Aura Basks, Futuristic Jarheads and Filial Sanity

My aura of destructive influence on mechanical devices has not lost any of its potency and yesterday claimed another cable box and a garage door opener.  My doppelganger must be authorized some serious overtime to wreak this level of havoc.  The polar vortex has returned to provide some additional ambience, so I’ve got that going for me as well.

I should count myself fortunate that I happened to glance back after I pulled out of the garage yesterday morning thinking I closed the garage door.  It reached the bottom and then recoiled back up.  If I hadn’t noticed, the door and the rest of house would have been open to the Arctic temperatures all day long; I will have nightmares thinking about what that would have done to the heating oil supply.  It was a lot of fun fine tuning electric eye beams in the sub zero early morning – ahh, life in New England.

The second most important TV in the house (kitchen) went through the same death throes as the one earlier this week.  I spent more than a half hour on the phone with the cable company agent repeating the same sparking conversation from two nights ago with the same result – nothing.  She seemed really pissed that the increasingly powerful electronic pulses she was sending to the cable box were not resolving the issue.  She told me to stand back when she sent the most powerful one – I think there was some significant radiation involved.  My aura just shrugged it off and will do battle with an actual human this evening.

My Wife, The Buddy Excuser, in Panama Yesterday

A comment on how far Buddy the Wonder Pooch has wormed his way into my wife’s heart is her reaction to his evisceration of one of her beloved plants.  Her first concern was that Buddy has poisoned himself and I was directed to erect barriers to several plants that are potentially toxic.  I don’t think I’d get the same reaction if I’d been the one to kill the plant but then again, I talk back a lot more than Buddy (and haven’t licked her feet in a while).

I finished my latest foray into Christopher’s Nuttall’s military science fiction series about futuristic marines, Semper Fi.  He returns to the same characters which he started this series out with.  Those marines have established a new, democratic commonwealth to replace the fallen empire.  They’re being threatened by a vestige of the empire, an ambitious admiral who carves out an empire for herself and eyes the commonwealth as her next acquisition.  A small platoon of marines is dispatched to foment rebellion on the admiral’s home planet. 

I’ve come to appreciate Nuttall’s work as he’s an excellent guide to the human level of conflict while still keeping his plots moving along at breakneck pace.  His marines are awesome if more than exceptionally lucky.  He’s also very generous with female characters and provides them with significant kick ass ability.  Both the main villain and the hero(ine) are female and run circles around their male counterparts.  I’ll be back to Nuttall and I love finding another author to follow in one of my favorite genres.

Son and I Yesterday

Speaking of favorite genres my aura generated frustration level for the week was leavened yesterday with the weekly lunch with my son.  There’s something soul easing that can only be provided by association with close family.  He caught me up on his adventures with the MEF.  He and the MEF stay pretty busy although the MEF was felled with a cold earlier this week after chasing chocolate treats in a snow shoe race (I'm not kidding).  We’re marching inexorably towards the August altar date and will be finalizing the rehearsal dinner plans upon my wife’s return.  I’m going to have to come up with a new name for MEF is August.  MEDIL (Most Excellent Daughter in Law) is a little too ponderous.  I’ll be taking nominations.