What's That Smell? -Or- "Honey, Why is the Coffee Pot in the Middle of the Driveway?

This morning, while fixing Juliette's medicated breakfast, I smelled something. I had just gotten her fixed up and was in the middle of offering my normal morning affirmations of "who's a pretty kitty?" when I noticed it.

Over my right shoulder sat a coffee maker that looked normal, but for the fact the display had gone dark and it was rather alarmingly, smoldering. Well, something more than smoldering but less than belching smoke. I quickly came to the conclusion that something was wrong.

I had just made a pot of coffee and only had I drank half a cup, so my first order of business was to save the coffee! I reached in and pulled out the carafe and placed it on the stove safely away from the machine while I unplugged it from the wall.

Still smoking, I gave it a moment. The first extinguisher was less than an arm's reach away so I had that option. But if you've ever had to clean up that mess you'd know it's probably better just to let the house go and build a new one. I figured I wasn't in immediate danger, so I sort of just watched for a bit to see if it would abate.

Instead, the smoke was now accompanied by an alarming set of sounds. Snap, crackle and pop are noises that you expect from your cereal bowl, not your coffee maker. The smoke was not getting better, or worse, though there was a growing acrid component that my throat found unpleasant. It reminded me of December 26th of 2010 when my television, a Sony, suffered a similar death. I attributed that one to the Lions winning a fourth game in a row.

Being a man of action, I decided to make my move. I felt the machine to see if it was too hot to touch. Realizing it was not, I gallantly picked it up and held it out arms' full length from my body in case that bad boy went up. I guess to allow the shrapnel to gain more speed and kinetic energy so it could do its maximum damage to my body. That's not the way I thought about it at the time.

I took it to the center of the driveway and left it there. It eventually stopped smoking. I had saved the house, my wife and the cats. Perhaps most importantly, now that it was poured into my huge thermos, a present from Emily's parents that they thought was ridiculously large but I have used to great effect so often I can scarcely imagine life without it, I had saved the coffee.

The word "Hero" is overused these days, but I think it's appropriate to tell it like it is in this situation. without me, that coffee may not have made it. And I would now, deep into this Monday afternoon, be a corpse, slumped over my computer with a caved in skull for lack of caffeine.

"What a shame," said the medical examiner, zipping up the black body bag... "Caffeine headache. When will people learn to recognize the warning signs? This could have been prevented!"

As a postscript, I asked Emily to call Cuisinart and tell them about my trials, in case they wanted to send in the storm troopers and reverse engineer the only two-year-old unit to find out how such a thing could happen. Instead, the man on the phone didn't care so much. After he surrendered all of France to us (standard operating procedure I guess), he took our case number, made a sneering face, (I imagine), and hung up.

Tonight we are having dinner with our young friend, Abbie, with whom we went to Cedar Point this summer, so we'll stop and buy a new coffee maker using one of 70 dozen 20% off coupons from one of America's leading purveyors of small appliances and other goo-gaws for the home.

I don't remember my parents having to replace appliances so often when I was growing up. On our visit with them a couple weeks ago, I noticed they had a new clothes dryer. I also noticed it was not "high end" like my Dad usually buys. He told me it doesn't matter. spend a hundred, spend a thousand, everything these days is crap.

Well, he didn't say that, but that was the jist. This coffee pot that went sizzle-boom-pop was a direct replacement for the previous one. Except this one was much lighter, the case made of plastic instead of stainless steel. It had an overall cheaper feel. And that turned out to be true. This one cost $10.00 less than the first one, but lasted less than half as long. I'd gladly pay the sawbuck if it meant it wouldn't burn my house down.

Perhaps Messeur Cafe should be replaced with good old Mr. Coffee. Maybe a good old 'Merican coffee pot will fully explode and take us all with it instead of just throwing a pansy little hissy fit like this one did. Just like the French, eh?

Call the ASPCA

We needed to take the cats in this afternoon for their vaccinations and checkups and such. Juliette has been quite sick and I rattled off a bunch of demands to the doc in my best Doug Ross low, fast, reassuring patter, before I left the room to take care of some work.

"She isn't breathing well, she's listless, has a discharge from her eyes and snores like a coal miner. We slowed way down on the amount of food we feed her and she's only lost .2 pounds in 2 years. I am concerned she is retaining fluid, so please take a pee test and listen closely to her heart and lungs. Excuse me, I have to go out here for a moment."

Well, my cat, (likely both cats), have Herpes. In my follow up reading it's quite a common problem and quite an oft-administered diagnosis. The manifestations of the disease are identical to Juliette's symptoms and so we were given a tube of stuff to feed her twice a day, every day until it's gone.

It's a big-ass tube, and fellow cat owners out there know that most cats don't pine too well to being force fed something from a tube. I have no idea how long it will take to get through the tube in calendar months, but I would say whatever length of time it is will be tantamount to 1,000 eternities in Hell.

The directions benignly tell us to put a little dab on kitty's nose to stimulate the taste desire and kitty will then, as if being fed some sort of beluga caviar and black truffle aphrodisiac, lap the stuff up willingly and cry, neigh, wail for more.

I think not. Not my cat anyway who is as famously fickle as she is fantastically fatuous. A female. Siamese. Cat. The female Siamese cat who, without any discouragement from her "owners", runs the place-The whole place and every aspect of the place.

Needless to say, Juliette did not leap rapturously at the goo we wiped on her runny nose. She almost figured out a way to eat around it when we stirred it into the soft food we gave her. But, she did eat it in the soft food.

I won't put it past her that she knew this was her ticket to soft food heaven. For those of you who doubt a cat can be smart and manipulative, I recommend you own one for a day. Soft food is but a treat in this house, because our cats drink plenty of water, (most of it right from my glass when I look away but for a moment), and because soft food makes for soft, fat, namby pamby cats.

And I'm cheap.

So until this industrial vat sized tube of L-Lysine, (yep-a common synthetic amino acid), is gone, each day, twice a day is either going to be a struggle, or will be silently lapped up in so much soft, expensive, highly caloric food. Our choice then, put another way, is to struggle or capitulate.

Hi, my name is Neville Chamberlain...

So much for the .2 drop. We'll get her immune system up where it needs to be and get her feeling better, but she will be indistinguishable from a hedgehog by that point, all round and fatty. Then we'll have to wean her off the soft stuff and put her back on her senior cat, sensitive stomach, hairball control, caffeine free, neurotic food, (seriously, this stuff has so many bullet point descriptors on the bag you can't even see the picture of the desperate looking single woman in her 40s trying so hard to please her cat), she had been eating for years and liking just fine, thank you very much.

Like I said, I don't know how long this medicine is going to last in actual calendar time, but one thing's for sure... it's gonna be a long tube.

A Week With the Fam

Em and I got back from my parents' house in Las Vegas yesterday. Thank God for smooth, on-time flights and no hassles in either direction. In fact, everything about this trip was relaxed and went as planned.

We surprised my Mom for a momentous birthday. I won't say she's 70, because it's apparently not nice to say peoples' ages for all the world to hear. Back in October, my sister called me and told me she and my Dad had cooked up a scheme to surprise Mom for her big day.

It was touch and go there for a bit while I figured out work. Thankfully it did all work out and in three stages Mom was surprised- First by Emily and I, then by my sister, Peggy, (who looks nothing like the Peggy from the Capital One commercials) mid-week and then by my Aunt and Uncle on her birthday and for the rest of the weekend.

As a family, we aren't close... geographically. I often think that is a bit of a blessing because, let's face it, family like too much of any good thing can have its own set of challenges. But we are close in all other senses of the term and it was really nice to all be together without agendas or the need to rush. It was almost like an extended afternoon visit.

Which is to say, this was not an especially exciting vacation. It was a fulfilling, relaxing thoroughly enjoyable one with people I love dearly and whom I miss already. My family all looks good, is healthy and happy and faces no insurmountable tribulations at this time, so there was no stress or issues. They all let me be a smart-ass and more importantly let me win a cribbage and Scrabble so I wouldn't sulk; which is why being a sore loser is totally the way to go.

We ate too much good food, got some great views up on a nearby mountain that is among the highest peaks in Nevada and we shopped. And shopped. And shopped! I didn't lose any money at the tables, because I didn't gamble. My blackjack app on the way home reminded me why. Every hand is a potential loser. I didn't feel much like losing.

It is of course good to be home. Too bad about the snow, but it is inevitable. It has been so nice up to now I won't complain. Our excellent neighbors plowed the drive and took care of the cats and the mail. Still more excellent friends chauffeured us to, from, betwixt and between the airport. The cats were so happy to see us, even they cuddled up together and slept literally on top of me last night... and that's like Isreal and Palestine getting together and sipping out of a root beer float with two straws. That's kind of a nerd joke so if you don't get it, think of it like the president of the chess club and the head cheerleader hooking up. If you don't get that, you are an loser, a nerd and grossly uninformed. But you're reading this, so you can't be all bad. So, for you, it's like a Vulcan and a Romulan holding hands in the holodeck.

Back to work now as reality has roared back full force. I guess in the end it is rain that makes sun so sweet and work that makes play so necessary. Whatever lies in the future, this last week will truly be a blessing and a fondly enduring memory for us all.

Life's Lessons

I like to think I learn something every day I am on earth in this body. One of my many -isms is that if you stop learning, or wanting to learn, there is no reason to be here... or anywhere. I typically pride myself on not having to be beaten about the head and neck with a lesson in order to "get it". I usually "get it" pretty quickly.

This morning, I found out an old friend from High School, Mike Mello, passed suddenly a few days ago. I don't know how, I will never know why, (it's not for me to know), but I know I missed an opportunity. And it's not the first time.

I looked Mike up on Facebook about a year ago. He flashed back into my memory for one reason or another. He was a tall guy with a broad smile. He exuded warmth. He was kind. He was a talented performer and as an upper-classman, he was a mentor to me. We were in Madrigal choir together for one year in 1991-1992. We were a true madrigal group, singing only renaissance music in the proper style, always with an eye on accuracy to the music and the times. We performed a lot during Christmas. We dressed in period costumes and looked ridiculous. Remind me to tell you the story of getting stuck in a ditch on my way to a winter concert in full regalia and the good ol' boys who stopped to help pull me out.

And we got laughed at. We were the Glee kids. It built character and it didn't hurt that we were good. We were very, very good. I wouldn't trade my time in that choir for any other time in my life. It was, one of very few bright spots in the four years of blight and darkness with which I regard my high school days.

When Mike graduated, he gave me his costume. He said he wanted me to have it. I still remember the moment in the robe room at the end of the year. It wasn't off-handed. He turned to me, got real close, (he was a about a foot taller than me, or so it seemed), and held it out to me. He wanted me to have it. He presented it to me, with that trademark wide smile. I remember that moment with such warmth, like I am being hugged. I gladly accepted and wore it with pride. I then bequeathed it on to someone upon my graduation. For all I know, it is still in use, today. The wearer may or may not know the great provenance that comes with that costume. If someone is wearing it, I hope that Mike's kindness and indefatigable spirit somehow comes through.

I had a dream about that moment in the middle of a mostly sleepless night and again filed it away in my box of mental resolutions that I would have to look Mike up. He lived at the time, according to his Facebook profile in Ferndale, MI. He was in a relationship with another man. Ferndale is where I essentially lived with my besties Greg and Dave for almost three years while commuting to the east side of the state. The gay community in Ferndale is pretty close. I never even asked Dave and Greg whether they knew mike. I put the information in my hat, and I decided I would get to it later.

After shoveling snow this morning, I came in to have my hot coffee and Facebook time. I saw some pictures of him, smiling. I didn't see that next to them said RIP Mikee. It was one of those moments where time ceases and consciousness struggles with reality. I was alone in the room and still verbally said, "Oh, no. No. Oh, no." I seldom speak unless there is someone there to hear me. This time, it didn't matter. I couldn't stop myself.

So, here it is later. And it turns out later is too late. I never even "friended" him on Facebook. I guess maybe I was afraid he wouldn't remember me. I have a complex about that. He was after all, Mike Mello! The Mike Mello. I was just,well, me. Why would he remember?

Another time in my life I missed an opportunity to connect with someone. We had a friend in New Jersey whose mother, I was told, I would simply love. I had to meet her, I was told. I had the chance one snowy night during Christmastime when we picked up our friend to go out to dinner. A barbecue place. Em encouraged me to come in and meet this woman who I was told I would just love. I was crusty that night. I remember being in a bad mood. Next time, I said. Next time.

She slipped in a pool on vacation in Mexico and died of massive swelling of the brain three months later. It was right before my 30th birthday. Em had solicited people to write me notes to put into a memory book for me to have. Her letter to me was in there. It read something like, can't wait to meet you. Of course that would not happen, as I had attended her funeral the day before. Hearing the stories about her, I felt an overwhelming sense of loss of someone I never even met. I surely would have been blessed to meet her. If even just the once.

So, I am feeling beaten, shaken and stirred. Mike was a genuinely good guy and I really am sorry I didn't take my valuable time to reach out. Even if he didn't remember me, we would have been friends again in adulthood.

Now, I am only a mourner. Along with dozens, and I am sure hundreds of other people privileged enough to have known Mike Mello. January 1973-December 2012. Goodbye, Mike. See you on the other side.