May Daze

Royal Arch regular, towards the beginning of May.

What's up, players.

Well, this month was a little bit of a return to form for us Houghs. After five months or relative calm around these parts (compared with previous years, that is), May once again saw our family packed to the hilt with family, social, school, and work obligations, day in and day out. Weekdays were packed, weekends were worse, and the entire thirty-one days of May flew by in a blur of chaos.

You can see the posts under May, off to the right there, to see what I'm talking about. It's been crazy around here this month.

We expect June and July to be no different, though maybe not as slammed as in previous years since we're not undertaking some of our usual summer adventures. No Jellystone or other camping trips at all this summer, which is weird but that's just how the dice fell this year. With the Cannonball getting a car this year, we pushed off our semi-regular Florida vacation to next summer. Aside from the annual Brocation and Momcation, the usual camping trip with the high school crew, and maybe some quick jaunts up to Eight Point Lake (weather pending, of course), we're not doing a whole hell of a lot.

But we'll see how that all plays out in the next couple months.

In the meantime, sit back, relax, and enjoy this month's installment of pics and videos from the Houghs' May. . .

Our month-long (ish) display of tulips (or whatever these are) throughout the yard in spots. Every year they come up for a hot minute, then die, then we see 'em next year. Flowers are stupid.

Hey, remember the Blizzard of '24? The shit-tastic ice storm that brought down a bunch of trees with its heavier-than-normal snow/ice mix? Well, the trees lining our property still haven't bounced back yet. Still look like shit. 

Forget why I took this exactly - was texting back and forth with the fam for some reason or another throughout the day - but anyway, here's a pic of my classroom for ya. Minus inner-city teenagers, of course.

Abby and some of her homegirls at lunch.

Alayna took this pic of Abby doing. . .  whatever the hell this. . . . is in the backyard.

Our Magnolia Tree, in full bloom (usually lasts a couple weeks towards late-April/early-May.)

This here you to be an overgrown garden bed from the previous owners, but Kris and I raked up all the mulch, flattened it out, and slowly began ripping out all the bushes and ground cover. After planting some grass seed for a couple years, the lawn is finally starting to take back over. Neither of us have green thumbs by any means, so the more grass and less garden we have in our backyard the better.

It'd be super cool if this thing looked like this year-round. Instead I get to mow over dead flowers all over my backyard for weeks.

After a month of cleaning up, fertilizing, weeding, and mowing, the yard is finally starting to come together. . .

So this year my school decided that for Teacher Appreciation Week they would have grant twelve, different 'Teacher Awards' per grade level. Students would vote via Google Forms, then the administration would announce the winners and distribute the awards. Only, this didn't happen: the kids all voted, then administration announced a handful (like, six total) at a building-wide staff meeting, then they just quietly just handed out the rest. It soon became obvious why, though - for the 8th Grade, Yours Truly won 7 out of the 12 awards. Kind of an ego boost I guess, but I feel kinda bad for the other sixteen or so teachers in my building. 

Dumbass dogs being dumbass dugs . . .

So one Wednesday, towards the beginning of the month, while at Commandary (the Knights Templar), me and some of the guys were looking around in the anterooms of our Lodge building for a couple things, and uncovered an old ritual table that hasn't been used in a long, long time (it's been covered for years.)

Inside we found a real, genuine HUMAN F***ING SKULL. Used for some degrees, and dating back decades, if not a century. You know, run-of-the-mill, creepy Masonic shit.

Abby and Nica at school one afternoon, taking more of these damn selfies. . .

On May 10th, there was a two-day window where we here in central Michigan had ourselves a rare glimpse of the Northern Lights. Now, I've seen them before - vividly remember seeing them when I was a kid back in the '80s - and while I had no plans on driving out of my way to witness them in their full glory, I was hoping to at least see a small degree of it while we had the chance.

The Colliers drove out to the Thumb or something to check out the Lights without the obstruction of light pollution. . .

Erik, Mitch, Tom and I, however, made due with just watching them from the comfort of a bonfire in the Bos' backyard. We still were able to see the light streaks, even in the city, just not with the saturation of the previous pic. I was fine with it.

The next evening, Erik and I decided to adventure out into the boonies on an impromptu pub crawl, by way of the back-country between Auburn and Pinconning. Nothing back there by small, one-intersection squatter towns with small, rinky-dink dive bars and handfuls of questionable patrons. Sounds like a good time in our book, folks. . .

I took a couple sporadic pics throughout the evening, but not of each place (some places didn't give off the vibe that they were necessarily cool with outsiders.)

Legit sunset, though.

One of the last places we hit up that night. $2 beers and a Let's Go Brandon atmosphere, but we ended up hanging out there for quite a bit.

This is one of the weirdest Men's Rooms I've ever been in. . .

The next morning was Mother's Day, and also Abby's Confirmation at their church, so we had to get some pics on the front porch while all the girls were gussied up.

Marcy was on hand, too, because it was Mother's Day and was attending the ceremony that morning.

The class of kids that have gone through the year-long Confirmation course were all christened (inducted, sworn in, whatever you want to call it) at this morning's service.

Abby read an excerpt of Scripture as part of the kid-led service.

Being. . . confirmed? 

The Houghs, post-ceremony.

Abby took a selfie every afternoon on the way home from school one week, which you'll see in the following pics. . .

The recently-graveled driveway. Needs to be leveled still, obviously.

Now we have another driveway spot for the girls' cars. . .

Day 2

Alayna's Spring Concert with the Midland High Orchestra.

There were actually three orchestras from Midland High playing tonight: Concert, Symphony, and Honors (Alayna - at the center with violin - is a member of the latter two.)

We had to psyche ourselves up for this concert, because it was well over two hours long and basically we'd be devoting our entire evening to this. The reason for this is mainly due to a few factors: 1.) there were three orchestras performing, as previously stated, 2.) they were honoring all the graduating seniors and so there were lots of speeches and comments, which leads us to 3.) the orchestra teacher is ridiculously long-winded and likes to hear herself talk.

Again, sorry for the lack of performance video from this evening, but each of the songs that they did were like seven or eight minutes long (seeing how it's a high school orchestra, so they're not rockin' out Hot Cross Buns or some shit), and Blogger doesn't allow video uploads over 100mb.

Alayna with Papa, who came out for the evening's concert.

Day 3

A group of my students randomly brought me in a cake one day, topped with a pic they had taken with me a day or two earlier, supposedly to apologize for talking so much in class (they weren't even that talkative.) This must be a current trend or something on social media, because Abby would ultimately end up doing this later in the month with Ella for one of their teachers.  

Day 4

Day 5

The third weekend of the month, Erik once again organized Center Lodge #273's involvement with the annual Midland Blooms initiative. Like in previous years, we had five or six guys come out in the early morning hours to hand-plant flowers along Eastman Road - one of the main roads that cut across town - as a way to beautify the city and spread local awareness of our Lodge's existence in the community.

Just like I spearhead our Lodge's involvement in the annual Memorial Day Parades, Erik (shown here) always tackles this one. Every year, we meet up with the rest of our crew at 8am in the Center for the Arts parking lot then, once the City drops off all of our flowers to be planted, we set to work on our designated stretch of territory (which, for the last few years, has been the stretch of Northbound Eastman from the corner across from Grace A. Dow Memorial Library, to the start of the Country Club (prime real estate, folks.)  

This year's Worshipful Master, Chuck.

Carl and Chris, both Past Masters (the previous two years.)

Only took us about an hour and fifteen minutes this year, we knocked it out super fast (a record for us, I think) and we had a considerable length of territory to cover.

For social media clout, folks.

Kris is happy her back patio setup is up and running. Happy wife, happy life.

Later that Saturday, Kris and a bunch of the moms went out to a local tattoo joint in order to get tattoos together. They had all decided on a simple triangle design, based on some little necklaces Danielle gave out to the rest of the moms in the friend group one year. The lowest tattoo price you can get at a parlor like this is $60, the hourly rate for a bottom-tier artist and the minimum price of the tattoo needle (since you can only use it on one person before throwing it away anyway.) In other words, after the little triangle was done, each mom had a little time left over with their artist for another small design. Courtney here, for example, got her zodiac sign (Ares) done on the back of her neck.

Stephanie gets her triangle on her ankle.

Kris wanted a 'Be Still' thingy done (it's the first part of a Biblical line), very small and simple, on the inside of her wrist, but since her wrists are so small the artist couldn't do it the way she wanted (if you draw lines too close together they end up bleeding  over time and become muddled.) What you see here was what the artist was proposing to do instead, but Kris wasn't thrilled with it, so began texting me not knowing what to do. I told her not to get anything unless she was 100% in love with it, so ultimately she just went with the small triangle and didn't get anything else done during her time in the chair (meaning that tiny triangle cost her $60. . . but whatever.)

Danielle gets her ankle triangle done.

Kris' triangle tattoo.

So, all in all, Kris, Courtney, Danielle, and Stephanie had their triangles done on their ankles, with Mees getting it done on her wrist.

We did a Marked Master Mason Degree during the third Wednesday of the month, where we swore in three, new brothers into our local Royal Arch chapter (this document here is the original, century-old  Charter for Midland's Royal Arch Chapter - took a pic of it in Lodge while we were setting up.)  I had a lot of lines to memorize for the degree work this evening, and we had the big wigs from Grand Lodge roll in to inspect the degree and make sure was done accurately. I got a lot of praise for my work from those guys, so I was pretty stoked.

While I was away at Cedar Point, towards the end of the month, Abby (and Ella) and the 8th Grade Northeast Orchestra performed their Spring Concert. Beforehand, Alayna took 0.5x, forced-perspective pics of the Dynamic Duo in the dressing room. . .

Abby and her cello.

Tad smaller than Midland High's Orchestra. . .

Again, like with Alayna's concert pieces earlier, the videos here were too large to upload due to the length of the songs, no matter how much I compressed them down.

(Not sure why everyone's looking at Abby, here - I was in Ohio during this concert.)

Standing for applause at the end of the concert.

Happy camper.

The following evening, Alayna and the rest of the MHS Drama Club held a banquet at the school to celebrate then end of another year in Drama. This is her and her friend Erika (a foreign-exchange student from Korea) before carpooling to the banquest.

Alayna in front of a photo op backdrop they had (apparently the same, exact one they used last year. . .)

Some more pics with Erika. . .

(Not sure who this other kid is. . .)

Super blurry pic of Alayna walking out of the banquet at the end of the night with extra gift bags. Why not.

From Alayna's phone. Apparently she enjoys taking artsy pictures of her room at night.

So, towards the end of the month - while Kris, Abby, and all Abby's friends were away at the Midland Community Center celebrating Abby's 14th Birthday - Alayna and I were back at the house, cleaning and decorating. While letting out the dogs to use the bathroom at some point, Alayna stood in the doorway into the backyard and witnessed two birds attacking each other in the air. One bird was able to knock the other bird out of the sky, and it fluttered down into the grass. . . where it soon fell prey to Watson. Alayna watched in horror as Watson picked up the downed bird in his mouth and began to shake it about like a chew toy. Alayna yelled at Watson and he dropped the bird, and then - and I kid you not, folks - she SCOOPED UP THE BIRD IN HER BARE HANDS AND BROUGHT IT INTO THE HOUSE.

So once I yelled at her to drop the bird immediately in the grass and wash her hands repeatedly, I tried to inspect the bird closer. It couldn't fly, it had a broken wing or spine or some shit, so it was only a matter of time before it was gonna die. Watson probably caused a crap-load of internal bleeding when he was shaking it about like a rag doll, too.

Teaching kids all about the life cycle - and food chain - on my summer off. That's how you know I'm a good teacher.

So anyway, I helped Alayna scoop the bird up into a dustpan (not using her hands this time around), and we set it down in a hosta plant in the front yard, where the dogs couldn't get it. I wasn't sure at this point if the thing was actually gonna live or not, thinking maybe it was just stunned and in an hour or so it would fly off.

Then I realized, of course, that I was being naive and the thing was just suffering needlessly. I grabbed my trusty Red Ryder BB Gun and proceeded to head into the front yard to put the thing out of its misery, when I suddenly saw my next-door neighbor and had to act that I - a 43-year-old, grown-ass adult with a Masters degree - wasn't about to kill an animal with a child's firearm in my front yard in the middle of suburban Midland. Kris ended up getting a notification of this video on her phone (we both get notifications when our Ring doorbell pics anything up), and texted me asking me what the hell I was doing. Didn't matter in the long run anyway, folks - the bird was already dead by the time I got up there.

My best friend, BP, and his daughter, Delia, were down in Kalamazoo for some soccer thing that same weekend, and - between games - he decided to drive around and show her some of our old stomping ground. He texted me this pic of the infamous 1214 Oak Street, the home of Virgil Q's Dixieland Kazoo Revue and the last house I lived in at Western Michigan University. Apparently the old student ghetto is now just regular, old housing for families - realtors forced out all the college students so now it's a somewhat respectable part of town these days. Bomar and Q-Ball must be rolling over in their graves.

Had to replace a couple sprinklers towards the end of the month, as the weather heats up and we've had f***-all for rain the last week or so. Always a blast.

Had to do a double-take here when Collier sent this screenshot to me. This was originally shared on the guys' Fantasy Football text thread (of which I'm voluntarily not a member of, having zero interest in football whether it be fantasy or not.) Lame, early-2000's, pencil-thin beard thingy aside, there is a creepy similarity. . .

The Cannonball whipped up some 'candy salad' (it's some stupid trend on Tik Tok right now) with some of her friends and classmates in her orchestra class, towards the end of the school year. This looks like the sorta food where you'd eat a bit of it, then have to have one of your feet removed.

Watson, mid-afternoon nap.

This pic made its way around social media on the last day of school, and eventually one of the pom girls on the Northeast team somehow saw it and asked Abby if this was indeed a picture of her dad. Small world. 

My classroom, on the last day of the 2023-2024 School Year, after the last of the students went home. Bring. On. The. Summer.

Such a cause for celebration demands a glass of my all-time, favorite bourbon: Woodford Reserve Double Oaked. (Fun fact: I got to check this distillery out in person during last year's Brocation with the rest of the Kings of the Hill.)

The next day was a Friday, and while Yours Truly got to relish in his First Day of Summer '24, the girls both had to wake up and go to Midland's Last Day of School (fortunately for them, at least it was a half day.) Now, remember that 'sorry we talk so much' cake trend I was talking about earlier in this post? Where my students presented me with one a week or two ago? Well, seeing how it was their last day of school and everything, Abby and Ella decided they would make one of them for their Spanish teacher. I'm sure that teacher pulled a move from my own playbook, told the kids 'thanks for the gesture,' then abstained from eating a single bite of it. I never trust food a teen had made themselves, that's just asking for trouble. . .

Watson enjoys a nap while Yours Truly spins vinyl on his first day off in a long, long time.

The front yard grass has really come in this year. We've set our calendars in order keep track of our fertilizing schedule, which requires 20-0-10 every four weeks in order to keep those two frickin' maples from sucking all the nutrients out of the ground. Stupid trees. . .

Herc the Jerk. It never ends.

I was trying to photograph all the cottonwood drifting in the air, but you really have to zoom in to see it. Every year towards the end of May and beginning of June, it's basically snowing here with that crap. I have to wait for it to stop before I'm forced to clean out my garage for a second time, since so much of it has floated inside and gunked up everything that I had just cleaned a month or so ago. Ah, the joys of home ownership. Until next time, gang. . .

- Brian