Big fish, small pond pt I

So last Friday, Chris and I went out to karaoke. And let me just take a moment to set the record straight, I don't go religiously because I have no where else to be on the weekends... ok well, maybe I don't actually have any place else to be, but singing karaoke is where I'd choose to be even if I had another offer. And besides, now my wife is there and like, my one other friend, so why would I want to go anywhere else? Granted, karaoke may not be as 'cool' as staying up late doing keg stands or playing cribbage, or whatever you kids are doing these days... Not all of us enjoy diving into the pinochle underworld at the VFW, or enjoy the thrill of Blessed Virgin's high stakes bingo night, you know. If you can't go a weekend without the adrenaline rush you get from playing that damn Atari2600 into the wee hours. Fine. I'd say YOU are the one with the problem, my friend. And as far as I'm concerned, you can take your Guitar Hero, and your Facebook, and your Grey's Anatomy with you into the 5th circle of Hell where all you riff-raff belong.

I'll be at karaoke.

Anyway, I digress... I guess... bottom line was Karaoke was a hoot and we were pretty much the only ones singing so I think I sang about 17 songs. Other than the fact that I couldn't get John Denver's "Calypso" out of my head for about 4 days (thank you soooo much, Marty) it was great. And if you didn't know, my wife has every WHAM song committed to memory and has been known to even do a little dance while singing. And seeing THAT is worth giving up euchre night. Or at least moving it to the karaoke bar...

I shot a man in Reno HEE-HEE just to watch him die. BWA-HAAHAAHA!

Although I've been blogging consistently for a couple months now, I haven't done any song writing. I haven't really even gotten 'the bug' to do so. With blogging, I can start with, "What bonehead maneuver did I pull off today without getting myself killed?" and work from there. The beauty of this approach is that every day is filled with new material. Also, in the blog/journal format, if I write something that isn't terribly interesting, I can wait around until I do something else stupid and turn right around and type up another one. Which, depending on the day, could be less than an hour.

Song writing is different. Since I inevitably put way more time and effort into it than I initially intend, I feel like I need to make count. No gutter-balls, so to speak. It needs a 3 minute story arch. It needs to be clever, yet not esoteric. It needs to be catchy yet poignant. Blah blah blah... and thus songs don't get written. I heard a live session with Suzanne Vega the other day. Apparently, she has songs on her latest album that she started six years ago. !!! It shouldn't take longer than 5 minutes to decide if whether then next chord should be C or G. It's got to be one of the two... Six years? Come on Suzanne. I just don't have that kind of attention span. (Hmmm... that rhymes, may have to use it later...)

Anyway, Yes, I know, that's totally the wrong attitude for song writing. I need to just turn off the filter and do it. But even then you need a starting point, or an ending point. Either will do. Sometimes artsy types begin a journey and see where it leads, other times you set your sites on the horizon and try to figure out how to get there.

Well, finally I had two ideas that when combined could work their way into becoming a song. The first was the belief that, although one of my friends says he's over his Johnny Cash phase, I came to the convenient conclusion that he's just tired of all the JC songs he knows and not really sick of the genre. The other spark came from the fact that this same friend is about to be the father of his fourth son. We tease him on a fairly regular basis about being prejudice against little girls and so forth, so I imagined at some point, this would probably be discussed around some family meal as well. I envisioned teen aged boys poking their father. "Why don't we have a sister?" "Yeah, Dad, where's our sister?" And then I thought, what would be cooler than to say, "Oh, you used to have a sister...," whip out your guitar, start playing a boom-chucka-chucka-chucka rhythm, and sing some scandalous tragedy that ends in the terrible death of a girl?

Yes, that's certainly cool enough to write a song about and since I'd never tried writing a tragedy before, I thought I'd give it a go. Now I had a style and an ending. That was enough to get started, and soon I stumbled on the phrase, "Your sister, she won't be coming home." There's something about the 'sister, she' part... the reinforcement through redundancy, that I really liked, so I knew I had a good chunk for the chorus. For you math nerds who can't relate, this is like knowing two angles and the distance between them on a triangle. It's a slam dunk and only a matter of time before the whole thing fits together. (Just a little geometric proof illustration so you remember whose geeky blog you're reading...)

Anyway, so I hunched over my laptop and started filling in the gaps in my story like a crossword puzzle. This is kind of how my brain worked:

Ok, so this is a Johnny Cash like song... so, the singer should be singing from prison. Typa-typa-type. Aaaand, the song is about 'the sister' dying tragically. Ticka-ticka-tick. Add some religious undertones. Tappa-tick-tip. No wait, it's a case of mistaken identity, so it's is not about the sister, her death is the ironic twist. BackSpa-a-a-a-a-a-ace. So what would drive the singer to murder? Adultery! Typitty-type-type So why would the singer accidentally kill someone he doesn't know...? Wrong woman! Ticka-tappa-tick. Ok, and just to make sure the singer is really guilt-ridden, he's got to do something heinous like kill a priest too. Ticka-tick... tap... tap... Delete-delete-buhleet. Typa... Delete. Ticka-tap. Delete Delete. Crap. How do I kill a priest in an adulterous case of mistaken identity? Double crap. How about a Nun? It doesn't have to be a priest if it's easier to kill a Nun... Usher? Altar boy? Flower girl? Gah!

This is how your brain tells you it's time to walk away.

So I stopped for the evening figuring I'd find a way to put down the priest or whoever in the morning. Well I woke up thinking about it, and still couldn't find an even remotely plausible way to get a priest in bed with the wrong girl at the wrong time. I was stuck and so I did what the pro's do when they get caught in a rut... you ask an expert.

"Hey Brian, I need to kill a priest and an innocent woman, how do I do it?"

"Why are you killing an innocent woman?" (It's worth noting that I was not questioned about my motives for killing the priest, nor why I was trying to murder anyone at all at this point...)

"Because I need to kill someone else in a murderous rage, and the victim is a sympathetic plot point."

"Oh, then that's easy. You shoot the confessional and take them both out. You should watch more movies. "

"Thanks, Brian, I knew you'd know how to solve my dilemma."

"Sure, anytime you have need to off some clergy, just let me know. Wait... why do you...?"

"Oh, no reason. Thanks, bye!"

So I got home and continued typing. An overheard confession, 12 bullets, a case of mistaken identity, a dead priest, and a life sentence later, my Cash-esque tragedy was complete. Chris happened to walk in just after I finished it and so with wild anticipation I sang it for her. Afterwards, I looked at her expectantly. She just sighed... "If you're trying to be serious, don't smirk when you're killing people off. And if you could use your powers for good next time, that'd be great."

I guess she's right. You can write Cash lyrics and sing it Cash style, but Johnny Cash never giggled delightfully at his own cleverness in front of an audience. Ever.

I bet Edgar Allen Poe did, though.

Home Owner Aptitude Test 3: FAIL

Home Ownership Rule #143: You can lie to yourself, but you won't fool the house.

Earlier this week, I found water in my basement. As previously stated, our house is about 100 years old and water in the basement is, at this point, a fairly common occurrence. What makes this particular leak unique is that there's been subzero temperatures for about 7 days in a row. You would think this would have raised a red flag. But it didn't because my super genius brain rationalized it to me in such a way that although I didn't understand, it made sense. It told me that there simply couldn't be water down there in this weather, and that if there was, it must be from some unusual, one-time circumstance. So as I got out the mop, and muttered to myself, "It's freezing outside, there can't be water down here, it's freezing..." my brain wove these marvelous stories that hypothesized about massive furnace condensation, or strange winds blowing snow down the chimney, or about global warming causing the earth to superheat from the inside out. It could be anything. My brain also told me that there would never ever be water in my basement again in January, because it was freezing. And it made me repeat this over and over. They were charming tales and I believed them as I mopped. I believed them the second and the third day as well.
Eventually though, I casually mentioned to Chris that I had been cleaning up water that couldn't possibly exist in our basement.
But she spouted some gibberish phrases like, "Did that spigot on the side of the house freeze and break because you left the hose attached?" and, "You know, like you did at the last house" which in my heightened state of awareness barely sounded like English at all. "No, I took the hose off in the fall. And besides, that wouldn't cause water in the basement anyway. It's freezing outside." I responded logically.
Chris bowed to my supreme intellect.
So today after mopping more water that wasn't in my basement, I played a hunch and found conclusive evidence that my brain was right all along.

I went outside and found a 2 foot ice fountain had formed between the ground and the spigot.

See, clearly a case of furnace condensation.

(Follow up: Yes, the plumber is coming tomorrow morning...)

Home Owner Aptitude Test 2: D+

Bob is not a popular man in the Gardner household. He's the previous owner of our house, and basically, anything that goes, will go, or has gone wrong, I blame on Bob. If Bob had taken care of it right the first time, then I wouldn't be dealing with it now. Yes, I know. Our house is nearly 100 years old and he's only 65. Don't try to change the subject. It's all his fault.

For instance, I'm absolutely positive that Bob didn't update any of the electrical wiring. He added some more, but there's still plenty that's ridiculously old. The whole south half of our house is on one circuit. So I could be in the front with the vacuum, and Chris could be in the kitchen (three rooms away) with the coffee maker and we'll blow the fuse. There are 16 circuits in the electrical box. What exactly are the other 15 doing? I think they should quit loafing and help poor little 15amp #16 when the toaster oven kicks on.

Suffice it to say that 'Bob' is my three letter four letter word, and when I put on my Mr. Fixit hat, it gets a lot of mileage.

So today's exercise in frustration is courtesy of Bob. Because if Bob hadn't bought the cheapest bathroom faucet on the planet, I wouldn't have had to spend 5 hours replacing it. I know what you're thinking... "But Lee, the sign at Menards says that replacing a faucet usually takes 60 minutes or, at the most, 90 minutes if you're a hydrophobic, seven fingered monkey."

Here's the thing... This faucet has been bugging me for a while because it sprays water at weird angles, which is symptomatic of debris clogging the fixture. No biggie, you should just be able to remove the piece at the end of the nozzle, the aerator, at clear out any bits of gunk in the filter. However, when you buy the cheapest faucet on the planet with a permanent aerator, this is not an option and you have to truck your butt out to Lowes for a replacement once it gets clogged. Thank you Bob. So I run out to BigBox Store #1 and buy a nice $70 fixture (on sale for $45) only to get it home to find that it's aerator is also permanently attached. Apparently a $70 faucet is on the low end, and only suitable for people who think their pipes don't rust. Anyway, it was a deal breaker, so I return it and go to BigBox #2. Fortunately they have an equivalent faucet for the same price and it has my 'feature.' So I get home, gather a bucket o' tools, and mentally prepare myself for lying on my back on my bathroom floor for the next hour. I turn off the hot and cold water from under the sink and proceed to get hosed down. Again, normally when you turn a knob into the OFF position, it's reasonable to assume you won't get wet. But when Bob buys the cheapest Water Supply Valves in the world (probably some package deal with the faucet,) you should just expect them to break on contact. So I dump all my tools on the floor, wedge the bucket behind the sink, and run into the basement to find the main shut off valve. I crank the valve closed and walk back upstairs. Water is still pouring out. I run back downstairs and turn the valve more. Water is still coming out. I do this two more times, and I think the only reason the knob didn't break off in my hand is because my flailing little Tyrannosaurus arms barely touch fingers, let alone grip anything. Then, in a moment of shear enlightenment, I turn on the water for the laundry sink in the basement which effectively drains all the piping above it. And finally my bathroom sink stops running. Yay Gravity!

So I'm off to LocalHardwareStore #1 for a new set of valves. LHS#1 is closed because I guess only idiots don't finish their "60 minute" weekend projects before noon on Saturday, so drive on to LHS#2 that's a little more forgiving... they give you until 6pm. As I peruse the plumbing repair aisle, I can now see why someone would skimp on valve quality. You can save about 19 cents per valve, and you do have to get one for hot AND for cold. So that's like, what... give me a minute... let me do the math on this one. But I'm not bitter. I'm just walking around a hardware store with wet pants because some guy wanted to save 38 cents 10 years ago. My cold drippy butt can get behind that.

Anyway, I was kind of in a hurry and forgot that pipes as well as valves come in multiple sizes. So I bought valves (the good ones) of both sizes for a grand total of $9.75 and trucked back home. Now, what I really should have known was that the world's cheapest faucet would be connected to the world's cheapest water valve with... you guess it, the world's cheapest, and now crustiest and not-so-flexible, tubing. That miscalculation would cost me trip #2 to LHS#2. For those of you keeping count that's 2 trips to BB1, 1 trip to BB2, 1 trip to closed LHS, and 2 trips to LHS#2. This project has now cost me 5 hours, $50 in parts, and roughly $120 in gas. So at this point I call my wife and ask her some thinly veiled questions like, "You won't be home any time soon, right?" to make sure I've still got a buffer of time.

The good news, and the reason I gave myself a passing grade on this Home Aptitude Test, is that the faucet is now installed and almost completely leak free! As a bonus, the aerator is not only removable, but will shoot water square at your crotch if you don't put it back on correctly. Now that's a feature the next owner of this house is sure to appreciate!

I hope they blame Bob too.

Did you hear that small popping sound? That was my ego.

It's worth mentioning that Chris finally agreed to being dragged out to karaoke last Friday. So I've been all excited this whole week knowing that I would get to witness the sacrificing of a karaoke virgin. Needless to say, she did just fine and we had fun. Although, she kept singing break up songs... should you take it personally when your spouse sings 'You're so vain' and then follows it with 'Take it on the Run' or do you tell yourself it's just a coincidence?

So Chris was chatting with one of the other folks at the bar and I walk into this conversation:

C: So is karaoke night always like this?
Local Girl: No usually there's more people singing.
C: I'm glad there weren't tonight. I would have been intimidated.
Local Girl: Pfft, not after you heard them once. Hon, there were 7 or 8 singers in here last weekend and they were all awful.
C: Heh, then I guess I won't worry about it.
Me (blurting): I know, right! (Thinking... wait a minute, I was here last week...)

I can has dream?

Unnamed gray tabby, CodeName: "Fat Murray"

One of the nice things about working for a government agency is that when these federal holidays like MLK Day come around, you can visit all of your favorite capitalists without using a personal day. Today I hit the dentist, the recycling center, Ace Hardware, Lube Pro's, Taco Bell, and the gym. That's a week's worth of lunch hours right there. I had also scheduled an appointment with the Vet in hopes of catching one of the "Outsiders" and getting it's little gears put in neutral, so to speak. (Much to Chris's chagrin, I keep calling them "The Outdoorsies" which is absolutely as lame as it sounds) Under normal circumstances, we feed them before going to work. They know the schedule and come running. But it's been so ridicu-cold lately that even though we put food out early, the cats don't show up until much later after the sun comes out.

Intolerant Tabby would like to celebrate
this day by being left the hell alone.

Anyway, today, I don't know how they knew, but 15 minutes after canceling the appointment and explaining to the Vet that there was no way I would possibly see, let alone capture a cat in this weather, they showed up and brought friends. It's as if they all have little feline cellphones and texted each other.

FREE FUD, NO TRAPZ

ORLY? SW33T

KTHXBAI

So, there I am standing in the snow feeling like Boss Hogg at the end of every Dukes of Hazard episode with nothing to do but throw my hat on the ground, clench my fists, and take pictures of the freeloaders. Happy MLK Day little punks. You won't out smart me next time!

The Past: Overrated

So today I decided to try and make good on one of my goals/resolutions. Chris and I cleaned house yesterday so I figured I'd try to take a bite size chunk out of one of my perma-projects. And actually I nibbled at two.

I mentioned earlier that it's been 'stupid-cold' lately, and it reminded me of a project that's been half finished for, um... two years now. I put insulation up in the ceiling of the basement throughout about 3/4 of the house, and on days like this, when I walk around in socks I can tell exactly where I left off. The worst part is that there are 3 full bundles of insulation unopened and a 4 foot pile of scraps just sitting there, waiting to either be installed or eventually get wet and ruined. There's something extra stupid about being cold and yet literally sitting on a stack of insulation. Anyway, the odd and end pieces are now up and performing as designed and I can at least chalk that off my list.

Another one of my back projects is to sort through the boxes of notes, letters, and cards that I've got stashed in the basement from years gone by. Basking in the glow of successfully warmifying my house (and calculating all the pennies I'll now be saving) I grabbed a shoebox from the storage room and started picking through envelopes and little folded notes. Turns out it was the 1990 through 1993 box, which can pretty much be summed up as "Ugh." See, back in the days before there was text messaging and cameraphones, we would use this thing called a 'pencil' and apply one end gently to a piece of paper, creating a pattern of symbols. It was pretty primitive. It took the full use of your hand, so like, you couldn't send a text, play tetris, and listen to MP3's at the same time unless, of course, you had a typewriter, a Nintendo (there was only one choice...,) a time machine and two friends. And the language we used is what you now call 'Job Interview English' except we used it all the time and not just on term papers. Texting hadn't been invented yet because we still had 10 fingers and we hadn't evolved to the point of only needing our thumbs to communicate with each other. So for an example, the Olde English phrase, "I cannot believe that Susan asked William to TurnAbout" would roughly translate to "SRLY?" As you can see, text messaging is far more efficient and eloquent.


Anyway...
This shoebox was chock full of letters, mostly from girls I had treated badly, and a couple from ones I had treated really badly. There are a few problems with rediscovering old notes from old girlfriends. For starters, they really don't tell you much about you. They're mostly about them. Honestly, now that it's been 15 years, I'm really more interested in how *I* did on my Spanish final than how they did. But not much more. I also think there should be some kind of ritual at the end of a relationship where you give each other back all your correspondence. At least if you got your own sappy letters back then you'd know how your day was and what a dope you were. Can you imagine some relative of said ExSig coming up to you years later asking about what their mother was like in high school? The correct answer is, "I don't know," not "Sure, here's a box with 150 letters of her expressing her unyielding love for me. Woo-Hoo, what a horndog! I've been keeping them just in case someone like you came by." Or maybe a burning ceremony for any notes folded more than once down the middle. That would be acceptable.

Romeo, Juliet, now you listen to me.

On a slightly more serious note, this Sunday I'm singing a song called "I'm Not Who I Was" which pretty much describes how I felt after getting back in touch with some high school folks through MySpace. No really, I'm cooler now. Just ask me. I've been practicing in the mirror for years now...

Yar! She's a cold one!

So for those of you who are not in the mid-West (my blog has a HUGE following in Southeast Asia...) we're finally getting our winter weather. Temperatures are dangling around zero degrees Fahrenheit and the wind drops that another 15 degrees. So that's like -85 degrees Celsius or something.

How does it feel to look Death square in the eye?
Do you feel lucky? Well, Do ya?

Cold like this turns normal routine things into problems. For instance, when you turn your car off, you legitimately have to wonder if you are going to be able to start it again before April. Some of us with older vehicles worry about that kind of thing daily anyway, but now it becomes a real concern. You have to ask yourself, "Have I done absolutely everything humanly possible to help this car start again? Turned off light, defroster, and radio - check. Said 5 hail Mary's - check. Gently stroked the dashboard and whispered, "It's ok girl, you can rest now..." - check.

And pretty much anything left in your car that contains liquid is forfeited to the elements. That can of Coke that rolled under the shotgun seat three months ago, is now going to seek it's revenge on your apathy. Heck, I left a pen in my car this morning and I'm debating whether I should sacrifice it or call in a rescue party. Batteries? Drained. Lotion? Solidified.

So Chris and I laid in supplies on Friday in hopes of not having to leave the house again until Tuesday. It's not going to work. We're out of ice cream already. And frankly, if I were in a Zombie movie, I'd face the hordes for ice cream... not that they'd be moving very quickly in this weather anyway. Come to think of it, it would be pretty easy pickings, I mean, it's not like I wouldn't have plenty of time to reload. But I digress...

Speaking of the frozen undead, the remaining kittens of the apocalypse seem to be taking the cold snap in stride. I noticed today that my neighbor's garage door is open about a full cat-width so I suspect that's where they've been shacking up. They come out and sun themselves during the day, so we really only see them on the weekends. I really didn't want to turn this into a cat blog, but they're the only things moving around these days and I got some decent pictures yesterday. So here you go. Oh, and if you ever need to shoot a picture of a black object in snow, here's the trick: BUY A PENTAX. These were shot on automatic (2 points for the idiot proof camera!)

Famine giving Death the hard goodbye.

Kinda makes you wonder about how much infighting there was between the Pale Rider and the others...

Famine posing for a chilly photo op. Death lurks.

Come on brain, don't fail me now...

Chris and I were talking in the car about tidbits and factoids that had come up throughout our day when the conversation meandered into this:

C: Hey, someone told me today that they've developed a drug that inhibits recalling bad memories. I don't know how that would really work, but the idea scares me.
L: Um, yeah, isn't that what 'Eternal Sunshine for the Spotless Mind' was all about? Realizing that bad memories shape your character? What does that title mean anyway? Isn't it the long way of saying 'ignorance is bliss?'
C: Yeah I think so. Which is what makes the title ironic.
L: Hey speaking of things forgotten, I read the other day that they've found a drug that reverses the effects of that disease... the big one...
C: *blink-blink*
L: ... the one where you... forget... things... (realizing I'm doomed)
C: Altzheimers.
L: That's it. I was stuck on Parkinsons, but I knew that wasn't right.
C: Maybe you should look into that.
L: Why?

You're laughing WITH me, right?

2007 in review

Well, I know I'm kind of late for all the cool year end lists, but I don't think I've ever done one before and since 2007 is worthy of note, humor me.
A couple years ago, though I don't remember the original source, a friend quoted something to this effect in his journal, "If you haven't laughed your loudest and cried your hardest in the past year, then it was wasted." Now, I don't totally agree with that sentiment, but it's been bouncing around in the back of my mind for a while. And 2007, though I wasn't really expecting it, did deliver both.

See! I'm really at Salt Lake City!

Life changing events this year:
-Visited Salt Lake City on business
-Cruised the Caribbean with the family for pleasure
-Chris got a digital camera and started blogging
-Rekindled the writing bug
-Housewalk
-Submitted adoption dossier to Ethiopia
-The Joy of Karaoke
-The Pain of Pestilence

Fav pic of the lil' bugger.

Who knows what's in store for 2008 but here's the plan as it stands today:
-Be a parent (not just apparent...) By the gods, this looks like it's going to be the year. For as prepared as I should be, I think I'm like everyone else, just praying for the strength to make all the right decisions for my children and for a flippin' good babysitter.
-Learn bass. I think I've finally hit critical mass on this one. I have the desire and I have no excuses. Church needs someone on bass. "The band" doesn't need a 3rd guitarist. I don't really even have any aspirations of being a particularly good player. I just want to be functionally mediocre. I can do that. I'll let you know where I end up in a year.

(These are my 'every year plans')
-Make 'progress' on the house. I tend to get overwhelmed by large projects at home. The housewalk really forced us to get some of the big stuff done. But really, if I divide and conquer, and I can see progress, then things get done. I find it satisfying when it works out that way. The hardest part is just getting off the couch...
-Get back into glass. Stained glass art falls into the progress category. There's about 600 small projects that need to be done before I have an area that's carved out for glasswork. It needs to be cat proof and yet well ventilated...? That's why it hasn't been done.
-Write more music. Again something that I don't do regularly that brings me a lot of satisfaction. I've gotten back into the habit of writing, I'd just like to channel that back into music.

It's true, I'm not going to run for President this year (by popular demand...,) but I think 2008 could be another landmark year and as just as significant as this last year has been. Um... did I just use the word 'landmark'? Uh, maybe I should resolve to not using marketing-drivel/corporate-speak for a year... Sigh... always room for improvement.