Hello hello hello good morning. I am late! Oh no! Late! They cancelled school today. For a showstorm. That didn’t happen. Again. I mean, every late opening or cancellation is a day I can sleep in, so I’m not gonna complain but it would be nice if we actually got the snow to go with it.

Didn’t have to get up at 6:30. That was lovely. So I slept in. Which was lovely. Except it just made me more tired. Such is life. Jane’s around here somewhere. Haven’t seen her yet this morning. Emma is imminently off to grand jury duty, which is a thing. She has had it for a year. One Monday a month. This will be her last one. Grand jury duty seems the way to go. Less pressure. Not sending anyone to jail. Longer time excused from serving in the future.

Birthdays and RIPs:

• Happy Birthday to Star Trek The Motion Picture, released 46 years ago Sunday. I stan that film, will stick up for it for all time, it is way better than people give it credit for. Especially the 4k director’s cut.

• RIP to Frank Gehry. One time I was sitting in a conference room and Peter Arnell called Frank Gehry, and I am not exagerating here, for no other reason than to show me (and Keith) that he could call Frank Gehry. “Am I on speakerphone?” Frank Gehry asked. “Yes.” Peter Arnell said. “Take me off of spekarphone” Frank Gehry said tersely, and Peter Arnell did.

• Happy Birthday to Tom Waits who turned 76 yesterday. God. I guess he’s probably never gonna tour again huh. I would really like to see Tom Waits one more time.

I feel I need to update on the Lisa Monaco/DOJ/Russian Oligarch/did-Trump-take-Fabergé-egg conspiracy theory, for another explanation has occurred to me. Because my ongoing Fabergé Egg Google alert has reminded me of something I already knew, which is that Philistines out there (oh god, this is derogatory to the ancient people who lived on the south coast of Canaan during the Iron Age in a confederation of city-states generally referred to as Philistia) often use the term “Fabergé Egg” interchangeably. See, the posh Fabergé Eggs are the 60 or so first edition eggs, overseen by Carl Fabergé himself, specifically the 50 or so of those that were given to the Russian Royal Family.

But the House of Fabergé makes Fabergé eggs to this day. There is a James Bond Fabergé Egg. There is a Game of Thrones Fabergé Egg.

It is also possible, it occurs to me, that Lisa Monaco was going for press, and used the term “Fabergé Egg” in reference to one of these modern, much more affordable eggs. Whose subsequent auctioning off in a civil-asset-forfeiture government auction wouldn’t have made the news.

Ah well.

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We are listening to the new Nick Cave live album, Live God. We are almost done. We are referring to ourselves in the royal we. We are on the the encore now. He is singing “Papa Won’t Leave You Henry” which is from my favorite Nick Cave album and is one of my favorite Nick Cave songs. This is a pretty good live album. Nick is still very good live. I do not like the guitar parts as much these days, I miss Blixa. I like George Vjestica’s guitar playing. It’s more the mix. I dunno.

Album’s good though.

And yeah I guess this later period of Nick’s career is growing on me. Or, rather, when he picks the 2-3 best songs from each of the last few albums, it works. And the big epiphany in “White Elephant” gets me every time.

But we are here to talk about the weekend, man, weekend chores, gimme the good shit straight into my veins.

Friday Emma and I did out-of-home chores, took the recycling to the station, went to Walmart, where they were playing excellent music imagine if Walmart sold the records of the bands they play on Walmart Radio that would rule. We picked up my prescriptions, goth girl wasn’t there hasn’t been there in a while actually I hope she didn’t quit this rural area needs a six-foot-plus flaming redhead who looks like the Brave princess in a Diamanda Galas shirt.

Oh this was great. We went to a bank, a different bank, a Truist in the old people Stars Hallow-like neighborhood. Emma needed to order checks for the Girl Scout troop because she’s treasurer and cookie season is coming. The bank teller was so excited, wanted to buy cookies from us right then and there. We had to tell him he had to wait till January, felt bad. We told him we were just about to have cookie training, which is this Thursday, and he asked what that was. I explained that, for example, you cannot sell cookies in our outside of bars.

And then he made a really good point which is that all the grocery stores around here have bars in them now and they are always selling cookies outside of grocery stores.

I am going to totally raise this objection at Cookie Training.

Because if a grocery-store-with-a-bar is not a bar, then couldn’t a bar just, like, put a couple of loaves of bread and cans of soup on the shelves, call themselves a grocery store, and then let me sell cookies there?

Ladies and gentlemen, I have found my loophole.

Saturday and Sunday had Daddy-Jane breakfasts — Saturday’s involved more than an hour at a Bojangles with her friend Violet while they ran around the whole place and annoyed everyone brought joy to all the customers.

But really the rest of the weekend was studio work and I got so much done. Had a bit of a tiff with a Lowe’s delivery driver because they’ve changed the rules lately and won’t let the drivers put things in your garage, even if they don’t have to go in the garage. And it was raining. And I was buying OSB and the dude had no plastic, no tarp, nothing, so, like, the shit was gonna start warping the second he put it down. Super annoying. I had to get my own tarps out, lay them down, direct him, wrap it up myself why am I paying $60 for this again?

Saturday I then hauled that into the garage and processed it all into the correct size for carrying up to the attic, since I cannot carry 78-pound, full sheets of ¾” OSB myself.

I then carried all thirty 39-pound sheets up to the attic, one by one. Then I carried eight packs of Safe N Sound, 37 pounds each, to the attic.

Then I carried eight sheets of 4×4 Type X (the heavy kind) of sheetrock up to the attic. Figured in for a penny, in for a pound, and this way I wouldn’t have to carry shit to the attic again for a long, long time.

Forty-six trips up to the attic, carrying big bulky things. Reader, I hurt.

Sunday I got to actually do work and I killed it. Finished layers 1 and 2 of the floor around the HVAC unit, working my way to the southwest corner of the house. Found the cable pass conduit from the attic to the makeshift IT closet they currently have in the kid-bedroom that I am going to tear out. Pulled and bagged up a ton of the old insulation, laid down fresh Safe-N-Sound, paneled about a hundred square feet of flooring in a very tight area, lots of complex cuts. Felt very good about it all.

Finished up a little early Saturday, Jane chose Taco Bell for dinner, and then we went to a neighborhood party, which was a lovely time. I brought my Diet Mt Dew Zero Sugar Baja Blast to the party.

I get the strong sense not a lot of my neighbors are as into Diet Mt Dew Zero Sugar Baja Blast as Emma and I. I get the strong sense that the neighbors had never seen someone mix Diet Mt Dew Zero Sugar Baja Blast with Pinot Noir before, it’s like these people are fancy or something. Never lived their life out of a Hold Steady song. Good people, though. Great talks, good times. The baby next door is now an adorable little four-year-old and Jane played with her and had a great time she is very good with little children. And she watched Bluey again been a while since we watched a Bluey.

Speaking of Jane she has made her way downstairs and is now playing Mini Motorways on her laptop behind me. We had a good hug. It was real nice. I like hugs.

Moody and quiet playlist for you today, mostly new (ish) just filled it out with a couple ‘o old-school (non) bangers. Honestly most of this stuff is from, like, a month ago and I don’t remember most of it. Haven’t had their second re-listen yet. Will get on that.

Right-o let’s get to work. Three minutes until my first meeting wheee.