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Adventures In Living With The Mythical |
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A military veteran is adopted by a werewolf and brought into his pack. Insanity ensues. About "Life With A Werewolf" Life with a werewolf is a dramatic blog. As such the characters in this blog are not real but maybe loosely based on real people. The situations represented are not real but maybe loosely based on real things that have happened in my life. There are a multitude of ways to view life, this is simply one of the ways I have chosen to view mine. Updated Every Friday unless I can't or don't want to. If this is your first time reading this...start here: https://www.writing.com/main/books/entry_id/1040400-Welcome-To-The-Pack Audio blog is here: https://www.youtube.com/@LifeWithAWerewolf My book, "Dreamers of The Sea" is available now on Amazon: https://a.co/d/0uz7xa3 |
| Certain holiday traditions just run deep for certain families. Some families must watch "Charlie Brown's Christmas Special" every year or "A Garfield Christmas Special". Some families have to cook some large, complicated dish that requires multiple hours and multiple people to help make. My family growing up did a mix of all of those things. Well, when we weren't pecking at each other or outright fighting. Upon moving here though, I've made certain holiday traditions. The week of Christmas, I'll post something crazy and outrageous on the blog. Pranks or a top ten list of some insanity cooked up by experience and tongue-in-cheek cheer. Crash has work slow down, and we gather around food and fun for a little bit while our resident werewolf takes a break from the fur. Some of those things have stuck around. Some of those things have changed this year. One thing is certain, Crash has bought more gifts than normal. To be fair, so have I. Everyone accidentally got two when I meant to get one. And I blew my budget on each gift by at least ten dollars. That doesn't seem like much, but when you exist on a fixed income, it becomes a lot. However, with Crash, it seems almost impulsive. Sean of all people noticed it. He's normally the type who greets you with a smile, share a cup of coffee with you. Say something that seems almost dumb at times in his chill, surfer dude like attitude. This time, though, he stopped Crash in the hallway, patted his arm with a look of sincerity on his face that pulled his smile downwards and said, "dude, it's not necessary. We love you." This made me and Crash both pause. It wasn't intended to tug at hear strings, but it did in his own way. Crash had two more gifts in his arms that he was trying to shuffle down the hallway. He stopped and smiled, gave an embarrassed 'thank you', then disappeared again into his room. "What was that about," I asked Sean. He just shrugged, pushed his hair out of his face and said, "My dad used to do that after being gone on a bender for days." Then went back up stairs. I had two thoughts. One was to sit in Crash's room like a Family Matters episode and have a heart to heart. I'd even have found that same song they played all the time and played it in the background while I did so. My second thought was....pranks! For this prank, I decided not to go all out. I wanted one thing, and one thing only: for Crash to freaking let go for a while! Crash's prank he first pulled on me when I moved in came to mind. This prank was going to be reminiscent of that one. First, I was going to need a couple supplies. Thankfully, the local Dollar store carried most of the stuff. And it was plastic, so if the prank went awry, nothing would get broken. After one of Crash's nightly excursions, he came in the house, a bit grumbly as usual. He was still in full werewolf mode, tired, his ears folded back in that manner that always made me think of a dog who's just exhausted from being a dog. "Hey," I said. Then pointed to the table. "Saved you some dinner." Sitting on the table was a dog bowl, with Crash's name carefully stenciled on it. Inside the bowl was a large ham bone Kris had borrowed from a neighbor. Crash's eyebrows and ears went up. "What?" Before his brain has a chance to process what was going on, Zack came in and smacked him with a rolled up newspaper. "Bad," he shouted. "Bad dog! Eat your supper!" Crash shouted, "Hey!" Then tried to take the newspaper from Zack. Unfortunately for Crash, Kris and Sean where right behind him with their own newspapers, shouting, "Bad dog!" And started smacking him. I had one, and tried, but I was too busy laughing. With a loud growl, Crash snatched the newspapers, and began firing back. It was about then, that I had the brilliant idea to begin balling up the paper and throwing it at Crash. This started a chain reaction of sorts, that devolved into a paper ball war, which ended up with me getting most of the paper shoved down my shirt. At the end, he stood over me, a grin on his face that I hadn't seen for a while. "This was for the whole dog food thing, wasn't it?" "Among other things," I grinned back. "You know we're a pack right? We understand." "I know." Crash turned and left back towards his room. He denies it, but I know he had a wag in his tail. Last Christmas I gave a list of pranks. This Christmas we had that prank. I'm hoping pranks don't become part of our holiday tradition around here. But if they do, this won't be the first family to have a prank war, and we won't be the last. I'm just curious as to how he'll respond now. Lets hope it's with another 'dogfood' bag full of Reese's Puffs. |
| I'm one of those weird people who do not quite feel like it's Christmas season yet. For me, Christmas season starts the weekend before Christmas and runs through New Years day. This current season is set up for one thing and one thing only: buying. Tis the season to be buying crap. That's what this season is to me: Buying season. What are we all doing right now? Wearing out the credit cards, wearing out the floors in the stores, ducking inside each one hoping against hope that we don't hear that Mariah Carey song or another bad version of "White Christmas". We're scrolling through Amazon and E-bay deals, crowding the isles in the grocery stores to get the goodies to prepare. What this is, is preparation. I have this belief because it helps me deal with the insanity of this time of year. I used to be one of those types of people. The type that hates Christmas, that HATES all of the crowding, the cheer, the blah, blah blah. It took me a long time to realize why I was that way. It's because it felt like I was always in Christmas. Stores begin playing holiday music in June so you are reminded to buy Christmas gifts. When they're advertising Halloween decoration and candy in August, the Christmas decorations are right around the corner, literally, sitting on store shelves in one or two isles, shoved near a wall or forgotten corner somewhere. As if lying in wait for you drop your guard before they pounce on you. Television, before streaming came along to replace broadcast TV, used to even show "Christmas in July" and do endless reruns of Christmas movies for a week or two. "A Christmas Story", "A Christmas Carol" (All 140 different versions), "It's A Wonderful Life", "Charlie Brown's Christmas Special", and even "A Garfield Christmas Special". Why, certain channels were nice enough to endlessly re-run "A Christmas Story" for the entirety of December! One year it felt as if I'd seen the entire movie in pieces just by channel surfing. You can overdo anything. It begins to feel as if you're drowning as you're trying to swim upstream through an endless supply of bad Eggnog. That's the reason I swapped my philosophy on things. It isn't the Christmas season. It's the Buying season. It isn't the season of good cheer. It's the season of credit card debt. Good cheer is coming. That's when we get together, share presents and memories, hopefully before that certain aunt or uncle stands up and blasts everyone with their political opinions. It's the delicious home cooked food we only get on those special occasions. It's the traditions that we keep alive, no matter how crazy they are to some people. It's hard at times though, especially when you're in the middle of Buying season, your bank account is closer to a golf score on the PGA than to anything resembling financially solvent, you've heard that Burt Ive's song a thousand times with no end in sight, and your Christmas list is still longer than your arm. It can feel a bit overwhelming, especially this year at this time. A gift from the heart is far better than one from the wallet. Getting Crash a werewolf coffee mug for example is a smart gift. He enjoys coffee, loves being a werewolf, and will more than appreciate it cause it's from me. Getting Zack a new headset or a gift card for his PlayStation makes sense cause of how much he loves video games. Getting Kris and Sean car parts for their vehicles makes sense cause of what they love to do. None of my gifts are expensive. That joke about how low my bank account is, is pretty close to accurate. So, those car parts for example, may end up being cheap lighting gimmicks from Amazon or something. That gift card may end up only being twenty five bucks. Crash's mug may only be a fifteen dollar thing. None of that matters. Tis the buying season. It's the season to get things for our loved ones. For our families. It's sometimes hard, especially in this day and age of Iphone 87s and Galaxy 99 Slim Pros to remember things like that. To remember that it's not the amount of boxes around the tree, but the thought and care that went into selecting what was in the package. Or the sacrifice made to get it. To be fair, I'm not expecting anything extravagant in return. When the Buying Season is harsh, it's harsh for everyone, not just yourself. Prices go up, but pay doesn't. When people's pay doesn't go up the way it should, those of us living on benefits gets an even smaller bump. But it's not about any of that. Not supposed to be anyway. I can't afford to get Zack an awesome new PlayStation, or even a new controller. Can't afford to get Kris and Sean expensive new items they really want for their car, like a Ricaro racing seat and such. Can't afford to get Crash much of anything, really. Which can hurt if you let it. This is the part of the Buying Season that is most painful for some, and makes us all hate Christmas just a bit. The things you want to get people is just two inches out of financial reach. Just two inches beyond your finger tips. This year, I'm doing what I can. Getting the gifts I can afford and not expecting much in return. It's Buying Season after all. Tis the season to prepare. Part of preparing is understanding that, although wants are nice, it's the effort that counts. And I'm putting all of my effort into this. And part of my grocery money as well. Cause Buying season is going to lead to a great Christmas season. And that will hopefully start next year off better. Happy Buying Season, everyone. And Merry Christmas. Early. |
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