:: Hippo-Pete-Amus ::

:: Friday, November 22, 2002 ::

I've been a heavy smoker for 11 or 12 years. I did a lot of stupid shit between the ages of 17 and 25 that still impact my life, but this is by far the worst. I've tried several times to quit. I've tried the patch. It didn't work, but if you wore it to bed you had the most vivid dreams. I think it was similar to lucid dreaming because I had a fair amount of control and they were very memorable. I tried the gum. It worked for about a day. But then my jaw locked up from the excessive and vigorous chewing. I tried the inhaler. It didn't work. It felt a lot like I imagine lighting a fire in your nostrils to feel...every 15 minutes.

I never tried the pills but my friend did. Apparently they are a mild anti-depressant. Right after he went off them he went to see Fight Club. He cried and cried. Apparently it's a sad and touching tale when you're kicking the effects of a mild anti-depressant. I didn't feel like going through that.

So far I've tried every form of nicotine replacement with less than stellar results.

I have not had a cigarette since Monday, one of my longest stretches since I picked up the habit barring times of illness. What's more important not a single microgram of nicotine has hit my bloodstream since then either. I have these to thank.

Even though I've spent damn near my entire life in Austin, I'm usually very skeptical of any of the "organic-holistic-hippy panacea, bullshit" that my quaint little conservative side says they sell at the "Whole Foods Markup." But these things are incredible. I've had a few cravings but they've been totally managable by chomping the hell out of these little mentholated toothpicks.

And the packaging is true...they do leave my breath fresh...AND minty. Those Australians...is there anything they CAN'T do?

big9:05 AM [+]
...

Ok. Sorry folks. Changing jobs has been...hectic. Over the last month I've been flailing about in order to get up to speed here. I've basically had to learn C++ for eMbedded systems and the innner workings of the entire vending industry. That's right...vending. Coke machines and shit. I think I've read about 4,000 pages of technical specifications in the last month. Of all the stone-cold facts I've learned in this time there have also been 2 major life-lessons.

1) READING 4000 PAGES OF VENDING MACHINE AND SOFTWARE TECHNICAL SPECS WILL CAUSE YOUR SOUL TO SLOWLY FADE AWAY!

2) It will also drive any sort of interesting, bloggable idea right out of your head.

So here I am today. I am at or near the point where the workday is becoming routine. This is very important for me, creature of habit that I am. Not to sound too dramatic but my world was turned upside-down by the job change.

Alright, alright. Upside-down maybe a little much. We'll say it was...90 degrees. Halfway between normal and upside-down. That sounds good.

The new place is about a 20 minute drive away, maybe 30 in traffic. This is about 4 times longer than my old gig. However most of it is down Capital of Texas Highway, a pretty nifty and driveable stretch of road. There's lots of work to be done here and a boatload of chances for me to learn new things.

And I got one of these absolutely free.

With all the work, I'm ashamed to say, I've been neglecting my parental duties at times. Don't get me wrong, Lola gets her two walks and two squares a day.

It's the cat whose growing up right in front of me and yet without my wise tutelage. Case in point...

Last thursday I got a call from my girlfriend.

"You have to come home right now!" She was clearly panicked. I could hear the rush hour traffic from 6th Street, indicating she was probably in the front yard.

"Did Lola get out?"

"NO! It's chairman...he's...HE KILLED A FUCKING MOUSE IN THE BATHROOM!"

eek...


big2:17 PM [+]
...

BOB!

big1:07 PM [+]
...

The rumors of my demise have been greatly exaggerated…for now.

Between getting caught up at the new job and tying up the loose ends at the old one, I’m pretty well spent. I logged 75 hours last week. 75. I get sleepy when I drive for more than 10 minutes. Needless to say I’ve been a little…spacey.

Case in point: I was at the old job Sunday verifying some of the work that my underling cum replacement had been doing. It’s not demanding work but it is time that I could be using to do other things. Like nothing for instance. Nothing is my favorite thing to do.

So I’ve been verifying away for a couple hours and I decide it’s time to take a little break. There’s a cd in my truck I made specifically for all the times that I’m dragging ass but still have work to do. It’s a good mix of old and new songs that can’t help but get the blood a-pumpin.’ It starts out with ‘ABC’ by the Jackson 5, followed by ‘Walking on Sunshine’ by Katrina and the Waves. Then it goes to ‘Whiskey River’ by none other than Willie. ‘Fell in Love with a Girl’ by the White Stripes. After that there’s a few Foo Fighters Songs, a 7-minute How High the Moon by Ella Fitzgerald with an UNGODLY scat break. It all finishes up with ‘Timebomb’ by the Old 97s. Yep, all the things a not-so-young boy needs to get through a very long day when the coffee just ain’t cutting it.

So on to the spacey part. The cd has fallen under the seat of my truck (along with most the rest of creation). I toss my keys on the seat, shimmy rather gracelessly onto the floorboard and start rooting around like a pig for truffles. Only with my hands not my snout. That’s a bad metaphor. Is it even a metaphor? I guess it’s a simile. Anyway, after a good minute of digging under the seat and the occasional girlish yelp as my fingers brush over something tat clearly doesn’t belong under a car seat but somehow got there, I find my prize. Invigorated, I slide out of the truck, lock the door and kicked it with my foot to close it.

The door is about 2 inches from shut when I remember my keys are on the seat. Alas, I am too slow. I reach quickly for the door, fingers barely missing their mark. The sudden movement causes my feet to slip on the rain slicked and leaf covered asphalt.

Ass, pavement. Pavement, ass. Nice to meet you!

The cd goes flying through the air lands flat on the data side and slides about 10 feet over the asphalt. I’m struggling a bit for breath. My caboose is cold, wet, and numb from the impact. My keys are locked in my car and I’m locked out of my office. Considering the circumstances I reacted how most would. I looked around to make sure no one saw me fall.

After a moment I get myself up and brush myself off and I start all over again, just like the old song says. I take stock. Keys, inaccessible. Office, inaccessible. Cell phone!

Damn! The cell phone is plainly visible through my office window. If I didn’t know my cell phone better (and didn’t know that cell phones don’t have fingers) I’d swear that this one was shooting me the bird. “This is for the time the dog chewed on me, jackass!” Even the things that are intended to make my life easier mock my efforts. Or maybe the fall has jarred my exhaustion rattled brain.

With my security card I gain access to the entryway of my building. I’m desperately hoping someone left a coat hanger in there. No such luck. There is a small pile of doorstops though. A plan forms…

I grab a doorstop and carefully use it to wedge open the passenger side window about ¾ of an inch. I keep having visions of the window shattering and shards of glass ending my suddenly complicated life. However I refuse to die with dirty jeans and a bruised ass. I press on and get the doorstop good and wedged.

After a solid ten minutes of attempting to unlock my door with wet sticks and wriggling my fingers in hopes of getting my corn fed wrists through a 1 inch gap, I realize my plan has succeeded in nothing but to provide fresh air to my insolent keys. I need something long and thin, sturdy yet flexible. I need a coat hanger but don’t have one. What to do, what to do.

I walk around the parking lot looking for divine intervention in the way of a…I dunno…thingy that’ll open my door. No such luck. The squirrels chitter with glee as they chase each other around the tree trunks of the massive oaks that shelter the office complex from the rest of civilization.

I return to my truck. I try kicking the bumper. It didn’t work. I almost fell again too. I kicked it again. The same thing happened. I grab the tailgate with my hand and begin to rock my truck back and forth. I don’t know what I’m hoping to accomplish at this point, but asserting some form of control over the Gordian Knot that is my 96 Chevy truck feels damn good. The truck is moving back and forth an inch or so. There’s the short and gratifying pop of an exploding pecan as the wheel rolls over it. Take that you damn squirrels. It could have been the difference between life and death for you this winter. The antenna begins to move in slow circles, rattling angrily at the constant motion.

Wait a minute…long and thin…. sturdy yet flexible…dun-dun-dun-DAAHH! The Antenna!

I quickly unscrew the antenna and begin the arduous task of trying to unlock the door. I can’t get any leverage on the lock. It’s not a power lock so I really need to get some force behind it to pop it open. The end of the antenna will hit the lever, but when I apply any force to the antenna the end slips harmlessly away. Hmmm. Well this is going to work. There’s really no way I can allow it not too. In six short hours night will fall.

I try a different tack. I start using my left hand as a fulcrum. I slip the antenna under the window crank and start to lever it. At first it seems the handle won’t budge. But suddenly, the handle jerks forward about an inch, the antenna goes sliding off the knob of the handle and smacks against the ceiling of the truck with a slight muffled metallic THWACK! Woo Hoo! I try again with similar results.

Eventually the window is open, the keys are in hand and I’m at my disk listening to a rather scratched but not totally useless mix cd.

Oddly enough the whole thing makes me feel accomplished, like I’d do really well on Survivor or as a conservative militiaman in the wilds of Montana. Damp of bum but light of heart, I plug away with the feeling that there’s nothing I can’t do.

Thank god for small victories…


big10:00 AM [+]
...

Julie (of yesterday's Julie/Julia project) thought I was being snotty. Well I wasn't. I linked to her blog because I think it's a good one. So Julie, I apologize. Partly out of fear for the ominous "returned favor, " but mostly because I didn't intend to come across how I must have. She's always been a very good writer...but that doesn't change the fact that she subsisted mostly on Twix Bars and Blue Bell Dutch Chocolate Ice Cream in high school.

A couple of weeks ago was my parent's 40th wedding anniversary. My 3 brothers, my sister, Jennifer and I spent several months planning a huge surprise party for them. We had my parents’ siblings fly in from all over the country. My brother came in from Minneapolis. My sister, her husband and her one year old daughter Alice Louise came in from Hoboken. Everyone else was from Iowa. 46 folks in all. It was great.

My parents really raised two families. The first was made up of my siblings. They were all born 1 or 2 years apart in the sixties. This family hit their prime in the 70s. My parents have literally hundreds of pictures from camping trips, trips to the beach, and visits to my grandpa's farm. The ubiquitous pale yellow VW microbus. The bowl haircuts and maroon Toughskins. Baseball pictures. Football pictures. First day of school pictures. Flipping through them gave you the impression that they were a lower-middle class version of the Brady's. We had some affluent cousins who used to envy them because they crossed the country in that VW Microbus singing along with The Jackson Five, James Taylor, The Commodores, and The Carpenter's. They're all really good friends and talk to each other frequently.

My parent’s second family was me. I was born a good 5 years after my closest sibling. Until about 4 years ago he resented me for usurping his 'Baby of the Family' throne. Then he turned 30 and grew the fuck up. Man, I hope I’m as lucky.

My parents were doing a lot better financially by then. They no longer needed the Microbus. We flew. We went to places like New York, California, and other comparatively far-flung locales. I got to go to plays and big sporting events. My mom stopped cutting my hair when I was 8. The others got the Sally Special into junior high (this is before there were those Middle Schools that the kids are going to these days). I didn't wear a single hand-me-down during high school and I didn't have to share a car with three other siblings. I got all the attention and support I needed from my parents, though I refused to acknowledge it at the time. I was a bit unappreciative and, frankly, a total shit to them at times. But on the whole and 'Through the Years' (Kenny Rogers was another one we sang a long to) I've developed really great relationships with my folks.

My relationship with my siblings is...weird. They don't know a whole lot about me, nor I about them. They know where I work and live, things like that. I've always been the quintessential uncle to their kids, in my opinion. My Christmas presents are the ones that need to be played with IMMEDIATELY and I serve as a mobile and interactive jungle gym. I buy the most raffle tickets, cookies, and huge tins of popcorn. I give these things right back to them.

But I've always been trapped in the role of baby brother. There are family secrets and fights I don't hear about until well after the fact because of some weird notion that I had to be sheltered because I couldn't handle it. It's a little frustrating because I feel like a stranger in my family when they start talking about the time my cousin got arrested for some lewd act or the three year fight my mom and sister in law got in but of which they never showed an outward sign.

We’re excellent repressors. You’d think we were Protestants instead of Catholics.

In February, we started planning the party. Because I live closest to my parents and have no children to attend to, I put myself in the role of Chief Organizer. I sent out info about the locations I'd talked to and the aunts that said they'd be there. My sibs would help out with getting pictures on the sly for the invitations, calling folks, and making suggestions for the party favors: a 2 CD set of all-time family favorites.

Half way through these 8 months of planning something weird started to happen. The emails became longer. The calls became more frequent. We started talking about things other than the party. We started getting to know each other all over again and, in some cases, for the first time. It was really great.

In the end we pulled it off. My parents didn't have a clue that anyone was coming.

They don't get to see Alice Louise very often so they were excited. My mom hadn't seen a couple of her sisters in over a year. My dad hadn't seen either of his siblings in several years. There were several margarita's downed. The staff at Z’Tejas (the restaurant where we had the party) danced with us at our behest to "Brandy" by Looking Glass. We left the restaurant and went to the Broken Spoke to see Don Walser. I two stepped with my mother, my sister, my nieces and my aunts. I hadn't felt as elated since I went to the Iowa State Fair when I was about 8. The entire evening was filled with laughter and stories.

But most of all I felt completely comfortable. My siblings were no longer these strangers I see at Christmas every year. To them, I was no longer the kid brother they didn't know much about. After 40 years, we were finally a family.


big9:06 AM [+]
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PART FOUR

Part Four is brought to you by The Julie/Julia Project. The Julie/Julia Project is the culinary coming of age story of a high school friend who subsisted primarily on Blue Bell Dutch Chocolate Ice Cream and Twix bars those many, many years ago. Said same girl has taken on the daunting task of making every recipe in some Julia Child cookbook. I bring it to your attention because I'd hate for her to drive herself mad without a proper audience.

So my worst fears had been confirmed by a not too objective third-party. The thought of me possessing the necessary faculties to own a dog was laughable at best. I was to spend my days with only the companionship of other humans. No variant species for me. I was to be a saltine, locked in a plastic tube of existence with 24 other saltines just like me. Not a Ritz, Triscuit, or Wheat Thin in my suddenly bleak and quickly stale landscape. I was doomed to lead a truly flavorless existence.

I spent the next hour in a funk. I felt like a Tom Waits song. One from the eighties. Maybe 'Hang Down Your Head' or 'Way Down in the Hole.' It's not often that my prophecies of inadequacy are actually fulfilled.

So this guy, Robert, was Lola's sponsor at the agency. He was the one that had to come check out my house and talk to me about what happened. Robert was kind of like that girl in third grade that always wanted to be a unicorn. Robert, however, had the fortune to pick dogs, a species that actually exists. Whether that's good fortune or bad fortune is really up to the individual.

Oh, and, don't tell me that unicorns exist. I don't care what state fair you were at, that was a mistreated goat and you know it.

Robert showed up with Lola in tow. She looked exhausted. Apparently she's lactose intolerant because the ice cream given to her by the well-meaning shopkeeper is causing some serious gas. She promptly came to me and rolled onto her back so I could offer some relief in the form of a good belly scratching. She is indeed her daddy's dog.

I take Robert to the kitchen and show him the little pane of glass that Lola punched out to pull open the door. I show hymn the malfunctioning lock on the door that allowed it to come open and the 4'x6' piece of screen that she jumped through to get out.

"Man she really wanted out huh?"

Robert apparently doesn't like to gussy things up.

"Yeah must have."

I guess I shouldn't bitch too much about Robert's style of communicating. I ask him to take a seat.

"Listen," he says after a rather uncomfortable pause, "I'm not going to take the dog away. I know it's your first time. It says a lot that you took the day off to look for her. It says even more that you took her in the first place considering her history.

History? hmmmm....

"What history is that?"

"Well she's been with a few other families."

"A few?"

"Well 4. Is that more than a few?"

Discover semantics on your own time, slappy. "4?"

"Yeah. She was too hyper for them. Serious separation anxiety issues."

"Huh." Dogs get separation anxiety. Well that certainly was an unexpected revelation. Not wanting to jeopardize my recently renewed status as a pet owner I decide there's only one thing to do to get the answers I need while keeping Robert in the dark concerning my misgivings. I'm going to blow a metric ton of sunshine up his ass.

"Robert, you seem to be really in tune with the canine psyche. Undoubtedly you have been in this situation before. In your expert opinion what's the best thing to be done for a dog with this condition?"

If Robert had a tail, it would have been wagging. He breathlessly took me over the basics. He spoke with an incredible, misplaced, intensity that I can only liken to Tom Cruise's acting. He seemed very appreciative for the opportunity to speak of his passion. I was more than happy to give it to him. He was a really great guy.

Crate training was most likely out of the question. Any dog that would pull a Mission: Impossible to get out of the kitchen would probably end up hurting herself in a crate. He said training and a boatload of exercise were the best things. He also said I should start by only paying attention to her no more than 10 minutes out of every hour. That sounded hard. I didn't want man's best acquaintance, after all. I thanked him for his advice. I walked him out to his truck where he gave me a well worn and half chewed obedience book. The irony wasn't lost on either of us.

After an exchange of hone numbers and email addresses, I headed back inside. Lola was sprawled on the couch, her head in Jennifer's lap, all four paws in the air. Her ears were flipped up and it made her look like a napping mad scientist. Jennifer was absent-mindedly scratching Lola's chest and reading a book. I sat down next to them and grabbed a book of my own. We've done that every night for the past 11 months and 13 days. We've been through a lot together.

Lola alone has been through one hand me down couch, another window, and my favorite pair of Doc Marten's.

She got the hang of it. Eventually. Now, whenever we leave she curls up on the couch and watches TV. We come home and she's ready for action, sitting at our feet and wagging her tail so hard her butt slides across the hardwood floor. She can sit, lie down, stand, stay, play dead, spin, jump, speak, shake and hi-five. She could have a half a slab of baby back ribs in her mouth and drop them immediately when I tell her to.

Squirrels are a deal breaker though. She sees a squirrel and all bets are off until it's in a tree and out of reach.

But whenever I call her to me, she comes.


big3:37 PM [+]
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PART THREE

Holy crap! I've got a reader. Thanks for the comment anonymous patron!

So there I was, standing on my back porch about to puke. I had been a dog owner for 17 hours and had already lost her. Suddenly every single reason given to me by my father as he denied my many requests for a dog flashed in rapid succession through my slightly panicked mind. "Dogs need a lot of attention, they’re a huge responsibility, they require training so they know how you expect them to act, I just don't feel you're ready for a commitment like this."

It felt like being in the audience of a terribly embarrassing slide show of the times I've shown questionable judgment while drunk. What's worse my mother is sitting next to me at this slide slow and we're sharing a bag of popcorn. She looks suspiciously at me, wondering if I washed my hands after the activities shown in slides 4 - 12.

So as I'm calling work to tell them that my dog's escaped while simultaneously making fliers with the one picture I had of my poor lost little girl, my overactive mind is taking this seemingly benign incident and spinning it into a paralyzing web of self-doubt. It's not that hard really and I'm capable of doing it with almost anything. If I burn dinner it's just a glaring example of my inability to see things through to the end. Should I forget to send a bill in on time it's clearly the more pervasive problem of my complete inability to care for myself because I took poor advantage of a pretty privileged childhood. If I don't put the seat down I'm inconsiderate to all. Locking my keys in my car is simply a side effect of my general stupidity. Spending an entire paragraph of a blog post talking about myself clearly indicates that I am entirely too self-interested.

Panic and depression were slowly turning into self-loathing as I wandered the streets of my neighborhood calling for my dog with a name she hasn't even had the time to learn yet. I continue until my voice is breaking along with my heart and any hope I have of becoming a fully functional adult by the age of 30. I go to the local shelter to see if anyone has found her and returned her to the place that was fully prepared to euthanize her a few short weeks ago. No luck. She's found an owner worthy of her boundless energy and profound desire to love. They've kept her because her previous owner, yours truly, obviously didn't have the character/moral fiber to take appropriate care of such an extraordinary companion.

Dejected, demoralized, and decidedly neurotic...I return home. That's when I notice the beacon.

There have been many times in my life that I have basked in the staccato glow of this beacon. When all hope seems lost, when I haven't a friend in the world, when I am just a panic attack away from becoming that weird guy down the street with all the cats that talks to the 7 foot tall gorilla statue in his front yard, that beacon has pulled me from the precipice of despair. That tiny LED has rescued me from THE CLIFFS...OF INSANITY!

I'm talking about the message indicator on my answering machine.

A very nice shop owner about a half a mile away from our house found her. She'd had her for about 4 hours. They played games, ate ice cream and my dog had taken a nice long nap. Since we hadn't had time to register her city tag with our contact information the lady had called the adoption agency from which we got her.

My girl was safe! We had another chance at a fulfilling life together! I will take her to the park every day! She will be fed only the best kibble and shall grow fat (but not like dangerously fat) on peanut butter and liver flavored treats! She shall have toys! Oh such glorious toys! Toys that quack like ducks and oink like pigs that shimmy and vibrate with the pull of a string! She shall have the best bed known to man! She will be played with and talked to and only bathed when she smells so bad that the neighbors complain! It is now my life's ambition to make her the HAPPIEST DOG IN THE UNIVERSE!

I return the call to see when and where I can pick her up.

"Well, Pete, we're a little concerned about this. You've had her for a day and already she has escaped. She could have been hit by a car or attacked by another dog or worse...she could have attacked somebody. We need to reconsider your adoption and determine whether you're ready for this kind of responsibility."

...

ouch.



big2:08 PM [+]
...

PART DEAUX

So when last we left off I was about 2 minutes from a severe tongue lashing. It turns out there were to be both figurative AND actual tongue lashings.

After throwing about 150 bucks worth of pet accesories into the back of my truck, my girlfriend, my new dog and myself piled into the cab. Notice I did not say "Extended Cab." This was on purpose as I have an economical, honest to god, one bench seat truck. The current capacity was exceeded by about one hyperactive dog. The new pooch was appreciative to be going home with us as was evident by the actual tongue lashing I received. After about 30 seconds I felt much like the bathroom floor of a bar during the Texas summer: thoroughly moist and slightly sticky. My glasses were hopelessly spotted with dog slobber. I was in heaven.

The dog made the mistake of trying to show an equal amount of appreciation to my quietly seething girlfriend. Enter the figurative tongue lashing.

"WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU THINKING? WE DON'T HAVE ROOM FOR A DOG! THE CHAIRMAN DOESN'T WANT A DOG-

A short aside: The Chairman is our cat. The reason for his name is two-fold:

1) I wanted to name him Chairman Meow because I was drunk and had just listened to Revolution by the Beatles. I'm not actually smart enough to read Communist literature.
2)He runs the joint. Completely. There has never been a meaner cat with more humble human servants. We scoop his shit and he knows it. What's worse...he loves it.

...and the rant continues. "IF YOU THINK FOR A GODDAM SECOND I'M WAKING MY ASS UP AT 6 EVERY MORNING TO WALK THIS HORRIBLE SMELLING LITTLE..."

The car ride home was 15 minutes long. It seemed to last about 2 English Patients and a Gone With The Wind.

So we get home and settled. The dog promptly pees on the floor and begins to whine and bark. This was not what I intended. I never had a dog growing up, but I knew the day that I found that special canine companion we would cavort, hand in paw, through the fields of elation that earned the species the whole "Man's Best Friend" title. There would be no whining...no pining for the mother or previous master. We would curl up by a fire with a good book and a hot cup of cider. The offers for Hallmark and Celestial Seasons commercials would roll in due to our idyllic and enviable bond, our unexplainable, unreproducable friendship.

The next day after I left for work...she escaped. I came home to see a goodly part of the screen around our back porch flapping in a gentle breeze. When I get to the back porch there is a large pile of what my partially college-educated brain tells me is dog shit. There is a small pane of glass missing from the back door and poor poor Lola is lost in the world.

big11:09 AM [+]
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