the new front porch

Miss H and I have done it all. When we were in Bucheon (2012-2013) we were in an officetel, which is a building which rents out rooms for commercial and residential purposes alike. Generally there's one big living area with a kitchenette, a bathroom and a loft, and that's exactly what we had at our old building.

In Gwangnaru (2012-2013) we lived in a villa, which are usually only three or four stories tall and have about four or so rooms on every floor. They're cheaper than officetels, but you have less space. We had a studio apartment, a tiny kitchen, and a twin bed to share. It's a wonder we didn't murder each other. 

We had to keep the door to the enclosed glass veranda (which nonetheless was exposed to the open air and mighty cold) open, because Charlie's litter box was out there. So I put some nails into the door frame and clipped those blankets over the threshold to block the chill night air. 

I stood with my back pressed against the front door as I snapped this picture. Not even enough room to swing a cat. Believe me. I tried. 

Daecheong, in the Gaepo ("get rid of the dog") neighborhood in southern Gangnam-gu, is the first place in Korea where we've lived in an honest-to-God apartment. I won't give you any of the "before" pics (taken before we mopped after the two twenty-something male meatheads who lived here before us). I'll just show you the nice after pics so this post doesn't get too huge:

This actually has nothing to do with new apartments, cleaning, or Gangnam. Miss H and I have decided to be a bit more adventurous when it comes to using our toaster oven as...well, an oven. For baking stuff. These are the necessary supplies. The corned beef hash is my vice. 

And pay no attention to that mess of bottles on the gas range or the fermenter on the kitchen table. The boys were coming over that day to bottle our robust honey-molasses porter, and I was laying out the materials. 

  

Guest bedroom, pulling double duty.

So much storage...[drool]

I'm really glad we're not paying for this place; it cost $450,000. That's US dollars, not Korean won. We have an 18-hour security officer, free large-trash pickup, three bedrooms (I keep mentioning that, don't I?) and a splendid view off the unenclosed veranda-thingy we have out front in lieu of a hallway:

Not pictured: my trusty mountain bike. 

 

I like it. Gives me some nice fresh air to smoke my pipe in. 

Let us get the laundry racks down and the floor swept and I'll put up some images of our apartment's fetchingly-decorated office/den and master bedroom. Oh, that's right! We have to make a run to Insadong or Garden 5 for decorations...

Stay tuned. 

waiting for the (yellow) dust to settle

Dear Readerers, 

   Well, we've been living in our new three-bedroom apartment in Gangnam for four weeks now. Normally I'd have taken some "after" pictures of this place and put them up on Facebook and this blog already, especially after the herculean effort Miss H and I put in to cleaning it. But between the two of us unwed slobs and our trouble-making cat, we can't keep our domicile photogenic for longer than five minutes. 

   I'd also have taken some pictures of the apartment building and the surrounding neighborhood of Gaepo-dong and shown you those as well, but I'm waiting for the dang yellow dust to depart. It's been bad this season. It got started early, all the way back in February, and March is the peak season. Miss H and I have been keeping ourselves busy this month: social engagements, baseball games, trivia contests, and the like. I've managed to sneak in some more brewing with the guys, too—we should be bottling our latest creation, a robust honey-molasses porter, this very weekend. Last weekend I went out to a preseason baseball game (LG Twins vs. Kia Tigers) with some other Sejong professors, and the weather was gorgeous: warm, sunny, and clear. Today, however, we're planning on meeting our army doctor friend, Miss B, at Jamsil Sports Complex and watching another game (Twins vs. Doosan Bears) at 2:00. I just peeked outside and I can barely see the other apartment buildings, let alone the mountains in the distance. It's going to be another moist, hazy, yellowish—and therefore quite warm—day. Blurgh. 

   The April showers should wash all of this crap out of the air and leave everything nice and squeaky clean...before the summer humidity and the omnipresent Seoul smog creep back in, anyway. Maybe I'll get some pics of this apartment then. I should also have some news about my travel plans in summer and autumn and will tell you how our honey-molasses porter tastes. Until then, though...you'll just have to savor the mystery. 

Sincerely,


The Postman

P.S. As bad as the yellow dust is here, it's still worse in China. This is what it looks like there this time of year. Tragic that the poor people living there (and here) have to suffer for the Chinese government's mismanagement of the environment...
 

                                                                                                                    from the Daily Mail

I'm not doing NaNoWriMo this year

...and that's that.

For the past few weeks I've thought long and hard about what to do for National Novel Writing Month. I did it last year with great success, as you know. I banged out about 1500 words a day and finished well past the 50,000-word minimum. On the heels of that success, it behooves me to follow up with another project.

But sink me if I can think of one.

And it's not just the lack of inspiration, either. I'm just busy. Honestly busy.

You know all the other times I said I was busy on this blog? Too busy to write? I was whistling Dixie. I have been hustling these past few weeks. The administration and grading of midterm exams has taken up a lot of my time. I just got the last batch put into the university computer system a few minutes ago, in fact. But there's also household chores, beer-brewing (still need to tell you about the second batch) and whatnot. Miss H and I didn't even get to ride the O-Train like we wanted to last weekend. And even though we joined a gym last Wednesday, we've only been once. For three days we were recovering from soreness, the weekend was hectic and this Monday just finished us off—swamped us. Miss H has laundry to do, groceries to buy and a ton of frozen breakfast burritos to make, while I have dishes to wash, Charlie's litter box to clean, and those aforementioned midterms to input (not in that order). Our apartment's a cluttered, dusty mess. Aside from the usual clothes, trinkets, loose change, receipts, scribbled notes and cordage, there's also three half-filled parcels waiting to be taped up and sent off home. We need to get this place whipped into shape, 'cause I still haven't baptized it with the requisite cocktail party.

Oh, and I did I mention the deluge of condensation that's collecting out on the veranda? Or that my favorite great uncle died two days ago of acute pancreatitis?

Yeah. The world's gone nuts.

My current works-in-progress are taking up my attention as well. I feel like Mugunghwa (the 52,000-word novel I wrote last November) is almost ready. I like it, finally. It looks good. Should be ready for e-publishing by the end of 2013. As for Novel #1, a few tweaks will set it to rights. Then I can start shopping it to publishers in 2014.

So no NaNo this year.

What I will do, however, just to keep pace with Miss H (who is doing it, and more power to her), is start up Novel #4.

Yeah, yeah. I know. Novel #3 is only sixty-eight percent complete. Sue me. I know exactly where it's going. I planned this shit out. I know right where Novel #3 will end, and where Novel #4 will begin. This was Miss H's suggestion, actually. And it's brilliant. Why not start my fourth novel, the third volume of my magnum opus? I might as well get the drop on it. I can easily mow down 50,000 words of it by the end of November. Something tells me it's going to be more fun to write than the previous two. Every book in the series will be more fun to write than the last. And, hopefully, more fun to read.

But I'll let you be the judge of that.

jaguars and spring rolls

April 7 was a fine day: clear and cool with a fine breeze blowing. So fine, in fact, that our hair was lifting off from our foreheads and tugging at our scalps, trying to fly away. The trash cans kept falling over and a fine haze of aerosol hung in the desert air, obscuring the horizon.

Nevertheless Miss H and I decided to venture some 100 miles to the southeast, to the town of Palm Desert, California...and the singular zoo and botanical garden which hides itself there. Tucked into the rocky hills behind the city, behind the golf courses, country clubs and gated communities, lies the Living Desert.

One of Southern California's little-known gems, the Living Desert showcases plants and animals native to the world's deserts. Here you will find all the major players from the hot and arid regions of Planet Earth: the Sahara, Arabian, Gobi, Atacama, and even our own Mojave, Colorado and Sonoran. (For some reason,  they left Africa's Kalahari and Australia's Great Sandy and Simpson Deserts right out.)

From the black widow spider to the zebra, the oryx, giraffe, ostrich, bighorn sheep, Ankole-Watusi, peccaries, badgers, mountain lions, coyotes, fennec foxes, ringtails, coatimundis, servals, sand cats, rock hyraxes, chorus frogs, Gila monsters, meerkats, golden eagles, roadrunners, Mexican wolves, ravens, pronghorn...all manner of desert denizens reside here. Heck, the only thing they don't have is...

...well, I take that back. They have 'em now.

Now, my girlfriend had never been to a zoo. Her parents are homebodies. They don't really go anywhere. Miss H has been to Disneyland (with her friends, or the school band), but not the thousands of parks, museums, zoos, beaches, or other attractions Southern California is famous for. She hadn't even been to an aquarium until she went to Shedd Aquarium in Chicago, near where she went to college.

I consider this a travesty.

Zoos were central to my childhood. I still consider them one of the few places I could spend an entire 12-hour day, along with libraries and arcades.

So I elected to rectify this inequity.

I've already spoken to you about the wonders of Old Highway 247, so I'll say no more about it here. But the wonders of the CA-62 deserve honorable mention. The chaotic descent through Morongo Valley (little more than a glorified canyon, narrow and steep-sided, houses clinging to the hillsides like mountain goats) is followed by a sudden drop through through a perilous gorge, which opens out into the Coachella Valley. Mount San Jacinto looms up in front like a great blue-gray god preaching to his minions—the white and many-armed masses of windmills which line the valley floor. A few miles later and we merge onto Interstate 10, which stretches from Santa Monica to Jacksonville, Florida, thousands of miles to the east.

A few miles later we get off in Palm Desert.

Palm Desert (and the neighboring borough of Indian Wells) is the slightly shabbier cousin of Palm Springs. Only slightly shabbier, mind you. If Palm Springs is the equivalent of a thirty-room mansion, Palm Desert manages at least a fifteen-room hacienda. Green lawns, red-tile roofs, stucco walls, golf courses, country clubs, classy restaurants, and more palm trees than the Hanging Gardens of Babylon. It's a haven for the wealthy, where the comfortably-well-off go to golf and get away from the hustle and bustle of the beach and metropolis. It gets blasphemously hot here; even a 90-year-old wouldn't need to pack a sweater or track suit.

This is also the perfect environment for a zoo with desert animals.

Miss H and I had to dodge a few stupid drivers on our way through town (unfortunately, you can't lose the dumb people no matter how far you go). We parked, took a last swig of water, and marched on the gates. About $28.50 later we were inside.

Thankfully, in early April, it was still quite equable in the Coachella region. If this had been a normal spring, temperatures might've been in the upper 80s; but as it was, a cold front was blowing through and it was a balmy 67. That same stiff breeze was blowing, cooling whatever wasn't already cool enough. The train diorama was in full swing, and so were the billions of schoolchildren surrounding it. 

(Photo credits go once again to my beautiful and talented girlfriend.)

I won't spoil the multitude of exhibits awaiting you inside this fantastic place. As always, I invite you to see for yourself. I will say, however, that Miss H and I strolled through it with languor and abandon, picking out the zoological attractions we'd most like to see on the map and sallying forth to peruse them. Aviaries, paddocks, sprawling pastures, quiet tree-lined paths...arm in arm, hand in hand we walked, gazing into each other's eyes and sharing a quiet giggle between us. Once we paused beneath an ironwood tree to snatch a quick, passionate kiss. We were in love and we didn't care who knew it, not the oryx, nor the meerkats, nor the warthogs or cheetahs or...

...the jaguar.

Whoa, wait, WHAT?! A jaguar? What the—?! They didn't have jaguars the last time I was here!

It was with awe and wonder and no small enjoyment that Miss H and I beheld the Living Desert's newest attraction, a grade-A genuine jaguar. Set in a newly-built habitat simulating a Mexican silver mine, the jaguar dozed contentedly on his patch of dirt, in the shade of a spreading mesquite tree. I was stunned. I'd never seen a jaguar in the flesh, not in any zoo. Up until this point I'd been content with the Living Desert displaying species which were unique, unutterably suited to their environment, but nonetheless familiar, and therefore slightly mundane: golden eagles, mountain lions, coyotes, giraffes. A jaguar...well, that was a cat of a different color.

After enjoying the park to the fullest (including the unexpected proximity of bighorn sheep), we made our egress from the Living Desert and went in search of our next conquest.

The Elephant Bar.

A charming little African-themed place on the CA-111 in Palm Desert, the Elephant Bar had lots of dark, carved wood, brass fixings, bamboo inlay, and some rather unusual ceiling fans. We arrived during happy hour, and seated ourselves at the 60-foot bar, where appetizers and well drinks were half-price until 4. The food, which the menu had claimed to be an Oriental-Occidental fusion, was just that—only in wondrous abundance. We dined first on artichoke dip and Vietnamese shrimp spring rolls, both of which were more delicious than anything we'd yet sampled. For the main course, I selected the teriyaki chicken, while Miss H chose the chicken marsala. Between the two of us, we'd try both sides of the coin. Both dishes were exceedingly flavorful and succulent, and served in amazing proportions. We didn't even have room for desserts, even though there were at least four pages of those in the menu: the bartender recommended the crème brûlée, but it was the chocolate-chip cookie sundae that caught our eye. We waddled out of that place.

It was but the work of an hour or so to traverse Palm Desert and Indian Wells in the fading daylight, view the fountains and green fairways tinged orange by the red desert sun, regain the CA-62, climb the torturous road back into the Mojave, and travel homeward with the warm evening breeze fresh in our faces.

Another field trip bites the dust.

adjusting for refraction, part II

This is what I'd secretly hoped would happen all along, you know?

I'd be flying out of a quiet, run-down, pleasant sort of backwater airport filled with interesting people: savants, a few young guns like myself, wise old sages, colorful internationals, jokesters, ace pilots, acrobats, war veterans, lots of beat-up airplanes, and maybe a lethargic dog or cat.

And that's exactly what I'm doing.

Let me tell you a bit about M_____ Aviation, where my bosses rent their spare Mooney (known as 95W, or Nine-Five Whiskey). The building is a hangar, to which a couple of carpeted, fluorescently-lit rooms have been tacked on. It's just west of 18, right on the taxiway, and in the exact center of the runway; what's known as "midfield" in aviation lingo. There are about thirty or so airplanes of every description parked nearby, tied down against the omnipresent desert breeze.

Inside the hangar, three small aircraft sit in various states of dissection. The radio is always on, and the booming voices of talk show hosts carom off the metal walls and rebound through the empty space. Workbenches, carts, trolleys, and shelves, all packed with oilcans and all kinds of tools, are scattered throughout. The extra rooms comprise the office, bathrooms, and classroom of M_____ Aviation. The classroom is about the size of a dining room, and has a couple of long tables and a mismatched selection of rickety chairs. There's a whiteboard, which almost always has some basic principle of aviation demonstrated upon it in fading marker: the different kinds of airspace, accepted methods for stall recovery. The walls of the classroom are plastered with old white T-shirts and assorted bits of cloth; upon these, also in marker, have been scrawled the names of students, the dates of their first solo flights, and some encouraging remarks like "It was a piece of cake!" or "Three Perfect Landings!" Some artistic souls have also drawn pictures of their airplane coming in on Runway 18.

Light shines feebly in through the opaque glass of the windows. There's a microwave in one corner of the classroom, with an ancient Cup o' Noodles sitting on it. The tables are covered with piles of aviation magazines, textbooks, and instructional pamphlets. The computer in the opposite corner sits and whirs idly.

The main office is a long room, about thirty feet. It smells heavily of secondhand smoke. The southernmost end has a couple of soft, sagging couches, more aviation magazines, toys, mugs, headsets, and all manner of bumper stickers and license plate holders, all for sale. Aviation comics from the 1930s and photographs of F-86s and B-25s are tacked up on the stained, yellowing walls. The coffee machine next to the bathroom door is well-supplied with creamer, sugar, and Styrofoam cups—even little brown straws. On the north side of the room, toward the classroom, is the reception desk. It is impossible to discern what kind of wood it's made of, or even if it's made of wood at all. There is such an amazing pile of textbooks, documents, newspapers, paperweights, cigarette lighters and coffee cups on it that its surface is utterly obscured. The desk faces the two big glass doors and the two floor-length plate-glass windows on either side of them; but for the eucalyptus tree out in front of the office, there'd be a rather good view of Runway 18. (There are also some shrubs and a metal barbecue, filled with cigarette butts, outside.)

Just inside the glass door is another sagging couch...absurdly comfortable, conforming immediately to one's backside. To the right of the desk, as you walk in, is the classroom; to the left, there's a long, low glass counter, filled with textbooks and merchandise (and further down, bumper stickers). Payments are transacted here. Up against the east wall, where the doors are, there's a sort of shelving unit which separates the north and south sides of the room. On this shelf are tiny flight jackets (for those toddlers aspiring to be aviators) and other aviation apparel. There is also a large, smooth, two-bladed wooden propeller leaning up against this shelf, all of a piece. Pete says the propeller was carved out of a single block of wood by a local woman with a chainsaw. I don't know if that's true, but Pete has no cause to lie about it.

Ah-ha!

Now that I've finished populating this flight school with inanimate objects, I must relate to you something of its organic denizens. Enter Anna, the Dutch matron who runs the place, and Pete, the soft-spoken genius mechanic. Anna is short, thickset, and brown-haired, with twinkling brown eyes that shine out of a weather-beaten face. She smokes unashamedly and plays solitaire on the computer at light-speed. I took a liking to her almost immediately. She always has some incisive observation to make, and she knows aviation through and through. I'll bet she's forgotten more about flying than I'll ever learn.

Anna has aviation in her blood. She learned to fly in her native Holland, oh-so-many years ago, as she says. She flew in Holland, in Belgium, in Germany, and then finally came over here and started up this flight school in 1978. She's a fun person, always giving you a big hello. She pronounces her R's like W's, and her Th's like D's, but dat's all wight with me. Anna always arrives first, about ten minutes before seven, unlocking and opening the gate and starting the coffee. She makes good coffee. That's quite something, coming from me. I don't even like coffee. But hers is quite palatable.
"In Holland," she told me when I complimented her, "dey make it twice as stwong."
Oh goodie. Now I have another entry for my already monumental list of places to visit and things to do.

And then there's Pete. Pete rolls up about five minutes after Anna, in a gray Toyota stained black with tar. It looks as though a tarry monster slimed and oozed its way out of his truck bed, down the side panel and onto the ground. Anna told us it was from the work they'd done earlier re-tarring the ramp area. They'd done it themselves. It's not surprising. Pete is handy guy. He's the resident aviation mechanic, and rather proficient by all appearances.

What appearances, you ask? Well, I'll tell you.

Maybe I'm a sentimentalist, or set too much store by appearances. But regardless, there are certain visual criteria I use to determine if somebody is a quote-unquote "good" mechanic. The first thing I really noticed about Pete was his hands. For a man as short and skinny as he is, his hands are disproportionate. The fingers are large, thick, and stubby, covered with nicks and coated with the grayish vestiges of yesterday's engine oil. It's under his nails, down his cuticles, embedded in the creases of his knuckles. That spells "good mechanic" to me. I figure his fingers didn't start out thick and stubby like that. They got that way from years of poking around inside aircraft engines, nicking them on sharp metal corners, scraping them on unforgiving cylinder heads and cowlings, fumbling with nuts and rivets, tweaking, tuning and tinkering, often in freezing temperatures or other harsh conditions. The oil tells me he's not afraid to get his hands dirty, nor leave them that way for a while. Pete's all fix and no fuss, in other words. I admire men like that. I don't mind getting coated with engine oil or working on anything mechanical, but I have a set of beater clothes for that. Pete just dives right in.

The rest of him bears out that impression. The only part of Pete that ever changes is the color of his button-down shirt. The rest of him stays the same. Bespectacled, with a salt-and-pepper mustache and sideburns, flyaway brown hair poking out from beneath his cap, Pete just looks like a stereotypical aviation mechanic. He smokes as much as Anna, if not more. He's soft-spoken, and quietly whistles his consonants. He never opens his mouth wide when he's talking; and his mustache acts like a shield for his teeth and gums. But eventually I was able to determine that Pete is missing one of his front teeth. Whenever he's investigating an engine, peering under the cowling with a flashlight in his hand, Pete whistles breezily through this gap in his dentition. The knees of his jeans are eternally oil-stained. His feet fit snugly into comfortably beaten tennis shoes. He wears a plain black jacket with a pocket on the sleeve, and reaches unhesitatingly into whatever aperture or opening on an engine he can find.

That's his first and most trusted diagnostic: reach in and feel around for the trouble. As we attempted to remedy the inoperative governor yesterday, I saw Pete employ this method to great effect. He reached in and fumbled around a while, whistling airily, his arm embedded in the engine up to the shoulder. Then he pulled his hand back out. An incriminating drop of oil slid down his index finger like blood. Pete's got some funny stories to tell, too. And it's a delight to hear somebody tell him their mechanical problems. You can just see the wheels turning in Pete's head. He'll muse for a bit, and then ask a few salient questions: "What was the oil pressure doing?" or "Was it sustained at 2200 RPM?" Then he'll grab his screwdriver and head out to the hangar to do battle with the Gods of Disrepair.

Like I said, he seems to be a good mechanic.

Pete doesn't commute to the airport alone. He carpools. Zeke always comes with him. Zeke has four legs, a wet snout, amber eyes, and fur as soft and abundant as a chinchilla. He's a German shepherd cross, and Pete's constant companion. After relieving himself outside on the taxiway somewhere, Zeke comes inside and lays down in the middle of the floor, right in front of the reception desk. He barked at Mr. Mooney and me a few times, but got used to us eventually. Indeed, once he figured out I was good for free pets, I became his new best friend. Airplanes don't faze him; firing engines don't bother him in the slightest. He's a shockproof, biscuit-mad, pet-crazy old airport dog, that's all.

Scan is the name I give to M_____ Aviation's last noteworthy resident. Mr. Mooney and I were rolling 95 Whiskey back into place when I spotted a cat sitting on the asphalt just ten feet away. He was dark gray, with a black back and stripes. Pete noticed my surprise.

"Want a Cat Scan?" he asked.

"I'm sorry?" I answered shakily, not sure I'd heard him right.

"He gives Cat Scans," Pete answered, nodding at the cat, an undercut smile on his face. "He'll climb inside your engine and tell you what's wrong with it."

I, in my usual blockhead mode, still didn't understand.

"He charges 75 bucks, though," Pete went on, still smiling. "And he doesn't diagnose much apart from mice."

Finally, I caught on.

"Yeah," I grinned back. " 'Everything's good in there, man, but you've got some birds in the air intakes!' "

Both of us chuckled.

Scan doesn't really have a name so far as I'm aware. If he does, I've never heard anyone call him by it. Scan seems to suit perfectly well.

And now, before I let you go, I will tell you about refraction. As we discussed yesterday, refraction is chiefly the change in direction of a ray of light, sound, or heat, in passing obliquely from one medium to another.

I wouldn't go so far as to call myself a ray of light, but I have passed obliquely from one medium to another: unemployment to employment, stagnation to participation, earth to air. And I think I feel a change in the wind. This new job is not the paltry part-time noncommittal thing I imagined it would be. It's the real deal. There's some potential for advancement within this company. They're expanding, growing, pushing out, taking on new contracts. I'm getting some flight time in the right seat and also furthering my writing career in my off-hours. The pay is good, and there's the possibility that it may increase.

But more importantly, I'm enjoying the work. I stand to both (a) save up a lot of money, and (b) "grow as an aviator," as Mr. Mooney put it. Long story short...this might turn out to be a lengthier gig than I imagined. I think I might stick around for a year or three and see how things turn out. Who knows what'll happen? I might make great strides in obtaining my commercial pilot's license, at the very least. At most...well, I'm not given to wild speculation.

Tentatively, it's safe to say that I have been refracted. My direction has changed. I have passed from one medium to another, and ricocheted off in a new and exciting direction. I'm content to settle in for a spell and see where it takes me. If I don't to Australia or Japan this year or the next...so be it. They're not going anywhere.

But I am.

how to name a fish

[SPECIAL NOTE: For best results, read this post while listening to "Karn Evil 9: 1st Impression, Part 2" by Emerson, Lake, and Palmer. Preferably quite loud.]

We can't all be exceptional. The word "exceptional" means "rare, unusual, or extraordinary." You can't be extraordinary without the ordinary, rare without the common, unusual without the usual. The point is to attempt to be exceptional.
It's tricky to do in this day and age, I grant you. We've become a civilization that sympathizes with mediocrity rather than scorning it. We're content with the ordinary rather than the extraordinary. We accept banality if it'll make a little money, entertain us for a while, or both.
But you have to keep up the fight. You mustn't quit. Don't give up. Don't accept mediocrity. Expunge trendiness. Eschew popularity. Be extraordinary. Be unusual. Be weird. Get out on the fringes and dance. It doesn't take much. All it takes is the ability to think outside the box, the self-assurance to step over the ridicule, and a little imagination. That's the root cause of all this mediocrity anyway: lack of imagination. Nobody puts any thought or effort into anything anymore. That's why we have stuff like reality TV.
So put some effort into what you create. Think about it. Imagine first. Dream a little. And whatever you do, dream big. Perform those minute actions which defy conformity, banality. Undermine 'em. Knock 'em back into next week.
How, you ask? Simple.

The first step would be to NOT name your dog "Buddy."

Have you any notion of how many dogs in the history of the Universe have been named "Buddy"? Probably enough to fill up Qualcomm Stadium. Five dogs deep. To demonstrate, my father has owned about seven English Springer Spaniels in his adult lifetime. All of them were regulation liver-and-white. And all of them were named "Buddy." I'll admit that Pop was mighty fond of that first "Buddy." But even among working men, nostalgia has its limits. I look around. I watch dog-training shows. I visit friends' houses. And I invariably encounter a pack of dogs with trite monikers. Too many Buddies. Too many Spikes. Too many Princesses, Dukes, Butches, Wolves (Wolfs?), Astros, Rovers and Zekes. It's only the blue-ribbon competitions where unique dog names really get to shine. Unfortunately, hardly any of us can name our mutts "McBryde's Big Bottle of Irish Sunshine" or "Her Ladyship's Southern Tuscany Escapade." My opinion of people would be greatly heightened, however, if they'd get out there and dream up some new and better dog names. And when I say "new and better" I'm not talking about inventing new ones, like "Kronor" or "Thaksoonf" or "Margagchstha." I'm sure that you think you're being creative way down deep inside, but the rest of us think you're a flake of granola. Or worse, a Trekkie.

I merely mean to suggest that you employ "unusual" appellations to your pets. Names that are familiar and pronounceable, but uncommonly seen. Names found in a neglected corner of the Name Universe, if you will.

Me, I'm gonna name my dog "Remington." "Remy" for short. (That's so he doesn't break the ironclad Two-Syllable-Maximum Rule of Canine Appellations.) Yeah, Remington. That's if he's a German shepherd or some other large working breed. A border collie might sustain the name "Winchester" better (Winch for short). If he's a basset hound—which is a distinct possibility—I reckon "Browning" would be fitting.

Now, if I have two dogs, my choices become somewhat more limited, but not completely. "Smith" and "Wesson" would be good names for a couple of beagles (Ruger if there's just the one). Be they a pair of elkhounds, perhaps "Heckler" and "Koch" would suit. Any set of otterhounds or collies could merit the labels of "Parker" and "Hale." "Mossberg" would do for a Alaskan malamute. A husky, though, would have to be "Colt." Martin, Grumman, Curtiss, Lockheed, Boeing, Northrop, Vultee, Vought, Gloster, Blackburn, Hawker, and Bristol might be pretty good dog names too.

Concerning the cats... I'm not a cat guy. At least, I never used to be. That was before Mom went and picked up the cutest darn little gray tabby kitten from the pound a few years ago. Now he's the cutest darn gray tabby cat you'll ever see. I mean, everything: nice and sleek, soft fur, big green eyes, black lips, white paws, and what's more, he's useful. Archie actually works for his keep, too. Any kangaroo rat or finch that strays inside the garage—or within eight inches of the garage door—is destined for a hideous death. By the next morning they've been reduced to severed tails, a few forlorn feathers, and one distasteful internal organ, piled neatly on the garage door rug in humble sacrifice. But even beyond that, Archie's nice. Always runs up to you, meows gently, rubs up against your leg. The only payment he demands is a good scratchin'.
So maybe two dogs and two or three cats would do the trick. But what to name the cats? What's original anymore? "Muffin" has been used way, way too much. And it's a stereotypical cat-lady name anyhow. Paws, Mitsy, Fluffy, Boots (first name Puss-in), and Pooty-pie are all cliché.
I shall dub the first cat Igor, after Igor Sikorsky, the inventor of the practical helicopter. I shall label the second J.R., after J.R. Oppenheimer, the inventor of the practical atomic bomb. I shall christen the third Maurice, after Maurice Vermersch, the inventor of the practical Belgian waffle. Or maybe I'll call him the Lorax. He speaks for the trees. Oh wait, that's taken. Shazbot.

What does that leave? Birds? Nah, I'll pass. My brother had a cockatiel in high school named Oliver. I taught him to speak. I always used to greet him when I came in the door: "Hey, bird!" Soon, Oliver had copied my inflection and even some of my enunciation, almost perfectly. There was just one problem. He doubled the volume. Tripled it sometimes. "Hey, bird!" I'd say. "HEY, BIRD!" Oliver would scream. That got old REAL fast. So did Oliver's habit of shrieking whenever his beloved master was out of sight. And humping my socks.

Snakes? Nah. Snakes have no love. They can't look into your eyes with that simple, unconditional adulation that dogs have mastered. They can't shake your hand, either. Rats? Maybe. Trouble is, the name "Templeton" is already taken, too. Tarantulas? Hmmm. Cute? Check. Fuzzy? Check. Interesting? Indeed. Vivifying to be around? Not really. This being California, I'm not allowed to have hedgehogs or ferrets. More's the pity.
So that pretty much leaves fish. The tradition in my family has always been to give the fish a name that's longer than the fish itself. My first was named "Wakefield." There followed a kingly line, a royal succession of icthyoid sovereignty. All were assassinated by my brother's fish. (He gave them the plague.) I can't remember any of their names, except for Mergatroid. I miss Mergatroid. He was cool.

I reckon there's only one way I can go as far as fish names are concerned. If I have one fish, I'll call him Jethro Tull. If I have two fish, I'll call 'em Simon and Garfunkel. If I have three fish, I'll call them— (Oh, surely you know what's coming, don't you?) —Emerson, Lake, and Palmer.

Joke's on you, pal.