I’m getting Alan’s cold. It’s a chest-living variety, and yes, we both tested, him twice, and we’re both negative. People still get colds. Especially after two years of living behind masks. As if trying to civilize this fucking dog isn’t enough of a stressor, now this.

But I did get about 20 minutes of down time yesterday afternoon, and caught up in nostalgia, I did a little Facebook-searching for old colleagues, classmates, etc. — the sort of people I don’t stay in touch with, but am intermittently curious about from time to time.

I looked up a guy I used to work with, who I remember as a gentle soul who was certainly traditional and probably Republican — like 90 percent of Hoosiers — but the sort of Republican I remember from there, which is to say, wrong but not an asshole about it.

You see the punchline coming, right?

He’s fond of memes. This is the one that rocked me back on my heels:

Oh. OK. I sent this to a friend, who also worked with him, and he replied:

The greatest underrecognized impact of Trumpism is grief. I feel it so often when I look at all the people who taste-tested authoritarianism and decided they wanted more. They’ve been carried away by some kind of psychological contagion, but I remember so much else about them and share so much history and experience with them before the mess we have now become. In the shortest form, I stand by what I told (my wife) the morning after Trump’s election, when she demanded some kind of explanation from me, because I’d been pretty confident about an HRC win: “I guess there are a lot more rotten people in America than I thought.” I can posture as smug or contemptuous or dismissive, but five or six years later, more than anything else, I’m still grieving the loss of so much regard for so many people. Living with so many fellow citizens who are so diminished makes me feel diminished, too.

I think that is exactly right. It’s less so for me — I tend to skip grief and go straight to anger — but I, too, have that disorienting, dispiriting feeling of looking at someone you thought you knew and realizing: I didn’t know. Of course you don’t know, in the know-know sense, someone you work with. But every day we have to interact with people we aren’t intimately acquainted with, and that’s the feeling I’m talking about, of going through a day, buying groceries, working, commuting, walking in the park, and having to think: Is it you? Are you one of them?

The day after the 2016 election, I walked Wendy in the morning, still feeling utterly shell-shocked, and a man passed me on the street. He looked me in the eye and gave me a smirk-smile that I still remember. And that was before we knew how terrible Trump would turn out to be! In 2016, that smile said, “I hate Hillary.” Today it would say, “I’m OK with all of it.” I’ve lived deep in Republican country for most of my life. Like I said, I thought I knew these people. I didn’t know them.

Oh, well. Let’s uplift the mood a little, shall we?

I found this story, which someone in my network posted, the other day. I’m astonished this is the first I’d heard of it. Just the headline, OMG: The guitarist who saved hundreds of people on a sinking cruise liner, and it does not disappoint:

“I was calling, ‘Mayday! Mayday! Mayday!’ and just waiting for somebody to answer,” Moss says.
A big, deep, rich voice eventually replied. “Yes, what is your Mayday?”

Relieved, Moss explained that he was on the cruise ship Oceanos and that it was sinking.

“OK. How long have you got left to float?”

“I don’t know – we’ve got the starboard railings in the water, we’re rolling around, we’ve taken on a huge amount of water,” Moss said. “We still have at least 200 people on board.”

“OK. What is your position?”

“We’re probably about halfway between the port of East London and Durban.”

“No, no, no, what are your coordinates?”

Moss had no idea what their coordinates were.

“What rank are you?”

“Well, I’m not a rank – I’m a guitarist.”

Why has no one made this movie? You know who helped him save all those people? His wife. His wife the bassist. It’s too good.

OK, off to shower and consider how I’m going to handle Kevin today. Yesterday started well and ended badly. Today is calm so far. We’ll see.

Good weekend, all.

Kevin is still on probation. After a nipping incident Monday morning, I was ready to surrender him to a shelter, but a very nice trainer saw my Facebook post on it, dropped everything and came right over. She worked with him a while and taught us some tricks to get some manners into his head. Her assessment: A very smart dog, but stubborn, and virtually untrained. We’re working on Sit/Stay, and he’s doing pretty well. Still to come: Down, Shut Up and No Goddamn Dogs on the Bed. But I have faith in the little bastard, who has many good traits besides cuteness — a prancing walk that’s fun to watch, 99 percent housebroken, walks well on the leash for a lunatic and a lotta personality.

Fingers crossed for Kevin, who may yet need a good lawyer.

Sometimes my morning rambles take me past the Indiana Policy Review, the right-wing organization in the Hoosier state, which the editorial-page editor of my former employer departed to found and run sometime in the late 80s/early 90s, can’t remember. They exist to spread ideas, etc., because there’s a real shortage of those in Indiana. Some of you have mentioned that the Kendallville papers run the column they offer by my former colleague Leo. Does anything else they offer ever see eyeballs other than in their magazine/website? Because I gotta say: This shit is whack.

The founder, who signs his pieces “tcl” but otherwise goes by T. Craig Ladwig, devoted the home page today to an attack on, get this, the Indiana Daily Student, the student newspaper. For an opinion piece. About the right’s favorite pinup girl, Ann Coulter.

Craig, like lots of newspaper editorial writers, considered himself something of an oracle. He didn’t mix much, but when he did he’d say things like “the problem with journalism today is a lack of adult supervision,” which I never quite understood but he seems to think quite witty, because it’s a phrase that turns up often in his work. It seems to be the driving force of this column about the IDS, anyway. He starts by complaining that the speech wasn’t covered by any other media, “for posterity,” although a quick Google turned up a video of part of the speech and a fairly perfunctory report from the local public-media stations. The speech was billed as, “Conservatism. Let’s Review the Evidence with Ann Coulter,” but the news seemed to be that Coulter abruptly left the stage, claiming she had a plane to catch and had already stayed longer than she’d agreed to. (She’d make a good prostitute. Admirable time management.)

It doesn’t sound like she was shouted down or otherwise abused, although she complained about the final question (about her religion) before leaving. What I found weird? In that video I posted above? Look at all that male-pattern baldness on the heads watching. Doesn’t look like a student crowd.

Maybe Craig hasn’t figured out Google yet.

But I don’t want to go deep on the Indiana Policy Review, an outfit that essentially hung another co-founder, Mike Pence, out to dry after January 6 — he wasn’t asked to do anything other than give us a little more time to investigate was the argument, as I recall. For years now, it’s essentially functioned as a sinecure for Ladwig and maybe a couple of others.

A sinecure. That would be nice, except for the putting-your-balls-in-escrow part.

What an exhausting week, and it’s only Tuesday. I feel like Josef Stalin, and all I’ve done in the last three days is yell NO and grab this dog out of one form of mischief or another. Let’s get over the hump and see what the downslope offers. Please behave, Kevin.

I had to make a quick trip to Columbus Wednesday. (Brother in hospital, not immediately life-threatening, a couple of complications to iron out, no further comment.)

The complications ironed out early, so I thought I’d kill an hour revisiting my old neighborhoods before heading home, particularly the house I grew up in. I don’t have any of my own photos of it, but that’s why Google Street View and Zillow exist. This is how I remember it:

Very idealized photo, admittedly — color-corrected, mostly, maybe a little bit of wide-angle lens trickery. But it’s essentially the house I lived in, with three tall firs in the yard, and a screened porch on the east side. It was always a big deal when the porch opened for the season; Columbus Tent & Awning would come and erect the stored awnings, we’d sweep the winter’s dust, put the furniture out and spend summer evenings there, avoiding the mosquitos but enjoying the breeze. My dad would watch baseball games there. It had a tatami-type mat on the cement floor. Nice.

My parents sold in 1995 for about $160,000, maybe, as I recall.

A few years later, this, via Google Street View:

RIP, screened porch. I guess it couldn’t last in today’s MOAR SPAAAAAACE housing market. Maybe it became someone’s home office, or a play room, or something. The tradeoff? They added back that window on the second floor, assuming there was one at some time; it always puzzled me. That weird painted patch was basically right on the wall between the two front bedrooms. And I approve of the new frame for the front door. So I can live with that.

This was yesterday:

I have to think — I desperately think — this is just after the latest renovation, and they still intend to add back the shutters and certainly do something with the landscaping. All three front-yard trees are gone, with one anemic sapling now the sole arboreal occupant of the front yard. But I cannot lie: I kinda hate it. So. Much. Brick. When we moved in there was a lot of climbing English ivy on the house, which my parents tore down for the usual reasons. But this pile could use a little. It could use something, that’s for sure.

Now I really miss the porch. And I don’t even live there.

By the way, for those wondering about that light standard rising out of the back yard? My childhood home backs up to a middle-school athletic field. Before what was then the “new” high-school got its own gridiron, they played there, and one of my Saturday-morning jobs was cleaning up the trash dropped from the spectator stands into our yard — cups and popcorn boxes, mostly.

The last time it sold, this was a $610,000 house, and with this new work, I’m guessing the next sale price will be much higher. It’s the American dream to be priced out of the neighborhood your parents managed on two modest incomes.

And if you’d like to host me on your psychiatric couch, here’s the house I live in now:

Yeah, kinda familiar-looking, ain’a?

The apartment I lived in after moving out of my parents’ place, a four-flat in which the other second-floor resident was our own Jeff Borden, still looks exactly the same. So there’s continuity in the world.

The weekend awaits, and I need a shower. So I’m gonna take one.

I really don’t love weightlifting, although what I do hardly qualifies — call it strength training, say. Sherri’s a weightlifter. I just have to drag my whiny ass to the gym once or twice a week to push around some dumbbells to supplement, and hopefully improve, the other things I do. But I dragged it today, whining all the way, for the first time in a long while (Delta, Omicron) and I can just tell I am going to be so sore tomorrow I may not be able to move. So best get this thing out of the way now, while I’m still capable of keyboard entry.

I’ve been exercising all pandemic, just not with the heavier stuff. But no, I did not feel “in shape” enough to not be sore.

Whine, whine.

So as my time here is limited, here’s what we did last night.

I know many of you are doing the hard work of supporting the Ukrainian people — writing checks, collecting donated goods, all that. The Derringers and their friends the Walshes did their part by going out to eat.

A former Wayne State student of mine, who went on to become the Free Press restaurant critic, is a Slavic emigre who came to this country as a boy. From Lithuania, but his family is Ukrainian. Lately he took the buyout from the paper and became editorial director for a pop-up dining space in Hazel Park. We’ve been there a few times — they do themed dinners with guest chefs, classes, that sort of thing. When I saw they had a Russian dinner planned, I perked up. We’re between Covid waves, we haven’t had a fancy dinner out in ages and what the hell else is your American Express card for, anyway? So we signed up. Then the war started, and the idea of paying tribute to Russia became a record scratch, so the theme was changed to “Slavic Solidarity,” and the profits directed to Ukrainian relief.

So we got dressed up and headed to Hazel Park. Took two bottles of our own and paid the steep corkage, but it was worth it because one bottle was bubbles, and we had that with the first two courses.

Sunflowers on the table, of course. And what else do you drink with caviar but good champagne?

The chef introduced those as “caviar tacos,” and even though I’m not really a caviar girl, it was fabulous with the eggs, the blini, the sour cream, a little squirt of lemon. Yum.

We brought a bottle we got in France, and those Reidel glasses and the candle made it look so purty, I can’t even remember what point Lynn was making here.

The main course? Chicken Kiev, of course:

Surprisingly, that was the only course that wasn’t great. I wanted the butter to squirt, and it didn’t. But it tasted fine, and that’s what counts. Dessert was another blini with a berry compote and whipped cream. Just a lovely dinner on a cold night in the very early spring.

I wondered, as we drove home, if this is what rich people tell themselves after they do one of their over-the-top “fundraisers” for charity — that yes, I ate caviar and drank champagne, but it was for a good cause and I am a good person for doing so. I didn’t feel like a particularly good person, only a well-fed one.

Anyway, that was the highlight of the weekend. There may be more news coming soon, but I don’t want to get ahead of myself. Signing off, here is the Nall/Derringer co-prosperity sphere, FaceTuned to a near-unrecognizable state, but hey, that’s what digital photography is for, right? Warping reality:

Have a great week ahead, everyone.

And…justlikethat, the weekend slips away. It’ll do that when you’re concentrated on stuff like taxes, laundry and watching “Licorice Pizza,” i.e., the same sort of weekend I’ve been having for maybe two years.

Taxes were the big bummer. We’re going to owe a lot, thanks to a Roth conversion we did last year. But that money will grow (theoretically) and be tax-free when we spend it as liver-spotted old people, so: Good thing, I guess. But there are worse fates, and it was balanced by good news: Apparently my brain MRA turned out fine, so I don’t have carotid blockages causing my vertigo. Taxes are a cakewalk next to that. Still: Ouch.

As we tend to say at this stage of life: Consider the alternative.

Have you considered the alternative? As I’ve said before: I have a letter in my estate folder, bequeathing my online presence to J.C. He is instructed to kill my social-media accounts and do as he pleases with the archive of this blog. (Estimated retail value: $12.98.) Let this be another declaration of intent.

And speaking of the alternative, Clarence Thomas has been hospitalized with “an infection.” Thoughts and prayers.

Sorry I didn’t update Friday. I went out on St. Patrick’s Day, had a beer and a half and got another little spinning bout. It was 10 percent of the one the week before, but enough that I asked Alan to pick me up at the bar. (I’d ridden my bike there, as a celebration of the first 70-degree day of the year; talk about luck of the Irish.) The day ended with takeout pizza, not corned beef and cabbage, but I know which one I prefer.

Is anyone else watching “Winning Time,” the HBO dramatization of the rise of the L.A. Lakers? You know me — no sports fan — but I’m enjoying the hell out of it. It’s funny, weird, fourth-wall-breaking and simply a hoot to watch. I have no opinion, or knowledge, of its historical accuracy, but it’s well-cast (Gaby Hoffman! John C. Reilly!) and so much fun. A lot of the early episodes are spending a great deal of time on Magic Johnson, and the most recent delves into his sexual profligacy, particularly with prostitutes. I’m a little puzzled by this because I assume all pro athletes are like this, but then, Magic lives with HIV and I expect this is laying the groundwork for the eventual revelation. However. Didn’t I read sometime around then that there had been rumors in L.A. for years about him being bisexual? I feel like I did. Whatever. This week introduced Adrien Brody as Pat Riley, and I’m absolutely there for it. (I have an irrational attachment to Brody’s nose. I can’t explain it.)

So, the week ahead yawns, and at least it’s a nice day here. Since this is short and boring, a photo from my St. Patrick’s Day. Don’t see a lot of these outside Greenfield Village, but it’s a real Model T and it starts with a hand crank. Fun thing to bring to the bar on a beautiful day, I’d say.

My mind’s been such a stew lately

:::record scratch:::

Hi there!

Well, that was weird. I’d just sat down to update the blog yesterday around 5 p.m. — starting with my customary apology for missing a day I usually don’t — when I was hit by a wave of dizziness. Whoa, I thought, this is pretty weird. But it’ll pass.

It didn’t. It got worse. My editor called, and I declined the call, because I didn’t think I could walk to the kitchen, where my phone was. Alan was right there, and I told him what was happening. I made some calls, did some Googles, and we decided to go to a local urgent care. After we’d driven half a block, I had to open the door to vomit onto the street. We upgraded to the ER, where we sat for hours more of spinning vertigo and two more emesis bags. I had what’s likely to be several thousand dollars’ worth of before-deductible tests that turned up nothing. But they medicated me for nausea and whirliness, and we left just before midnight a.m.a., because I didn’t consent to the CAT scan to rule out a stroke. I was feeling fine by then, showed no symptoms on the stroke assessment, and bottom line: I have shitty insurance to tide me over for these last few months pre-Medicare. A hospital CAT scan would likely be thousands more (although no one could tell me, because doctors aren’t privileged with that information).

My family doctor, who is likely out of network on said shitty insurance, counseled calling a private MRI facility and asking for the cash price, which I just did: $420. I’ll probably go that route, but not after a few hours of sitting on hold with BCBS Michigan to discuss my Bronze-level plan and trying to figure out a way to minimize the financial damage.

Which I’m fortunate to be able to afford. I am contractually obligated to say this. Still, it seems ridiculous that this is what’s on my mind the morning after an evening like I just had.

Personally, I think this is an inner-ear thing, but you can’t see that with an otoscope, alas. My ears have felt cloggy for a couple weeks, which I chalked up to swimming. We’ll see.

Nothing like having one of these strapped to your wrist to make you feel old:

So to back up to the beginning: My mind has been a whirl lately, but not entirely with vertigo. It’s been a crazy it’s-only-Wednesday kinda week here. Monday dawned with news that a recent victor of a special election in West Michigan, who is now a shoo-in to be in the legislature, because he won the GOP race in a safe-GOP district, went on a recent livestream and dropped a bomb. Discussing the election of November 2020, which this guy wants to “decertify” so as to install Emperor Trump back on his golden throne, he trotted out the old barroom saw, with some embellishments: “I tell my three daughters, ‘if rape is inevitable, lie back and enjoy it.'” Just, y’know, casual-like.

Well. You can imagine.

There’s good news and bad news in the reaction. The bad news: Various GOP groups “condemned” and “disavowed” the comment. But the state chairman stopped short of telling this human toadstool to withdraw from the race. The good news: There are many, many people who had never heard that particular zircon of wit, and I have to think that’s a good thing.

I’ve heard it, of course, because I’m old as hell and read a fair number of trashy novels. I remember when Bobby Knight said it, back in the day. It’s the sort of thing ol’ ruff-n-tuff coaches would tell their players, even though it makes very little sense as an expression of pretty much anything. But to add “I tell my three daughters…” really elevates it to another level, in my opinion.

His defense: His “words aren’t polished,” and can you guess why? Yes, because he’s “not a politician.”

Fuck every one of these guys.

Oh, and one of those three daughters made some headlines a couple years ago, when dear ol’ dad was running for the same seat, for tweeting to voters not to cast one for pops.

Ladies and gentlemen, the modern GOP.

OK, time for me to hit the shower and try to feel presentable again. Thanks for your good wishes. I feel fine. Even with an MRI in my future.

I guess the trip came full circle at some point outside Dayton. Maybe some of you remember when the states of Ohio and North Carolina were beefing over which one had the true claim to calling itself the birthplace of aviation, some version of which is emblazoned on each state’s license plates. Ohio was home to the Wright brothers, and North Carolina was where they made their first flights. I believe they settled on splitting hairs; Ohio claimed “birthplace of aviation,” while North Carolina uses “First in Flight.” Both more or less accurate. (Wilbur Wright was born in Indiana, although the family moved to Ohio in his youth.)

And I drove through both.

My N.C. friends, both longtime Ohioans relocated to the Outer Banks, believe North Carolina should get the crown. Don’t tell that to Dayton, which has slapped the Wright name on everything, including the Air Force base there. As a daughter of Columbus, I don’t have a dog in the fight, having learned that my hometown’s namesake is now considered a Bad Man and there’s a good chance the Wright Brothers will be revealed as similar Bad Men and the circus will move on to what should replace both.

Elsewhere on the trip, I found another reason to despise Donald Trump when I was looking at the Obama portraits in Atlanta. Of course I wondered who would get the Trump presidential portrait commission, or if there would even be one. From the instructional panels at the exhibit, I gathered this is a bit of business reserved for the last part of the chief executive’s final term, and Trump thinks he was illegally robbed of one. So agreeing to sit for one would mean admitting his presidency was over. Although as vain as he is, it’s hard to believe he would skip it.

A quick Google reveals the truth as of a year ago: Trump “has already begun participating in the customary process so his official portrait can eventually hang alongside his predecessors, according to an aide and others familiar with the discussions.” Who will the lucky artist be? Please let it be Jon McNaughton, she prayed fervently; let the finished canvas include an eagle, a flag, another flag, a bomb, a cross, Jesus and the Deutschbank logo. And something gold. Gotta have some gold in there.

Now here we are, on the doorstep of March, Lent and spring now less than a month away. Even Ramadan is pretty close, and it’s always moving around the calendar.) A lovely day is in progress outside my window, and I should probably get out in it, now that I’ve cleaned my bathroom and otherwise caught up with stupid housework. Ukraine remains in crisis, but is showing a great deal of pluck in their resistance. Republicans, on the other hands, are twisting in the wind. It’s like watching someone try to jerk off Tucker Carlson with one hand and the entire staff of the National Review with the other. Entertaining, in a grim kinda way.

Well, what a damn day, eh.

I woke up very early, looked at my phone and learned the day’s big news. Read for a while, went back to sleep, woke up just plain early, did some work, said goodbye to John and Sam and hit the road for the penultimate leg of this drive, to Lexington. I couldn’t do another 11-hour slog, and bad weather was promised for part of it. I thought doing the first leg, in mere rain, would be a pain in the ass. Michigan would get the snow, and I’ll finish Friday after it’s stopped and been cleared.

Well. The rain was goddamn miserable. Rather, the trucks made it so.

Has something happened to trucking that I missed? Did all the drivers become assholes? Who pilots a vehicle that size at 75 miles an hour in a driving rainstorm? And why do they come up on your ass like the wrath of god? Are they being flogged to finish runs on punishing schedules? Or am I just now 100 years old and incapable of the hardcore freeway action I used to be? Whatever. It was a miserable drive, at least for the last half of it.

But now it’s over and I’m watching CNN and Showtime, switching between Doom in Europe and Bill Cosby’s rape problem. It seems a fitting end to a long, grim kinda day. Time for a photo dump, then:

Democratic neighborhood.

Spring is coming.

Hi back.

This was a pose. “I want a ‘gazing’ one,” she said to her friend.

Michelle.

Shadows.

Camellias, past their prime.

Home tomorrow.

One of my aims on this trip was to break out of my bubbles, plural, and to that end I have:

1) Listened to a fair amount of AM radio;
2) Eaten at Chick-Fil-A.

(Hey, I’m only one person.)

The AM radio part is kinda frightening, to be honest. Although I’m impressed by how all the cogs in the right-wing propaganda sphere mesh together so seamlessly. A host refers to another show, confident that the listeners know what he’s talking about (and it’s always a he), who refers to the programming on Fox or Newsmax or one of those, who refers back to the original guy, an ouroboros of misinformation. Although, maybe instead of the snake eating its tail, the image should be of a bull consuming a pile of its own excrement.

While I was listening to this, passing through northwest Ohio, I heard an ad for this guy, Mark Pukita. I imagine he was called Pukeface as a kid, which explains his extremist views. He’s running in Ohio’s crowded U.S. Senate race, and I expect he doesn’t have a chance, but he’s willing to stake out the usual insane positions, which he laid out in fast talk toward the end of the 30-second spot. He’s for “nationwide constitutional carry,” i.e. no gun restrictions anywhere, and a “nationwide heartbeat bill,” i.e. no abortion after a detectable heartbeat, and he signed off with “Let’s go Brandon.”

(Friends, I have never been so envious as I was yesterday, when my N.C. friends were driving me to my car and we passed a let’s-go-Brandon sign, and they had to ask me what it meant.)

Anyway, turns out ol’ Pukeface is an anti-Semite, too:

A Republican Senate candidate in Ohio is doubling down on a controversial campaign ad, insisting voters need to be aware of an important fact: that the frontrunner in the primary is Jewish.

Mark Pukita, an IT entrepreneur in the crowded GOP race, during a Thursday night candidate forum defended a campaign ad that questioned the faith of opponent Josh Mandel.

Ugh. Well, he doesn’t stand a chance against the other motherfuckers in that race, who are all thoroughly terrible. Just in different ways.

Anyway, hello from Atlanta. What a long drive (hence the Chick-Fil-A), complicated by rain for the last 200 miles or so, but oh well. It can’t all be like yesterday on the Outer Banks:

You can see why the tides are an important factor to consider when planning a visit to the northernmost Outer Banks. Here’s li’l Gus, who was standing in the driveway when we left:

Gus was imported to the wild herd a while back, to freshen up the gene pool. He’s a stallion. (I verified.) He likes to hang around my friends’ road, they said. It was nice of him to see me off.

Wild horses aren’t truly wild, of course, just feral. So they’re pretty well habituated to people, which explains why you can come fairly close to them. Gus had a girlfriend with him, who was much taller. So see, short guys, there’s hope for you.

Now to drink my coffee, do Wordle, and think about the day.

It’s so warm here. Ahh.

It took a while, but I made it to the northern Outer Banks. The local wildlife say hi:

Hi, ladies.

This is wild-horse country. Feral, if you want to be technical about it. But we spotted several small groups on a drive-around this morning, most of them indistinguishable from any old horse standing in a field, except that they’re in someone’s yard. It’s an interesting place, even though it was offensively chilly (high 30s) today.

I felt like I was outrunning weather most of the way down here, and then I was outrunning traffic. I left early enough to miss the Thursday snow, but it rained, torrentially, all the way to Pennsylvania. Had dinner with Jason T. and his wife, then retired early to watch the ladies’ figure skating finals in the Olympics, which was, as we all know by now, ridiculous. On to Norfolk the following day, which meant I was skirting D.C. at lunchtime on the Friday of a holiday weekend. Which mean the traffic was insane, but not necessarily any more insane than it usually is. The plan was to spend the night in Norfolk, but when I got there, the tunnel/bridge had a 45-minute delay, so I noped all the way out of that and stayed in Newport News. But that meant I could breakfast with another NN.c-er, Kim, before pushing on to the Outer Banks, or OBX as it’s known in the local shorthand.

My friends here are great. Haven’t seen them in 25 years. But it was like yesterday, which is the real mark of great friends.

But Monday I leave for Atlanta, so we’ll see what happens along the way. Low tide is fairly early, so I should make it in one day, unless I become entranced by some place along the way and feel the need to stop.

That might happen. You never know.

In the meantime, more horses, this one a boy:

The weather is getting warmer. So am I.