kbois

I tried to hide but Florida found me. Sorry you got caught in the chase.

Hi @weinerdog. Who's a good boy?

Yep. Its always my fault lol

I thought I was escaping the triple digits when I moved back north. Nope. Tomorrow's high: 105. That's before the heat index. Stop following me Florida. Go home.

Michael would not do well with a 10lb furry ball of attitude.

Garage door is still belly up, and the hubs just has to put the closer on the door when he has time. My son started listing everything that had been replaced during dinner tonight. I told him to hush, the other appliances were listening. I'm currently listening to my mother-in-law talk to a friend of hers on the phone and is telling her that her granddaughter is getting married in Canada. She's getting married in upstate New York. 🤷‍♀️

Well.....after battling this house and all its ailments I think we finally have everything that needs to be done fixed. It was an uphill battle all the way. I'm leaving the blanket fort up just in case.

OMFG.....Where did you find @weinerdog's autobiography???!!!!!

Sometimes the best thing anyone can do is just sit and listen. Hugs, my friend. xo

Oh. One more thing that's food for thought. Yoder is a common Amish/Mennonite surname. That just might explain a few things. Taggert may have been shunned by his family and/or community.

Today is my younger son's birthday. Mine is in two weeks.

No pulling quotes today. Instead I'm going to bitch because, yes, even though you posted a day early, you waited until I was LITERALLY out the door on my way to get the weekly grocery shopping done, which, by the way, is a bitch to do on Sundays. Its bad enough that you post on regular days when I'm on the road driving to work...but just when I think "great, I'm off on Mondays and won't have to wait" BOOM! You throw a monkey wrench into things. 🤬 Oh ..and you got the title to the chapter wrong. It should've been Progress.

That's exactly what happened. None of her local children had the brains to think that maybe, just maybe there might be things that need to be looked at.

They say bad things happen in threes. It's been more than that. I think we're on our third or fourth round of three since I moved back to Mass. We moved up here to help out my mother-in-law, who had gotten to the point where it wasn't safe for her to live alone. Fine. Hubs moved 10 months before me for various reasons, then I decided to come back last August. We are living at her house. I'm telling you, this effing abode is trying to crush our soul, destroy our spirit and completely annihilate the last tenuous thread of our sanity. Just in the past month alone, the dryer died and had to be replaced, and the washing machine is currently sitting there forlorn as it waits for new door parts to arrive so it can be repaired. This comes after needing a new microwave and stove, the garage door cable snapping, being repaired to the tune of $900, and then it started acting up and smoking two weeks later. Oh...and the back door wouldn't close without slamming it so the whole doorknob needed replacing and at some point the screen door closer broke too. The AC wasn't cooling the house well. Turns out no one ever thought to change the filter. WTF? The final straw last night.... the hot water heater quit. We tried relighting the pilot light to no avail. No go. I ended up packing a bag with everything I needed to shower at work. If anyone needs me, I'll be in my blanket fort, rocking back and forth, sucking my thumb. I quit.

Damn good thing donuts are soft foods. 😁🍩

Or imbibe in a few adult beverages or gummies.

Then the silence descended, broken only by the scanner, wind, and rain. It wasn't uncomfortable, exactly. It was a quiet that came after too much adrenaline and not enough rest. The generator hummed outside. Rain rattled the windows. The scanner continued its endless low murmur. Ok, Wayne, you hit a line drive and nailed it with this one. I've been here. I understand the 'quiet' that descends during a storm. Only instead of a tornado, mine was a hurricane. More than once. Its weird how the brain filters out everything but one sound and that sound becomes a silence that's too loud. But worse than the lack of sleep was the fact that Taggert had refused to even look at him. Not once. And it hurt more than he thought it could Ash, my man, Taggert needs more time to download information and reboot. James ran his tongue over his teeth. "I… am pretty sure Taggert's motivation was a bit different." Quite the observant fella. Ash stared at him. Because suddenly he did. Not fully. Not all the way. But enough to feel it washing over him in waves from Taggert. Aaaaaaannnnddddd the lightbulb goes on! There's other passages that jumped out at me too but I'll rein myself in lol. Aftermath is the perfect title for this chapter. Never mind the storm. You gave us a few more pieces to the puzzle. Whatever happened to Taggert has had a lasting impact.. Ash is starting to figure out some things about himself that he never contemplated before: Ash stood there looking at him. At the softened face. The exhaustion. The trust in sleeping this deeply with someone still in the room. With him in the room. His chest tightened again. Softly, so softly, Taggert never heard it, Ash murmured, “Sleep well, cowboy.” Taggert is starting to realize that his past reality doesn't have to continue into his future: His chest felt tight again. Not panic, exactly. Something worse. Hope. And God, that was scary. Thanks for a great chapter.

Omg... I put Hulu on to find something for my mother-in-law to watch after dinner. There's a documentary called Toronto Airport. How, pray tell, did I read it? That's right. TORNADO AIRPORT. WHAT HAVE YOU DONE TO ME WAYNE??

Gold star for you Kitt!

Keep up, Cane, keep up!

Ash exhaled slowly. Across the room, Taggert met his eyes. He didn’t look away. Not this time. Oh. He knows. They know. Pressure. Game on. “But he took off after you.” “We won't make the compound." Ash's voice surprised him with calmness he didn't feel. "The Middle,” Ash said. Like we didn't already know. Eldritch and unfathomable. Unfeeling and monstrous Had to look up that one: something weird, uncanny, and unearthly in a supernatural way Sounds like some people I know. 😆 And he kissed him. BAM! Neither man spoke on the drive back. Not because there was nothing to say. Because there was far too much. That's putting it mildly. “It was so stupid,” Branford said quietly. No heat left in it. Just exhaustion. “We can replace cattle.” Truth. Perfect chapter. You managed to relieve the tension and at the same time tighten it with your closing words: Ash felt heat rise in his chest all over again. Outside, thunder rolled farther off now. The worst of the storm had passed. Nothing else had Damn, you're good at this.

I've noticed that too. I'm glad to see that visitors to the US are realizing that the political atmosphere doesn't affect the hospitality we are capable of extending. I never thought I'd live to see the day when bars in Boston ran out of Sam Adams lol. Those boys in kilts can knock 'em back!

I was all happy because I thought I had Friday off for that Juneteenth holiday. Lo and behold I am working. ☹️ But at least I get to leave 2 hours early. Its been quite the week and we're only halfway through. Hope everyone is having a decent week, if not, feel free to join me in powering through!

And ?