Mark My Words

Tara’s got a friend whose husband is going through Some Shit, so she decided to make her a pan of baked ziti. First off: how very Midwest! Well done, babe. Even better, she’s making an extra pan for us.

I was making a grocery list for a Woodman’s run over the weekend, and asked Tara if she needed me to pick up ziti.

“Nope!” she said. “Just a box of penne pasta.”

I looked at her all confused-like. “So, we’re having baked penne?”

“There’s no such thing as ziti pasta,” she replied. “That’s just the name of the dish.”

Now, my wife is rarely wrong about…well, anything. But clearly, her noodle knowledge was lacking, im-pasta-ble as that seemed. I wanted to correct her, let her know that penne and ziti are indeed two different pasta types, with unique shapes and textures–but I had to do so delicately. I’d hate to be accused of manicotti-splaining.

So, I googled penne vs. ziti, and handed her my phone, hoping she at least knew that rigatoni is another totally tubular pasta.

“Well, what do you know?” she said. “I was wrong.”

Sweet mother of Mary and Joseph, those words were music to my ears! Only because, nine times out of ten, they’re coming out of my mouth. When you’re right only a fraction of the time, you take these little victories whenever you get them.

“Eh, no need to feel fusilli about it,” I said diplomatically (and Canadian-ly). Sneaking in a dad joke like that was an added bonus, the coup de grace if you will.

And that was the extent of our conversation. No need to gnocchi my wife when she’s already down.

Still, I couldn’t resist texting her the following from the grocery store.

And for the record, it’s a baked penne she’s making. You say tomato, I say to-mah-to; it’s all going to be smothered in sauce and cheese anyway.

I did not buy the DeCecco, by the way, because it’s expensive and I find the whole “zita cut” and “bronze drawn slow drying” way too pompous for my liking. Barilla it was.

Up, up, and away!

For Christmas 2024, Tara’s big gift to me was a drone. To say I was excited is an understatement. I’d always wanted one. This past weekend, I finally got to fly it!

If you’re thinking 612 days is a long time to wait between opening a gift and actually using it, no shit. This wasn’t by design: I had that drone out of the box and was ready to get high (err, so to speak) before the Times Square ball even dropped to usher in 2025. But for some reason, I could never get it to work. Every time I powered up the drone, the motor would come to life, the propellers spinning noisily…but then I’d get a “communication lost” error and the whole thing would shut down before I could ever get it off the ground. This happened time and again. Something was interrupting the radio link signal between the controller and the drone, but I could never figure out what. No amount of troubleshooting could get it to work. Even that ol’ standby, cursing like a sailor, did nothing. Eventually, I grew so discouraged, I shoved the drone in the back of the closet. Out of sight, out of mind.

But it never really was.

Last week, I pulled it out again. It had been a year since my last attempt, and I had no reason to believe it would magically take off this time. I did all the usual pre-flight prep…charged the batteries, unfolded the arms, extracted the antenna, yadda yadda. The motor thrummed to life like before–but instead of hearing that dreaded “connection lost” and having the whole thing power down, much to my astonishment it actually ascended skyward, higher and higher. Next thing I know, that sucker is 98.7 feet above me, beaming back birds-eye images of the neighborhood, and I’m whooping and hollering like a madman. Remember Clark Griswold’s unbridled joy once he finally got those damn Christmas lights on his house working after multiple failed attempts? That was me on Saturday.

I was so excited to be flying the damn thing, I forgot that I didn’t know how to fly the damn thing. Did I crash it into the house and send it tumbling to the ground unceremoniously? Well, yeah. But in my defense, I hadn’t read the manual in a year and a half, so I was stabbing at the controller buttons willy-nilly. Luckily, other than a few minor scrapes on the propellers, there was no damage done.

Lawdy, I’ve got some practicing to do.

But once I’ve mastered the controls, the sky’s the limit! Literally. I have no idea what the issue was before or why it’s working fine now. Maybe it’s as simple as a firmware update that fixed a bug. Shrugs. None of that matters now. All I know is, I’m looking forward to getting some great aerial shots and video, so here’s hoping for a future full of wicked awesome sunrises and sunsets.