Being the Bad Guy

"The plumber's back," Mr Wonderful said peering out the window and setting down his coffee cup.

"Good," I said emptying my tea cup.

"I'll be the bad guy."

"I'll be the bad guy."

"I said it first."

"I'm more diplomatic!" I said elbowing past Mr. Wonderful.

The hardest thing for DIY fixer uppers like Mr. Wonderful and I was letting someone else do the work on The House while we sat idly by. The short--and long--reason was: We didn't trust anyone to do the work as well as we knew we could. But the plumbing and electrical projects we needed had to be done by licensed, bonded professionals. So after we dug a formidable trench, we contracted a plumber who came, installed pipes and left. The only problem was said plumber did the work while leaving said pipes sticking out of our house like the bolts poking out of Frankenstein's neck. The short--and long--of it was: It wasn't pretty. So now Mr. Wonderful and I were debating who would to talk to the plumber about this Franken-house problem.

"Morning, Michael," I said waving to the plumber.

"Hi--" Michael said smiling.

"My wife wants to talk to you," Mr Wonderful said deferring to me. Ahhh, I married a wise man.

"What a beautiful morning," Michael said flashing his pearly whites. Note to self: everyone in L.A. has gorgeous teeth, including the plumbers.

"That's right, I want to talk to you," I said leaping between my spouse and the plumber.

"Your house is so beautiful," Michael said looking around. "When I was here yesterday I spent all day in the trench and attic that I didn't get to experience how nice it is here. It's really nice."

My anger faded. My heart melted. The plumber liked my House? I loved this plumber!

"Thank you," I said blushing as if he'd complimented me on my hair, eyes or stellar sense of humor. "You did excellent work," I added. Behind me I heard Mr. Wonderful roll his eyes. Without a doubt, he is the loudest roller of eyes I've ever known. 

"Okay, I'll be going then," Michael said turning on his heel and heading back to his truck.

"Wait," Mr Wonderful said in a slow, deep voice. My spouse's vocal chords were well suited for a radio announcer, a story-book reader or a hard-baller giving someone a big-time reprimand. Now I thought--now!--Michael's going to hear how unhappy we are with his work, see how it looked like a Frankenstein plumbing job, and know that it had to be redone like, yesterday. 

Unfortunately Michael was either a rebel or terribly hard of hearing because he kept walking. He walked away from Mr. Wonderful, away from me and toward the back gate which would give him total freedom from our wrath. Once he passed through that gate, we'd never get him back to fix this horrible pipe job. 

When suddenly, a miracle happened.

"Meow," Jackson said rubbing up against the offending pipes sticking out of the house wall. "Meow."

"Hello, pussy cat," Michael said bending down to pet our tuxedo feline. Jackson plopped down on his belly right in the plumber's path causing the workman to freeze. He looked at the pipes, coughed then said, "Why didn't you tell me I did a bad job right here?" 

"Ahhh. Well?" Mr. Wonderful and I said in unison and shrugged. Michael tsk-tsked us.

The short--and long--story is: Michael removed the pipes from sticking out of the facade of our House and relaid them so they were hidden and flush with the wall, just like we wanted. And they looked great.

Ahhh, Jackson. He had freed Mr. Wonderful and me from being the bad guy. Next time we need a hard-hitting complainer to talk to the contractors, we're going to the ultimate baddie: Jackson our tuxedo-wearing cat.

Thursday Throwback

"Guess who this is?" I said pointing to the computer screen.
"Your friend Peggy--" Mr. Wonderful said looking at the picture.
"Anything else?"
"Kennedy, Peggy Kennedy."
"That was her name, yes, but what's she holding?"
"... Jackson?"

There it was in black, white, yellow, cyan and magenta: a picture of my dear friend with her little kitten that grew into our huge cat. Peggy had found him as a wee one on the "24" stages, adopted him and named him in honor of Jack Bauer.

How fun to have a picture of our eight year-old cat when he was so itty-bitty. Since our feline was now hitting middle age in cat years, we could look back at his early, youthful days in this picture and smile, mostly because this is one of the few photos I have where Jackson is not sleeping. But all that sleeping he did made sense. He was an old cat. Ahhh, yes, this kitten picture is perfect for Throwback Thursdays.

Then I looked closer. The picture was taken in October of 2007, which meant Jackson wasn't eight years-old, but was just now turning... six. Six! He was still so young, which meant all that sleeping he did was because he was still growing, like a hungry teenager with attitude!

When is Jackson going to college?

The Squirrel Villain

Batman had The Joker.

Superman had Lex Luthor.

And I had… The Squirrel.

In the world of comic books every great superhero had his villain. Not just any villain but a real bad guy who was his match in wits, strength and devilish plans. My life in California’s suburbs was imitating comic book art because I too had found the evil Yin to my heroic Yang and his name was… The Squirrel.

The Squirrel had thwarted me by eating apricots off my tree and decimating my internet connection with his fierce jaws. But he didn’t stop there.

In winter’s chill he scaled a palm tree and shredded the palm fronds causing them to rain down on my front walk like a biblical Egyptian plague or that weird scene in the film Magnolia with the falling frogs.

In summer’s heat he stole a massive steak tomato from my garden.

Now in spring I’d sprung a plan to be rid of The Squirrel forever. My plan had one step—it was so simple that it had to work! I removed all the fruit, vegetable and mineral elements from my front and back gardens and—as everyone knows—without food The Squirrel would move onto another garden to wreck havoc there.

Everyone on the planet knew this except Mr. Wonderful who spent Sunday outside chatting long distance to his college pal while eating walnuts. When he came across a walnut he didn’t like he tossed it on the patio where—Duh, duh—The Squirrel appeared, ate it and laughed.

“Squirrels can’t laugh,” Mr. Wonderful said.

“You don’t know The Squirrel,” I said chasing it out of our garden. “Now that you’re feeding it I’ll never conquer my villain.”

“Excuse me?” he said but I didn’t have time to explain.

This morning before breakfast I saw that The Squirrel was back. Seated in the same area of the patio waiting for a walnut handout from Mr. Wonderful. Typical. But I wasn’t the only one who saw the rodent. Jackson crept across the kitchen then slipping through the open sliding glass door he met The Squirrel head on. The Squirrel freaked! I saw the panic in his beady eyes! Jackson chased it to the property line and watched it race up the camellia tree and collapse on the fence

Have you ever seen a Squirrel have a heart attack? Today I did. And it was beautiful.

For 30 minutes Jackson crouched at the base of the camellia tree keeping watch. Once The Squirrel recovered from his massive coronary failure he crawled onto the roof and scampered away, all the while Jackson watched every step.

Jackson, my Jackson! How proud I was of him! Fighting The Squirrel was a fulltime job but finally I had help. Jackson the Cat was now my sidekick—my Robin, my Lois Lane, myhero.