Winds from the South

We could certainly use some of that as this fairly brisk April proceeds. I need to point out the very important birthday that took down yesterday. My wife’s brother celebrated his birthday in typically understated fashion. Luckily the women in his life, starting with his daughter, were not going to allow that to pass unchallenged. He’s the only son in a family growing up with four sisters, some of them of a very potent variety. I should know having been married to one for over three decades. He’s one of Panama’s leading environmentalists authoring a couple books along the way. He’s one of the people I really look forward to seeing every time I go to Panama and I’m so happy that he met the love of his life a few years ago, the fabulous Lulu. It’s so much fun to see them together, he deserves to be happy.

My Brother in Law and Birthday Boy

I raised a beer to him (well several if we’re going to be literal) at First Friday. My wife was AWOL as she was reacquainting herself with the local Macy’s and TJ Maxx which I’m sure had some sort of corporate celebration when they heard she had returned. She had a bunch of gift cards burning a hole in her purse and was assisted by her next door enabler, the Mafioso. By the time she returned home I was safely situated in Couch Potato Position #1 watching the Red Sox being destroyed by the Blue Jays. We finished off our DVR backlog of Jane the Virgin and rejoined the massacre to find the Red Sox mounting a spirited comeback. I know it’s more than way too early but at least offensively the Sox look okay; starting pitching is an entirely different matter, a very good win though.

ABFA and Son at the Boston Garden
(What I'll Always call it!)

Elsewhere in the sports world my favorite son and ABFA were in Boston last night to watch a Celtics game. They took the ABFA’s parents there as a Christmas gift and it was my son’s first ever Celtics game. That failure on my part as a parent can be directly linked to my complete disinterest in an NBA that bears no resemblance to the game it claims to play.

ABFA with her Awesome Parents

I rushed through and finished yet another Joe Pickett novel, Cold Wind by CJ Box, yesterday. These books are falling beneath my voracious appetite at a disturbing pace; a comment on their outstanding quality. This one was a little out of the usual milieu for Joe and plays more like a direct detective novel, albeit in the wilds of Wyoming. Its also a dual tracked plot with Joe’s Reacher like friend Nate Romanowski chasing down some villains that invariably intersect with Joe’s investigation. The intersecting point was a taut reunion for the old friends. Joe’s mother in law from hell, Missy, is charged with murdering her husband and Joe is called upon to help exonerate her although she’s his least favorite person in the world. As I said, different, but a truly engrossing read.

Here are some of Box’s words as Nate ruminates about his friend Joe, “Joe could help, he knew. Joe and Marybeth, especially. They were in the main of sorts and Nate’s only real connection to the world of loving couples, growing children, mortgages, pet dogs, lawns, and social mores. It was a world he wished he understood an hoped he could enter some day, but it was still as foreign to him as daily life in Outer Mongolia. But because Joe and Marybeth were his only true connection to that world, he wanted to nurture them and keep them away from what he knew to be out there. Not that Joe wasn’t capable of protecting his family - he was, and in surprising ways – but Joe still seemed to believe in his oath and duty and in innocence and the law’s brand of justice. Nate didn’t want to be there if and when Joe learned otherwise, because it wouldn’t be pretty.”