The Best Laid Plans . . . .

“Hi, my name is Tom, and I’m a grumpy old fuck!”

“Hi Tom.”

Yesterday, Lisa and I had plans to go to the final gathering in 2026 for the Lights Over Loveland group in Nunn, Colorado.

Lights Over Loveland – YouTube

lights over loveland event – Search Results | Facebook

At the last second Lisa was asked if she could babysit the grans, and since that role is now Lisa’s raison d’etre, of course she said yes without so much as a by your leave.

I was still really looking forward to the event and remained determined to go. I was willing to sub in my oldest gran, Scarlett, in Lisa’s place, but just about the time we would have left a low barometric pressure system rolled in which not only created cloud cover that would have obscured any decent UAP sky watching but immediately and detrimentally impacted my physical atmospheric sensitivity.

High vs Low Barometric Pressure: Weather and Body Effects Explained

So, I was left with my head feeling like it was caught in a vise, which morphed my usual jovial old elf into a grumpy old fuck.

Not a good look. Dr. Jeckyll becomes Mr. Hyde.

For the record, I love all of my grans and draw great joy in their visits to Casa Claire and interacting with their respectively unique and magically distinct personalities. I try to show them the wonder of a magical world. They seem to get that and are fun to be around.

Upon yesterday’s arrival, I did my usual best to cater to the needs of the grans – surrendered my recliner, television access, access to the hot tub and bought them a large pizza I couldn’t eat – but found myself defaulting to “no” at what I considered unreasonable requests, particularly with respect to the youngest, Stella, who is genetically fearless and has played the game long enough to know how to immediately seek emergency appeals to Lisa, who vetoes and reverses all of my injunctive rulings.

Needless to say, that continuous diet of authority interdiction on top of the chronic vise headache resulted in consistent contretemps throughout the day between the Dude and Nona that finally drew an extremely eloquent and forceful “That’s soooo fucking stupid!” from between my clenched teeth when, after me politely warning her not to, Stella, sitting in the back seat of a moving car, threatened to put a round glowing stone from the JTS grotto in her mouth.

Yeah, I’m not proud of it. But I would rather Stella hate me into her 80s then defy me with her last choking breath before the age of 7.

Now for the purpose of clarity, and fairness, Stella never actually put the stone near her mouth, but she defiantly responded to my repeated safety warnings with numerous “I can if I want,” after suggesting to her sisters that it was worth considering. And for further clarity, Scarlett and Savanna never once challenged me at any time throughout the visit. They were their usual bodacious selves.

For some reason, seeing the Dude lose it seemed to turn the tide with Stella.

I’m also pretty sure that Lisa – who was sitting beside me in shotgun position – thought my derogatory line was directed at her because at that point I was cajoling her to step in and take control of the situation before Stella stubbornly, though unintentionally, offed herself in the back seat – because we don’t carry around a LifeVac.

Now, I have made it my life’s goal to never state someone else is stupid. I find doing so to be unproductively demeaning and arrogant. Argumentum ad hominem. When pushed, I usually skirt the issue by suggesting someone’s conduct or its predictable outcome is stupid.

However, as I sit here replaying the event, I might have said “You’re” instead of “That’s.” Honestly, I’m not really sure but it is possible. And that would have been completely wrong of me. Especially to my wife.

Well, we managed to get the grans back home alive and well just after 7 pm.

I stewed in the car while Lisa escorted them through their front door. The ride back home was silent.

The only conversations that occurred back at Casa Claire were between me and the domestic, feral and mystical creatures.

At some point, hopefully today, I intend to apologize to my darling wife. Wish me luck.

Well, another Sunday is upon my fine, five readers. Hopefully, you can all enjoy the Biblically mandated day of rest.

I may have to endure a Biblical level retribution. Mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa.

Message to self – don’t be a grumpy old fuck.

And no matter what else we get up to, let us make today a great one.