Dramatis personae

When I launched this blog in December (as a continuation of the old "They Call Me Daddy" blog), it was intended for family and Facebook friends. Just a way for me to write about something other than broadband Internet, which is what I spend my days fixating on at work.

But along the way we've garnered quite a few new readers, largely as a result of being part of the News-Herald's Community Media Lab and also through the retweets and online recommendations of a few very kind regulars here. The result is that I can't just assume everyone knows who I'm talking about when I reference "Terry" or "Chris Dorazio" or "Percy."

So I thought it would make sense to run down the main characters who constantly pop up here...a sort of online scorecard for those new to our little group. To wit:

TERRY: My wife of almost 20 years. Pretty, smart and the glue that keeps my life together. Also an excellent kisser. Likes chocolate, Hallmark movies, and the color yellow. More on her later this month, as we're approaching the 26th anniversary of our first date.

ELISSA: My almost-18-year-old daughter. Smart as a whip, seemingly jaded, not a lover of children (which makes life with four younger siblings challenging, I imagine). Elissa is on the brink of selecting a college. I'm on the brink of financial collapse. These two things are in no way unrelated.

CHLOE: My 15-year-old daughter. The most unique individual I know. Not quite clinically insane, but well down that path. Chloe is very much the overachiever. I'm just starting to teach her to drive. It wouldn't surprise me in the least if Chloe is one day named president of the world.

JARED: My 6-foot-tall, 13-year-old son. The Man Beast is a good soccer and saxophone player, though he tends not to do those two things simultaneously. Like his father, a fan of Cleveland sports and the Ottawa Senators. I have set the boy up for a lifetime of disappointment. What a terrible parent I am.

MELANIE: My sweet little 11-year-old daughter. Mel is a goalkeeper in soccer. It takes a special kind of person (*cough* CRAZY *cough*) to be a goalkeeper, so I give her credit. Melanie is also a great actress. Thankfully, she hasn't yet learned to transfer that skill from the stage to her home life, but I know it's coming.

JACK: My 6-year-old son. An evil genius. I used to say it was just coincidence that we decided not to have any more kids after he was born. Now I'm not so sure. In any case, he's good for at least one belly laugh a day. The most unintentionally funny person I know.

SEAN: Elissa's boyfriend. Her intellectual equal AND a sax player. This is a good combination.

CHRIS DORAZIO: Chloe's Vietnamese-Italian boyfriend. Always referred to by both his first and last names.

FRED, GEORGE & CHARLIE: The family cats. Fred and George are brothers. They are scared of Charlie, a stray we took in a year-and-a-half ago and the definite alpha male.

PERCY: Elissa's chinchilla. He has a cage that's nicer than my house. May outlive me.

S'MORES: Melanie's guinea pig. Chloe refers to her as "Muffins" for reasons only Chloe understands.

ROGER: Chloe's female dwarf hamster. Yes, female. Don't ask.

ALLIE: The gecko that started as Jared's pet but was recently hijacked by Elissa. Jared appears to be fine with this.

GINEVRA: Elissa's rat. By now I assume you are not at all surprised that we have a rat.


Life is a crazy whirl of people, pets and activities at our house, and these are the people/animals who make it happen. They should all be proud.

Eight animals, plenty of poo

The other day I was trying to figure out whether I've cleaned up more animal poop or human poop in our house over the years. Ultimately I decided it was probably animal poop, but only by a narrow margin.

We have eight pets among our seven family members. This is in part because of the tradition whereby each of the kids gets a pet when they turn seven. The idea is to teach responsibility and all of that, and to some extent it works.

Still, I feel like I end up doing more than my share of fecal-related sanitation management, mostly in the form of cat waste. But I have to say, the kids do a halfway decent job of taking care of their animals. It could be a lot worse.

(NOTE: This is like the third time in three weeks I've referred to the fact that I clean the cat litter boxes. Why am I obsessed with this? I guess because it's a part of my daily life, but I never really think about it until I sit down to write).

I grew up in a dog house, with the extra-special bonus that I never had to clean up the doggy bombs in the backyard (my mom spoiled me, what can I say?) So to me, dogs were fun and virtually maintenance-free. Terry is and always has been a cat person, and from the time we were married, we've always had cats. I don't mind cats. I actually like the ones we have. But if I could somehow get the same sort of poo-free deal I had circa 1981 with dogs, I'd go out and get one in a minute.

Here's a rundown of our zoo:

CATS (3): Fred, George, Charlie
Fred and George are brothers. Very pretty snow-white cats. We refer to Fred as "Fat Fred," since he's noticeably larger than his brother and that's about the only way to tell them apart. Fred was the alpha male until Charlie came along 15 months ago. Charlie was a stray and a kitten, two factors that immediately endeared him to the women in my house. Terry found him in the backyard. Now he dominates everything and Fred hates him. George, meanwhile, is mentally handicapped. Seriously. And he's sort of creepy, too. But he tries.

CHINCHILLA (1): Percy
Chincillas are cool. They're big fluffy balls of....well, fluff. Percy is very friendly. He lives in a big cage in the living room and will always park himself next to the bars if he senses that you're willing to reach in and pet him. Elissa, his owner, says he's an attack chinchilla. As far as I can tell, the only thing he attacks are his yogurt treats.

RAT (1): Ginevra Elizabeth
If you're a Harry Potter fan, you'll notice that all of our pet names so far are taken from the Weasley children. It seemed like a good idea at the time...Anyway, yes, we have a rat. And believe it or not, she's about the most lovable thing you'll ever see. Just a nice little creature, though no amount of "nice" can overcome the fact that she's a rat and has that rat tail. That's creepy even for those who love her. Ginevra belongs to Elissa, who apparently has a thing for strange pets.

GUINEA PIG (1): S'mores (aka, Muffins)
This one is Melanie's. Mel named her S'mores, but her roomate, Chloe, insists that the rodent is named "Muffins," which Chloe believes is a better name. I tell Chloe she can't randomly rename her sister's pet, but as you might imagine if you know Chloe, this in no way deters her. Actually, I think Mel and I may be the only ones who like the name "S'mores" better. Poor Mel.

ROBO DWARF (1): Roger
Speaking of Chloe, she's the proud owner of Roger, a female robo dwarf hamster. That sentence begs two questions: (1) Why is a girl hamster named Roger? (ANSWER: Because Chloe is Chloe); (2) What's a robo dwarf hamster? (ANSWER: I don't know. Here's some Wikipedia help.)  Roger is small. So small, in fact, that I don't even notice her in her tiny cage when I enter the girls' bedroom. Therefore I forget Roger exists. I'll bet it has been a good month or so since I've seen Roger.

LEOPARD GECKO (LIZARD) (1): Allie
The coolest thing about Allie is that she eats crickets. Live ones. Terry goes out and buys two dozen of them at a time. She or Jared -- technically Allie is Jared's -- will dump a bunch into Allie's cage, prompting Allie to go into Hunting Mode. Whenever a cricket moves, Allie creeps over to it, sizes it up, and strikes. She catches the cricket in her mouth and casually chews it, which makes the whole thing a fun spectator sport while undoubtedly being unpleasant for the crickets.

I just learned that Elissa has staged an intervention and has taken custody of Allie away from Jared. I don't believe Jared knows this yet. Elissa says Jared isn't taking care of Allie, but she is graciously giving her brother visitation rights. It's going to be interesting when Jared finds this all out. Given that his powers of observation rival those of his father, I predict this will happen sometime in 2015.