Long Relief

Did I Miss Anything While I Was Away?

2008-04-23T13:11:00.000-07:00

I know I should apologize for my long absence, but since I am a big jerk, I won’t. I do appreciate all the kind things said while I was away. It’s nice to be missed. It almost makes me feel bad for not apologizing. Almost. I’ll go have a beer later to get over it.

Things between Mrs. Lefty and I have been good lately. There has, of course, been the sort of marital strife common to all marriages: getting on each others’ nerves, little arguments, throwing hammers and other hardware within reach, endless police visits to the house, probation, etc. Since we spoke last, my marriage has never been healthier. And I truly mean that. (Mrs. Lefty is currently unemployed again, though, so we’re back on that treadmill.)

Our kids, however, are another matter entirely. In fact, I’ll be writing about that on my BRAND NEW blog that Mrs. Lefty will know exists. That’s right. Long Relief has been an anonymous blog, but the new one will be far less so. Mrs. Lefty may even post some rants--I mean, “thoughtful commentary”--of her own.

If you have been a visitor to this site in the past, I will post on your blog with the new identity, and you can come check out the new blog. Please, though, do not ever (unless you want me to become chum in my next life) let on that Lefty is in any way connected to the new blog. I probably won’t make any new posts here after today, but I will keep it up as a disturbing reminder to myself of what can happen if I have too much time on my hands and don’t drink enough beer.

See you around.

Everything I Need to Forget I Learned in Kindergarten

2007-10-26T14:55:00.000-07:00

Mrs. Lefty and I saw our therapist this week, and I told one of my most embarrassing stories. It reinforces the idea that my insecurity and jealousy are issues that I have carried with me for a long time. It doesn’t, however, explain why I sometimes feel these emotions so strongly.

When I was in kindergarten, I became enamored with one of the girls in my class. I don’t recall how this little relationship began. She probably offered me a beer at snack time.

I remember very clearly sitting at one of those tiny kindergarten tables next to this young lady. The teacher asked for a volunteer to pass out papers, and her hand shot up immediately. My little brain was confused. Why would my new friend want to get up and pass out papers when she could be sitting with me?

I was hurt. I was afraid she didn’t really like me. If she really liked me, she would want to spend every moment with me, right? I am sure that I acted in a needy, clingy way that only an annoying 5-year-old can pull off with panache. Predictably, our friendship didn’t even make it to nap time.

Why did I experience those intense feelings of insecurity at such a young age? I wish I could blame my parents, but I had a great childhood. They loved me and supported me in everything I did. Maybe there was not enough fluoride in the water. Or maybe too much.

Today, I still sometimes feel insecure about myself and my talents, even in areas where I have a proven track record. I sometimes feel pangs of jealousy that cause me to be stupid and overbearing. These days, it is harder to pass off my actions as 5-year-old immaturity.

The good news is that I handle myself now better than I did ten years ago. I am better able to talk myself through the irrationality of it all. I think one reason is that I’m getting older and curmudgeonier. (I’m pretty sure that’s a word.)

One of these days I’ll be perfect. In fact, I’m pretty darn close right now.

An unrelated note: don’t you think everybody hates the Boston Red Sox right about now?

WWC: Disguise and Reflection

2007-10-23T07:39:00.000-07:00

I've been wanting to get in on the Weekly Words Challenge (WWC) game, mainly for the cash and prizes. Anyone who enters gets free beer. At least that's what I've been told.

Tink runs this shell game over at her place, and you can get the complete rules there. The idea is simple--get two words, take two pictures. I've decided to take pictures that say something important about me, because if we've learned anything since 9/11, it's that everything is about Lefty.

DISGUISE
REFLECTION

See how it works? Simple, eh?

Give Time if Over Have Street

2007-10-19T11:43:00.000-07:00

I have attempted, with only moderate success, to describe just how bloody frustrating my secretary is. I hope the following illustration of her incompetence will allow you to feel my angst (thanks for the great word, Sturdy Girl (formerly Love Monkey)).

I was out of the office most of the day yesterday, and I returned to find several telephone messages on my desk. On one of them, the secretary had written only the gentleman’s first name, no telephone number, and this delightful message: “call put you won’t here.” That is exactly what she wrote. I have no idea what it means, either. Even my secretary seemed to be confused at what she had written.

Sigh.

In other news, I have fixed Jen Mck’s and mel’s new blog addresses in my 40-Man Roster. I also added Guilty Secret and Have the T-Shirt. If you check them out, tell them Lefty sent you. They’ll send me a case of beer for any referrals.

Saving the World, One Killer Robot at a Time

2007-10-17T09:39:00.000-07:00

Some reasons why killer robots are a bad idea.

Killer robots take jobs away from killer human beings.

Killer robots are a major source of greenhouse gases.

The planet already has Barbara Walters.
Killer robots would drive up the price of Hostess cupcakes, their major food resource.

Killer robots just don’t “get” Will Farrell.

Killer robots give love a bad name.

There is already a band called the Killer Robots, and it would be too confusing.

It is a proven fact that killer robots cannot distinguish friend from foe.
Killer robots are terrible drivers.

Killer robots have been known to leave abusive comments on my blog.

Did I miss any?

CSI: Cherry Log

2007-10-13T11:41:00.000-07:00

I had never been anywhere near Atlanta before. As I mentioned previously, I had some assumptions and prejudices about what it would be like in the South (defined as anywhere outside the state where I live). In particular, I was terrified of being stopped by any law enforcement official. I figured that was a sure way to disappear forever.

Oddly enough, about ten minutes after we picked up the rental car, one of my colleagues was driving and slipped around a line of traffic to get to the turn lane. There was an officer at the side of the road and he waved for us to pull over. This is it, I thought. We're headed to a Georgia gulag for sure.

"This is not a passing lane," said the officer, preparing to sick a pack of police dogs on us.

"I'm sorry, I didn't know that."

There was a long moment of silence.

"I'll let you off with a warning this time."

It's a damn good thing I had used the restroom at the rental car place.

Reality proved a little different from my fears. People were friendly and polite. No one shot at us.

I only have one complaint. Every time a Georgia native spoke to me, I kept thinking to myself, "You're in America now. Speak English!"

In the few days we were there, we slept very little, drank whenever we weren't sleeping, watched some baseball, and whined about the middle management in our company. The fact that we also qualify as middle management didn't seem to faze us.

At the "package store" (i.e. place to purchase our liquor), we loaded up. I saw some Landshark Lager and considered it, but eventually went with an extra pale ale from an Atlanta brewery, Sweet Water. It was a good, hoppy beer. If any of you have had the Wingwalker pale ale, it was a little like that. Most of the others bought wine. How crass.

Oh yes, one other complaint. The cabin we used was in Blue Ridge, just north of Cherry Log. We went out to eat at about 7 or 7:30 one night, and every damn place was closed. If any of you live in Georgia, could you write a note to your state legislator about that?

Plus, the five of us had two full days with a semi-legend in our field. Priceless. (Well, not exactly. I can tell you precisely how much I spent.)

Do You Think They Have Indoor Plumbing?

2007-10-09T16:47:00.000-07:00

I’m leaving again. This time I will be jetting to lovely Cherry Log, Georgia, just north of Atlanta. I’ve never been, so I am assuming it is lovely because that’s what the Cherry Log Chamber of Commerce tells me.

I’ll be at a two-day seminar. Five of us will spend time with the top person in our field. He may be the top person in the last 100 years. Or ever. In other words, he’s good. The other four people are some of my closest colleagues, and we always have fun together.

There may be wine. Maybe even beer. Possibly, if we’re lucky, basketball. I’ll tell you all the great stories when I get back.

On the home front, things have been very stressful at the Lefty home. That’s mainly because I am the only one there who is perfect in every way. I’ll share about some of that when I return, too.

In other news, the Cubs take their ringless streak to 100 years. And the West proves best in the National League.

College football is generally annoying the hell out of me.

See y’all when I get back.

For Everything There Is a Season

2007-10-02T09:21:00.000-07:00

The curtain closed on baseball’s regular season Sunday. If my team will not be continuing to the postseason, there is always a tinge of sadness as the final out is recorded. Pitchers and catchers won’t report to Spring Training until February, and Opening Day is in early April.

I will miss the thrill of the pennant races, the tension of a close game in the late innings, and the excitement of a big rally. More than those, however, I will miss the rhythm of the game. There is something comforting about listening to the middle innings of a game in June. Or watching on television the first pitch on a Sunday afternoon in mid summer. Falling asleep to the sounds of the announcers wrapping up the postgame show with the out-of-town scoreboard.

Baseball evokes memories of my childhood, and I had a very good childhood. From March to October, baseball dominated my days (and nights). Every evening after dinner, my father and I would play catch in the backyard. I would ride my bike to the park on the corner for my Little League games. Soothing voices from the radio--occasionally punctuated by the roar of the crowd--would lull me to sleep. I spent every dime on baseball cards.

Baseball echoes the rhythm of life. The innings pass with the regularity of sun and moon. The players come and go as friends appear in and disappear from our lives. Some things seem eternal, such as the announcer who has been with the club for more than 50 years, or the bright blue seats and green grass of the stadium. We hope those will never disappear, but, like a parent or spouse, they may someday pass into memory.

Other sports are a diversion, something to enjoy for a few hours at a time. Baseball has its own sense of time. It is a continuum. One game runs into the next, one season into another. Baseball isn’t like life, it is life.

For those of you who have teams in the playoffs, I say first, bite me. Second, enjoy. In a few days I’ll be able to join you and appreciate the climax of the baseball year. For now, I’m going to sulk a little bit more while my boys clean out their lockers and go home.

And Now Presenting...

2007-09-26T15:12:00.000-07:00

...another hilarious episode of "What's Funny; What's Not."

WHAT’S FUNNY
Little Britain on BBC America (“I’m the only gay in the village, you know.”)

When our stupid bird loses his balance and falls off the back of the couch.

Mrs. Lefty spilling her coffee onto the newspaper.

Video clips of cats appearing out of nowhere to pounce on young children.

This guy:

WHAT’S NOT FUNNY
Howard the Duck

Long losing streaks in which every game is lost after taking a lead into the late innings.

Lefty spilling his coffee onto the newspaper.

Video clips of cats playing the piano.

This guy:

It's Like Working in a Carnival Sideshow

2007-09-25T10:50:00.000-07:00

Does anybody have any advice for handling people who have fragile egos? And by that, I mean the people who feel the need to gain attention and gather accolades to themselves, and who fume and pout at every perceived slight? And all of this, despite the fact (or perhaps, because of the fact) that they produce few actual results except to drive everyone around them completely nuts.

One of these days I'm going to snap and put them all into the wood chipper.

What's in a Name?

2007-09-24T06:04:00.000-07:00

In lieu of my usual intellectually complex blog entry about global warming, economic theory and drinking more beer, I've decided to keep it light today. Also, it will give me more time to do actual work this morning.

This is from Allison at Planet Alien:

1. YOUR ROCK STAR NAME: (first pet & current car) Sunrise Sonoma

2.YOUR GANGSTA NAME: (fav ice cream flavor, favorite cookie) Cherry Garcia Oatmeal Raisin

3. YOUR "FLY Guy/Girl" NAME: (first initial of first name, first three letters of your last name) L-Sni (for "Lefty Snicket")

4. YOUR DETECTIVE NAME: (favorite color, favorite animal) Blue Hawk

5. YOUR SOAP OPERA NAME: (middle name, city where you were born) David La Mesa

6. YOUR STAR WARS NAME: (the first 3 letters of your last name, first 2 letters of your first) Sni-Le

7. SUPERHERO NAME: (2nd favorite color, favorite drink put "The") The Crimson Beer

8. NASCAR NAME: (the first names of your grandfathers) Norman Edward

9. STRIPPER NAME: (the name of your favorite perfume/cologne, favorite candy) Old Spice Peppermint Patty (I'd better keep my day job with a name like that.)

10.WITNESS PROTECTION NAME: (mother's & father's middle names ) Belinda Riley

11. TV WEATHER ANCHOR NAME: (Your 5th grade teacher’s last name, a major city that starts with the same letter) Kraft Kalamazoo

12. SPY NAME: (your favorite season/holiday, flower) Arbor Day Poppy

13. CARTOON NAME: (favorite fruit, article of clothing you’re wearing right now + “ie” or “y”) Strawberry Shoelacey

14. HIPPY NAME: (What you ate for breakfast, your favorite tree), Number 22 Combo Oak

15. YOUR ROCKSTAR TOUR NAME: (”The” + Your favorite hobby/craft, favorite weather element + “Tour") The Drinking Sunshine Tour ("Don't miss Sunrise Sonoma in The Drinking Sunshine Tour. It's the hottest ticket since Hitler in Springtime.)

More Miscellany

2007-09-21T09:49:00.000-07:00

It has been a long week. I look forward to sleeping in tomorrow.

I have come to the sad realization that Jessica Alba is too young for me.

Plus, I'm way too hot, Lefty.

I already have a busy October planned. On October 1, I have jury duty. On the 10th, I am scheduled to fly to Atlanta for a small seminar with one of the top people in my field. That will be a lot of fun, especially since some of my favorite colleagues will also attend.

I am a little afraid of Atlanta, though. I’ve heard it is a scary place full of mountain trolls and Piggly Wigglys.

Try the Mountain Troll Chitlins.

Did you know that I lived in Hawaii for 6 years?

Baseball is one of those games that interjects the highest highs and the lowest lows into your life. From inning to inning--let alone throughout an entire season--your team can go from being on top of the world to the pit of despair. Hope is eternally kindled, but easily dashed. That is especially true during the pennant race and postseason.

My particular team has had a string of disasters just when it seemed as if they were making a move. One of the late inning pitchers, who had come in to dominate opposing hitters for nearly two years, suddenly lost it. He was giving up clutch home runs almost every time out, something like 6 out of his last 7 appearances. There is no real chance to make the playoffs.

I look forward only to a long winter full of regret.

Is it just me, or does the sun look a lot more menacing lately?

Who Even Knew I Had Brain Cells?

2007-09-20T10:24:00.000-07:00

Neurons firing randomly in my brain...

Disney is shooting part of a film on my street today. The working title is G-Force. They are filming a chase scene. That means that my house could become famous. Maybe it will win an Oscar (“Best Single Family Dwelling in a Supporting Role”). I did have to park one street over last night, though, to be sure I could get to work in the morning.

I haven’t had a good cake donut with white frosting and rainbow sprinkles in a long time.

Poor Mrs. Lefty had to go to the emergency room Sunday night. She has severe abdominal pain occasionally, and we usually get to the ER three or four times a year because the pain gets so bad.

Did you know that I make the best buttermilk pancakes ever?

If you plan to drive on a public road, remember to pay attention to the lights. When it is green, that means “go”! And yes, I’m talking to you, driver of the black Audi who would rather talk on her damn cell phone than actually drive her car.

I have a meeting tonight, so I can’t play basketball. Sometimes this damn job of mine really messes up my life.

I have begun to address the question of offense vs. pitching/defense again. Rather than simply spouting off my own beliefs without solid evidence, I have started compiling some statistical data. That’s one more reason to love baseball--statistics. Mmm. Delicious.

That being said, I hate baseball today even more than I did yesterday.

The Lights Are On, but Everybody's Home

2007-09-19T11:34:00.000-07:00

I woke up suddenly on Saturday night. The room was dark as a cave. That’s unusual, even at night, because there are normally half a dozen LEDs staring at me from the computer and modem. But there was nothing.

Mrs. Lefty seemed to be stirring, too. “We don’t have any power,” I said.

Other than the obvious, the problem with this is that both she and I have to be up very early on Sunday mornings. That means we need our alarm clock, which is, of course, electric.

“Somebody is knocking on the door,” said Mrs. Lefty.

My first thought was that somebody was coming around to evacuate the neighborhood due to a pack of rabid hyenas on the loose or some similar disaster. I leapt out of bed, actually remembered to put a pair of pants on, and headed out into the darkness of our hallway.

In weeks past, a trip down our hallway would be like a trip through a minefield. Lately, though, we have told our kids never, ever, on pain of death, to put anything in the hall. No clothes, no trash, no unwanted siblings. Nada. Nothing.

I was confidently striding down the dark hallway when I discovered a laundry basket full of heavy towels in the hall. I discovered it when my shin whacked up against it. I said something I won’t repeat in polite company.

The banging was from my 12-year-old son, knocking on his sister’s door. You see, he is a big chicken. I guess he can’t help it. He lives with me part time in a house with a mom and two sisters, and with his biological mom in a house with a grandmother and great-grandmother. He’s totally surrounded by women.

I have tried to counteract the extreme feminine influence by playing violent video games with him, you know, to toughen him up. And though he’s great at blasting virtual people and monsters to bits, anything that moves in the actual world scares him to death.

So anyway, there I was, shin smarting, staring at the dark image of my son. I told him to go back to bed, and I went to peek out the front window. I looked out and up the hill, and for many blocks, there was nothing but darkness. I looked the other way, and just across the street, taunting me, were all the lights on my neighbor’s front porches.

I went back to our bedroom, where Mrs. Lefty waited. She had apparently just realized our alarm clock was out, because she said, “Oh shit, I’m late for work!”

“What time is it?” I asked.

“I don’t know.”

Sigh.

It turns out that Mrs. Lefty was not late for work. It was only about 1:30am. I set the alarm on my watch.

It also turns out that it was Mrs. Lefty who kindly put the basket of towels in the hall.

The electric company did get the power back on. Ten hours later.

P.S. Sometimes I really hate baseball.

Return of the King

2007-09-12T09:14:00.000-07:00

Yes, I’m finally back. No, I didn’t retire. Nor did I do a stint in the slammer.

Vacation was very nice. Mrs. Lefty and I took two of our kids to San Francisco for a short visit. We did all the typical tourist things—cable cars, Fisherman’s Wharf, Chinatown, beating up homeless people.

When I arrived back at the office there was the usual pile of extra work and emergencies to clean up. I don’t know the name of the physical law involved, but whenever you leave for two weeks of vacation, you always come back to six weeks of work on your desk. Plus, as you know, I have staff people with a gift for creating emergencies unless I am holding their hands.

I’ve been working my ass off, which is why you’ve not heard from me lately. I’m also moving into my busiest quarter of the year, so my goal is to post two to three times a week, probably no more for a while.

Of course, I’ll be as witty and charming as ever.

Note to Tink: I saw a Landshark Lager billboard.

Note to American League fans: Scott Proctor's not bad; Esteban Loaiza sucks.

Autoreply: Lefty Is Free!

2007-08-15T14:12:00.000-07:00

I'm currently vacationing. I'll pop in now and again to update you on all the juicy details.

For now, let's just say that beer is involved.

The Obligatory Search Engine Post

2007-08-10T15:38:00.000-07:00

Here’s how some people have found me lately.

mistakes and boobs--sounds like the story of my life
you seem tough behind that keyboard--especially when I’m not wearing pants
a big collage picture of guy shoes
drink myself--I’m not sure I want to know
how can you tell if she is hiding--I’d say the feet sticking out from the bottom of the window drapes is a good clue
sears womens cotton underpants--can you tell I’m drooling?
redneck everything--I think you were looking for SWF42
exploding sinuses--that would be a great name for a rock band
cat is pooping in laundry hamper--don’t say I didn’t warn you
camper sandals he loves me--I’m not even going to pretend I understand that one
really bad mullets--how about ALL OF THEM?!

The Good Stuff

2007-08-09T11:18:00.000-07:00

A few things that make life worth living:

real whipped cream
Patrick O’Brian’s Aubrey/Maturin books
baseball (And I don’t mean money-grubbing, steroid-stoked Major League baseball, but baseball. You know, playing catch with a ball that fits the human hand perfectly. The smack of the ball into leather. The crack of ball against wooden bat. The crunch of dirt beneath spikes. What W. P. Kinsella calls “the thrill of the grass.” Winning the World Series in the back yard with your best friend as your catcher. Chasing down a fly ball in the gap. Playing catch with your son beneath a deep blue sky in the early days of Spring. That baseball.)
Mrs. Lefty’s meatloaf.
sheer silence
beer (duh)
the cool side of the pillow
the shade of my olive tree
that thing that Mrs. Lefty does (for me to know and you never to find out)
buttermilk pancakes

Harry Potter and the Revenge in the Hallway

2007-08-08T11:02:00.000-07:00

Here’s a mixed bag of stuff from the life of Lefty:

I read the first Harry Potty book. Are you happy? It wasn’t that bad, wasn’t as dull as I remembered. Some parts were even mildly amusing. I may read the second one.

And, for the record, there was absolutely no dampness in my eyes the entire time, not even the kind caused by flying popcorn.

***

I haven’t dropped my toast--or my bread--lately, and I’ve been pretty proud of myself. But this morning, I filled my coffee filter in the office kitchen. I started back to my office and closed the kitchen door behind me. Except, as you must know already, I let the filter slip out of my hand, and every last grain of coffee spilled on the floor.

***

My poor toe. In our bedroom, the bathroom is down a short hallway. Of course, we use the hallway for storing all sorts of things, most of which are hazardous in the middle of the night when you have just gotten up to go to the bathroom.

I headed back to bed a couple of nights ago, and my foot slammed right into something hard. It was, of course, the new Harry Potty book.

I thought I heard a voice. “Ha! Got you, you damn Muggle.”

Setting the Record Straight

2007-08-07T11:33:00.000-07:00

My middle daughter said, somewhat tauntingly, “Your crying movie is on.”

I knew immediately what she meant. You see, several years ago, I took my kids to see the movie Brother Bear. It is a nice story, but somewhere near the end, a flying piece of extra salty popcorn lodged in my eye. Before I got it out, there may have been the slightest dampness in my eye, caused, of course, by the salt.

Somehow, my daughter figured I had become overwhelmed with emotion and actually shed a tear. She’s never let me forget it.

Now, I will freely admit that in Field of Dreams, when Doc forever gives up his dream of playing baseball by stepping off the magical field to help the girl choking on a hot dog, I sobbed like a baby. When, in The Natural, Robert Redford slammed the big home run and chose his first love over the glitzy city girl, I wept for days. And in Bang the Drum Slowly, when the beloved catcher died of cancer (?), I was inconsolable.

But Brother Bear? Nah. It was popcorn, I tell you.

Part Two: Pass the Antacid, Please

2007-08-03T13:10:00.000-07:00

All right, then, where was I?

Oh yes, I was venting about Mrs. Lefty feeling as if I don’t support her enough, particularly when it comes to other people mistreating her.

The reason I am going on about this now is that the past week at the Lefty place has been one of extreme stress. About this time last week, Mrs. Lefty and I had our biggest fight to date about the issue. On back-to-back days, there were two related incidents, in which Mrs. Lefty wanted me to back her up. If you read yesterday’s post, you’ll recall that by “back her up” she meant for me to yell and scream and generally get in somebody’s face. That type of behavior is never productive and will never get a person what they want. But it may be the only way Mrs. Lefty will feel supported by me.

So, at the conclusion of the most recent episode, she modeled the type of behavior she wants from me by swearing at me and getting in my face. Then, she stormed out of the room. A little later she called me and said, “I’ve had enough of this. I’m seriously thinking of a separation.” I didn’t believe she would take that route, and still don’t. She has said similar things before in the heat of her anger.

I told her, “I don’t want that, and I don’t think it would be helpful for either of us.”

This time, though, her anger lasted much longer than usual. She slept on the couch for four days. She completely ignored me except for things about which she absolutely needed to talk to me. Even then, her words were bitter and brusque. She was one cold woman.

And even though I did not fear for the end of our marriage, there was so much tension in the house that my stomach felt like a punching bag. It was a hellish 4 or 5 days. Then, we had our first counseling session since the incident, and, as expected, that took some of the edge off her anger and my tension.

Mrs. Lefty is unable to see that it is unusual that, in her mind, just about every significant person in her life has seriously betrayed and abused her. Now, in fairness, she has been through an enormous amount of trauma--physical and emotional--at the hands of people in her life. She has received serious wounds, inside and outside, because people have done some terrible things to her. And precisely because of that, the world to her is a dangerous place, and she expects every single person on this planet to betray her.

For a person like myself, who has lived a relatively normal--even sheltered--life, I do not expect betrayal. I cannot say that even one single person in my life has abused or betrayed me in a significant way. For Mrs. Lefty, everybody does. That is why I believe it may not be possible for me ever to support her enough. She may always be expecting me to fail her, because, in her mind, everyone else always has.

I am sure hoping, though, that we don’t have to live this way for the next 50 years. It can be quite hellish. I am hoping that somehow the counseling and other things we’re doing to build our marriage will gradually help Mrs. Lefty to get to a more healthy place.

And I know that I have my own issues. As I’ve written before, I tend to avoid conflict. I can be a perfectionist and nitpick at others when they fail to do something perfectly. I procrastinate. I don’t drink nearly enough beer. I have my own issues, and I am working on those.

I have to believe we’ll get there. To Mrs. Lefty’s credit, she is willing to work on things, even though she’s scared to death of confronting some of the things in her past. She’s willing to make the effort, and so am I. As long as that is true, then I have to believe our work will pay off.

Besides, I love her, and she loves me. That makes all the difference in the world.

I'm Not a Bra, You Know

2007-08-02T13:32:00.000-07:00

I have a serious post today. That goes against my better judgment, but I want to vent, and you, loyal readers, are the ventees.

In many ways, Mrs. Lefty and I have great marriage. We do, however, have problems. I’ve mentioned money. That has been a source of great stress in the past. Lately, though, we haven’t argued much about finances. She now has her completely separate accounts, and I have mine.

Instead, another issue has risen to the fore. Since the early days of our marriage, Mrs. Lefty has believed I do not support her emotionally as I should. In my defense, I should point out that I am a man, and men never support their wives as the women think is necessary. Men are simply distant, unfeeling brutes who drink beer.

For Mrs. Lefty, though, it runs deeper than that. It began with my parents. She believes they do not like her, they do not think her a worthy mate for their son. It is clearly true that my parents were surprised to learn I was getting married again and they thought our whirlwind courtship was unwise. In fact, they had not really even gotten over the fact that I was divorced. Then, in one single phone call less than a year after my divorce they learned that 1) I had met somebody new, 2) I was dating somebody new, 3) I had flown thousands of miles to spend a week with that new somebody, and 4) I was getting married to that new somebody in, oh, about two months.

I can understand my parents’ shell shock. Mrs. Lefty’s mother was also dismayed. The morning of our wedding, I saw her mother for about the third time ever, and she said to me, “I woke up this morning hoping it was all a bad dream, and this day would never come.” Welcome son-in-law!

But I don’t blame her mother for feeling that way. She would be, with very little warning, watching her daughter and grandchildren move across the country with a man my new mother-in-law barely knew. And, as it turns out, I have great in-laws. I love them to death, and they have been very kind to my son and me. So despite the early awkwardness, the relationship with my in-laws has been good.

Mrs. Lefty, however, feels frequently snubbed and otherwise mistreated by my parents. I have spoken to them about her discomfort. At another time, all four of us sat down together to discuss it. Unfortunately, Mrs. Lefty still feels mistreated and wants me to stand up for her.

There are a couple of problems with this. First, neither my parents nor I understand what they are doing to upset her. Second, Mrs. Lefty cannot quite describe what they are doing, either. She feels disrespected, but can’t describe the behavior. Third, by “stand up for her” she means “go verbally medieval on their asses.”

Hmmm...I see that I have run out of room for today, but haven’t yet begun to describe things. I guess I’ll continue with part two tomorrow.

P.S. As I was finishing up this post, Mrs. Lefty called to tell me she agreed to work for someone on my birthday, which is normally her day off. Oh yes, we also had an apointment with the counselor for that day.

Eight Things Out

2007-07-31T12:57:00.000-07:00

Somebody who, if there was such a thing as too much fabulous, would be way too fabulous, but instead, since there isn’t such a thing, has just the right amount of fabulousity, tagged me for a meme I’ll call “Eight Things.”

Here are the rules:

Post these rules before I give you the facts.
Players start with eight random facts/habits about themselves.
People who are tagged write their own blog post about their eight things and include these rules.
At the end of the blog post, choose eight people to get tagged and list their names. Don’t forget to leave them a comment telling them they’re tagged and that they should read your blog.

I’m sorry, Bre, but I’ll be ignoring the tagging. If any of you want to play a long, leave a comment to that effect.

I have never tasted even a single drop of light beer. Nor even lite beer.
There is a beautiful old olive tree, about 75 years old, right outside my office window.
I much prefer a watch with a dial and regular numbers to a digital watch or one with Roman numerals.
I had toast today and did not drop either piece on the floor. I almost dropped the butter, though.
When I was about 4 years old, I used to stare directly into the sun without blinking. I thought it was a cool thing to do. I still have nearly perfect vision.
One of my favorite Xbox games is Burnout 3.
Books are among my most treasured possessions.
I think that if I tag people for a meme, they will be annoyed with me, even though I am usually rather flattered.

I think that covers it, don’t you?

Welcome to the Really Big Shoe

2007-07-27T17:52:00.000-07:00

I feel terrible.

Most of the other blogs on my 25-Man Roster reveal something about the true identities of their authors. We know what Love Monkey's cats look like (old, ratty scarves), that Sizzle has had more hairstyles than Madonna, and that G-Man likes to wear clothes with American flags prominently displayed.

And Lefty? All you know is I look like the Tapatio guy without the moustache and hat

Today, it all changes. My anonymity will be shattered once and for all.

Of course, I can't give it all to you at once or the white hot awesomeness that is Lefty would burn you to a crisp or melt your face like the guy from the first Indiana Jones movie. I have instead decided to give you bits and pieces of Lefty, and you can collect them like baseball cards until you know exactly what I look like.

Here's the first...my left foot (or, rather, shoe):

This may take a while.

Just Give Potter a Chance

2007-07-25T13:40:00.000-07:00

I have made many enemies lately by suggesting that Saint Rowling and the Harry Potty series may not be the best things since beer hats.

Not this kind of beer hat. (Note: This is not Lefty.)

Nor this type of beer hat. (Note: Not Mrs. Lefty.)

That's the ticket. (Note: Again, not Lefty. Though in reflection, I’m not sure why I didn’t get more action in college. That beer hat is smokin’ hot!)

Anyway, back to the Pottyphiles. Some of you folks get damn uppity at the mere mention that J.K. might not be able to raise the dead, or that Ron and Hermione were a mistake from the beginning because she’s such a Type A and he’s so passive, or that the books of the series will have a more powerful influence on human history than the Torah, the New Testament and the Koran put together.

I finally decided there must be one of two reasons Harry and his adventures inspire such passion. Either Harry Potty fans are totally out of their minds, or else there is actually something to this phenomenon.

Mrs. Lefty is a part of the Great Muggle Awakening, and I decided to watch her more closely. Since she arrived home at about 1:00am on Saturday morning with two copies of the book, she has been reading every chance she gets. Normally, we watch baseball games together on television, but instead she curled up at the end of the couch with the book. Without warning, she exclaimed, “WHOA!” Apparently, about 80% of the way through the book, something interesting happened. Harry probably revealed he’s actually Snape’s lover or something like that.

And then later, we’re having sex, and Mrs. Lefty is still reading. (Don’t get me wrong, she normally reads while we’re having sex, but it’s usually just a magazine.) This woman won’t quit. She has been working a lot, so she reads during breaks. She’s probably even been reading while she was driving.

As she was finishing the last pages, I decided the peer pressure was too much. I had better read at least one Harry Potty book, or just like those years from Kindergarten through High School, I’ll be the uncool kid again. So here’s my vow: I will read the Potty books. At some point before summer is out, I’ll pick up the first book (Harry Potty and the Grocery List, I believe) and read it, beginning to end. Then, if my brain is not fried by the inanity of it all, I’ll read the next one.

But I also promise this: I’ll continue to make fun of Harry every chance I get!

P.S. If you haven't yet seen "Harry Potter and the Unnecessary Knob," check it out.

You Say Tomato; I Say Cucumber

2007-07-22T09:11:00.000-07:00

I started seeds for my vegetable garden inside and then transplanted them out in the garden after they sprouted.

I had a number of trays, and I was smart enough to label each set of seeds so I'd know what I had. For example, for the cucumbers, I put a big black "C" on the tray. And for the canteloupe, I put a big black "C" on the tray. So maybe there was a slight weakness in my system.

I thought I had them figured out, though, and I put the cucumbers beneath a trellis and the canteloupes in a spot with room to spread out. As you will have guessed, however, I mixed up the two.

I wondered why I couldn't get the plants beneath the trellis to climb.

Toast, Marijuana and Narcolepsy

2007-07-20T14:59:00.000-07:00

Taken from the headlines of my life:

DO-GOODER ARRESTED IN STING
Main Street--Like the civic-minded dork that I am, I pick up trash when I’m walking around town. Even if 50 dopes will simply dump more for every single piece I pick up, I feel like I’m doing something positive for this city.

A few days ago, I picked up a small plastic sandwich bag. Inside were the remains of some fellow citizen’s marijuana. You’ll be pleased to know that I was not arrested for possession. I did, however, have visions of being locked up for carrying around one-ten thousandth of an ounce of pot.

WIFE STRIKES BLOGGER HUSBAND
Bedroom--Last night, Mrs. Lefty awoke and sat up in bed with her feet on the floor. The movement caused me to awaken, and I opened my eyes. Then, inexplicably, she immediately dropped over. She didn’t slump or slouch or plop back on her pillow. She dropped as if dead, and banged her head on my shin. She lay motionless on the bed.

Fortunately, nothing was wrong. Her body simply had not been able to wake up properly, and she dropped (literally) off to sleep while sitting up. But if she had made it to a standing position before the great fall, it could have been bad. Needless to say, Mrs. Lefty takes several kinds of medication right before bed. I might have to start tying her down at bedtime. (Now that could be fun!)

MAN EARNS VICTORY OVER WHOLE WHEAT
Kitchen--I am making progress in the toast wars. About twice a week, I take toast with me on my way out the door in the morning. Approximately half of the time, I drop one or more pieces of toast on the kitchen floor, and according to the laws of physics, the buttered or jellied side lands face down. Today, however, I dropped my toast before I buttered it. Soon, I’ll be able to conquer the world!

Have fun tonight Harry Potty suckers...er, fans.

Remembering the Old Stomping Grounds

2007-07-19T15:22:00.000-07:00

Long Relief has been silent for several days because Mrs. Lefty and I took a mini vacation. She had a couple days off, so we drove to my hometown (somewhere west of the Rockies, and north of Mexico but south of Canada) to relax for a couple of days.

I am always glad to return to my old home. The visits remind me that I am a hick at heart. The drive takes only about 5 hours from where we live now, but the journey takes you a hundred years into the past, to a place where names like “Jawbone Canyon,” “Fossil Falls” and “No Name” are still in style, where you can’t find a Starbucks, and where the opening days of the fishing and deer hunting seasons are more important than Christmas.

I take pride in being a backwater hick. It gives me an opportunity to look down my nose at people whose scrambled eggs always came from the grocery store rather than the chicken house out back, or who simply hook up to the Springfield Nuclear Power Plant for their winter heat rather than cutting and hauling wood for the stove. Of course, I can’t be too critical of people who live the soft city life, because that’s my life now.

But it is always nice to get back to the hometown and remember those times that--in my memory, at least--seemed so much more simple and pure. On the other hand, there was a lot more animal shit to clean up.

Finding Lefty

2007-07-12T10:47:00.000-07:00

Since I am clearly a slave to the latest fad and fashion, you may wonder why I have not yet done a piece on the wild and crazy search engine terms that bring people to my site. Wonder no more. Today is the day I unveil my first ever "Wacky Search Engine Terms" (cue the peppy jingle) blog entry.

Those who find me through a search engine are largely a group of people with bad hair. They want to know how they can fix bad haircuts. This obviously stems from my personal run-in with a reverse mullet. This is a group that needs a good stylist and some psychological help.

Some of the notables: "my hair looks like a mullet help!"; "haircuts long layered mullets"; "shoulder length mullet hairstyle"; "crooked bangs hair." Actually, I'm not sure that last one has anything to do with haircuts.

Predictably, after the "invisible boobs" piece, the searches became a bit pornier. In fact, "good boobs" is the number one search term. It beat out "invisible boobs" by a mile. You all have one-track minds. Even Frankenstein's monster logged in with "boobs good." Somebody, who wanted to be absolutely sure he (and frankly, it had to be a "he") didn't get substandard boobs, put in "good good boobs."

Here are some other search engine terms with bonus comments free of charge:

"asshole sharp pains"
"harry potter tapatio" (what the hell?)
"mom held me while I peed" (somebody's gonna need therapy)
"how to make pants yourself"
"my wife thinks I am ugly"
"life coach" (you've come to the right place)
"jobless unemployed and suicidal" (don't forget "ugly")
"why american league sucks" (isn't it obvious?)
"my computer monitor smells bad feces" (don't think that's your monitor, buddy)
"gooey cat poop"
"please lick my monkey" (no, please lick MY monkey)
"i'm in love with a sociopath" (so is Mrs. Lefty!)
"he is just phoning it in" (that says it all)

Note to Self

2007-07-11T13:00:00.000-07:00

Tim McCarver has no idea what he's talking about.

I think you know what I mean.

P.S. I'm still out of the office with this damn back pain. Regular posts will resume soon.

Yo Ho, Yo Ho, an Invalid's Life for Me

2007-07-07T13:35:00.000-07:00

It is time for me to admit it. I'm getting old.

First I noticed a stray gray hair or two around my temples. Then, there was the slight leaning forward when I looked across the room to read something. And the others simply assuming I'd be on the "old guys" team when we played a basketball game of old guys vs. young guys.

For a few years I've had what I call this minor back thing. It's MINOR, I tell you. Just a tad bit of soreness now and again. Okay, sure, so the minor soreness occasionally made it nearly impossible to get out of bed. But it's nothing, really.

Now I'm ready to give. "Uncle," I cry.

I have to work today, and since I played basketball Thursday night and hauled a garage-full load of beer bottles to the recycling place yesterday, I have some minor back soreness. I've been walking around the place doing my very best to pretend my body is acting normally. I'm walking as upright as possible, just hoping no one will notice I'm bent forward because I can't straighten my back all the way. I mask the grimace on my face due to a sudden jolt of pain by pretending it's a broad smile. I turn the groan of pain into an impromptu sea shanty: "Aaaargh ho, yo ho, a pirate's life for me."

But it's time to give up. Life, you win. I'm getting old.

I'm also going to the drug store at the first opportunity to get some medicine for back pain.

Hiding Behind the Keyboard

2007-07-05T16:34:00.000-07:00

Earlier this week, Tink linked to a blog entry about the time her boyfriend, the irrepressible Hoop, first learned about her blog, Pickled Beef. If I understand the story correctly, Tink began writing her blog, but decided not to tell Hoop about it. I'm sure she had a good reason. Perhaps Hoop's brother was killed by a rabid blog or something.

I mention this because Mrs. Lefty doesn't know about this blog. It isn't, as you can see, because there is anything objectionable about the content. Sure, she might box my ears for sharing less flattering bits about her even though I write anonymously. I've even changed her name to protect her. Her name isn't really "Mrs. Lefty."

I don't tell her, though, because she'd be upset. Mrs. Lefty has had some really terrible things happen to her--terrible, awful things that I wouldn't wish on an enemy. As a result, her perception of the world is often skewed. She sees threats everywhere. When she is particularly anxious, she imagines threats that aren't there.

The amazing thing about Mrs. Lefty is that despite her fears, despite the trauma of her past, she is a genuinely loving, caring, generous woman. She is always the first to offer help or a shoulder to cry on. She hasn't let her past stomp on her spirit.

Yet, this blog would be a threat to her. It is a part of my life that would feel separate from her, and she would feel that she is being set up to be hurt. She would wonder about the people who read this and imagine the ways they could hurt her. And after a while, that fear of potentially being hurt would be indistinguishable from the real thing. She would actually believe that she was being wounded.

That's why Mrs. Lefty does not know about this blog. There is nothing here that she couldn't read. Yet the very fact of its existence would cause her to panic.

And that's why I feel a certain measure of guilt. Am I being selfish and inconsiderate? Or am I simply doing something that is as harmless as keeping a diary (with feedback)?

I don't feel as if I am doing anything wrong, but I feel that Mrs. Lefty would be hurt by it. How can that be?

One More Story for Good Measure

2007-07-03T14:14:00.000-07:00

I didn't tell you everything yesterday. I forgot the best (though hair-raising) story.

We took my mother-in-law to dinner Saturday night. A woman I know from work walked by our table. I said, "hello." She leaned down to give me a one-armed hug.

I turned my head to look at Mrs. Lefty as she said "hello," too. With the arm that was semi-trapped in the one-arm hug, I reached out to pat this woman's arm. It was my way of returning her hug while seated.

Except when I turned around, I discovered I wasn't patting her arm.

Yes, it was her breast.

The Blog Slug Rides Again

2007-07-02T14:29:00.001-07:00

I know I've been something of a blog slug. Work has kept me busy, so I'll use that as my excuse for the dearth of posts lately.

So what's been happening?

I dropped a cake. I was trying to move most of a half-sheet cake from a chair to the counter, but instead I flipped the thing frosting-first onto the floor. My son laughed until he couldn't stand it.

My wife is trying to starve me. It's no secret that she and I have different ideas about how long leftovers can remain edible. Mrs. Lefty thinks leftovers should be thrown out while I'm still at the dinner table. I figure that as long as I can determine that the stuff in that bowl was at one time a food item, it's still good. (Be careful, though. We have mice in the freezer. Don't eat those. They're for the snake.)

Anyway, we had about a foot-long section of one of those giant submarine sandwiches. It had been in the fridge for only about four days. I had been having some every day for lunch. One day last week, I came home, stomach growling, so very eager to get me a piece of that sandwich. Mrs. Lefty had tossed it.

Then, I had some leftovers from dinner at a restaurant. All through the next day I was carefully planning just the right moment to savor them. Guess who took them to work with her and ate them? She's trying to starve me to death, I tell you.

Had a short visit from my mother-in-law. She's doing better after her stroke, thank you.

Had an even shorter visit from my parents. They didn't bring any beer, the cretins. My dad did help me cut down a tree in the back yard, though.

The girls travel back East to visit their biological father for two weeks. My son will go to his mother's for a bit tomorrow. That means NO KIDS!

And that's it. You're caught up. Absolutely nothing else has been happening in my life.

It's a Dry Heat

2007-06-26T15:44:00.000-07:00

Each June, my employer sends all of its employees to one of the hottest locations within driving distance for a week-long series of meetings. (By “hottest” I do not mean “coolest and hippest,” but “just this side of Hell”.) In any given year there are 800 to 1,000 of us gathered for the most pointless, long-winded sessions imaginable. But it’s not all bad. The meetings are held on a university campus, so we get to stay in old, smelly dorms with no air conditioning.

I get to see cherished colleagues there every year, and that almost makes the rest of the nonsense worth enduring. Of course, I always hunt down my best friends in the group to find the coldest beer in town.

My oldest friend there is a guy I first met in college. We played on the same intramural softball team and had lots of other common interests before we became colleagues. He was kind enough to rub in my face the fact that he plays on an adult baseball team once or twice a week. Bastard.

The good news is that I haven’t yet been purged from the company, and I still have a job. The bad news is that I’ll have to go to these meetings again next year.

Living the Real Life

2007-06-19T16:30:00.000-07:00

The first thing, boys and girls, is that I’m leaving tomorrow for a business meeting through the weekend. I may surprise you and check in while I’m away, so behave.

I was thinking today about my ideal life. If I could do anything--live anywhere, have any job--what would I do?

Here’s my answer: I’d move into a small place in my hometown, and then I’d make a living writing fiction while coaching my high school’s JV baseball team and freshman basketball team on the side.

I have always wanted to write. And I have always had it in my head that I would. Reading a novel or well-written nonfiction is a sacred act. I want to do what others have done for me.

Coaching is teaching, especially when it involves younger players. It is also a way of building something. In this case, coaching the first- and second-year kids is about building an individual team, but also a program. I want to be a part of that, to carry on the tradition, the respect for doing things the right way, for playing the game the right way, that our freshman basketball coach passed on to us.

When Mrs. Lefty and I take walks, we sometimes pass by a field where older kids are playing baseball. The other day, I was staring out across the grass, watching them field grounders and work on their bunting, and my wife said to me, “You miss it, don’t you?”

She’s right. Whenever we walk by, my feet get all jittery and I just want to hop the fence and race out to chase down fly balls, and whack an outside pitch the other way, and smell that wonderful combination of dirt and leather and grass.

I want to be out there talking to some kid about moving his feet to get in front of a ball, or reminding a catcher he’s got to anticipate that curve ball will be in the dirt. I want to throw soft toss to that one guy who always stays after practice for extra work, just feeding him ball after ball until his arms fall off.

So why isn’t that what I’m doing now?

Good question. An important part of the answer has to do with stability. I have a good job with excellent benefits. My kids are practically all teenagers. Mrs. Lefty would go crazy if she had to live that close to her in-laws.

One reason I do what I do now instead of that dream is that I have made other choices. Once you’ve got kids, you can’t just run off and do something else for a while, especially if it may not pay the bills. Once you’re married, you’ve got someone else’s needs to worry about.

And my job includes a lot of those elements I want in my life. I do a lot of writing--some is fairly creative, and some is more technical. I am required to do some teaching. I am particularly effective in that role, and it is one element of my job I enjoy. I have an important part in building this company.

So even if I am not living in that little house in my hometown and coaching and writing for a living, I’m doing all right. I’m a happy man. I’m doing things I believe are important.

Except this meeting I’m going to the rest of this week. That just plain sucks. And it isn’t held in some cushy resort town, but in a place that will be hot and miserable.

Drink a few extra beers for me, okay?

It's Father's Day

2007-06-17T08:14:00.000-07:00

So turn off the dang lights when you leave the room, for heaven's sake.

Father, Apparently, I Have Sinned

2007-06-14T14:23:00.000-07:00

I was in the restroom this morning at the office and--HOLY MARMALADE, BATMAN!--my zipper broke.

I kid you not.

The Goddess of Pants is playing tricks on me. Or I need a refresher course in proper zipper use and maintenance.

Fortunately, this time I have a button to keep everything together.

Living with the Lords of Chaos

2007-06-12T11:14:00.000-07:00

In the event that you are ever intimate with a person of the opposite sex and particular fluids are exchanged in particular ways, or if you have a medical procedure that duplicates such a fluid exchange, or if you discover a noisy basket on your doorstep, or if you are Angelina Jolie, then you might end up with one or more children.

This turn of events is not all it is cracked up to be.

I was reminded of this fact when I used the pen by the telephone in the kitchen to write down a number. At first, I thanked the Let-Me-Get-a-Pen God for the presence of that pen by the phone.

Normally in my house, the children have taken all the pens away from the one place in the house where you are guaranteed to need a pen and moved them to other locations, including beneath their beds, under the cushions in the couch, inside the vacuum cleaner canister or out to the garden. There are, of course, pencils by the phone, too, but the children have conveniently broken off all the points on those pencils.

So I was happy--no, thrilled--to find a pen by the phone. And this was no ordinary, practically-out-of-ink pen, but THE GOOD ONE. This was the one Mrs. Lefty usually keeps by our computer. It is Old Reliable. So I happily wrote out the telephone number I needed to remember and was about to put Old Reliable back in its place when...

...I discovered that my hands were covered in black ink.

I blame my children. They have the uncanny knack of making it appear as if their sole purpose in life is to create as much damage and chaos as physically possible. Whenever I am unfortunate enough to follow in their footsteps, I inevitably say to myself, “There is no way on earth they could have made a bigger mess.” Then I get to the next room and realize I was wrong. Everything they touch disappears. Everything they walk past collapses into a heap of debris.

Now I know you’re thinking, “Parenting. It’s all about parenting.” To that, I say, “Bite me.” You may also be thinking, “The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree.” To that, I say, “Shove it.”

I suspect that my real children were switched at birth, and some dastardly alien creatures left mutant doppelgangers in their places. My real kids (I’m looking at you, Lindsay Lohan) are living very different lives in some unknown place. They are getting straight A’s, are polite to their fake parents and keep their rooms clean.

That’s my story, and I’m sticking to it.

The Sanity is IN

2007-06-11T13:06:00.000-07:00

Reasons I know I am not crazy:

Whenever I question Mrs. Lefty about the state of my mental health, she always says, "Sure, you’re normal, all right." Then, to emphasize her point, she laughs uncontrollably.
My mother always told me my teachers and the school psychologist were wrong about me.
The neighbor’s cat no longer sends me telepathic messages saying it wants me dead.
My regional supervisor said to me the other day, "We’re watching you very carefully." Obviously, the company thinks I’m going places.
The gremlin that lives inside my microwave told me I’m perfectly sane.

The "Don’t You Hate That" Department: After the latest fiasco with my white dress shirt, Mrs. Lefty went out and bought me a new one. It fit. Don’t you hate when she’s right AGAIN?

Finally, if you love Elmo and profanity (and who doesn't), you must not miss Rude Cactus' June 5th blog entry.

Women Are from Nordstrom, Men Are from Sears

2007-06-07T12:00:00.000-07:00

Unlike her nearly perfect husband, Mrs. Lefty does not worry about making mistakes. This is generally a good thing. She is free to try new things--such as watching an episode of 30 Rock, even though she’s never seen the show before--without taking weeks and months to consider the possible pitfalls of such a bold new step. (For example, what if I don’t like it and thus waste a half hour of my life? Or, what if the commercials are sucky?)

Her lack of fear in these matters also means that most of my clothes don’t fit well. It takes me a looooong time to buy clothes. From the time the idea first pops into my head ("Gee, Old Greeny Pants sure are getting old. And the button has been missing for months. Perhaps I should get a new pair."), to the time that particular article of clothing finally disintegrates (See here.), forcing me to buy that item of clothing, a period of 3, 4, or even 5 years may elapse.

Mrs. Lefty has a different sort of brain. She’ll be out shopping, perhaps for toilet paper or a ruled notebook or a new set of silver, and she’ll spy a pair of pants out of the corner of her eye. Before the thought has even finished forming itself in her mind--"Lefty needs a new pair of pants"--she will have pulled them off the rack, put them into the cart, and finished purchasing not only the pants but about $500 of additional merchandise as well. Therefore, my wife has bought most of the clothes I own.

The good news is that I will have new pants that I desperately need. The not-so-good news is that those pants will not fit properly. Usually, they are way too big. Monstrously large.

You remember how when you were younger, and you found a pair of grandma’s underpants, you’d take them to school and stretch them out so the entire 3rd grade could fit inside? That’s how large my wife thinks I am.

A good example is the last time my wife bought a white dress shirt. The collar was so oversized that I had to connect three neckties together to get around it. The arms were so long that when I wore my suit jacket, it appeared as if the shirt was a hand-me-down from my older brother Yao Ming.

This is why, when it was time for me to get a new dress shirt last week, I went on the offensive. I did the only thing I know that would ensure a good fit--I tried the damn thing on.

When I brought my prize home, Mrs. Lefty said, “That’s too small.”

“Hah!” I thought to myself. “That’s what you think.”

Let me say, in my defense, that I knew the shirt was 100% cotton, and I knew it would shrink. That’s why I bought it a little larger than usual.

Mrs. Lefty made me wash the shirt, and because I am a completely obedient man, I did. The next morning, I put on the shirt and...too small. That’ll teach me ever to buy new clothes again.

Don’t you hate it when she’s right?

Good Pitching Beats Good Hitting

2007-06-06T19:29:00.000-07:00

EDITOR’S NOTE: Lefty’s usual brilliance has taken an unexpected leave of absence. Therefore, Mr. Lefty will not be producing a blog post today about the superiority of good pitching. Maybe next week. Maybe never.

Please proceed calmly to the nearest exit.

"Invisible Boobs Are Still Good Boobs"

2007-06-06T09:58:00.000-07:00

Run--don’t walk--over to The Retropolitan. Yesterday he put up a contender for Absolute Best Blog Post in the Universe: “The Heimlich Maneuver Would Be Better if It Was More about Sexiness and Less about Choking on Food.”

Go see it. Shoo!

LATER TODAY: The definitive answer on the Pitching/Defense vs. Offense debate.

C

2007-06-05T10:55:00.000-07:00

This is my 100th post. I know I'm supposed to prepare something special, such as "100 Facts about Lefty's Bodily Functions" or some other wildly interesting post.

For my part, in honor of my 100th post, I'm going to go drink 100 beers. I encourage you to join me (not in my actual location, of course, but in the act of drinking 100 beers). If you live in Japan (I'm looking at you, Bre), you can drink sake, or if you live in the south of France (lvgurl), then you can drink wine. If you are not of legal drinking age in your locale, then have 100 tall glasses of cold milk.

I have also decided to post a handful of interesting facts about the number 100:

The number 100 is the smallest square which is also the sum of consecutive cubes.

The Boston Beaneaters were the first National League team to win at least 100 games in a season. They won 102 in the split season of 1892.

Polish Draughts is played on a board with 100 squares.

At least 100 times a day, I turn a light off after my kids have left it on.

The 1969 western film 100 Rifles starred Burt Reynolds, Raquel Welch and Jim Brown.

On the Celsius scale, the boiling point of water is 100 degrees.

The Philadelphia Athletics became the first American League team to win at least 100 games in a season when they won 102 in 1910.

In the year 100 AD, Buddhist texts were first translated into Chinese.

I have fantasies about killing my secretary 100 times every week.

In the game of cricket, scoring 100 runs (called a “century“) is a major feat for a batsman, but to be out at 99 is a significant failure.

The number 100 in Finnish is sata.

It is estimated there were 180,000 people worldwide who were 100 years old or older in the year 2000.

I found all these on the Internet, so you know they're true!

Happy 100 Day.

Despicable and Ancient

2007-06-04T16:24:00.000-07:00

I am more putrid than maggot droppings.

I am lower than the feces that come from this creature.

Yes, that’s right. I forgot my mother’s birthday.

She took the belated phone call well, though. After all, she only gave birth to me and loved me even when I behaved like the aforementioned maggot poop.

Also, I am apparently very old, even ancient.

This looks just like me, only my teeth aren't in such good shape.

My 12-year-old son and I were watching a television show about the 30th anniversary of Star Wars. When the hosts mentioned that it was Star Wars’ 30th “birthday,” my son turned to me and said, horror in his voice, “You’re older than Star Wars!”

A long time ago, in my galaxy, not so far away...

Take This Job and...

2007-06-04T14:13:00.000-07:00

My job is people-centered. Every single day I have to talk to people, and what’s worse, listen to people. I have to pay attention to what they need and want and care about. I must work side-by-side with them. I must respond to their fears, frustrations and complaints (and boy, do they have complaints!).

It will surprise no one that I hate people. Actually, that may be too harsh. I am not a people person. I need my space. If I were the last person on earth, I’d say “Finally!” I like to work alone. Coordination, compromise and teamwork are just too much trouble.

On the other hand, despite my severe annoyance at the fact that there are other people on this planet and that I have to work with some of them every day, I love people. Despite myself, I genuinely care about what’s happening in their lives. When things are great, I celebrate with them. When they are lousy, I feel for them.

I often think that I need a new career. I’ve been doing this for nearly 15 years, and I have moments when I’d love to leave it all behind me. But I don’t think I can. There’s something about this job that’s got a hold on me. You might say it’s a calling (whatever that means).

Besides, it’s probably good for me that every day I come to work, the part of me that seeks to avoid other human beings is stretched and exercised. And sometimes--only at a moment when I am working with other people--I really believe in my job, that what I’m doing makes a real difference in this world.

Two things would make my job a whole lot more satisfying, though: more money and a mute button that works on complainers.

Who's Your Daddy?

2007-06-01T12:22:00.000-07:00

There is a preschool immediately adjacent to my office, and throughout the day I am serenaded by kids--mostly happy ones, but the occasional screamer, too. Even though I generally hate to be around people of any kind, I make an exception for young children. I don’t know why that is, perhaps because I feel like such an intellectual giant in the presence of a 3-year-old. Or maybe they have the inherent cheerfulness that I lack.

I often chat with the kids and their parents, and have come to know one mother and her daughter. They are both from Yugoslavia. Though the woman is still married to the girl’s father and seems to have a decent relationship, the father remains in Yugoslavia. It’s an odd family situation and, frankly, none of my business.

The girl has been in the United States for most of her 3 years, and though she could identify her father in a photo, didn’t really seem to know him. She’s a tiny little thing, and absolutely adorable, though a little shy.

That’s why, yesterday, I was startled (and a little terrified) that when she saw me, she ran up to me and said in a loud, happy voice, “Daddy!” Her mother said to me, “She looks like you.”

Now, this is not a complication I need. I can tell you for a fact that I am not this girl’s daddy. But if my wife (who leans toward jealousy and paranoia in these matters) heard that exchange, I’d have my eyes scratched out in nothing flat. Then, she would proceed to kill me in an excruciatingly painful way every day for the rest of my life. Plus, there might be other rumormongers wandering around. Not helpful.

I think I’ll have to make myself a little scarce around the preschoolers for a while.

Fun with Kids; Fun with Food

2007-05-31T11:21:00.000-07:00

I love my kids!

I love the way they leave food out on the counter, like milk, butter, raw liver, jars of pig’s blood, so that it will turn rancid and attract hordes of insects, many of which have never before been described by science.

I love the way they leave plates of half-eaten food, grease, ketchup and other former food items in their bedrooms. I am confident that one day a cure for cancer will be found in the mold and fungus that grows beneath their beds. Also, I love the way when they leave a half-drunk glass of milk on their nightstand until it turns into a solid. It’s sort of like delicious flan, but with a kick!

I also love the way they smear food--peanut butter, jelly, butter, syrup--onto the outside of every food container in the house. What a wonderful tactile experience to make a peanut butter and jelly sandwich and to come away so covered in goo that it feels as if I have velcro hands. And there was that one time when the substance on the outside of the jelly jar was a strange orange-brown--definitely not jelly. It was so gross I could barely stand to lick it off my fingers.

Did I mention that I love they way they leave their spills out for someone else to step in, slip on and then clean up? There was that one time that I stubbed my toe on a rock hard three-day-old pile of macaroni and cheese dropped beneath the counter.

If I had known what great fun kids were, I would have had none!

I've Got a Question for You

2007-05-30T17:34:00.000-07:00

Which is more important to a great baseball team, pitching and defense, or offense?

Did Hope Just Rear Its Ugly Head?

2007-05-30T12:09:00.000-07:00

Mrs. Lefty started a new job yesterday.

It has been more than 3 months since she quit her old job, and we have been running on fumes. I’m not sure how we made it, but we did. (Okay, yes, I do know how we survived, and that big stack of overdue bills will back me up on that one.) And while having another paycheck coming in will bring some relief, it won’t solve Mrs. Lefty’s serious money problems, nor will it solve my codependent behavior with respect to her massive spending.

Thank God for therapy. And beer.

On a brighter note, I did ask Mrs. Lefty to go with me to a Debtors Anonymous meeting. I think she was pleasantly surprised at the diversity of people and their non-judgmental attitudes. She felt many of the stories there echoed her own feelings and fears, and we will be returning next week.

I’m also pleased at the way I handled Mrs. Lefty’s jobless period. Not once did I get angry or frustrated or suicidal or homicidal or bitter or resentful over the fact that while I went to work every day and stressed out over money she stayed home and took long naps, watched her soap operas, read dozens of books and talked on the phone. Not once.

Did I also say that I’m a pathological liar?

No, I'm the One Who Is Magic

2007-05-24T11:43:00.000-07:00

Somebody--and we won’t say who--is a little hyper over the fact that a new Harry Potter movie is coming out soon. I’ve read one chapter of one book (bored me silly) and have seen the movies (not bad), but I just don’t understand the allure.

But now, Harry Potter is getting older and graduating soon, right? That means there must be a new Harry Potter, a new character to take his place. I suggest me. I could be Lefty Copperbottom, running around performing magic and saving my sidekick friends, the klutzy Tommy Armpits and the beautiful Angelina Jolie-Muggle.

Reasons why Lefty Copperbottom should hit the big screen:

My Tapatio hat and yellow blazer would drive women crazy.
I am fluent in that snake language.
I like jelly beans (except the vomit flavored kind).
I have an oh-so-sexy American accent.
I know how to do things with paperclips.
I could use the money.

If you all begin a letter-writing campaign to Warner Brothers, together we can convince them to make Lefty Copperbottom and the Order of the Curmudgeon.

The Truly Random World of Lefty

2007-05-22T11:23:00.000-07:00

Mel gave me some work to do. I am to report 7 random facts about myself. In order to accomplish this, I have created a Random Facts Wheel. I have divided my life into 8 distinct time periods as follows:

The Infancy Narrative
The Challenges of Toddlerhood
Tales of an Elementary School Pariah
I Was a Teenage Werewolf
Remembering College, Forgetting to Study
The Mail Order Groom
I’m Too Handsome to Be a Father!
The Present Troubles

Each period also has a subwheel that is divided into months. Every single month of my life is represented on the 8 subwheels, including the partial months of my birth and May 2007. Each month, of course, also has its own subwheel. On the monthly wheels are listed every single event of my life and every single fact about Lefty.

I chose the facts by spinning the wheels until I had gathered 7 bits of information. These are truly random facts, my dear readers. They are presented in chronological order.

When my parents brought me home from the hospital, they did not put me into a car seat. In fact, no one in the car was even wearing a seat belt. Instead, while dad drove, my mother held me out the window while I peed so that I wouldn’t soil the cloth diaper.
While I was in “daycare” (code for a lady without a proper license but who watched several young kids in her home while their mothers worked), one of the younger kids came up to me, lifted up my shirt and bit me on the belly.
One summer, during a full moon, Mrs. Welco went missing. The authorities never found her. In truth, I clamped my jaws down on her throat while she was watching Happy Days before I dragged her into a field and devoured her entrails.
The first time I ever got drunk--really smashed--was in college. I became so sick that I didn’t touch alcohol again for years.
My future first wife picked my face out of a catalog and sent me a letter promising me a plane ticket to the United States and the fast track to citizenship if I would marry her.
Since I have been married, my wedding ring has been off my finger for a grand total of about 90 seconds. (Sometimes to clean it or because my daughter occasionally asks to look at it.)
I don't usually bother to heat up leftovers from the refrigerator.

I am supposed to follow the rules by tagging 7 others. Instead, in true curmudgeonly fashion, I refuse.

Meet the Queen of Lefties

2007-05-21T16:12:00.000-07:00

Over the weekend I met a 103-year-old woman. I sat with her at an event while her son went to bring the car around for her wheelchair. Despite her physical weakness, she is mentally sharp and can talk up a storm.

While we waited for her son, she said, “I’m always left waiting. I should be called ‘Lefty.’” That gave me a chuckle, of course. It turns out that she is also left-handed. She was born in England, and when she was 3 (1907!), she attended school for the first time. The teacher would tie Old Lady Lefty’s left hand behind her back so she was forced to use her right hand. Old Lady Lefty (OLL) said she made such a fuss about it that the teacher finally gave up.

Later, the family moved to the United States. The only way for OLL to attend high school was on scholarship. Some organization gave her $8 per week to go to high school.

Now, she’s stuck in her wheelchair waiting for other people to take her places. I wonder what life would be like for me at 103.

Do-it-yourself with Lefty

2007-05-16T16:23:00.000-07:00

Literally thousands of readers are clamoring to know how I fixed my poor old pair of pants using only a paper clip and good old fashioned ingenuity. As promised, I have prepared a series of diagrams to explain how I accomplished this great feat. Keep these handy in case you, too, need an emergency fix.
And again, thanks to the Goddess of Pants. RIP Old Greeny Pants!

Mother's Day 2007

2007-05-14T17:31:00.000-07:00

So I’d been seeing a lot of those funny Mother’s Day jokes about giving Mom a day of rest and relaxation, feet up watching television, catered to, etc...just like being Dad for a day. Wow, that’s a funny one.

This year, I decided Mrs. Lefty should really be Dad for a Day! Yesterday, Mrs. Lefty mowed the lawn, changed the oil in the cars, cleaned the garage, painted the back fence, hauled a bunch of junk to the dump and went to the office for 8 hours. But when she came home, she got to drink beer.

Yeah, I know I'm going to hell. But I've been there already, and it's not that bad.

What Goes Down Must Come Up

2007-05-10T14:06:00.000-07:00

A few nights before my business trip, I was restless and uncomfortable. I couldn’t sleep. I chalked it up to the five cups of coffee I had that evening. About 1:00am, I got up to watch television.

During a DVRed episode of The Daily Show, I started to feel nausea. Before I knew it, the nausea was at full tilt. I’ll spare you the specific details, but for the next three and a half hours, in 45 minute cycles, I was running between the bathroom and the couch. I had never before been this violently ill, and there seemed to be no end in sight.

I asked my wife to take me to the emergency room.

The only times I have been to the emergency room previously were to have the doctors sew up various open wounds on my body, mostly on my face. I’ve had more thread in my body than a Central American sweatshop.

This time, though, I was sick. I was extremely grateful for the anti-nausea meds, which allowed me to sleep. Mrs. Lefty sat in the corner of the room, patiently reading a book. As I was starting to fade out, I thought about wonderful tricks I could play on the ER staff.

I could pretend to be delusional, asking my nurse why there were hundreds of spiders crawling out of the cupboards, or who was that man in the orange jumpsuit and carrying a roadside flare who kept coming in and messing with my IV? Or, maybe I could feign a sharp pain in my abdomen that kept moving around each time the doctor thought he had located it.

But no, I behaved. I didn’t want to be responsible for the death of some car accident victim just because I was playing a prank on the doctor.

Maybe, though, I’ll try it out on my family doctor after I have to sit two hours in the waiting room.

As for the illness, the doctor speculated it was only a severe flu and not food poisoning. It took me a few days to get back to normal, but fortunately I was well enough to drink myself silly on my business trip.

The Gray Days of May

2007-05-09T15:11:00.000-07:00

The saga of my hair continues. After my last haircut disaster, I chose a different barber. He was a chatty, conventional fellow, so I figured it would be a good match.

We discussed my particular haircut needs, and when the question of length came up, I tried to describe what I wanted. He was a little unsure of what I meant, so he said, “I’ll cut it to a medium length, and if you want more, I can cut more.” Apparently, what he meant by “medium length” was “so short everybody can see the lice crawling around on your scalp.”

Mrs. Lefty, who always thinks my hair gets cut too short anyway, was furious. “You’re never going to him again,” she said.

Then, as we were riding in the car this week, my wife snorted at me with glee, “You’ve got gray!” Ack! It is true. I have never before noticed gray on my head, but there they were, accentuated by my new haircut, two wiry, gray hairs.

I guess this is it. My life is rapidly coming to an end. You can all begin to prepare your remarks for my memorial service. I’m sure your tributes would bring tears to my eyes if I were still alive.

Also, coming up this week...

The long awaited paperclip-buttonless pants diagram.
My trip to the emergency room just before I went out of town on business.

Still Away...

2007-05-02T20:00:00.000-07:00

I'm still traveling, but am done for the day. Time to go to the bar, have a beer and watch some basketball.

It's a rough life, I know.

I'll Be Back

2007-04-29T16:18:00.000-07:00

I am traveling to a series of business meetings this week (yes, in a sunny clime!), and so I probably won’t update this most important blog for a while. Instead, see one of my friends at the blogroll to the right, and I’ll be back before you know it.

You won’t even miss me.

(Hey, you’re supposed to argue with me. I say, “You won’t even miss me,” and you say, “Sure we will,” not “Good point.” Sheesh.)

Losing an Old Friend

2007-04-25T12:49:00.000-07:00

I am wearing my pants at half-mast today. Though it is creating something of a stir in the office, my pants are hanging at mid-thigh for a good reason. Yesterday afternoon, one of my long time companions went to Slacks and Pants Heaven.

I wore one of my oldest pair of pants yesterday, something like Dockers in a flashy olive drab. The cuffs were quite worn and every few months I would get a pair of scissors to snip off the threads that trailed around my feet like spider webs.

The button was also missing. I kept telling myself I would sew it back on, but somehow, I never got around to it. What saved me is that I wear a belt, which mostly covered up the fact that I didn’t have a button, and that I almost always wore aloha shirts with those pants so I could keep the shirt untucked, hiding my secret button shame.

But yesterday, my pants died. I was in the restroom (I’ll spare you the specific details) and reached to pull up the zipper. I couldn’t find it. It turned out that the zipper had come away altogether. A man can live with no button OR no zipper, but not both.

Since I was on my way to a meeting, I rigged a paperclip to hold my pants together and cinched it all with a belt. I was wearing a longish aloha shirt, so that also kept me covered. Then, I gathered my materials, said a silent prayer to the Goddess of Pants, and went to my meeting.

When I got home, I changed, carefully folded my dead pants and handed them to my wife. I gave a short eulogy, reminiscing about all the good times I’d had with Old Greeny Pants (as I had nicknamed them). Then my wife crammed them into the garbage. I am not too proud to say I shed a tear or two.

Things Are Going to Start Happening to Me Now

2007-04-24T14:54:00.000-07:00

The avalanche of accolades is poised to sweep over me at any moment! Granted, the current avalanche tally is only one solitary snowflake, but you’ve got to start somewhere, eh?

Yes, you guessed it. I have won a major award. And I mean MAJOR.

Tink, over at her blog Pickled Beef, displaying her excellent taste and superb intelligence, presented me the Thinking Blogger Award. Thank you, thank you. Thank you. Please, that’s enough applause. Really, that’s fine. Please...

First of all, I’d like to thank my beautiful wife, who doesn’t even know this blog exists, ‘cause if she did, she’d kick my butt from here to Nairobi and back for airing all of our dirty laundry in public. And I’d like to thank my secretary, who has given me many reasons to whine and complain, therefore giving me the opportunity to post many a scathing entry. Thank you to Al Gore for inventing the Internet and giving me--and so many other deserving bloggers--this opportunity. And finally, thank you to Tink and the Academy. I am both honored and humbled.

Now, about the loot. Tink gave this important award to five bloggers on her post "Skull Shaped Blog", so that means that of the estimated 1.8 billion bloggers in the world, I rank in the top five. That is quite an achievement, don’t you think?

Due to the impressive nature of this prize, I naturally assume there is a monetary award, as well. This has got to be as big as the Nobel Prize, so I figure I must be getting at least $1.5 million out of the deal. I am expecting Tink’s check in the next month or so. Of course, I’ll give some to charity. The rest I’ll either invest in petroleum jelly futures or spend on beer. (And I think we all know which way that’s gonna go.) Plus, then there are all the great endorsement deals. Looks like SOME blogger isn’t going to be a working stiff anymore!

And now, the best part of the deal--I get to award five more lucky bloggers. Now that I have won this thing, I know you have a lot to live up to, but I’m sure you’ll do just fine, all of you.

First up, and no surprise, is Sizzle at Sizzle Says for her excellent coverage of the 2000 Presidential election.

Next, Eileen Dover at eileendover.com for her groundbreaking piece "Ten Ways to Shag a Sheep." Great work, Dover.

The third winner is Bre at Win or Lose, We Go Shopping! She wins for her description of the health benefits of bathing in a tub of champagne.

The Retropolitan Presents: Tales to Astonish! is the fourth winner. Retro wins for his ten week series "A Short History of the Stuff Growing on My Feet."

Finally, congratulations to Love Monkey at I Guess This Is It. The Monkey wins for her photojournalism piece "Up Close and Personal with My Duodenum". The blogging world doesn’t really want to know how you got such great pictures, Monkey.

To those of you who are winners, please stop by here to pick up your award and receive further instructions.

Vote for Me Early and Often

2007-04-18T20:40:00.000-07:00

Reasons why the world would be a better place if I were Supreme Ruler of Everything:

Three separate handles on every faucet--hot, cold and beer.
Every day would be Tuesday.
My capitol city and palace would be located in Nampa, Idaho.
Women would not be required to wear tops...or bottoms.
All automobile air fresheners would smell like me.
One television station would be completely devoted to reruns of Hee Haw.
All fast food places would serve liver and onions.
All civil court cases would be decided by a dance off.
Flying cars for everyone!

Giving My Wife a Good Ribbing

2007-04-17T16:40:00.000-07:00

My wife is back in town, her mother is doing better, and I have clean underwear again. All is well in the world. Except...

My wife was sitting on the floor in front of the couch doing her cross-stitch while we watched the baseball game. (Thank heavens for a woman who loves baseball!) She turned to push herself up and made a terrible shrieking noise--obvious pain.

It was still so bad the next day that she went to the doctor for help. They took x-rays and, wouldn’t you know it, she had dislocated a rib. By getting up off the floor. Who knew you could dislocate a rib? That’s like dislocating your head. Or your butt. A rib?

First, she goes to the hospital for high blood pressure. Then her mother has a stroke. Now a dislocated rib. What’s next?

Maybe I shouldn’t have asked that question.

Who Needs Teeth When You're Drinking Beer?

2007-04-12T17:11:00.000-07:00

I’ve heard some people say that radio host Don Imus’ statements about the Rutgers women’s basketball team were blown way out of proportion.

I thought to myself, “Maybe they’re right.” I decided to run an experiment that just might show that Imus’ words weren’t all that bad after all.

When I got home from work, I said to my wife, “Hey there, nappy headed ho, what’s for dinner?”

And that’s why I am sitting here in my dentist’s office.

Just Phoning It in Today

2007-04-12T13:28:00.000-07:00

First, some important background information: I do not own a cell phone. I hate cell phones. They are evil.

I was checking out our bill last night, and saw that the girls use their phones a lot. My wife has a cell phone, and I didn’t like that idea in the first place, but she’s an adult, so what can you do? Part of the issue was cost, since we can’t afford many luxuries, and part of the issue was that cell phones are evil.

Later, without telling me--without even consulting me--she purchased additional phones and a plan that would accommodate our two girls and my daughter’s best friend. Yes, that’s right. We are paying for the cell phone use of someone not even in our family. In theory, that young lady is supposed to be giving us money to cover the cost of her bill, but in reality, she has only given us a small portion of that cost. Did I mention that we cannot afford many luxuries? And, did I mention that cell phones are evil?

I decided I’d crunch some numbers on the bill for our middle daughter just to see how much she was on her phone. Do you want to make a guess as to how much time she is on that damn phone every single day, not including texting? Nearly two hours. Every single day. For the most recent billing period, that works out to nearly two-and-a-half full days of talking on her cell phone. That does not include time spent talking on the house phone or on My Space. No wonder she’s flunking English. Did I mention that cell phones are evil?

Since the girls aren’t mine biologically, and since my wife prefers to handle it however the hell she wants, regardless of what I think, I wash my hands of the matter. That’s also why we now have completely separate bank accounts.

Do I sound a little bitter here? Sorry, but I am bitter.

And cell phones are evil.

Home Again, Home Again

2007-04-10T13:15:00.000-07:00

My wife and daughters are safely back at home, which is, of course, a mixed blessing. After two weeks of drinking beer, eating meals on the couch in front of the television, wearing the same pair of underwear, and singing “Magical Mystery Tour” at the top of my lungs (“we’re waiting to take you a-WAAAAAAY!”) at all hours of the day and night, I now must consider the sensibilities of others before I act. Damn sensibilities of others!

I did, however, learn a few important lessons. First, never watch Cast Away the night before your loved ones are due to get on an airplane to fly home. Second, a single bottle of beer provides a complete and nutritious meal for lunch. Third, too much time alone is not good for me.

Normally, my brain is distracted by the comforting sounds of domestic bliss, such as the screeching “you’ve been on/in the phone/computer/bathroom all day,” the soulful tunes of 50 Cent (“I'll take you to the candy shop, I'll let you lick the lollipop”), or the blaring, ear-shattering din that comes from the family room where one child is trying to watch television, talk on the phone, and listen to music on the computer all at once. When I was the sole occupant of the house, though, I had no such distractions.

Instead, I did something dangerous. I thought. Yes, that’s right. I rummaged through my brain, and what I found in there was not pretty. I discovered quite a bit of guilt--a ruined marriage, breaking up my son’s carefree life with two parents, my own failures at work, my own failures as a husband to my current wife. That guilt led to some moping and sulking and depression. Which meant, of course, that despite my freedom, I had a rather miserable time of it.

You’d think that I could get past some of my feelings, that I could learn to appreciate the simple joy of an empty house and no responsibility. Next time, I vow to do a better job of taking advantage of such a gift. Now, if only my mother-in-law could have another stroke so I can test it out.

It's Beginning to Look a Lot Like Jesus

2007-04-04T22:19:00.000-07:00

As you all know, I’m clean cut and look like Jesus (but without the beard and with a large sombrero). What you do not know, is that I act a lot like Jesus, too. While I have never walked on water or played outfield in the National League (oops, I was thinking of one of the Alou brothers), I have accomplished a lot of other eerily Messiah-like feats:

While I was a single father between marriages, I once fed my son and myself for six weeks on only two pieces of boloney and 16 cases of beer.
I was apparently born in a barn, since my father said something to that effect every time I came in the house and left the front door wide open.
Jesus may have entered Jerusalem on a road covered by the cloaks of his adoring fans, but I walk down my hallway every day atop the clothes my children have thrown from their bedroom doors.
I am a great teacher of wisdom, as evidenced by my daily instruction to my girls, “Blessed are the peacemakers, because if you two keep arguing about whose turn it is to use the phone, you’ll drive your father to an early grave.”
My other gem of wisdom is, “Consider the lilies of the field. They never ask for new clothes.”
I also tell lots of great stories, such as the one about the father who had a younger son whose terrible behavior drove him to an early grave, or the one about the ten bridesmaids/daughters who were waiting for the bridegroom to arrive, but who turned on every lamp/light in the house and ran out of oil/electricity, and so drove their father to an early grave.
And, of course, Jesus was driven to an early grave, while I’m well on my way.

Coffee and the Sociopath: A Love Story

2007-04-03T10:09:00.000-07:00

I have not had any coffee this morning. The result was that on my way to work, among other things, I killed and devoured two young children, I kicked a puppy, and I made a biker with a “Satan Loves You” tattoo cry when I growled, “What are you looking at, you shriveled old hag?”

I’m not exactly sure when I’ll get any coffee. Maybe not until lunch. I’d tell my secretary to go get some, but I already stuffed her into the shredder.

My Computer Is So Old...

2007-03-31T15:02:00.000-07:00

it runs on Windows 1900.
the hard drive’s capacity is 300Gps (Giga papyrus scrolls).
the processor’s speed is measured in knots.
my monitor is an Etch-a-Sketch.
instead of electricity, it uses steam power.
the only game I can play on it is Pong, but that’s only if I lay the Etch-a-Sketch monitor flat on its back, get two paddles and a ping-pong ball, and rig a net across the monitor.
the keyboard keys have Sanskrit characters on them.
it doesn’t have a modem, but uses smoke signals (the ultimate in a wireless connection).

I'm More Childish Than I Realized

2007-03-29T13:12:00.000-07:00

I’m not proud about it, but I did take your suggestions to play a prank on my secretary. I hid her cordless phone in a file cabinet. (I stole the idea from that episode of The Office when Pam and Jim hid Andy’s cell phone in the ceiling above his desk and kept calling.) It didn’t take her too long to find it, but it did give me a moment’s pleasure and a strange rush of adrenaline.

I’m looking for some good photos to put on her computer desktop. Any suggestions? Other prank ideas?

Day Three and Still a Slob

2007-03-29T11:08:00.000-07:00

So I’ve had three nights without a spouse, and the kids have been relatively mild. I have taken a mini vacation at home, doing nothing except eating, drinking beer, watching TV and goofing off. And you know what? I’m bored out of my skull.

Last night as I went to bed, my mind was racing. All the things that I’ve been neglecting, stuff at work, all of it darted to the front of my mind and ambushed my consciousness. So, for the next few days at least, I’m putting the brakes on my slobbish, bachelor life and will be cleaning, doing yard work and getting the laundry caught up.

And, since tomorrow is payday, I’ll be paying bills. There will be no fight this time since there is no one with whom to fight!

Thank God I'm a Middle Class Suburbanite

2007-03-27T12:31:00.000-07:00

I was clearing my inbox of unwanted e-mail, and I discovered some buried treasure. I wrote this piece a couple of years ago. Here it is, a window into my soul:

I popped a Creedence CD into the player in the blue Chevy Cavalier, my bruised and banged up half-a-car, rusted out on the bottom like any other self-respecting redneck jalopy. Because it was cool and foggy out, I was wearing my rough flannel shirt with half the buttons missing. The shirt, the music and the car allowed me to revel in my hick soul, even though I was returning from a meeting with very respectable people in a neighborhood full of $750K homes.

Sometimes I wonder if I really am a hick at heart, or if I just like the idea of it. Just because I pull on my boots to slog around in the garden a few times a year doesn’t make me a country boy, even if, in my childhood, I did clear the chickens’ water of ice during the winter and walk up the creek in my shoes in the summers. Now I sit all day in an office surrounded by books with a secretary who sometimes brings me coffee.

As I drove home, Fogerty began “Lodi,” and by the time he got to the words “things got bad, and things got worse” I realized I had heard someone else cover the song recently. Where was that? And who? Ah yes, the fog of memory began to lift...

My brother sat at the table, guitar in his lap, longnecks lined up, some strewn on the floor, soaking the rug with alcohol--a smell that would linger even longer than the stench of roadkill. Moon pie chocolate stained the corners of his mouth as he sang: “things got bad, and things got worse...oh Lord, stuck in Green Creek again.” Between verses he would wipe his greasy hands on his tee shirt, which was too short to cover his belly, or on his blue jeans, torn at the knees. His wife, my sister-in-law, held a child (or “chillin,” as she calls them) in each arm as she swayed in a drunken stupor to the music. Pa, an old man of 76, whistled through the gap in his front teeth, and Ma, celebrating her 50th birthday (her eldest son is 36: you do the math), picked her teeth up off the table so she could sing along, too.

Though the music belongs to CCR, the lyrics are my brother’s rural Homeric attempt to describe the saga of the Wilson clan’s (his in-laws) trips to the campground at Green Creek for family reunions. Most families would choose a plush beachfront resort or an oak-shaded glen in the Midwest for this annual event, but this group caravans their 4x4s and Frankenstein’s monster domestic sedans to a muddy and mosquito-infested stretch of backcountry to drink beer, eat franks and beans, and reminisce about the time Pa Wilson’s shotgun accidentally went off at my brother’s wedding.

When the Wilsons gather their nine children (along with spouses and chillins) to meet up with the other family members, strange things happen. Bodies fall into creeks; bears carry off a week’s supply of Ho-Hos; fishing rods get stuck up in places that ought not be mentioned in polite company, and the like. My brother’s mutilation of “Lodi” describes each year’s journey to Green Creek and forever immortalizes the deeds of the Wilsons and their kin. It was this song he sung as we sat around the table in a swampside shack late into the evening.

Nothing much out of the way happened that night. It was a typical Lefty family gathering, including Ma snorting Jack Daniels out her nose when she got the giggles. Thinking about that night, I realize I am not really a hick, but merely a part of a regular, middle class family. I am only a redneck wannabe. Oh well, maybe in my next life.

“Things got bad, and things got worse, but I guess you know the tune. Oh Lord, stuck in Lodi again.”

Some Great Things to Do

2007-03-27T11:00:00.000-07:00

In my continuing quest to improve our quality of life...

When turning left at a busy intersection, try dialing a friend on your cell phone. It is good fun for everyone when you miss the gigantic openings in traffic through which one could steer both the Titanic and the iceberg. It is particularly great when you fail to notice the light has turned red, and both you and I are hung out in the middle of the intersection.
While listening to your iPod in public, earphones jammed deep into your ears, sing along with the music. The louder you sing, the better. Those around you enjoy hearing your off key screeching while getting none of the actual music you hear.
When you are finished with a soda, hamburger, piece of gum, cigarette, child or other object, simply toss it over your shoulder to land wherever the gods will it. If you’re in your car, fling it out the window. The same applies to urine or feces, especially if you happen to be right outside the front of my office building at the time. This is like a giant pinata, and we’re all winners.
If you are a telemarketer, and your victim--er, potential client--asks, “Is this a sales call?,” say “no,” and then forge ahead with your sales pitch, which technically isn’t a sales pitch, but an amazing opportunity that can’t be passed up.
Drive erratically--stops and starts, sudden u-turns, drift toward the curb and then back toward the middle of the street so other drivers don’t know whether to go around you or follow you at your blistering eight-miles-an-hour pace. If you want to heighten the effect, get on your cell phone, too.

You're welcome.

The World Is My Laundry Hamper

2007-03-26T08:48:00.000-07:00

I have actual bad news (rather than the usual idiocy you get from me): my wife's mother had a serious medical emergency. Fortunately, after a successful surgery, the doctors are saying there is a good chance for full recovery. My wife, though, left this morning to be with her mother in the hometown of one of the Final Four participants. She will be gone two weeks. Both girls will fly out next week during their Spring Break.

On the less serious side, that means that I will be a bachelor for a couple of weeks, which means lots of beer, sports on television, going to play basketball with the guys, and other activities not sanctioned by the Spousal Governing Board. I will miss my wife, of course, but I can go from zero to Al Bundy in 6.4 seconds flat.

Death by Stapler

2007-03-22T13:26:00.000-07:00

You should be glad you don’t work in the same office I do. Today, you’d have a very unpleasant Lefty around to make your life miserable.

First, I’m sick. It isn’t the steaming fever, raging sore throat and exploding sinuses (to steal a line from Dave Barry, the Exploding Sinuses would be a great name for a rock band) sort of cold. It is the slight drip, dripping runny nose that reminds me of a leaky sink, the “Dad, can I? can I? can I? CAN I, huh, please?” sort of sore throat that is more irritating than painful, and enough of a fever to make me weak and weary. So that’s got me pissed.

And then, did I mention, there is a secretary that works here?

Each week, on the very same day every single bloody week, she is to go to a particular drawer in another office and pick up two forms that were filled out the previous afternoon. She is to then fax the forms and put the originals in a file.

You’d think it would be a simple task, right? You would be totally WRONG. It is more complicated than assembling the entire Earth using only a box of matchsticks and a piece of gum. About every other week, the secretary comes in to tell me that one or more of the reports is not in the drawer where it is supposed to be. What she really means is that the form was not RIGHT ON TOP with a Sherpa guide nearby to help her locate the form.

It is true, that for some unexplained reason--probably ghosts or mice with superpowers--the people who fill out the forms do not always put them in the right drawer. Sometimes one form is in the correct drawer and one is not, and sometimes neither form is in the right drawer. But always--ALWAYS, damn it!--if the “missing” form is not in the correct drawer, it is in a drawer precisely adjacent to the correct drawer. That means there are a maximum of three additional drawers in which to search for the form.

“But,” says the secretary, “I can’t go ALL OVER THE PLACE looking for the form.”

It gets better, though, because this week she couldn’t find one of the forms. So, like the idiot I am, I went in to look for it. I opened the drawer. On top was the empty clipboard that holds the form she had already collected. I lifted up the clipboard. And there, like the Golden Ticket from Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, was the blessed form. She DIDN’T EVEN LOOK!

Now on to part two.

Our office answering machine had a message from an employee at another location stating that she needed certain supplies. When that happens, the secretary purchases the supplies, and I take them to the other location because I am over that way quite often. Did I mention that the employee said she urgently needed the supplies?

After a couple of days had passed and there were no supplies for me to deliver, I said to my secretary, “Please let me know when you have bought the supplies so I can take them over.”

“You didn’t tell me to buy them.”

Somebody else was in the office, so I didn’t say what was really on my mind, which was “Waaaaaaaaagh!” as I plunged a stapler into her heart.

I also wanted to say, “And I didn’t tell you to breathe, but you managed that. And I didn’t tell you to pick up your paycheck, but you did that. And I certainly didn’t tell you to leave the office early last Friday but still put on your time card that you worked a full shift, but you sure as hell did that.”

Instead, I said nothing, and several arteries in my brain disintegrated.

So be glad you don’t work here. I might just kill you with a stapler.

Books Aren't Just for Throwing Anymore

2007-03-21T13:17:00.000-07:00

Reading is sacred to me. I do it as much and as often as I can. The following books and authors have been particularly nourishing to me over the years.

For Whom the Bell Tolls, Ernest Hemingway--this is perhaps my most favorite book.
Trumpet of the Swan, E. B. White--I read this as a boy and fell in love with it.
Patrick O’Brian’s Aubrey-Maturin novels--these inspired the movie Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World. He may be the best novelist of the modern era.
Roger Angell’s baseball books--if you love baseball, you’ll love these nonfiction books. He is E. B. White’s stepson.
Douglas Adams' The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy may not be great literature, but the books are damn funny. The movie didn't do it justice.
The Iliad/The Odyssey, Homer--I thought I’d be bored stiff, but figured I should read them anyway. Instead, I was engrossed from start to finish.
Jennifer Roberson has written a number of historical novels and fantasy series. She should be much more well known.

What are your favorites?

Working 9 to 5...or Thereabouts

2007-03-20T10:32:00.000-07:00

I review the hourly employees’ timecards every Monday. We do not have a time clock, so the times are filled in by hand.

Here’s the conversation I had with my secretary this morning.

Me: Are the hours you filled in for Friday correct?

Secretary: Yes.

Normally, I am not in the office on Friday afternoons, and so I cannot observe whether or not she is in the office. Guess what: last Friday, I was in the office for a short time.

Me: I was here from 2:45 to about 3:15. I didn’t see you here. When I left, I locked up your computer and the copy room. They were still locked when I arrived Sunday.

I work on Sunday, but the secretary doesn’t, and she almost never locks her computer or the copy room.

S: I was here. Maybe I took my lunch at a different time, but that’s when I thought I took lunch.

She had marked her lunch as 1:30-2:30pm.

Me: When it comes to your timecard, you can’t think you’ve got it right. You must fill it out accurately.

She was lying through her teeth.

Additional note: my e-mail inbox has 666 messages. Could that mean anything?

I Think She Wants an Excuse to Kill Me

2007-03-16T10:41:00.000-07:00

This morning, my wife was getting herself ready for a job interview (yea!). She asked me the only question with a higher Chaos Rating than "What do you think of this outfit?" on the Freudenberger Scale for Questions to Get Your Husband in Big Trouble.

She said, "How old do you think I look?"

I am sure she could see the confusion and fear in my eyes. My head began to spin. I clutched the bathroom counter for support.

I know very well, of course, that the number I gave in answer the very first time--because there are no second chances with a question like that--needed to be significantly less than her current age, but not too small, or my wife would think that I were merely humoring her. I also knew that I had less than 10 seconds to answer, or my wife would accuse me of fabricating an answer. (In the same way, when the wife says "Why do you love me?" then the husband had better rattle off a dozen excellent reasons within eight seconds or face full spousal wrath.)

So I said, tentatively, "30?" I looked at her for the signs of an eruption. Sweat beaded on my forehead and dripped into my coffee.

Waiting...

"So I look a lot younger than I am." There was no trace of irony, and she seemed genuinely pleased. I had dodged a bullet!

Then she asked, "What do you think of this outfit?"

Don't Tell Me YOU Haven't Ever Done Anything Impulsive

2007-03-15T11:10:00.000-07:00

Person Who Is Not Me, looking at me as if I am totally nuts: “How many days did you spend in one another’s presence before you got married?”

Person Who IS Me, trying to avoid eye contact: “About ten days.”

PWINM: “And you, of all people, should know better.”

Me: “Yes, I know.”

PWINM: “What was the rush?”

That’s a damn good question, and I can’t give a perfectly satisfactory answer.

You see, my wife and I met online. We used to play cards together. After about nine months, we finally met face-to-face. I spent a week with her. About a week after I came back home from that trip, we decided to get married. To repeat: we met for the first time in January and got married in March. Our 6th anniversary is about a week away.

I think the best answer to the question about the rush to get married is this (and there’s no need to tell me that’s not a good enough answer!): it was getting expensive to carry on a relationship when we were thousands of miles apart.

It is true that things have been more difficult for us because we rushed, but I love my wife, and I’m glad I’m married to her. And we’re working on things. We have made a lot of progress in six years, and we’re still climbing.

Reasons Why I Feel Inadequate

2007-03-13T10:00:00.000-07:00

Everywhere I go, I compare myself to people around me. And usually, unless I am visiting my brother at Happy Day House for Paranoid Schizophrenics Whose Brains Are Destroyed from Years of Heavy Drug Use, I compare poorly. The same is true when I read your blogs.

Here are some reasons for my feelings of inadequacy, in no particular order...

Mel still holds to that beautifully naive belief that children are gifts from God and should not be wiped from the face of the earth (or at least my house).
Everybody loves Neil. That's why it is so galling that my penis has never said so much as a single word in its nearly 40 years of existence.
Not only does Sizzle seem like a genuinely kind and caring person, she has actual c-a-t-s (take that Blogger ads) in her actual apartment. Oh how my soul would rejoice if I could have some in my house.
Jason has the greatest blog title in the world. Space Monkey Pants is to Long Relief what filet mignon is to baloney. How cool is that? Space. Monkey. Pants.
LVGurl lives in Vegas. Need I say more? She probably dines with Elvis impersonators every day. And she has Tapatio brand salsa picante in her house!
Eileen Dover has a wonderfully exotic accent. That's what happens when you're an Aussie. I'd really love to visit Austin, Texas some day. Any tips for this tourist, Dover?
Have you ever noticed my masthead? I thought not. Dooce is the Queen of All Mastheads. I am so jealous.
And then there's SWF41. She killed her brother with an axe! Okay, she didn't kill him, and it was a hatchet, but still, that woman has got balls.
Bre lives in the land of perpetual ice, snow and minus eight degree temperatures. That is just not fair to those of us who live in harsh places where the sun shines 360 days a year, and the mercury never drops below 62. Have you no shame, Bre?
The Love Monkey (no relation to Space Monkey Pants) is just straight up funny. I aspire to be just like her when I reach her venerable age--83 I think.

And there's more, of course. So much more.

(To be continued.)

Separated at Birth?

2007-03-12T15:41:00.000-07:00

There is a Korean woman who works in the same building I do. She is probably in her 50s. The other day, we passed one another and she said, “You’re so clean cut. You look like Jesus.”

That is definitely not the look I was going for.

Did I Mention...

2007-03-11T14:19:00.000-07:00

...that it's over 80 degrees today?

The Day Neil Kramer Saved My Life

2007-03-08T12:10:00.000-08:00

I know. I’m a big dope. I told communicatrix I’d participate in the Carnival of Neilochka, and I missed every single deadline. I do want to add something to the festivities because Citizen of the Month is a damn funny site. Plus, this is a story that must be told.

I have chosen to write about the day Neil Kramer saved my life!

The date was June 6, 1944. Sergeant Kramer stood in line ahead of me as our Higgins boat pitched and rolled toward the sands of Omaha Beach. Artillery shells splashed into the water all around us, but waiting silently in the bunkers ahead were countless Norwegian soldiers ready to cut us down...wait a minute...let me check Wikipedia...

Yes, just as I thought, numerous German soldiers were waiting patiently in their bunkers.

When the door crashed down, we rushed the beach. Almost immediately an explosion sent me flying face first into the sand. After gathering my wits, I searched for my muzzleloader and...hold on...Wikipedia again...

I picked up my Garand rifle and looked up for the only thing that could relieve the panic that was turning my insides to mush. And there he was, our grizzled veteran, that tower of strength for every scared kid like me on that beach, Sergeant Kramer.

“Old Rocky Bottom,” as we lovingly called him, stood erect, waving his giant sword...just a moment...held his Thompson submachine gun aloft and urged us forward. Bullets ricocheted all around him. A grenade landed at his feet, but he kicked it away and laughed--he laughed! He even caught one bullet in his teeth and spit it back toward the enemy.

“Move, men!” he bellowed above the din. He was our leader, and we obeyed.

I moved up and had almost reached cover behind a tank trap when everything went black. A blast had knocked my body around like a rag doll and knocked me momentarily unconscious. It had also thrown me forward, right in the enemy’s line of fire.

As I came to, Sergeant Kramer had me by the collar. Using his superhuman strength, he flung me to safety, completely ignoring the shrapnel that just sliced into his hip. Once I was back behind cover, Sarge called for the medic, but alas, he had been killed as soon as we left the boats.

I was horrified to see that my head had been blown clean off...no...my legs...both my legs had been blown off, which, of course, is why everyone calls me Lefty now. I was losing blood fast, and there was no time to spare. Sergeant Kramer plugged one artery with his right index finger, plugged the other with his left, and with his teeth, he tore bandages from a dead soldier’s uniform. He had taken his boots and socks off, and was preparing a morphine shot with his toes.

All the while, his Talking Penis tried to comfort me. “Hang in there, soldier. You can’t die on me, kid, and that’s an order!” his Talking Penis shouted.

Once I was patched up and out of immediate danger, the Sergeant faced a dilemma. Since he couldn’t leave the men, and since he couldn’t leave me behind, the Sarge strapped me to his back using the intestines of a fallen buddy. He charged into the fray, and everyone followed.

Sergeant Kramer single-handedly cleared ten thousand...er...eight...bunkers that day and won the battle at Omaha Beach. And with it, Neil Kramer saved a nation.

Sergeant Kramer, Hero Kramer, would later die in a tragic accident involving tequila and the giraffe from an African safari, a sad broken man who could never come to terms with the terrible things he saw “over there”.

Though the nation has forgotten him, Neil Kramer will always hold a special place in my heart. He will always be the man who saved my life.

You Want Me to Do WHAT?

2007-03-07T16:13:00.000-08:00

This is turning out to be a busy week at the office. It seems as if they want me to do actual work.

That means, of course, that I can’t put as much effort into keeping up with your lives, learning about the sounds your various body parts make, looking at pictures of the insides of your refrigerators, or getting detailed descriptions of the snot and/or vomit that comes from your children.

It also means that you will also be deprived of reading about my fascinating existence. Most of you just can’t get through the day without reading my complaints about cats or a careful description of my stapler, pretending it is actually something interesting, such as an ancient fossil.

I’ll do my best, but I can’t promise anything. After all, I’ve got to pay for my coke habit.

The Seven Biggest Disappointments of My Life to Date

2007-03-05T12:55:00.000-08:00

Pro wrestling is fake.

I have never had a date with Margaret Thatcher.

Two words: Beatles Reunion Tour.

My goal was to read through the entire dictionary by age 30. I am now nearing 40, and I am only on the word “abaft”. The dictionary is a lot less interesting than you would think.

Baseball Hall of Fame voters have bypassed Steve Yeager every year he has been eligible.

I have no superpowers.

Flying cars and jetpacks are not everyday accessories.

A Word about Cats, Part 2

2007-03-01T16:01:00.000-08:00

Previously, on Long Relief:

I wrote an 80,000 word rant about cats and their effects on wild birds, and promised more. This time, I will describe my experiences with one particular cat, known by some around the neighborhood as Big Louie.

When we first moved into our house, new windows were still going in. Most of the work was finished, but the screens had not been put back up. We arrived in the late summer, and kept the windows open most of the time because the weather was only slightly less warm than Satan’s waiting room.

The very first morning in our new home, I woke up to get ready for work. I trudged toward the kitchen to make coffee. Halfway down the hall, who should I meet but Big Louie, who had come to say “welcome to the neighborhood.” Needless to say, I chased him out my daughter’s bedroom window before he had the chance to give me the plate of freshly-baked cookies he had brought.

I live in a household of nearly all women and girls, and they think all cats are cute and cuddly, and I should love them. My wife, my daughters, and their friends all told me I should give Big Louie a chance. He’s just a cat. It’s not his fault he’s so lovable that he just had to come in and give me a kiss that first morning.

After a while, the women’s encouragement (some less tactful writers might call it “nagging”) broke me down. Even though whenever I’d weed my garden (a task I do by hand), I always found a nice gooey glob of half-buried cat poop, perhaps it was true that I was being too hard on Big Louie. And since he kept coming around no matter how vigorously I chased him away, I decided to try kindness.

Pretty soon, Big Louie and I developed something of a rapport. I spend a lot of time reading on my back patio, and soon, whenever he’d see me there, he came around for scratches on his head. It even got to the point where he’d crawl up in my lap for a nap.

It seemed as if this story would have a happy ending, two buddies whiling away the hours together. Unfortunately, it was too good to be true.

One day, as we sat together, a starling landed in the middle of the yard. In a flash, Louie leapt from my lap and snatched the bird in his jaws. He rushed around the side of the house with his prize, splattering blood all over the patio.

From that moment on, Big Louie was again no longer welcome in my yard. I am a bird watcher, and my yard has been landscaped to attract birds, not to provide Louie a private hunting ground. Now, whenever I see that cat in my yard--no matter what I’m doing--I’ll rush outside to chase him off. If he’s in someone else’s yard, I’ll leave him be, but just stay out of mine.

Some time after that fateful afternoon (henceforth referred to by the starling community as Black Saturday), I was bringing groceries into the house. Between trips, I naturally left the front door open since I’m not very good at opening doors with my teeth. On my way back outside, guess who was standing in my dining room, drooling and looking up at my parakeets in their cage? It wasn’t Santa Claus, that’s for sure. It wasn’t even Dick Cheney.

Now tell me, if one of my children or my dog or my alligator (funny story about that one; I’ll tell it another day) went into somebody else’s yard on a regular basis, and killed small animals about the neighborhood, and went into a neighbor’s house more than once, don’t you think I’d catch hell? Don’t you think my neighbors would scream at me and possibly even threaten to call the police?

But hey, it’s just Big Louie, and he’s small and cute. What can you do? Cat’s will be cats. Well, let me tell you, there is a double cat standard here, and I don’t like it!

All right, I promise, no more cat entries.

You’re dismissed.

Only the Strong Survive in This Harsh Land

2007-02-27T14:48:00.000-08:00

As I write, I am looking out across a majestic landscape. In front of me are towering mountains with sheer cliff sides that drop into deep valleys, ancient forests and gently rolling hills. I see a rugged wilderness full of danger into which only the most adventurous traveler would dare trek.

I am describing the wilderness that is my office desk.

Away to the south are stacks of books, folders and reports that reach to the heavens, the Paperwork Rockies. The tops, I’m sure (since the summit cannot be seen from my chair), are covered in snow, and fierce winds scour the surface. I have even heard rumors of the yeti--the abominable snowman--scavenging the mighty slopes. Two years ago, I lost a secretary when she attempted to conquer the alpine stacks but never returned.

To the north, spilling off my desk and onto my bookshelf is the venerable Greeting Card Forest. This is a land time has forgotten. Old greeting cards given on the occasion of birthdays, anniversaries, V-E Day and Jesus’ original birthday stand as silent sentries of an earlier era. Those who wander towards its deepest recesses will discover a place where the canopy is so thick light does not reach the desktop. Fell creatures surely make their homes there in the shadows.

To the west is grand Inbox Canyon, built over countless millennia. Deposits are laid down at regular intervals each day, and are then swept away once every month or so by a torrential downpour of false enthusiasm. The sunsets over this landmark are world-renowned.

Finally, at the eastern fringes of my desk are the gently rolling hills of Work in Progress. In some cases, near the bases of these vast grazing lands, the most recent progress took place at the same time Napoleon raced across Europe. Atop these hills roam the vast herds of Yellow Sticky Notes that the native peoples once hunted for food. Every part of the Sticky Note was used for some purpose, from clothing to shelter to making tools.

This is a harmonious land, practically unchanged for tens of thousands of years. It is a place where human beings are not masters, but simply one more species of animal that must struggle each day to survive.

It is the untamed wilderness. It is my desk.

Guess Who Is Ranting and Raving Again

2007-02-26T12:40:00.000-08:00

There are some days (like today), when I wonder “what in the world am I doing here?” This isn’t a metaphysical question, but a work-related one. What the hell am I doing in this job?

Yes, there are some upsides to the job. Earning money to buy food and thus avoiding starvation comes to mind. Though the pay isn’t particularly good, the benefits are exceptional. I have job security. I am very low on the list with the title “People to Fire When the Going Gets Tough.” Those are all great things to have, especially when the one thing my wife doesn’t have right now is a job.

Some days, however, the downsides seem overwhelming. High on that list is the fact that I work with a pack of slobbering, underachieving lunatics. I feel as if nothing will get done with a high level of precision and quality unless I do it. Some things won’t get done at all. And it is clearly not good for the company if I am doing things like changing light bulbs because the custodian is afraid of heights. (I’m not making that up, folks.)

Part of the reason I work with people who can’t (or won’t) do their jobs is that I am a poor people manager. I don’t particularly like people in the first place, and my attitude toward the employees I supervise is that they should do their damn jobs and leave me alone so I can do mine. Unfortunately, they don’t want to do their own work, and I’m the one that has to ride their butts if they don’t perform.

The best solution would be to fire the biggest idiots and hire other people who will work. The firing part is proving to be a hassle because our human resources advisor wants to be sure we jump through all the right hoops so we won’t get sued. The hiring part is also problematic because we can’t afford to hire good people, just ones who will work for low pay because they are not good enough to get a better job somewhere else.

What to do? I’ve considered jumping out of my office window. That isn’t an effective solution either, because my office is on the ground floor and I’d probably just sprain my ankle.

Long Anticipated Haircut Photo Arrives

2007-02-26T11:51:00.000-08:00

Some of you have suggested that you can't make a final determination on the utter awfulness of my recent haircut until you can see a photo. I am happy to oblige.

Please understand that I wasn't wearing any makeup when the pic was taken, nor had I washed or combed my hair. Also, I'm not wearing any clothes. (I mean I wasn't wearing clothes when the photo was taken. I'm wearing clothes now, for heaven's sake. After all, I'm at work, and I'm not going to make that mistake again.)

Are you ready?

Are you sure?

I mean, really ready?

'Cause it ain't pretty.

Here goes...

At Least It Isn't a Mullet

2007-02-22T11:25:00.000-08:00

So I got my hair cut yesterday.

When I go to the sterile chain hair salon where all the ladies look like they are on Death Row, I get my hair cut so short it looks as if the Marines are about ready to take me in. Then I can put off getting my hair cut for an ungodly amount of time until I look like the lost member of the Grateful Dead. I do this for two reasons: I am cheap, and I am lazy.

My wife always warns me ahead of time, “Don’t let them cut it too short.” I say “yes, dear” and then go out and tell Prison Lady to chop it all off.

I arrived home and asked my wife how it looked. “It’s long in the front and short in the back.”

“Really?”

“Really.”

I essentially ignored this comment because 1) I don’t really care what my hair looks like and 2) my wife is always exaggerating about things like that. But this morning, after my shower, I was combing my hair, and guess what? My hair is Alice Cooper in the front and Drill Sergeant in the back. I look like one of those half man, half woman carnival freaks, except I’m split front-to-back.

Is this my worst haircut ever? Probably not, but it’s close. (I quite literally had the bowl cut from Mom several times when I was a kid.) There was one time when the lady cut one of my sideburns short and not the other. That wasn’t good. I had to cut the long sideburn myself at home, had to keep evening it out until I had only a Mohawk left.

Have you ever had any bad haircuts?

Actually, There's Nothing Weird about Me

2007-02-20T11:04:00.000-08:00

Sizzle gave me some work to do: list six strange, wacky or weird things about myself.

When I park my truck, I always set the radio station to the same station, turn it to the same volume setting and then turn the radio off before I turn off the engine.
I eat only one item on my dinner plate at a time. When that one item is finished, then I move on to the next. I usually start with the vegetables and end with the main dish.
In the morning, after I shave and brush my teeth, if there is extra time, I will occasionally go back to bed and finish getting ready for work later.
When I leave the office on the last day of the month, I change all the calendars to the next month so that the correct month will be showing at midnight on the 1st.
I look exactly like the guy on the bottle of Tapatio hot sauce--except for the moustache and the hat.
There is always a two-foot stack (sometimes two or three stacks) of books by my bed because I’m always reading something.

Technically, I’m supposed to tag six more, but the buck stops here.

Oh Shitzu

2007-02-18T09:07:00.000-08:00

My phone rang at about 10 on Friday morning. It was my wife, she was on her way home.

“You aren’t feeling well enough to stay at work?”

“I quit my job.”

At the conclusion of our argument on Thursday, she left the room saying “And I’m quitting my job, too.” Later, after things had cooled down, she said, “You know, I was serious about quitting.”

“Okay,” I said. “Will you please wait until you find another job first?”

“Okay,” she said.

I guess by “okay,” she meant “hell no.”

I am angry. I am tired of feeling like the only adult in the family who will keep it together and do what’s right. I’d go drink myself into a stupor, but then, where would that leave us?

The Devil in Mr. Rogers

2007-02-16T07:58:00.000-08:00

Since yesterday was pay day, it was also pay-the-bills day. That means that there was a fight at my house. (And yes, thank you, the swelling is going down nicely. I should regain full sight in my eye by the end of the weekend.)

I’ve written before about my wife’s style of argument, also known as Blitzkrieg. To sum up, my approach to disagreement resembles Mr. Rogers, only a much gentler, milder and more reasonable Mr. Rogers.

My wife, however, prefers the conversational stylings of the master vampire from Blade: Trinity. Only she’s not so calm.

So I will definitely have to rant about our argument to decompress. That, and a gallon of coffee, will get me back on my feet. But I also need to be fair to my wife. As I’ve written before, she is a great woman, and I love her very much.

In order to be fair and balanced, I’ll give you a list of my own faults now, and then in another post, I’ll write about the argument. I know you’ll all disagree with my list. “No, no,” you’ll think, “that can’t be true. Lefty is the model of perfection.” But it is true. I am not perfect.

Without further ado, here are ten of my faults (in no particular order):

I am as insensitive as a stone. I am not aware of, nor do I anticipate, other people’s feelings very well.
I am regular in and uncompromising about my personal routine. It drives some people in this house nuts.
I sometimes snap quickly and say things in anger. Fortunately, my anger rarely lasts for long.
I can be very, very lazy.
I am much more sexually needy than my wife, and sometimes push her too hard.
I enjoy argument for the sake of argument and will persist even if I am sensing that the other person is not enjoying the argument so much.
I nitpick constantly. I do this with myself and others. It made my ex-wife batty. My wife hates it even more. I’m working on it.
When I believe I am right, I can become extremely unyielding and self-righteous.
I try too hard to be funny. It covers up my fear that people won’t like me.
I put off doing some things that are important.

Yes, it’s true that I am not perfect, but the sun will come out tomorrow.

A Word about Cats, Part 1

2007-02-15T12:44:00.000-08:00

While at Sizzle’s place, I jokingly made the comment that she’d be much happier if she got rid of her cats. It is true that housecats are not my favorites. Someone, however, took my comment to mean that I do not like animals, and that for me to suggest to Sizzle she get rid of her cats must indicate a character defect.

So, first of all, yes, I have about a thousand serious character defects.

Second, it isn’t exactly true that I don’t like cats, to say nothing of other animals. It is true that cats and I don’t always get along. The reasons for that have more to do with the owners of the cats, rather than the cats themselves.

Before I moved to my current location, I lived in a rural area. Our only neighbor, whose house was only about a hundred feet from ours, was the stereotypical crazy cat lady. She owned at least a dozen and fed any other feral cats that would come around. And if you feed them, they will come. They came in droves. She even went to town and fed the cats at several locations in town.

I would look out to the back yard, and there would be 6-8 cats lounging around like a pride of lions. They would dig up my freshly-planted garden to use as a litter box. My patio furniture provided perfect scratching posts. If I actually wanted to use a patio chair for sitting, I had to shovel off several inches of accumulated cat hair first.

I also enjoyed watching the birds and lizards in my yard. You can imagine what a pack of cats does to birds and lizards. No environment needs an artificially high population of predators running around. (They did, I admit, get some rats, too, which also play havoc on bird populations.)

So, you see, it was not so much the cats, but the behavior of the owner/feeder that irked me. Cats will be cats, and there is no use being angry at them for doing what they are programmed to do. Our neighbor, however, was irresponsible in the way she kept and attracted cats. The whole experience turned "cat" into a four-letter word around my house.

The American Bird Conservancy (ABC) estimates that outdoor cats--both pets and feral ones--kill hundreds of millions of birds every year. This *.pdf factsheet says that University of Wisconsin researchers estimated that cats kill 217 million wild birds annually in that state alone. The sheet further indicates that cats have been primarily responsible for the extinction of at least eight different island bird species.

The ABC says the only solution is to keep cats indoors since even well fed cats kill birds and other animals. Yet, are cats really indoor animals? Can they thrive in a life lived completely indoors? It isn't fair to the cat. Would you like to live a life stuck in the house all the time?

We human beings really make a mess of things sometimes, don’t we? What's the solution?

(To be continued.)

Night at the Hospital

2007-02-13T22:16:00.000-08:00

I’ve just come back from spending five hours with my wife at the hospital. She’s not in bad shape, just in there overnight for observation.

She called me from work as I was preparing to leave the house this morning and said she was in the Emergency Room. Her blood pressure was really high, and her boss didn’t want to take any chances.

The inconvenient fact (other than the obvious), is that her work is an hour away from home during good traffic, and three hours during bad traffic. It was good traffic this afternoon as I took middle daughter down to see her.

I wasn’t ever worried. She goes in to Emergency about four to six times every year, and this is the first time in our six years of marriage they’ve kept her overnight. She has lots of strange aches and pains—some she says are severe—that seem to be related to stress and anxiety. The frustrating thing is that the doctors can’t ever tell us what’s wrong.

No need for me to worry today, and I didn’t. But I did surprise myself. When it was time to leave my wife at the hospital a long way from home, I felt more angst at parting than I expected. We’ve been apart before, but never because she’s been in the hospital. I consider myself a tough guy, not prone to emotion, but tonight…

Since she’ll still be there for part of the day tomorrow, including a stress test, I’ll try to do something to make the latter part of her Valentine’s Day special. I’m thinking I’ll get her beer. What do you think?

Not-so-interesting Fact #12

2007-02-12T10:55:00.000-08:00

I have never been inside a bar or a club. (Am I really that lame? Or just cheap?)

My House: Conniption Fit Central

2007-02-09T11:21:00.000-08:00

It bugs the hell out of me when my kids leave lights on all over the house. So, like every other curmudgeonly father in history, I spend my time at home running around flipping switches because it’s easier than calling out every 8 seconds, “Turn that light off!”

These children—and I wish I knew who raised the buggers so poorly—will turn on the hall light when walking from the kitchen to the bedroom, and the bedroom door is directly across the hall from the kitchen. Three feet. And they need a light.

Recently, I watched my daughter walk down the hall to the family room, look inside to see that no one was in there, turn on the light, and then immediately walk away. What, the television needs the light on?!

Sigh.

Dad without a Clue

2007-02-08T10:56:00.000-08:00

Some of you know that a consistent theme in my life is guilt, particularly for my role in the end of my first marriage and the divorce’s effect on my son. A commenter on the blog suggested I talk to my son about things. Maybe it would help us both.

I mostly agree. Usually, talking about things is much healthier than leaving things to fester below the surface unexamined. When I had the chance to talk with my son, though, I didn’t. I chickened out.

One of my thoughts was that perhaps he’s in a comfortable place of denial for a 12-year-old, and he isn’t ready to talk about the end of his parents’ marriage. Could I possibly be opening up a wound he doesn’t need disturbed right now?

Another reason I bailed is that I don’t like the awful feelings I get when I think about the things my son has gone through because of my choices in life. Talking to him might bring those feelings to the surface.

Also, I have never seen my son become angry toward his mother or me because of the divorce. Am I afraid of that just as I am afraid of his sorrow? He doesn’t know many of the details, and some of them he never needs to know, but he could still be angry at us simply for breaking up his world.

But then...

Maybe talking about this is exactly what he needs to do. Maybe that would make all the difference in the world for him right now. How do I know?

Sometimes I feel like a first-class jerk. Sometimes I am.

Bow Down to My Psychic Powers, Earthlings

2007-02-07T16:23:00.000-08:00

I didn’t know I had it in me.

I drove to work this morning with two (yes, two) ceramic mugs of coffee in the cup holders. (I just hate to waste fresh coffee.) There is a corner near my office that has several giant potholes from a break in the water line a few months back.

Of course, as I bounced through the potholes, coffee spilled everywhere. (So much for not wasting fresh coffee.) I was, let’s say, more happy than if someone had kicked me in the balls, but less pleased than if I would have arrived at work with two full cups of coffee.

I thought, as I pulled into my spot at work, that I should call someone to get those damn holes fixed. I did nothing, of course, but drink what was left of my coffee and spend my working hours goofing off.

Then I went to lunch.

When I was driving back to the office after lunch, what did I discover but...the holes had been neatly patched up! You know what this means, don’t you? I have ESP. My thoughts caused someone else to fix the potholes.

Only one question remains: why doesn’t anyone else do what I’m thinking they ought to do?

I'm a Sick, Sick Man (Where's the Bathroom?)

2007-02-07T11:02:00.000-08:00

I have come to realize I am slightly or moderately obsessive. Or is it compulsive? Maybe both. I am not sure of the cause, but it is certainly not my fault.

Let me explain.

I have a plastic bowl filled with candy on my desk. It is assorted leftover candy from God-knows-where, things like generic M&Ms (regular and peanut), a ton of white-chocolate-covered raisins, milk chocolate pieces, gummy worms, and even a few jelly beans.

The fact that it is 1) left over, 2) bulk candy and not wrapped and 3) I don’t know where it came from, grosses me out a little. Nevertheless, I have been eating the stuff like my last meal was Thanksgiving. I can’t stop. Yesterday, I got a little sick to my stomach. Couldn’t stop. Today, I’m feeling a little ill. Can’t stop. The only reason there is still candy on my desk is that I can’t eat any faster.

Flash back to grad school. A friend and I bought a bag of candy corns to take to class. After about 10 minutes, he’d had enough. So had I, but I kept eating until the bag was empty. Of course, I was sick.

At night, before I go to bed, I go to every window in the house to make sure it is locked and the blinds are closed. I check every door. I turn out every light. Then again, in the morning before I leave for work, I do the same thing. No, I’m not safety conscious. In fact, I hope someone will come in and take some of the crap I own.

It takes me way too long to floss and brush my teeth. I’ve got to do it perfectly, to overdo it. Same thing with the bathroom. It takes me hours to clean (which is one reason I clean it so rarely).

Am I sick? Normal?

I hate this candy! But I’ve got to eat it.