THE CAT'S OUT OF THE BAG

ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED BY THE SOMERS RECORD (09-24-20)- Please remember small business in your town during this coronavirus pandemic

     You're probably familiar with the cat species from those little videos that show them doing adorable things around the house and playing with each other and chasing their own tails, etc. I saw a video where a cat steals a Swiffer duster from a broom closet, walks across a curtain rod, almost falls off three times, ruins the curtain rod and drags the duster over to the TV shelf. I had to side with the cat on this one, the TV shelf was gross. But it proves that cat burglary goes on all the time. Cats may look harmless but they have an unpredictable and sometimes violent side. A cat, without ever having watched one "mixed martial arts" fight, knows how to hold your arm with his front paws while kicking you with the back ones. Sometimes you'll look over and the cat is sitting there with his tongue out and his mouth closed, like he doesn't know his tongue is aimed right at you.

     We have these two cats, there may even be more of them, I've only ever seen two at a time but I've never searched particularly hard. They look exactly alike, all black. And one of them has taken to, well, how do I put this politely but, taken to doing a #1 on whatever strikes her mood at the time. If you don't know what #1 is, just go back to the beginning of time and it's the first bodily function done in chronological order after the first human drinks the first six-pack of beer. This cat has destroyed hundreds, if not thousands of dollars worth of personal property with this one simple act and it's driving us crazy. My wife thinks it's some kind of misguided protest that she hasn't gotten anyone else to go along with just yet. Like one of these dopey boycotts on social media where they get a bunch of people to get back at somebody they don't like by not purchasing something they don't like even more, like Brussels sprouts.

     Anyway, I have a loving relationship with the cat, meaning I stroke her belly which she enjoys for a while until she decides I'm doing it wrong and I come out of the experience with multiple lacerations, so that's obviously not the problem. She has a loving relationship with my wife, which means that my wife strokes her belly and in return she knocks all the salt and pepper shakers and pens off the kitchen table, so that's obviously not the problem either. We feed her every day, which I think is overdoing it, and like every cat we've ever had she's chunkily overweight and "body positive" about it in an unrealistic way.

     I'm not even sure which one is the culprit since they both look exactly alike. They are twins, but I guess all dogs and cats are twins, triplets, quadruplets, sextuplets, whatever. I never heard of a cat being an only child. These two are not the type of twins that finish each others' sentences, or go out on double dates and try to fool each others' boyfriends, or sit in a lump on the bed together that looks like a load of unfolded laundry. In most instances they seem to barely aware of each others' existence, so I find it hard to believe that there is any kind of conspiracy going on.

     I watch a lot of interrogations on TV, and I have a feeling I can pit one against the other by punishing them both, although if I had a better understanding of what they didn't like, maybe they wouldn't be trying to retaliate against me in the first place, if that's what they're even trying to do. It's all so confusing. I used to have an outdoor cat, and he would kill a mouse and leave it on my doorstep. I assumed it was a message, like "YOU'RE NEXT." Remember in "The Godfather," where the guy wakes up and there's a horse head sleeping next to him? Maybe his cat put it there? Then someone told me, no, the cat is giving you a present and you should praise him for it. I told him a card would have sufficed.

     My wife wants to pin down the whens and wherefores of this behavior so that she can psychoanalyze the cat. She thinks the cat is revolting, and I couldn't agree more. She bought an ultraviolet light which detects the presence of pee. It won't help you that much in a murder investigation but you never know. It was only strong enough to detect the presence of teeth, lint and argyle socks, so its application is limited. I considered swallowing it just in case it might protect me from the coronavirus like Trump says, and if I see a Jimi Hendrix poster I can shine at it through my belly button.

     So far none of these things have worked, and I'm entertaining suggestions about what to do in case mine haven't been entertaining enough. And if my cat ends up in a video it's not going to go viral on YouTube, it's going straight into the evidence room, exhibit "P." They say its' bad luck to cross a black cat, well I'm serving notice right here: it might be bad luck for a particular black cat to cross ME.
 

MADMAN ACROSS THE WATER

ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED BY THE SOMERS RECORD (09-17-20)- Please remember small business in your town during this coronavirus pandemic

 
     We were going to stay home this Labor Day weekend, but the more we stayed home, the more work we found that needed to be done around the house, and doing it would have been in direct defiance of the spirit of Labor Day. So instead we pulled together a last minute overnight trip to historic Poughkeepsie, New York, where we could ride our bicycles across the beautiful Walkway Over the Hudson on a glorious holiday Sunday.

     Gidget, the cutest dog in the land, was SO excited that she was going on the trip that she was beside herself and I had to make twice as much room in the car. She launched herself into the back seat at a g-force of about two and almost vaulted out the window on the other side. Once I turned the ignition key, she went immediately into REM sleep and I never heard from her again until we arrived at the hotel. A dog's life is an emotional roller coaster. But once there Gidget attracts children like butterflies, and luckily she has the perfect disposition for it. I've been to dog-friendly hotels that didn't have hotel-friendly dogs.

     The Walkway over the Hudson is about a mile and a third from Poughkeepsie to the town of Highland, 212 feet over the river. It began life as a railroad trestle, put into service in 1889 for trains hauling goods from Hartford to New York markets across the Hudson River. Although at its peak and during World War II the bridge was a major industrial passage, the need for goods to go from Hartford to Maybrook waned, or maybe the goods weren't good enough, and the bridge was decommissioned after a fire in 1974. The Walkway reopened as a state park in 2009, the quadricentennial of Henry Hudson's trip up the river. I don't know how goods get across the Hudson these days, but nobody asked me to bring anything either direction.

     We stopped for a selfie, which I always take because I have the longest arms, and my right hand hasn't been seen in a photograph since 2006. We passed a guy on a recumbent bike, that goofy-looking contraption you pedal from a prone position, enjoying all the sights you can see while looking straight up. It seems better suited to changing the oil in your car than for going on a leisurely ride, but who am I to say, other than myself. Imagine the lovely views he had of the majestic Hudson River, or at least of the bottoms of the chins of people who had lovely views of it.

     On the Ulster County side you can bicycle all the way to New Paltz and beyond, and we went a few more miles before turning around. There's a fitness course on the side of the trail, and you can stop at each station for a workout if exercising by bicycle isn't working out. You can do some sit-ups, crunches and chin-ups. I did a few half-knee bends and gave the other half of my knee the day off. Overhead I saw a bridge with more bicyclists pedaling their wares. Is there a walkway over the Walkway Over the Hudson? I'm sure the guy on the recumbent bike saw it right off. Maybe there's a walkway under the Hudson too.

     On the way back we detoured onto Route 44 where all the businesses are. We passed a place called the "Beer Cave," and I wanted to stop and do some spelunking but it was time for lunch so we stopped at the diner instead. Everything is contact-less in the age of the coronavirus, so you just point your phone at this barcode matrix that looks like a computer threw up, and it takes you to the menu, where you can order and pay for your food without ever eating it. Nothing much happened so I went inside and pointed the phone at somebody who was sitting near the counter, and ordered a BLT by contacting his ears. I'm not sure he actually worked there, but we eventually got our food.

     You need to wear a mask while on the Walkway, but compliance was surprisingly low, maybe 50%, and that includes people wearing their mask over their chin, which has been proven to prevent people from transmitting the virus if they breathe through their chin. For those dim bulbs out there who confuse a global health issue with a freedom issue, please feel free to stay home. There's only one way out of this mess and that's to have the smallest iota of common sense.

     On the way home we stopped at DQ for a well-earned Blizzard so we could replenish some of the precious calories we lost on the bike ride. You can ask for just about anything in a Blizzard, except for uninterrupted internet service.

THE CROWD LOVES IT

 

 ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED BY THE SOMERS RECORD (09-10-20)- Please remember small business in your town during this coronavirus pandemic

     There's a saying in sports: "It's lonely at the top." During a global pandemic, it's lonely at the bottom and both sides, also. It's just lonely out there, period. There are no fans to gauge how things are going for the home team. There's a sound effects guy who controls the crowd noises at the baseball game, but it's not the same. He's only hitting the bare essentials, Cheering home runs, some general hubbub, and sometimes his crowd reactions are inappropriate or awkward, because he can't remember if a ball that hits the foul pole is a home run or a foul ball. Plus, he's not going to boo the home team for striking out three consecutive times in a late-inning close game like a real crowd would, because he just bought a new car and the boss might be watching. He's not going to play the sound of "HEY, BEEAH HEEAH!" 2,143 times on average during the game. He's not going to play a tape of the crowd chanting words about the opposing pitcher you wouldn't want your grandmother to hear, no matter how much truth there is to them.

     Sometimes there are cardboard cutouts in the seats, pictures of people who paid to be represented at the game. One guy even sent a picture of his dog, presumably so he could bark at the umpires and not know what it means. There was supposed to be a "subway series" last week between the Yankees and the Mets, but someone tested positive. Was that player out and about, not wearing a mask, engaging in risky social behavior, or was it something innocent, like sharing a pangolin sandwich with some friends?

     There used to be a lot of rules in baseball, but this is a wild west time in history, and people are so thrilled to have something to watch besides the Hallmark Channel that they don't even care about the rules. Christmas comes at least once a week on the Hallmark Channel, and I'm running out of gift ideas so I'm happy to have baseball back, rules or not. Before the pandemic, If there were two strikes on the batter, and a runner steals home, and the pitch hits the runner in the strike zone, the batter is out. Now, nobody cares. What time should we play? I have a dentist appointment, so how about 4:15? Okay. It's a double-header and we might be tired, so let's just play seven innings, okay? Fine. It's extra innings and I have to get up early, is it okay if we start the inning with a guy on second? Yeah, I'm good with it.

     There are no fans in the tennis stadium at the U.S. Open either. There were approximately four people in the entire stadium, so few that you could hear the air conditioning system run. The blood-curdling screams that the women make when they hit the ball are so loud it sounds like the ball is hitting THEM rather than the other way around. Tennis fans are notoriously traitorous, so I'm not sorry to see them go. If the crowd favorite starts to run away with the match, they'll turn around and root for the other guy just to prolong the match and get their money's worth. With no crowd noise at Arthur Ashe Stadium, we're left to rely on the announcers to generate excitement, and they have Australian announcers calling the game who are not known for their effervescent personalities. After the greatest point you've ever seen one will flatly note, "Lovely strike!" A work stoppage where everyone is wearing a beautiful brooch is a lovely strike, not the greatest point you've ever seen. The players now have to get their own towels, there are no linesmen on most of the courts, and of course, no fans. When one of the players hits the ball into the net, I sit at home and think, I could just as well be playing at the U.S. Open. I bring my own towel, I have no fans, I call my own lines and I hit the ball into the net. In fact, I can do it a hundred times better than even the best pros.

     I'm just happy to see a live game again, even if everything's weird. The NBA teams are playing in a bubble at the Walt Disney World in Florida. The players live and compete at the complex, and no guests are allowed in. Their fans are visible to the players on a giant television screen. It used to be the other way around, but everything is upside down in the era of the coronavirus. They have use of the park's facilities during their stay, and I sure hope they get to see the Festival of Fantasy Parade with Cinderella and Prince Charming. I don't know what will happen when all the air runs out in the bubble, but by the then the playoffs should be over.

     Players, if you're out there, stay safe. Stay in the game, we're watching at home. And I know you can't hear it, but I'm making noise. In fact, I just dropped a coffee mug and it broke into a million pieces and woke up the dog. But it's better than nothing. And a word of advice for you NBA players: stay away from that damned Space Mountain. That ride made me sicker than I ever would have been from covid-19.

PARTY OF ONE

 ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED BY THE SOMERS RECORD (09-03-20)- Please remember small business in your town during this coronavirus pandemic

     My wife left for a little vacation last weekend to get away from things, she didn't say exactly what things, but it was probably the cat, sitting on her newspaper incessantly and knocking the pens off the table just for sport, or maybe the dog. How much unconditional love can you take?

     That means I had the whole house to myself, and I had an entire slate of activities planned. I got right down to the first item on my list, which was a nap. When I got up I fed the dog dinner which was actually this morning's breakfast that she didn't eat. I made a nice little charade of breaking an egg into the bowl and cooking a western omelet, but she didn't fall for it because I didn't have any pretend peppers. I wouldn't have eaten it either- imagine having the same thing day after day. I offered to go for take-out, but Gidget almost never has any money. There are a lot of things I'm supposed to do this weekend, and the beauty of it is I can do them whenever I want. I chose to do the laundry AFTER my wife comes home, and when she sees what I have planned for it she'll snatch it out of my hands like a live hand grenade.

     Sorry if I woke you up, that was me mowing the lawn at 12:30 in the morning. That's one of the great things about being on your own schedule. I can mow the lawn whenever I please. It was a little dark and scary out there, and I saw something lunge at me trying to attack, but it turned out to be a toad. It was a large one, though. I have one of those miner's lights that attaches to your head so you can see what you're doing if you find yourself in an either ore situation, and I almost ran over a rock when I was escaping from the toad. I don't know how miners get anything done- I went back inside because I thought I smelled a canary- is that good or bad?

     I'm trying to install this air conditioner that I had sent over from Home Depot, and they should have just delivered it right onto my foot, because I dropped it there anyway. The instructions that were written in Chinese were no harder to understand than the ones in English, which bore little-to-no resemblance to reality. I tried to find a video on YouTube that would help me make sense of the instructions or at least help me learn Chinese. Usually somebody from YouTube has the same problems I do, if not all at the same time. If I had children and I had to give them the talk about the "facts of life" I would probably just tell them to find a video that explains everything on YouTube. I don't remember all the scientific names of everything that I learned in Health Class, even though I remember what everything does, if everything is supposed to do. I remember something about a "vas deferens," but I haven't heard a thing about it since. One of the facts of life is that instructions that come with the thing that you just bought suck, so I've been drilling holes in the side of my house all weekend, and I intend to bolt this air conditioner bracket into one of them.

     I got up bright and early at 11 o'clock the next day for breakfast, and had a hankering for homemade pancakes. The recipe called for double-acting baking soda, but the kind I had in the cabinet was just single-acting, if it was acting at all. It pretty much just sat there, so I put twice as much in. A cup of milk, all I could find was a coffee cup. A couple eggs, some baking powder, a little salt, and bingo! Maybe I should have made the homemade pancakes at somebody else's home, they were not too good. I probably should have cleaned the coffee cup first.

     I smelled like the Dickens all weekend and I didn't even care, no offense to Dickens. That's another great thing about the single life, and also the reason one might still be single. Personal hygiene goes right to hell if you don't have anyone around to wrinkle their nose at you. I started to get a little stir crazy after a while and I was talking to myself about things I wasn't all that interested in. If there were four or five other guys here it would have been like a bad movie in the 1950s where I invite a bunch of dudes over for a bachelor's night, play some poker and smoke cigars, only nobody thought to bring cards. I order some stag films but I order the wrong thing and it's a movie about male deer, etc. So we're just sitting around watching the deer movie which is more interesting than anyone wants to admit, arguing about which are the best potato chips, and thank god no one asks if I have any Streisand records.

     A long weekend is about all I can take of me. Maybe I should get away from things for a while, but my wife won't tell me where she is.