Author: Smithee

Megabozo [harold@haroldsroom.net]

Terry:

I’m sorry. You asked for ideas to keep the cats from entering yards and areas where they are not wanted. I had already written my previous note and was just editing it before I sent it and forgot to add this. My mind is in a bit of turmoil this morning. You are already aware that I ordered the squirt bottles that work very well at repelling cats, dogs, raccoons and squirrels, and that I intend to give one each to Phyllis and Betty with two in reserve for the future. I have also ordered stainless steel referee/emergency whistles as these will scare the hell out of any animal not familiar with them, or a burglar for that matter, and they can be used to call for help in case of an accident or emergency as per Phyllis’s incident when she fell and could not get up or attract attention. I likewise intend to provide these to my neighbors. After the animals experience a few shots from the water bottles and a few blasts on the whistles I do not believe they will intentionally enter the areas where they encounter these again.

Terry

E-mails from this morning:

Oak Hill Woods Board [oakhillwoods@yahoo.com]

Greetings and salutations, all. I won’t go into great detail here. I will simply copy an e-mail I received, and my reply. I will stress that I have no problem with the HOA. They are simply doing their job. My problem lies with the pettiness of others. If I get the chance I may comment more later. The e-mails are as follow:

Harold is doing famously. He and the cats have a mutual respect, and I will kick their butts if they mess with him, or rather shoot them with the water bottle. They know that, but they do love to watch him sometimes, with no hostile intent. They get intrigued when he eats or bathes. Then they drink the water out of his “hot tub.” Not I. I know what is likely in there. Regarding his diet, I am very pleased and do not see him getting any meal worms in the near future. The cherry on top of this cake is a banana. I have known Harold for six years, and he has never even tasted banana before when offered. Today he ate a sizeable chunk off of a one inch piece, and after he took his swim he came back in and finished it off, along with some watermelon and a taste of a piece of nectarine. Nope. As long as this keeps up there will be no occurrence of “sauages” magically appearing in his bowl. I am not going to ruin a good thing. Gotta run now. I have a date with a paddle.

As promised, here is the highly stressed and agitated Harold clambering madly to get out of his horribly confining pool. I didn’t look for the old pictures. This is from five minutes ago. Please disregard the small package floating in the end. Harold asked me to request that. “Pay no attention to the man behind the (shower) curtain,” he said. I expect there will be more of those floaters shortly.

Harold is settling back in nicely. He has approved the current design of his compound, is greatly enjoying his music, and his appetite is first rate (he loves Memoirs Of A Geisha while lounging in his tub and dining). He used to be addicted to his sausages and toast (meal worms and stone ground wheat bread), but since he got back he has had tomato, a wee bit of “toast,” boiled egg white, boiled chicken, tuna in spring water, and a bit of blueberry. He has never cared for grapes. The other turtles love them. I am thinking he may not get any “sausages” for quite a while. I much prefer that his diet be as varied as possible. I intend to give him some earthworms soon, which he disdained after getting hooked on the “sausages.” “What??? Eat THOSE? They’re slimy and gritty!” He and the cats are getting along great. The only thing I worry about with them is that they will steal his tuna and chicken if he doesn’t eat it right away. They’ll suck it right down because his portions are only about the size of my pinky nail. Well, I guess it will serve him right. At any rate, I’ll be back to keep you up to date. Photos of his horrible life at home follow. I’m sorry I didn’t take one while he was wading and lounging in his big pool (MY TUB) yesterday. I will rectify that soon, I promise. I’ll look in my files because I know there are some in there. You’ll have to see it to believe it.

                                                                        THE END!

https://youtu.be/n3HxXpU6jHg

 

Ruby woke me this morning, a Sunday, shortly after six, and at six-thirty she told me to get my tail up. I felt that I really needed to do so, even though it was Sunday, and I did. I went into my usual routine, so first to the bathroom I went to clean and refill my pipe, and take care of “essential bidness.” Stripey Cat has taken to lolling in my bathroom doorway, rolling on her back, looking at me upside down and acting generally goofy. She loves to mess with me, but still won’t let me touch her. The other cats all wandered in, one after the other, all wanting a few pets, and wanting to know when I’d be done and would get on to the most important part of my morning routine: breakfast for kitties. I gave my pipe a last puff, finished my “bidness” and headed for the kitchen with Stripey Cat bouncing and skipping in front of me. I got the coffee started, went to the pantry and grabbed a can of flaked chicken in gravy, put it on the counter with the blue plastic stirring spoon, went to the sunroom and put three scoops of kibble in the clear plastic feeding pan, and then headed back to the kitchen with six cats in tow. I set the pan down by the chicken in gravy, grabbed the can and popped the lid. Immediately my three assistant chefs were on the counter: Pretty Face, Tiny Terry and Jackson. They waited semi-patiently as I scooped the goodies out of the can onto the kibble, then each snatched a sample bite to make sure it was okay. Stripey Cat had joined us by then, supervising from the bar, to which she gained access via bar stool as Jackson had taught her. The other two can make the jump from the floor. I started spinning the pan and pushing spoonfuls of kibble on top of the goodies to keep the boys from testing any more, and then started to scoop and mix all the while spinning the pan. When satisfied I laid the spoon on the counter and reached for the pan. Stripey Cat spun and left the bar as I picked it up. I said, “Let’s go girls.” Bootsie and Shy, who were at my feet, immediately trotted around the end of the counter in front of me, and I watched the three ladies haul ass for the sunroom. I heard three thuds behind me and knew the boys were off of the counter and on the way. I set the bowl down, and as they began to eat I grabbed their water/milk bowl and went back to the kitchen to clean and refill both sections of that. Next I went out for Lisa’s paper, then filled my coffee cup, retired to the sunroom and woke up my computer and the sound system. My initial morning tasks were completed.

I sat there for a few moments sipping my coffee and puffing on my pipe, and then I decided it was cool enough to open the door for a while, so I rose from my chair, went to the door and slid it wide. I stood there looking out into the woods, and then down toward my neighbors’ house to my left. Out of the corner of my right eye I noticed a brown lump with yellow patterns in the grass at the edge of the woods between our houses. I turned. A turtle was watching me. I remembered that I had left some sliced tomato on the counter that I intended to put out for the turtles, so I went to the kitchen and retrieved it. I very calmly and smoothly walked out hoping I wouldn’t startle the turtle, placed the paper plate on the ground near the waterhole, then turned and went straight back to the house sat down and started watching. He continued to sit right where I first saw him, head up, looking toward the plate. He and I sat watching for a very long while: he the plate, I him. The cats were finishing up their breakfast, and Shy came to the door to join me, but when she saw the turtle she walked out and over to him to take a better look. The cats don’t bother turtles. They were used to Harold being in the sunroom when they were tiny, and had seen turtles in the feeding area all summer after Harold left, so they are very, very familiar with them. They do like to look at them though, and as the others finished they went out on the patio, sat down and watched their sister inspect her find. The turtle drew his limbs and head partially into his shell, but sat there looking right back at Shy. Once her curiosity was satisfied she meandered off into the woods and went to the scratching tree. The others followed her into the woods, and the turtle was forgotten as they began to chase each other round and about and up the trees and the cat and squirrel gym. The turtle extended his legs and head and resumed his previous watching position, still rooted to the spot in which I had first seen him. He stayed there for a long, long time, maybe thirty minutes or so, looking at the plate with the tomatoes, then he came forward about ten feet and stopped again. He sat there for a while, and then he started moving again, angling toward the undergrowth at the edge of the woods in the feeding area underneath and around the birdbath. He disappeared into the foliage, and I watched his progress towards the plate by watching the plants shake. Then I saw his head poke out from between the leaves, and he sat still again for at least ten minutes just looking around to make sure the coast was clear. He finally emerged, went to the plate, pulled a slice of tomato off and began to munch.

I thought he might be “The Watcher,” a regular who comes often and is very familiar with me and my habits. He positioned himself beyond the plate directly facing the patio door as he worked on the slice of tomato, never letting his eyes leave it for more than a few seconds. I sat very still so as not to cause him to bolt for the bushes. He took his time, biting and chomping and looking up at the door. He finally finished his slice and turned to face the watering hole, then headed toward it. He ambled up to it, then slid slightly down the edge, leaned down and began to drink. Again he took his time, slowly sucking water, raising his head to look at the door, then down for more water.

It appeared he was finished and was starting to turn away when he slipped, and into the tiny pond he went. I just laughed. Turtles bathe in it all the time, but they seldom fall in. Once in, he decided to stay for a while. He paddled around a bit, then turned to face the door again and sat there and soaked. As is evident I had snapped a few pics, and I grabbed my phone again and went out to the edge of the patio. Usually when they see me coming turtles leave the tiny pond quickly, but he just sat there and watched me as I took photos of him.

I said to him, “I’m not coming out there. You’re good.” He remained still. I turned and came back into the sunroom and returned to my chair. He stayed in the pond and began to paddle around again. At this point I heard a noise in the kitchen. Lisa was up and pouring her coffee. “Lisa,” I said, “if you come right now you can see a turtle in the pond.” She had not yet seen any of our shelled friends this year. This was only the second I had seen so far. “Hurry,” I said, ‘or you’re going to miss him.”

“A turtle!” she said. “I’m coming! I’m coming!” She grabbed her coffee cup, joined me in the sunroom and slid into her chair. “How long has he been here?”

“About an hour now,” I replied. “He already met the cats, ate a slice of tomato, got a drink and fell into the pond. He’s been paddling around in there for a while. I was afraid he might be about finished and would leave before you got to see him.”

“He’s pretty,” she replied. “He kind of looks like Harold.”

“Yes he does,” I answered, “but his coloring is a little darker I think. Harold’s is a lighter yellow. His is more orange.”

We sipped our coffee and continued to watch him. After a few minutes he began to scrabble his way out of the pond, bracing his front feet on the edge and heaving upward. He hung there for a bit kicking forward with his rear legs trying to gain a foothold.

“I was going to check him after he was done with his bath,” I replied.

That’s something I usually do when I see turtles in the feeding area. When they are finished I go out, pick them up and look them over to be sure they aren’t injured, and to see if I recognize them, or, if not, to get a good look at their coloring and patterns so I’ll recognize them next time. I rose from my seat and out to the pond I went. I picked him up. He drew back into his shell a bit, but did not pull all of the way in and close tightly. Instead he curled his armored forearms and peered at me from between them. “He sure looks like Harold,” Lisa said.

I flipped him over to check his plastron. “No,” I said. “His belly is darker than Harold’s…” It was then I saw the crack in his plastron, angling from the center of the hinge to the left front edge where two of his toenails showed through the crack. My jaw dropped. “Oh my God!” I said. “Oh my God.”

“What is it?” Lisa asked. “Is he hurt?”

“Lisa. I think it is Harold. I’m almost positive it’s Harold.”

“No! You’re kidding! It’s Harold?!”

I turned him upright. As I did he extended his head and looked me dead in the eye. With his head fully exposed I could see the asymmetrical patterns, the telltale sign. All of the turtles who live around us have symmetrical patterns. All of them. If you have read the first chapter of Harold’s Room you know that Harold is not a Hoosier and was rescued over two hours away from where we live, and his pattern really has no pattern. It is more like random splatters from a piece of modern art. “LISA! IT’S HIM! IT’S HAROLD!”

“Oh my God! Oh my God! Let me see! Let me see!” Out the door she came. She looked at him. He turned his head and looked at her. She reached out and touched one of his front legs, both of which were now dangling. He did not flinch. He did not retract. He just looked at her. “HAROLD! You’re home!”

The three of us came into the house. I sat him on the floor, and instead of running for the door as most turtles do, he began to wander around. He headed for the lower windows over by the speaker system, then turned and looked at me. “Daddy,” Lisa said, “I think your boy wants some music.” I had not started the music yet because Lisa was still asleep, but now I obliged.

“I think we’ll start with some nice, quiet morning music,” I said. “Let’s see if he likes Buckethead. He’s never heard Bucket. Hmmm. Should we go with Rooms Of Illusions, or A Real Diamond In The Rough? Harold likes it rough, so I think we’ll go with that.” I started the album, and, just as if he had never left, Harold moved over to the window about eighteen inches from the Jellyfish speaker, settled in, and he began to listen. He likes Buckethead.

“Well,” I said, “now I wonder if he came back because he missed us, or because he missed his music?”

“A little of both I expect,” Lisa replied.

“I hope so,” I answered. After Buckethead was over I played his favorite song for him. Midway through it he moved closer to the speaker system. When it was over he looked at me. He has done that many times before, so I knew what it meant. I restarted the song, louder. His head came all of the way out, completely extended with his nose pointed upward. This is what I refer to as his listening position, what he does when he hears something he really, really likes. This song he really, really likes. It ended. He looked at me again. “One more time, Buddy. One more time. Lisa, we’re going to turn it way up now. He really wants to hear it. Is that okay?”

“Anything he wants. Today Harold can have anything he wants,” she said. And so, once again, Don Henley began belting out Everything Is Different Now, for the third time. We like that song too. It is on our wedding disc.

The rest of the day has been spent retrieving his turtle hut, food and water bowls, and his “hot tub” from the garage, cleaning, rearranging the plant tables, re-establishing Harold’s Enclave, and listening to music with Harold. Our Prodigal Son has returned. Harold is home. Instead of referring to it as the sunroom as we have for the past several months, we can once again say with all honesty, “We are sitting in Harold’s Room.”

Hi ya’ll! Sorry it has been so long, again. I have just been fighting off some of my own demons. Cabin fever I suppose it is, since winter keeps coming and going and seems interminably long this year. These little glimpses of spring just make it worse, like a false sense of hope. One saving grace is the water came up in the gully behind the house again, and Tuesday afternoon it warmed up outside to the point it was comfortable in my flannel shirt and insulated shirt jacket. I couldn’t stand it, so down the hill I went with my dry bag full of goodies, my lifejacket and my paddles. Then down again with the new yellow boat, The Alan Smithee, perched on my head. It was delightful. You have to dodge and maneuver between quite a lot of floating and stationary logs and such, but it is well worth the effort, and now I have paddled the gully on the creek floodwaters in February, early April, and last year’s infamous trip and log perching episode on May 2nd. Definitely all firsts. I guess if global warming continues it is possible I may get to do it again, not that I want global warming to continue to mess up our weather patterns just so I can launch behind the house. That would be somewhat selfish and lazy. I surely do wish we had gotten that house over on the creek bank. I sincerely hope the two gay gentlemen who beat us to it are very happy there, but boy do I wish we had gotten that creek access. If I hadn’t mentioned it before, Lisa had the lot reserved when I met her and was trying to sell the old house on Harmony Way. Unfortunately the housing market was not very strong the end of 2006 and in 2007, so her claim on the lot expired. By the time we moved here in 2012 the people who got that lot and built the house had put it up for sale, but the aforementioned couple had already made an offer. This house was the alternate, and the sunroom facing the wooded gully was what sold us: the room in which I am currently seated, while Tiny Terry sleeps in Lisa’s chair. My computer stays out here except in the coldest weather when the temperature in the sunroom drops into the fifties at night and takes hours to warm up in the morning, especially on cloudy days, of which we have more than our fair share here in the Ohio River Gulch (nee Valley) in the winter: gray, soggy and cold.

On another note, I was recently fingerprinted for the first time in my life. I had so far avoided that (WAHAHA!), but I filed my application for a lifetime concealed weapon carry permit last week. I have owned my .25 caliber stainless steel semi-automatic pocket pistol for quite some time, since the mid-seventies in fact. I purchased it shortly after a break-in at our house on Jefferson two blocks off of Haynie’s Corner. I kept it under my mattress by my head until Fran, my first wife, and Sean and I moved to Gentryville in 1980. Our friends Barry and Kim helped us move everything in one night, including three dogs and five cats. I don’t remember how many trips we made that night in the old ’77 Dodge 3/4 ton van. I just remember it was a bunch, and it was right around an hour trip to, and from. But I digress. I have never felt it necessary to carry a weapon, other than occasionally considering taking my .22 lever action Marlin rifle when we canoe. So far I had not taken it even though I held a current Indiana hunting license. Now, though, circumstances have changed. Clark and I like to canoe late in the afternoon and on into evening so we can watch the sun go down over the water, and quite often we stay until long after sundown: sometimes until after midnight if the moon is full. We are the last off of the water, and if no one is catfishing we are often the only ones there. Last year one of the rangers told us about a couple of incidents that occurred at Blue Grass late in the evening, and one in particular in which a suspected sex offender was held at gunpoint until the police arrived by a Good Samaritan who had offered a ride to a young lady who was walking down the road late at night. She said she had escaped the man’s vehicle after advances were made to which she had not consented, nor which were welcome on a “first date.”  At that point the man arrived and confronted the Good Samaritan. Unfortunately for the man, the Good Samaritan had a carry permit, and requested that the man find a comfy seat on the ground while the young lady called 911. This disturbed me. If Clark and I should find unwelcome company in the parking lot some night when we pull off the lake, better safe than sorry I say.

 

So, there you go. All the news that’s fit to print: Two trips on the floodwaters this year, and I have become concerned enough about the current state of society that I have applied for my first carry permit. I think of all of those trips in the past when we went hiking, canoeing, camping, and we never worried about such things. A machete was enough. But now? I refuse to take the chance. I’m old. I’m not gonna put up with it.

https://youtu.be/pUn5PiRgkLE

Hello all. Just sitting here listening to Buckethead. I have been posting the Buckethead Pikes in order on Twitter, along with some of his other albums, interspersed within my other Tweets and re-Tweets. I may not have mentioned it before, but on Twitter I am Megabozo (surprise surprise), or @terrydappel if you prefer. I probably should have mentioned that long ago. I have been told that my huge, long thread is the best on Twitter. It has been referred to as “the thread that keeps on giving.” I swear to Ruby I did not say that. I guess if you want to know why I was told that you’ll just have to look and judge for yourself. If you like music of all genres and types you might be inclined to agree. If not you will probably figure I have been wasting my time. The thread started with just two names on it: me, and my friend Alan Smithee, or @ActualFlatticus. There are now forty-five, plus me, and Smithee is still on it, though he himself has gone on and left me behind. I occasionally ask if anyone wants to be removed from the list, but so far no takers, so I guess those forty-five people think it’s a pretty good thread.

At any rate, I was going to mention that Buckethead is playing in Louisville at the Mercury Ballroom on April 26th, the day after my birthday. Sean, Ian and I are going to go. Lisa says she will help pay for the tickets as a birthday present. My wife is a wonderful person. She was going to pay the full amount, but then we found out there are “Premium Seats” available upstairs by the bar overlooking the stage. Considering I am an old fart, that sounded better to me than standing for an hour and a half or two down on the main floor. Once upon a time I’d have paid my general admission price, smuggled in some reefer, a bottle of Tequila and a dozen lemons, and hunkered down in the mosh pit, though we didn’t call it that in the seventies. Those days are long gone I’m afraid. I’m too old now, and they won’t let you get away with that stuff anymore. Ah well. Here is the next of the Buckethead Pikes. Enjoy if with me if you so desire.

https://youtu.be/I7hIu_ESjfE

Hello people!

Yesterday my Twitter friend Picaboo said, “I waltzed through Harold’s room today! Thoroughly delightful. ?”

I thanked her, and I promised her I would post two more of the completed book chapters today, so I did that before anything else could distract me or pull me away. They await you, if you are so inclined…