Well, rest in peace, Pope F, but the crazy merry-go-round of news moves so fast you could have slipped away a month or two ago. But after all, you were 88.

For that matter, by mid-afternoon the stock market was down again — but only by another 900+ points; I, mean, Ho-hum, right? 401k panic is so last week.

The big late Monday news buzz was a growing swell of oddly-camouflaged, anonymously-sourced reports that the SuperLethal Crusader SecDef Pete Hegseth is on the way out.

The podcasts and news shows practically had him already being ushered out of the Pentagon by a team of Navy Seals. Was that a champagne cork I heard pop?

Well, I’m sticking with ginger ale: so include me among the skeptics: I’ll believe it when I see it.

“Look,” as a guy named Biden used to say, “I know you could staff the Mormon Tabernacle Choir with all the unnamed Beltway bigwigs who have been rapping about  Pete as the Tattooed Tennessee Trainwreck. But—“

— But, cut the malarkey: in 2025 the White House is the Grand Central Station of trainwrecks, and 47 the master wreckmeister.

Until and unless he pulls that emergency ejection cord, to mash the metaphor, his bulls, with Hegseth and his (3rd) wife and cronies in the lead, will keep careening around the main arena, yakking on their Signal phones, and smashing every wonky china shop on and around the Hill. Plus for every nameless whisperer, there’s a loud loyalist egging them on.

So anyway, my knickers are declining the calls to twist up, or even wrinkle, based on the current chatter.

Don’t get me wrong: I’ve wanted him gone Since Day One. Before that actually. But  I’ve seen too much prognosticatory chatter by “informed sources” turn to odoriferous catbox filler: as the Prophet, the Other Pete (Townsend) screamed, “I won’t get fooled again . . . .

But just in case, I’m activating a contingency plan. It’s an update of the one announced here the day before the November election: if Hegseth really goes, I’ll have a wild brunch centered on gluten free sausage gravy biscuits.

Again: this is not a prediction: if I knew the future, I’d be in the stock market. But here’s  a flashback for background, about one of my former passions:

. . . SBGs.

For a couple of years I sought them out, inhaled them, by the plate, and was even beginning to compare and keep track –  maybe for a guide book, or a Top Ten list (and in time, a stab at SBG Tik Tok reels; believe it or not many southern Mickey Dee’s served them, and they were darn good.) The glimmer of true elder influencer stardom began to flicker and beckon.

It was lovely while it lasted. But then, while preparing to resettle in Durham NC and pursue there the geezer’s grail of aging in place, a bountiful Thanksgiving indulgence was followed by an abrupt introduction to the fact that even in this cozy Piedmont hideaway, Friends, Instant Karma’s Gonna Getchoo, and even with the most dulcet accent, Karma is still a beeyotch.

That is, I found myself on a gurney, looking up at ceilings rattling past overhead, clad in one of those dignity-removing hospital gowns, coming to a halt under the hands of a skilled cardiologist.

The doc deftly inserted two stents in blood vessels next to my heart, through a cut that took only a band-aid to cover.

They didn’t even put me out, just kept me somewhat stoned; I was able to watch a lot of it on a monitor: as a show, it had decent rhythm, but not much of a plot. 

I went home with the stents, a batch of pills, and diet instructions: cut salt, fat, the usual. Pretty soon I decided to test shedding gluten as well, and my body said a big Yes to that.

All of which  put on the No-Go list, among other things, just about everything in SBGs: both biscuits & gravy were full of gluten, plenty of salt, and empty carbs; the sausage was loaded with heart-clogging lard. Its only remaining appeal was just eating the damned things.

I took the pills, bid a sad farewell to the hopes of guidebook fame, and tried to recall what was left on the Aging in Place menu, besides the despised kale. . . . .

(Read the whole thing here.)

There will also be another GF bonus: once I recover from the brunch, I plan to purchase and donate a new copy of Maya Angelou’s I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings  to the Nimitz Memorial Library at the U. S. Naval Academy, which as many readers know, tragically lost its copy in an alien invasion.

No need to thank me, Pete; just doing what I can.