Note to self – When Irish Woman is talking about a conflict she had with a member of the local Lutheran church over who had to move their booth at the local event, telling her to ask if they’re Missouri Synod or if they’re going to hell will probably go right over her head.

Also telling her that saying “If you’ve got a complaint, the door to Our Lady of Perpetual Fish Fry’s is right down that way. Take your hammer and nails.” was probably a little much for her tender Catholic soul.

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Telling your bourbon drinking wife that the beer you got while going to pick up pizza is ‘darker than your sense of humor’ is either going to make her smile or get you in trouble.

Then again, if I wanted to live safely, I wouldn’t have married a redhead with 100% Irish heritage.

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Schadenfreude is best exemplified by the feeling I got last night when I found out that a prominent scion of the family that told my children that they would never be from where we used to live, no matter how long we lived there, has been federally indicted on several charges. This is after several convictictions for state crimes.

I’m not saying I take pleasure in their tribulations. OK, yeah, I am, but the point is that all of my children, to the best of my knowledge, aren’t felons.

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We’ve officially reached the “F#!# That!” part of the summer. This is that wonderful time of year where both the temperature and humidity numbers are over 85.

So far, we haven’t hit the ‘humidity, but no rain’ season, but that’s coming. Instead, we’ve gotten “It’s hot as hades out this morning, but the wrath of God will descend on Kentucky later today. Look for everything short of frogs to fall from the sky just in time for the afternoon rush hour, after which we’ll have a lightning storm that will be chronicled by monks as signs of the Apocalypse later this evening. For those of you downhill from Louisville, expect every piece of trash, both human or otherwise, to float through your front yard sometime after midnight.” weather.

My northern plains self is going to stay inside with the air conditioner and supplementary dehumidifier, thank you very much. Since my people are a pale people, I’m restricting my exposure to outside illumination as much as I can. Two hours of lawn care every four to five days is enough for me, thanks. I’ll continue this for the next month or three and only come out when the leaves start to change color and the atmosphere is both breathable and not as painful.

Irish Woman, on the other hand, is as happy as a clam about all this. She lives for the season of digging in the dirt, using my power tools in new and innovative, read destructive, ways, and coming into the house smelling of sunshine and perspiration. Being a proud woman of the sort-of South, she maintains that she does not sweat, rather, she glistens.

How my cave dwelling self hooked up with such a bright and cheerful example of God’s children is beyond me.

I’m not saying that my son’s laundry after his last week as staff at Scout camp is a tad toxic, but the load I just pulled out of the dryer went right back in the washer, with extra detergent and a heaping scoop of borax.

If that doesn’t work, I may have to hang it all outside and let the wind and rain clear out whatever creature from the nether regions has infested his shorts, shirts, and socks.

And if that doesn’t work, we have a firepit. I respect the earth enough to not want that in the landfill.

Also, not sure who needs this information, but if you wash a pack or two of sticky notes in cargo shorts, then run those shorts through a dryer, the little scraps of paper will mold themselves perfectly to the dryer’s drum? Good times, good times.

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Apparently washing my car and watering the garden on the same day gives us two days with bursts of torrential rain. I’ll have to learn how to use this power for good.

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I’m not proud of demanding my payment for pool care duties while my lovely wife was baking her buns on the beach the other week, but I was promised lasagna and I wanted lasagna. I also knew that if I waited much more without collecting, I would never see that tomatoey, cheesy goodness.

So, anyway, she made lasagna and I made bacon fat chocolate chip cookies. It’s these little acts of love that keep our relationship going.

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My wife’s attitude toward the neighborhood wildlife runs within a spectrum. I’d love to see the calculus necessary to describe the area under the curve that runs from “Oh, they’re so precious! I hope we see their babies!” to “Those damned things ate the tops off of all of my tomato plants, and some fool took two parallel bites out of each and every strawberry in the bed!”

If that latter part of the cycle ever coincides with hunting season, I’m going to need a new freezer.

Life is all about those little episodes that sum up how things are going for you.

Take this morning, for example. I spent two hours hunting through every storage compartment and container in my garage to find the 1/2 inch chuck key for my hammer drill. It’s one of those tools that I probably only use once every couple of years, but when I need it, I really need it. It also happens to be the only tool I have with a 1/2 inch chuck, so I don’t exactly have a lot of spares lying around.

After giving up and deciding to go to the hardware store to buy a replacement, I put the drill up on my workbench. It was then that I discovered that the missing chuck key was attached to the power cord.

So, that’s how life has been going lately.

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Drilling into masonry on top of a ladder that’s older than I am in the middle of a July afternoon isn’t as fun as it sounds.

Having done this sort of thing a few times, I set up a fan to move the air around me, took a cold drink with me up that ladder, and made sure to wear a hat and sunscreen. My people are a pale people, after all, and I don’t want to repeat the Sunburnt Neck and Face of 2022.

Even with all that, the air conditioning felt really good after I’d finished and put everything away.

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I must have been doing something noteworthy when I cooked dinner on the outdoor stove this afternoon. At least two of my neighbors came out to see what I was doing.

Dinner tonight was chicken and steak fajitas, with grilled onions, bell pepper, and mushrooms. It’s the last dinner Irish Woman and I have before The Young Prince returns from his last week at Scout camp, so I thought I’d do something nice.

It’s been kind of nice having some one-on-one time with Irish Woman, but it’ll be nice to have the sprog back.