Wife went to Boston for a baby shower. I did not go, because it was a baby shower. So it was me and the dog.

Friday: woke up and said “hey, it’s the weekend. As a retired man - and I am not really retired, you know - I can make hash browns, which are usually reserved for the weekend.” There were no objections.

An unexpectedly cool day, the start of a ten-day cooling trend that seems to have cancelled the endow summer. Makes feel like you’re watching the last half-hour of a movie in a theater and the film breaks. Remember my insistence about summer lasting into September, how August was a solid block, a Gibraltar radiating with the power of the stored weight of summer? Hah! Gone overnight. Pumpkin spice time byoches.

Cloudy cool indoor day, save the walk in the woods. In the evening I went to the Giant Swede’s to watch the last preseason Vikings game, and since it started at 7, I told him: fire up the oven before I get there so we can toss the pizza right in, because I’ll be starved.

We were done with the first quarter when I went to check the pizza AND HE HADN’T PUT IT IN.

WHAT DID I TELL YOU

Old friends are the best because you can yell at them without really meaning it. Much.

Left after the third, because Birch would be wondering why he was so alone. When I opened the door from the tunnel he was right there, indicating he’d plopped down in the furnace room and waited for me in the dark. Tail-wagging, the metronome of love; kibble clanked into the aluminum bowl; all is well. I ran on the treadmill then did some genealogical research for the Small Things video VO. Every time I look back at the family I am astonished at how little anyone told me, and how much there is to know.

My great-grandfather, whom I never met, came from a small town in Canada. Street view shows one ruined building by the side of the road. I know my dad’s father came from Canada, his parents have emigrated from the Czech region. I was told his name was Sam, but it was actually Sefran. He came from a larger town, Kenora, and he’s buried in northeastern Minnesota. Never met him, because he was not spoken about. He signed up to fight WW2 on the same day as my father - vouched for his age, even though my dad was 15, lied that he was 16 - and off he went, leaving wife and children. Many children. Divorce after the war. He went north and lived close to the Canadian border. From the picture I have he seems like a fellow full of self-regard, a smartass Popeye.

 

 

Then I cut the VO, realized I needed some music, and decided I would write it tomorrow. So Saturday will be a music day.

That was Friday. Good enough.

SATURDAY: Shockingly cold. Remember my insistence about summer lasting into September, how August was a solid block, a Gibraltar radiating with the power of the stored weight of summer? Hah! Gone overnight. Pumpkin spice time byoches.

Long sleeves and long pants and maybe a jacket at night. Ugh. Well. Got up early, because my case worker called me on a Saturday, again. Appears my Medicare B is sorted. Cheers. I told her the story I related on the Substack Friday column a few weeks ago, and she was at first horrified then laughed, and laughed. She is such a kindly and patient woman and I wish I knew how to give her kudos. I’m sure there’s a Social Security feedback form and it’s not monitored too closely because it’s full of complaints.

Finished some future Bleat projects, which is just the sort of lazy cool cloudy Saturday-afternoon-wife’s-gone thing I like to do. One of those days where you finally take a shower and then take a nap. Shaping up as Best Saturday Ever. In the evening, the greatest hamburger ever, with bacon, or does that go without saying?

SUNDAY: I was instructed to winnow the storage closet. There were four boxes that contained nonessential items. My stuff. Two of them were magazines and other bits of ephemera, and since I now regard my job as the archiver of 20th century popular culture to be over, I need no longer hang on. They’re going to a second-hand shop that takes magazines, and I expect half will be rejected. It’s hard but on the other hand, it’s not.

Another box had two old uniforms that belonged to my father. This was a harder decision. There’s nothing unique about them. I kept them because they were his, and he really left very little. But they have to go.

Box of hard drives. The bane. I don’t trust the municipal recycling place. I should, but I don’t. I’ve been stymied by this conundrum for years. But no. Out. I have to wipe them and unscrew the circuit boards and wreck the connectors. That should do.

 

 

If someone gets the data off them after that, they deserve it. Surprise! Boring family movies and YouTub commercial compilations and 47 backups of this site.

In the end, I will get my life down to one box. But I'm not there yet. TOMORROW: the hoard reveals its secrets.

 

 

 

We continue with a small amount of manufactured enthusiasm to explore the trademarks of 1925, because no one else is. NO ONE!

 

		Pepolene! You know you want to pronounce it Peep-o-lene, right? Probably drove the salesmen nuts. PEP! It gives your car PEP! It's right there! No info on the company, but I'll bet it was located in a place that later because a Super-Extra-DuperFund site.

Yeah, we must. We're committed.

 

 

If you remember, our boys, Blackhawk and the Blackhawks, are battling Red agents for a synthetic fuel.

 

 

If you remember the last episode - and you should, because it ended with a spectacular series of explosions in an oil field that nothing in this dismal entry had prepared you for, and immediately made you think they were reusing old footage - our heroes, who were Blackhawk and the Blackhawks, were in danger of immolation.

 

 

Saved! But since the bad guys are still around, time for some inconclusive fight fights.

Don’t pull a muscle chasing after him, guys.

 

 

If you remember the toy truck from last month, the one that had the new synthetic fuel, it’s still around. The Reds still want it, and steal it. Blackhawk and Not-Blackhawk, who is one of the Blackhawks, purses them, and there’s a car chase, because of course what the fans of a show about daring pilots want is a car chase. Turns out they didn’t steal the fuel at all, just the truck! Ha ha.

There's the truck.

 

 

Also, this guy . . .

 

 

Who was the one from whom the Reds stole the toy truck, is actually a Red agent. (And he’s probably the Leader, who we never see.) He calls Blackhawk and says he’s being shadowed by the bad guys, and wants help. He leaves behind a listening device to eavesdrop on the Blackhawks! Now they know where the Blackhawks are flying, so they can blow them up! The other Blackhawks find the listening device and deduce what’s going on, but they’re too late to warn him.

The Reds are going to crash Blackhawk with a robot drone. It’s quite something.

And so:

 

 

Uh. C'mon.

 

 

 

It's the Diner!

That will do for today. Matches and a free Substack await; it'll be up around eleven. Thank you for your patronage, as always.