, getting Trixie into the cat carrier was not too big a deal.

(Kitty yoga)

There were relatively few tears, even fewer curses and the howls were kept to a minimum. I will not say between the 3 of us, me, my husband or Trixie who was the one howling.
There was excessive shedding, as pissed off people and cats tend to do and with knots in our bellies and disgruntled cat in tow we headed to the vet's office.

(Trixie and Susie, leering at lizards out on the patio. Susie is the one who looks like she can speak 3 languages)

Of course, being a completely indoors cat, the fresh air and sights not normally seen by Trixie were an insult and assault to her senses. She cried, and I'm pretty sure her meows sounded like this
"Meeeeow, meeeeeeeeeeow, meeeeeemothereffingmeeeeeeeeow, meeeeeyou'vewrongedthewrongcatmeeeeoooooowwwwww, meow."
She was one righteously ticked off cat.
Her fury was almost a thing of beauty and even as I tried not to gnaw my lip off I made a mental note to add that same pitch and intonation to my own angry squalls in the future when I unleash my own rage upon any ne'er-do-wells I came across.
I liked our vet's office. I liked the gurgling rushing water fountain and climate appropriate fake grass in the front. I loved the murals, bright and bold scenes of a tropical beach that for some strange reason was populated with house pets. Looks nice on canvas but I'm think a beach like that in real life would be a little too odiferous for the senses.
There was a strange and almost amusing amount of tropical plants all over the front desk, congratulatory tokens for the newly remodeled office opening I surmised. I could be a detective I'm so surmise-y some days.
I stared at them as Trixie occasionally let out the pitiful yowl from her plastic prison and imagined how the desk staff seemed like they were in a jungle. I wondered if there was even maybe a monkey behind the desk and then wondered if it did tricks. Trixie yowled again and I shot semi accusing glances at the other patrons as if their presence, and not my stuffing my cat in to a wee plastic box and taking her on a strange journey, was the result of her discomfort.
The patron's dog stared at me with odd blue eyes and I could not hold his gaze, his tongue lolled in amusement and a touch of victory. We're cat people so I turned my back on his rolly polly face and with just the right touch of snobbery I made sure Trixie's face was shielded from the sight of such a huge canine beast. Being an indoors cat it could have been a fire breathing, stegosaurus eatin' dragon for all the difference it made. One being as foreign and strange as the other.
Alan and I held hands tightly over the top of the cat carrier, I stared into his blue eyes instead of the dog's and we made idle chit chat. The sort of stilted conversation one has when one's nerves are stretched thin and are beginning to hum and vibrate like a violin string.
The actual examination by the vet was surprisingly quick and relatively painless for Trixie. The added bonus besides knowing what was the cause of her mouth discomfort was that we both have fantastic and authentic feline hair shirts now. So quickly and completely did she shed, as if she could shrug off our hands that held her in place, that we both had the perfect hair shirts to wear home, the perfect accompaniment to our guilt. Sweet.
Turns out Trixie has to have her teeth cleaned and a couple possibly removed. Yikes, that sucks, worse for her because it means another trip back to the vet's, more discomfort, more nerves for all of us and what if there's no hulking dog in the waiting room this time for me to use as a scapegoat. Though....come to think of it, there could be a LITERAL scape goat because chances are not as slim as you'd think seeing as how we pass a lot of goats 2 minutes before arriving at the vet's. Meaning an empty lot, full of a lot of goats. I could call it a field but I'm a country bumpkin and know what a REAL field looks like. I'm also trying to distract me and you with idle goat chit chat instead of facing the impending second veterinary tooth treatment trip for poor Trixie.
I'm sure it will be some time soon, when her bloodwork comes in.
If you think sneaking a cat into a plastic cat carrier once is a great trick, trying doing it twice. When the memory of the ordeal is fresh in your victim's mind and she's on to your tricks and now immune to kitty hypnotism.
Have no fear the deed will be done and done quickly, and Trixie will be soon be on her way to feeling a lot better and hopefully won't be holding a grudge.
I think Alan said it best, "Imagine Trixie's blog post about this whole experience."
Yikes again, I didn't even know she had a blog.

(Trixie's sprawl is way cuter than urban's)