The Life and Times of Flossie, Aged 9 1/2 weeks

At 2am the other morning I received a message on my answer machine. “This is the police. There has been an attempted theft of your vehicle. It has been towed for further investigation. Phone this number for more details.”Great way to wake up on a Monday morning. I’ve actually just changed vehicles and bought my first new car, and for a moment I had the slimmest hope that perhaps they were talking about Flossie the old car, bless her heart. Old Flossie was a rust bucket and no mistake. Frankly I’d be amazed, and secretly delighted, if someone tried to steal her. I raced downstairs to check if new Flossie was still parked where I left her the night before. Bad news. She was gone.

I phoned the police. They were less than helpful. “We don’t know anything, maybe call this number.” So I called the next number and no luck. It went on like that for a couple of hours. I had no idea where my vehicle was or what kind of condition she was in. Did I mention that this was my first new car? As in shiny new, without even a scratch. She had 16 kilometres on the clock when I took her home. She still had that new car smell. Now Flossie 2 was gone. I had visions of flat tyres, shattered windows, slashed seats and much worse.

Finally later in the day I got hold of someone who said the vehicle was being finger-printed. The person who looked after the police garage did not work that day. “So why don’t you just sit tight and phone back tomorrow after ten thirty?” Fume, mutter, mutter.

I called the GarageFuhrer the next morning. I was told that I could not see my vehicle as there was a police investigation underway. I asked what kind of shape she was in. “Don’t know, can’t tell you anything like that”. “Well, has it got four wheels?” I couldn’t actually say “she”; they’d think I was nuts.“Sorry can’t help you there.” He did say I could go and obtain a release form for the vehicle. So off I went to the police station to get the form. Again, I met with a fairly miserable official, but I did manage to work out where my vehicle was being impounded. The form also indicated that if I didn’t move my vehicle by the following week, they would charge me daily storage charges and if I didn’t move it in six weeks, it would be sold off. Well how charming can you get? I couldn’t even see the chariot, never mind move it, and here I was being served with notice about it being flogged off.

The bit between my teeth now, my friend and I drove over to a rather unsavoury part of town where you wouldn’t walk at night if you had any sense. The police pound was pretty inhospitable with barb wire fences and a control tower. The voice on the intercom asked if they could assist me. I explained about my car and somewhat to our surprise, we were let in. I scanned row after and row of vehicles in various states of disrepair. I winced as I thought I saw what used to be my vehicle but my good friend reminded me that my car had four doors not two. As soon as I got to the office, the manager took my release form and immediately said there was no way I could get to see my car as it was under investigation. “Come back tomorrow and talk to the officer who deals with that.” Fume. My good friend diverted my attention and persuaded me to go and have a cool beer.

Fast forward 24 hours and I was back at Stalag 17 with my release form. After waiting a good half hour the police van showed up and drove off to the far section of the prison camp. “You should follow him,” snapped the commandant. I trudged after the truck in the beating sun. As I approached the lot, I could see Flossie 2. She had four wheels, bless her cotton socks. Messy as hell, covered in soot and mud, but she looked to be in one piece. The police officer was rather friendly, which took me back a bit after all the hassle I’d been through in the previous three days. We checked out Floss in more detail. There was damage to the passenger window where someone had tried to break in, however she was drivable. I was hugely relieved. I eased her out of the pound and sought out the nearest car wash to give Floss the equivalent of a hot bath with smelling salts.

Next day an ominous looking letter arrived from the Attorney General’s office. It turned out that five people were arrested trying to steal my vehicle and were due in court the following week. I was invited to make a victim impact statement. Bring back the stocks, I decided, and I’ll chuck rotten cabbages at them. You know what though? I’m thinking these impact statements are intended so that punters like me can have a good rant, and spill out all our frustrations. That way we don’t clog up surgeries and inhabit padded cells after going out of our minds after all the fuss, especially dealing with the mind numbing officialdom. After calming down a bit and sipping a hot cup of Ovaltine, I wrote quite a civilised piece about the costs and emotional impact of this incident, and fired it off to the court. I’ll hear next week if they have been convicted and sentenced to wash and wax Flossie every Saturday for the rest of her natural life. On reflection, perhaps I should have left that sentence out of the impact statement.

You’ll be pleased to know that today Flossie has pretty much all her fingers and toes. She has one addition. She has a rather becoming florescent green Club wrapped tightly around the steering wheel. I considered installing a Barry Manilow CD so that it started playing if anyone came within ten feet of her. However I’ve decided that it would be cruel and unusual punishment for poor Flossie, who has been through so much. Her frayed nerves just could not take that; she’d have a breakdown for sure.

NPR Tapes : President Kennedy

I got up early this morning. As I often do, I checked around the news and today came across the National Public Radio recordings of events of 22nd November 1963, which they have recently put up on their website. I listened for about ten minutes to the unedited tape of radio exchanges made during that day. The scratchy sounding exchanges are mainly of communications between the Situation Room at the White House and a flight between Honolulu and Japan containing six members of JFK’s cabinet and then later between the Situation Room, Andrews Air Force Base and the Air Force One plane which is bringing the president’s body back to Washington.
The voices relaying chilling news seem so calm to me but it must have been havoc and shock behind the scenes. First there is news that the president has been hit. The plane en route to Japan turns round and heads back to Honolulu. It is then directed to head straight back to Washington instead of to Dallas. Soon after, a very short stark message comes through from the Situation Room to say that the president is dead. No embellishment. He’s dead.
It seems almost like an afterthought on the radio message but someone on the plane comes on to ask where the Vice President is – he’s at Parkland Hospital in Dallas - and then a short time later he’s referred to as President Johnson. An air force general instructs the crew at Andrews Air force base to have a forklift ready to transport the casket to and from Air Force One. The man responds that they’ll have a forklift or a group of men to handle that. This is about the time that I decide not to listen any more. At least this isn’t the Zupruder film, they seem to show that over and over and I can’t watch that any more.
I’m not a big fan of Kennedy and his presidency, particularly his foreign policy. However he did seem to capture a spirit that no American president has done since. I recall as a child going to stay in my aunt’s house in the north of Ireland and I remember seeing a picture of JFK right up there on the wall next to the Pope.

Joy to the World, A Burglar Came

Ten days ago my other half and I were out at the local hardware store. I reckon we should just bite the bul1et and move in to the place. We’d set up a comfortable nook with our bed, my favourite pillow and a copy of “Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil” resting on the bedside table. We seem to spend all our waking hours there. You see, a couple of months ago, we moved into our dream house. Lovely place. Not much to do to it, just move in. Hummph! There’s always stuff to be done, from shoring up the rotten wood on the garage roof to re-enforcing the glass sliding doors. Ah now there’s a story to those sliding doors.

Last Sunday we turned into our alley from yet another trip to your friendly store. The neighbour’s car was blocking the access to our parking spot and he approached us rather purposefully. His van had been broken into and an eagle-eyed neighbour had spotted a ne’er-do-well with a red woollen hat running away from the scene. It was not an early Santa Claus visitation. We commiserated and introduced ourselves to our two neighbours and chatted for a few minutes, catching up on the local gossip, particularly about Monica from up the street and her heart condition. Then I entered our back garden and noticed the shed door was open. Strange, but nothing seemed out of place there. I walked on to the deck to the sliding door at the back of our house. It was already wide open.

I went inside and heard the security alarm sounding. A voice called out from the front door – “Is anyone home? This is the police.” I checked around to see if anything in the kitchen was gone, but all looked ok. I started to go upstairs but the officer stopped me. He wasn’t sure if the intruder was still in the house. Oh G0d, I was thinking, and my panties are strewn all around the bedroom floor – what a way to impress the whippersnapper policeman. The very least the r0bber could have done was to phone ahead and tell us he was breaking in so I could have tidied away my dirty laundry.

All sorts of messages came over the police officer’s radio. Break-ins elsewhere and a multiple stabbing incident on Commercial Drive. “It’s been a killer of an afternoon,” Officer Jim complained. Rambo here (me) still wanted to bound upstairs and confront the intruder. Interesting thought: when your home has been invaded, often you don’t immediately think of personal safety. You’re just really angry that someone has stepped into your private space. Anyway Jimbo went upstairs hotly pursued by me and the equally angry OtherHalf. There was no sign of the intruder.

The bedroom was a mess. Yes, my underwear was scattered across the floor. I blamed OtherHalf. He dragged me to the hardware store with minimal notice. The cop smiled wryly when I suggested perhaps the intruder had a panty fetish. Bags were opened and the contents dumped on the floor. My expired passports lay next to the window. Drawers were open. It looked like someone had been searching in a hurry. I couldn’t see anything obvious missing. My prized possession, a button accordion, remained in place on the bed. I didn’t know whether to be insulted or not. It was worth a lot of money. I decided that our unfriendly burglar had no discerning musical taste whatsoever.

While the other two were downstairs checking out the rest of the house, I searched around. I had a faint suspicion that the burglar was still around so I checked under the bed and in a couple of secret hiding places. I’d obviously been watching too many detective mysteries. The intruder was well and truly gone. After a few minutes, I realized I couldn’t find my passport. I raced downstairs. On Jimbo’s radio we heard that a suspect had been apprehended at the local rail station, which was fifty yards down the road. I ran down the street to see if I could retrieve my documents.

People love an incident. Around fifty people were being kept back by police while a rather unkempt looking man – no red hat in sight - was being searched by two officers. I approached and identified myself. I scanned the man’s possessions which were laid out on the hood of the police cruiser. I was aware I was the centre of attention for the watching crowd. I didn’t need a placard with “Victim” in foot high letters. I looked for my documents amongst the five dollar bills, numerous syringes, folded silver foil and a strange looking Buddha necklace. I decided not to berate the young man for having the gall to ignore my button accordion. There was no sign of the passport. After a couple of minutes, I had the feeling that this individual had nothing to do with the incident. He seemed too spaced out to have broken in to our house. He happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Back at the house, a crowd had gathered outside, wanting to know what had happened. I got the impression that this was a quiet neighbourhood, so they were glad of some excitement. A couple of ten year olds animatedly told me about the man with a red bobble hat. Turned out they didn’t actually see him themselves. I was mightily upset about the passport and went back in and searched again. Thank heavens to Betsy, I found it at the back of the cupboard. Office Jimbo was not terribly happy about that. He wanted it to be found on the suspect, that way they could charge him with something. He let us know that there was insufficient evidence to keep the man in custody so they had let him go.

The police left, the security company called and were given copious details, the crowds subsided and then the two of us were left there, sitting in the living room in shock. The new house had been idyllic until then. We loved it. We kept saying that the previous owners were going to phone up and tell us that it was all a mistake and they wanted their home back. The break-in was a serious dose of reality. After knocking back a couple of beers, we made a few adjustments to the sliding doors to deter future intruders.

Meanwhile I am working on the strategic placement of a huge stone ball just above our bedroom doorway and six thousand venomous spiders are being trained to attack at will. In my deluded world, I am making sure that when BurglarBob comes back, he has to run the gauntlet to try to steal my accordion, as clearly by now he will have seen the error of his ways and now appreciates its true value. He will be back for sure. I’m ready for him, with bells on.

Bert Bent Wing and his friends

There’s a fir tree in clear sight from my friend’s apartment window. So what, I hear you say? Well what’s interesting about this particular tree are the habits of its transient inhabitants. I’m talking birds. We’ve been watching for several weeks, now, usually in the early evening, but now we’re so intrigued, we watch in the mornings too. Two main types of birds fly and visit this tree: crows and starlings.

The birds land on the upper most branches, sometimes so numerous that the branches are weighed down, and we contemplate what would be the critical mass that would cause the tree to just plain fall down. Not reached that critical; mass yet. Some kamikaze flyers perch on the highest branch, apparently defying gravity and I wonder how on earth they stay there without being dislodged as there is virtually nothing on which to perch.

An important question occurred to me. What happens when there are hundreds of birds, spaced no each of the branches, on top of each other. I mean, how they stop being spatter from above when Mother Nature kicks in? I’ve noticed that there are gaps between the birds; maybe they arrange it so that the occupant below does not get zapped. Maybe there is some signal – Watch out below there, buddy! Oh sorry, too late!” Somehow I doubt if they’re that careful.

Anyway one other observation for you while I’m at it. The crows definitely get occupancy privileges ahead of the starlings. The fir tree may be packed to the rafters with starlings. Suddenly you notice them depart on masse on some obviously prearranged signal. Then one crow comes along and takes occupancy. Sure enough with a minute or two, other crows start circling around and landing, and within minutes it’s the veritable Piccadilly Circus. I wonder if they are reporting their activities for the day to each other.“I blasted at least two MG sports cars today. Got the owners pretty darn good”“Ah, that’s noting, another would chip in.” Bert Bent Wing and I played 'Dare' on Highway 66 when we located the remains of a Big Mac. Too good to pass up, though Bert got his feathers rearranged yet again.”

The Dreaded Lilian

My partner and I are moving at the end of August. Negotiating our way through the potential minefield of lawyers, bankers, movers, real estate agents and other assorted characters can be a challenge but the whole process has been fairly smooth sailing so far. Except for the dreaded Lilian.

I’ve never met Lilian, maybe I won’t have to. I hope not. She is not coming to our house warming. She is not on my Christmas card list. Lilian is the public face of a local branch of a large insurance company. It all started out well enough. She spoke to my partner and took down all the details of our house. Then she went on holiday for a week and said she would deal with us when she returned.

I picked up the trail and phoned her when she got back from vacation. She had lost all the details we had previously given her. “Sorry about that, I hope you’re not inconvenienced.” Back to square one. I went through the list and made sure she was brought up to date again.

Lilian is one of those people who can only work at one pace. Instead of going through the application form and determining what is outstanding, and providing you with a list of questions, she asks for each piece of information separately, each constituting a different telephone call or e-mail. She’s really slow to return calls or e-mails; she always has some excuse about being busy with another client or that her colleague is sick. So what should have taken a couple of days at the outside to sort out, has taken upwards of three weeks.

Late breaking request, just one more piece of information, she said. “When were the heating, plumbing and electrical systems last upgraded?” Oh drat. I contacted the vendors via my realtor to their realtor. It took me half a day to get the details. When I finally got the answer, it turned out that Lilian had already spoken to the vendor’s agent the previous week and he had told her the exact same information. If you’ve seen the movie “Finding Nemo”, our Lilian is certainly channelling Dorie, the fish with no short term memory.

We’re moving at the end of this week Have we insurance yet? Well almost. Yesterday after answering a revolving door of questions, the dreaded Lilian said she was ready to fax over the completed application form for my signature. I fainted clean away in shock, but I told her to go ahead. Half an hour later the call came to say she couldn’t fax to my machine. I checked the machine and it was fine. I sent a test fax to the machine. It was fine. She tried again three times, no luck.

Meanwhile I had been sent excellent recommendations of two other insurance agents and their names were blazing on the page in front of me. Here I was, trying to get Lilian to use basic office equipment. I gave her my partner’s fax number. She called back to say that his machine wasn’t working either. I politely indicated that her machine might be the source of the difficulty, if you please, petal. She rang back to say she was going down the street to use another business’s fax machine. Well at least that was showing initiative. She called back to say the fax to my partner went fine.

My other half rang me and asked if we could throw the dice and whoever lost, had to deal with Lilian to complete the insurance. Muggins here got the short straw so BelovedPartner (memo to self: Partner = Doghouse) faxed me the application form. I signed it and faxed it off to Dreaded V. It went through like a shot. I called (twice) to ask Lilian to confirm that she has received it. No response. Now I knew for sure she had to be hiding under the desk.

Lilian called back four hours later after I have left work and left a message to report that all was sorted and that we had insurance, but could I come in and make arrangements to pay? Oh horror, I don’t think I can meet her, without attacking her. Calm down. I phoned her up this morning and paid by credit card and I hope to high heaven that we’re actually covered.

You may be wondering why we’d stuck with her and not gone elsewhere. Well we got a hefty discount in the first year because of our mortgage arrangements so it seemed like a good idea. I thought that having invested so much time trying to get the insurance policy sorted out, we thought we should finish the job with her. Very bad logic. We’re never doing that again. Next time we’ll cut our losses and move on.

You can be sure that come 28th August 2004 we will have switched our insurance to another company. I’m in deep therapy. I can’t deal with the Dreaded L any more. The kindly folks in the uniforms and the padded van are arriving any minute now