Tag: Good Rat Zeke

Does Zeke Rat get the zoomies?

I got tired of pacing the floor
Sick of it all, I’m done with the floor
Walked away ever since I got a new job climbing the walls

(Climbing the Walls, The Else, TMBG)

Yesterday on Bluesky, Kat Baumann posted a fantastically endearing sketch that resonated with Zeke. She asked us whether he also gets the zoomies. Oh my life, does he. I have to be so careful when we’re out and about. Here’s one of countless examples.

Last December, Zeke and I had a day out at the National Cathedral in Washington, D.C.. We signed up for the tour, which takes you all around up and everywhere. Super neat! Here we are on the mezzanine balcony at the west end, looking down the nave. I’d let Zeke sit on the rail for a snap, but no sooner had I taken it than zoom! — off he went. A minute later, I heard an echoey “squeak squeak squeak!” I looked up, and there he was, trying to scale the tracery on the rose window.

You can see there’s a passageway along another balcony right under the window. The tour traverses it. It’s pretty high up. I don’t like heights. But when do you ever get to walk directly under the rose window of a huge and gorgeous cathedral? More to the point, now I was obliged to fetch my rat.

As we crested the stairway and gathered in the antechamber, the guide advised us that the balcony railing would feel lower than we’d expect. I peered out and yes, it looked about level with my waist. I’d been taking deep breaths, and now I wiped sweaty palms on my jeans. “You’re good,” I told myself. “Zeke climbed this. You can cross it.” (breathe breathe, wipe wipe) Without hesitation, the other tourists and the guide blithely stepped out. I held back, waiting for them to finish, knowing that if they stopped midway and I had to wait behind them, I would not keep it together.

Finally, my turn. As I stepped out from the doorway, the acrophobia kicked in full-force, and I began to cry. Couldn’t help it. Straight from the brain stem. Tears streaming. By this point, the tour guide had noted my absence. “Do you want to go back down the way we came up?” she called. “No!!” I replied a little too emphatically. I squeezed my eyes shut and flattened my right palm against the wall. As I inched along, I recited: “You’re listening to your local independent public radio station, The Maverick, KMSU FM and HD Mankato, KMSK Austin, at 89.7 FM in Mankato and 91.3 FM in Austin …” This is my all-purpose prayer. “I love it!” encouraged the guide. “You’re doing great, keep going!”

When I eventually reached the far doorway, everyone greeted me with, “Are you okay? Do you want to sit down??” After a few deep breaths, I managed, “NO thank you very much I’m fine YES HONESTLY” while unconvincingly wiping streaks of mascara off my cheeks. Although I felt proud of myself for walking across and not backing out, I also felt thoroughly physiologically let down. I super very much had wanted to look out at the cathedral. Before I moved on with the group, I braced myself in the doorway and turned my head to sneak a glimpse back. My brain immediately went NOPE! and failed to imprint a visual memory. Thanks, brain.

As for Zeke Rat … I finally caught him in an exhibitionary roof space, and Plaster Jesus had a word with him.

Jesus, judging by his expression, looks extremely put-upon. Zeke looks extremely unrepentant.

i am ratzilla ! >eek< >eek< >eek<
10 December 2024

I love you, Zeke! You’re the ketchup on my ketchup cake.

Here’s the brand-new KMSU-made Zeke jingle!

And here’s the story.

In June 2024, I made my second pilgrammage to KMSU in Mankato, MN as a Program Director For The Day. A pledge drive swag item–you can join Shuffle Function and play your own music on air for two whole hours. (Amazing! best use of early o’clock evar!!) I’d played a few songs by OK Glass, and then Shelley, Shyboy Tim, and I chatted for a bit. I told the story of how I met Joe and said how everybody knows Zeke but never me. Elizabeth who??

This prompted Shelley to say one of the nicest things anybody has ever told me: “Could you earmuff Zeke for a moment? We think of you first. Zeke is like the ketchup on the ketchup cake.”

Here’s the clip.

As part of the swag on offer this year in the KMSU Spring Pledge Drive, Shelley offered to sing a customized “sleep deprived jingle”. She gets sing songy when she’s underslept–there’s a history on air of this. (see: What’s the color of Tim’s cardigan) (… what color? is he wearing?) Of course I pledged for one, and when she asked for a prompt I said ketchup!

And today, I finally baked Zeke his cake. This is the recipe from Heinz; apparently they created it in 2009 to celebrate their 100th anniversary in Canada.

I guess there’s a whole history of this kind of thing.

The Heinz recipe made enough frosting to cover an entire aircraft carrier. In the process, I got cream cheese in my hair, and my kitchen is lightly blanketed in powdered sugar, as some kind of tribute to the 45th anniversary of Mt St Helens blowing up. Also, let’s not talk about how I failed to put the cake bottoms together in the middle to avoid a giant gap around the sides. (In my defense, I turned them out upside-down on the rack, and they looked flat.)

As for the cake itself … it’s fine? I mean, it tastes mostly like a spice cake, it would be more red if I’d used a less-dark brown sugar, and I can’t really detect any ketchup flavor. But Zeke loved it, and that’s the important part. Good rat, Zeke.

(permissons granted to post clips and mention friends)