Cat Food

I grew up never having really any pets of note save for the occasional gold fish. When I began dating my wife years ago, that was when I was really introduced to the whole concept of having an animal living in your home with you. Fast forward 11 years and now we have 2 cats which I couldn't imagine living without.

The chores associated with pets though have been a challenge for me to embrace. I wont clip cat nails or brush them and I certainly wont change a litter box. Ick! I do however feed them and change their water, though it took me years to lend a hand here. Mostly because of the smell. I used to find it just wretched! The poor cats would pace in front of empty bowls looking up at me longingly to keep them from starving to death and I would just walk away leaving them to wait for my wife to notice.

Somewhere along the way as i began to really accept and become quite fond of our cats, I caught myself helping out with the little things, eventually working my way upto feeding. Maybe it was a sign or something, but one day as I went to open the cat food bag (a task that I would otherwise hold my breath for until complete)suddenly smelled like french fries. I love french fries. The cats need not fear that I might eat their food, but at least they dont have to worry about starving anymore.

Sea Bounty

Everytime I've been back to Greece over the last say 10 years, I have had a thought - really more of a regret - about a certain device that would make my Greece experience that much more "rewarding". The device that I am referring to is a metal detector.

I've spent a fair amount of time at American beaches over the years in Florida, South Carolina and Virginia. One thing that is a common sight in the morning hours at these beaches is a middle-aged to elderly male with a metal detector wearing a set of large headphones and slowly pacing up and down the coastline scanning the ground for the telltale beeps and whirrs of sea bounty. Really it's more like careless tourist bounty, with these guys seemingly always coming away with anything from pocket change to jewelry, safety pins to watches, you name it. This is finders-keepers-losers-weepers in action.

Back to Greece. In all of my 30+ years of going back to the homeland and in all the miles and miles of beaches that I've dug my feet into, I have never once seen anyone with a metal detector! The apparent lack of loot detecting equipment has naturally lead me to daydreaming my way to all the riches I could potentially fall upon if I were resourceful enough to someday bring one over with me. I envision piles and piles of gold crosses, gold kombolois (worry beads), gold watches, millions in Euros (and likely in worthless Drachmas). It's enough to make a man go mad!

Well, that time is here. For my birthday this past May, my lovely wife bought me a sweet-ass metal detector! After all the years of me painting magnificent visions of the fortune we could amass with the help of a booty buddy, she made my dreams come true! I have yet to use it as I have been waiting to let it fulfill its destiny and my dreams all at once. So, this past Monday, I packaged it all up, took it to the local post office and sent it on its merry way to my cousin's house in Greece to await my arrival in a few weeks.

The only thing worrying me now is putting all my hopes of financial indepence in the hands of the Greek postal service. I need my komboloi!

Things that match

I thought I'd begin expounding a bit on an earlier post in which I listed things that I like. One might notice in that post that I seem to like neat, orderly and geometric things. With that in mind...

In the 80s there was an American show on television called Magnum PI, starring Tom Selleck. It was quite popular and had a fairly long run, spanning nearly the entire decade. I really liked that show (as I did most classics from producing geniuses Glen A. Larson and Stephen J. Cannell i.e. TJ Hooker, Simon & Simon, the A-Team & The Fall Guy), its characters and its overall premise.

I liked the nomadic yet charming nature of the lead protagonist, Thomas Sullivan Magnum IV, or Magnum as his friends called him. He lived as a caretaker of a rich man's Hawaiian estate, and was self-employed as a private investigator. He always was on some wild caper which seemed to regularly involve the chasing of a bad guy, some guns, driving fast in several kinds of vehicles, an unexpected plot twist, a love interest and a closing drink at Rick's beach side bar, where Magnum, Rick and TC would have a pina colada and some laughs when the mystery was solved.

One might call me delusional, but I used to seriously believe that my life would some day be very similar to Magnum's. The main difference was that being that I'm not fond of guns, I envisioned myself instead a Hawaiian mail carrier, rather than a private investigator. Might not seem quite as exciting, but fulfilling nonetheless. Mind you, I would expect to be a well paid mail carrier and would still require access to Mr. Higgins's Ferrari 308 for my personal business.

As I got older and realized that I would not in fact end up with this or any semblance of this lifestyle (being married, living far from anything vaguely tropical in nature and being neither an investigator nor a mail carrier), I still maintain(ed) a fantasy about 1 thing related to this show.

The fantasy of which I speak doesn't involve fast cars or fast women (although I like both of those too). What I always wanted (and would love to still some day have) is a van and matching helicopter. Just like the one that Rick and TC did their island hopping tours with. See, Magnum may have had a Ferrari and all the glory, but without Rick, TC and the use of their fabulously matched helicopter and VW Eurovan, he never would have been able to hunt down half of his villains.

Again, I'm a designer, not a PI, but the idea of rushing out of my estate and having a matching van and helicopter at my disposal, is permanently burned into my psyche. I do love things that match.