Charlie had had enough of the sweltering Arkansas soup known as July air, so MacDuff and I were heading out for his daily dose of two wheeled therapy. We were mounting up when a shrill little voice pierced my eardrums; "HEY! WHATCHOO THINK YOU DOING, MANG?" I looked down to find a tiny preying mantis sitting on the tank of the Honda, so I said "we were going for a ride, as if it's any…

A few years ago, the Casa had an unwelcome vistor for a few days; a huge barn owl, easily 2' tall, set up shop in a tree not twenty yards from our back porch. You could sometimes just make out his dim shape against the night sky, sometimes you couldn't see him at all, but you just knew he was there. I could only imagine what an owl of that size could do to a…

All that wander are not lost, and all who lean are not off balance John Steinbeck called it "vacilando", the Australians go "walkabout", now I find out that 18th century French had an urban version of the same called a "flanuer". Originally the term is coined by Charles Baudelaire (1821-1867) and refers to somebody who observes the city or theirs surroundings, and experiences an actual physical stroll but also is a way of philosophical thinking…

Charlie and I were once on a mission out west and had stopped at one of my favorite places, Wilson Arch just south of Moab, Utah. A man recognized us from the blog and FB page. We struck up a conversation and he let me know in no uncertain terms that he was an atheist, and wanted to know if I was a Christian. How do you answer that? First of all, words mean things,…

Every. Single. Night. I'm laying on the couch finalizing home inspection reports when I feel a disturbance in the force just to my right. I don't even have to look to know what causes such trepidation to trouble my soul: It's Charlie. When she decides it's time for a licking session, there is no stopping her, but she's way too canny to make her move all at once; she does every thing in threes. I…

In the beginning of Charlie's saga, the unexpected death of Stevie Mae presented me with a huge quandary: as Charlie's page was meant to be a refuge from the negativity on social media, should I share this sad story on Charlie's page? Ultimately, I'm the dad of the Casa, and sometimes dads have to take action so that others don't have to. In Stevie's case, it was to put a hard stop to endless speculation…

One of the most awesome dogs to ever pass through the Casa del Whackos was a tiny chihuahua named Bull Taco. He came into my life the first day of my last incarceration in corporate Amerika; I went to lunch that day with my new boss(the same as the old boss), and when we returned there was this scrap of a dog hobbling on a broken front leg around the freight yard. First day. New…