Author: Mark Alexander

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My Kingdom for a Good Night’s Sleep

With the defeat of Donald Trump, we were sleeping better. But then the fire happened and our life was upended. And subsequently to that the older of our two dogs has developed a very annoying habit.

He wakes up anywhere from 2 to 4 am every night and demands to be let out to pee and fed thereafter. He’s always been an early riser (typicallly 5 am), but since his trip to the vet in December to address his congestive heart failure and the issuing of medications to combat it, he’s gotten earlier and earlier. The vet tech tells us the meds are to blame.

Ben and I trade off taking care of his needs, and for the most part we can get back to sleep rather quickly thereafter, but we’ve really come to look forward to the weekends when we can sleep in significantly past our usual 6:30 am wake up time after taking care of this daily routine.

We’ve tried everything: benadryl, melatonin, making sure he empties his bladder before bed, even feeding him before bed, and it makes no difference. Like clockwork the low level growls start just as we’re entering the deepest part of our night’s sleep.

Bobo is not going to be with us that much longer, a sad fact we’ve come to accept, and we will miss him mightily. But now we’re worried that his early-morning feedings have also imprinted themselves on our younger dog so that even after Bobo has moved on to greener pastures, Sammy will have adopted his bad habits. Fortunately Sammy is still at the point where he can be told NO and it sticks.

It’s ugly.

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Not the Same, But Still Welcome in this House

I drove back down to Tucson yesterday (a horrific ordeal in and of itself which I’ll spare you; suffice to say I should’ve stayed home). I bought two “new” Miles Thompson gargoyles from the seemingly one venue in town still selling them. I’d bought the originals in the late 90s/early 2000s at Antigone Books on 4th Avenue, but when I called yesterday to see if they were selling his work the girl who answered said she’d never heard of him. So hrmph…

I was assured by the store owner where I bought these new masks that Miles is still very much alive and well (albeit 75 years of age now), and is still producing work. I mentioned to her that Miles seems to have no online presence beyond this shop’s website, and she said she’s been wanting to get him to set up online and his response has always been “I don’t want to become my work.”

As an on-and-off again artist, I can relate. When I paint, I do it for me, not to make money. If it was my sole source of income I’m sure I’d come to hate it in short order, something I have a very hard time imparting on my friends who tell me I should be painting more. It’s not like you can just summon the Muses, after all.

I am reasonably certain I rescued all three of the original masks from the house, before the restoration companies came in so they have to be somewhere, but I’ll be damned if I know where. (I did easily find one of them.) Perhaps now that I spent way too much on replacing them (Miles’ prices have gone up in the last fifteen years, go figger), they’ll finally reveal themselves.

I suppose I could always cuss out the Prop Master for not having those particular props ready for these scenes in my life. Maybe that will cause them to magically appear?

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