My brothers are an important part of my life these days.
When I was two, my parents wanted to manufacture a baby sister for me (as if a female version of ME would have been a gift to the world). Instead, God blessed them (and damned ME) with three baby boys.
Triplets. Twelve days before my third birthday. Conceived, my father used to tell me proudly, on the same bed as I was (and the same bed I invited the Crazy Ex onto last summer. Irony unsettles my stomach).
Two of my three brothers are identical (this, for the curious among you, is the usual way of producing a triple-litter. Two eggs come out. One splits). They both live near my cottage and have flaming, yet receding (I must mention. If only because it indicates that I have SOME measure of genetic superiority over them) red hair. The third brother is a brick wall of a defensive lineman who picked up on the sarcasm lessons I taught him in the crib and has made it into an art form.
Last weekend I was my non-redheaded brother's Best Man. Unfortunately, his lovely bride failed to plan for the usual gift to the groom's helper: first crack at a quickie in the vestibule with the cutest single girl at the wedding. The only available female present was my Acadian cousin (who, it is to be admitted, has grown into a delicious young woman, but still. God would frown upon my impure thoughts), so I was stuck with a $200 tuxedo and no one to zip me out of it. At least partially.
(...is there another reason for wearing a bronze-vested, boutonnière-adorned penguin suit other than to attract vestibule fellatio ? What a gyp).
As for the other two brothers, they come to the island often to renovate the cottage and chill. This means that they met Gargy for the first time.
Now, the first encounter was nothing particularly newsworthy as both of my bros have gone through football hazing rituals and have therefore experienced being dry-humped by overeager, stinky males (our college team's initiation traditions involve bringing engineering students along. Long story). The fun began when we were demolishing our cottage (we have two. I live in the second one. The skanky one that hasn't had a resident since before my birth. Bugs are now my live-in, bloodsucking friends due to the multiple holes in the walls).
Brother #1, whom shall remain nameless because I KNOW he would sue me for libel and take my share of the inheritance should I even attempt to mention him, once had an ant problem in his house and has been scarred by the experience. As we were busting through the beams, he found an ant colony. He ran up to get my blowtorch (which I used to set up the plumbing in cottage #2) and started burning the insects with sadistic zeal (they pop like corn when burned :D). Brother #2, noticing that the little arthropods were jumping down in droves to avoid the flame, started showering paint thinner on the ground. Where flaming ants were falling*.
Gargy, who was on a leash on the worksite with me at the time, saw the idiocy coming before it happened and tore himself from my grasp before I saw what was going on. SO, basically, the moral of the story is that, as a general rule, my gargoyle is smarter, and has a more finely-honed sense of self-preservation, than my balding brothers. This is just infinitely depressing for me and my faith in my genes.
*True story. Not kidding. No one was burnt, but blows were close to being exchanged.
Friday, July 25, 2008
Friday, July 11, 2008
Gargy's Island
Yup. Life sure is different when you're living on an island.
First off, Gargy's been running around with branches up hus bum. Not being particularly taken up by his reptilian behaviour (zoology graduates give me the creeps. And herpetologists are the weird ones of the bunch) as long as the rope orders were filled, I didn't really care until hollow rodent carcasses started showing up around the cottage in large sticky puddles.
...branches attract squirrels. Slutty squirrels apparently. Oh jeez.
Now, before PETA members start inundating Google's blog site's servers with hatred spewed from the depths of cuddly-animal-loving idiocy, please note that squirrels, from what I have gathered, have acted as gargoyles' lubricious prey for millenia. Their elongated bodies fit perfectly with... oh, just send on your messages if I need to describe it.
(As for their fuzzy tails, they are the perfect gargoyle perineal stimulators. Yup. This isn't family material).
Anyways, I now spend my days sleeping, sending out CVs, catching up on my reading of The Economist (a left-wing eurocentric publication with a decidedly secularist bent which I read out of God-fearing curiosity. It is important to know the enemies of the Right) and generally pooping in an outhouse.
...the outhouse really makes the charm of the place. Those langourous, indolence-inducing urban shits are out when one's most sensitive areas are left open to the various insect stingers that can't wait to slurp up our very lifeblood. Go in, get out and, especially, get used to sticky britches.
In any case, I just burned off a bunch of wood from our childhood cottage, took a long swim (which helps with the stickiness) and grilled myself some supper. Oh, and I have a keg of microbrewed beer in a fridge my brothers lovingly modified. Life could definitely be worse.
First off, Gargy's been running around with branches up hus bum. Not being particularly taken up by his reptilian behaviour (zoology graduates give me the creeps. And herpetologists are the weird ones of the bunch) as long as the rope orders were filled, I didn't really care until hollow rodent carcasses started showing up around the cottage in large sticky puddles.
...branches attract squirrels. Slutty squirrels apparently. Oh jeez.
Now, before PETA members start inundating Google's blog site's servers with hatred spewed from the depths of cuddly-animal-loving idiocy, please note that squirrels, from what I have gathered, have acted as gargoyles' lubricious prey for millenia. Their elongated bodies fit perfectly with... oh, just send on your messages if I need to describe it.
(As for their fuzzy tails, they are the perfect gargoyle perineal stimulators. Yup. This isn't family material).
Anyways, I now spend my days sleeping, sending out CVs, catching up on my reading of The Economist (a left-wing eurocentric publication with a decidedly secularist bent which I read out of God-fearing curiosity. It is important to know the enemies of the Right) and generally pooping in an outhouse.
...the outhouse really makes the charm of the place. Those langourous, indolence-inducing urban shits are out when one's most sensitive areas are left open to the various insect stingers that can't wait to slurp up our very lifeblood. Go in, get out and, especially, get used to sticky britches.
In any case, I just burned off a bunch of wood from our childhood cottage, took a long swim (which helps with the stickiness) and grilled myself some supper. Oh, and I have a keg of microbrewed beer in a fridge my brothers lovingly modified. Life could definitely be worse.
Friday, July 4, 2008
Jobless
(Note: The Internet connection works almost well. I'll try to keep the stories coming).
Hi everyone. I'm writing for the first time in almost two months. I lost my job and have had to spend my days between a stinky rope-twisting gargoyle and a cat that, well, didn't make it. The gargoyle is in mourning and I've got a three-week-old beard (not to mention really pungent B.O. Unemployment takes its toll on one's sense of smell. Gargy's farts sort of finished mine off).
Where to start?
Annie is an acrobatic little beast. One day, I went out on my front balcony to get some sun and read Camus' L'Étranger for the fiftieth time and I happened to not notice that Annie had followed me out (I assume Gargy's aggressive affections got the better of her sense of self-preservation). She had already taken possession of my chair before I could notice her presence and, well, I heard a cool "crunch" when I sat down. She stumbled down, noticeably lame, and her yelps of agony attracted my other pet. There was then a confusing combination of Gargy running towards his wounded loved one, his getting to the end of an unflinching chain, held back at the neck (with his feet still going forward) and my reflexive kicking at a cat that had just startled me.
...Annie fell three stories vertically and the equivalent of fourteen stories horizontally. We can't know for certain who punted her over the guardrail (three feet hit her at the same time), but her mewls of horror before she hit the wrought-iron spiked gate at my neighbours across the street (a good ten buildings to the south of mine) were one heck of a lot more cathartic for me than they were for Gargy, so I'll take the credit.
As for the joblessness, my former employer - a large IT concern - found it difficult to find work for a computer-illiterate finance/marketing/management consultant. I've decided to spend the summer (and my redundancy package) at the cottage and to dump the single-guy stylish, quasi-babe-layered apartment. Luckily, the cottage is on an island in a large lake. This allows Gargy to roam free and hunt bugs within the 50-metre radius his new chain allows. We've had to make adaptations for the rope production - it's hard to find a bug-free rope-drying spot. Wet hemp seems to attract all sorts of invertebrates. We've found one though, we swear! (though if you order ropes from us that have uncooked escargots, please just assume it's a culinary bonus we're sending on). Anyhoo, as long as Gargy doesn't adopt a wolverine to replace Annie, all is good.
Hi everyone. I'm writing for the first time in almost two months. I lost my job and have had to spend my days between a stinky rope-twisting gargoyle and a cat that, well, didn't make it. The gargoyle is in mourning and I've got a three-week-old beard (not to mention really pungent B.O. Unemployment takes its toll on one's sense of smell. Gargy's farts sort of finished mine off).
Where to start?
Annie is an acrobatic little beast. One day, I went out on my front balcony to get some sun and read Camus' L'Étranger for the fiftieth time and I happened to not notice that Annie had followed me out (I assume Gargy's aggressive affections got the better of her sense of self-preservation). She had already taken possession of my chair before I could notice her presence and, well, I heard a cool "crunch" when I sat down. She stumbled down, noticeably lame, and her yelps of agony attracted my other pet. There was then a confusing combination of Gargy running towards his wounded loved one, his getting to the end of an unflinching chain, held back at the neck (with his feet still going forward) and my reflexive kicking at a cat that had just startled me.
...Annie fell three stories vertically and the equivalent of fourteen stories horizontally. We can't know for certain who punted her over the guardrail (three feet hit her at the same time), but her mewls of horror before she hit the wrought-iron spiked gate at my neighbours across the street (a good ten buildings to the south of mine) were one heck of a lot more cathartic for me than they were for Gargy, so I'll take the credit.
As for the joblessness, my former employer - a large IT concern - found it difficult to find work for a computer-illiterate finance/marketing/management consultant. I've decided to spend the summer (and my redundancy package) at the cottage and to dump the single-guy stylish, quasi-babe-layered apartment. Luckily, the cottage is on an island in a large lake. This allows Gargy to roam free and hunt bugs within the 50-metre radius his new chain allows. We've had to make adaptations for the rope production - it's hard to find a bug-free rope-drying spot. Wet hemp seems to attract all sorts of invertebrates. We've found one though, we swear! (though if you order ropes from us that have uncooked escargots, please just assume it's a culinary bonus we're sending on). Anyhoo, as long as Gargy doesn't adopt a wolverine to replace Annie, all is good.
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