The Hole in the Wall Gang: October 2026, Part I

 The Denverites are in town this weekend -- at least, most of them. It's Daisy's sister and her four boys aged nine to seventeen. Currently, it is their fall break (Daisy's sister is the principal of a charter school that she helped to fund, institute, and build, so their family schedules operate around the school schedules). 

They were not here for 24 hours before one of the boys put a hole in the wall of the spare bedroom at the parents' (read: used to be Daisy's sister's room, now is used as the spare for any visiting guests).

The parents are, understandably, pissed.

"How did they put a hole in the wall?" I asked Dad last night when all of the boys were in the sun room with their mother and their aunt. "Like, you have to try to put a hole in the wall."

"With his head," Dad said.

"With his head?"

Did I hear that correctly?

Mama just looked at me and shook her head. 

"It's bad," she said. "You have no idea."

I did not go to look at the hole in the wall. Aside from the fact that it's sort of privacy-invasive to just wander into the bedroom when Daisy's sister is staying in town, even if she's not in the room at the time, I just...like, it's not important. I'll look at it next week when everyone's gone again, if it's not fixed by that point. 

The boys love to come to town to see their grandparents as well as me and Daisy. Our oldest nephew is 17 and is fielding many offers from many colleges for, essentially, full-ride scholarships to their engineering schools. He wants to go into mechanical and aerospace engineering, and he is absolutely bright enough to excel in those fields. I've talked to him at length both at Christmas and last night about colleges -- where he wants to go and why, etc. 

It's wild how things have changed. When Daisy and I first got together, this kid was barely four -- didn't even come up to my waist, and barely spoke complete sentences that his mother had to translate for me. When I met Daisy's sister (his mother) she was pregnant with her second child. That was 2013. She now has four of these boys, with that waist-high child now over six feet tall and about to start college.

The other boys, though...they're far younger and are much more boys in the stereotypical sense. They are sweet, hyper, talkative, intense, active boys, full of so much energy that I absolutely guarantee you I never had at their ages. And they love adventures, and they love their Aunt Daisy and Uncle Brandon. 

Do you know what Needohs and Squishies are? 

It's okay if you don't. I don't think I knew anything about them before, say, July or so.

To save you a lot of time, they are stress-ball-like toys made by various companies (some legitimate, some knock-offs) that are highly collectible, and range in size from, say, a ping pong ball to medium-sized teddy bears (I am not good with sizes, so, figure it out). Some change colors, some are soft squishes, some are hard squishes, some stretch, some light up, some are fuzzy, some constantly feel wet and sticky, etc. 

It's a thing. It's a big thing. I've not seen a fad like this since the Furby, the Tickle-Me-Elmo, or POGs. This shit is bananas. B-a-n-a-n-a-s. Bananas. 

Sometimes quite literally.

Here's the thing, though -- they're not just a kids' thing, they're super popular with collectors, resellers, and the neurodivergent community. It's the very definition of craze and fad. It's wild to see. And our nieces and nephews are all obsessed with them.

As is Daisy.

Now, let me explain this a bit. I am not faultless here, nor am I completely uninterested. I see the appeal of these toys and I own some of them myself. I have also been an enabler and pusher, and yes, there are some of the limited-edition Needohs I am still looking for on a daily basis -- I am, as they say, on the hunt.

Daisy and I have spent weeks, months, and hundreds (I am only guessing) of dollars on hunting, obtaining, and collecting Needohs and squishies. Every week it's a new adventure, and maybe perhaps I'll eventually get my last two glow penguins. 

Daisy and I have been first in line at several stores on "drop days" when the new holiday displays are going onto the floor, and we have both been nearly trampled and have been physically injured by swarming people. Daisy has a big bruise on her shoulder and was hit in the head last week during a drop day event at Kohls, and that same event got me nearly knocked down and elbowed in the ribs. 

I wish I were making this up. I now have greater respect for my mother, who told me she fought in the Cabbage Patch Wars™ for me in 1983. 

Anyway.

For the most part it's a very inclusive, fun community and it's the thrill of the chase that is the exciting part. Well, to our nephews who love having adventures with their aunt, they were thrilled when Daisy offered to take them Needoh hunting this morning.

As an aside, my wife is great with the kids. Any kids. She has the patience of a saint, she can corral four boys (only three of which really need supervision) into one nearly twenty-year-old Hyundai and take them to multiple stores, buying them multiple things at each place and getting them vegan cookies and milkshakes afterwards (not kidding) and they will look at her like she's a golden goddess -- they will remember adventures like this the rest of their lives. 

So that's what they did today. Daisy left the house early, drove over to the parents' to pick up the boys, ran the boys around all day (partially because she's a good aunt and partially because she knew the parents, and the boys' mother, needed a break), brought them back, came back home, changed her clothing, left again to go volunteer for her weekly kitten feeding time at the shelter, came back home again, she showered, we each took a nap for three hours, got up, went to Barnes & Noble and Kohls, and then -- at 8pm -- we pulled back into the driveway of the parents' house to spend the rest of the waking Saturday evening with the family because in the morning, before full dawn likely, they will be back on the road to Denver.

We don't always spend this much time with the family when they're in town. Truth be told, sometimes it's really difficult to spend that much time with Daisy's sister and the boys, either due to work schedules or prior commitments or just plain lack of time and energy. 

But.

This trip is likely the last hurrah for all of them to be in Omaha before the new year. They switch off years for holidays, and they spent the holidays in Omaha last year, so this year they'll be doing it with the in-laws' family and not us. This means, unless we wanted to spend $100 or more to ship their stuff to them, we needed to give them their Christmas presents now. Which, of course, the boys were wildly happy with.

Daisy got her sister a cooler and a giant Igloo water jug, since they're always on the go, as well as a few other little odds and ends things. She got the boys all sorts of Needohs and squishies not only today, but over the past few months -- that's how we got started on the trend, in fact; we were doing it for Christmas presents for all of the nieces and nephews and got sucked in. So, they got all those.

My present for the boys, as well as their father (for when they get home, of course) was the newly-finished, finally locked-down RetroDrive. Volume one, 2026. 

Behold, the contents of the aforementioned RetroDrive:

Click to scroll and zoom. Or don't, I'm a picture, not a cop.

This is a good starting collection, I thought.

The boys were absolutely thrilled by this and started watching episodes of The Real Ghostbusters almost immediately. While it's a great choice, I found it interesting they went right to that first with no hesitation. They also expressed interest in The Tick, which I also assured them was another fantastic choice. 

Mind you, unless they've seen them somewhere else, these younger boys have no idea what these shows are -- The Real Ghostbusters concluded its run in 1991, long before any of these boys were ever a twinkle in their parents' eyes. The Tick, I believe, ran from 1994-1996ish, so at best it's still thirty years old.

"My advice to you," I said to my oldest nephew, pulling him aside quietly, "is to find a way to copy that stuff to a laptop or to the cloud or somewhere you will have a backup of it as soon as possible once you get home, because I can't write-protect it and have it still be accessible/playable on anything and everything you plug it into. That means if something gets accidentally deleted or corrupted, it's gone." He acknowledged.

Truthfully what I gave the kids isn't 1/50th of the stuff I have, likely. I'm ballparking that number. I've amassed an absolute behemoth of a media collection over the years -- I joked to my oldest nephew that if I play my cards right, I've got Christmas presents for them for the next decade if I retain all that stuff. I was only about half kidding. I know it was such a hit this year that I can only try to top it next year. And that's before I present it to the other half of the family too.

Fall 2026 Begins, Part II

 Fall feels like a blessing, a rebirth in many ways. I've written here before about how it always felt like each fall was a new chance, a reset, when school started. You could always reinvent who you were and say you grew and matured over the summer.

You could say that in college too, of course, but it was always a bit "you're still doing the I've grown and changed thing over the summer, bro?"

As we near October -- historically one of the unluckiest months of the year for me -- I think about Octobers past and present. I've been observing and taking in a lot over the years, and I can finally tell you that, yes, with age does come wisdom. I laugh to myself to think about how much I thought I knew as a kid, or even a decade ago, about what life would be like as an adult in my forties.

I could have looked to my parents too, I guess. I am 43. When my mother was 43, I was a junior in college. When my dad was 43, he'd just met my mother and they were trying to figure out the beginnings of their relationship while both of them were just coming out of horrible previous relationships. 

Me, at 43 in October 2026? I am a non-smoking, non-drinking, non-vaping, non-meat-eating vegetarian with six cats, a house and a wife of twelve years. I weigh 300 pounds and I have diabetes. 

Winning?

I mean, could definitely be worse, right?

People seem to think life is complicated. It is not. Life, itself, is remarkably easy. We add the complications ourselves, and choose to live with them. As I get older, I find myself less and less burdened by those self-imposed complications. For example, I have zero qualms whatsoever with packing up some shit, getting as much money as possible and fleeing the fucking country if necessary. Hell, I'll change my name too if it lets me escape my problems and start over. Thirty years ago I could just decide that I was changing my personality for the new school year -- I would now be the kid with long hair, or the kid who liked metal music, or whatever. Now, in the present, I can ctrl+alt+delete and reboot my entire life if I want to. The hard reset. And I have no compunctions about this whatsoever. I'll take the name of one of my characters from one of my short stories, and figuratively disappear. Bonus: maybe it would get me out of my student loan and credit card debt, too.

I am not actually going to do this, of course, but my point here is that I have no problem with it. And so many people I know couldn't actually fathom doing it -- they have too many friends, too many commitments, children, jobs they care about, etc. That's cute. Meanwhile:

Anyway.

Most of September has been punctuated by chores. And I don't just mean cleaning the house or doing yard work, though there's been a lot of that too -- I mean stuff that must be taken care of that we don't necessarily want to do, but have to do. For example -- this afternoon I processed the renewal of Daisy's car registration. New stickers and paperwork should get here in a few days. I should have done it weeks ago, but I forgot until this morning. 

Yesterday we figured out the new plans for my student loan repayment, since that's about to become a thing again. To pay mine back, I'll be paying about $400 a month for the next decade...but after that, the remaining balance is wiped out/forgiven. Believe me, I am not okay with this, but as that's the cheapest plan and as it's the only one that wipes the remainder of the balance after ten years, that's what I'm picking. I am also hoping that sometime within the next ten years, we get a progressive president who looks at this horseshit and says "yeah, no, we're wiping this debt off the board now" and makes it all magically go away. 

Daisy will be paying something like $250 a month on hers as well, and hers (because they were undergrad, amongst other reasons I guess) don't give her the option of the rest of the balance getting wiped after a decade; she has to pay it off in full, until we get the aforementioned progressive president mentioned above. 

I will also add that both of us are still in administrative forbearance; we don't have to pay anything yet. But, it's coming back, and soon. 

In other news, the rainy season has returned to Omaha. We have received rain every day for the past seventeen days in a row as of this writing. No, it's not been all-day, drenching rain, but some rain every day. The next two days are supposed to be relatively dry, and then for the next week the skies are supposed to open again, and weather forecasters are already predicting something like 2-3 inches of new rain by the end of this coming week.

I don't mind this, and I certainly don't mind the massive temperature shift from highs in the 80s and 90s to temperatures hovering between 55-65 24x7 now. My allergies, however, beg to differ, and the yard work/yard mowing that begs to be done but can't be, because of inches of rain leaving veritable puddles in the yard also beg to differ. 

There is always something else to do, of course. We still have mice in our garage (we have never seen them, but Daisy is pretty sure of it) that we'd like to evict sometime in the next month or two at most by cleaning out the rest of the garage. Daisy started doing some cleaning/trashing out there a few weeks ago, and we need to just go through and finish all of that together. Ideally I'd like to be completely done with the garage cleaning by Halloween.

Halloween is also Dolly's first birthday, and Empress's third birthday follows the week after. All of these cats are growing up and getting older so fast. Dolly and Mable are almost the same size now, and it's really hard to tell them apart in the dark or an otherwise dimly-lit room. I made the joke to Daisy tonight that we have boys and girls in small, medium, and large.

Small: Dolly, Gary
Medium: Hank, Mable
Large: Emmy, Charlie

Dolly is probably nine or ten pounds now, and is still the smallest. Gary was ten pounds at his last vet visit. Hank was fifteen-something pounds (I can't remember exact numbers now) and Mable was thirteen-something. Emmy and Charlie are the giant ones, with Emmy over sixteen and Charlie over eighteen.

All of this is slowly changing though. I've noticed they've been eating far less food now that we've added a different dry food into the mix -- they like it more and I guess it keeps them fuller longer. Hank used to look far fatter and feel heavier than he is now -- like he's balanced out. I think Mable is lighter now too. Gary is finally growing and looks like he's growing into the giant Maine Coon boy I expected him to be. I also expect Emmy to keep growing for another year or so -- she's a massive girl and really, really exhibits those Maine Coon genes. Charlie...well, we've not really noticed a difference with Charlie, but we hope that he evens out/balances out too, just like Hank and Mable have. It took Hank three years to get there though, so we're cautiously optimistic and biding our time.

With the coming of October, the holidays are upon us. Again.

First comes Canadian Thanksgiving (October 12, also known as Columbus Day here in the states). Then Halloween. Then American Thanksgiving, Black Friday, my birthday, Christmas and New Year's all in a row, one after another after another. Can I already say how tired I am of the holidays? It's not that I'm not in the spirit for it -- because, really, after this very long and troubling year, I desperately need something to look forward to, so I am filled with holiday cheer. But also I am already filled with fatigue and the holidays really, really pile that on worse. 

I still have not made the Christmas cards. It's not that I'm procrastinating on it because I dread doing it -- far from it -- I just need the time and energy to spend the better part of a day or night going through designs, editing designs, mocking up said designs, doing color and photo swaps, etc. One of our friends is supposed to come over on a Saturday night in a week or two; maybe I'll take the time after I come upstairs (read: letting Daisy get her "girls time" in) and work on them then. I don't know. My goal is still to get them done as soon as possible so that they can be ordered, printed up, and then crossed off my list once they get here in the mail. 

Of course, I also need to go order more stamps too. 

Fall 2026 Begins, Part I

 We had the TV installed and mounted yesterday morning. It is big. It is stupid big for our bedroom. The antenna arrives for it on Tuesday. All of the streaming services are already hooked up to it and working.

The dentist appointments were cancelled. Daisy couldn't get off work, and honestly I didn't want to go anyway. We have follow-up appointments in March, and should be fine until then. 

Gas is almost $5 a gallon here in Omaha. Diesel is almost $7. I have never seen prices like this -- not even during the recession years of 2007-09.

Truckers are allegedly planning a massive strike starting around October 1 if fuel prices don't go back down. I'm debating on whether I should order a bunch of extra meds from my prescription site before then just in case. 

Daisy is dropping weight like a stone on the Mounjaro and is no longer testing as diabetic when it comes to her blood sugars and A1C. I am the exact opposite -- I have somehow, almost inexplicably, gained 20 pounds in the past six months and my A1C has increased since my last doctor's visit in June. My diet and lifestyle have not changed -- the only thing that has really changed over the summer is that I quit vaping. 

I an really frustrated and frazzled in general. It feels like my body is in revolt. I went from being able to get good, satisfying sleep to now only being able to get 3-4 hours at a time again. I went from feeling great physically and noticing a difference in how I looked because I'd steadily been dropping weight to, all of a sudden, gaining a lot of it back and my diabetes numbers once more getting out of whack. This also does not bode well going into the holidays, where there are three big meal days in a row coming up (Canadian Thanksgiving, American Thanksgiving, and Christmas).

We're only a few weeks out from Canadian Thanksgiving, and it is wild that it's been almost a year since we were in Canada last fall and celebrated it (a day or two early, but together nonetheless) with the family up there and went to Daisy's cousin's wedding. It does not feel like it's been a year at all.

But then I remind myself that a year ago at this time, Pete still had almost three months left to live and Dolly hadn't even been born yet -- and it feels like a decade has passed. 

Three months from today is my 44th birthday. 

My cousin announced last week that his third book is coming out soon. 

I sometimes wonder if I've awakened in some sort of parody universe -- where everything is skewed and slightly or (at times) greatly different than what I believe it "should" be. Some people have some interesting coping mechanisms for what this world has become and is becoming. For example, a close friend of mine once told me that he does a watchthrough of The West Wing every 18 months or so just to be reminded what a functioning, idealistic (but also, realistic) government is supposed to look and act like, and...I can't fault him for that. When I messaged him a few years back that Daisy and I were doing the same, he lauded me for it. 

I just try to drown out the noise on everything I can. It's the equivalent of just putting my head down and waiting it out, the equivalent of zipping the sleeping bag closed over one's head to conserve as much body heat as possible throughout the dark, freezing night.

There's a lot of emotions and feelings I just can't shake these days. I wouldn't say I'm depressed (believe me, I know what that feels like) but it feels like everything is a struggle. I am motivated to do nothing, I have no ambition or drive to succeed anymore, and I just want to...keep myself busy with unimportant nonsense, I guess. 

The End of Summer, Part II: September's Additions and Subtractions

 As we close in on mid-month, it has finally started to cool down in Omaha. Yesterday's high barely hit 75, and I have my window open at 4am as the temperature outside is, purportedly, 60 degrees. Fall is definitely here. The NFL season has started, WVU has won their first two football games of the season, the Steelers play today and the Chiefs play tomorrow night. Yes, fall is here. 

To celebrate Labor Day weekend last week, Daisy and I pored over sales and ran comparisons between models, but I am happy to report that we are having a 65-inch Roku TV delivered and mounted, professionally, on our bedroom wall later this week. 

Did we need a giant (ten inches larger than our downstairs television) TV mounted on our bedroom wall? No, but we've been talking about it for years. I would've been happy with a smaller model, but Daisy wanted the big wall, movie theater experience if we were going to do it. So I said sure, fuck it, let's do it.

And then a week after we ordered it, we got text message notifications that we both had 11am dentist appointments on Friday -- the day the TV folks are supposed to come anytime between 7am and 7pm to put the TV up on the wall. 

We're debating on whether we should just cancel the appointments -- they're just teeth cleanings -- because rescheduling a delivery and install of the TVs will be hella difficult, and Daisy does not know whether she will be able to take the time off work for the appointments anyhow (the appointments were made long before she was in the position she is in now within her job). 

I, on the other hand, was going to just be here and take care of the install guys myself, handling it and making sure they were supervised and the cats were out of the way -- because, honestly, how long could it take to drill a mount into the wall and put a TV on it? Ten minutes? Fifteen? We could've done it ourselves but instead of mess with the hassle, Daisy and I both decided to not stress about it and just pay the experts to do it. 

As for the dentist, that's up in the air. We already have our next set of appointments after these ones set for March anyway. It is what it is. I told her if she can't get off work for our appointments or if it would be exceedingly difficult to do so, believe me, I have no problems canceling a teeth cleaning. It saves me from needing to leave the house on a Friday.

Because, folks, that's the type of lazy I have become in my old age. I don't have to leave the house and play a game of "who's in my mouth?" while HGTV blares above my head in the dental chair? Okay, cool.

Truth be told, there's a lot of things I need to be doing this fall, and especially this month -- for one, I have not created the Christmas cards yet. I wanted to do it tonight, but I am now too exhausted to do so and would not be able to make good judgment calls at 4am. For two, I have bills I need to assess and pay. Again, too tired tonight at this juncture to do math. And the third thing I have to do is...I have to figure out my new student loan repayment plan before the end of the month. 

That last one is a big one. 

Because they canceled the SAVE plan I was on for income-based repayment, we got notices a few months ago that after July 1, we would be told by our loan servicers that we'd have a 60-day window to login and select a new repayment plan for our loans. I'm sure if you have student loans, you know exactly what I'm talking about. Well, I was on an income-based repayment plan and I was paying something like $200 a month for my loans -- which I was fine with, I guess. It was an added expense every month, but it was what it was.

And then Covid hit, and everyone's payments were put on hiatus and/or were thrown into forbearance. And...it didn't end. I think I made one payment after Covid hit, and it was done the week before everything had been put on hold. Well, once I select my new payment plan, that hold finally comes off  and for the first time in well over five years, I will be paying on student loans again. Except, well, that income-based repayment plan likely isn't going to work for me anymore as I now make a lot more money than I did when I last tried to recertify that plan.

"Your bare minimum is going to be something like $300-400 a month," Daisy told me last weekend, after doing some rough calculations. 

"My goal," I said, "is to pay the bare minimum possible every month until the remainder is discharged."

There's something like a 15-year stipulation for student loans for undergrads and, I think, 20 years for grad students, where anything past that point just gets waived/discharged. Covid helped that for us big time, as did the court battle for the SAVE plan putting us back on hiatus. 2033 would be 20 years for me. So that's what, six years and change? Psh, if I have to, I should be able to handle that. And, likely, it won't even be that long as we should elect a Democrat president in 2028 who will likely wipe out the vast majority of student loan debt anyhow. I'll roll the dice on that, sure.

I will note here that I took those loans out in the long-long-ago, the earth-that-was, in 2010 -- and I took them out because I needed to eat and put gas in the Monte Carlo while I was in grad school. I needed to keep the lights on, I needed to keep food in the fridge and in the bowls of the cats. It wasn't like OMG, I can get free money from the government? Okay! It was a necessity for survival. And I knew even then I did not and would not want to pay them back when they came due. I was right there. 

Shit, I'm 43 now. Back then, I didn't expect to live past 40 in any real reasonable fashion, ever. I would either drink and smoke myself to death, I'd die in a fiery car crash, or if neither of those things happened, I would likely -- at some point, anyway -- off myself. None of those scenarios entailed doing it after age 40. I was, after all, desperately alone and lonely and didn't see much of a future for myself outside of being poor and teaching class after class every semester until it was time to die. 

You know, figuratively, anyway.

Fast forward to today and life is very different, but still. 

The End of Summer, Part I

 Well, here we are. Another year, another summer gone.

Summer 2026 seems like it disappeared -- evaporated before our eyes and vanished into nothingness as we held it in our arms. I told Daisy this past weekend that it feels like we just got back from Canada two weeks ago, not two months ago. 

It is now Labor Day weekend. Well, for me anyway. For me it's been Labor Day weekend for two days already. I took off Wednesday the 2nd, and as I am already out until Tuesday the 8th, I have a rather uncommon stretch of six days in a row off work, unfettered, for downtime and relaxation. 

I am, quietly and slowly/peacefully, trying to reset myself for fall. With fall comes cooler temperatures and work tends to slow down a bit (it has not yet, but it tends to). Football, both NFL and college, comes back this week. Schools are already back in session, of course, and school buses are continually rolling through the neighborhoods of Omaha once more. Pumpkin spice lattes have become a thing again, and I'm already starting the season right -- despite the fact that it was almost 100 degrees every day this week, I have already enjoyed a few pumpkin spice lattes, both made at home as well as purchased. That's right, I'm a basic bitch.

Anyway. 

Fall this year somehow feels different as well -- I haven't made the Christmas cards yet. I don't even have good photos for the cards yet this year. This time last year I was worried about how long Pete was going to last and prepping for our trip to Canada -- this year we've already been to Canada and back again, Pete is dead, and we have a Dolly now. 

Speaking of Dollys, I should probably mention how the passing of three greats this past week or so have really felt like a gut punch. I'm sure if you've not been living under a rock, you are aware that Dolly Parton died. Some of you who paid a little more close attention also would have heard that Tim Curry and Peter Cullen both died as well.

Look, I realize I am old now. I also realize that I am far past the age of where any celebrity, big or small, should have a profound affect on me if and when they eventually die. I can likely count on one hand the number of celebrities out there who I could name who I would be affected more by, and whose work really shaped a large part of my life more than Tim Curry and Peter Cullen. 

I am sure there are people reading this website who don't really know who I am, or are reading it for the first time. Certainly some of my readers here have never met me in real life, or if they have, they have not seen me in over two decades -- I understand that and it's okay. But, for those of you who know me well, who have known me well for most if not all of my life, you realize that The Rocky Horror Picture Show affected me in profound ways. Not sexually, of course, but creatively, musically, even spiritually to an extent. Was it a bad movie? Oh hell yes. Is it still my favorite movie of all time, and is Tim Curry a giant part of that? Also yes. I realize his health had been failing in the past decade or so, and yes, he was an old man, but losing him is a tremendous loss to fans of not just musical theater, but of the man himself. 

Similarly, Peter Cullen voiced my childhood. Since I don't expect most normal people to know who he was, here:

And a Canadian, too. 

Every time I heard Optimus Prime as a child well into my adulthood, it was Peter Cullen (with the exceptions of a few roles in offshoot series, where Garry Chalk voiced one or more characters of other/some variations of Optimus). I am and always have been a huge fan of anything Transformers. I own the entire original series and the movie as well as all of Generation 2 and the sequel series Beast Wars and Beast Machines. I went to see the first...several? Michael Bay movies in the theater based on the fact that Cullen had returned to the role of Optimus Prime for those films. The man was loved in my heart and mind. 

Everyone dies eventually, of course. I am likely going to see a lot of my heroes die of old age at some point before I kick off this mortal coil as well. One of my former friends told me that when Bob Dylan dies, she's going to wear black for a month, and...I get that. I echo that sentiment. I can't think of a major musical icon dying suddenly that really affected me and my own generation -- I guess Kurt was likely the last one, and even that was more Gen X than it was me as an elder millennial. Maybe Amy Winehouse? Still not the same level as Kurt though. I'm talking someone who my generation would be very, very upset over because they're a universally beloved household name. I don't know if anyone exists like that for my generation, someone that everyone knows.

But everyone knew Dolly Parton.

Young and old, everyone knew Dolly by music, looks, acting, or association. At the very least I don't think there's anyone on the planet in English-speaking countries who did not know who Dolly Parton was or who hadn't heard of her by name. And for those folks paying attention? She was universally beloved. It's not really hyperbole when I say that, either. You'd be hard pressed to find anyone who would have said something like "to hell with Dolly Parton, she's an awful human being" because nobody I've ever seen or known has ever disliked her.

Dolly was not of my generation; she was of my parents and grandparents' generation -- but we all knew her. We all adored her. We all knew more about her than most people would care to admit. And she was such a remarkable person, a true example of a great role model to follow. I am not going to go into details here because all of you can feel free to research her on your own, and many of you already know -- but I am going to tell two stories about Dolly, one short and one long. 

The short one is, because of the association of "Dolly" to "Dolly Parton," I always wondered how many people immediately assumed that Daisy had named our cat Dolly after her. Of all the names ending in -olly, she chose Dolly -- over Holly, Polly, and/or Molly. That will, always, boggle my mind to an extent. And to be fair, Daisy did question the cat's name a number of times, not knowing that it really fit her. Well, now ten months into having that cat, the name fits her very well. She is a very vocal, outspoken girl with big words and a big voice, but she still has a little frame and a little face. She is our Dollbaby, our Dollface. 

The second story is the longer story. As you folks may know, Daisy's grandfather built guitars. I don't think he ever really did it for a living, but more of a hobby. It seemed to be much more of a labor of love than anything else, but it seemed like his output increased as he got older. He would sell them for extra money, sometimes large sums of money -- so okay, maybe it was what he did for a living after a while. He didn't just build guitars, either -- he built banjos and dobros, he made his own guitar straps in his same workshop on the same workbench (and apparently also did other leatherwork as well, such as belts). 

I don't know how many guitars he cranked out every year, or over his lifetime. It was a lot of work. They are some of the finest, most beautiful guitars I have ever seen. He made them in all sizes, and when we visited up there for the first time in 2015, I actually got to see some of them in-progress -- as well as got to briefly "jam" with him and Daisy's uncle (his son) in the basement where we spent most of our time a few months ago when we were there.

When he died, in 2022, the remaining completed guitars (all but two or three of them) were distributed throughout the family. Daisy got one, Daisy's sister and our nephew got one, etc. I am sure Mama has at least one, if not more than one, of his guitars too. The rest went to his sons, all that I know of but two -- they adorn the wall of the basement living room; one is a normal acoustic and the other is a shiny, silver dobro.

It turns out that his dobros got the attention, eventually, of someone quite famous.

That someone was Dolly Parton. 

On the wall downstairs in that basement is a letter Daisy's grandfather received from Dolly Parton. It addressed him by name and said (and I am paraphrasing here) that he made the best dobros she'd ever seen, and invited him to join her to play one at the Dixie Stampede, where (at the time) she performed every night. 

Now, this letter did not have a date on it. I don't know how authentic it is, only that the family claims it's absolutely authentic. I don't know when Dolly stopped performing nightly at the Dixie Stampede. But it is a remarkable artifact and conversation piece. I have a high-definition photo of the letter, which I will obviously not share here as it has family information/names on it. The letter, to this day, hangs on Grandpa's computer desk downstairs in the basement. He did not frame it -- he was not really a framing man, from what I gathered -- but it hangs there in bare paper as if it were a shopping list, on a desk in a basement where everything sits as if frozen in time since the day the man died in 2022. 

So there's the stories. Now, onward...

August, Part III: Things Going Boom

 Well, The Box is almost full.

For those of you paying attention over the past month or so, you will know that The Box is my personal media drive, a 4TB external hard drive filled with basically everything I've ever archived. It is reaching its max capacity, which is wild to me as I never would have expected to fill a four terabyte drive so quickly. 

"What is all of this for?" Daisy asked me. "Like what if you die? What am I going to do with this stuff?"

Now that's an interesting way to phrase a question, I guess.

"Watch it," I said. "You'll have entertainment for years."

That is kind of the goal, to be honest with you. I've always been of the mindset that everything is temporary. If we somehow end up living in some post-apocalyptic wasteland in the next decade or two and the internet has been wiped off the Earth, at least I'll have hard drives full of entertainment. You know, provided electricity is still a thing, of course. I guess it applies if we have to go live off the grid somewhere in a cabin in the woods too. Otherwise, this stuff is a time capsule for family and friends who may, eventually, stumble across it. 

Likewise, as my time of archiving may be coming to a close, The Retrodrive Project for the kids in the family will soon be complete as well. Most major cartoons of the 80s and 90s are represented at least in part, if not in entirety. I'd like to expand it if possible, but the Retrodrive HDDs are only 500GB each. This sounds ludicrously large, but it's not. Some of the larger series are something like 20-60GB each, and that space fills quickly. So it is a highly, carefully curated collection. 

I am a very tired man. I have not slept well in a week or so. I don't know why. Normally now that I'm no longer addicted to nicotine, my body isn't waking me up every 4-6 hours for its next hit and I can get some good sleep most of the time. However, the past week or so has been especially challenging for me, and it's sort of puzzling. I am not under any more stress than normal, work has been better so far in August than it was in July, and I'm looking forward to the upcoming Labor Day weekend, but...there is this sense of...doom? dread? Something like that lurking just around the corner. Mind you, there's stuff coming up that I'm not completely crazily enthused about like the beginning of repayment for our student loans and the like, but it seems like it's something...more than that. 

Could it be that I watched not only Gone Girl for the first time this weekend, but The Lovely Bones too? Both are amazingly well-written and well-acted films, and both are very fucked up and not movies I ever need to see again. There's probably 15 or so movies on the "This is great and I will never ever have a desire to watch it again" list, and these two were just tacked onto that.

It is, I think, that everything is finally reaching a critical mass point and coming to a head one way or another.

Last week, while we were out and about, Daisy's car (read: the only car we have) began shaking violently at the steering wheel.

Now, mind you, this could be any number of things, and I told Daisy as much -- being a car guy, I know these things. "Tie rods, tie rod ends, bushings, upper or lower control arms, power steering controller, the steering box itself, tires, brakes, alignment..." I said, trailing off. "None of them are without a significant cost for a car that is now nearing twenty years old."

This is correct; our Sonata is a 2009 model. It's seventeen years old. Daisy has had it since before we were together. We celebrate being together for fifteen years next summer, so...

Anyway. 

Daisy made an appointment with our regular car repair folks, who have worked on the family's vehicles for many years. She dropped the car off on a Wednesday morning and was immediately told that the lead mechanic at the shop had quit, and the only one there working on any of the customers' vehicles was, well, the guy she was talking to.

Look, we both work from home, we don't plan to have any medical emergencies anytime soon, and all of the cats have had their shots and medical visits for the year unless some shit goes really wrong. So, Daisy was very caring and sympathetic with him and was like "That is fine, take your time, we don't have anywhere to be or anywhere to go, I can pick it up in a few days."

And honestly, we kind of forgot about it in the hubbub of everything else going on as of late. Work for both of us has been busy, but not crazy -- I have, again, not really gotten an amazing amount of rest, and therefore have been a bit crabby or frazzled here and there, and we've been dodging severe weather forecasts off and on, but getting a lot of rain -- which kills chances to mow the grass when the temperature goes down enough to do it without dying of heatstroke.

Add to this we were still nervous about Charlie as well, and it was the perfect storm of "we can only deal with one BS thing at a time, please" stress that I loathe and dread having to deal with. 

The next night, the mechanic called Daisy back, late -- as in, I was already working for the night -- and told her that the car had a number of issues. The steering wheel shuddering was caused by the front tires being absolutely shot and basically peeling off the car. Now, mind you, this was not surprising to me -- I had told Daisy for at least a year or more that the tires desperately needed to be replaced. I told her we needed to just make an appointment at Discount Tire or someplace and just get it done as it wasn't really something we could wait on. But, that wasn't the only problem. The rear passenger wheel bearing was going out as well, and that also needed to be taken care of. He wasn't sure whether the front passenger one needed to be replaced as well, but it also sounded loud.

The tires would be $300 parts and labor and the wheel bearing, to replace it, was another $300. It would also need aligned after the work was done. Daisy looked at me for the answers. I nodded.

Now, look...I drove my Monte Carlo for years on dying wheel bearings and nearly bald tires, but that was because I had to at the time. I did not have much of a choice, I had to have a vehicle that would run and move regardless of whether it did so safely or not. But, Daisy I never want to have to go through that, and roll the dice on risk. Add to this that we are not dying or destitute -- as much as we may have to juggle bills and budgets at times, we do both have good jobs and we are people of means. So, I nodded, and told her to go forth with having everything done. 

The next day, Daisy got the call that the car was ready. The tires and wheel bearing had been replaced, and all was well -- however, he was correct in that the front passenger wheel bearing was growly as well, and when he was up under the car, he found that the struts are completely shot. To do the work to fix the other wheel bearing as well as replace the struts, he gave us the fair warning that it would be well over $2000, and it could be done if we wanted to, but likely for a car of that age, it wasn't worth the money. Not doing the work on those things won't kill the car, at least not immediately, and I'm getting to the point with the Sonata that I got to with the Monte Carlo and my Silverado -- if it doesn't kill it then we drive it until it dies of natural causes. So, we declined to have more work done on the car and just took it home. It does drive, steer, and ride far better than it has in years, but it is very clear that this is a vehicle that's on its last legs, and Daisy and I have discussed this at length.

I know a lot about vehicles. You may or may not know this about me already; it depends on how long you've known me and how closely you've been paying attention over that time. I am, as mentioned above, a car guy. I know a lot about what vehicles to buy and not to buy, I know about reliability and safety ratings and gas mileage and reviews and customer experience. I not only subscribed to Car and Driver and Motor Trend for several years, but I am a huge fan of Top Gear and am a longtime watcher/subscriber to Youtube channels such as Vice Grip Garage. Trust me when I say that, for the most part, I really do know what I'm doing and that my automotive viewpoints and opinions should be disregarded at one's peril. 

That being said, I've got Daisy on the ropes and am almost ready to deliver the knockout punch (um, er, proverbially speaking) on us getting a newish Ford Bronco Sport as our next vehicle.

We have experience with the Bronco Sport. We had one last fall in Nova Scotia as our rental car for our trip up there. There are few more capable, beautiful and spacious but all at once barebones and utilitarian little trucks I've ever been inside. I fell in love with the Bronco Sport we had for the brief week we had it. Was it perfect? No, of course not. No vehicle will be. But, was it something we could absolutely see ourselves owning and really enjoying? Yes.

A used one from 2022, 2023 at this juncture is anywhere between $20k and 25k. Which is not bad. New vehicles are a scam, y'all. If you absolutely must have a new vehicle, understand that you're just doing it for your own neuroses/psychological reasons. Certified and refurbished used vehicles are perfectly fine, fam.

The Bronco Sport is not the only vehicle I've had my eyes on. I've shown her some Subarus (Outbacks and Foresters) and some Honda CR-Vs, Toyota RAV4s, etc. There's even a few little Nissans and Mazdas that I've kind of been interested in but haven't really done a lot of research on. I've already told her to get the idea of anything Jeep or any General Motors-based SUV out of her head, because they will absolutely be junk and will fall apart, and while I would've trusted Hyundai/Kia a decade ago, not these days -- not with the track record I've seen with a lot of their stuff over the past five years or so. Daisy's parents had a Hyundai Santa Fe -- it was barely ten years old when it blew its head gasket and destroyed the engine. Out of the blue, with no warning and no prior major problems. I told Daisy that experience alone, seeing them have to deal with that, would turn me off to anything from Hyundai post-2012 or so.

Daisy is open to it, especially as we have an end-of-life timetable on the horizon for the Sonata. She does not want to junk it or trade it in; it could and frequently would be useful to have two cars around the house again, like we had in the old days -- though I can tell you I don't like driving the Sonata. Don't get me wrong, I can drive it just fine and it's a decent point-A-to-point-B vehicle, but there's nothing fun about driving it to me. I don't really fit in it comfortably, I don't like the dashboard design and controls, and everything in it creaks and rattles. Does it function as a car? Sure. For now. But I told Daisy, and she agrees, that the metric of when to look for a new vehicle is whether we would trust the Sonata to, say, drive to Chicago and back again, or to Denver and back again, for a week/weekend trip. And for me, the answer to both of those at this juncture is a resounding no. I trust the car to drive us in and around town and on short adventures (like to the wildlife safari in Ashland, or if we wanted to take a weekend in Kansas City or something). I don't trust it any further than that. And Daisy really doesn't at this point either. 

So I guess we're going to be passively looking for a new vehicle over the course of the next few months to a year or so, and when we can, we'll pull the trigger on it. 

Anyway, once that crisis cleared, we still had our sweet little Charlie to worry about.

All of the test results, all $600ish of them, came back -- turns out that Charlie is just fat and has allergies, like his parents. 

Everything else is clear. No cancer. No heartworm. No feline leukemia. No heart disease or pulmonary issues or anything other than fat and has allergies, maybe asthma.

Our course of action? Get him an inhaler that we give him once or twice a day if he seems particularly wheezy, until hopefully he only needs it once or twice a week, then maybe a few times a month, then rarely if at all. And put him on a diet.

That second part is a lot harder than it sounds.

We have six cats. I don't think any of them are gluttons. Well, not really. They're cats. They enjoy their food. We have four feeding stations in the house for the children -- two small bowls upstairs (one in the hallway, one in the master bedroom) and two gravity feeders downstairs, a large one and a small one. That's it. We give them small cans of wet food on a plate in the kitchen 2-3 times a day, which they all split between themselves. I don't think any of them overeat, and even Charlie I don't think is that fat. Pete in his heyday topped out at 21 pounds and I think Maggie hit 22 or 23 at one point. Pete liked food, but he wasn't a glutton. Maggie absolutely was a glutton. So I mean, we've had a long run of experience in the category of "feeding cats."

But, the fact remains that you can't put one of the cats on a diet without putting all of the cats on a diet when they have four feeding stations around the house. To do this in any semblance of the term "diet," it means they must be switched to individual meals. Which, for six cats and with two people who work pretty much opposite schedules, is a huge pain in the ass. 

I frankly don't have time to prepare six cats six different meals at different times of the day, nor do I think it is necessary to do so. You can't gauge when cats are going to be hungry enough to eat, and if they're not hungry at mealtime, then they don't eat...because you have to pick up the food when mealtime is over? So that the others don't eat it? It's going to create a lot of hassle, a lot of food anxiety and stress for these cats who won't understand why, all of a sudden, they are being starved, and to me it's absolutely not worth the time or energy to me simply because Charlie is a little fat. 

I don't want to traumatize my children, I don't want them to experience food stress or food insecurity (I lived with that myself and it is not fun) and I just can't be pestered by one cat or another 24/7/365 for food because they don't understand where the food went or why they're being punished by not having it available. So, overall, I absolutely hate this idea. It is not going to work and it is going to create far more stress and more problems between the cats in the household than Daisy can possibly foresee, and will likely create stress and fighting between Daisy and myself too. I've tried to work with Daisy on this idea, but I am also very much waiting to say "I tried to warn you that this would not work and you didn't listen" / "I told you so" for all of this. It comes down to optimism versus realism. 

August, Part II: The Cats, The Shats, and The Future Trips

 As we continue through August into the fall, I realize that I've been lax about writing on a lot of things here that would otherwise be fully covered were I to write here more often than I do. That is, honestly, on me. On my days off now I generally have a lot to do because it's the only days I can get those things done. As the temperatures begin to cool and we head into fall, my to-do list gets longer as more and more yard work gets added to it.

 Add to this that Daisy's work schedule has changed for the moment and she's back on M-F, and that takes Fridays away from us once again. That's good for me when it comes to chores like mowing the yard or doing all of the laundry in the house, but it sucks for spending actual time more than one day a week with my loving wife. She feels that strain too.

So, to those ends, I figured I'd give everyone here a general update on the state of the household and how things are going. 

Well...I guess I should start by saying that -- as of right now of course -- we have been very lucky and so far this year, we have not had any severe weather affect us, hit us, or damage our home here in Omaha. It is highly unusual that we don't see at least a few severe storms that are bad enough to make us terrified or cause damage/power outage/internet outages, etc. We've had some close calls, and the tornado sirens have gone off a couple of times, but nothing -- and I mean nothing -- in comparison to some of the worst years of far worse storms we've had in years like 2019, 2021, and 2024. 2026 has been, so far, a blessing for us when it comes to avoiding severe weather. And thankfully, we are now winding down and exiting the true severe weather season for the year. Meteorologists are already talking about snow forecasts for the fall, and have predicted our first snow for the Omaha area for the beginning of the second week of November. This is generally a lot earlier than we get snow. Aside from the first year we lived in this house when we got a freak snowstorm in early October that melted almost as soon as it was finished, generally we do not get our first snow before Black Friday (and, for the past few years, at least a couple of them hit that bullseye exactly). Most of the time Omaha doesn't even have a White Christmas, though there have been multiple years where we have had a very White Christmas. Generally our heavier snows, the accumulating ones in storms and the like, don't come until mid-January through mid-March, and sometimes into April. 

This was also part of why I was like Daisy, get me the fuck out of here and to the beach in March when we went to see my parents this year -- by the time we'd gotten to that point, I desperately needed to get away from Omaha cold and snow and be on a Carolina coastline with water lapping at my toes. 

My parents have mentioned to us in the past that they want us to come visit in October, which is apparently the best time of the year for their weather and for the town, because all of the tourists have gone home and the temperatures there hit 75 or so at highest during the day and 50 or so at the lowest at night -- the ideal "get outside and actually enjoy North Carolina" weather. And I would really like to do that, of course, but time and money are a factor. I have floated the idea with Daisy of going to see my parents twice a year, once in the spring (like we did in March) and once again in the fall, like they've requested us come down in October. We use our airline miles for the flights, so they're essentially free at this point (for a while, anyway, until we use those miles up) which means basically all we have to pay for on these trips is the rental car and the gas for it, and whatever food and incidentals/shopping we do when we're there. That makes a trip halfway across the country a pretty damn cheap getaway for a few days, with the bonus of being at the beach and spending time with my parents. 

However.

Daisy's schedule change at work wasn't just a willy-nilly thing, but part of her taking on a different role. She is not sure whether the PTO she already had on the books for the rest of the year is even valid now, and we'll now have to schedule around both her schedule and mine for doctors' appointments and the like, let alone planning another trip for the fall. So, unfortunately, it really looks like that's not going to happen this fall -- and we should focus on seeing my parents once more in the spring. This is a bit disappointing to me because I wanted to call my parents and be like "hey, surprise, we found some time in October to come see you, like you have asked" and that is no longer in the cards. I'm fine with us waiting until the spring again of course, but the winters in Omaha are long and miserable and sitting here writing this in August makes that time seem very, very far away.

So, there's that.

Truthfully I don't have the time at the moment to request, in advance, for any trips for the rest of the year. I am slowly building up my PTO once more after the trip to Canada in June, and only have about three days available right now. Most of those I'll be using for around the holidays, including whatever else I accrue between now and then. For example, my birthday is on a Sunday this year, so I'll actually have to take it off. Buuuuut I am very much looking forward to Labor Day weekend, which -- as I am taking the holiday this year and the Sunday before it -- will give me a five day weekend next month and some much-needed breathing space away from the grind. Would be nice to go visit my parents during that time, but eh...

What else is going on? Well, we both seem to be doing well on the Mounjaro, and we actually have to set up our next appointments to check in with our doctor for sometime next month. But it does, unfortunately, have some side effects that we have noticed over the course of the past six months or so of being on them, and they hit us differently. 

It slows down our digestion considerably -- it's supposed to do that, apparently -- but for Daisy it will slow it to an absolute crawl. For me, it'll slow it down for a couple days, and then...like a cork in a champagne bottle, stuff has to come out. And when it does, I'll, ahem, sit there as it does for about 45 minutes or so.

You think I'm exaggerating, but I'm not. It woke me out of a dead sleep tonight and I timed it from start to finish. Luckily, I didn't have anywhere else to be or anything else to do during that time.

Other than that, also luckily, I seem to have had no side effects whatsoever from the Mounjaro. However, unfortunately, I have had no weight loss either. My weight has remained almost exactly the same for the past six weeks no matter how much or how little I eat or how much or how little exercise I get. It's very strange. The Trulicity at least, for all its faults and as much IBS as it gave me, at least had me dropping weight like a stone while I was on it. I am going to ask for a dosage adjustment for the next higher level when we go in for our next appointments next month. Yes, I'd like to see my A1C down lower than it was before, but I also want to start losing the weight on this stuff as so many others have. The fact that's not happening is really throwing a wrench into me staying below 300 pounds (since I was last there, I now am back up to 311 and holding anywhere between 305 and 311).

Anyway, moving onward.

We used to be able to say that Hank was the biggest cat in the house, both size-wise and weight-wise. This is no longer the case. We had Hank and Charlie in to the vet today, and Hank tips the scales at 15.1 pounds -- the exact weight he was last summer, with no change. Empress, when we had her in about six months ago, was 15.8 or 15.9. That means that Hank is now in third place in the house, because Charlie is 18.1 pounds.

Today was Hank's yearly appointment for vaccinations and the like, so this was the rote standard for the orange man. He wasn't happy about it, but he got through it.

Charlie, on the other hand, we brought in because we had some concerns about our little flame point boy. When Charlie runs and plays hard, he will pant -- yes, pant -- like a dog. It doesn't even really have to be a sustained level of hard play anymore, but a few minutes. Given that he's a wheezy boy anyway and snorts and snores and has always seemed like he's perpetually had allergies his whole life, normally we wouldn't pay this a lot of mind -- but the panting thing is relatively new. Our catsitter noted that he was doing it whole we were out of town, too, and I know she wasn't playing with them that hard with the wands or the laser pointer. 

Our vet, with our permission and instruction, in some cases, ran the full gamut of tests on Charlie and took x-rays of him to see if any problems could be seen. Upon looking at the x-rays, it appears Charlie has an enlarged heart. Now, this in itself isn't hugely concerning -- that same vet said he suspected Hank of having an enlarged heart as well compared to other cats, and Hank is fine -- but we never had x-rays taken of Hank. Charlie's heart is big and appears quite enlarged, but our vet doesn't know at this juncture if that's due to a problem, genetics, or the fact that Charlie is a big boy with a few extra pounds on him. 

The blood tests we requested will essentially determine, beyond a shadow of a doubt, whether Charlie has a defect, the cat version of heart disease/congestive heart failure, or if he's just fat and has allergies and that's the reason for his wheezy, panting self. We even had them run the test for heartworm, even though the chances of that are very very small. It's a hard three-day wait for the results. In the interim, of course, Daisy is very sad and upset. We just lost Pete at the end of last year, and Charlie is the cat that is most like Pete in regards to how he wants to be held and cuddled like a teddy bear, and loved. When Pete died, Charlie more or less stepped up into that role. Yes, Dolly serves that role too, but Charlie has a deep soul connection with Daisy that is so very similar to what Pete had with her.

Or course, I'm upset too, but I am attempting to remain cautiously optimistic. This is because if the tests come back for heart issues in Charlie, it's essentially a death sentence -- he's got six months to two years, max, before he's done, and that's likely with medications. The heart problem he's being tested for, with a very long clinical name, is the number one cause of sudden death in otherwise healthy-presenting cats. Once cats begin to present symptoms (say, like wheezing or panting when under duress or exercise), you're already in the end game. 

All of this, yes, sounds very shocking. And it is. And Daisy is devastated that there is the very real chance that we're going to get some very bad news and Charlie will have a much, much shorter life than we ever expected. There's also just as much of a chance that we'll get the news that he doesn't have anything wrong with him heart-wise and he's just fat and has allergies. I told Daisy that if he has heart issues, it's not like we would've known and it's not like anything we have or haven't done would have been able to prevent those issues -- we can't blame ourselves for it. 

If he's just fat and allergic, we do what we can to adjust diet and he likely gets an inhaler (yes, they have those for cats) that we'll give him as necessary. If he presents with actual heart issues, we will need a second scan from a cat cardiologist to fully confirm and he'll have to be on some form of medication for the rest of his life. If we get him on it now, of course, it will help extend his life, but I mean...it's likely overall a losing battle. 

The good news is that he does not appear to be on the struggle bus. Charlie is still a very good boy who loves getting attention and love and treats from us. He is still active, he still plays with the other cats and is, honestly, the sweetest boy in the house. He appears to be completely unaware or oblivious to any health issues he has.

Hank, when at the vet, was big mad and looked at everyone like someone had shit in his cereal. I love Hank very much, and I have a very deep soul connection with that orange man, but it is and always has been very clear that he is the orange house loaf and does not like, or want, anything outside his very defined comfort bubble. But, he does appear healthy per the vet; we will likely eventually need to get his teeth cleaned and our vet recommended that we start trying to brush his teeth on a regular basis again (yes, that's a thing), but otherwise, healthy weight and all of his orifices look good. Our vet also remarked that his eyes looked great, and I mentioned that his eyes have been so good that our next appointment for a check up/check in with his eye doctor is November. 

As for the other cats? Well, we haven't had to take any of them to the vet as of late for anything, so no news is good news on that front. 

Dolly is growing like crazy and is now almost as big as Gary. She has retained her very sweet personality and is incredibly loving. Everyone loves Dolly and everyone gets along with her. The boys adore her, and she frequently cuddles up and/or plays with Emmy and Mable as well. She is nine months old now and I can't wait to see what she'll look like when she's fully grown.

Gary is in his second growth spurt that I've noticed; while he's coming up on his 2nd birthday at the end of the year, as he has the most Maine Coon in the house and they can continue growing until age three or four, I don't think Gary is done yet. He's a sweet, smart boy who always wants to be around us or know where we are, and as of late he's been getting more affectionate with Daisy too -- wanting to climb up on her chest and cuddle, or wanting to sleep with her, etc. It's very sweet. 

Mable and Emmy are still in the throes of their sibling rivalry war, which ebbs and flows. Sometimes they'll get along just fine for days if not weeks -- for example, when we came home this morning from the vet they were literally lying next to each other at the top of the stairs, sharing space without fighting about it. Mable has also been letting Emmy come upstairs once more, as most days when I wake up now, Hank and Emmy are snuggled up with me. Emmy has been protecting me at night, too, while I work -- she'll sit on the couch or the floor next to me and will be my guardian.

Mable is...strange. I've always thought she was a very loving, but very weird cat. She is the most sensitive and anxious cat in the house. She will wail so very loudly outside Daisy's office door when Daisy is working, and usually the only thing that will stop that is if I get up, go get her, bring her back to bed with me, and put her on the bed. She will, generally, then calm down and go to sleep. It's not that she wants me, either -- she wants Daisy, and specifically to be in Daisy's office with her. I am merely the substitute father, the spare human.

All of them, however, unfortunately still have some fleas. And Daisy and I are very frustrated about that. 

Apparently, according to our vet, the flea medications like Frontline and PetArmor are 99% effective. But, with fleas, it's a numbers game -- if there are 10,000 fleas in the house and 99% of them are eliminated, that still leaves 100 fleas that can each lay 50 eggs a day. Mind you, there are nowhere near 10,000 fleas in our house, but you get the idea. It explains why once every few weeks, Daisy or I will pull a flea or three off one or more of the cats despite them being on the medicine.

So, instead, for the next three months we're going to have the cats on a medication called NexGard (I think that's how it's spelled/stylized). It has a 100% guarantee, to the point where they'll send Terminix to your house to professionally treat it for free if you haven't eliminated the fleas and anything else by the end of the three month period. After that, doc says we can go back to the PetArmor or Frontline as a baseline preventative. 

The NexGard is something like $200 a month for all six cats, total. Which is a ludicrous cost, of course, but it is what it is. If it allows us to permanently get rid of fleas in the house and we can go back to our normal preventatives to keep them from gaining a foothold again? Cool with me. A temporary higher cost to be sure, but worth it in the long run. 

And since you've made it this far, here, have a new collage of all six:

Top row: Dolly, Hank, Gary

Bottom row: Charlie, Mable, Empress