June 2006

You know it kind of sucks when it rains on the weekend. I’ve been making the best of it though by working on my roadgeek website and whatnot, but it’s just not the same as getting out there and enjoying some fun in the sun.

Oh well, tomorrow is another day.

There are people in the world that believe cats and dogs are “just animals”. They have no personality, they have no free will, they’re here to be the pet of a human being. In fact, years ago a woman once chimed in on a newspaper commentary call-in column that animals don’t have a soul. I personally looked that woman up in the local phone book and called her, just to tell her that she’s a cold, cold woman, but that’s another story.

Boy, are those people wrong.

I can say without a trace of doubt in my voice that our cherished feline and canine friends certainly do have a personality. Some of them even have a sense of humor. For example, our cat Tom found a new way to terrorize me in the early hours of the morning today. He now jumps on the weather station control station display in the bedroom, causing it to emit various beeps and bonks as it’s confused about the commands it’s receiving. While I was having a wonderful dream that had something to do with “Charmed”, I was interrupted by Tom’s new game. Stumbling over to the weather station to shoo him off, I was intrigued that he apparently prefers metric, as he had converted the temperature display to celsius and the wind speed to clicks (kmh). I haven’t the foggiest idea on how to do that, or change it back for that matter, so now I have to do math when it comes to determining whether I should wear a parka or board shorts to the office.

A little kitty cat humor.

You’d think that being an older cat he’d be settled in his bag of tricks, but no, he’s blessing us with new things on a weekly basis. Last week, the gentle tap-tap-tap on my chin while I’m sleeping was replaced with a claws-extended push, push, scratch. At least my beard covers any scars that may accumulate through this phase of his. A couple of months ago, he discovered the piano and that walking across the ivories made music. I’m afraid that his next trick will involve sending an e-mail to my family or something. “FOOD SUCKS. SEND SOMETHING TASTY FOR A CHANGE.”

Does this all make me crazy? Not really. Would I change it in any way? Not on your life.

So to those people that don’t see any personality in their cat or dog, I say you’re nuts. Stop treating them as “just a pet” and just let them be. Even if they make things go ‘bonk’ in the night.

Today I had lunch with my friends Susan and Jeff. I used to work at the radio station with them both; Susan still works for the same company and Jeff has moved on to another position in a different industry. I had seen Susan a couple of weeks before the Jeep tour, but I hadn’t seen Jeff in a year or so. It was wonderful to get together with both of them at the swanky restaurant across from my office building. We laughed, shared stories and basically caught each other up with the various states of our existence. It was wonderful.

However, not coming home at lunch time threw my timing all off.

Now, I’m not at the point where I’m going to be going “Time for Wapner, Time for Wapner”, somewhere in the rural midwest. That would just be silly. I don’t think that Judge Wapner is even still alive. But I have a schedule that I like to follow. While I like to live spontaneously as much as possible, I do try to have it all mapped out. I enjoying writing my blog entries as I’m munching down my lunch and playing the “in and out game” with the cat. It keeps me grounded a little bit. Throw me off schedule a little bit and I get all crazy at work and then I actually start thinking about what I’m doing instead of just milling through the day like it’s just another day in paradise. Why, I even used a paper towel AND 409 to clean the schmutz off my desk today, and my elbow wasn’t even stuck down or anything! Today was kind of an odd day at work anyways, as it was the first day of the new experience: taking two different technical support centers and officially uniting them into one unified force to be reckoned with. We’ve been in the same area since the beginning of the year, but now we have to actually interact with one another and work on the same projects as one team. It’s not unpleasant in any way, though there is a learning curve that sometimes I feel is more like a curveball. I think it’s going to go o.k., but today had an odd “first day at the new job” feel to it that was amplified by having lunch with old co-workers.

Tomorrow I’m back on my schedule and taking my lunch hour at home. Maybe I’ll be spontaneous and do it naked or something.