The Month That Was - July 2023

One thing I have not been able to do this summer is swim in the lake.  Between trips to Southern Headquarters and fire ant sores (see below) I haven't got out to the lake yet. Also I was late getting my sprinkler system started up and we hit a dry spell that pretty much killed my lawn.  Then as soon as I got it going the rains came and made it irrelevant.  I haven't turned them on since.

You could title the above paragraph Summer Problems of a Lucky Man.  Every summer like this is a gift.

[Nature] Ants of Fire

[Ann Arbor] Ann Arbor Backslide

[TV] Toob Notes - Partial Impressions

[Nature] Ants of Fire

So I had my first encounter with fire ants.  Down at Southern Headquarters I was simply wandering the back yard and I must have stopped in proximity to a nest. Now, I have a vague memory of a childhood trip to Florida and getting stung by ants but I don't recall any terrible reaction other than a brief owie.  This time I had a bad reaction.  A couple of the bites ended with small blisters but one was particularly bad and blistered at least an inch and a half across.  All bites were on my feet thanks to open-toed sandals.  The pain went away in a short while but the blisters, which were painless, lasted for days.

The real problem was the swelling.  My foot and ankle swelled greatly, which was a little scary to me.  After about a week of getting worse, I headed to urgent care where I got a steroid shot, antibiotic pills, steroid pills, antibiotic cream, and steroid cream. Yes, it may have been overkill. Now I'm going to talk about gross stuff.

The word on blisters from all sources is do not pop them.  I have come to disagree with that.  The reason you don't poop a blister is because it offers a bit of protection against bacteria getting in the wound.  Well, that's easy to manage with nothing more than neosporin and a bandage.  Popping (or at least draining) the blister can also allow your shoes to fit.  Also if the blister gets very large when it does finally break a huge swath of skin beneath it can be scarred and irritated.  That is in fact what happened to me. I left alone a small blister on my ankle and it grew and grew and then when it did pop it left a raw patch of skin, which is in fact painful.  Also, the doctor I saw at urgent care said popping a blister is fine if it makes you more comfortable and you are not going to anything to get the underlying wound infected.  So… lesson learned. 

Sorry for the grossness. Anyway, still not fully healed from it all.  So fire ants need to be eliminated from the face of the earth.  One encounter with the tiny little buggers has disrupted me for three weeks and it's not completely done yet. Chemical warfare was employed in the backyard, but I'm told even that is only temporary.  Resolved: While at Southern Headquarters each day will commence with a scan of the backyard for the savage critters and death to any I find.  I also need to wear thigh high boots at all times.

Thank God I'm a Northern Boy.

[Ann Arbor] Ann Arbor Backslide

Last month I fretted over the comparatively minor crime spike and, when coupled with some anti-Police legislation, wondered whether it was a bellwether of Ann Arbor being on the road to Portland or San Francisco-style degradation.

The usually inept Ann Arbor News has even caught on, cataloging the wave of 11 homicides in the area.  I will not make any observations about the character of these crimes; you can do that for yourselves.  I will point out that only half of them were perpetrated in what I would consider good, relatively safe places in the area, one was even out near and to the south of Dexter.  The rest were in points east (Ypsilanti, Ypsilanti Township, Superior Township) where such occurrences are much more to be expected.  There is a sarcastic localism that anything east of US-23 is Detroit, but maybe Detroit is reaching further west.

The jury is still out about degradation.  If we start seeing headlines like this --Double amputee shot in back of head is among ‘rash of panhandler victims’ in Detroit -- we'll know it's time to bail.   On the other hand, if police blotters veer in this direction -- Northern Michigan woman attacks man with toilet cleaner -- we'll know we're going in the right direction.

Possibly related: Perennially one of the top ten places to live, Ann Arbor has slipped to #65 in this survey.

[TV] Toob Notes - Partial Impressions

Ted Lasso - I had temporary access to Apple TV when down south so a Ted Lasso binge was in order.  Season 1 was a delight.  Terrific ensemble acting, flawed characters who somehow find their way amidst loss and degradation.  Funny as hell.  Then Season 2 went in the toilet and turned into a weepy chick flick.  This was a series that was aching to follow the Seinfeldian principle of "no hugging, no learning" and they went opposite into a "get in-touch with your feelings, especially you toxic males" format.  Tremendous let down.  Season 3 (of which I only saw the first 3 episodes before I had to leave) seemed to get somewhat back on track, although I reserve judgment until I see it through.  My advice: watch Season 1 and feel free to bail at any point after that.

Justified: City Primeval - I was truly psyched to see Raylan Givens ride again.  Timothy Olyphant's portrayal in Justified was truly one of the greatest extended performances of all time.  For me, it's right next to pantheon level work by James Gandolfini, Ian McShane, and Bob Odenkirk in Sopranos, Deadwood, and Better Call Saul respectively. In short, City Primeval (through the first 4 episodes) is a big let down.  Gone is the great ensemble cast -- no Tim, no Art, no Duffy, no Constable Bob --  replaced by a set of personality-less interchangeable Detroit cops.  And while Boyd Holbrook does decent work as the big bad, he's no Walton Goggins, and his character, Mansell, is no Boyd Crowder. Worst of all, it's no fun.  The relationship of Raylan and his daughter gets a lot of time and while occasionally poignant, it's a bummer. The repartee and sparking dialogue is gone, replaced with standard cop show blather.  It's also harmed by its setting in Detroit, which is just depressing, although it does capture the dinginess of both the city and its leaders quite well. What does that say about Detroit, that it's more dire and bleak than Harlan, Kentucky.  

Marvel's Secret Invasion -- It is astonishing how Marvel has gone from doing no wrong and breaking box office records at will to having pretty much destroyed every property they had.  A tell-all book about the rise and fall of Marvel Studios needs to be written.  I canceled my Disney+ subscription some time ago, but they provided Amazon Prime with a preview of the first three episodes of their latest TV series, Secret Invasion. The plot here is that an aging Nick Fury has to work to stop a group of shape shifting aliens from exterminating the human race.  The first three episodes weren't offensively bad, which is an achievement for Marvel these days.  It suffers from what a number of late Disney/Marvel products suffer from, things happen for no other reason than somebody wrote a scene that said it would, whether it is internally consistent or not is unimportant.  They thankfully left the gag-laden self-parody out of it, but they also left out the fun. It was just kind of "meh".   Needless to say, I felt no urgent desire to renew my Disney+ to finish it out.  Neither should you.