Conquering Carolina, Part IV: A Dry State of Mind

 We have now gone to, and returned safely from, our trip to NC. Daisy returns to work today, and I return to work on Sunday night as per the usual. So...let's begin the (very) lengthy recap.

On Friday night, in the overnight hours after I wrote the last entry here, the Uber picked us up without incident and got us to the airport safely. Our mindsets were very much opposite of the normal when we left Omaha -- generally, I am the one who is extremely anxious and always feel like I've forgotten something or haven't done something important before a trip, and Daisy is very go-with-the flow. Well, this time it was the opposite. I knew I'd taken care of everything possible and Daisy was the one with anxiety that something had been forgotten or left incomplete. It was a strange dynamic for sure.

Anyway, we got through security without incident, got on the flights without incident, and got off the plane in Wilmington without incident. It was a remarkably smooth travel experience with no real need to go into further details about the travel itself, because nothing out of the ordinary happened. We picked up the rental car -- a brand new 2025 Volkswagen Jetta -- and off we went to get some dinner, swung by Walmart for a few supplies, and finally dropped anchor at my parents' house on the island around 8pm. My aunt and uncle were there waiting for us as well. We got to say hi to them, and by the time I'd taken the backpack off, set up my phone on the charger, and had gone to the bathroom, Daisy had experienced a five-minute conversation with them and they had already left to go back to their rental (two doors down from my parents' house). 

We were exhausted, and after both of us had gotten a shower and a change of clothes, and some light social time with the parents and dogs -- my mother explaining to us twice that we would need to leave for their birthday party by 12:45 the next day -- we went to bed in the spare room we always stay in.

Sleeping at my parents' house on the island is not a great experience. Most of the time, it is at best "passable."

Let me explain -- my parents bought the beach house fully-furnished -- as in, the previous owners had decorated it, filled it with furniture and supplies (stuff like towels and baskets, small appliances, etc) and the like, and then left all that stuff there in the house for the next owners. My guess is that they were going to turn it into a rental house -- like an AirBNB or something similar -- and never did, just deciding to sell instead. Well, all of that stuff is still there. My parents didn't redecorate, they didn't toss all that stuff out, they just left the majority of their large items in the house in West Virginia and only took the essentials when they transplanted themselves to North Carolina. So, the bed, headboard, sheets, towels, etc in the "guest room" where we stay were provided by the previous home's owners, not my parents -- and that shows.

I've likely mentioned here before how extremely uncomfortable the bed is in that guest room. It's a queen, so it's large enough for me and Daisy to sleep on together (barely, as we're not small people), but the mattress is very thin and hard, the frame has no flex or give to it, and it is backed by a very 80s/90s white wicker headboard that creaks and cracks every time you move on the bed. I would not say it is the most uncomfortable bed I've ever slept on, but it's easily in the top five. 

That being said, usually after my first night or two on it, my body gets used to it and I sleep fine for the rest of the trip. That...did not happen this time around. At all. 

Despite my exhaustion, I only slept until around 4:30 in the morning. At that time I was too achy and stiff to sleep anymore. So, by 5am Sunday morning -- about fifteen hours since we'd arrived in North Carolina -- I was awake, clothed, and sitting on the porch with a cup of very strong coffee and a can of zero sugar Monster, ready to take on the day. I mean, as much as one could be, anyway.

Soon my dad woke up to get the dogs out, and my mother has an alarm that wakes her up every morning so that she takes her pills on what is apparently a very regimented schedule. My parents are senior citizens; they are almost always up at the asscrack of dawn every day either for medications, the three dogs, or both. My mother is now one of those people who falls asleep with the TV on in the bedroom at 9pm every night. Gone are the days of them having midnight snacks or watching TV or movies until 2am.

As an aside, my parents are very different people now than they were twenty years ago -- but really, aren't we all? Twenty years ago they lived by regimented schedules -- get up at 6, shower, have coffee and a quick breakfast while watching the morning news, out the door by 7:30 for work, back home by 6, dinner by 7:30 at the latest, movie/TV time until fall-asleep-on-the-couch time and then, eventually, wander upstairs to sleep the rest of the night before the cycle repeated the next day. On the weekends, my Dad would frequently play gigs with the band and they'd both be out until 3, sometimes later

Well, they're retired now, so this cycle is now null and void. It's just them, their beach house, the dogs, and the bird. They watch TV in separate rooms, separate shows, and my Dad has defaulted to becoming the dog caretaker for any and all dog needs. My mother could sleep through a freight train rolling by the house, and was already in bed most nights by the time Daisy and I were just winding down for the evening. 

So, back to Sunday morning -- I'm sitting on the porch trying to wake up after helping Dad with the dogs, and its barely even daylight yet; those of you who live on a coastline on the Atlantic know that the sun rises and sets at different times there (I'm sure there's a scientific reason for this, but I'm too indifferent about it to look it up).

Around 6am, my mother -- who is fully dressed and already has some makeup on for the day -- comes out on the porch and asks if we can run some medicine over to my uncle, who had been in horrible back pain all night and wanted to go home.

"Go home?" I asked. "They just got here last night, like right before we did."

And they had -- they'd been there long enough to unload their stuff, have dinner with my parents, say hi to us briefly, and then go back over to the rental to sleep. And driving down from WV is a long drive; it's the equivalent of us just hopping in the car and driving to Chicago. 

So, at about 6:30 in the morning, just as the sun was rising for the day, my Dad and I walked over to where my aunt and uncle were staying to find my aunt had already packed up the house and my uncle already waiting in the car, very clearly in a large amount of pain and actually rather out of it. He refused any medication from us. My aunt hugged us goodbye and we had a brief chat, and about half an hour later, from our front porch, I watched them pull out of the driveway and leave. 

We were left with many more questions than answers. I'd never seen my uncle as clearly distraught and in pain than I saw him that morning. My aunt had said he'd been screaming in pain all night about his back. As an aside, my uncle drove big rig trucks for 20ish years of his life -- he used to drive the big USPS mail trucks cross-country and back several times a month. Doing that for a long period of time will no doubt cause back problems. I didn't think much of it at the time (he retired several years after he and my aunt got married, I believe, and even that was almost 30 years ago now), but the thought of this was brought to the forefront of my mind when the back pain entered the conversation. It had also come out of the blue -- both he and my aunt were their normal selves when we rolled into town -- I made the observation after they left that they were exactly the aunt and uncle I'd known my whole life, and we looked forward to spending the first few days of our trip with them.

So, just like that, they were gone, and it was just the two of us and my parents for the duration of the vacation again. Daisy had met them and conversed with them for less than ten minutes, as when they left, she was still asleep and would remain asleep for some time afterwards. I would've slept through it too, had my sleep schedule not been so well and truly fucked from the travel.

I'm going to take a moment aside here to talk about what I need to sleep. I need a room that is cool, if not downright somewhat cold, three pillows (two for under-head/neck and one to hug) and I need good, strong airflow in the room -- either from a ceiling fan or a stand-fan next to the bed. If I have those, some good darkness, and a comfortable blanket, I can sleep through almost anything as long as I'm comfortable.

Well...

Look, I'm not shitting on my parents' guest room where we stay, or at least I'm really not trying to. The ceiling fan in that room is nice, but it doesn't move air as hard as it should (it's on a high ceiling). My parents keep the house at 74, when I'm used to our house being kept at 66 or 67 in the summer. The room is indeed very dark (their whole house is), but the bed is hard, small, and the pillows suck. Add to this that it's a smaller bed and that Daisy is a living furnace, and no matter what, the temperature in that room always hovers around 80 or above. All of this combines to make it very difficult for me to sleep for long stretches of time. Naps are fine, but full overnights of sleep? It's nearly impossible. And it's not the parents' fault -- they didn't design or furnish the house. It's also not their fault that it's just not my bed and it's not my lounge chair in my office. My body has gotten used to sleeping in certain places under certain conditions, and once you get into a cycle like that, it's very hard to break.

Yet, I have never had any trouble falling asleep on an airplane. So figure that one out, America. 

I will add to this that I knew the North Carolina heat would be oppressive, but it is absolutely a different kind of oppressive down there than it is in Omaha. Down there, yes, it is nearly 100% humidity at all times. I don't know if that changes outside the summer months or not, but we've only been there in the late summer (my parents both say that October there has the best weather). The vast majority of the time we're there, we're on an island -- surrounded by water -- and we're essentially boiling in it. The temperature can be 85, but it'll feel (to my body, anyway) as if it's well over 100. And it's unrelenting -- the humidity permeates everything and makes everything feel stuffy and thick. 

What this does to my body is, essentially, it makes me unable to stay fully hydrated -- I for some reason can drink 130oz of liquids per day, every day, while I'm there and I will still feel the need to keep going. Daisy is the same way, actually. I can't tell you how many bottles of water, Powerade, coffees, Monsters, and other fluids we had while we were there, but it almost felt like it was never enough. 

The second thing the heat does, it also does to me when we're home in Omaha -- it saps almost every bit of energy I have right out of my body. I found myself taking afternoon naps several days because I just could not stay awake. Daisy did the same, and I even noticed that my parents were doing the same from time to time. Now, mind you, when we're there I'm a lot more physically active than I am at home and I am already sleep-deprived, but not to the levels where the energy-sucking properties of that heat and humidity should be able to counteract Monster energy drink and strong Italian roast coffee. But it does, it did, and I was very low-energy for a lot of the trip despite my efforts. How do I know this? Because now that I'm back home, I feel normal again -- I do not feel like my energy is being sucked away from me. 

Anyway, I have digressed pretty far away from the story, so let's continue.

That Sunday afternoon was my parents' birthday party at the local Mexican restaurant, despite the fact that their birthday was four days later. My mother had reserved the party room (yes, it was indeed a closed-off room) at said restaurant and had organized the whole thing. I don't know how much it cost and I didn't ask. We'd been given the same paper invitation all of their friends had received -- with the date and time, the address of the restaurant, and two special notes at the bottom: pay for your own meal and no presents please. 

I found the note hysterical -- just my mother's need to point out both of those things. But, I get it. Leave nothing to chance, etc. I have the same mentality on a lot of things in life, and I can't honestly say I would not have written those specifications on every invite too. 

This says a lot about me, actually, and I promise, I will get to that later.

So we took separate cars to the restaurant -- the parents took their van, and we took the rental Jetta. Do you know how hot it gets inside a shiny black rental Volkswagen if it sits in the Carolina summer sun for even five minutes? Well, we do now, and the answer is somewhere in the realm of "unbearable." 

Still, the car got an average of 35-45 miles per gallon, and it wasn't a hybrid -- that's saying something remarkable there.

We took separate cars because Daisy was not satisfied with the meager selection of groceries we'd been able to procure from Walmart on our drive down to the island (neither was I, honestly; they didn't have half the stuff I had on my list) and she wanted to go to Publix or somewhere similar on the way home to pick up a few things. I was fine with this too, because, well, I needed a few items.

So, we got there, started to set up the tables, etc. The waiter (who my parents seem to know well) took our drink orders. He asked my mother first.

"I'd like a virgin margarita," she said.

I turned and looked at both Daisy and my dad. My mother has never ordered a virgin anything in her entire life. For a split second I wondered if she even knew what the word meant in reference to drinks.

He went to me next. Again, for another brief split second, I considered saying "well, I'd like a virgin named Margarita," but decided against it.

"I'll take one of those too," I said. "That sounds wonderful."

My dad ordered a beer, I don't remember what, and Daisy got a Diet Coke. And then we were alone at the table again.

"I quit drinking," my mother said, flatly, locking eyes with me. "With all the heart stuff, I just said I'm done."

"Good," I said. I was taken aback. I'm sure she could see the surprise on my face, because I'm also sure there was no fucking way I could hide it.

And that was the end of the conversation. People started arriving, and we had a wonderful party/dinner with everyone who showed up. The room was filled with my mother's former coworkers from the university on the island as well as most of the folks from the street my parents live on -- they're a somewhat close-knit community, apparently. Hell, I wouldn't recognize most people on our own street in Omaha in a police lineup -- which, ironically, is the most likely place I'd end up seeing any of them anyway, knowing our neighborhood -- much less know all of their names and house numbers and the names of their pets like my parents do. 

At the end of the dinner, the staff brought out the very intricate cake that my mother had ordered and brought to the restaurant with us and pictures were taken of them wearing sombreros and having said cake. One of my mother's colleagues paid for my parents' dinner, which was very sweet (no worries, my dad tipped the entire staff separately and left them what was left of this giant cake to split/eat amongst themselves). I slipped to the front to pay for our own meals and while up there, bought them a $25 gift card as I know they frequent this place quite a bit. 

How was the food? Eh, it was fine. They're not big on caring a lot about cross-contamination, so Daisy said she picked some cheese out of her very-specifically-veggie-only meal, and while I didn't say anything, I picked a few small pieces of steak out of my veggie chimichanga. Their guacamole was top notch and their chips, cheese dip, Mexican rice, and salsa were all amazing, so I could overlook a lot of the little things. Oh, and that virgin margarita? Phenomenal. I could've drank three of them. 

Later, once we were all home, I was downstairs with my dad and the dogs, far away from my mother, when I asked "so why wasn't her quitting drinking stop-the-presses, front-page-news as soon as we got here?"

"She never really said anything about it," he said. "I noticed she'd been cutting way back for a while, but the restaurant today was the first time she came out and really said it."

We did not see my mother ingest a single drop of alcohol throughout our entire trip. 

Now, mind you, my dad still likes a drink, but it's one or two a day in the evening after dinner -- an appropriate, acceptable amount at an appropriate, acceptable time. But, I do remember growing up in West Virginia seeing a very well-stocked counter full of liquors and wines of all sorts every day, 24/7/365. Apparently that is now mostly a thing of the past. There is still a box of my mother's wine in the fridge though, as if she couldn't bring herself to throw it out. I did not check to see how full it was because, honestly, I didn't care and it doesn't matter. The fact that my dad still has a drink also does not seem to affect or bother my mother. 

How do I feel about this wild change of lifestyle? Very happy and content, actually. If you know me, you know I had a drinking problem for years that raged with ebbs and flows until around the time I got married, after which I mostly -- and eventually, completely -- stopped. Aside from the very rare and appropriate drink (which I am very careful about these days due to my medications) I have not consumed any alcohol on a regular basis in about eight years. In those eight years I can only recall two or three times I've had any drink with alcohol in it whatsoever -- and one of those times was purely by accident when I thought I was grabbing a normal seltzer. I am intensely proud to be alcohol free by choice, and it has made my life much better.

My mother is very scared of her upcoming ablation procedure, and her quitting drinking was very strongly motivated by her heart issues. She is so scared of it she does not want to talk about it, does not want to think about it. I did offer to have Mama talk to her on the phone about it while we were there -- which I mentioned here I would attempt, to help her calm her fears, but my mother outright refused. Thinking or talking about it causes her massive anxiety (gee, I wonder where I get it from), so we let Mama know that wouldn't be happening and we dropped the subject completely with my mother -- we did not bring it up again the entire time we were there. 

So, onward...

Conquering Carolina, Part III: Giving Mother Nature the Finger

 [EDIT: written t-minus 6 hours before liftoff to NC]

We have successfully completed everything on our to-do lists before we leave. Daisy is asleep -- she will sleep until shortly before the Uber arrives to take us to the airport, then get up, run through a final check of everything, and then we hop in the Uber when it arrives and head out, locking up behind us.

My ask of Daisy to pack only what she needs to survive since we are only there for five days total, and two of those are essentially travel days...was, well, mostly heeded. Again, I travel light -- I have but one backpack, and 25-ish pounds of what's in it are comic books, another five pounds are toiletries and electronics (mp3 players, phone/watch chargers, deodorant/soap, and my meds, etc etc) and the rest is three outfits, the water socks for the ocean, a spare pair of flip-flops and some spare vapes. It's not a lot. Once I get the comics out of the bag it'll be remarkably lightweight. 

Daisy packs her stuff, but she also packs extra stuff that either I can't fit (because I travel light) or they're things I wouldn't pack/consumables. For example, she always makes us sandwiches to eat in the airport during travel, so neither of us have our blood sugar drop too low. She's a good wife that way. But, those go in a little cooler bag (her "personal item" for carryon). In her main suitcase, she packed the parents' birthday presents and about six outfits or so. In her backpack for carryon she has all of her toiletries and cosmetic stuff and meds for any occasion, and a spare change or two of basic clothes in case her luggage gets lost. So, honestly, she did a pretty good job packing this time. Her suitcase, even with the overflow of comics stuffed into it for my Dad and the birthday presents -- is something like 15 pounds. 

She also knows that when I'm there I tend to get souvenir clothing (or just clothing in general, because Gabe's), and we will also be bringing back whatever leftover food we can take home with us, so...she leaves extra space. I know to some extent it irritates her, but I refuse to check a suitcase unless I'm traveling internationally because, to me, it's stupid to do that when it's unnecessary. 

We both have the American Airlines app on our phones now and we both already checked in for our flights. We just drop Daisy's suitcase at the luggage area (she has already paid the checked bag fee) for checking and then off we go to security.

Neither of us want to leave anything to chance anymore. We've both had enough shitty experiences during travel over the past few years to where we just want to streamline everything as much as possible. I just want to get there and get there quickly and safely. Get us our rental car and get us Daisy's bag from the carousel and let's get the fuck on the road to the island, etc. 

I mowed the front yard yesterday, in some of the most scorching sun I've ever worked outdoors in, and did the back yard this morning with some light string trimming in the before it got too hot. It's not perfect, but it is done, and it won't be as miserable to do it again once we return. I probably sweated out enough liquid to need an IV.

Speaking of IVs, in the afternoon we took Pete back to the vet to get some IV fluids put into him. The vet tech showed us how to do it and we left with the bag of fluids, the tubes, and some extra needles. We'll give him 200ml of fluids every week from the comfort of our couch from this point forward. It's remarkably easy, and Pete really doesn't seem to mind it. He doesn't necessarily like it, per se, but he doesn't hate it. I'm sure the needle going into his skin doesn't feel too nice, but he doesn't put up a fight and he seems like he feels much better afterwards. 

On the way home from doing Pete's stuff, we hit up the local Hy-Vee for Ziploc bags (Daisy needed them for cosmetic stuff for the trip) and I got some cash back for my wallet. Everywhere we've been to shop recently I've made sure to get cash back from the debit card, as I like to have cash on me when I travel. It just makes stuff easier when it comes to the airport and when it comes to light grocery shopping while on vacation -- if I can get a few small items here and there with cash, it's less that I eventually have to pay off on a credit card. I do not take my debit card with me when I travel -- the only time I ever did was when I was living in Missouri/Kansas and when I would visit home in WV, because at that time, my bank was still in WV. Nowadays it's pointless; I'd rather not risk losing my lifeline to our bank account and I just get some extra cash out to use so I'm not using my credit cards for everything. So, going on this trip I have about $100 or so to use in plain cash. It's not a lot, but if I want a coffee or an energy drink, or a sandwich, in the airport -- way easier to just pay for it with cash. Gas stations too, or if we need to go pick up something small from the store. Etc. 

Daisy doesn't really understand the cash mentality, but the simplest way I can explain it is that it's money I don't have to track, because (essentially, since it's already come out of our bank account) it's already been spent and accounted for. I got paid today; we're fine. Daisy gets paid the day after we come back home -- we're doubly fine. I have about $15,000 to spare between the three credit cards I'm taking with me -- I'm not worried about spending money at the moment. But cash is nice, and it's convenient, and it's there.

Daisy has now dyed her hair three times in as many days -- first with the platinum purple (I mentioned this before) and then with my deep "Purple AF" dye, which made it a beautiful dark purple. She then applied some of my blue to it to see if she could get a more blue/violet hue, and it didn't really take that well. Her hair is now a deep, thick purple that I absolutely love and that she isn't a huge fan of overall, but to her it's fine and she can deal with it for the trip. 

My aunt and uncle are likely leaving the house in WV as I type this, in order to get on the road down to the island around the time they said they'd arrive there tomorrow. I spoke to my aunt earlier this week and asked if she would bring me down a couple of loaves of D'Annunzio's Italian bread from WV -- it is my favorite bread of all time and I cannot get it outside of West Virginia because it is from a local bakery in the Clarksburg area. She confirmed with me that she got the bread for me and would bring it. If all goes well in their travels -- if -- we should see them in the evening hours once we get to the island. The bread also stops me from needing to purchase bread at the store when we get on the ground in NC.

Last night, I decided to try out the beard dye. So, I followed all of the instructions, mixed it up, and applied it to my face. Holy hell did it burn as it sat there (I assume it's not really supposed to burn, but oh well). I waited the amount of time it said to wait, and then leapt into the shower to scrub it off.

It turned my beard this weird shade of black/blue. Arr, I be the dread pirate Bluebeard.

Yeah, no, not doing that. So, after multiple scrubs with my Neutrogena face wash, I got it to a more subtle black without blue and yes, there's still some gray, but it does look a lot better and a lot more natural. The burning is what made me want to take it off so fast, but apparently for really gray beards like mine you're supposed to leave it on for ten minutes. Yeah, fuck that, it hurts. I might try it again once we get home just to see how dark I can really get the beard, but basically as an experiment only as I plan to shave clean within a few days of returning home anyway. I have to reset my facial hair, so to speak, so that I can have a full beard grown out and ready for the Canadian wedding in October. 

The cats know we're leaving. Pete is well aware, and has been glued to us for the past two days or so. When he sees the suitcase come out, he knows. Hank and Emmy know too -- Hank has been attached to my hip this evening and has been very lovey, and Emmy has been mad and has been hiding under the blankets in the living room. A lot. Mable, I assume, has been sleeping curled up with Daisy in bed while she naps, as I have not seen her since Daisy went to lay down. 

The double trouble boys, however...

Charlie and Gary have never been without us before. We adopted both of them this year and we haven't gone on any trips since. They don't know what suitcases are -- to them, they're just larger cardboard boxes to jump in that just so happen to hold some clothes and toiletries. I don't know how they're going to react once we're gone from the house for a while. Both are very high-energy, needy little boys. While they seem to really like the Catsitter, she's also not us. I'm sure they'll all be fine, including the boys, but it still pains me to have to leave them. We're going to come home smelling like dogs, too -- my parents have three dogs and my aunt/uncle have one that I'm sure they're bringing with them on the trip. 

Plus side, they don't have the mentality that Sadie had when she was alive -- which was to run and hide somewhere extremely inconvenient or impossible to extract her from before we left...and then upon our return home, to lock eyes with us and then go hide again for twelve-plus hours. The one time we left Sadie for a week, before she got too old to do anything but hide, was our trip down to New Orleans in 2016 for our friends' wedding -- and when we came home, she sat in the middle of the living room in our apartment, locked eyes with me, screamed, and pissed on the floor. That was how Sadie showed how angry she was that I'd left her. I'm not making that up -- that is a 100% true story.

Here's hoping neither of the double trouble boys react like that when we come home. 

Aside from any delays or other travel woes we may face during this trip, there is one last thing looming over our heads, like a sword about to fall...and that is Hurricane Erin.

We fly home at 9:18 AM on Thursday, August 21st, out of Wilmington's airport. The track as of now, based on the graphic above, just baaaaaarely brushes North Carolina, mainly the Outer Banks area, Cape Hatteras, etc. That's way north of where we are, by a good 100+ miles (if not more). But, the impact of the storm churning out at sea will likely make the oceans rough and not really conducive to swimming or playing in on the beach while we're there (and it may be raining/storming half the time we're there anyway). 

Actually...the weather forecast while we're there is showing...well...nice. No mention of anything hurricane-related.

Like, that's better/cooler weather than we've had in Omaha this week -- I'm stunned. Omaha has been a goddamn sweat box this week and the temperature has hit the high 90s every day, with heat advisories in effect for the past several days. We've had to roll the dice on possibly killing the air conditioner to just keep it somewhat cool in the house -- it's 82 degrees outside right now, at 12:30 in the morning.

The weather for NC this week looks much better. Now, mind you, it's North Carolina -- the south, on the ocean, on an island -- so no matter the temperature, it's almost always 100% humidity in the summer. Even at night, and especially in the early morning hours when I sit on the back porch and sip coffee while I read the news for the day, or play a game on my phone, or read a book. It's the south, you're on the ocean, you can't escape it. But, plus side is that it almost never dips below 40 degrees there and if it snows, it's a dusting and the entire island shuts down. So, there's tradeoffs. 

So, I guess we wait -- we wait to see if the hurricane track changes and brings it closer or further away from land. That's outside of our control, of course, and it's definitely outside the control of basically anything we can do to alter our travel plans -- we're on an island and we have a rental car, it's not like we can really escape it if it decides to come barreling inland. I don't even know what we'd do in that scenario, to be honest -- like what would be our contingency plan if we wake up Sunday morning and find out that the hurricane has changed course and will smack right into North Carolina the day before we'd fly home? Can the flights be changed? Can we drive to another airport out of the way of the hurricane and fly out, and drop off the rental car there instead? Who fuckin' knows -- I've never encountered a scenario like that before, so I couldn't really tell you. At least the parents could either choose to ride it out or drive back up to WV for a few days -- we don't really have that option as, well, if it shuts down the airport we're stranded there unless we can get to another airport. 

There's a part of me that's like yeah, this figures -- the one thing I've been looking forward to for months, the one chance I have to get away from stress and bullshit and be able to decompress and of course the first hurricane of the season fires up and heads towards exactly where I'm supposed to be. Serves me right for getting my hopes up for having some time without stress in my life, because apparently that's never in the cards for me. 

There's also a part of me that's like Oooh yeah, close call with a hurricane, ride the waves and give the finger to mother nature, Brandon -- this is adventure and excitement you won't get in Nebraska, that's for goddamn sure. 

I don't know which of the two is going to dominate my thoughts for the next couple of days while this entire scenario with Erin plays out. 

So, I'll leave you with that. Off we go, on two different planes to the south, to the beach, to a Carolina that must be conquered.

Conquering Carolina, Part II: I Was Told There Would Be a Handbasket

 [EDIT: written 36-ish hours before the trip]

You know, I am normally a patient man.

I'll wait for you to stop laughing before I continue.

I am not patient for a lot of things, this is true. I get irrationally angry with idiocy and minor inconveniences, while the larger stuff I tend to let go as it's mostly out of my control or sphere of influence. But, and I have been complimented on this on numerous occasions, I can have the patience of a saint for clients/my employees at work, or with Daisy if she's being cranky and needs food or sleep, or if I have to be on the phone with one of my executives. What I am saying is that in most situations, if I do not already have patience and grace, I can force myself to summon it. At least temporarily. Yes, it is difficult, but it is possible.

My point in saying this is that I have almost zero patience for travel. In fact, it's a continuing running theme throughout my life for every trip I've ever taken. I will prepare mentally, physically, and emotionally for months for any upcoming trip, and if it doesn't go smoothly and/or completely metered out as everything is supposed to be on paper (or in my head), I will absolutely snap and lose my goddamn mind. Sometimes.

I will cite last summer's trip to Canada as a time where I did not lose my mind when everything went wrong -- we were delayed for hours, we couldn't get the rental car on time, Mama was sick, the road up to the family homestead was closed and we spent hours trying to find an alternate route, and the travel time itself was a full 24 hours from start to finish, point A to point B. Daisy and I were the optimists that time around and both of us had to stuff our frustrations deep down in order to just complete the mission. 

Fast forward to today. I am now on vacation from work; I wrapped up my last shift this morning and my body is ready to get the fuck out of Nebraska for a week. Daisy will work for the next few hours before she too is off for a week. And there is still a lot to be done before we can be wheels up to North Carolina on Saturday morning. The below is just a short list:

• Mow both the front and back yards, and do some light string trimming if possible
• Set up the cameras throughout the house
• Move the trash cans behind the car
• Clean the counters as much as possible
• Pack airport "lunches"
• Daisy needs to pack for the trip completely, she hasn't touched her suitcase yet
• Meet with the Catsitter tomorrow morning once more, briefly (we've already paid her and she already has the house key)
• Take Pete to the vet tomorrow afternoon for a procedure (more on this below)
• Refill the bird feeders
• Pick whatever's available in the garden since we won't touch it for a week
• Move perishables to the freezer so they won't go bad while we're gone
• Do all the leftover laundry and then turn off the washer's water for when we're gone
• Book the Uber to the airport for like 2:30am
• Figure out our travel outfits and make sure Daisy can find her "travel pants" (oh yes, more on this below)
• Wash the cat fountain and all cat bowls and refill them
• Clean and refill all of the litter pans to a pristine condition
• Prop the upstairs doors open so the cats can't close them and lock themselves in rooms (yes, Mable is notorious for doing this)
• Wash the cat bed that sits in the kitchen sink because it's grody
• Water the plants inside the house
• Clean the fishtank and replace water in it
• Turn up the thermostat so that the AC doesn't (hopefully) kill itself again while we're gone
• Re-up my hair color one last time and attempt to dye my beard (more on this below)
• Set up the cat food, Pete's pills, and everything else on the stove/counter with instructions for the Catsitter

As well as other various small odds-and-ends. In the span of about 36 hours.

I will be doing the mowing tonight; I'll likely go out and start it within the next hour or two. I'd like the sun to lower itself in the afternoon sky a bit first so I'm not just intentionally giving myself sunburn a day and a half before I'm in another state on the beach for a week. I can mow the front and back yards both in the span of about 90 minutes total if I'm really booking it; it doesn't have to be perfect or pristine, just presentable. 

If you think about it, the vast majority of everything else on the list above are small, 10-20 minutes-at-most tasks. Pete's vet appointment will take longer, it will take Daisy longer to pack, the fishtank and the litter pans take a while to clean, etc -- but everything else is just small things, really. There's just a ton of them to do and they can be easy to forget and overlook.

No matter whether I've checked every little thing off my list or not, I will always feel as if I'm forgetting something when we lock up the house, get in the car, and head to the airport. It's the most anxious part of the trip for me.

So, to expand on some of the above, let's start with the small stuff and move to the bigger stuff.

Daisy has what she calls "travel pants." I may have mentioned them here before in previous entries about previous trips, but they are essentially workout pants -- stretchy, legging-like pants -- with multiple pockets. It's become tradition that she wears them every time we travel, whether it's domestically or internationally, due to their versatility. For me, I don't have travel pants -- but when flying I always wear shorts that have zipper pockets so that I don't lose any of my vital stuff to a plane seat or an airport terminal seat, and they tend to be cargo shorts. The downside to this is that for some reason the airport security scanner always thinks I have an iron cock when I go through the body scanner, as it always says I have metal in my crotch/waist area (I don't, and I've even tested this by using drawstring shorts with no metal aglets). I expect this to be the case again on Saturday morning when I go through the scanner.

I do, however, plan a travel outfit for maximum efficiency, access to my belongings, and comfort while flying. I am sad to say that I have not yet completely finalized it for this trip. I have the shorts ready, yes, but I have no idea what sandals I'll wear (my choices are between two different pairs) or what shirt I'll wear, which I have changed opinions on probably five times since I started readying for this trip. I'd also like to wear my utility vest, because it has multiple pockets for my things -- like my cell, my vape and charge cable, my Nicorette mints (essential when flying) and my mp3 player(s). I don't know, though. I just want to be comfortable and at ease when I travel and that in itself is harder than it sounds.

In other news, we were given some slightly worrying news about Pete upon his vet visit this week. Well, okay, I wouldn't necessarily say worrying but basically news that was eventually to be expected -- he is now in stage 3 of kidney failure (6-18 months left of life, maximum) and he is now officially too old to get yearly rabies shots as it could fuck his immune system up too badly (our vet is giving us a medical exception to this so that we don't get in trouble with the state/city, etc). His thyroid levels are slowly rising as well, and he's lost another pound since his last vet visit. All of this means he's slowly on his way out. He's not there yet, but he's getting there. To help counter this, we've doubled his thyroid medication and he is now going to be administered fluids once a week by us, at home. The vet visit tomorrow afternoon is so that he can get his first dose and so that the vet techs can show us how to do it from the comfort of our living room. Basically, it's a small IV bag that we stick in him between his shoulder blades and let it empty. It's very simple, he's had it done to him before, and it's not really that expensive. More than that, it will keep him hydrated and it can end up prolonging his life, which Daisy is very, very intent on doing since Pete is her baby. I love Pete, and I've had him since he was six weeks or so old in 2007, but there is indeed a point where I really feel okay, is this really beneficial or is it just another expense when he is already on the way out? I don't really have an answer to that, but as we have two vacations coming up still this year I would rather he not die in the house all alone while we're gone -- when it's time, I want to be able to be there with him and help ease the transition into the next life. 

So yeah, we're going in to get him some fluids tomorrow before we leave. 

The other thing I plan to do sometime tomorrow is to dye my beard.

Yes, I'm serious. This week I ordered a box of Just for Men beard dye that will match my black hair. I don't want it to be super black or anything like that, but man would I love to cover up a lot of the gray that works as a sharp contrast to my dark black hair. When I don't have dye in my hair, it's different -- all the gray in my hair looks normal with all the gray in my beard. However, when I have my hair dyed, especially black, that gray in my beard absolutely sticks out like a godawful sore thumb and makes it even more apparent that my black hair color isn't natural. And, honestly, it's been driving me nuts for some time. If it works, it works. If it mutates my hair and I end up looking like an idiot, I wash it off, and if it doesn't wash out, I shave. So really I've got nothing to lose.

Daisy's hair dye experiment with the platinum lavender dye I/we picked out this weekend was only semi-successful; yes, it made most of her hair mostly platinum lavender. The rest of her hair it turned straight up gray. She asked me if I liked it. Well, I'm not going to lie, I did like it, but I was hoping that it would be all-over color and not blotchy and grayed out in a lot of places. Daisy countered by saying she'd just go full-on purple over it using a spare bottle of my Arctic Fox "Purple AF."

Mind you, she said she did not want purple as one of the colors and she has now dyed her hair with not one, but two different purples.

Her hair now looks fabulous and is a deep, dark shade of brilliant purple with an incredible amount of life and shine to it. It's going to look positively wild in photos during our trip. The bad thing about purple, however, is that it will fade and wash out faster than almost any other color. I'm sure she's fine with that too, as she did not want purple indefinitely, of course. I'm just happy to have a purple wife I can show off over the next week. 

So, really, that's where things stand now. We are spending the next day and a half prepping for liftoff, and then it's beach, sun, vegan fine dining, and family for the next week. And I will, of course, make sure everyone is updated here, with stories of our trip, upon our safe return.

Conquering Carolina, Part I: Autopilot

[EDIT: written one week before the trip]

 We are very nearly ready for the trip at this point. All that's left is to do some remaining chores around the house, get Daisy packed, and to give the key (and/or payment, etc) to the catsitter lady and we will be all ready for wheels up to North Carolina. Daisy and I both work this week; I work my normal schedule and she's picking up some extra hours here and there in addition to her normal schedule to offset her PTO used for the travel.

This is the first full entry I'm typing from my new Lenovo ThinkCentre PC and giant 24-inch widescreen curved gaming monitor. It's very nice; the machine itself is quite fast and because it's not a giant tower with a lot of moving parts, it is very, very quiet. But I would assume the lack of giant fans or a spinning disk drive would be quiet, right?

Windows 11 Professional is...very similar to Windows 10 and not that different than the version of Windows 11 I use on my work laptop every day. There are a lot of little quirks to it that I'll need to get used to, and I'll have to take some time to really tweak my settings here and there to get everything just how I want it, but I've been quite impressed thus far with this new computer. I do know, however, that eventually I will lament that I don't have an internal optical drive, or extra USB ports, or anything like that; it is what it is. This is the future, and I still use a lot of "old tech" in my day to day life that I'll slowly have to adjust to not using as much or finding ways around inconveniences.

The old PC was boxed up, carefully, and placed under my desk in the box that the shell of my old pre-pandemic PC still occupied. That shell was removed, dismantled, and discarded -- as was my old monitor I'd gotten for free when they were legit giving them away shortly before I left grad school. The box was re-used to house my now-old PC so that if I need it as a backup machine, it's there, and takes up no more space in my room than it ever did before. 

I can tell you, it's going to be very hard to work and actually give a shit over the next four days. My brain is already in vacation mode, and I am really, really just wanting to get those four days of work over with so that I can get away. I'm sure Daisy is somewhat in the same boat. Like, work has been quite rough for me for the past few months, as I've detailed here over that time. I'm severely understaffed, I'm doing the work of 3-4 people every night, etc. For the entire month of June, I had to get on a giant video call every morning with corporate leadership and update them on what was handled in the overnight hours. Luckily those calls stopped, but the documentation and the work did not. So, I am frequently overwhelmed, am lucky if I get a lunch hour more than once a week, and I am absolutely drained when I get off work in the mornings. So, this week I just have to keep my head down as much as possible and go on autopilot, get the things done as much as I can, and then leave.

I have given my team -- as I am a manager and have about 15 people rolling up to me -- notice that I will be out of office. My leadership knows, including my direct boss and my executive director, PTO was put in and approved two months ago, etc. I've set my backup. Corporate knows, because there's a system on the corporate side we have to note our time in as well. It should not be a surprise to anyone, yet I am sure at multiple times during this week I will have people be like "you're going to be OOO? why didn't you tell anyone?" 

Believe me, my body is ready. None of this can come soon enough. 

I am still stressing about packing and about comfort versus fashionability versus the image I want to portray of myself while visiting family. I will likely -- very likely -- get some new clothing items while I'm on vacation, whether it's a t-shirt or pair of shorts here and there or a hoodie or jacket or who knows. And it's going to be August in the Carolinas, where it can be 100 degrees and humid one day and 85 and rain/storm for the next four days straight. You can't really, really predict the weather in the deep south, nor can you accurately and with some advance warning really know when it's going to rain or storm along a coastline on an island -- unless, of course, we're talking about hurricanes. 

And, unfortunately, that's a thing too. In August, Atlantic hurricanes can form quickly and smack the coastline within the span of a few days to a week. We fly out the 16th and return on the 21st. The 21st is 11 days from now, as I write this -- almost anything can happen between now and 11 days from now. We've been lucky thus far to be able to travel down there and back between tropical systems -- this is part of why I originally wanted to do this year's trip in May or early June, and will absolutely shoot for that next year -- but eventually our luck is going to run out and we're going to be racing a hurricane either flying in or flying out.

I have decided against dyeing my hair further before the trip -- meaning, I'm not going to use one of the industrial-strength, make-my-hair-black-forever dyes before we leave. However, I am "re-upping it" over the next few days with a few more applications of the color-depositing "Clenditioner" just to make it look its best before we leave. I've only used the Clenditioner once since Daisy originally put the industrial-strength black in my hair in June, mainly because that stuff works so well that I haven't really needed to maintain the color, as it doesn't wash out. The Clenditioner's color washes out gradually, slowly, over the course of a few weeks or so -- but it takes a good amount of time to do so unless you're really scrubbing the shit out of your hair (or bleaching it out). It also compounds upon itself, at least on my own head -- meaning if I put it in my hair three times this week, it'll (theoretically, but seen in practice) take three times longer to wash/fade out. I'm going to be out in the sun a lot, I'm going to be in the ocean, and I'm going to be washing my hair with unfamiliar water/shampoo/conditioner while we're there. So, I'm going to make the preparations I need now to prevent as much color-fade as possible. 

Look, I know this sounds ridiculous and sounds like a lot of work, but I know when I eventually stop doing all of my hair coloring and my normal color comes back in, it's going to be mostly gray -- I've been going slowly more gray for years. So, while I can and while I still have the hair to do it, I'm going to enjoy it. 

Daisy, however, came to me with an interesting proposition yesterday.

"I know it's important to you for me to look my best and for you to be able to show me off to family," she said, "so if you want me to bleach out and re-color my hair before the trip, I will do so. No black, no red, no purple, but anything else you want. You pick."

Daisy and I have been married for over eleven years now, and we've been together for thirteen. Not once, not ever, has she said to me "I'll dye my hair whatever color you want, you pick."

That puts me in a very odd situation, because it's her hair, her head. Yes, she works from home and only has to be on a video call very infrequently (and her company appreciates diversity, so it wouldn't really matter what color her hair was), but it's still not my head that I'd be picking the color for, it's hers. 

For the record, Daisy's hair is fine. She had it colored earlier this year with pink, blonde, and neon highlighter green in multiple sections. Last year she had rainbow hair. Last fall when we were in NC she did it in yellow and dark greens/blues when mine was the sky blue that was, by that time, slowly fading out into more of a washed-out blue/green. Right now -- up until yesterday anyway -- it was mostly blonde with about three inches of her normal, medium-brown roots that had grown in, with a bit of the neon green and pink still fading out on the ends. 

Now, mind you, I'm a "all one color" hair person. If I'm going to dye my hair, it's going to be all one color and it's going to be uniform all over my head from root to tip. But that's me. Daisy can express herself however she wants (and that's part of the reason I married her, her free spirit and expressiveness). 

"Why are you letting me pick?" I asked. 

"Because when I tell you to grow and keep your beard for events you do, even if you don't want to."

She is right; I do this. But mostly it's for my own benefit because without facial hair, I look like I'm twelve. 

So, yesterday, off we went to Sally Beauty Supply. Sally's is our go-to place for most professional hair stuff these days; it's where I get my high end color-protect shampoo, and it's where I get my professional dye. Everything else I get from Amazon, of course. It's also where Daisy likes to get a lot of her stuff, because of the selection and the experience of picking something out in-store, comparing it in-store, etc. I'm fine with this. Sally's is a little pricey but I don't mind it -- I know they're struggling as a business and they're one of the handful of businesses that I do not want to go under for any reason as they are really useful to us for what we get there. 

After twenty minutes of comparing colors, I/we finally settled on a platinum lavender sort of color (called "mochi" by whatever company it was who made it, I can't remember). We got two big jars of it -- Daisy has a lot of hair -- and a bleach kit. She bleached her hair out last night and will apply the actual color today at some point, likely this evening. 

Yes, lavender is a purple. I'm aware of that and so is Daisy. But both of us really liked the color.

Regardless of whether we plan it or not, there will be many pictures taken of us during this trip -- whether we take those photos or whether they are taken of us. The Christmas Card Photos™ I use every year are usually taken from either the trip to NC or our trip to Canada -- only a scant few times have I used photos we've taken at home. Since we're not going to Canada until October this year, and I almost always have the Christmas cards done, ordered, and in my possession by around Halloween, unless we get some really good photos in Canada that will make me change my entire card layout and messaging, the NC photos -- whatever we take -- will likely be what's used, and I will likely create the cards after we return, around Labor Day or so. I have the barebones layout of them done now. This is a huge reason I want us to look our best at nearly all times when we're down there.

Plus, Daisy is right -- I do, very much, like to show her off. She is my world -- she is the one thing I got right in my life. You bet your ass I'm proud of my wife and want to be like "Look! This woman let me marry her! Likely poor planning on her part, but I lucked out!"

Or, you know, stuff along those lines. 

My oldest aunt will not be making the trip to NC with my other aunt and uncle. It's a medical thing. Aging comes to the lucky and it's very hard on a lot of us, of course. I'm sure she didn't come to the decision lightly. It's disappointing but not wholly unexpected. My other aunt and uncle will be there for the first three days of our trip and then will head back to WV. 

We have had, for the past two nights in a row, some nasty storms here in Omaha. On Saturday morning the storms in the area were so fierce, and had such high wind gusts (80mph+) that the tornado sirens went off not once, but twice. We were very lucky in that by the time the storms rolled through our area, we got almost none of that wind and barely had enough rain to wet the pavement -- but the light show in the sky was something else, and west of us -- the west side of town and further west into the western rich-people-areas of Omaha -- got hit pretty hard with many power outages, trees down, limbs down, etc. 

Last night, more storms rolled through, though none of them were anywhere near as severe. It rained hard and the thunder shook the walls/windows enough to wake me out of a dead sleep more than once, but nothing else. 

I do worry about storms when we're gone; the tornado risk for the Omaha area in August is still pretty high, and even without tornadoes we can still get destructive storms with those 80mph+ winds that sort of pop up out of the blue sometimes with little advance warning. We weren't predicted to get godawful storms Friday night into Saturday morning, just normal ones -- yet it still happened. I am always apprehensive about leaving the cats alone when we're gone, but that anxiety ramps up if I know the weather at home is bad while I'm across the country (or in another country) and cannot protect them or the house. When we were in Canada last summer, I was getting weather reports from my friends back home via Messenger because severe storms/tornadoes were hitting the area one night and I needed to know whether to call Dad to go take care of things with the cats (like if the power went out or what have you). It was a very stressful situation. We're not gone that long, only five days -- but it only takes one day for the weather to turn supremely ugly in a hurry.

Get Me Out Of Nebraska, Part II: Brandon Casual

 Earlier this week, Daisy spent a few hours on her phone comparing prices before she finally booked our trip to Canada in October for her cousin's wedding. 

More than that, she booked our hotel accommodations for the week leading up to the wedding, the night before the wedding (different hotel/city) and the rental car. We are good to go -- flights are from Omaha to Philadelphia to Halifax, and then the same route in reverse coming home. I will be off work for one week and one extra day. 

We explored several options to maximize time and minimize cost -- this included trying to plot the trip to fly into Bangor, Maine again and then drive up to Nova Scotia, as we've done a couple of times in the past, or fly from here into Denver and from Denver to Halifax (because somehow, that was faster), or to alter the days we were there because really, there's only one really important day we need to be there, and that's Daisy's cousin's wedding day, and none of them were really panning out time and money-wise. So, we had to make some compromises and some sacrifices to get it to work for the time and money constraints we have, factoring in drive time, lodgings, and rental car too. But, we got it to work. 

I am excited because, if you know me, you know how much I love Canada and what I call the Canada Experience. And, I have never been to Canada in the fall -- it's always been late spring or summer when we've made our trips up there. This means that Brandon Casual can come out to play.

Look, I need one nice outfit only for the wedding -- that consists of my jacket, a pair of slacks, and basically any dressy-ish shirt I can wear under the jacket for a few hours. That's it; no muss, no fuss, just me. I'm simple when it comes to formal events -- I value function and appearance but I'm not there to outshine anyone or stand out in a crowd, I'm there to blend in and belong, so my formal event wear is pretty basic and usually stays very basic. As a bonus, it also takes up very little space in my suitcase -- a suitcase that is sadly a necessity any time I go to Canada. 

The rest of my clothing? Brandon Casual. It means, in the fall in a northern climate where the air will already be crisp and chilly, I can pack hoodies and sweatpants as everyday wear. I can be comfortable and warm without being too cold or too hot. Aside from walking on a Nova Scotia beach, I don't expect to be going in the water or doing beach-like activities in October. This means, for a week-long trip? Probably three hoodies, some undershirts/underwear, a few pairs of sweatpants, some socks, a light jacket, and I'm good to go for the most part. If there are any other items of clothing I need, I will get them up there and they will likely have "CANADA" branded on them somewhere, as is tradition. We will have access to do laundry as needed at the family homestead, where we'll be the vast majority of the trip before the wedding. 

This year we have opted to stay at the little seaside hotel we stayed in a few years ago when Daisy's grandfather died; I really liked it there and it's reasonable for several nights' stay. The rooms are basic but do the job, but the seaside view is wonderful, we're two minutes from a Tim Hortons and we are about 5-7 minutes from the family home and Daisy's grandmother. Last year we did an AirBNB right down the street, as you may recall -- and it was outlandishly expensive to try that again this year. My needs are pretty basic when I'm in Canada -- as long as I have some supplies for sandwiches and enough ketchup chips to feed an army, I can survive off gas station energy drinks and Tim Hortons double-doubles between poutines at the truck stop located centrally between the hotel and the family homestead. 

I wish I were making all that up. I'm not. I know that little Canadian town, and the surrounding area, better than I know Omaha, and I've lived in Omaha for eleven years now. I could get to most places there almost blindfolded, and Daisy's mother -- who lived there for a very large chunk of her life -- may not even be able to do that. I don't know what it is; there's just a part of my soul that resonates with that part of the world, that province, that countryside. 

The packing starts almost as soon as we return from North Carolina and I unpack from that trip. We've got some time, of course, but it's not nearly as much time as it feels like, and that Canada trip is going to be upon us before we know it. My goal is to pack very light, as light as possible with the basics of clothing and necessities, as it is very easy to get necessities once we're there in Nova Scotia and pick up better quality, cheaper clothing as necessary while there as well. Canadian Walmarts (and other similar stores, like Giant Tiger) are wild if you've never been there. It's like stepping into a time machine back into the 1990s not only in store design, but in prices too. So many people say that prices on goods in Canada are outlandish, and for some things they are -- but for basic necessities and clothing, they're really not any different than the states and are sometimes much cheaper. Clothing in Canada, especially Walmart and Giant Tiger's clothing, is of a far better quality and usually cheaper than their equivalents in the states, and they stock "fat guy" sizes everywhere. A sizable chunk of my wardrobe -- not just "Canada" branded clothing but shorts, pants, band shirts, some underwear, some socks -- was purchased in Nova Scotia on previous trips up there. 

So yeah, I pack light, because I know that I will almost always bring more back than I take up there with me. And we tend to bring back as much food as we can too -- not just our leftover groceries but Canadian candy bars, ketchup chips, etc that we just can't get down here. I was eating Canadian candy bars for three months after last year's trip (being a diabetic means I need to eat them slowly and in great moderation). 

We are going alone on this trip; Daisy's mother was invited to come with us so she could attend the wedding, but she declined. Traveling is very hard on Mama as she ages, and her recent trip up there with Dad was the hardest yet for her. I feel for her; I know how much she would like to be at the wedding, but I also see how ill she gets from exerting herself and how difficult travel really is for her, and I'm sure there's also an emotionally painful element to not being able to go.

Make no mistake, we're very lucky to be able to make these trips. That isn't lost on us. We are fortunate to have jobs that allow us the time off; we are fortunate to have the money with which to be able to travel internationally and domestically a couple of times a year. It's a big thing for me that I don't take any of it for granted, lest I forget how truly fortunate I am.

Get Me Out Of Nebraska, Part I

As time ticks down, the wife and I are continually preparing for our trip to visit my parents. That will, of course, be well-documented here after our return home (as such trips always are) but the anticipation for me is almost too much to bear.

It's not just that I'm seeing my parents, though that is a big part of it -- it's that I really, really need a break and a vacation to reset, re-center, and re-focus myself as a human. My nerves are very frayed, and my capacity to handle stress is basically shot at this point. I am little more than a pile of tissue, bones, and caffeine, just trying to make it through each and every day. When I'm this tired and this frazzled, each day becomes a countdown, each day is one step closer to the release of work and home responsibilities for a week.

I desperately need to get out of this house, out of this state, for a while. As crazy as it sounds, I need the heat and sun and palm trees of North Carolina to heal me. I need the ocean air and waters to soothe me and center me. It is a pale substitute for Nova Scotia in the summer, but it is the beach. It is family. It is somewhat exotic meals I don't eat at home, new adventures to go on, and it is a place where I can, essentially, hold court -- the wife and I, as visiting family, the prodigal son returned and all that, are the stars of the show, the centers of attention. 

I think to an extent that's a scarily large part of it for me. I love being able to sit with the family and, as mentioned, hold court. Suddenly, everything I say is interesting. Suddenly, people actually want to listen to me other than myself. I have tried to plot out stories in my head, things I want to tell my parents, aunt(s), and uncle, in great detail, down to phrasing and jokes. I become, for a very short window of a few days, the most interesting person in the room. 

This is not, make no mistake, a sort of attention I normally crave. When we're with Daisy's parents or the family in Nova Scotia, I tend to be much more reserved and fade into the background a bit more; I am not the star of the show. I don't feel the need to constantly present how awesome I am, and I don't feel the need to impress or be constantly acknowledged. Those people know me, they know who I am and already know my sense of self, humor, and style, and I get to be myself with them every time I see them with zero pressure. It is different with my own family. But, deep down, I don't think I am a remarkable person -- I have lived a hard and sometimes interesting life, but I have two degrees and have basically wasted them by working as middle management for a middle-class salary for a telecommunications company for the past eleven years. I don't have kids, I have cats. Hell, I don't even drive anymore unless I absolutely have to, I no longer own a vehicle of my own, and I don't like to leave the house any more than absolutely necessary. Functionally, I am a nobody. 

But, to my family, I am and always have been exceptional -- especially to my extended family like my aunts and uncles. I am the one who went to college and grad school to get those two degrees, I am the one who was able to escape West Virginia in his early twenties and make something of his life -- the  scientist, the newspaper reporter, the professor, the telecom executive. My mother, who is retired but still works part time, makes less than half per year than I make just by myself. My salary has now topped what both of my parents each made during their full-time working years before retirement. And to add to all of this, I've lost twenty more pounds since I saw my parents last year. At the same time, my parents are disconnected from me for the most part -- they know the old me, the Brandon of his teens and twenties, and I am a wholly different person now in my day to day life than I was back then. There's so much they've missed of my life, there's so much more to share with them when we visit than there ever was before. 

When I am with my parents or I am around other family members, my personality ramps up. I become Maximum Brandon, in all senses of that term. It is not a mask or facade; it is who I really am deep inside, who I want to be, who I want everyone to know I am but don't have the energy or effort to exude that in daily life at home in Omaha (or, if I do, it's pointless because it's just me, Daisy, and the cats here). 

Yes, I will carefully pack and repack my clothing for the trip to create the best possible impression/image of myself while I'm there, an image that expresses who I am. Yes, I will eschew the reliable Fitbit for the flashier, fancier-looking smartwatch with the gigantic watch face and the blaze-orange band. Yes, I will wear the pork-pie hat, meticulously craft and shape my facial hair, moisturize my tattoos every day for maximum sharpness and brightness, and make sure the hair on my head is re-dyed as black as possible a few days before we leave. I will bring my best attitude, my best jokes, the best parts of me all to the table. I will look my best, I will sound my best, I will exude the presence I want to exude around my family.

You might think all of this sounds tiring, and it is. It is exhausting. It's the equivalent of burning the candle at both ends, or leaving a light bulb on until it weakens and burns out. When I'm on these trips, ironically, I am surviving on large amounts of coffee and energy drinks because they're the only things that will keep me going hard enough to do everything we want to do while we're there. This year Daisy and I have zero real plans or expectations -- we are attending the parents' birthday dinner at the local Mexican place (which does have a good amount of vegan/vegetarian options, actually) the night after we arrive, and for the first three days of the trip, we'll be able to see my aunt(s) and uncle -- they arrive in NC at almost the exact time we will be wheels-down at the airport. But, other than that? There's precisely nothing that I must do while we're there. Yes, I'd like to go to Gabe's at least once. Yes, I'd like for Daisy and I to go have a nice romantic dinner somewhere, but other than that? Give me beach time, give me time in the ocean and time on the back porch with my parents. 

And when night falls and the dust settles and everyone sleeps? I can stick my earbuds in my ears and drift off to podcasts, or my music, and finally turn off the rest of the planet.  The early mornings before everyone else is awake are nice like that too. 

My mother, I have a feeling, is going to be far more sentimental on this trip than she has been on previous ones. I know she's scared about her upcoming surgery, and she will have her sister(s) in town two houses down for the first half of the time we're there. She is likely to get weepy and the alcohol involved likely won't help that much. But, it is what it is -- I am not in control of that and it is not my responsibility to be. Any and all responsibility I felt to "deal with" my mother ended when I moved out of the house in 2006. 

It is not a secret that we're landing in NC a few days before my parents' birthday (yes, as I have mentioned here before, they share the same birthday, ten years apart -- dad is older). As such, we come bringing gifts. When we've gone down there over the past few years, it's been after their birthday, and the present has been...us. This year it's not just us, but also stuff we're bringing them. Daisy got some nice new bath towels for my mother, and I got some gift cards for her and a few other little things. For my dad I told Daisy I'd handle it, and have gotten him some books, a shirt, several small things, a flash drive filled with new music, and I'm giving him my old Fitbit complete with extra watch covers and charging cables. 

My goal is still to return home with much less in my backpack than I carried down there, and I don't think anything is going to change that. As I've mentioned here, I have enough souvenir t-shirts from the island to last me a lifetime, and nearly as many from Myrtle Beach from the past two years too. If I pick up anything new this year along those lines, it'll have to be really special. I don't need shoes or sandals purchased from beach stores -- I've already gotten two new pairs of sneakers this year and probably five pairs of sandals. I don't even really need a new hoodie, though I've bought one the past two years I was down there because they're so comfortable in the winter. This year I'm more about the experience, the relaxation and disconnection I can only achieve when I am on an island in a beach community far from Nebraska and far from my job. 

We are, however, going to miss the cats terribly. Charlie and Gary have never been without us since we adopted them, and both boys are pretty needy for attention and affection. I don't know what they'll make of it when we leave for a week. According to the parents, who stopped by to take care of the cats last year when we were in NC, Mable (who was, at the time, a kitten) was very confused and attention-hungry every time they visited because she was so used to being around us all the time. I think she'll manage it better this time around, as she is fully recovered from her surgery and just likes to cuddle up with Pete and the young boys. Hank and Emmy just sleep more when we're gone -- they know at this juncture we'll be back soon enough, and both of them are very independent cats. Pete, while very old and I worry about him every day as he winds down, has the companionship of all of the babies, and all of them take care of him and love on him (well, Hank doesn't anymore, but he used to). And, all things considered, he seems to be doing pretty well for his old age. Still, it's going to be difficult to be apart from all of them. They are all my heart and soul. They, along with Daisy, are my world. 

August, and Our Fantastic Four Experience

 With us now entering August, we're in the final few weeks of what is typically defined as "summer." 

I have said that August and October (for some reasons unknown to me) have always been the worst months of the year for me. More bad things seem to happen in those two months than any other months of the year, and I've never been able to put my finger on it, but yeah -- historically, it's been true. 

All of this has waned, greatly in fact, since I've been married to Daisy. I'm not sure if there's some sort of protective aura she exudes or what, but it is what it is. But I will also remind you that we have two vacations this year -- one of which is later this month, and the other...in October. So, we shall see, I suppose.

I talked to my mother this morning, as in a few short weeks we'll be flying to NC to see my parents. I gave her the brief rundown of how that day we arrive is going to look -- we are wheels up in Omaha shortly after 6am, touch down in Charlotte around 11am, and have a couple hours' layover (barring any delays) before we get to Wilmington around 3 and pick up our rental car. From there we're going to get a meal at our favorite vegan place -- Sealevel City Vegan Diner -- and quickly stop by Walmart to get some baseline groceries, before we arrive at the house around 7 or 8. Again, barring any delays in travel or any problems encountered. She asked me to keep in contact with her throughout the day as we travel, but it's not like I wouldn't do that anyhow of course. I have packed and re-packed a few times at this point -- aside from swapping out my glasses and wristwatches I could grab my bag and be on that plane today if I wanted to. Daisy, of course, has not packed yet and likely won't even do so until the day/night before we leave. 

My mother is not going to be able to get her ablation surgery before we arrive; she isn't even scheduled to see the electrophysiologist (I think that's the right word) until sometime in September -- long after we've gone down there and come back home. However, upon release from the hospital, they put her on two new drugs that have seemed to stabilize her pretty well. 

She sounds old, though. She sounds old, and tired, and distracted. Distant, shaken by everything. Maybe that's just me projecting, though. I asked her about it on the phone this morning and she says she's "fine," and we all know when a woman says that she's either lying or doesn't want to talk about it -- rarely is she fine. I'd be scared if I were her. Hell, in twenty years I will likely be her in a manner of speaking -- this shit rarely skips a generation, and the reason I got my Fitbit in the first place a few years back is because I was having heart palpitations at the time. I have not had them since, but...it's coming. 

While I'm down there, I plan to basically conference my mother on the phone with Daisy's mother so she can tell her about the procedure from the perspective of someone who's actually gone through it and come out the other side. I think that will likely help. Maybe. 

Because of the trip, and because Daisy's parents are also old, we are planning to hire a catsitter to come over once a day and take care of the children during the time we're away. I mentioned this before, but did not really get the chance to go into further detail (as at the time, I didn't really have any details to share). Well, we have now selected -- hopefully -- the catsitter we'll hire. She is a kind older lady, I'm guessing mid-50s to mid-60s, who comes highly recommended from multiple people at the humane society and has watched pets for many other volunteers there. 

She came to visit us last weekend and get a feel for the house, meet the cats, etc, and she immediately put me at ease. She honestly reminds me of Elizabeth Warren -- kind, soft-spoken, and well-versed in the job. She does it as a hobby, a side-hustle of sorts, and mostly does it for dogs, not cats. However, all of our cats were, in amazement to us, enthralled. 

Pete was Pete -- he likes everyone, and nobody new in the house ever fazes him. He's old and does not care, he likes people. He doesn't run, he doesn't hide, he's just like "hi, here I am, I'm on the couch and I'm not moving, so...welcome, I guess."

Hank and Emmy always hide, always, when someone new comes in the house. But, sometimes, they'll come out and take a peek here and there. When we have friends over, depending on the friends (and, mind you, this is a rarity anyway) they'll come out of hiding and at least halfway interact, because they can judge from Daisy and myself that there's no threat present. Well, when this lady came to visit, they ran behind the couch. I manually pulled them both out so they could see her, and while they were at first wary, they almost immediately softened. Hank even let this lady pet him, and Hank doesn't let anyone touch him but us. I was stunned. Emmy also stayed in the room the whole time and flopped out on the floor, which she only does when she's relaxed.

The boys, of course, were very social. Gary and Charlie are amazingly playful, social cats who are not afraid of anyone and want to be in the middle of everything. So, while she was there, they were goblining about and not really caring about a visitor being there amongst them. But they were, of course, both curious and made sure to say hi and get some attention. 

Mable spent 90% of the time she was here lounging in her giant cat bed in the front window, and was not opposed at all to pets and rubs from this lady. It's Mable, Mable is a sweet girl, even if she's unhinged and likes to scream-meow in our faces in the middle of the night for attention. 

I was, overall, very stunned. Our cats aren't like this with anyone. Hell, even when it's just us in the house I can go many hours without seeing some of them because they've wandered off somewhere to sleep or have occupied themselves with cuddling in the bedroom or something. This lady immediately put them, and by extension, us, at ease.

"I like her a lot," I told Daisy after she left. "I trust her with the job, as well as with our kids."

After all, it is a very simple job -- these cats aren't dogs, they don't need daily walks or a lot of interaction; they need clean water, fresh food, and their pans cleaned once a day. And Pete needs his pills. They're fine, they manage themselves, they're good -- when we're gone they mostly just sleep. Hell, when we're here, they mostly just sleep. 

This lady is going to come back once or twice over the next couple of weeks so they get used to her some more. Her rates are pretty reasonable, too. We haven't gotten exact figures yet but from her estimates, it's well below what we were expecting to pay, and I'm good with that. If she does an outstanding job we'll likely use her again when we're in Canada in October, especially as at that point the cats will know her. It is very uncharacteristic of me to be so comfortable with someone almost immediately, let alone someone in my house, with my children, when I'm not going to be there. I think that's a very good sign, honestly. 

In other news, I finally broke down this morning and ordered my new computer and monitor.

Yes, it's the one I was considering before. Yes, I did it because I expect all the new tariffs, when they kick in next week, to add hundreds of dollars to the price of any new electronics. It is what it is.

But, I weighed my options and finances -- Daisy's doing pretty well in her job and is pulling in good, substantial monthly bonuses. I'm pretty comfortable in my own job, and don't expect that to change for a while. Aside from paying down Mable's surgery bill, we don't have any unplanned expenses that we haven't budgeted for at this point, or won't be budgeting for when we need to anyway. And the card that I put the purchase on I'm going to be using in North Carolina later this month for most every expense, so...I would be less inclined to put more on it after our return. Simply, the time was right to pull the trigger. 

The new 24-inch curved monitor arrives on Wednesday, and the computer itself arrives sometime between Wednesday and Friday. That means next weekend, my entire weekend will likely be spent reorganizing my desk, getting everything on this current machine onto my backup hard drive, and then setting up the new machine and monitor -- and moving all of my files onto the new machine. 

The new computer is top of the line, and I don't say that lightly. It has a 2TB solid state drive, 64GB of RAM, and Windows 11 Professional. This PC, which I bought at a deeply discounted refurbished rate during the pandemic, has 16GB of RAM and a 2TB spinning disk hard drive with the base edition of Windows 10. It cannot be updated to Windows 11 because the hardware doesn't support it. It's also slow as fuck these days and isn't much of a fan of doing taxing tasks such as opening a picture or text document, which it will take upwards of two minutes to do sometimes. Yeah, time is money, and I'm not doing that BS anymore.

This older machine will be relegated to a backup machine -- I'm not going to junk it, or anything -- but I only expect it to see use again only if absolutely necessary. Same goes for this monitor, which has served its purpose well for the past decade, but needs to get some well-deserved rest. I don't necessarily feel bad about it; it has been a good machine for the past several years, but I need something faster and more versatile to keep up with life these days.

The only drawback with the new computer is that it is much smaller, has less USB ports (I did purchase a USB hub in anticipation of this a few weeks ago) and doesn't have an optical drive. I have two different standalone plug-and-play optical drives, so that's not a huge concern, but I can see it being a nuisance here and there. I don't know though; we shall see. It is what it is.

I also wanted to talk about Fantastic Four: First Steps, which -- like we did with Superman, we went to see on the Thursday night preview showing before wide release.

Again, I will state that going to see any new movie, especially one that we know will be a hit, on the Thursday night before wide release is the best idea ever, at least here in Omaha. We were once more in a theater with maybe 15 or so other people -- slightly more than were there for Superman, but still a relative ghost town -- and I truly believe that's the best way to experience a movie in the theater.

What did we think?

Daisy liked it fine, but it is very much not her genre of movie, which she told me upon leaving the theater. It's easily understandable and it moves along at a good clip, but it's not her thing and that's okay. I think Superman is a much more universal character -- everyone knows who Superman is, everyone knows who he's supposed to be, but if you don't know anything about the Fantastic Four, then a lot of the nuance of this movie will be lost on you, and I very much get that -- you're not going to have the baseline appreciation for these characters, you're not going to know backstories or recognize easter eggs within the background or in dialogue, and again, that's perfectly fine. Can you enjoy the movie going in cold? Yes -- I'd emphatically say yes -- but it will be a different experience for you than it is or will be for a lifelong fan of the characters like myself.

It is, sadly, not a perfect film. It is, sadly, not incredibly well-organized or edited. I think it was made as a love letter to the 1960s and was specifically tailor-made and targeted to the fans of the comics, which was great for many things but is overall somewhat detrimental to the overall film.

Did I like it? Oh, I loved it. I think it's a great movie for what it is. But, the First Steps in the title is very on-point for what it is -- this is a fast-moving, two hour film that introduces these characters, this universe, and is mainly meant to set the stage for what's coming with them in the larger Marvel cinematic universe, no more and no less. It functions, almost cookie-cutter style, in being the jumping off point so that non-comics fans who just like movies aren't left in the dark when these characters somehow magically show up in other Marvel movies moving forward. 

And you know what? I'm mostly okay with that, for reasons I'll get to.

I should bring up now that I was quite skeptical of the casting of this film and was ever since the cast was announced. Having now seen the film, ehhhh...I've softened a little bit on that. I love Pedro Pascal, but I don't think he needs to be in everything -- we're very much as a society reaching a saturation point with him. That being said, he does put in a good performance as Reed Richards. It is "serviceable enough" to the character. You don't get the grand sense of him being the smartest man in the Marvel universe, but there's some of that there. We also don't get to see him use his powers a lot -- I mean, there are scenes, sure, but it's maybe two minutes of screen time at most. Is his performance the most comics-accurate version of the character we've seen on screen yet? Ehhhhh again, I am not sure. He does a nice job conveying who the character is, but after watching the film I think that portrayal may have been better on paper than in practice.

That's kind of how I feel about the other cast members too, with Joseph Quinn playing Johnny Storm and Ebon Moss-Bacharach playing Ben Grimm -- serviceable jobs, but none of them are quite comic-perfect. Moss-Bacharach doesn't have enough gruff, thick New Yorker in him in this film -- The Thing is supposed to be basically a good-hearted monster with a chip on his shoulder, quietly resentful of what he has become but is making the most of it and trying to be a hero as well as part of the larger family. There are small shades of that here and there, but you know who did that perfectly? Michael Chiklis, in the movies 20 years ago. To date, Chiklis was the most comic-accurate version of the character. Gone is most off the banter and pranks between him and Johnny, gone is his overall short-fuse temper that makes Grimm who he is, but still lovable. Is Moss-Bacharach fine in the film? Yeah, he's a decent fit for the role, and I liked him fine in it, I guess. It's hard to cast The Thing. 

Joseph Quinn as Johnny Storm I had similar feelings about. There are parts of the comic Johnny there, but...not enough? I can't put my finger on the shortfalls in his character in this film aside from the fact that he did not seem to be Johnny enough to be Johnny for me personally -- and (I'm not really spoiling anything by saying this), this movie made him smart -- as in, he is working on a big science-y thing throughout the vast majority of the picture, which is not Johnny's character at all. Johnny Storm is an adrenaline junkie, he is a very lighthearted prankster, jokester, hothead (no puns intended there) and is supposed to be, kind of, the comic relief kid brother of the family. We don't see a lot of that here. Do you know who played the role almost perfectly (even though at the time, I thought he was horrendously miscast in the part)? Yes, Chris Evans, in the movies 20 years ago. That is who Johnny Storm is in the comics, almost to a tee. I still have an appreciation for Joseph Quinn in the role, but eh. There's just something missing.

Vanessa Kirby as Sue Storm, however -- and many have said this -- carries this movie. She is a great Sue Storm. This is near perfect casting. She is, essentially, supermom in this film and plays that role very well. It's very clear that was the role she was meant to fulfill within the picture, and it's fortunate that is the role she also plays in the comics, especially in recent years. But, and this is not lost to the filmmakers here -- Sue is quietly the most powerful member of the Fantastic Four powers-wise, and that is absolutely played to the hilt. But this is also a younger Sue, a somewhat inexperienced Sue, and that nuance is shown off pretty well.

What is done very well, and done right, is the family aspect of this team. That's part of what makes the comics so wonderful and part of what has drawn me to the series my entire life -- these four live together and operate not only as a superpowered team, but as a very tight-knit family unit. This movie excels at that dynamic. Whatever shortcomings the cast has as individuals playing these roles is greatly overcome by how well they all mesh together. It is the exact on-screen portrayal we needed of Marvel's first family, and the filmmakers nailed it so hard. 

So, let's get into it. The timeline of events in the movie, from the time they get their powers to the final mid-credits scene, is approximately eight years -- in comics terms, from 1961 to 1969. The movie begins when they're 3-4 years into being the Fantastic Four (1965, roughly) and are well-established in their roles, having been the protectors of their universe's New York and their universe's Earth (it is implied, but not outright stated, that there are no other superheroes on the planet in this time period). It is established that this is Earth-828, not our normal Marvel universe (that's Earth-616, for those of you who didn't know). Setting the stage that yes, it's part of the multiverse immediately opens up all avenues and opportunities for this film -- this is a universe we haven't seen, so the possibilities are endless.

There's a short retrospective in the beginning of the film that works as a montage explaining how they got their powers and the several villains they'd defeated up to this point -- Red Ghost and his Super-Apes, Diablo, and Mole Man are all mentioned by name and in very quick, blink-and-you'll-miss-them scenes. This introduction to Marvel's first family was done very well and in a very novel way, and I actually really dug it. Could it have been longer and/or more detailed? Yes. Did I love that it very quickly established the setting and the characters for this film? Also yes. No drawn-out origin story needed, here's what happened and here's where we are now. If you've not yet seen it in the theater, you'll get what I mean when it inevitably premieres on Disney+ in two months or so. 

I am not spoiling anything here that's not in the trailers when I say that the movie is a somewhat-retooled retelling of the first Galactus story -- Galactus is set to consume the Earth as his next planet, and he sends his herald, the Silver Surfer, to warn the populace. The Fantastic Four is the planet's only hope of stopping him. Julia Garner plays a wonderful Silver Surfer -- this time, in this universe, a woman -- and her portrayal is a highlight of the film. For those very familiar with the comics -- more familiar than me -- this may not be surprising. Shalla-Bal is the Silver Surfer in this film; in the comics universe she was the second Silver Surfer and the lover of Norrin Radd, the original Silver Surfer. For me to go further into detail on this would ruin large aspects of the plot of the movie, so I won't. Throughout all of this, Sue Storm is pregnant with her son, Franklin Richards. When Galactus finds out the potential of Franklin Richards, well...let's just say that he is even more hell-bent on consuming the planet.

Look, there have to be changes to virtually every comic story to adapt it to the silver screen, and I get that. I think, however, a lot was glossed over in this story to make it shorter and more palatable to the average moviegoer. This could have been a three-or-four-hour movie if they'd wanted it to be, and honestly I think it would've made a great six-episode high-budget Disney+ series if they'd wanted to take it that route. But, because it's none of those things, it feels like it at times moves along at too fast a clip to the detriment of the story and the characters. No, we don't see Uatu the Watcher (or any of the other Watchers) in this film. No, we don't see the Ultimate Nullifier, the weapon so powerful that it scares Galactus himself. Etc.

Yes, as a longtime fan of the comics I realize to include a lot of stuff like this would've been extremely goofy and probably boring to the average moviegoer. Do I think it could have or should have been included despite that? Eh, yes and no. It would have been very difficult to do it correctly, to give it the gravitas and justice it would need for a big-screen appearance, and honestly the budget would have needed to be outlandish. Again, this is not the 616 universe, this is 828, and things are allowed to happen differently here.

I say all of this because the slight changes to the original story as depicted in the comics is fine. But, that also creates the biggest problem with the film, and it's one that's so obvious that Daisy -- not a comics fan in the least, ever, at all -- pointed out to me as soon as we left the theater: this movie is incredibly predictable from almost every possible angle, at all times. 

There's no suspense, no mystery, no major tension. You know exactly what's going to happen, the movie builds up to it, and then it happens and you're like "yeah, I saw that coming" for almost every single scene. You know as soon as the plot starts rolling that yes, the FF are going to find a way to defeat Galactus and save the Earth, and they do, and yes, you can see the tear-jerking "someone important is dead but really not" scene coming a mile away. There are so many tropes in this movie that just get beaten into the ground note by note. And obviously, I know some of that is very intentional and tongue-in-cheek as an homage to the comics the characters and stories here are based on, but damn, it did not have to be nearly every major beat in the film.

So, that being said, some pros and cons:

• Pro: the movie is gorgeous. It's one of the most beautiful comic book movies set to film. The retro-futuristic setting works so very well in this movie. It is a very space-race, jet-age aesthetic in everything down to the costuming to the cars on the street outside the Baxter Building to the Baxter Building itself. They spent money on this and it was absolutely money well spent. 
• Pro: the very fact that the movie includes this universe's version of not only the Fantasticar, but H.E.R.B.I.E. as well? Wonderful.
• Pro: Galactus is, finally, absolutely portrayed right on screen in a big-budget movie. This is something the fans have been waiting on for many years. He is comic-accurate. He is size-accurate. His colors and eye shape are accurate. It was a thrill to finally see him on screen.
• Pro: The Mole Man shows up briefly early in the film, but actually plays a very substantial role later in the film and I really enjoyed his portrayal here. It's fun.
• Pro: this movie begins to slowly unravel the Franklin Richards story, which -- if it comes to fruition in later movies -- is going to pay off with supreme dividends. 
• Pro: I do like a Marvel universe that isn't really set in the "present," a universe that has no other heroes. It is freeing, it allows a better structure overall to the film when it is utilized correctly. 
• Pro: there are three brief post-credits scenes -- one mid-credits, one end-credits, and one very cheeky, funny post-credits scene. All are worth sticking around for. 
  
  
  
• Con: Galactus is a top-tier villain in the Marvel Universe. I understand this is a good way to kick off the story, but I also think he could've been saved for a bigger, harder sequel. Maybe I'm just nitpicking.
• Con: The costuming, while somewhat period accurate, was needlessly complicated and looked slightly overwrought. I loved the designs, but....Just put them in spandex suits of unstable molecules. Make them look like the comics characters, please (this was my same gripe with Superman. Put him in the goddamn correct suit people want to see). And why is The Thing fully clothed? In the comics he wears a FF speedo or shorts most of the time. In the movies 20 years ago they put him in full pants, and I thought even then that was too much. 
• Con: The predictability. I mentioned this above and I'll expand on it a little below as I wrap up.
• Con: I mean, for as much as I do like them in their roles, I have to say the casting could have been better. I don't want this to be a downer here because I understand it has to be murderously hard to cast these four primary characters to everyone's satisfaction, and no, I am not claiming I could have done a better job, but..I don't know, something just feels "off" about the casting choices here for the most part.
• Con: No actual future is established for these characters, really -- everything returns to status quo at the end of the film.

I think that last one is my biggest problem with the film, honestly. Galactus is defeated (again, not a spoiler, this movie is again so predictable it hurts) and life goes on. And while most would consider that a happy ending, and it is...this is the Marvel cinematic universe and these people are off on their own in an alternate universe with no apparent connection to the 616. So...how do they get there? It's already been established that these particular Fantastic Four are going to be in Avengers: Doomsday and likely will be appearing in other Marvel films in the primary 616 universe (see the post-credits scene for Thunderbolts, please), but how do they get there? This movie gives no explanation on that. For a movie subtitled First Steps, how about it ends with some Next Steps?

I think that the writers of this film wasted a grand opportunity to do the unthinkable with this story, because I know how I would've written it -- let Galactus win. Galactus can't be stopped by the Fantastic Four of this world, and Reed Richards knows their only hope to survive, after a brave fight, is to escape into the multiverse via their ship and a quantum drive (or some shit, make it up) to find a realm where Galactus either does not exist, or will otherwise not set his sights on Earth for a long enough time to where proper defenses can be mounted to neutralize him before he arrives -- but their ship is damaged and can only traverse so much of the multiverse, and the FF slip out of the multiverse stream to arrive in the 616. Galactus eats Earth-828, there's no going home, their home is now the 616 -- and having watched their own world die, they will do everything they can to protect this one. 

Bonus: this also, essentially, lets them become the heralds of Galactus themselves for the 616, were he ever to arrive.

Now I came up with that very plausible, edge-of-your-seat, wildly satisfying end-of-movie scenario in five minutes. Why Marvel did not choose this route for a tentpole team movie with near-unlimited sequel potential in the main Marvel universe is beyond me. 

But, again, maybe I'm just nitpicking.

For what it is, Fantastic Four: First Steps is a great ride. I give it a solid, middle of the road B. But if you haven't seen it in the theater yet, it's perfectly fine to wait for on Disney+ in a couple months. It is fun, it's a good time, a great treatment of the characters, and it's beautiful -- but it's not an absolute theater must-see.