Rubes of Engagement

I had seen the story in the paper about the eclipse, but since it was from one in the morning until five, I pretty much resigned myself to missing this one, but when I woke up and checked my phone to see what time it was, I had a text from a friend that said, "Lunar Eclipse Tonight;" it was 3:45am. By the time I took some pictures, drank some water and pee'd, I was awake, so I made some breakfast and coffee and watched the remainder of the eclipse until Lib woke up.

I tried to get her to come see the last tiny sliver of shadow at the bottom of the moon, but she was groggy, and whined, "I can't see. I don't have my glasses," immediately followed by "Why didn't you wake me up?" in an equally cute and pathetic voice when I explained I had been up for a while watching it.

I did want to wake her, but she likes her sleep, without which she cannot function. I would have liked to propose to her at four in the morning, but thought better of it; I didn't want her to be too groggy to remember it, besides we were planning to exchange gifts after work since we weren't going to be together for Christmas.

So I waited...until 5:30 am, and suggested we open presents, not expecting her to agree so quickly, but she did...then I had to get the ring out of the workshop in the basement without being obvious. The box was too big to hide in my pocket, so I abandoned it--I didn't need it--the ring would be fine in my pocket.

The ring: I had chosen the ruby for her ring because she likes red, and as a test I pointed out a ruby ring at an antique store to see how she would react--she loved it. When I mentioned the "engagement" word in tandem, she seemed excited, so I decided on ruby.

When I went to the jeweler, he had to have the rubies shipped over because they did not have loose rubies in-store--some jeweler! Actually, the jeweler was great, but I chose the wrong ruby. The red ones were too cloudy and one had an inclusion, so I went with the more fuchsia ruby, and two days later I freaked out because I wanted to get Lib a red ring, not a pink one. After one frantic email about needing a red ruby, the time line, and making it perfect, the jeweler overnighted some more rubies, and I made my third "Top Secret" mission an hour away to choose a new ruby, and it was perfect.

When I handed Lib her first present, I gave her an wrapped-up ornament--every year we commemorate the significant events with clay ornaments we make: this year was our house and our dog--I made her a small hand with red nails and a ruby ring with two small diamonds on the sides and a tag attached to the ornament that read, "Will you Merry me?" By the time she read the tag, I was down on my knee saying the words, and she was nodding her head yes.

A Year of Firsts

The house. The first year of having a house with the person you love most in the world is a year of firsts, a year of enjoying your life together. So for this blog I should talk about how Lib and I put up our Christmas lights for the first time, and the neighbor was happy and shouted, "It's been twenty years since there were Christmas lights on the house!" It made us feel warm inside. I should write about how we had our first Thanksgiving with Lib's family at our house, about how her sister and she slaved all day in the kitchen making a ridiculous spread of dishes and deserts from scratch, and how delicious it was. And I should probably write about cutting down our first Christmas tree for the house on Friday, trimming it and whatnot, but I'm
not going to.

For the first time this weekend in our house, I was awakened by Lib who heard something moving around the house at two in the morning. She wanted to know if I had crated the dog, but I definitely had. She heard something moving around downstairs, but conveniently forgot to stress that it sounded like an animal running around; she said it sounded like someone was downstairs. I heard nothing. But of course, I couldn't just go back to sleep. I was awake, with my ears peeled. I regretted not keeping a baseball bat in the second-floor bedroom; it was in the farthest corner of the basement with our other zombie killer props from Halloween, including a machete and a field hockey stick, either of which would have been nice to have while I went to see what was going on.

My only option was the chair from Lib's desk, but that was way too unwieldy--I had to go bare-handed and hope the intruder was about five-five, a hundred and fifty pounds or smaller. On my way to the steps, I could see something on the floor in the dark, so I picked it up only to discover the small water bottle we use to "discourage" the cat, but I kept it any way because I guess it was better than nothing and kind of felt like a gun in my hand; besides, an unexpected, well-placed spritz could give me the edge I needed after the intruder heard me creak down every single step past a dark, crumpled-up shirt.

The living room was clear. My courage returned once I had a lamp on and I decided to slink my way along the wall into the kitchen where I could trade up for a knife. Once equipped, I checked the lower two bedrooms and the bathroom so I could be sure that it was clear for later use. Then it was down to the basement, which also cleared inspection--creeping along the basement is a hell of a lot easier without the creaking floorboards of the rest of the house. I made my way back to the workshop, and once again traded up for Lib's zombie ball bat with the bloody "Are we having fun yet" sticker on it, and was emboldened enough to give the house one more cursory inspection as I regrettably turned out all of the lights again and headed up to bed where I noticed the crumpled shirt was actually the cat, who had probably in a fit of anger, knocked over the spritzer bottle and resumed her midnight crazies, waking Lib, and convincing me to find a permanent spot for a baseball bat beneath the bed.

Residual Glee

While I can't say that in the last year and a half that my blog has really taken off, and while I haven't yet expanded beyond my loyal cadre of fourteen "followers," things are on the horizon.

It seems I may have unintentionally released a quip or two in the wind, where they germinated and eked out a meager life of their own on the web.

It turns out that a Google search of "Residual Glee" will bring up a link to The Daily Sentence of Dave where I commented on a post last year when he complained about children and bubbles. Kind of like when I typed in "fame" for an image and Taylor Swift came up--she must be so proud. Not so impressive? Well, how many of you have been responsible for being one of the top search results for a random phrase you wrote on the web? That's what I thought. It's only a matter of time really before there is a clever Google icon designed after yours truly above the search box on my birthday. They may even be spit-balling the idea of having another "Doodle for Google" contest for just such an occasion.

Oh...Ok--scratch that. This is a bit embarrassing, but I just checked the search again, as I have been every fifteen minutes for the past twenty-four hours, and it doesn't come up anymore.

It doesn't matter that now, a mere day after my initial fame, I don't show up as a top search result anymore; what matters is that for a few, brief, shining moments, anyone in the world could, and many of you probably did, type "Residual Glee" into a major search engine, and chuckle to yourselves while reading my scathing, sarcastic remark about how Dave hates everything that most people enjoy and celebrate. So I had my fifteen minutes, and now it's gone, but the residual hubris (that should get some search results) will last forever.

Scary Story

We had a scary story contest with some coworkers last night, and I won! This is that story (insert "Law and Order" sound effect):

Pray Bernice was raised Catholic, which conflicted with her more sinister desires, and since she could not in good conscience seek out their fulfillment of her own volition, every night, she would sleep naked with her ground-floor, bedroom window unlocked, the curtains half open and the red light of her alarm clock illuminating her sunset body in the hopes that someone might sneak in in the middle of the night to have his way with her. Harker was raised on generic bags of cereal, cable TV and second-hand smoke, and as much as he loved his late-night porn, he loved living across the street from Bernice on the third floor, because he knew that every night he could count on peering directly down into her window from his balcony, and while she was still too modest to undress with the lights on, he would wait to see her glowing red skin punctuated by the darkness of her nipples and pubic hair. Detective Williamson was looking at the body as objectively as he could, but he knew it would take more time for that to develop. On his first case, he was told by Soryal and the other veterans that "it" was not a person anymore; he tried to remind himself now, months later, but he felt little improvement. He inspected the body from the doorway as the last few photos were taken: "It's all yours." During the day Bernice was homely, puritanical although not altogether unattractive, but in the low crimson light of her bedroom, she was demure and curvy; her lithe body stretching across the mattress became proverbially seductive--when she felt this, she would give any would-be voyeurs what they were looking for. Harker waited for this moment every night, and once every few weeks he would get it. When he did, it was never enough--as much as he craved and enjoyed these moments, nothing came close to the flesh. He'd known enough women to know this. Deep inside, part of him knew at some point that watching would not be enough, but he always pushed the thought to the back of his mind and waited. Most nights she just fell asleep, but Harker would always sit, looking down into her apartment, his shelter dog, Stu sat next to him, not knowing what his master was looking at, but no less loyal and attentive. It was a cool October evening when he leaned into railings like jail bars and looked down that he noticed, in time with the breeze, the slightest flutter of her curtains from her slightly-opened window, and he made his way down to the street. The river of cool fresh air flowed over Williamson's face when Soryal finished printing the sill and frame and opened the window to peer outside. "He came in here. It wasn't locked. Not a smart move on the ground floor. It was still cracked a bit, too. It's no wonder they could smell it outside."

She loved the autumn breeze following her hands over her body, the heat of her blood flooding the tender flesh beneath her hands, and the air washing over her skin reminded her that nothing stood between her naked body and the street. She breathed in a deep, cooling breath of the night air, and felt the short crisp hairs between her fingers.

Harker buried his hand deep into his pocket; he appeared as if he were waiting for a cab, but he had his head cocked ever so slightly to the left listening to the faint mewling that escaped her apartment between breaths. In the darkness that came from the broken streetlight he could sense the heat of her supple skin and the light from her clock emanating from her window hot onto the back of his neck. His hand clenched tight, and he turned ever more slightly to the left.

"You gotta breathe, Williamson, man, if you want to find the killer." Soryal inspired by the crucifix on the wall above the bed, remembered a joke: "Did you ever hear about the flasher that exposed himself to the nun?" Williamson forced a smile and a shallow, stale breath, and planted his hands in his pockets, trying to look inquisitive.

She writhed in the play of light and fresh air on her belly. The man outside on the curb moving ever so slightly caught her eye, and she wrenched her knees over her breasts, pulled her comforter over her skin and shrunk into her headboard, frozen in the night air staring at the shadow in street. When she reached the kitchen, she steadied herself on the sink with one hand; her heartbeat pounded as she drank a glass of trembling water. She settled the empty glass and swaddled herself tighter, safer, into the duvet.

He noticed the air go still. Quiet.

Bernice had been waiting for this; she dreamt of it, but now that it was here, she trembled with fear and excitement. It was what she had always craved, but what she longed for deep in her heart did not match her modest wardrobe, the rosary on the headboard or the crucifix above her dresser--it seemed impossible, evil, and imminent.

Williamson welcomed the joke. It was an excuse to look away, if only for a minute. "He thinks she's going to scream or run off somewhere to pray. So the nun asks the guy if she can see it again, and he can't believe it, so he opens his coat again." The body was tied with the arms outspread at the sides, and the feet were bound together and tied at the center to the foot of the bed. He took a balmy breath to center himself but regretted the decision.

Harker loosed his grip, and looked into the window to see the tussled, empty sheets. The street was quiet and desolate, and the subtle, inviting light of her bedroom tempted him closer. The window slid open, and Harker could feel the heat from her bedroom on his face. The curtains were warm, soft and parted at his touch; Harker slipped inside and steadied himself with a deep breath, the perfume of her room surrounded him--he closed his eyes.

When the first uniformed officers responded to calls that death was emanating from the apartment, they found the empty sheets but no body. By the time Williamson arrived, the bed had been propped on its side, exposing its dark underbelly. He was still digesting the sight. Soryal paused his joke and quizzed him, "Why do this to someone?" Williamson tried to sound confident without breathing too deeply. "I don't know. Seems punitive," He looked at the crucifix. "but kind of intimate. Why the underside of the bed. It doesn't make sense." Soryal smoothed his tie, rested it back on his gut and offered his expertise, "Sometimes "who" is not the hardest part."

When she returned, Bernice closed the window. She regretted her indulgences. She hoped the stranger had moved on, but was reciprocally disappointed that he was not on the sidewalk anymore. It was foolish, dangerous, and above all, it was sinful. From her makeshift gown, she reached underneath her mattress and began to remove something, it felt good in her hand, but she stopped, looked at the street, crawled into bed and removed the duvet. She wondered if she could have done it.

The nipples were dark, cold and tight. There was always something unnatural and empty about the bodies; it never failed to perplex Williamson. He had been at this for a year, and it did get easier, but no less strange. When he started, he expected to see a lot of dealers, gang members, and criminals, and he did, but there were also the random vics: a pregnant woman with groceries who never made it home before the ice cream melted; the elderly man who obviously put up a good fight while being robbed, and the young boy whose evident last moments still haunted Williamson. One woman reminded him of his mother--no one was exempt. This is what bothered him the most. The pubic hair, dark and matted, seemed extraneous on cold flesh-- at the moment, this is what he found slightly unnerving. It was always something different.

Harker braced himself against the underside of her boxspring and felt the weight of her flesh compress the bed against him. He leaned out and peered up from the edge of the frame. He could feel her, hear her breath and smell her shampoo. He was afraid to move. In the partial, crimson darkness, between the mattress and box spring, sticking out from beneath the sheets, he could see where she had partially removed the hard protruding end, smooth and dark, and barely indistinguishable, but he knew what she kept there between her sheets, he'd watched her many times. His hand crept up the side of the mattress, and crested the top where her body radiated in the red light of the sheets.

The mattress held firm under her slow, tortuous undulations. Her warm and busied hand worked silently; her free hand slid across the sheets grasping the edge of the mattress next to Harker's hand.

He knew what she was reaching for--he had seen it before. From where he sat on his balcony, he could not get a good view of it in the dark, but he knew what it was used for, and he had seen it glint from time to time in the ambient rose light of her bedroom. He thought to himself that she would not need it tonight.

At first, the circumstances she had lost herself in were not altogether different from what was playing out in her room. A strange man, heedless surrender, and her iniquitous body. When he grabbed her wrist with his vice-like hands, she could not escape, and did not necessarily want to; she had hoped he was still there.

The body had been lashed to the underside of the bed, and hung there for some days. The blood had pooled on the ventral side of the corpse, leaving a black, demonic mask on the face and chest, and the flesh was taught with gases. Soryal, had seen everything he needed to see, but wanted to let Williamson do his homework: "So the third time, the nun asks the guy, 'I'm sorry sir, but do you mind if I touch it, it's just so--' and this blows his fucking mind, he's like 'Of course!'" The medical examiners office had arrived with the gurney, and Williamson prepared to remove the body. "Don't forget your gloves" Soryal interjected and then continued to pantomime the nun reaching prudently.

Underneath his massive force, Bernice could not escape, but for all her struggling she didn't really want to. She did not worry what he would do with her; her concern was that he might discover her secret. She wondered if he had seen the protrusion between the mattresses, and she wondered what he thought of her--in the middle of it all she was surprised to find herself self-conscious. He must have seen it. He was powerful, and forceful. She wanted only to free her hands, to indulge herself on her terms without the sight of it sticking out of the sheets haunting her, but his grip was heavy and metallic. Harker had already removed his belt, unzipped and was exposed. She wrestled franticly with her arms, but her legs never fought back, and he was surprised at the ease with which he found himself in her thighs on the cusp of her body.

"So she's just feeling his balls, and loving it the whole time, and the flasher is having the time of his life!" Soryal continued to fondle the imaginary flasher as politely as any nun would. Williamson, helping the medical examiner, held fast to the rope and wrist so when the binding was cut, the body would not fall to the ground. It had been there a while. He made the rookie mistake of grabbing the upper arm for support, and when the body shifted, his thumb popped through, pierced the flesh and slid between the bicep and bone; although he had his gloves, he could feel everything through the latex: it was dark, cold, wet, smooth and viscous.

He released his grip when she began to move in time with his body. It was criminal, passionate, and uncertain. He wasn't sure if he would go to jail. He'd never done this before, and while it was, for all intense and purposes, what it was, it was also nothing like he had imagined would actually happen when he crept through her curtains, but more like he had dreamed from his window, playing out like a dark porno. He wasn't sure how she'd react when it was all over.

Williamson had prided himself on never once getting sick, but ran for the door tearing off the sludge covered thumb of the glove from his wrist. Soryal interrupted his joke to laugh, and then continued so the uniform cop standing at the door and the medical examiner wouldn't miss out.

Harker thought for a second that he loved her. The smell of her body. Its subtle tastes and textures. He could have ended it any number of times, but he paused and waited, absorbed and savored it.

Still recounting the tale of the nun and the flasher, Soryal lowered the bed to its normal position and found the murder weapon had slipped out of from between the mattresses onto the floor. He pinched the handle between his thumb and forefinger, inspecting the long, lean blade dangling below the smooth girth of the ribbed hilt, and he made an off-color remark to those present about not knowing which was the "business end."

She arched, freeing her hands. Her chest heaved, exhaling across his forehead and she stretched her arms, coming just short of the blunt end between her mattresses. She twisted and grasped and scratched at the sided of the bed. Moaning and straining, she could not budge beneath his pressing torso. She lunged and searched, finally wrapping her fingers around it just below the knobby end in the clutch and tussle of muscle and sweat. She had been waiting a long time.

The perp was in the back of the squad car in cuffs. The policemen who had arrived first at the scene did not have to look very far to find the killer watching over the body.

From three floors up, across the street, Harker had never noticed the way her front teeth showed just below her upper lip as he did now. He decided he would kiss her when he finished, feeling her lips and the slight press of her teeth on his mouth--she lunged and swung her arm around his neck--he bellowed like a great beast--a wave surged from his lungs, down his spine, through and around his torso, and into her body as he grasped the outside of her shoulders.

She clasped her legs around him and squeezed the handle of the blade tight to his neck as Harker's life weltered over her. His blood coursed across his back as she clung to him pulling him close to let it cascade over her. It was everything she had ever wanted but was too afraid to give into, every urge she had restrained and played over time and again in her mind. He bucked, heaved, sputtered and gurgled in her grasp, and finally, he exhaled. As he slacked in the wet, pooling sheets, she felt satisfied and clean. She released her body beneath him, felt his weight and warmth on her tired frame, and slowly withdrew the hard, blunt handle of the sacrificial dagger from his neck; she held him, exhausted and complete--the red light of the alarm clock shining black over their blood covered flesh. He was her first, she was his last. They were wed forever in this bed. She fell asleep in his embrace.

In the back of the squad car, she prayed incessantly into the handcuffs, the perfect bruises of Harker's grip visible beneath the metal bands. Williamson still didn't understand if she was punishing him, and if she was, why she would sleep over his suspended, putrefying corpse for days--the human heart was still a mystery to him. Soryal walked out next to the gurney, speaking in his old nun's voice and acting out the end of the joke for the cop and the examiner, two imaginary balls in his closed fists, smashing them together to the staccato of the punch line: "DON'T--YOU--EVER--DO--THAT-- AGAIN!" They chuckled. In the apartment across the street from the balcony, Williamson heard a dog crying.

Pound for Pound

I've been going to the rock climbing gym for some months now, and I have markedly improved. I have also seen other nascent climbers come and go, and I have noted the dedicated climbers who are regulars; I have even made some friends. I have scaled the bouldering ranks from lowly V0 climber to a semi-respectable V3 climber, though I cannot do them all; however, I did ascend a V4- the other day. Pound for pound, you have to develop your skills based on your height, weight and agility, and a tall thin guy can climb better than a guy who is jacked; I have developed as a 5'7" medium-build guy, and I have impressed myself on some days. I have even been invited personally on two outdoor expeditions by other climbers, but all of it meant nothing, until today.

When I walked into the gym and put on my shoes, I was met by a gym employee who greeted me with a fist bump. That's right! When you get to pound "the rock" with a rock gym employee, you've crossed the line from leisurely climber to respectable climber. It's like the secret handshake of a secret and exclusive club, an esoteric club with terms like, flag, barn door, campus and gaston. What else could the fist pound mean? I will admit, I'm not that great; I have a long way to go, but I guess I have reached the point where I have earned enough rock creds to deserve a fist bump. Maybe it was my mastery of the V4-, or maybe it was my scaling and controlled descent of the campus board--I don't know, but I gotta say, it felt good to pound the rock, not only upon entering, but also upon leaving.

Keep the Unhallowed in Halloween

Some of you might remember my post about keeping Christ in Christmas, but this year I am championing the cause of another holiday, one that some may not even consider a holiday: Halloween. While it may mean All Hallow's Eve, it's more sinister, pagan roots tend to shine through in practice. Now, "holiday," literally means "holy day," which it is in the church, but in the secular world, it exists as more of an unholiday, and that is what I am here to defend.

I was in Lowe's the other day, looking for some hardware, and I noticed that even though it was October 11, they already had their Christmas ornaments on sale en masse. October 11th. I haven't even begun to construct my costume for this year, and those of you that know me know how important my costume is. I cannot allow that while I was in the outdoor, garden area, a midi version "Joy to the World" was plinking over the p.a. system before the leaves had even changed, much less fallen to the earth. Don't get me wrong, a cold, crisp December night driving through the light-stranded suburbs of New Jersey to a good production of "Silent Night" still has the power to make me weep, but before that kind of warm-hearted grace can wash over me in a wave of goodness, I need some evil.

I need my day of death--all souls day. What better way to take the macabre and celebrate our moribund existence bedizened in palor and gore? It's like a New Orlean's funeral. That's a town that knows how to do things. Take Mardi Gras for instance; before the ascetic practices of Lent, everyone indulges themselves in a hedonistic, gluttonous orgy of T and Alcohol before forty days of self deprivation and eating fish (probably just lots of crawfish--and pork), but I'm sure some people do it by the book. My point is: what better way to harken the season of the birth of our savior than by accenting our damnable nature in nefarious garb. As much as we spend the rest of the year posturing like upstanding, moral members of the human race instead of descendants of Cain, we should dig deep into the heart of darkness and bellow; and before we deck the halls with boughs of holly, we should deck ourselves in the trappings and suits of the unholy so that by the time "O Holy Night" comes on in the grocery, I am penitent ready to embrace my fellow man, even if he is holding up the checkout line. Happy Halloweeeeeeeeeeeeen!

Hiatus Is where the Heart Is.

Where the hell have I been? Well, lets just say buying a house and moving in is a project, and between work and the house, I haven't exactly been inspired to write. It's not that there hasn't been anything to write about either, it was just that after a week of not writing about the house, all the ideas I had had formed into a giant unmanageable monster that looked much like Justin Timberlake's media files in that commercial, so it was a bit daunting to then pick where to start.

So let's boil this experience down to it's purest and simplest form: what is it like having a house? Well, It's like this:

And, it's like this:

And it didn't take long to become like this:

Then it soon became this:

So, if I had to sum things up in one word, it would be:

"This"

Love you Lib!

A Tough Question

I won't say much about this one, but just ask yourself if you would eat this: 3:00pm randomly placed in the parking lot outside of Target? It's in perfect condition, and seems to have been delicately placed in the mulch by someone who cared about it; maybe they really wanted it but couldn't possibly eat anymore. I thought it looked like it was left for me. I won't tell you if I ate it or not. The real question is, "Would you?"

Rocky Raccoon

Yesterday, while putting down a little mulch at Mrs. Morrissey's, Jorge noticed a couple live traps in her back yard, one of which contained a raccoon. Mrs. Morrissey informed me that she was actually trying to catch a groundhog, that lived under her porch, but had only caught four raccoons so far, and every time she caught one, she had to pay the company to come remove the animal, and it was getting pretty expensive. She said that they did not kill the animals, but that they released them into the wild; I half expected her to describe a farm where the raccoons could play with all the other woodland creatures and eat their favorite foods out of their very own personalized garbage cans, if you know what I mean.

It was about 92 degrees and humid, and I realized that maybe Rocky's (the raccoon's) placid demeanor was probably not because he was patiently awaiting his trip to "Critter Acres," but maybe he was really just thirsty and hungry. Mrs. Morrissey explained that he had been there for almost two days, and the company had not come to collect the trap yet. I decided to get him a drink. Every day, I take two bottles of frozen water to work, and one was about a quarter thawed, so I set out to give little Rock (the raccoon) a drink.

If you have ever heard a threatened raccoon snarl and growl, then you know that as I poured a little water into the cage and he freaked out, I nearly shit my pants. An angry raccoon sounds much like a wolf and a bear at the same time; nonetheless, he did settle and start lapping up the couple drops remaining.

Before we left, I wanted to make sure little Rock's thirst was quenched so he would be more comfortable waiting for his "ride," so I affixed my frozen water bottle to the top of his cage between the bars so it would drip for a couple of hours, and he could not only have a nice cool drink, but some activity to kill...scratch that--pass the time. Jorge left him a couple crackers, and we were off to the next job.

I would say, based on the above photo, that my little contraption worked pretty well. This blog would be much cuter if I could upload the video on my phone with his rather long tongue flicking in and out rapidly, but this pic will have to do. God speed, Rocky, and enjoy that farm. Maybe some day I'll come see you.

A Special Occasion

Some months back, I bought Lib's cat, Neb, a mouse that looked rather European and was attached to an elastic string. She was very exited about her new toy the first time we played with it, but I have noticed how cats often tire of a new toy rather quickly, so I came up with a plan: I would put the mouse away and only very rarely play with it to preserve the new-toy mystique. It worked. Some months ago, when we were dogsitting a friend's dog, Neb hid at the bottom of the steps, so I had to attach a dowel rod to the elastic string to reach her. I have since named it Special Occasion Mouse (it even has its own song to the tune of "Secret Agent Man").

So what better occasion to bust it out than last night when Neb chased a bee into the light fixture above the back stairs. Real-live quarry is always exhilarating for an indoor cat, so when I pulled out special occasion mouse to coax the bee out, I was surprised her head did not explode from over-stimulation. Between meowing at the light and batting Spec Oc Mouse when I lowered it, Neb was having the time of her life. The bee seemed trapped and reaching it with the stick was not going to work; plan B was to lower Special Occasion Mouse into the globe so that the bee would sting it and die, and the bee did attack it on several occasions, and eventually went quiet. My plan had worked.

Neb and I goof around quite a bit, but when things get serious, all that teamwork and training really pays off. I know Lib thinks we are silly, but like many other species, playing hones our reflexes and communication skills for when we really need to come together.

Update: Looks like our efforts last night failed. As I was sitting down this morning to write this blog, Neb rousted our prey from some corner and chased it across the room, but we did come together to trap it in a window, where I smashed it with Lib's slipper. Go Team!

Catfishstravaganza III

You may remember my post last year where my niece, Daisy, was sprawled out sleeping amongst the catfish. Well, regrettably, Daisy wasn't around for this year's excursion, but we went to my uncle's pond again for the third annual catfish catch and fry. The first year we caught around thirty fish in three hours and once we started to fillet them, we realized we had our hands full, but I was impressed more that we cleaned so many catfish while drinking without at least someone slicing a finger off. Last year we ended up with eighteen, and still had our hands full. This year we only scraped by with eight, but that didn't mean it was uneventful-quite the contrary!

The first year, after Daisy had been worn out by numerous catfish, she hooked into General Sherman, a Leviathan of a fish, but as she reeled him close to shore he gave one last lunge and thrash and snapped her line. I saw his head come out of the water, and it looked to me about two fists wide, grizzled and mottled--a true beast. She nearly cried. Last year, Brian hooked into the hogger, we suspect, and battled him until it broke his line. He nearly cried.

This year, was Andy's turn. The day started with Andy creating a song for Brian's fourteen-foot Chinese cane pole he got as a gift on a business trip to China that came in a giant carrying case with a built-in stand: "Brian's Chinese cane pole; it comes in a golf bag and looks so very fine..." It turns out the ancient Chinese secret was how to string the thing, and the directions did not help much, since they were all in Chinese. But I digress. Not long into the morning, after a couple average catches, good eating size, Andy hooked into a whale. It was another battle; we all had our fingers crossed, and fortunately for Andy, the fancy golf/cane pole bag had a retractable landing net that Brian used to bring the monster ashore. I swear I had seen that mottled face two years before...General Sherman! He weighed 5lbs 2oz and measured at 26.5 inches. Now whether this is The General or not remained to be seen, but he definitely fit the bill.

Brian, still reeling from last years disappointing loss, cast his lot in the same deep hole as last year's battle royale. I had sent him off for more bait because he had shoes on, and I didn't, so he left his pole and jogged to the other side of the pond while I watched his pole leaned against a giant rock, a pretty safe spot to leave your pole, unless General Sherman is actually still in the pond. I saw the pole bend violently, but by the time I ran the eight feet back to it, it had lifted of the ground, bounced off the top of the rock, and shot into the pond. Before I could get my phone out of my pocket and dive in (which I was poised to do by the time Brian sprinted back in a panic) the pole disappeared like a shot into the deep. Brian stood in disbelief, both hands pasted to the top of his head, staring into the abyss.

Maybe The General had not been caught. Maybe our arrogance had made us feel comfortable and safe. Maybe something greater than all of us decided we needed a slice of humble pie. Regardless, I felt responsible. I had sent Brian for more bait, and I had been on watch when the pole was ripped from the shore. The only chance I had was to drag the pond with my catfish rig in the hopes I could snag the pole. Brian was disheartened and pessimistic, and Andy just watched shaking his head at my pathetic attempt to redeem myself. What were the chances?

It turns out, they were pretty good! On the fourth cast and drag, I felt my hook snag something. Everyone held their breath, and when my hook came out of the water, it was attached to fishing line, and right behind it emerged Brian's pole, tip first like Excalibur from the murky depths, but the fish was not there. Directly after, on the same rod, we suspect that Brian caught the very same fish who had just taken his pole.

Overall, I only caught one catfish, but we had a great time and plenty of fish for a successful cookout over an open fire. Whether or not Andy actually did catch General Sherman or not remains to be seen until next year, but there were enough close calls and snapped lines to lead us to believe he may still be out there waiting and laughing at our pathetic attempt to tame the creatures that lurk fifteen feet below the surface of my aunt and uncle's pond.

The Crap is Always Sweeter

Not to get too sappy, but there is nothing like driving back to the Midwest, and nothing smells better than cow shit. Why cow shit? Easy. I grew up with it--not that I grew up on a farm or anything, but the smell was never very far off. In Jersey, at least where I live, towns are asses to elbows, and livestock is not the driving economic commodity, so it's rare to smell manure unless you're putting down some mulch, but even that is not nearly the same. So when I get to smell pure unadulterated cow manure instead of exhaust, it's a real pleasure, especially when it's a sure sign post that I am getting closer to the people I love and miss, very few of whom actually smell like cow shit.

Absolutely Smashing

I actually do work. After I finished exams today, I was hanging out, doodling on the board, and when I gave the head I was drawing eyes, it looked spookily familiar, so I finished it, and much like the picture in my last post, it was pretty accurate. Now, granted, I'm not dealing with the most difficult subjects, but I gotta say, it's not a bad Billy Corgan, especially for using a broad-tipped dry-erase marker.

And a Pinch to Grow an Inch

The other day, my students in my class of thirty were a little loud, so I just stood in the front of the room and raised my hand with four hardly extended fingers in the air, and the students immediately became perplexed and silent. It turns out that everything I need to know about classroom management, I learned in fourth grade.

I explained to my students that in fourth grade, Ms. Preuter would hold up her hand in the lunch room or assembly, and if you got up to four fingers, you had best shut it. I then proceeded to tell them all about her. I explained how she would spank us in front of the class on our birthdays and give us candy. They thought it was the strangest thing they had every heard; I remember loving it. I explained how we earned points throughout the year to spend in her point store at the end of the year, and how I saw the challenger explode in her room over and over in 1986.

If you were in kindergarten through third grade, she seemed like the scariest, meanest thing on the planet, and I remember dreading getting into her class. I remember how grown up the fourth graders were to put up with such a tyrant; I used to think that when I got to the fourth grade I was really going to have to get my affairs in order and be diligent if I were going to survive. It was a milestone.

I remember how wonderful and caring of a teacher she actually was. There was nothing to be afraid of, unless you screwed up. When you're ten, you have the ability to create and imagine things like monsters in your closet or for your homeroom teacher, and even though I had Ms. Watkins, who was equally wonderful, my afternoons with Ms. Preuter were nothing like I had imagined and I still haven't gotten my affairs in order, but she was a wonderful teacher, and while my students couldn't fully appreciate the accuracy of my impromptu sketch, I figured some of my readers might.

Happy Birthday, Us!

Some people ask if sharing my birthday with Lib takes away from my birthday, but I like it. Most people (girls) think it's really cute when they find out and make high-pitched cooing and cat noises , while others (guys) want to puke. I believe one guy at work even responded with "That's gay."

The big problem with sharing a birthday with your significant other is "what do you do?" I decided to take us both to Cirque du Soleil to see "Ovo," and it was pretty awesome, but I couldn't have prepared for the gift (knock on wood) that we got on Sunday, our actual birthday.

On the way to the city on Saturday, our real estate agent, Nancy, began texting us excitedly about a "cute cute cute house" that was perfect for us. I planned on seeing after the holiday, but Lib texted her that we would be available Sunday morning, and she was more than happy to meet with us. What are the chances that we would find the perfect house on our birthday? Not as slim as putting in an offer and finding out it was accepted within a few hours,but we are going into attorney review on Tuesday, and should have the inspection by the end of next weekend.

It has three bedrooms and one bath. The house is a nice Cape Cod with a finished basement that includes a separate laundry room and a separate workshop. Oodles of storage. Not only is it in great shape, but it was built in 1949 by the man who lived in it and built other homes in the neighborhood. His widow moved out a week ago at the age of 88. She left the place immaculate and left us the original blueprints and every receipt for every appliance. The place has a good feel to it. It feels like a family lived and grew in it for sixty years, and I gotta say it's a bit intimidating to pick up where a family like that left off. I'm getting a bit mushy. On a lighter note the basement is all pine paneled walls--feels a bit like a Pocono cabin in the 70s. Were totally going to have an appropriately themed party when we move in since there is a pine bar built in also.

The lady was thrilled that a young couple was buying her home, but not as excited as Butch, the very nice man who lives next door who came into the house (when he called her to tell her to sell it to us she said she signed the paperwork) yelling "hello?" so he could shake my hand and tell me how excited he was that we were going to be neighbors. He even offered us use of his lawnmower until we could afford one...at the low cost of $500 for the gas.

I can't wait! (knock on wood)-Pine, lots of pine to knock on.

Yet Another Saturday

When you walk into the Mutter Museum in Philadelphia, it seems kinda small, but when you consider exactly how many syphilitic skin samples, excised carbuncles or deformed skeletons you can fit into two stories, it starts to seem rather large. The impacted colon that is the size of a ...I can't think of anything but that amorphous, serpentine tentacle that comes in the ship on Abyss and looks the lady in the face--like that but a colon, big and brown, is pretty unsettling if you consider carrying it around in your abdominal cavity. And if you're into looking at different deformed fetuses preserved in jars and getting really sad, then this is your kind of place.

However, if you are overly empathetic or a hypochondriac, DO NOT GO HERE. You will be miserable. If you are squeamish or faint of heart, then stay home--I take that back, you should go here (except hypochondriacs) just to see what kind of terrible, painful and debilitating growths and deformities the human body is capable of. You should go. You should learn. And you should leave the place being thankful that you are happy and healthy...for now.

Just Another Saturday

This is actually a post about last weekend, but it has taken the whole week for me to really process and accept what happened. Lib's sister Rach, who is wonderful, came over for dinner and brought her friend Dina with her, who is also very nice to have around. We had a nice dinner, and I went out to get some drinks afterward.

When I returned, I was surprised to find that I was involuntarily assigned the character of Lila, a game piece in the board game Sweet Valley High. So I played, but it was a little awkward searching Sweet Valley High School high and low for Ken, my supposed boyfriend. When the game got close, I had to fight tooth and nail to keep my boyfriend or steal someone else's, and considering Dina is a lesbian, it was probably one of the most warped games of Sweet Valley High ever played, but Lib won anyway, so I guess Dina and I were off the hook (besides, I think we were both eyeballing the game pieces).

After Dina left, Rach convinced us to watch The Human Centipede on On-Demand. If you weren't aware, The Human Cenipede is an independent horror flick that is about two trashy New York girls who set out across Europe to go to clubs and party, but when their car breaks down in the forest, they make one of many idiotic decisions that leads them to a mad doctor's house. I say "mad" because he used to separate Siamese twins, but decided he wanted to reverse his talents to create. The movies starts with the good doctor weeping in his car over pictures of his experimental abomination consisting of his three rottweilers, who are lovingly referred to on the small headstone in his back yard as "My Sweet Three Hound" just before he shoots a trucker with a tranquilizer who had pulled over to take a dump on the side of the highway. The result of his experiment and the girls' bad decisions is a "creation" that consists of three people sewn mouth to ass to create a three segmented human centipede. The movie went south from there--way south.

Needless to say, I was relieved to wake on Sunday having not dreamt that I was a teen-aged girl searching for her boyfriend in halls of The Black Forest High School, only to end up with my best friend and I sewn face to ass to a Japanese man who doesn't speak any English in a crazy naziesque doctor's remote torture farm, but I fear that some repressed image or scene from the film will one night as I sleep, unexpectedly well up from my subconscious and send me into convulsive fits or at the very least therapy.

The Bald and the Beautiful

I have a theory. This usually precedes cockamamie ideas from your friends or drunk people that make no sense. But I have a theory--a real theory. Today, I noticed a coworker, not a close coworker, but someone I see and don't know his name, and he has the dumbest hair cut. In the late nineties, it may have been cool, but I'm not sure it belongs in the 21st century, especially since we are on the second decade already. My question is: why would someone keep a stupid haircut for so long?

This is where my theory comes into play. I have noticed this trend in others, mostly men, who cling to a certain era of fashion, whether it be in clothing or hairstyle, and this is my theory: These people must have gotten laid more at this time in their lives than any other when this style was in fashion and not much prior; as a result, they are afraid to let go of the style of the times, or zeitstyle, because either consciously or unconsciously, they attribute their animal magnetism to the "look." What is even more tragic about the condition is, I believe, that even after they stop getting action, the afflicted are too afraid to abandon la moda for anything, even in the face of complete abstinence, believing that something must be just around the corner. Why else would people still wear stone-washed jeans, or even more rare, the netted t shirt?

Case in point: Seven or eight years ago, my friend's cover band played in a bar full of forty-somethings. My other friend and I went to see the show, and there was this guy who looked exactly like Steven Segal--exactly. Not only was it his features, but also his hair(the slick, pulled back, tiny ponytail) and his dress(the small-collared black shirt buttoned all the way to the top). Even this guy's mannerisms, the squint and the raspy soft but firm voice were just like Segal, but it wasn't Segal. Ten to twenty years ago, this guy probably cleaned house with the ladies, but in 2002, he looked a bit foolish. But to play the devil's advocate, I must ask: should he have abandoned the look for the sake of not looking like a washed-up, B-list movie star (who would later have his own reality show) or should he get out of the shower, towel off on a bamboo mat, light some candles next to his plastic buddha, button his satin shirt and head into cougar central in the hopes that some fine lady has been carrying around a fetish for the star of Hard to Kill for the past twenty years? I think you know the answer to that; otherwise, we would not have the pleasure of seeing the Steve Perry and Kenny Rogers look alikes on the streets of our fair cities from time to time.

Not that I am completely free of this same fate; I realized that if being completely bald ever becomes taboo or pass'e, I might be mistaken for one of these guys, but in my defense it's not that I'm clinging to a ravenously sexy period of my life( because I don't think I've ever had one)but because I don't really have a choice, unless the male-pattern-baldness horseshoe becomes a turn-on. Could I become some anachronistic egg head that passersby will point to and laugh? Will I be the like the guy who thinks he's Burt Reynolds or Dee Snyder? Will my perfectly shaped head come to haunt me because I can never carpet it in thick lustrous waves of shiny, healthy hair?

Just as I started to get a bit panicky, something occurred to me, as if God heard my cry de profundis and decided to send the spirit of comfort and reassurance to let me know that everything is all right--that everything would always be fine, and that I would never be that guy unless I failed to update my wardrobe or facial hair: Bald is the new black. It's classic, simple, and if done tastefully, will never go out of style. It changed Michael Chiklis from the fat eighties comb-over commish to the bald, unrelenting (though morally corrupt) badass, Vick Mackey. I'm perfectly fine! I'm going to be OK!