Old Yeller

Tags

cats, Humour, lessons learned, life

I am going to tell you this right now, know that I am shooting straight (or at least straighter than a certain two cats) — it’s possible to teach an old dog new cat pee tricks.

This old dog is learning the hard way.

Dark picture. That’s a Fresh Wave container in the middle, bravely defending the room from the stink attack.

Finished with the painting of my recently purchased condo, mostly moved in, the place clean and tidy, the to do list whittled down to just a few things.  One of the things left on that to do list is to remedy the cat pee stains in the front corner of the master bedroom, where the previous owner kept the cat box.  One of the two cats was male and, being the typical male, he apparently missed the toilet now and then most of the time.  Let’s just say that it is very obvious where the litter box was placed in the room from the yellow outline in the carpet.  The stench was also obvious, not overwhelming, but not pleasant either.  Something had to be done.

Old Dog Lesson #1 — Do NOT use steaming hot water in the carpet cleaning machine when attempting to shampoo out cat urine in the carpet.

Remember that I said that the stench was obvious but not overwhelming.  After I shampooed the carpet last Saturday, the stench grabbed me by the collar and punched me in the face the next time that I walked through my front door.  To say that the scent is strong is an understatement.

Old Dog Lesson #2 — Expensive enzymatic solutions are not always the solution.

Not yet, at least.  I soaked the area with a popular enzymatic odor eliminator specifically formulated for cat urine.  I will dare to mention the brand as there are likely going to be people who read this blog who will recommend it.  Now the manufacturer will likely read it also.  The concoction I used is Nature’s Miracle.  So far, with the carpet nearly dry, there has been no miracle.  The stench might actually be worse.  I am not going to blame the cleaner.  Perhaps the fact that the area has been recently treated with shampoo caused the NM to be ineffective.  I have heard good things about NM, so I am not going to knock the stuff.  Unfortunately, the stuff ain’t helping.

If the odor isn’t gone once the cleaner has dried, I am going to try white vinegar.  If that doesn’t work, I am going to try baking soda with hydrogen peroxide and dishwashing liquid.  If that doesn’t work, I am going to buy gas masks and hand them to every guest as they walk through my front door.

This old dog is not pissed off.  Nor am I going to give up.  This does indeed suck, however.

 

Heck Might Be Too Much

Tags

Humour

I belong to a unique fraternity, a band of brothers of sorts, all of whom worked for the same company for an extended period of time with a dramatic ending for each.  That trauma gives us a unique bond, one which finds us sharing fantasies of what sort of torture should be inflicted on the specific person who orchestrated our demise, an enemy we all agree is worthy of punishment.  Each brother has a different degree of lust for revenge, dreams that at times make me flinch at their harshness.  Revenge is not my cup of tea, not something I want to allow into my mind.  While I can’t claim to perfection, my disdain for the person of disgust clear to me, I can’t bring myself to hate a person enough to want them to be harmed.  Punishment for anyone is not my responsibility.  I don’t want anyone’s unmentionables to be chopped off and fed to them, as some of my friends have intimated.

That said, I guess there could be some things I might wish on my enemies.  If I were to put together a list, the top five things I might wish on my enemies might just look like this —

1.  Chronic hemorrhoids for eternity.  I’m thinking that spending every day scootching along the carpet with the family dog might be sufficient punishment, especially if said enemy ends up in hell.  That adds a twist to the phrase “itching and burning”.
2. Bette Midler singing “Wind Beneath My Wings” and stuck in their head 24/7 for one month.  I’m thinking one day of this torture might cause the inflicted to jump off of a tall bridge.  Fllllllyyyyyyy… flllllyyyyyyYYYY….
3. Bad health insurance.  I’m pretty sure someone cursed me with this one years ago.
4. Cub fans for a lifetime.  Sadly, this one exists and some people choose this curse.  As a Cardinal fan who has known baseball heaven on earth my whole life, this punishment would indeed be hell on earth.  The only worse punishment might be the curse of being a White Sox fan for life.  Let me just say this — professional baseball should be banned from the city of Chicago (wait.. it has been for some time).
5. Put them in a minivan with three elementary age children who have just consumed three supersized frozen cokes each, make them drive a 1500 mile turnpike without exits and 100 miles between rest areas.  Bonus if the rest area toilets require $2.00 in quarters for entry.  Extra bonus if there are plenty of rivers and waterfalls to view along the way.  Heck, for added grins the van’s stereo should have Wind Beneath My Wings stuck in a loop and the off button broken.  Those hemorrhoids should burn even more as the butt cheeks clench.

I would love to hear further suggestions.  My mind is already beginning to churn out more ideas, an evil chuckle passing my lips.

⁴³ “You have heard that it was said, ‘Love your neighbor^[i] and hate your enemy.’ ⁴⁴ But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, ⁴⁵ that you may be children of your Father in heaven. He causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous. (Matthew 5:43-45, NIV)

Jesus was right.  But, but, but JESUS, come on… just a few little thoughts?  You have to admit, the minivan thing is pretty good, Lord!

 

Stupid Is As Stupid Does

Tags

Humour, life, middle age, mountain biking

I hate it when my actions exceed the threshold of stupidity.

Shut up… it’s not a daily, hourly, or every minute of my life occurrence.

One of the necessities of riding a bicycle, especially when riding off road, is being prepared for a flat tire.  There are some who avoid that unpleasant experience with tubeless tires, but I am not a tubeless guy (I like my tube) so I still need to carry a spare tube, patch kit, and CO2 inflator with me when I ride.  When riding my mountain bike, I have all I need stashed in plastic bags, tucked inside my hydration pack.. right next to the baggie of folded toilet paper.

Sunday morning, I decided to venture to the trails for a BCD (butt crack of dawn) ride.  It was going to be a sweltering, humid day, thus necessitating an early ride while it was still relatively cool.  As I unloaded my bike at the trailhead, the birds chirped merrily around me, greeting me in my revelry.  This was going to be a great ride, I just knew it.  True to expectations, my body felt fantastic as I zipped up the first trail, strong and good-for-me fast.  My warm up always takes me from the front of the park to the back, roughly a mile to a water crossing that leads to a nice, challenging loop of trails.  I got to the water crossing FAST.

The water crossing was a little deep.  Hikers have been damming it up, probably so they don’t get their dainty little feet damp as they cross.  Mountain bikers, who build and maintain the trails in the park, have been removing the dams.  Back and forth, build and tear down.  It has been a dam war.  When I came to the top of the drop into the water crossing, I noticed that the hikers had built yet another little dam.  Confident that the water wasn’t too deep, I swooped down the trail and into the water, my elbow wet as the water splashed around my bicycle.

*Fssssssshhhhhht fssssssshhhhhttttttt fsssssshhhhtttt*

Oh ssssssshhhhhtttttt.  A front flat.  The hikers must have been fighting back, booby trapped the crossing.  No worries, it was a front tire flat and I had my kit with me.  I removed the wheel, whipped the tube out of the tire, took out the spare tube, replaced it, inflated the tire with CO2.

*Fsssssssssssssssssssssssssssssshhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhttttttttttttttttttttttttt*

Crud.  I thought I had inspected the tire for the cause of the puncture.  I was out of luck since I only had one CO2 cartridge and one spare tube.  I replaced the wheel, carried my bike the mile or so back to my car.  Shucks.  The birds all pooped on me as I got back to my car, blew raspberries as they flew away.

Sunday afternoon, at home, I decided to fix the flat tire.  As I pulled the punctured tube out of the tire, a thought struck me.

Is it possible that I had put the same tube, the punctured tube, back in the tire that morning?

Intrigued, I pulled the tube I had put back in my hydration pack.  It looked new and unused.

I now have a large hand print on my forehead.

 

 

Fear the Teen

Tags

family, fatherhood, Humour

Curious as to what I listen to while I write or while I pluck my nose hairs?  Probably not, but I am going to share it any hoo —

My neck hurts.  I have definitely been rubbernecking.  Don’t get that confused with necking, if any one who reads this is old enough to get the term.  I am.  And old enough that it hasn’t applied for some time now.

17 year old males are frightening.  I know there are plenty of fathers who agree with me.  We understand them, remember what we were like at that age, which frightens us even more and possibly even causes us to wet our adult diapers.  Even when I know what is coming, I am more edgy than Richard Simmons in a haunted house.

Of course, he would probably soil his running shorts.  How’s that for a visual?  You’re welcome.

You may be asking, Steve, what frightens you the most about having a 17 year old son?  Dealing with the girl question?  (No)

Zits?  (Nope, although that was a rough one)

Driving privileges?  (Nada, although that one is a source of high anxiety and so close that you’re HOT)

Video games?  (Ha, I laugh in your general direction.. while I fart, of course)

Enough questions.  If you ask more questions, I will have to marry you.

Garbage.  I swear, my son drives to the corner and back in my car and it comes back filled with enough fast food bags, candy wrappers, burrito foil, shake cups, plastic bottles, and other assorted junk food associated detritus to fill a landfill.  My son is a trash master.

I was not prepared for this condition.  When I was a teenager, I was fastidious, a lawn mower and so possessed with keeping my own car clean (and my parents’ cars) that I was hired to detail cars by neighbors and relatives.  How in the world did I spawn a refuse master?

A bit of that emerged from my gene pool when I was in my twenties, affecting me temporarily before I came back to my senses.  My bedroom for a short period of time became a bomb zone, with the rest of the house/apartment a pristine showcase that all single women adored.

I let my son drive my car last weekend, a four hour trek to Indiana for a visit to his sister at her college.  Was I frightened about him driving?  Yes.  A bit.  But not too much.  When he got home, the digital clocks in the car were messed up.  I questioned him about it.  As I suspected, he left the lights on and had to have my car jump started.  That kind of stuff does frighten me.  What shocked me more was when I entered my vehicle after he returned home.  His mother had given him too much spending money and it showed.  I cleared a path so that I could sit in the driver’s seat.  There was so much garbage, I can’t even estimate how much had to be removed.  Even worse, when I got in my car on Monday morning to go to work, more giggling bottles frolicked from under the passenger seat.

My advice to anyone with sons who are about to get their license — murder them now.  It will be worth the jail sentence.

---

On another note, I am ready for tonight’s game 7 of the World Series.

Cold Feet

Tags

fun, Humour, lessons learned, life, neighbors, personal

Did I ever tell you that I live in the Chicago area?  Probably.

Did I ever tell you that I am an incurable St. Louis Cardinals baseball fan?  Undoubtedly.

Saturday night, my feet suddenly felt ice cold, as in “hell just froze over” cold.  That can only mean one thing and one thing only.  Only one.

Did I ever tell you something using the words ‘one’, ‘only’ and ‘thing’?  Of course.

The Cubs won the NLCS and are on their way to the World Series.

I was afraid to go to church last Sunday morning.  It was not because it was sell your house and follow me Sunday.  It wasn’t.  No.  There was a distinct possibility that church attendance would be drastically reduced.  After all, the rapture certainly occurred overnight and the world was about to end.

That will only occur if the Cubs actually perform the impossible and win the Series.

My next door neighbors are absolutely koo koo.  Nuts.  Hog wild excited.  The other night, they brought ‘Cub cakes’ to me — chocolate cup cakes with white frosting and a big blue W on top.  It was Be Nice To Someone Whose Team Is Not In The Playoffs For The First Time In Six Years day.  I think they were hoping their kindness would break the Cubs out of their scoring slump.  Apparently that worked.

Tonight, while I was mowing the lawn, my neighbors suddenly emerged from their house, yelling and screaming and waving a huge white W flag while marching around me.  Cub fans are a little dense.  Never taunt an angry man who is pushing a gas powered machine with whirling, sharp blades.

I joke.  I only mooned them…… (_._)

Now they have placed a little white W flag on the fence facing my house, a solar spotlight illuminating it so I can enjoy viewing it all night.  Yay.  Yippee.

Lest any one forget, I have failed miserably in raising my son.  He is a Cub fan.

I knew that this time was coming.  The Cubs were too good last season, barely missing the World Series.  I imagined escaping to a remote island on the Pacific, a refuge from the heckling, scantily clad island girls feeding me grapes and bringing me Coronas.  What I have discovered by weathering the storm is that this might be one of the most pleasant experiences that I have ever had, rivaling the celebrations I have had watching my Cardinals winning the World Series multiple times.  Seriously.  Cub fans are ecstatic, civil, giddy.. and it is truly enjoyable watching them celebrate.  I haven’t missed an inning of the Cubs’ playoff games the past few weeks, doubt that I will miss a World Series game.  This is fun.  It really is.

Don’t expect me to go overboard.  I would rather WATCH the celebration, not actually declare my love for the team.

See you at the end of the world.  It could be coming reaaaaaaaalllllll sooooooon.

 

Mud Mud Go Away

Tags

biking, Humour, life

It wasn’t as painful as I thought it was going to be.  All day I thought about it, tried convincing myself that I used to do it every day, religiously, almost to the point of addiction.  Really it is not something terrible, not at all, I just have found something so much better.

Besides, I don’t rock spandex like I used to.

Tentatively, I mounted the old titanium steed.  I wasn’t quite sure that I remembered what it was like to ride a road bike.  Would I make mistakes?  Maybe I would fall over?  Looking at the tight bib shorts, I almost felt exposed, my man bits displayed for all to see.

Man bits.  Yes.  I said that.

Stepping into the Look pedals was a bit (not man bit) awkward at first.  The SPD cleats that I used with my mountain bike pedals are smaller, a simple step in.  If you don’t hit a road pedal with the cleat at the proper angle, it doesn’t always engage cleanly.

Dealing with drivers also took some getting used to again.  After a mile, a driver passed me on the left as I was entering an intersection, then turned right immediately in front of me, the car leaning so much into the turn that the tires were squealing.  I do not miss interactions with cars and rude drivers.  Not at all.

I maintained a respectable 18 mph average for 15 miles.  Not terrible.  I could do this again, but, well, the trails will not be muddy tomorrow….

Devious Dad

Tags

boyfriend, daughter, family, Father, Father's Day, fatherhood, Home, Humour, Mother, parents, Stay at Home Fathers

“Dad, you didn’t.”.. slight emphasis on the word didn’t.

“Dad, you didn’t.”.. a little more emphasis on the word didn’t.

“Dad, you DIDN’T!” .. I don’t need to tell you.

“Oh no, Dad, YOU DIDN’T!”.. the blush said it all as my daughter took her seat two rows in front of me, her head turning my way just to make sure all was as she said it didn’t was.  On her trip across the band room in front of me, she stopped as she delivered each warning.  For indeed, “Dad, you didn’t” was just that, a warning.

I have earned her caution over the years of devious fatherhood.  My daughter lives in fear of her father when it comes to her boyfriends.  She should.  My form of evil with my daughter’s suitors has never been violence or threats of violence, it has been my tendency towards embarrassment and a unique sense of humor.  I will say no more.  Let’s just say Alyssa has reason to fear whenever I am in the presence of any of her beaus.

She has a new boyfriend, Matt or “Bear” as he is called, declared official just this week.  There is no surprise to the announcement as we have seen it coming for some time.  Oddly enough my daughter seems to enjoy talking to me about him, shows me the little cartoons and notes he has created for her, as well as what she gives to him.  I like the boy, find his creativity and humor a good fit for my daughter.  Mir is cautious about him simply because there is more we need to know about him.  I agree.

So, at last night’s family band rehearsal, I took a seat next to Bear.  Bear plays the trumpet.  So do I.  Now, why in the world would my daughter think I chose a seat next to him on purpose? (I am soooo innocent)  I simply smiled what I am sure was an evil grin as she travelled in front of me.  What I loved was that Bear was chuckling and snorting the whole time.  We tossed in a high five just to get Alyssa more worried.

I’m thinking this could be a good match.. and I’m not talking about my daughter.