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An Engineer's Guide to Cats

The moral of the story

The teacher gave her fifth grade class an assignment: get their parents to tell them a story with a moral at the end of it. The next day the kids came back and one by one began to tell their stories.

"Tony, do you have a story to share?"

"Yes ma'am. My daddy told a story about my Aunt Karen. She was a pilot in Desert Storm and her plane got hit. She had to bail out over enemy Territory and all she had was a flask of whiskey, a pistol and a survival knife. She drank the whiskey on the way down so it wouldn't break and then her parachute landed right in the middle of twenty enemy troops. She shot fifteen of them with the gun until she ran out of bullets, killed four more with the knife till the blade broke, and then she killed the last Iraqi with her bare hands."

"Good Heavens" said the horrified teacher. "What kind of moral did your Daddy tell you from this horrible story?"

"Stay the hell away from Aunt Karen when she's drinking."

Old home movies

This isn't really a home movie, but I bet it looked a lot like this when Morley left England to move to America...

NOTE: The video lost a millisecond at the end when it uploaded--the little boy's last word is "passport".

How to install a cat crapper in 45 easy steps

Our litter box extraordinaire arrived yesterday--a Cat Genie that automatically scoops the poop, washes the litter, flushes the waste down the drain, then dries off the litter with jets of warm air all by itself. How cool is that, eh?

Step 1. Patiently remove Cat Genie parts from shipping boxes. These babies come packed to the max.

Step 2: Guess how to make all the hoses fit into the mechanisms down below.

Step 3: Guess another way for all the hoses to fit in the mechanisms down below.

Step 4: Read the instructions, then fit the hoses to the mechanisms down below.

Step 5: Pretend to drive the little porcelain bus. You know somebody had to do it.

Step 6: Carry the mini toilet (which weighs only slightly less than its full size equivalent) to the spot where it will be permanently installed.


Step 7: Assign an engineer to hook up the water supply and the drain line.

Step 8: Then task the engineer with installing the water and drain lines to the business end of the litter box.

Step 9: Plug it in. Hang out in laundry room for the next hour waiting for unsuspecting cat to drop by and give it a go.

While we waited I pointed out to Morley how much better his life is since we met. Back in the dark times (ie, before me) Friday nights were spent at expensive restaurants having dinner with some high-maintenance chick. Meh.

Nowadays he lurks in the laundry room with me, waiting for a cat to take a crap. Isn't it romantic?

Cat Genie, The Movie:

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News from the Colonoscopy Clinic

Morley sailed thru his colonoscopy this morning except for the small detail of him not being sedated very much, as in he was awake enough to hear all of it and feel most of it. In all his prior procedures he's been so zonked out that he hardly remembered a thing afterwards and certainly didn't feel discomfort like he did this morning.

I don't know why Morley's doctor was so stingy with the good stuff, but when it comes to anesthesia I'm with Colonel Klink--I want to hear nuttink and see nuttink. I made a mental note that before I have my first colonoscopy I'll make sure the doc is clear on my requirements for copious amounts of meds during any procedure involving long probes wandering around in my colon and strangers' faces inches away from my butt. Seriously.

But back to Morley and his colonoscopy. First, the good news: no sign of the former Mega Tumor. The not so good news: in just six short months new polyps had sprouted in the same general area where the tumor used to be. The surgeon removed them for testing so we'll know more about that when the lab results are back.

To tell you the truth, we aren't all that upset about those new polyps yet--just another part of my quest to teach Morley the Worrier Supreme not to worry about things until they deserve to be worried about. The diagnosis might likely be nothing more than Morley is a prolific polyp producer who requires frequent de-polyping.

So the bottom line--unintentional colon joke, I swear--is we weren't thrilled about the new polyps and Morley isn't thrilled that the surgeon wants another follow up colonoscopy in three months, but in general the procedure went well. And on the bright side, I can report that our much anticipated post-colonoscopy breakfast at IHOP was awesome.

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Englishmen in Rubber Gloves

Tomorrow marks a big day in the saga of Morley and his (former) Mega Tumor: his six month colonoscopy to make sure that bad daddy tumor is really, truly gone.

The doctor took a preliminary look-see a couple of weeks ago and reported things look great but tomorrow's test will tell the real tail...er, the real "tale" I meant to say. (Sorry about that. Even after all this time the colon jokes are hard to pass. Up. Hard to pass up.)

Okay, I think I have the colon jokes out of my system for now. Moving on.

Needless to say, there is a new Colo rectal specialist in the picture now. We jilted the original surgeon at the proverbial surgical altar, so the Mayo Clinic hooked us up with a new guy here in Atlanta. He's not only a Mayo Clinic grad but an Englishman to boot. The minute Morley heard his homeboy accent he just knew he was in the very best rubber gloved hands.

Unlike the first doctor who was so full of himself that it was impossible to talk to him for more than five minutes at a time, this guy seems to have all the time in the world to talk with his patients. Morley tells me the topics discussed during office visits range from his current bowel habits to favorite childhood pub foods to thoughtful comparisons of English ales (he's a Speckled Hen kind of guy, by the way). The point here being that the doctor-patient relationship is a hundred times better than the one we had with Dr. Goofball, the original surgeon. (And on a personal note, I can report some improvement in my ability to think about beer and poop being discussed in the same conversation without feeling slightly queasy.)

We report to the Outpatient Center tomorrow morning at 6:30 AM for the colonoscopy and hope to report to the nearest Waffle House around 11:00 so Morley can eat his first meal in 24 hours. I'll keep you posted on how the test results turn out, but not to worry--we already know they'll be good.

All's well when the End is well. Bottom's Up. The End.

Okay, I'm done now.


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Muffin and the Goldfish

Muffin is fascinated by the fish swimming in the new flower arrangement....

Muffin: Goldfish Sushi! My fav!!!

Muffin: How do you get in this thing anyway?

Muffin: Come to me, my little tuna roll..

Muffin: You are MINE, little fish. Just as soon as I figure out how to unwrap you...

Goldfish: Is it just me or does it smell like wasabi in here?

Resistance is Futile

These guys are my neighbors, Connor and Caleb. They are good boys. They don't mind me taking their picture and posting it on the internet.

This is my cat Willow. She is also a cooperative subject. Willow is happy for me to take her picture.

This is my daughter Heather. She is not a cooperative person. She thinks she can foil my plans to take her photo by hiding behind things.

But she would be wrong. Hi, Heather!

And if I can't take a nice photo of Heather, I'll just have to make do with whatever I can lay my hands on. For example, this one.

Hey Heath, nice 'do you got going on there...heh....

Rumor has it that Spring is Sprunging

Being as how the world which we refer to as "the office" is on suddenly on fire (and by 'on fire' I don't mean it in a good way, think 'on fire' as in Sherman burning Atlanta) I don't have time to regale you with any amusing stories about the things we've been doing lately to entertain ourselves.

Not to mention we haven't actually done anything amusing and the only thing we've done to entertain ourselves is to microwave whatever we can lay our hands on and call it dinner before we fall into bed and call it a day. And then we do the same thing again the next day. And the next day.

Fortunately Mother Earth is filling in the gap by amusing herself with spectacular blooms around our house. So here for your viewing pleasure are photos of Springtime at our house.

The cherry trees, for example, are going crazy.



While Morley wandered around with the camera capturing Springtime in photos so we can look at them later to see what we missed, I took the opportunity to do a little weeding. The cherry trees aren't the only thing waking up after a long winters' nap:

And here are some other blooming things in our yard (some of these are part of the 200+ bulbs we planted during the winter):

And that's all I have time for this morning since I have to be at work to interview a mechanical engineer in exactly one hour and four minutes.

Gotta fly, more to follow.