Friends, it’s a slow week in Northeast Tennessee. I’m writing to you on what’s turned into the first day of my upcoming ten day “staycation,” where Dr. S, I and the kids do something that we’ve wanted to do for a very long time: sit on our asses and binge watch all the best offerings our TV can muster.

Not that we couldn’t do this some other week, I suppose. One of Dr. S’s most valued colleagues is taking a trip with her family to some place called Banff in Canada. I don’t know much about Banff other than the photos I’ve seen look really beautiful and I hope she has a fantastic time.

Personally, I wouldn’t visit Canada anytime soon. They’re hostile to folks like me up in the Great White North: assholes who love central air and cable television. Canadians focus too much on things like niceness, politeness and maple syrup.

Especially the maple syrup. I hear they put that stuff in margaritas up there.

Why Canadians love being nice so much eludes me. I think it’s something in their national DNA. After all, they celebrate Canada Day. It’s literally a day where they celebrate getting permission from the British Crown to start a new country.

That’s just not American, dammit. We told Britain to fuck off by dumping a bunch of tea in Boston Harbor and started a fight that led to our own country. But the scenery is nice so I’ll give Canada a pass this week.

I really don’t have the mental energy to do a big vacation next week anyway. My daughter’s got an upcoming birthday and it’s a massive one. She’ll finally be a teenager. I’m not mentally prepared to have a teenager living in my house on account of how they basically turn into aliens from age 13-20 or so.

But she’s my daughter and I have a real problem saying “no” to my firstborn, so I’m sure there will be some sort of party next week where we serve cupcakes.

Alas, I get off track. Back to what you came here for: my rants about finally getting to watch TV and read until I’m blue in the face.

I’ve got a few gems on the back burner I want to check out. First is going to be the new season of “Dark Side of the Ring.” Then I think I’ll move on to the latest “X-Men 97” episodes. And I plan to cap the week off with a rewatch of one of the greatest TV shows in history: The Sopranos.

My wife’s never really paid attention to the Sopranos so she doesn’t have a good understanding of what an artful show it really was. Then again she refuses to watch “Moonshiners” with me when it’s on. She’s a great woman but she really has bad taste in TV.

We will balance my TV requests with hers, no doubt. I suspect she’ll force me to watch the latest “Ultimatum” season on Netflix. Those Lachey family reality TV shows really appeal to her. She’s gotten into “100 Cooks,” which isn’t that bad and stars Terry Crews as host, so I don’t see myself having too many complaints.

At least after 20 years together, we’re somewhat compatible with our TV viewing habits. She’s got this tendency to watch extremely trashy true crime docudramas. The more messed up, the better in her eyes. Last night I caught her watching something called “My Husband Gaslights Me.” It was a tepid affair featuring a manipulative husband who had a talent for making his wife look like an abusive bully. Great soundtrack though.

Lastly, I have some books I plan to spend some time with. One I’m particularly looking forward to is called “Secrets: A Discovery Of Magic” by a fella named Daniel Madison. He’s an autistic magician with a penchant for amazing card magic and the book is a 300-page breakdown of all the effects he outlined in his very first magic journal. Should be quite fun. The other book is called “Alone and Unafraid: A Patriot’s Survival Guide.”

Don’t look at me like that, folks. I bought it from the $5 bin at this Trump-themed store on I-40 that was going out of business. Looked interesting. At the least it might make for toilet paper in a pinch. It was in a section labeled “Bathroom Reading” so I bet a lot of folks who shopped there had the same idea.

Anyway, there’s one thing I’m not doing: talking very much to people who annoy me. I’ve had enough of that bullshit to last a lifetime in the last week, so I’m going to log off now and bid y’all farewell until next time.

Be good to each other and talk amongst yourselves while I’m away.