Unplugged

It may work well for musicians, but it's difficult to blog on a computer with no electricity. Where I am in Costa Rica "power pauses" happen often, but not usually for too long. Last night, I just crashed rather than wait for the power to come back on. Here's last night's post this morning......
A coupla days ago an amigo brought me a picture of "HAMSTERS IN LOVE". I had seen this before on a funny photos site and had thought it was cute, although my affinity for hamsters is minimal at best. Years back, when the kids were young, we had a hamster. Naturally, it got out in the house. And disappeared. Every few days or so, he would pop up and thumb his nose at us. We never could figure out where he called home, but one day my son, Mark, caught him going into the hall closet. Our hall was actually a square cubicle that had doors opening into the living room, 3 bedrooms, the bathroom. And "The Hall Closet". "The Hall Closet" was seldom mentioned amongst the family. It was as if it didn't exist. Occasionally a side glance was given to "The Hall Closet" on the way to the bathroom. It contained unspeakables...ghosts of Christmas past. Pizza boxes preserved for antiquity. 3 string guitars. Tish, my daughter, was certain that the funeral home used "The Hall Closet" for storing left-over body parts. And it contained..."THE HAMSTER". Armed with a heavy-duty tennis racket, I dismantled "The Hall Closet" piece by piece, uncovering untold wonders....the bag of goodies I thought had been left at the Salvation Army last Christmas, the untouched fruitcake from last Christmas (untouched by even the hamster), the mates for the 92 unmatched socks I had finally gotten around to throwing away, and a small, well-defined black hole. Reaching the back corner, I arrived at my cherished collection of valuable old back issue Playboys. They were confetti. All those gorgeous playmates and bunnies reduced to teeny bits of worthless paper. In the midst of the carnage, the hamster was perched like a dragon in the crater of a volcano. I grabbed an extra thick towel and snatched him up. His devilish razor-sharp fangs sliced thru the towel like a machete through butter. I bled like old faithful. Mark coerced him into his cage while I called 911 for massive blood transfusions. Mark gave him an apple since he probably hadn't eaten in ages. He ate like he hadn't eaten in ages. He croaked an hour later from acute gluttony. So I don't like hamsters. But I painted this picture anyway.