This has been one of those weeks. One of those weeks that I find myself staring at REI.com and thinking wistfully that I could buy a tent and sleeping bag, pack my gear, grab the dog, and be sleeping next to a river by sundown.

Why such angst? Lots of reasons, divided semi-equally between work, marriage, children, and pets. Of course, as stress and tension arise in any of those areas, it exacerbates the existing tension in the other three, creating a feedback loop that eventually makes my brain explode.

For example, the nice weather has brought out the bucket drummers downtown. I’m sure you’ve seen them; they sit on a corner and drum on inverted plastic buckets for spare change. I’m sure you thought they were pretty talented. But here’s the difference, you can walk away from them.

They are so freaking loud, it sounds like they’re in my office with me. It’s worse if I open my windows, so I sit and swelter, and try to concentrate. I put in earbuds. I turn up my streaming audio. I even put on my industrial hearing protectors. I can hear Mr. Bucket Drummer through all of it. Lately, I’ve had to listen to about two hours of drumming every workday, and it’s killing me.

If perchance you think I’m being unreasonable, or perhaps overdramatic, drop me an email. I’ll make sure that your little darling receives a drumset for his or her fifth birthday. But I digress.

On the pet front, my dog is still treating Sparky like his newest toy. Every time one of us is careless about closing the door, we’re treated to our very own home version of greyhound racing, with Sparky playing the part of the electric rabbit. I’m getting really tired of it.

The home drama is the home drama. Nothing new, just some of the same issues we’ve always had reappearing with renewed vigor. Like weeds.

Add it all up, and I’m a basket case. Which leads to my fond daydreams of heading into the woods.

In my dream world, I pitch my brand-new two-person tent next to a river, start a fire, and spend the evening contemplating my place in the universe, my faithful dog at my side. I then retire to my snug little tent, with Gus curled up next to my sleeping bag, and I drift off to sleep, lulled by the sound of the river.

In reality, I would probably botch setting up the tent, Gus would be chasing every moving object in the woods, and it would surely start raining. The evening would find me trying to get a few minutes of sleep on the hard ground while the dog whined all night, punctuated by furious barking at every little noise he heard. That is, if my snoring didn’t attract some love-sick grizzly.

And this is completely ignoring that fact that if I actually tried to backpack to a campsite, I’d have to ensure that half my gear, by weight, was ibuprofen so I could hike back out.

Sigh.

Yes, as the title might suggest our efforts to introduce the new cat are ongoing. We now have all three cats in the same room, which is mostly going OK. The new guy keeps ruffling feathers because he simply doesn’t back down from a confrontation, while the old guard are pissed that they don’t get the deference they feel they deserve from the young whippersnapper.

If you want to know what our house sounds like most of the time now, just listen to this clip:

Still, the cats are getting along like long lost siblings compared to the dog. Gus seems unable to comprehend that this new cat has been provided for any reason other to act as a dog toy. When we have them in the same room (and with Gus securely restrained in a harness with a lead) he whines constantly, pacing back and forth with occasional leaps toward the poor thing. On the plus side, we now have a good idea of what Gus’ vertical leap is, and it’s impressive.

Blows have been exchanged only once, with my wife having to remove a detached claw from Gus’ face immediately afterwards. It didn’t phase him. This is looking like it will be a VERY long process.

As for the cat’s name, it’s ostensibly still “Sparky”. Nevertheless at any given time he can still be called “Spanky”, “Spunky”, “Skanky”, or “Skeezix”. Time will tell. Hey, my first dog started out as “Frosty”, only to end up as “Fracas”. What can I say? It suited her.

A while back my wife mentioned maybe getting another cat. Our two tuxedo cat brothers are getting on a bit in years, and we thought it might be prudent to have a backup cat in place before one of them croaked, leaving the other one alone and inconsolable.

Well, the kids and I kept our eyes open at PetSmart and the local cat shelter. We found plenty of cats that seemed perfect to us, but after bringing The Wife in for a consultation, there was something wrong with ALL of them. This one was too shy, that one was too aggressive. This one was too furry, that one wasn’t furry enough. This one was too aloof, that one was too needy. And so on.

It didn’t take long to realize that The Wife was not going to OK ANY of the cats we might find. The only defense she could offer was “When I see the right cat, I’ll know it.” She pointed out that in the case of our two sibling kitties, she’d just known they were the cats for us, and that’s worked out pretty well.

Fair enough. The kids and I quit looking at cats, and I resigned myself that my wife would be the official cat selector for the family. So it was only a little surprising to get a phone call the other day and find out my spouse had picked up a new cat and brought it home.

I came home to find the newest family member settled down back in my nook, safely quarantined from both the cats and the dog. We realized that the introduction to the existing pack power structure would have to be handled with kid gloves. We’re going to move slowly in hopes of minimizing trauma and other excitement.

So far he’s still in isolation, which hasn’t prevented him from playing footsie under the door with our cat Shadow. Seeker, the alpha cat, is less sanguine about the situation, and I fear we may have trouble with him.

Gus, for his part, has been barking, whining, and hurling his hairy body at the bedroom door separating him from the prey new cat. We hope they will come to an understanding, a hope that is bolstered by the fact that our new cat seems to be completely unafraid. Of anything.

Now that sounds like a good thing. But let’s think about it for a second. Fear is a perfectly healthy survival response. It keeps you from walking off a cliff, or venturing too far in the dark….or trying to ride the Australian Shepherd. So far, the new kitty has reacted to the presence of Gus by making a beeline for him. When they finally get formally introduced, it’s going to be interesting.

Our new cat’s name? Well, I generally disapprove of changing a pet’s name once they have one, which is why our dog is still named Gus. But the cat has come to us with a name that none of us can stand, and it was obvious it would have to be changed to something a little more, well, normal.

After much discussion and wringing of hands, we settled on “Sparky”. This is not only a term of endearment I already use far too much, but it is a reflection of his fearless nature, and continues the naming trend for the cats already in the house — Seeker, Shadow, Sparky.

Rejected names:

L.B. – for “little bit”
T.J. – for “Toby Junior”
Mordecai
Vincent

I personally was holding out for “Nimrod”, but I got outvoted.

I’ve got a short post up at OurPDX commenting on today’s beautiful weather. Click through if you want to read it.

A friend of mine sent this to me, and I agree that it’s important enough to share as widely as possible. For those of us (like me) that learned the old 1-2-3-breathe type of CPR, this is a very different technique.

Please watch. This information might help you save the life of a loved one.

I’ve been more or less obsessed with Mass Effect 2 since it dropped, forsaking all other games (except for a bit of Borderlands) to advance the storyline. It’s a gorgeous game, with terrific voice-work, fascinating characters, and a bunch of great intertwined storylines. The word “epic” gets tossed around a lot when discussing games, but this one really deserves it.

In fact, TIME.com called it “The Avatar of video games – except it’s better written”.

Speaking of ME2, does anyone else think the character of Samara looks, sounds, and moves like a blue Eartha Kitt? Or is it just me?

During the week I’m the first one up in the morning. I stumble to the bathroom, then pull on some sweats. After checking my blood glucose, I slip on some shoes to take the dog outside and retrieve the morning paper. During the winter this routine is irritatingly repetitious — it’s cool (if not cold), damp, dark, and quiet.

Yesterday morning I slipped on my shoes and stepped outside and something was different. I stopped for a moment, then realized that I could hear birds chirping. Several of them, calling back and forth, their trills startlingly loud in the quiet early morning. I’ve seen daffodils blooming, I’ve seen trees starting to bud, but nothing has made me feel the onset of spring as vividly as those songbirds chattering away.

This morning, alas, all was quiet again. And it made me quite sad.

As all parents do eventually, I’ve come to the realization that my children are actively trying to drive me insane.

It’s a joint effort. Although either one could do an admirable job by themselves, together they are positively synergistic in their sanity-destroying prowess.

Their most potent tool at the moment is squabbling. I know, you think to yourself, haven’t they ALWAYS squabbled? Yes, and no. They’ve always done the sibling thing, with kicks and kisses exchanged in roughly equal amounts. But this, this is something else entirely.

For one thing, it’s apparently constant. If they are in the same room with each other, the petty bickering is nonstop. It usually begins with one of them telling the other to do something (as if either of them had the authority to command the other), it then escalates to name-calling, and shortly deteriorates into fairly automatic sniping back and forth.

I don’t think they’re even conscious of it anymore. I think it’s become so automatic that they do it in their sleep, snarkily murmuring cutting remarks back and forth through the wall between their bedrooms.

I, however, am all too aware of it. Yelling at them does no good, and pleading with them merely makes them smile. The only relief I can find is going to my little nook in the back of the house, and closing and barricading the door.

Please, tell me they will grow out of this.

Having complained about them, karma now demands that I take a moment to brag on my children:

My son has been invited to apply for Summa, a special option school in the Beaverton school district. Summa is a program for ‘highly gifted’ middle school students, and the student has to score in the 99th percentile in cognitive ability and/or in both reading and math achievement tests in order to be invited to apply. We are FERVENTLY hoping he gets in, because he would do very well there.

My daughter just finished her science fair project, which involved an investigation of whether Superworms could perceive a ‘visual cliff’, and also whether they preferred to be on a light background or a dark background.

She not only received an award for creativity, but was invited to represent her school in the Beaverton Science Fair. She says she would have been invited to the state-level science fair, except she used animals in her project.

OK, I’m all for ethics in experimentation. I appreciate the safeguards that protect our little animal friends from being cruelly mistreated. But these were worms, and they were worms that were being sold as food for pets. Do we really have to be that concerned that the worms weren’t being mistreated?

Long story short, mai kidz r smrt! Srsly.