Greetings, my fellow port swillers!

What with Mrs. R and the eldest gel having left to visit Mrs. R’s parents in Conneckticut on Wednesday and the younger gels having been deposited at Bible-thumper camp last Sunday, ol’ Robbo finds himself starting his annual bachelor blowout week.  Bring on the wine, musick and dancing girls!

Actually, despite my griping about the general noise and mayhem around Port Swiller Manor the other fifty-one weeks of the year, I notice that the novelty of peace and quiet wears off after the first twenty-four hours or so and I start to get listless and fidgety.

Last year Robbo spent most of the week hiding from the heat in the basement, thanks to El Derecho knocking out our power for four days.    Oddly enough, this year, what with the bathrooms being worked on, Robbo is spending most of the week….hiding in the basement from the workmen and the mess.

You can’t win.  You really can’t.

Well, what a tumultuous few days it’s been.  We had some very sad domestic news that I can’t discuss yet because I haven’t broken it to the gels and the middle gel sometimes drops in here.  And of course, there were the big headlines, which I also can’t discuss for fear of accidental/on-purpose drone strikes.  Suffice to say that I’ve spent a good bit of time reminding myself about rendering unto Caesar and being in this world but not of it.  And smiling quietly and enigmatically.  People hate that.

In the meantime, how about some random?

*   It’s been a good year in the garden so far, but I had some trouble with slugs getting at my Joe Pye-weed a couple weeks ago.  Fortunately, I still had some poison in stock.  Is it wrong of me, after spreading said poison, to rejoice in finding the little corpora doubled over in apparent agony?  Probably, but I can’t help myself.

*   A young black bear was spotted very near Port Swiller Manor this week and (probably) the same one caught just the other side of the river a day or two later.  I’ve never heard of them pushing so far in before.  Next thing you know, it’ll be wolves and moose.  (But vat about Squirrel?)

*   Speaking of Naytchuh, the lightning bugs and the bats are back.  As for the former, I pity those friends of the decanter out west who don’t get to see ’em.  As to the latter, Mrs. R is scared to death of bats but I love watching them flitter about in the evening.

*   Speaking of bats, Robbo’s beloved Nats had better find some if they expect to be contenders this year.  I think, I think that they are starting to turn things around.  Thank Heaven the rest of the division has been so meh so far.

*   Never again will I be fool enough to take the ol’ Wrangler to the dealership for her state inspection.  (I had to this year because something had banged loose on the frame and needed fixing.)  The techs seized on her like a school of piranhas on a wounded capybara and it was only after I had been skinned good and proper that I managed to get her back.  “Tightened safety regulations” my left eyeball!

*   Oh, speaking of fish, those of you who delight in Truly Bad Films should mark your calendars for July 11, on which date the SciFi channel is debuting a new movie: “Sharknado”.  To quote the ad copy, “Enough said”.  (You’ll have to google it yourselves.  This goddam Mac won’t let me scroll up to the tool bar once I get deep enough into a post, so no linky.)

*   Speaking of this goddam Mac, have I mentioned how much I hate it?  As I say, I can’t get at the toolbar after writing a certain amount.  Scrolling is problematic.  Downloading pics is impossible.  Screens up and vanish for no apparent reason and others appear without my asking.  Plus, with no disk drive, my Age of Empires CDrom is useless.  Grrrr.

Well, that’s about it for the moment.

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