Welcome to the middle of the week. It is warm here. Very nice. I am full of sausage.

I did not intend to be so full of sausage, but we are up against two expiration dates. Yesterday I made bratwurst for supper - or rather, applied sustained high temperatures to bratwurst someone else had made. There was one left over, and experience has taught me that if it doesn't comprise the subsequent lunch, it will be found in the fridge two weeks later, a dessicated and unpalatable meat-log. Mind you, I'd already had sausage that very day, for lunch, because the expiration date on that package was approaching. Time's winged chariot and all that. Carpe Carne.

This was Lundsandbyerly's Jalapeno & Pepper Jack sausage. It had been steeply discounted, so I bought it. I saved three dollars. They are practically paying me to eat this. Here's the thing: the package did not say "Pre-cooked." I was pretty sure it was. One can palpate the sausage, so to speak, and detect its state by its firmness. (And here you go back and start reading from the start to see if this whole thing has been a series of obvious single-entendres. It has not.) But who wants food poisoning, especially the pork-borne variety? I called up the item on the store's website, and indeed, it was cooked.

But the page also said:

You should not rely solely on the information displayed on our website and you should always read labels, warnings and directions prior to using or consuming a product.

Well, I did read the label. That's why I'm here. The label didn't say pre-cooked. Whom do I believe?

You should not use the information presented on this website for self-diagnosis or for treating a health problem.

I think the presence of jalapenos might assist in self-diagnosis for some particularly propulsive events.

Lund food holdings, inc. and its service providers assume no liability for inaccuracies or misstatements regarding any product.

Okay I completely understand except it's your product and your page but whatever

It also said not to put them in the microwave. Lacking any other means to heat them up at work, I put them in the microwave. I did not shout FIRE IN THE HOLE - that would come later, I suppose, in a different, smaller room - but stood close in case I heard the sausage start to pop. I stopped the cooking at the sound of the first detonation, and found that the casing had suffered structural integrity failure and issued forth some napalm in dairy form, which had bonded with the paper towels. Well, we can eat around that.

It was the best sausage I'd had in a long time. Then, as noted, bratwurst for supper, because it was two days away from going bad. Then, as noted, leftover bratwurst for lunch. Wife had to play tennis at dinner time so I just had the rest of the jalapeno sausages.

AND A SALAD.

Tomorrow: chicken.

(Chicken sausage)

There was a mean, bad rumble in the backyard: Birch vs. Raccoon. He was bloodied and battered, and limped even worse afterwards. It wouldn’t have been so bad if the sprinkler repairman hadn’t shut off all the valves.

Back up. A few weeks ago, some of the sprinkler heads declined to pop up. Since I’d just had them repaired, I thought this odd, and called the team to return. I got a text that said I FIXED IT a few hours later, and left it at that.

One night my wife said we should run the sprinklers, as the front was getting a bit brown. I agreed, and turned it on before I went to bed. The next day I looked at the app for the sprinkler, and nothing had actually happened. Hmm. Checked the line: the repairman had turned off water to the system. That night I turned it back on, and ran the system. For some reason I thought “I hope it doesn’t spray gouts of water out of the spout like it does when the system backs up,” I opened the window - and heard the pipe assembly on the side of the house spraying gouts of water. Sigh. Turned it off, and marked this as a job for tomorrow.

The next day my wife was not happy that the system didn’t work, insisting I should’ve checked it after the repairman said it was fixed. While this was not an entirely unreasonable assertion, I’d just figured, well, HE FIXED IT and we would proceed from there. It took some researching to figure out the problem, and eventually I got a good seal on the back flow valve, and the heads popped up without a gush from the pipes. Done and dusted, as they said. I ran a test, shut it off, restarted - damn, the back flow valve is Trevi fountain again. More rejiggering. Worked. Set it for three hours of sprinkling. Wife, upon returning from tennis, was happy: good! Initiative! Problem solving!

Two hours later I hear screams outside. Mad shrieks of fury and pain. Never heard anything like it. Thought it was a coyote having a go at a bunny, but I ran outside to check and heard the thrashing and screaming and growling of horrid combat: Birch vs. the raccoon. I grabbed my heavy flashlight and headed for them, intending to brain the raccoon, not thinking what I should have done - which was SPRAY THEM WITH WATER, as my wife was now shouting. She picked up the host and turned on the water and THERE’S NO PRESSURE she shouts while the battle rages with feral fury - of course there’s no pressure, the sprinkler system is on. I run inside and downstairs and turn it off, and she’s able to hose them and get Birch away from the raccoon, who scampers away.

We stanched the bleeding with a styptic powder and applied antibiotics and gave him a Frosty Paws and a tranquilizer. Wife distraught. I’m telling him he did good to protect us.

Moving slow today, and not quite himself. Hope he rallies, but there will still be the limp - he’s been getting rest, no long walks, but I fear all that progress was undone in the struggle.

Ahhh, dogs.

It’s 1939.

Good times.

Well, we all know how this went:

Let's check in with the head-in-the-cloud gang:

		He wasn’t wrong. But it wasn’t a matter of stomachs so much as a matter of bullets and things that went boom.

World war hero? What?

Russell was a pacifist who championed anti-imperialism and chaired the India League. He occasionally advocated preventive nuclear war,

What

before the opportunity provided by the atomic monopoly had passed and he decided he would "welcome with enthusiasm" world government. He went to prison for his pacifism during World War I.

		Gov. Troy was 71 at the time, and had spent most of his career as a newspaperman. Perfect training!

Gruening, who succeeded him, was also a newspaperman, a career he took up after he graduated from . . . Harvard Medical. Okay. Went on to be a Senator. The cabin where he lived is a historical site now, and as someone who knows little about Alaska aside from two visits, I am a bit amused by its location.

Okay, I’ll go to Alaska, but not the big fat really cold part.

		Yeah, that’ll do it

		A long and successful career, although hardly a household name now.

Bio:

In 1935, while Hodges had a contract with Universal Studios, she was insured by Lloyd's of London with a policy that guaranteed her at least $125,000 per year for three years as long as she did not marry during that period. Although she did not wed during that span, she collected nothing because she earned more than the guaranteed amount.

A friend of the Gipper:

Hodges and Ronald Reagan had a friendship that lasted six decades, beginning when both of them worked at radio station WHO in Des Moines, Iowa, where she sang and he was an announcer and sportscaster. In 1937, Hodges helped Reagan obtain an interview with an agent, which led to Reagan's receiving a contract from Warner Bros. film studio. Hodges and Reagan also appeared with others in vaudeville shows in the late 1930s. Hodges' obituary in The New York Times noted, "Mr. Reagan kept in touch with Miss Hodges for 60 years, and invited her to the White House when he was president.”

The Doorly marriage, by the way, lasted two years. He was assistant managing editor of the Omaha, Neb. World-Herald, and it seems he never remarried.

Hitler appoints a “defense of the realm” cabinet, concentrating power even more.

Hans Lemmers had seem some stuff:

		And as the liaison on the council, he’d see some more. In that position, he was able to review all pertinent documents regarding national security and domestic policy even before they were forwarded to Hitler in person. The historian Martin Kitchen explains that the centralization of power accorded to the Reich Chancellery and therefore to its head made Lammers become "one of the most important men in Nazi Germany”. He got 20 years at Nuremberg, had it bargained down to ten. Got out in the early 50s and died in 1962.

Ask Scarface: it all began with a fox trot.

		You have to love this, though: As governor he spent much of his time conducting state business at his farm near Charlotte, Michigan rather than at the state capital in Lansing. He was well known for his informal appearance and actions which included having his swearing in ceremony at his farm, dressing in modest clothing and continuing to undertake farm work during his term.

You hate to google Baby Sandy, fearing the worst.

Wiki:

Baby Sandy (born January 14, 1938), real name Sandra Lea Henville, is a former American child film actress.

Henville was born, prematurely, in hospital in Los Angeles, California. She performed in her first film at the age of 15 months. She was considered "Universal Pictures' wonder baby" and their answer to Shirley Temple. Her last film was before her fifth birthday, made for a second rank studio, Republic Pictures. She grew up and worked in the legal department of a local government. She married and divorced twice, and had two sons.

Well, that’s not bad.

Hmm: her last credit is . . . “Life Alert television commercial 2005.”

The theater, by the way, is now a parking lot.

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That'll do. Next for you: 1957 gas!