I Need A Nemesis

It’s a commonly known fact that no superhero is great unless he has a nemesis. For Superman there was Lex Luthor. For Spiderman there was the Green Goblin. For Thor there was… there was… well whatever, no one read Thor anyway.

My point is that to truly overcome the limits you place on yourself in the course of everyday living, you need to have a figure slightly ahead of you (even if that figure’s spot on the horizon is only in your mind) something to strive towards – some goal pulling you ever onwards towards self-improvement.

Right now life is good. My boy is 3 and awesome, my girl is verging on 7 months old and awesome, my wife is ageless, beautiful and, of course, awesome. My friends are good people and for some reason let me make fun of them; even my frickin’ supervisor is a hellova nice guy.

I have no nemesis.

M. Night. Shamalamamambeeboopalopadoppaamamamamdingdong even did a movie about it, back when he was making movies that were worth spending 1hr32 minutes on; Unbreakable is all about the search for a nemesis – your counterpart, albeit your evil counterpart, who will improve you as a person through your efforts to overcome him and/or her.

As an inherently lazy person, without the motivation of hatred I lack the desire to improve myself; I have the knowledge of many of my flaws but none of the will power to overcome them.

Nemesis… where are you?

Thought for the Day: if every time you try something it always turns out wrong, should you call a Quantum Mechanic?

A Pox Upon You, Occupant

This should be a fairly interesting post, and I assure you inconstant reader that I have as little idea what I'm going to say as you. The difference between today's post and any other post is that I've been up since 3:00am.... that's right they have those now (I know I know, like me you thought that dreadful hour had been abolished by the Geneva Convention)... so my spelling is bound to be warse.

So I'm not sure I'll be able to string two thoughts...

Some days, and lets just call them weekdays, I start to wonder if I even live in my own home. On weekdays I leave the house at a dreadful 6:00am and get home at somewhere just after 4pm. I don't believe in math, but even I can tell that's 10 hrs away from my home - 10 hours during daylight. Especially now that its fall (FALL KILLS) I don't tend to see my house in the daylight until the weekend.

So there's that. I always joke that I don't live in this town, I merely sleep here.

But the kicker to that, the extra little grind of the pointy heel sticking into the groinal area, is the mailbox.

I don't get mail. Or not much anyway, and most of it is bills (Bill's bills as it were) - and certainly not enough to reaffirm my presence in this place. My son is signed up for a couple of magazines. He gets more mail than I do.

Hell even that bastard Occupant gets more mail than I do. I barely rate enough to get more mail than "Registered Home Owner."

Let's talk about him, that shady shyster, that felonious fool, that oddball occupant.

He's a dirtbag (by virtue of the fact that occupant is a dirtbag, occupant is therefore a he; women are very rarely dirtbags). He also sleeps around because I've seen other people picking up mail at the same time as me and Occupants been in their house too.

The next thing you know we're going to find out that Occupant has been taking out credit cards in our names and we'll have to take 3rd jobs as car wash attendants and wear stupid orange hats that say "Wash you want, baby I got it/Wash you need, baby I got it." (which is a lot to fit on a hat and therefore even more demeaning).


Here's a Pox on Occupant

He's a gigolo, a cad,
He's morally dreadfully bad
He'll sleep anywhere with anyone if you let him;
He'll take all your money
He'll find that oh so funny
You can't beat him in a wager if you bet him.

He's been in every box
He's beaten all the locks
He's been through every slot in every door
There's a bit of him in you
And a bit right in me too
Despite the fact he's rotten to the core.

I curse you Occupant, knowing that even as so, I curse even myself. For I am you and you are me.

But I vow, much as Orpheous also vowed not to peek, that I will not open mail with your title on it, for they who do not know enough to put my name on the envelope cannot be sending me anything I really need to see.

You are the worst of me occupant - you are my nameless face, that which is mob; you are who I am, but you are not who I am.

Why My Floors Won’t Stay Clean

PT 3: Where a kid can be a kid.

So the final part of this investigative report leads me to the third leg of the floor messing triumvirate – my boy.

He’s bursting up against the line of three years old and while he no more messes the floor in terms of dirt than I do (in fact he would argue, and rightly so, that as my feet are bigger I track more dirt across the floor), he does often leave behind more of an impact on a room than I.

With the condition of being 2 years and a bit – which will be cured next week when he becomes three – comes the attention span of a moth in a light bulb testing facility. He flits from toy to toy – from giant bean bag chair to the colloquially known toys called “up/downs’ and then back, to trains, to a sheep puppet to a bike used primarily for the running over of the afore mentioned sheep puppet, to blocks, to cars, back to trains… well you can see the life of a toddler is a busy one. In the face of that creative blitzing, who am I to ask him to pick up his toys?

His father that’s who.

78.4% of the time we manage to engage him in the cleaning up aspect of playing (though really sometimes he just phones it in and drops a couple of blocks in the bucket). But a room that was clean two minutes ago can quickly look like a plane took off in a toy factory if this boy rambles about unchecked.

And there you go – three reasons why the floor never seems to be in a state of perpetual cleanliness despite the war waged by my wife and I – the war on dirt. Fall (FALL KILLS), Cats & Kids.

I hope you’ve enjoyed these incredibly boring diatribes on an incredibly boring subject.

Why My Floor Never Stays Clean Pt 2

The Cat’s Meow

There’s an old joke that runs along the lines that at some point in history mankind worshipped cats as gods and cats have never forgotten this. I think there’s more truth in that statement than joke.

This household has two cats and frankly at times I wonder why we have them.

Pre-kids, our large orange cat, hight Strider, was a fountain of affection. Everywhere you went he would come and hang out – not in a creepy stalker way – just whenever you had a moment or needed a quick cat fix he was there. Now that the kids are around he generally only comes downstairs when the kids go upstairs to bed; and then he tries to fit 24 hours of cuddle time into the space of about 20 minutes. Mountain climbers stuck near the top of K-5 without a safety rope don’t cling so tightly.

Then there’s Willow, our deluded Calico. If there is a cat version of a lesbian, this cat is it. She hates men.  Or maybe it’s just me. We’ve had this cat for at least 5 years, and I maybe have pet her twice.  If I feed her, it is only me doing what I should be doing and how dare I seek gratitude for it; she didn’t ask to live with me after all. Should I scoop her cat box then it is only fitting for that’s where I belong anyway. Her crap is better than me.

Somewhere along the road of life, I developed the misconception that cats were clean animals. They are not. They are filthy. Let me count the ways:

·        Cat Litter: in the morning you can easily retrace everywhere they’ve been overnight by following the trail of cat litter – honestly its like one of those Family Circus cartoons in the weekend paper that shows everywhere the kids have been over the weekend.

·        Fur: Like all cats our cats shed. Unlike all cats, our cats fall just under the minimum line of “large members of the feline family” allowable by our strata and therefore shed a lot. You could weave a blanket out of the excess fur these cats get rid of – I’m thinking of weaving a toupee out of Strider’s excess because his fur almost closely matches my beard.

·        Puke: our cats are nervous eaters. Either that or they’ve got bulimia. They head to the cat dish, chow down and then all of a sudden there’s puke on the floor. It’s gotten so that our 3 year old does a puke check first thing in the morning and is disappointed when he doesn’t find any (he’s not disappointed very often)

All in all I think we’re going to adopt a downsizing by attrition stance. We love (sometimes), like (often), detest (occasionally) our cats and aren’t going to forcibly get rid of them; it just so happens that when nature takes its course our current succession plan is to have no succession.

Stay tune for tomorrow’s excuse on why my floor won’t stay clean: Kids!

Why My Floor Won’t Stay Clean

Thus begins an epic three part saga on why my floor never seems to stay clean. This first part deals with the seasonal enema that is Fall.

Part One: Where Walt Whitman Can Shove His Leaves of Grass

It’s fall.

I like fall.

As a concept.

As a reality fall is messy. Fall is wet. Fall is damp. Fall sees wet leaves enter into my domicile and unless I’m fast enough and smart enough to find them all they dry out and emerge from their hiding place to crackle themselves all over the floor making a hellova mess and requiring constant sweeping.

I curse you leaves (though since you’ve already fallen from YOUR home and entered in to MY home and are breaking apart on MY floor – what curse could I put upon you that would be worse than your current fate?)

Fall.  Think about it. It’s the season of Death. Everything born in the spring and living the high life in summer is now in the process of dying, or trying to hide itself under the earth in the hopes that it can last through the winter.

Those leaves falling slowly and beatifically to the ground are not picturesque. They are dead things cast to the ground because the tree they were on is now trying to protect itself from the winter that comes.

Yeah you’re beautiful fall. But you’re the season of DEATH. I would spit on your children if you had any (would they be called Fallings? Fells? Fallens? Fallen ones?) But you don’t have any – because spring has children – FALL KILLS.

Sure these falling leaves can teach us things if we look close enough:

1)     Beauty in death
2)     Intransigence of beauty
3)     Fall is evil
4)     Rain is wet
5)     A lot of rain is really wet.
6)     Rain + insufficient drainage = flood
7)     Etc

But right now I prefer not to look for any of the above deep seated themes because it’s too hard to watch all those leaves that I’ve come to know over the summer dying, sometimes violently, sometimes peacefully.

Good bye Leif Leaf, Lucy Leaf, Lucky Leaf (who incidentally was NOT so lucky), Lefty Leaf, Llew Leaf, Bob Leaf, Llewellen Leaf, Laura Leaf, Lori Leaf and the rest of the Leaf family. I look forward to seeing your children in SPRING (cause that’s the season of birth).

Tomorrow: Part 2: Cats.

The Long Yellow Light

On my way home today I was pulled over by a cop. And rightly so.

Right about here you're asking yourself why I would have been pulled over. Actually right about now you're wondering why you're reading this boring piece of trash, but back to the point.

Did I rob a bank and lead the coppers in hot pursuit? No. Did I defraud some grandma of her life's savings by telling her to invest in my company that makes golden trivets? No (business idea!). Did I publicly criticize the fact that Barack Obama has been in office as president of the US for over a year and still the world isn't fixed? Well yes... but that's not a crime (until the democrats read this).

In fact all I did was run a yellow light. It was a long yellow too. I saw it coming and tried to break. My foot got caught between the pedals and then I had a split second - slow down and get smucked in the intersection or go on through.

I went through.

And of course right behind me is your friendly motorcycle cop. He caught up to me at the next intersection and told me to pull over. I did, shaking my head all the while. When he strolled up to the window I already had the licence and registration out (this is the first time I've been pulled over by the cops, but TV has taught me the lines). He asked me if I knew why he'd pulled me over. I thought about saying "Because you wanted to say hi?" but the officer didn't look like a Backyardigans fan.

For one of the few times in my life I wisely kept my mouth shut.

"I went through the yellow back there," was what I actually said.

"What happened?" he asked.

"I saw the yellow," I said. "I tried to brake but my foot got caught between the pedals. So I went through." I didn't try to deny it. I didn't give him a lame excuse (I gave him a lame reason (a reason is an excuse that happens to be true)).

"Fair enough," he said. He took my information and went back and checked my credentials and verified that I didn't have any priors. He wrote up a warning ticket and let me go.

Of course, it didn't hurt that I showed him my boobs.

Is perfection too much to ask for? I say no.

This house has seen a number of brooms go in and out the door.

I can, for no good reason, trace my way back through at least four of them. Each and everyone of them, with the exception of the last one (which was a complete piece of shit but at the time we just needed a broom), had features that initially made them attractive. When we got them home, however, the honeymoon was off.

• The fourth last broom we had went to bristle pretty quickly. Turns out it wasn't up to the rough task of cleaning up porous tile. Instead it got relegated to patio duty. Take that fourth to last broom.
• The third to last broom had a guard on it that cracked and that just got annoying. It would cling to things. And let's face it - the only time clinging is good is when its to a rope to keep you from falling off a mountain.
• The second last broom we had - you know I'm really not sure what happened with that one. We still have it - its in the shed and I've used it to clean up the carport and its been fine. Maybe it just got boredom. Boredom, like cheating, has ruined many a good relationship.
• The last broom we had was the aforementioned piece of crap broom. We also still have that one (we're pack rats okay? leave off).
• This current broom - this one is a piece of art. It's a Vileda. If the world of Hogwarts witchcraft and wizardry actually existed, Vileda would be making brooms for the Canadian Quidditch teams. Its beautiful (in the way a stick of wood can be beautiful) but... that's right there's a but. If you turn this broom at just the wrong angle the stick starts to come loose - and not just a little bit loose. If you're not careful the stick will shoot off and impale you to the wall.

These brooms are like tragic heroes - essentially good and admirable but with one fatal flaw that, in the end, is their undoing.

As I was sweeping this evening I got to thinking about the brooms of days past and found myself questioning why each of them had that one great flaw. Why can't something as simple as a broom be perfect? You don't ask much from a broom, it has a simple function. But why does it falter so often.

Or perhaps, like beauty, imperfection is in the hand of the broom holder.

This ... Is.... Jeopardy... but not really

I just heard a commercial for Jeopardy and once again it reminded me of how we, as a society, have taken the punch out of the really good words.

How is it Jeopardy?

The good people at dictionary.com define Jeopardy as: risk of loss or injury, peril or danger. Now that's Jeopardy.

Let's rework the show.

Let's say Bob, a home maker from Desmoines, gets a question wrong. I think Bob should have to pay for his arrogance, for thinking that he could walk on this show and interact with his intellectual betters (Dave, a Lawyer from Providence, Rhode Island and Emily, an Editor from New York). Bob actually thought he could win. Silly Bob.

So when Bob answered: This is the part of the eye that controls how a person sees colour with Rods when it should have been "Cones" he now has to pay the consequences. Of course we could just deduct from his actual bank account the dollar value of the question we got wrong - but that's just money - its so clinical.

How about we take one of Bob's organs? I'm sorry Bob, that incorrect answer is going to cost you a kidney - which will then be donated to a children's hospital (you see? I'm not a complete monster). Choose your next category wisely, Bob.

Other ways to put the jeopardy back in Jeopardy:

An incomplete answer entitles three warriors from a pygmy tribe to strap you to a whirling table and shoot blow darts at you.

You have to listen to Carmen Diaz's audition tape for Moulin Rouge (okay so maybe I am a complete monster).

You're downgraded to the "Wheel of Fortune" level of the game show circuit.

And I think we all can guess what would happen on final Jeopardy can't we?

If I could turn back time...

If I were a time travelling superhero and had already reset all the important things in history that had turned out wrong (you know, like killing Hitler in his sleep, etc) I'd be able to turn my attention to the smaller stuff..

If I could find a way...

One of the things I think I would do is zip back into that meeting room where the guy, during the brainstorming session, says: "You know, we have squeezeable kethcup, and we have squeezeable mustard... what we need to complete the ensemble is squeezeable ... relish!"

At about that point I would turn to the guy and would say: I am from your future. The utopia that exists today is because I brought it all about. I have monitored the strings of time and have sought all those strains of dischord and now I come to you - creator of squeezeable relish. I come to bring you these portentious words...

I'd take back all those words that hurt you...

"Your squeezeable relish does not work! For you see, relish, by its nature, clings together tighter than a trailor park family. You cannot separate it. Only by a feat of inhuman strength can you squeeze hard enough to get more than a relish juice which is both demoralizing and disgusting. Heed my words!

Oh, and nice work on the spray cheese."

And you'd stay...