Charlie and The Extra

It's all a multi-layered, convoluted, mash-up if you want me to be rigorously honest about it. And why would you want anything less? Besides, I've made a promise to be completely upfront with my public and what follows is as upfront as the orchestra seats.

If you've been following along this season, you're aware that after the last of my entourage retired and moved to gentler climes, I was lost. I mean, now that it was all over, just who was I? Life is a stage after all and each of us has our role to play. But I'd been a main character in the current production since opening night and suddenly I found myself cast as an Extra. 

I was open to suggestions and Amy took advantage of my weakness to convince me that I was called to collect the soul vessels of the recently departed. I'm sure you're up-to-date and all that.

Fortunately for me, and follow me closely here, Amy doesn't give me clear instructions. She likes to make me work for it. What she actually told me, and you will remember this, is that I should become a reseller of vintage items.

Let's not go into all that now. I've written about it often and you can find all you want to know in the archives.

The purpose of reselling, according to Amy, was to keep the world safe from the dark forces of the Underworld striving to take over the Upperworld. I embraced her suggestions because there’s nothing more bracing than seeing the forces of darkness stubbing their toe.

Eventually, it became clear that Amy's true purpose was to drum up as much mania as possible. She's addicted to the stuff. Oh sure, she claims she can quit anytime she wants but, in truth, it only takes one and she's off on some bender and God only knows when she'll hit bottom.

Yes, it's all heiness, underhanded, skullduggery known as feeding one's monkey. That's what it is.

Turns out that Amy used one of Christopher Moore's books to manipulate me and it was, to be blunt, a dirty job. Fortunately, for me, that same book held the solution.

The Emperor of San Francisco explained that my true purpose was to be out among the people of the city when they were just beginning to stir. My job was to greet the day, setting the stage for the shape of things to come, and do a bit of mood-lifting for the people I met. 

When the opportunity arose, I was to lift the mood of their little dogs too. You might say that I was to become the antidote to the Wicked Witch of the West.

"Sometimes," the Emperor said to me, "a man must muster all of his courage to simply be calm, quiet, and present in the moment. Only then can one be kind to all without judgment."

Life is much better now because somehow, some way I have more space for the love that Ms. Wonder sends my way. If that's all there was to look forward to, it would be more than enough.

Of course, I still see things. You've read about most of them, but one there is that you haven't heard of. Recently, I've seen squirrels peeking over fences as if to spy on me. I know! It's hard to credit but I swear it's true. And I'm not so sure they aren't filming me. I wouldn't swear to it. It's just a feeling I have.

Now, I should probably mention that the squirrels may be monitoring my movements because they've seen me in the company of Charlie. Have you met Charlie? You'll read more about him in future posts but for now, here's the essence.

Charlie is a member of the Doggy Nation, and like his cousins, possesses a hyper-active amygdala and has a less than enlightened opinion of coexistence with any rodent. 

Considering the above, you can easily understand why being seen with him may cast me in a suspicious light among the squirrel community. Still, I completely agree with Charlie that the tree monkeys are just way too goofy for a self-respecting terrier to tolerate.

There you have the gist of the current state of affairs. The multi-layered, convoluted, mash-up that is my new life. I'm still learning the ins and outs, and I'll do my best to keep you informed on developments. 

Until next time; Good morning! Have a wonderful day and most importantly, be happy, be healthy, and be safe!

More Joy in the Morning

His response lacked any real enthusiasm and this got right by me. Why? That's the question I asked myself. Consider the circs I mean. 

Going about his business on what was presumably a typical day for a rock troll--he's a personal injury lawyer in Uberwald--and then Biff! without warning, he finds himself sitting here in my studio. 

You would think, wouldn't you, that he would rally round and support the team in doing something about it?

"Life comes hard and fast," I suggested in an attempt to make him appreciate the importance of our work--Abbie's and mine.

"And sometimes it takes us by surprise," he said.

"You took the words right out of my mouth."

"Sir?" he said and I remembered that English isn't his native tongue and he's not fully equipped with all the gags and wheezes in the language.

"I was just about to say that," I said.

"My concern," he said, "is that fighting the negative forces seems ill-advised. It's well known that struggling against magic, we become more entangled."

"Ah," I said, "having found a talking point. "We do not struggle. We do not fight."

"We?" he said.

"Abbie and I," I said.

Abbie sat up to receive the recognition.

"Yes," he said in a soupy sort of voice, "the cat."

Abbie squeaked and directed one cold eye in his direction. This cat is a weapon when annoyed and channels the ancient Irish hero, Chuhulain, when in fighting mode. When one eye becomes larger than the other and steam escapes from the seams, the wise observer gets into the lead-lined jacket.

"We don't oppose the Witch of Woodcroft," I explained. "She's full of good works. She pulls the elements of decay from our environment and uses them as compost to feed a garden of wholesome and healthy delights. It's all on her website.

"I don't consider it delightful to be pulled away from very important business with the court," he said.

"Yes, I fully understand," I said. "The dross of her distillation, if it is dross, accumulates to critical mass. Then a loud report is heard and something that would rather not, pops in or pops out of one world and into another.  Like you. It's all very disturbing."

"You'd go so far as that would you--disturbing? Well, what can you possibly do about it?"

"That's where our plan comes into play," I said and Abbie Hoffman, who seemed to have calmed somewhat, stopped washing a paw and gave Feldspar another warning look to make it clear that he would harbor no backtalk about cats.

 "We will intercept the dross as it accumulates and replace the negative charge with a positive one--an effect greatly to be preferred because it will be healthful and enjoyable."

"How do you intercept the accumulation of dross?" he said.

"Ah, there you have me. It's something that Abbie Hoffman does but it's a trade secret and known only to him. But intercept it he does and then we use the raw material of it, he and I, to build a humorous story and then have a laugh. You can't be hurt by something that makes you smile."

"That sounds like Fierce Living," he said. "It's the solution you write about for managing runaway emotions. You're writing a book, aren't you? Is it finished?"

"Almost," I said. "Thank you for asking and yes, I am talking about Fierce Living. It works on everything. It's unbounded; it's wild and free; it's as wide as the sky and as deep as the sea. Why don't you join us, Feldspar? It will be like old times. We will make a team of three and nothing can stop us."

"Well," he said, and then looking at Abbie he added, "I don't know."

Abbie sat bolt upright at this, leveled a gaze at the troll and began washing the right paw with the intention, no doubt, of being prepared to deliver another single whip or possibly a repulse-the-monkey or a white-crane-spreads-her-wings. I'm sure you would know better than I.

Then suddenly Abbie Hoffman jumped down from the desk and approached Feldspar. I wondered if he was advancing to attack but then realized he was sniffing the chair. It was at this very moment that I noticed a distinctive odor.

"What is that smell?" I said.

"When the curtain between the worlds was rent," began Feldspar, "I was meeting with a gaggle of goblins and I fear that one of them fell through with me and I inadvertently sat on him."

"A goblin is beneath you?" I said leaning forward to get a better look.

"I'm afraid it's true," he said.

"Shouldn't you let him up?"

"On no account will I be responsible for releasing a goblin into your world. Remember the Middle Ages, sir."

"Right," I said. "So when you pop back home, he will pop back with you, is that it?"

"We can only hope, sir."

"I'm never going to get the smell out of that chair."

"I suggest burning it," he said.

Lucy Lucille Lupe

Chadsford Hall lay drowsing in the sunshine. Heat mist shimmered above the smooth lawns and the timbered terraces. The air was heavy with the lulling drone of insects. It was the most gracious hour of a summer afternoon, midway between lunch and tea when Nature kicks her shoes off and puts her feet up.

I was enjoying the shade of the cypress grove, near the rhododendrons, opposite the camelia glade. While sipping the contents of a tall, tinkly glass, and reviewing the latest acting-up of the social quality in the pages of The Independent, I was startled to hear a voice coming from a rhododendron that had until now remained speechless.

"Whatcha doin'?"

As soon as I regained my composure, if any, and restored calm to the mind, if it is a mind, I gave the offending shrub a stern look of censure. Wouldn't you? I saw that the bush was giving me the same. Not the bush in fact but something peering from it. It might have been a wood nymph for I couldn't see it clearly, but I thought not. As it happened, I was right.

"Sorry, sir," said the year-old Siamese kitten, the one I've named Lucy Lucille Lupe because Old Possum says that cats require three names. Ms Wonder tells me that Mr Possum had something entirely different in mind but So what is my comeback to that. I reserve the right to take the road less traveled sometimes. Napoleon, I believe, did the same.

 "Didn't mean to startle you," said L. L. Lupe.

"Not at all," I said having immediately forgotten the annoyance I felt at being shaken from a pleasant semi-slumber of the afternoon because this Lucy Louise fosters a warm, soft spot in the center of my chest near the heart. "It's good to see you again."

She did a little dance, her front paws moving two steps to the left and then two steps back to the right while the rear feet moved to a different rhythm entirely. I know this particular dance well, and I interpret it to mean, I like you because you give me good things to eat but, oooh! you've got big feet and I'm so small. I'm not fluent in the language of dance, of course, I offer only the gist of meaning.

"Got something to eat?" she seemed to say.

"It's not dinner time," I said.

"What's that?" she said adding a new step to the dance.

"I'm stroking your back," I explained.

"Don't touch me please," she seemed to say.

"OK, if you don't like it," I said and I stopped immediately. Protocol is very important to cats because there was a time when they were worshiped as gods and they haven't forgotten it.

"If not today, then maybe tomorrow," I said.

"Don't think about tomorrow," she said.

"Yes, I read about that somewhere. I don't mean to say it was about cats only. If memory serves, birds and lilies were mentioned too."

"Birds! Love birds!," she said turning round and round hoping to see them, I'm sure. "Where are they? By the bird bath?"

"I don't see any bathing just now," I said, "but don't distract me, I'm trying to remember something I heard when I was just so high. Probably not much bigger than you."

"Me? You were never my size," she said.

"Where was I?" I said.

"Birds!" she said.

"Right, birds. The passage I'm trying to remember went something like this, Behold the birds, for they sow not, neither do they reap, something, something, something--and then, pay close attention because the big payoff is coming up--take therefore no thought for the morrow: for the morrow shall take thought for itself. I'm paraphrasing of course."

"That's me," she said.

"I thought as much," I said and I was being sincere about it. These cats have never completely given up their wildness and it's my position that their popularity has something to do with a human being's desire to fondle a tiger.

She stretched her front legs out and bent the body into the stretch. Her butt was high in the air, as high as it goes rather, and her tail pointed skyward. She was lovely. She was beautiful. She was so delightful that nothing else was required of her to be perfect in my esteem.

"Think I'll take a nap," she said and sauntered off toward the rhododendron.

It seemed a good idea and I decided to do the same. Perhaps I would dream of a perfect world, where no cat suffers from human malice, for as Robert Heinlein put it, "How we behave toward cats here below determines our status in heaven." 

I like that. I keep it in mind always. I suggest you do the same.

21st Century Perks

"But these symbolic dreams aren't new," she said. "We've been talking about them for a while now."

That's what Dr. Beach said to me in our recent session when I told her that my dreams had turned dark and troubling.

I got her permission to write about it so I wouldn't be accused of violating doctor/patient confidentiality. She said the rule only applied to the doctor. I'm pretty sure she's wrong. She also said she isn't a doctor and I think she's wrong about that too. She's probably on cold medicine.

"The dreams may not be new," I said, "but they've changed character. You remember the dream where Sagi was running around the yard with a big smile on his face, or with what passes for a big smile on a cat's face. He seemed to playing a game of Catch me if you can! He looked so happy that it made me happy and now I always remember him just as he was in that dream."

"I do remember," she said. "That's a beautiful dream."

"Yeah, well recently I dreamed the Emperor came to ask me for Mom's Big Book of Death. He said the dead had asked him to write their names in the book so they wouldn't be forgotten. They told him I'd stopped recording their names and if something isn't done soon, a dark storm will rise up from the Underworld and take over the earth again."

"I can see how a dream like that would be disturbing," she said. 

"Disturbing?" I said. "Disturbing would be waking up from the dream and having to clear the head to get back to sleep. These dreams bubble up from the pit of anxiety that fills up the hole in my heart and I can't get back to sleep again."

She gave me a look that said, I don't know what to say but tell me more, please.

"Sometimes, after one of those dreams, I wake up in the morning filled with so much despair that I wonder why I get out of bed."

"But staying in bed doesn't solve anything," she said.

"No, it doesn't," I said, "and besides I have lots of reasons to get up, get out, and get on with my life."

"What are some of those reasons?" she said.

"Just off the top of my head, there's all those syrupy flavorings the coffee cafes offer, like caramel, French vanilla, and lavender! Can you believe people add lavender flavor to lattes? Tasty insanity! The 21st century does have a few perks."

"Having something to be grateful for makes all the difference," she said.

"Coffee can send the forces of darkness back into the sewers where they belong," I said. "And when coffee is set to music, it's just another day in paradise."

"You do this just to yank my chain, don't you?" she said.

"We've run over our time," I said. "See you next Monday at 2:00 PM?"

The Extra

"Are you going to be downtown this morning for the filming of Merv? They're on Castle Street I believe."

Ms. Wonder and I were having coffee on the lanai but I wasn't my usual chatty self. I suppose my feelings were oozing out.

"Not planning on it," I said. "Too muggy. And it's a Christmas movie--hard to get in the spirit when the heat index is 100 degrees."

"Southport should have some cooling offshore breezes," she said. "The Summer I Turned Pretty is there this week."

Now, I don't need to tell you that I usually look forward to the warm-weather filming schedule for popular television shows, like Turned Pretty and I get excited when I know there's a movie being filmed in the area. I enjoy hobnobbing with crew members on location. You know, get a few candid photos, and maybe pick up a bit of celebrity gossip that I can post on social media.

You may think it's nothing to get excited about but for me, it's a reason to get out of bed in the morning. There are other reasons, to be sure, but I'm specifically referencing the 6 AM de-bedding, not the 4 AM or 2 AM. Completely different reasons and generally not all that exciting.

"I won't be going to Southport either," I said. "I don't want to drive Highway 87--too narrow--and Highway 211 is being widened from 2 lanes to 4 all the way to Long Beach."

She gave me a look accessorized by tight lips and lacking not the smallest sign of an eye twinkle. A moment passed between us when I thought it likely that I could be bitch-slapped in about 3 seconds.

"Have you forgotten what I told you at breakfast?" she said.

"Of course, I have," I said. I saw no reason to deny something that could easily be proved in court. I do often forget. Life in the suburbs with its lack of mental stimulation has caused my natural attention deficit to reach a stage where it borders on mad cow disease.

It was difficult to identify the look she gave me now. It was something I might expect to see on the face of Island Irv when trying to persuade him to become an accessory to the fact in some scheme I'm plotting.

I thought I should continue the conversation and hope that she cooled off before hotting up to the point of leaking at the seams.

"The weather is just way too hot and humid along the Carolina coast," I said, "and although our fine old metropolis is buzzing right along with summertime festivals, hoards of vacationing hominids, and the ubiquitous film crews, it's just too much to deal with."

"Look, baby," she said, "I know how much you love hanging with film crews and keeping your social media public updated. But your interest has gone flat lately. The good that you know you should do, you do not. What'sup?"

"You know," I said and it probably sounded like a plea for help. "Schopenhauer says.... At least I think it was Schopenhauer but possibly Shakespeare...that all the suffering in the world can't be mere chance. The Universe must intend it."

"Yeah, I know who spews that asbestos into the air," she said and she patted my arm lightly as she said it, "Princess Amy can't find anything to bitch about so she's practicing chair yoga and can't be bothered with you. Sounds like the perfect time to get yourself knee-deep in life and bump into some opportunity."

"Well, of course, you're right, Poopsie," I said. "You always are. But it's hard to churn up interest and motivation out of, what's the term, thin air?"

"Don't churn up anything," she said. "Just go, make it happen, Data. Engage!"

"I love it when you say that," I said and I meant it with knobs on.

"Look," she said, "I know that you consider yourself something of a local reporter at large, an arts and culture blogger, but I think you're missing a wonderful opportunity."

This piqued my interest no small amount. "You do?" I said. "What opportunity?"

"Think of yourself as an extra," she said. 

"A movie extra?"

"Sure," she said, "don't you see? You're someone important to the production, like an extra. In fact, you're necessary. The shooting would stop if the extras weren't there. Their presence in the film is what gives it believability, makes it real."

"Hmmmm," I said, "and I meant it to say that she'd interested me strangely, like the feeling you get when Superman sneaks into the phone booth and comes out with an attitude that says, I'm gonna get all up in there. She had captured my attention and the old cogs were whirling."

Now when I say the cogs were whirling you must remember that when a man with my attention span is plunged in thought, the machinery just whirrs for a while, and then that's the end of it. Suddenly everything gets quiet with little to show for it.

Wisely recognizing that nothing was to be expected from my musings, she continued.

"Extras don't have speaking parts," she said, "and their acting ability isn't important, but they must perform their roles precisely and on time, just as the stars of the film. Without the extras, there's no movie, no television story."

"That's me," I said. "I'm an extra!" 

"That is definitely you," she said.

"Excuse me, Poopsie, I'm due in Southport. The Christmas episode for Summer I Turned Pretty, Season 3 is planned for the next few days and I don't want to miss the decorating of Main Street."

"My extra!" she said and I could feel the pride in her voice. Made me feel good.