• Moscato – Noun – Hipster word for Ripple.
• Remember, gentlemen, to be gentle when disagreeing with your wife about the fashions she puts your son into. Describing the flannel jacket she bought for him as looking like the couch one would find in the ladies room in a Red Lobster probably wasn’t the smartest thing I’ve ever done.
  • Answering her protests that the colors in said jacket were earth tones with “I’ve been around the world and I’ve never seen dirt that color before” probably wasn’t too swift, either.
• Took said son out to buy him some new school shoes. Since we were there, I also bought him a pair of hiking boots. An admonition that the school shoes were for school and doing things with his mother only, and the hiking boots were for everything else seemed to fall on deaf ears. That is, of course, until I warned him that failure to heed this new edict would result in dire consequences involving ketchup and shoe strings.
• Christmas and New Years went well. My goal was to be low key and not psychotic. So far, so good.
• We went from the mid-40’s to 10 below in 48 hours, then from 10 below to the mid-60’s in 24 hours. The arthritis demon has been doing a conga line up and down my body for two weeks.
• Ellie, our miniature American Psycho Hound is lucky she’s cute. So far, she’s chewed up a dozen USB cables, several Christmas presents, and the frame to my bed.
• Her sister, Sophie the Faux Dachshund, on the other hand, has only tried to chew up my desk once. When confronted, she looked me in the eye and asked me ‘What desk?”
• Come spring, I will be driving to North Dakota and back, following it up the week after with a drive to Texas and back. I am hoarding Audible credits in preparation for these trips.
  • The boy and I are well into the Monster Hunter International series, and I think I will follow up with Galaxy’s Edge or maybe a relisten to the Lord of the Rings.
• I’ve looked at how much it will cost to rent a car to do these drives, and ye Gods and little fishes, that’s a chunk of change. It almost makes sense to buy a new car instead. I’ve been considering something smaller than an F-150 for the commute when we go back to the office, and this might be what finally pushes me into that decision.

• Irish Woman asked me today what I wanted for Christmas. I told her I just wanted a hot meal and the love of a good woman.
  • This may be my last transmission. Tell my children I died well.
• I got an email that one of Irish Woman’s presents won’t be here for Christmas because apparently the camel train from Outer Mongolia was intercepted by Hmong raiders or something.
  • When I told Irish Woman that she had to come up with something else, she said we could just buy a new dishwasher instead.
  • I told her to pull the other leg. It’s got bells attached to it.
• In other news, our dishwasher has died and our microwave appears to be on the downhill slide toward recycling.
  • The dishwasher was manufactured in 2009, the microwave in 2008, so I’d say that both we and the former owners of the house got good value out of them.
  • Have y’all priced out appliances lately? Sweet Jebus, but they’ve gotten pricy. My first three cars didn’t cost as much as a new dishwasher and an in-the-wall microwave do now.
• We’ve reached that wonderful time of year here in IndiUcky where it’s too warm to snow, but cold enough that the rain just sucks the life right out of you.
  • Luckily, I have an ample supply of Vitamin D and corn liquor to see me through.
• Question for y’all – Have you just about given up on going to the theater to watch a movie? We went a few months ago, and I really didn’t enjoy it anymore. Unless the movie has special effects or cinematography that absolutely requires the big screen to appreciate it, I’d rather just stay home and rent a film. And since I’m about done with Star Wars, Harry Potter, the MCU, and the DCU, I don’t see me dishing out $70 or more for the family to enjoy a matinee.

Well, it’s that time of year again. That wonderful season where those of us who just want to get through it without felony charges plaster a fake smile on our face and avoid human contact unless absolutely necessary.

I returned from a Scout campout on Sunday to find that the infection of holiday herpes, AKA Christmas decorations, had begun its inexorable infestation of my home. The old dining room has an artificial arboreal zombie, complete with seizure-inducing twinkling lights.

The liquor cabinet had been cleared off and the Holy Family, complete with resin Baby Jesus, has been planted in a bed of fake garland. Apparently, Our Lord and Savior has to be born inches from my stash of corn liquor.

So now, when I go to get a bottle of demon rum out of the cabinet in order to quell the voices in my head, I have to look our Lord and Savior in the eye as I decide if this is a nice, mellow Jim Beam evening or a howl-at-the-moon cask strength Wild Turkey kind of night. So, I’ve got that going for me, which is nice.

Just remember kids, if you mix top shelf hooch with Coca Cola, you will make the Baby Jesus cry.

The draping of my abode in Christmas dreck will only get worse as we approach the 25th. It will be a gradual ramp up over the next couple of weeks, followed by a frenzy of midwinter decoration starting two days before Christmas.

The discussion of when I will find time to drive around Louisville to find a bourbon-soaked fruitcake made by Trappist monks (not a joke) has already started. Last year, it took two evenings, a tank of gas, and stops at 8, count them, 8 purveyors of holiday horror to find one and bring it home.

I will admit, it was tasty when served with a cup of hot coffee laced with a little Kentucky blessing.

At least my shopping is almost done. I may have overstepped when I told my wife that if she didn’t tell me exactly what she wanted and send me links to make the purchase, she was getting steak knives. She acquiesced when she noticed I wasn’t laughing along with her.

The boy is getting a couple of small things from me and a gift card. This is how things will go until the final Christmas before his 18th birthday. He will then get one of the biggest gifts I’ve ever given him – luggage.

Girlie Bear already got her present – cash. She was quite pleased with it, as expected.

So, for my fellow prisoners of Christmas conscience, keep your chin up. Good luck, and I’ll see you on the other side when we will be spending the first week of January helping our friends and family who are really too old to drink like that.

• It’s a good feeling when the puppy wants to get playful at 9:30 PM. It’s a good stress reliever playing fetch in the living room/kitchen for an hour.
• It’s not so good for the stress when you discover that the reason the puppy is so energetic that late at night is because she got into the basement storage room and ATE AN ENTIRE MRE, INCLUDING THE VANILLA CAPPUCCINO POWDER.
  • That explains the athletic prowess, including sprints, both high and long jumps, and the ability to move faster than the human eye can see.
• Remember those cute signs about how an unattended child will be given an espresso and a puppy? Well, last night, we had both of those in one package.
• She’s fine, and no, she didn’t get into the chewing gum. I monitored her all night long, and no gastrointestinal or cardiac issues noted.
• In other news, I am going to be spending some time replacing the lock on that door. Either it’s faulty, or my puppy has advanced infiltration skills.

Gentlemen, “When are you going to learn to not touch the hot stove again?” is not the response your wife is looking for when she needs to ‘talk’ about her frustrations with her latest volunteer effort.

Repeating that question several times in the course of a discussion does not improve it, either.

Just nod, grunt approvingly, and agree with her at appropriate intervals. In the long run, it’s the best course of action for both of you.

Remember, ‘tis better to be happy than to be right.

• Don’t call it a ‘recession’. Rather, call it ‘the economy that dare not speak its name’
  • We have officially reached the “I’m not paying that much for that anymore” stage of consumerism around here. Several nonessentials that I buy regularly are priced too high, so I’m not buying them.
  • Another thing that points to imminent suckage is the regularity that things like soap are out of stock when Amazon does my monthly drop shipment of staples. If one of the biggest companies on the planet can’t get common items, then things are going sideways somewhere.
  • I have the same feeling I always got just as we got to the top of the log flume rides at Six Flags. I know the near future is going to suck, but we’re at a bit of stasis at the moment.
• The turkey is thawing, the bread for the stuffing has been bought, and my givadam is polished and ready to go. Bring on Thanksgiving.
• Part of holiday preparation was to bathe the animals so they don’t smell like, well, animals. One puppy actively tried to make a run for it after being put in the tub. The other looked at me as if I was beating her. Both are now squeaky clean, which is their signal to go and roll in something.

Me, examining a new piece of industrial cutlery the big brown truck of happiness delivered today – This is cool, but it needs to be sharpened up a bit.

Her – Do not sharpen that!

Me, running my thumb along the relatively sharp edge – Why?

Her – Because there’s a 200% chance of you cutting yourself with that. If it had one edge, there’d only be a 100% chance, but it has two, so it’s 200%.

She’s not wrong. Luckily, I had a bandaid handy.

• I would rather be both happy and right, but I will settle with happy. Being happy means I don’t have to sleep with one eye open.
• Someday, some of the people who think they are a part of my life will figure out that me not caring at all about them does not mean I hate them. Hate takes too many calories. I prefer indifference to the point of not remembering they exist until they intrude upon my consciousness again.
  • Being hated by me is a privilege I extend only to a select few, and it is a privilege that you must certainly earn.
• As an independent voter, I am going to have to stock up on popcorn now so that I have enough for the 2024 political season.
• The news is full of reports that people have lost literally billions of dollars they entrusted to an inexperienced 20-something with limited oversight who kept his ‘business’ in the Bahamas.
  • Somehow, these people have the chutzpah to act surprised when their riches disappeared.
  • I mean, if you can’t trust a 29 year old with bad hygiene, manners, and fashion sense to hold onto your nest egg while living in a house with the 9 other people who run his company, including a girlfriend who openly brags about how great pharmaceutical stimulants are, who can you trust?
  • Dude, if you don’t understand it or can’t touch it, don’t invest in it. Even if you can and do, you better have someone with neither a neck nor a sense of humor available to ensure that your investment is being watched over carefully.
• Apparently, holsters for my new pistol have to be made on the hips of Cuban virgins out of imported Rhodesian emu hide. The magazines appear to have been crafted by master dwarven artisans out of finest trans-orbital unobtanium, too.
• As a return to the office lurks somewhere just over my horizon, I’ve been considering picking up a smaller car, new or used, for the hour-long commute.
  • Irish Woman is under the incorrect impression that I can wave my hand imperiously, and my employer will make a desk appear out of the ether for me to use at one of the company’s other, closer, facilities.
  • I had to break it to her that every other person who lives on our side of town already had that idea, and there is no room at that particular inn.
  • I’m not sure she believes me, but her will can only bend reality so far outside of our yard.
  • So, anyway, I looked at dealerships and used car lots in the area. There is a bit of inventory, not much, but a bit. However, the cost of a 2 year old used sedan is about what my parents paid for their first home. A new car is more than our last two cars combined.
  • Guess I’ll be driving the F150 for a bit more until this silliness gets under control.

• Woke up to the sound of wind whipping through the trees and ice pellets pattering against the window.
  • Yesterday, it was sunny and 72 degrees. Today, it was gray, wet, and cold enough to make the Kentucky people whine.
• The puppies enjoyed their first snowfall. The fake weiner dog even enjoyed it when her stomach scraped the white stuff a bit.
• The miniature American Psychohound thought it was the best thing ever.
• As luck would have it, this morning was the morning to walk a neighborhood and leave flyers for “Scouting for Food”. The half inch of ice was being supplemented by wet snow as we walked.
• For our anniversary, I got Irish Woman and me tickets to Churchill Downs. I bought a higher tier so that we could sit inside and eat something approaching real food. Considering the weather, I’m glad I did.
  • For $80 a head, we got a nice warm place to sit and a buffet.
  • Even with the bad weather, I’m not sure I got good value. The room was about half full, but the buffet was regularly empty on at least half of its items.
  • Also, when I pay that much for a meal, being told “Oh, the coffee is over there. Paper cups are right next to it. Help yourself!” is not what I expect. For $80 a head, I expect Juan Freaking Valdez himself to bring me a bone china chalice filled with the nectar of the gods.
  • The track conditions were, understandably, horrendous. Most races had more than one horse scratched voluntarily due to the risk of running. I can’t blame the owners. Most of those horses are worth more than my house, but it only takes one slip and all they’re good for is dog food and fertilizer.

Not sure who I’m stealing this idea from, but this isn’t originally mine. It’s just been rumbling around in my head for the past few.

“You have heard that it was said, ‘Eye for eye, and tooth for tooth.’^[a]39 But I tell you, do not resist an evil person. If anyone slaps you on the right cheek, turn to them the other cheek also.

Turning the other cheek is usually portrayed as a good person allowing someone else to harm them and not responding out of kindness and forgiveness.

I’ve always looked at it as not caring enough about the other person to give them the satisfaction of a response.

To me, it’s more of a statement for me to remind someone that they are so insignificant to me that even an insult or minor attack isn’t worth the effort to notice.

“You, flea, are not worth the calories it would take to scratch.” and all that.

Of course, your mileage may vary. My ability to ignore someone changes depending on a lot of variables, and I did inherit my grandfather’s temper.

And for you “What would Jesus do?” folks, just remember that in certain circumstances, flipping tables and literally beating the bejeezus out of them is perfectly acceptable.