Fude, 12 Mai 2026

Yesterday as I was walking home, I saw a rabbit scamper away from me into some shrubbery. I turned and looked only to see a squirrel having dinner.

Later that same evening I was at a meeting where someone had brought sernik - Polish cheesecake.

This person had just started to learn to bake and this was her first effort. It was delicious! Not too sweet, soft but with a slightly granular texture. Great stuff.

What to do when you come to a fork

It was a lovely Monday morning in Bloomer and my vacation was coming to a close. Although it was to be a rather warm day, it was still cool when I awoke and clouds streaked the dawn sky as I stepped out of the hotel and moseyed over to Kwik Trip for coffee.

My plan was to take a leisurely drive home with a stop in Eau Claire at The Coffee Grounds for some local flavors to bring back with me.

There I got a cup of coffee, coffee beans, and some brews from Eau Claire's finest. Not being in a hurry I took Highway 93 south where I'd catch Highway 10 in Eleva. The drive showcased just how much the south of Eau Claire has been built up since I lived up there. What had been a sleepy area of town that led to the hustle & bustle of Oakwood and London Square Malls was now home to a senior living complex, stores, various businesses, dentists, and just all manner of things. It was no longer simply gas stations and fast food for those passing through on the interstate.

The drive between Eau Claire and Eleva brought back many memories as I had driven it countless times. Zipping past the road that led to my old man's former home I felt surprisingly unmoved. A little nostalgic but I mainly enjoyed the scenery. Once I got to the top of the ridge just north of Eleva, I looked around at just what a magnificent view it affords. Farms tucked into the rolling hills, fields bordered by woods, and the sun illuminating it all with its warming refulgence.

Heading east on 10 I looked to the north at one point and saw a lovely grassy hill beneath the blue sky and it looked just like that Windows XP wallpaper.

I refueled in Osseo and then hopped onto I94. The drive home went by quickly and traffic wasn't too bad outside of the usual convoys of trucks. After getting home I unpacked and got a load of laundry in the wash. I hadn't really bought much in the way of souvenirs this trip and everything I did buy was edible. Like this chocolate bar.

It's an Abu Dhabi Bar from Mayana Chocolate up in Spooner. I presume it is their take on the trendy Dubai bar, a chocolate confection with pistachio filling that is all the rage in confectionery circles these days, I take it.

Very tasty!

Plus I brought beer back to Madison that is otherwise unavailable here. First we have some Czech-style lagers from Eau Claire's Lazy Monk Brewing.

The Standard 10º brew has proven to be my favorite of the two. Light and crisp and full of Bohemian(-style) brewing goodness.

At Moonridge I picked up a can of their blonde ale as well as a pickle Gose from Half Fast Brewing Company.

I'd never heard of Half Fast. The can says the company is in Spring Valley, WI which is a bit west of Menomonie but that the beer had been brewed in Osseo, presumably by the now-shuttered Northwoods Brewing. I suspect the can was to be found at Moonridge as Half Fast appears to be veteran-owned just like Moonridge. Tasting soon, I hope.

I sat down to check my email and saw that the tree outside the window had come fully into bloom while I was away.

Beltane had truly come to fruition.

Settling down, I thought a bit about Piper as well as the end of my marriage which was likely to transpire the following week. My mind felt a bit weary after all of the contemplation it did over the weekend. It was very nice to not feel the anger that I had felt earlier in the week. At least nowhere near as intensely.

I realized that I had come to terms with most of the changes in my life regarding family the past several months. There don't seem to be any more depths of my marriage to plumb. I think I've examined it thoroughly and discovered the lessons it has to teach, found all the assignations of guilt to be had, and learned the myriad ways that it has affected me. My eldest stepson simply wants my money and so our relationship is on hold, if not over. My youngest stepson is beset by so many problems that I can do little to nothing about so I am resigned to take things as they come and do what I can, nudging him in what I think of as a more salutary direction occasionally.

While the fact that I married my wife remains a source of shame and embarrassment for me, I am content with that. I am content with knowing my mistakes and at peace with my regrets.

No doubt my thoughts on all this will change as time goes on. For now, though, I am trying to heed Henry David Thoreau's advice, "Never look back unless you are planning to go that way." I'm looking forward to my marriage ending soon, to getting a new cat, and treading new paths in life. I am anxious to see where they take me.

Coming soon, 10 Mai 2026 (and The Sheep Detectives)

Seen before a showing of The Sheep Detectives.

Having read the book, I was really looking forward to this one. For me the trailer left open the question of whether The Sheep Detectives was going to be aimed at children or not. Seeing the trailers below left no doubt that it was a kids flick. A bit disappointing but I still anticipated a lot of fun.

Regardless of the intended audience, the talking sheep were well rendered and a blast.

The filmmakers changed a lot in pursuit of a PG rating. For example, the shepherd, George wasn't impaled with a spade as in the book. Drug running? Gone! Etc. Again, one must accept that it's a movie for children whereas the book was for adults.

In the book, George's home - his trailer or caravan - is locked and we are introduced to the townsfolk through the sheeps' eyes when they come and try to enter the it in pursuit of what we don't know and for their own, obsure motivations, neither of which we come to understand until the end. The movie elides this method of telling us about the humans and instead introduces a new character, a reporter named Elliot Matthews, who has come to town for a cultural fair. We get all kinds of scenes involving no sheep at all, something which I believe the book eschewed completely.

The movie's primary goal is to entertain the audience with cute anthropomorphic sheep that make you laugh; the book was more interested in humanity and used the sheep to constantly comment on the townspeople, their foibles, their failings, and the mixed bag of motivations that they and we all are. Humans become more complex and contradictory when the sheep listen in on their conversations.

A little of this ovine commentary on humanity survives in the movie and I am thinking of the scene when the sheep are walking along and one of them talks about God, the name they have bestowed upon the local priest, and their incredulity at his behavior. But I missed how the sheep used their senses of smell to glean information as this is greatly downplayed in the movie. The sheep are basically humans with wool and on four legs here whereas in the book they are no doubt anthropomorphic but they have different attitudes and priorities and are constantly commenting on the contrasts between our two species. The sheep aren't non-human enough here.

While I preferred the ovine commentary of the book to the movie's more stripped-down cutesy murder mystery approach, the movie was still great fun. The sheep were cute and my heart went out to the winter lamb who was shunned by the rest of the flock, one of the very few ways the movie attempted to bring some intersheepal dynamics to the flock. I laughed, pondered the mystery, and enjoyed every second of talking sheep.

********

The first thing we saw that wasn't a Coke commercial was a trailer for Studio Ghibli Fest 2026 which starts in the summer. 

 

Now, a nice looking rendition of the Necronomicon and baby Cthulhu I did not expect.

This looks to be something like a live action The Simpsons movie.

 

Acclimation

Despite my legs still aching from Saturday's walking and the climb up that lake wall, I returned to the Chippewa Moraine Rec Area on Sunday to hike the spooky trail, the one that the DNR has no dedicated map of - the one that runs by the serial killer's house. Last time I only hiked half the loop before wandering over to the eerily named Dark Lake and then back out the same way I came. So this time I was determined to walk the entire loop in addition to trekking once more to the lake of Stygian gloom. Mwahaha!

Before heading out I stopped at Emma Beans Drive-Thru for a cuppa joe. I think it had a better flavor than the swamp water on offer in the hotel lobby but it was somehow brewed even weaker. Disappointing but it was still something hot to drink and surely had trace amounts of caffeine. I briefly considered ordering a cup of hot water so that I could concoct some kind of homeopathic cup of coffee that was fully caffeinated but quickly discarded the thought.

The helpful and friendly DNR lady at the interpretive center had told me on Saturday that demolition of the camp buildings on the spooky trail had begun but was not yet finished. Too bad. The abandoned buildings were not only creepy but also memento mori, of a kind, reminders that life is fleeting and that Nature will prevail in the end and return you to the soil.

Just like Saturday, it was a lovely, sunny morning. A bit chilly when the breeze hit my cheeks but the remaining meteorologist at the National Weather Service forecasted a rather temperate day to come. This trail connects to the one I had walked yesterday but its trailhead is a short drive down the road from the interpretive center. Pulling into the lot mine was, quite unsurprisingly, the only car there.

Just as had happened the previous day, my mind went from enjoying the lovely surroundings to my divorce/how to shed my anger. Bird calls filled the air and they would drag my mind away from the dissolution of my marriage back to the woods. All around me life was emerging from its winter slumbers and I tried to view this as a lesson for me, something to emulate.

 

Less than a mile up the trail I once again saw the spooky recreation/meeting building or whatever it was.

While it wasn't quite as scary in broad daylight as it was on a grey autumn day, those extremely creepy Annihilation vibes remained and I fully expected some Girl Scout counselor's remains to be hanging on the wall, attached by some eldritch, though colorful, lichen that would make the R&D folks at 3M insanely jealous. Thankfully it was just my imagination running away with me.

In order to shake loose any thoughts of hideously transmogrified Girl Scout troop leaders that clung steadfastly in my overactive imagination, I went down to the shore of Hodge Lake which was just gorgeous.

I hit the trail and went deosil this time which would allow me to walk the section of trail I missed last time right away. Almost immediately I ran into a few cabins as well as the remains of others.

Needless to say, the hike was wonderful, the scenery gorgeous. I loved the melodic songs of the feathered inhabitants of the area, the moss that crept up trees, and the sight of the woods about to bloom into a verdurous wonderland.

When my thoughts strayed from my surroundings, I found that they didn't always coalesce around my divorce. My youngest stepson's predicament weighs heavily on me. We had a discussion recently and it broke my heart that he, at the age of 26, harbors no inclination to become an independent adult. It's like he even refuses to build castles in the sky. Bereft of self-respect and unable to comprehend that he is the master of his own destiny, he expects to never work a day in his life, never assume any responsibility beyond paying a couple bills and ordering groceries. Instead of beginning the process of becoming a man, he seems to desire perpetual childhood and there is nothing for me to do about it.

It is absolutely gut wrenching to hear a very smart, funny, and capable young man who is caring and blessed with a gentle bonhomie say that he's inured, not to a life of quiet desperation, but to one of barely getting by. But he is 26 and I cannot do much if he is not inclined to change his life for the better.

 

I think I came to a level of acceptance of this situation in the woods that day. In my mind, I am resigned to the fact that he is the way he is and that he is responsible for changing his life, ultimately. I'll still be there to help and encourage but I suspect that, barring a radical change in his outlook, I will just have to become accustomed to this sadness as a permanent part of my life and move forward.

Another thought that I pondered on my walk was that my family is over. When I got married I had hoped that my marriage would be durable - unlike my parents' marriage and that of other family members and those of the parents of several friends. I had hoped that my family would last, that it would one of mutual support forever, that the kids would be of some help when my wife and I attained old age. But the family has been split asunder and most of its members now see me as nothing more than a bank. My value to them is strictly pecuniary and to be found in my bank accounts.

 

It is depressing to watch your family fall apart (again) and realize that most of your life plans were built on sand. What a fool I was!

 

******** 

At one point I found myself back at the trail I had hiked the previous day so I had to backtrack. But not before spending a few minutes watching Mr. and Mrs. Wood Duck enjoying some quality time out on the lake. Wood ducks are not uncommon in Wisconsin but I've not seen one here in Madison in ages. The male has such beautiful plumage and both sexes have lovely, distinctive crests on their heads. No offense, mallards.

Not the best picture, I grant you, but standing there looking down at them making their way out of a little inlet and towards a wider section of the lake was magical in its own way. The scene was calm and quiet as the ducks cruised along hastily in the distance. My imagination conjured up visions of their webbed feet paddling away in a frenzy beneath the surface in sharp contrast to the graceful gliding on top of the water.

It wasn't long before I found the sign I had missed earlier and hopped back onto the trail I had intended to take. At one point the rustle of leaves grabbed my attention and I saw the blur of a critter scamper across the leaf covered ground towards a tree. I turned to look and saw a chipmunk staring back at me in agitation from the hollow of a tree as if saying, "Curse you human! A pox upon your house!"

Eventually I came to the path that led to Dark Lake and took it. As I was walking, I came to a small pond with a log out in the middle. While I couldn't be certain, it sure looked like there was a turtle taking in the sun on it but it could also have been the remaining stub of a branch. I zoomed in as far as I could with my camera camera which has an optical zoom and took a photograph. When I got home and was able to see the photo, it turned out I was right.

Continuing down the trail, I recalled that the last time I had walked it, I was first delighted by a gaggle of turkeys just ahead of me and then quite startled by a pair of deer who emerged from the woods and ran across the trail. Not long after recalling these sightings, I heard the rustle of leaves ahead of me and to my right. The rustling then became loud thuds as two deer tear assed out of the woods and ran across the trail a little way ahead of me. I'd swear that I could feel the ground vibrate just a tad as their hooves pounded the earth as they fled and I felt like I was in the presence of something larger than me, something that could make the ground tremble.

With the excitement over, I continued on to the lake which looked majestic. And dark. It had a rather fresh smell to it.

I dipped my hand in and found that it was chilly but not freezing cold. Brisk, you might say.

 

Recently I've been touching things more on my walks. Initially it was all about the sights and sounds. This was followed by practicing taking in the smells. And now I am trying to be more tactile, to put a hand in the water, to feel leaves and needles between my fingers, and to touch the bark of trees and let their textures become armor in my Dungeons & Dragons addled imagination. I also bend down at least once to touch the earth and feel its warmth or its chill, to send greetings to the creatures who dwell beneath our feet.

I headed back and for some odd reason I saw the cover of Chet Atkins' Travelin' in my mind's eye. On it he is walking across a bridge with a guitar slung over his shoulder. Why should that come to mind? My father had it on vinyl when I was a boy and I used to listen to it occasionally. What an odd flashback. Or, at least, oddly timed. Ere long I was back at the main trail which would take me past the serial killer's house. 

Thankfully he was not at home when I arrived. A few of the surrounding cabins were gone or mostly gone but a few remained with screens missing and their roofs covered in moss.

Presumably there will be no structures remaining the next time I am on the trail which is a shame as they add a wonderfully mysterious vibe to the scene. Being abandoned they suggest death and decay and just add a patina of weirdness to my hikes.

Just before the parking lot was a pond from which emanated a splash as I was walking by. I stood still and the turtle made a return appearance. A fine send off from the denizens of Hodge Lake.

********

On my way back to Bloomer I stopped in Cornell for a brew at Moonridge Brewing Co. I arrived just after they opened and had my pick of seats at the bar. One nice thing about Moonridge is that you can get 8oz pours and I got one of their Moonlight Pale Ale.

It was quite delicious. Light and bubbly and not IPA (a.k.a. - Hawaiian Punch) flavored. This one just really hit the spot after a nice hike.

As I relaxed, more and more people came in, including families, most of them ordering pizza in addition to liquid refreshment. One couple ordered 3 pies. It was nice to see them doing some fairly brisk business early on a Sunday afternoon. Perhaps the communion wafers and wine just didn't satisfy.

Back at the hotel I showered and again ate the Mexican joint in town. And again I left my phone in my room so no photos of the fine chow nor of the backs of the booths adorned in cacti and sombreros. I felt badly for the waiter as a group of kids in their early 20s came in shortly after I did and the "men" proceeded to be loud and obnoxious. One of them let loose a series of stentorian belches which I am sure the women found adorable. For their part, the ladies kept rather quiet as their male companions whooped it up and played bits of songs aloud on their phones and were, quite frankly, simply annoying.

I was happy to get out of that place.

Upon my return to my room, I settled down to read and before I knew it I had finished that issue of County Highway that I had begun a couple days previously. As I was nearing the end, which is always the music section as it comes just before the final page which is classifieds, it occurred to me that I felt well - mentally. A lot of the anger that I had felt when this trip began had dissipated.

Sadness largely filled the space left when the anger left me though there was some happiness in there as well. I had thought a lot about my divorce during the trip and I concluded after some marriage forensics that, for all intents & purposes, it was over in the autumn of 2022. Everything after that was epilogue. I felt stupid that it took nearly 3 more years for divorce to begin but I was content with my conclusion and simply hoped that the divorce would be final soon.

When I had finished reading County Highway, I almost immediately cracked open Absolution, the fourth book in the Southern Reach series which had begun with Annihilation.

I completely missed its release back in 2024 (shocking!) which was 10 years after the first 3 books in the series were released. The blurb on the back says it's a prequel and the weird, deconstructed alligator on the cover was intriguing in a grotesque kind of way.

While I didn't get too far in that night, I did get far enough to recognize that a wave of madness is descending upon the researchers in Dead Town and that those rabbits just can't be good. They may not portend doom - wait. No, they do portend doom. Like the previous books in the series, the first section just oozes the uncanny and this is one of the great things about the series (and the Annhilation movie too).

This should be a fun and unsettling read.

 

Song of the day, 11 Mai 2026

Cookies!

It's been a while so today I resolved to bake some cookies for my stepson and his father. I decided to eschew the usual chocolate concoction and went with banana bread cookies.

They turned out well with a few of them featuring bits of dried cherry that I threw in just to get them out of my pantry.

I did a bit of sampling and was pleased. They have a cake-like texture and a wonderfully rich banana flavor. I hope the recipients are happy with them.

Random, 10 May 2026

We have trillia!

I recently took a walk around Heritage Sanctuary to look at all the trilliums/trillia.

While there I also saw that the mayapples were in bloom.

There were geraniums too.

Plus these plants whose name is like uvula.

A lovely evening walk after a filling meal.

The agony of defeat

The Beach Boys here in Madison

Some Super 8 footage of The Beach Boys performing here in Madison on 5 December 1973 has surfaced.

An answer to an age-old question

When I had left home on Friday Madison was fairly green. Some trees were fully in bloom while many others were almost at that point. Up north at the Chippewa Moraine Rec Area it seemed that they were a couple weeks behind us. This was completely expected as Osseo was much the same. I got there a bit after 9 and hit the trail after a brief stop at the interpretive center.

It was a gorgeous morning, sunny with a slight chill still hanging in the air. Perfect conditions to take a stroll in the woods in search of Waldeinsamkeit.

Although the trees were still largely bare, I was afforded the opportunity to get unobstructed views of many lakes that had been obscured by leaves on previous visits. It's a trade-off: beautiful foliage or lake views.

Despite being able to see the lovely lakes as never before, I still chose to obstruct the view on occasion.

Having learned that Walden Pond is not, in fact, a pond, but rather a kettle lake and that the lakes here at the Chippewa Moraine Rec Area are all kettle lakes, I consider this place to be my Walden West. No offense, Mr. Derleth.

Since I didn't have much in the way of colorful foliage at my disposal, my eyes took a different photographic tack and looked to reflections on the water.

And, with the sun blazing in the sky, I found some nice spots where it was illuminating the forest. I loved how the pines looked in the sun, their green needles aglow as if they were finally getting their due for having provided color throughout the barren winter.

I am unsure what flowers these are but they looked very pretty and their pure white petals really stood out amongst the preponderance of bare branches as they soaked in the sun.

As my legs carried me along the path between the lakes, my mind wandered down its own trails. At times I was enraptured by the intense beauty around me while at others my mind was occupied by dark thoughts of my divorce. It was immanent. Barring any cruel twist of fate, I would become an ex-husband by the end of the month. While there are a few financial matters that will keep my wife and I tethered for a short time after the judge declares null & void the legal ties that have bound us for 10+ years, it is my hope that the divorce being finalized will accelerate the process of effacing my wife's malignant presence from my mind as far as possible.

Granted, I do not expect her to ever be fully erased as if I had undergone the treatment in Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind but it is my hope that she fades further from memory, that her presence casts an ever shrinking shadow over my life.

I logged into a largely disused email account of mine the other day and found a cache of email exchanges between my wife and me that went back as far as the day of our first date back in 2004. I read a couple and they overflowed with joy and a nervous excitement. Words carefully chosen to impress and entice amidst the blooming and buzzing confusion of a newfound attraction. One email my wife sent me had the subject "fuck, i love you". Now, of course, the middle two words no longer apply and would be omitted.

A couple dips into the dim and distant past were enough and I deleted the emails so as to continue the process of effacing her from my life.

Down the path I continued.

One of the great joys of my hike was the near constant presence of woodpeckers. I rarely saw them but heard their calls and, less frequently, heard them pecking. However, I lucked out and was able to get a moderately decent photo of one.

Walking along I heard on several occasions a splash in the water. When I looked in the direction the sound came from I usually saw a bare log and eventually cottoned on that the splash had come from turtles jumping into the water to avoid being seen by the human. Those turtles have good hearing. But I found that, if I stood still for a minute, the turtles would often hop back onto the log and resume sunning themselves.

At one point I heard the rustling of leaves just off the trail. Expecting a squirrel somewhere nearby I instead saw a garter snake. Presumably it saw me coming and slithered to safety. It remained just a foot or so off the path and was happy to remain still for a fine photo op.

I am unsure what type of bird we have here.

Is it an oriole?

I loved all of the shadows cast by the trees and how they fell across the trail.

At one point I came across this and got a definitive answer to an age old question. Ha!

This trip I committed to memory that starting my hike by going east at the trailhead is my preferred way to go. Going in this direction means that my two favorite spots on the trail that have bridges come towards the end, as if they are a reward for the previous 4 miles of walking.

The first spot has a bridge that crosses this micro-strait that connects two of the lakes and, when you get to the other side of it, there's a Leopold bench next to an evergreen. I simply adore this spot!

I took off my backpack and grabbed a drink of water before sitting down on the bench where I could enjoy a little shade. I don't know what it is about this view that grabs me, that commands my attention. You can see two lakes from this vantage point and I just love the tree. The scene has a certain symmetry to it with a lake on either side.

Sitting at this spot is the only time I ever don headphones and listen to music on a hike. Assuming it's not raining, I will sit on the bench here and dedicate 5 minutes to listening to a fan remix of "Silent Sorrow in Empty Boats" by Genesis. There's something ethereal about the washes of that Mellotron chorus sound that takes me away, makes me feel as if I have been transported to some kind of boreal Arcadia. The wind caresses my face as the aroma of the forest, of the earth heightens my sensory experience and seems to call me home.

This is a magical place.

The other spot is more like an isthmus with a bridge taking the place of a missing bit of earth.

This spot is wonderful because A) it is lined with pines and B) it's a fairly lengthy stretch were you have a lake close to you on either side. There are lots of blues and greens and all of the pines give me a cozy, snug feeling. And the views are spectacular.

From here it wasn't far back to the trailhead. The very last part of the trail is fairly steep as you ascend an ice-walled-lake plain. But getting to the top felt really good. Both my body and mind felt exhilarated. I think I had pondered my life just enough and opened a door to a path away from anger. After a brief bit of relaxation, I took off and headed to a brewpub I'd been meaning to try for a few years - Heart of the North Brewing Co.

At one point as I was driving, a large bird flew across the road and perched atop a dead tree. I pulled over and found that it was a turkey vulture.

Heart of the North is in Ladysmith and I cannot recall the last time I'd visited that fair town. Maybe sometime in the early 1980s. Although I drove past the brewpub initially, I circled back and found it.

While not packed to the gills, there were a fair number of people there enjoying a drink and pizza. I found a seat at the bar and ordered a salt and lime ale which was their lowest A.B.V. offering and just sounded like the most refreshing brew on the menu. I asked the bartender if it was a sour beer as I have seen many a Gose with added salt and lime.

Upon hearing my query, the woman next to me said, "No! It's just tastes like lime and is really refreshing. It's what I'm drinkin'." Her comment was said a bit emphatically and with a tone of incredulity, as if I had asked a silly question.

The bartender said that it was not a sour brew. Indeed it wasn't. It seemed to be a blonde ale with a bit of lime flavoring and sea salt. Having sweated more than a little as the day grew warmer, I welcomed the salt. The lime was, well, lime flavoring, but it was mostly unoffensive to the tongue even if it was more so to my sense of propriety which dictates that craft beer should use whole, natural ingredients.

The brewpub shares space with a greenhouse and so the setting was marvelous.

A few people left and a few more people arrived. Some of the new folks had finished shopping for plants and wanted a libation before heading home. Others seemed to simply want to enjoy the beautiful sunny day with a drink and the company of family and/or friends. The place had a definite local watering hole vibe.

For my second brew, I ordered their hefeweizen.

It was excellent. And doesn't it just look like a glass full of summer? Plenty of esters to give luscious banana-like flavors which were complemented by a light body and a firm fizz. Just quite tasty and refreshing. Once downed, I hit the road for my hotel. Or was it a motel?

Driving into Bloomer I saw a sign for one Mark Hollister who was running for some local office and I then recalled the name of that fellow that Jason and I went to high school with but whose name we couldn't recall the previous day. It occurred to me that he wasn't gay but did dress to the nines and thusly I had conflated a couple schoolmates.

I checked in, took a shower, and went to a local Mexican restaurant for dinner. My phone had been left in my room to charge so no photos. The waitress was a beautiful young Hispanic woman who was very friendly and provided good service. My fajita salad was tasty and filling and a nice change from your more typical fare up north of burgers, pizza, and fried fish.

After dinner I kicked back on my bed and made good on my promise to myself of getting some reading done. In particular, my goal was to get an issue of County Highway done and dusted as I was 2 issues behind with the latest not far off from landing in my mailbox.

An article on the front page made me chuckle and shake my head.

For a short time my wife expressed great agitation at my reading County Highway as Walter Kirn is editor-at-large. In another attempt to verify that I was thinking only her approved, correct thoughts, she retrieved an issue from our mailbox and proceeded to vet its creators. It seems she scoured Kirn's Twitter/X feed and found that he was apparently friends with RFK or supported some of his initiatives as Secretary of Health and Human Services.

She would text me screenshots of tweets she deemed offensive and one morning launched into a tirade at the foot of the stairs while I was working about how Kirn was evil and County Highway was a propaganda rag for Trump, et cetera and so on. This episode was really depressing because A) Trump doesn't get mentioned in County Highway much and B) my wife would never even say good morning to me when she arose and I was upstairs working yet she was keen to yell up the stairs at me about how Walter Kirn is basically a minion of Satan bent on killing her personally.

At one point I told her that Trump is very rarely mentioned in County Highway because the paper is more interested in articles about people living off the grid in the New Mexico desert, a town fighting the government who wants to build a dam and flood a big chunk of land that these residents would prefer remain unsubmerged, The Eagles residency at the Sphere in Vegas, Wisconsin supper clubs, et al.

Her reply was both confounding and insulting. She told me that County Highway will eventually start publishing pro-Trump propaganda and, since I have become accustomed to reading the paper and its general vibe, I will just blindly accept whatever they print as gospel and go MAGA. Or something like that.

I guess it was her way of saying that she felt I was stupid. But this also flummoxed me because she'd often become frustrated with me for wanting to know more about various things before passing judgement. She even mocked me once for my proclivity of wanting evidence.

We'd be sitting around the living room and she'd doomscroll until she found something that profoundly offended her. Moving full steam ahead in a foul mood and determined to share it, she'd tell me about whatever someone who was likely a bot had said and I'd agree it sounds horrible but also slightly suspicious and so I'd like to know more about the context before castigating anyone. This was a problem because my wife simply wanted me to jump on her bandwagon of hate and denounce the offender unconditionally. Thinking for myself was not a good thing; uncritically accepting her view was what she wanted.

For example, she'd read something on social media about how J.K. Rowling was crucifying trans people in her front garden, tell me about it, and expect me to unquestioningly go along with her suggestion that Rowling's mansion be nuked from orbit. When I didn't she would grow even more visibly agitated.

Thusly her hypothesis that my irritating habit of wanting more than a tweet for evidence, to have a fuller picture before heaping opprobrium on someone would magically disappear at some point and be turned into affection for Trump mystified me.

Wowzers! I did not mean to prattle on that long.

I chuckled because the article was about a socialist. A socialist who wrote The Iron Heel, a novel that my wife had read about the United States succumbing to fascism, something that I think she felt was immanent. She may still, for all I know. The Iron Heel and It Can Happen Here seemed to justify her apocalyptic predictions regarding Donald Trump as well as feed her Cassandra complex.

This issue of County Highway also featured a jeremiad entitled "Stop Interrrrupting!" In it the author notes how often our phones interrupt us and that scientific studies show that it takes a long time for our monkey brains to focus once again on the important things in life after a bing! from our phones throw us off. The solution?

Because our humanity is at stake.

A fine rant for a publication that is print-only.

Simplify, simplify.