It's Not Tundra

It was around eleven in the morning. The kids were at school. Patricia was at work and… …Dare I say it…? I had fallen. And I couldn’t get up. And without one of those alarm things, too. It’s not very funny when you’re inside of it. When you’re hot and uncomfortable, there’s a grabbing feeling inside your stomach and it won’t let go. Add to that the room spinning and not enough strength in your arms to push yourself to even a sitting position and there’s not only no one there to help you, but there won’t be anyone for hours. I managed to turn myself around and crawl out of the bathroom enough to reach my cell phone [1] , like someone suffering from poison gas in an old Republic serial. I called Patricia at her office and told her she needed to come home. And then I noticed the blood [2] . I’m not going to tell you WHERE the blood was coming from. And there wasn’t a lot of it. But, as a general rule, when blood is coming from any part of my body that blood shouldn’t be co...

About a week later we had another showing. Ingo was really excited about this. It was a guy we’ll call “Mr. Fifteen Percent” who was looking for a house for his ex-wife and child. Ingo was unsure about the details, but this seemed the perfect house. They were divorcing and they wanted to stay near the school down the block. Only two people were PERFECT [1] for this tiny house. And a little kid ---- how much time would they spend in the one bathroom! Hell, there would hardly be any pile up at all [2] ! He seemed REALLY interested, but… “He said it was priced fifteen percent too high for the current market.” Fifteen percent? Where do you come up with a number like that in conversation? Ten percent, twenty, sure. But fifteen? Does your coach tell you to give a hundred and ten percent or a hundred and fifteen [3] ? “Should we talk about it?” “Not yet. It’s too early,” Ingo said. “We’ll let him think on it. But I really think he was ready to write and offer for five-fifty.” ...

So we asked Ingo to give us at least forty-five minutes notice before someone came over. That way we could keep the house in a decent state of readiness and could do a quick vacuum/Fabreeze spray and not get surprised in my underwear. It never ceases to amaze me how many people do things last minute. When I was doing a little acting, I almost never got a call to go to a casting session a day or two in advance. It was always a ten AM call to be across town at eleven. Occasionally they’d call the day before [1] . I mean didn’t they KNOW they were going to have to cast something at least a week in advance? Did they get to the office that morning and have three phone calls: “We need a cop, a mechanic and a Pope and we need it cast before noon!” But everyone seems to do things at the last minute and operate at a def con 9 level of panic on a regular basis. It may keep the growth hormone running, keep wait down and make sure your adrenal glands never get too bored, but it sure is a p...

For a creature that naturally gets by in the wild, everything you read on rabbit pet blogs (and yes, there are a ton of them) point out what a fragile creature a bunny is. They can’t stand direct sunlight, they can’t stand extreme variances in temperature, and a sudden shock can kill them. It was like keeping my grandmother as a pet. [1] So you had to be careful, especially with stories flying around of prize-winning super-champion dogs dying in cargo holds because they froze to death or someone didn’t get them water or they got their rhinestone collar mysteriously magnetized to the propeller or something. So you have to choose carefully. You have to ask them what experience they have in transporting rabbits – no matter how embarrassing it is. [2] I finally settled on the company that said they had just transported a rabbit to Germany from Los Angeles for a family where the father had been transferred by the army. Well, not only did they fly rabbits, but they flew them for t...

Gravy was a part of the family. A fat lazy part of the family who would cuddle up next to you, would assassinate me if it meant more time with my wife and was a total whore for a piece of banana, but a part of the family [1] . After re-reading that description, he actually sounds like my brother. And you can’t leave a part of the family behind. No matter what Connor thought. “If we give Gravy away,” he said, “We could get another bunny. Or a dog. If we got a bunny and it was young, it might let us hold it.” “YEAH!” Lauren said. I confess, that I started this in a playful manner saying, “You know, if we gave Gravy away…” never dreaming that they’d bite. See, the BIG problem with Gravy was the holding, lap-sitting issue. He’d come up next to you. He’d snuggle himself up close. He’d nudge you. But he did not like to be picked up and he didn’t like to sit on anyone’s lap. To be sure, part of this is God’s fault, because he made rabbits prey and therefore chances are when ...