What I did over Winter Vacation

I’ve been ignoring you my vast horde of half a dozen readers, but I have a good reason. I was finishing my first novel and frankly couldn’t be bothered with you. Don’t be offended. What’s it about, you ask? I said, what’s it about YOU ASK? Thank you, I’ll tell you.

Charles Mussenfuss is an out of work spoon bender who meets a girl in a bar. They fall in love and marry in a ceremony resplendent in pomp, circumstance and fine deli meats. Every thing is going along perfectly until Mary’s father announces that he isn’t human. He is a cyborg from the year 2345 who has come back to rid the Earth of transient parakeets, of which Mary has 346.

Chapter 2 finds the world devoid of small birds. Charles and Mary settle into married life which is wonderful until, without small birds to eat, the big ones like hawks and eagles start attacking humans for food. Mary loses three toes but Charles defends himself well developing a taste for screech owls.

Chapters 3-106 Character back story.

Chapter 107 This chapter is kind of a mess, may have to rewrite it. All the characters’ names changed to Glenn for some reason.

Chapter 108 The parakeets are back and Charles and Mary live happily ever after in the forests of Delaware with their cyberdog Muffin.

Well, that’s it. The novel is called “Whatever Happened to Sanity?”

Ok, the truth is I was working on a novel and have finally finished the first draft. It’s a horror story which is not my normal subject matter for this blog so I thought I’d have some fun. Say goodnight Charles and Mary.

My Wild Colleen

This is my cat I adopted from the SPCA about 10 days ago. Her name is Wild Colleen. She’s not wild by any means; I took the name from a song. Her collar has a few tags on it that jingle when she walks. During the day it’s a mild mannered sound, one that is almost soothing when you watch her running happily around the home. At 3 a.m. however, those tags are REALLY DAMN LOUD!

Little Colleen has not learned yet that if I wake up in the middle of the night I’m going to shift positions in bed. Don’t know why I do, just do. Every movement I make Colleen jumps off the bed and runs down the hallway like it’s time to get up. If I don’t fall back to sleep right away a few minutes later I hear her jingling her way up the hall and back into the room. This is what I hear for the next what seems like an hour:

JINGLE JINGLE JINGLE    JINGLE JINGLE JINGLE    JINGLE JINGLE JINGLE JINGLE JINGLE JINGLE JINGLE JINGLE JINGLE JINGLE JINGLE JINGLE JINGLE JINGLE JINGLE JINGLE JINGLE JINGLE        JINGLE JINGLE JINGLE JINGLE JINGLE JINGLE JINGLE JINGLE JINGLE JINGLE JINGLE JINGLE JINGLE JINGLE JINGLE JINGLE JINGLE JINGLE JINGLE JINGLE JINGLE JINGLE   JINGLE JINGLE JINGLE

Until I turn over and plead: “Will you please lay down. Here, in the living room or on the moon, just stop moving!” Oddly enough for a cat, she actually comes when I call her name in the middle of the night. She jumps on my pillow and kneads it for awhile. Then she walks all over my body like she’s climbing the Matterhorn before finally laying down.

If she’s not jingling her tags at the volume of a brass band at 3 a.m. she finds the plastic end of the curtain drawstring and bats it around like a tether ball:

FWAP    FWAP    FWAP   FWAP     FWAP     FWAP     FWAP    FWAP

Colleen! Knead, knead, knead. Climb, climb, climb. Ok, I’ll lay down now.

I’m sure eventually she’ll get used to my nocturnal habits. For now she’s a bit skittish. The fact that she came out of the shelter with 2 infections that I’ve been giving her medicine for hasn’t helped. I want her to trust me so I pin her down and squeeze ointment into her eyes or force her into my sister’s arms so I can shoot pink goop down her throat.

All in all it’s going pretty well. It hasn’t been two full weeks yet and she’s walking around the trailer like she owns the place.

In case you were wondering the song I got her name from is “The Worst Day Since Yesterday” by Flogging Molly.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8YYfn32yRlM

Interviewing the New Year

My interview with 2013:

CO: So far in the news we have Justin “I still look like a fifteen year old girl” Bieber smoking pot, Alabama winning the football national championship, Lindsay Lohan getting arrested, the moron who wants Piers Morgan deported is from Texas . . .  and he’s insane, and Congress is pissing on themselves. Seems a lot like 2012.

2013: Yeah, well, I wanted to ease into my new gig, so, I borrowed a few items from my buddy 2012 to get started.

CO: When will you be asserting your own personality?

2013: Hmmm. Good question. I’m not . . . really . . . motivated . . . for success. So I’m in no hurry.

CO:  But people, in general, look at a new year as an opportunity for things to be better than the previous year.

2013: True, but let’s be honest, does it ever work out that way?

CO: It must sometimes, for someone.

2013: Yeah, that’s not much of an incentive for me to put up an effort.

CO: You’ve been smoking weed with Bieber, haven’t you?

2013: What? How dare . . . yeah, I have. Dude gets good shit too. It’s from some farm in Thailand. Damn, I am so loose right now.

CO: You’re not going to do anything about anything, are you?

2013: Hmm? Wha?

CO: Do I hear . . . the Grateful Dead?

2013: Truckin’ like the doodah man!

CO: Go away.

2013: In 357 days brother.

CO: Happy New Year!