Yesterday, I saw a recipe for rum almond cake and decided to try it. The recipe is very simple – butter, eggs, ground almonds, flour, and liquor.

After baking, you sprinkle more liquor over the cake.

Then, you make an icing with more liquor, then allow the whole thing to chill and soak overnight.

I am glad I decided to try it before giving a piece to Irish Woman for breakfast. It tasted wonderful, but if sold commercially, it would require a special license from the state and a declaration of its proof and distillation location. Going to work with cake on your breath might be a career limiting factor in this circumstance.

Basically, it’s a cocktail you drink with a fork.

Guess this one goes in the after-dinner treat category.

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Speaking of liquor, my neighbor and I did a tasting of two Texas bourbons this weekend.

His offering was Garrison Brothers Boot Flask whiskey. This was a rather spicy tipple that smacks you upside the head, grabs you by the shoulders, and pushes you toward the mechanical bull of life.

I brought over a bottle of Rebecca Creek Small Batch I brought home from my trip to Bugscuffle last winter. In contrast to our other choice, this was a gentle kiss on the neck, followed by cuddling and talks about a second honeymoon.

Irish Woman, being the proud daughter of the Bluegrass she is, declared that there is no such thing as Texas bourbon. She then proceeded to enjoy her Texas bourbon and coke.

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Irish Woman and The Young Prince returned from their Florida trip unscathed. Irish Woman seems to have enjoyed her week on the beach, especially the kayaking to islands overrun by iguanas. Boo seems to have gotten a lot of out of his time snorkeling and crewing a sailing ship.

Picking them up from the Cincinnati airport on the night of July 4th was interesting. They landed right at dusk, so our drive home was punctuated by multiple large fireworks displays. The most interesting was the rather glorious explosions happening over the world’s most patriotic landfill just south of the airport. I’m sure there’s some symbolism there, but I can’t seem to articulate it before coffee.

Note to self – Make sure ALL connections on the outdoor gas range are tight and leak proof before turning on the gas and applying flame.

Ancillary note – Eyebrows grow back in a week or two.

In other news, the multiple spider nests that were blocking things up have been evicted, so I do not need to have mujltiple pans of boiling water in the house when we can food this summer.

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I was doing a deep dive on United States policy toward Iran yesterday (don’t judge). I concentrated on how our government has worked toward keeping Iran from creating nuclear weapons.

A thought occurred to me on hour four of this quest for understanding of international policy and strategy – How do you say danegeld in Farsi?

Anyway, I’ve come to the conclusion that Iran and the rest of that side of the world would be better served by pausing their own development efforts and just buying a couple dozen warheads from North Korea. Once you have that and have demonstrated that at least one of them works with an above-ground test live streamed to both your own populace and the world at large, you will then be left alone to create your own home-grown weapons in peace.

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Speaking of Iran, the news media is reporting that the Iranian regime is getting their bloodbath machine cranked up. So far, a bunch of people have been arrested and a handful have been executed. The odd part is that reporters and commentators have the audacity to be shocked at this.

Iran was just humiliated on the world stage. Israel effectively neutered their air force and air defense in less than 72 hours, then started bombing whatever struck their fancies. Tehran found out what in the heck happened to their nuclear facilities when President Trump broke OPSEC and held a press conference about it.

During all this, we saw Iranians dancing in the streets and chanting about getting rid of the current regime. To those poor, beknighted souls, all I can say is ‘good luck’. We were never going to invade Iran, the Iranian military is never going to go head to head with the IRGC, the IRGC is never going to attack the regime, and the Iranian people are never going to coalesce into a cohesive mass that can overwhelm their government.

So, to all those who held a political rave, complete with webcams but bereft of face coverings, I can only suggest getting you, your family, and your family’s family the heck out of Dodge. They haven’t come for you yet, but they will come for you. Tehran has an urgent requirement for scapegoats, show trials, and slave labor that they feel you just might be a perfect match for.

And for those who keep encouraging unarmed civilians to rise up and throw off their dictators without any support or supply, shame on you. 1989 and 1991 worked because the Communist military and security forces were at least neutral, if not complicit, in the downfall of their respective regimes. Y’all have probably gotten a few hundred thousand people killed, and more imprisoned and tortured, trying to catch that particular bolt of lightning in a bottle ever since.

Unless and until the IRGC and their ilk around the world are neutralized or corrupted, folks taking to the streets demanding regime change are just marking themselves for easier roundup.

Well, it’s the first day of Irish Woman and Boo being away from home, and things are going swimmingly.

I woke up when I wanted this morning. Well, I woke up of my own free will. OK, let’s be honest here – I woke up at the crack of dawn because the dogs heard a squirrel fart in the back yard and they had to pee.

Ah, the carefree life of a man left to his own devices.

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Part of my taskings in the absence of She Who Shall Not Be Named is to water her garden. I accomplished this last night once it had cooled down a bit, an effort that my darling wife noticed because she was alerted to my presence in the yard by the house cameras.

She did not get to her destination until quite late last night, because apparently there is a conspiracy between the airline and the city fathers of Fort Lauderdale to make her trip take double what she had planned. She was considerate enough to just text me when she got to her destination in the wee hours of the morning. (I want credit for not using the term ‘witching hour’ to refer to anything my wife does at thirty minutes past midnight)

We eventually connected this morning, and she thanked me for my attempt to not let her garden wither and die in her absence. She did ask that I revise my garden-puttering schedule so that watering occurred just after sunrise. It seems that watering just prior to dusk would invite mold and mildew into her assorted greenery.

Being the loving husband I am, I acquiesced to her request with nary a complaint. I mean, who am I to argue that dragging a hose around the perimeter of our yard at 6 AM, before both breakfast and coffee, is not something I look forward to?

Luckily for me, it started raining this afternoon. I was dismantling the outside stove, because apparently Shelob had set up her summer residence in the carbeurator, when a wave of humidity rarely seen outside of a badly maintained Filipino clam cannery washed over the property. I had just enough time to gather up the pieces and parts, all my tools, and assorted hounds before the first drops fell.

Seeing that the good Lord saw fit to micturate all over Kentucky this afternoon, I reached out to the love of my life to see if this meteorological phenomenon would satisfy her requirements for vegetal hydration:

As you can see, I have been granted permission to not spend my early morning wandering around the yard with a hose, at least for one day.

I do want to point out that Siri’s inability to transcribe for my lovely wife is an ongoing problem. Apparently, if you speak the King’s English with a Kentucky twang, Siri’s accuracy is a bit hit or miss.

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Speaking of hoses, I need to talk to the manager of whatever sweatshop is producing hosepipes these days.

After last night’s adventure of trying to connect the economy grade hoses Irish Woman purchased last week, I decided that getting something a bit more up-market might be a good idea. I’m not usually picky about my garden implements, but twenty minutes of trying to thread a cheap hose onto a faucet because whatever troglodyte manufactured it didn’t do any quality testing on the connector will make one decide it’s time to make an investment.

Luckily for me, the local hardware store is just 15 minutes from the house, so I popped right on over after coffee this morning. They even had the 75 yard and 50 yard long hoses I need in the brand and quality I wanted. However, when I shelled out almost $100 for both hoses, I made the executive decision that I shall treat these prime examples of rubberized hosemongery as if they were family heirlooms. I will also admonish my heirs and their heirs to continue to do so. Generations from now, they will be passed down from father to son with great ceremony, because it’s going to take using them that long to justify the expense.

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Not sure how the Internet knows, but suddenly I’m getting advertisements, suggested videos, and posts in Facebook for the place I did the coolest thing I ever did.

It just so happens to be the 30th anniversary of that time in my life soon.

I’m not usually very easily influenced, but I’ve been looking at flights. Other than trying to be a responsible adult, the only thing keeping me from hitting that “Reserve” button is the knowledge that I will probably never come back. Irish Woman would not look kindly on a “Sell everything and meet me at these coordinates” postcard.

That being said, if I fall off the net for a few months, just know I’m going home for a while. It’s not where I was born, nor is it where my ancestors are from, but I felt more at home there than just about anywhere else.

Yesterday, I did not wake up and choose violence. Instead, I woke up and chose house cleaning and baking.

One loaf of challah later, I made a nice, hearty pasta and sauteed vegetables dinner. I then proceeded to make a nice batch of cinnamon rolls for today’s breakfast. I needed something folks could grab and eat on the go, and a little bit of carbohydrates, wrapped in carbohydrates, and frosted with carbohydrates really hit the spot.

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Irish Woman and The Young Prince left this morning for a Scouting High Adventure trip to the Florida Keys. Boo will spend several days on a sailboat, learning all about boat handling, ecology, and how to use the wind to move your ship without rum.

Irish Woman and her closest friends will be staying at a nice beach house in the Keys, watching Boo sail by as they sit in the sand and indulge in fruity drinks.

I wish them well. I just want to point out that when I went to Scout camp with Boo, I got to enjoy poison ivy, ticks, and mosquitoes in the moistness that is a Kentucky summer. The closest I ever came to a beach was the mud flats between our tents and the shower.

I’d also like to point out that there is no justice in this world this side of the grave.

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Looking at the politics news of late (I know, I know), it appears that the current front-runner for most lasting impact on the country’s future for the current Trump administation might just be Supreme Court victories.

It appears that the time and attention invested in putting conservative or conservative-leaning judges onto the courts in the first Trump administration might be bearing fruit. The court has ruled in favor of removing the special consideration given to government regulators in litigation. A recent ruling gives states more leeway in how their Medicaid spending is allocated. Today, a decision has come down putting some limits on the power of federal district court judges to issue overly-expansive injuctions.

I’m not looking for a conservative version of the Warren or Burger courts. The court should not swing one way or the other by default. Honestly, I always considered the existence of moderate justices who could swing a decision based on a good interpretation of the Constitution and the law to be an ideal. However, in this day and age, a moderate who has the spine to stand up to both sides is hard to come by.

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On the way back to dropping Boo, Irish Woman, and Irish Woman’s cousin off at the airport, I stopped at Waffle House for breakfast. There’s just something nice about eggs, sausage, and hashbrowns prepared with my favorite fixings to calm the soul. I must have come in just at the end of the night shift, because the staff looked like they’d been in a couple of ambushes and running gun fights.

There was no blood or broken glass on the floor. I saw no evidence of police tape on any of the entrances or the bathroom door. Apparently overnight had been rather sporty, but didn’t rise to a level that would inspire humorous stories.