Like Zelda Fitzgerald, ‘Puter is both beautiful and damned.

‘Puter hasn’t written much lately. He’s had a lot going on.

Regular readers know ‘Puter’s Dad has advanced dementia and has been declining rapidly. ‘Puter’s Mom put him in a memory care facility (nursing home) last Wednesday. While in the Greater DC Metroplex and Traffic Thunderdome, ‘Puter also put Laptop on a plane bound for London, where he’s studying abroad this semester. Upon ‘Puter’s return home, his beloved mutt promptly had something resembling a mini-stroke, where she lost control of her rear right quarter for a couple of hours.

Sweet.

But this post isn’t about negativity. It’s not about wallowing in despair and depression. It’s about making the conscious choice to find light in darkness.

‘Puter and Laptop showed up at Historic ‘Puter’s Childhood Home late Thursday evening, just in time to have dinner (pork tenderloin, if anyone cares) with ‘Puter’s Mom. After dinner , as ‘Puter’s Mom and Laptop cleaned up, ‘Puter eavesdropped on their conversation.

‘Puter’s Mom was explaining to Laptop how, with the trees winter-bare, she could look out her kitchen window, across about a half-mile of empty space, and see the lights of the ‘Puter’s Dad’s nursing home. ‘Puter’s Mom went on to say how that simple act, looking out the back window and seeing ‘Puter’s Dad’s light, kept her connected to him even as his mind slipped further and further away.

As ‘Puter sat there, pretending not to listen and fighting back tears, he could only think of this:

Involuntarily I glanced seaward—and distinguished nothing except a single green light, minute and far away, that might have been the end of a dock.

And ‘Puter realized in that moment that he is – that we are all – on a lifelong journey at sea, seeking the light at the end of our dock. Our only job is to cling to each other and beat on, boats against the current, as we are borne back ceaselessly into the past.

With that, ‘Puter stirred his coffee a bit more, got up, and hugged his mom.

'Puter

Always right, unless he isn’t, the infallible Ghettoputer F. X. Gormogons claims to be an in-law of the Volgi, although no one really believes this.

’Puter carefully follows economic and financial trends, legal affairs, and serves as the Gormogons’ financial and legal advisor. He successfully defended us against a lawsuit from a liquor distributor worth hundreds of thousands of dollars in unpaid deliveries of bootleg shandies.

The Geep has an IQ so high it is untestable and attempts to measure it have resulted in dangerously unstable results as well as injuries to researchers. Coincidentally, he publishes intelligence tests as a side gig.

His sarcasm is so highly developed it borders on the psychic, and he is often able to insult a person even before meeting them. ’Puter enjoys hunting small game with 000 slugs and punt guns, correcting homilies in real time at Mass, and undermining unions. ’Puter likes to wear a hockey mask and carry an axe into public campgrounds, where he bursts into people’s tents and screams. As you might expect, he has been shot several times but remains completely undeterred.

He assures us that his obsessive fawning over news stories involving women teachers sleeping with young students is not Freudian in any way, although he admits something similar once happened to him. Uniquely, ’Puter is unable to speak, read, or write Russian, but he is able to sing it fluently.

Geep joined the order in the mid-1980s. He arrived at the Castle door with dozens of steamer trunks and an inarticulate hissing creature of astonishingly low intelligence he calls “Sleestak.” Ghettoputer appears to make his wishes known to Sleestak, although no one is sure whether this is the result of complex sign language, expert body posture reading, or simply beating Sleestak with a rubber mallet.

‘Puter suggests the Czar suck it.