Must find a sick mouse…

Dear Sirs,
Was Robert Palmer shooting a new video at the VIC, or what? What is up with all the miniskirts and knee-high pointy boots on all the secretaries?
Thanks in advance,
Mig

You will need:

• Tube of clear silicone caulk

• sheet of plastic lunch wrap
• acrylic paint
• bits of stuff

Directions: Spread the plastic lunch wrap on your work surface. Squirt out enough silicone into a little dish you can throw away. Oh, add a little dish to the above list. Mix in just a little acrylic paint until it is the silicone is the color of cat vomit. Spread it around on the plastic wrap until it has the right shape. Add bits until there is no way to distinguish it from real cat vomit. It helps to get silicone on the tops of the bits sticking out, they have to look as if they have been inside a stomach.

For bits, Gamma and I used real (dry) cat food, styrofoam bits that had been painted with acrylic paints (raw and burnt umber shades worked well). Most realistic bits were, however, bits of cleaning sponge we painted. Least realistic bits were the M&Ms we added as a joke, and cornstarch based packing peanuts, which dissolved when painted.

Let dry, we waited overnight. Next day (1 April, coincidentally) we peeled off the vomit and left it in various places around the house (we made two).

Result: disappointment on our part, as no one fell for it on April Fool’s day. Could be our sneaking off to my workshop every evening and giggling like maniacs tipped them off.

But I ask you, is a week of giggling like maniacs not reward enough?

Also: no one fell for our fake turtle shit either (blobs of silicone – some quite realistic – painted with Van Dyke Brown (I wanted to just paint them black, but Gamma pointed out correctly that turtle shit is van dyke brown)).

Update: OMA FELL FOR THE CAT VOMIT!!! AND SO DID BETA!!! Gamma fooled them by putting it on a chair, where it looked more realistic than it had on the floor!!!

They were laying pipe along the edge of the woods and some big fields I drive past on my way to work yesterday. It looked like they were putting in a big sewer line. They had these serious backhoes with extra-wide scoops that dug a trench about four feet across.
They almost looked like cranes.
And the woods, yeah, and the fields. Fallow, I guess.
Just sitting there being fields and woods.
Not doing anything useful.
That’s what happens. They catch you doing that and next thing, you’re rezoned commercial or residential or some shit.
Always have a spreadsheet open on your monitor, man.
Keep moving. I learned that on one of my first jobs, doing stuff at the cannery. Stay in motion. Broom in hand, or squeegee. The high-pressure hose was pretty good too.
Same thing walking down the street, my dad told me once, walk like you’re going somewhere.
Even if you’re not.

A colleague at work called me in my office yesterday and asked what is the only human construction visible from space with the naked eye. I told her, she said thanks and we hung up.
My job would be perfect, I think, if I got my vacation back and they stopped monitoring our online behavior and, of late, blocking much of it.
What do you do at work dad?
Trivia specialist, honey.
Our tortoise just took a pee, which I was ignoring. Then she took a large shit, which was unignorable. We were out of paper towels so I used half a box of Kleenex.
Kleenexes. Kleeni. Whatever.
Now she’s running laps.
I would too.
Gamma is sitting here counting the days until Easter.
Mmm. Eggs.
Now she wants me to get her a writing utensil so she can write something into the calendar.
I told her to get it herself because I am not, quote, her slave.
Now the tortoise is noisily eating lettuce.
She must be starved.
I practiced the Grieg last night. It sounded awful. I hadn’t practiced it for three weeks.
The Breval is getting better, though.

I had a dream you were supposed to take a test and had no pants. I won’t tell you what sort of test, so you’ll still be surprised if the dream comes true.
I don’t want to spoil anything.
Somebody was talking about their dreams.
I haven’t remembered a dream in so long.
I put Gamma to bed, tell her a story, then I also go to bed. Then I wake up rarin’ to go.
That’s the theory anyway.
I stopped taking the pain killers. They were making me fart, even though I was taking this other pill first to “protect my stomach”.
I won’t go in to the details, man.
So now I just take the muscle relaxant, which is weaker than the other muscle relaxant that made me so terribly depressed last time. This one has “lud” in its name, but it just makes me tired.
Mainly I take it for an excuse not to have to drive anywhere at night. Like yesterday, Alpha had to drive Gamma and me to the running sushi place.
I called and reserved a table by the running sushi thing, which is usually a good idea because it sucks to have to sit in the buffet seating part of the restaurant and lean over people, ‘scuse me! to get sushi.
That seems so rude.
Last night there was a guy with a very nasty-looking skin condition, purplishly disfiguring, sitting upstream from us.
We ate our fill anyway. Gamma and Alpha had their backs to him and I didn’t point him out.
Alpha kept remarking on the sushi going past. She would point and say, “shrimp!”
Or she would say, “crab!”
It was not clear whether she was showing off her knowledge of sea animals or did she want me to grab her sushi. Cause Gamma had, once again, taken a good seat right by the conveyor belt. I had a good seat too, this time, because Alpha had stayed outside the restaurant for a minute while we went in, because she had to finish talking on her phone.
“Fruit salad!”
I’m going to stop taking the muscle relaxants and see if 1. my back spasms return, and 2. if I suddenly have a big rush of dreams. I’m hoping for 1 and doubting 2.

Orchestra rehearsal coming up this weekend. Grieg and Mozart again. Conductor chewed us out last time for being so slack on those two, and told us to practice before the big rehearsal this weekend. And did we practice? Not me. I practiced whatshisface, some other non-orchestra piece. Then my back went out, but the two events are not connected.

And, hey, it looks as if the piece I composed might actually get performed. Ideally, it will be played by ten harps, one cello and two cell phones. That’s what I wrote it for. Eight harps would work. If this takes off, you’re all invited to the concert.

Cleaning up a big tortoise excrement mess (because dad has a sore back and can’t bend over like that) in the kitchen dramatically increases a young girl’s motivation to take a shower.