Something occurred to me the other night –

Iran is sending over flights of missiles and drones. Some are getting through air defense and detonating at seemingly random places.

Some of those missiles are directed at Jerusalem.

What happens if one of the hits the Dome of the Rock?

I’d say there’s a 50/50 chance that Israel would be blamed, but the Arab street, and the governments of those Arabs, could also turn on Iran with a fury Israel could never bring to bear.

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The Young Prince returned home on Saturday from his first week working with younger scouts at summer camp. He got home on Saturday morning and had to be back on Sunday morning. Just enough time to get a good shower, do laundry, get a couple home-cooked meals, and sleep for about 10 hours.

When he came through the door, his dog lost her everloving mind. Sophie the Faux Dachshund was vocal to the point of hysteria. It only got worse when I told her boy to go get a shower. I had to sit with her and rock her like a newborn with colic.

It’s gonna be really rough when he comes back for a few days, then leaves with his mother to attend a Scout camp in Florida next week.

I may have to either introduce her to bourbon or start imbibing a bit more myself.

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Date night this week was dinner followed by a screening of Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. It’s been rereleased for its 35 year anniversary.

Watching Harrison Ford and Sean Connery play off each other on the big screen was an excellent way to spend two hours and thirty dollars. I even got the commemorative metal Jaws popcorn bucket. That one is 50 years old now, and I missed seeing its rerelease.

The theater was about 3/4 full. It reinforces the belief I wrote about a few weeks ago that Hollywood could do worse than rereleasing older, good movies while they figure out how to make money again.

There’s just something about good story and acting, coupled with practical effects and a John Williams soundtrack, that just works. Is it the best movie ever made? No. Was my enjoyment at least partially enhanced by the nostalgia of remembering watching the first release? Yes.

But it was fun and it was frank about its “The Nazis are bad guys. Let’s root for the good guys” story, and that’s missing from a lot of movies nowadays.

Still not happy that the kid who served us our popcorn had to have the movie explained to him. He’d never seen Last Crusade. That made me sad, and I blame his parents.

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Later today, I’ll be heading up to the Apple store to pick up a new Mini. It’ll replace my MacBook Air, which choked when I tried to open up Microsoft Word and a web browser last week.

Some of my friends complain about the cost of a Mac, and they’re right in that there’s a big outlay for a new piece of hardware.

However, that MacBook is the 2015 model. Even assuming that I haven’t used it much for the past year or so, that’s still almost 10 years of good usage with no issues until it just physically couldn’t handle starting newer versions of software.

In that same timeframe, Irish Woman has had at least two HP laptops, neither of them bargain basement models. I’d say that even if I spent the same amount for both of her laptops as I did for my MacBook, I’m still ahead just because of not having to transfer files and settings over, not to mention having to repurchase/reinstall a plethora of programs, a few times.

6:51 AM – Little Dog #1 wakes me up using the “Pounce, then Head Butt” method. Big Dog backs her up by woofing at the side of the bed. I wipe the sleep from my eyes, get out of bed, and consider finding the people who told me that by the time I was in my 50’s, I’d be enjoying a quiet, sane life and sleep in on weekends so that I can do something awful to them.

6:55 AM – Put Little Dog #1, Little Dog #2, and Big Dog outside for their morning rituals. Flip on the coffee machine. Retrieve dog food containers and head to the back deck. The pets shall be partaking of their morning meal on the veranda today.

7:00 AM – All 3 dogs are fed. Notice that Little Dog #2 spent the time between being let out and breakfast being served to continue excavation work on Glorious People’s Flowerbed Project #3172, meaning that her front paws are caked in mud. Go inside to retrieve a wet rag to clean her front paws before letting her back in. Some ask how I got so good at taking care of a dachshund, to which I reply that I have raised several crops of toddlers in my years, and the skills transfer easily.

7:15 AM – All 3 dogs are back in the house so that they don’t all enjoy the puddles last night’s rain left in my yard, and the coffee machine reports success in brewing the elixir of life. Pour my first cup and notice that the brown patina on the inside of my cream colored cup is coming along nicely. Eventually, I won’t need to brew coffee, and will just have to add hot water and stir.

7:25 AM – First sips of coffee out of the way, I survey the kitchen to get breakfast ideas. A large bunch of spotted bananas catches my eye, so I put together a big batch of banana bread. My children all learned a long time ago that if they can convince both parents to buy bananas, there will be a surplus. Then, if they don’t eat the bananas, they will eventually be reborn as banana bread. It’s everyday miracles like that that give them faith.

7:45 AM – Banana bread is in the oven, and I’m on my second cup of coffee. I quickly clean up the mess from the banana bread, then contemplate main breakfast. I decide on breakfast quesadillas, which are basically sausage and cheese fritatas with a tortilla on top.

7:50 AM – Poke my head into the Young Prince’s room and give him a gentle wake up call. He has to report for his job at the scout camp by about 11:30, and it’s an hour’s drive. He’ll need time to pack for the week, find all the things he’s lost since he got home on Friday night, then need time to remember all the things he’d forgotten to pack, find them, and then remember where he put his pack. If we wait until the last minute, this multi-step, multi-hour process would be shortened. This would bring conflict, airing of opinions on each other’s ancestry, and inevitable trips to the hinterlands to bring him things he just can’t live without later this week.

8:00 AM – First quesadilla is done on the griddle, so I sprinkle cheese onto it and cut the heat under it to let the cheese melt. I give the Blue Eyed Devil a second wake up call, adding that there are ripe raspberries to be had if he gets his fuzzy tuckus out of bed and goes to get them. He arises from his slumber and trudges out to the yard with a tupperware cup to retrieve fruit.

8:05 AM – I plate my son’s breakfast as he stumbles back into the house. He decides he wants hot sauce on his eggs rather than salsa (I’m so proud) as I remind him to wash the raspberries before he eats them. I put together a jar of sun tea and place it on the deck. I select “Raspberry Zinger” for today’s batch, and am proud that I checked which box I used before adding teabags to the jar. The first box I grabbed from the cupboard was chamomile reinforced with melatonin. While iced tea made with that selection would have probably tasted quite nice, it would have also given new meaning to the phrase ‘quiet afternoon’.

8:15 AM – I hear the first rumblings from the master bedroom, signifying that She Who Shall Not Be Named is stirring. I push down the fight or flight instinct that is gibbering in my ear, and try to decide if she will want bacon or sausage with her eggs. I decide to play it safe and wait until she is coherent to get her opinion on the matter.

8:25 AM – The oven beeps to tell me the allotted baking time for the banana bread is done. I set it to also shut off the heat, so I can let it sit in the warm oven for just a few minutes more to get the middle set just right. That’s a trick I have had to learn since we moved into this house and started using an electric oven. Once again, I consider the expense and trouble of having the house plumbed for propane and replacing the cooktop and oven.

8:30 AM – Retrieve a pan of perfectly-done banana bread from the oven and place it on a wire rack to cool. The Young Prince is at the table working his way through his breakfast, but there is no sign of Irish Woman yet. I look about the kitchen for the bowl of raspberries, and inquire as to their location. The Young Prince informs me that he already ate them. Such is life. Hopefully, there will be more raspberries tomorrow.

8:40 AM – Both little dogs urgently remonstrate their desire to be released into the back yard. Before I can intervene, The Young Prince opens the door for them. They bolt to the back of their compound and unleash a torrent of canine profanity the likes of which has not been seen in this land for a generation. Apparently, a deer farted two yards over, and my pets just had to let the world know how they felt about that. I arise from my chair, curse under my breath, and retrieve the self-appointed guardians of the neighborhood. I make a note to apologize to the neighbors for the disturbance next time I see them.

8:55 AM – Irish Woman makes her first appearance of the morning. She decides she just wants scrambled eggs with sausage, so I put away the cheese and tortillas. The Young Prince is sent to get his last good shower for the week, and I enjoy my 3rd cup of coffee. A morning disucssion of the ‘riots’ in Los Angeles and New York devolves into a rehashing of Occupy Wall Street and the 2020 riots in Louisville. I explain what ‘federalizing’ means when referring to the National Guard, and how using active duty military, especially Marines from 29 Palms, as front-line crowd control will not work the way most folks think it will.

9:30 AM – The Young Prince emerges from his Sunday morning schwitz, shorn of the sparse stubble on his cheeks and chin. I have a discussion with him about the utility of permathrine and DEET in his new working environment, and admonish him about tick checks. The banana bread has now cooled enough to enjoy, so I quickly cut out two of the four corner pieces and claim them as my own. He who labors should enjoy the best fruits of said labor. I am ‘convinced’ to let our son take a portion of the banana bread to camp with him. I hope the mice enjoy their treat.

9:40 AM – The “Did you remember?” questions begin. So far, it has saved the Young Prince from forgetting paperwork, a red-white-and-blue bow tie, and a hawaiian shirt. Why a junior counselor at a Boy Scout camp needs a bow tie and a hawaiian shirt remains to be seen.

9:50 AM – Irish Woman is preparing to leave to take her progeny to work, and inquires as to my plans for the day. As I do not have any, I merely state that I will figure something out. I suggest that one of us needs to go to the Scout meeting this evening in her son’s place so that discussions can be had about an upcoming GREAT ADVENTURE. She reminds me that the troop will be attending the same camp that our son is staff at this week. I then laugh at the thought of my son trying to provide training and guidance to the scrum of young scouts we know. Karma is an evil queen.

10:00 AM – The previously blue sky is darkening. I wasn’t going to be mowing anything today, but did have hopes to do some other outside work at some point. Shucks, I shall have to spend my day inside with air conditioning.

10:30 AM – Irish Woman and the Young Prince depart. A generous portion of the banana bread goes with them. The house settles into an eery calm. It is as if one crisis has abated, but another, more silly crisis approaches with stealth. I contemplate what I want for my own breakfast, and whether today should be spent cleaning out the spice cabinet or deep cleaning the basement.

• My doctor said I should have more protein and fruit in my diet. So, for lunch today, I had a big bowl of cherry jello with crushed pineapple suspended in it.
  • Let it never be said that I don’t make sacrifices for my health.
• The job search continues. In today’s episode of “Look for a new job” we have some entries on the old job boards that will have a lasting memory.
  • On site systems administrator, advertised as remote, but really in Atlanta. Starting salary – $35,000 per annum. Requires Master’s Degree and 10+ years experience.
    
  • Security Specialist, local hospital system. Salary unknown at this time, but does require recent Tazer certification and the ability to intervene in physical confrontations.
    
  • Mainframe systems programmer, fully remote. Salary negotiable based on experience. Must have top secret security clearance and speak at least 1 of 3 listed Asian languages.
• We’ve reached that stage of early summer in Indiucky where the mornings are quite pleasant, so long as you enjoy your coffee on the veranda prior to 9 AM, but the afternoons are warm and muggy enough that the couch in the basement is quite pleasant. Soon, we’ll reach the “Sun’s up, and so is the humidity” stage of summer, followed by the period where I stare longingly at pictures of Minot from the winter of 1982. No worries, though, for soon we’ll have our first false fall, second false fall, then it will rain for a month and a half.
• Career advice I gave to someone recently – You wouldn’t have to always be a hero if you would just hire and train enough people that will show up and do the work, as well as prune those people who, for one reason or another, are a net negative to your organization.
  • I know. Pot, kettle, some assembly required.
• While visiting the hardware store today, I overheard a mother of three boys, who had apparently had had quite enough shenanigans for the day, quietly tell the oldest of them “If you don’t take your hands off your brother right now, I will feed them to both of your brothers for dinner.” I was not sure whether to be impressed or concerned.
• The Young Prince completed his week of staff training at the summer camp he’s working at. To say that the boy was odorific when he got in the car tonight would be something of an understatement.
  • Note to self – Volunteer to take him to camp on Sunday and let Irish Woman pick him up on Saturday. I just detailed my car, for crying out loud. Now, I’m going to have to rescrub everything to get the funk out.

• Apparently, my love language is getting up at 6 AM, taking care of the dogs, then cooking a pound of bacon and scrambling some eggs so that She Who Shall Not Be Named can have a hot breakfast before heading to the office.
• Irish Woman has become slightly involved with a local pet rescue organization. It mainly involves making donations and promoting Facebook posts about puppies they have for adoption. Luckily, when either of us gets the “But we could have just one more dog! Look how cute they are!” urges, the other still has the sense to say “We already have three!” I shudder to think of the chaos that would ensue if our cycles ever synced up.
• It is now June. Summer has finally arrived in the form of air that is reminiscent of a wet blanket fresh from the dryer. Irish Woman spends her evenings digging in the dirt and finding ‘creative’ ways to grow things in dirt.
  • On a side note, she’s planting several varieties of mint. Next year, I will need a flamethrower and machete to reclaim what her ‘herb garden’ has conquered.
  • We had a mint patch for a while at the old house. There’s nothing like running mint over with a riding lawnmower to clear the sinuses after it has grown out half a furlong into the lawn in a week.
• I am currently trying to formulate this year’s “I know it’s almost Father’s Day, but please don’t get me anything. If I want or need something, I’ll get it for myself.” strategy.
  • No, I have enough gadgets, thanks.
  • I don’t care how cool it looked in the ad.
  • Yes, the tee shirt is cute. I have enough tee shirts.
  • No, I don’t smoke.
  • I don’t wear ties anymore.

• When placing flags in front of graves, I fall into a habit of reading the name, unit, and dates on each gravemarker.
  • In the local veteran’s cemetary, they tend to be men and women who served when they were young, but lived a long life. A World War I veteran who lived into the 1970’s, a Spanish American War veteran who died in the 1930’s, that sort of thing.
  • Gravemarkers tend to be grouped by date of death, which makes sense when you consider that the cemetary would be filled in as requests for burials come in.
  • Every so often, though, this morning I came across the grave of someone who died in their teens or early twenties mixed in with veterans who died in their 70’s.
    • Those tend to give me pause. This was someone who probably died in combat or due to wounds from combat. They didn’t come home to their families, they didn’t make their own family, they didn’t live to see their golden years.
    • They were all Korea, Vietnam, or GWOT veterans. I assume that World War I or World War II casualties were interred overseas.
  • I also ran into a few graves with family names that are uncommon here in Kentucky, but were pretty common back home in North Dakota. I need to check the geneology to see if I have kin buried here.
  • The local Boy Scouts come together on Memorial Day weekend to place flags, and they start with a small flag raising ceremony before fanning out to attend to the graves. One of Boo’s friends has taught himself to play the bugle, and when that young man played Taps, it raised the hair on the back of my neck.
  • At such events, you see both good and bad parenting. One couple I saw had a young Scout and his little sister placing flags. The little girl put the flag in place and her brother would push it down. Mom and Dad were there to supervise and hand them flags as needed. It was cute and good to see a family doing something like that together.
  • I also saw some ignorant bint who was livestreaming the event and making comments during the initial ceremony, all while her child was hopping up and down on the headstone for an aircrew that had been buried together.
    • Luckily for me, another dad got to the mom and asked her to parent her child before someone else did. I’d like to think I would have been polite and respectful had the other guy not been two steps ahead of me.
  • Afterward, I took Boo out for breakfast. A teenager the size of a grown man, dressed in full Boy Scout uniform, draws the eye at the Bob Evans, I must say.
    • I considered taking him to Waffle House, which is our favorite breakfast spot, but the one that was convenient is in a rather stabby part of town, and I value both his safety, as well as my own. For him, I was worried something ignorant might happen while we enjoyed our hashbrowns. For myself, I was concerned at what She Who Shall Not Be Named would do to me if something happened near, much less to, the last scion of her father’s house.
    • I need to take that boy out to eat more often. He has no skills at all in talking to cute teenage waitresses, and that means I have failed him as a father.
      • Luckily for us, she seemed to speak fluent mumble, so she got his order right on the first try.
  • Dinner tonight was a “Make All The Food” exercise.
    • Grilled ribeye burgers, chicken thighs, chicken legs, bratwursts, old-fashioned hotdogs, pasta salad, grilled potatoes with onions and garlic, and homemade chocolate chip cookies.
    • I am officially done cooking for the next 48 to 72 hours. If they don’t want leftovers, Little Caesars is ten minutes away.

It’s been 5 months since I left my former employer. I had been there for just shy of 24 years when I got the “Would you be interested in a buyout?” email. The payoff for leaving, monetary and otherwise, was good enough that my decision was made within 24 hours, and I left just after Christmas. Since then, I’ve been making my part of the monthly budget using that payout, and can continue to do so for quite some time.

Since then, I’ve been catching up on sleep, cooking, baking, house care, and little projects. I’ve gotten a little bit of writing done, and it’s getting easier. Somewhere around 2016, things got too crazy and I started running a consistent deficit in excess brain capacity, so writing shut off like I had turned a switch. It’s coming back, slowly, but it’s nothing like it was a decade ago.

It’s a cliche to say this, but the mind is a muscle. It requires regular exercise. I’m at the stroll-the-mall stage of redevelopment, but should be up to speed sometime this summer. I have a couple of Boogieman stories I’m working on, and those darned Romans started talking to me again, so I’m going to at least get them off the Arabian peninsula this year.

I spent the first couple of months just decompressing. I didn’t know how on-edge and tired I was until I looked at a picture I took in December and compared it to the man in the mirror in March. Things had definitely gotten out of hand, but I’m on the upswing now.

I did a bit of travelling, read some books I’ve had on the shelf for too long, and baked way too many desserts and treats. I’ve discovered the simple joy of starting a podcast or a lecture, putting on hearing proection over my earbuds, and riding the lawnmower for a couple of hours.

I’ve been looking for a job, but the Venn diagram between what employers need/want and what I am looking for in a new employer isn’t exactly a circle. I can’t wait forever to get a new job (the payout wasn’t that generous), but I also don’t have to go grab the first job I can find just to keep the lights on. There have been a few nibbles from recruiters, even an interview or two, but nothing solid. It will eventually come, and I’ve been considering getting a part time gig somewhere just to get out of the house a few days a week.

I joked the other day that one sign of my improved attitude is that I’m cussing in foreign languages a lot less. Spewing f-bombs out loud was frowned upon at my former employer, but nobody ever raised an eyebrow when I muttered to myself in Finnish, German, or Russian. OK, one time I made a guy from Smolensk spit out his tea, but he laughed about it. Now, I don’t even need to curse a lot in English, which is something I haven’t experienced before in my adult life.

So, overall, I’m doing OK. The family is still secure, we’re not losing the house or anything anytime soon. I’m rested up and starting to get back to being who I like to be instead of who I have to be. Irish Woman has not had to tiptoe up to my desk and tell me she’s worried about me since Thanksgiving, and we’re figuring out how to be boyfriend and girlfriend again.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, there’s a detective having to deal with some otherworldly stuff that needs my attention.

• It is telling that the highlight of my week so far has been having someone come out to empty the septic tank.
  • In related news, it is never a good thing when the septic tank guy knocks on the door and says “Sir, I’ve got some bad news.”
• Note to self – Cutting up serano chilis is an awesome way to make your arthritic hands feel better for a few hours.
  • Secondary note – It is a good thing that you wash your hands immediately after ward.
  • Tertiary note – Normal hand soap will not remove all traces of capcaisin from your hands the way strong dish soap has in the past.
  • Quaternary note – Nothing clears out sinuses partially stuffed up from seasonal allergies like macing yourself by touching not only your nose, but also both eyes after washing your hands with soft soap after cutting up chilis.
• Kentucky has gone from unsasonably hot and muggy to “We need to get some gopha wood before the animals start to show up” raining to unseasonably cold and windy and then back to hot and muggy several times in the last week or two.
  • The arthritis I mentioned above is demanding answers and wants to speak to the manager.
• It’s May in Kentucky and the trees are screaming. I feel their pain, after waking up in Kentucky and wanting to scream every morning since 2001. All I can tell the cicadas is to be strong.

• Note to self – When barefoot and handling lit charcoal in the smoker, make sure to account for each and every piece of charcoal.
  • Unrelated note to self – The ice maker in the refrigerator is frozen up again.
• Any day you can work with your chain saw and go to bed with the same number of digits and appendages is a good day.
• Note to self – When your wife says she needs to get some chemicals for her pool, it is not humorous to ask if she means Rid-X.
  • She also will not think it’s humorous when you call it an ‘above ground septic tank’.
• Making your wife a bacon and egg breakfast on Mother’s Day, accompanied by new jewelry, won’t get all of your sins forgiven, but it helps.

• It recently occurred to me that, someday, the social media messages of our society, especially those of our leaders, will be the subject of academic scholarship
  • I look forward to seeing “Use of the Poop Emoji in Presidential Proclamations, 2016 to 2028” as somebody’s PhD thesis.
  • “Look, Javier, I understand that jigglypuff2001 was creative in her eschatological imagery when referring to her political opponents, but if you look at her posts from September 22, 2020, you can see her inner thoughts about inner city poverty. “There’s nothing better than walking through the hood at 2 AM knowing that my non-binary, two-spirit fox-self will be perfectly at peace with the decolonized, indigenous population of West Oakland #atpeace”. I mean, you can just feel the serenity exuding from her soul when she wrote that.“
  • In this study, we shall discuss the festive imagery and joie de vivre in the post of April 7, 2019, where ponyboy85613 said “Gettin off work! This weekend gonna be lit as f!ck when me and the boys turn up!”
• Today, while driving down the freeway, I saw a CyberTruck with a spare tire on a roof rack, a large light bar above the windshield, and red clay mud all over it.
  • All I can say, sir, is at least you tried.
• For anyone considering moving to Kentucky, please keep in mind that the first 5 minutes of run off from me power washing my driveway today was a greenish-yellow slurry of pollen and mud.