Summer Break begins today! Yesterday was yours portly’s last official day of the school year. Indeed, it was my last official day as a teacher. Of course, I’ll always be a teacher, but that particular position has ended formally. I’ll be returning to my little school on a very-part-time basis as its chaplain.
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It is Exam Week for yours portly’s students, and my school has revived the practice of only requiring teachers to be on campus to administer actual exams or to cover duties. I have neither today, and only have to go in Tuesday to administer my World History exams.
Exam Week always reminds me of college. I would do a bit of studying for whatever exams I had coming up, which usually consisted of reading through my extensive notes (I was and remain a voracious notetaker), then play Morrowind for hours on end. It was pretty glorious.
Instead of playing Morrowind, though, I’ve been working today on those various, quotidian tasks that need doing around the house. It seems like it has been awhile since I have had a true day at home to get things done.
One major item off the list: getting an electrician to come look at a junction box that arced on another contractor last month. We wanted to replace the garish lighting fixture in the master bedroom with a simple ceiling fan—an easy enough job—but the handyman capped the wires, saying that he thought the wiring was broken. Naturally, we were concerned, and I had one of those name-brand electrical companies come out to look everything over.
The chatty electrician who came tried to sell us on a whole-home rewire. We have some of the old cloth-insulated wiring (but, fortunately, not the infamous knob-and-tube wiring, which is a fire hazard). The name-brand electrician wanted to charge us $50,000 to run new wire and conduit all over the house, with a team of seven electricians working around the clock for a week.
He had told us that some people tell him to get out of their homes when he gives them quotes. I can see why. We did not do that, but make vague noises about “talking it over.” Our conversation was, essentially, “Hell no.”
One of the downsides of living in a smaller town in an already-rural area is that it can be difficult to locate skilled workers. They do exist, but you have to “know a guy who knows a guy” or find out from a local. I resorted to asking CoPilot, telling it that the two prior electricians it had recommended either a.) refused to come to our town (only a half-hour away) or b.) never returned my calls. It recommended another electrician who actually grew up in our town.
I called him and he was at the house in thirty minutes. He inspected the wiring and told me everything was fine, and that the cloth-insulated wiring is good for “at least another thirty years.” That was worth fifty bucks for piece of mind. Of course, he tried to install the fan, but said it was missing a black mounting bracket, so there is still a gaping hole in our ceiling.
Fortunately, I also contacted the handyman who came the first time and explained to him that the wiring is safe. He’s going to mount the fan, and noted, “he couldn’t find the bracket because I already attached it to the fan.” My handyman skills are already pretty bad, but now I’m questioning the electrician, who apparently failed to see the huge bracket attached the fan. I failed to notice it, too, although I did almost tell the electrician, “is it that big thing attached to the rotor?” But I assumed he knew what he was talking about. Oops!
Another home maintenance task that has flummoxed me: reassembling our king bedframe. It should be easy: the headboard attaches to the frame via four thiccccc screws. However, the screw holes (that sounds like a slur—“knock it off, you screw holes!”) aren’t aligning, and not by a little bit, but by enough that I can’t brute force them together. So my obliging handyman is going to assist me with that dilemma as well. He’s also going to replace a side door to our garage, and take another stab at fixing our front door, which closes and locks more easily than it did before, but which still requires some effort to get closed properly. I can do it, but Dr. Wife struggles with it, just because it takes a bit pudge to push it closed.
I did have one home improvement success: installing a new door handle with a mortise lock. The main handle for exiting to the back deck had a screw that would not connect properly with the outer lock. The effect was that, every time we’d pull the handle, the screw would come out, bringing the handle with it. The “solution” was to pull to the right (the direction to open the door, anyway), but the force required was putting strain on the screw.
I purchased another door handle and installed it myself. The tricky part was getting the mortise lock to “catch” properly. Basically, a mortise lock works by pushing the lock up into the mortise pocket, a trapezoidal shaped bit of metal or plastic. The lock itself is a little L-shaped piece of metal inside the door handle mechanism. It took some trial and error to get the pocket and lock aligned correctly, but I did it!
Some readers are likely shaking their heads. “How far modern man has fallen—unable to install a ceiling fan! Can’t assemble a bedframe!” Yes, I’m one of those “weak men” that makes “hard times.” What can I say? When I used to work maintenance at the school over the summers, our late Building and Grounds Director (God Rest his soul) once told me, “Portly, you’re not very handy.” But I learned enough to do some very basic stuff, and I’m a pretty good painter!
Well, on to writing report card comments.
The koi pond is really coming alive as we head deeper into spring. Other than the ramshorns I added a few weeks back, there have been no new additions to the pond. The koi themselves, though, are way more active, and Dr. Wife and I both the think the water is clearing up slightly thanks to the Japanese Trapdoor Snails and some recent top-ups with fresh water. At any rate, we can see maybe an inch deeper than we could before, and it helps that the koi are coming closer to the surface more frequently.
As the weather warmed up earlier this year, the koi would splash up only when I tossed food into the water. The most intrepid of them, Sunny, would occasionally pop up when he heard my approach, my feet treading on the gravel as I shook the bag of koi food.
Now, I’ll frequently catch multiple koi skimming the surface even outside of feeding times. When I do get home in the evenings and bring out the feed, they are excited. They’ll start swimming over each other to get at the good stuff, and some will even swim to the edge of the pond and start flapping their big fish lips at me.
It’s really satisfying to see the pond coming to life. With the water getting a bit clearer, we’ve been able to make out more details on the fish. We’re also able to spot them swimming more easily.
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My students had their big Spring Concert last night and it was incredible. It was the longest concert I’ve ever conducted, with over two hours of music. As it was my “swan song” of sorts, I wanted to go out with a bang.
I’ll have a full rundown of the concert—a “postmortem,” as I call it—this Saturday for paid subscribers. Suffice it to say that the evening went quite well and I am utterly exhausted. I did indulge in some late-night, post-concert Taco Bell, the greatest of budget fast food joints in the modern era (somehow, Taco Bell has avoided the “enshittification” of other establishments, even if the results of consuming it result in a different from of enshittification) before the long drive home.
Maintaining a koi pond is a hobby that can take on a life of its own. In learning about keeping koi and maintaining a pond, I’ve learned that a common phenomenon is people getting hooked on buying more fish. Given that a full-grown koi can go for $50 or even hundreds of dollars, the hobby can get very expensive very quickly. I’m thankful, then, that the previous owners stocked the pond so well.
What I find myself looking for are not more koi (not necessarily), but more species that I can introduce to the pond to increase its biodiversity. At least, that’s the rationale—I really just want an excuse to buy more snails and minnows and what not.
So far, I’ve added rosy red minnows, two small butterfly koi, ramshorn snails, and Japanese Trapdoor Snails. My next planned addition is three dojo/weather loaches, which are a peaceful, eel-like fish that feeds along the bottom of the pond. In searching for those loaches, I came upon an eBay listing for seven purple leopard ramshorn snails.
These are just a color morph of ramshorn snails. Instead of the typical dark brown, they have a slightly purplish, speckled appearance. I would not have bothered purchasing them except that they were eight bucks (with free shipping), so I figured, “why not”? They should add to the genetic mix of the existing ramshorn population.
One thing I’m learning when purchasing live animals on the Internet (read that out loud and it will sound questionable) is that, like most things in life, you often get what you pay for.
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.
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).
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.
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“:
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
