Brian and the bandits

Welcome to this week’s Reno News & Review.

If you had any doubt as to my relative sanity, wonder no more. My girlfriend and I are heading out on a roadtrip at the height of summer to the Midwest with two dogs and a 15-year-old.

Needless to say, this is the week a bunch of my vegetables are going to start coming ripe. Also needless to say, I’ve got a friend who is willing to check on the ripening vegetables and the cat, who has elected not to go on a roadtrip through the Midwest at the height of summer with two adult humans, a 15-year-old (likely to be the most mature person on this trip), and two dogs—neither of which is old enough to drive.

We are specifically not setting a stick-to-it itinerary. I mean, most of our family members know within a few days of when we’ll arrive, but we’re taking literally that old quote attributed to Robert Frost: Home is the place where, when you have to go there, they have to take you in.

So anyway, I’ll leave stuff in the capable hands of my co-workers Brad Bynum, Ashley Hennefer and Dennis Myers. I’m sure they’ll be able to work it all out. And, you know, I have a cell phone.

This is one of those time vortex type editor’s notes. Unless something untoward happens, I should actually be turning toward home when this publishes. A lot depends on the actions of at least one wild raccoon whose fate I must help decide in the days before I leave.

I’ll bet we’re not the first people to have new problems with raccoons this summer. Reno has a bumper crop of fruit, the likes of which I’ve never seen. And with the drought out in the hills, backyard windfall is ripe for the picking. And you know, a lot of little dogs don’t know any better than to go after a trio of those little bandits. Anyway, if I get rabies, I’ll probably be a lot less fun to travel with.