Klowns in my Koffee

It was a dark and stormy night ...

The heavy rain on the roof last night sounded like tympani. I don't mean like a musician playing a tympani; I mean like someone throwing kettledrums at my roof. In the midst of the storm, a sound came out of the crawl space above my cathedral ceiling like a large dog shaking to get the water off its fur. The raccoon must be four feet tall. I heard her in a mad argument with the cables from my recessed lighting and later pacing back and forth across the rafters. At dawn, I heard soft mewlings and realized that we finally have baby raccoons. Not being all that sentimental when it comes to rabies and fouled insulation, I called the wildlife specialist and he'll be here tomorrow to spread around the biological deterrent to scare the raccoon into moving her family out of my attic. He told me that he had just received shipments of the biological agent from two different sources. I was initially surprised that there was one domestic source of pureed male raccoons, let alone two.

I'm starting to be concerned that one day I'll be typing "Day 1000" in the title line. Kennedy's Camelot lasted 1000 days but someone got shot at the end.

In keeping with the whole personal revitalization theme, I told my stylist that I wanted something a little less Betty Crocker and a little more rock-and-roll. So she cut my hair like Sharon Osbourne's. Scary on multiple levels.

I took a course through Hennepin County Library today about Business Tools for Entrepreneurs. They have business plan software, consultation with SCORE mentors, and a group of killer databases that would allow you to pinpoint every left-handed chiropractor within 50 miles of your zip code with a $350K house, no outstanding warrants, and an interest in ballet. I'm not sure what you would sell to someone with the described demographic, but it's fun to think about. The class finished early so I spent the extra time self-stalking, investigating Porkus, and then checking out my neighbors. Once again, scary on multiple levels.

Back at Career Central, I'm haunted by the cost of child care. Any salary that I make has to include an additional $10.50 per hour, more in the summer, just to offset the price that we are paying for daycare. In rough numbers, I've got to make about $26 per hour to cover my complete current expenses if I work full time during hours that daycare would be required. Let's say I worked at another paragon of management excellence like Porkus. In that case, I'd work perhaps 60 hours, get paid for 40 hours and then have our expenses pop right back to where they were for more meals out, drycleaning, more car expenses, just like it was before the great bloodletting. Make a lot of money, don't get to keep much of it, have chest pains, have no life -- been there, done that. The obvious alternative is to be able to work a more flexible or nontraditional schedule. I'm looking at options that couple a part-time job with self-employment but this is going to take creativity, timing, initiative and a lot of luck.

To compensate for the dearth of humor in the last paragraph and for perspective on how trivial daily budgetary ruminations are when compared with the broad swath of human history, here is one of my favorite clips. Yes, it's a commercial for a TV show, but isn't it done well?