Superman, I have news for you… in your Clark Kent “secret” identity, you just look like Superman with glasses.

I won’t begrudge the long underwear boys (and gals) their right to spend their off-duty hours in peace and comfort. After all, most of them are basically human beings and they’re entitled to vegetate in front of the TV, troll Facebook or guzzle a beer or two.

And then there’s the essentials of life they need – a driver’s license, social security card and whatnot – that dictate they have a normal persona and ordinary name. What would happen if Batman tried to get a license under the name “Dark Knight”? He’d be laughed out of the DMV, and besides they won’t take your photo if your face is covered.

Still, if you’re gonna have a secret identity, at least make the effort to have it genuinely secret. Some of these heroes must believe the public isn’t very perceptive.

Superman would be the prime example. Come on… does he really believe no one is going to notice that he and Clark Kent have the same height, weight, build, voice, and eye and hair color? Or that Kent is never around while Supie is doing his thing? I mean, who first decided that a lousy pair of glasses would be the ultimate disguise?

While we’re on the subject of Superman, he must be very uncomfortable wearing a uniform under his street clothes nearly all the time.  And he must wear oversized shoes and really long socks to keep those red boots hidden. Then there’s the cape. Where does it go? Is it tucked into his pants? Detached, folded and kept in a pocket like a big handkerchief?

Wonder Woman’s disguise relies on the use of glasses also, but she also puts her hair in a bun when assuming her Diana Prince identity. Brilliant! As with Superman/Clark, we’re not supposed to notice their identical features (and in this case, identical bust size and shape).

Superheroes who wear a mask obviously are less likely to be found out, but there could still be problems. For example, someone might notice that Captain America and Steve Rogers are each sporting a zit or shaving nick on their chin, in precisely the same location. Or that each one has the same rotten tooth.

The Thing from the Fantastic Four, a giant, seven foot tall, hulking, rock-like creature who weighs about half a ton, lazily relies on only a trenchcoat and fedora to hide himself. Clue to the Thing/Ben Grimm: you still look like a walking, talking boulder. Put some glasses on and you might have better luck.

The only really good secret identities are those of the Transformers. They smartly become cars, tanks, garbage trucks and jets. But why do they even bother trying to hide themselves? They’re not human, they’re robots. Being machines, they have no need for rest, recreation, anonymity or sleep.

And it’s not like the government is going to hand them a voter’s registration card anytime soon. ACORN may have tried to once or twice before they filed Chapter 7 but that’s moot.

I’ve written previously about my neighbors next door. If you were one of the seven people who read that particular blog post, then you know I’m not exactly wild about them.

I don’t want to give the impression that I despise all my neighbors, so today I’m going to write something positive about my wonderful neighbor across the street. She and her friends who visit at all hours of the day and night are wonderful people and it’s a joy to be in their vicinity.

We’ve never exchanged that many words but it’s obvious they’re aware I have a musical background. I know this because they are constantly exposing me to new music via their vehicles’ stereo systems multiple times throughout the day.

There’s nothing better than listening to the latest rap song at 3am… it’s infinitely superior to my usual stupid plan of sleeping at that particular hour. They will even helpfully turn the volume all the way up so the sound penetrates my closed windows – how considerate of them for trying to ensure I don’t miss a single beat!

Having these fine folks across the street from me has given me a new-found appreciation for the art of writing lyrics. I was never aware that the terms “motherf**ker”, “b*tch” and “‘ho” could each be used 40 dozen times in a little over 3 minutes. Those guys must really sweat over their craft to get the right words on paper, and it shows.

I never knew that at sufficient volume, rap music can help keep windows clean. How? Simple, Sherlock – the bass frequencies vibrate the glass enough to shake off accumulated dirt and grime. And here I was wasting my time with soapy water and a rag.

Did you know that at sufficient volume over an overdriven, cheap car audio system, rap music is capable of causing physical pain in your ears? Me neither, until now. It’s a little irritating but apparently my neighbor and her friends are assisting the military with their research into sound as a weapon.  I’m honored they have chosen me as a test subject.

At this point I can safely say that had they taken this approach in Libya, Moammar Gadaffi would have surrendered months ago – it would have saved billions of dollars and Gadaffi wouldn’t have gone to Allah full of unseemly bullet holes.

There was a movie in the 80s called Gung Ho… it concerned the culture shock that occurred when a fictional Japanese auto maker opened a new plant in a small American town. Michael Keaton starred and there were laughs aplenty as both sides – the Japanese management and the American workers – eventually learned how to work together.

As you probably know, the Japanese are notorious workaholics. Managers, hourly workers and executives alike think nothing of working 14 hour days, 6 or 7 days a week, if they think it’s needed to get the job done. This was one thing the movie touched upon… the Japanese expected their new American workforce to share their work ethic, and condemned them as lazy when they didn’t.

Gung Ho is a pretty old movie now. Since its release, it appears to me that the American worker has done more than catch up to his infamous Japanese counterpart. We’re working harder and longer and for less money. It’s not because we are always being pressured to by our bosses (even though we have all been “asked” to stay a little late, etc), it’s because we think we’re obligated to.

If you’re working on salary, raise your hand and prepare to be paddled. Why? Because you are the worst offender. And before you squawk in indignation, let me tell you that I am on salary, and yes, I have already spanked myself.

“Salary” means that you have earned the privilege of knowing you’ll have a steady paycheck even if you have to miss time occasionally. What it does not mean is that you should pull long hours day in and day out, or work through lunch or breaks. What used to be a perk is now a burden. And we have done it to ourselves.

We Americans have let our work consume us. Dedication to our employer is one thing; slavish obsession is quite another. We’re dedicated and want to give our employer our best effort every day, but when that best effort affects your “me” time or even your health, it’s time for a change.

When we are so consumed with our jobs that we’re unable to enjoy the fruits of our labor or have quality time at home, something is terribly wrong.

Personally, I have been a workaholic ever since I began making my way up the management ladder. I’ll never get back all the times I missed something my kids were involved in because I was too busy. I won’t get back the needless hours spent micromanaging something instead of expecting others involved to kick in and do their part. At home… working evenings and weekends on job tasks instead of just kicking back and relaxing…. all those thousands of hours are gone, too.

No more.

From now on, I take my breaks and lunch time just like everyone else.

When I leave the office, I leave my job there. No more lugging a briefcase home. What I can’t finish before the end of the day will be taken care of the next day.

The 10/11/12 hour days are over. I don’t get paid for overtime so why should I work it?

I have deleted my company email account from my cellphone and home computers. I’ll check my email while at work, obviously, but once I walk out the door, whatever comes in can wait until tomorrow. If it’s a weekend, it can wait until Monday.

All this probably flies in the face of what many of you believe. However, you can do it, too. Say it with me, “No more.”

You’re not getting any younger. Enjoy your home, friends and family. Take the time to do things just for you. Relax, unwind, vegetate. There is absolutely nothing job-related that can’t wait until the next morning. When you walk out the door at your place of work, leave the work behind. The world won’t end because you didn’t manage to take care of everything before the end of the day.

It took me nearly 40 years to realize this. Don’t follow my example.

There’s nuthin’ much better than a fall evening here on the hill. The noises of the day – motors of various types, crummy music from overdriven stereos in passing cars, people chattering – fade as folks head for home to prepare for night. Through the open windows, a gentle breeze blows, slightly billowing the sheer drapes.

Darkness falls. Crickets begin their regular performance. At the back of the house, he branches of the ancient oak tree creak a little, disturbed by the wind. So peaceful…. so rustic…. so downright soothing.

And then, a stirring. Not something that can be heard initially, but something that can be felt. When I sense it, the hair stands up on the back of my neck, and my heart turns to ice water and runs down into my guts. No. Please. Not again. Leave me alone. I’ve done nothing to deserve this. Why me?

With the setting of the sun, the hideous, foul thing I loathe and despise once again awakens to torment the innocent.

“JEEEZUS F^^KING CHRIST, I AM GONNA GO INSANE!!! GET YOUR ASSES UPSTAIRS AND TO YOUR ROOMS BEFORE I DO SOMETHING YOU WILL REGRET! GET THE HELL AWAY FROM ME!”

I’ve written about my “problem” neighbors before, as the four of you who read this blog may recall. My intent here is not to rehash an old topic. In my last post about those people, I touched upon the family in general. The matriarch, however, rates a post devoted entirely to her.

The expletives delivered in all caps above isn’t an exaggeration, by the way. The evening usually starts with something along those lines – and her exclamations of frustration and rage get more powerful (and colorful) as her temper reaches the boiling point.

At some point their front door will fly open and she’ll emerge as if shot from a cannon, bringing her anger with her into the night. The boards of their front porch splinter at her tread. The concrete steps buckle and crack when her heels smite them. Her smoldering downward trajectory ends with her standing in the front yard, eyes blazing like coals, sparks flying from her gnashing teeth, body trembling as if she were being jolted by an electric current.

“BY GOD, WHEN I COME BACK INTO THE HOUSE YOU HAD ALL BETTER STAY THE HELL OUT OF MY WAY! I’M SO F^^CKING PISSED OFF NOW I’M READY TO EXPLODE! DO YOU HEAR ME?”

At her screech, stars go supernova. Bats fall out of the sky, dead. The moon hides behind the nearest convenient cloud. The spittle flying from her lips turns the grass brown. Earthworms pop out of the soil in a frenzied attempt to flee, and are instantly fossilized into brown twigs.

Okay, perhaps I’m stretching things a bit. But truly, I do doubt the woman’s stability at times (More correctly, just about every day). It appears that anything and everything is an irritation to the creature. I don’t care much for the remainder of that happy little clan, but they do have my deep sympathy. Life in that house must be difficult, to say the very least.

Eventually someone will come out of the house, negotiations will begin and an agreement will be reached. She’ll return to normal (picture a werewolf shape-shifting back to human form), go indoors and peace will reign for the remainder of the evening.

The storm windows on this big red box do a great job of soundproofing. Right now the outside glass is raised to take advantage of the mild weather, but it’ll be lowered once the cold starts to set in.

As far as I’m concerned, winter can’t get here fast enough.

It’s no secret that we all generally have less time than ever to prepare a full-blown meal in our home kitchens. I can look through some of my older cookbooks and read recipes that are as detailed as any technical manual. The newer the cookbook, the shorter the recipes it contains.

The advent of the microwave, and the introduction of good-quality nuke-able meals that don’t taste like the box they’re packed in, have both played a significant role in the decline of the classic cookbook. Couple that with homes comprised of single-parent families, or households where both parents work, and it becomes a bit easier to understand why fewer people are adept at making even something as basic as biscuits from scratch.

Another thing I’ve noted about modern cookbooks is that some terms seem to have vanished from usage – sear, saute, fold, blend, braise. The overall guiding principle seems to be this: If you’re going to write a cookbook, assume your audience will be in a hurry, and possibly quite stupid.

50 years ago a recipe might simply state “add two eggs.” The writers simply assumed the reader would know what to do with the eggs before adding them. Not these days. Today a recipe will say “in a small bowl, beat two eggs with a fork and add.” I can see what’s coming a few years down the road: “With your dominant hand, pick up a fork and…”

I read these instructions in one modern cookbook: ”Combine all ingredients except pie shell in a medium bowl.  I’m really glad they told me that in advance.

The “we think you’re stupid” approach has even filtered down to what should already be pretty simple – entrees and meals that only require you to plop them into an oven of some type, or empty them into a saucepan or skillet.

I don’t know if the companies producing these products are afraid of litigation or if they genuinely think the average consumer is a knuckle-dragging moronis inbredus. Ihink about it… do they really need to tell us to remove the plastic wrap from the frozen pizza before we bake it?

Microwave popcorn – you have to remove the plastic in order to unfold the bag. Once you do that and are able to unfold the bag, you’re confronted by instructions to – you guessed it – remove the plastic from the bag before nuking it.

Another of my all time favorite preparation instructions, found on some frozen meals, is the command to remove the meal from the box. This is almost as funny as the pizza/plastic thing I talked about.

I did notice one glaring omission from the instructions on my box of Pop-Tarts… they neglected to tell me whether to stick the tart into my new toaster horizontally or vertically. After some trial and error I figured it out, but for a few frenzied seconds I thought I had purchased a toaster with defective slots.

I saw a sticker once on a quick food item that sternly informed me to not turn the product upside down.” Amusingly, the sticker was on the bottom of the container.

Seen on a jar of dip: 1. Remove lid 2. Stir 3. Eat with chips, raw vegetable pieces, etc. Darn, and I was planning to just grab a tablespoon and eat the stuff all by itself.

One thing I see often is something along these lines as the final step of preparation: “unwrap and enjoy” or “chill and enjoy.”

What if I didn’t enjoy it? Would that mean I didn’t follow the instructions properly?

This post has reminded me that I need to complain to the people who make the cooking spray I use.  Because of them I nearly had a stove fire… and all I did was follow their instructions to coat the bottom of the pan before placing it on the burner. They should have specified they meant the inside bottom  of the pan.

I am clamping down on what I choose to publish to Facebook and what information I share. Nothing personal towards anyone – I just feel a need to exercise more control over what happens on my page.

• Don’t send me game requests, I will block them.
• App requests will be accepted, or blocked, after I research the app to check its reputation and feedback.
• My mailing address, email addresses and phone numbers are now hidden from everyone. If you have to ask me about any of this, you don’t know me well enough to start with and you won’t get a reply.
• My friends list is likewise hidden. Who I am friends with is no one else’s business on here.
• I have disabled the ability for friends to post to my wall. You can comment on what I post and that’s it.
• My private life is not open for discussion unless it’s something I am comfortable enough to bring up myself. This includes anything and everything to do with members of my family, my finances, my health…. you get the picture.
• Confine personal chit-chat to private messaging and leave it out of comments made on my posts.
• Should you find yourself unable to PM me or comment on my wall, it’s because you didn’t read this note and follow my guidelines.
• Don’t comment on this note with a bunch of “why are you….” This is how it is and will be.

You might wish to use some of these procedures yourself. It’s all too easy to forget where you are and just open up about everything that’s going on in your personal or professional life. Don’t forget – depending on your privacy settings you may be exposing yourself to hundreds or thousands of complete strangers. Facebook is teeming with nosy people, gossips, malicious people and outright loonballs. Think before you post, and be careful concerning how much of your “real” self you choose to publish to the outside world.

One of the things i struggle with as a rather lousy typist is the caps key. Its use adds yet more effort to my already fumbling efforts to hammer out something legible using only the first two fingers of each hand. I never learned to touch-type and so don’t have that flowing, effortless movement touch-typists enjoy when using a keyboard.

To the contrary, my spasmodic typing style is painful and awkward. Bringing the caps key into play is yet another monkey wrench thrown into my work. I’ve noticed that lately i have been avoiding the use of this key, except for at the start of a sentence. To date, no one who reads my stuff has complained, so obviously it’s no big deal to most people.

All this got me to thinking. Exactly who invented capital letters? What made them think the things were needed? Are capital letters a part of most or all languages of the world?

Apparently, they’re not. They seem to pop up mostly in romance languages – those derived from ancient latin such as english, german, french, spanish, italian… by contrast, hebrew, arabic and the many asian languages don’t have them.

I say, let’s follow the latter example and do away with capital letters, at least most of the time. As far as i’m concerned a capital letter is generally only useful when used with a preceding period to help designate the end of a sentence and the beginning of a new one. For me, leaving capital letters out makes a sentence or paragraph simply “read” easier – everything flows better. Finding capital letters in the body of a sentence is like encountering a jarring bump on a normally smooth road.

Don’t get me wrong; sometime capital letters do have sometimes have their place in certain situations. Witness the following:

I helped my uncle Jack off the horse
I helped my uncle jack off the horse

This is an example of how a capital letter can be valuable in clarifying the content of a sentence. But ask yourself (after you are through laughing at my wit), how often do you see a need to do that?

You snotty touch-typists will sneer at this post, and the linguistic purists among you will be aghast at my laziness and lack of respect for doing things the right way. So, for any of you two types of people who may be reading this, I will point out another good example of when using capital letters is the right way to do things…. namely to make a point:

BITE ME!

A long time ago in another life (actually 5 or so years ago at another job), I used to write a weekly opinion column. My general tone was mostly of a serious bent… commentary on local or national issues, potshots at politicians, and so on. It ran Thursdays and the editor of the paper I worked at often told me that letters or emails concerning the content of the op-ed page usually went skyward after my column ran.

These were generally not favorable towards me (or to the paper’s management for printing that tripe) but at least we knew people were reading my written thoughts, and that the piece had compelled them think or react. This is a good thing since most columns by a local writer in a local paper are largely ignored, or read and quickly forgotten.

After I left the newspaper I continued to write, posting on a regular basis to a blog I had set up. I would also publish my blog posts as links on my Facebook page. Both were generally overlooked – the blog received only a few hits a day, and the Facebook links seldom if ever garnered any comments.

I took the blog offline for a few months earlier this year. No sense in keeping it going since the only reader was me, right? After some reflection I decided to reactivate it and take a different approach to my writing. This time around, I decided to focus mostly on lighter topics such as my obnoxious neighbors, snafus in my life, something unusual or funny that caught my interest, and so on.

Instead of spending hours researching a topic and more hours editing a post to make it just “so” I decided to simply type out whatever came to mind. I think about a lot of goofy shit during the course of the day. but on occasion something will seem to stick in the ole noggin, and this will often turn out to be a blog post.

Writing is a lot more fun with this approach. After all, I could rant about what a raving batshit loonball Michele Bachmann is but there’s a well-paid syndicated columnist somewhere who does a far better job of lambasting her than I could ever do. And he or she almost certainly gets read more than me.

So, for the most part I now write only goofy shit. The blog links on my Facebook page get clicked on more, and the blog itself is getting more visits than it ever did. So why is that?

Did I suck as a serious columnist/blogger? I don’t think so. All my newspaper columns are saved on my computer, and over the years I’ve read through them numerous times. Without sounding like an egotist, some of them were pretty damned good. And they did well as a printed piece. As blog posts they might as well as not have ever been published at all.

What I’m thinking is that is comes down to the general mindset nowadays of the blogging and Facebooking public. We are tired to death of all the bad news shoved in our faces every day. To be honest, it’s a lot easier to write about negative topics than it is to write about what your cat dragged in, or describe the unearthly-looking thing you found growing in the produce bin of your refrigerator – so thus we’re inundated with a never-ending stream of blog posts from literally millions of authors about all that’s wrong in the world.

Me, I’d rather read goofy shit these days. Watching or reading the news doles out all the depression I can stomach. The silly, amusing stuff makes me smile or laugh out loud and forget for a few seconds exactly how deep in doo-doo my country (and the world) is.

I assume you’d rather read goofy shit, too. Hopefully I’m able to at least make you grin for a minute as I talk about whatever non-serious thoughts happen to be in my head when I sit down at the keyboard.

From my end of things, it’s a lot more fun to write now because I’m writing for the joy of it and not because I feel compelled to.

I have often wondered if the smaller creatures of the world…. the mole, the bird, the moth, the toad… have the ability to communicate amongst themselves. They basically have the odds stacked against them due to their size and relative inability to defend themselves, and it would seem highly likely that as members of the downtrodden caste, nature would give them at least a little something extra to help them survive.

If they do indeed have the ability to speak to one another in some fashion, I have no doubt as to what they talk about in my neck of the woods during the warm months.

See, I have cats. Lots of ‘em. Some stay inside all the time, but most of them are outside animals. Cats are natural-born killers. Unlike dogs, which are also predators but have had this instinct mostly bred out of them by eons of domestication, cats haven’t changed that much since their wild ancestors roamed the forests and the plains.

They like to stalk. They like to catch. They like to maim and torture and murder.

The advent of mild weather brings more activity from tiny critters. They’re out and about, eating, mating, playing, just enjoying the departure of winter. And I have no doubt that once the warm season has settled in, these little guys gather around tiny campfires late at night, telling stories about the horror house on the hill.

“Yeah… Ralphie Rat took a dare and went up there late one night last week – no one’s seen him since.”

“Really? Some of the moths say there are things living in that house. Things with claws and teeth that will eat you up.”

“Woah. I heard something similar from a lizard who says he went up there but managed to escape. He said they can just sneak up on you and you never hear them until it’s too late. It’s like they’re invisible until they pounce on you.”

“All they found of Barry Beetle was his legs.”

My yard turns into a field of slaughter. My front porch becomes a morgue for a never-ending stream of tiny corpses. I have no doubt at all that this is fodder for plentiful tales around those teeny night fires.

It’s not the cats’ fault, of course. I don’t begrudge them for not being able to control their primal urge to hunt. They’re just animals, after all. What I don’t get is their apparent need to proudly display their kill to me, their lord and master. (Yeah, right. Dogs have owners, cats have staff)

A summer morning isn’t complete without stepping out onto the front porch and discovering the latest victim of my cats’ lust for blood. A headless chipmunk, the wings of a large bug (and nothing else), a suspicious amount of loose feathers or fur… all evidence of the previous evening’s carnage.

These purring, mostly laid back, lazy companions of mine somehow don’t strike me as being heartless killing machines. Obviously a transformation must take place as soon as they slink out the front door and are out of my sight. I’m thinking of something along the lines of  ”An American Werewolf In London” where the guy falls to the floor and begin to grow gator-sized fangs and knifelike claws in dramatic, shape-shifting fashion. But the cats don’t need a full moon, they just need the night.

It’s nearly September. Fall will be in the air soon and the bloodshed and mayhem will subside as the critters in the neighborhood prepare to bunk in for the winter. My cats will be spending most of the day and night inside when the temperature drops.

They’ll sleep in their favorite cubbyholes and hideaways, dreaming of the summer’s victims, storing energy for the new hunting season  that will begin when the snow melts next year.

The small animals in the area, tucked away in their holes and lairs and burrows, will whisper to one another the latest stories about the past terrible summer, and the horror house on the hill.

This past Sunday I kept my granddaughter while her mom was out of town. She’s a well-behaved child of 2 and is no trouble to watch – she does what she’s told, eats her meals with no fuss and is actually fun to be around, especially now that she’s able to talk a little. I envisioned a relaxing day where I kept her entertained and fed her, with an occasional Spongebob break so I could get a few things done. Television, the electronic babysitter for millions of parents and grandparents.

Speaking of Spongebob, I found it just a bit creepy that Aryanna, a very young little girl, homed in on the Spongebob theme music and ran for the television as soon as the show came on. Do they test these cartoons’ music on small children to figure out what makes them react? Two years old, mind you… but already has Spongebob imbued in her consciousness. And that’s the only show she responds to in that fashion. I guess the Marketing Department at Nickelodeon really earns their pay if they can snare someone who’s barely potty trained.

Potty-trained… this is a good thing since it means far fewer absolutely disgusting diapers to change. It does help if the kid is able to tell you in advance that they need to “go.” Ary was very good about this, so we merrily made our way to the bathroom several times that morning. It soon became apparent, however, that Ary’s gastrointestinal tract was having a major malfunction, as those few trips soon became 6, 7, 8, 9 and on up into the double digits.

Even worse is the fact my house is an older one built around 1910, with only one bath as was common back then in homes of that size… and it’s upstairs. Even on a normal day I find it hard to navigate the stairs when my various aches and pains are flaring up. By about noon Sunday, I was ready to just plop the kid in the sink to do her thing.

Bathroom Trip #28 turned out to be the topper. Ary tapped me urgently on the knee exclaiming she had to poo. The poor child was literally squirming, not wanting to have an accident. To save valuable time, I picked her up and ran (well, walked as quickly as I could) up the steps, pulled down her pants and pullups, and picked her up to sit her on the toilet. I didn’t move quickly enough.

I’ll spare you the horrendous details but it went everywhere. With my typical cat-like reflexes (if the cat were dead) I shifted Ary to the tub and hosed her down. Once she was clean and dry she announced she again had to go. So, back on the pot.

This time it turned out to be a false alarm as she merely ripped off a series of man-sized farts. What made it funny was how she would break wind, laugh, purse her lips and go “Pffffffffffft” and then laugh again. After a few minutes of hilarity, she suddenly belched and then proceeded to lose her breakfast all over the bathroom floor, and herself as well. I returned her to the tub for another hosedown.

Oddly enough she didn’t behave as if she felt bad – after getting clean clothes on her I took her back downstairs, where she resumed watching Spongebob as if absolutely nothing had happened. Later in the day she ate again and made a few more trips upstairs, but there was no encore of the earlier massive explosion. Whatever her ailment, it vanished as quickly as it had appeared.

Her mom told me later that Ary’s molars are coming in, so I am guessing this was a contributing factor to her gastric woes. To the kid’s credit, she never cried or fussed. One amusing side note is that by about the time of the 14th or so bathroom break, she quit asking to go and just tapped me on the leg and pointed wordlessly upstairs, like she was using a secret hand signal.

The remainder of the afternoon was uneventful. Ary napped, woke up, helped me finish off some leftover hot dogs and chili and then went home with her grandma for the night. Me, I had to tend to emergency laundry detail in order to wash bath sets, clothes and towels. For the rest of the evening I played on Google+, tended to some business emails and otherwise noodled around on the Internet.

The next time I keep her I’ll be better prepared for disasters like Sunday’s… if need be I’ll just hold her over the cats’ litter box, which isn’t located up a flight of stairs. And hopefully it won’t already be occupied by one of the felines that roam the premises.