It must be spring . . .

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 6 Comments
The light at the end of the tunnel.
The light at the end of the tunnel.

. . . the basement has turned green. Six weeks after the shit monsoon, we finally have our basement back. Well, kinda, sorta. We’re still missing the door to the loo — a special-order item, and Pan only knows when that will arrive — and none of Herself’s gear has been moved back downstairs yet. But at least two people can pee simultaneously around here without one of them being outdoors or employing a sink.

That final week was a hectic mother. Herself was mostly out of town, I had work to do for VeloNews.com and Bicycle Retailer, and all of a sudden the big push was on, with construction types trooping in and out at all hours with glues and solvents, pads and carpets, tile and vinyl. Plus I had a house guest due in, an old college roomie and fellow ink-stained wretch, and I didn’t want him to be sleeping on the coffee table and peeing out a living-room window, although we both have done this in the past. Never went over big with the neighbors.

The plumber finally paid a call the morning of the day my buddy was due to arrive. Seating the toilet was no problem, but the pedestal sink took a bit of doing; we had decided to go with tile in the crapper instead of the original vinyl, and the additional height of the floor means the sink now has a slight tilt toward the wall. I’ve spent many an enjoyable evening tilted toward one wall or another, and occasionally a floor or ceiling, so I don’t have a problem with an off-kilter sink.

Especially if I don’t have to pee in it.

Toto, I don’t think we’re on Krypton anymore

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 21 Comments
An AIG employee applies for his share of $165 million in bonuses.
An AIG employee applies for his share of $165 million in bonuses.

In an early episode of the DC Comics feature “Tales of the Bizarro World,” in which the inhabitants do the exact opposite of all Earthly things, a salesman is doing a brisk trade selling Bizarro bonds: “Guaranteed to lose money for you.”

Ladies and gents, welcome to Bizarro World.

If I recall, the last cash bonus I got was $50 for saving a reporter from being hoodwinked by a school-board wiseass before her story about a fictional candidate for superintendent — Quincy Adams Wagstaff, late of Huxley College — could sneak into the pages of The New Mexican. I certainly never scored a cash payout for introducing libels into stories, throwing monkey wrenches into the presses or setting the newsroom afire.

If we were still on Earth, the 43 fools and/or thieves who run the AIG Financial Products unit — which as Steve Benen notes “was responsible for the company’s mess in the first place” — would be awarded custom-fit tuxedos of tar and feathers and chauffeured off to prison on splintery rails. But we do things backassward here on Bizarro World, and so they will get $165 million in bonuses after AIG soaked up $170 billion in taxpayer dollars.

As Josh Marshall notes at Talking Points Memo: “The folks running AIG’s financial products division should be happy to escape this mess without criminal indictments. And that’s not hyperbole. When you look at what they were doing, foolish or high-risk behavior are inadequate descriptors. It really amounts to fraud.”

A time to be born, a time to die

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 3 Comments
Josie parking it in the park.
Josie parking it in the park.

Happy birthday to Herself, who celebrates another lap around the sun today. I won’t tell you how many, as I wish to continue breathing in and out. I had hoped to give her something she’s wanted for more than a month now — a completely restored basement office and bathroom — but the mitigation gods did not smile upon us. So we settled for a birthday breakfast at the Olive Branch downtown and will share a sparkling rosé tonight when she gets home from Denver.

We’ll raise at least one glass of that bubbly to Josie, a.k.a. JoJo, Demon Spawn, who until yesterday had been the last dog standing of the fabled German shepherd troika renowned throughout Santa Rosa, California, and beloved of Wes, Mary and Lo. Writes Lo:

Josie “JoJo” “Demon Spawn” died peacefully and without pain at home on Wednesday with Wes and Mary at her side.  She knew all along that you can make it a wonderful life.  Just the day before she was out walking with her Dad, and got to play in the creek. She loved the water so much! — like a moose — and she also loved her walks in the park.  She is the last of the (in)famous Santa Rosa German Shepherd trio, and she now has joined Darcy and Ritchey in the Big Beyond and also in Pet Cemetery at the Dog House, resting along with her blanket, toys and a stick. She left behind plenty of fur to keep us cleaning up after her, which she is certain to supervise from the Beyond — always happy to have her people cleaning up after her instead of leaving on their bikes. Best of all, Josie left us with the happiest of memories and a love for life and for us that will entertain and sustain us for the rest of our lives. Here’s to JoJo!

By all means, here’s to JoJo. Slainte! I’ve stood dry-eyed on the shore as many a human relative hung ten on the River Styx, but shed oceans of tears for four-legged family members — my own mutt Jojo, his daughter, Fuerte, our final dog, Bandit, and the famous Weirdcliffe felines Ike and Tina Turdherder.

This being March and St. Patrick’s Day so near, I’ll reference an Irish short story I’ve always loved: “Requiem,” by Frank O’Connor. It’s about a woman who asks a priest to say Mass for her departed poodle, Timmy. The priest, though touched, refused, saying Timmy had no need of the Mass because he could not incur guilt.

The woman took the priest to task, saying, “I’m as good a Catholic as the next, but I’d say it to the Pope himself this minute if he walked into this room. They have souls, and people are only deluding themselves about it. Anything that can love has a soul. … And I know as I’m standing here that somewhere or other I’ll see him again.”

Tom Joad lives

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 3 Comments
Times have gotten so hard here in Bibleburg that even cute little kittens find themselves forced to live in drawers.
Times have gotten so hard here in Bibleburg that even cute little kittens find themselves forced to live in drawers.

If they’re not crowding into shitbag motels, they’re setting up tent cities by the river — welcome to “Grapes of Wrath II: From Hotels to Hoovervilles.”

In Sacramento, a tent city that has sprung up near the American River already has some 300 residents and is growing like the proverbial weed as working-class people join the chronically homeless in life in the great outdoors.

A spokeswoman for a Sacramento non-profit that provides “survival services” for the neo-homeless told The New York Times that the number of unsheltered people in her town rose 26 percent in one year:

“We have lots of folks living in their cars. People are buying storage units and living in them. People are trying to do what they can to put a roof over their head. Sometimes people romanticize camping, that they are free spirits. In fact, it’s an act of desperation.”

There are many such Hoovervilles in Bibleburg, albeit on a smaller scale. Walk 10 minutes north or west from Dog Central and you will see a cheap tent here, a ragged bedroll there; head south along the Monument Creek trail and you’ll see the po’-folks’ version of the RV camp — battered shopping carts and bicycles, and the soup kitchens and shelters just a short hop away.

Seven hundred people eat daily at the Marian House Soup Kitchen, up 40 percent from last year, according to the Gazette. And with unemployment up to 8.1 percent as of January — the highest level in nearly 17 years — they’re not likely to get lonely anytime soon.

Elsewhere, a Yale student is suing US Airways over a lost Xbox 360. He wants a million smacks for his pain and suffering, plus $1,700 to replace the hardware. A guy could buy himself a sweet little tent for that kind of money, and maybe a shopping cart to go with it.