Saturday night and I'm gassed

So I'm slow dancing by myself with a glass of red wine, I have Mel Torme cranked up to 11. All of a sudden I hear Mrs D.O.M. yelling, "that's a little loud, don't ya think"? First of all there is no such thing as too loud when your talkin about Mel Torme. Mel F-ing Torme people. Real man's music. Finger snappin, foot tappin, cigarette smokin, slap a dame across the face music.

Ernest Borgnine?

OK, I "Googled" nervous breakdown symptoms and have confirmed that I'm right in the middle of one. I'm pretty sure that I've had all of the symptoms at one time or another. I mean, is it normal to want to have someone shoot you out of a cannon straight at an oncoming bus. I need to get out into the forest with my animal and tree peeps. Curl up under an old Hemlock and spend a cold wintry night bedded down with a herd of deer. Skin a grizz maybe, or go on a three day drunk in Nantucket with Norm Abrahm, upon parting ways Norm would say "Watch your top knot", and I would say "Watch yourn". Just thinking about old Norm has put me a little more at ease. He's the "Ernest Borgnine" of woodworking. And I'm the "Ernest Borgnine" of ruggedly handsome Robert Redford look-a-likes.

Santa's on his way!

OK, I've got a nice goblet of "Il Bastardo" red wine(for the antioxidants)in front of me. I think "Il Bastardo" is French for "the crazy Gringo has a gun", because I do, many of them. And plenty of ammo. Now ga-head. Oh. Merry Christmas everyone. Mrs. D.O.M. gave me some kind of high tech Flip Video camera(gamera, remember him?). I'm thinking of taking it out to the manger(chicken shed) and and film my hens opening their gifts, and wait for Santa and The Baby Jesus out there.

Today's Damage

Me and the Keurig machine. We have a problem.

No Kids Last Night!

We've got 14 plus inches of "Global Warming" on the ground already and it's still "Global Warming" outside. I had to shovel a trail out to the chicken shed to give them fresh water and to retrieve 3 eggs for my breakfast. A typical D.O.M. breakfast consists of 3 fried eggs and bacon on Italian bread, with pumpkin cake for desert and coffee of course(my third cup today). The twins stayed over my Mom's last night and Taylor is down visiting her Dad, so Mrs. D.O.M. and I have had the place to ourselves. Without the kids around our lives kind of turn into a real life version of "Pulp Fiction". Right now she's hiding from me, and I don't blame her, because I am angry. She yelled at me for wanting to eat the whole pumpkin cake, and using all her kitchen sponges and for always leaving knives dangling off the edges of counter tops, and jumping up and down on the bed until it broke, and for buying a fedora and liking my hens more than her, and charging extremely expensive power tools at "Lowes" and never ever using them. Sorry, I don't really have any point today.



p.s. In this instance, "Pulp Fiction" means Chinese food, book store,toy store and a stupid Colin Firth movie.

Ice Storm

Big ice/freezing rain storm last night. Governor Lynch has declared a state of emergency.
I woke up with the thought of how lucky my family must be to actually have the D.O.M. living with them. I’m so glad to bring them so much comfort. I’m sure Superman’s family feels as they do. Anyway, I woke up and sprang into action. I packed my mouth with chocolate chip cookies (for energy) and headed out, into the madness, to get the generator and check on my hens. All my birch trees were bent over with the weight of the ice, the chickens greeted me like a returning war hero or some kind of drunken Viking looking for love. I grabbed the generator and dragged it across the yard to the side of the house. Then I went down to the basement and powered up the boiler and back fed the electric panel through the outlet on the boiler. So I got heat and a couple of lights to work that way. I couldn’t get the coffee maker going and I needed gas for the generator, so I needed to venture out and score. I felt kind of like Mad Max. I have no problem taking lives. I need gas and I need coffee and I WILL stab somebody. I need food too, it’s been a half an hour and the cookies have worn off. They say 300,000 homes are out of power, so when I hop in the truck I have no idea what craziness I’m going to encounter. Now I feel more like the Omega Man. I’m driving down the road and nothing is open, no people anywhere, except the un-dead (?) Eventually I found a Stop and Shop that was open. It even had a gas station. I filled up my gas cans (just like Mel Gibson) and went into the market. I really had no idea what I wanted (Mrs. D.O.M. went shopping yesterday, and when I called her from the store she said she didn’t need anything). While trying to find the bakery, I grabbed two big “things” of water, a pack of pre-sliced pepperoni, cream cheese, a box of Sponge Bob Band-Aids (impulse buy) and some stuff to fix my eye (I got something in it the day before). I found the bakery and got two huge coffees and a half dozen muffins. At the checkout line, the guy in front of me had like 50 cans of soup, tons of bread, water and all kinds of stuff one would buy in a situation like this. I looked at my stuff and felt kind of like a mental patient. My tune changed when I got out into the truck and started eating my sugar coated lemon poppy muffin. I thought to myself, “My family doesn’t need to know about the muffins.” I get home with the bounty and find Vicki buried under blankets on the couch. She didn’t budge from there until the power came back on, around 3pm. It’s not her fault, it must be some instinctual defense mechanism. Curl up in a ball, cover yourself with blankets and shout orders and complaints at the top of your lungs until the danger is gone. She actually made the girls put gloves on, in the house. It was 66 degrees and rising. Well, power is back on, for the moment anyway. Vick is happy. Kids are quiet. So all is well at World Manliness Headquarters.

Davey and Goliath meet the D.O.M.

As I sit here with crackling fire going (I "on demanded" it on the TV) I'm contemplating the consequences of a Davey and Goliath Christmas. The twins have fallen in love with Davey, so we have ordered every conceivable Davey and Goliath item out there. Reading books, coloring books,action figures, 4 DVDs. We even found Davey and Goliath punching bags. The Davey one is the kind that bounces back up after you sock him in the jaw. The Goliath one is kind of low, so I guess you just kick him, or break a chair over his back. Or stab it. Anyway, we can't wait to give them their goodies.

I'm Out in Public

I'm sitting here in Verde's art studio. It's "Holiday Open Studios" and there are lots of people passing thru. Some here, one would guess, to get a rare glimpse of The D.O.M. Stuart, a neighboring world renowned photographer just brought me some Madagascar Cognac, which upon drinking, burned a hole in my soul. I may be drunk. OK where was I? I'm the D.O.M. for Christ's sake, how's that for starters. Hope he comes back with more of this stuff. I think its made from the blood of Madagascaran orphans. Aged in a vanilla keg for a half a century. People are all around me looking at Vicki's art, I'm a little scared being around all these people. Vicki just left me alone with all these peeps. Where the f--- is the guy with the cognac? My chest hurts. The chief from "One Flew Over The Cuckoos Nest" just sauntered by the door. Is it me? My stupid wife just told me to stop pounding my fist on the table. That was awful she's not stupid, she's my sweety.

Saturday's Adventures with the D.O.M.

Lots to do today. I have a huge pile of broken central air conditioners that have to be torn apart,"limb from limb", I don't know why everything has to be followed by the phrase "limb from limb", maybe because I have the mind of a nine year old boy. Anyway, I need to tear them(like a savage)apart and put them in my recycling pile in the back of my workshop. Where they will rot, for all time. Then I need to do the final sanding of the drywall joints and possibly put a coat of primer on the wall. Verde wants me to put the Christmas(can I still say that?) lights up. Plus I want to do some drawing and also spend some time with my chickens, who I'm going to see right now, thanks for reminding me. See ya.

Just Thinking

So, lately I've been thinking about orangutans. Either fighting them or fighting like them. They must be incredibly strong, like Special Olympics strong. I imagine if you got one mad enough it would tear your arms and legs off. Quite the unorthodox fighting style, no punching or kicking, just a lot of tearing of the limbs and plenty of biting(of course). And screaming incoherently. And whipping your feces at innocent bystanders.