Home Adventures with the Mojave Phone Booth book now available
Here's psycho cat Bonkers, after she began to get used to me. (Don't try to deny it, Max.)
Bonkers spent most of my visit underneath Max's bed. But she did finally begin to warm up. Another day & she'd have been happy to be the center of my attention.

Note also the candy dish full of Runts next to Fake Wagner.

Runts are good. We like Runts.

Monday morning we met Cupcake at a coffee shop. There was a guy sitting outside, scribbling furtively in a notebook. He looked like a drug dealer. Turned out -- he was!
We were hoping the photos I snapped of his notebook pages would turn out -- they didn't. Blasted blurry camera!

But I did jot down three examples of his numbered ramblings:

39. "I live in fear of IRS, state of Oregon, fed government."

43. "I must change my thinking, or else."

"50. Bottom line: Dishonesty sets me up for self-loathing. Self-loathing sets me up for a fuck it attitude. Hence, back to the spoon."

That became a tag line the rest of the day, whenever any one of us needed to sum up a story we'd told: "Hence -- back to the spoon!"

This guy was Too Good to Pass Up: Fake Wagner had to pose with him. Max & Cupcake wanted to know how that would be negotiated.

Negotiated, hell! I just said, "Excuse me," plopped F.W. down on the guy's table, and walked across the street and snapped it.

You can just barely see Max & Cupcake through the window behind Mister Dope Guy.

When I came back for F.W., the guy nervously asked, "Er, what's this photo for?"

I said, "I take pictures of this statue."

For some reason, because that answer appeared to satisfy me, it satisfied him.