The Tree and The Apple

The Tree

My dad was a clown. For real, he was a clown. I don't mean life of the party, lamp shade on his head kind of clown. I mean he put on white face makeup, a big red nose, floppy shoes, and a goofy striped clown suit. He didn't do that professionally, he did it for fun. Dad and three of his buddies from the Knights of Columbus would slip into clown drag for town parades, church affairs, and visits to children's hospitals.

Down in our basement was his big clown chest which contained all the paraphernalia he needed for his little hobby. Did I also mention that he and his clown buddies would sometimes dress up as women? Anything for a laugh, they would put on little skits for our church and other groups dressed as women. I was probably around ten or eleven years old when I discovered that dad had falsies in that clown chest. Nicely formed, foam rubber titties, that he used in his comical drag act. Of course I couldn't resist stuffing those things in my tee shirt and parading around the basement. My sisters and I thought that was the height of hilarity, Alan with tits. Recently one of my sisters sent me an email with a video of dad in a parade. He was dressed in drag and was the spitting image of his mother. It got me to thinking, what ever happened to those falsies? I think Alicia and Alexis would really love to have those.

The Apple

Zoë

You know how sometimes you volunteer to do something for somebody and then later you wish you hadn't? Yeah, I did that. Luckily for me when it came time to do the favor, the neighbor I promised it to, backed out. What I promised, is that I would baby sit her little dog for a couple of weeks last year. The more I thought about walking, feeding, picking up the poop, and sharing my bed with another dog, the less appealing it became. Like I said, she let me off the hook.

I got a phone call yesterday morning. It was the neighbor.
"Hi, Alan?"
"Yes."
"It's Carol. Remember when you said you could baby sit little Zoë last year?"
"Sure."
"Well, could you do that for me. I need somebody to watch her for ten days later this month."
"Um... well.. "
"I'll buy you a bottle of Grey Goose."
"Sure, I'll watch Zoë. I'd love to do that for you."

So yesterday evening Carol dropped Zoë off at our house for a couple of hours. It was a test visit to be sure she would be compatible with Chandler and Sasha. Of course there was the usual craziness when she first walked in the door. Dogs barking, dogs chasing around, and investigations of each other's butts. But it soon settled down with Sasha sitting on the sofa giving Zoë the evil eye for sitting on my lap.

 And then there was Chandler. He apparently thought I had fixed him up with the easy girl on the block. First he tried to hump Zoë while she sat on my lap. When I scolded him and told him to get the hell off my knee, he proceeded to continue humping the air in the middle of the living room while staring and drooling at Zoë. At least I'll get a bottle of good vodka out of all this. I'm not sure what Chandler is going to get.

Fireworks

For the first time in a long time Mark decided to not invite a crowd over for a little cookout on the Fourth of July. Needless to say I was very happy.
"Maybe you could take me out for a burger instead of a cookout." He suggested.
"Sure, I'd love to go to a restaurant where they do all the cooking and cleaning."
I figured I would be getting out of all the pain in the ass cleaning for the price of a Big Buford at Checkers. This was my big plan for the Fourth. Take Mark out for a burger, and then come home and relax.

Around four in the afternoon, on July Fourth, as I sat in the living room watching a baseball game, the lights started to go dim. Then the lights went very bright. Coming from my office I could hear the speakers on my computer making a thumping noise as the power continued to fluctuate. Just as I got up to see what was going on, all the lights went out. Five seconds later they came back on. I sat back down and I watched as the television cycled back on along with the DVR. Before the television could come all the way back on it happened again, dimming lights, bright lights, and then no lights. Five seconds later the power returned. This time while my television equipment cycled back on I could hear the air conditioning making a horrible noise outside. The third time the power went through these gyrations I was already on the phone to FPL (Florida Power and Light).
"You people are destroying my house!" I shouted in the phone.
"I am so very sorry to hear that sir. Can I get your address and name please."
By this time my air conditioning system sounded like a freight train and the television had a strange error screen that I had never seen before. As I started to give the man my information, the power again went nuts. That was when Mark came wandering out of the bedroom.
"What's happening?"
"I'm on the goddamned phone and the house is about to explode. That's what's happening!" I screamed.
Mark then turned around and opened the front door while muttering something about checking outside. What I hadn't realized is that both dogs were totally terrified by all these strange happenings. When Mark opened the door, they bolted. The problem is that as soon as they hit the front porch they heard the firecrackers popping all over the neighborhood. This scared them even more.

So let me try to paint this picture. In one hand I have the telephone and I am screaming at the FPL guy. At the same time I am cursing at Mark to close the goddamned door while Chandler and Sasha are cowering in the little hallway, halfway between the inside and the outside of the house. The firecrackers are popping, the lights are flickering on and off, the air conditioning has stopped working and I have gone crazy in the heat.

The power continued to surge on and off for an hour before the electricity finally went totally out, but not before Mark called me a fucking asshole and stormed out of the house. We did finally go out for that Fourth of July burger. Only we didn't go to Checkers for dinner. Because of my bad behavior I had to take Mark to a much fancier place than that. By the time we returned home from dinner it was eight in the evening and the electricity was back on, the dogs were sleeping, the air conditioning was working fine, and my neighbors, the Clampetts, were shooting sky-rockets over my house.

Have a Happy and Safe Independence Day

Awesome!

There is something I have noticed while Mark is constantly watching his Bravo reality shows. They use the word amazing, amazingly often. From an overpriced piece of jewelry to an overdone McMansion, from a well turned boob job to a glass of wine, from a restaurant meal to a turd in the toilet, everything is amazing to these people. In one hour long Real Housewives episode you can be sure to hear the word amazing a couple of dozen times. They have the visual acuity of my dog Chandler coupled with the mentality of a three year old child. Anything shiny sets them off, so I am not surprised at how amazing the world around them is. I, on the other hand, do not use the word amazing, or so I thought. I figured I had better do a search of my blog for the offending word before I published this. Turns out I have used the word amazing often. If I had to guess before searching, I would have said I have never used that word. My search turned up at least twenty instances of me using amazing. Although that isn't too bad considering I have published over fifteen hundred posts on this blog. So starting with the end of this post, I promise that I will never, ever use that word again. Unless of course, it is completely appropriate. Like if Mark should walk on water, or actually clean up the kitchen. Also, a side promise, I will not use the word awesome either. I did a quick search on that word and I have only used it twice, so it won't be too hard to keep that promise. See you all tomorrow, and have a groovy, far out day folks.

Monkeys, Bananas, Used Cars, and a Schnauzer

It was around four in the morning and as usual I am awakened by a particularly bizarre dream. This one involved somebody who I haven't seen in over thirty years, a used car lot on the outskirts of the town I grew up in, and a grocery bag full of bananas. What was so unusual is that just moments earlier in the dream I was in Florida being driven across a bridge to the bowling alley, with a cat carrier full of cats in the back seat. I'm not sure what triggered that dream, but the day before I thought had I heard a monkey in somebody's backyard as I walked Chandler. Never the less, It's what I smelled when I woke up that bothered me. Dog stink. I could smell dog stink and it was coming from our darling little schnauzer, Sasha. She was draped over my pillow and had her head resting on my shoulder. We were muzzle to muzzle, and she had a very smelly muzzle.
"Oh gads Sasha, what the hell have you been eating?"
We don't have any more indoor cats so I knew it couldn't be kitty litter... or could it? The backyard! Earlier in the day I had allowed Sasha and Chandler out in the backyard while I watered the plants and flowers. They both made a beeline for the bushes back where the cats like to take a dump. I yelled at them to get the hell out of there, and didn't think about it anymore.

Anyway, in addition to the stank, Sasha has been itching a lot the last couple of days. So yesterday afternoon I lined the bathroom floor with towels, I took off her collar, and then I placed her in the shower. This is how I wash her. Me and Sasha naked, in the shower together, all soaped up. It's an odd sight I would imagine, but I do close the bathroom door. When I am all done with her, I open the shower door, she jumps out, and then she proceeds to run around the bathroom wiping herself on every available surface. Which is fine, because the bathroom needed to be cleaned and I proceeded to do that. Also an odd sight, me cleaning the bathroom naked.

Clouds

We don't have mountains here in Florida. What we do have are big fluffy clouds that often remind me of mountains. Saturday I was messing around with my little Flip video camera and tried to capture the beauty of those clouds. This is the same camera that captures the beauty of Alicia and Alexis.

  

I did this with only the Flip camera and the Movie Maker program that comes with Windows Vista.