Those of you who always speculated that the revolution would not start in earnest until the EBT cards stopped working are about to have your hypothesis tested nationwide.

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After having two consecutive major issues flying to/from/through Dallas, Texas east of Midland and north of San Antonio is now officially close enough to drive from Kentucky. This extends that limit both south and west from Wichita Falls.

I’m not faulting the airline for cancelling my flight home. I mean, I’d rather an issue with the emergency exit door I was sitting next to be taken care of before we take off.

Having us deplane also makes sense. I’m way too old to hold the flashlight and look for the 3/8ths for the nice mechanic. It was the changing of our gates three times in 30 minutes, followed by cancelling the flight altogether that caught in my craw. I definitely got my steps in that evening, though. I’m pretty sure I saw a sign that read “Texarkana City Limits” during my last power walk to gate J-369 from gate ZetaEpsilon-27.

I will say that the airline staff at DFW were helpful and gracious. While they couldn’t get me my luggage, they did give me a disposable toothbrush and a small tube labeled “TuthPaist”, which was better than a sharp stick in the eye, I guess.

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How do I know that I looked rough when I got to the hotel after having my flight cancelled? Well, when the nice lady who was checking me in looked at the pint of ice cream I had retrieved from the cooler while I waited in line and said, “Darlin, that’s on the house. There are spoons over there by the coffee pot.”

Not that I’m complaining too much about the inconvenience of a cancelled flight. There was one poor lady on my flight who had flown in from Singapore on Friday, had her flight cancelled, and was almost in tears when our flight to Louisville got cancelled on Sunday evening. I complained about how much my feet hurt until I met a man with no legs, and all that.

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To a five month old labrador puppy, the litter under a walnut tree is the world’s biggest pile of tennis balls.

To a five month old labrador puppy, pine straw on the side of the road is a breath mint.

To a five month old labrador puppy, an eight-point buck is just another friend she just hasn’t met yet. The squirrels, on the other hand, are the spawn of the devil and need to be redeemed through loud and vociferous preaching from the Book of Bark.

The correct phrase to describe what happens when you pick up a full 5 pound container of puppy food by the lid, then discover that the lid was not as secure as you thought, all in front of said puppy and her three older, bigger siblings is ‘hand grenade in a hen house’.

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Life’s kinda funny. You’re keeping the house clean, sometimes neat, and you feel pretty good about that.

And then you dust your blinds and ceiling fans.

Great googley moogley, do I need to up my game.

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Things I did to prepare the house for a party to celebrate The Young Prince getting his Eagle Scout –

1. Declutter and pressure wash the back deck. This includes all furniture, grills, and pets.
2. Clear off and pressure wash the driveway and parking area. Yes, I know you already did this once this year, but it just didn’t sparkle in the false fall sunlight, according to my beloved.
3. Dust, oil, and polish all pieces of wooden furniture, including blinds and ceiling fans. Vacuum all upholstered furniture.
4. Disassemble, transport, reassemble, and place a new chair and table set Irish Woman bought on Facebook. This will provide additional seating in the basement, as well as a place for the Young Prince to play poker with his friends.
   • Clean gun I wore while on this trip, which the nice 20-something year old woman who sold the table to us noticed as I bent down for the umpteenth time to pick up pieces of the table.
5. Steam clean the carpets in the basement, study, living room, and hallway, because puppy.
   • After everything dries, vacuum up the puppy’s worth of extraneous fur that the steam cleaner kicked up from deep in the carpet’s nether regions.
6. Deep clean the kitchen, both bathrooms, living room, and laundry room. Make mental note to have a discussion with the Young Prince about housecleaning in the next few days.

This morning, not only am I out of spoons, but two large men in wingtips from the Medellin Spoon Cartel are standing on my front porch demanding the interest payment on the negative spoon balance I’m going to be running for the next couple of days.

Irish Woman and The Young Prince did most of the decorating, seetup, and food prep, so it wasn’t a solo adventure.

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Speaking of energy levels, if I could somehow harness the spike in psychological energy my darling wife has after having a bunch of folks over to the house, we could stop spending money on fusion power plant research. She is so bubbly that I’d like to bottle her and market the bottles to gas stations as both a fuel additive and an energy drink.

Meanwhile, my social battery is flatlined, smoking, and the chief engineer is calling up to the bridge asking permission to eject it into space before it goes critical. It is only because I had the foresight to set up the coffee machine last night and only had to hit the ‘ON’ button (albeit after several attempts to find it through one bloodshot eye) to get the sweet elixir of life flowing, that I have the wherewithal to do more than stare blankly into the flames.

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The other night, I took Irish Woman to a Brazilian steak house for dinner. It’s one of those establishments where nice men carry around large knives and swords laden with meat and carve you off a hunk whenever you want some more. The experience basically comes down to “you don’t eat a lot of anything, but you eat a little bit of everything” before you roll your overstuffed carcass out to the parking lot to drive home.

They even had a salad bar so that we could convince ourselves that we were having a nice, healthy, balanced meal. This delusion was good to have while I cut into my fourth helping of grilled critter later that evening.

It occurs to me that there should be a country cooking variation of this restaurant. You could have herds of little old southern women wandering around a dining area with pots of gumbo, baskets of biscuits, butter tubs full of country green beans, that sort of thing. The midwestern women could dish out small helpings of green bean casserole, tater-tot casserole, and lefse. The Texas women could walk around with brisket, smoked sausage, and warm homemade tortillas. The California women, well, we wouldn’t let them in the door. California ‘food’ just wouldn’t fit the aesthetic, and nobody wants to be harassed for their food choices while they signal for their seventh helping of something.

Only flaw would be the overhead for defibrillators that would have to be replaced due to overuse on a monthly basis.

Question for the readers:

At what point does ‘ideation’ become ‘premeditation’?

I’m asking for a friend.

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To the dude at Circle K this morning –

If you come into a convenience store at 8:35 AM on a Wednesday when the lottery prize is over $1 billion and buy several dozen lottery tickets and scratchers, you forfeit any rights you had to get pissy with the clerk. If you want to do numerical combinations that require an abacus and hardware from Cray to figure out, bring some patience with you. The folks who just want to pay for their gas and snacks will thank you.

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When having the first fire in the firepit of the year, now that the summer burn ban has lapsed, it is nice to imbibe a little. A beer or two, followed up with a few fingers of good bourbon, are fine.

However, if the beers are hitting you just a little hard, and you tell your wife to ‘leave the bottle’ when she brings out the bourbon and a glass, a little self-control will save you from much suffering.

If said self-control does not materialize, the clue that you’ve overserved yourself is when you figure out that moonlight looks really cool when filtered through a glass of bourbon. Recreating this phenomenon four or five more times over the course of several hours only enhances the hangover the next day. And the day after that.

There’s just something satisfying about using a propane torch to burn weeds growing up through the cracks and seams in the concrete.

I may have to explain my methods to the neighbors, though.

To them, I was a 50-something year old schlub wandering around his driveway with a propane tank and a wand with a bell-shaped end on it, muttering to himself.

To me, I was going from bunker to bunker in Normandy, giving the Huns exactly five seconds to throw their hands up and surrender before I burned them out.

I may or may not have stated, at medium volume, on several occasions – “Any plant that runs is a weed. Any plant that doesn’t run is a well disciplined weed.”

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Note to self – read the label of the dog shampoo before using it.

Ancillary note – when the ‘shampoo’ doesn’t foam up while bathing the shaggy, 85 pound Labrador, don’t just add more ‘shampoo’ in a vain attempt to get the dog clean

Tertiary note – if, after all that work, the dog looks like the bass singer in ShaNaNa, it’s time to just rinse him as well as you can and go to the store for more real shampoo. You’ve used half a bottle of conditioner, so hes just going to be extra shiny and slick for a while

Poor Moonshine is going to look like the Maybelline model’s little sister who got into her big sister’s hair goop for a few days.

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The other day, I advised my wife to acquiesce her decolatage.

She was not impressed. This may be my last transmission.

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The other morning, I drove into downtown Louisville for a doctor appointment. It was like Day 2 of the zombie apocalypse down there, but without the John Williams soundtrack playing in the background.

It was 6:30 am and still dark out. Random folks who were definitely not using 10% of available CPU were shambling around in no particular direction. There were more than a few whose cheese was definitely on a sideways trajectory from their cracker.

Two junkies were having a dance off on the corner right after I got off the highway. Everybody was kung-fu fighting, and it looked quite exciting.

How did I know they were junkies, you ask? Well, they were screaming at each other about a stolen needle loud enough that I could hear it over my podcast.

Two blocks down, some poor soul was doing the one leg still, one leg doing the jig/watusi, while he waved around his blankie at traffic. I actually felt bad for this guy. He obviously needed somebody to come get him before he got hit in traffic.

I really hope that the multiple people I saw laying down under blankets on the sidewalks were asleep. Thank goodness the weather has been rather mild, because being that deeply unconscious when exposed to the elements, hot or cold, is not good for you.

Somebody either put out some stuff thats too pure, or it’s adulterated with something really nasty.

It’s wasn’t as bad as Oakland in ‘89, but it’s not far off. No comment as to why I know how bad Oakland was at the height of the crack epidemic.

I finished my business, programmed the mobile magic elf box to direct me to my fast food breakfast of choice (a habit I picked up as a child. I was good at the doctor, so I deserved a treat), and got the heck out of Louisville.

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Maggie, the little black pup that isn’t so little anymore, is settling in quite nicely. She is now taller, but not quite as long, as Sophie the Faux Dachshund, and is quickly closing in on Ellie, the American DerpHound.

Both of her sisters seem to have accepted her, and play “I chase you, now you chase me” in the yard, the living room, and the basement. They especially like playing in the basement, as it’s one big room with stairs forming an island in the center. It makes the best canine track in the county.

Moonshine, the hound emeritus, has not accepted the puppy as much. Maggie has learned to just leave him be, stay the heck away from his food, and to not chase her sisters over the top of him while he’s trying to nap.

Maggie enjoys going for rides in the car, mostly because there may be french fries on the agenda. She has a perfect record of looking dangerously cute and starving every time we go through any drive-up window.

I swear, every woman we meet, and a few of the men, gets all squeaky and baby-talky when they see her. She is always gentle and loving when given a treat, making sure to give kisses on command to anyone with a biscuit or pup cup. When I give her a treat, I risk having my fingers degloved, but when the teenager working at the Circle K does it, she gets her hand kissed.

One of the roles I play in my marriage is to be the voice of reality when I feel it’s needed.

Irish Woman, being the sensible lady she is, has really gotten into the whole disaster preparedness thing. She’s not hoarding ammo (that’s my job), but she has really gotten into gardening and food preservation, as well as basic first aid and things like that.

Somehow, she’s also gotten onto some rather odd mailing lists. She gets some… interesting articles about health, food, and other subjects every so often.

So, it wasn’t that suprising when she sent me a link to an article about preparedness for nuclear fallout.

Being the loving husband I am, I sent her a gentle reminder that there are some disasters that just aren’t worth worrying about, given our circumstances.

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My sweet wife,

In the event of a general nuclear war, fallout is the least of your worries.

We live less than 50 miles from Fort Knox, 60 miles from Cincinnati, 30 miles from SDF, and less than 10 miles from major crossing points on the Ohio River.

Fort Knox, Louisville, and Cincinnati are all first or second strike targets.  We’re within the area where badly aimed Russian, Korean, or Chinese warheads would hit.  If the unthinkable happens, we will likely either die in the initial attack or soon after from radiation.  

https://nuclearsecrecy.com/nukemap/

On a happy note, when that “Head to the local defense shelter we stopped taking care of 30 years ago” message comes across, we can finally pop the cork on that bottle of champagne I saved at the wedding.  Might as well live a little, you know.

Happily yours,

Your darling husband

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No offense to her, but someone who literally grew up in the middle of a Minuteman missile field really doesn’t get all jumpy about what’s going to happen in the weeks following a nuclear war.

The puppy continues to grow at a heretofore unseen rate.

This morning, she took a calculated risk and tried to wrestle her full-grown brother, Moonshine.

Man, is she bad at math. She has gone back to the minor leagues for a little more seasoning, and is currently playing ‘catch me, catch you’ with her smaller sisters.

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The septic system service company I called this morning uses tango as their hold music.

For some reason, that made me happy.

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25 Boy Scouts, with about the same number of family and guests, when split between two sheet cakes, three fruit trays, two vegetable trays, four sandwich trays, two gallons each of lemonade and iced tea, and a large tray of chicken fingers, leaves one fruit tray, a quarter of a vegetable tray, one quarter of a sheet cake, and three sandwiches as leftovers.

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We are well into the first false fall of the year. We had lows in the 60’s last night, and it was cool enough that I put on a long-sleeved shirt when I had my coffee on the deck this morning. Already, I have witnessed hoodies, sweaters, and lattes in the crowds that meander down my street every morning.

But fear not, dear reader. In a couple of weeks, we shall have the inevitable warm-up. Hordes of sweater-wearing, cappuccino slurping women shall melt into puddles of foundation and silicone on the very sidewalks of Louisville. Only the tags on their hair extensions and the DNA stuck in the glue of their fake eyelashes will mark who they were, causing a backup at the local forensic cosmetology labs.

The more short-sighted of these creatures will instantly revert to bikini tops and ripped jeans. These pour souls will be devestated when the weather flips again, going from sunny and warm to oh-my-Lord-where-did-I-put-that-poofy-parka overnight. The local news will be chock full of breathless reports of half-naked popsicles being found flash frozen to the sidewalks outside of wine bars and tattoo parlors.

In the end, only those who moderate their fashion swings will survive. Soon, it will be true spooky sweater season, when all of those napkins we’ve all be saying are dresses will go either into the closet for the winter or into the landfill for the remainder of the planet’s life.

In the meantime, I shall be sitting on my deck, sipping hot coffee or cold tea, depending on the weather, and enjoying watching the world go by.

Well, hamburger at the butcher shop is now $8 a pound. Steak is between $14 and $18 a pound, while bacon wrapped filets are $10 apiece.

I think we’re going to be eating a lot of chicken and hot dogs for the next few months.

Luckily, my darling wife has been hoarding hams and turkeys when they’ve gone on sale over the past few months. Guess what’s on the menu this weekend?

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While getting the ingredients to make nachos at Kroger today, I noticed that both jalapeno peppers and apple cider were on sale.

The jalapenos got washed, cut, and canned in dill pickle juice. Never made that before, so we’ll see how that turns out.

Two bottles of cider were mixed with some cinnamon and cloves, a little sugar, and several packets of pectin. The results were 12 half-pints of apple jelly and 4 pints of the same. Never made this before, either, so we’ll have to see how it set up after it cools down from the ‘boiling lava’ stage.

Tune in later for more ‘I gotta get cheap food put up now because these prices are merely stupid and will likely go up to immoral later” theater.

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Speaking of Kroger, they had a dozen roses for $8, so I splurged and got two dozen. They make the house look better, and their presense keeps my wife’s delicate hands from doing that whole ‘grasp the husband by the neck until color comes back to your vision’ thing.

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The lawn mower was finally delivered yesterday, running as good as new. I was going to give it a spin last night, but weather intervened. You see, I made the mistake of watering the garden yesterday while I had my coffee, which means that of course we got high winds and driving rain right around dinnertime.

Oh, well, this just gives the grass another day or so to grow.

Now that I think of it, the maple trees are starting to shed leaves. Going to be adding both green and brown to the lawn this week.

It’s all fun and games until you realize that the puppy is chewing on an iPhone.

It’s all fun and games until you realize that the puppy is not, in fact, getting a drink. She is, in fact, dancing with all four paws in the water dish.

It’s all fun and games until you’re folding laundry and start to wonder how you can discreetly get to the ladies clothing store and back before your wife finds out that the puppy has developed a taste for her unmentionables.

It’s all fun and games when your son is taking both college and high school classes, then his mother finds out that fall, Christmas, winter, and spring breaks don’t line up across both schools.

It’s all fun and games for your darling wife to plan a date night, but she is so cryptic about what you’re going to be doing and where you’re going to be going that you start trying to figure out how many guns and blades you can carry and still look nice in a restaurant.