Tag: update

Midweek Koi Pond Update III: Japanese Trapdoor Snails

The Portly Politico3 Comments

Yesterday (Tuesday, 7 April 2026) was a big day for the pond. After noticing the water level falling, I purchased a Boogie Blue Plus Garden House Filter (that’s an Amazon Affiliate link; I receive a portion of any purchases made through this link, at no additional cost to you) and topped off the pond.

I also had a shipment of Japanese Trapdoor Snails from www.prettykoifish.com.  I have been dying to add these massive mollusk beauties to our pond since I first learned about them.  They are the cleaning crew of any pond, and as they settle in and become active, they’ll deep clean the water and the liner.

Right now, our pond water is very murky.  That’s actually good for the koi—they prefer it to be murky—and is a sign of healthy biodiversity.  The only downside is that we can’t see our fish unless they’re coming up to feed!  It will take a few weeks, maybe months, but the Japanese Trapdoor Snails should start to hoover up lots of detritus.

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Closing and Taxes

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Yours portly has spent the last two nights laboring over income tax returns for Dr. Wife and myself.  My taxes are always a bit unusual because I have so many side hustles (and 1099s as a result), but getting married in late 2025 changed quite a bit.  Apparently, the State of South Carolina treats all income reported on the federal tax return as income due to the State, but you can claw it back to avoid double taxation (which is unconstitutional) by pulling the AGI from another State’s return (in this case, Dr. Wife’s earnings were entirely in North Carolina).  I was shocked to learn that North Carolina has a lower State income tax than South Carolina, especially as we’re the allegedly more conservative of the two Carolinas.  Yeesh!

Quick note:  do not take any of the above as financial or tax advice.  I’m not even sure if I’m explaining all of that correctly (to my younger brother:  don’t panic—I did everything by the book, I just can’t remember every little exact detail at the time of writing, and don’t feel like looking it all up again, but I did it correctly).

As per usual, filling out tax forms reminds me of how much I despise the income tax, in part because it demands that we reveal so much of ourselves to the federal government.  Like with so many things, though, we reveal intimate details about our lives—like how big our home office is—so we can grasp onto a few more of our  own dollars.  At this point, we should do away with all deductions and just charge everyone a flat 5% of their income—or, better yet, abolish the income tax and shift to a flat national sales tax.  It’s way easier to control my spending than to try to calculate what percentage of my cell phone usage was for business purposes.

It’s also frustrating to hustle and scrimp and save all year, only to be punished for it come tax day (and, yes, I should start paying taxes quarterly—that’s coming under the new Dr. Wife/Portly regime).

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Decluttering

The Portly Politico2 Comments

No new music today, readers.  I’m working on a piece for Koi Dance called “Sunrise: Variations on Grieg,” which (so far) combines flute, xylophone, and marimba to explore variations on the famous theme from Edvard Grieg’s “Morning Mood” from the Henrick Ibsen play Peer Gynt.  “Morning Mood” is probably track one, side one of Romantic Music’s Greatest Hits; everyone who has ever seen a Bugs Bunny cartoon has heard the piece:

Unfortunately, yours portly is pretty worn out and, despite my best efforts, I could not sustain composing last night.  Yesterday was a “marathon” of sorts for me.  The way my classes and lessons shook out, I was going nonstop from about 10 AM to around 6 PM without a break.  That’s after working Sunday for an open house at school and spending most of Saturday moving.

That is not to complain, but to explain—posts are going to be a bit sporadic (especially in terms of quality—gulp).  I’ll catch up on content for paid subs as soon as possible.  With the house closing approaching imminently, moving the last of my meager (but, it seems, endless) possessions into our new home is taking top priority.  Indeed, the plan is to take another load of stuff up to the new house after work tonight.

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TBT: The Portly Politico Presidents’ Day Extravaganza

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The United States observed Presidents’ Day earlier this week, and yours portly is enjoying a decadent Winter Break for the next couple of days.  Of  course, the decadence will end abruptly on Saturday when Dr. Wife and I load up yet another U-Haul with the last remaining stuff from her house.

For today, though, I’m enjoying a little bit of time with the dogs while Dr. Wife slaves away at the hospital.  She’s a good woman.

It seems that February is always a bit of a low-point for the blog in terms of my own preparedness and output.  I’m not sure why that is.  Perhaps the initial rush of the New Year has passed, with Reality settling in heavily.  It certainly seems like everything has been busier lately.

Regardless, here’s to a few days off—probably the last for a good while!

With that, here is 17 February 2025’s “The Portly Politico Presidents’ Day Extravaganza“:

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Midweek Update: Home Selling

The Portly Politico42 Comments

A quick update from yours portly today, as I’ve been hustling to get my house ready to list.  Last week, my pastor (who just started a carpet cleaning business) did a deep clean of the house, which, of course, meant I had to deep clean before he arrived so he could get to the really bad stuff.  My mind boggles at how much junk I have accumulated in just seven years.

This morning my realtor came by with a photographer to get pictures of the house, so that required more organization, especially involving the artful concealment of things no one wants to see in pictures of a home—trashcans, the stuff you keep on the back of the toilet, etc.  I was really pleased when my realtor told me that I’d done a great job getting things together.

Now I’m just waiting for the disclosure paperwork, and soon my little home will be on the market officially.  Selling that will be a huge boon for Dr. Wife and me.  We currently own three homes between us, which sounds like some kind of decadent dream, but it’s really a huge time- and money-sink.  My house, fortunately, is paid off, thanks in part to the best bank of all, The First Bank of Mom and Dad.  The value has more than doubled (of course, the value of the dollar has probably halved) since I bought it, so I should walk away with a good profit, which will help to pay for the hefty mortgage on the new house.

Shew!  But I digress.  Please be praying that my house sells quickly—and Dr. Wife’s!  She’s had hers on the market since right before the wedding back in November, and while she’s had some showings, she hasn’t had any offers yet.  We need that albatross dropped onto some hapless chump happy new homeowner ASAP!

More to come.  Happy Wednesday!

—TPP

SubscribeStar Saturday Post Coming Soon

The Portly Politico4 Comments

My apologies to readers—I’ll have a SubscribeStar Saturday post up tomorrow (God Willing).

We have been working nearly around the clock to get our respective houses packed and cleaned.  This past week I was routinely putting in five or six hours each night after work getting stuff packed, moved, trashed, donated, cleaned, etc.

My pastor has a new carpet and general cleaning service, and I had to the age-old task of preparing for the cleaner:  cleaning.  I was able to clean enough to allow him access to the deep stuff.

It’s amazing how filthy a house can get when inhabited by a busy bachelor over the course of seven years.  Yes, I take out the trash, clean the counters, wash the dishes, do the laundry, etc.  Dusting is my enemy, though, and when you have as much inherited and acquired bric-a-brac and furniture and just plain junk as I do, there are thousands of surfaces for dead, shed skin cells to fall.

Now my house is at a level of cleanliness worthy of selling, and I hope to get it listed this upcoming week (after Winter Storm Fern wreaks her havoc).

Needless to say, my planned piece about the attack on the Minneapolis church is on the backburner.  Dr. Wife and I had another busy day today, and after dinner and errands, I realized I didn’t have it in me to slam out a rant about evil Leftists.

That will come tomorrow.

Stay warm, my friends!

—TPP

Midweek Koi Pond Update II: Life and Death in the Pond

The Portly Politico21 Comments

This past weekend Dr. Wife and I visited our new home and checked on the koi.  We had unseasonably warm weather, which raised the water temperature just north of 60 degrees Fahrenheit.  That was just enough for the koi to come up when I spread (too much) food across the surface of the pond.

We did not get any pictures—d’oh!—but it looks like we have four or five existing koi in the pond:

  • A bluish one that Dr. Wife named Cobbler
  • A classic white and orange koi (Sherbet)
  • A white-ish one
  • One that seems black-and-yellow, although this might be Cobbler as well at a different angle
  • A more strikingly orange-reddish one

We also saw two or possibly three of the original population of ten rosy red minnows coming up to feed.  The others might have been hanging out below—or may have ended up as a snack for the hungry koi.  Gulp!

We did not see Milkshake or Brownie, the two younger koi we introduced the prior weekend.  I consulted with Microsoft’s CoPilot AI, which seemed to think that the two babies were playing it safe and resting down below.  That said, I couldn’t shake the feeling that something was wrong.

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Midweek Koi Pond Update

The Portly Politico16 Comments

I’ll be weighing in soon on the capture of the Venezuelan dictator Maduro soon over at Free Speech Backlash.  The quick version:  it’s the Monroe Doctrine, baby!  More to come.  —TPP

Yours portly has found a new obsession:  the koi pond that came with our new home.  I’ve been so passionate about tending to this pond, Dr. Wife bought me a book that is apparently the authority on all things koi (that link is an Amazon Affiliate link; I receive a portion of the proceeds from any purchase made through that link at no additional cost to you).

The previous owners constructed a very nice pond; from what I can tell from my research, they built a textbook pond for koi.  The problem right now is that the water is incredibly murky, so we can only see the koi when they surface to feed.  It being winter, our koi don’t eat often—they largely hibernate when the water temperature gets below 50 or 60 degrees Fahrenheit.  Currently, our water temperature is around 50 degrees Fahrenheit.

To that end, I’m looking to purchase some Japanese Trapdoor Snails (JTSs).  These snails are amazing:  they are cold-hardy, so they survive through winter; they give birth to live young, so they reproduce slowly, virtually eliminating the risk of overpopulation; and they are living vacuum cleaners for muck and algae.  However, Fishy Business in Columbia, South Carolina still doesn’t have any in stock.

I’ve been having late-night conversations with Microsoft’s CoPilot AI about stocking the pond, in addition to doing research on my own.  CoPilot brought up ramshorn snails, which I have read about as well.  Unlike JTSs, they lay eggs, so overpopulation is more of a concern; however, koi and the rosy red minnows I added to our pond will often eat the eggs and/or baby snails, so the population should stay in check.  I’ve ordered around twenty of them from a seller on eBay (apparently, you can purchase live snails from randos on the Internet) and will introduce those when they arrive next week.

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It Is My Birthday.

The Portly Politico16 Comments

Today is my 41st birthday.  Dr. Wife is taking me to our favorite local Italian place for dinner, and surprised me with a nice card and a cool LEGO set.  I spent the morning selling two big-ticket items on Facebook Marketplace—both of which have been dangling around my neck like an albatross for weeks—and we’ll be attending the swearing-in of new Lamar Town Councilmembers this afternoon (my term is done).

More updates to come!

Happy Saturday!

—TPP

TBT: Happy New Year from TPP!

The Portly Politico14 Comments

2025 was quite a year!  Dr. Wife and I often talk about how long the year felt, for good and for ill.

It was a year with many ups and downs.  Dr. Wife’s third year of residency has been brutal, but she is doing well as the co-chief resident.  My work schedule has been far more manageable, but financing and buying a house—as well as planning a wedding!—took up a good deal of my time in the latter half of the year (to Dr. Wife’s immense credit, most of the latter-stage wedding planning fell to her—she really nailed the fun details, things I would have neglected or not thought of).  My maternal grandfather passed away; several of her close friends and family have had personal and medical crises.

But we also got married—woooooot!—and bought a house.  We have great dogs and even better families.  We have immensely enjoyed spending so much time together over the Christmas holiday, even if we’ve been rocketing all over the Carolinas moving furniture.  We are excited for 2026!

What are your hopes and dreams for 2026, dear readers?  Leave a comment and let me know.  I think Dr. Wife and I primarily want to get moved into our house completely—and get her through residency!

With that, here is 1 January 2025’s “Happy New Year from TPP!“:

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