It's Charlie Bravo Day Eve at the Casa del Whackos, and Charlie's in one of her moods. On certain nights, she decides that she wants to start the night alone on the couch, but will eventually migrate to the bed by the next morning. Other nights she sleeps like the dead in a sprawl of perpendicularly placed dogs that force me to assume the shape of a contorted starfish to secure any available sleeping area.…

Are you not entertained? Typical Sunday night at the Casa del Whackos; I'm worn out from a long motorcycle ride and sprawled out on the couch with Ajax, and all of the other chairs are covered with snoring dogs or dog hair. Dad is ironing his armor in preparation of the coming week; you know, that emasculating ensemble required by corporate America that is neither "business" or "casual", but is somehow expected to be both.…

Dad here; I need to be getting ready for that four-letter word known as work, as it is Charlie Bravo Day and as such, Charlie should be doing the post herself this morning. It speaks volumes for this relationship that the tactics she uses so effectively on me to coerce me to do her bidding doesn't seem to affect her in the slightest when I use them on her, so here she lays, an immovable,…

Thursday night at the Casa; mom and Mia has wisely fled for the bedroom and solitude, as the kidlets are in rare form tonight. Charlie and Claire are re-enacting the epic Battle of Bitey Mouth, Ajax the Terminally Scrappy is taking every opportunity to snap at any exposed appendages. Marco Polo is skittling around in his underbritches that mom makes him wear because, although his weaponry has been altered, he still feels the need to…

Dad here; I hate, hate, HATE bullies. When I was younger, I was always the smallest, weakest, the last to get picked on any team. As a result, my heroes have always been those that championed the cause of the underdog; Teddy Roosevelt, who grew from a sickly youth to a president who took the time to reroute the mail around Indianola, MS until the townspeople agreed to reinstate the first black female postmaster. Johnny…

Things have been a bit strained at the Casa del Whackos lately. It is said that a double-minded man is unstable in all his ways, but when there are more than two forces involved, the instability is exponentially compounded. In these unsettled times, it seems like there are so many unreasonable requirements pulling us in so many opposing directions that sometimes it seems that the only option is to stand in the midst of the…

Marco Polo here; like Charlie, much of my former life is a blur, erased by an extended time of starvation and neglect. But in my case, the abuse was not intentional, but circumstantial; my previous human was afflicted with the advanced stages of Alzheimer's and dementia, and would forget to eat for extended periods of time. When she didn't eat, neither did I, and the result was that both of our physical conditions began to…