Links, Blades, and Scooters

Tags

Humor, life in New Mexico, life in the foothills, short stories, the Contrariran

I’ve tried to explain that living with the Contrarian is an experience hard to describe.

It’s not for the feint of heart.

It’s not for the seriously humorless.

It’s not for your average joe-ess.

Plainly, you must be slightly off your rocker.

Since I am, it all works fine.

When I say I am off my rocker, I mean in that way that to the outside world doesn’t show, but  is only known to myself and my inner workings which are one hellofva weird chaotic mishmash of circuitry with a whole lotta cables hooked up to nothing and just there “in case”. If you get my drift that is. If not, I suggest you skip reading further and return to old issues of Cosmopolitan which are probably more your speed. (Make that Sports Illustrated if male) I was going to say Popular Mechanics, but I have no idea whether that is still published or what made some mechanics popular while others were apparently not. Could be the chest hair.

In any event, which means nothing but takes up ten letters and about an inch of space, I am married to The Contrarian, which is the prototype for all contrarians, though I don’t think anyone has ever asked for the plans.

I just thought I’d catch you up on some of his escapades, or adventures in our fair state of New Mexico, which is as they say, neither “New” nor “Mexico”, which makes it a great place to hide out as both Billy the Kid and Walter White would tell you if they were (a) still alive or (b) real.

As pointed out on previous occasions, my dearly beloved has some sort of “balance” issue, which causes him to walk while weaving like a drunken sailor, which is half right since once upon a time he was most assuredly drunk but not a sailor, wearing the insignia of the army instead of a rubber ducky. Now, he has been probed, examined, MRI’d, ear-peered at, and all the rest numerous times, only to discover that by golly-g, he has a brain and there is some sort of lesion there, which is as they say “organic” which basically means that “we have no clue and try the auto lube joint down the road”.

So to avoid having to go around the block, always leaning to the left, to get across the street, he sometimes uses a walker, which doesn’t walk at all, but rather rolls (comes with hand-brakes!). He doesn’t use it all the time, but only when the “wobblies” (as we call them) are bad. On his steady days, he runs marathons. (just kidding).

So one of his true delights has been discovering the motorized shopping cart. He loves those buggers. Not all said ve-hick-als are made the same. The K-Mart one’s are too speedy and have you racing down narrow aisles at Indy speeds, without a small enough turning circumference to make the intersection turn (think riding lawn mowers). The one’s at Lowe’s tend to run out of juice too soon, which is a real pain since that store holds about 14 football fields within it’s confines. The Walmart (we make our customers comfy so they spend more) is of course, “just right”, having  speed, dexterity, and staying power to make your shopping experience a deep pleasure.

What the Contrarian has discovered is that with the cart, and the proper expression of sadness, mixed with frustration, and a sip of melancholia, presents the perfect picture for lots of ladies to offer their assistance in getting things off the shelves. No matter than he can stand and walk almost normal, why do that when a bevy of women are there to fetch for ya. (It helps to extend the arm to it’s natural length and wiggle the fingers just a bit, and sigh of course while doing so).

Shopping has become a joy and one that he relishes each week now.

To that can be added of course the “accident” which makes him all the more helpless and pathetic.

The accident was the culmination of a lifetime spent using power tools with blades all without incident. Years of chains saws and tree toppling, slicing and dicing, and splitting all without injury. Until the “sled”. Now, I don’t know exactly what a sled is, except that it “slides”, somehow managing your piece of wood to it’s destination with the “blade”. He somehow designed it in such a way that a blind spot occurred wherein his finger resided (thumb actually), and before you know it blood was flying and he realized it was best to shut that sucker down.

Now, no animals were hurt in the making of this tale, other than the cat gut used to sew up said digit (and I think all that stuff is synthetic these days). Cats are grateful. He cut no bone, and no tendon either, just the big fat part of his thumb wherein his identity lies. Doc says that part of his thumb shall be forever no more, once the healing has finished and the dead skin is flushed. So I figure a life of crime is a good second career, since he can’t leave a print with his left thumb any more. Which makes working in a super accelerator requiring thumbprint identification impractical, or in the heart of the mountain where the big button is located that will end the world. I figure it too requires a thumbprint to make sure you have the au-thor-ity to doom the world.

Which all leads to the exceedingly boring story of what a baby men are when they have a little boo-boo. I mean seriously, the moaning never stops.

He had it checked at the hospital on Monday, and there was no infection, but he was thoroughly upset because the doctor made him “look at it”, which is akin, in his mind to making him look at two-headed snakes and other such unnatural and “icky” things.

So, I took out the trash for him, and made his breakfast (once), and open his candy bars at night. I told him he need not cook on Friday, but he said as long as I made the batter, he could probably flip a pancake. He can’t break an egg, because he can’t without both thumbs, so he says.

He pouts a lot.

He’s says it itches.

He complains that the lady nurse rewrapped it much more stupidly that the guy who did it the first time.

Diego sniffs it every day and will alert us if he finds anything worth eating in there. So far, no, and given Diego eats EVERYTHING, that’s sayin’ something.

So, I asked him, do you want bacon or sausage with his pancakes on Friday? and he said patties, which I took to mean sausage, which he meant to mean sausage but not links but patties, which makes no freakin’ sense since they both TASTE THE SAME.

And he thinks he should have a body cam so that he can play back our conversations because he is sure I asked him links or patties instead of sausage or bacon. And I’m really sure I didn’t, because I never think of patties versus links and only decided to do the links because I like Johnsonville and they don’t make patties at least as far as I saw, so that’s why I got the links in the first place.

And he just purses his lips in that way that men do when they are thinking, “I’m right, but what’s the use?”.

And I’m thinking, “You’re right, there is no use, since I’m right.”

And he’s off to get my oil changed which came out all wrong, since I don’t get oil changes but my PT Cruiser does, and he has my girl in his custody.

He wants a new bandage put on his thumb, but decided to wait until he got back, because he’s going to the “filthiest place on the planet” after all, so there is no use getting his thumb all spiffed up before THAT. And, no he was not referring to the Jiffy Lube, but rather to WalMart.

My eyes, were examined by an expert the other day, and they came off with an A+.

No wonder, all the eye-rolling I get to do living with this man. Exercise is very good for your eyes they tell me.

If you can beat any of these stories (which are true I swear with just the slightest hyperbole to make it interesting), I’ll roll my eyes for you too!

 

 

 

 

The South Has Fallen Way Off the Edge of Stupid

Tags

GOP, How stupid are you?, Merika, right wing, teabaggers

Gather round children, it’s time to hear a story.

It’s a story about a land called Merika.

It was once a jolly place living in the delusion of self-congratulatory goodness.

Yes, these Merikans believed themselves not only special, but specially good.

They stood for apple pie, Mom, and freedoms which were countless in number, as many as stars in the sky.

People from all over Gaia did whatever necessary to get to the land of Merika and we welcomed the poor, and tired, although why they were tired from sitting on a boat is a question seldom asked.

Course, the People who lived in Merika (who never named it just calling it home) were not nearly so impressed with these new Merikans and their ways. Their “ways” including pretty much telling the People to go jump in the Pacific, for they needed the Merika for a thing called “capitalism”, which sounded capital but turned out to be just another scam for the rich to inherit the earth.

They stole some folks and made them work for no wages, which gave a pretty unusual cast to capitalism and gave new meaning to the concept of “good people”.

They then got nosy in other people’s business in other places not Merika by explaining with bombs and such that they too should be like Merika (as best they could, given they were not special).

Anyways, Merikans prospered (at least most and as long as most is more than other countries, it was accounted perfect), but the thing about this capitalism is that some very few Merikans got filthy filthy wealthy, and they didn’t share with nobody. They bought houses and visited them a couple of weeks a year, and maybe not even every year. They traveled to other lands, always remarking that these other lands were not as nice as Merika, but they bought stuff that reminded them of these inferior places anyway. They boat boats too, and sailed the oceans blue.

Meanwhile, lots of Merikans got dirt poor. So the rich grew a bit scared. “What if they blame us for taking all the money?”

So the rich invented stuff like “Protestant work ethic, and pulling oneself up by one’s own bootstraps” and explained that rich people work really hard.

So poor people worked really hard.

But it didn’t help. And they were getting really riled.

So rich people told them that it was because of all those freed people, and all those other-than-white people who were the cause of their misery. They were “takers” and the gov’mint was givin’ away all their hard-earned money to “those others.”

And Merkia got more and more split apart between the few haves and the enormous have-nots.

The haves decided that the best thing to do was to make it hard for the have-nots to vote.

And this reached the height of heights in a silly state called Florida which looks a lot like a flaccid penis, and when you stop to think about it, it’s a bunch of flaccid penises that promoted the new law they have. And when you add in that most of the people in Florida are really really old, then that picture of very very old wrinkly flaccid penises will sear your brain for all eternity.

Anyway, this law, says that if you go get in line to vote, you can’t have someone save your place while you go pee. They figure that given the relative age of voters in Florida, this will reduce the lines a lot.

It may of course just encourage a lot of very very old and wrinkly flaccid penises to be publicly exposed. Not to say about what it might mean to that phrase “trickle down economics.”

I don’t know how this will give the rich a boost at the polls however. Unless it means that rich people think that only they can afford Depends. I guess it depends on what you call poor.

Close by in the land of Louisiana, a land that like most in the South, spends a lot of time talking about the honored sacredness of the “Constitution”–a document that once upon a time, they sought to distance themselves from in the quest for cotton-pickers at no cost, has found time to reason together in an unreasonable way.

Seems they have decided that like having a state flower and a state bird, a state really oughta have a “state book”.  And although the CONSTITUTION suggests that the state should “make no law” that has the effect of favoring any religion, the crawdaddys there decided that that doesn’t mean what it says or say what it means, and the bible would be a fittin’ state book, because as we all know, it says what it means and means what it says.

No doubt it will be one and one only version of that book although there are hundreds, because as everyone knows, God spoke to King James and said, “go forth and translate my words and call it your version of my words” which is not exactly God’s version, but thinking any deeper than that makes my head ache.

 

And so my child, this is the story of a special land, a special people, and a special time.

And they all lived happily ever after in the land that everyone else called Stupid.

Amen, and good night.

 

Chronicles of a Harried Housewife Part: 3,723

Tags

Christmas decorating, Humor, life in the foothills, New Mexico, The Contrarian

Or the Saga of the Crippled Finger and the Unbalanced Butt.

Whichever you prefer.

But I get ahead of myself.

Oh, one second.

GOD ALERT: THIS IS ANOTHER HALO REQUEST REMINDER!

The Lord said:

Sherry, your reward shall be great in heaven.”

I trust in the Lord.

Okay, so here’s how this all started.

Late in the day of the day following the Turkey gorge, “there arose such a clatter than we sprang from our chairs to see what was the matter.” We did this since our street is normally a quiet place, a place so untraveled that on occasion the children string a net across the street to play volley ball and can be assured of a full game with no interruptions  by vehicles coming or going.

“When what to our pondering eyes should appear,” or words to that effect, “but neighbors abounding on ladders and so forth, pounding and plucking, and stretching and stringing.”

Yes, here in the fair environs of Las Cruces, it appears a requirement that thou shalt put forth the Christmas decorations before the Thanksgiving weekend is over. So thus were many of our neighbors engaged. We looked upon in wonder as the yard next to ours was encircled by a row of candy canes all alit. Up the driveway careened a line of lollipops. The large window was awash with a cascade of white lights, while in front, a fully blow-up version of the nativity waved gently in the breeze. Upon the sweet face of Mary I saw some alarm as next to her, overseeing the manger was a very large and corpulent Frosty the Snowman.

The state motto might well be changed from Land of Enchantment to Land of Mixed Metaphor. But I digress.

Across the way we saw a more fashionable display of red and green light fixtures unencumbered by elves, sleighs or other paraphernalia. The garage night lights were alternately green and red. I do question the massive red light directly over the front door. In some parts of town one might expect a line of slightly aging men to be apparent, but of course not here.

At the corner, our neighbor Tim had a nicely lit blue tree, a row of red ducks with ribboned necks, and a host of santas lining the sidewalk while snowflakes dotted the gravel in the front, all overseen by a sleigh and a deer, empty sadly of either the jolly man himself or any presents.

So it was clear we must SHOP soon!

On yesterday, called Monday by most, but by me, the hell day, we gathered ourselves together for a trek to K-Mart and Lowe’s in the hopes of finding a tree and ornaments, but of course now the need was obvious–we needs make our own neighborly statement. We must show our solidarity with Christmas. We must plaster our yard with gaud and bauble. We must most of all, not be last to decorate.

So, as I said, we were on the way.

Before we rode out of sight, I heard him exclaim:

“For what earthly reason would anyone do this? I mean can it really be cheaper? A small piece of material like that? I ask you?”

“What on New Mexico’s brown desert are you talking about, DEAR?” I mewed.

“The makers of these damn pants,” he exclaimed.

“What’s wrong with your pants, dear?” I mused. (I use the term dear a good deal as it calms things down at a time like this.)

“There is no LEFT back pocket!” he shouts with consternation. “I didn’t realize it until we got in the car. This is a total mess.”

“Is there a RIGHT back pocket, dear?” I queried.

“Yes, but that is worthless! Why would they do this?” It was now a whimper.

“You have a pocket, in fact you have many pockets. Two in your hoodie if I’m not mistaken. Plus three in your pants. That gives you five to choose from if my math is still good.” I sighed, and then looked forth upon the land to see if I was still firmly planted on Planet Earth.

“But it needs to be on the left side. I ALWAYS put my wallet in my left back pocket. My butt is uneven now, and my back is killing me. I’m unbalanced!” he groaned.

“Many would agree with you there, dear.” I smiled softly, but to myself.  “I suppose I could put a pea on the floor under the bed, and you would tell me about it the next morning too.”

“Pea? Why would you put a pea under the bed? But you could be more careful with the dust bunnies under there. The lumps are getting a bit hard to take.” he proffered.

I sighed.

We shopped.

At Lowe’s he called me on my cell phone.

“Where are you?”

“Back in the bathroom fixtures area looking for those non-skid stickers for the tub,” I said.

 

“Okay, I’ll meet you at the front.” he said.

“Okay, I’ll be there in a second,” I promised.

A few minutes later, the cashier asks, “did you find everything you were looking for sir?”

“Everything but my wife,” he chortled.

The clerk laughed. I hit him over the head with a roll of wrapping paper.

Back in the car we are headed to Burger Time to pick up dinner.

We order and the lady says, “that will be $19.45, sir.”

He reaches, and digs and digs, and digs.

“Oh good God, do you see how hard this is to get my wallet from my RIGHT back pocket–I”m forced to use my right hand, with my crippled finger! Oh, and my back, the pain has traveled clear up my spine. I’m in agony.”

The lady looks a bit frightened and backs slightly away.

“Oh good grief, pay the woman!”

“Y0u have no idea the pain I’m in. I’ve had more than 50 years of my left butt cheek slightly elevated from the right. To turn it upside down at my age, well, I wouldn’t wish it on my worst enemy, or YOU. Thanks for your sympathy, me and my crippled finger that had the tendon sliced nearly 35 years ago, or maybe even more. Never healed properly, still pains me at night. Women don’t have a sympathetic bone in their bodies I tell ya.”

We got home.

We ate.

We now have two grazing lighted deer, and a twig tree and a wreath and a window covered in lights.

We are no longer the pariah of the neighborhood. We have seen the light.

Merry Christmas to all and to all a good night.

 

 

Why I Need a Personal Chef

Tags

holiday cooking, Humor, life in the foothills

Why?

Because I am superbly lazy of course.

I lied to you, and I lied to everyone on the planet who has ever read any profile of mine on any social media outlet of any sort.

I said I love to cook.

I don’t.

I love the results of cooking. I love the results really really goodly. I smell it, I taste it, I roll my eyes to heaven, I moan, I giggle, I slurp, and smack  and come close to gargling the results of cooking.

But doing?

Are you nuts?

That is work!

I am allergic to WORK!

I don’t like the clean up. I don’t like the opening and measuring and stirring and watching. I look at the pretty picture, and go, mmmm, that looks wonderful and I want to close my eyes, twitch my nose, wiggle my toes, and open my eyes to find my desired creation, well, created. And plated appropriately if you don’t mind.

I’m sorry. Sue me.

I don’t mind a bit of chopping. Chopping with a nice chef’s knife makes me feel competent. I feel all cheffy. I do. Same way I feel when I add that bit of parsley (fresh of course and nicely chopped) to the pasta. It looks so professional. It looks so Puckish or Childish or Beardish.

I don’t want to look or sound Rayish. Rachel is so goofy, with her “I know, I know.” Do you know how long it took me to break that habit of responding to Diego’s whining with “I know, I know”? I mean Rachel R. is so dorky, wearing stupid clothes and skirts too short and those awful gladiator shoes! I mean even the likes of Heidi Klum can hardly carry off those awful things.

I don’t wanna go around yelling “Bam!” either.

I think Alton Brown is silly beyond Rachel. But he knows his crap, I’ll give him that. Mostly.

Anyway I’m deep in the bowels of a German Chocolate Cake. The frosting is done and looks okay. The cake (three freakin’ layers) is still baking. I have yet to master this oven, which apparently doesn’t cook stuff as fast as I’m used to which may have to do with the elevation  of about 4000 feet, or it may have to do with not wearing the right color underwear. Anyway, it’s not done yet, and one of the layers is bubbling over leaving a mess in the bottom, and I freakin’ hate to clean the oven.

Which is but another of a long list of reasons why I deserve a personal chef.

After so many near catastrophes in baking, I’m ready to almost admit that I am a lousy baker. Except that some things do turn out, so I read okay I guess. Nothing makes me twitch more than following the directions precisely and then having the shit come in a geyser of volcanic spew, running down the sides of said cake/pie tin. Anyway, I assume it’s not me, cause that would be insane, so it must be karma or some genie which is on the lam from its lamp.

I can cook.

I can.

I just don’t wanna, cuz I prefer to sit and read and contemplate the number 42, which if you know anything about the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, says it all.

So Santa, if you are out there, err, I mean UP there, being NORTH and all. If you are listenin’ you old farty fart, leave me a personal chef underneath the Christmas tree I have yet to buy. Trust me, we have one picked out. I’m thinking of decorating it in turquoise, which is the  de rigueur color in these parts. So just tuck him/her in real nice by the fireplace and make sure he/she or any combination thereof, knows all the basics of Mexican, Southern, Italian, French, Vegetarian, Mediterranean, Greek, Middle Eastern, African, Chinese, Jamaican–well you get the point. Good at all the stuff I like and will like based on the pitchers I see in the pretty magazines and cookbooks. K?

Oh and send along a nice new set of cookware, and of course knives, the best knives. I want to admire my personal chef, cheffing away with my best kitchen ware. Oh, just send me an unlimited credit limit at William Sonoma and we will call it even.

Even?

For the cookies you old degenerate fool. For the cookies.

And do pet the reindeer. I like ’em. They look nice to hug.

Bye Santa, and have a nice ride, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.

 

Related articles

• 10 Quick Ways To Become A Better Cook (By Adam Roberts) (chefsopinion.org)
• Knife Fight: 8 Chef’s Knives Tested and Rated (wired.com)
• How to Become a Great Cook Without Being a Chef (lifehacker.com)

 

Da Hoomin Chronicles

Tags

Diego the dog, Humor, Johnny Depp, life in New Mexico, life in the foothills, short stories

Hey der, Diego heres. I’s the dog. Wellzzz, not so really on that last point.

Ya sees, mi hoomin guessed the truth. I is a re-carnation gone cablooie.

Lets me explain.

Sees, my real name is Louis as in IV and I was makin’ ready to zoom back to earth in a new personal, when that silly girl Mother Theresa, she shot me with her pea shooter just as I was standin’ next to Albert E. who was headin’ back as a geisha girl in the Playboy Mansion. Well, anyway, I fell back into his arms, and poof, it all went wrong and well, here we are together, Louis and Albert that is, in a dog suit of all things.

Believe me, it’s takin’ some getting used to.

But, I was gonna catch you all up on the doin’s here. See, I talk to Nate Silver most every day, and so I was not surprised when the nice lookin’ dude with the biggish ears won the ‘lection. Now I have had to put up with a lot from my hoomins who were worried, ‘specially the momsie one. She’s a handful I tell ya.

So we won’t have that Willard fella to kick around any more, which I kinda enjoyed in a sick sort of way. Anyways, we did goodly across the country pretty much. We got rid of Batman’s bastard son, Alan West in Florida, which is something given that that state is chock full of people who can’t remember whether they have both shoes on let alone who is running for any particular office.

We got rid of Walsh that creep in Illinois who don’t pay his child support, and we are done with the rape experts Mourdock (the name sounds right out of Harry Potter), and Akin (my brain is achin’).

Marriage equality won in all states where it was on the ballot, which will drive the insanely crazy religious right to go back to adultery to soothe their inflamed hearts and organs.

Canada is closing the borders to keep out all the crazies who swore they would head north if the President won again. I don’t blame Canadians for not wanting those types in their country.

It was a bad night for old white men. Serves ’em right.

So, anyway, I let my hoomins stay up pretty late to enjoy themselves but I got my momsie up pretty darn early to take her for her walk. Mind you, she’s not my real Momsie, since of course, hoomins are a bit lower on the umm hmm, evolutionary scale if ya’s know what I mean.

Anyway, she does good walkin’ and I let her off’in her leash most of the time. She obeys real goodly and I can trust her. When those infernal match-chines with their loud noises and hoomins sittin’ in them goes by, I put her back on her lead until it’s safe. By the looks of some of those hoomins that I sees gettin’ out of them contraptions, they could use the walk instead of riding.

I keeps me a neat and tidy house here in New Mexico, which of course is not New, but that’s history and I’m not feeling like lecturing you on that right now. I makes sure my hoomins puts away their stuff, expecially shoes, but also napkins and those funny plastic toothpicks. I grabs ’em when I sees ’em and breaks ’em all up.

My popsie hoomin’ uses lighters and I steals them too, cuz it don’t look good to blow smoke out your butt, I mean eatin’ hole. I smash them with my Jaws of Steel, and Popsie says I’m gonna light up my mouth one day, whatever that means. But he is learnin’.  Popsie also says that I am better than Fagan whatever that means.

I keeps my momsie cleaning up the place and I make sure she spends lots of time in the food room making me treats of all kinds. I likes gravy and bones, and hotdogs and bones, and peanut butter and bones, in that order.

I don’t like to go places much so I stay homes when my hoomins have to go sumplace like Texas. I don’t go there. I like to keep my mind clean. But I has my own pad that I hang out in when they go. It’s nice so I can lock myself in–keeps the monsters from gettin’ me. They is monsters I can assure you. I has it all tricked out with carpeting and water, and plenty of bones.

It’s the only time I can get any rest; taking care of hoomins is a full-time job.

So any hoo’s if’n any of you guys gets to Casablanca, stop in at the gin joint okay? That jokin’ girl Theresa, she went back there to work serving drinks and yellin’ out “play it again Sam!” Give her  a slug for a tip for me.

Don’t get me wrong, these hoomins is nice and all, I couldn’t ask for better peeps to care for, but I had other plans. I was headed back to Earth with the intention of being the love child of  movin’ pitcher star, Johnny Depp and his new squeeze. It was gonna be heaven I tell ya, before that witch Theresa hit me with the pea shooter.

Diego, signing out!

 

Not Every Reincarnation Goes By the Book

Tags

Diego, Humor, life in the foothills, New Mexico, short stories

Before you start, I know.

Everybody is most assuredly sure that their pet is the most intelligent, most adroit pet in the entire world. Nobody can match their sweet gerbil, rabbit, dog, cat, turtle or canary at tricks, cuteness, or intellectual perspicuity.

But no, really, Diego is different! HA!

Okay, he looks perfectly normal. And he acts fairly doggish most of the time. But there is something weirdly, nay, creepily human about this dog that gives pause.

I have come (in the moments of lucidity) to believe that this creature is a human trapped in a dog suit. And believe me, when you realize that, it makes you relate in a whole different way. I mean, you can hardly be childishly cooey to a grown man can you? You cannot wag you finger at a possibly elderly woman and cluck, “bad dog!”

I mean ya just can’t. You feel, and should, vaguely guilty at such condescending crap.

You see, we thought Diego was unable to speak. Other than a whimpering whine, he seemed mute. Then he developed this thing we call “the growl” which is not a growl in the sense that other dogs growl. It is no warning to “leave me be”.  No, it is a long, drawn out series of syllables that are not always at all the same and resemble something like “ohhh rah rooo rooo, rum”.

This typically happens when he comes running into the room you are in and looks up in excitement:

“Rooah, roo roo rah roo!”

You see?

He speaks in complete sentences.

I’m considering contacting a linguist to pinpoint the country or region which speaks this particular dialect. I’m looking for a translator. I figure he has more to say than “Timmy’s in the well again!” It’s probably got to do with his advice on how to bring the Palestinians and the Israelis back to the table to negotiate a two-state solution.

Okay, so we have this “dog” that talks in his own language.

So, we are sitting the other evening in the living room and Diego has taken up his post out on the patio listening to the night noises (other dogs yapping mostly) while taking a chew on his rawhide, enjoying his new comfort mat that covers the stone floor.

Suddenly we here two very sharp and very loud barks: “WOOF, WOOF!” Clear, deep, manly BARKS!

It seems our Diego does not favor the sound of a siren, which is an infrequent occurrence in our environs. The next night, another siren, and the same clear, bell-ringing sound, WOOF, WOOF!

Just two. Just enough to register his dislike of such noise.

Now this raises a whole new issue to life with Diego.

Diego is the “sweet boy” of the neighborhood. He is seldom on leash any more, and often lays in the garage doorway when the Contrarian is out sawing and sanding, and finishing and all that woodworking dovetailing thing. When Rosie, from down the street goes by, he fairly faints with happiness. When the girl across the street heads off to catch the bus, Diego runs into the street, collapses at her feet, and wiggles happily as she rubs his tummy. When anybody moves, Diego races to them and demands they feel how soft his tummy hairs are. Then he trots home, happy that he has like State Farm, “been a good neighbor.”

Diego, when confronting other dogs, is often (Rosie is a clear exception) met with howls of growling barking warning him to come no nearer lest he lose his nose and one leg. Most are little shits with no hope of success, yet they blather with a bravado which attempts to sound big. Diego calmly looks on, standing still, and sometimes even requests them to rub his tummy too.

This makes all the owners of those dogs feel down right embarrassed by their dopey belligerents, and apologize profusely for the poor manners of their canines. Diego smiles, and come home.

Now I ask you, what dog takes this kind of abuse lying down? It’s as if he is saying, “what in the world are you fools yapping about. You smell and I wanna get a closer whiff. No doubt if you would shut up long enough to check, you might like to take a whiff of my equipment too.” Then he shrugs and goes on his way.

He does the same thing to those dogs we find at the far reaches of our walk who sometimes greet us from their pens with slathering threats. He stares, and then shrugs, and then moves back to the scent he was on in the first place.

He doesn’t bark by choice.

This is not a dog.

This is a guy who  KNOWS he’s been reincarnated in a dog.

Trouble is, I don’t know how okay he is with it.

He seems okay with it. He wiggles and kisses a lot. He comes at you and throws himself in your arms and then looks up at you with tender affection, surely saying “I’m really cute aren’t I?”

If you know of a translator, let me know. I’m getting a bit nervous. I just went to the patio and a bunch of stones, surrounded by four disemboweled unstuffed animals,  seemed oddly scattered in a pattern that looked an awful lot like MED SCH. Diego looked up at me and smiled.

Boy, I guess we better start saving for college.

 

Oh Paulie Come Wash My Clean Pots and Pans!

Tags

Election 2012, fact and fiction, Humor, Paul Ryan, satire, short stories

In the best tradition of the privileged and  entitled, Paulie “lyin’ Ryan stopped in at a local soup kitchen. He hoped you all would notice. He made sure to wait for the media to get along with the cameras and such just in case they feel the need to show Merika what a fine and compassionate dude our Paulie really was.

Problem was that Paulie waited so long for the media types to git there, that all those creepy icky, sometimes smelly poor people had already been served and headed out mostly. So Paulie, said, “shucks, I didn’t know they ate at noon! We usually have cocktails at 1 and a Cobb salad (hold the ham, hold the cheese) at 1:30. But I can wash some dishes! Oh, all washed? Well dang, well no one will ever know, give me a pan and washing thingie and let’s get those pictures!”

I few minutes later, Paulie was seen directing his handlers to a guy walking slowly down the hallway. “Hey, he looks like a homeless man, that jacket is definitely not this season’s Ralph Lauren!” Whereupon the gentleman was stopped and urged to come talk to the next Vice President. “Vice President of what?” the man growled.

Whereupon Paulie, strode up careful to not touch anything that might be infested with crawling insects, and said,

“Hey dude, how’s it going? I’m Paul Ryan,  running mate of Mitt Romney!”

“Huh, Gloves? I don’t need no gloves, not yet anyhow. Still pretty warm. Hey what’s with all the lights? I know my rights, are you the police? I want a lawyer.”

“Nobody here to arrest you my good man. Can you tell me what it’s like to not have your own bed to sleep in? Are you cold at night? Must be hard to keep up with episodes of Masterpiece Theatre huh? Do they have big screens in the shelter?”

“Ya got a buck man? I could use a smoke?”

“Smoke? No. Bad for your health man. Do you work out? I work out. You probably saw the pictures of me, pretty buff don’t you think?”

“Well a buck then for some coffee? Anything will help.”

“Oh sorry man, I don’t carry money with me. Why do you need money? The shelter has a bed for ya, and this kitchen feeds ya. I mean what else do you  need. Oh, wait, I can see by the look of them teeth, that you could probably use a new toothbrush–where do you keep it dude? in your pocket?”

“Are you nuts? Get away from me you fucker, and take your damn lights. Who are all those guys standing there with microphones? “HEY, what you lookin’ at?”

“Whoa, easy now guy. Well nice talking to you. I feel your pain and all that. Vote Romney, Ryan!”

That was the conversation you didn’t hear, because Paulie’s handlers kinda knew it would go about as it went. But hey the media saw him actually speaking conversationally with a bona fide poor person. And he washed a pot in a bona fide soup kitchen. Mission accomplished!

It’s all about appearances ya know. It’s only about appearances.

My dirty pots are waitin’ for ya Paulie. I also got some doggy poo in the back yard that needs picking up.

 

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