Category: The Good Man

Because I Am Meaner Than You

As time will do, when it passes by it takes little chunks of me with it. I know I wake up in the morning a lot creakier than I used to and there is swiss cheese where my remembering parts used to be.

This problem is true for both humans and animals.

And so it has come to pass that my fourteen and almost fifteen-year-old feline is having a few health issues. It’s not good, but it’s manageable.

What this means, however, is we have to give the fuzzy three different medications.

Now, this animal of ours, she does not like to be messed with. At all. The survival instinct is strong with this one, and fight not flight is her main mode.

This cat stands her ground and then some.

Many of you are probably saying, “nah, that’s just how cats are” and think about how squirmy your cat may be.

Be advised, our vet is scared of this cat. Let me drive that point a little farther in. A woman whose job it is to deal with animals in all forms day in and day out, and has been doing so for almost thirty years, has told us “you know your cat is especially wiggly, right?”

Wiggly. That sounds cute.

It’s not.

So back to these three medications. One is a drop we can put on a piece of food. Fine, that happens easily.

One is a pill. This involves prying her mouth open, which then invites a lot of biting, clawing and hostility. Occasional growling and meowing too. Once the pill is down many hostile looks are sent my way as I watch an animal plotting my death in her mind.

The third is an asthma inhaler. Delivering this medication is, to put it mildly, a rodeo. We watched videos online to see how to do this and every person who said “my cat fights it” or “my cats is extra squirmy” was the owner of the kind of cat I would love to have.

These people who think they have a wiggly cat have not wrapped an arm around Satan incarnate and tried to get the great horned creature to inhale and exhale a minimum of ten times with a rubber mask over its snout.

There have been times The Good Man and I have both tried to hold this feline beast down and administer the meds and haven’t been able to do so.

To be fair, my handsome and adorable Good Man is also a kind man. He’s a gentle soul, which is probably why he is able to put up with me.

He hates seeing his own cat suffer this much. He and that damn feline have been through a lot together, they are like survivors of the wars and he feels it is a betrayal to do this to her.

So the wet work, as they say, falls to me. May I point out the many scratches on my arms, legs and chest?

But I seem to have sorted out how to get the meds into the beast. I have tried many approaches and for the moment I have something that is working. I’m sure that smart cat will figure out a counter attack, but for now, I’m doing it.

Last night as I held that damn asthma mask on the cat and she was actually kind of still (because I had her in a wrestling lock that Rowdy Roddy would be proud of) and breathing, The Good Man looked on in amazement.

“How…how did you do that?” he asked, perplexed. “I don’t understand how you can give her the meds and I can’t?”

I replied simply, “It’s because I’m meaner than you.”

And it’s true.

As a woman of New Mexico, I have worked cattle, horses, sheep and pigs (and on one weird day, turkeys).

When you work livestock you learn more than a little about giving meds to an animal who would rather you didn’t. And how to do it without hurting yourself or the animal.

And how to grit your teeth and be a little mean about it because ultimately it’s being kind. I hope we can get this feisty cat to feeling better.

I have to admit, I admire her survival instinct. Now pass me the Neosporin.





What?!?!




Photo Copyright 2012, Karen Fayeth, and subject to the Creative Commons in the right column of this page. Taken with an iPhone5 and the Camera+ app.




Que Bonita

This past weekend was something like a “what weekend?” as I worked my tail feathers off both days. About 1/3 of the tail feather workout was due to my job. Yes, I get to work for free on behalf of my employer, even on my days off. The joys of being a salaried employee.

The other 2/3 was working on my own sideline creative stuff. I did about 25 story submissions, I edited a photo that I will be showing later this week (that takes such a long time…a little burn here, a little dodge there), and I wrote a story for the first round of the NYC Midnight Flash Fiction contest.

The contest works this way: They give you a location, a genre and an object. All three have to be there in the story. This can be both liberating and constraining, depending on what you get. My draw for this first round was romance/haunted house/marshmallows. Not bad, not great.

Sunday around noon I found myself starting at that cursed curser blinking at me and I tried to find a story idea that was scary and lovey and marshmallowy all at the same time. A challenge. I was writing words but they weren’t coming easily. My iMac sits on a table near a window, and something caught the corner of my eye as I labored. I looked out the window. Seems on that sunny creatively frustrating Sunday I had an auspicious little visitor.

I grabbed my camera, put on the longest lens I own, popped the screen out of the window and started clicking away.

I’m so glad I did.




Photo copyright 2013, Karen Fayeth

This gorgeous lone Monarch Butterfly was just hanging out in the warm sun, using the ol’ proboscis to gather some pollen and doing its butterfly thing. As I watched, a couple bees were highly displeased at the presence of the butterfly and kept strafing him (I say him correctly, I looked up Monarch butterflies online and the dots around the wings signify a male. edit: Upon further Googling, I think this is actually a female).

These bees were executing deep aggressive fly bys that only caused the butterfly to flap his wings a bit but stay put. Man those bees were persistent. And I kept snapping away. I have some awesome action shots that I’m still editing.
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After a while, the butterfly flew off and I downloaded and looked through my photos, very pleased with the results.

Then I sat back in my chair and I smiled. After the visit from Mr. Butterfly, I felt totally motivated and completely creative. I turned back to my story and banged out about 1,300 words in one sitting. Then set it aside and let it percolate while The Good Man and I went to local street fair.

When we came back I edited the beejeezus out of the story, got it to 999 words (the limit is 1,000) and submitted it about 45 minutes before the deadline. Man oh man hitting send on that story sure felt good.

I owe my creative surge to a visit from a pretty orange butterfly on the first day of Autumn.





Photo copyright 2013, Karen Fayeth, and subject to the Creative Commons license in the right column of this page. Taken with a Canon Rebel, edited lightly in Elements.




A Shiny New Toy

My fascination with bridges is pretty well documented. I have a mini project going on in my creative background to photograph bridges (and rivers, boy do I love rivers!).

This weekend I had a nice opportunity to photograph a brand spanking new bridge.

For years, ok pretty much since I moved to the Bay Area, I have railed about the eastern span of the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge. The western span is a beautiful, elegant suspension bridge while the eastern span is a bunch of clunky tinker toys, better known as a cantilever bridge.

Here’s a photo I took from the upper deck of the tinker toy:



Image Copyright 2010, Karen Fayeth

This part of the bridge is very functional but not very aesthetically pleasing. At least in my personal opinion (others disagree).

You’ll recall that in 1989, this was also the section of the Bay Bridge that collapsed during the Loma Prieta earthquake.



Image from Wikipedia and used under a Creative Commons license.


If that photo don’t make your heiney pucker, than you have a set of brass nerves that I just don’t have.

In the wake of the 1989 earthquake, planning and work began to replace this span of the Bay Bridge with something more seismically stable. This project was not cheap and it was not simple, but by gum, now some 24 years later the brand spanking new eastern span of the Bay Bridge opened up to the public last night.

Traffic reports this morning were pretty bleak as plenty of people crammed onto the new span for their first ride.

Yesterday The Good Man and I sought to escape the breeze-less heat at our happy home and drove out to the marina near Emeryville, which offers unobstructed views of the City, the bridges and downtown Oakland. I took my camera along as I am part of a photography club and this month’s theme is landscapes.

Here is my semi-artistic view of the new eastern span (to the far left in the photo) and how it blends is perfectly with the existing buildings and landscape of the San Francisco city line (that’s the top of the iconic Transamerica building just to the right of the new bridge).

At first I was no fan of the white paint on the new span, but now I’ve come to love it. This new suspension bridge really stands out against the backdrop and claims its own place in Bay Area history.



Image Copyright 2013, Karen Fayeth


Hard to tell from this photo, but there are no cars on the deck of the bridge. Who knows how many years will pass before we see that again!

And while I’m excited to the point of hyperactivity about this gorgeous new suspension bridge and looking forward to seeing it every day as I drive to work, I find something curious is happening.

The news reports say that the moment the new bridge is up and running, the old eastern span will be dismantled. The pieces will come out in the reverse order they went in and much of the metal will be sold for scrap. This makes me a bit sad. It seems that ugly ol’ bridge found a way into my heart. Those 1934 era tinker toys now mean something to me, and I’m more than sad to see them go.

In the wake of this shiny new toy, that unseismically sound bridge now seems awfully lovely. In the many months I commuted to the east bay across the Bay Bridge (before I made the big move), I learned to love the forgotten little sister to the Golden Gate bridge.

Sure am going to miss one half of my old chum, even as I welcome this safer new span.

I’m glad the Bay Bridge is having a much deserved moment in the sun.





Image of the old eastern span of the Bay Bridge, Copyright 2010, Karen Fayeth. Image of new eastern span of the Bay Bridge, Copyright 2013, Karen Fayeth. Both images subject to the Creative Commons license in the right column of this page. Old span taken with an iPhone and the Camera+ app, new span taken with a Canon Rebel and fixed up a bit in Photoshop.




The Sum Of Who You Are

Genetics are a funny thing. A real funny thing. Not funny ha-ha as much as “oh, wow….”

I had quite a bit of time to ponder this over the past several days as The Good Man and I traveled to Oregon for a family reunion.

In attendance were my mom, my brother, and my sister along with a whole host of other extended family. I saw cousins I hadn’t seen since I was in high school. I met cousins I had never met before.

It was a really nice day and we all ate and chatted and got caught up. I had a few moments to look around the party and think, wow, that’s my family. We share genetics and even the relatives by marriage are part of the dna chain through their kids.

So many people, so similar and yet so dissimilar all related by the common threads that run through our molecules.

And then there was the really fun conversation I had with my cousin’s oldest son who last I recall was toddling about and slobbering over Cheerios. Now he’s a full-fledged adult, married to a wonderful woman and being an awesome part of the human race. Wow, does time fly.

I think the best part of the day was when a good ol’ fashioned thunderstorm rolled in over the warm Oregon day. The raindrops started slowly and picked up speed. We all backed up our chairs under the porch awning of my cousin’s house and watched the storm roll through.

Yes, it’s true, the big event of the day was watching a storm. Man how I miss rainstorms that come with a show. This was a pretty darn good spectacle, too. As drops plopped and lightning cracked the sky, I sat next to my cherished aunt and we laughed while she teased me for being so chicken about the thunder. Then we discussed the rain and the day and life in general and were just simply…family.

I had been rather nervous going into the event, unsure what to expect and wondering what I have and haven’t made of my life since we were all together last.

I left the event a little tired but happy and a bit content. My worries were for naught.
And The Good Man got to learn a little bit more about who he married.

It only scared him a little.








Image found here.




We Are A Man Down

These past few days have been a little harder than usual. I mean, the regular crap with work and traffic and laundry and all of the trappings of being a grownup are there. It’s just…these past days have been a little more uphill than usual.

That’s because my partner in crime, The Good Man, has been out of town on travel. So, you know, boo hiss on that.

Well, that’s not entirely true. He took off early Saturday morning and in many ways I was pretty damn excited to be a bachelorette for a while. Whoo! All my limbs all over the place in the bed! I can watch sappy chick movies on Netflix without the ongoing sarcastic commentary in the background. I can eat whatever I want for dinner without explaining!

Yes!! Saturday I glued myself to the couch and watched way too many episodes of “How I Met Your Mother” (how am I just discovering this series?) and that night I had cookies and a crisp cold glass of chardonnay for dinner.

Yes I did!

The next morning I woke up with a tummy ache. And when I reached out for the comfort of my adorable husband, he wasn’t there. Even the damn cat wasn’t with me in the bed, she wasn’t having any part of me.

I found her sleeping in the chair by the front door. This is the place she sleeps when she waits for us to come home. Note I said “us.” I’m there in the house, she knows I’m there, but she is not having it. The cat is depressed and stays in this chair all day, waiting for her boy human to come home. Which does wonders for my ol’ pet owner self-esteem, I can tell you that.





Sunday afternoon I ran some errands. WAY less fun to grocery shop without a cute boy there to hold up a funny looking vegetable to make me laugh or to get the last box of my favorite cereal off the very topmost shelf of the store.

Damnit! I don’t wanna be a bachelorette anymore! I like being a couple. All those times I complain about his lengthy limbs encroaching on my side of the bed was all just joshin’. I wouldn’t mind a big heavy arm across my tummy while I sleep. He can even steal all of the blankets, I’m ok with it!

*sigh*

Tomorrow. Tomorrow is when my joy comes home.

Ain’t no sunshine when he’s gone. Well there was, just one day. But then nothing but cloudy days since.








Sad cat image Copyright 2013, Karen Fayeth and subject to the Creative Commons in the right column of this page.

Lyric image found here.