TCC for 10/31/08

The Caretaker's Concern 10/31/08
Lake Temp. 52.25
Ghetto temp. 52 F.
Island tmp. 50 F. Yesterday's L/H: 36/40 F.
Current conditions: Some night time haze, stars obscured, rather dim, mostly a dark night. A touch of wind from the South. For most of the day the wind raged pretty good from the South, quite a bit in the way of white caps. Come sunset the wind began to slowly calm down, as nightfall wore on, the wind continued to diminish. As the day carried on, it became warmer and warmer, 50 degrees Fahrenheit is definitely the new 60 degrees Fahrenheit, at least for now.



10/31/08


10/30/08


10/31/08


The Caretaker would like to be able to say that yesterday's omission was an act of cleverness, however, it was really just the result of a drastic shift in priorities. While writing up yesterday's report the Caretaker was also doing some surfing on the web. Being on dial-up, pages often take a while to load so he usually does other things while he waits. So, when the Caretaker was getting to the end of the narrative at this point in his web surfing he was just about to make a purchase on-line (it was a goose down house coat, this is another story that the Caretaker will get to shortly, in the mean time,) just as the Caretaker was expecting to have to get his wallet to finalize the purchase he realized that he didn't have his wallet, he didn't know where it was.

He did know this though, he last knew of having it in a public space and so there was a possibility that it could have been picked up by someone else. So now the Caretaker was somewhat concerned that this possible someone might get the idea of running-off with the Caretaker's wallet. So, rather than just end yesterday's narrative with either a lengthy explanation or an abrupt: "Sorry, gotta go." The Caretaker decided to quickly work in his heart felt sentiment that he carried over from the report of two days prior to conclude yesterday's report. He was aware that he was leaving his readers hanging, but the Caretaker's concern had shifted drastically from writing his daily report to trying to locate his wallet. So, he combed the places on the Island he had been to since he had last returned but found nothing. He then checked his accounts on-line to see if this possible someone had gone head over heels with the Caretaker's credit. Nothing appeared there, so by this time the Caretaker was tired and instead of finishing up his report proper he decided he would just go to sleep.

The next day, this one, today, the Caretaker got up and headed over to the mainland to retrace his steps from the dock to the public place where he knew he had his wallet last. Found nothing on the ground, at this point there was nothing he could do until the public place opened up. Eventually it did, and there was his wallet, with a few other things, basically where he had left them, which when he placed them there the night before he observed the fact that if he left them there he will probably forget them there. As you have just read, he did indeed do just that, leave them there. So, as much as the Caretaker would perhaps like to be clever, he is decidedly not.

Today wasn't all too eventful, after finishing up with his stupid wallet trick, he spent some time on the Island doing some of this and that, fired up the grill to cook some lunch, enjoyed his lunch, then did a few other things that don't really standout in his mind all too much. Yes this is Halloween, and the Caretaker supposes he could have gone to town for the Trick-Or-Treating, but really has no interest, not so much because he has grown out of it, but instead has become much smarter about it. The Caretaker went Trick-Or-Treating on the 30th of October, the day before Halloween. He only stopped at one "house" and didn't even have to bother with the expense of a costume. Dressing up as something you're not, and going from house to house begging people for candy is so...so... What's the word? Ah! Childish. Not that childish is a bad thing, the Caretaker, when he was a child was a big fan of Halloween, although he must say, there was always a few bad apples, the type that give out say, Apples! Thanks for looking out for my health Mr. Brinkton. Nooo, of course 68 cats in one house is normal. Oh look, there's the ASPCA, wonder who could have called them?

"All right Mr. Brinkton, we understand that you can't be separated from your cats, but you will have to come with us for questioning, in the meantime these representatives from the local chapter of the ASPCA will make sure that all 68 of your cats will be taken care of properly."

"Don't forget the ones gone feral living in the garage," chimes in The Caretaker from behind his Halloween mask.

The officer looks over at the Caretaker, frowns, not sure what to make of his costume, then the officer walks to the back of the yard to open the garage door. Mr. Brinkton starts to stammer nonsense, shifting back and forth from foot to foot. As the garage door opens up a wall of cats come pouring out into the yard, some running away, others running around, some lying down, up trees, in and out of the garage, it's total cat pandemonium all over Mr. Brinkton's yard. The police officer draws his gun, repeatedly taking aim at cats then switching to another, not knowing what to do or which one to shoot, with so many cats how can you tell who is the ring leader? Then it occurred to the officer, Mr. Brinkton probably knows, so he marched over to the squad car to interrogate. Mr. Brinkton, realizing what was up, began to pee his pants.

"Now you tell me right now, which one of these cats... What on Earth is wrong with you man."

"I, I... I don't know. All I do is open the door enough to slide in a unopen 40 pound bag of cat food and then quickly shut the door. They come and go as they please through a back window that is missing a pane."

In the meantime, the top dog of the ASPCA had begun to shout into her walkie-talkie, "Calling all units, calling all units, we need back up, we need back up, bring every available cat travel box in a 40 mile radius."

Then she pointed to one of her underlings. "You. Get on the horn with the local markets, we need every bag of kitty litter they've got. There must be ton's of cat doo in that garage, and there will be tons of cat doo to take care of until we can find homes for these cats. Everyone else, you've been in this situation before, you know what to do, everyone get moving, stat."

Stat?

She then turned to Mr. Brinkton as the officer was just ducking his head to get him into the back seat of his squad car, "what's with you guys who live alone?"

The police officer closed the squad car's back door before Mr. Brinkton could utter a response, before getting into the front seat to drive off, the officer said, "I don't know, but they sure do seem to pee there pants in response to a lot of things."

And off went the police car.

At this point the Caretaker and his fellow T-O-T's, in their Halloween costumes had grown bored of the situation, and so they walked on to the next house to Trick-Or-Treat. As they walked up the path to the next house the Caretaker turned to his friends and said, "If these people know what's good for them they won't be giving out apples."

"Yeah, we sure showed that other guy!" Piped up a ghost.

DING-DONG. "TRICK-OR-TREAT!!!"

Tooth brushes and toothpaste? Oh no...

The Caretaker must say, that all of the above is fiction, it is not a recount from his childhood. It is merely the result of him sitting here feeling like making something up. Which in turn is a result from him checking the weather, originally he was thinking of cutting this post short because he wanted to get up early for a field trip tomorrow, but the weather looks to be no good for field tripping, perhaps another day. Anyway before the Caretaker went down the weird road, which he has drawn a map to for many people, many times in the past, he was going to share how he went Trick-Or-Treating this year.

At a certain point in his life the Caretaker realized he didn't need to go begging for candy from strangers. He could just go buy it. So, this year, the Caretaker did not bother with a costume, went to one "house" i.e. a store, and bought one of those giant mixed bags of candy, a variety of like everything. It's basically instant night of Trick-Or-Treating in a bag without all the hassle. On the surface it may seem clever, but after a day of having this bag around the Caretaker has quickly become rather tired of the candy. Too bad he doesn't get any Trick-Or-Treaters out here on the Island, he could have given it away to them. Perhaps he'll instead just pee his pants.

--The Caretaker

P.S. The story of the thing of rare beauty will come out on November 1st, the Caretaker promises, if not, you can always pee your pants.