Kaboom!

Sorry I have not been around. When I say everything blew up at once workwise, I'm not kidding. While overcommitting to other things, I agreed to a rush job for extra pay that turned out to have some hidden issues. I felt like a cartoon antagonist (say, Wile E. Coyote) whose tunnel got diverted to a fireworks warehouse by the hero (one Bugs Bunny, perhaps); rising from the tunnel in the darkness, I struck a match, then realized I was surrounded by gunpowder-laden rockets, their fuses lolling my way; shocked, I dropped the match, but before it went out, it caught a fuse and -- 

You've seen that cartoon before. 

As a coworker once told me on a particularly annoying afternoon, "If it was fun they'd call it play." 

Well, nothing for it but to shove everything aside that was shoveable and get the thing done. Which I did, yesterday, and was ready for a nap afterward, at which time of course I got a phone call from someone who almost never calls me. I will leave my phone on in case my wife needs me, thinketh I, because the only other person who might call is Claymore, and he never calls at this time because he's at work, and of course Claymore had taken the day off. 

Nice to be popular, but please, my public, let a guy rest! 

Meanwhile, here's a couple of other thoughts that have popped up for you:

ROOSTERS 

Chicken and eggs are good to eat, but sadly, roosters are part of the deal. When we moved from the city to the exurbs, there was someone in the area who kept a few, and I'd hear the idiot chicken known as the rooster scream from time to time. They don't just crow at dawn, as in the movies; they keep it up all the livelong day. 

As the town demographics have changed, it seems that keeping chickens is now more of a thing to do. These seem to be more hyperactive, possible meth-addicted roosters, who don't wait for sunup at 7 but start around 5:30. When one goes off to the east, another, miles away in the west, says to himself, "I'm not going to stand for that!" and blurts out his cheery tune. None of them have the nice, clear "cock-a-doodle-doo!" cry, but rather sound like kazoo-based kaiju being strangled. They used to say that children should be seen and not heard, but I think that better applies to chickens. 

WINTER

A haiku for you:

Chapped lips, chapped hands, feet

Where can I go to buy a

Full-body ChapStick?

See you tomorrow, unless more stuff blows up, or I get arrested for first-degree rooster assault.