Neal Stephenson – King of the Vagabonds: Book Two of The Baroque Cycle

I got done shipping sold items and putting new items online about 1 pm.

The Wife and I put Darth Beetle in the wind, picked up some stuff at Bed, Bath & Beyond, and checked out an assisted living community in Stokesdale for her mom, before landing at the Mexican Restaurant in Stokesdale.

I ended up sitting beside a Marine Recon Vietnam veteran who’d moved here from Chicago nearly 40 years ago. We got along great, as we quaffed Dos Equis Lager and watched NASCAR and NCAA action on the big screens.

He seemed as pleased to meet me as I him. I could listen to a Vietnam vet all day, but I managed to ask if he’d read the Cryptonomicron. Of course, his face went wide with recognition of something he couldn’t even discuss with his wife of thirty eight years.

“Well then, you’ll go nuts for The Baroque Cycle,” I said, and then demurred into a discussion of how Tom Luongo believes it’s time we’re done with all the recent shit and need to get on with our lives.

I brought up the similarities between the calamities of 1666 and our current mess.

With any luck, we’ll be back next Sunday, and I’ll have finished book two.

It turns out mentioning my incandescent hatred of Hillary Clinton is the best way to tell people I’ve been pro-Russian since 2014. This guy, a mechanical engineer running a crew of Mexicans, was onboard with my respect for Putin.

“We no longer recognize excellence,” he said.

The Wife is going over the past two day’s receipts, making sure the items sold in the store have been taken off the website. An integrated online app would solve that, but putting all our eggs in one basket seems imprudent.

The recent pandemic has proven to be merely a minor inconvenience compared to taking care of her mother, a dedicated narcissist of the first order.

The Prodigal Son dropped the ball and the Wife has spent the Winter shepherding her mother through post-cancer rehab and wrestling her fouled up finances from him.

It hasn’t helped that her mother has chosen to live six hours away, in Pennsylvania, to be near her boyfriend. Sadly, he’s failing fast and no long has time for her.

Fortunately, money is apparently no issue.

As a man, my primary aim is simply not to let the Wife down.

I regularly, shop, cook and do laundry, in addition to my landscaping duties.

It would take six Mexicans to replace me.