Category: Life in Dunwich

My Adventures in the Mythical New England Town of Dunwich

Books and Bugs

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So, today’s post is about nothing.  I’m involved in a bunch of random things right now.  I’m reading two novels.  I’ve got Jim Butcher’s latest Harry Dresden book “Twelve Months” and I’m also reading a very old book called “Buddenbrooks” by the German author Thomas Mann.  And you couldn’t hope to find two more completely different stories if you tried.  But I have an interest in reading both.  But the Dresden book flies by while Mann’s description of the 19th century events in the lives of the merchant family Buddenbrook is a task that I peck away at a few pages at a sitting.  The translator saw fit to preserve the large chunks of French that Mann incorporated in the speech of some of his characters.  And the religiosity and the local customs of Northern Germany are curiosities for a modern American reader.

I’m also involved in a microscopic inspection of the flora in the fields.  I mentioned in an earlier post that I couldn’t find any preying mantis egg sacs in the yard this year and assumed that the mantids that I introduced into the yard in the last couple of years weren’t capable of surviving New England winters.  Well, either that isn’t correct or the native populations are making their appearance this year.  In two different areas of the yard on two different species of flowering plants (cone flowers and day lilies) I found the specimens photographed below.

Now, these critters are infinitesimally small.  And considering my old eyes, I’m shocked I found then at all.  And as things stand now, I haven’t been able to locate them again on the plants where I originally spotted them.  But this doesn’t discourage me.  After following some of the mantids around the fields last year I know that they get around and move quite a lot to find the diet of tiny bugs they need to fuel their substantial growth potential.

And I don’t mind saying that finding these little monsters cheered me up considerably.  I really do enjoy hunting them around the fields and watching them go about their work of stalking, killing and eating tiny flies and other arthropods.  Their skill is considerable and their appetites remarkable for something so small.

And the other thing keeping me busy is preparation for an upcoming birthday party for one of the grandchildren.  I found out that the propane cylinder I was trying to get refilled was too old.  Apparently after five years it’s considered unsafe and has to be recertified for use.  So, the Tractor Supply folks sold me a new twenty-pound cylinder for eighty bucks and now I have both.  I wonder how much they’ll charge me to “recertify” the old one?  I’m guessing something like eighty bucks.  After all, we’ve got to do whatever we can to discourage the use of evil hydrocarbons!  But it’s fine.  The burgers and dogs will still taste just as good cooked by the new propane.

Well, that’s enough for now.  I’m watching my Amazon account today.  I sold 613 pages of “The Sniper” on Kindle Unlimited today.  That’s almost three books worth and that is pretty good for my sales output so I want to see if it increases before I go to bed.

A Special Message from the First Selectman

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Good morning my fellow Dunwichians.  I come to you today with a heavy heart but a firm resolve.  I’m sure that all of you are aware of the enormous scandal that has unfolded over the allegations that have swirled around my old friend Graham Platner.  As you all know he and I go way back to the early days of the oyster farming craze of the twenty teens.  After all, as a cephalopod I naturally gravitate to shellfish eating pursuits.  And for many years we’ve made the rounds of the New England dive bar circuit.  Of course, he was entering them looking for drunk chicks and after he was done I would rip the building from the ground and swallow all of the organic contents.  But we were always very chummy.  He would show me his death’s head tattoo and I would show him my keychain with the skulls of anybody who didn’t get out of my way that week.  But we were always good pals.

But things have gone too far.  His disrespect for women has crossed a line.  Now, sure, I’ve had my moments of ribaldry with the fairer sex.  That time I crashed the Smith College orientation day and ate the whole freshman class in a swimming pool full of barbecue sauce was a bit “forward” of me but I maintained the highest levels of decorum, always keeping my pinky fingers outstretched and never talking while chewing.  And I did send an apology to the Dean of Students for neglecting to get a pool pass in advance.  But in my heart, I’ve always been a true gentleman and have never disrespected women.

So, it is my sad duty to condemn Graham for his awful behavior and shocking actions.  As the political head of the Dunwich Democratic Party, I must take the sad but necessary action of cancelling Graham Platner’s status as keynote speaker at the Dunwich Labor Day Jamboree.  And I must further demand the return of all the free passes to the rides and attractions that have already been mailed to him.  These passes represent a value of over eleven dollars and are much sought after by patrons of the event.  I would hope that Graham would have the decency of mailing the passes in time for their use at the Labor Day festivities.  He may have sunk into sexual moral depravity and criminality but at least let’s hope he hasn’t also become a selfish jerk too.

But as much as it is my sad duty to denounce Graham for his outrageous behavior, I feel it’s also necessary to extend the hope of redemption to this lost soul.  During the Middle Ages the Church of Rome was famous for their carefully calibrated table of alms linked to indulgences for various terrible sins.  In the same vein I’d like to offer Graham the chance to pay alms to Dunwich for the indulgence of his offences.  I think three tons of oysters would cover the moral lapses in question quite nicely.  If he could convey the alms to my refrigerator by the end of July, I think we could see him attending the Labor Day Jamboree as a “prodigal son” without too much squawking by the gals, in my estimation.  Think about it Graham.  I’m sure you’ll do the right thing, amigo.

Papaya, Jerry, Papaya!

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Here it is the Fourth of July and Camera Girl and I are home alone with the dogs and various other captive living organisms.  The kids and the grandkids have headed for the ocean and we must fend for ourselves.  And we had a nice dinner and finished up our chores (except this one) so I said let’s watch a movie to celebrate the Fourth.  And I left the choice of movie up to her.  What would she pick?  Independence Day?  Yankee Doodle Dandy?  Ah, Wilderness?  No, her pick was inspired.

“The Hot Dog Program.”  It’s a documentary from a guy from Pittsburgh who did documentaries for PBS (boo!!!).  The show travels across the country from Coney Island in Brooklyn to Anchorage, Alaska describing the local variations in the toppings, condiments and preparations of hot dogs in various places in the United States.  And to tie it into the Fourth, the show features the Fourth of July hot dog eating contest at Coney Island.

But the real reason why this movie was a brilliant selection for the holiday is because back in 1999 when this special was made there were people in all parts of the country who were excited to describe hot dogs as the most American of American foods.  And even the foreigners who were interviewed were visibly excited about associating with the American culture that the hot dog was emblematic of.

In place as different as Chicago IL and a small town in Alabama everyone thought of their local hot dog stand or store as a touchstone to their childhood memories and local life.  It linked up with summer barbecues, baseball games and summer fun.  And everyone from lawyers in Manhattan to Hollywood actors in Los Angeles to small town policemen in Georgia were sure that they knew the best place to get a hot and a drink.  Of course, they wouldn’t agree whether that drink was papaya juice in Times Square or a Coke in a glass bottle in small-town South Carolina.  But the disagreement is the point.  It’s local flavor.

And the movie was also highly educational.  We saw the awful cut of beef that is used in their manufacture and watched as the disgusting puree that eventually becomes hot dog is shaped, cooked and shot at high speed into a storage bin.  What could be more appetizing?

But what makes this movie most enjoyable is seeing Americans from 1999 talk about an America that was still the one we all remember as kids.  A place full of happy people who can enjoy a simple thing like having a hot dog for lunch without there being any political, cultural or ethnic baggage associated with an iconic American food.  Back then no one was making the point that we should consider the taco or the egg roll (or even worse some vegan grass burger) should be the new American cuisine and we all should renounce the hot dog as anathema and bad for the planet.  And that’s probably why we both enjoyed watching this so much.  Happy Independence Day.

Blow-Up Godzilla and Highway Mayhem

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The Third of July was a busy day.  We had to get the pool vacuumed before guests arrived and then there were chores around the yard.  And then we had a good summer cookout with burgers and potato salad, corn on the cob, sausage and peppers and watermelon.  No wonder losing weight is such a slog!

And it was a good visit with reminiscences about summers up in Maine when my kids were young and other trips.  And I had an interesting conversation with Princess Sack of Potatoes.  She said something about how useful mothers were.  So, I mentioned to her what fathers were useful for.  I asked her if she ever got tired while out somewhere and her father carried her around like a sack of potatoes?  Or what exactly would happen if the car got a flat tire far away from a tow truck?  Or if suddenly traffic stopped on a crowded highway in the middle of summer and after an hour someone would have to get out and walk up the road to see how long the stoppage would be.  And this caused a yelp from Princess Sack of Potatoes’ mother.  She remembered that day very well after all these years.  And she was still upset by it, remembering how certain she had been that I would never come back alive.  We all got a big laugh out of that.

This was shortly after I had moved out of New York City but I was driving into Manhattan to attend a wedding in SoHo.  It was a science fiction themed wedding with a blow-up Godzilla in attendance.  We were on the FDR Drive when the traffic screeched to a halt and nothing happened for about forty minutes.  So, since it was very hot that day and my car’s air conditioning was non-existent, I shut off the engine and started walking between lanes of traffic to see what was going on.  And about a half mile up the road there were police, fire and emergency vehicles blocking the road in both directions.  And along with several crashed cars there was a very fancy sports car that was upside down and wrapped around a light pole and some other parts of the highway infrastructure.  The firemen were cutting away what was left of the frame to get at what was left of the driver.  It looked pretty grim.

The good news for us was that our direction on the highway would be released as soon as the ambulances got their patients stowed away and headed to the hospital.   The other side looked like it would be stuck for hours.  So, after satisfying my morbid curiosity for a few minutes I headed back to my car with the news that we would be moving in less than another half hour.  And my youngest daughter looked so relieved when I managed to return before the traffic had started to move.  She was convinced that if I hadn’t gotten back before it started to move then of necessity I would be squashed like a bug in a cartoon.

It’s funny, up until today I hadn’t thought of that day in thirty-some-odd years.  Funny what stuff just pops into your head.

Scooby Doo and the Heat Index

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I was informed by “AccuWeather” that today’s forecast high temperature would be 99 degrees Fahrenheit.  But it was further stated that it would feel like 114 degrees Fahrenheit!  Now I once spent a summer in California and we did several times reach 114 degrees.  And as far as I can remember this was nothing like that.  99 degrees at 100 percent humidity and 114 degrees with bone dry air feel nothing alike.  One is a blast furnace and the other is a steam room.  So, what is the sense of this scare temperature of 114?  The weather dweebs on my local cable provider were running in circles warning of impending climate catastrophe and exhorting me to shelter in place.  I was especially amused by New York’s Mamdani begging his citizens to protect themselves from the heat but also commanding them not to set their air conditioners below 78 degrees.  Apparently, the electrical grid in New York is experiencing brown outs and everything must be done to avoid a black out during Taylor Swift’s upcoming nuptials at Madison Square Garden.  Something tells me that the wedding party will be excused from obeying the 78-degree mandate.  Can’t have a middle aged pop diva sweating at her wedding.  Think of the poor groom!

So, I finished off the rest of the lawn this morning with my push mower and as soon as the gas tank emptied, I changed the oil on that little Briggs and Stratton powered trash mower.  This will buy me some time until the tubing for draining off the oil from my riding mower arrives from my friends at Amazon.com (tomorrow they say).  I had to suspend the mower upside down and at an angle to avoid something to do with the spark plug and I looked distinctly goofy holding it in that position.  But I only spilled a couple of drops and voila!  She sounds as good as new (sorta).

As I was watering the plants in the pool area, I saw a little frog jump in so I fished him out with the pool net and threw him into Camera Girl’s Pond.  Now this was slightly after her evening feeding frenzy so as soon as he fell in, there was a boiling, bubbling panic around him and he jumped straight out into the high grass behind the pond.  Well, he probably did the right thing.  If he wanders back into the swimming pool, he can take solace from the knowledge that being chlorinated to death is a quiet peaceful end compared to being hacked to bits by the Piranha Brothers.

Tomorrow we will have Princess Sack of Potatoes and her parents here to swim in the pool before all of the grandkids head off for a week by the seaside.  A little rest and relaxation for us is good but it will be a bit quiet without them.  This week I sat through several hours of Scooby Doo cartoons that I’ve already seen too many times and Sonic the Hedgehog 2 which I probably could have skipped too but with them there enjoying this ridiculous entertainment I kind of felt like part of the gang.  Which is pretty cool.

All in All, Very Entertaining

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Ah, July First.  The end of winter here in Dunwich and the season of heat and oppressive humidity.  Glorious!  All week the grandkids have been swimming around in the pool which mercifully opened this year without a leak in the liner.  Last year ended with two patches applied and a warning that when winter ended it might be time to replace the liner; a very expensive and difficult procedure that would tax the almost non-existent competence of our local pool professional (and I use this word extremely facetiously) to its limit and beyond.  I told Matt, the pool guy. that I would think about replacing it in September.  But I’m not sure.  I might roll the dice again in 2027.  We’ll see.

I’m off from work for the next week and a half and I’m almost as giddy as a school boy on the first day of summer.  I walked around and checked the milkweed to see if any monarch caterpillars were chewing on the leaves.  While I didn’t find any, I did see a monarch butterfly flitting around the yard and took that as a good sign.  I also haven’t seen any preying mantis egg sacs or baby mantids anywhere and am starting to believe that the mantids that I bought the last few years aren’t capable of surviving the Dunwich winter.  I’ll have to look into that.  I have seen them naturally occurring in the area but I was hoping that my seeding of the area with egg sacs would have made them more prevalent.

Camera Girl has now completely conditioned her pond fish to expect a feeding at about six in the evening after our dinner.  Tonight when she arrived at the pond the water was already in motion and when she tossed in the food pellets it reminded me of what used to happen on the old Addams Family television show when Morticia would toss a leg of lamb into the piranha tank and the fish would roil the water for a few moments and a glistening white bone would be ejected at high speed out of the tank stripped clean.  That’s kind of like what her pond looks like at feeding time.  The damn things actually make audible noise.  I wouldn’t want to be an innocent grasshopper or cricket that accidentally fell into that death trap at feeding time.  It’s slightly unnerving.

I’m currently using my push mower to cut the grass in the fields and it’s taking many hours.  I’ve been too unmotivated to change the oil on the riding mower so I’m paying for my laziness.  But I figure it’ll help me achieve my summer weight loss goal.  If nothing else I’m definitely sweating off an enormous amount of water which must be good exercise for my sweat glands.  I noticed that I was having to double cut the grass to get it right.  But then I discovered that pulling it backward over the grass did a much better job so I dragged the mower behind me backward all the time.  Of course, you can only use one arm when dragging it behind you, so I came up with a routine to alternate arms.  And that had its own subtleties.  All in all, hand mowing was very entertaining.  A good first day of summer.

Reactions

Ed Brault 

It looks like New England is getting even more heat than here in South Carolina. I do remember a few HOT summers up in Danvers, and sweltering near DC when I was in college. Here we just expect it, do the yardwork before the Sun clears the trees, and keep in the shade and A/C until dusk.
If you think your wife’s fish pond look like the Addams Family, you should see the Great Ocean Tank at the SC Aquarium. 50 species totaling 550 various sized critters from all levels of the Food Chain, roiling the waters as we toss sixty pounds of mackerel, squid, shrimp, and smelt on the surface. The sharks are polite, they know they will have a separate dining service an hour later. Our 240-pound sea turtle, on the other hand, is the Diva of the Tank, and even the feeding frenzy parts before her as she glides over for her smelt-cicles (she loves it frozen, nice and crunchy). We do NOT have divers in the water at feeding time, although we do occasionally have to go in to recover a Chum Bucket that got loose from its line.

 

TomD

NO PETS FOR YOU!!!! NEXT!!!

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For many years Camera Girl has been legendary among her friends and family for keeping an actual menagerie of varied pets.  She has kept insects, arachnids, crustaceans, mollusks, worms, marine invertebrates, salt and fresh water fish, frogs and toads, salamanders, various lizards, snakes, turtles (mostly tortoises), parakeets, canaries, finches, gerbils, hamsters, guinea pigs, rabbits and decades of dogs (everything from Newfoundlands and basset hounds to miniature long haired dachshunds and German short haired pointers).  She even has adopted some local wild life having become a close friend to a crow pair (Moe and Flo), an acquaintance of a raven pair (Poe and Mrs. Poe) and a witness to the frightening visitations of a pair of hawks that habitually pick off the less cautious mourning doves at Camera Girl’s feeders.  So, it goes without saying that she’s no amateur at keeping critters.

This week it was decided that in deference to Princess Sack of Potatoes’ summer sleep over schedule, her request to add a hamster to the local zoo would be granted.  Now why the present rodent in resident (guinea pig Laylee) isn’t sufficient representation for that phylogenetic order (Rodentia) in the house I could not say.  But youth must be served so we headed off into the rain today to bring home a handleable (and cute) representative of Mesocricetus auratus also known as the Syrian hamster who will forthwith be known as “Chucky.”

And we were successful in finding Chucky and establishing her bona fides vis-à-vis “nipping” and were requesting the sales help to package Chucky for the trip home when a catch appeared.  We were asked to provide “proof of enclosure.”  Now this is a New England thing.  The states here are more concerned with the rights and privileges of hamsters than they are with the rights of people.  And it’s not even close.  So, what these two young people wanted was a photo on a phone showing the cage that Chucky would inhabit when we got her home.  Now Camera Girl and I both travel through life “sans phone.”  Other than a land line back at the Compound we are solely connected to the world around us through sounds produced by our mouths without any electronic amplification.  So, no phone, no pictures of a hamster cage.

This floored the young sales staff.  They said it was forbidden to send out a hamster without proof of enclosure!  I thought this was hilarious but Camera Girl was incensed.  Basically, they were accusing her of not knowing how to keep a hamster which from her point of view was a deadly insult.  She began describing in gory detail the dietary, housing and psychological regimen for hamsters that she had learned over the years.  She demanded to speak to the manager and know why this requirement had not been communicated over the phone when she had called earlier to find a hamster at the store.  The young sales staff were noticeably chastened and retreated to the manager’s office for more instruction.  And of course, the manager used discretion noting that the “proof of enclosure” was understood to be a way of ensuring that novice keepers didn’t get home with their pets and promptly lose them because of inadequate housing.  And of course, Chucky was promptly packaged and purchased and headed home with us.

But on the way home I quickly adapted the scenario into a variant of the Seinfeld episode “Soup Nazi.”  In my version it became “Pet Nazi” with a short mustached tyrant in a Pet Smart uniform shouting to customers who wanted to buy hamsters without cage photos, “No hamster for you!  Next!!!!

And this was a comical event but just multiply this aspect of life by a thousand and you get an idea of the suffocating nature of life in the nanny states of New England.

Father’s Day 2026

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So, I got every father’s Father’s Day dream come true.  I didn’t have to go anywhere or do anything at all today!  I slept an hour late and I ate a leisurely breakfast and I went outside to breath in the Summer Solstice air and stare at the sky and enjoy the experience of time standing still at the top of the solar roller coaster ride before it comes crashing down in the Winter Solstice and Christmas.  And it occurred to me that I would only be getting a handful more of these.  How many exactly, was a secret that the big guy upstairs plays relatively close to the vest but a dozen or two is an optimistic range.  From the point of view of probabilities even zero more summers isn’t that very unlikely.  So, I decided I should treat this occasion with the proper respect and commune with the spirit of the day.

So, I saw something I’d never seen before.  Two rabbits were standing outside of the living room window and almost nose to nose facing each other.  And suddenly one of them jumped vertically in the air and landed in the same exact spot.  And a few moments later it did the exact same thing.  I was very curious about this ritual.  Was it a male and female in some strange mating dance or was it two males trying to decide who was the bull goose rabbit of the area.  But I never found out because just then they must have seen me moving behind the window and took off (like rabbits).  I thought it was interesting how an animal with such a lopsided set of limbs could manage to launch itself so precisely square.  Its entire back remained parallel with the ground throughout its rise and fall.  Or at least that is how it appeared to me.  Well, you live and you learn.

Today the neighbors began delving into their Fourth of July stash of high explosives.  For the most part it seemed to be some kind of a series of about ten detonations in a row that seemed larger than fire crackers but smaller than M-80s.If I were going to guess I’d say it was some kind of a small mat of interconnected charges that branch off from a common fuse.  And this moderate sized munition doesn’t have a bad effect on the dogs so far.  They haven’t gotten worked up or frightened or even seemed to notice them so far.  But that is a temporary situation.  My neighborhood is sort of the Yucca Flats of fireworks testing.  One of the close neighbors (although because of vegetation cover I’ve never been able to determine exactly which one) must have access to fairly large thermonuclear devices.  The seismic events are somewhere around eight on the Richter Scale.  The fact that the recoil of the ground has shifted the orientation of my house by forty degrees over the course of the last few years is a testament to the quality of his firework merchant.  But Dunwich doesn’t have a noise ordinance or an atmospheric test ban.  So, I expect the show will be spirited this year.  Let the games begin!

To the Marriage of True Minds

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So, I was at one of those parties today and I met a bunch of nice folks and spent time with some old friends too.  And one of my friends was telling a story about a relative of his who had a job that involved a lot of international travel including Europe where he met his future wife.  And because of his desire to build up some equity in a home he bought a house in a town where he did not necessarily want to eventually settle down when he returned permanently to the US.

So, when he and his new wife took up residence in this home, he had his eyes open for his dream house which would include a huge garage that would accommodate his hobby of rebuilding classic old cars.  And one day he found it.  It had everything he wanted and was in the part of town he liked best.  So, he informed his wife of his find and that they should get ready to sell their house and move to the new location.  What he didn’t realize was that since moving back his wife had put down roots in the neighborhood and made friends and after moving to a new continent she would be devastated if she had to pull up roots again and start from scratch.

So, he stayed and had to forego the dream garage.  And my friend finished by saying that he had always been extremely shocked that his relative hadn’t insisted that they move in order to get the garage he really wanted.  So, I said to him, “But aren’t they still happily married?”  And he said “Yeah.”  “Well,” I said, “what’s harder to find, a good wife or a good garage?  And what are the chances of finding a second wife as good as the first?”  He chuckled and said, “I see your point.”

Now mostly this is just an amusing story.  The whole reason that his relative didn’t demand a move is that in any halfway decent marriage there is always a whole continuum of tradeoffs and negotiations that go on between a husband and wife.  We all have our “garage” that we want badly and also a laundry list of things that come ahead of it in the calculus of family life.  The kids’ braces come before that man cave you lust after.  A minivan has to be financed before the fishing boat you’ve always wanted.  Sometimes by the time it’s your turn to buy your heart’s desire, your heart no longer desires it.  Or you’re too old to put it to good use.

But managing to raise a family in today’s society and still being married to someone you like at the end is something of an accomplishment and I guess that was what I was trying to say.  It’s a trite saying, “Happy wife, happy life.”  But if you’ve had a happy marriage, it rings true.  Now before I get too sappy, I’ll append the classic answer that Art (Deputy Marshal in “Justified”) gave to the criminal when asked if he loved his wife, “Well, most of the time!”  But even that limitation admits to the fact that (mostly) happily married men recognize that even if a marriage is fraught with feminine annoyances the alternative is much sadder and lonelier.

Parties and Stories

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Tomorrow Camera Girl and I are double booked for parties.  We have a graduation party and a friend’s family party.  And they’re both at about the same time.  So, I suggested that we go to the graduation party for an hour or so and then head to the second one.  Camera Girl spent a couple of days telling me why that was a stupid idea.  And then she told me that we would split up and each go to only one party.

So, then I suggested we start off going to separate parties but then I would come back and pick her up and both of us would go to the friend’s party.  I think she wanted to hit me.  She shook her head and walked away.  I don’t think she understands optimization.

You see if I show up at a party by myself everyone is going to want to know where she is and why I showed up without her.  I’m not the draw.  She’s much more interesting because she’s telling stories about all the stupid things I do.  And when she tells them they’re funny.  Now I can’t tell stories about myself.  It would sound stupid.  I need a straight man to tell the story and then let me weave my defense.  It would be like Costello asking “who’s on first” without Abbott.  It’s just not the same without the cross-talking.

So today I checked my stats on Amazon.  So far, “The Sniper” has sold a total of 303 books (65 paperback copies and 238 e-books) and 3,657 pages on Kindle Unlimited.  On Kindle Unlimited my book is about 210 pages long so 3,657 pages is about 17 copies.  Not bad for about a month on Kindle Unlimited.  But I may have to cancel the yacht.

But the lack of fabulous wealth from my book sales has not dampened my enthusiasm for writing.  In fact, I’ve become much more excited about the sequel.  And what has me most intrigued is not so much the plot or even the new and old characters.  What I’m interested in is injecting more dialog.  Specifically, I want to get some of the characters to tell their stories.  And I know that this is backward.  The author is supposed to show the reader the story and not tell it. But storytelling within a story is an interesting technique that I’d like to try.  And I’d like to introduce dialog between characters about politics, economic policy, religion, traditional family, artificial intelligence, the war between the sexes, energy policy, the future of the human race, space exploration and a million other things.

Of course, I’ll have to be careful I don’t drown out the action under such a heavy soaking of blather but I think it’s time for my world to start exhibiting brains and not just marksmanship.  One thing I haven’t worked out yet is whether I get Connors and Grace to go out on a date.  I’ve been bouncing some stuff off of Camera Girl but I still don’t know whether any of it makes sense.  Oh well, the only way to find out is to start writing and see where it goes.