Transient Monday

Monday is deservedly the least loved day of the week but yesterday I had a Monday migrating two days and fully complicating the usual travails of Hump Day. Coming back from vacation is never easy on the first day behind the desk but when you leave a tropical paradise complete with the loving arms of your significant other and plunge yourself smack dab into the middle of a historically bad New England winter; well, let’s just say “complicated” doesn’t begin to describe it.

I started the day back out in the haunted driveway to complete the clearing I started in the dark upon my return. The only good thing about the operation was the rare lack of wind which eased the length of throws. Everyone at work stopped by the office to welcome me back and revel in my opinions on the resident polar vortex after running around in shorts for the prior week. I noted a complete lack of sympathy.

In the “getting old still sucks department” my nocturnal gyrations with the snowblower/newspaper shredder on the garage floor produced some lingering aches and pains. Apparently the gymnastic turns required to get to the newspaper embedded in the snowblower required the use of some long dormant muscles which staged a significant protest all day. This is where you insert a commercial on the importance of Tylenol.    

I’m glad the next door neighbor and her kids were on vacation Tuesday night so they were spared the auditory adjunct to my garage efforts. I gave full throat to some fairly colorful language (this is where an Army career is truly valuable) and may have blistered some of the paint on wall.

The Slightly Enlarged Buddy Returns

The day took a definite turn for the better after work as I journeyed south to Rhode Island to reunite with the Wonder Pooch. Buddy’s greeting when he saw me was epic. My sister said at one point all four of his feet were off the ground. I was too busy defending some of my more important body parts from flailing paws to notice. What I did notice after the prolonged reunion was that Buddy has put on some weight. He conned my all too kind sister into doubling his meals and I’m sure was more successful begging food that he is with me. My sister also reported they learned the price for giving Buddy a little too much rich food which went a long way in testing the limits of my sister’s gag reflex.

Spending some time with my sister, namesake nephew, and briefly my brother in law felt a lot more like homecoming than the late night catastrophe of the driveway from hell on Tuesday night. It didn’t hurt that she prepared one of my favorite meals and a Death by Chocolate cake either.

Venturing Out to Find His Spot

Buddy and I returned home to a phone conversation with Cali-daughter who reported her long anticipated quarterly return to the East Coast will occur on the same weekend her mother comes home – talk about a morale boost! Buddy was a little taken back by the condition of his normal stomping grounds as he sunk above his head when I let him out to do his business. He looked back at me, seemingly saying – are you going to do anything about this? He quickly and rather expertly stomped out a trail which I’m sure he’ll continue to expand. It was so cool to have another living entity back in the house with me – then he knocked over my soda. Well it can’t be all roses.

I knocked out two Kyle Mills’ books while in Panama, Storming Heaven and Free Fall. Both books featured his unconventional FBI hero Mark Beamon. In the first he was investigating a kidnapping that uncovered a vast infiltration of the government by an insidious “Mormon like” church. In the second he’s looking into the murder of a rock climber which leads to key evidence affecting the last moments of a US presidential election.

In both cases Beamon is running into significant issues with the FBI leadership which has him skating furiously on increasingly thin ice. Mills is starting to grow on me and he has a very dry sense of humor which I always like. I’ve started another of his books that doesn’t have Beamon so we’ll see. Mills is still auditioning with me for his reported assumption of the Mitch Rapp series which I loved so much.

My wife reported in from Panama that she'd traveled to a new location in Panama that we'll have to check out when I return (see pictures below). It's up in the mountains near Volcan and called Cuesta de Piedras. Looks fairly picturesque and entirely more green than my current surroundings. I so want to go back.