How to House-Sit for Cat Owners

Here are the instructions for the house while we are away.

Upon gaining entry to the garage, ignore the loud grinding noises from the screw drive, it will stop eventually. Look out for the pile of stuff on your left that was supposed to be taken to be donated three months ago. It may collapse if you breath on it the wrong way and you will be trapped and die a slow death. Same goes for the garbage can. Do not disturb it as the ecosystem living inside it is quite fragile. The creatures living within the trash mountain survive by eating remnants from soup cans, beer bottles, banana peels, and used diapers. Up ahead on your left you will find the key for the front door sitting on top of the white stand by the cordless drill. 

Open the door to the basement and use your foot to try and keep the cat inside while at the same time reaching around the support beam to close the garage door. This can be a bit tricky since you want to spend as little time in the garage as possible due to the noise of the garage door but you also want to prevent the cat from escaping. If Max does get into the garage, look for him in places like this:

In extreme cases, you may need X-ray night-vision power-scope goggles to search out hiding places like this:

Once inside the house, the light switch is on the right wall. Make your way past the bar stools and proceed to the upstairs where there will be a bevy of cats waiting for their dinner. Both the dry and wet cat food must be locked away in the hallway closet since they would likely eat themselves to death if it were to be left out. 

Eleanor

This book is extremely hard to review since it doesn't truly fit in any one category or genre, but anyone who loves good writing should enjoy this immensely. 

This very original book, which took the author 13 years to write, begins by introducing you to a woman named Eleanor who has a dream of becoming an Olympic swimmer in the 1960's. Her dreams are dashed when she becomes pregnant, but are soon brought back to life after her baby is born. Another series of events then ruin her dream for good and she becomes depressed...

The reader is then transported to the 1980's where the woman's daughter is growing her own young family. She has twin girls and a husband who works hard in a dying town. A horrific tragedy occurs which sets up an amazing voyage through time and dimensions too descriptive and deep to mention here.

This story is about life and death, tragedy, hope, forgiveness, sacrifice and healing. Even though things often appear dark and gray and dire, the feeling persists that there is a greater power at work despite there being no religious overtones whatsoever. Family choices and events obviously have effects on future generations, and this plot takes us on that journey through generations after choices were made and certain fates were sealed. The author then gives us a glimmer of another power at work that could make changing events of the past not out of the realm of possibility. 

While the characters deal with all these emotional, family-life-type events, some strange things start to happen to the characters as the author experiments with alternative theories of dreams, reincarnation and afterlife, and portals and time manipulation. Somehow the author turned awful tragedy into profound experience for characters and readers alike by taking us all on a wonderful adventure through various times and places. 

While reading this you don't realize yourself becoming emotionally connected with the characters and their discoveries. You can't help but be intrigued by the wonderful concepts and the absolutely beautifully descriptive and resonant lyricism.  

It is a very beautiful and deeply powerful story, highly imaginative and indescribable. It is haunting and thought-provoking, hypnotic and fantastic. 

Do yourself a favor and go get it.

Eleanor - Jason Gurley

Nuptial Interchange Obstacles

While I'm working on some new ideas for the blog, some old ideas are still good ones, especially for those of us morons who like pictures in addition to or instead of words.

This is one I did long ago but never posted.

All married couples occasionally have communication breakdowns, or as I like to call them, "nuptial interchange obstacles". 

This phenomenon has been documented a bazillion times. The jokes are old. The research has been done. Something to do with voice frequency or boobies and beer or something. Look it up on the internets if you want. These are just a few accounts of some miscommunication between two people, married but not yet with children. If we're this bad now...

The problem is NOT that she doesn't tell me exactly what I need to hear. The problem is that I hear something completely different than she says. 

Before we were married, and like most engaged couples, we began ironing out some financial details to organize our combined financial structure (or lack thereof). For some damned reason, she seemed to insist that I pay the bills on time. She had been asking me for a few days to pay the mortgage even though it wasn't due quite yet. One day she even texted me during the workday to see if I had done it yet. Of course I hadn't, but I was home from work before her and had just fired up my laptop to lay waste to some bills and emails. 

She walked in the door and said, "Hi. Did you pay the mortgage?" 

I was appalled. What nerve. What audacity she had. Did she think that I was some kind of deadbeat that didn't pay his bills?

I said, "Not yet."

She was irritated with me, but not irate. I paid the mortgage and it was over.

Except that I was shaken. Not because of the threatening nature of her question, but that when she said, "did you pay the mortgage", I heard something different. 

The experience I had was an image of her violently kicking in the front door, throwing her luggage on the floor, knocking me off the couch, putting her heal on my neck, pointing a finger at me and yelling, "Hey, DEADBEAT! Pay the GOD DAMN MORTGAGE!" 

Of course it wasn't that bad, but I am sensitive. Especially when it comes to keeping my wife happy. And under roof.

It's not always about her telling me to do stuff, either. 

One almost too memorable evening I was supposed to cook dinner since I was to be home early. It was simple: Pizza. Add crap to dough, stick in oven. 

But I'm not good at simple, either. 

She left all of the ingredients and the instructions right beside the stove. She even called as I was assembling the pieces to make sure I wasn't screwing it up. 

She said, "Make sure you don't use all of the oil on the crust."

I heard, "Make sure you use all of the oil on the crust."

It's one syllable that almost cost us. A half-hour later the house was filled with smoke from the oil that ran off of the pizza stone onto the oven burners. I did put out the flames and actually saved the pizza, so it could have been worse. 

It's similar to when she says, "Hey, don't drink all that beer."

I hear, "Drink all the beer." Even if I didn't have the intention to drink all that beer, now she has planted the seed in my head to try and get away with it. CHALLENGE ACCEPTED!


She says, "Make sure you put the laundry in the dryer so it doesn't turn into a 30 pound lump of mold in the washer."

I hear, "Be sure to forget that laundry in the washer so we have to burn it because it smells so bad."

Like a good friend of mine says, "It could always be worse. There could be fire."

Just Kidding

I would never really leave this blog or start another one. Self deprecation and overwhelming humility would never permit me to strike out on my own. Not to mention that I have few ideas at this point and would just flounder out there and disappear into the cavernous interwebs.

Truth be told I've always wanted to have a blog, but convincing Terry to play along with me was key. I wanted him to be the anchor while I explored my own ideas, and it has been beneficial for both parties to this point, although I have been afraid to disrupt my co-author's literary style with my wacky, new-age ideas. Besides, I've always relied on a good bit of collaboration and truly enjoy the camaraderie.

The problem is that it's scary out here. To share ideas or your own private thoughts or memories or opinions is terrifying. Every time I hit publish I'm nervous. And the problem with that is that I'm always worried about what readers will think. When you worry about what readers will think you try to cater to them, and the second that happens you're not in your own head anymore, you're in theirs. Your ideas will never really come out and you will never find out if they are any good.

But camaraderie or a sense of uniformity on this blog be damned. It's time for some new stuff.

Stage Fright

It's hard to go on stage after Terry on this blog because my life has not been as eventful as his has yet, and not nearly as tragic. I'm not really a fiction writer, at least not yet, as I have no imagination. All of my ideas are ones I've picked up from some movie or book or some other person. I have never really found my own rhythm in writing.

I fell victim to some scam years ago and bought some book about concentration. While most of it was drivel, there was some truth to it. An affliction of mine has always been a lack of concentration. I like many things. I like reading. Camping. Drinking. Learning. Tinkering. Writing. Talking. Sitting. Listening. Playing. Music. Boobs. Chairs. Sleep. Beer. Food. Boobs.

The problem with these hobbies is not the hobbies themselves. It's that you can't get good at one thing while doing all the things. 

A podcast of some kind I tuned into months ago was talking about success and careers. One of the interviewees said something along the lines of, "you can't be good at everything because you don't have enough time. For example, if you want to climb the corporate ladder at work, it takes all of your time and energy and you must sacrifice time with your family, probably making you a worse parent. And in order to be a good parent you must leave work at work and become just another middle-of-the-road employee. You can have one or the other, but not both." 

Of course I'm paraphrasing there but the concept rang true to me. I have coworkers that work 80 hours a week and get promoted every year or so. That probably happens in most corporate environments. At 80 hours a week you barely have time to eat and sleep let alone be a good parent or spouse. 

I don't want that. I wanna do my job and be with my family. I wanna do all that other stuff on my hobby list. Unfortunately, I'll never get good at any of it unless I concentrate. 

But as I already said, I'm not good at concentrating. Look at that squirrel! 

You know what that means? If I wanna write for this blog it's gonna have to be my own way. The posts may be short. They may be incomprehensible. They may be disturbing or stupid. I don't care. 

Here's a thought I just had the other day:

I used the restroom at a high-profile nuclear energy company's headquarters today. They used to have paper towel dispensers and I witnessed pretty much everyone wash their hands. Since then, however, they have removed the paper towels in favor of the hand blowers. You know - to save the planet and stuff. When we wash our hands only to discover that the only way to dry them is the stupid blower thingy that takes forever, how often do we just wave our hands around under them, get impatient, wipe our hands on our pants and move on with life. Even further, how often do we know we are going to have to go through this silliness and just skip the hand washing altogether? If people are simply skipping the hand washing to eliminate the hassle of the dryers, has this effected germ control? I have waited patiently at a urinal and watched people do this, then I realize that everything they touch after that is with cock hands. Great. I sure hope they immediately go to a meeting and shake hands with a bunch of big-shot suits. 

So are we then spreading more germs than before? I'm sure I gave someone SARS or mad bird disease because of this little charade. One could follow this pattern through linearly and deduce that the elimination of paper towels could result in a flu epidemic. The conservation movement could be responsible for an increased spread of disease. 

I have no problem with the conservation movement. Just sayin'. 

So now that I got that outta my brain, maybe I should let Terry continue this good blog and start my own. 

I might call mine "the thought-fart experience" or something like that since my brain seems to fart out a lot of simple thoughts. Like farts, some hang around longer than others, some are just air and they're gone forever. Some are messy and need a little cleanup, and some peel paint. Some aren't all bad, though, and may lead to other things. 

We shall see.