All in the Family

“Yeah,” quipped Liam, hardly cognizant of choosing his words before the tumbled from his mouth. “Long time no see.”

“Oh, so now you remember me? I knew you were full of shit, Liam. I knew it! Damn it, and now I’m payin’ the price for m . . .” but Liam stopped hearing the now constant and virulent stream of words erupting from his captive’s mouth. What was this guy talking about? What did he mean, now I remember him? Something tugged at the corner of Liam’s mind, an unsettled buzzing that evaporated with every attempt to bring it to consciousness, only to reconstitute again just past the fringes of his awareness.

Liam squinted away the confusion and raised the pistol he uncomfortably realized had fallen almost slack by his side. “Stupid stupid stupid! Stay focused here,” he thought to himself and he snarled and took a shuffle step towards the interloper in the chair. “Why don’t you just shut your mouth for a second. How ‘bout that, for old time’s sake?” And he pulled the hammer back with his thumb for emphasis.

“Sure, fine, whatev . . .” the stranger began again, seeming to gain steam with his mounting level of consciousness, but was swiftly clammed up as Liam lifted his pistol a few menacing inches. He splayed his hands up in a sign of contorted surrender from under the binding of the tape.

“Here’s how this is gonna work,” said Liam, now itching his temple with the dark muzzle of his borrowed piece. “I’ll ask you questions, you’ll answer. If I think you’re snowin’ me, you’ll get a matching set,” he finished, now gesturing with the pistol at the stranger’s duct taped forehead. The rumpled man grunted and rolled his eyes in resignation. “So first things first, champ. Who the hell are you.”

The man raised his eyebrows, questioning, until Liam waved him on with his free hand. “My name,” came the man’s low reply, “is Cwik. Ricky Cwick.” As the man began his response, Liam had began rifling through the small pile of the man’s possessions. He grabbed the wallet and flipped it open. The Nevada DL of Reginald Walker glowered back at him through yellowing plastic sleeve. Liam shook his head slowly, sneering as he stepped towards the chair and raised his gun.

“Wait!” yelped the prisoner, trying to maneuver his bound body away from the impending blow. Liam remained statuesque, pistol raised back over one shoulder ready to deliver a vicious blow. “Christ! You don’t think I carry my real ID around on me, do you? Walker’s my cover, I’m trying to be honest with you here, man.” Cwik ventured a quick look back up from his cowered position. “You really don’t remember me, do you Liam.”

“Remember you from where?!” erupted Liam, but as Cwik began to formulate his answer, Liam held up a finger. “One thing at a time. One thing at a time, Ricky. Who sent you after me?”

“Well that’s really two birds with one stone right there, Liam. You always were one for efficiency, weren’t you?” Cwik’s eye was crinkling into what appeared to be a grin, but the twinkle only managed to come out menacing in Liam’s estimation.

“So?” demanded Liam, pistol now back at the level, unwavering.

Cwik sighed and dropped his chin towards his chest, then brought his eyes back to meet Liam’s squarely. “Your father sent me here, Liam. Your father sent me to find you after what happened last April, and that’s how you know me. I’ve worked for your father and his family for 27 years.”

The buzz in the back of Liam’s mind got louder, but it was soon drowned out by a loud thud against the door to the suite. The door must have been sturdier than it looked to turn back the first assault, but the frame creaked and Liam saw the wall next to it shudder as a second blow was landed. It was evident the door would not hold long.

“Well,” said Cwik brightly, now apparently fully recovered from his stunning blow earlier. “They didn’t take long to show, did they? For all your efficiency, Liam, you do get bogged down in the details from time to time.”

Blood singing again in his ears, wild eyed, Liam scanned the small room and its contents past the barrel of his pistol. There weren’t many options.

Liam should now:

A) Attempt to barricade the door with furniture

B) Cut Cwik loose and attempt to use him as a hostage

C) Gag and hood Cwik, using him as ambush bait

D) Kill Cwik and use his body as a human shield while trying to escape through the unknown assailants.

Get Learnt

I have earned a meager income for the last two years of my life working for a tutoring centre that tries to fill in the gaps left by our state's education system. I see lots of kids who don't understand the reading strategies employed by their teachers, kids who have yet to learn their math facts by 10^th grade and kids that can't sit still for more than 83 seconds without climbing the walls and swinging from the ceiling. Some of my closest friends and my mother are also in the educational system, so when my professor recently assigned an article for my practicum cohort based on a lecture by a psychologist named Rudolph Dreikurs, I was extremely impressed by what he had to say. It has certainly given me material to think about as I tutor and work as a therapist. Here is the link to the full article, and below are some of the more exacting excerpts.

First Dreikurs lays some groundwork:

I have found many, many people who try so hard to be good. But I have failed yet to see that they have done so for the welfare of others. What I find behind these people who try to be so good is concern with their own prestige. They are good for the benefit of their own self-evaluation. Anybody who is really concerned with the welfare of others won't have any time or interest to be concerned with the question of how good he is.

There is only one area where we still can feel safely superior: When we are right. It is a new snobbishism of intellectuals: "I know more, therefore, you are stupid and I am superior to you." It is superiority of the moralists: "I am better than you; therefore, I am superior to you." And it is in this competitive strife to establish a moral and intellectual superiority that making a mistake became so dangerous again because, "If you find out that I am wrong, how can I look down at you? And if I can't look down at you, you certainly will look down at me."

And then he gets to the crux of his article . . .

I feel that in the majority of tests given to students the final mark does not depend on how many brilliant things he said and did, but how many mistakes he made. And if he made a mistake he can't get a hundred regardless of how much he has contributed on other parts of the same assignment. Mistakes determine the value. In this way, we unwittingly add to the already tremendous discouragement of our children.

It seems to me that our children are exposed to a sequence of discouraging experiences, both at home and in school. Everybody points out what they did do wrong and what they could do wrong. We deprive the children of the only experience which really can promote growth and development; experience of their own strengths. We impress them with their deficiencies, with their smallness, with their limitations; and at the same time try to drive them on to be much more than they can be. If we want to institute in children the enthusiasm which they need to accomplish something, the faith in themselves, regard for their own strengths; then we have to minimize the mistakes they are making, and emphasize all the good things, not which they could do, but which they do do.

It's Back

I'm bringing it back, and this time I've got backup. One of the better shows on network TV starts up again October 5th, let's hope their sophomore efforts match their debut.

Magic Brownies

It’s common knowlege that chocolate is not good for dogs, so naturally my wife and I were concerned when we discovered my 11 lb. Jack Russell Terrier ate 12 brownies. It took us a while to put the story together, piecing together the clues. About 6pm, we noticed her little pink belly was taunt and distended. She refused dinner. She licked her lips a lot. We were pretty sure she’d gotten into something, but the list of what it could be was extensive; it wasn’t until dessert time that we discovered the batch of brownies had turned up missing. Quelle méchante.

Reba lounged around the apartment for the rest of the evening, legs pushed slightly askew by her bulging belly. So far we hadn’t seen the brownies make a reappearance. When we put her to bed around midnight, Reba yowled and cried in her crate. Fearing that she might detonate a shitstorm of explosive diarrhea and vomit if we kept her confined all night, I was moved by compassion and a desire to not clean up the mess. “Let’s just leave her out tonight, babe,” I said. “If she tries to get up on the bed, we’ll just push her off, it shouldn’t be a big deal.” And it wasn’t. Until about 5am.

Consulting the internet about chocolate consumption in dogs the next morning, we discovered that . . . “As time passes and there's increased absorption of the toxic substance, you'll see an increase in the dog's heart rate, which can cause arrhythmia, restlessness, hyperactivity, muscle twitching, increased urination or excessive panting.” That would explain the manic rampage around our apartment from the hours of 5-8:30am. After the fourth strait lap through our apartment, jumping on and over every piece of furniture we own barking like Bill Cower on Crank, I finally got out of bed and groggily held one end of a rope with Reba spasmodically clamped onto the other. 150 minutes later, she seemed to have taken a slight edge off. She has since been fed a mild laxative, squeezed out several piles of a gooey tar-like substance, and calmed down substantially though her small belly still shows signs of distention. While I am sure that chocolate consumption poses a serious physiological threat to my dog’s life, it’s nothing compared to the carnage which will be visited upon her if she pulls off a repeat performance tonight. Oh, and check out my nasty ankle!

1. This morning about 6h30 during a brief respite from Reba's rampage




2. 10h30 tonight, after working on the car all afternoon




3. Some context

A Time to Laugh, a Time to Cry

I cried last night. I can’t say that it’s an unheard of occurrence; I remember one time particularly from my childhood when I had fallen off a ladder. It was the first time I had the wind knocked out of me. Sprawled on the ground in Osh Kosh B'Goshes and deck shoes, a fish out of water, the most terrifying part of the experience was trying to cry from the pain and finding the agency to do so had left with the forceful expulsion of air from my lungs. It wasn’t until they had time to reboot that I was able to give voice to my panic and pain. And voice it I did, clinging to my mother like a frantic baby rhesus as she patiently carried me back inside and smoothed my hair, accepting without question or protest the large damp spot on her Easter blouse where I buried my face .

It’s been a long three weeks for me since the beginning of my semester. Early mornings and later nights have taken their toll, so it would seem, on my psyche. I have doubled my client load at my first placement. I have helped a husband commit his wife of 35 years to a mental institution. I have stumbled upon the startling possibility that the reason I think my therapist is full of shit may in fact be because I think I am full of shit most the time I’m doing therapy. I have played 10 games of softball in two days. I have started academic work after a summer of solely clinical exercises. And last night after a particularly nasty sprained ankle in a fútbol match my team narrowly lost, the weight of this reality got to be a bit much for me. As I sat on the couch in the intermediary period before the ibuprofen took hold, frozen peas tied in place by my socks, the throbbing in my ankle kept time with the repeating third person replay of me landing awkwardly while trying to avoid the prostrate player. I make a small hop over a leg, take a stab at the ball, connecting tissues sue for breach of contract and the whole thing starts over again. Morgan’s face makes an appearance in my reverie: “They didn’t score, did they?” I ask, still clasping my lower calf with both hands and grimacing. He smiles a wry smile and cocks his head while he pats mine.

My tears were Pringles, impossible to stop after just one. This time it was my wife’s sweaty soccer jersey that absorbed my tears as she held me and smoothed my hair. I’m not embarrassed that I cried, in fact I’m glad that I did. It’s started me thinking: in a world rife with suffering and pain and hurt and sorrow as well as joy, celebration and ecstasy why do we laugh so much more than we cry? Or is that just me?

Seeing Double

I actually think that Carrie has done well in the Country market, so this isn't a slam on her. This song has been bugging me for a while, though, and I thought I'd feed it to the wolves to see what yall think. Click on the video and move ahead to :40 and/or read the chorus provided below. Woman power, right? Female empowerment? Three snaps in a 'Z', etc, etc. Now switch the gender pronouns and ask Quaadir Brown if the tune sounds familiar . . .

That I dug my key into the side of his pretty little souped up 4 wheel drive,
carved my name into his leather seats,
I took a Louisville slugger to both headlights,
slashed a hole in all 4 tires...

Maybe next time he'll think before he cheats.