Tuesday, October 24, 2006

Must be gettin' old


The leaves are dropping like mad. The walnuts sound like gunshots when they hit the part of our roof that is corrogated steel. As executor, I'm dealing with the disposition of two estates. We got word yesterday that my 98 year old aunt (my mom's favorite sister) had died on the 7th. We stopped at a friend's house yesterday afternoon, and her elderly goose, Betsy, seems to be dying. The days are shorter and cooler, and Halloween is approaching.

The world situation is desperate, as usual.

This sounds like a job for Dia De Los Muertos . And so we have an alter.


Wednesday, October 11, 2006

You just Gotta!

After reading this, I HAD to get one (ok 2) of these.

Saturday, October 07, 2006

Another Step dad story

At this point Step Dad had not yet married my mom, so he was probably highly motivated to do things for her. My mom had the idea to fly her oldest and favorite sister out from Pennsylvannia for a visit. She arranged many things to do that Liz had never done before. One of them was to go out on a charter fishing boat. Rather than take a chance on what kind of companions we might have, she rented the boat and invited many friends.

Someone decided that we should fish for rock cod. This was probably to insure that everyone got something. At the time the limit for rock cod was 22 per rod. Fishing consisted of baiting 3 hooks on each line, lowering the line to the bottom (about 200') then reeling it in to find out whether you had 2 or 3 fish on your line and whether there was a prized Ling Cod. Everyone who wasn't seasick got their limit. (I got 1 fish, and my wife had to reel it in, not my finest hour)

SD being the gallant gentleman and avid sportsman offered to clean the fish for the immediate family. His- 22 +Mom- 22 + sister-22 + My wife- 22 + me-1 = 89 fish. For those not into the particulars of various fish, rock cod are mostly carcass with only a little usable meat.

As fate would have it, the garbage pickup was the morning we went fishing. SD spent untold hours into the evening filleting, and dumping large amounts of fish waste into the garbage cans provided for the entire apartment complex. Being thoughtful, and not wanting to make each can too heavy for the garbagemen (Pre mechanical pickup) he only filled cans about halfway. Did I mention it was summer? After a couple of days of fermenting, the stench became unbearable and SD was advised by the apt manager that he needed to mitigate the problem. He had already tried stuffing other garbage on top to stifle the smell to no avail.

It was then illegal to take household garbage to the dump privately, so he felt he had to take the offending cans somewhere away from civilization to dump. He found that the cans were too heavy, so he would have to lighten them by taking out the top non fish layer. Most of this was in paper sacks which after soaking in the damp atmosphere of rotting fish broke open. At least one of these contained what he later described as "ladies calling cards" It seems that the coverup strategy was slightly successful, as the smell now became much more pronounced.

He now attempted to lash covers over the tops of the cans. The cans were loaded with care onto his ancient pick up. At this point he realized that he was nearly out of gas and would have to stop for fuel. Let's just say he got a lot of looks and grimaces. He drove into the hills and at a remote spot, dumped the remains down a hill on the side of a road. At a later time he found out that the land belonged to a famous S.F. Attorney who was known to occasionally be bellicose.

So now he still had smelly empty cans. He was a contractor and he was working on a house a few towns away. Union rules forbade him from being onsite during the weekends, (Don't want him to be doing work a union person should be doing) but what could happen? So he drove to the site to wash out the cans. Of course a union rep shows up. He could be facing fines etc, but he had a hell of a story and the evidence to back it up, so nothing happened.

It has been said that that which doesn't kill you only makes you stronger. They weren't specific as to what kind of strength it was that one might attain, physical, character, odor?

Sunday, October 01, 2006

Relative values

Cost of old cardboard pet carrier sitting in garage- $0

Cost of feeding abandoned cat who sits outside my front door every morning hissing at me until he's fed. $5 a month

Cost of bandaids after trying to return him to his "Owner" $2

ER Visit, Tetanus shot, Antibiotics copay $55
Pain & Suffering Worthless!
Especially when he came back two days later!