Good – You make two batches of vanilla extract each year. The recipe is several vanilla beans, sliced lengthwise and placed in a whiskey bottle, along with 750ml of whatever distilled alcohol you like. You usually use something neutral like vodka or moonshine, but have dabbled with different bourbons. Let soak in a dark place for four to six months, turning about once every month or so.

Also good – You just finished the latest batch of vanilla extract, filling up your ‘in-use’ bottle just before the holiday baking season. You place said bottle on the shelf above the stove for easy access when it’s needed.

Excellent – Your darling wife, the queen of your universe, hurries home from work to make dinner. Tonight’s meal was egg roll stir fry, a family favorite. During said dinner preparation, she turns on the rather strong fan above the cooktop to vent out the steam from her cooking.

Not good – The fan appears to be a little out of balance and in need of cleaning, because it started to vibrate a tad. By ‘a tad’, I mean it reached a harmonic that vibrated the extremely full bottle of homemade vanilla extract off its shelf and down onto the glass cooktop.

Good – The glass cooktop was not harmed by the impact of 750ml of homemade vanilla extract falling about 3 feet at 32 feet per second per second.

Not good – Said bottle of homemade vanilla extract did not survive its fall.

Good – The entire kitchen and eventually the entire house now smells like your grandmother’s sugar cookies.

Not good – You were a little hungry when this all happened. You move to ‘ravenous’ while you mop up the vanilla. Pavlov’s got nothing on grandma’s cookies.

Good – Nobody was harmed by the shards of glass, and the 3/4 of a liter of vanilla extract was mopped up within about 15 minutes.

Not good – The vanilla extract and broken glass splashed across about half the kitchen, including into the wok. This also includes the half liter of extract that ran down the front of the cupboards under the cooktop and into the drawers where all of your mixing bowls and all of our pans and lids are stored.

Good – You were able to get all of the glass picked/swept up without cutting yourself or anyone else, the vanilla extract puddles in various drawers was cleaned up rather quickly, and pizza can be delivered to your home.

Not good – Every single mixing bowl, pan, and pan lid you own had to be pulled from the drawers, along with the shelf liner at the bottom of the drawer, and washed to make sure that the next time you make spaghetti, it doesn’t come out smelling like vanilla ice cream topped with marinara.

Good – You were thinking you needed to replace the shelf liners anyway, so throwing the old liners out was not that big a deal.

Not good – You cannot find the roll of shelf liner you thought you had stored safely, so all of those dishes are currently sitting on your counters and kitchen table until you can go to Walmart tomorrow to buy more shelf liner.

Horrible – Your latest batch of vanilla extract won’t be ready for use until March at the earliest. You make plans to go to the restaurant supply store tomorrow to buy the biggest bottle of vanilla extract known to mankind. Your wallet is already crying softly and rocking itself in the corner of your back pocket.

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There are two modes I go through when cleaning out a closet.

The first is “Oh, I remember where we got this. Ah, memories! How could I even consider parting with this?”

The second is “Where in the $!#!$ did this come from? I have no memory of this, so I have no idea why we have it. It’s either to the garbage, recycling, or donation bin with it!”

This week, I’ve had the discipline to have the second attitude, and my closets haven’t looked this good since we moved in years ago.

Note to the city fathers of Nashville – if a large parking garage in your busy downtown area is going to be closed, how about you remove or cover up the “Hey, go to the next street over and go in that entrance to park!” signs. Would have saved me 20 minutes in pouring rain and Friday night traffic just to go park at the garage a block from my hotel instead of the closed one connected to it.

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Got in and out of a Bucees in less than 15 minutes and for less than $30 on the way to Nashville. I’ll call that a win.

Of course, I made up for that when I stopped again on the way home, but we don’t need to talk about that.

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Bought the wife a bourbon and a beer before going to the concert.

Kind of like feeding a Mogwai after midnight.

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“But, Tom!” you say, “You have to have fireworks and backup singers and dancers and lasers and lip syncing to give a great concert.”

Bullshit.

Pat Benatar was out there kicking ass with a guitar player, a bass player, a drummer and a stage. I just hope I still have that much energy and power when I get to be her age.

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You think you have decent water pressure at home until you stay at a hotel with REAL water pressure and you can feel the first few layers of old skin stripping off.

I think I lost a few of the little wrinkles around my eyes there.

The bar has been raised, and I have a new condition for any new home we buy.

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When your hotel room is on the 15th floor and you can still hear the sirens below, you know it’s going to be an interesting evening.

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One difference between a travel hotel off the interstate and a tourist hotel downtown is that the pastries downtown are served on actual dishes and have texture.

I like my inexpensive sleep, eat, and leave hotels, but a place with chocolate croissants and cheese grits for breakfast is nice every so often.

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The hotel we were staying was hosting a retreat for people of faith this weekend. It made for some interesting juxtapositions.

Imagine if you will this scene – a six foot something dude with a scowling expression and a tee shirt that reads “30% Stud, 70% Muffin”, accompanied by a woman who is having a one sided debate on whether or not to stop at a distillery on our way home and what our budget at said stop would be and whether or not we should stop at Bucees for gas and snacks again.

All around us are women in their church dresses and clergy of several denominations trying to get their minds around their mission from the Almighty. Some of the clergy look amused at our attire and talk, some of the women looked shocked.

It probably didn’t help that when Irish Woman noticed, she apologized for being ‘heathens’.

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I started to have some faith in humanity, but then I heard that scammers are calling family who have people missing from the crash in Louisville. They claim to be from the government with information about their loved ones, but demand payment before releasing it.

Old Scratch is going to have to open up a whole new wing in Hell for this lot.

While we’re on the subject, I would like the current-day Zapruder wannabes to take a pause and consider the value of their soul for a moment. Nobody needs a frame by frame analysis of a plane crash where the narrator goes into detail what’s going through the pilot’s mind at that exact second or what the folks on the ground heard as a jumbo jet fell out of the sky on top of them.

Note to self – When making chicken that you intend to sear in a pan, seasoning said hen with ‘Slap Yo Mama’ seasoning mix might sound good, and will likely taste good, be advised that the outgassing from the chicken while it is getting seared is very close to riot gas in your reaction.

Not sure if it was the spices or citrus or whatever, but I haven’t had this kind of reaction in quite a long time.

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Note to self –

Two small-to-medium pie pumpkins will give you about 3 pounds of puree once halved, gutted, roasted, emptied, and run through the blender.

Also, the correct amount of bourbon to add to pumpkin pie mix is 1 borkle-borkle per pumpkin.

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Driving across Louisville and back the long way on a rainy day can try your patience.

After the 7th time some troglodyte out on a day pass cut me off in traffic so blatantly I heard my deceased grandmother cussing in German, I had a mental picture.

It was of a coffee table book entitled ‘From Crassus to Kratman: Using Crucifixion To Promote Social Change’.

After I got home, I went inside and enjoyed a nice cup of cocoa and a cookie until my attitude improved.

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Love is shoving your fingers in the fuzzy piranha’s mouth because she’s trying to chew a nickel and you don’t want to practice the Heimlich on a canine first thing in the morning.

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Note to self – It is forbidden for you to pour chocolate gravy into a mug, top it off with a dollop of half and half, and indulge in its rich, creamy, sinful goodness.

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Man hath no love like a labrador puppy watching her human separate out the bones from a crockpot full of stock.

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Note to self – The dude from the Interior Department sent in to investigate weird animal sightings will be Ray Gareaux. He’s out of the Baton Rouge field office.

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That moment when you’re in the groove, adding hundreds upon hundreds of words to a story, and then everything comes to a screeching halt when your brain asks ‘Do gnomes even have tails?’

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.