Yeah, life is good.
Carole heads off to work at night, and I have “Puddy” show up right at the door, just minutes after she leaves… like clockwork. It’s a nice feeling to have someone snuggle with me at night again.
Carole knows, and has no problem with it. Truth be told, she’s actually encouraging it.
“Puddy” is apparently a housecat that somebody no longer wanted (or lost). I can tell, because she’s still kinda fat, and relatively clean, even though she has no collar or tags. She shows up every night looking for something to eat.
Now that we no longer have dogs to eat our leftovers… Puddy and I have a great working relationship. She also boosts the kid’s spirits (If you recall, the kids were taken away, without even given a chance to say “goodbye” to them.), since we’re not legally allowed to have pets anymore.
Carole named her “Puddy Tat”. Original, no? This is the same person that named a black cat “Snowball” and an orange tabby “Dog” back in our N.Y.C. apartment when we first got married.
I’m trying really hard to be the tough guy here…. enforcing it in
everyone’s heads that we can’t keep Puddy as a pet.
The other night, the kids took her in because she was crying from the flashing lightning… I crashed after doing an all-nighter and going straight to work.
I was told Puddy spent the entire night sleeping on my chest.
So here’s the situation:
1) We can’t have pets…
2) I hate cats…
3) It’s EXTREMELY dangerous where we live. We spot bears crossing the road almost every day, looking for food for the upcoming winter (which is going to be a *BITCH*… you heard it here first!). We actually spotted a Bobcat on our property the other day, among other wild predators. Puddy won’t stand a chance out there alone. It’s just a matter of time before a wild animal either tears her to shreds, or gives her rabies.
4) You should see the kids’ eyes light up every time Puddy shows up. They go outside and play with him, try to sneak him in… then I have to be the bad guy and put her back out.
5) I’m probably more attached to this cat than I want to admit.
Pictures of Puddy coming soon… (’cause I like to torture myself that way.)
Eric Brooks
Musician, Programmer, Graphic Designer, Evil Clown - A thorn in the Internet's side since 1997 with no intention of stopping any time soon.
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As we drove into Candlewood Estates, several dozen homes were in various stages of construction. The future site of 1145 Timber Drive was already being excavated for its foundation. In between the framed structures of our future neighbors.
That pretty much clarified the mystery of who these two men are with the flashlights in my eyes. They weren’t Troopers or Sheriffs, they we’re Constables. But Jeez, at 10:00 on a Saturday night? This can’t be good.
You know, screw that "Best Of Times/Worst Of Times"-Dickens-crap, this year sucked moose dong… simple and plain. It was the worst year of our lives, full of despair & turmoil. 
Her business partner became the coward I always knew he was, he was getting away scott free, and leaving Carole holding the bag… he turned his back on her, blamed her every chance he got, and eventually wouldn’t even accept her phone calls from prison.
The holidays sucked. The children had no will to dress up for Halloween with their mommy in jail. I tried to make the most of it by carving their pumpkins with them, and having a makeshift halloween party with them at home.
I never stopped believing in Santa either. This time of year, there’s always a spirit of benevolence that falls on people. A change you can’t quite define, or even expect.
Hopefully they will share this secret with me, as I still struggle with the concept of hot dogs coming 10 in a pack and the buns only 8. My kids are really sick of me force-feeding 40 hotdogs down their throats at lunch time….
To read the Pennsylvanian version 
Tough call. In NYC, your odds of being carjacked at night are good. However, your odds of a deer coming out of nowhere, and causing you to crash into a tree, in the Poconos are even better.
With the exception of California, nowhere on the planet will you find hotter looking girls than New York City! Dressed to the hilt for their Manhattan jobs, sporting shorter skirts and tighter blouses every year… Sure, there’s plenty of good looking girls in the Poconos…. Unfortunately they’re all sixteen and under. So if you use the old “look at their mothers” test, you’ll come to the conclusion that they will hit 300 pounds and lose a few teeth by the time they’re of legal age (or move to NYC or Los Angeles to become models)…
This pains me to say (with my pretty-boy looks long gone with the 80′s), they have some damn good-looking guys out here! (I’m not gay or nothing, just calling it as I see it…) The mountain air also causes an unexplainable phenomenon that triggers a high level of testosterone. Giving these guys seemingly eternal youth and super-strength (Why, on earth, would I make this stuff up???). All over, you’ll find strikingly handsome, horny guys trying really hard to conceal the fact that they’re married to a walrus at home.
To survive in the Poconos, you have to be a crafty hustler, own your own business, or be a jack of all trades. The most fatal mistake a New Yorker can make, is to think they can keep their Manhattan job and live out here. If the 2-hour commute, or the dual-state taxes don’t get you, then the winter will. No one in your office will believe there’s 4 feet of snow in your driveway! And keep dreaming if you think you’ll get $17 an hour for an office job out here… On the plus side, the Poconos is the golden land of opportunity to start your own business…assuming you have enough start-up capital to survive your first year? The banks out here aren’t exactly friendly to entrepreneurs…hell, they let Jersey handle all the mortgages (and subsequent foreclosures)!
Unfortunately, country music also reigns supreme in the Poconos.
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served!
I couldn’t believe what I read in our local newspaper today. They printed a quote from a neighbor who asked one of the killers why he had all of those hardware supplies. Dylan Klebold’s only reply was “it’s for school”.
Your CyberPal holds the media 100% responsible for the recent terrorism!
At this point, my life was in full-blown self-destruct mode. With the death of my mother in May of that year, I was pretty much alone, with the exception of one cousin. For four years, I secretly resented her for being so ill and “handicapping” me from travelling and reaching for my dream. Now she’s gone, and despite all the times I remember praying with her & telling her I loved her…I still felt like she parted on bad terms. There were so many things I wanted to tell her. Self-pity & loneliness, gave birth to a deathwish.
The theme that year through early 1990 was sex, drugs, but no rock & roll. Recording & rehearsals were replaced by hanging out at strip clubs along Queens Boulevard. Money for studio time and even rent went toward cocaine and handing money to strippers; just so they would sit down, have a drink, and pretend they liked me.
I had dropped out of Ethereal Machine, and recorded a song called “The Day The Fire Died”…a tearjerker about two lovers who thought they’d be together forever…finally calling it quits. I played the rough mix at home and heard the words take on a new meaning…I was saying goodbye to the “other woman” in my life.
Toward the beginning of 1985, still convinced that CCM was the way to get my start, the church band felt time to “take it on the road”, we became known as “Distant Thunder”. Traveling with our pastor across New England and Canada, performing and raising money for the church; always under his watchful eye, and under his thumb. Our travels ended abruptly with my mother becoming a victim of a hit and run accident on her way to work in Bensonhurst, Brooklyn. Traveling became impossible as her condition was “touch & go” for several months. She passed away four years later.
1986-1987 in between gigs & clubs, I met up with a man who was starting an organization called CMU (Christian Musicians United), given my “Christian roots” I felt obligated to assist this man (you’ll notice, everytime I don’t give out a name, they eventually get trashed in this story?). With the advent of the rock group “Stryper”, he felt convinced the God was calling for a Christian Musical revolution. John was very leery of this guy, and of course, I was a blind fool, convinced that this guy would help if I made a return to CCM. We had just made our break from the church (which to this day we refer to as “The Cult”), and John felt it was more “Praise the Lord! Help me & I’ll stab you in the back” bullshit that we put up with not so long ago. This guy really could care less about any other form of music except Heavy Metal, so no help was coming from him with the style of music John & I were working on.
We put out a release in 1988 called “The Only Way To Rock”. Well, sort of “we”. Halfway through the production, John and his wife-to-be moved to California, and I was stuck in NY doing a really bad mix of this EP. I used this “screeching, Vince Neil-like” voice, imported lead guitarists. And tried to appease that CMU guy so it can be reviewed in his magazine (which I helped with typesetting & layouts). He spitefully sent it off to a critic who ridicules almost everything he gets. Surprisingly, the critic, was able to hear through the muddy bass, and overmodulating vocals, and actually see potential. However, the nice stuff is edited out of the magazine, and remarks like “a good producer should be on the top of this guy’s prayer list” stays in. Well this stab in the back was the last straw with CMU and Christian music in general.
In 1989, the word “MIDI” became an intricate part of our lives. Turned out I had a gift for punching buttons and getting technical. John (who had returned to NY armed with a lot of “I told you so’s”) and I no longer needed outside musicians to lay down tracks for my next demo…hell we had sax players, lead guitarists and percussionists in a box! However…. time was running out for me. I was giving it until I was 25 before I packed it in and quit the music business.
Clubs were nice, the girls were nice, the songs were nice.