1. The joy of home ownership. I thought we had a pretty solid handle on the homestead’s water supply after last year’s well and filtration work. The fact that it literally fell apart at the seams yesterday tells me it wasn’t quite satisfactory as I expected. So, in addition to the never-ending bathroom remodel, I’ve hired another plumbing company to design and build a much less fragile way to get water from the well and through some filters before delivering it up to the rest of the house. I only laid two requirements on them for this project: It must be dead simple easy to operate and perform regular maintenance on and all components must be affixed to or supported by structure versus hanging free from the pipes. I suppose it’s just the kind of thing I’m willing to spend on if that’s what it takes to avoid future blowouts when someone has the audacity to try closing a ball valve.

2. The MAGA campaign to discredit Cassidy Hutchinson. There are lots of Donald’s supporters ranting, raving, and questioning Ms. Hutchinson’s intelligence, truthfulness, and anything else they can dream up to discredit her testimony before the January 6th Select Committee. None of them, thus far, have submitted evidence or requested that they be allowed to offer conflicting testimony under oath. If they’re withholding key evidence or information about the events of January 6th, they’re negligent in their duty. If they’re big mad because this brave 20-something former White House staffer has the personal integrity to sit down, swear in, and say true things about Donald that make him look like an out of control, petulant child, well, it’s just the expected kind of sound and fury that doesn’t signify.

3. Salad. Look, I like salad well enough. I mean top anything with enough dressing, cheese, and bacon bits and it’ll be edible at some point. In all seriousness, though, I’ve been making a concerted effort for the last few months to replace one meal a day – usually lunch – with a truly enormous salad. Even with the toppings a massive bowl full of various greens should be nominally more responsible than whatever combination of Hot Pockets or PB&J’s I’d be having otherwise. The trouble comes down to the greens themselves. Despite the salad spinning and paper towel drying and specialized containers, I just can’t seem to get a full week of freshness out of the stuff. Towards the end of every week, there’s a good wilt setting in at best. If the produce wasn’t fresh off the truck when I grabbed it, sometimes by Thursday it’s gone off completely. Hot Pockets definitely don’t have that problem. Sure, I could solve this particular issue by buying less produce on Saturday and adding a mid-week supply run, but that violates my cardinal rule of minimizing the number of times every week I need to leave the house. If this turns into a competition between wanting a salad and not wanting to leave the house, salad loses every single time no matter how many bacon bits are on it.