Category Archives: Uncategorized

I know. I KNOW. I’m being lazy.

Uno-Thumbellina. It’s been nearly a year since I donned a thumb ring and the response is constantly varied and uber interesting. Guys treat me like I’m gay and chicks just seem to wonder. My favorite little sister-in-law says they’re everywhere in Cali, but in Va Beach I seem to be alone.

Dos- Little House of Horrors.

It doesn’t look like much but trust me, this represents not only two weekends worth of work but more importantly my triumph over THE MAN.

Tres- Tug and Anchor. I was walking the boys tonight and an old friend appeared out of the darkness walking his dog. We’ll call him Jay. Jay was highly intoxicated ’cause that’s what happens down here with all the salt air and what not and at one point he pointed to the boys and said Tug and Anchor, right? I chuckled and told him no, but I thought Anchor was a pretty cool name.

Jay left, staggering home and Cutter stopped in his tracks, peering up at me. Don’t even think about, he said. Anchor is a sucky name, he said.

Quatro- Belinda.

This is Belinda, my new BFF, my new MacBook Air. I love her, she is slim and sexy and I long to caress her daily.

Cinco- Global warming. Am I really talking about the weather? I am. It’s January and even though today was cold and windy the rest of the week is supposed to be in the 50’s and 60’s.

I LOVE Global Warming.

life as misery

I realized that the “after the holidays” procrastination excuse had worn whisper thin when I was reminded I’ve got chores and responsibilities on Saturday morning by Miss Carol slapping me awake.

Get up and finish my house, she snarled.

She followed the slapping with a thunder elbow to my stomach that left me gasping and retching and then Miss Carol reared back and pushed me with her feet, shoving me out of bed, Cutter and Tug standing next to her, snapping and yipping at me.

I crawled to my feet and before I got to the bathroom Tug and Cutter were wrapped protectively around Miss Carol and she was snoring again.

So I drove down to The Little House of Horrors and desultorily pounded some nails and tiredly worked on some of the close-in inspection issues.

Building a house ain’t fun.

It’s exciting at the beginning when the lust is crystalline and the dreams are still ambrosia scented. But then the work sets in, and unless you’ve got the money to elegantly direct others to do it, and Miss Carol and me don’t, it becomes a monumental chore.

So I poked around and messed with little shit, my breath clouding in the cold.

When I couldn’t get the generator started I gave up and stood in the driveway looking up at The Little House of Horrors, wondering what it is I’d wrought.

I really gotta get fired up and FINISH this thing.

I wish I was smarter so I could read books with cool covers like this.

But I guess I’m not.

I really, really tried. I couldn’t. To my tight little mind, it sucked. I read and I read, thinking surely that something that’s being hailed as an instant masterpiece would somehow, somewhere get a little bit better. Or maybe even, gosh, readable.

It didn’t and I finally caved after about a hundred pages.

I’d wanted to walk through airports carrying my Umberto Eco, looking smugly like I was somebody who knew something. Like maybe I could leave Lee Childs and Stephen King and Chuck Palahniuk behind and be a differently more intellectual somebody.

But I couldn’t.

I still like the cover, though.

Maybe I’ll just wrap The Prague Cemetery dust jacket around another book and when a smooth somebody asks me how I find Umberto Eco, I’ll smootly say-

Rewarding.

Tonight marks a crossroads.

I submitted a bid for a job that’ll either keep me tethered to what it is I do for the next year or so or.

Or.

Life’s fun, right?

This is the last of the Christmas shit. I promise.

Today was my favorite day of the season, the day I yearn for, that I long for each and every Christmas season.

Today was the day we took all the Christmas shit down and put it back in the garage where it belongs.

Woohoo. But as I was taking out the tree I felt kinda bad. Our tree this year, we’ll call her Kimba, was a perfect tree. She was supple and evergreeny and never dropped a needle. She was the model Christmas tree by which all others will be measured and come up wanting. She was the best.

I felt bad for her, so as I walked her out to the curb where some mangy guy in a beat up pickup truck always picks them up and does who knows what with them, I apologized.

I’m sorry Ms. Christmas Tree that we hacked you down in your adoloscence, I murmured.

I’m sorry Ms. Christmas Tree that we dragged your amputated corpse away from your family and friends in the nice cool forest, I whispered.

I’m sorry Ms. Christmas Tree that we planted you in a bucket of tepid water in our warm little house, I said soothingly.

I’m sorry Ms. Christmas Tree that we draped all kinds of Christmas shit all over you. I imagine it’s tough holding all that up for weeks on end, I said softly laying her down on the scrabby patch of crush and run at the edge of the road.

But mostly Ms. Christmas Tree? I’m sorry about the mangy guy in the beat up pickup truck that’s coming to get you, I said patting her and turning away, leaving her lying there alone and broken.

O Tannenbaum.

I’ve become a huge Scroogey McScrooge.

An enormous Grinchy van Grinch.

Somehow, somewhere along the happy trail of life, I’m finding myself hating Christmas. Don’t get me wrong. I don’t mean the Christmas for little kids whose sparkly wonderment at the season is crystalline and pure and amazing to watch.

I mean the Christmas for most of the rest of us. Those of us that long ago adapted a different lifestyle, one devoid of a child’s sparkly wonderment.

You know, like,  Miss Carol and me.

Miss Carol and me decided a long while back to embark on a life of raucous self-indulgence. And we’ve done it. And I’m good with it. I embrace and love our little world and our self indulgences daily.

But then Christmas bustles and jostles into town with his Ho-Ho-Ho good cheer and my happy little self-indulgent world is rocked back on it’s haunches. I realize that there are other people in the world, folks with little chillen whose happy little faces are pressed up against the windows of homes waiting, their happy little hearts fairly panting.

And that’s when I get all Scroogy von Scrooge. And that’s normally just about the time that Miss Carol wants to go get a Christmas tree and decorate the house and light it up like an Xmas spaceship.

And we do it. And when it’s done, Miss Carol and me stand outside in the street looking at what it is we’ve wrought and Miss Carols clapping her hands all pitty-pat and telling me how beayooooootiful it is.

And I look up at it and the Grinchy McGrinchster in me says, just more shit I gotta take down in 27 days.

Let me just preface. Let me just preclude. Let me just head shit off at the pass-

EVERY SINGLE DAY SPENT IN THE LOVING ARMS OF OUR LOVING FAMILIES IS AND WAS THE BEST WE’VE EVER SPENT.

Ok?

That said, day three of our Christmas journey was a weirdly nostalgic trip down a wonderful sparkly lit highway my brother and me hadn’t traveled in a long, long time.

It started with us walking Cutter and Tug in the early morning drinking a beer and talking about the future and then driving over our sister’s lawn ’cause it’s fun to piss her husband off and then drinking more beer and watching football. We hadn’t spent an afternoon doing that since before Miss Carol and me moved to the beach decades and centuries ago.

It was good. I mean, really, good.

BUT THAT’S NOT TO SAY THAT EVERY OTHER DAY WASN’T GOOD. AND FUN.

On the downside, Cutter and Tug ramped up their hunger strike. They do this any time a trip plows past their comfort zone. Anything beyond a half hour or so and Cutter’s like, I’m not eating ’till you take me home. And Tug’s like, me neither motherfucker.

I’m like knocking my head against the wall.

Anyway.

At five the next morning after all the fun and beer and the dogs not eating I go out and load up MR.GREENE. for the ride home and start him up and while he’s idling my brother and me spend a little more time together walking the dogs. It’s nice.

BUT NOT NICER THAN ANY OTHER DAY. OK?

And then I pull MR.GREENE. around and Miss Carol comes out with her blankie and settles down for the long nap home and I open the back door for the dogs.

*big pause*

Both dogs look at me and then look at the open door and the backseat and then they look at me again and then Cutter starts to twitch and Tug begins wailing, NOOOOOOooooooooooo.

C’mon guys, I say through gritted teeth, Cutter backing and pulling and Tug yelping.

We’re going home!, I say brightly, tossing Cutter into the truck and grabbing Tug, trying to push him into the open door, his four legs spread against the opening, Cutter barking now and Miss Carol yelling at all of us to shut the fuck up ’cause she’s desperately clinging to wanting to sleep.

Christmas is fun, right?

We finally get rolling through the pre-dawn darkness and on into the sunlight but about halfway home Tug freaked. He does this when he’s really fed up. Miss Carol had to climb into the back and calm him down and Cutter whispered sweeeet and clambered into the passenger seat.

And we drove down into yet another Christmas dream.

Cutter stared at the open door for a second and then bounded up into the truck.

Shotgun, he yelled, hopping over the center console and settling into the passenger seat, facing forward but glancing at me out of the corner of his eye.

Tug lumbered up and settled with a groan. This is awwwwwful, he wheezed.

Miss Carol opened the passenger door and shouted, get in the back dickhead. I started to climb in the back and remembered I was driving. I shut the rear door and got in behind the wheel.

Cutter was staring at me. This isn’t fair, he said, looking all woeful. Move it Cutter, Miss Carol said, prodding him and clambering in. He moved to the back seat and settled next to his brother.

You guys suck, he muttered.

Anyway.

So then we drove out to my littlest sister’s palatial estate in Watertown or Waterford or Waterwhereverthefuckarewe. It’s a beautiful castle that sits on a hill overlooking the mountains on one side and the plains where the little people live on the other.

It’s amazing.

And the food and the cocktails and the party and seeing all my family was amazing. And it was amazing that Cutter and Tug behaved and never peed in the house, not once. And it was amazing that my littlest sister told me that her husband’s pet peeve was people accidentally driving over a corner of the lawn when they pull into the driveway or into the 5 car garage.

‘Cause ya know my brother and me both offtracked over a corner of the lawn when we left the next morning to go to he and his cupcake’s place for party number three.

Cutter is pushing his nose into the side of Miss Carol’s boob, trying to squirm his way into her lap from the back seat.

C’mon, he says, let me get up front with you, it smells all doggy back here, he says.

From the back seat I hear Tug howling- hooowwwww much lonnngggggeeeeerrrrrrrr????

Miss Carol pushes Cutter back into the back seat screaming at him to sit down.

It’s Thursday and we’re twenty minutes into a four and a half hour drive to visit our families for the holidays. It’s our annual trek and something I look forward to each year with as much anticipation as a root canal or a colonoscopy sans anesthesia.

On the seat behind me Cutter and Tug are tussling with one another, growling and snapping and yelping, the truck swaying with their wrestling. I clench my teeth and grip the wheel tighter. It’s gonna be a long ass trip.

Suddenly, there’s silence and Cutter is standing with one paw on the center console and the other resting on my arm, his nails gripping my shoulder. He stares out the windshield watching me drive for a moment and then he leans down and rests his head on my shoulder and gently licks the side of my face, his breath hot in my ear. Boss, he says, you know I love you. My heart melts a little, but then he’s pushing and squirming and trying to get into MY lap.

You wouldn’t believe all the dog hair back here, he grunts.

I push Cutter back into the back with my elbow, swerving into the other lane as I do so and Miss Carol screams at him again. Both dogs are quiet for a coupla minutes and then Tug starts barking.

This sucks, he barks.

I hate you, he barks.

Cutter joins in, yelling, When are we gonna get there- and- I gotta go to the bathroom. And Miss Carol’s screeching at both of them to shut the fuck up so she can hear the person she’s talking to on her cell phone.

I close my eyes briefly and try to tune them all out.

Four and half days later we get to the sadness that is Miss Carol’s folks’ house. Miss Carol’s father (we’ll call him Mr. Carol) had to put Miss Carol’s mother (Mrs. Carol) into an assisted living facility a couple of months ago and neither one of them is very happy about it.

We had originally planned to visit Mrs. Carol in her new digs and have dinner with her there but at the last minute Mr. Carol had called Miss Carol and told her that he’d bring her moms home for dinner saying he’d “found” a roast beef in the freezer that Miss Carol could cook.

Well.

We get there after four and half weeks and while Cutter and Tug are tearing around the house and Miss Carol is visiting with Mr. Carol, I’m carrying the baggage and the presents and the dog food and stuff into the house. I carry the dog bowls into the kitchen and see a teeny-tiny little flank steak thawing on a cutting board next to the sink.

I look at it and I think, it can’t be.

So I finish with my chores and grab a beer and I’m leaning up against the kitchen counter when Miss Carol comes in to make herself a cocktail. She looks at the little mound of thawing meat and sighs.

Tell me that’s not dinner, I say.

She sips her drink and says, it’ll be fine. They don’t eat much anymore and I’m not very hungry, she says. And shrugs.

To give Miss Carol her due, she really tried. Once the little lump of flank steak had thawed she pounded it flat to make it look bigger and marinated it and grilled it and then sliced it really, really thin.

But it just wasn’t enough.

We’d been driving for four and half months and hadn’t eaten anything. Even with the potatoes and green beans, it just wasn’t enough so finally, after I’d licked my plate clean, I distracted Mr. Carol by saying, What’s that?

And while he looked away, I stole a scrap of his steak and jammed it into my mouth.

Miss Carol saw me do it and hesitated and then she said to her moms, Wow, look over there.

And stole a scrap of HER steak.

This went on, back and forth, until Mr. Carol’s and Mrs. Carol’s steak was gone. They gazed down at their plates, looking a little puzzled and perplexed until I convinced them that they’d eaten a TON of food and gosh, golly, they must be full.

The next day, after I’d carted everything back out to MR.GREENE. again and loaded it up, I left the back door of the truck open and went to fetch Cutter and Tug. They burst out of the house dragging me from bush to bush smelling everything and peeing wildly until we got down the steps to the sidewalk and they saw the open door and they both stopped, stunned.

You’re kiddin’ me, right? Cutter said.

doggy hell.

Miss Carol decided that this Sunday past would be the end-all, do-all Christmas weekend. Or not even the weekend. It was gonna be the be-all SUPER CAROL SUNDAY.

And it was.

Miss Carol made like 35 bread pudding thingies for her staff and a half dozen rum cakes and made brunch and pulled a splinter out of my finger and cooked dinner and we did the tree thing and hung lights and addressed cards and lit Christmas smelling candles and slathered and wrapped ourselves in Christmasness.

And then late last night while I’m slunk and spent in the Me Only Room, listening to music and trying to forget Christmas, Cutter walks in and sits down.

He cleared his throat, but I didn’t hear him. So he grabbed my shirt sleeve and yanked it back and forth to get my attention.

Coming awake, I was like, dude, what’s up?

Cutter stood and glared at me.

Why’d you drag that bush into the living room? he says.

It’s a Christmas tree, I say. It’s supposed to represent the joy of the season, pulling my sodden arm out of his mouth.

It’s a bush. It makes me wanna pee on it, he says.

Super.