Nine years we’ve been living in this house and nine years I’ve been seeing deer in the back yard (and once in while in the front yard and in the street) but only once have I ever seen a deer with antlers sticking out of his head.  I can’t even count the number of antler-free deer I’ve seen.  So many deer that were either female or had shed their antlers for the season.

That all changed today!

I was sitting at my desk with the curtains open.  It wasn’t quite getting dark yet and I saw something move out of the corner of my eye.  There was a deer way back in the trees, sitting on his ass hanging out….

…and he had a rack of horns sticking out of his head!

Harry is home sick today so I called him into the room to show him.  I was sitting down with my computer monitors blocking most of the windows and he was standing over my shoulder.  Wouldn’t you know it, he saw a second antler-equipped deer in the woods on the other side of the yard.

That’s two sets of antlers in one day after only one in nine years.  How cool is that?

Get ready for the most fascinating blog post in the history of all blog posting.

Last week we got a new washer and dryer.  You may remember me posting something like 11,036 pictures.  Today is the first telecommuting day since they were delivered, which means it is the first day that I’ve sat in my office approximately directly above the laundry room.  (Is “approximately directly” even a thing?)

Normally on telecommute days I kick off a load of laundry before work and then as the day goes on I pop in and out of the cellar and do bits of laundry here and there (those trips usually coincide with bathroom breaks).  Our old washer was sort of old, 9-10 years or so?  It had a bad habit of kicking off the spin cycle while it should have been filling.  It was an odd duck.  The dryer was my Uncle’s.  We had it for about 11 years, even before we moved into the house, but I have no idea how long Johnny had it before we got it.  It worked (at least until two weeks ago) but it didn’t work well.  I had to run each load of laundry through it twice (sometimes three times) to get the clothes dry.

The new machines are high tech.  They have touch pads for controls, and all sorts of fun lights and gizmos.  They even play music when they finish running.  None of that is what made me want to write this epic post about them though.  What was it that inspired me?

They are quiet.  So very quiet.  The old machines were clunky.  They made noise while they ran.  Not bad or anything, but if I sat in the office while they ran I could hear them.  The new machines are not silent or anything, but they are super quiet.  The sound of the water running through the outflow hose is actually louder than the washing machine itself.

What technological marvels will they think of next?

We hopped onto another bandwagon tonight. We signed up for Blue Apron, the meal delivery/prep service thingie that sends you all of the ingredients to make a fancy schmancy dinner. The first delivery came today. Jen cooked it and Harry and I ate it with her. It was good. I approve. Meal #2 is tomorrow.

Next week’s delivery is from Hello Fresh. We figured we would try them both and keep the one we like best.

I’ll let you know what we decide.

It occurred to me earlier that today is the 4th anniversary of my step son’s diabetes diagnosis.  He was pretty sick the day before and had gone to the doctor with his dad.  They were told it was just a virus.  He stayed home from school on the 13th and I was working from home so I was with him.

He was so sick, but I kept focusing on what his doctor told him.  I shouldn’t have.  I should have realized the doctor was an incompetent quack and taken him to the hospital right away.  I should not have hesitated at all.  Fortunately for all of us, Jen came home from work at lunch time, took one look at him, and took him to the hospital.  An ER nurse at Holy Family in Methuen knew right away what was wrong.  We were relieved.  Okay, so he’s diabetic but they’ll straighten him out and he’ll be fine.  That nurse looked at us like we were the most naive idiots on Earth, and we pretty much were.

He got an ambulance ride into Boston.  Jen went with him and I drove down alone.  They checked him into the ER and we waited by his side for some sign of improvement.  It didn’t come.  At least not right away.  The lowest low point came when we realized how scared his ER doctor was.  She told us he was at risk of heart damage and it dawned on us just how serious the situation was.  We literally almost lost him.

Eventually they moved him from the ER to an ICU ward and that was our home for a few days.  Slowly but surely he started coming back to us.  Once his numbers were back under control the focus turned to education.  They taught us everything he was going to need to do to manage his diabetes.  We learned how to take blood sugar readings and how to load up the syringe and how to give him his insulin shots.  We were given a detailed protocol for how to determine how much insulin he needs and how to handle situations where his numbers would go out of whack again.  We learned how to spot low blood sugar periods and high blood sugar periods.  It was high blood sugar that put him into the hospital but we learned that his case was extreme and normal high moments are actually less scary than normal low moments.

A couple of years later he told us that he has little to no memory of the events of those few days.  Good.  It was the most terrifying experience of my life and I wouldn’t wish those memories on anyone.  Jen and I will remember everything for him.  He has enough to worry about on his own, he doesn’t need that as well.

The silver lining to this story is the way he rose to the challenge.  Managing diabetes is a bitch and a half and little 12 year old Harry handled it like a boss from day one.  I will never be able to adequately explain how proud I am of him.  Really.  I would have broken like a twig under the strain of his day to day health care routine and he just shines.  Sure there are times when we get nervous about his glucose levels.  He’s too high, or he’s too low, or this or that.  He gets annoyed with us.  Understandably.  We worry enough to be annoying.  Maybe someday he’ll be someone’s dad and he’ll have some idea of why we stress the way we do.  Until then, go ahead and be annoyed.  You’ve earned it.

We now live in a Disney+ world and I am on the wagon.  We had an issue with our account.  Our cable provider actually packaged it into our deal but when we opted in it failed to file correctly.  I installed the app on to my phone, iPad, and AppleTV before work yesterday but our login didn’t work.  I had to log into our cable provider account and redo the whole process.  Once that was done though, we were in.

Now that the day has come it was a bit underwhelming.  The Mandalorian is the only original show that’s out.  None of the Marvel shows they’ve been teasing for months are ready for the launch.  They will start trickling out at some later date.  I knew that going in, but still it’s a little disappointing.  The Marvel section is missing the two most recent Spiderman movies, but that’s understandable as they are not actually Disney properties.  I was a little miffed that the Star Wars section is missing The Last Jedi and Solo.  Both will be available at a later date (Jedi in late December and Solo sometime next year).

There are a couple of previously existing titles that I haven’t seen that I will check out.  Thor II remains the only Marvel Cinematic Universe movie I haven’t seen yet.  Runaways is also there and I have heard good things about that show.  None of the Marvel Netflix shows are there.  We knew they wouldn’t be as they are likely too violent for Disney.  It’s a shame because most of them were out-freakin-standing.

Which brings us back to The Mandalorian.  I had somehow manage to get myself nearly as hyped for this show as I am for Episode IX next month.  There was no way the first episode alone would live up to my expectations, and it doesn’t.  Having said that though, the first episode is really good.  All it did was pose question after question, who is this guy?  What is he doing?  What is his motivation?  Who is that guy?  Are we going to see him again?  Did anyone see that twist ending coming?  I sure didn’t.  The twist in the last few seconds is all it takes to hook you in.  Once you see that, you’re going to be lining up for episode two on Friday.  Well… twist isn’t really the right word.  Reveal might be a better word.  Whatever, it’s a hook and it will most likely grab you good.

So in summation, I am on the Disney+ wagon but it’s going to take time for me to decide if it’s worth it or not.  For me at least.  My step son is so excited over this that I am legitimately worried about him exploding.  I’m pretty sure his plan is to binge watch every Disney movie and show in existence.  I’m hoping he starts with Gravity Falls and Phineas and Ferb.  Bring it on.

 

Addendum: The Mandalorian isn’t the only show available at launch, it’s just the only one I care about.

Today is the final day in which we live in a Disney+ free Universe.  I am honoring this significant date by doing something I’ve thought about doing since the Spring.

I’m watching Infinity War and Endgame, back to back*.

Avengers today, The Mandalorian tomorrow.

 

*At least I am starting to.  After a few hours I might get tired of it and change my mind.  I could always watch a ton of Star Wars to celebrate too.

I was expecting the worst, but it wasn’t that bad. I had a slow start but it ended up okay. I had some gear issues that annoyed me, but nothing I couldn’t handle. The pedal board is getting really noisy and it got worse as the night went on. I’m going to have to tear it down and rebuild it. Hopefully I can reduce the noise.

The new string experiment is underway. I played a set from Stringjoy and I liked them pretty well. I could handle sticking with them long term.

We only have two rehearsals left before the next gig and we still haven’t settled on a set list. We won’t be winging it on the night, but there are still wildcards.

Before practice we tore down the recording setup I had put together. In its place, we mic’d up the drums. I need to get a few adapters to get the full kit into the board, but we had the kick, snare, and hi hats going into the PA. It was pretty cool.

One last gear nerd moment:

For the first time since I started playing with dirt pedals (I think), tonight was the first time I didn’t have some sort of Big Muff fuzz pedal on the board. In fact, the board was 100% fuzz pedal free.

Sad face.