Month: May 2020

“Awww…he looks lost and hungry. Maybe you should offer him a snack?”

It was back in the first weekend or so of our state’s [first] stay-at-home order, and the family and I were just relaxing on our screened-in porch¹Bougie Alert! enjoying breakfast and the new, slower pace of life. The Boss Lady had seen some light commotion at the edge of our neighbor’s yard behind me, and her investigative efforts had revealed a cute beagle on the loose.

Now, the last time I got involved with a loose dog in the neighborhood, it ended with me calling 911 and then cleaning some canine blood off our hardwood floors²Yet another Bougie Alert!…but that’s a story for another time. Suffice it to say, I was initially reticent to get involved, but clearly this poor lost soul was tugging at the heartstrings of the ever-empathetic Boss Lady, and thus my involvement in this act of Good Samaritianism began…

With the remnants of one of my household-famous Saturday Pancakes in hand, I gently approached the prodigal pup. He stopped sniffing about all the vegetation that created the border between our yard and our neighbors’ long enough to gibble that ‘cake down, lickity-split.

“Wow, he must be real hungry,” I thought to myself. “Maybe he’s thirsty, too?”

While the Boss Lady fixed up a bowl of random human foods–you know, the usual: Cheerios, peanut butter, carrots & celery³If you’re thinking “WTF?!?” then you’re not alone. I sure was confused by what she deemed canine cuisine.–I filled up a bowl with water from our garden hose.

“Hmmm, that’s odd. He’s not interested one bit in the water” the dialogue in my head continued. “Oh well, let’s see if he eats any of this–wait! Wha??? The hell is this?!?”

That last part was out loud as I was mildly taken aback by the hodge-podge of edibles that the Boss Lady had charged me with feeding ol’ Puppus.⁴Not his real name…just got tired of flipping to the entry for “Dog” in my trusty thesaurus.

Critically, though, peanut butter was involved, and you know them dogs love them some peanut butter, so it wasn’t long before Puppus was in the middle of our backyard selectively dining from the bowl in my hand.

I attempted to take this opportunity to read the tags on his collar in hopes of finding his rightful owner–who was no doubt searching for him in angst at this point.

However, Puppus turned out to be quite the rascal, and had decided to move on to our other neighbors’ yard and engage in some more kind-hearted human hustling.

While I was dog-whistling⁵I think this means something else…something much worse. I’m just using it literally here. in vain as he eagerly sniffed around our neighbors’ deck, the wife, “Boba,⁶It’s a form of “grandma,” which we use since our girls play with their grandkids all the time (or at least used to) and they are essentially another set of grandparents. In case you were wondering.” came out to investigate.

Boba and I quickly concocted a plan to use one of her dog leashes to wrangle him, then I would snap a few pictures and send out an email on our neighborhood listserv to aid in reuniting him with his Master/Mistress.

Oh, that’s right–you remember our neighborhood listserv. You know, the one I used to shout from the rooftops that I was an irresponsible father and/or incompetent business man in The First Rule Of Dealing Club? Yeah, that one. But this time it would be solely used for the good of dog-kind.

Now this was easier said than done, but after chasing him through even the yards of 2 or 3 more neighbors, I finally out-maneuvered that rascal and caught up with him coming out to the sidewalk along the street.

And with that, this had become a public affair. Given the need for social-distancing–even amongst neighbors–this wasn’t necessarily a positive development.

I corralled Puppus back to Boba’s house with the help of the remaining peanut butter, where she met him with the leash.

…and then came along who I would soon discover to be the neighborhood busy-body.

A woman, out for a walk with her family, saw Boba with Puppus and decided to help out while I went to go get my phone so I could take some mugshots.

As I walked away, I could hear them discussing the dog tags. It seems there was only information from the shelter from which he had apparently been adopted, but nothing directly linking him to his owner. Within a few moments I could hear the mild-mannered conversation turn into a light hub-bub. Not quite a commotion, just a hub-bub.

“LOOK OUT! He’s escaaaaaaaped!” I heard Boba call out, as I turned around to see Puppus eagerly ambulating in my direction, finally free from not only the leash, but his collar as well. Why, that slippery little eel!

That was it: it was time to get physical.

After about a minute or so, I was able to secure him in a comfortable half-Nelson wrestling hold. Well, comfortable for him, but quite awkward for me, as I, with my questionable back, was halfway bent over in a rather untenable position.

Meanwhile, Boba and the Busybody had came over to assist, but apparently determined that I had the situation fully under control. With absolutely no sense of urgency, Boba would start to attempt to re-leash the hound before pausing to further discuss with the Busybody how great animal rescue shelters were, whether this particular one would be open on a Sunday morning, and which one of them should call. Et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.

Start. Stop. Start. Stop–just put the ----- leash on the dog!

I did a decent job of remaining gracious outwardly, but on the inside, uh, not so much.

They were just fine with being a bunch of Chatty Cathys while I was struggling mightily to maintain control of Puppus, with my arm muscles growing tired⁷Have you ever tried to see how long you could hold your hands against the roof of your car? Then you know exactly how I felt, and how it didn’t take long to get worn out. and my back about to give out at any second.

That was all bad enough as it was, but what I was really screaming in my head was “SIX FEET, PEOPLE! SIIIIIIIIX FEEEEEEET! What the hell is wrong with you?!?”

And this was somewhat justified, as I honestly couldn’t quite be sure that I didn’t have El Virus (thanks to a very wonderful and active NC allergy season), and I really didn’t feel like contributing to Boba’s ill-being…though I couldn’t exactly say the same for the Busybody…

At long last, they wrapped up their friendly conversation, allowing Boba to get ol’ Numb-nuts secured. I snapped a few pics and confirmed with Boba that she would be keeping him at her house so I could include her cell number and address in the APB I was to send out to the neighborhood.

Home. I was finally back in the comfort of my own home where I could compose said message and wash my hands of the whole ordeal.

You know, an uncomplicated message, a sweet and simple note like this:

Of course I couldn’t lead my neighbors into falsely believing that I might be a competent functioning adult, so I quickly had to follow it up with this:

So, apart from that little misfire, the email hit paydirt within the hour:

“RUSTY” Aha! Now we had a proper name to put to our little shenigan-maker’s face…

Except…there was something about this email that didn’t quite sit right with me, at least at first glance. Why were they giving out my address. No, I’m the one who found him, he’s not my dog.

I had to read it slowly a few times before I caught the “sounds like they live close to you” part.

Oh. That wasn’t our address–it was one digit off. It was our other [non-Boba] neighbors’ address.

You know, the neighbors in whose backyard we had discovered Free-Range Rusty in the first place…

Sh*t.

It was dawning on me what we had just done.

“What did you get me into?!?” I rumbled as I barrelled into the kitchen where the Boss Lady was dutifully preparing lunch.

“Oh. So you saw the email, too, huh?”

“WHAT HAVE WE DONE?!?”

“But you know how pitiful and hungry he looked…”

Unmoved by her logic I just stared at her for a moment.

There was another long pause as we basked in our utter embarrassment before the Boss Lady broke the silence.

“Sooo…I guess we’re the type of monsters now who would snatch a dog or child from their own backyard, huh?”

“I’ve just been an unwitting accomplice in a dog-napping, thanks to you! And they all think it’s me–not you–who’s responsible for the missing dog. I DON’T NEED ANY HELP RUINING MY NEIGHBORHOOD REPUTATION!”

“Look, no one needs to know the truth, okay? Look at me. Look me in the eye. This is our little secret. Promise me.”

Frustrated by the unforced error that she had foisted upon me, I couldn’t help get in one last shot.

“Ughh… ----- you and you’re bleeding heart…”

Roll forward to a few hours later, when I got a private email from yet another concerned neighbor (apparently also one completely unconcerned with punctation):

I shot him back a quick reply to put his mind at ease:

I probably shouldn’t have included that last bit–remember I had a secret to keep, and that extra information was flirting with disaster.

I gotta say that I was a little surprised by his reply:

LOL–“Thank G0d for you.”

Oh, little did he know…little did he know.

Okay, so really the point of the story is, you can aspire to be an upstanding citizen who attempts to proactively contribute to the good of their community all you want. It’s a noble enough goal.

But you have to be at peace with the fact that sometimes, at the end of the day, people may only see you for the acrostic⁸In case the joke gets lost: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acrostic list of crimes and misdemeanors that you’ve managed to inadvertentyly commit along the way:

• Aggravated canine restraint
• Dognapping (not the same thing as above)
• Impersonating a hero
• Probably gave Boba the ‘Rona…so manslaughter?
• Strangling the Busybody [but only in my heart]
• Hooliganism‎⁹This one actually is a crime: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Crimes
• Information Technology Ineptitude
• Trespassing

Content created on: 28/29 May 2020 (Thurs/Fri)

I understand if you’ve been guilty of hoarding during the COVID-19 pandemic. You didn’t mean to–it just happened.

It was accidental for you, too, right? Or am I just projecting?

Ok, just speaking for myself here: I never planned on being a bougie hoarder like everyone else. And in a way, I like to believe that even in hoarding, like Frank Sinatra, I did that sh*t my way...

I had a bread machine. And I didn’t have an overly optimistic view of the future of the nation’s food chain supply. Like everyone else, I was more or less stuck at home, and hoping to minimize the number of times I had to set foot outside of my santcuarious home.

So naturally, it made sense to put the bread machine to good use, and at least have a fresh supply of one glutinous staple with which to nourish my family if the supply chain were to go sideways.

I feel like up to this point, most people can relate.

Unfortunately, it appears that too many people could relate. As anyone who has tried to find baking supplies over the last two months has indubitably discovered, every ----- body has decided to open up a boulangerie in their own homes.

What is interesting is discovering this via a delayed response.

You see, like many people, I decided to try out my local grocery stores Pick-up option. For a while there, the only way to get a time slot was to order almost a week out in advance.

If you’re not overly familiar with this process, it goes something like this: you place your order whenever (typically 4 hours to 6 days before your scheduled pickup time), and then about an hour before your timeslot, some poor soul goes through the store shopping as if they were you.

…and it’s at that point in time you discover what is not in stock. Maybe via text, maybe via phone call. Either way, this has becoming a defining experience for this new era in which we live. Well, at least for me.

During my last physical trip to the grocery store, I had bread flour on my list, but despite visiting three different stores (as retold in Death By Hangnail/Pants Epidemic), the run on flour had already begun and I came home empty-handed.

So over the next month, when planning my bi-weekly supply runs, I would engage in some wishful thinking and include bread flour in my grocery order.

After the second such fruitless supply run, I think a little bit of my sanity broke off and floated off to the great beyond.

Despite really not wanting to set foot in any stores, I had no choice but to take a calculated risk and see what I could find in Walmart and Costco. For the record, had it only been bread flour, I would have just suffered the indignity of not being able to participate in the mass baking hysteria alongside the rest of the nation. But I had other, more serious needs that were not getting met, such as paper towels, toilet paper, and Easter candy.

By the time Walmart had broken my heart on the day in early April, I had tallied a total of 6 failed attempts to procure bread flour over the course of 5 weeks.

But guess what I discovered Costco sells?

Bread flour.

It hadn’t even occurred to me that they might have it. I just turned the corner on that fateful Costco aisle and found myself face to face with a 50 lb bag of the finest white powder this side of Colombia.

But 50 lbs.? Ridiculous right? Who has the kind of money to invest in–wait, waaa?!? Only $12.95?!?

Whatever sane, reasonable part of me that had been clinging on up until that point finally released its grip…

..and fell into Don’t-Give-A-Crap-Canyon.

Did it matter that it was a completely unreasonable amount? ----- no. I was tired of not having any ----- bread flour, and I was staring at essentially a permanent solution to that problem.

Desperate times call for desperate measures right?

Speaking of “measures”…

That big-ass bag of flour sat on the back of the Boss Lady’s car in our garage for about week a de-coronafying, while I had to mentally come to terms with what I had just done.

Seriously, what the hell was I going to do with 50 lbs? And where would I even store it in the meantime? And the last thing anybody wants is for the garage rats to make a comeback…

Eventually I decided to embrace my inner prepper and prepare the heck out of the flour. I had the fantastic idea to pre-measure and mix all the dry ingredients (except for the yeast) for my favorite bread machine recipes. That way all I would need to do is just pull out one ziplock baggie and just toss it in the bread machine with the water and yeast–and easy-peasy I would have fresh bread just like that!

Also, my experience with bread machines has never been as quick, clean, and convenient as their marketing departments would lead you to believe. Somehow it always takes me a good 15 minutes, with 12 of those being cleaning up all the darn flour everywhere. So really the genius of my idea was to only make one big flour mess all at once, instead of every single time I used the B.M.¹Huh. Look at that. It didn’t initially occur to me that “Bread Machine” and “Bowel Movement” have the same ambiguous initials.

Now, before we go too far down that path, I just wanted to skip ahead a bit and get the obligatory bougie photo-of-my-food out of the way first. That’s required for all quarantine bakers, right?

Without further ado, here is my first focaccia–made by hand nonetheless! (I.e., I didn’t use the bread machine, and instead chose to waste 40 minutes of my life learning how to knead bread at a serviceable level.)

When I finally set aside the time to parse out 50 lbs. of flour into a to-be-determined number of ziplock bags, I enlisted my mother to assist me. Now, this was kind of cruel on my part, as she has a wheat allergy and despite her efforts, wouldn’t be able to enjoy a single crumb of her hard work. Don’t judge. I’m pretty sure I’ve already punched my ticket to hell on several occasions.

Of course, I had to have her capture the overly-optimistic moment, because, yeah, I figured it would eventually make it into the future annals of history that my writings will indbutiably be, and whatdya know? Here we are…

My eternal optimism was short-lived though, clocking a lifespan of exactly 48 minutes. It was a little under an hour in when I realized that, despite having pre-packed six future loaves of bread, we didn’t seem to have made much of a dent in the bag of flour.

Curious as to how long this undertaking might actually undertake, I took a peek at the label on the bag:

I had to do a double take. 756?!? Crikey, what had I got myself–and my mom–into?!?

I tried to do the math in my head–something that I’m usually pretty good at as a scientist–but, I kept on coming up with ridiculously scary numbers. I finally just had to sit down with a pen, paper, and a calculator just to make sure the numbers were accurate.

Okay. So each loaf called for 4 cups of flour.

A serving is 1/4 cup, so 4/(1/4) = (4*4)/1 = 16 servings per loaf.

We have a bag full of 756 servings that need to be bagged up.

Therefore, 756/16 = ….

47.25 Ziplock Bags of Flour

Sh*t.

Okay, let’s keep number crunching: it took 48 minutes to get through 6 bags:

48 minutes / 6 bags = 8 minutes/bag.

Assuming we’ll lose a few cups in the process, let’s just say we’ll end up with 46 bags (loaves) total.

46 bags * 8 minutes/bag = 368 minutes * 1 hour/60 minutes = …

6 Hours (and 8 minutes) of Flour

Fuuuuuuuunk…that got out of hand real quick-like.

Yeah…that wasn’t going to happen. I’m too old for that shit, and I sure wasn’t going to drag my poor mother along for such a mind-numbing ride.

We soldiered on and prepped 6 more bags before officially proclaiming “Copulate this crap! We out!”

Yada, yada, ya, and now I have 35 lbs of flour living in a trash bag in my office.

The point of the story is, if you’ve found yourself hoarding in the midst of this pandemic, it’s okay–you can tell me; I won’t judge you.

Like the Good Enough Book doth say:

“He that is without sin among you, let him cast the first stone…but he that is with an unholy amount of baking supplies, let him freely fling crusty loaves of bread unto the masses.”

What jesus would do…if i recall correctly

Content created on: 21/23 May 2020 (Thurs/Sat)

For reasons that will become apparent in the near future, we’ve been buying raw cashews in bulk from Costco lately. I didn’t really buy them to snack upon, but I’ve found them to be a real go-to when I want a quick protein hit.

After a while, I started to notice a particular scent when I would open the container. It was their natural smell, no doubt, but it had certain familiar tinge to it.

No, it was beyond a “tinge”–it smelled almost exactly like something else, but I couldn’t quite put finger on what that was. It was always just on the tip of my tongue.

After a week of being slowly driven slightly mad, I decided to seek a second opinion. Maybe somebody else would recognize that smell.

In the moment I decided to take action, my mother happened to be nearest person to me.

“Hey Mom, smell these cashews and tell me what you think they smell like.”

“Sure!” she replied as she inhaled deeply.

As the wheels turned in her mind, the answer popped into my mind, hitting me like a ton of bricks.

“Uh, no wait–nevermind! It doesn’t smell like anything other than cashews. No need to answer that. No need to even think about it for one more second.”

“Hmmm…fish?”

“Yeah–that’s it. Fish. It just smells like fish. Ok, see you!”

I did not want her to answer because the last thing I wanted was to hear my mother confirm my suspicions: these nuts smelled like sex.

More specifically, the, uh, male by-product of sex.

Jizz.

There I said it. A big ol’ container of raw cashews smells like some good old fashioned jizm.

And no one ever needs to hear their mother say anything remotely close to that.

Seriously, though, they should put this on the package clearly stating:

Warning: These nuts smell like…well, “nut”. So don’t ask your poor mother “Hey. what do these smell like to you?”

A more thoughtful label Designer than the jackass KIRKLAND SIGNATURE hired

Ugh. Come to think of it…now I really regret those turns of phrase I used only moments ago…¹”Put my finger on it.” & “On the tip of my tongue.” in case you were wondering.

Content created on: 21 May 2020 (Thursday)

Back in January–a much simpler time, indeed–I was hanging out with one of my friends in the neighborhood while our kids played together. He asked me what I wanted to talk about, and I told him anything but politics–I wanted to relax and that was the last thing that would help me do that.

Somehow, he took that as an invitation to dive right into talking about the Democratic presidential primaries. Thanks, man.

Anyways, I humored him, as he was clearly much less jaded about the state of the American political system than I was. At some point he gushed, “Isn’t this exciting? I mean, we are living through history!”

I commented that I thought living through history was a little overrated.

However, it wasn’t until the COVID-19 situation started to get serious before that nugget of a thought really crystalized in my head.

After putting much thought into the matter, my profound philosophical conclusion was:

Screw that–I don’t want to live through history!

An eternal optimist with a finite amount of time to enjoy life

In fact, you can give me the most boring era in the annals of time to live through. I would be fine with that.

There. I said it. It may not be the coolest opinion, but it’s my heartfelt truth.

It turns out that I’m just about as bougie in these times of crisis as the next guy. Yes, what you have heard is true: I’ve fallen into the rabbit hole of baking sourdough bread.

In the local coupon circular that shows up in my mailbox every week, I recently read an article about how everybody was into sourdough now. I’m not gonna lie: that bruised my snowflake ego just a little bit.

But nonetheless, it was a pretty interesting article with some pretty handy tips. My favorite was “You really should name your sourdough starter.”

Without a moment of hestitation, I knew exactly who that was that had been living rent-free in our fridge for the last month. I busted into the house, and without any context trumpeted to the Boss Lady:

“Friends, family, and fans of all ages, I’m proud to announce the newest member of our household:”

Corin Thunderfist

And now, an original Tweet:

Content created on: 14 May 2020 (Thurs).

When I was 11 or 12 years old, I remember having a conversation with my dad, Bob J., about something that had happened recently on our farm. I don’t remember exactly what it was–it wasn’t anything of real consequence–but I remember being slightly surprised that this was the first I was hearing of this event. This wasn’t unusual though: since I only lived with him in Kansas during summer and Christmas breaks, a lot would happen when I was away.

However, since he had used the wonderfully ambiguous phrase, “just the other day…” to describe when it had happened, it was still unclear to me when said event went down. I had heard him use that phrase on a frequent enough basis, that I decided it was high time I got a better feel for what it meant to him.

With an air of curiosity, I asked him, “Oh, yeah. Cool. When exactly did this happen?”

Nonchalantly, he replied “A few weeks ago, I reckon…”

Okay, good enough. Not the most precise answer, but it would suffice for our farm-centric conversations.

Not too long after that, I found myself in a conversation with him about someone we knew that had passed away–you guessed it–“the other day.”

Again I found myself surprised but not too surprised upon hearing this news. But at least this time, I had an idea of when this had happened.

I decided to confirm just to be sure, though. After all, there was still a chance that we were in the window of opportunity to make it to the funeral.

“Oh, so ‘the other day’? So two or three weeks ago then, yeah?”

“Huh? What? Lord, no. He died 4 years ago.”

I subsequently responded the only way one could in that situation: I threw up my hands and walked away in exasperation.

So…the lesson I learned, much to my frustration, was that “just the other day” was meant literally. In other words, “something happened, but it didn’t happen today.”

Complete. ----- Waste. Of [Father-Son Communication and] Breath, Dad.

Sarcastically: “I’m glad we had this talk.”

This was one of several “Bob J. idiosyncrasies” that drove me mad throughout my childhood and young adult life, so much so that it made it into the cannon of Things I’ve Told My Wife Multiple Times Each Time Acting As Though It Was New Information To Her.

Not to brag, but our 2-year-old daughter, referred to as The Younger in these parts, is somewhat, er, verbose for her age. Anyone who has been around a chatty toddler will indubitably tell you what a delight it is to get a peak inside their developing minds.

Just the other night I was laying down with her trying to get her to go the ----- to sleep. She kept trying to hide her head underneath the covers, and I had to keep telling her that it wasn’t safe, but she would not heed my fatherly wisdom. The result was that I had to tussle with her for 10-15 minutes, repeatedly extracting her from under the covers after each time she had burrowed deep into them.

Okay, so that detail wasn’t quite relevant, other than I was pretty sure I had her tuckered out.

She finally settled down, and after laying next to her in silence in the dark for about 15 minutes, I was pretty sure I was in the clear to sneak out of her room and enjoy my evening like any grown-ass man should be able to do.

A mere seconds before I was to make a break for it, out of the darkness came a disembodied voice: “Last year, I saw a big fire.”

Shit. She was awake.

But what in the hell was she talking about? She’s not even 2 1/2 years old–what the heck would she know about “last year”?

So, I decided to ask a few probing questions.

“Oh yeah, when was this again?

“When we was is camping.”¹She make speak eloquently 95% of the time, but she still manages to butcher the syntax of the English language on occasion.

Hmmm…interesting. She’s never been camping in her short life.

“Oh yeah, who all was there?”

“Mommy, and Grandma, and Sissy, and Daddy. And me.”

Hmmph. That narrowed it down to either a vacation or a Monday, Wednesday, or Friday when my mom takes care of our little rascals.

“Umm, and where was this?”

“In our back yard.”

Ah, she meant the campfire the Elder and I had made when we “practiced camping” in our backyard…a few weeks into the COVID-19 quarantine. So…barely a month ago?

“Last year,” my ass.

And then just the other day–yesterday, to be exact–she injured one of her fingers when it got smushed by a closing door.

This morning she held up her injured finger and declared to the Boss Lady:

I pinched my pinky in the door last year!

A toddler struggling with the concept of the passage of time

Trying to stifle our laughter, the Boss Lady and I exchanged knowing looks.

Seeing an opportunity to share a pointless story from life, I attempted to dive right into the most relevant narrative that came to mind.

“That reminds me of Dad and–“

Rolling her eyes, the Boss Lady interrupted me, “Yes, yes, I know–she must have inherited it from ‘Just-The-Other-Day-Bob-J.’ You must be so proud of your strong seed.”

“Oh. *long pause* So I already told you, huh?”

The point of the story is…

Well, how do we really know that we’re not like the robot hosts from HBO’s hit T.V. series WestWorld? You gotta admit the evidence is rather compelling: apparently we’re never really sure of the answer to the question “when am I?” And at least one of us is stuck in my own time-loops, telling the same ----- stories over and over again.

Well, how do we really know that we’re not like the robot hosts from HBO’s hit T.V. series WestWorld? You gotta admit the evidence is rather compelling: apparently we’re never really sure of the answer to the question “when am I?” And at least one of us is stuck in their own time-loops, telling the same ----- stories over and over again.

Well, how do we really know that we’re not like the robot hosts from HBO’s hit T.V. series WestWorld? You gotta admit the evidence is rather compelling: apparently you’re never really sure of the answer to the question “when am I?” And at least one of us is stuck in your own time-loops, telling the same ----- stories over and over again…

Go ahead. You know you want to squash that pesky fly on your neck…²For those of you who haven’t seen WestWorld and don’t plan to, this is a reference to the pivotal scene in the 1st season in which a main character, Delores–an android programmed to hurt no living thing–miraculously kills the fly on her neck, a portent omen of some really bad shit to come.

Content created on: 30 April/1 May 2020 (Thurs/Fri).