Arfin' tired

Two days in the brush and brome sap dog energy. Buda of St. Cloud hogs the hearth. Storm of Davenport warms the carpet.

(Not shown: Five humans with beverages in hand, looking slightly less ambitious than the dogs. )

I can't think of why I didn't add New Jovian thunderbolt to my blog roll earlier. He's there now.

Wow. I shot a plastic gun.

Field Report:

The Glockish semi-auto was brand new and brought to the Great Pheasant Shoot-At by a friend of my son, a good man fairly new to hunting and shooting. His first handgun, it was a product of Croatia marketed by Springfield in Geneseo.

We were stowing the shotguns as shooting hours closed. He showed us the new pistol and invited me to shoot it. We put five 9x19 rounds in the magazine, and I scored one hit on a 12-ounce plastic Coke bottle at ten yards or so. My spotter, Ryan, 13, a man with a good eye, thought the rounds were going a little low and left, and a Kentucky windage shot suggested he was correct.

I liked the grip ergonomics and the three white sight dots. I hate the look and feel of plastic where God intended man to use steel. But I respect the gun. For its purpose, self-defense at a reasonable range, (What's that? Aww, I dunno. Ten yards, 15 maybe?) it is a perfectly acceptable tool. More to the point, the new owner likes it. Even more so, he is committed to mastering it.

Aw. Dammit all.

I don't care how late I am on this. I want to formally note the passing of Ms. Mary Jean Loutsenhizer who died a couple of months ago.

If you knew her at all you knew her as Chris Conner -- a voice and a presence created by God to demonstrate what He meant by "jazz."

If the only music in the world were Gershwin and Porter as sung by Miss Conner, we wouldn't be out all that much.

"There's a boat that's leavin' soon for New York..."