Terrible, terrible things

We're home from our camping trip, you lucky dogs.

The ocean's colder up here in Canada than it is down there in not-Canada. Really. It is.

Remember when you were a kid and you lured your parents into the cold water with the old "come on in, it's fine! You'll get used to it!" business? I fell for it. I had to prove that Dad wasn't a chicken-shit. Ohhhh, no, Dad's a big strong man! Well, I proved my strength, but whatever might have been "big" beforehand stopped being so within, oh... 0.3 seconds. JESUS CHRIST, someone should heat that pool up a bit!

You know that scene from M*A*S*H when Major Burns brought Hotlips a balloon and she popped it with a pin because she was mad at him? It ends with her chasing and him running away, flailing his arms around and squealing like a little girl. Imagine Major Burns with lots of hair and in swimming trunks. That was me, exiting the ocean. Jesus, I'm pathetic.

Kids can handle -20° water because they're made of steel or something. But it just makes me cry.

Jaq blew out a pair of sandals this time. Sheesh! What is it with her? Actually, she bought them a week ago. We're getting our money back.

We tried that "rehydrate your food with urine" trick I mentioned earlier. I should have read the whole article. Apparently you're supposed to use this special food or something, because the reconstituted chicken Kiev tasted like someone pissed into the bag and nothing like chicken. At least that's what the kids said. I said it was just their imagination while I ate my canned beans. Another failed experiment.

Aside from that, everything was super. We relaxed, we camped, we (read: they) swam, we beachcombed. That's pretty much it. I wanna go back.

Now.

I've been doing a lot of reading on lightweight hiking. The idea is to get closer to nature because your impact on the environment will be less, but my motivation is that I don't want to ever again carry a 50-pound pack. 20 pounds sounds a hell of a lot better to me.

That's why I'm going to start carrying dehydrated food that can be prepared with urine. Mmmmmm!

Time for some house cleaning. I added a few new links to the Worthfolk list over there on the right.

Tiddlycove, because he's stuck on the mainland and I feel sorry for him.
jayce, because she's tough and might kick my ass if I forget her.
Mean Mr. Mustard, because he, too, looks like a pusmuka but I don't think he is. He just needs some Visine.
binder (a few weeks ago, but I forgot to mention it), because he doesn't suck that much, I guess.
OneHappyFemale, because she doesn't list my blog and I don't understand this whole "reciprocal link" thing.
MoonMan, so he'll take my name off that damn list and put it on the other damn list.
dragon60, because he's got a kilt and Jaq thinks that's sexy.
dpenguin, because I really should link to at least one nice person's blog.
chicken, because I have the deepest respec-KK-k-k--k [ahem] The deepest respec-k-k-kk... Bwahahaha!! Oh, fuck it.
goldkear, because it gives me a chance to be offensive by saying "some of my best friends are gay Jews."
Flu, because there wasn't much typing involved.
brunewz, because he's got a mean picture of a Jayne Mansfield hot water bottle on his page.
Kzanderall, because, if there is a god, I can say "You gotta let me in! Sure I did the whole pride, envy, gluttony, lust, anger, greed and sloth thing. But I was nice to people with special needs!"

EARTHQUAKE!!!

Oh my God, oh my God, oh my God! The world is coming to an end!

I didn't feel a thing. Rats.

In other news: Next week at this time we'll be out of town, camping. Those of you who are waiting for a good chance to break into the house and steal all of our [sarcasm]really nice stuff[/sarcasm] should mark your calendars. If you bring a moving van and jam it full you might be able to fence everything for as much as $200, maybe $220 if you bring the pop cans to a recycling depot.

Our oldest son is here for the summer and he's not going with us, though, so you'll need to bribe him to look the other way. Girlie mags and Metallica CDs should do it.

We'll be going to the Island's west coast again, revisiting some nice beaches that our youngest guy missed last time we went. Botanical Beach is our favorite. This guy has a lot of nice pictures to show what it's like. The tidal pools range from the size of a basketball to large enough to lose a truck inside, and they're just filled with life. It's really incredible.

It's also one of the few places I've discovered where I can walk out to a rocky point and have surf crash all around me, throwing spray way over my head. It's not the safest place to stand, but if I had to choose a way to go... Last time we went I camped my butt on that rock for over an hour while everyone else explored the beach.

I'd promise pictures, but you know my record.

Hey, neat! It looks like

blogger

• has some new functionality. This sure looks
• like a lot of

1. fun! Whee!!!

Bleh.

Our dogs, once called Bella and Scotty, are henceforth to be known as Bella Hatred and Scotty Loathing.

That is all.

Here's to Diana (name changed), who has just finished asking her 200th
psychic question, spending $2000 in the process. Sadly, only a couple of
her questions were "why do I have so little money?" Instead, she's asked
200 questions about at least 40 different men.

Here's some advice, honey. You'll never meet a man who respects you until
you start spending your money on something more worthwhile. Build a castle
out of soda cans. Cover your car in faux fur. Tattoo a giant spider on
your face. Anything would be a better investment than "Readings by
Retardo."

In other news, my son bought himself a new computer, freeing up his old
one which I snatched for a song. So now I'm actually running something
that doesn't crash whenever a light breeze hits the house. It's still way
old by modern PC standards, but it's a bit faster than what I had. I'm
cool with that. Besides, now I can Photoshop again. Look out arsi!

"But, Galoot. What about that PC you were going to get from Randy?"

:(

I can't afford the CPU and RAM. The empty shell is still sitting at his
house. Some day... some day...

A lot of you know we have a ton of cats and two new dogs. Right now the score is: Cats 6 - Dogs 2. Our cats come and go as they please, spending a good part of their days outside. Every so often one will take off for a couple of days and we'll worry, but they almost always come back and we feel silly about it afterward.

BBs (pronounced "bee-bees," and no, I didn't name him) was rather miffed when we got the pups and disappeared for a while then lived in the basement, where the dogs don't go, for a few weeks before slowly starting to hang out in the main household again.

Last night BBs did something he hasn't done since we got the dogs. He came to bed with us. With the dogs. And he relaxed. He didn't hiss or scratch at them like he normally would if they are in his space, he just curled up beside Jaq and howled over and over again (which he does regularly).

We were pretty shocked, seeing as he's one of the cats that hates the dogs the most. I thought maybe we were going to have an earthquake, because they say animals act weird when they sense something.

About ten minutes later we figured out what he wanted. He demonstrated for us.

First he sprang up and landed on top of Bella (the dog), then he grabbed her scruff with his teeth. Then he attempted to make kippies. Or puppens. Or whatever you'd get if you crossed a dog and a cat.

HUH? Our cat's humping our dog! He's fixed, she's nowhere near old enough to be in heat, but... our cat's humping our dog! HUH?

Through it all, Bella just stayed very, very still. I think she was scared to move.

After our "is he doing what it looks like he's doing?" shock wore off, I shooed him away from her and he left the room, presumably to take a cold shower. Bella curled up close to Jaq and shivered, afraid, for the rest of the night.

Laughing, Jaq said, "You're going to blog about this, aren't you?"

"Cross-species sex? Are you kidding? Of course I'm going to blog about this!"

Later, trying to drift off, but waking myself repeatedly by laughing out loud, I said, "Uh... but it's only one event. I need a collection of oddities or my entry will be too short."

"Don't worry, Hon. I'm sure something else strange will happen to you."

Why does everybody always say that?

Cut to the following afternoon (today). Something strange happened to me. Jaq has an amazing gift for prediction.

I'm walking back from the store, having just bought a pouch of tobacco and some tubes, when a truck pulls up beside me and stops. I glance up and see an out-of-towner. The guy leans out his window and says, "Are you from around here?"

I put on my best friendly face, the one I use for tourists who might spend money in our little depressed community, and say "I sure am! What can I do for you?" I expect he wants directions to a campground or beach or something. They all want that.

He says, not too clearly, "You look like a pusmuka to me."

"I look like a what?"

He raises his voice. "You look like a pot smoker to me."

OH! He wants to score. Naturally, when you want to score you drive around looking for the scruffiest, long-haired, unshaven, cut-offs-wearing hippie you can spot, and ask him where the weed is. I am all of those things, except I don't smoke the stuff. (I had a beer three months ago, though.)

Naturally, after the fact, a million possibly entertaining responses come to mind.

- "So do you." and then just stare at him
- "You look like you're under arrest to me."
- "No, I'm the crack guy. The pot guy lives down there."
- "I used to be, but then I found God. Can we talk for a bit?"
- "Everyone in this damned town looks like this. Why single me out?"

Instead I just say, "Nope. Not me."

He says okay, thanks, then drives off.

I could have directed him to the house of the biggest dealer in town, which I just happened to be standing half a block from, but that guy gets enough business and I don't particularly want to encourage it, legal or not.

I got home and told Jaq. She was pissed that anyone would pre-judge me like that. But I DO look like a pot-head. It's a natural assumption if you're hoping to buy. If you looked like a cross between David Koresh, Jim Morrison and Jesus, you'd get that same sort of thing all the time, too.

Oh well. [shrug]

It's happened. My wife discovered my blog. All day long she's all "Who's this MPolgara lady? Who's this Dolly woman? Who's this Arsi chick?" Laughing was a bad idea.

I corrected her mistake and told her MP's no lady, but she says that just makes it worse.

Let's play "What's Jaq Going To List On The Divorce Decree."

Well, there's my plea for naked photos, followed by my follow-up thank you post. There's my ode to hbomb's beauty and my anti-dog rant posted, coincidentally, the same week she brought home puppies.

There's my list of top ten sexy men and women (but I've already wisely edited her younger sister's name from the list) and there's an account of having sex on the beach just two paragraphs after lamenting that I couldn't stare at a naked young woman through binoculars.

Actually, Jaq's cool with all of it because she decided a long time ago to stop paying attention to anything I say. I don't mean that in the whiny "my wife doesn't listen to me" sense but more in the "she understands that I am insane" sense. She's always saying "I didn't marry you for your brains, dear. In fact, I didn't marry you for your body, either. Why the hell did I marry you again? Oh yeah. Your vast earning potential."

I'm doomed.

She's just started a blog of her own. I asked her if I could link to it and she said "HELL NO!" So, naturally, I've chosen to disrespect her wishes. So far she hasn't posted any top-ten-sexy-men lists. That's probably a good thing, because it would either be filled with people completely unlike me (good looking folks) people who look just like me (Carrot Top and Pee-Wee Herman) or Scientologists.

Those of you with significant others (or who can imagine the idea): Would you let your partner read your blog? Do you edit yourself before typing, just in case, or do you let it all hang out?

My wife's going to read my blog! Quick! Hide the porn!