Not being a hunter myself (much to my father’s dismay when he tried to take me rabbit hunting when I was about 11), I have no particular fondness for gun deer hunting. Bow hunting? At least in that season the deer stand a moderate chance of not being winter’s dining.

In both Minnesota and Wisconsin gun deer season begins at dawn on a particular Saturday in November and lasts for nine days. Some years those seasons are the same dates, others maybe not. When I lived in northern Minnesota, my school always designated the Monday after the opening of deer season as a holiday; if any student took off more time to hunt, said student would receive punishment. The local school here in Wisconsin designates the entire week of deer season as a holiday. That is not quite as weird as it sounds, since Holy Week gun deer season seems always to be the week of Thanksgiving.

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In other local news, Smokey and I got our booster shots last Wednesday. Neither of us had any after effects from the initial two shots, both Moderna, but the Pfizer boosters laid us low for a couple days. No idea if the different brand was the cause. On Thursday neither of us got out of bed until 4pm, on Friday it was 3pm. I woke up on the Thursday with the mother of all headaches, at least as bad as one of the good ol’ migraines I used to get. This was my entire head, not just one side like a migraine. Anyway, I woke up at 5am, took two of Smokey’s hydrocodone pills*, and went back to sleep. They worked, but I woke up again at 1pm when they had worn off, so I took 2 more and went back to sleep. That evening and Friday I still had a lingering headache, but aspirin took care of it.

No matter the after effects, we would get the booster every time.

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Andrew** and Amanda*** were in Florida for a week recently for him to attend a 2-day seminar on invasive procedures — or maybe it was non-invasive procedures, hard to remember. The seminar was supposed to happen in March 2020 but was postponed due to something or other happening at that time. Anyhow, they called twice, once from a park near to where Smokey’s parents lived in retirement and once from the Everglades. Lots of hiking, not so much of the animal observation; they make it a priority to visit the local zoo(s) wherever they go. We raised an animal lover, and he found another one to marry.

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* He took exactly none of the pain pills after his laparoscopic surgery to clean up the shredded cartilage in his hip. In fact, on the way home from the hospital he had me stop at Walmart so he could do some shopping. We had reported to the hospital at 6am for the 7:30 surgery (arrgh! we had to get up at 4:30! That time of day has never existed for me. I consider getting up at any time before 9am to be early) and were back out on the way home at 11:30.

** Andrew = Elder Son. Henceforth he and Amanda (GF, wife) will be referred to by name.

*** Fun fact, offered without comment: when Andrew was inducted into the National Honor Society in high school, there were more Amandas than boys inducted that year.