The Dinner Theater Adaptation of War of the Gargantuas Continues It’s dawn. Two four-legged tumors settle in and find their favorite sleeping spots: one in my office, waiting for the sound of clacking keys and random curses under my breath. The other stumbles to his favorite windowsill, allowing him plenty of time to lounge while reporting on the perfidies of the local crows. For most of the day, all they…
Tag: Mandatory Parker
Mandatory Parker: “When Twits Clash”
When An Irresistible Lint-Covered Breast Implant Encounters An Immovable Doorstop Report from the front: Day 21 of the Great Kaiju War. Code Name “Parker” is getting used to his territory being invaded incessantly by Code Name “Winston.” (Note: Command, Honey Huan to my Uncle Duke, notes that the current code names make the two sound like butlers. Because yelling “Winston, get off that counter NOW!” and “Parker, quit drinking out…
Mandatory Parker: “The Plot Thickens, And I Do Not Lisp”
Introducing Winston the Flame-Point Doorstop Now that we’re reasonably sure that winter in Dallas is over (we’re never absolutely sure, which is why I always tell friends never to think about planting gardens until after St. Patrick’s Day), life has hit an equilibrium. We’re about three weeks from putting up winter quilts and clothes with no significant chance of needing them again until December, the trees outside are starting to…
Mandatory Parker: “The Lint-Covered Breast Implant In Winter”
Legacies of Last Month’s Ice Storm Life of the Parker runs in three modes. First is the Comfort Mode: sitting on the couch or on his favorite throne, curled up on his favorite blanket, kicking me in the face when he sleeps at night. The second is the Boredom Avoidance Mode: yelling for attention, stropping his fangs on my arm until he draws blood, insisting that I join him for…
St. Remedius Medical College: “The Abstractions of Fowl”
When Avian Dinosaurs Choose To Talk Back (Who was St. Remedius? And why is a medical college named after him?) Some birds had hidden messages thrust upon their calls, while others brought the message on their own. In the case of the state bird of Texas, the messages had larger implications on avian intelligence. The northern mockingbird, Mimus polyglottos, was renowned for centuries for both its incredible fidelity in reproducing calls of other…
Mandatory Parker: “The Master Has An Entourage”
The 10-Kilo Lint-Covered Breast Implant Has Acolytes and Competitors For His Throne January is always rough on Parker. Darkness by mid-afternoon, long dull nights when the resident monkeys go to sleep, buildups of static electricity that turn him into a TIG welder with a tail, dustings with feathers he isn’t allowed to chew on and vacuuming that annoys the hell out of him…combine that with a massive housecleaning and reorganization…
Mandatory Parker: “The Chair of All Longings”
The Lint-Covered Breast Implant’s Favorite Chair Has A Long History It shouldn’t be a surprise that Parker has a favorite chair: a big black slingback chair, all steel pipe and nylon cover that was inexplicably popular as apartment furniture in the late 1980s, that I was given in the early 1990s. Shortly after getting him home for the first time, he demonstrated his tastes in furnishings and in entertainment by…
Mandatory Parker: “I Have A Cat and I Must Sleep”
The 10-Kilo Lint-Covered Breast Implant Has Plans I’ll say it right here and right now: you do not want a smart cat. Before anybody starts, I’m not disparaging feline intelligence. In my nearly 60 years on this planet, I have shared my life with critters ranging from earthworms to pigs, from savannah monitors to mantises, and cats generally take up residence at the far right of the bell curve of…
Mandatory Parker: “My Cat Fought The Law and The Law Won”
The Lint-Covered Breast Implant and Attention Withdrawal Symptoms Toward the end of the year, and Parker the 10-Kilo Lint-Covered Breast Implant has adapted to his new life. Reasonably adapted, anyway. He still screams at random times about going outside, but he’s acknowledged that the only way he’s going outdoors is with a harness and lead and with an escort. He and I have quite the King Ezekiel and Shiva relationship,…
Mandatory Parker: “Cat, Year 4”
Three Years of the 10-Kilo Lint-Covered Breast Implant And so we start Year Four. Three years ago today, I had a successful carnivorous plant gallery, a delightfully weird house, and no cat. In fact, I was reasonably comfortable that for the first time in 35 years, I had no significant feline presence in my life. If I needed a cat, I thought, one would present itself, right? From my lips…