Hey there.
So that was certainly a weekend that happened.
On Saturday we went out to run some quick errands for a theoretical small business venture that Jen and I are tinkering with. (And by “errands” I mean going out to buy a file folder as a convenient place to hold documentation for said potential business.) This necessitated a trip to that renowned mecca of commerce, the Staples office supply store in Littleton. Which was as uneventful as you might imagine.
Unfortunately, on the way home (and without any provocation other than a, “hey kiddo, how you doing back there?”) Daphne decided to bite her brand new talker and once again broke the glass.
And so, for the second time in as many days, I spent several hours on Saturday updating an iOS, transferring downloads and TouchChat profiles, and filling out forms with Apple Support to have yet another iPad shipped to us.
I did get a chance to talk to an Apple support person for a bit, though, as I’d run out of available devices that were permitted to download purchases and had to get a service monkey to fix my account. I took that time to also discuss the problem of my daughter routinely breaking the glass on her communication device.
As it turns out, the answer to, “is there, like, a military-grade version of an iPad?” is laughter and a resounding, “no, there is not.”
She did, however, approve of my strategery involving the purchase of 2 iPads, with Apple Care on each, so I can simply rotate them out when this happens. Now it just costs $65 per incident, which is significantly less than the cost of replacing iPads on repeat. (Ask me how I know.)
For those keeping score, this would be the 7th iPad in the past year.
On Sunday we opened a few Easter gifts that our family sent up for Daph…
And afterward we went for a drive, mostly just to get out of the house for a bit.
Inexplicably, we ended up driving by the chapel on Darling Hill and, it being Easter and all, we hopped out and spent some time introducing Daphne to what turned out to be an open and entirely empty church.
We pulled down a tuffet to show her how they work for praying…
Which she seemed to be quite into, as she stayed there, quite and pensive, for at least a few minutes.
And she was certainly feeling the spirit afterward…
See you tomorrow.
j.s.
When I left you on Monday we were on our way out to pick up Daphne from school and mail off her broken iPad at the local FedEx. And the weather was so nice that we finally got to do one of her favorite things…roll the window down in the car.
And in case you’re wondering what that kind of joy looks like…
Warm weather.
Windows down.
Mom and Dad singing “Humpty Dumpty” on repeat.
Empirical photographic evidence would suggest that life doesn’t get better than this.
In other news, I learned a valuable lesson about septic tanks this week.
Apparently they require pumping out with some level of regularity, even if they are newly installed less than 4 years ago.
Jen mentioned something on Tuesday night about the toilet making strange bubbling noises while she was bathing Daphne, and I went in to find that water had also backed up into the bathtub and left little shredded wheat bits all over the place.
So I shut the water off to the toilet (which apparently jostled it enough to cause a leak in the spigot valve on its pipe, but that’s another story) and then spent some couch-time thinking/researching the culprit.
ChatGPT (General Plumbing Technician) assured me that it was either a backed up main sewage line to the septic, or that the septic itself was full.
And so I called an emergency request to the local poopsmith, and they came out that very afternoon. (And if you’re in the NEK, I highly recommend these folks. They moved their schedule around and found time to take care of us within 4 hours of me calling them.)
In the interim, however, we obviously could not use the toilet. Which is all fun and games until your coffee kicks in at around 9am.
And thus began a morning scatalogical odyssey.
First, I convinced myself that I could just Grizzly Adams this thing and head out into the trees for a morning constitutional. But once I got there I considered the contortional logistics of such an endeavor. I’d have to remove my boots and pants, and it was about 31° out…
And so I thought better of the attempt and pondered a plan B whilst doing the tailbone tuck speed-shuffle back to the house.
On the way, it occurred to me that I could just utilize a trash bag for the endeavor.
And so I gasketed the toilet bowl, did my thing, bagged the whole business and took it out to the trash. As such, I have now learned my lesson and have already scheduled our next septic pump out for 2027.
He can be taught.
j.s.
Those first days of winter turning toward spring is a truly amazing feeling. And as I’ve said before, it’s awesome to feel promise instead of dread when the warmer seasons approach.
And the warmer temperatures certainly awaken the buggies. These damn ladybugs are EVERYWHERE right now…
And unlike their kinder, gentler ladybug cousins, these things can actually bite. Not hard or anything, but noticeable in a “huh, what the hell is that?” kind of way.
I’ve been taking the Dustbuster to them and vacuuming them up by the dozens since they smell terrible and leave an orange stain when squished.
Ah, farm living…
Also we had our first iPad casualty in quite a while on Friday.
We were told that she accidentally dropped it at school which caused the glass to break. Fortunately I learned my lesson last summer and purchased Apple Care on this.
So we invoked Operation Talker Doppleganger, and swapped this one out with the unbroken one that I keep on hand for such eventualities.
The replacement one actually arrived today, so we’ve got to run out to drop the shattered one off at FedEx so they’ll refund my $500 deposit.
On that note, see you tomorrow.
j.s.
Yesterday marked the 4 year anniversary of our completed journey from Houston to Vermont. After 6 days we finally rolled our brand new Subaru into the driveway of the short-term rental apartment in Canaan, VT. (Which sat approximately 700 yards from the Canadian border.)
And began the process of finding our new home.
The photos have been coming up on our rotating frames and it’s striking how much Daphne has grown…
Fast forward to now…
I’m sure this won’t be the last time I say this, but how the hell did that happen?
Daphne also had a fantastic visit to the dentist this week.
She let them turn on the light, look into her mouth, and even use the little spinny brushy thingy on her teeth for a little while. (She wasn’t having any of that evil pick thing, though.) Dentist said herteeth seem like they’re coming in just fine.
In other news, I was pretty distraught last night. I went out to lock up the chickens and found that Manky Leg Jeannie (MLJ) was missing…
I looked all over the yard, in their usual hiding spots, and then scanned everywhere for the telltale feather piles of a predator attack. No sign of her.
Assuming the worst, I closed the rest of the girls up in the coop and trudged back to the house to inform Jen that we’d already lost one of the new girls to the spring predator awakening.
Before finally going to bed at around midnight, I went out and checked several times to see if perhaps MLJ had just gotten lost, or scared away for a bit, and had made her way home…
Alas, no such luck. So I gave up and went to bed.
This morning, as Jen opened the shed to feed the remaining girls, she heard a faint rustling coming from somewhere in the back, beneath our gardening tools.
Convinced the culprit was an R.O.U.S. preparing to attack, she backed away…
And then out popped Manky Leg Jeannie.
Turns out she jumped into the shed yesterday while I was getting their food prepared and I never saw her. So, when I shut the shed door, that’s where she stayed… All day, and through the night.
Poor girl was pretty thirsty this morning, but otherwise she was none the worse for wear.
Okay see you next week.
j.s.
Not a whole lot went down this weekend.
Jen volunteered to work the school’s Spring Carnival on Satuday, so Daph and I spent the afternoon at home. This was partly due to her having the car, and partly because we’ve been trying to get the porch light replaced ever since Jen’s birthday and we had yet another installer in potentia that was scheduled to work on it Saturday afternoon.
And I’m happy to report that we went from this…
to this…
Next steps would be some power washing/spider web removal on the porch there… Yeesh, that’s a mess.
On Sunday we took a jaunt down to Lebanon so Jen could put together some Spring-y crafts for the house. She’d had a chicken nesting box craft in mind, about which she’s still working out the details. Daphne, however, noticed a giant blue Styrofoam bunny as soon as we entered and subsequently carried it around the store while asking me to sing “Sleeping Bunnies” on repeat. And so…
I am a simple man. Daughter points. Daddy nods.
I don’t have a lot of hope for Vinny to make it to Easter Sunday, though… There’s been a LOT of stimming on his prickly skin texture, which is clearly stressing him out since he’s shedding weird blue hairs everywhere. Also Daph has already bitten a chunk of his ear off.
And while her Grammy might approve of this as a concept, I’m sure there are tastier bunny ears than those made of blue Styrofuzz.
See you tomorrow.
j.s.
Easter will be here in a few weeks, and shelves everywhere are bursting with Eastroturf grass, cheaply Nantucket-Lightship-priced woven baskets (thanks Donald), and an eye-watering amount of brightly colored candies.
So I thought I’d talk about that most venerated of Easter confectionary traditions, the noble jelly bean…which has the distinction as the only “bean” that I will eat.
Obviously there’s been a boom in bean makers and flavors over the years, and as I stood marveling at the cornucopia of corn syrup, I arrived at a very grave decision.
“Okay. Yeah. I’m getting them all.“
Caveat: Not “all” of them. As I said, we’re in Biff Tannen Donald Trump’s America now, which dictates the need to maintain levels of personal funding for glamorous things like rice, shovels, and bullets. Also my wife gave the an upward glance that conveyed an, “oh God, he’s doing a thing again” which may have had something to do with cutting short the sugar bean parade that was ending in our shopping cart.
That said, I bought a wide selection. So let’s get into it…
SKITTLES
Pretty standard candy, Skittles. Invented in 1974. Honestly an O.G. Skittle isn’t that far off from a jelly bean, so this one should be a layup for them.
Flavors:
Grape – Exceptionally dry. Not entirely unlike chewing purple sand.
Strawberry – Uncannily PeptoBismol-flavored. Would be helpful later after my 100th bean.
Lime – Like a doe vomit nugget, after it ate too much mint.
Lemon – It’s uncanny how much this was like eating a concentrated pellet of Pledge furniture duster spray.
Orange – This was the best one of the bunch, and it was …fine.
COMBO! – The lime green flavor was totally overpowering here, which turned the whole business into something like mint julep and Elmer’s glue.
Coloration
The “S” that’s printed on Every. Single. Bean. seems a bit obsessive and like a waste of money, but otherwise the colors were just fine. Pretty standard jellybean fare.
Shape
Seems like Skittles scientists couldn’t decide whether they wanted these things to be disc-shaped, like your prototypical Skittle, or actually bean-shaped. So they just said “hell with it…” and let their freak bean flag fly. Zero uniformity.
Overall Grade
Disappointed in these, given that I do quite like Skittles.
SOUR PATCH KIDS – WATERMELON
In my fervor to load candy into our basket before anyone told me to stop, I was unaware that these were only watermelon flavored. If I’d known, I probably would’ve picked something else.
Flavors:
Watermelon & Watermelon – Individually, these weren’t terrible…pending you like sour candy. Both colors were identical in flavor and were fine. As long as you ate them one at a time.
COMBO! – This is where things went all wrong. A mouthful of these was akin to taking a large bite out of a saltwatermelon. I actually had to spit this one out.
Coloration
Despite the picture, the green and pink together were pretty evident of watermelony-ness.
Shape
Again, didn’t even try for a bean shape. Just made little round balls of tartness that, when conglomerated, turn into a MS-13 gang of sour hate.
Overall Grade
If you undertake the monotonous activity of eating them one at a time, these are fine. Just don’t invite more than one to the fiesta.
TROLLI
I have no idea what “sour brite” means. The only “brite” I’m aware of is “Rainbow Brite,” and these things tasted like eating her kidney stones.
Flavors:
Grape/Apple – Amazingly, this somehow tasted like nothing at all. Like tepid ice gel.
Strawberry/Grape – This tasted like eating/swallowing Big League Chew
Lemon/Cherry– I couldn’t tell the difference between this and Lemon/Raspberry, which didn’t matter because they both tasted like licking an armpit.
Lemon/Raspberry– See “armpit” above.
Raspberry/Strawberry – Honestly couldn’t tell you what flavor this tasted like. It seemed like they were just throwing elements of the periodic table together to see which stuck and weren’t poisonous.
COMBO! – Like gnawing on a bile duct. Just awful.
Coloration
Trolli gets full marks for their colors here. They look like robin eggs which is very spring-like. The unfortunate bit is that the color combos are random, so it’s difficult to tell exactly which flavor you’re eating.
Shape
They made a solid effort at maintaining optimal beaniness. If only they’d made them taste good too.
Overall Grade
Godawful. If you see these at a store you could save a child’s Easter by dumping them into the nearest toilet.
STARBURST
My favorite jellybeans of all time are actually the Starburst Sour ones. Unfortunately those have inexplicably disappeared. This is something I find unsettling if I dwell on it too long, given how many of them I ate over their limited market lifetime.
Flavors:
Cherry – Solid facsimile of a Starburst cherry, which is empirically the best flavor of them all.
Lemon – I found these to be strangely tough. Like trying to chew day old gum.
Grape – Again, a pretty good grape flavor considering there’s no such thing as a grape Starburst.
Strawberry – This one’s a bit weak. Much like the original candy.
Lime – This would be why there are no lime Starburst in the world. Avoid.
Orange – Best of the bunch. Fantastic little bean. I’d eat a whole bag of these things if they made just orange ones.
COMBO! – Individually these are good, but a whole handful at a time is definitely greater than the sum of its parts. Flavors bounce around really well and the consistency is soft, making them easy to chew.
Coloration
Not to be outdone by Skittles, they apparently felt the need to print “Starburst” on every individual bean. Otherwise this is what jelly beans look like. All good.
Shape
Being perfectly oval is bean-adjacent, so I’ll let it slide.
Overall Grade
These were not quite as good as the sour ones from days of yore, which is why they’re not rated 5-out-of-5, but they’re still quite good.
NERDS
I did not notice the “Big Chewy” descriptor on these when I purchased them. All I saw was the grape Nerd wearing bunny ears and decided they were comin’ home with me.
Flavors:
Grape – Tastes exactly like Triaminic cough syrup from the 1980’s.
Lemon – Like chewing a softer version of the center of a Lemonhead…which is the worst part of that candy.
Strawberry – Closest to an original “Nerd” flavor, but very quickly gives way to a mash of chemical yuck.
Orange – Again, this was the best flavor. What is it about the orange ones that these companies seem to consistently get right?
COMBO! – The candy coating on these makes eating multiples way too sweet, not to mention a dental hazard. Individually they’re not bad, but together they taste like licking a urinal cake.
Coloration
The colors? Fine. But dat bumpiness…
Shape
Them lovely candy lumps are weird, man. The texture is like sandpaper when you pick them up (which actually helps when attempting to eat them in singular doses), and Jen said it reminded her of those horrible marine mammal barnacle videos that were so disturbing they caused her to exit social media as a whole.
Overall Grade
The taste wasn’t bad, but we all struggled to get over the weird texture.
SWEETARTS
SweeTarts are the GOAT of candies as far as I’m concerned. I will eat entire sleeves of them in one sitting until the insides of my mouth are flecked with citric acid chunks. At which point Ill probably gargle some water and start all over again. This is why we do not keep them in the house.
As such, I was concerned that I would start eating this bag and would not stop until my head melted off from all the acid in them.
Flavors:
Cherry – This was a blast of flavory…stuff. I don’t know if it was cherry per se, but whatever it was it’s powerful stuff.
Orange – Hmm. Just okay. Despite orange being the best of all the other beans, this one was pretty mediocre.
Fruit Punch – I have never understood why SweeTarts chose blue for their “fruit punch” flavor back in 2011. This was fine, though.
Lemon – I thought this was mediocre, perhaps bordering on bad. Jen absolutely hated it, though, claiming it tasted “like toilet bowl cleaner.” This was enough for her to quit eating the SweeTart ones completely.
Green Apple – Surprisingly dull for a flavor that’s known for its tartness.
Grape – Best grape flavor out of everything we tested. The sour was enough to give it just the right kick.
COMBO! – Not great. It’s just tarty chaos. Like eating a Lik-M-Aid (now called a “FunDip”) with a salt lick instead of a Lik-a-Stix. Then again, I don’t eat multiple SweeTarts at once, so this makes sense.
Coloration
A bit matte, but definitely hit the right Easter notes with their colors. Pretty good here.
Shape
Look! Bean-shaped beans! Why is that so hard?
Overall Grade
These were pretty good, but the salt assault that happens when you eat them by the handful docked them a point.
Overall I think the winner was…
WINNER
The combination of good flavors, standard bean shape, and the tandem flavor profiles makes it the best jellybeans we tested.
Daphne, however, let her feelings be known on the entire jellybean experiment.
See you next week.
j.s.