Blunt Wit

All hail to the chief! And by that I mean me. Father and commander-in-chief of the state of my own family. Or so I would like to believe.

So please pause a moment in silence as we mourn the passing of a member of our family. Young Tommy died recently of thirst or hunger or a myriad of other possible illnesses. Or possibly an overzealous door slam. And I killed him. Or at least that is what my wife and children say.
Tommy was our pet hamster. He was just another in a long line of hapless animals to mysteriously kick the proverbial bucket under my watchful eye. I didn’t kill him. I swear it. My wife took the kids to visit the in-laws and left me to take care of things. One of those chiefly being the well being and continued existence of Tommy. But somehow he escaped. Poof, one day he was just gone. An empty cage. A little hamster Houdini. Darn, I knew I should have cuffed him to his miniature flywheel while I went to work. Too late. Anyway, a week or so after they got back we found him wedged behind a door. My kids called for an impeachment – hamster autopsy but the judge ruled I, as next closest of kin, could determine the COD (cause of death). So I pronounced it poor hamster suicide and we buried him in a shoebox in the back yard next to Lester the goldfish, yet another unfortunate casualty that I had nothing to do with (or at least directly).

Of course this ‘Tommy incident’ just managed to dredge up all the ill will from the previous ‘Lucky incident’ all those years back. Then we were living in Beijing and to keep up with the Joneses (or in this case the Wang’es) we bought a pet bird. Not just any bird, mind you, but some rare, talking squawker. We named the unlucky avian, Lucky. Talk about irony. He would squawk in his pigeon Chinese … ‘Qu ba’, ‘Qu ba’ which can be translated as ‘go’ or more colloquially as ‘go take a long walk off a short pier’. This he told you to do constantly. After a week of sleepless nights of endless squawking, I tried to convince my wife we needed to eat fried chicken-like bird for dinner. A sympathetic friend eventually taught us how to put a cloth over the cage to shut Lucky up thus sparing his life for the time being.

So like with the current ‘Tommy incident’ my wife took the kids to see the in-laws and left me in charge. Well, wouldn’t you know, I come home from work one day to find Lucky claws up on the bottom of his cage. On the positive side, I did notice that he had a pleasant look on his beak so I have to believe he had a peaceful passing. I’m guessing stress induced heart attack … the number one killer in talking birds (or so I’m told). I went down to the market to buy a replacement bird, thinking I could fool them into thinking that some bizzarro Lucky was somehow the real deal. No luck(y). So again there were calls for my resignation as father, my impeachment as chief caregiver in our household. However, like Bush/Cheney, it would take more than a few innocent causalities to get me to acknowledge my mistakes. So we stayed the course. Surged ahead and got a golden retriever puppy.

I guess that’s why our dog Jasmine these days is always eying me with deep canine suspicion. Dreadfully afraid for the next time my wife takes the kids to visit the in-laws.

So my spouse says I’m cheap. I prefer to think it is more that I simply have my priorities all screwed up. For the record, I’d probably say I’m more frugal. Economical, perhaps, or possibly thrifty. But never cheap!
You know there are whole countries, races of people, who live with the “cheap” stereotype: the Scots, Dutch, Indians and Catalonians just to name a few. Ever notice Scottish Inn on the interstate. A motel so cheap you have to clean your own room. Or have you ever ‘gone Dutch’ on a date and paid your own way (muttering ‘the cheapskate’ under your breath).
My biggest problem is that I’m admittedly “penny wise and pound foolish”. I scrimp and scrounge on the little things, then blow it all on some big gesture. There are simply moments in life that require a little flare. I fully embrace the Chinese saying that “you aren’t born with money nor do you carry it with you after you die (so live it up a little)*.”
Funny thing is, I do the same thing with time as well. I am ultra efficient thinking two, three, sometimes seven steps ahead, always doing little things to shave off valuable seconds or minutes. Not rushing per se, mind you, just being hyper efficacious with my precious time. Then what do I do with all those stolen seconds and minutes. I spend them wantonly on a beer, a sunset and/or writing a silly blog.*Note I added this little gem to the end all on my own.

And here is a little video to punctuate the point:

So I have a bad habit of taking a perfectly good poem and wrecking it with my imagination. My apologies to Billy Blake and his wonderful little ditty “The Tyger” (reprinted below for your reading pleasure.)

The Brytany
Brytany, Brytany, burning bright
In the nightclubs in plain sight,
What immoral hand or eye
Could feel up thy fearful symmetry?

In what deep fat-fryer lies?
Burnt food to show up on thy thighs?
With Kevin what kids doth thy sire?
What the band dare seize the liar?

And what boulder and what fart
Could pinch the nose – “PU’s” – of thy tart?
And when thy fart began to stink
What dread band and what dread lip-sync?

What the MC Hammer? What the Alice in Chains?
In what sternness was thy vain?
What the advil? What dread gasp
Dare its deadly voice rasp?

When the stars threw down their Spears
And watered heaven with their beers,
Did He test His work to pee?
Did He who ate the lamb roast thee?

Brytany, Brytany, burning bright
In the nightclubs in plain sight,
What immoral hand or eye
Could feel up thy fearful symmetry?

The Tyger
Tyger, tyger, burning bright
In the forests of the night,
What immortal hand or eye
Could frame thy fearful symmetry?

In what distant deeps or skies
Burnt the fire of thine eyes?
On what wings dare he aspire?
What the hand dare seize the fire?

And what shoulder and what art
Could twist the sinews of thy heart?
And, when thy heart began to beat,
What dread hand and what dread feet?

What the hammer? what the chain?
In what furnace was thy brain?
What the anvil? what dread grasp
Dare its deadly terrors clasp?

When the stars threw down their spears,
And watered heaven with their tears,
Did He smile His work to see?
Did He who made the lamb make thee?

Tyger, tyger, burning bright
In the forests of the night,
What immortal hand or eye
Dare frame thy fearful symmetry?

To Blog or not to Blog, that is the question: Whether ’tis nobler in the heart to suffer the slinging of bull and the arrows of barbed comment. Or to take up keyboard against a pond of troubles, and by opposing silence them? To die: to sleep; no more; and by a sleep to say we end the head-ache and the million natural shocks that our egos are heir to, ’tis a consummation devoutly to be wish’d. To die, to nap; to nap perchance to dream: ay, where’s the vick’s vapor rub? For in that nap of death what dreams may come a callin when we have shuffled off this mortal corkscrew, must give us a break: there’s the respect that makes calamity of so long in tooth; for who would bear the whips and scorns of the dominatrix called time, the oppressor’s wrong, the stupid man’s wont. The pangs of despised love and hunger, the law’s incompetence, the insolence of office and the spurns that patient merit of the lame takes.

Why do you write blogs?
Why do you read them?

So i’m having trouble with my RSS feed and this is a test. I plan to render my spoof poems as podcasts so this will be podcasted once i get the technical chops.