Dissonance

Earlier this evening I tore away the big April sheet from my desk calendar. I use those huge desk calendars from office supply stores. I like to to scribble notes instead of use a computer. All I have to do is reach over, grab a pen and make a note. After that, anything I need to be reminded of is right there in it’s square on my right without having to access anything on this computer.

I always make a note of future events by shuffling forward through the calendar and leaving a reminder for myself. Tonight when I looked at the events for May I was reminded of the Houston public library book sale. It doesn’t happen until the 16th though.

For those that don’t know what this is, this is when the Houston public library gets rid of all it’s unwanted books by selling them to the public at ridiculously low prices. It takes place at the convention center downtown. It lasts for three days. It always seems to start on Friday. That pisses me off because those of us who have to work during the week are not able to get first shot at some of the best books.

However, it’s not as crowded the next day. What I do is bring my travel bag. It’s huge and it has wheels. I just wander the aisles and toss books into it. I then take it to a girl who adds up the cost of all the books. After that I take it to the mean old woman collecting the money and pay the outrageous price of $40.00 for about 25 books. Then I wheel my books back to my truck, toss the whole bag of books in the bed of my truck, get out of dowtown and then stop for some appetizers and a few beers.

When I get home I go through all my loot.

I didn’t make it to the beach yesterday. I blew it off because Gabby caused a . . . Ok, it was because I stayed up too late and overslept. It was Saturday morning. When I woke up I decided to stay one with my california king bed for a few more hours and man, oh, man, did I ever.

As soon as I crawled out of bed and stepped out of my bedroom Gabby roared up in my face and asked if she could meet her friend at Barnes & Noble.
Me: I thought you had a butt-load of Geometry to complete before Monday.
Her: I do. We both do.
Me: Well, why the hell are you two wanting to go to the bookstore?
Her: To do our homework.
Me: (head in lap, scratching head with both hands)
Her: (anticipating my next question) Lots of kids at my school do this. It’s peaceful and quiet and there’s a Starbucks in there.
Me: ?
Me: I see.

So off to Barnes & Noble we went. I didn’t just fall off the turnip wagon; I know they are probably there to see and be seen. That’s okay though. They could be doing a lot worse. If they were bad kids they wouldn’t be hanging out at a bookstore doing homework. When I picked her up I asked if she finished her homework there. She said they finished about half of it. When I asked why they only finished half of it she said “because all those books in there are so distracting”.

I am so not worried about my daughter or her group of friends. In fact, I don’t feel that I’m worthy of this peace of mind. I was a parent’s nightmare as a teen.

It’s nice to visit my hometown even if it’s only for about two or three hours. That’s what I did today. I had to drive from Houston to Corpus Christi and back. I had to deliver some work related stuff which was all I had time for (had to get back to pick up Gabby). If not for that I would have probably stayed the night so I could cruise my old haunts, see a couple of friends and maybe fish off the docks I used to work on (when we were docked).

It’s not that I can’t handle it but that’s a lot of butt time for one day. Not to mention leg and foot because someone didn’t bother ordering cruise control on this truck. Maybe it’s just because I’ve made this drive what seems like hundreds of times that I find it so boring. Or maybe it could be the fact that there is nothing to look at between Houston and Corpus other than brush, cows, horses and ranch or farm houses. I’ve said this before and I wasn’t kidding: The roadkill and highway searches by the state troopers are the only thing that breaks the monotony. I see a lot of highway searches where the occupants are sitting in the grass while the troopers are removing the entire contents of the vehicle including the backseats and who knows what else.

I don’t mean to sound like I dislike Houston because I really don’t. I like this city. I consider it my second hometown but I was born and raised at Padre Island and on Corpus Christi bay. It’s something I can’t get out of my blood which in my case is probably pure saltwater. You can take the boy off the beach . . .

The weather was so perfect there today. It was so, so beautiful. Driving over the harbor bridge and looking down at the museums, the Lex and the replicas of Columbus’ ships (on loan from Spain) is spectacular to me. Driving across the causeway over the bay reminds me how I spent my entire teenage years and early twenties either on or in that bay. Sometimes it’s hard to look at when I’m just passing through but I still like getting back home to my apartment here in Houston after a long day like this.

Friday night I wrote about my two daughter’s decison to move Bella the hideous African albino clawed frog into the 80 gallon tank with the two lunatic turtles Itty and Bitty (not my pets, I didn’t name them). The next day Jenice wrote a funny comment about wanting to see a picture of this albino clawed frog. I had Sara send some pics to my email but on both attempts they didn’t show up. Sorry Jenice.

The next morning Gabby knocked on my bedroom door. She had an announcement. She found Bella the butt-fugly albino frog dead, bloated and floating on top of the water. Great. Just the way you want to start the day, right? I groaned and probably said a few words that I shouldn’t have.

As I was laying there in bed half asleep and trying to process this information, groaning and probably swearing, Gabby said “It’s Ok, dad, I took her out.”
The rest of the conversation went something like this:
“What . . . Huh . . . where . . . to the front patio? The bed of my truck?”
“No, dad. To the dumpster.”
“Oh . . . Ok. Thank you sweetie.”

The thing about that frog was that being albino and always laying on the bottom or floating at the surface, it always looked dead to me. Unless it started paddling around underwater which was even more grotesque. But when you’re told the thing has bloated to the size of a softball, you really, really know it’s dead.

When I finally got out of bed and went into the living room, the stench of dead albino frog hit me like a brick to the forehead. The water in the aquarium was just nasty. It was dirty looking and stunk up the whole living room. Fortunately, I use siphon pumps and five gallon buckets in my line of work. I siphoned all the water out of the aquarium and threw it outside. I then re-filled the aquarium with fresh water which not only took me fucking forever but also freaked out the stupid turtles who didn’t have sense enough to get out of the way of the incoming water.

I spoke months ago about aquiring a new aquarium. Gabby’s turtles moved from a 20 gallon tank to a huge, gurgling 80 gallon monster. I’ll say it again: This place looks like a Chinese restaraunt.

Two weeks ago there were only two happy aquatic turtles, a couple of sucker fish and minnows (turtle food) in there. Now, thanks to my oldest daughter, there is an African albino clawed frog living in there with them. She’s had the thing for a few years and the girls decided that it would be a good idea to put the thing in the big aquarium.

Yes, it was the right thing to do but, damn . . . It’s the ugliest thing I’ve ever seen. It’s a frog, an albino and it actually has claws. Not only that but it seems to be able to hold it’s breath for several days at a time while lying motionless on the bottom. The thing is just disgusting. Every few days (I’m assuming) the thing will rise to the surface to exhale and get some air and then sink slowly back to the bottom as if it’s dead and then sit there for another three days. Looking dead. Thanks to my weirdo daughters, this isn’t an average aquarium.

It is way past time for me to drag out of this apartment the ticking time bomb that is our Christmas tree. This whole building is in danger. It is so dried out that I think a blowdryer would probably ignite it. It would be like a slightly slow motion explosion. I know this because when I was a kid we would gather as many as we could find in front of the houses in the neighborhood and drag them down to the bay (we were safe hooligans) where we would light them with our Bics. It was a spectacular sight. So spectacular that we often decided to stack several together, stick a flame in the pile, get the hell upwind and watch the explosive 5-10 second fury.

I’m usually ready to get rid of the tree right after new years day. I’ve been conditioned over the years by the daughters to let it sit there longer because they never wanted to part with it. However, my youngest actually suggested to me the other day that we get it out of here. Sniff. She’s growing up.

It’s out the door tonight. Of course that involves removing all the ornaments, fighting the tree for the string of lights, boxing them back up, getting stuck by needles, Hoovering all the needles up and having tree sap on the hands all weekend.

I am dropping off Gabby and her friend at the mall and taking Sara to a Walmart. I will read the paper in the truck then return home with Sara and her unmentionables. I will then go back home and sit down only to get a call that it’s time to go get Gabby and her friend from the mall. Then it’s back to the mall, back home, to the grocery store and then back home again. The only way I’m taking them anywhere else after this is if they are either bleeding or have a head injury.

I have had enough of this shit. I am so sick and tired of junk faxes that I could spit bricks right now.

My home phone doubles as a company fax machine. It sits on the edge of my desk so that I can pick it up if it rings while I’m in bed. It does; Almost every night about 3:00 or 4:00 AM. When it does my first thought is that someone has died. Instead, it’s just a fax. Then the old fax machine starts chugging out another weight loss plan, a budget cruise or a bogus hot stock tip. Last night there were four within two hours. It even rings Gabby’s phone in her room.

This is bullshit. Not only are these phone spammers ripping people off by wasting other people’s paper and ink, they are pretty much extorting those who still use fax machines. If you want to put an end to it, you have to call, fax or email them to tell them to stop sending that shit which will somehow probably end up costing you something.

I came up with the perfect solution to this: I’m just going to unplug the mother fucker.

I can still be reached on my cell phone.

Herding cats. Juggling frantic kittens. Trying to nail Jello to a wall. This is what our last two weeks have been like.

On Friday, I got a little more comfortable with the idea of stashing my money in an air duct or behind the wall somehow. I had a serious scare yesterday.

Last week was particularly hard on our budget and I found myself struggling to maintain our normal comfort level. I did it though. I always do. I’m very creative when it comes to these situations. However, it’s always a countdown to payday. As you know, the first payday of the month solves everything.

This is embarrassing but I was down to nickels and dimes yesterday morning when I stuck my card into the magic money machine at the bank. I was so glad I made it to payday without much suffering and couldn’t wait to get the usual chunk of money out of the machine as I do every Friday. I was relieved. I was happy again.

Well, guess what? It showed that I had a balance of -$360.84. Negative Three hundred sixty dollars and eighty four fucking cents! Not only was I broke for the rest of the month, I was in the hole for that amount. If that’s not bad enough, that morning I skipped breakfast and substituted it with a 20 oz. cup of some really strong coffee. That’s not only a bad idea, that’s some really bad timing. I wasn’t feeling well at this point.

I was freaking out. I was thinking about sending my daughter to my parent’s house for the weekend so she could get a hot meal and hang out with her cousins until I figured out how to get us out of this mess. I thought about cashing in all the brass and copper I’ve saved over the last several years. Anything.

I had to blow off an entire day of work to deal with my bank, my apartment complex and the shyster-assed bank they use to find out just how the hell I could be in the hole over three hundred fucking dollars when I always keep track of my balances. I was very angry but I was also very polite. That always helps.

Eventually, I found out that one of the banks had run one of my checks twice. My rent check. In fact, it was found that someone had made a copy of my check and passed it through their secret labyrinth. Apparentely that’s completely legal if someone in a bank loses your check. I took me forever to track this down thanks to all the helpful people in the banking and apartment management business. I hope they like hot places. (I got that from you LK).