Love is…a gentle evisceration.
We all celebrate Valentine’s love in our way. I prefer mine with less evisceration.
Author: wideeyedfunk
Snowfall and sunshine, with tubercular hacking.
The sunlight glowed through yesterday morning’s snowfall so that the dogs and I were surrounded by whirling and sparkling crystals on morning walkies. Miss Tibbit, the useless little black dog, pranced down the side walk in her bouncing happy stride. Hamish the Corgi sniffed, raced to the next interesting spot, and sniffed again. The world was bright and full of opportunities – a snow storm in the sunshine? Anything seemed possible. Across the street a car door creaked open and the dogs and I listened to a tubercular hacking emerging from the ancient sedan. Miss Tibbit stopped to look and Hamish glanced over from his position against some unfortunate shrubbery. The hacking head leaned out of the car and drooled a liquidy mess onto the street. Awesome, I said to the dogs. Miss Tibbit strained against the leash, deeply interested. Let’s go check it out, she said to Hamish who walked up next to her. Ok, Hamish said as he stepped off the curb. In the brilliant shine of a sunlit snowfall I fought the …
Now that’s a man-sized Croc.
And it is no wonder really that Wiggins the Cat was poking his head in there. To a cat, a Croc that size might be something to crawl into. Hang out in. Attack people from the comfort of. The question as I see it is more along the lines of, what happened that caused the cat to puke inside the Croc? As I think about the mechanics of it, having watched Wiggins the Cat puke more than once in his 14 years, I try to imagine his posture. Was his head inside the Croc or did he projectile? If he projectiled, why into the Croc? The Spouse assures me that he also calmly thought through the scenario as he slid his foot into the Croc at 6:10am this morning for running the dogs in the yard. He thought, why is my foot wet? Did I get snow in my shoe during the bedtime dog trip to the yard? No, he concluded, there’s no snow on the ground right now. Did the cat pee in my …
Car Fever Part 3: New Cars Come with New Tires.
“Spouse,” I say, coming in the house after driving home in the rain, “we need to research new tires for the Mini.” The WideEyedSpouse perks up. New tires means hours of research on TireRack, DiscountTireDirect, and Mini Cooper S forums. Productive research, not idle research. The Spouse opens his laptop. Do we get tires that perform best in snow and rain but are less ideal in summer asphalt conditions? Would we prefer a better warm weather adventure driving experience and have tires that are merely adequate during the times of year when it is best to go slow and careful anyway? Do we replace the run-flats that give a buckboard ride to the Mini with conventional performance tires and toss a donut spare in the boot? “How spirited is your driving?” the Spouse asks me. This isn’t a subject I care to discuss. I pretend I didn’t hear the question. As we watch evening TV (Episode 107 of Star Trek Next Gen), I listen to the Spouse clickety click around the internet. I see that …
The kitchen junk basket went rogue.
I just wanted a rubber band. One rubber band from the kitchen junk basket. This was too much to ask from the junk basket. Four minutes and thirty seven seconds into the task I marched – marched calmly – to the basement for my sledge hammer. It is a 10 pound sledge. Not the heaviest. It has a shock absorbing plastic handle. Not the most traditional. It works. (When I bought my sledge two older guys in line with me nudged each other a whole lot until one of them worked up the nerve to ask – “Is that for your husband’s truck? Heh heh heh,” they both laughed and poked each other with gnarled index fingers. “Hoo boy, he must have done something pret-ty bad. Heh heh heh.” I didn’t smile. “Yep,” I said.) Anyway. Next time I want a rubber band, the [new] kitchen junk basket should consider giving it up easy.
Snow trash is the best.
Gloriously foul and endlessly fascinating, snow trash happens when the deep snow melts and reveals the urban detritus of weeks. It is a special seasonal process to be enjoyed only a few times a year. Because I happen to be a professional studier of the material remnants of human activity, I can’t look away from a nice nasty city snow bank. I like them to be really full of good stuff and I stop for particularly rich ones to be sure I’m seeing everything. This isn’t the WideEyedSpouse’s favorite activity, but the dogs sure don’t mind. Dog dookies are ubiquitous in the melting snow banks. Big, small, dark, light. You can really see the variety of diets fed to the neighborhood canines. Here in Buffalo chicken bones also are typical in the melting snow mounds. Perplexing. Yes, Buffalo Chicken wings, but does everyone eat them all the time? They must fly from car windows like confetti. I see newspapers, catalogs, dryer sheets, and Kleenex that appear used but may just be wet from the melt. …
Worm Bin Chronicles: Winter
“Good thing we have the worm bin,” I said to the Spouse the other day. He gave me a blank, flat eyed stare. “Why?” he asked in a tone that said he didn’t really want to talk about the worm bin, could think of no good thing related to the worm bin. “Because the compost heap is frozen,” I told him, feeling cheerful and content with my little WideEyedEcosystem. The Spouse turned in his chair and peered out the kitchen window to the back garden. I could see him noting the foot of snow draped over the garden. I could see him not making the connection. He, as you may recall (Worm Bin Chronicles: Inception), hates the worm bin. Spine-tingling, hair-raising hates the notion of hundreds or thousands of juicy, wriggling worms snacking, always munching in a bin in our house. “If we didn’t have the worm bin, where would we put the veggie trash?” I asked him. He sipped his beer and thought. “The trash?” he asked. I glared at him and slapped my …
1,500 miles of family, Or, Caviar tastes like chicken pox.
Stop 1: Scottsville, Esmont, Charlottesville Virginia WideEyedFunks: I was spooning caviar onto a smear of cream cheese at the pre-Christmas dinner snackie spread. Sister-in-law L. and Older Brother set us up with fine cheeses, Dracula’s Dilemma pickled garlic, some kind of awesome aged herbed salami. And caviar. Our WideEyedParents were across the room and from around the Christmas tree we could hear dad shouting at mom: “Do you want some cold cuts?” “A cool one?” she said, “no, I don’t want a beer.” Heh. Might be time for hearing tests. Sister-in-law N. pushed through Sister-in-law L. and me to get to the snackies, “Quit snack blocking,” she told us. I inched my counter stool over an inch or so, but not really too far. I hadn’t tried all the cheeses yet. I lifted my caviar cracker to take a bite. “You eat that stuff?” Older Brother asked, clearly doubtful. I shrugged and ate the cracker. Older Brother watched me chew. “I don’t eat it,” he said. “Good,” Sister-in-law L. said, “more for the rest of …
Job wanted for newly graduated smallish black dog of limited skills.
Last Tuesday evening the WideEyedSpouse and I marched down the block with Miss Tibbit to her training final exam and graduation, belching the happy taste of Sahlen’s hot dogs and a reasonable lost-grape-of-Chile Carménère red wine. We were all nervous. Miss Tibbit had been nervous all day with an upset stomach which she emptied explosively on the side of the bed, the bed post, and the floor. Miss Tibbit passed the test with what might be considered a C. Maybe a C+ with a special commendation for savant treat catching. She walks beautifully, sits like a dream, and will not/can not resist throwing herself on people to demonstrate her love. She escaped her leash during Cooper the standard poodle’s walking exam. Mayhem. Demerits. She won a ribbon for showing the most improvement during the course. Which means, of course, everyone recognized her remedial start state. Yesterday the WideEyedSpouse stood gazing down at Miss Tibbit, who was lounging across three remotes, the Xbox controller and the WII wand on the living room sofa. He asked when …
A smug end to weeping and wailing.
It is an unfortunate quirk of WideEyedFunk life that I can’t have anything nice. I drop things. Trip over things. Knock things from mantels, shelves, the wall. My ruination of something precious is always followed by stomping and loud wailing on the theme of “Why can’t I have anything nice?” for fifteen to thirty minutes This time it was my Cleo Skribent left-handed nib, stainless steel, piston reservoir fountain pen. I don’t carry this pen out of the house because it will be lost. I use it at my desk and planned to do so for the next 40 years. And then over the weekend I dropped it. Of course I did. Because the Cleo Skribent is so wonderfully heavy, it fell with authority. Because the Cleo Skribent hand-enameled nib is so wonderfully lovely and precise, it bent all to crap. The fall from my desk was effectively the annihilation of all that is nice about my desk life. I love this pen and I love the peacock blue ink I put in it. Go ahead, …
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