​One of our cats – we have four (YABBA DABBA DOOO) – doesn’t ask for much.  There’s a lot to be said for that.  Not just when you’re talking about pets, but people too, and indeed, even life.
 
My wife Debbie scoffed at me a couple of weeks back when I complained that Smudge (our cat referenced above) had taken the seat in front of my desktop computer.  It is a nice cushioned business chair that affords comfort and support.
 
Deb told me to toss Smudge off.  I said I couldn’t because “he doesn’t ask for much,” in comparison to our other animals (two dogs as well) who all seem to have special needs.  I felt bad forcing Smudge from one of his happy spots, so instead I gently moved his chair aside so he could remain king, and I slid a kitchen chair up to my desk to begin writing for the day.
 
The kitchen chair digs into my legs and has a wood back.  Hence, as you can imagine it is very uncomfortable.  In fact, sitting that way for even an hour creates cramps and soreness in different parts of the body.   This led to my remark on Smudge – by putting me into this other chair, I was inconvenienced and my body did not appreciate it.
 
But my discomfort was not enough to force Smudge off his throne.  When I said to Deb that Smudge doesn’t ask for much, I hadn’t thought of the line beforehand.  It just came out.  But it also made me think, and chuckle afterwards, and I even remarked to Deb after saying it how it defines that cat, and also puts in context our other animals, all who demand things in different ways.

Yeah, we are human and we can boss the animals around, but most people who have pets cater to them.  We want them to be happy, like our kids.  So we go the extra mile and pamper them in weird ways.
 
I feed dog food to one of our cats every morning, for example.  She does not have a sterling personality, and in fact loves to hiss at me for the most part, but boy when I get out that chunky canned dog food, she rubs her body up against me and purrs away.  What a manipulator.
 
One of our dogs – Thor – receives the ice cream container after I am done cleaning it out.  He picks it up in his jaws like he’s just run down a rabbit and has captured the prey, and prances into the living room where he gradually munches up the box to deposit tiny pieces all over the carpet for me to clean up later in the evening.
 
We have two cats who essentially don’t leave our upstairs bedroom because they are paranoid.  But that doesn’t stop one of them from loudly and mournfully MEOWING to get my wife to bow to her demands, whatever the heck they are.  I just tell the cat to shut up, and think how fortunate we are to have Smudge.
 
Smudge just wants to be left alone.  He likes to go out at night and come in each morning.  He’ll let you pet him then.  He wants to drink out of the kitchen or bathtub faucet, whichever is convenient at the time.
 
He’ll roll on the ground, climb in a box and occasionally take a whack at you with his paw all in good fun.  He doesn’t demand anything, he asks no questions, he takes care of himself.
 
Smudge is coming in more now that winter approaches.  The least I can do is give him my chair.

​There is, of course a first time for everything.  In the recent movie, The Martian, Matt Damon has a fascinating line when he starts going on about how he’s the first person to climb a hill, leave footprints where he walks on Mars, that everything he does, he knows is the first time a human has had that experience. It was riveting stuff, and made me realize how seldom we can really say that about the things we do here on earth.
 
Even for complex and tough goals, one can’t say forthrightly that you were the first to do something like run a marathon, write a novel or build a home from scratch.  Though each is an amazing accomplishment, we know for a fact that many, many others have done each of those things before.
 
At the individual level, we can imagine our special nature.  For example, if you write a novel for the first time, it is YOUR novel.  No one else wrote it.  You own it. That makes it new and unique for you, a first-time event.
 
Recently, I accomplished my first selfie. This started quite the laughing match between my wife Debbie and our younger daughter Skyler.  I believe they may have thought I’d taken many selfies before, but if they had those thoughts, they were wrong.  I’d been hiding my blindness of the simplicity inherent in taking selfies.
 
When by myself, I tried to take photos with my iPhone of funny or interesting things I did.  I turned the front face of the phone away from me to direct the lens back at me so it was focused on wherever I stood at the time, then clicked. 
 
This led to forehead shots, waist shots, blurry hair and one shoulder being captured on the photo.  But I couldn’t figure out how to make sure the phone was lined up with my face.  “How the heck do all these people take selfies so easily?,” I thought to myself.
 
It couldn’t be that hard.  Going about my daily life, I’d watch (but not that closely) how others pulled it off.  They extended their arms, then clicked away.  Simple enough.  I would try again with the same result.
 
Choosing not to Google-away, I slogged through and gave up, which is what typically happens to the gadget-challenged individuals of the world (who will never be traveling to Mars on an exploration expedition, that’s for sure).  Because a few quick steps don’t bring us to an answer and we don’t want the Internet to show us up once again, we decide to retire from the arena.

So, no selfie attempts for me over a 12-18 month period.  Then, standing in our kitchen the other day, something occurred that forced me to reconsider, while Debbie and Skyler watched.  I spun the phone around, and clicked, and Skyler asked what I was doing.  When I mentioned, “taking a selfie,” she asked why I’d flipped the phone.  “That’s how you do it, isn’t it?,” I replied.

For those of you initiated to the selfie, you are targeting me as the bozo I am.  Skyler broke into laughter.  She showed me the button to reverse the lens, so I could look in the screen and SEE MYSELF while clicking.  “Oh, that’s how you do it,” Mr. Non-Intuitive Technology Man muttered quietly.  Deb and Skyler chortled.
 
A whole new world has opened to me.  Self-absorbed nation, here I come.  But let the record reflect, I haven’t taken once since, and there is the strong probably I can forget where that button is before the next selfie opp comes along.

​We’ve all heard, “Pay for Performance.”  It’s a catch-all phrase for those who crush it to get additional pay in a business environment.  It makes sense and works as a motivator in many situations.
 
It would be intriguing to take the concept one-step further though, and see if we can coin the line, “Pay for a Performer.”  My wife and I batted this around last week after returning from a stand-up routine from social observer David Sedaris. 
 
I had read some of his books, and found them entertaining.  I got my wife to join me for a night out on the town to hear his wry observations on life, which turned out (to us) not to be very wry.  Instead, we thought much of what he read fell flat.
 
The audience seemed to feel otherwise.  They were prepped and ready to laugh raucously.  It seemed they knew the punch lines and prepared the canned laughter before-hand, erupting repeatedly at just the right moment, while we shook our heads, glanced at each other and shrugged our shoulders, wondering what was so funny.
 
Sedaris was okay.  He was mildly amusing.  But he was not worth the price of admission.  That was (and is) the rub when you make a financial commitment to attend an event like this.  Someone gets famous, so they command a high price of admission for tickets.  You, as the consumer, have to decide, “Is he worth it?”
 
Since we don’t go out much, and the event was being held at Bass Hall in downtown Ft. Worth, a neat venue, we decided a night out on the town was appropriate, despite the $77 price for one ticket.  Part of the fun is looking at other people, how they are dressed, carry themselves and interact with their fellow attendees.
 
Ultimately though, to determine if you invested wisely, it depends on how you felt about the performance afterwards.  We agreed the price of admission was worth about $10 per ticket, about twice the price of a high school basketball game.  Some of that fee should go to Bass Hall for the nice facility, and the other portion to Sedaris. 
 
Short of watching a YouTube clip of Sedaris beforehand, quizzing others who attended one of his performances or reading previous reviews, there’s no sure way to get a strong feel for whether you will like him (or any other person who gets up on stage, for that matter).  We apply for crap shoot status when we order tickets.
 
Because of that, and the general exorbitant price of tickets to go see “name” performers, a large majority of people stay home and watch TV or read a book instead.  “Not gonna pay  to see that guy.” 

We relate to that mindset.  After seeing Sedaris live, we relate to it even more.
 
There is a solution.  It reminds me of a political rally I attended in 1984 in a Milwaukee church.  The backers of the candidate passed the hat afterwards.  I think that concept should be used for big-time bands, comedians, authors, and the like.
 
Pay them a nominal fee to show up, including food, lodging, transportation.  Then, how they perform determines how much people will donate to the hat.  Put them on notice.

So many of the rest of us in the world live by this principle – we get paid for what we accomplish.  Let’s apply it to those who seek our hard-earned dough by entertaining us.
 
When the hat is full, the announcer can give the number.  “Thank you for attending tonight.  Mr. Sedaris earned $1,100 from your donations. You all gave an average of five dollars.”  Sounds about right. 

​I don’t own a gun because sometimes people do things that make me so angry that I would use it.
 
Last week an incident happened that only served to demonstrate why I should not have one in my hands.  A friend of mine and I were speaking on the phone.  He related going trick or treating with his two boys.
 
He lives several towns west of us, in the Fort Worth suburbs.  A story circulated on Facebook, later to be confirmed on the news, that someone in his neighborhood had inserted staples into Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups.  Three pieces of tampered and dangerous candy were found.
 
I was floored, astounded and angered.  And, quite frankly, if you put a gun in my hands and that guy who placed the staples in the candy in front of me, I would have pronounced his sentence right there.  Immediate justice.  Blam.  Bye bye, you idiot, nimrod brain.  You do not belong on this planet any more.  Sorry.  Lord, forgive me for those thoughts.
 
I’ve said this before in this column and here it comes again, “WHAT THE F___ IS WRONG WITH SOME PEOPLE!?!?!?!?”  What drives someone to do something so vile? 
 
Is it a hatred of kids?  Did this anonymous person have some kid do something to him personally so that he is now going to take it out on the entire neighborhood population?  In some sick way, does he find it funny or amusing?  Does he want his name on the news?
 
These types of crazies have been around for years.  We hear the stories of foreign objects hidden in different ways in the treats handed out, and as parents we are warned to check what our kids bring home.  Despite receiving that message repeatedly, sometimes evil slips through the cracks.  Thankfully, in this case, no one was injured.  The warnings and alarms cited (which take the fun out of so many events we used to enjoy without having to worry) helped keep kids and parents on alert, leading to the discovery of the danger.
 
We tread cautiously these days.  Random shootings occur.  Sickos try to maim your children on Halloween.  The threads that bind us unravel after these types of events.  We look with trepidation at those we don’t know.  That is bad, so bad.
 
When my friend related what had happened to me, I felt my stomach lurch and was sickened at the thought at what could have happened to an innocent child.  It is our children who we must teach to grow up in this world, and learn to trust others, believe in them, and work together if we are to make this planet a hospitable and habitable environment for generations to come.
 
Nut cases like this Halloween candy-contaminator have a different thing in mind. They are out to poison others.  They wear the devil’s ears and hide behind curtains of fear.
 
I grew up on a dead-end street.  One of our neighbors gave us apples for Halloween every year.  We hated it because of course we wanted candy, but we ate the apple.  Our neighbors were all known to us and us to them.  We could name all the parents and the adults could name all the kids.

It might just be that there is too much anonymity and we need to start sitting on our front porches and talking across the fence to our neighbors, getting to know each other better.  Knit the fabric together.  I think that would help.  Better than me getting a gun.

​One item I like to retweet on Twitter (for those unfamiliar with Twitter, this is when you take someone else’s Twitter post and send it to the people who follow your account) is nature regenerating against the odds.  Two or three years ago, I found a picture of a fir tree growing on a boulder in the middle of a glass-like lake.  Somehow a seed dug its way into the rock, spread its wings, jammed its roots deeply in, germinated and grew until its limbs expanded in prayer. 
 
I appreciated the solitary beauty of the photograph and retweeted it to my followers.  The results were staggering.  Neither before nor since have I posted an item that garnered the number of retweets or “favorites” (similar to “likes” on Facebook) on any photo from my Twitter page.  That retweet exceeded the nearest competitor by probably a margin of 10.
 
It wasn’t just about the beauty of the photo.  Instead, I believe it was about the symbolism.  Somehow, against the odds, nature survived.  It thrived in tough surroundings.  That speaks to our human condition.  We appreciate the underdog; we love to see the little guy going up against the giants and winning.  And we also want to see the splendor of nature make it in our increasingly man-made and technological environment.
 
This past week, our area of North Texas got hit with seven inches of rain over a three-day period after almost four straight months (close to five, actually) of nearly not a drop of precipitation.  During that time, the two tomato plants and one banana pepper plant I had in our garden died.  I watered for awhile, trying to keep them alive in the blistering, brain-fatiguing heat and sun, but they browned up and keeled over.
 
A second banana pepper plant stayed alive for some reason.  Even more strange, I chose not to yank it out and toss it into our compost pile.  Instead, because it wilted, but didn’t fully expire, I left it in the soil.  The leaves still maintained some greenery.  They drooped.  The stem tilted and wilted.  But it hung on.
 
Then the deluge hit, and like magic, the plant righted itself, greened up, and grew.  I remarked on this to my wife – how close I’d been to yanking it out, and how remarkable it was that the plant could get beat up day after day by the heat and sun and cling to life, then suddenly be uplifted by three-day downpours.
 
Many years ago, I had the opportunity to visit Australia, and head to the outback, where Ayers Rock sits. It’s a huge sandstone in the middle of desert-like conditions, with nothing around except scrub for as far as you can see.   Millions of years ago, that part of the country was under the ocean.  Today it gets (if my fuzzy memory serves me adequately) about two week’s worth of rain during a short period of time.
 
As I climbed the rock, there were tiny indentations in the rock, perhaps big enough for you to insert the tip of your thumb.  Inside there was water.  In that water, I saw tadpole-like creatures swimming.
 
This made me wonder what type of amphibian could survive without rain for 50 weeks out of the year, go into hibernation, then reproduce in two weeks when it did rain.  Nature won.  It survived.
 
The solitary tree, banana pepper and tiny tadpole all defy the odds and demonstrate how nature restores itself.  As we batter away against the natural world with high technology, tools and weapons, it remains a wonder to see nature making a statement, telling us, “I can stand up against all odds.”