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My assistants son, Riley (approximately 12.5-years old) will be keeping Lucy (approximately 5-months old) while I am away this weekend speaking at a conference, and all next week while I am traveling down south. It’s costing me $20 a day, which isn’t bad when you consider the going rates at a kennel. Still, I am putting together a bit of a to-do list for Riley. Got any suggestions on what I can add to it? Here tis: 1. Daily feeding. 2. Daily walks (1 short and 1 long, total of an hour or so.) 3. Daily massage. Not deep tissue, just light upper back and shoulders and also hind legs. 4. Read her a story at bedtime. Nothing scary, just something about cats falling down or in embarrassing situations. 5. Daily verbal affirmations. (You look nice today, Lucy. We like you better than our dog Roxy, Lucy. We wish Roxy would run away so we could have you, Lucy.) 6. Help Lucy with her homework. Right now I am teaching he to bag her own poo. Anything I am forgetting? Have a great wednesday.

It’s a camry. Thanks mostly to you guys for talking her into it. She read all of your suggestions and settled on the Camry. She drove a couple of them over a couple weekends but they didn’t have sunroofs, and she really wanted a sunroof. Then, out of the blue a dealer said he had the car for her. How awesome. Mom had a great time reading your comments and I think she even e-mailed a few of you. Hope that was okay. Mom works at a place called “The Design Firm” which is an interior design shop in Houston. She runs their books and loves the place. Her boss is having the car waxed as a congratulation gift for getting rid of the old boat.  Okay, the specifics: 2005 Toyota Camry 40,000 miles Leather interior (pretty cool, eh?) power everything and a six disc cd changer. Mom was also excited because it had an 8-track. Mom, do you mean a cassette player? Yes, you know, one of those, she said. She got it from a dealer and paid a little more for it than I was comfortable with, but certainly didn’t get ripped off. When I buy a car [...]

When Clint Eastwood released a movie called Gran Torino, it brought back haunting memories. Not of Clint Eastwood, or of the socio-economic and racial prejudice that serves as a theme for the movie (I haven’t seen the movie yet) but of the actual car. It was the first car I remember my mother bringing home. My sister and I were at my grandmothers house when my mom drove up in the early 70′s model Ford. My sister and I were so excited we jumped up and down on the back seat (which was twice the size of a trampoline. That would be the last day I was ever excited about that car. Growing into myself, becoming more self aware, and comparing our car to the other cars parents drove quickly revealed my mother liked driving boats. Enormous, gas guzzling, multi-ton barges on wheels. And finally, after countless trips to the mechanic in which my mother spent the equivalent of monthly payments on a Mercedes, she let the car go and picked up another. Sadly, though, it was no improvement. She came home with something that looked like whatever this is:   Now this was our family car during my jr. [...]

*****Breaking News*****Exclusive**** -Donmilleris has recently learned the popular reality television show Hannah Montana is staged. It is not a reality show. Like many Americans, I have been captivated by this program since it debuted in March of 2006, having experienced a long, boring wait for anything worth watching since the cancelation of the Osbornes, another reality show (we think) depicting an average American family. Many who read this blog will continue believing Hannah Montana is a reality show and the characters are not acting and the extreme tension on the program is not scripted. Please consider the following: 1.     The actress who plays Hannah Montana may also be popular singer Miley Cyrus. Note the following resemblance. Image One: Left, Singer Miley Cyrus, Right, Hannah Montana (Obviously the same person. In both pictures they are wearing the same string bracelet.) 2.     The character who plays the father on the supposed reality show Hannah Montana is not her father. Her real father is actually once-popular country and western sensation Billy Ray Cyrus best known for his hit single Achey Breaky Heart. Do you need more proof? How about the fact Billy Ray Cyrus and Miley Cyrus have the same last name. And [...]

Barak Hardley (left) after another plane crash. This one was during a flight over Antarctica where Barak was looking for “Zoo Animals.” My friend Barak Hardley contacts me about every three months. I met Barak in a pub in New Mexico, where he had crashed his plane in a field, stayed with firefighters while they put out the flames, then walked over to the pub (we were about one-hundred miles outside Santa Fe, in the high desert) and ordered a beer at the hotel bar. His pant-leg was burned from the crash and flames, but he didn’t want to talk about the crash. (It was the fifth time he’d crashed a plane. He just said he wasn’t a very good pilot and that “these things don’t work like cars.”) Within seconds, he asked what I did and I told him I was a writer and from that point on he wanted to talk about Steinbeck’s Travels with Charlie and whether or not the dog represented Marxist Lenninism, of which I am still uncertain, but Barak had some theories I found interesting. Regardless, since then Barak sends me cartoons he draws and asks what I think the social commentary might be. [...]