It involves a loft bed, candles and motion.

She looked up and saw flames. After she figured out they were real, not metaphorical, her swain, newly met that very evening, gallantly picked up the flaming pillow and dashed the thing to death, extinguishing the fire. Unfortunately, the hot polyester stuck to his hands, involving many trips to the kitchen, nude, for ice.

I was home from the party before my roommate, slept through the whole damn thing, and went into my roomie's room, prepared to decontruct the party over coffee, stared blearily at the clothes, linens and charred bits all over the place and was convinced for about 5 minutes that Lisa had spontaneously combusted.

My dad bought her a fire extinguisher for her birthday. She never quite forgave me for telling him that story.

Is this where I make a joke about rubbing two boy scouts together?

My cat loves hummus. Also spaghetti sauce. And he loves it when I let the faucet run. I'm still learning his quirks.

So I'm doing research for a story, and I've landed on the Wikipedia page for the small town of Omak, Washington. I'm scanning through the history section and run into this section:

Omak was the site of at least twenty three alien abductions between 1999 and 2007. Those abducted were often forced into sex slavery and mandatory polka dancing.

One wonders who's responsible for this page and if the Chamber of Commerce has seen it yet.

One wonders who's responsible for this page and if the Chamber of Commerce has seen it yet.

Yeah. They should be gearing their marketing towards polka aficionados....

I have also discovered the Omak Stampede and World Famous Suicide Run. The Suicide Run:

Except for safety measures that have been added, the race is run today as it was in 1935 – no holds barred – on a course that starts 50 feet from a sandy bluff across the Okanogan River from the Stampede arena. Horses and riders race 225 feet down the bluff to the river, swim or wade across and dash 500 yards to the finish line in the center of the Stampede arena.

This thing is run at night.

New safety measures:

made in recent years require the wearing of life jackets, ban alcohol and drugs for riders or animals

Plus age restrictions. And vet checks for the horses. And reflective tape so people can see each other in the dark.

yeesh! Does the humane society know about this?

I have yet to find a food my cat likes besides cat food. I put tuna in her bowl and she ate around it.

I once offered my cat yogurt - she didn't want any. I told her, "You know, there was a cat here before you, and he totally loved yogurt. You're weird, and he was a better cat than you."

I know I didn't hurt her feelings, because I knew she wouldn't take seriously what I had to say about this alleged "cat before you."

Does the humane society know about this?

Young folk from the local reservation are the main competitors, and it's something of a rite of passage, so there may be complications with tribal traditions in getting the humane society involved.

I once offered my cat yogurt - she didn't want any.

I picked up a stray on base once. The first day home with me she stuck her head directly into the carton of yogurt I was eathing and started licking. Needless to say, I named her Yogi.