As a professional pet sitter, my wife belongs to an association of pet sitters who serve our community. To help promote their businesses one of their members decided they should set up a booth at the annual Minneapolis Gay Pride Festival.

As a result I’ve been driving my wife for the last two days down to the festival as parking is impossible. Last night when I picked her up she gets in the car and looks dazed. I asked her how it was going.

“I just saw a man wearing leather chaps and nothing else.”

I try not to laugh too hard. What did she expect?

“This company wants to partner with us to promote each other’s business.”

She hands me a flyer. It’s an advertisement for various lubricant products and other novelty “items.”

Wow, they must really love their pets.

We’re driving around the block. She points out a couple. “Are those guys or girls?” she asks. I look and squint my eyes. I can’t tell either.

The next day I’m playing chauffeur again for my wife. There were sights to be seen and sights I would have rather not seen.

I did receive one pearl of wisdom though. Meet Irv.

I was driving through the city today and noticed that there was a panhandler on nearly every major intersection. They all had various creative cardboard signs. Everything from “Will work for food” to “I need a beer – God bless.”

I decided to investigate. I wanted to talk with one of these individuals. Find out their story. I’m about to drop my wife off.

As I’m driving home I stop at the first intersection. I roll down my window and explain that if he’s hungry to hop in and I’ll buy him some food. He looks surprised. I’m not just going to give him some money? He starts to stammer and I can smell the Jim Beam. Great, the car behind me is honking. The light has changed. He explains that he can’t he’s waiting for a friend. And I thought this was going to be easy.

I stop to get gas. Just my luck. I see a man walk past me to the street corner and pull out his sign.

I approach the man and I asked him if I can buy him lunch. At first he’s taken aback. Really? He asks. Sure I said, but I want you to tell me your story. I extend my hand and introduce myself. “Herman’s my name” he exclaims. Herman’s hands look dirty. (Note to self: wash hands soon.) Herman is clearly drunk off his ass. That’s ok. He’s talking with me – progress.

“Well there’s a gas station right there” he exclaims. I explain that there’s a nice malt shop right down the way but he’s not interested. “Hey, you don’t happen to drink beer do you?” Sorry Herman, I’m not buying you alcohol. “Well, can you buy me some cigarettes?” Sure I say.

I get Herman a sandwich a drink and some cigarettes. Moments later he’s telling me his life story. He was born here in the city in one of the nicer suburbs. His parents split. His Dad is a technical writer. They don’t like him hanging around when he drinks.

He tells me what it’s like to live on the street. He’s going to San Diego for the winter this year. “Winters here are a bitch!” he exclaims. I can’t even imagine. He explains how he puts on 3 coats and 3 hats and tries to find a place where they can make a fire. It often gets as much as 20 below or more here (without the wind-chill). Sometimes he can find a shelter but those fill up too. “That’s where the bums go” he says. “I’m not a bum though, I’m a traveler.” And then there are the cops. “They’re always harassing us to move along. If you get into the nicer suburbs the housewives freak out and they ship us back down here.”

Sometimes he explains they’ll commit crimes just so they can land in jail. (He doesn’t admit that he does that but read between the lines).

“You ever going to give up drinking?” I ask. “Oh yeah, someday” he says.

I stop. Somewhere between the sandwich and the stories he’s accumulated a giant green booger on his mustache. Do I say something? The green booger is staring at me.

“Herman” I say. I lower my voice. “You have a booger on your mustache. You don’t want to hurt your chances on the corner.” “Thanks Dude!” He blows his nose and wipes it. Good he took it well.

Herman continues. He was in the Army. He enlisted after high school. Spent some time in Germany. He’s been doing manual labor ever since he got out. It’s hard to have a steady job when you drink.

“Were you ever married?” I ask. “No but I got a girlfriend in the suburbs!” He explains that she lives with her parents and they don’t like him hanging around.

Herman finishes the last of his sandwich. “Well Dude, got to get me back to the corner!”

He thanks me profusely for everything and hurries back to capture peak panhandling time.

Herman, I dedicate this Blog posting to you. Happy travels and Godspeed.

I didn’t wake up until 12… I love Sundays. 🙂 I would’ve stayed in bed longer, except it’s so hot that I couldn’t sleep.

I went to the kitchen to grab a bottle of water and lo and behold… my refrigerator door is standing wide open. And apparently, it’s been open ALL NIGHT. I know this because the eggs have spoiled, as has the yogurt (holy mother of vomitous smells.. yech) and the hummus. Why not the rest, you ask? Well, that’s it. Aside from mustard, bottled water, diet coke and pickles, my frig is pathetically bare. I was planning to go grocery shopping today, but what if this freak door-opening occurs again?

I think it occurred one of two ways: either my psycho cats, or the frig is just broken. Mind you, I’ve never heard of a frig opening itself, even if it was broken… so it was most definitely the little furballs.

I’m now hungry, and willing to experience the blistering heat to acquire the staples… I’ll worry about shutting the door when I get back.

I think I have duct tape somewhere around here..

I haven’t been up this early since I worked as a barista. Well, technically up this late.

I’ve spent the last few hours regretting the iced doppio I had at 8:30 (stupid, I know)…. but relishing the energy that has culminated in the finishing touches on this new site.

Still, it’s just past four in the morning and I’m getting ready to go to bed… *sigh*

My cats won’t leave me alone today. I can’t imagine why—it’s ridiculously hot outside, which means my second floor apartment is just-this-side-of-sweltering—so they should be lying motionless in the bathtub. (The air conditioner is on, but I think even it’s crapping out on me.)

No, they’ve been trying to figure out every way to be TOUCHING me at all times. I’m doing dishes, they’re sitting on my feet; I’m paying bills, they’re sitting on my lap—GET OFF ME, it’s freaking HOT!

I’ve decided it’s all a ruse to convince me to buy air conditioners for every window in the place. Together, their devious little minds have come up with a brilliant plan—raising my body temperature (by using theirs) until I crack.

It’s working. I wonder if Wal-Mart is having a sale…

the guest thinks they’re out to get him…. lol

Where did my Left Socks Go?

This morning as I was getting dressed I noticed a lonely sock sitting all by itself. A right sock. Unfortunately, this is not a new sight to me.

Over the years I’ve noticed that I have an ever-growing pile of right socks. I wait for the left sock-mate to appear but to no avail. I recently pointed out this phenomenon to my wife.

She’s convinced that this is of no concern and that the socks that are missing aren’t all left socks. How does she know? She matches left with left and right with right all the time! “Besides” she says, “why would only left socks disappear?”

Well I have a theory on all this. I have to warn you that this may be a little provocative, but hopefully you will see how this all makes sense.

Over the years, the major washing machine manufacturers have continued to improve their technology allowing clothes to become cleaner and last longer. For years socks were one of the most profitable consumable clothing items as they would wear out quickly and need to be replaced.

As the technology improved socks started lasting longer and longer. Sock sales, (particularly men’s socks) took a substantial hit. Men will wear socks until their absolute death. Holes, broken elastic, threadbare – doesn’t matter.

Almost 10 years ago in 1996, the major clothing manufacturers formed an alliance called the “World Wide Sock Federation.” This alliance was formed to address the declining sock sales. After much planning and debate on how to resolve the problem, they partnered with the major appliance manufacturers.

They also brought in top scientists and statisticians from all over the world. After much debate they formed the most perfect and insidious plan to dupe the worlds sock consumers.

You’re probably wondering what came of their evil genius. The scientists came up with a way for appliances to selectively destroy left socks. The reasoned with the help of the statisticians that by targeting only left socks that they would be able to render more pairs of socks unusable while minimizing the actual number of socks that needed to be destroyed. Such an elegant system would likely be unnoticed by the average consumer. If anyone did catch on the whole idea of laundry machines destroying left socks would seem so outlandish they figured they could get away with it.

Have you ever noticed how your lint trap gets so full after every load? You think it’s normal for so much lint to accumulate simply from washing your clothes? I don’t think so!

World Wide Sock Federation, I’m on to you!

I have to go buy some socks now.

…because of these emails he sends that make me laugh out loud and shake my head. 🙂

Kodak Moment

You ever have one of those amazing pictures sitting right before you in real life? Just tonight I had just that happen to me. I’m standing outside and a beautiful deer is standing right in front of my house.

Thinking quickly, I run inside to grab my camera. The deer is waiting for me – this is almost too good to be true.

It’s dark outside so I know I have to have steady hands. I decide to switch it to manual focus as the auto focus can fail when it’s too dark. I set my ISO setting for the highest available to accommodate the dark lighting. I open up my aperture to allow the most light in possible. This is going to be perfect.

Check it out!

(picture here)

You’re probably wondering what happened?

Ok, so maybe it didn’t all go to plan. (!@#$ Bambi) Somewhere between the focus and the ISO and the aperture and everything else out, I managed to take a great picture – without the deer.

Thanks to Google image search and a little sloppy Photoshop work and you get the idea.

I can see this happening—throw in an “I sicced my cat on a mouse, took a shower with a hose in front of a hotel and lamented my fate as landlord of a looney,” and that’s a day in the life of the guest.

We love him. He’s an entertaining fellow. 🙂

Commentary on Jewish Spirituality

This morning I attended my weekly morning class on “Chasidis,” the study of Jewish Spirituality. Today’s discussion was about operating on the spiritual level despite living in a physical world.

Rabbi Grossbaum explains how the physical world is incidental to the spiritual world. For example, he explains, when a true Chasid gets hungry he satisfies that hunger only in spiritual obedience to providing for his body without regard to the physicality of the nutritious experience.

My stomach gurgles. I think to myself. “HAM SANDWICH.” Thank G-d I don’t have to keep kosher. My friend Jonathan seems to be thinking the same thing I am. He argues that the physical and spiritual are intertwined, how can we separate the two? The Rabbi counters, “you miss the point” he says. Jonathan is about as Chasidic as one can be while still being a goy*. (Some Jews actually claim he’s more knowledgeable than many Rabbis but he’d never admit it.)

The discussion continues. My stomach gurgles again. Jonathan continues to disagree. Jonathan is also not Jewish. Like me, he finds Jewish studies to be interesting.

The discussion comes to a close. Jonathan and I agree to go get some breakfast.

We order our food.

We talk about operating on the spiritual level. Our food is served.

We both look at each other. “Wow, this bacon is delicious!”

*Goy – Jewish word meaning “not Jewish.”

Dear Mouse,

I’m sorry I flushed you down the toilet.

Here’s the thing. I was asleep last night when Calvin caught you. (You remember Calvin, he looks like a cow with whiskers).

I was tired. She was freaking out. Perhaps my judgment was off. “Burial at sea” seemed appropriate.

I honestly wasn’t prepared for you to start doing the backstroke in my toilet. I’m sure you can understand that I was alarmed. I reacted. The silver handle was right there. I saw you swimming for it. Once I realized my error I was honestly hoping you would survive the whirlpool.

If I had known you were alive I would have set you free.

I am so so sorry.

Sincerest apologies.