Dear Reader (including those of you who never grew out of your teenage years),

Greetings from the banks of the Ridenbaugh Canal. I’ll save the rest of the scene-setting for the canine update.

But I have been driving a lot, listening to the news occasionally, but also to a lot of audiobooks and more obscure podcasts. When not doing that, one of the things I like to do to pass the time on the road is talk to my dogs like I’m Joe Biden. “I was arrested in Bolivia for eating a Ring-Ding with two hands while driving a motorcycle.” “You may not know this, but I came in third in a basset hound-wrangling competition at the canine rodeo.”

The dogs don’t care, because, you know, they’re dogs.