Gather 'round…
Me, to my old, old kid: "Did I tell you that Dad and I decided to hike the Ice Age Trail?" My old, old kid, to me, right into the receiver: SnortLaugh. *Composes self* "Oh, I see. Is that why you want your knee brace back?" Why, yes, my dear. As a matter of fact,... Continue Reading →
I havea newplaceto hike. I can't even tell you how excited I am. As per usual, I'm a little slow on the uptake, and I'm embarrassed that it took me this long to discover this gem, but hey, better late than never. It's not that we don't have good hiking in the area. We do.... Continue Reading →
I lopped off the tip of my thumb the other day. Thursday. It was a week. No, I didn't take off a big ol' steak of flesh, like the kid did with that deli meat slicer last year, or have a green foam/fungus bandage applied by the finger authorities to stimulate new growth to bring... Continue Reading →
Got m’self in the paper again, yessir I did. Yep, yep, yep. *shines fingernails* This is, as I’m sure you can imagine, quite the feat of fame and fortune in a town like Colfax, where all 1,054 of us are fighting for airtime. Burbling masses all vying for the limelight. Competitive newsmaking at its finest... Continue Reading →
Rolled a deer the other night. At that very duskiest time of dusk, where the headlights still have no real darkness to cut through, yet all the world is fading to blue and the eyes begin to lose contrast. This is not the first deer that has fallen to the Ottinger fleet. Oh, no, there... Continue Reading →
Sprung the hubs from the hospital the other day. The sorts of photos that would be appropriate to this story just really aren't appropriate to share. We'll have to make do...This is us in the ER on Scott's birthday, which was much more fun that the free birthday-food trolling that was on the docket. I... Continue Reading →
How does one go about collecting words? You know, quotes from this and that. Snippets. Sentences you need to remember and hold onto. Paragraphs that are life-altering and never to be let go of. Words you simply must collect. Anybody else do this? I know you do. Tell me how you've done it. The nuts... Continue Reading →
Boy, oh, boy. I'm gonna make this part short, because I know I'M sick of this particular saga, so I can only imagine that you are too. Here's the long and the short of it: Not COVID was COVID. Damn it. You see, as I last reported, I had passed the mystery bug on to... Continue Reading →
There’s not a lot of wood out there in the wood piles. Specifically, there’s this much: I’ve recently taken to telling people that we have literally 17 sticks of dry wood for the winter. While that is only true in the Gen Z rendition of ‘literally’, it's not far off. Who are we kidding? It’s... Continue Reading →
A spent toad graced the left rut of my driveway this morning, an unfortunate casualty of the early morning commuters. I'll spare you pictures--mostly because the phone was in the house whilst I mounted my morning walk investigation--but this was a large toad when he lived in three dimensions. Now, as most of him--but not... Continue Reading →
It’s 9/11. 20 years later. And somehow we’re living through something even MORE awful. Who could have imagined? That’s all I’m going to say about that. It’s September 11th. Which would indicate that we are fully into fall, and fully past summer, and to that I say, “What? Who punched the FF button on my... Continue Reading →
Right out of the gate, let's get this out of the way... It is entirely possible that you gathered, from my last post, that I was being a little dramatic about the minor damage the coons were inflicting on my hostas. Due to the less-than-magnificent photograph. How about this one? It's a geometric tragedy A... Continue Reading →
Tales From the Nexus 