The other game that I've played more recently is a card game, but it also has a board. So, cribbage. Probably considered a card game, but you can't just play with a deck of cards unless you -- I guess you could keep track, like on a piece of paper of the score. That game, I used to play with my grandpa. He might have been the one -- he -- I don’t know if he was the one that taught it to me or if my mom did. But even after he had lost much of his memory and was very much in the throes of dementia, he could still play euchre -- I mean, still play cribbage. And that was something that we did up until the December before he passed. We played in December and he passed in February. So, he was still, still with it enough to, to remember most of that game. I think we sort of helped a little bit, maybe with the counting or something, but he, he was able to still, still remember that. So my mom every once in a while wants to play cribbage, and if she does I usually will try and play with her because it's memories of her dad, and, and my grandpa.

I would rather be the hero. I would never ever want to be the villain. I have been the villain, in certain situations, as we all have. But my true desire is to never be the villain in anyone’s story ever again. We've all done harm to others, and I really, really want to dedicate my life to helping others and being just, a little light in this world like, you know, like the old song says, you know, "This little light of mine, I'm gonna let it shine." You know, be the hero, be the light in the world, and I know I'm not that yet, but I hope to be that. And me and my wife have a little joke that she's the poor man’s Batman, because if she had his money, she could have everything he had and do everything he did. Because if we really think about it, Batman's just a regular guy. He doesn't have any superpowers, everything that he has is a gadget or a gizmo, that his, his inordinate wealth gave to him. So really, if we had the resources, me and my wife would be Batman and Robin, the best we could. Runnin’ around trying to save Gotham, and boy are we in Gotham.

But then, in the afternoon, I got a message from them that -- him and his mom, that he had wanted to do a Day of the Dead celebration. So, he learned about it in Spanish class, and his mom took him to Target to get some crafts and he made an ofrenda. Pretty much by himself, like they worked together but you know, he did some crafts. He did some, you know, they had some, some, skulls, and he had oranges, and he also had pictures from his, his great-grandma who had died and his great-grandpa, well, both his great-grandmas. And then a pet that he had lost, and it was a very, very nice -- He made that on Saturday, and he called and they invited me to go, and I took, took a picture of my son who had passed away, and then also great-grandpa. So it was a really, it was a really beautiful experience. One of the things that they talked about was having food that the person really liked, so they decided to have English muffins, with strawberry jam. Which was my mom's favorite thing to have. So, that was really sweet, and then they asked me what did, what did my son like to eat? And the only thing it could really think of was chicken nuggets. From McDonald's. And so they said, “Well, we just had chicken nuggets. We're having chicken nuggets for dinner right now.” McDonald's chicken nuggets, McNuggets. So that was very cool. That was on Saturday night so they had leftovers then to celebrate, but it was a very, very sweet, moving experience. His other grandparents came on Sunday, to see the ofrenda and to share memories, and we shared memories about our people. And it was really a very, very sweet, nice, a nice experience. And I was really proud of him for, for, just for his empathy and, and, kindness that he shows. And you know he's so sentimental. And he takes everything, he takes everything to heart."

"Would you rather live in a house of cards or a house of Doritos?” I would choose the Doritos mostly because the Dorito itself is triangular. Triangles are typically a better building form to allow a certain amount of integrity in the structure, and even though, yes, one is food and one is typically paper, the food could be preserved and treated and spackled in a way that could provide a certain level of stability that the house of cards would traditionally be a little lower. The other thing is, trying to treat the thing would be quite a challenge obviously because before everything got stale and hardened, alright, would all matter of creatures and beings, you know, be tempted by the scent of cool ranch or nacho cheese, is one of the first… Actually, that would be kind of funny if I think about it. Would your Dorito house be seasonally themed, or would it depend on the architecture and taste -- flavors of the area? Would the Midwestern bungalow be more cool ranch as opposed to nacho cheese in the southwest, or would some of the newer flavors enter the profile? For instance, now you can get sriracha flavored Doritos. I haven't tried those yet, but surely somebody's enjoying those. I'm thinking of how to spackle it together. Would it be sour cream? Would it be queso dip? Sour cream would seem to make more sense, one because it would look more like a spackling paste or a caulk. But, that does allow for a certain level of imagination...

This past Saturday, we were sitting, it was about 6pm, and we live in, I would say -- I guess -- how would you describe it? Like a semi-rural area? So, it's near a big city, and the houses are pretty spread apart, like maybe a quarter mile between a lot of the houses, so, we know many of our neighbors. And anyway, we're sitting there, I'm having dinner with my mom, my husband's giving my child a bath, and we suddenly hear this really, really loud noise. And we've been playing around with, there's this piece of -- I don't know how to describe it. It's like a trim piece basically, but it's like an architectural thing that goes over doors. Like, it's like a design kind of wooden thing, and we'd been putting it over certain doors, and like talking about it before my child's bath, and when I heard that noise, I thought it had just fallen. Like, I thought my husband had essentially leaned it up on a piece of trim above a door and then it just had fallen.  So, I'm like looking around for it, I can't find it anywhere. Everyone in the house heard the noise and was like, “What is that?” And I like look over and I see that trim piece on the counter, so I’m like, “Well, what in the world?” And as I'm doing this, both my mom and I are like, “I'm pretty certain I heard glass snap, and I'm pretty certain it came from over here.” So, I, uh, I open my husband's office door and suddenly realize that there is a bullet hole in that window.  So obviously feeling very, very concerned, I told my husband like, “Someone just shot our house.” And he realized the neighbors had been shooting like quite a ways away, like a quarter mile away earlier in the day, and he thought he heard it before, like earlier, just moments before. So he ran over there to say, “Stop shooting,” and they were already inside the house. And this is within like three minutes of this happening. So, pretty certain they knew or suspected they hit the house to like have, you know, packed it in and gotten inside so quick.  Um, and when it happened, my husband's from kind of up north Michigan. Like, I don't know, it's just a different culture…