StanleyWheeler

"Grandpa, I'm ascared to tell you something," he said behind the locked door.
He said that about six time before saying, "I'm afraid you'll get mad if I tell you something."
He said that three or four times.
Eventually, he told me his concern, and informed me that if I or his brother had a problem with it, we would just have to deal with it.
I didn't get mad. We really didn't have to deal with anything.

I was spending time with Les Freres Corses -- The Corsican Brothers--as I've dubbed them after Dumas' famous novel; or rather they were spending time with me as everyone else was off doing things, and I alone was left to supervise the adorable masters of destruction.

We went on to finish gathering the walnuts from the yard, and filling the flat tire on the van. The latter involved complications. As the tire had gone completely flat a few days ago, the seal around the rim had broken. All the air I pumped into the tire escaped through the gap between the tire and rim. I tried it three times just to make sure. I huffed, and I puffed, but I could not blow the house down tire up.

Plan A: Backup the van a couple feet to reset the tire on the rim. I didn't think this would work, but it offered an easy solution that I thought I could try first. Except it wasn't that easy. The battery in the van had been kryptonited, i.e, been drained of all its power. So we had to jump start the van. Fortunately, I have one of those  power packs for starting cars, recharging phaser banks, and other stuff. It's important to understand that the Corsican Brothers have an insatiable desire to know "Why" about everything. It's a case of intensely curious cop and extraordinarily inquisitive cop. They wanted to know what the car battery was and what the power pack was. I explained those things in basic terms. They wanted to know how those things worked, but like Odd Job from Kelly's Heroes, "I  don't know what makes them work..." at least not beyond a very rudimentary understanding. I did explain that the red clamp goes on the battery post with the red wire--the positive post--and the black clamp goes on the battery post with the black wire--the negative post. That lead to questions about what posts are and why batteries have them, what are positive and negative, and what would happen if one connected them the other way. Having explained that it's all required by The Uniform Commercial Code of Professional Conduct and International Treaty on Bottled Energy and the Transference thereof to Prevent the Unnecessary Depletion or Extinction of Lightning, Unicorns, and Electric Eels* (or a more realistic explanation that probably made just as much sense to them), we proceeded to the next step. The van started as expected. However, moving it a couple feet did nothing to persuade the tire to retain compressed air.

Plan B: Jack up the van to reseat the tire. The questions started with, "What's a jack?" and continued with, "Why does it have wheels?" The Brothers did not believe that the jack could lift the van. I explained that the jack could lift 2 tons. "What's a ton?" "How many tons does the van weigh?" "How does it work?" "How are you going to get it back down?" "Is it this bolt?" "Is it this one?" "Is it this one?" "How come it has a warning on it?" Naturally, I completed the task successfully in spite of the questions which came like the bullets during the final moments of Butch and Sundance.

With that job complete. One of the Brothers spied a dead bird that had caught itself in some netting a year or two ago. Feather and bones were all that remained--including a bare, white skull. Questions about that led to a discussion--which is to say, an interrogation--about death and decay, and oxygen, and blood flow, and wounds, and scabs, and healing. It was also during this time that I was informed by one of the Brothers that light was made of boton particles. I asked if he meant "photon" and I was emphatically informed that he did not. It was "boton."

We went on to play blackjack and chess instead of riding the four-wheeler because the wind was too cold. My favorite phrase during the blackjack game was when one of the Brothers said, "Kick me," when he wanted another card.

*Of course I jest. That treaty was superseded by the Code of Hammurabi and The Electron Immigration Act.

***

What have I written this week? Not very much. I was gone to a training conference most of the week and the atmosphere of the hotel room wasn't conducive to writing in my opinion. The conference featured cool topics like Advanced Strangulation, and 404b.  I did get a cool pen with a light and a laser pointer for turning in my evaluation at the end--so I got that going for me.

Book Three in the Tomahawks and Dragon Fire series is more than half complete (I think). I expect to have it ready sometime in April,  a couple months ahead of my originally projected completion date. The characters have a few separate-but-connected adventures going. They will come together for the big finale that resolves the quest which was set at the start of Threading the Rude Eye. If you have read Rude Eye, please post a review. I had hoped to have more than 25 reviews long before now--that hope has been crushed like Pelosi's impeachment dreams.