Straight from the Padded Cell

Fenced

2012-02-08T16:35:00.000-07:00

So what do you do when you steal something you don't need?

When you steal food, it could be because you or someone you feel responsible for is hungry.

When you steal a coat it could possibly be because you are cold.

So when you steal something you don't need? Something you cant use?

What do you do?

The hardest thing about stealing odds and ends is turning them into money.

I would guess.

So what do the maggots who steal things do?

In ye olde days they would go to a "fence"

Someone who specilised in moving stolen goods along. Finding buyers for them. The fence was well known in the community of criminals. He was the go-to guy.

Lets say (for example) that I stole a Gold Chamber pot.

Its worth a LOT of florins, but it has the family crest of the former owners boldly emblazoned on the bottom.

So I would take it to the fence.

He would ascertain its value, and offer me much less.

Say, knowing that he could sell the gold to a reputable goldsmith for 600 florins, he would offer me 60.

We would haggle, and in the end I would walk away happy with the 50 florins clinking in my pocket.

The fence would then approach his friend the goldsmith, the man who asks no questions, and offer the poo-pot to him.

The goldsmith, knowing that he could easily convert this polished toilet into 2000 florins worth of jewelry offers the fence 400 florins.

They haggle, and in the end the fence walks home happy with the 750 florins jingling happily in his money pouch.

Twenty days later, Jewelry done, A man and His wife come into the shop.

She is depressed because recently her fathers family crested chamber pot was stolen and insurance (not being invented yet) obviously refused to cover it.

So the husband, being a wise man, takes his wife to the local goldsmith. An upstanding member of the community, well known to all. Once there he buys her three beautiful pieces of gold jewelry purchased at the "friend" price of 2200 florins.

Little does she know, that 20 days previously she was pooping in the pot she now wears happily around her neck.

Its a win win.

Right?

In a word, no.

There is one really really unhappy party. Party being a word I am using to describe an entity, or group of people rather then where you go to hit pinatas.

This unhappy Party is, of course, the government.

Especially when the goldsmith is elected Mayor.

Knowing full well where the poo-pots were originating from he invites his friend the fence over to dinner.

Over the clams he mentions offhand that he wants a piece of the action.

After choking on his clam, the fence asks the Mayor if he has gone soft in the head.

The Mayor smiles and twirls his Grotesque mustache. Which is really gross cause its covered in clam juice.

This is actually a sign for the local watch to come in.

6 burly chaps with clubs that work for the Mayor.

They stand behind the fence and make growly sounds and hit their clubs against their meaty palms.

All is clear.

So the fence and The Mayor haggle. In the end it is decided that the fence only has to pay the Mayor a small percentage of everything he sells. 6.5 percent to be precise.

As the fence leaves, nervously stepping wide of the brute squad the mayor, slurping down a few more clams calls out "HEY! we will just call it a sales tax" his grotesque mustache bobs obscenely as he laughs.

So everyone is happy.

The thief gets to steal, the fence gets to fence and the Government gets to make a little on the side.

The Mayor laughs.

He collects taxes from the people who pay the Mayor to protect them from the thieves who steal from the people, the theives sell it to the fence who sells the stuff to other normal people and some criminal types at a higher markup to cover the sales tax which he pays to the mayor to protect the fence from the brute squad who protect the Mayor from the criminal types and other normal people who could perhaps threaten his position, The Mayor pays the brute squad with the money he gets from the fence to protect the people.

Make perfect sense.

Good thing it is all a fantasy.
Do I need to spell it out?
Plain English?
Okey Dokey.
Pawn Shops are fences. They can buy "loan" on anything of value. The person selling the object does not have to prove that they own it. Possession is enough for the LAW and the Pawnshop.
They pay "loan" very little compared to the real value.
The Police force is funded primarily on taxes, in my town, the Majority of which is sales Tax. The Police are essentially paid by the pawn shops. (greatly simplified, I realize)
Now lets say you are an enterprising active property owner, a payer of taxes and a (fairly) good citizen. All your stuff gets stolen.
You go to the Police, they tell you that their hands are tied.
So, you venture forth and find your stuff, some of it, at a local pawn shop.
You know its yours cause it has your name written on it.
So in triumph you call the police, who arrive at the Pawnshop.
JUSTICE!
Well, no.
You see. According to the law, since the pawnshop has now paid for your stuff, they own it. You now have to "prove" that it is yours.
Receipts and serial numbers are good. Pictures of you holding said objects will work in a pinch.
Your name being on it? Not good enough. Pictures of you and your family on the film in the camera and on the tapes? Not good enough.
So then you go to a city council meeting and yell at the Mayor.
Who then sends the brute squad round about your house to remind you that if you do ANYTHING wrong at all. They will arrest you.
Fantasy.

Or is it?

Locals

2012-02-01T21:09:00.002-07:00

It was 3am, 30 degrees and we were 230 miles from home.
On our motorcycles.
In Panguitch UT. Which for those of you not familiar with the bass ackward state of Deseret, is nowhere.
Adventures are rarely fun when you are in the middle of one. It's a well known fact among adventurers around the world. They are usually miserable.
We were on a self imposed deadline to get home.
Not completely self imposed, we both, The Shane and I, had to be at work in a few hours.
We had already been on the road for ten hours.
It was cold. We had planned this trip in the middle of winter, trusting in the groundhog and past experience to give us good weather.
That false furry faker.
We were chased out of Utah two days before in a snowstorm.

We were headed home now, we had passed the uncontrollable shivering stage and were now just numb.
Full body numbness is not recommended.
I am positive the surgeon general warns against it.
We would stop for gas and try and get warm, leather gets very stiff in the cold. It holds its shape remarkably well. Walking in to a truck stop at midnight with your arms held stiff straight out in front of you is more than slightly embarrassing.
Trust me.
Sliding into Panguitch, the ass end of no-place special, was a relief. More so was the open sign on a gas station. Its times like these that you appreciate the simple things in life. Fluorescent light, heaters, Hot chocolate, heaters, bathrooms with heat. Heaters.
We woke up the vigilant owner of the store clattering inside in a frozen blast of air. She seemed less then pleased to see us. At her advanced age I was betting she thought she had seen everything the world and the road could throw at her. Until now. She watched us with glazed eyes. It seemed like she was having a bit of trouble believing we were real.
In retrospect, a six foot tall Mexican and a long haired white(ish) guy wearing three cows worth of black leather between them, could be a little alarming.
Shane had to go and make everything stereotypical by buying a Mexican horse blanket. Seriously.

Watch the YouTube video here.

He wrapped it around himself under his jacket and zipped up.
I laughed so hard my frozen face cracked in three places.
We were headed out the door when the antique jerked awake.
Fully. Bright rheumy eyes looked at us and then swung to our bikes.
I wish I could somehow allow you to hear her, the southern Utah accent is a cultural anomaly, a mystery. My personal theory as to its origin is simple. When you have six (or more) mothers all trying to teach you how to speak, each with a different accent, you can get a bit confused.
Hence, the south Utah trawl. (you know, Twang-Drawl)
Enough of that.
The suddenly wide awake oldster was putting in her teeth. As soon as they were in and she had test clacked them together a few times she croaked at us....
"You boys are on those motorcycles?"
Nods
"You Boys headed out?"
Nods
"You boys are crazy!"
Shrugs and nods
"Headed to Salt Lake?"
I sat back down. She obviously thought she needed to talk. I shut my brain down and just watched the following exchange.
Shane (The Six Foot Mexican) "Yes, we are headed up over the pass to get back on i-15 then to Salt Lake"
"uhhhhhuhhhhhuhhhhhhhuuuu"
Shane(TSFTM) "Excuse me?"
"Oh, you boys need to watch out for the elk at mile marker 13"
TSFTM "The Elk?"
"Oh yeeeah, the elk all winter at mile marker 13, right at the top of the pass"
TSFTM "Really?"
I was sitting there listening to this, incredulous. What is it with these people? Locals. They think that just because they live in area they can make oracular pronouncements about a herd, a large heard of very large animals. A foretelling of where a herd of Very large, VERY mobile animals are going to be at any given time? Elk are not cows, they are not Sheep, they are free range wild animals. I have Hunted Elk my entire life and the one thing I have learned in 27 years of chasing the damn things is that they are NEVER where you think or expect them to be.
Never ever.
This ol local had worn out the three brain cells I had that were not frozen.
I walked out the door, pulling TSFTM after me. As the door swung shut she warbled "mile marker 13"
Can you believe this shit? I am a weird magnet, but put me and Shane together and suddenly Idiots the world over are falling over themselves to talk at us.
Gods very own comedy team.
We headed out. Frozen solid within 2 miles.
Up and up we went, on a road that would have been fun.
In the day time.
At midsummer.
At 3:30 am and -30 windchill. Just starting to snow. On motorcycles.
Not fun.
The concentration required to ride a motorcycle increases for everything you add to a normal road. Sadly, I was noticing that my concentration was decreasing the colder I got.
Conundrum.
Headlights on bright only light up the road, leaving the sides of the world more of a hint then anything else. Shapes move in the corner of your vision. After ten hours in the saddle your brain gets used to it.
Not really.
I could see these shapes now. Nearing the top of the pass. Snow falling, swirling in visions of the future across the road. Smoke over water. Dreamlike.Cold becomes comfort, the roar of the engine fades into the distance and the road merges up ahead with infinity.
Oh shit!
I jerked my head up, shook it and slowed down. Shane (TSFTM) took the lead and I followed his brake-light.
Mile marker thirteen.
Here it is.
Exactly at the marker.
Exactly.

An Elk steps out into the road. Steam shooting from nostrils that seemed twenty feet high.
Shane dodged.
We rode on.
I looked back, hundreds of elk, the shapes on the edge of the world.
Elk.
Exactly at mile marker 13.
I hate locals.

Methadventures

2012-01-31T06:57:00.000-07:00

A sordid confession blog.

I was young(er) and still feeling bulletproof.

Having just borrowed a house from the bank for a thirty year loan I was feeling like a responsible adultish sort of person.

Until I met the neighbor.

His name was Steve.

He had graduated from painting houses to dealing in a much more lucrative market.

The manufacture and sale of Meth.

He also taught Steve-kun-do.

The first time we met he told me how Bruce Lee himself peed himself in fear when faced with the mighty steve in battle mode.

Chuck Norris? Not a challenge for the Steve.

He had really bad skin.

I learned later that when you cook chemicals without the proper protective gear you can get residue buildup in your pores. It creates a sort of "plastic pimple" on exposed skin.

Nasty.

I like to keep to myself, let others leave me alone and I leave them alone.

Sort of.

It was the traffic that did me in.

A constant 24-7 flow of cars, foot traffic, vagrants and bicyclists would come to his kitchen window and trade grubby money for little plastic packets.

And the noise. Loud music, Loud cars, Mowing his lawn at 2am. Always the noise.

So I phoned the gendarmes.

This is when we discovered the boundary dispute.

We lived exactly on the border between M-city and S-city.

Neither of them wanted to come out, so they sent H-county cars.

Who didn't want to deal with it.

So they left.

And the traffic continued. Day and night.

So I asked him to stop.

Very nicely.

I even politely kicked on the front door, rather than knocking on the kitchen window.

I may have kicked a little harder then I meant to.

He called the cops on me.

Who showed up and informed me, whilst the traffic never abated, that since there was no "proof" of my erstwhile neighbor dealing drugs that there was nothing they could do.

Oh, and if you bother the Steve again, you get a ticket.

So I pondered.

Shoot him? Torch his house?Accidentally run over him? Squish him?

options and options.

I was at a loss.

So I called about the noise. Every night.

He started getting tickets. Warnings. He would cast me dark looks.

I am afraid I was not subtle.

Standing in front of steves house with a cell phone at 1am calling the cops.

He received a FINAL warning.

It only took a month.

Jail for noise violation if he had one more call.

So he got quiet.

Really quiet.

Damn it all.

The problem was beginning to look insurmountable.

It was solved, miraculously, by the sweet Dutch lady down the road.

She called Protective Services.

Apparently, the Steve had a six year old child in the house.

So, they came, they saw, they took the kid. The policia took the Steve and I figured all was well.

Nope.

The Steve had a Lawyer.

A really good one.

He was out and cooking again in less than 24 hours.

But he got smarter.

He moved into his garage/karate studio in the back yard.

He rented the house to these nice young men.

College age.

Quiet. Polite. Respectful.

Best neighbors we ever had.

The traffic continued to some extent, but since it was going into the backyard and off the street.

Well, live and let live.

Until 3am one morning when the SWAT team raided the house, shot one of the nice young men and let the dog use the other one as a chew toy.

They were cooking for steve.

He escaped. In the confusion and amidst the growling and screaming the steve got away.

At 4am I was out talking to the coppers.

What could I do?

Could I get steve evicted?

Well.

In a word. No.

He owned the house.

They really didn't have much on him.

And he had a really good Lawyer.

So.

The next day, under the cover of a bright noon day sun.

I took his electric meter. I turned off the water and the gas and put padlocks on them.

I took a hammer drill and three inch screws and fastened every single door, window and opening shut.

Then I stripped all the screws.

That night steve tried to break into his own house.

I let him play for about an hour. Banging and Cursing and generally making a lot of noise.

Until he had a fine froth of rage going.

Then I called the cops.

Who arrived just in time to see steve, in a meth induced frenzy of stupidity, trying to beat his own front door in with a decorative rock.

he was making a lot of noise.

They say confession is good for the soul.

I say, only after the statue of limitations is up.

Don't mess with us

evil-doers beware

Blogshit

2012-01-30T10:52:00.001-07:00

People will write about anything.
I went on a tour of blogland these past few days to see what the vast army of maladjusted humans with a desire to express themselves are writing about.
Holy salted snails.
The absolute volume of total shit out there is impressive.
After six hours of reading I had to go outside and throw my pants, boots and socks away.
Wading through waist deep poop can do that.
I found blogs for and about everything.
Dealing with snails in your garden. 78 blogs over three years of NOTHING but dealing with snails.
Growing Worms in your kitchen.
Growing Pot in life size Plastic Nativity Scene Characters. (very informative)
Exploring the inner working of a self designed AI.
Anime fetish blogs.

Jesus. Lots and Lots of Blogs about Jesus and scriptures and heaven and oh my, they even type with southern accents. I get the feeling that most of them read on about a 3rd grade level if at all.
Distressing.
Depressing blogs.

Statistically speaking I would venture to say that 90% of blogs are depressing, or about depression, or anti-psychotics and/or both.
Lots of Photo blogs. Most of those I actually really enjoyed.
Much over-use of the word "adventure" in blog titles.
If everyone with a blog titled adventure of....... Is actually having any sort of adventure.
Well, they would write a lot more about cool things. Instead they make one or three entries about their plans, their goals and their dreams and then.
I guess real life catches up and smacks them in the head.
Either that or thousands of people die every day on the first step to their grand adventure.
Sex blogs.
The odd thing about sex blogs. Actually, pretty much everything about all blogs is odd so to single out sex blogs is unfair.
However.
Most of the Sex blogs seem to be written by people who are not having any.
The food blogs.
I hate the food blogs.
As if having cooking shows on all day at the gym was not bad enough.

There are billions of blathering bloggers besieged by baked, boiled, burnt and braised items. Incidentally, that is a picture of butter beans. Thematic.
I hate food blogs.

Cat blogs.
I struggled with this, because I too have a cat. I have written about him on my blog. This is NOT my cat. My cat is a kick-ass raging cool furface named jack that does not chew on cacti.

Nor do I have 5 years of 1820 individual entries about a cat. One cat. Neither do I have 3000 followers whom are also obsessed with said feline.
One blog, one cat, 1820 entries over five years and over 3000 followers.
There are some blogs out there that are so wonderfully written, so magnificently expresses and so emotionally rewarding to read that it makes swilling through the miasma of blogocean worth it.
Wear old clothes.

Progeny

2012-01-26T09:00:00.000-07:00

I have two small people that live in the same house as me.
They may or may not be my children.
After the older of the two, #1, brought home a 4.0 report card I begun to question her parentage.
At her age I had discovered that if you were bored at school, you could just leave. Nonchalantly stroll out the front door and meander home.
Grades? I had a vague idea about them, but nothing really penetrated.
I don't think truancy is a genetic trait. But it should be.
She even seems to like teachers, she treats them and other students with kindness and respect.
I am amazed by her. She is intelligent, Graceful, Poised and Beautiful.
Obviously taking after her Mom.
She is also very verbally quick. She can talk circles around me. The witty comeback, the repartee, come naturally to her.
I have to plan conversations in advance to avoid sounding like an idiot. Witty? Not I said the tom.
The younger of the two, #2, is an alien.
She has silver eyes.
Feathers grow from her head.
She plays ping pong with a paddle in each hand.
She looks just like her mom, but she lives on a different plane of existence.
These two, the numbers, 1 and 2, get along as sisters do.
They seem to tolerate me.
I exasperate them both. #1 is already at the point in her homework where I can only sit by and watch helplessly as she storms through paper after paper with the careless abandon of ease. #2 never asks me for help, she asks #1 or waits for the Mom.
She knows that I am good for fun and laughs but not for math.
It is a very well known fact in our house that Dad skipped a Grade.(3rd)
It is understood that the foundation for success in school was imparted to all the other students in the grade that dad missed.
My education is lacking.
They are much smarter than I.
I watch them both and marvel at their uniqueness. The way they handle things.
I remember their whole lives spread out in a ribbon wreath in front of my eyes.
Everything.
I am very grateful that they allow me to live with them. That they put up with my oddness with a smile. They kiss me goodnight before they sleep and I can feel the brush of their lips on my cheeks all night.
I was going to write a very funny story about daycare.
Another time.
Right now I am just going to sit and think of these little sprites.
Because whoever made them, aliens or mailman or me.
Did a pretty damn good job.

Seriously? The triumphant conclusion

2012-01-25T07:05:00.000-07:00

I have been around some really dim humans in my life.
The guy who believed satellites stayed in orbit by means of a really really long electrical cord, the guy who insisted Gold was worth more than platinum, the guy who told me that bending an electrical cord would kink the current and stop it from getting through, the guy who thought I was kidding about breaking his clavicle.
On and on.
This lady though.
She wins.
I was actually beginning to suspect that she must have either had some sort of traumatic brain injury or that her Mother and Father were siblings.
She was everywhere, her shrill voice grating and permeating every available acoustic space to be found.
If I tried to talk or answer questions she was there instantly.
Quicker then instantly.
I would feel a whoosh of displaced air and her voice would screech into existence directly into my neural cortex.
"LOOK!"
Everything she said was preceded by this.
"LOOK!"
And she would point.
The kids were actively hiding from her. Her son had developed a nervous tic at the corner of his right eye and was constantly mumbling to himself. One of the staff, bless her sweet little soul, was trying to distract the moron with shiny things and baubles.
Nothing worked.
She destroyed any and all intellectual growth.
With magnificent pronouncements such as.....

"LOOK! THOSE ARE THE SHOES JESUS WORE!"
at a footwear display.

"LOOK! THIS GUY INVENTED LIGHT AND THE TELEPHONE!"
to a famous picture of Einstein.

"LOOK! RNA! YOU ARE ALL MADE OF LITTLE TINY STRINGS OF RNA!"
to a model of the DNA helix

"LOOK! IF YOU ALL JUMP HARD ENOUGH YOU CAN MAKE THAT LITTLE NEEDLE MOVE!"
At a working seismograph. To her credit she did try.
She was actually quiet for a space after that, her failed attempt to create any sort of Richter measurement by jumping up and down for ten minutes saddened her.

"LOOK! A GIANT BEAR! AND THEY PUT HIS HANDS ON WRONG!"

Its a Giant Sloth. When one of the children pointed out the sign that said "giant ground sloth" attached to the skeleton she guffawed, then screeched.

"LOOK! THE DUMMIES PUT THE WRONG SIGN ON THE GIANT BEAR!"

That kind of self confidence always astounds me. When the whole world is wrong. Don't misunderstand, sometimes the whole world is wrong. But this Lady? The momentous ego was eclipsing the sun and all the other planets. Speaking of which.

"LOOK! PLUTO AIN'T A PLANET NO MORE CAUSE THE DEATH STAR DONE BLOWED IT UP!"

I cant make this shit up. I started laughing. Hard. The hilarity in that and the ridiculousness of this bat-shit human all caught up with me at once and I couldn't stop. I sat down next to the earth model ant farm and laughed until tears were streaming down my face.

She sat down next to me. Used her humongous backpack to push the two kids sitting behind me right off the bench. Leaned in close to me and whisper screeched in my ear.

"look, they put you with these kids to be an example, behave like an adult"

Have you ever heard a hyena choke? Me neither. But I am positive I sounded just like one. I laughed so hard I hurt myself. I just got up and walked away still laughing. Her face got redder and redder until it was purplish. I couldn't talk, I could barely breathe. The kids just stared.

She was apoplectic.

Splendid.

And wonder of wonders. She was quiet. All through the interactive displays, through the botany room, even the Archaeology area. Blissful silence.

Then.

The ultimate.

We walked under the giant skeleton of some long necked Dinosaur. Forty some feet above our heads.

Her son and I, standing quietly under it. He is busy telling me all about it. One of those kids that knows all the names of all the dinos. Obviously his favorite subject. He is just warming up and telling me about its diet and possible coloration when the whoosh of idioport startles us.

"LOOK! ITS A GIANT LONG NECKED TYRANNOSAURUS REX"

Her son, in a very small voice "mother, I think that may be a Barosaurus "

She slaps her kid on the back. Laughing at how cute he is. They are both Alternating looking up at the skeleton and at me.

"LOOK! THESE KIDS, SO CUTE AT THIS AGE, THINK THEY KNOW EVERYTHING!"

and in a whisper screech stage whisper to me

"Its a good thing we get smarter as we get older, otherwise they would believe all sorts of weird stuff"

She walked off then. Leaving me standing with her son.

I said nothing.

What do you say? What could I have said?

The boy looked up at me. Smiled a little and said.

"I really think that I might be adopted"

Seriously? Part 2

2012-01-24T08:40:00.001-07:00

Wild Indians? As opposed to what? The tame domesticated Indians? The incorrigible ones?
The nine eight year old's were all looking at me, I was looking at them, blinking. Behind me the super educated and backpacked partner was screeching about "LOOK! wild Indians invented baby backpacks, they must have almost been as smart as people!"

An instance in which I am very glad I am not human.
One of the wee humans was holding the bridge of his nose. Eyes closed as if some great misfortune had assailed him, he seemed to be muttering.
Concerned, I knelt down next to him and asked if he was OK?
"I begged her not to come, and she promised me she would be quiet"
Aha! Progeny.
I couldn't really say anything comforting. So I tried to distract him by asking him what his favorite thing was so far. He took me over to a nearby display case and showed me a beautiful beaded quiver. Full of arrows.
He was reading the placard out loud to me, explaining why it was his favorite. Obviously a city boy, he asked me what an "Elk" was? After all, it says that its made of Elk hide?
Before I could even utter a syllable I was mauled, manhandled, bowled over. By a short backpack wearing dwarf howling "LOOK! Don't be silly! LOOK! Everyone knows that "ELK" is just Indian for "buffalo leather!"
Um.
Yeah.
I left the poor lad there. Holding the bridge of his nose, slightly shaking his head. His biological donor drawling on and on about words and various meanings in other languages.
The other smallettes I could enjoy. Watching them flit and fly about. Pointing and exclaiming and reading about things. Whenever questioned I pointed out the placard, let them read it to me.
Then we came to the dead things.

The male version of the wee children seemed to be unaffected by the cases of furry remains, quickly moving on to the interactive human skull display. The female half, of which there were four, seemed a bit put out. Standing in a flock, twittering to each other and pointing at the fuzzies.
I knelt down next to my child and waited.
They buzzed with each other for a moment and than their erstwhile spokesperson turned to me. "Are these real?'
yes.
"Are they all real?"
yes
"Are they really dead?"
y--------
That's when the imbecilic dwarf bounced my head off of the display case. Bonk.
"LOOK! OF COURSE THEY ARE NOT REALLY DEAD! THEY JUST SHAVE THEIR FUR OFF AND MAKE IT LOOK REAL, LIKE A SHEEP"
Huh?

Seriously? part 1

2012-01-23T06:46:00.002-07:00

Some people.
Field trips with children can be fun, exhausting affairs. They can be day-long lessons on frustration. They can re-fill your happiness bucket and let you reflect on the joys of life.
Or.
You could be partnered with the idiot.
The parent or Grand-parent that cant seem to get a grasp on the fact that children are just PEOPLE, But smaller. The parent that seems to think that volume is the absolute key to communication. The "adult" that has never realized that there really are other people in the world that can hear every word you scream in public.
There are idiots in this world. Oft times I think that I am destined to meet every single one of them.
Field trip, to the magical Museum of Natural History, one of my most favorite places in the whole world.
I was actually really looking forward to it. Going with a herd of 8-9 year old's seemed the perfect way to re-enjoy all of my favorite things.
The Native american Exhibits, The moon rocks, the seismograph jiggling in real time, the giant pendulum that shows the earths movement through space. I get a smile just thinking about it.
I promised Child #2 that I would do my best not to embarrass her in front of her friends. Being an 8 year old rock-star is hard enough without your parents along to dorkify your life.
We arrived at the school, complete with a packed lunch and good walking shoes. I even brushed my teeth and combed my hair.
#2 checked me over before we left and accessorized me with a scarf.
The perils.
Milling about with her classmates and nodding at the other parents, that boiling excitement of leaving the school during school electrifying the air.
I was introduced to my "partner"
A mom.
Standing about 5 foot 4. Wearing the approved mom adventure uniform of jeans, hiking boots and sweater.
My first warning should have been the backpack.
She had on a backpack as big as herself.
Packed full.
If only I was smarter. I would have ditched her at the school.
Our group of wee-uns started at the very top of the museum. The 5th floor, native American exhibits.
Of course, being inquisitive small humans the children start asking questions.
Whats that? Whats This? Being lazy, I pointed out to the curious youths the placards. Marvelously numbered and placed in plain site below each exhibit. I know from previous visits to places with this same group of mini-folk that they can all read. Three of them can read English and Spanish, two of them read at advanced levels and the rest are on par with their age.
I was on my knees, in front of the Pacific Northwest Exhibit. Reading with the children about the displays when the imbecile walked up.
I guess the backpack slowed her down.
She planted her feet firmly behind the group, pointed up at the display and Screamed
"LOOK! WILD INDIANS MADE THAT STUFF!!!!"

Bully

2012-01-20T16:21:00.002-07:00

Do you know what a bully is?
I am not talking about the dictionary definition. Or even the popular one.
A Bully.
Is a person who uses their size, temperament,ability or just plain meanness to intimidate, coerce, cajole, threaten or force others to bend to their will.
That's it.
All there is to it.
I was a small child. I had a big mouth that got me into a lot of trouble. I also had (have) a defective gene that tells me I can kick anybodies ass.
I never "bullied" anyone. I saw others get bullied, I knew both bullies and the bullied.
It confused me.
Even if you get your ass stomped, the bullying generally stopped. Willingness to fight for your own self gets a lot of respect.
I am speaking primarily of the male version of the species, the female side is quite mysterious to me and I am vaguely aware that they have very different rules for their bullying.
I spend a lot of time at my children's schools. Volunteering for this and that and field trip chaperon. I realize its not manly but I really want to be a part of my kids lives.
I see what goes on amongst the small folk.
The children.
Their squabbles and lives are every bit as involved and dramatic as ours. The adults. More so in some ways.
I have seen the two boys whose fathers belong to separate gangs fight each other since kindergarten, the little girls grow up to be sweet or vicious and the normals stay normal.
One boy I have seen develop into a bully.Textbook case.
He is larger than all of the other small humans, meaner, problems at home and much older siblings cause him to terrorize the other children. He likes to pinch them. Small little pinches that probably hurt a lot.
I have spoken with him, with his teachers the Principal and his Father.
His Father tried to bully me.
That was funny. Funny for me, I don't think he enjoyed it much.
I have also seen one of the other boys. Small and loud. A very quick mind and a mouth to match. He frustrates the teachers and delights the other students.
The bully takes great joy in torturing him.
I have had to physically restrain the bully on field trips from hurting this other child.
He is agile and fast this little guy. Always has a smile for everyone.
Seems to have a bright little light of excitement about him at all times. I know that he is having a difficult time at his home as well. Very similar to the bullies home. odd
He reminds me of me; this little human.
My child told me a story about today. A play by play of what happened in her little world.
The bully was bullying. Had a couple of kids up against the wall. Pinching them, laughing at them. Being the little asshole that our emasculated society encourages.
So the swift mouthed little boy dashed in.
He was not involved.
But.
That little bright light he has shines into the darker spaces, leads him there. He taunted the bully. Drew his attention.
So the bully grabbed him, shook him, knocked him down and pinched him.
His mouth and brain caught up to themselves and he stood and punched the bully in the face.
He was suspended.
The Bully was not.
Because like all good bullies, he can manipulate adults and situations to his advantage. Becoming the victim in a milli-second.
Clear bright little lights are incapable of this sort of deception. So they get punished, and the bullies walk free.
I detest that.
I abhor the society we live in.
I see the majority whine about bullies, complain about them, coddle them, encourage them.
This society that only wants everyone's light to be dim.
America is a Bully.

Douche Your Mind: Cee Lo Green - F**k you!

2012-01-04T21:06:00.000-07:00

This is a MUST READ!

Douche Your Mind: Cee Lo Green - F**k you!: Mr. Green, as you so eloquently stated in your widely successful hit single, I offer a sincere fuck you! You were given what many artists wo...

Jaded

2012-01-04T07:35:00.003-07:00

I used to be a nice guy. Helping old ladies across the street, slaying dragons, giving money to those in need, smiling.
No longer.
My brother told me a story the other day.
He had been getting these snarky little notes stuck to his door from some anonymous asshole. Fatuous threats and foul imprecations penned by this gutless wretch would appear as if by magic on his door.
Requesting that he not have fires in his back yard.
Which he never had.
Demanding that he not have fires in his back yard.
Which he still had not had.
Threatening to call the Police if he did not cease to have fires in his back yard.
He went and double checked his backyard just to be sure.
No fire.
So imagine his delight when one night (fire less night) a knock came at his door and there stood the asshole in all his puckerish splendour.
The conversation went something like this.
Brother of Tom: Are you the asshole that's been leaving notes on my door?
Puckered asshole: I might have been
BOT: Well ....
At this point the Wife of the Brother of Tom smoothly stepped in and told BOT to go check the Baby.
Conveniently the baby was crying.
BOT tried to get passed the WOTBOT but she was Gandalf.
And the Baby screamed on.
So, defeated by WOTBOT and screaming baby BOT sulked away. Thanks to the WOTBOTs timely and wifely intervention the asshole lives to squirt another day.
I think they do that on purpose.
Wives.
Stop us from punishing the stupid.
It makes us ornery.
Mad.
Not nice.
I used to be a nice guy.
A girl came up to me while I was waiting for the wife at the grocery store. Our child #1 was very fresh and new. She liked to cry.
The girl told me a story, complete with tears, about her and her Baby. Their car. Sadly out of gas and just wanting to get home.
I gave her all the money I had, and when wife came back from the baby formula excursion, I gave the girl with tears all the money she had as well.
It was the tears.
A month later.
Walking into a store in another parking lot, Me holding the wee infant, Wife and MIL up ahead talking about whatever it is that they talk about.
I am approached by a man.
He tells me a story.
Complete with tears, that sounds strangely familiar.
Car,Gas,Baby,Home.
At his emotional conclusion he gestured to his car.
Inside the car sat.
The girl with tears.
Same story, same girl.
It is very hard to rage when you are holding a wee infant.
But I did my best.
I was screaming at the Wife to come and take the infant from me so I could crush this miserable pandering puckered asshole into the ground.
I had it all planned out.
Hand the wee infant to the wife. Crush the PPA into the ground, use his head to break out the windows of his car and than take all of his valuables.
Stymied.
Wife would not let me play.
The wee infant was left in my arms.
No manner of begging would sway her.
She was adamant.
So, in wee infants first adventure I chased the (by now) very alarmed extremely puckered panicked asshole to his car.
Yelling.
The Girl with tears recognised me when I kicked the car.
I saw it in her tear free eyes.
The wee infant chose this moment to have a blow out.
For those of you that are not parents, a "blow out" is when baby poo is so forcefully expelled by the baby that it shoots out the legs of the diaper and coats the surrounding area, or dad, with baby poo.
Lots of Baby poo.
The evil doers escaped.
I hung my head.
Wives.
They do that stuff on purpose.

Spite

2012-01-03T06:03:00.005-07:00

I have a motorcycle.

Its a glorious two wheeled expression of freedom.

I ride a lot.

I even took some longish trips astride its aluminium and steel frame. States and blacktop whistled under my boots. A set of tires wore themselves down trying to keep up with the travels.

The cat.

Bear with me here.

We have a few cats. Fat Jack you should all know by now. He is not the only feline to grace our lives with their furry little personalities however.

There is Baby Jack, Blackie, Potty Kitty, (so named because she lives IN the bathroom window) and Fat Penny.

Fat Penny hates me.

She is the semi-feral all evil progeny of Fat Jack and some female kitty. I hope Jack enjoyed himself. The wanton little mac-daddy.

She hates me.

In my defense, I only actually kicked her the one time. To be honest, it was not through lack of trying. She is just too fast for my slow foot to catch. The evil little brute sneaked into the house and made yuck on child #2s bed. I caught her in the act, trying to slink away with a satisfied little smirk on her petulantly fuzzy face.

So I snatched her by the scruff of the neck and punted her into the front yard.

The cat, not the child.

She traveled about 20 feet in the air and true to form and advertising, landed on her feet.

I was so pleased with myself.

My chest puffed and my head back emitting ringing guffaws.

Until I had to clean the yuck. Then I cursed her and wished I had punted harder.

Vile little beast.

I rode up to Canada. With two friends.

Its a really long ways and very scenic. A really great ride. We didn't see a police car. The road was relatively clear and the company was excellent. Even through Idaho and Montana.

I traveled in a sort of slow bliss, ear buds in and the wee little god inside my ipod serenading me about all the good things in life. Focused on the road your mind can only wander so far.

People you care about, things you want to do, to create.

It is a grace. Traveling that way.

Canada.

Its a silly place.

They hate Americans. I don't care for them much either, but the Canadians seem to make a sort of unspoken national pastime out of it.

At the border all they wanted to know, is when we were leaving.

Welcome to Canada! now go home.

They have some Laws there.

Some of them very similar to here. Some not.

Helmet laws here, for example, are lax.

I rarely wear a helmet.

I own several. I recommend them. I just don't really care for wearing one.

Canadian Police folk insist on it however.

So at the border I unstrapped my fantastic full face helmet.

For you rare breed that don't know what this is.

It covers the whole noggin. Face, Forehead and the entire cranium. Even mine, as huge as my head is. (Thank you Special Order ICON)

This is the hard part.

The evil spite that exists in the heart of all things.

Especially kitties that have been punted.

Fat Penny had peed inside my helmet.

As I pulled it over my head and smelled and felt and experienced the foul little beasts expulsion on and around my head. I was filled with regret.

For a week in Canada.

Across the silly nation.

Nothing removed the smell, Nothing.

So regret was my constant companion.

Remorse.

"I should haves" filled my head.

But one rose to the top of every still lake of thought.

I should have had Fat Jack neutered at birth.

Well then

2012-01-02T17:07:00.002-07:00

Its been an interesting time.

This is going to be a pattern of words that I will struggle with. Whatever I write this time is going to hurt.

Hopefully it will not hurt everyone who reads it. But I know it is going to hurt a few.

That really is not my intent.

Its more a matter of self expression at this point. Typing a few of the things I need to get off my chest. This pattern is all about me. Selfish and deluded perhaps, but I am giving in to some pretty petty humanity at the end/beginning of the year.

I learned a lot about people this year. What I learned mostly is that they are never content. Never. If they have what they want they want more. If they have everything, they want what others want.

Nothing is ever enough.

No kindness, no sacrifice, no words are ever enough.

People are made to want.

I have been hurt horribly this year, and undoubtedly have hurt others as well.

Intent.

I have learned that intent does not matter.

Not really.

If you say the same thing over and over and over again, it doesn't become true. It becomes noise. It becomes static.

Actions are what matter.

Mine and others.

They matter to them and they matter to me.

I have learned that if you give, people expect more, and more, until you have given everything you can and there is nothing left of what could in anyway be called you. Back to the whole bit of being content. They are not. Ever.

That sounds so bitter.

So very selfish.

Something else I learned.

or rather, something I am learning.

I am selfish.

I think and act and behave in ways that benefit only me.

I used to fight against it constantly. Every hour of every day I would try and remind myself not to be selfish, to think of others first.

What shit.

I was not doing myself or others any favors by behaving this way. Not at all.

I need to find a balance.

Martyrdom is not for me. Never again in fact.

It may make me more like a human, this attitude.

However, if I do not think of me and act in my own best interests. No one will.

This arrogance I have, to think this way. Is really astonishing I realize.

I have never really done anything with my life that qualifies me to make such grandiose statements and pronouncements.

So what?

I am sorry. To you whom I have hurt.

Not just words, those, truly. I am sorry.

By my actions this coming year I will prove that to you.

Because I am learning.

About you humans. About me.

Every hour I learn a little more.

And every hour I try to be just a little better then I was before.

I will never drink V8 again

2011-08-22T12:25:00.008-07:00

It was the child.

We know this now. At least, I know this now.

The child #2 was to blame.

She was helping.

We were camping and had been raided by evil denizens of the dark, furry masked marauders.

Raccoons.

Every night. they had decimated our food supply and even scattered empty beer cans all over the campsite in their silent semi-drunken debauch.

So #2 took matters into her own hands.

She made a trap.

A coon trap.

None of us saw what she had constructed. From what I have ascertained after long hours of interrogating it was made of a white plastic grocery sack, pieces of chicken, cheese, chicken in a biscuit and two used paper plates. A stick and some string attached with my amazing flame duct tape (SERIOUSLY HOW COOL IS THAT! FLAMED DUCT TAPE!) completed and triggered the mechanism.

We were in the girls tent.

Laying about on cots, making our nighttime noises before sleep.

Mine and wife's tent a few feet away.

Suddenly, a noise outside. A growling thrashing sound.

Some weird squeaking.

Ever alert (right) Mr. Dog jumped up and bolted outside to see what the disturbance was.

#2 Sat upright in her layers of sleepy bags and laughed, like a small deranged tyrant. In the midst of her laugh she said, "It worked! IT ACTUALLY WORKED!"

We sat confused.

The thrashing got louder and the MIL and I ventured from the tent to see what was amiss.

That was when the dog, went from growling to gagging. Really gagging.

Then the little dumb ass furryhead ran back into the tent. And puked. (my favorite part) Right on the MILs sleepy bags.

This is a glimpse of what the MIL saw.

I ran into the tent.

The numbers screaming.

Because now Dog was foaming.

and still retching.

So I collared him.

and dragged him outside.

and he coughed and sneezed and gagged the foam right into my face.

and I joined him in retching.

If you have ever had this experience. I am sorry.

Truly I am.

Smelling a skunk that you pass on the freeway is pleasant.

Compared to this.

bratwurst, covered in sauerkraut, laced with mustard and raw onions, then put into a covered container and baked under a sunlamp for three days.

Doesn't even touch the acrid, chemical, vile, choking effluvium that a skunk sprays.

Dog was Gagging, I was Gagging, the numbers the wife and the MIL were all choking and gasping.

It was awful.

So I dragged Dog over to the communal hose and started to spray him.

The smell got worse.

Other campers started to come out of their tents, and duck back in.

Instant pariahs.

Wife came over carrying all of the cleaning stuff we had.

I dosed the Dog with all of it.

Rinsed him off.

Now he smelled like skunk ass, that had been wiped with a dirty rag.

We argued, what to do?

We discussed myths and legends and facts and killing the dog.........

amazingly, when we agreed on tomato juice as the best alternative.

we were stuck. I mean, Who the hell has tomato juice camping? At o dark o clock?

Insomniac Italians?

The MIL (Mother in law) gets this weird look. I imagine the oracle at Delphi had a similar look when she spoke.

"I don't know what came over me, I just had this feeling, when i was shopping for this trip, I saw it, I hate it, I never drink it, but. I . Bought . A . Whole case............."

At this point I should interject that I had no patience left for the oracular voice.

so i swore, and asked her to please say whatever it was she had bought that she thought might help.

"IBOUGHTAWHOLECASEOFV8TJUICETHESPICYKIND!

Praise to the bargain shopping gods!

So the case was fetched. And dog was covered in three bottles of spicy V8. I even made him drink a bunch, and snort it and for holy hells sake I covered him in it.

It worked.

It actually killed the smell.

Mostly.

Then I smelled me. I smelled wife.

and I gagged all over again.

We got a bottle each.

i washed my whole self with spicy V8.

i almost wish someone would have taken a picture.

I looked just like

this

I will never be able to drink spicy V8 again.

Retold

2011-07-17T00:37:00.000-07:00

This story was told to me tonight.

It made me smile.

“Where did you Get those Boots? I really like them”

“Weeeelllllll,

I was on my way from one little southern hothouse to another, the truck was running good and I was feeling great. The South was feeling mighty fine just then. I realized that I needed to stop, drop some water off, and pick up some water for me, and some Gas for the truck .It was a needful situation and one in which I approved. The convenience store that I pulled in to seemed to be just the spot, I walked in to pay for my gas and realized two things. One, it was a mite bigger on the inside than the out, 2, it was not just a convenience store, it was a CASINO/convenience store!

I walked right on over to the fun part of the store knowing that may truck was parked just in front. Safe as could be.

I guess.

I stuck 5 dollars in a spinning wheel poker machine, placed the max bet and spun that little bandits arm.

Straight flush.

The lights started to flashing and the whistles and bells to a ringing. Little lady ran right out of the back room, unplugged the machine and opened a door to reveal its guts. She pulled a little printed ticket out from its innards and I walked up to the payout and then out the door.

750.00 dollars richer than when I had a walked in.

Hopped in my truck and started off down the road.

15 miles later I remembered that I had forgotten water, gas and pissing.

Damn.

So I took the very next exit and pulled into the first place I figured would have a usable toilet.

It was Carlos’s Boot Hacienda, which makes no damn sense in Louisiana but the bathroom seemed fit.

I decided while I was there to treat myself to a new pair of boots, figured a hundred dollars ought to do the trick.

Then I saw these.

I had to have them and they was only ½ of the money the CASINO had just givin me.

Sold.

Then I got emptied out, filled up the truck and me and sashayed right on out of there.

That was, at least my intent.

I remembered that I was heading to my sister’s house to cook some food and light some fireworks with her children for the fourth of July.

So I pulled into the fireworks store and unloaded my over-full wallet on them for half my winnings worth of fireworks.

Watching those kids, light them fireworks, running around with the lit punks trailing embers and smoke with my new boots on the table in front of me.

Best damn fourth of my whole life.

I guess.

Pet Day Part 2

2011-06-27T06:23:00.000-07:00

Its taken a month.
26 days or so.
No matter how hard I try I just cant make the rest of pet day sound funny.
It was just too tragical.
The hamster was funny. Especially when Jack started purring and it projectile peed on its owner.
Jacks purr sounds like a broken chainsaw.
The pet little brother was hilarious.
He even had a good repertoire of tricks.
The pretty little cat named Noodle was slightly humorous. Slightly. Very very slightly.
Jack did not care for Noodle. Noodle pretended Jack was a Tasmanian devil.
I felt a little bad when perfect purebred little noodle left a bloody trail of claw marks to the top of its owners head.
Jack laughed.
Really though.
I cant make it sound funny, or happy.
Because it wasn't.
I don't often quote the Bible.
I find it trite.
mostly.
But this seems apt.
What manner of man among you, when his son asks you for a fish? Gives him a stone?
The last child.
Told us all a very long and sad story about how all she ever wanted was a pet.
She listed them all, Horse down to Cockroach.
She also listed all of her parents reasoning, all of which involved money.
Every single reason was money.
Looking at this parent.
All 400 plus pounds of her balanced on a creaking stool.
Money was not really the issue.
The kid was a natural brightsider though.
She ended her lists of woes with a triumphant, "AND THEN! AFTER MANY YEARS, I FINALLY GOT A PET!"
Proudly then, her parent thing flourished from a sack.
A robot.

Pet Day part 1

2011-06-01T21:12:00.000-07:00

How do you begin to tell a story that you know without a moments doubt, that no one will believe?

Do you just jump right in and pretend it is some sort of warholish like fiction? Or, do you ease in, like you would into a really hot bath. One toe at a time?

Its a tough call.

Plug your nose kids, its jumping time.

Pet day. SHAZAM! Whomever the genius is that thought up the brilliant idea of a group of 7 year olds bringing their pets to school needs to seek help. Quickly.

I was there, with the Fat Jack. He had gotten heavy so I had placed his bulk on top of the cubby shelf and was busy restraining him.

See, Jack is a rather large cat. Or a stunted cougar. Tough to say. He thinks he can take any canine that breathes.

For the most part, seeing the various rodents masquerading as dogs being bundled into the class I would agree. There is not the Chihuahua or Pekingese or Toy Poodle alive that could take Jack. However, when the hound of the Baskervilles started roaring inside the classroom I saw Jack look a wee nervous.

When the skinny little white boy with his pretty collection of prison tats dragged a slavering pit bull out of the room even Jack was a bit taken aback. It seemed a bit, shall we say, NOT FAMILY FRIENDLY to bring an obvious fighting dog to pet day. The owner of the Great Pyrenees that it was fighting looked almost angry.

If the veins traveling down his forehead and neck were any indication, he was near to an aneurysm.

I couldn't say I blamed him, honestly, here he was with his 200 plus pound puppy getting its ass kicked by an 60 pound Pitt. I would have been embarrassed too.

They were fighting around my ankles and legs by now and Jack was asking if I would care to wager on the outcome. It was looking bad for the pyrnees. So, very calmly, I kicked the pit in its swinging sack as hard as i could. I followed that with a stiff push to the chest of meth-boy and another calm kick to the head of the pitt.

My calmness prevailed.

After a few sweet muttered words meth-boy and his loyal canine companion left. Jack flipped a nonchalant paw in their direction, and I sped them along with a calm smile.

Leaving us alone in the hall. Jack, myself, the great prnyese and the blushing owner of said puppy.

200 pounds of goofy dog chose this moment to make friends with The Fat Jack.

It was turning into, bring your too dumb to live animal to school day.

Puppy lurched up on its hind legs to stick a friendly nose in The Fat Jacks general direction. Jack hissed, popped and with a casual swipe, split the damn dogs nose.

As the owner was being dragged into an inglorious retreat he asked me if I had trapped a damn Bobcat.

I sighed.

He really is a rather large kitty.

I was watching the retreat when my eye was trapped by something weird. A back pack, down the hall, hanging by its hook under the cubby shelf was moving. It was swinging back and forth in a very curious way.

A small gap appeared in the zipper area of the pack. This gap was then filled by the snout of a very large rat. Or, at least, thats what it appeared to be.

Until it unzipped the backpack all the way and jumped down. Tail wagging and its giant buggy eyes burning with a self satisfied glint. It was Pepe! The Chiuaha.

He looked confused.

I was confused.

The school nurse, walking down the hall was confused.

Jack was Bored.

The school nurse looked at me, quizzically.

At this point her guess was as good as mine. Pepe chose this moment to pee.

I am positive that it actually peed more water then it weighed.

I was impressed.

School nurse was not impressed.

Jack was amused.

She snatched up the dog mid-shake and marched into the nearest classroom.

And marched right out again when she was met by a chorus of howls, barks, caterwauls and one or two squeaks.

Than on to the next classroom.

Moments later, she reappeared dragging the recalcitrant owner of the grande escape artiste Pepe to the Principals lounge.

Several very tense minutes passed.

Jack Farted.

The principal came out of the lounge, leading Little girl by the hand. Little girl in turn on her very grubby little hands firmly clenched on the bright pink string she had used for the fat jack.

Justice of a sort.

All this. Before Jack and I had even left the hall.

Our furry friends

2011-05-26T20:11:00.001-07:00

*NO ANIMALS WERE HARMED IN THE MAKING OF THIS BLOG*

Except me.
As you may, or may not know, I have a cat. His name is Fat Jack and for the most part.
He is a bad ass.
He was the first Feline to be Issued a man card.
He likes his women and his food ready and waiting for him.
He sounds like Barry White. (But I am the only one that can hear him)
He had a staring contest with Chuck Norris and not only did He win, he went to Chuck's house after and peed on all of his sunglasses.
Yeah.
Fat Jack is a pretty cool dude.
He got his name because, well, he is fat. 25 pounds of lean mean sleeping machine.
A few weeks ago he Jumped a full size Raccoon.
From the sounds of things it was apparent that Jack had been leisurely eating his midnight snack out on the front porch and Vladimir the coon came sauntering over.

Thats when Jack jumped him.

Thats when the coon got a hold of Fat Jack and bit a coon sized mouthful right out of his ass.

Thats when Tom shot Vladimir.

You get the Picture?
Good.

Cause now a couple of weeks have gone by and Fat Jack is all but healed. He lives outside so I haven't worried too much about the blood clots and dried yuck and coon spittle all over his fur.
At least.
Not till yesterday.
That was when Child #2 informed me that Friday is the "GREATEST DAY EBER!!!!!"
Pet Day.
and she was going to be taking Fat Jack cause he is the coolest most famous cat eber.

So.

He needs a bath.
I had never bathed a cat before.
I have seen movies of lions swimming rivers with little lionets in their mouths, and I have seen the sister in laws Russian Van Kitty happily playing under a running faucet, so I figured it would be simple. Easier than the dog anyway.
I mean, geez, he may be THE FAT JACK, but he is still just a little kitty.
I should have a theme song. Something like "Tom is dumb, he is just dumb, he is really really dumb" and just insert it into the soundtrack during these moments.

I filled the tub up with about four inches of warm water and had #2 standing by with the Johnsons baby soap, perfect for babys and kitties.
Then I grabbed Fat Jack and
pay attention here it goes pretty fast
I tried to set him in the water but those ten, inch long razor tipped weapons of death started spinning at mach 8 or so and his 25 pound body proved to have not an ounce of fat on him as he turned and yowled and spit and snarled and twisted and turned and somehow jammed his paws, all four of them, onto the side of the tub as I pushed him towards the water.
At this point he began to scream for help and his Buddy, my yellow-bellied neurotic IBS afflicted Mr. Dog ran in and bit me on the leg.
Then Jack gave me a little love bite on the wrist.
So he earned a moments grace while I slammed the door of the bathroom with the dog in the hall and me and Jack and #2 in the bathroom. She is still standing ready, holding the soap, giant tears running down the sides of her face.
Because.
I was hurting her Kitty.
Here I thought that the damn cat was kicking my ass, silly me.
So I manned up, looked at the spot where Jacks used to be, and dunked him.
then I held him while #2 dumped the entire bottle of soap on him. I figured, why stint?
I was holding him still with one hand and soaping the gross of off him, all was well.
Then he started crying.
Not soft manly sobs either.
he was wailing, sobbing, heart broken and letting the entire world know it.
#2 joined in, then Mr. Dog, never one to pass the chance, chorused in with Howling from the hall.
This went on. Through the soaping and the rinsing of the cat.
He even continued as I lifted him up out of the water and wrapped him in a dry towel.
At which point he did three things.
Bit me, farted and then started purring.
He lost his man card.
The women are gonna make him do some chasing for a while.
and worst of all.
Late late last night.
Chuck Norris called.
He wants a rematch.

love taps

And the wall, wins.

2011-05-17T21:22:00.000-07:00

Whats the worst pain you have ever felt?
Mommies, no fair bringing up the whole birth thing. That's a hands down winner.
Give the rest of us non-mommies a chance and think of the NEXT worst pain you have ever felt?

Whats the silly little law? The one that states something to the effect of "an object in motion will stay in motion unless it pisses a bigger object off who then stops its motion with a well placed forearm?" Anyone? Bueller?
I forget the law, in fact, the immutable laws of physics have always seem to stretch a little bit for me.
But not always.
I was once running away from this really big scary person with white blonde curly hair. I am pretty sure it was female, either that or a guy with very high estrogen level wearing a sheepskin hat, and I know that whatever it was chasing me for was more than likely well deserved.
Actually. It was going rather well.
I was 10 or so and fleet of foot, especially when terrified. The sheep-thing was screaming at me and looked really scary so I was making good time towards home. I had just about hit 88 miles an hour and turned around to see if my feet were kicking up flames when a giant brick wall jumped out of nowhere and smacked me in the head.
It was extraordinary. One second I was moving at light-speed through the sir, my feet barely touching the ground and the next.
Splat.

The sky looks really pretty when it spins.
The sheep was nice enough to let bygones be bygones and carried me home.
Sheep must have known about my parents aversion to livestock because it left me on the front porch in a pile of Tom and doorbell ditched.
That wall kicked my ass.
Fast forward. I am a grown-up man. Married, with children and a dog.
My dad calls and says "Hey! Your Uncle Bill's water heater went out. Go and stick a new one in for him."
He was The Boss at this point, so I hopped to it and bustled over to Uncle Bill's.
I know just enough about a lot of things to get really hurt.
Keep that in mind.
I had cut the old heater out, schlepped it outside, grunted the new one in and was just in the process of soldering all the joints together.
Quick plumbing tutorial. Back in Ye Olde days before PEX we used to have to use flux and solder and propane or mapp gas torches to stick the copper plumbing pipes together. New construction was fairly quick and painless but remove and replace was always an adventure.
Now, the Solder is a mixture of two metals (Antimony and Tin) that both have a fairly low melting point, the heat combined with the flux you spread on the joints creates a vacuum and pulls the molten solder inside the joint.
Did you catch the word MOLTEN, as in HOT!

So, I was working on the last joint, it was above my head but being a safety conscious young fellow I had safety glasses on. Well, safety conscious and still paying for the surgery to remove metal splinters from my eye...... Another story.
The glasses were kinda fogged up so I did not see the large drop of MOLTEN solder that dripped off of the pipe and landed on my lip. My upper lip. Just to the right of the little divot thingy I have.
I screamed.
Like ten little girls all at once. High and piercing, shattering glass for miles, Dolphins around the world heard me and wondered who had just gone to the big glass bowl in the sky, Millions of bats were blinded forever and I have unconfirmed report of two submarines colliding with a giant underwater spaceship sent by future us back in time.
It hurt.
Living the life I have led developed two things, a fear of water and a high pain tolerance.
This hurt.
I can honestly say that it was the most concentrated single spot of pain I have ever experienced. This from a man who as a wee boy zipped his wee-wee into his corduroys.
Solder melts fairly fast, it also cools fairly fast. But not fast enough. I was screaming and laughing and the glasses were fogged and I could not really think. It was more of instinct. Running really fast upstairs to the sink, hoping for an ice cube, hoping for a fairy freaking godmother, anything. I was blazing up the stairs as fast as I could, screaming in gasps now but still at a very high pitch.
I reached for the door handle just as my Uncle Bill opened it from the other side.
I didn't even slow down.
That wall jumped out and hit me right on the head.
Even after the ice cube melted and Uncle Bill kindly picked the now solid solder out of my lip with a needle, I really had only one thought.
That wall kicked my ass.

Oh hell

2011-04-14T19:32:00.000-07:00

In some countries, by the calendar, I am considered an "Adult"
In a few more days or so I think I can safely say that I have lived more of my life than I have left.
Neither of which is a very comforting thought.
I am a Father.
I have two children that I refer too variously as 1 and 2, and "the NUMBERS' and I realize that I should be mindful of this and act appropriately.
Bull pucky says I.
If I feel the need to Juggle fruit in the grocery store, have a skipping or spitting contest or impromptu wrestle or sword-fight in the toy store.
I will.
Adult?
By age only.
Cultural definitions be dammed straight to Sheol.
That being said I had a very uncomfortable deep thought today.
Trust me, it was not on purpose.
#1, who is 13 and in middle school said Something to the Wife today.
"You and Dad may have crappy Jobs and think they are stressful, but you should really try middle school. Its MUCH worse"
My first reaction, on hearing this was to scoff, what does she know about bills and jobs and kids and car payments and children and spouses and all the other innumerable bullshit that is part and parcel of being a "Grown up".
Pshaw said I.
Then I had one of those highly damming spells of realization.
And memory.
I remembered middle school.
Really remembered it.
The fears and Pain and Heartache and Puberty and not being invited to the party and not quite knowing what to do and having a girlfriend and best-friends and fighting and My Grandpa dying and my Uncle Ron dying and Jamin dying and grades and math and wood-shop and ..........
well.
All of it.
I sat still and remembered all of it.
Then I had another realization.
This one was far more painful.
All of those stresses I deal with?
Now, as an Adult.
So do 1 and 2.
As children.
They are not deaf and Dumb, nor are they Blind or obtuse.
They know whats going on.
They hear the fights and see the anger. They feel the sadness and the pain of Adult life by watching the two they love the most go through it all.
They not only have all of their stresses, they have all of ours too.
My typical response?
"I dealt with it, so can they"
Why? I asked myself today. Is this some sort of bizarre hazing ritual that we all consciously and unconsciously practice?
I had to do it, so should they?
Really?
Truly?
Maybe some of it is unavoidable.
People are shit for the most part.
But as a parent of a wee human should not my Job be to see that they have it better and easier than I?
So that they can grow up to be a better and more complete person than I?

I hope so.

Apple Tree

2011-04-12T21:04:00.000-07:00

It started simply. The very best stories always do.

I wanted money.

When you are twelve and want money your options are pretty limited.

I already worked for my dad, Mowing lawns and pulling weeds and cutting fence slats with a hacksaw, but I wanted a desk job.

So I checked out a book from the library "101 ways to make money"

That book was FULL of useful information.

Rolling your own fire logs, selling them door to door. Window cleaning, Puppy poop pickup, sawdust collection, resale candy bought in bulk.

Horseshit.

That book was full of something all right.

It did teach me a valuable lesson. If you want to make a lot of money, write a book on how to do something, Like.........

"How to make a lot of money!!!"

What a pile of steaming green road apples.

So I looked about, to find a less physically demanding job and I came across a sign "Bart’s Big Worms" . He sold them to fishermen who were too lazy to catch their own.

So back to the library I went.

How to grow earthworms at home for fun and profit.

Just what I needed.

I read the book, and in a frenzy of activity made my earthworm habitat and breeding ground, I knew when I buried that five gallon bucket and filled it with a mixture of dirt and sphagnum moss that I was on my way to trump-like millions.

I spent a long and muddy night catching as many crawlers as I could. At the end of which I released all 8 of them into their brand new custom made climate controlled delicious tasting guaranteed to breed worms of prodigious even by Australian standards earthworm habitat.

I watched them all burrow into their new home and imagined I could hear the sound of contented sod busters chewing themselves into a food induced breeding frenzy.

AND THEN......

I forgot all about it.

Completely.

For a couple of months.

Work was too much of a drain on my time.

That and Basketball, Baseball and Thinking of new ways to torment Justin and or his sisters.

This took more time than you would think. He had A LOT of sisters.

My Mom brought it to my attention.

It stank. Badly.

Just as advertised the decomposing moss and lose dirt had degraded into a vitamin rich mulch like substance and settled into the bottom foot of the Five gallon bucket, Unlike the poster however my prime wriggly habitat had collected a foot or so of scummy brownish water.

It stank.

Horribly.

So I bent closer to see if perhaps it was just as bad up close.

It was. It was also alive with little tiny wiggly things.

Sea Monkeys?

Nope. (the water tasted different.)

So my budding young mad scientist mind did the only thing possible. I looked them up in my Mutual of Omaha wild kingdom guide to insects placed on individually printed glossy color photographic note cards and discovered two things.

1) That they were Mosquito larvae

2) That they possibly carried diseases and should be eradicated.

After a visit to the dictionary and an encyclopedia I discovered that I was supposed to kill them, and that the best way was to pour a petroleum Product on top of the water.

Gasoline is a petroleum Product.

I topped off the bucket with the can from the garage, and since the encyclopedia had been a little vague as to how the petroleum was supposed to actually KILL the little malaria carries I hove-to about twenty feet and started chucking lit matches at it. (I was not completely stupid!)

(OK, maybe I was)

Did you know that when 2 gallons of gas (2 1/2 or so) sitting in a bucket 1/2 full of water and decomposing moss, 3 billion mosquito larvae, and a handful of soggy matches, encounters a flaming match the AIR above it.......

It explodes.

I felt Like Moses.

There was a 20 foot high pillar of freaking fire.

Panic

Running about, bumping into trees and tripping over bushes and howling a little bit, come to think of it, I bet Moses did EXACTLY the same thing.

He probably even peed a little.

Salt did not put it out (out of baking soda) and when I threw a shovelful of dirt on it, flaming blobs of stickier than boogers and 1/2 rotted flaming moss splashed unto the apple tree, and the fence.

This Bush Burned.

And it was consumed.

So was the fence.

Luckily for me Uncle Buck (His Real name) lived next door, seeing flames leaping grandly into the air he heroically stuck his head over the fence "HOLY SHIT TOMMY" was followed by a mighty leap and a quick dousing of the conflagration.

I told my mom and dad the whole story.

Beginning to end.

George Washington and his lame cherry tree has got nothing on me.

Besides, I had to tell them before Uncle Wally (That’s Buck) did, then I would have been in deep shit.

I am a PIRATE!

2011-03-26T22:05:00.000-07:00

I really am.
I can prove it.
I have pictures and everything.

Its goes like this.
My parents own a pontoon boat, and really, for being nothing more than a floating floor it is a lot of fun.
we would go up and tow it to one of the lakes, float around a bit, splash, fish and get sunburned.
Fun time for all.
It was a floating floor with a motor.
The motor was sporadic.
My family believes in the buddy system.
If something is broke, or someone is hurt you call around to all your buddies to seek advice.
Invariably someone knows someone or your buddy goes green when he sees that your thumb is actually split in half and you get to get something fixed, or go to the ER.
I absolutely despise the buddy system.
Hate it.
Nothing ever gets fixed right when its a buddy doing the fixing, and a buddy of a buddy? Even worse. They always cut corners.
And waiting 6 hours with a split in half thumb to go to the ER, sucks.
So the tooners motor was a bit sporadic, sometimes it works, sometimes it dont.
This is how I became a Pirate, so I cant really complain.
It makes a fun story.
As a side note, its an odd thing how the things that make me the maddest are what make others laugh the hardest? Its a flaw in me.
anyways.
The wife and I had it down to a science, the unloading of the boat. I would back it in, she would hop in the tooner, I would chuck in the kids and the victuals and then push off the boat, jump into the truck and park the truck and the trailer.
Wife would motor around to the dock and I would step on and off we would go.
Smooooooth.
Putting the tooner away after a bright day was the reverse, motor to the dock, Tom (thats me) steps off and runs to get truck and trailer while wife motors around to pull the boat in as I back the trailer into the water.
Smoooth.
Today we had the nephews with us, good toe heads both of them. spent the whole day out getting sunburned, swearing (just me) at the lack of fish and splashing around.
It was a fantastic day.
A day of good memories.

But, storm clouds gathered and it was time to go.
So we started the routine.
Motor to dock, Tom jumps off, runs to get the truck and waits in line with all the other uber efficient types waiting to get their boats out of the rapidly roughening lake.
Problem.
I get the trailer in the water and, no tooner. No wife and kids, no nephews.
So I looked, and looked, and grabbed the binoculars from some lame fat dude and looked.
And found them.
Drifting.
Halfway across the damn lake.
No other boats around.
So.
(this is my favorite part)
I Parked the truck and the trailer and went running down to the dock, I ran to the end of the dock just as a young kid in a brand new boat was stepping on to the dock to tie his boat off.
I grabbed the rope, pushed the kid back on to the boat and hopped on after him.
"Hi, You arrrrgh going to take me out to that boat (point at the tooner) and tow it in for me."
I said this with my biggest most friendly smile
the kid and his five kid passengers sort of froze.
the kid I had gently led back on to the boat said "a a a a a are you stealing our boat?"
he stuttered, poor kid.
I said
"Oh HELL NO! I am just commandeering it"
Maybe my rollicking laughter at this point was a bit of overkill, but Hey, its what we pirates do.
By the time we got out to the tooner my hostages (ride) were getting into the spirit of the thing. The wee little boys were huddled protectively around the wee little female and casting mutinous glances in my direction. I was standing on the point of the boat, if I had had boobs I would have made a kick ass hood ornament thingy.
The wife and kids were valiantly trying to start the tooner, the toe heads were ? Paddling ? but the paddles did not quite reach the water, so really they were just splashing.
But they felt good about themselves.
The captain, the stuttering boy wonder, hollered, "AHOY THE BOAT" and I stepped gracefully on to the floating floor.
Oh the cleverness of me.
I still had his rope, which was tied to his boat.
and they were fresh out of boarding axes.
So they towed us back.
Arrrgh. I sang sea chanteys all the way home.

Pirate hat arrrgh

Cookery

2011-03-25T15:08:00.002-07:00

I cant cook.
I failed Home economics remember?
The last time I made breakfast for the #s I used powdered something instead of powdered the other.
Then I made them eat it.
After I had screamed and yelled and forced them to eat three bites each, I sat down and took a bite.
It made me gag, which made #2 throw up, which made #1 spew, which made a mess for me to clean up.
In lieu of an actual apology, I took them to Marie Calendars.
I suck.
So when I decided to cook dinner I tried to keep it a secret.
I figured I could always tell them a neighbor brought it over and feed it to the dog if it was too bad.
But what to make?
Something simple obviously.
Toast?
With Jam?
I could always garnish (food channel word) it with canned corn.
It was a conundrum. So I Googled it.
I was directed to millions of blogs, all about cooking. Most of them displaying food porn in abundance.
All of the recipes sounded intricate and complex.
What in the Hell is plating? Braise? Glaze?
Not in my vocabulary these words.
At least not for food.
So I looked on my phone. And found this thing called "BIG OVEN" simple recipes for families.
Done,
Under "Easy" I found a recipe for Chicken Enchiladas.
Win win.
Of to the store to buy the ingredients. (thats the food stuff)
I found it all, but I was starting to think that whomever wrote the recipe was an idiot.
oh, wait.
Whoever wrote the recipe was WRITING it for idiots! That actually just occurred to me.
Damn.
So I got all the stuff and headed home.
Then I destroyed the kitchen.

It started when I had to boil the chicken boobs.
Boiling chicken boobs is boring as Hell.
So I decided to skip to the next step whilst the mammary's were marinading.
Open the can of Cream of Mushroom and plop it into a pot, a small pot.
Open up the can Of Cream of Chicken and plop it into a pot. a big pot.
Then cover the bottom of a pan, a really big pan, with olive oil and turn it on high to cook the raw tortilla things.
Are you keeping track?
My stove thing has four burner things on top, each of these was now occupied with a kitchen vessel full of water,fowl tits, mush,mush and oil.
Did you know that when the steam from the water and mush evaporates and drops into the boiling oil it splatters?
And it HURTS!
So, i quickly chucked a tortilla on the oil, and started stirring the mush.
Then the boobs started boiling.
It was at this point I forgot the instructions and just started making stuff up.
Hot salsa, quickly stirred into grey mush.
Mild salsa quickly stirred into brown mush.
Flip Tortilla.
Half a can of boiling breast water into each can of mush.
Flip tortilla.
Swear break to run burned fingers under cold water.
Flip tortilla.
Colby jack cheese, two small handfuls stirred into mushes.
Flip tortilla
Grab hot boobies, scream, drop them back into boiling cauldron of death and then grab tong things.
flip tortillas
use tongs to grab mams, shred them up
mix them into mush. 1 1/2 boobs per pot.
Throw burnt tortilla to the ground for dog.
Flip tortilla.
Find glass dish. Discard for size. Find bigger glass dish.
Turn on oven to 200.
Flip Tortilla.
Put done tortillas into dish.
Find spoon
Flip tortilla

Fill up done tortillas with mush, roll them up and put them in dish
five with hot salsa mush
five with mild salsa mush
(brown and grey)
Dump steaming water down sink.
Through the cloud of steam see lonely forgotten can of enchilada sauce.
Full Stop.
Now what?
The instructions were no help at all.
I had left them behind long ago.
So.
Improvise.
Dump can of enchilada Sauce into what is left of brown mush, bring it to a boil.
Dump it over the top of enchilada things and then cover them with shredded mexican four cheese blend bag you find in the fridge.
Turn to discover #1 and #2 staring with wide eyes at the destruction of a clean kitchen.
Sigh.
Forget about blaming neighbors.
Pop whole damn thing in the oven.
After 15 minutes turn oven to broil to melt stubborn cheese on top.
Take out of oven.
Take a deep breath.
Serve it to the three pickiest eaters on the planet.
They Loved it.
Had seconds.
And nobody got sick.
I rock.

To Fly

2011-03-23T10:03:00.002-07:00

I dropped my children off at school this day.
Finally a beautiful spring day after a long and droopy winter.
#1 walked to the door of her school, looking so very grown up.
Breaks my heart into tiny little pieces to see her so Beautiful. Happy little pieces yes, but shattered nonetheless.

#2 starts school a little later, and gets out a little later. She explained to me yesterday that starting later is fair, "#1 has a lot more to learn there at the big school, my little school just teaches little things"
She has a point. I guess.
In true #2 fashion she also added "But we should get out of schools at the same times, Dont they knows we needs to plays together?"
She has a point.
I shall be informing the school board post-haste.
She really does talk like that, by the way. #1 talks like an adult, actually better then most adults. She far surpasses me.
#2 surpasses everyone, she speaks her own language.

I watched her this morning.
There is a small hill that slopes down to her school yard.
An asphalt track runs down it on a gentle angle, most kids just walk down the path.
Not so, #2.
I watched her today. Backlit by the rising sun.
She stood at the top of the path, saying nothing to any one. She adjusted her school bag and unzipped her coat.
Very deliberatly then, she stepped off the asphalt path.
Put her hands in her pockets, spread her wings and flew straight down the hill.
I could see her swooping and gliding, the wind blowing hard today giving her that extra height she needed to clear the curb. She used her momentum from the flight to glide in and out of the other children. Whriling and diving in and out of the cliuques and the single children, she flew circles around them all.
I saw her land perfectly at the end of a line, knees slightly bent to take the gentle shock of returning to earth.
She smiled in disdain as she slowly took her hands from her pockets and zipped her wings away.
Silly Humans.

Faster

2011-03-22T00:08:00.002-07:00

I try to keep this blogthing fun.
Or at least entertaining.
I got to thinking last night.
About going faster.

The weekend after I got the motorcycle I have now, I went on a ride with my Cousins.
Just a short little jaunt.
I still had the salesman's admonition to "Take it Easy until She is broken in" which meant nothing over 80ish for the first 100 miles or so, ringing in my head.
So I was taking it easy.
We got to a gas station, 78 miles from home.
Not too far, about 1/2 way on our little journey.
I checked my phone.
1215 PM.
There were three missed calls from the wife.
So I called.
The reception was horrible.
I heard "Has gone into anaphalactic shock and the ambulance is on its way" I caught number 1s name a few times so I knew it was her.
42 minutes later I walked into the Hospital and was Holding their hands when the Doc gave #1 an epi shot.
Faster.
Last night I got thinking about speed. Not just the speed at which we travel, but the speed in which we live.
SO many crises, so many things.
Faster.
Just a random little thought.
Faster.