June 2020 – Deep Dark Thoughts

Sheltered

Sometimes I wonder if I have sheltered my kids too much while they were growing up. Or maybe it’s just that the world they grew up in has gotten much too protective. Neither one of my girls ever broke a bone, or got in a fight, or was injured just doing stupid stuff.

Which is good, don’t get me wrong, but it makes me wonder how they got this far without getting hurt. And is there a negative side to getting through childhood unscathed? Does this mean that all the life lessons they should have already gotten are still ahead?

Or are too late to learn?

Life isn’t always going to go your way, and I hate to think that I haven’t properly prepared my own kids to face the crap coming their way and keep pushing forward regardless of how hard things might get. I don’t want them thinking that everything should come easily to them and to quit the second anything becomes difficult.

I, on the other hand, have accomplished all of the above childhood goals while growing up: broken bones, fights, avoidable injuries. I learned a great deal about life while earning each and every scar. Some of them, I would do all over again. Others … not so much.

I don’t consider myself a role model, and I don’t recommend the crap I did as a kid to anyone. Much of it was stupid, reckless, and straight up dangerous.

But it was a hell of a lot of fun.

I played football in the street. We didn’t have a park nearby, and the roadway was the only open area large enough to throw a football without breaking somebody’s front window. It wasn’t tackle football. We were morons, but we weren’t suicidal. I fell on that gravel and tar playing field numerous times and have the scars on my knees to prove it. I still remember the wire brush my mom used to wash out all the dirt and rocks that had lodged in the cuts. It was painful and unpleasant, but a couple days later I was back out on the street with my buddies, dodging cars and counting the minutes until the next time I took a nosedive on the pavement.

If I wasn’t playing football, I was riding my bike. We would build flimsy wooden ramps and jump over boxes, bushes, and sometimes even each other. The jumps were not always successful, and I recall multiple occasions when I or one of my friends had to head home with a split lip, bloody nose, or some other (mostly) non-serious injury.

As soon as we got the requisite bandages or ice packs, we were back outside trying another attempt at whatever had knocked us down in the first place.

I learned to not be afraid of getting hurt, taking risks, or even of my own stupidity. That last one has come in remarkably handy my entire life as I do not seem to have outgrown the stupidity.

My girls didn’t take the same risks when they were growing up. Probably because they are both smarter than I am, but also maybe because I didn’t give them the opportunity to try. I wonder if that safe environment was good for them or will ultimately make it harder for them to push through the unavoidable, eventual failures that life will hand them.

Besides, it isn’t always the risks you take that end up causing you the worst injury. Sometimes getting hurt isn’t about being stupid or trying ridiculous things; sometimes it is simply about being in the wrong place at the wrong time or just letting your attention lapse for an instant.

When I was about nine years old, I was at the neighbor’s house playing with a friend of mine. He was using a baseball bat to knock flower buds off a tree branch. I walked up behind him while he was in mid-swing. He didn’t see me, and the bat caught me right across the nose during his follow-through.

The bat broke my nose and cracked my skull below my right eye. I’d like to say I handled the pain with dignity and decorum, but that would be a lie. Several of the neighbors came running out of their houses to see where all the screaming was coming from. I think they thought someone was murdering a cat.

Anyway, my point to that story is that even when you’re not knowingly participating in risky behavior, you never know when something that appears harmless at first glance is going to sneak up on you.

Neither one of us was doing anything wrong, and I still got laid out flat.

So, maybe I should have let the girls take those risks. Win or lose, they would still come away smarter and more experienced when they were done.

I am not suggesting to any parents that may be reading this that they should knowingly let their kids participate in activities likely to get them seriously hurt. It is our job to look out for their safety and well-being.

I am, however, saying that a few bumps and bruises aren’t always such a bad thing. Better they get a little banged up early on than be afraid to take risks later.

Once in a while, when the kids are building that rickety, wooden bike ramp, perhaps we just have to look the other way.

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Sometimes It Just Has to be Chicken

I’m a pretty easygoing person in most circumstances. I’m happy to go along with the group if it makes things a little simpler for everyone else, but I have noticed that not all people are like that. Some people don’t care if it’s easier. If they don’t agree with the group consensus, they’re going to go their own way.

For some people, sometimes it just has to be chicken.

I know that doesn’t make any sense right now, but I promise, it will soon.

When I was assigned to work at the Rio Cosumnes Correctional Center (RCCC) twenty years ago, I met a Deputy there named Edgar. Edgar was a really sweet guy, but he was the type of person that was always going to do things his way.

Also, while I worked at RCCC, I had a sergeant that taught Interview and Interrogation classes. My sergeant, Carl, came to me one day and asked if I would like to attend one of his upcoming classes because he had a couple empty spots still available.

Having been to hundreds of hours of training in the past couple years, I didn’t really want to go. However, as a new employee, I also did not want to tell my sergeant I wasn’t interested in going to his training class. Telling your boss, no, usually isn’t the best way to get onto his good side.

As I was trying to think of a polite way to decline that wouldn’t get me assigned to kitchen duty with the jail inmates, Carl happened to mention the class was being held in Las Vegas.

Let me say that again: Las Vegas!

In addition, he had recently purchased a brand-new motorhome which he planned to drive to the class. He said, a few other deputies were already going, but he had room in his vehicle for one more.

“Let me get this straight,” I said. “You are going to drive me to Las Vegas in your motorhome for free.”

“Yes,” he said.

“And the County of Sacramento is paying for the training? They are going to pay for my room and food while I’m there?”

“Yes.”

I’ve done a lot of stupid things in my life but turning down a free trip to Las Vegas isn’t one of them.

“When do we leave?” I asked.

We left about two weeks later. There were five of us in the motorhome for the trip. Carl was driving, and lounging in the back of the RV were me and three other deputies: Kevin, Joe … and Edgar.

Driving to Las Vegas from Sacramento takes about 9 hours on the best of days, and that’s if you drive the whole way without stopping. We weren’t doing that. We were all growing boys and we were going to need to stop and get something to eat at least once during the drive.

It was early afternoon and we were cruising through some tiny town in the middle of nowhere. I don’t know exactly where we were because I rarely pay attention to what’s going on around me in the best of circumstances. I just happened to look out the window and noticed a cluster of buildings and restaurant signs around us. Everyone agreed they were hungry and that it was time to take a short break.

Edgar noticed a KFC nearby and suggested we stop for chicken. He was quickly vetoed as the rest of us were in the mood for burgers. Edgar sat quietly, staring out the window at the KFC sign dwindling in the distance behind us. I swear he sighed a couple of times, and there may have been a small tear in his eye.

A couple miles down the road we found a Burger King and Carl turned into the parking lot.

The plan was to stop, use the bathroom, get food, and get back on the road as quickly as possible. We figured the whole process shouldn’t take more than fifteen or twenty minutes.

We all bailed out of the RV, went into Burger King and ordered. When we had our meals, we piled back into the motorhome, ready to hit the road again. Except, we couldn’t leave.

Somebody was missing.

“Where the hell is Edgar?” Carl asked, looking at us like we were playing some sort of practical joke on him and had Edgar tied up on the roof of the vehicle.

We all shook our heads. Nobody had any idea where he was. The last I had seen of him, he was getting out of the motorhome with the rest of us. After that, where he ended up was anybody’s guess.

“Maybe he got kidnapped,” I suggested.

“Well, if he doesn’t show up in five minutes, I’m leaving without him,” Carl told us. “We can report him to the police as a missing person when we get to Vegas.”

He didn’t show up in five minutes. He didn’t show up in ten minutes. Fifteen minutes later, Carl was starting the engine and getting ready to pull out of the parking lot when we saw a speck in the distance running toward us on the sidewalk. When the speck got closer, we could see it was Edgar, and he was carrying a KFC bag in his hands.

Edgar had run two miles, ordered food at KFC, then run two miles back to the RV.

I wouldn’t run four miles if my life depended on it. Edgar had just done it for two pieces of chicken and a biscuit.

Carl opened the door and let Edgar in. “Please tell me you didn’t do what I think you just did,” he said.

Edgar shrugged with a big grin on his face, sat down, and started digging through his bag of food. “I wanted chicken,” he told us.

I suppose you’ve got to respect a guy who knows what he wants.

And Edgar wanted chicken.

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Too Many Cats

How many cats is too many cats?

I know people who will tell you that one cat is already too many cats. While their viewpoint may be personally valid, I am not talking about the merits of owning a cat. I am simply objectively asking: how many cats is too many cats?

I once went into a home that had eleven cats. The house was dirty, smelled bad, and every piece of furniture was shredded from years of animals sharpening their claws. I believe this example is an excessive amount of cats. The old lady that owned the house might have disagreed with me but, unfortunately, she had been dead for two days and her herd of feline friends had decided to do what cats do when they are hungry and the person feeding them is no longer providing free cat food.

It was a bit disturbing to say the least.

Since she wasn’t around to defend her decision, I’m going to say the consensus is that eleven is too many. So now we have narrowed down the number to somewhere between one and eleven cats.

Why am I obsessing over this right now? Well, let me tell you.

Recently we adopted two kittens. With the two cats we already have in the house, this makes a total of four yowling mouths to feed (not including EM1 and EM2). I have expressed the opinion that four cats is a ridiculous number of cats to have in one place. Other members of my family believe that four is an ideal number because each person in the house can now have their own cat.

Which is a completely bogus argument. Neither child in this house has a steady income to pay for “their own cat.” Basically, I own four cats and the kids can pet them whenever they want to, then feel free to ignore them when one of the fluffy little monsters is puking up a hairball on the living room carpet.

Four cats means four times the vet bills, four times the litter box cleaning, and four times the noises in the middle of the night as something gets knocked over and comes crashing to the ground.

So, why did we adopt two new kittens? The short answer is: we didn’t. At least, I didn’t. I thought four cats was a bad idea from the beginning, but apparently, I was outvoted.

One of our older cats, Sheba, is sixteen years old. She is slowing down and probably doesn’t have a whole lot of time left. EM1 and EM2 didn’t want to lose Sheba and only have one cat in the house, so they begged their mom and me to get a new kitten to replace the old cat before she dies.

I suggested waiting until after Sheba passes, but the kids insisted they would rather get a kitten now to torment our old cat and hurry the whole dying process along. Okay, they didn’t actually say that, but I’m pretty sure this was the plan.

Both girls started looking at adoption places and checking online for local residents that had kittens. After a couple weeks of looking, they found a family that had two kittens that needed a new home. The family was hoping that both kittens would be adopted together since they were siblings.

I told my family I thought two more cats was a bad idea. They agreed.

My wife asked if she and the girls could go see the kittens and perhaps just adopt one of them. I said, “Sure. Go ahead and take a look, but don’t do anything yet.”

“Okay,” said my lovely wife. “We will just go and look. Afterwards, we will come back home and talk to you about what to do next.”

I think that’s what she said anyway. My recollection might be a bit fuzzy since thirty minutes later, my wife and daughters were back home with a cat crate containing two mewling balls of flea-riddled fur. So much for just going to go look.

The younger of our two cats took one look at the new intruders, hissed, and ran off to hide under the bed. Sheba, our ancient cat, sniffed at the kittens then lied down on the ground at my feet. She just gave up. I think she was trying very hard to die right there in front of me.

Despite her best efforts, Sheba did not die. At least not yet. I believe if she had opposable thumbs, she would have tried to pull the cap off of the bottle of sleeping pills in our bathroom cabinet, but for now she is stuck with hanging around a while longer.

The kittens are rampaging around the house like they own the place, getting into absolutely every kind of trouble they can think of, and our other cat, Sukoshi, is still hiding under the bed.

So, getting back to my original question: how many cats is too many?

The answer is four. Definitely, four. Four cats is too many.

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Spring is Sprung

Spring is here, the days are getting warmer, and it is time once again for me to start the annual garden. The dirt is tilled, and the weeds are already turned under, so what comes next is the selection process for what types of fruit and vegetables I want to (attempt to) grow this year.

There are some basic items that I plant in the garden every year. I always make sure to have some tomatoes, cucumbers, squash, and cantaloupe since these are all fairly easy to keep alive and they tend to consistently produce edible items year after year. But in addition to these annual staples, each year I try something new just to see what happens.

This usually ends badly.

For example, about ten years ago, I tried planting two avocado trees. They were both dead within a year. The following year, I planted two more, because clearly I had not yet learned my lesson. The trees are still technically alive, but I have very little hope of ever seeing any fruit on them. The fact that both trees currently have only about seven leaves on them is not encouraging.

Once I realized that avocados were not going to be a thing in my yard, I moved on to planting artichokes. I started with four plants. Two months later, I had one. By the end of the third month, I think the survivor was feeling so lonely without his friends that he committed suicide. I found him, brown and wilted, lying in the dirt outside.

He didn’t even leave me a note.

I attempted planting artichokes again the following year because, as I said before, I just can’t take a hint. I ended up harvesting one small artichoke before all four of my new plants dropped dead. Better results, but still not exactly a rousing success.

Avocados and artichokes? Nope and nope.

I have attempted corn and string beans, which are both supposed to be easy to grow. They were. The plants thrived. They both took up quite a bit of garden space, however, and when it came time to harvest, I realized that the bugs had ended up with more of the end product than I did. Neither crop was really worth the effort of planting.

Strike corn and string beans from the list.

Two years ago, I tried planting kiwi plants. EM1 loves kiwis, and I thought it would be a really cool addition to the yard if I could get them to grow. I bought two plants from the nursery and planted them in the garden.

I can hear you all asking, “Did you get kiwis?”

Well let me tell you. No. No, I did not get kiwis.

In the middle of July, during the warmest part of the summer, both plants turned into a pile of brown sticks poking out of the ground. I figured I had killed them like everything else I had attempted in the past. I left the sticks where they were, more from laziness than any real hope of the plants reviving, and the following year, to my great surprise, they came back. In the spring both plants produced new leaves and a bunch of little white flowers. I figured I was back in business.

Then in July, I had two larger piles of sticks poking out of the ground.

This spring, the kiwi plants have turned green once again, but I am not getting my hopes up. Past experience suggests the little bastards are just messing with my head, and I’m not going to fall for it again.

Fool me once…

Now that we are caught up to present day garden disasters, I am back to the original question: what should I plant this year?

Well, this year I have decided to plant blueberries.

Why blueberries? I don’t know. Why not? I figure I can kill blueberry bushes just as easily as I could kill anything else, so why not get creative?

I admit I know absolutely nothing about blueberry bushes, so the odds are really good that I’m going to murder these little guys, too. I am prepared to live with that outcome. I’ve gotten good at choking down the disappointment of dead plants in the garden year after year, so one more botanical failure is not going to be a big deal.

I read a few articles about blueberries before I bought the plants. I figured, maybe if I know a little bit more about them, I would have a better chance of keeping them alive longer than a few weeks. The article said they like a lot of water and that they thrive in acidic soil.

I’m happy to water them, but I don’t know what acidic soil is. I don’t know if the soil in my garden is acidic or not. And, if it isn’t acidic, I have no idea how to make it acidic. I’m starting to suspect the blueberries are pretty much doomed to the same fate as all my other gardening projects.

Sorry little guys. It was nice knowing you.

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