In Which My Kids Take Over My Blog

The photo on the right is of his painting of Enkidu.

I am sharing some stuff with you today just because I think it's cool. This falls into the category of "what I'm up to" rather than deep thoughts.

This year, to my great delight, I've been teaching my sons history. My second-grader is currently departing Ancient China for Ancient Africa, and we've traveled a long way already—from Çatalhöyük to Egypt, from the Indus Valley to Mesopotamia. I read him a chapter in his history book while he takes notes on what I say. Then he gives me a narration (tells the story back to me) while I write down his words. We find the area on a map, mark it on a timeline and an add illustration to his own history book of the ancient world. He usually gets to do a craft, and I photograph that to put in the book as well. By the time we've finished  he'll have created his own living history book of the ancient world.

My seventh-grader is in New Mexico this year. Our focus has been on slowing down the relentless slog through time he's used to and setting a while with a place and time so we can really get to know it. He is learning to see how history reaches out its skeleton hand from the grave and shapes events as they happen now. He recently did an assignment called a flash-draft. The idea comes from What a Writer Needs by Ralph Fletcher, which anyone who is either a writer or a writing teacher must go buy right now. In this assignment, the object is to create a character who will allow you to convey some expository information that you are supposed to learn. He has studied Oñate and the Massacre of Acoma, and I told him to create a character that was there. "And I want to be there. I want to be able to smell it," I told him. 

I am very, very proud of what Devin did with this assignment. He asked me to post it here and I am more than happy to share it with you. He worked hard on it, and maybe it will interest you to see how my kid writes. (His older brother once got this privilege, too.) You get a prize if you can tell me where Devin borrowed the first line from.

Battle on the Butte by Devin Cantua

Background

In 1595 the Conquistador Don Juan de Oñate was granted permission by King Phillip II of Spain to colonize Santa Fe de Nuevo Mexico, the present day New Mexico. The Acomas and Spaniards had been peaceful with each other for decades, since they first met in 1540. In 1598, the Acoma leader, Zutacapan, learned that the Spanish intended to conquer them. They planned to defend themselves when the Spaniards came.

Don Oñate sent his nephew, Captain Juan de Zaldivar, to the pueblo to consult with Zutacapan. When Zaldivar arrived on December 4, 1598, one of the first things he did was take sixteen of his men up the mesa, on which the pueblo was located, to demand food from the natives. After being denied the Spanish attacked some of the Acoma women. A fight raged, leaving Zaldivar and eleven other men dead. When Oñate learned of the incident, he ordered Juan de Zaldivar’s brother, Vincente de Zaldivar, to go punish the Acoma. Taking about 70 men, he left for the pueblo…This is what happened next.


*

Nervous! Very, very dreadfully nervous! What will the Acomas have planned for us when we attack? Whatever they might have, I’m ready! I have to be ready, or I won’t survive.

“Ok men, let’s start making our way towards the base of the butte. Once we get there I will give you further instructions!” said Oñate.

“Yes sir!” we all screamed.

Only few of the men got to be on horses—the higher ranked men, of course. I myself was only one of the lowest ranked men there. I had to keep pace with the horses. I don’t think that I am one of the better soldiers, but Oñate only picked the men he thought were sufficient. So why—

“Ok men, I will take half of you guys up the path where the Acomas will see us and we will distract them with friendly talk. We will do this while the other half of you will climb up the back of the butte and set up the cannons and rifles. Then when I give the thumbs up symbol you guys will fire, Capiche?”

“Yes sir!”

Some more men and I sneaked around the back of the butte and started climbing to the top. I was surrounded by the musky scent of man and awfully disturbing noises. This was hell for me. Just imagine being in a bone dry desert, climbing up the side of a cliff, surrounded by the smell of a month old road kill. Sweaty men who haven’t bathed in weeks smell awful. Plus it was about -12⁰ Celsius with no snow, with the sun shining brightly in the sky. I’m not used to this weather yet.

Once we got to the top we started setting up the cannons and rifles. There were only two cannons, but it was tough. I glanced across the top of the butte and saw the Acomas captivated in Oñate’s “friendly” talk. This was going to work out.

After all that climbing and sweating and building of cannons, my hands smelled like dirt covered in brass with a touch of gunpowder all mixed together. We were all ready; we were in our positions and ready to ambush. My friend Manuel lined up next to me and asked, “You ready mate?”

“After all that training how can I not be ready?”

We both chuckled, focused our attention to Oñate, then waited. We’ve been on the same path since we were little boys in Spain. We both wanted to move to Santa Fe de Nuevo Mexico with the governor and help colonize the new world. And here we are today on the top of a mesa just outside of Santa Fe about to attack the Acomas with the governor—just like we wanted.

A little later he made the thumbs up symbol. We fired a cannonball and charged in with screams and yells to surprise the Acomas, the attack finally began!

The historic battle raged for three days, but by the end, hundreds of Indians lay dead. The ones who survived were enslaved, and the young men each had a right foot amputated. Just seeing the men crawl away in a pile of blood with a stub on the end of the leg… it left a mark in my head for ever. Turning around and seeing the pile of amputated feet on the ground made me feel nauseated for a while after.

I myself managed to escape with only minor wounds, a fractured wrist and a concussion, but my friend Manuel—he didn’t make it through the rough battle. My stomach tensed up like I was about to vomit. I felt that my stomach would burst and I would fall to my knees in tears, but I had to get over it and move on back to Santa Fe. If one of the generals, or Oñate, saw me tearing up they would think of me as a weak warrior; I had to keep cool.

Was what we did the right thing to do? After all these years are the Acoma people still mad at the Spaniards? I don’t know, but what I do know is that I followed my dream and that is most important to me.

“Wow!” the kids said in amazement.

“Will you tell us another one? Please Grandpa, please?”

“Sorry kids but I think we’re done for today.”

I sat in my chair as I heard the kids walking away saying, “When I’m an adult I’m gonna to follow my dream like grandpa, and I’m going to colonize the new world, too!”

“Well I’m gonna be the governor in the new world, when I’m older!” said Diego.

I just chuckled to myself and puffed on my pipe. I guess they’ll find out what it’s like when they get there.

Self-Portraits: a How-to by Margi

This third in my series of guest posts is by the wonderful Margi of the M Half of the M-n-J Show, who is well-known for her wit and sincerity, as well as the fact that she is always on vacation and yet still manages to check into the Blogosphere to read, write and give us all props. Today she is going to offer you something that you would basically never get from me: a how-to. I have to outsource to get anything useful here at FIA. I should probably just put Margi in charge.


I'm good at approximately three things. One of them is self portraits. I thought I'd share my mad skillz here with Team Ambiguity while Tara is out gallivanting around. You're welcome. I spend a lot of time on Facebook, probably too much. And I take a lot of pictures. Maybe too many. I see a lot of self portraits that are just terrible. I'm here to help those out there who are self portrait challenged learn how to do this. First, you don't want to aim too high, or you'll only get foreheads.

If you aim too low, you'll only get necks. And maybe cleavage. If that's your goal, then rock it!

Once you get the aim figured out, you need to figure out how to look at the camera. If you look too far up, we'll see up your nose. No thanks!

If you look too far down, we'll see multiple chins. Not flattering!

By the way, the close-up of your eye? So MySpace 2008. Don't do it. And if you insist, please at least clean the eye boogers out.

So let's take a look at a properly aimed self portrait.

Even better, if you're with someone with long arms, let them take the picture. They can even get the background. Now, go forth and self-portraitize!

Dyer’s Woad by Jewels

Photo Credit: USDA Forest Service

Today's post is by the phenom Jewels of Frazzled & Frumpy. I would say of Jewels that she is one of those treasured people I have met online whom I would like to think of as a friend. I must admit that I keep envisioning us having coffee together and then the image is disturbed by the fact that Jewels doesn't drink coffee, so I have to make something else up. You get the idea. Today, she is going to share with you about falling in love with pretty weeds and reflective screens. Jewels is a wise woman. Pay attention.

As you drive up the canyon near our home, you’ll see a lovely, little, yellow flower. It grows up the side of hills and there are fields that overflow with it. I fell in love with these blossoms last summer. I was so enamored that during one drive, I stopped and took a picture. When we got home, I proudly showed my picture to my kids.

My son looked at it and shook his head. “Mom, that’s Dyer’s Woad. We spent all week digging it up.” What? I didn’t understand. My kids work at scout camps in the canyon. Apparently, this ‘lovely flower’ is a weed. It is aggressive and will choke and force out all other vegetation. The pretty little blooms are nothing more than a façade for a nasty killer. I’ve been struggling with my own bit of Dyer’s Woad lately. It’s called ‘the internet’. Oh, yes, it has its virtues. It is information at my fingertips. It is ideas and stories and inspiration. It is also the thing that takes me away from my family. A lovely façade that hides a nasty time killer. I’ve noticed that a lot of bloggers are taking time off. Perhaps we all feel it. The balancing act we perform gets one sided and we feel ourselves falling. 

Time to step back. Time to take stock and measure the good with the better. Time for priorities to be listed. I love the internet. I have made friends. I have learned and expanded my mind. I have honed my craft. For these things, I am so grateful. I have also half listened to my children as I try to multi-task. I have shooed them out of my room because ‘Mommy is busy’. I have sat next to my husband without paying him attention as I browse. I do not plan to stop my internet activity. No calls to my cable company are in the future. But, I will dig and prune and find where the weeds are most prominent. (Pintrest, maybe?) I’ll get my balance back, embrace the better and try to find a way to also keep the good. And, maybe plant some real flowers. (Thanks to Tara for letting me guest post. I’m always thrilled to do it, especially when the blog is so fabulous. Then, I get very self-conscious, especially when the blog owner is so fabulous.)

The Dude by Kelly

Today's post is by Kelly of Southern Fried Children. This, for me, is like being the washed-up garage band performing in a second-rate bar and getting to announce that the guitarist for the evening is Carlos Santana. Something like that. But it's creepy to sound like you're stalking your guest bloggers, so I'm totally not doing that. (Never mind the 500 links I've posted here to her work.) I didn't include an image because there is no image that will do this story justice and because Kelly doesn't use images on her blog. She doesn't need them. This tale paints a picture all on its own.

Bobby Ricardi was hot stuff.

For starters, he was the only boy in eighth grade who shaved every day, and he still managed to have a five o’clock shadow by lunchtime. While most of our classmates were stumbling into puberty – a pimple here, a cracking voice there, Bobby Ricardi roared through with lightning speed; leaving the last day of seventh grade a little boy, and arriving in the fall a fully formed man.

He wore skin tight Guess jeans, pegged at the bottom. The hugged his high backend, and accentuated his severely bowed legs. They brought particular attention to his crotch. “Oh my God!” my friend Becky gasped, “That is not right. That has to be a violation of dress code.”

“I don’t think the handbook says anything about visible nutsacks,” I replied.

In the locker rooms, changing for P.E., Bobby talked to a lot of backs. None of the other boys wanted to be seen in comparison, so they showered and toweled off in a hurry, finding refuge in their tighty whiteys. Bobby wasn’t fooled.

“Hey, pencil dick!” he’d yell across the locker room, snapping his towel at an unsuspecting behind. He wasn’t talking to anyone in particular, they were all Pencil Dick. They were all inferior.

Bobby wore his masculinity like a cloak – an awesome, hairy cloak. Above the skin tight jeans, he sported tank tops, the sides cut low and loose, exposing muscle and an impressive amount of armpit hair. He never missed an opportunity to raise his deeply tanned arms and give you a face full of fur.

His hair was styled in a mullet, before it was called a mullet, and back when mullets were a source of pride, and not a target of ridicule. A long rattail hung in a braid to the middle of his back, the end tied with a series of colorful beads.

“That’s Rasta, baby,” he’d say if he caught you staring. “You know what that means? It means I’m a lovah.” And then he’d lean back and put his arms behind his head, showing his pit hair and flexing his muscles and topping it all of with a wink of his spectacularly blue eyes.

Of course, I was in love with Bobby Ricardi.

The first time he kissed me, he smelled like Skoal and tasted like Big Red. My tongue found the gum, tucked in tight between lips and teeth. When I pulled away, it fell into my lap.

“Damn, that’s my last piece,” he said, and popped it back into his mouth.

Our relationship was short lived. He broke up with me the week before Christmas, mostly because he didn’t want to buy me a Christmas present. Partly because I wouldn’t put out. I was less devastated than I’d expected to be. It was almost a relief, not being responsible for the happiness of all that manliness.

Several years later, I had moved to the opposite coast and Bobby Ricardi was long forgotten. Until a phone call from an old friend, in the middle of the day. I sat on the floor of my room, filled with California sunshine, and learned that Bobby Ricardi was dead.

He had been at a party, driving home on an unfamiliar road, after an undisclosed number of beers. Maybe there had been something in the road, maybe he had fallen asleep, maybe he gauged the curve wrong and went wide. Whatever the reason, he ran his canary yellow Z-28, a graduation gift from his parents, into a tree. They said he died on impact.

I heard the snap of a towel.

He smelled like Skoal, and tasted like Big Red.  

Things You Should Know About Pet Ownership: Do Not Pet Sit Other People's Cats

Today's post is by my husband, Mike Adams. Mike, when not being pressed into servitude toward various animals that I select, writes his own blog called All Things Reasonable...except the ones I forgot. Imagine a Hellfire and damnation sermon preached from the pages of The Nation and you have a vague approximation of Mike's blog. Except that he also writes on his personal life. And, now on cats. 

The tale of Gui and Gubal begins with my animal loving wife. In fact any traumatic animal story from my adult life probably begins with Tara. She is one of those people who would do anything for an animal. She has sacrificed my sleep so that our cat could be indoors at night. She has scheduled my Saturday to build a duck house for feathered pets. She has given up my free time on Tuesday nights for dog training classes. There is no sacrifice too great for the betterment of an animal’s situation, that she won’t volunteer me for.

She can’t help it. Tara has an abundance of compassion for animals. She loves them and feels it is her duty to ensure they are cared for. My middle son, Devin, has inherited both my wife’s compassion for animals and her skill with delegating animal care to the rest of us who lack that same level of compassion. Between the two of them, I have become an IT technician by day and Farmer Mike by night.

A few years ago, Tara and I had gone on a home improvement expedition to Lowe’s in Española. After we finished shopping, while we were loading construction supplies into our minivan, a kid duo approached and asked if we wanted a free puppy or two. My eldest son had been asking for a dog and, though he was away at summer camp, I knew Tara was sympathetic, so I had to act quickly.

I said “Ohhh, they are so cute, but we really can’t take care of a dog right now. Thanks, though.”

Tara, though, looked at the puppies and her face lit up.

“Oh how cute. Can I hold one?”

I was completely unaware of the danger that was present at this point, so when she picked up a puppy, I opened the door to our van and started the air conditioning.

I said, “You pet the dog and I’ll finish loading the van.”

A few minutes later, I sat down in the driver’s seat and looked at Tara, who returned my gaze with wide, beautiful and searching eyes.

“You really don’t want a dog right?,” she asked.

I hardened myself and said “RIGHT!”

This is where Tara began to cry and my mind began to race, “Oh no, she’s crying. I have to be tough. I can’t give in. I don’t want a dog. I’ll be the one to walk and feed him. No way!” 

Tara looked at me, wiped a tear from her eye and said, “OK, lets go.”

On the way home, I drove in a subtly stolid mood as we discussed names for our new puppy. Finally, we settled on “Xavier” in honor of Professor Xavier of the X-Men.

That dog has been great though. Not perfect. He can be an asshole, getting into the kitchen or bathroom garbage when no one is looking and then spreading it about the house in the same manner as my eleven year-old scatters his dirty socks. But Xavier has also been the companion and protector for my two younger kids when they were too afraid to venture upstairs at bedtime or on bathroom breaks.

So, when Tara came to me and explained how our friend Petra would be out of the country for a year and that she needed someone to care for her two family cats, I knew there was no escaping the 365 days of additional hairballs. I reassured myself, “Cats are kind of cool, you’ve had them your whole life, Mike. This won’t be bad. However, they had better not pee in the house, because if that happens, I’m having feline stew!”

So we welcomed Gui and Gubal into our home (or petting zoo, as I prefer to think of it). And to my delight, they were great–funny, cute and friendly. Gubal was a huge 18 or 19 pound cat, who would find the oddest places to nap. One morning, my eldest son called to us “Mike, Mom, come look.” Upstairs, Rowan was standing in the bathroom, with a giant smile crossing his face. He pointed at the bathroom sink, where Gubal had curled up in the bowl of the sink for a nap.

“Oh I like these cats,” I thought.

The other cat, Gui was a tiny little Calico creature, who possessed the mentality of a master predator. She would fly across the room and dive under our throw rug, then reach out and bat whatever came near. Their personalities were great and they provided hours of free entertainment. This cat sitting was going to be a treat.

But I hadn’t figured on the neuroses of our cat, Marmalade Lion, who did not share our enthusiasm or affinity for these interlopers. He growled at them or frequently walked right up to either of these guests and stared into their eyes for a few seconds, before letting out a long, tortured holler, which resembled the hybrid sound of a screaming baby, and a strangled goat.

This is when everything went wrong. The cats could not get along, and as the conflict and stress escalated, so did the problems. Gui turned from a fun loving playful cat into a scrapping and aggressive creature, whose size and attitude reminded me of none other than Napoleon Bonaparte.

For months, we ushered abscessed cats to the vet, and looked dolefully at the ground as we assured the staff that we were doing all we could to manage the conflict. The cats it seems, had us bent over a barrel. Then, one day, Tara sent Petra an email, explaining how her cat was being treated for yet another abscess and this time, the vet suggested that our Napoleonic friend Gui might benefit from taking antidepressant medications. Good grief, where is the Cat Whisperer when you need her? Petra agreed and so began the chapter in Gui's life of treatment for her mental health disorder.

Dutifully, we administered the medication and waited for the delayed effect to calm the angry feline. A week passed, then two and finally, we concluded that this course of action wasn’t effective. We had to isolate Gui in our eldest son's room, where she stared angrily out the window. Then once, while allowing Gui outside in our front yard, while the other cats were in, she got in a fight with our neighbor's cat. And got an abscess.

Stress and anxiety gripped me and Tara as we tried to imagine how we might survive the remaining months that we were responsible for these cats. Fortunately, Petra and family had reason to return early and soon, they took possession of their cats.

I worried that Gui and Gubal might have received permanent mental damage, but it soon became apparent that protected from the onslaught of Marmalade's demented yowl, Gui and Gubal had returned to normal. Petra’s cats were happy and safe, and meanwhile, our lives rebounded to the standard insanity to which we were accustomed. We steam cleaned the carpets and located all the remaining cat turds hidden among the kids' costumes.

The moral of my tale is: beware the friendly gesture of cat-sitting. It can ruin your life and cost the person you are trying to help more than you can imagine. In the end, the cats are OK and I have a good story to tell, but would I do it again? NO WAY!

Do you have a story of pet ownership travail? I want you to submit it for this series. Send me what you have!

Things You Should Know About Pet Ownership: Don't Let Nature Take Its Course

Photo Credit: MorgueFile by Mary K. Baird

Today's post is by my mother. When I had the idea for this series, which is sort of a tongue-in-cheek expose of the worst moments of pet ownership, I emailed her and told her forcefully that she was going to need to cough up the goods about her time as a crazy cat lady. And, because she is a good mother, she reluctantly agreed. My mother also has her own blog, "B" Stings, where she writes on topics that nobody has emotionally blackmailed her into using. You should check her out. Tell her that her daughter sent you and that she needs her to bring over some eggs and milk.

Let it be.

Go with the flow.

Let nature do its thing.

These were the mottos, the newly-minted clichés (if you’ll forgive the oxymoron) of the late sixties. And they are probably most of the reason why Rick and I ended up with thirteen (or was it seventeen?) cats.

When we moved from Berkeley, California to Vashon Island (which is in the Puget Sound and accessible by ferry from Seattle), we had only two cats. They were Pandora aka Pandy, an elegant female silver tabby, and Bear-Bear, a small black female cat with a voice that never registered above a hoarse stage whisper and who resembled, both in action and in appearance, a comically awkward cartoon bear cub.

Vashon was one of many bucolic communities subject to a hippie invasion, and the local newspaper’s opinion page invariably included several snide remarks regarding the hairy, unwashed intruders. Rick and I were probably hybrid hippies in that I had a job and he was attending graduate school–i.e. we may have turned on and tuned in but we hadn’t quite gotten around to dropping out.

To continue…

We hadn’t lived for more than a week or two in our cozy rental cabin on Vashon Island when a scruffy, feral-looking tom cat appeared on the scene. Rick and I named him Pop but, otherwise, didn’t give the animal much thought...until Bear-Bear got pregnant.

Geez – didn’t you guys get your cats spayed?

Well, of course not because interfering with Nature’s intentions was uptight and unhip. Maybe even fascist.

So, Bear-Bear’s tiny feline frame swelled with pregnancy. In those days I was her adored person and so it wasn’t all that surprising when, upon going into labor, she attempted to give birth on my lap.

I wasn’t having it though. Hip or unhip, I placed her in an old suitcase I had prepared with towels and blankets in preparation for the great event. I was obliged to restrain her from jumping back onto my lap until the first kitten arrived, after which she got busy with various post-partum duties, including ingesting the afterbirth.

Bear-Bear had five kittens….then Pandy got pregnant and I freaked out. Despite Rick’s politically-correct protests, I insisted that Pandy be spayed if it could be done safely. Apparently it could.

Well, Pandy arrived back from the vet lactating and proceeded to successfully nurse three of Bear-Bear’s five kittens. The kittens thrived and romped playfully inserting their tiny claws into the Naugahyde couch which, of course, didn’t belong to us. Pretty soon the couch was covered with tiny pinprick holes like a dot-to-dot game designed by an inebriated pointillist. Rick and I postponed worrying about the wrath of our landlords and the fate of our deposit by lighting up a joint.

Since we were newcomers to the Seattle area, we didn’t know a lot of people. Consequently it became difficult to find homes for Bear-Bear’s kittens. We succeeded in giving away three–a male and two females. That left us with two whom we named Sindhi and Moojic, two female tabbies who took after their feral father.

So, let me try and explain… When you’re busy working, commuting and smoking pot, you tend to kind of let certain things go. Also, around this time, I developed a kidney infection, spiking a fever of 105 and experiencing horrific febrile nightmares in which I was being pursued by a giant manicotti noodle. (The circumstance that provided the content for these dreams is the subject of another story)

Anyhow, I recovered from this illness to discover that Sindhi and Moojic had gotten pregnant. Not only that but Bear-Bear was pregnant again.

So, we moved from Vashon Island to a funky neighborhood in Seattle in order to make room for our expanded family. The house was an old two-story divided into four apartments. Our half of the two main floors included the kitchen, dining room and one of the upstairs bedrooms.

By then we were too indoctrinated by hippie dogma, and also too poor, to arrange for any more feline abortions.

So that’s how Rick and I came to have thirteen kittens. If you add the four adult cats, that totals seventeen household felines. At least according to my calculations. However, I’m weak in math and even weaker in memory, so maybe the total was three less or a couple more. The result is the same regardless.

“Didn’t your landlord object?” you are no doubt wondering. Well, not really because Juneau Jack was busy in his basement cave underneath the house, thinking up clever ways to save money and stewing an endless succession of elderly hens which he’d no doubt obtained at some going-out-of-business grocery store for a penny a pound. “Always a bargain, honey” – that was Juneau Jack’s motto. He didn’t care about feline infestations and, anyway, the few pieces of furniture he’d loaned us were already Goodwill rejects. Jack’s other pastime was playing the electric piano at three, four and five o’clock in the morning, sometimes performing as an accompanist for a whisky-voiced contralto. Consequently he couldn’t reasonably object to excessive cat-engendered noises.

When the kittens were barely old enough to toddle, Nature, in the form of the Grim Reaper, intervened–i.e., Moojic’s and Sindhi’s kittens came down with distemper and perished one by one. Had I been more cold-hearted and practical, I might have sighed and conceded that this was for the best. Instead, I cried copiously over every tiny corpse each of which I buried ceremoniously in the back yard.

Only one of Sindhi and Moojic’s kittens survived–a tabby we named Taka-Taka. This kitten was brain-damaged, though. The only way she could maintain her balance while upright was to adopt a gait similar to that of a Tennessee walking horse. Even then, she tended to topple over.

All three of the kittens from Bear-Bear’s second pregnancy survived. This is probably because Bear-Bear hid her progeny behind the kitchen stove and nursed them in stealth. They were all black and when they emerged, trailing greasy cobwebs and smelling of spices, we named them Snake, Stripe and Garam Masala. Eventually we found homes for all of them and for Mother Sindhi as well. I can’t remember what we did with Moojic but I’m sure it was nothing cruel or pathological. Anyhow, that left us with Bear-Bear, Pandy and our special needs kitty, Taka-Taka.

From here on, the sequence of events in our lives becomes murky with time and distance. For a brief period we lived in a tipi snuggled against the Western side of the Cascade Mountains. I don’t remember Taka-Taka being there, although she must have been. What I do remember is Bear-Bear sitting so close to the fire pit that the tips of her long fur were singed. I also remember her swatting at any animal, canine or feline, who dared to enter through the door flap. Pandy, on the other hand, became a serious hunter bringing home various species and varieties of rodents and even the occasional lagomorph.

Well, the Summer of Love and its aftershocks ended (to quote T.S. Eliot) not with a bang but a whimper. Rick and I sort of grew up and made our compromises with the grim necessities of the material world. Eventually we drifted apart. He retains more of the trappings of hippiedom than I do, I think. This conclusion is proven, at least in part, by the fact that I presently live in Los Alamos, New Mexico (home of the National Laboratory) while he makes his home in Bolinas, California (home of an apparent worm hole to 1967).

As for the remaining cats: Taka-Taka had what was either a seizure or a stroke and died as a result. After we moved to Marin County, Pandora developed a severe allergic reaction to fleas and, Marin being the flea capital of the world, we decided to euthanize her rather than ply her with drugs the vet said would compromise her organ functions.

Bear-Bear lived to a ripe old age and died peacefully. Rick and I are hoping to do the same.

-

Send your ridiculous pet story for this series to tara [at] faithinambiguity [dot] com. So far, I have three posts (one still in the cue) and they are all wonderful, but they are all about cats.  I know that cats are, in reality, the top candidates for proving that pet ownership is a warped proposal, but doesn't anyone have a harrowing gerbil story? Donkey? Anyone?

If you missed it, here is last week's installment: Bathing Cats Sucks. It is much, much worse than you can possibly imagine. The events, not the writing. The writing is excellent.

Things You Should Know about Pet Ownership: Bathing Cats Sucks

Note: This is not Steve's cat. Photo Source: Flickr Creative Commons by Belal Khan. 

Today's post is by my friend Steve Niezgoda. When he is not bathing cats, Steve works as a material scientist at the Los Alamos National Laboratory, which, he says, involves using physics too complicated for anything practical to make models.These models, he explains, are the equivalent of telling kids "Santa brought you presents because you were good." instead of explaining how hard it is to save up all year for the loot and how papa had a nervous breakdown wondering if we bought too much/too little, all to teach a lesson about the joy of giving and being nice to each other. He almost posted a comment the other day about how it is unfair to generalize and say that non-bloggers never comment but then he chickened out. It was easier to prove me right than to try to be cogent and witty. However, he is going to be cogent and witty today for much longer than the space it takes to write a comment, so consider him amply redeemed. This is his tale:

Christy is gone for the evening and has tasked me with giving the dog (six years old) and the boy (three and 3/4 years old) a bath. The house we are renting has some odd features, one of which is a downstairs bathroom with a double shower. It is a huge stand up shower stall with two shower heads. The weird thing about it is no matter where you stand it is impossible to get the water from both shower heads pointed together, so you can't really get a luxurious spa experience. You just have to pick which shower head you want to use. It is like the person who designed the house liked the theory of showering with someone else, but wanted to make sure there was a wide and cold air gap to prevent any unnecessary touching between shower partners.

On this occasion, I find this setup very convenient for simultaneously bathing the dog and Emory. I can strip E-man down and put him under one shower and the dog under the other. Since the dog is allergic to every plant in the Jemez mountains, he has been getting a lot of baths lately. Of course with all that water flying around, I get drenched, so I usually just strip down to my underwear. A less self-conscious person would probably just get naked, but I feel weird being naked while showering with my dog and my son. One or the other would be O.K., but with both together, I feel like Animal Control and Child Protective Services are going to simultaneously break down the door at any minute.

So I bathe the dog and the kid–no problem. Dry dog off. Then Emory asks why we never give the cat a bath. I want to say that we just don't give cats baths, but instead I think, "Lets turn this into a teaching moment and show Emory why we don't give cats baths."

We got the cat, Millimeter, the same month Christy and I moved into our first apartment, about 13 years ago. Christy picked the cat (then six weeks old) from the shelter, had to go to a family function for the weekend, and I picked the kitten up from the shelter the next day. I didn't realize it, but she was very sick and had just about every parasite you could imagine. I just thought she slept a lot and was being picky and not wanting to eat her new kitten food. It turns out the cat almost died under my two days of care, and when Christy got home, she rushed her right off to the vet. I have yet to be forgiven for nearly killing the kitten though neglect, and was strongly reminded of it when I was first entrusted to watch then then infant Emory on my own for the first time. Anyway we had to give the kitten baths with a special medicine and that was my last experience in bathing a cat. She just kind of cried pitifully, looked like a drowned rat and tried her best to get out, but it was pretty easy to hold down a very sick tiny kitten. Just like my mother is still convinced I can't throw a baseball, I thought the 13 year-old cat would behave the same as a tiny sick kitten.

After chasing the cat around in my dripping wet underwear–we have concrete floors so I don't have to dry off too thoroughly–I catch the cat, put a collar and leash on her and bring her to the shower. Emory is singing songs from Peter Pan and alternately pretending he is Peter battling Captain Hook or Wendy being rescued by Peter. (This duality is expected from Emory, who loves his My Little Pony Doll, but pretends she is a Jedi and shoots death rays out of her eyes to kill Sith lords.) I bring the cat into the shower stream, holding her against my chest in a vain effort to comfort her. She promptly rakes my man-boobs with her claws and I drop her–but not the leash–and scream in pain. Emory starts screaming because I am screaming and the cat is bouncing around the shower like a ball in the lottery machines. In the confusion, I fall down and hit my head. Luckily I wasn't hurt or killed. At this point I was thinking that it is time to teach the boy to dial 911. I get up and realize the cat must have also whacked her head because she is lying limp on the shower floor. I look a little closer and she is not breathing. Her little wet chest is perfectly still, not moving up and down, and I said "Oh fuck, I just killed my wife's cat!" Time really slows down to a crawl while I think I will be moving into a studio apartment with my dog and have visitation rights with Emory every Easter that falls on a Tuesday.

I really don't know how long the cat continues not to breathe. It seems like two hours, but it is probably a second or two. I reach down and breath into the cat's nose. Her chest expands up, she coughs and then explodes into a furious rage. She claws my arms, my legs, and my chest and bit the middle finger on my right hand straight through. At this point Emory decides he needs to get out the shower–this second!!!!–and I had to hold the spinning death knives away from his tiny body as he nonchalantly strolls past the carnage and blood and demands I dry him off before he gets cold. I wrap the cat in a towel then somehow get Emory into a towel. The cat has calmed down now, and I put her into my bed under a down comforter, trying not to drip blood everywhere. Then I rinse out my wounds, put Emory into his pajamas and read him his bedtime stories.

This is about when Christy comes home. My finger is starting to swell, and she says I should go to the E.R. I probably would have, if left to my own devices, but since she suggested it I decide to tough it out. I go to work the next day and keep it wrapped up. By five my hand is swollen up to my wrist and I can't flex my fingers. At urgent care they re-open the entire wound to drain the abscesses that had already formed, tell me in no uncertain terms I am a fucking moron for waiting to see a doctor, and put me on more antibiotics then my mother-in-law got when she had MRSA.

And so I think that, just as I planned, Emory has learned an important lesson about why we should not bathe cats.

I want your funny pet story, too! See this post for guidelines.

Got a Harrowing Tale of Pet Ownership?

The first time you stand in your snow covered backyard at night, force feeding your dog hydrogen peroxide and waiting for him to bring up your Valentine's Day candy, you realize that pet ownership is something of a shell game. No one mentions the swallowed sewing needles, the $400 dental extractions, the refusal to use a litter pan. One day you are cuddling a kitten, its eyes wide with innocence, and the next you are administering subcutaneous fluids to that same animal by way of a coat hanger hung in your doorway, while she glowers at you with a promise of retribution. My lifelong love of pets has led me to bathe thumb-sized Russian dwarf hamsters with special hypoallergenic shampoo, to investigate the prospects for evacuating to a hotel with five ducks, and to end up adopting a dog from the arms of a young child in the parking lot of Lowe's Home Improvement, who later cost us thousands of dollars to treat a congenital kidney condition.

I have related to all of you my animal hoarding history here and here and here. Now I am looking for proof that I am not alone in the world–just one crazy soul, afflicted by a desire to accumulate copious pets, impelled by my nature to spend down my income on rabbit care and nurse baby mice from a dropper. I want to create a community for us here on Faith in Ambiguity. (Well, it can be a community for us and for the people who enjoy laughing at us.) These don't actually need to be animal hoarding stories. They can be any sort of ridiculous animal story.

If you've got a funny animal story between 400 and 1200 words, please send it to me tara at faithinambiguity.com. I reserve the right to edit, proofread and make minor adjustments for style, but I promise I will run these by you before publishing, unless you don't care. If you can, please attach an appropriate, legally acquired image file with your post. If not, I will choose an appropriate image to go with it. I will list your name as a guest poster and link to your blog or any other personal site you would like me to link to highlighting your work. I will also tweet the link at least twice, post to my Facebook fan page and to the group blogging platform to which I belong and otherwise try and expose your post. (And you should, too!) By the way, non-bloggers are more than welcome! The first post in this series, which is excellent, is by a non-blogger friend of mine. I asked him to write his story up after I heard it. People who think they "can't write" often have really fabulous tales to tell. I can't wait to see what you all have to say.

And tune in tomorrow for the tale of a cat bath gone so terribly wrong it ended with mouth to mouth resuscitation and a visit to the ER.

Parable of a Hyperactive Child (by a Surprise Guest Poster)

My guest poster today is my fourteen year-old son. You may now be annoyed, but don't be. He wrote this personal essay for his eighth grade language arts class and it totally doesn't suck. Rowan is one of the wittiest people I know, in person and it gives me an enormous sense of pride to see that wit develop into the written word as well. 

Rowan at six in the very room where this event took place.

I was a very resourceful six-year-old. I liked to try to solve my own problems using whatever was available to me. Unfortunately, my ideas did not always work, as I discovered on one occasion when I was playing with my brother’s stuffed cheetah toy. I was living in California at the time, in a house that had very high up beams spanning many of the rooms. I was throwing the cheetah in the air and, much to my dismay it became stuck upon one of the beams. Perched up out of my reach, it called to me for help. I knew what I had to do. 

Using my highly developed power of logic, I formulated a plan and gathered the supplies I needed. Equipped with one of those ping-pong paddles with a ball on the end of an elastic string, I got ready to execute my plan. I tied the ball end of the elastic string to a nail protruding from the wall next to the living room window. I pulled the paddle back, stretching it to its limit and calculated the exact angle that would send the paddle flying to the cheetah’s rescue. It became very quiet. I took a deep breath and, without hesitation, released the paddle. It left my hand and sailed, promisingly, in the direction of…the window? 

CRASH!!! I must have made a mistake in my calculations. The paddle went through the window, sending shattered glass everywhere. The paddle hung from the nail, bouncing up and down, taunting me. It seemed to be laughing. At that moment, alerted by the sound of breaking glass, my mom entered the room. I looked at her and said, “Well, that didn’t go how it was supposed to.” 

And that’s why I always make sure to have tall friends.

Video Show and Tell: The Parable of the Demonic Feline

My husband delivered an incredible sermon this Sunday at a church in Santa Fe called The Celebration. For several years now, he has been writing and delivering lay sermons at either the Unitarian Universalist church in Santa Fe or in the one in Los Alamos to which we belong, but this is the first time he has spoken outside a UU group. A woman who heard his his last sermon in Santa Fe invited him to come and speak and The Celebration, and so he wrote for them The Parable of the Demonic Feline, which I think is the finest piece of writing he has ever done.

My husband is a brilliant speaker, and I promise that this is worth watching. It shouldn't really matter very much what your religious beliefs are–or aren't–in terms of your appreciation because it isn't about religion at all. He is just talking about being human and what he learned about about the state of being human from the cat who wouldn't stop yowling like a demon from Hell.

A Day for Imaginary Things: a Guest Post by Tangled Lou

"Abstract" by Patrick Kelly

...and here she is! I'm so excited. Much thanks to the fabulous and talented bloggers who organized Leap Blog Day, an exciting and befuddling event where your favorite bloggers show up in different places for a single day. Today's post is written by the talented (and anonymous) Tangled Lou, my very best imaginary friend. When you are done here, come and read me over at her blog, Periphery, where I am sharing my thoughts on why the Russians want big melons. Have a fabulous Leap Day!

--

Today is an imaginary day. It's a day for imaginary things. I am an imaginary person who lives in your computer and I have crashed this space in order to celebrate this imaginary day. Tara is one of my favorite imaginary friends and she has been kind enough to let me befoul her space for the day.

In the fourth grade, which was not imaginary but might as well have been, my teacher's preferred method of teaching was to hand out sheaves of purple-inked dittoed papers on various topics and then sit at her desk while we filled in the worksheets. Sometimes I can still smell them. It is the smell of burgeoning discontent, the first prickling of awareness that not all adults were competent, and a whiff of guilt for figuring these things out when I should really just be doing my ditto papers like a good girl.

My least favorites were the science papers. It wasn't the subject matter, it was that out of either laziness or apathy, the teacher never removed the answer key from the bottom of the paper before running them off.  A less industrious student would simply have to look at the bottom of the paper and circle all of the correct answers without ever learning a thing. I could not do this. It drove me nuts when my classmates did this. I would sit and resolutely not look at the answer key while I tried to concentrate on the little blurb of information from which the answers were drawn directly. It was from one of these blurry indigo worksheets that I first learned about the leap year. And it blew my little mind.

There comes a time in every girl's life when she has to face the fact that the Earth revolves around the sun once every 365 and a quarter days. What? There are just six extra hours a year, hanging out unaccounted for until we just lump them all together and call them an extra day? What? How can this be? You can't just save them up and spend them every four years, can you?! They are there, happening each year. These little dangly bits hanging off the ends of otherwise symmetrical days. We just sweep them aside for a few years and then screw with February. With February! Everybody knows that February is the longest month of the whole year even though it has the least number of days. So let's just give that dustbin of a month an extra day every now and then.

I remember asking my teacher why we couldn't just ignore that little extra bit of time every year and not confuse things by adding extra days here and there. Or if perhaps we could lengthen the days a bit on the whole and then all would be accounted for. She stared at me with bovine eyes and told me to go sit down. Clearly, cataclysmic things would happen if we did that. Things of which you do not speak to uppity 4th graders. Things so dreadful she had to excuse herself to go out for a smoke and leave the door open to the adjoining classroom so that the neighboring teacher would be available to scare us to death should there be any shenanigans. Thus it was at the tender age of nine, my mind was warped in regard to both authority and chronological time in the same few month stretch.

Leap Day is an imaginary day. It is a day made up of leftovers and bits and pieces that didn't fit into other days. We have a spare day this year somehow. How will you spend your extra time? Can I save mine and use it in the summer when it's less muddy and the kids are out of school? Can I dole it out an hour at a time on those days that I'm running just a little late? Can I add those random spare moments to extend the ones that are so perfect and full of presence and life that I need them to be just a few seconds longer? Can I store up those extra hours in a jar on the shelf and redeem them at the end of a loved one's life for just a few more days with them? Can I give mine away to people who might need them more than I do? Apparently it's OK to save up the extra time and stick a random day in February by some sort of international consensus, but not for individuals to save them up and use as they see fit. Communist jerks.

I guess that means I'll just have to pay attention to all of my moments and use them as well as I can. Here's what I think, though. Those little dangly bits at the end of each day? Mere seconds a day that are "off the clock". You can catch them when they happen. They happen in those few moments between sleep and waking from a delicious dream. They happen in the tiniest catch in your breath when you see your love's face. They happen in those rare seconds when everything slows down and you just are. They come like little tinkling bells in the wee hours of the morning. They come as a stroke of inspiration in the middle of something mundane. They come as a laugh to yourself, the brush of a hand, a bit of eye contact, the moment a project is finished, a secret smile. They slip into every day in such varied and personal and magical ways, if only you watch for them. You can collect them like fireflies and you don't even have to wait for once every four years in February to use them.

I think these are the cataclysmic things that my 4th grade teacher refused to tell me. It would alter the course of the universe if we all taught children how to live with contentment, grasping what is beautiful out of each day. Best to go out for a smoke, instead. It's not on the ditto sheets.

A Frog and a Gratitude List of Sorts

I have really been very blessed since I have blogging. And I'm not just talking about the sacks of money people keep mailing me or the offers to make me famous. I'm talking mostly about the community. I was never popular before. In fact, I'm not popular now, in my real life. It's hard to be popular when you are too tired to go anywhere and all your small talk centers around subjects like duck rape and treatments for AD/HD. But you all make me feel like what I say is interesting and apropos. So thank you for allowing me to feel relevant.

O.K., in all seriousness, I am going somewhere with this and it does have some relationship to this amusing frog. I would not be able to blog at all were it not for the patient help of my father and husband who help me with all things technical, in regard to which I am totally out of my depth. I have lovely real-life friends like Kimberly and Hope and Lorien, and many more who I have not named, who read me and say supportive things. I have a mother who blogs as well and allows me to occupy a sort of mentor role despite hardly knowing what I am doing myself. I have kids that let me take their pictures and write about them, within limits. I have people who, for whatever reason, read me again and again and leave comments, which allows me to feel as if I have real interactions with adults.

For all of that, let me say a profound thank you to the Universe.

This week, I am most especially grateful for my friend Suzanne. I think I can call her a friend. We have never met in real life. I am not sure that I would actually even recognize her in real life. But we have exchanged the kind of frank and personal emails that only two friends can exchange, and so I say we are friends. Suzanne is a really talented writer. The Blogosphere is like this dizzying space filled with countless stars. So many stars you will never identify them all, never get near them. Stars and stars and stars. Among them, Suzanne is Venus. She has range. She can do snark. She can do deep. She can make you laugh, or just wonder. I have never seen her put up a post that looked like filler. Her writing is spot-on. And, for some unknown reason, our admiration is mutual.

We are exchanging pulpits, as ministers do, on February 29th for what is being called Leap Blog Day. That is why this frog is on my blog today.

Make sure you come read Wednesday. You are in for a treat.

Guest Blogger Mike Adams: Day 2,429 of my sleep deprivation experiment

I am thrilled today to welcome a blogger who also happens to be the man I am married to, the same one who spent weeks growing out his beard so that he could do a celebrity look-alike Facebook profile picture of himself looking like Jesus. Please welcome Mike Adams. He blogs his inspiring liberal religious and political vitriol at All Things Reasonable and his occasional humorous reflections on being a dad at Dads and Sleep and Kids.

It has been nearly twenty five hundred days since I gave up having a full night's rest in favor of being a parent and the experiment is progressing smoothly.

The dark circles and extreme moodiness have dissipated, somewhat, however, I have a growing sense that I'm slowly becoming stupid. My wife has not noticed this tendency in me, as she claims that the same phenomenon is occurring to her.

Sometimes, it seems that perhaps I've overlooked an important trick, but I suspect that parenting, done right, is work intensive and difficult. I've never had an enjoyable or fulfilling job which wasn't also stressful and burdensome. I can't imagine why this should be different.

My eleven year-old is working on his science fair project, and he's taken a rather simple experiment and complicated the task exponentially with the ingenious and creative application of well-timed temper tantrums. I believe that my receding intelligence has significantly impacted my ability to divine an effective intervention when he employs this tactic. He regularly plays the "tantrum card" in response to most long-term projects and successfully complicates every similar situation with near perfect consistency. For example, he lost his book twice on our trip to Tucson a couple of months ago as the result of an extreme emotional upset brought on by the fact that we expected him to actually finish reading the book, with sufficient time that he could spend several days working on a book report. Hence, I have written to a number of peers at Stanford, Yale, and various asylums to see if they have found an effective remedy to the tantrum phenomenon.

Meanwhile, my fourteen year old has discovered that if he refrains from taking his ADHD medication on weekends, his appetite returns and he is then able to consume food with the same enthusiasm that a ravenous pack of wolves might have as they set upon an injured doe in the forest. The unfortunate side effect (aside from our enlarged food bill) is that he unwittingly plays a significant role in furthering the Universal Chaos Quotient. This week in particular, the HD portion of his ADHD has enhanced the complications of the previously mentioned science fair project by providing incessant distraction, whether by means of irrelevant questions and comments pertaining to nerf guns or the delivery of an occasional insult resulting in conflict of varying intensity, none of which furthers the successful completion of said science project.

My six year old is somehow not figuring too heavily into this science fair drama but instead capitalizes on these periods of familial chaos to undertake his own personal endeavors, many of which would be regarded as unsafe by myself and my wife. After having formulated a plan, he quietly undertakes the physical preparations for manifesting his scheme and often we don't become aware of the impending danger until the last minute, at which point, we stop him and suggest that there is no reason he needs to climb up on the icy roof of our house or that standing on an upside down stainless steel bowl placed on a step stool, precariously perched atop a book, resting on the seat of a folding chair might result in serious physical injury.

Ahh, the joys of parenting. I believe that soon my experiment for training elite undercover operative via parenting will be complete. Until then, keep the faith all ye parents and stay focused, you never know what will come next.