Daily Affirmation

Posted on March 31, 2025 by jimbiggs23

[Author’s note: I want to apologize in advance about the length of this post. After I finished saying everything I wanted to say, it ended up being a bit longer than I would’ve liked. In my defense, though, I did just return from a spectacular tropical vacation that left me rejuvenated, reinvigorated and refreshed (and not to mention, deeply tanned)!  The next post will be much shorter, I promise. Speaking of that, my “Barrel of Blog Ideas” is starting to run low. So, if you have a question for me or would like me to talk about something (that I might have a clue about), let me know. You can either leave me a comment or contact me via email or text message: bjim140@gmail.com | (636) 336-2673.]

I am a little reluctant to talk about this for two reasons. For one, it’s a little personal. I don’t want to force TMI on you or be guilty of oversharing – nobody has time for that nonsense. ‘But what the heck, ‘, I figured, ‘we’re all friends here anyway, and you would tell me if that was the case, right?’  Secondly, I don’t wanna come off sounding like I’m beating my own drum or being braggadocious or something. I definitely don’t want to be perceived to be that way.

OK, I’m over it – let’s proceed.

The “WHAT” I do: After I wake up in the morning and before Jen comes to help me get up for the day, I usually have some time to myself. During my “quiet time”, I have the opportunity to think about lots of stuff. One of those things is that I run through a list of five things in my life that are very important to me and that I’m very grateful for.

The “WHY” I do that: A few months ago, I found myself being crabby and in a bad mood a lot more than I would’ve liked (as opposed to all the times when I liked being in a bad mood). I wasn’t gonna stand for that. To help combat that, I thought I’d try to stay more mindful of all the positive things going on in my life rather than spending too much time thinking about the negative stuff and have that take over my thoughts (focus on the “Good Stuff” like in that Kenny Chesney song – I’m not a big country music guy, but that’s a good one.)

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My “5 Things I’m Grateful For” list (this could be a much longer list but remembering 5 things is about my limit).:

Marriage/Jen 
What can I all say about my feelings for her and how I love our great relationship?  I don’t wanna talk about it too much because it’s getting me all misty-eyed and I’m trying to type here (NBD, happens fairly often – my emotions live just beneath the surface).

In addition to everything she does for me: my means of mobility, my voice when I wanna say something, personal chef, bookkeeper, chauffer, hairstylist… – way too many things to list, she’s basically my right arm and we’re pretty much joined at the hip. It’s a good thing she can tolerate me pretty well because we’re rarely apart 24/7/365. (BTW, one of my many pet peeves is when people use the phrase ‘24/7/365’, not sure why I just did. Since we’re talking about Pet Peeves, another one of mine is when people say stuff like, ‘I’m gonna give 110% (or 1,000% or 1,000,000% or some other ridiculous number) effort.’ C’mon people, not real numbers. Another one is the phrase “BTW”. I use that one quite a bit, myself. So, I’ve dealt with and learned to live with it.)

Back to Jen – Sometimes, she generously lets me believe that I’m the “boss” around here, but I know the real truth, this is all her world and I’m just fortunate enough to be living in it. I can picture her right now reading this while shaking her head and saying, ‘No, that isn’t true.’ But like she always says, I can say whatever I want on here – I have the floor right now and I’m just exercising my 1st Amendment right to free speech. The objection has been duly noted for the record but nonetheless, it’s been overruled. Here’s the absolute truth – she’s the glue that binds it all together, the oil that keeps the engine running smoothly, the syrup on my waffles – you get the idea. I’m gonna go out on a limb here and say that she’s probably not loving being compared to motor oil, even if it is the fancy synthetic kind. But I’m not creative enough to come up with more flowery metaphors. Besides, I’m the one typing here – so… ‘I’m the captain now!’

Having said all that mushy stuff about her, I did put my foot down recently and said, ‘Nah, that’s alright.’ about going to “Vintage Market Days” at the St. Charles Convention Center. I don’t do craft fairs, flea markets or renaissance fairs unless I’m bound, gagged and under duress. Although, we did go to the “Pen Show” at Westport Plaza last year – and it was my idea!  What was I thinking?  I could’ve been declared brain dead that day after we finished exhaustively examining our 30th old time-y fountain pen.

Health
Other than the obvious, I’m in good health in general. I feel pretty good most of the time, I don’t have any chronic pain or anything annoying like that – knock on wood. Like everyone else, I hope I remain healthy and pain free up until the day I die peacefully in my sleep in my own bed, at age 97.

Family  
I’m grateful that I’m part of what I think is a great family. We all love and care about each other very much. When we all get together (which happens fairly often) – my dad, my mom before she passed away, my siblings and their families – we have a blast, it’s always been that way. The older I get, the more I appreciate it because that’s a special thing. Being close isn’t a universal characteristic that all families enjoy. Even though we all get along well with each other, we try to practice “live and let live” and not get all up in each other’s  business too much. For instance, my brother doesn’t wear me out about my vast assortment of fragrance oils, which he could easily do, and I don’t roll my eyes (at least, not in his presence) at his “Poker Chip Collection”😊!

Comfort
We have a structurally sound roof that never leaks, over our heads. We have heat in the winter and air conditioning in the summer. We can put on clean clothes every day and we always have enough food to eat. We can pay our bills on time. Our house may not be the biggest or fanciest one in the county, but we don’t care because we’re comfortable and we love it here – no intention of ever moving. I admit, sometimes I catch myself being lulled by a sense of security and taking these creature comforts for granted. To some less fortunate than us, it probably seems like we live pretty luxurious lives. Not to sound materialistic, but I need to always remind myself to be grateful for what we have.

Patriotism
I know there is plenty of divisiveness in our society, a lot more than when I was growing up in the ‘80’s, and tribalism is seemingly running amok nowadays. But there is no other place in the world I’d rather live than in this country. Specifically, right here in the Midwest. I know I’m very fortunate to have been born here.

As the late, great American philosopher Charlie Daniels once said, ‘…We may have done a little bit of fightin’ among ourselves, but you outside people best leave us alone…’

Chuck Berry once sang, ‘Well, I’m so glad I’m livin’ in the U.S.A.’  I’m not much of a singer so I’ll just hum the tune because – my sentiments exactly! 

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Everyone has favorite skits from their own personal “When SNL used to be funny” era. This is one of mine: “Daily Affirmation with Stuart Smalley” – ‘I’m good enough, I’m smart enough, and doggone it, people like me!’. The one with Michael Jordan is hilarious! 
I also remind myself of these words of wisdom every morning.

Running through my daily ritual isn’t a slam-dunk that I’ll be in a great mood all day, every day. But it can be helpful if I keep this stuff somewhere near the front of my mind throughout the day. At the very least, it helps me start off each day on the right foot.

If you’re thinking, ‘That sounds a little “Kum Ba Yah” to me.’, then I totally agree. But I’m gonna continue doing it anyway, because it helps me a lot more times than not – and it definitely doesn’t hurt anything.

As Paul Rudd’s character said in Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy, ‘They’ve done studies, you know. 60% of the time, it works every time.’ (I used to think that was one of the funniest movies of all time. So, I watched it again about 5 years ago – and you know what?  It was terrible – totally stupid movie!  It held up about as well as potato salad left on the counter overnight. Sometimes, fond memories should just stay fond memories. Trying to revisit the thing that created them in the first place can just screw things up.)


Fröhliche Gedanken!

-Jim


P.S.  I’d like to clarify something I said in my last post because I’m afraid my meaning could’ve been misinterpreted. I said something like ‘…maybe she can give me the “what for” on that sometime…” when I was talking about my brain controlling my internal organs after my stroke. What I was wondering about was, ‘How did I survive my stroke?’ In no way was I pondering a dark or pathetic question like, ‘Why am I even alive?’

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‘Sir!  Please surrender your “Man Card”, immediately!’

Posted on March 17, 2025 by jimbiggs23

My stroke beat me up pretty good, physically speaking, and it took a while to get used to my new way of life. Most of my motor skills are pretty much shot and the entire left side of my body is basically numb, but one thing it didn’t touch at all and left it working perfectly was my sense of smell. However (hate that word), I can’t “take a big whiff” of something because I can’t voluntarily inhale deeply. But once outside air enters my nose through regular (shallow) breathing, I can smell any odors in it just fine. (Sidenote: I’ve often wondered about this – My stroke pretty much wiped out almost all my motor skills and most of my sense of touch is greatly diminished, but my important internal organs (heart, lungs, liver, etc.) were left alone to function normally, allowing me to survive. Dr. Zazulia, if you happen to be reading this, will you give me the “what for” about this sometime?)

Anyway, back to smelling things, since my nose still worked okay, I leaned in pretty hard into creating a pleasant-smelling environment for myself. It’s all about grabbing as much independence as you can and hanging on to some control over your surroundings these days. So about 8-10 years ago I bought a diffuser for myself and a few fragrance oils (pictured below). The way it works: put a few drops of fragrance oil along with some water (¼c. – ½c.) in its reservoir and switch it on. It puts out a fine mist that (usually) smells great. I like scented candles too (not too ashamed to admit that) but this thing is much safer: Open flame + Locked-in Syndrome = Recipe for disaster. Before long, the whole room smells like a yoga studio or a wellness clinic where they serve fresh cucumber water to the customers in the waiting room (‘Um, we don’t think of them as “customers”, we prefer thinking of them as “partners in wellness”’, ‘Whatever. I hate working here anyway.’)

The first one I got was all wood, that’s why I named it “Woody”, and it looked really cool (as cool as a diffuser can look, I guess.) But somebody knocked it onto our tile floor (don’t look at me) and it was broken and was rendered useless. So, its replacement was a white, all plastic model that is much more durable (and much less attractive, in my view.) We named the new one “Whitey” after the much-beloved gangster/killer/crime boss Whitey Bulger (I’m kidding, he was a horrible person. BTW, the Johnny Depp movie “Black Mass” about his life was great.) Anyway, the name “Whitey” didn’t stick for whatever reason so went back to using the name “Woody”, not to be confused with “Wooly”, just to keep things relatively simple. It’s been perfectly harmonious ever since.

After my collection of little brown bottles of fragrance oils started piling up, it was getting harder and harder to keep it all straight in my head and remembering what I had. So, I created a database for them on my computer and assigned each one a unique ID number (1=”Aloha”, 2=”Alpine Snow”, 3=”Amish Bread”, etc.) Now they’re all organized, safely stored away and easily retrievable!  On days when we’re gonna be home in the afternoon and I’m going to use one, I run a SQL query against that database to randomly select that day’s SotD (Scent of the Day). It’s all about minimizing the number of decisions I have to make in a day. Yes, I know, big-time nerd – guilty as charged😊.

Both Jen and I get headaches fairly frequently. Mine usually occur in the Spring during allergy season, when pollen is high. I take Claritin during that time and that seems to prevent them pretty well from coming on in the first place. They aren’t that bad anyway, Excedrin and/or Motrin usually do the trick. Jen’s, though, are a lot worse. She gets year-round migraines a few times a month. They’re not so severe that she has to lay down in a darkened bedroom with a damp washcloth on her forehead all day long, but they’re bad enough. She takes Imitrex for them and that works like a charm, but the side effects can be kinda intense. We found that fragrances with a strong flowery smell can trigger headaches for both of us. So,  scents like “Gardenia” and “Plumeria” are a no-go. I need to stick with the more “manly” fragrances like “Campfire”, “Cedarwood”, “Forest Pine” and the ever popular, “Dirt”.

[Left] Woody is all fired up for the day. Pictured here next to a small brown bottle of “Fresh Blue” fragrance oil. [Right] A little cart to hold my roughly 100 fragrance oils. At the height of my obsession with collecting them, I was getting 8-10 per week. Jen made little dividers out of foamboard to help keep them organized. Yeah, both of our Freak Flags were flapping in the breeze that day! 

I will be out of the office all next week for Spring Break, see you in 2 weeks when I return from my Florida beach vacation!  For assistance, please contact my colleague Jennifer Biggs at: (314) 555-4422. If this is an emergency, hang up the phone and dial 911.

Psst, riechst du etwas?

– Jim 

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‘The Best Fans in Baseball’

Posted on March 10, 2025 by jimbiggs23

I was never a big sports fan at all growing up. Nothing against pro or college sports, I just always thought it was too big a commitment, trying to keep up with everything. Plus, I didn’t know any of those guys and they sure as hell didn’t know me (pardon my French).

But that all changed in 1998. Much like everyone else in St. Louis, I found myself paying attention to the Mark McGwire – Sammy Sosa home run battle. By extension, I was watching all the games and started giving some attention to what was going on with the team. Question: Is it grammatically correct to say, “Jen and I became big-time Cardinal fans” or “Jen and I became big-time Cardinals fans”?  I’ll just say it this way, “Jen and I became big-time fans of Cardinals Baseball around that time.” We also became St. Louis Rams fans then and climbed on the “Greatest Show on Turf” bandwagon during the rise and reign of Kurt Warner. But that topic is for another time. It was a great time to be a baseball and football fan in St. Louis and the timing was perfect, we fell right into it. (Speaking of grammar, I’m pretty sure the word “but” shouldn’t immediately follow a “,” OR a sentence shouldn’t start with “But,”, but I don’t care. I don’t like the word “However”, this ain’t the SATs and I’m not trying to get into college so I can become an English teacher.)

Jen and I at a Halloween party in 2004, just weeks after the Cardinals were humiliated in the World Series, losing four games straight to the much-unloved (by many, many fans) Boston Red Sox.

When they beat the Detroit Tigers in the 2006 World Series, we were watching it from my hospital room. We were there still because my stroke just occurred a couple months earlier. After they won, it showed the players all jumping around and celebrating in the locker room and pouring beer and champagne all over each other. I was busy laying there, feeling ticked off (popular emotion in those days) and throwing myself a pity-party. I remember thinking, ‘Great. My team just got crowned World Champions and honestly, I couldn’t give two sh_ts.’ I wasn’t exactly riding an emotional high at that time. That lasted a good several months (or a year, or maybe two).

By the time 2011 rolled around and they won the W.S. again over the Texas Rangers, I was in a much better headspace and I actually enjoyed watching it. That Game 6, the David Friese game, was easily the most exciting game I had ever seen – in any sport. After they squeezed out a Win that game, I knew they were gonna win the Series. Even when they were down two runs early in Game 7, I wasn’t worried a bit because they were playing the game with all the momentum that carried over from the night before. By the end of the game, I was feeling kinda sorry for the other team’s manager, what’s-his-face Washington, because he looked to be absolutely shell-shocked the whole game!

Spring Training 2006.They went on to win the World Series that year. Probably had something to do with us helping them kick off their season.

We were fairly big-time fans throughout the 2000s and for most of the 2010s (‘fairly big-time fans’, is that even a real thing?). That all changed 5-6 years ago when we decided to “cut the cord” and say ‘Adios!’ to Cable TV for good. Of course, that meant no more Cardinals games. ‘That’s OK, ’, we figured, ‘surely the organization will be offering a standalone streaming app where we can go and watch their games, any day now.’ Thus far and many seasons later – crickets.

When we ditched cable, we still wanted a way to get network (local) channels. So we plopped an eight foot, NASA-grade antenna, clearly visible from out in front of our house, on our roof. Between that and the solar panels mounted on the frontside of our roof, also visible from the street, our house is starting to look like some kind of government installation. I wonder why our longtime neighbors keep moving away?  Hmm, weird.

Anyway, back to the Cardinals. Being forced to miss watching them play nearly every day wasn’t too awful, if I’m being honest. We still kinda followed them and paid attention to their highlights on the nightly news (courtesy of the monstrosity on our roof). The fact that they haven’t done too well lately has helped lessen our FOMO. I know that makes us fair-weather fans – guilty as charged – and that we we’re super spoiled by always watching them play Playoff Baseball, but that’s just how it is – not our fault 😊! 

Now that MLB is all intertwined with sports betting, I hear that Fanduel is putting out their own streaming app for this season. We’ll definitely give it a shot. I hope it’s not too annoying to watch with all the gambling stuff all over the screen like banners, crawlers, etc. cluttering things up. I also hope the team starts doing better in the coming years. I kinda miss watching exciting games that matter to the standings and seeing them play deep into October.

2020 (Covid) Season. My cardboard “fan cutout” watched way more games live and in-person than I actually watched on TV that year.
Jen saw this on Facebook. It’d be hanging in the closet right now if I didn’t dislike wearing red t-shirts so much.

I should probably cut these guys some slack. I mean, what do I know about playing baseball, anyway?  The last time I set foot on a baseball diamond was at Endicott Park, on the back field by the playground, when I was in the 1st Grade. I clearly remember being in the batter’s box and having the opposing team’s pitcher drilling me with a blistering 32 mph fastball. The ball was coming right at me and when I turned away, it plunked me right in the small of my lower back. I’m pretty sure it was intentional because I obviously looked like a home run threat. As I trotted down the first base line towards my awarded bag with tears welling up in my eyes the writing was on the wall, that at-bat marked the beginning of the end of my very promising future in baseball. The conversation between me and my mom later that night went something like this:

ME:      ‘Mom, I think I wanna quit the baseball team.’
MOM: ‘Are you sure?  Because once you quit, you can’t un-quit. Besides, chicks dig athletes.’
ME:      ‘I think I’m out. I know I’m still too little to know what the word ‘sucks’ means but I’m pretty sure that playing baseball sucks.’
MOM: ‘OK, wuss. Maybe we can still get you into a tap or ballet class with your little sister.’

Just kidding! Mom didn’t have a mean bone in her body. She would never berate me (not publicly, anyway).

I ran across this quote about professional athletes vs. the rest of us somewhere along the way. I don’t know about its accuracy but it felt about right. I can’t remember how it was worded exactly but this was the gist of it. Hope I make it make sense:

“Individual ‘A’” = The absolute worst baseball player in all of professional baseball.
“Individual ‘B’” = Of all the people you know, the one person who is the best at what he/she does at work all day.

Given these two things, Individual ‘A’ plays baseball at a much higher level than Individual ‘B’ can perform his/her job.


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In conclusion, I was telling Jen about how I was trying to come up with a decent conclusion. How was I gonna tie all this together and put a bow on this post?  She said, ‘Who cares?  It’s your blog and you can end it abruptly if you want to. Just close it out with your stupid little German sign-off thing and quit writing. Besides, it’s not like you’re gonna win a Pulitzer Prize any time soon.’  She’s right, I think I’m just gonna hit the brakes on this. So, I’m outta here! 

Gehen sie Cards! 

— Jim 

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‘Whatcha watchin’? Whatcha readin’?’ (…continued)

Posted on March 3, 2025 by jimbiggs23

No time for screwing around this time, so back at it:

Movies (streaming) –
Speaking of rock climbing, I saw this movie, Free Solo, a while ago but I really liked it so I wanted to mention it. It’s a documentary about how this young guy, named Alex Honnold, climbed El Capitan in Yosemite National Park, all 7,573’ of it. The only things that stood between him and certain death were his fingertips and the soles of his feet. No ropes, climbing gear or safety equipment – nothing. Since I’ve gotten older, I’ve developed a pretty healthy fear of heights, that didn’t exist when I was young. I thought that it would help that if I “made” myself watch it, I think that’s called “immersion therapy”, but that plan backfired pretty hard. If anything, it made it a lot worse! Since I can’t cover my face and watch the screen through my fingers, I watched most of the movie with my eyes squinted halfway shut. I didn’t feel too bad though, his buddy was on the ground filming him through a telephoto lens and like me, he couldn’t watch either. Spoiler alert: He’s still alive today (both Alex Honnold and his buddy).

Up to this point, I’ve only talked about shows and movies that I actually enjoyed watching. That really doesn’t paint an accurate picture, though. A good 65% of what I watch, read or listen to is a big pile of steaming buffalo dung.

A few weeks ago we watched the movie Heretic. It stars Hugh Grant, Undisputed King of the Rom-Com, and I was anxious to see him branch out and play a role where he portrayed a middle-aged creeper. He didn’t disappoint either, it was a great performance. I mean, shouldn’t a kinda old guy with a British accent be a nice guy and not a sadistic killer?  Too bad the movie sucked. I thought the first half was good, interesting plot setup and character development. It went completely off the rails and became a trainwreck after that, though. In fact, I think all horror made in the last 20 years are like that – decent setup followed by terrible ending. I always thought I liked the horror genre but as I sat there tolerating the umpteenth “scary” movie I’ve ever seen I thought to myself, ‘Hm, I guess I don’t really like the horror genre like I thought I did, because this movie is terrible. In fact, horror movies have mostly sucked for 20 years.’ The last movie that actually creeped me out was Paranormal Activity (2007). Before that, it was The Blair Witch Project. Jen and I saw that movie in the theater when we were dating. That reminds me, The Witch from 2015 was also good. But in general, ‘They don’t make ‘em like they used to.’, said the kinda old middle-aged guy (aka, me).

OK, I’ll try to be shorter and more concise the rest of the way. So…

Movies (theater) –
A Complete Unknown was a great movie. Neither of us are big Bob Dylan fans, we still aren’t, but Timothèe Chalamet was excellent. He spent five years learning to sing and play like BD. When we were telling my brother about that he said, ‘Wow, it took somebody 5 years to learn how to do that?’😊.
9 out of 10 stars.

In Flight Risk, “Marky” Mark Wahlberg plays a pretty good bad guy this time in a better-than-average popcorn movie.
6 out of 10 stars.

Books –
I recently finished a behemoth of an audiobook – Gone With the Wind – 49 hours!  It’s about how the protagonist, Scarlett O’Hara, overcomes huge challenges in the years leading up to, during and following the Civil War. A lot of it is overtly racist and glorifies things like the Confederacy, slavery and even the KKK, (it was written in 1936). If you can get past all that and just recognize it for what it is, I think it’s a great story and worth the time.
8 out of 10 stars.

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Today’s Random Thought(s):

I thought this was a funny response to a sad/controversial issue – My sister was telling us about how a buncha people were sending “Funny Cat Videos” to the email address listed in the ‘What did you do last week?’ email from Elon Musk’s DOGE. HAHA! 

(I know it’s not really a laughing matter. A lot of REAL people suddenly and without warning found themselves without REAL jobs and are now trying to figure out how they’re gonna pay REAL bills and put REAL food on the table.)

I think the world would be a much better place if more people would honestly tell one another, ‘I value your opinion, even if I disagree with it.’ That’s much easier said than done and a lot of us, me included, are a ‘work in progress’.

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This movie poster is easily the best thing about this movie.
‘El Capitan’ in Yosemite National Park. Viewed from the correct perspective – with your feet planted firmly on the ground.

If you’re anything like me, you love reading lists. Here’s my list of ’13 Movies I Think Everyone Should See At Least Once Before They Die’* :

  1. The Godfather (Parts I and II, I’ll count this as one really long movie)
  2. Goodfellas
  3. Jaws
  4. Rocky
  5. Shawshank Redemption
  6. Silver Linings Playbook
  7. Scent of a Woman – ‘Hoo-ah!’
  8. Saving Private Ryan
  9. Anthropoid (WWII movie)
  10. Casablanca
  11. It’s a Wonderful Life
  12. Pulp Fiction
  13. Silence of the Lambs

Honorable Mentions:
Schindler’s List
Papillon – (Steve McQueen, Dustin Hoffman)
Caddyshack
Raging Bull
That one with: Matt Damon, Ben Affleck, Robin Williams and what’s-her-name – that British actress who reminds me of Maya Rudolph. (the name will come to me 2 minutes after I finish typing this.)

Good Will Hunting – (I knew it’d come to me. Also, that actress is Minnie Driver.)

(*Note: This list changes somewhat depending on things like: the day of the week, my mood, barometric pressure, color of my shirt, etc.)

Was guckst du?,
(What are you watchin’?)

– Jim


P.S.  I feel kinda weird asking but I’d like to ask you for a favor. If you’re reading this, would you mind leaving a very brief comment (just your name or initials are fine) so I can see who’s reading these?  It’s weird, it feels like I’m talking to an empty room (or myself) when I’m doing one of these. I’m sure I could figure this stuff out on WordPress.com but like I said, I’m not real good with it. Just curious – thanks.

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‘Whatcha watchin’? Whatcha readin’?’

Posted on February 24, 2025 by jimbiggs23

I get asked those kinds of questions all the time, by everyone. And by ‘all the time, by everyone.’ I guess I mean ‘pretty often, by many people.’ Maybe not ‘pretty often’, more like fairly often. OK, I’ll come clean: I’ve been asked, ‘Watching or reading anything worthwhile?’ once or twice by a couple people. So, due to massively popular demand, this is how I’ve been filling my afternoons when I’m not writing in this blog.

TV shows – I usually gravitate towards shows that are kinda dark and gritty, they can also have a healthy dose of graphic violence and profanity sprinkled in just for fun. Shows that fit this bill are: The Penguin (great show), The Mayor of Kingstown, Game of Thrones and American Primeval. However, there is one show I just finished watching – its 18th season and still going strong – it is the exact opposite of shows like the ones listed above and I really like it. It’s like a breath of fresh air, a palate cleanser that rebalances things. It’s called Barnwood Builders; it can be found on Max (formerly HBOMAX, formerly HBONOW, formerly HBO). I even got a t-shirt from the company that the show’s about. Basically, it’s a show about this small business in West Virginia (same name as the show) and the group of guys that work there. They’re just a buncha good ol’ boys and self-proclaimed “hillbillies” (their word, not mine), who are really good at what they do. They’re in the business of deconstructing old barns and log cabins, mostly dating back to the 1800s, then selling the reclaimed lumber and hand-hewn logs and beams to people who want to use that material in their building projects. They then help their clients with building their dreamhouse, fancy garage, rustic pavilion, wedding venue – whatever. What I take from the show is that it displays the virtues of hard work and comradery. I admit that watching a show about a buncha guys with strong country accents (no offense meant against country accents) taking down old buildings for 45 minutes doesn’t sound that interesting – and I don’t mean to try and sell it to you – but I find watching it oddly relaxing.

Another show I’ve kinda gotten into is on Netflix and it’s called Formula 1: Drive to Survive. It’s about, you guessed it, Formula 1 racing. Lots of drama and gut-wrenching footage. I’ve never been a huge racing fan like my brother, he’s big into NASCAR – but I’m coming around to it. To be clear, he’s a regular-sized person, not ‘huge’ at all. After watching a couple seasons of it I can safely say that “being a racecar driver” is near the top of my list of “things I wouldn’t wanna do in a million years”. It’s up there with: ironworker, rock climber and cave diver. The reasons behind the first two are pretty obvious: plummeting to your death while screaming your head off looks very unpleasant. I say ‘cave diver’ because claustrophobia is a real thing and it’s totally debilitating. I learned that the hard way the last time I had a standard MRI. So I thought I was being pretty smart the next time my doctor wanted an MRI – btw, don’t let the name fool you, there isn’t a whole lot of “openness” involved when having an “Open MRI”.

I wanna mention one more show I really like before I move on, the Max show The White Lotus. Season 3 started recently and the first couple episodes are available to stream. It’s one of the few shows I’ll watch as new episodes are released each week. Normally, I won’t watch something unless I can binge watch the whole season in a few days. I’m not sure how they market this show but the tagline should read: “Rich people vacation at a beautiful resort while being truly awful to each other”.

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Now, a few words about our sponsor:

Like many people, I’m no stranger to headaches, I get them fairly often. When that happens, I either woke up with it or it came on that morning. For me, a couple Excedrins will magically erase it about 75% of the time. For stubborn headaches I might get lucky with additional Excedrin or some Motrin. Things like: Tylenol, Advil or Aleve might as well be SweetTarts, they don’t do Jack. Taking medicine is a minor ordeal too. It isn’t as simple as Jen just handing me a couple pills, like she’s “Nurse Ratchet”, so she can get on with her day. No, it ain’t that easy. First, she has to go to the kitchen and crush them with our little Mortar & Pestle things (up until 3 minutes ago when I Googled them, I was pretty sure they were called Mortise & Pestil). Then she mixes the pulverized pill powder with water and hopefully, it’ll dissolve pretty well. After that, she’ll put the mixture directly into my stomach with a large syringe. A “Mickey button” on my abdomen allows for that (I’ll get into all that some other time). Half the time, it’ll get all clogged up and she has to go Roto Rooter on it. Then, after all that and with some luck, it’ll work and I’ll get some relief. So remember,

“Excedrin. It Just Might Work.”

And now, back to our program…

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Me and my: brothers, dad and uncles at work, sometime in the early ’90s. I’m not in the frame. I’m just off to the side, clinging on to a fastened-down girder for dear life, ugly-crying.
My new favorite show. In another life, my dream job would find me working with a crew like this and doing this type of work. On the other hand, they work outside in all types of weather and we’ve already established that I don’t do cold. I need my indoor, climate-controlled workspace and Wooly – so maybe not..

I oughtta wrap this up now, it’s starting to run pretty long. (Fun Fact: Microsoft Word tells me that this post has 1057 words.) But I haven’t talked about this stuff yet:

Movies (streaming) –
Movies (theater) –
Books –
Podcasts –

Oh well, it’ll give me something to talk about next time.

Frieden raus!,
(Peace out!)

– Jim 

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Brrr! It’s freezing in here!

Posted on February 17, 2025 by jimbiggs23

The funny thing about my stroke (funny strange, not funny Haha!) is that not only did it rob me of my mobility, virtually all of my motor skills and my ability to speak, it also really did a number on my internal thermostat. I’m chilly all the time, even when others around me are perfectly comfortable. I feel like a 90-year-old man (no offense Dad!).

Speaking of my dad, it’s perfectly comfortable over there (for me, not Jen) when we go to his house, a.k.a. “the Costa Rican rainforest”, for a visit. That’s probably because he has his thermostat permanently pegged at 87 degrees, 365 days a year. His heating costs are  about $320/month. His cooling costs in the summer are $12/mo. I’ve never seen my wife or siblings sweat (or swear) profusely while just sitting there talking.

In the last couple years, I made the two best purchases I’ve ever made in my life. My first triumphant score was an electric bed warmer. It does pretty much exactly what the name implies. It goes between the bottom sheet on my bed and the top of my mattress and keeps me all warm and toasty. When this one (eventually) dies, I’m replacing it THAT DAY, even if the price has gone up 1000%! 

My other game-changing purchase was an electric, heated throw. I can be found living underneath it from Fall until Spring. The one side is imitation sheepskin like my mom’s seat covers were made from in her Pontiac T1000 Hatchback she drove in the ‘80s. The other side is this faux mink or rabbit’s fur stuff. Whatever it is, it’s very soft. I wear shorts year-round just because I like the way it feels on my bare legs. I named it “Wooly”. I kinda hijacked that name from my uncle, he named his throw that a long time ago according to my cousin, but he’s cool – so he won’t care.

On a routine, normal 24-hr. day, I get chilly for about 3 of those minutes. That’s the amount of time it takes Jen to transfer me using the Hoyer lift from my bed to my chair. After that, she immediately covers me with Wooly and then I’m golden again – everything’s right with the world, it’s all lollipops, rainbows and unicorns. I know what you’re thinking and I agree, I’m pretty spoiled. BTW, she just had a birthday and she got a buncha cards, texts and emails. They mostly told her how kind, thoughtful and wonderful she is – I really need to up my game.

Back to Wooly, one time I think her feelings got kinda hurt because of it. She said to me, ‘Sometimes, I think you love Wooly more than you love me.’ I replied, ’What’re you talking about? That’s 100% absolutely almost not true!  More?  Not a chance. Equally?  Um, we should probably talk.’ The day didn’t improve much from there.

Me and Wooly on February 12, 2025. I look pretty much exactly like this from mid-October until mid-April.

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(Believe it or not, that isn’t a professionally made text divider that I just copied from the internet, I made it myself. I know, hard to believe.)

Recalculating…

Apropos of nothing, I’m bringing him up just because I’ve been hearing a lot about him lately and I’m wondering, what is your opinion of Elon Musk nowadays?  I became aware of him and learned a lot about him 10-15 years ago. At the time, he had founded three large, successful companies (Tesla, SpaceX, PayPal) and several smaller ones – before his 40th birthday. All of that eventually made him the richest person in the world. He’s super smart too. He didn’t know anything about rocketry and aeronautics and stuff like that, so he learned everything he needed to know to start SpaceX from books. So, I was a big fan.

But then he bought Twitter for some reason a couple years ago, changed the name to X (a name used by no one but him) and then he started getting weirder than he already was. He’s now in a position of immense power that has no guardrails and he’s totally free to single-handedly, and seemingly willy-nilly, make massive decisions that he, and only he, thinks are good. It doesn’t matter to me if you love what he’s doing or if you think his actions set the country back 40 years, that isn’t my point. My point is that he’s making gigantic decisions about American policy almost daily that affect a lot of us but more importantly, those actions are molding how the U.S. is perceived by millions of people worldwide. The power and authority to make those decisions was just handed to him because he just happens to be friends with the president, he wasn’t elected to do any of that. He seems to be a little reckless and unhinged these days, too. I just wish he would go back to focusing on what he’s good at – building reusable rockets and electric cars – and leave the shaping of government policy to the officials we elected to do that.

Years ago, Jen got me a t-shirt that had, “Elon Musk for President”, printed across it in big, bold letters. Who would’ve guessed it at the time, but that prophecy would almost come to fruition in 2025.

OK, that’s the first and last time I’ll talk about anything that’s even slightly “political”. It’s just no fun. I’m happy to let the Sunday morning pundits, college professors, activists and other political junkies {of which I am: e) none of the above} hash, rehash and pulverize whatever’s going on in Washington D.C. – I’m out. I think burying your head in POLITICO or The Washington Insider half the day and watching cable news nonstop the other half can drive you a little crazy or even make you bitter or angry. Immersing yourself in that stuff all the time can steal your joy. Like Jen reminded me, life’s too short for: a) drinking crappy coffee and b) self-induced harm to your mental health. 

We recently discovered a musician we both really like. His name is Lukas Nelson, he’s the son of Willie Nelson (who we also really like in spite of, or maybe because of, his “unique” singing voice). He’s an excellent guitarist and songwriter, just like his dad. He has a song called “Turn Off the News”. When we heard it for the first time, the lyrics really resonated with us. Here are some of them:

Turn off the news and build a garden
Just my neighborhood and me
We might feel a bit less hardened
We might feel a bit more free  

Thought I’d mention this because it just occurred to me…

Speaking of music, even though I’m not a huge fan of country music, I think it has the greatest song titles. I recently heard this song: “God is Great, Beer is Good and People are Crazy”.

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That’ll do for discussing serious subjects on this blog. I wanna get back to talking about unimportant and goofy stuff like electric blankets and old family pictures.

Später!,

– Jim 

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A Stroll Down (My) Memory Lane

Posted on February 10, 2025 by jimbiggs23

Jen gave me a digital picture frame for Christmas that’s much cooler than our old one. Since then, I’ve been going through my pictures (at least 2,000 of them) and picking out the ones I want to display. My nephew and his wife recently started a family and they have two kids, Ava – 3 and Nolan – 1. I easily have 600 pictures of the two of them already and their young lives just got started. Most people reading this and I are lucky if there are a half dozen baby pictures of us in existence. I’m pretty sure Mom and Dad’s camera got stolen or broken right before my little sister and I came along. I think the conversation between them must’ve gone something like this:

MOM: ‘Now that we’ve added Jimmy and Ellen to the family, isn’t it time we replace our camera?’
DAD: ‘Nah, I don’t think so. We have plenty of pictures of the other kids and kids that age pretty much all look the same. Besides, they’ll never know.’
MOM: ‘Good points, they never occurred to me. OK, never mind.’

Ava and Nolan’s parents are real good about posting short videos of the kids to Snapchat and sharing them with all of us nearly every day. Sometimes they post multiple times a day. We really enjoy watching them, it’s like seeing them grow up right before our eyes in real-time. When we get to see the kids in person (they live in south St. Louis County), they’re still pretty timid and shy around me and my wheelchair (by ‘timid and shy’ I mean ‘terrified’) but they’re starting to warm up to me, though. I have that effect on little kids. They either: stare at me openly while slack-jawed and mouths opened in amazement or they start wailing uncontrollably like I poked them in the eye and they turn away and bury their faces in their mother’s shoulders.

There are several other kids in our family and we love them all the same. It’s just that when they were all little, things like Snapchat or just social media in general weren’t really around or as widely used, so we didn’t “see” them all grow up.

Here are a few pictures that made the “digital frame cut”. What’s not fun about looking at pictures of people you might kinda know or not know at all?  Am I right? 

So, in the words of Heath Ledger as “The Joker” in The Dark Knight:
‘Here. We. Go.’:

Mom (far left) and her family, right before leaving for the 1904 World’s Fair. Not sure about the kids in front, probably cousins. But they could be gang members in the local chapter of the Peaky Blinders crime family.
‘Awww!’ Here’s a picture of me and my little sister, Ellen, taken a few years ago.
I was probably a cute little kid, I wonder what happened? 
One of my favorite pictures. My siblings and I in my parents’ backyard back in the mid-‘90s.
A lot of the same people from the previous picture – about 25 years later. After multiple attempts, we finally scrapped the idea of recreating the “human pyramid” and instead, opted for the “standing on the staircase” pose. Much less painful and traumatic.
Another favorite. We went to Italy with this group, some old friends and we met many new ones, for a week. The trip was in May, 2006, about three months before my stroke.
Meet Nolan. He’s our adventurous, rambunctious, fearless, 1 year old great-nephew. Moments before this picture was taken, he said something like this, ‘Whoa, the view is great from up here!  I can see for days!  I should pull myself up on the big basket thing more often. Wait, wha-what’s happening?  Uh-oh, this won’t end well!’

(Note: It took me a pretty long time to figure out how to add pictures to this post, definitely a lotlonger than it should have. Kept having to bug Jen for help. WordPress has 700 bells and whistles that I’ll never use or want to use, I’d be happy to become somewhat proficient with using 4 of the basic ones.)

OK, I need to wrap this one up because I promised myself that I would keep these under a couple pages. That promise is quickly going the way of the New Year’s Resolutions I made.

Auf Wiedersehen, bis zum nächsten Mal,
(Goodbye, until next time)

– Jim 

P.S.  It’s fun messing around with Google Translate! 

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Does this thing still work?

Posted on February 3, 2025 by jimbiggs23

Hello?  Is this mic hot?  I’ll just assume it is. I haven’t written in this thing in a long time. It’s been at least 7 or 8 (or 9?) years. ‘So why now?’, you ask?  Well, what happened was we texted our old neighbor that we haven’t spoken with in a few years. The topic of how I used to write in this blog came up and that sparked a conversation between Jen and myself that went kinda like this:

JEN:   ‘Esmerelda (not her real name) and I were texting back and forth and she mentioned that Jim oughtta think about writing in his blog again.’

ME:    ‘Really?  That was nice of her to say. I don’t know though, that was an awful lot of work.’

JEN:   ‘What do you mean, ‘awful lot of work’?  What else do you have to do? 

ME:    ‘Fair point. But I doubt that people wanna hear about my boring and mundane life.’

JEN:   ‘I disagree. I think people like reading about your incredibly boring and mundane life. Besides, you rather enjoy talking about yourself. Not to mention, you doing something semi-productive with your time will pull you off my back occasionally and give me a much needed break.

ME:    ‘You’re right. I do rather enjoy talking about myself at times. It placates my inner narcissist. I don’t know, maybe I’ll take it for a spin.’

Except for me cleaning up all the F-bombs that Jen dropped all over the place, our conversation pretty much word for word went exactly like that.

So, I pulled up my account that contained all my old blog entries after resetting my expired password and ‘lo and behold!’, all of my old stuff was still there. (That was the first time, and probably the last, I’ve ever used the phrase ‘lo and behold!’)  I guess there’s some truth to the saying: ‘The internet is immortal.’ Note to self: I should resist the temptation to reread something I’ve written years earlier. That’s because my previous attempts at being humorous that I thought were pretty funny or even, dare I say, hilarious, were probably anything but funny or hilarious. At best, my earlier writings might’ve been mildly amusing. At worst, downright embarrassing or cringeworthy. It’s like when you see a picture of yourself or hear your own voice on a recording. ‘Yikes!  Do I really look (or sound) like that?’ It’s probably best if that stuff just exists in the dark cracks and crevices of the online world, never again to see the light of day. Another note to self (random thought that just occurred to me): Jen tells me, and I totally agree, that I get kinda wordy when I write something or even type out a line for my computer to “speak”. She’s right, I can feel myself doing it.  It’s like I overcompensate using the written word since I can’t use the spoken word. I need to pay better attention to that, I think I’ll start tomorrow. For example, my previous ‘Note to self:’ took me thirty minutes to write because I lost my train of thought about 15 times, and I kept having to reread the same sentence over and over. Also, having your ‘Led Zeppelin’ playlist blasting in your ears while trying to organize and write down your thoughts is a less-than-ideal situation.

A lot has happened in our lives since the last time we talked. We’ve had three kids: Max, Josephine and little Jimmy Jr. – ages 5, 4 and 2 respectively. I’ve written a couple books. Neither of them made the NYTimes Bestsellers List, there are a few lousier books out there but not many. Jen has taken up painting and opened up an art studio. Also, we moved to Steamboat Springs, CO a few years ago. Actually, none of that stuff is true. The two of us are still living here over on Colby Ct. in St. Peters, still doing our thing like always. Jen’s still working for NISC, taking care of me, doing all the household stuff, being Facility Manager, etc., etc. As for me, I’m keeping busy too: I’m getting more than my fair share of audiobooks, shows, movies, podcasts and music. We’re like the mullet couple – she’s all business in the front and I’m the party in the back.

Speaking of her job, she’s gonna have a big birthday in a couple weeks. The R-word has started coming up recently and it’s sounding like she’s ready to take a leap into the unknown again, this one in a few years. As far as her birthday goes, I’m smart enough not to divulge her age. Every now and then, some women can get kinda sensitive about stuff like that and I don’t wanna risk getting smothered in my sleep. So let’s just say that her age on 2/14 will rhyme with “nifty” and we’ve also been getting a lot of junk mail from AARP lately. There, now I haven’t been speaking out of school and I can sleep soundly tonight.

We saw ‘Six’ at the Fox today. That almost didn’t happen. Our daily routine doesn’t allow for a lot of wrinkles AND a trip downtown to see a show – but wrinkles were apparently on today’s docket. Add to that, Jen read a hilarious opinion of the show on Nextdoor the night before. It read, ‘Saw ‘Six’ down at the Fox. It was a cross between a bad Spice Girls concert and a high school musical. Ugh!’ Haha!  Needless to say, neither of us were real pumped about going to see it by the time we finally backed out of the driveway. But it was pretty good. Not awful, as we expected. But then again, I’m not exactly the “go-to guy” to get quality reviews of musicals. I’m the guy who fell asleep during last summer’s production of ‘The Book of Mormon’. Also, we’re the ones who sold our tickets to the world-renowned show ‘Hamilton’. That’s because a week before the show, we barely got through half the movie because we realized that the entire show was one very long rap song. Nothing against rap music, if that’s your thing, but it isn’t ours and it was pretty much unintelligible (to us). We had no idea what was going on, it may as well been in Latin, and we got on StubHub right then and there. I freely admit that I’m not a “musicals guy”, try as I may. If that makes me uncultured or whatever then so be it – guilty as charged.

I guess I’ll get going now (I can feel myself getting wordy again). A little late to be worrying about that now – but still. Time to go over and jump on YouTube like I do every few weeks. I save up a buncha trailers, concert videos, Daily Dose of Internet(s), SNL sketches, Kurzgesagt(s), whatever other junk looks fun… into my “Watch Later” playlist and then watch it all at once. The trailers I watch are for shows and movies that I might wanna check out some time but in reality, I’ll probably never get around to actually watching all of it because there’s just so much stuff out there. We have KTRS on every day (talk radio junkie here) for several hours and one time I heard Julie Buck say that there were 625,000 options available when it comes to streaming a particular season of a show or watching a movie online. That may not be 100% accurate, she can be kinda dramatic, but that feels about right.

Anyway, writing this has been fun. I’m gonna try not to let another eight years go by until I do this again.

Danke und gute Nacht! 

– Jim

P.S.  One last thing, I promise (for real this time). WordPress.com is the website where this blog lives. I don’t really know much about it, and I definitely don’t know anything about its inner workings. I’m doing good to Cut (ctrl+C) what I’ve written from my Word document, Paste (ctrl+V) it into the “Type your entry here” window and then find and click the “Publish” button. Hopefully, the list containing everyone’s email address that wished to be notified about my latest entry’s existence is still intact and working properly. If not, then I guess I just spent the last 3-4 days talking to myself and an empty room (wouldn’t have been the first time).

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This time of year. A message from my better half.

Posted on August 3, 2016 by jimbiggs23

Today, August 3 around 10pm, marks 10 years since Jim’s stroke. One decade. I wouldn’t have imagined Jim nor I would still have our sanity (and that’s debatable!) ten years later. On August 5th, Jim came out of his coma and we learned that his mind was perfectly fine (he totally beat the odds on this day). On August 6th, his brother-in-law Roy passed away. This family had been body-slammed. Jim was fighting for his life while Roy was losing his. Talk about a three-day emotional roller-coaster: fear, joy, grief, thankful, sad, scared. Roy was one of a kind and we miss him dearly.

There are things I remember in the last 10 years that will be forever imprinted on my brain, and most of those things don’t sting like they once did. With God’s mercy and time, I can see emotional healing that I couldn’t have imagined, even 5 years ago. It’s true that time goes by so very fast and in some ways, that is a blessing. I remember the day we came home from being in the hospital for 6 months after Jim’s stroke. We used a wheelchair-accessible cab to get home because we didn’t have our van yet. So the cab dropped us off and we made our way in the house, and after the initial emotional time was over, we literally looked at each other like ‘now what?’. I had NO idea how we would pass the days. I would work but I worried about Jim and how he would handle this. He didn’t have his computer yet. Therapists were going to come to the house, starting the next day. But this was today, early afternoon, and now what.

One of the ways I think of our situation, especially early on, is like walking through an unknown house or building with no power and all you have is a flashlight. If you go slow, you probably won’t hurt yourself but if you rush or try too hard, you might run into something or fall. Both ways are scary, no doubt, and our instinct is to hurry out of fear. None of us know what is around the corner in this life. I’ve had to learn to go slow (sometimes I don’t have a choice), and I’ve learned that slow is okay. And most times that flashlight is all I need; I don’t need all the lights in the house on because I really just need to see what’s right in front of me, not a mile ahead. All of our family and friends (YOU!) are like flashlights in our lives. When we are having a bad time, inevitably someone calls/texts/emails to say hi, to light up that area right in front of us. Thank you for that. Thank you for loving us and showing us that we aren’t alone in the big, dark house. And Jim, thank you for not giving up on yourself in the last 10 years, when that would have been perfectly acceptable. May God bless you all . . . and may you always have a bright flashlight to light your way.

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Ants: The Bane of My Existence

Posted on March 28, 2016 by jimbiggs23

Ahh spring! The days are getting warmer, the pear trees are budding, the daffodils are coming up and an army of ants are mounting their annual assault on me and my perch. Wait, what?! Who invited them to the party? Right now, I imagine that Jen is gonna want to kill me for talking out of school about this but like I told her (or at least meant to), ‘It’s no big deal, even the cleanest and tidiest house gets a few ants from time to time – that’s just how Mother Nature works and we should just go with it. Besides, this will all blow over in a couple short years and people will again feel comfortable stepping foot inside our house.’ It’s not like we’re having that rat problem anymore or anything.

After proofreading this before I posted it, I have to confess that I’ve exaggerated a little bit. A couple dozen or so ants isn’t exactly an ‘army’ of them and I guess they don’t come for a visit every year. Everything else here, though, is based on a true story.

Of course, I love all of God’s creatures but some a lot more than others. To me, bugs are the black sheep of the family. They’re the weird cousins you see once a year on Thanksgiving, they’re family so you have to invite them over, and they always end up getting drunk and spouting off with something like how Hillary, or even Donald Trump, would make a good President. Irritating. (Note to any of my cousins who may be reading this: I just used ‘cousins’ as an example. I think you’re all cool!)

It isn’t as if I’d forget all about Locked-In Syndrome, but nothing reminds you that your hands and arms don’t work quite like as when an ant is crawling around and finding its way through the fine hairs on the back of your neck. Forget waterboarding, the next time we want to extract information from a captured terrorist, we should just strap him to a gurney and throw a handful of ants on him. He’ll be singing like a canary in 5 minutes.

It’s funny, and kind of a waste of time, by the time I spell out ANT ON NECK on my computer to let Jen know about it, one of my little friends found his way to my earlobe. I’ve now decided that I just need to be patient, grit my teeth and let nature, all six (or is it eight?) little legs of it, ‘run’ its course.

I know I shouldn’t get so bent out of shape about it. They’re not gonna kill me or anything, no one put a rattlesnake in my lap nor did a rabid grizzly bear wander into our kitchen – their just annoying as all get-out.

Of course you know, this means war. So, after dealing with this little slice of heaven for a few days I finally caved and agreed to have an exterminator come over and spray for ants. He showed up and walked around our entire house, spraying from a silver canister in our doorways and window ledges what I now think must have been sweet tea or cherry Kool-Aid. Whatever it was the ants sure seemed to love it. He was a heckuva nice guy and everything but I’m still not sold on the whole idea of ‘have your house professionally sprayed for ants’ thing. I mean, haters gotta hate and ants gotta… do whatever ants do. Oh sure, when he first showed up they acted all scared and got the heck out of Dodge but as soon as his van backed out of the driveway it was ‘game on’. In fact, I saw a couple of them crouching down and hiding behind the handsoap using their cellphones. They were calling their friends to let them know that the coast was clear and that they could come out now to resume their springtime offensive. It seemed to me that he didn’t really do anything except stir them all up and hack them off. It was kind of like when you stood on the top rung of the stepladder and swatted at a wasps’ nest that was stuck there on the soffit of your house with a broom –you knew that things weren’t gonna end well.

Actually, I’m making this sound a lot worse than it really is. To be honest, we’re down to only getting the occasional stray from time to time. I think they must be lost. I’m anxious for summer and all that it brings. If a few ants are the price of admission for all of that, I guess I’m okay with it.

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