For weeks, I’ve been mentioning a certain something in my life that’s been going on and which has, on occasion, interfered with my normal routine. I’ve hinted at it during my tastytrade show, and I’ve mentioned it off-handedly in the comments system. Now that it has an ending, I’m ready to tell the tale. (TRIGGER WARNING: If you do not have utter and complete disrespect for anyone who works for any government, you might want to give this entire post a miss. I have a lifelong disrespect for all civic employees. Every single one. So, like I said, I would suggest perhaps you pop over to the Kardashian website or something instead. Kiss, kiss………………..Tim)

The Trip Forthcoming

As long-time readers know, the vast majority – – virtually the entirety – – of our family’s travel is due to fencing. Our children are elite, internationally-seasoned fencers, and we’ve been to a dizzying number of cities and countries to the sport.

Now, having never been an athlete myself, I’m not sure what kinds of places other athletes go, but when it comes to fencing, I am convinced the organizers of any of these events pick from a list of the world’s least desirable locations and choose those for the venue. I’m not going to enumerate them, but let’s just say that, were it not for fencing, I’d have never visited any of the cities are countries to which we had traveled.

In that spirit, the next trip up was in…………..Romania. You remember them, right? The impoverished former member of the Eastern Bloc whose dictator, Nicolae Ceaușescu, was so hated by his countrymen that, when the USSR fell to pieces, he and his wife were shot to death by his own army on Christmas Day, 1989. So, true to form, the fencing destination was a former Warsaw Pact shithole, and a place no one would ever want to visit. Ever.