What is up with this Cat?

Over time, since I welcomed yet another animal into the house, I have been hit with the realization that I am stuck with a cat of decidedly low moral character. She's a complete and total whore, a slut of Zeus-ian proportions, a big fat, gray and white Jezebel. It's has really gotten a bit out of hand!

Its not just that she always in my face, that's almost all cats. Its not that she's always rubbing herself against me, the furniture or sleeping dogs. (Although I do feel bad for the dogs, they aren't even aware of the violation....) What gets me is the heavy eye contact, the twitching, the beckoning mews and the suggestive poses she strikes. I am convinced there is intent behind her actions. What's more disturbing is she appears to have set her sights on me! I'll be watching TV and a look over and on the arm rest there's a cat's ass in my face, all twitching and convulsive. She's looking over her shoulder at me with these smoldering eyes purring softly, "Come and Get Me...Daddy."

Ick.

It's disgusting. I mean for Chrissakes my kids are in the room! My wife is right next to me! We could have company over...it doesn't matter. She has no pride, no sense of decorum! No sense of morality or even the barest fiber of decency!

I've tried sitting closer to my wife, trying to send that unmistakable signal that I am taken, but she doesn't seem to care. In fact when she gets the opportunity, she'll try and sit right between us. Worse than her low and filthy ways is her persistence. The little hussy simply won't be denied. I shove her away, she comes right back! I push her away again, and she just takes it out on the nearest animate or inanimate object.

I've never seen anything like it and I find it all rather disturbing. I've cut her off from casual contact, she can't handle it. Until she accepts the fact that I'm not interested, I think its for the best. Maybe after time, we can be friends...but not right now. For now, I think she needs the time and distance to learn how to love herself.

Paging Dr. Kovac....

This past week, my son was doing what he called, “Crazy Jumps” off the side of the pool deck. Including a spinning corkscrew move where he spun his body as he leapt into the water. About the 7 or 8th jump, he miscalculated and I heard and audible “Pop!” as his chin hit the concrete pool deck. I was convinced he’d knocked his teeth out, but after hauling him out of the water, he appeared to be intact. Upset, but with all of his teeth intact. Then I looked under his chin and found the 1 inch wide gaping gash that surprisingly wasn’t bleeding that much. I called out for Jill to get her shoes on and off we went to Urgent Care.

As an aside, before I say the words, “Urgent Care” in the future, I will precede them with the symptoms and severity of the injury. Telling a mom, “Lets go to Urgent Care,” really doesn’t give her enough info and so they fill in the blanks with images of split skulls, missing limbs, and disembowelment. Lesson learned....and sorry babe!

Now, the 4 of you that read this blog regularly might remember our earlier visit to the Urgent Care where we were treated by Luka Kovac’s poor cousin.

http://thatsgreatwhattaboutit.blogspot.com/2008/04/ugent-care-some-times-dog-bites-you.html

Well, as luck would have it, he was there again. He was dressed a little less like Balki from Perfect Strangers, but still the same guy.

At first he was very nice and sympathetic and told my son how brave he was. I thought, maybe I got this guy all wrong. We get Jonathan on the little bed and he’s nervous but ready to go. Then Dr. Bartokomas comes in with the syringe. Now I know this is an essential step, obviously you have to numb the area before stitching up a kid. But do you have to come in and wave it in the kids face. My son went from nervous to spastic. I mean, come on Doc! Let’s work together here! I’ll distract him and you come up under the chin where he can’t see. I’m not sure how they do it in Armenia, but here in America, we baby our kids a bit!

So now I’m coaching my kid through this like he’s giving birth. Which, by the way, is about how he’s acting. And judging by the squirming and crying, I’d guess he was going Natural.

“OK Honey, just breath, you’re almost there!”

My wife didn’t buy that shit during either one of her deliveries and Jonathan didn’t buy it either. Although he didn’t threaten to kill me, so I guess that’s a step in the right direction.

It took 10 minutes to get 2 stitches in, and because Jonathan was writhing in sheer terror the whole time, they were all jagged. His chin looks like a Halloween Frankenstein costume. My wife is pretty against going there again, and I am sure Dr. Kovac wouldn’t miss us. But the idea of waiting in an Emergency Room isn’t real appealing. I should probably come up with a alternate place though, since my son (thanks to my immediate family) has like 6 super hero costumes that he leaps through the house in and its only a matter of time until we go back with our first broken bone, second stitches or ruptured spleen.

Dancing With Myself...Oh, Oh, Oh, Oh!

By 8th grade, my social awkwardness having been compounded by a vicious struggle with puberty, I had resigned myself to the fact that I would never have a girlfriend. Odd given my mindset at the time, that it never occurred to me to skip the 8th Grade Dance. One would assume the purpose of said dance would be, in fact, to dance....with members of the opposite sex. I went with no such intention. In fact, I decided to invite a friend to hang out with.

I remember how excited my Mom was when I nervously asked if a friend could come over before the dance. I also remember how her face crumbled a little when I told her it was my friend Dave. I can't be sure, but I think my parents breathed a big sigh of relief when I actually got married.....to a girl.

When I arrived at the dance, a DJ was spinning Top 40 hits from the likes of UB40, Def Leopard and Debbie Gibson. There was a throng of kids gyrating in a half circle around the stage. I took my position with the other pariahs against the folded up bleachers. After a while, I got hot and bored and decided to go sit on the stairs in the hall.

I had been sitting there for a while when I saw Julie walking towards me. Julie was reed thin, with skin so pale it was almost translucent, long brown hair and big blue eyes. We had a few classes together and we were friends. I also harbored a super secret crush on her, but was pretty confident those feelings weren't mutual. She wasn't a "cool" kid, but she was certainly higher on the social strata than I was. I started to slide out of her way so she could pass through and instead she stopped in front of me and put her hands out.

"What are you doing?" I asked suspiciously.

"Asking you to dance, Silly"

"Uh.....I don't really know how....but OK, if you really want to."

Great enthusiasm by the way! Way to make her feel special. Where's your poetry and song lyrics now, Romeo? How about, "I'd love to!" or "I was hoping you'd ask!" or even "Cool!". No...I went with "OK..if you really want too." Looking back on the moment, I can see know that I was doomed from the start.

We entered the gym. I was about to pass out because I was hyperventilating. Holding hands was the most action I had ever had. I could hear my heart pounding in my chest, my ears were so red they were burning and my hands.....oh my God, my hands! My palms were sweating so badly that holding my hands had to be like holding two wet sponges. How hot was that?! I prayed that it would be a short song and that we would stay in the shadows. We stood there hand in hand waiting for "Pour Some Sugar on Me" to end.

The first strains of Whitesnake's, "Is This Love?" began to flow through the speakers and she lead me onto the dance floor. She ploughed deeper and deeper into the crowd until we were right in the center. There we were, right beneath the DJ booth and underneath the white hot spotlights. It was simultaneously my worst nightmare and my greatest dream come true! There I was, with a girl, in front of the entire class. This moment could make or break me. I fumbled with my hands unsure of where they should go. I followed her lead and put my arms around her body and rested my hands on her back. It felt awkward and awesome all at the same time. I could smell her apple-scented conditioner. We began to slowly rotate in a counter clockwise circle, bodies close together. My heart was beating so hard, I was sure she could feel it through her shirt. I tried to make small talk, but my tongue wouldn't cooperate. I tried to smile at her, but I think the look I gave was one of sheer, bug eyed terror. Everything I had dreamed of was right in front of me. I was closer to a girl than I had ever been before. I could feel her breath on my face. I could feel the straps of her training bra for crying out loud!

We made it all of 3 small revolutions, when she abruptly pulled away and said, "This isn't working."

She melted into the crowd and left me there, fixed in the spotlight, frozen, alone. My arms extended like I was dancing with an invisible friend. My mouth gaped open in confusion and horror. I pushed my way out of the crowd and left. I was humiliated, devastated and enraged at my own ineptness. The gates of paradise were right there before me and I couldn't even step through them much less dance through them. I had always told myself that if I ever got a chance with a girl that I would make good. It was just a lack of opportunity, they didn't consider me, think of me, or even see me for that matter. But now I had been measured, and found lacking. I had to face the hard truth that it wasn't just them, it was me too.

Breaking Out The Randy

By third grade, while still not really over Kelly, I was ready to “get back out there.” The pretty girl who had curly brown hair and wide blue eyes and who sat a couple rows over from me had become my new infatuation. Her name was Christy. Once again I decided to whisk her off her feet in elaborate, dramatic fashion. The one thing I knew for sure back then, was that third grade girls are desperate for romance. What they needed was a change from the same old tired routine. In order to be successful with the fairer sex, it seemed to me at the time that I should counter-program a little bit. I needed to be different than the other boys out there. Play ground antics and hair pulling were so common, every boy did it. It was all so…..2nd grade. A more sophisticated woman, a 3rd grade woman deserved…no she required a more sophisticated touch. So while others simply chased the girls they liked, or teased them or perhaps shared their juice boxes, I turned to poetry and craft to win the heart of my love. What could go wrong? How sweet, how thoughtful…how utterly and stupidly naïve.

The only problem with poetry was, I didn’t know any poetry and the few attempts I made at writing it sounded like this:

Dear Christy, you are so nice
I’m pretty sure you don’t have lice
I think you are really cool
I am glad you are in my school

So, I decided that I should borrow some verses. Since my family wasn't really one to have any Poetry Anthologies hanging around, I was forced to turn to record liners and the lyrics printed within them. My parents were going through a pretty big country phase with the old turntable so I had the very best of Oakridge Mountain Boys, Crystal Gayle, Waylon Jennings, and of course Randy Travis to choose from. After several hours of pouring through lyrics, I found the perfect song. Once she read those words, I was pretty confident it would be a done deal.

I busted out my crayons and my filler paper and drew a very impressive heart. I then transcribed word for word, in my very best handwriting, the lyrics of the most powerful love song that I had ever heard. The song that would melt her heart, make her love me while telling her exactly how I felt all at the same time. The song was “I’m going to love you forever.” By one Randy Travis.
I can still remember some of the lyrics:

I’m going to love you forever
Forever and ever, Amen
As long as old men sit and talk about the weather
As long as old women sit and talk about old men.

(OK, in hindsight, maybe I should have gone with my original poem!)

Regardless, I colored the page, double checked my spelling and then folded the note with me very best, newly learned note fold. Folding notes was very big. You didn’t just fold it in half or use an envelope. You made a bird, or a flower or something. I couldn’t do birds or flowers, so I did the one that had a little corner sticking out, and when you pulled that, the note opened up. I wrote, “To: Christy, From: Chris.” I think I might have put some hearts on the outside, because I knew that shit went over big on Valentine’s Day and I thought it might help here. After all, she’d never expect hearts, a fancy fold and Randy Travis on a Wednesday in September. Who did? No one else would be stealing my thunder, I had no competition to worry about, I was golden!

The next day, I hid the note in her desk and took my seat. My palms were sweating, my feet were tapping, I was a nervous wreck. How would all my hard work go over? It had to work! What other boy would go to all this trouble?

It took her forever to find the note. I swear it was like 8:34 or something before she finally reached under her seat and pulled out the note. A surprised look of excitement flashed across her face. She examined the note, took in the delicate folding, the hand drawn detailing. I could see her interest being piqued. Then she examined the address line. A frown crossed her face. A quick glance of her eyes in my direction, and then it happened.

She quickly crumbled the note, still unopened and tossed it back in her desk.

She never even read it! All that work. All of the emotional investment! My Heart, my Soul and Randy’s Lyrics were all on that piece of wide ruled filler paper that she so carelessly crumpled. I wanted grab Christy by her shoulders, shake her hard and scream at her, “I wrote out Randy Travis lyrics for you damn it!!! In my best print handwriting! Damn you callous hussy and damn your kind!”

I was wounded, stunned and angry. My return to the market was both brief and humiliating.

Nobody’s Fool: A Brief Dating History

I remember vividly my first crush. Kelly. It was the 1st grade. She wore a checkered dresses with matching ribbons, I wore hand me down jeans and a pair of Pro-Wings. She sat in the first chair, in the first row, next to the door and the pencil sharpener. I sat somewhere in the middle back of the class. Anonymous. Unknown. I must have sharpened every pencil I owned 6 times an hour trying to catch her eye. I volunteered to sharpen anyone’s pencil, I brought extra from home. All to no avail. I began to doubt she would ever know I existed, much less the way I felt about her.

And then it happened. To my utter shock and disbelief she walked up to me on the playground one day…and then she spoke. To me!

“I am putting on a play about the Wizard of Oz. Would you like to me the Cowardly Lion?”

I grinned from ear to ear. Of course, the Cowardly Lion was a crap part. I would have been a much better Scarecrow or even Tin Man, but at least I wasn’t being asked to be a Flying Monkey. The Lion was a major character! Perhaps she noticed me after all. But this, this was bigger than the play, or the part, this was my window of opportunity!

I blushed and stammered my consent. I am not sure I actually spoke any English. She smiled and whirled around to assemble the rest of her cast. I immediately began planning.

The play was only a few days away. Not exactly a Broadway production, but hey it was the first grade. I would show her how much I cared. I would be the best Lion ever! When she saw me in costume, locked in character, doing my very best whimper, snivel and roar she could not help but see me as the missing piece from her young life. And, we would live happily ever after. That’s what I thought at the time anyway.

I ran home after school and immediately started assembling my costume. Let’s see there’s a 2 year old pair of yellow footie-pajamas. Cut the feet out, the arms and legs will be a little short, I’ll have a bit of a wedge, but for lion-yellow skin you cannot beat it. Hmmmm….a mane. I needed a Mane. AH Ha! A paper grocery bag cut with my Mom’s good scissors into a fringed collar! Now for the tail……Into the shed I went, and I emerged with a frayed piece of rope. My costume was complete. Now I waited.

The day of the play, I secretively packed my costume in a bag. I didn’t want anyone to else see it. The secrecy, of course, doomed me. Perhaps someone would have stopped me if they had only known. My plan was to change in the bathroom just before class began, so as to maximize the surprise. Besides, I didn't want to get upstaged. When I came into class, and my Love saw me (after all, she sat right next to the door) she would know how much I cared and instantly be smitten with me. Victory was in my grasp!

But when I burst into the door wearing my too short PJ’s and my rope tail with paper mane and with what I thought was an excellent roar, stunned silence greeted me. I looked at Kelly, and she lowered her eyes. Then the laughter came. First the back of the room, then the front. Kelly, even the teacher was laughing. People were crying they were laughing so hard! Come to find out, there was no play! There never was a play, none that existed other than in my deluded, love-addled mind and perhaps in the fleeting thoughts of one Kelly Napier. Thoughts she quickly forgot and discarded, along with the tattered remnants of my heart. I scuttled back to the bathroom humiliated.

Some time later, she had the gall to ask me to perform in her production of Little Orphan Annie. I icily refused.

“I am not your fool anymore.”

My bitterness over this issue, while somewhat cooled today extended long into high school. Regrettably, my future with the opposite sex did not give me cause to forget. But rather, it was a parade of humiliation and heart break well into my late teenage years. A pain that I stoked and nutured like a small fire, a pain that was as damning as it was formative.

The Great Pee Contest of 1982

I cannot remember how it all started, but I vividly remember exactly how it all ended. It was primarily me, Jeremy Woods, Mike Cobb and I think one of the Flerlage twins, probably Kevin, but really it was open to any and all first graders. During bathroom breaks, especially after lunch, we would all gather in front of the troughs and face off.

The boy’s bathroom in my elementary school had two long trough-style urinals. They weren’t really that long, maybe 3ft each, but when you’re 6 years old they seemed really big. They ran along the wall and were sandwiched between the sinks and the stalls. There was just enough room on either end for a little boy to stand.

I had waited all day for this moment. Last week I was edged out by Cobb and I was determined to win this week. The preparation was Olympic in nature: I drank lots of water, and I waited. I sweated, shook and crossed my legs through lunch hoping today would be the day of my triumph.

I dashed into the bathroom as soon as I could, awkwardly running trying not to bounce too much lest any of the precious liquid and the thrust it would provide escape. I was the third up. Kevin was squeezed between the urinals and the sinks, his back arched and on his toes, he let fly an amazing steam that cleared the first urinal and splashed loudly into the second. The crowd murmured in approval at the very solid showing. Pride flushed his face as he zipped his pants and took his place in the crowd. Mike stepped up, and I knew right away I would have my work cut out for me. Without even making the appearance of effort, he broke all previous records and thoroughly painted the drain! Not the first drain, but the drain of the second urinal! It was unheard of!! Applause broke out and some in the crowd left not believing such a feat could be duplicated much less broken. He smiled in modest satisfaction and joined the dwindling crowd to see what I could do.

My confidence was rattled, but I stepped into the gap and took a deep breath. I close my eyes, focused and let it fly. I opened my eyes, I was one with the stream. It cleared the 1st urinal, it cleared the drain! To my disbelief, it cleared the second urinal and began splattering the stall wall!!! It was the mother of all pees! It was unbeatable! A huge grin filled my face and I turned to see the look on the faces of my classmates.

What I saw instead was the horrified face of the Special Ed teacher, Ms. Wolfe. My classmates had scattered upon her entrance, leaving me all alone. My grin quickly faded.

“What are YOU doing?!”, she screamed.

There was no appropriate response. I hung my head. I wasn’t sure what was worse, the trouble I was in or the fact that no one would ever believe me. During the march to the office, I tried in vain to tell someone to check the stall wall to verify the record, but I was silenced by my captor.

The Pee Contests stopped that day, and for the rest of the year Mike Cobb held the bragging rights for the Longest Pee Ever. The students talked about it in whispers and hushed tones of admiration over Fish Nuggets and Mexican Fiesta’s. Mike was a made man over it and would from that moment on be one of the cool kids. My claims on the title were uniformly rejected due to a lack witnesses. Worse yet, The Big Bad Ms. Wolf had seen my little dog which was a source of great amusement for all. I cannot say for sure that moment marked the beginning of my descent into the social abyss that is Nerd-dom, but was certainly a major landmark on the way.

Timing is Everything

How was I supposed to know? The simple fact is, there was no way for me to know. So why do I feel like such a jerk, yet find the whole thing funny at the same time?

I was totally dragging yesterday at work. Coffee alone wasn't doing it. I said hello to Sandy who sits next to me. I tried to be nice and start a little conversation. Sandy would have none of it and was giving me these really short, curt answers. I assumed it was because she was pissed I was sitting next to her and she knew that peace and quiet in the workplace was completely and totally over. My old cube was upstairs where the cool sales people all sat and we had a pretty good time. Since I started back part time, I had been cast in the pit with the other part times and CSR's. If I was going to survive, I needed to wake up and I needed to get the party started down here. A little rockin' music was needed. Since I was recently moved from the fun floor to the no-fun first floor, I decided Billy Idol's Dancing With Myself was an appropriate theme song for the morning. I quickly found the song on You Tube, cranked my speakers up and got my groove on.

To make the morning even better, the Internet was working poorly so the song kept stopping and starting, right when I was really starting to feel it. So I had no choice but to keep starting it all over. After 15 minutes of Billy and (finally) a complete playing of the song, I wheeled around in my chair, "Billy Idol totally rocks!" I looked around the office to see who was with me on my love of Idol. To my surprise, there were no high fives waiting, just a lot of blank looks. In fact, Sandy was now crying. I though, "What the Fuck? This floor sucks....who doesn't like Idol? Something must be up."

So I emailed one of the ladies upstairs, "Dude, whats up with Sandy, she's like crying and all I did was play some Idol."

She replied, " She's a wreck. Her husband left this weekend!"

I quickly typed back, "Are you kidding me?!! Jesus Christ! I've been playing Dancing With Myself since like 8:05 this morning!"

Seconds later her response flashed across my screen, " You IDIOT!!!!!"

I suppose the dissolution of a marriage is grounds for a temporary loss of love for Idol. It would also explain the looks I got from everyone else, who was in the know. Although, I think the song is clearly appropriate for the situation. It could be argued that my timing was probably a bit off. It might be appropriate for the Acceptance phase of grieving. At the moment, she's clearly in the Depression stage of grief. When she hits Angry I could play Alanis Morisette, maybe next week I should focus on Patsy Kline or Billy Holiday. I have no idea what to do for Bartering. Maybe the Lets Make a Deal theme music???

The Sponge

We’ve grown up in an age of media bombardment and so most of us have a filter that allows us to ignore most advertising. My five year old has no such filter. While a 2 hour movie, or even a 30 minute cartoon might not command his rapt attention or completely sink in, a 30 second TV spot is perfect. He’s always been quick to pick up an advertising jingle, but we’ve advanced in the past few weeks. Every toy commercial he sees is the toy he most urgently wants at that moment. 45 seconds later, it’s a different toy. Lately at appropriate times, he has even been recommending products to me based on the commercials he has seen.

While Working in the Garden

“Dad, You need an Aqua Globe.”

“What’s that?”

“It’s this thing you fill with water and it’s a snap! (he tries unsuccessfully to snap his fingers) All you do is place it in the soil (yes, he used the word soil) and it does all the work. You don’t have to lift a finger! They can work as many as 10 days!!! They come in all sorts of funky colors, but they are not available in stores. "

“Wow, I should get one of those.”

“Yeah…but they aren’t available in stores so you should call now.”

While Discussing Work

“Dad, Are you going to work tomorrow?”

“Unfortunately, yes I am.”

“Well,” He looked at me very seriously and nodded his head sagely as if he were about to give me some really good advice, “ You should talk to your work about Aflac.”

“Aflac?” I said, “What’s that?”

“Insurance, Dad. Ask your work.”

I am not sure how a 5 year old sounds patronizing but my son can do it.


Waiting on Pizza Delivery

My son, currently dressed as Batman, asks me if I have ordered the pizza yet, to which I reply that I had. He looks at me and squints his eyes through his mask, points his finger and in his deepest voice growls, ““You’ve got 30 minutes!”

“ What should I do?” I asked him.

“Dad!” He looked at me impatiently, and then answered gravely “That’s your decision.” He then took off down the hallway, cape flying behind him.

Wrap Up: Worst Vacation Ever

We were released from the hospital at roughly the same time. The official diagnosis: One case of heat stroke and one case of badly bruised kidneys. The remedies: Less sun for him and less fun for me. My father in law was advised to stay out of the heat and drink lots of water. I was advised to lay off the booze and stop chasing lizards. This was difficult news to take because during the testing, I was plotting my vengeance on the lizard.

The week’s events had taken their toll on us all and the wind was taken out of our collective sails. The remaining days were very, very low key. By Friday, my father in law was feeling much better, and my urine was a nice pink color, like white zinn, which while shocking was much better than the merlot from earlier in the week. We had endured bulldozers, surprise guests, heat stroke and kidney damage on top of all the struggles that go with living with a large group of people for several days. It was time for the vacation to be over, probably past time.

Amazingly the week didn’t dampen our enthusiasm for family vacations. Almost every year we load up and caravan to the same part of Florida. We’ve never stayed at the same place, but we talk about The House all the time. My friend and I reminisce about the Perfect Day that came to an abrupt end when we all ran to the hospital. In spite of several attempts we’ve never been able to recreate it. Perhaps the sun’s a bit brighter, the beer a bit colder and the water a bit blue-er just before disaster. I still remember how damn good that shrimp was before Gary showed up. We’ve endured each others personality quirks, kids, bad cooking, bad weather, crappy and/or small houses, but nothing has compared to Worst Vacation Ever. Every time we get together when vacation comes up, we talk about it. Now, several years later we can all laugh about it. No matter how bad it gets we can always fall back on, “Well….Dad still’s still conscious and Chris isn't peeing blood, so we got that going for us."