Happy January Damn It!

I don’t want to be a downer, but it does come so naturally, especially in January and February. I’m more than a bit burned out. All the clients whom I begged for work in the aft months of 2007 have come out of the woodwork and want their projects completed now! Work is plentiful; pay, not so much so, (or good, but difficult to get my hands on). In my usual desperation mode, I took on too many projects and I’m now in a bind. Even though I’m working day and night, I don’t seem to be getting anywhere. Jack is out at the Jet Propulsion Lab for the rest of the month (now that’s a strange sentence) Yet, before he left, he installed a doggy door. This doggy door is not your usual, run-of-the- mill door, it’s a Jack custom spectacular, which isn’t a criticism—far from it. It’s a one-of-a- kind, installed inside of a glass storm door that he found for a great price that he sawed out in the middle of the living room, power tools, saw horse, etc., because it was too cold in the garage. If he’d had more time, he could have made the world’s first automated doggy door. Now there’s an idea!

However, I was then left at home with two old, recalcitrant dogs with the mandate of training them to enter and exit the new aperture. This all came about because the two canines need to go out frequently and a new gig keeps me out for extended hours. Not only has the absence of their fulltime doorwoman worked them into a frenzy, but it’s subzero temps out there, and Jack doesn’t want me to leave the back door propped open for obvious reasons. Once again, I’m stuck between the freelancer’s rock and a hard place: I need more work which may require my presence onsite, but expectations lean toward continuing my at-home duties. Ho-hum. I’m boring myself.

Push come to shove—and it did, Max and Moses could not/would not go through the flap after the first day of its installation—go figure! I had to leave for the day, so what to do? Jack suggested we minimize the risk by taping the flap open. He made these suggestions from thousands of miles away, safely out of my reach. I tried electrical tape; it didn’t work. Then he suggested Gorilla Tape which required a trip to the Tractor Supply Store. Okay, since I have nothing better to do. I listened to a long monologue about this fascinating product from the checkout clerk, but soon found that this stuff was worse than the electrical tape or duct tape. Now Jack had another great idea. Tape it around the top of the door, through the opening, while holding the flap up, thus creating a hammock effect for the flap.

Okay, I’m five foot five, the door is over six feet tall, the doggy door is at the bottom, and it’s 25 degrees outside. Add in two dogs who are suddenly enthralled with all things doggy door, tape that won’t stick to anything but gloms onto itself like gum on a hot sidewalk, a 30 m.p.h. wind and answer this: how old is Kathy and when will she reach Chicago in the 9:15 train traveling north at 75 m.p.h.? Who gives a damn! I’m freezing my butt off and I have to travel to downtown Atlanta—an equation of time, distance, road rage, and pure happenstance that defies all mathematical configurations.

Thoroughly disheveled with a new Mr. Freeze hairdo, I actually achieved the feat. I gather my belongings; turn down the heat to minimize energy consumption, grab my keys and a bird flies past my head in the kitchen. Now I have left that door propped open on many a day and listened to Jack rant about a beast entering the house, but five minutes after I leave an opening a tenth of that of an open door, I’ve got a bird in the house. I won’t even try to describe what ensued but I was determined not to have a little dead creature on my hands when I returned, so I persuaded the bird out—eventually, and I use the word “eventually” very lightly. On the way to work, I was stopped for 15 minutes to watch roadside construction, delayed by a water main break at another juncture, and a rock hit and cracked by windshield five minutes after I hit the expressway. It was a wonderful day, all topped by the fact that when I got home, the Gorilla Tape had miraculously held, but for some strange reason, my entire kitchen was covered in bird sh_t!