On Thursday, Kiki and I were supposed to go to Bearaoke at The Cuff, but stopped in at The Unicorn for a prefunk and ended up having so much fun that we stayed there. We eventually wandered over to The Cuff, but were so late that we missed everyone. Kiki introduced me to her friend who had changed his middle name to Megatron, whose mortal enemy, Optimus Prime, is friends with my friend shadowstitch, because we live in a very, very small world.

The Unicorn may well become my new favorite Seattle bar, home to many pieces of ironic taxidermy, circus food, and light shows made far more entrancing with the ‘Unicorn Dumb Eyes’ they hand out. Wearing them made me want to sing Erasure. Wearing them outside after drinking too much Unicorn Jizz made me want to prance out into pretty, pretty traffic with its pretty, pretty headlights.

We finished out the evening at the Wildrose, where it was sadly NOT Tuesday so there was a very sad lack of tacos, but there were some cheap drink specials which more than made up for it. We’re thinking about making Night at the Unicorn a regular thing, with glitter and feather boas and ironic taxidermy hats. Yes? YES.

Yesterday, as I was walking with Napoleon toward home, I noticed a guy walking a large dog near the mailbox area of the apartment complex. I decided to take a small detour as Napodog doesn’t always get along with other dogs and I wasn’t up to dealing with the scene that’s caused whenever a twenty pound dog decides he can kick the shit out of a fifty pound dog. This guy took his dog back toward the pool area, and then as I approached the mailbox area, he came out, holding the leash, without a dog, and got into the passenger side of a vehicle. At first I thought I must have been mistaken, the dog must have already been in the car, and then the dog came stumbling out from the mailbox area, no collar, and started investigating Napoleon, who was not really into having his butt sniffed. I looked up and made eye contact with this guy who had gotten in the car, like, “Why are you not controlling your dog, why aren’t you stopping this?” and as I’m thinking this, the SUV backs out to leave.

It finally clicked for me.

They were abandoning this dog.

I had the presence of mind to quickly memorize the license plate number, but I was a little flustered as to what my next step would be. I didn’t have my phone on me, and the dog was following Napoleon and me back to my apartment. I looked around for help but no one was around. I finally decided to get Napoleon inside, grab my phone, and call 911, sternly telling the strange dog to STAY when it looked like he was going to try to amble down the stairs and into my apartment. The dispatcher got the plate number, info about the dog, what scant descriptive info I could give about the abandoner and the vehicle itself. She said she was dispatching animal control, and I said I would wait outside the building with the dog until animal control arrived.

I told the dog to STAY again as I ran back inside, and got him a dish of water and some food since it was hot outside and it looked like he was starving. I’ve never seen such prominent ribs on a dog. He was also covered with tiny little bald patches, and he seemed to be walking funny, for lack of a better word. I gave him what comfort I could in the hour I had him until animal control arrived–patted him, told him he was a good boy, and he wagged his little tail and waited by my side. Napoleon, for his part, acted a damn fool inside, howling about the injustice that some of HIS food was being used to feed some OTHER dog, when doesn’t everyone know that he’s starving to death in there and HELLO he could also use some attention?

When the animal control officer arrived, he confirmed my worst suspicions–the marks all over this dog were bite marks, that he was walking on the backs of his paws instead of the front because his front feet were badly damaged, and additionally, he was missing half his tail. It makes me want to cry, thinking about what a terrible life this poor abused animal must have had.

I hope he finds a loving forever home. I hope they nail the bastards who did this.

On Friday, I went to the Rendezvous to help safetymonkey celebrate his thirtieth birthday–the last one before he crumbles into dust and memory like that guy who chose the wrong cup at the end of Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. He had rented the private room so we could have a karaoke party, and further requested that we dress to moderately impress. I was glad to have been invited, I hadn’t seen anyone in that group since last year’s Black Barbeque and I was beginning to become concerned that inviting a string of douchebags, one after another, to his parties had been the last straw for my attendance. That wasn’t the case–I hadn’t been able to make it to last year’s Halloween party, and then Jon moved and didn’t have a suitable place to throw the sorts of parties he used to, thus there was no Valloween this year to be invited to, and I just hadn’t gotten my invitation to the new location of the Black BBQ yet for this year. If I bring someone with me to the BBQ this year, I may have to administer a non-douche test beforehand.

Anyhow, I got dressed up fairly fancy, save for the flats that I wore because I didn’t feel like wearing heels–usually if I go out dancing in heels, my legs are messed up for a couple of days which makes it difficult to keep with my exercise routine–besides, MODERATELY impressing people does not call for heels. I was surprised at all the attention I was getting out on the street between the walk from my car to the club, I’m not used to getting looks and having strange men approach me to say hi and it happened a LOT in just a couple of blocks. I don’t know if it was the outfit or the makeup or that I’ve lost weight, but if it’s the latter, it’s only going to serve to increase my cynicism about people’s basic natures. Once there, I also got a “you look really good” from an ex, which is one of the best compliments a girl could receive.

At karaoke, I waited to see what sorts of things people were going to sing, to set a tone for the evening–the last time I sang karaoke with these guys, I was drunk off my ass and delirious from latex fumes so I didn’t want to pick something that was overly strange or out of line with people’s musical tastes.

As soon as Jon borrowed someone’s glasses to sing some Lisa Loeb, I knew I could do whatever I wanted.

I put in The Final Countdown and rocked the hell out of it. It was kind of surreal, entirely unlike any karaoke experience I’d ever had before, because the whole room was singing along and dancing and they cheered and screamed for me in a way I’ve never been cheered for before–it was pretty amazing.

Last call/get the hell out came all too soon, but I was glad that I got the time I did to reconnect with everyone and I can’t wait to see them again in a few weeks at Black Barbeque XI!