#Rancheria Falls

[rabbitcruiser]

In the Woods

What do you think about my pic?  

[wanderguidehub]

Your Ultimate Guide to Yosemite's Campgrounds: Tips, Tricks, and Recommendations

Nestled in the Sierra Nevada mountains lies one of the most breathtaking destinations in the United States: Yosemite National Park. Known for its soaring granite cliffs, thundering waterfalls, and miles of hiking trails, Yosemite is an outdoor lover’s dream. And what better way to experience this natural wonderland than by camping under the stars? With over 1,000 campsites to choose from, it can…

[kylelowe]

Brandon, Maya, Lauren, and I hiked up to Rancheria Falls where Brandon proposed to Maya!

[travelingtheusa]

CANADA - YUKON

2023 July 1 (Sat) – We gave everyone a totally free day to do what they wanted.  We ran some errands – got fuel and did some shopping.  We drove to the Yukon Wildlife Preserve.  The tour bus was getting ready to leave when we arrived so we quickly paid and joined the group for a tour of the preserve.  They had 4 moose (we saw one), elk, thin horn sheep, mountain goats, 2 lynx, and wood bison.

2023 June 30 (Fri) – We took a bus tour of Whitehorse this morning.  I expected one 56-passenger bus but 3 12-passenger vans arrived instead.  We split into groups and rode around the area for 2-1/2 hour.  Whitehorse is not very spread out and we hit all the high spots.

      After we got back to the campground, Paul and I hopped in the truck and went into town to do some grocery shopping.  The Canadian Store wanted a dollar to take a shopping cart.  We had none so we moved on to Walmart.  It was a very small store with a poor selection of items.  We couldn’t find several items.  So, we went to the Save-on-Foods.  There we picked up the rest of what we needed.  We will be having a potluck barbecue tomorrow after the Canada Day festivities in town, and on July 4th in Skagway after the Independence Day festivities.  In both instances, the caravan is providing the meat and the group is providing the sides.

      At 6 p.m. we climbed into Johnny & Linda’s truck and rode with them to downtown Whitehorse.  First stop was at the Visitor Center where they got their 3-day parking pass.  Then we walked 3 blocks to the Dirty Northern Bastard, a pub.  Paul and Johnny had truffle burgers, Linda had a salmon burger, and I tried an Atlantic Char.  It turned out to be a meaty white fish.  Very tasty.  It came with fried capers.  Unusual but good.

2023 June 29 (Thu) – We packed up and left Swift River at 8:00 a.m.  It was 185 miles and 3 of the 5 groups wanted to stop off to see the George Johnston Museum. We saw it last time we were here so we were in the “bah, humbug” group.  We pulled into the Pioneer RV Park in Whitehorse around noon.  The owner was not in and had not left a voucher for how much our bill was so the clerk told me to come back tomorrow.  Everybody up here is so laid back about money.  Don’t worry.  Pay me later when it is convenient for you.  What a difference from the states where everyone wants to be paid upfront before anything.

      We got the campground map, determined where to put everyone, and then parked each group as they came in.  It was a little tricky because we had to determine whether they came in on the left or right side.  The sides are Jack and Jill so one rig faces one direction and the one next to it faces another direction.  They share the same stanchion. 

      We grilled some chicken-on-a-stick, made boiled potatoes, Linda provided carrots, and we enjoyed a meal with Johnny and Linda.  Before dinner, a few of us gathered around the Padberg/Pepperell RV for social hour.  I was pooped and went to bed at 9.

2023 June 28 (Wed) – We packed up and left Watson Lake at 9 a.m.  It was only 85 miles to Swift River.  It was a boring drive for half the way – mostly long, lonely roadway through forest.  Then we spotted a porcupine, then a rabbit, a ptarmigan, and a chipmunk.  There wasn’t the array of wildlife as there has been up to now.

      Continental Divide Alpine Resort & RV Park (cough, cough) is a spot along the highway.  They have about 25 sites – 15 pull thru and the rest back in.  There is only 30 amp and water service.  The area is dirt and gravel with a good smattering of trees.  The owner, Rick Aley, couldn’t have been nicer and as helpful as could be.  He kept riding by on his ATV with his dog to check on us.  We got everyone in OK.  We were warned to watch for a grizzly bear in the area.  Many went for a hike to Rancheria Falls.

       At 5 p.m., 22 folks went in to the café to eat.  At 6 p.m. the second seating took place (it was a small café).  After dinner, we held a travel meeting in the café.

2023 June 27 (Tue) – We went to the Northern Lights Centre for a show about the northern lights.  It was kind of dry and I kept nodding off.  After the show, we all went exploring around the area.  We held a travel meeting next to the office on picnic tables they had there.  The sun was blazing down so we made the meeting quick then gathered around our RV for happy hour.

2023 Jun 26 (Mon) – We drove 200 miles from Toad River, BC to Watson Lake in the Yukon.  It was exciting with view of wood bison, caribou, and bears.  Downtown RV Park was essentially a big open dirt lot with 3 rows of campsites – one on either fence and a pull thru section down the middle of the lot.  The owner, Archie Tannock, had a Scottish burr and something of an attitude.  We worked well together, though, and things went off with few problems.  When we first pulled into the campground, Fantasy RV was also arriving with their caravan and there were motorhomes everywhere.  We managed to get everything straightened out and everyone got parked fine.

       Once everyone was in, we all went to the Signpost Forest.  In 1942, a soldier was given the responsibility to put up a directional sign indicating how far Washington DC and other towns were from Watson Lake.  Being homesick, he also stuck up a sign for his hometown.  From there on, people have come from all over the world and added signs to the area.  There are over 85,000 signs in the place.  We put our sign up and hunted for signs from other caravans.  It is a dizzying collection of signage.

[airasilver]

Independent bookselling expanded again in 2022, with new and diverse stores opening nationwide

By HILLEL ITALIE

yesterday

Owners Jessica Callahan, from left, Austin Carter, and Julie Ross pose at Pocket Books Shop in Lancaster, Pa., on Sunday, May 21, 2023. The independent bookselling community continues to grow, with membership in the American Booksellers Association reaching its highest levels in more than 20 years. Callahan, Carter and Ross opened their store last year. (Sophia DeRise/Pocket Books via AP)

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NEW YORK (AP) — Near the end of 2021, Jessica Callahan was living in Columbus, Ohio, working as a social science researcher and wondering if there was a better way to support herself. Her friends Julie Ross and Austin Carter had similar thoughts and a similar solution: Open a bookstore.

“I think a lot of people re-evaluated what was important to them during the lockdown and we realized the place we were always happy to be at was a bookstore,” says the 30-year-old Callahan, who with Ross and Carter last year founded the Pocket Books Shop in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, close to Carter’s hometown. The roughly 1,000-square foot store is located on the main floor of a Queen Anne style house where Callahan and Ross live upstairs.

“We looked at our lives and thought, ‘Why not?’ Nothing else felt guaranteed anymore so why not just try to be happy,” she added. “We’re not getting rich from this, but we’re able to pay our bills and pay ourselves.”

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The new direction of the Pocket Books owners helped lead to another year of growth for independent sellers, with membership in the American Booksellers Association reaching its highest levels in more than 20 years. The ABA added 173 members last year, and now has 2,185 bookstore businesses and 2,599 locations. Three years after the pandemic shut down most of the physical bookstores in the U.S. and the independent community feared hundreds might close permanently, the ABA has nearly 300 more members (under stricter rules for membership) than it did in 2019, the last full year before the spread of COVID-19.

“It speaks to a sea change coming out of the pandemic,” says Allison Hill, CEO of the trade association, citing an overall rise in book sales as people spent more time at home.

One longtime ABA member, Mitchell Kaplan of Books & Books in Coral Gables and other Florida locations, says business has been strong the past couple of years and the customers have been younger, in their teens and 20s. Some are seeking books by Colleen Hoover, Emily Henry and others popular on TikTok, but many are anxious to buy other works.

“I feel like young people are re-discovering the bookstore and the importance of community after being locked down,” he says. “And you’re seeing interest across the board. The other day I had a young person come in who was interested in short stories and wanted to buy a book of Chekhov.”

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The ABA also continued its recent trend of not just adding stores, but more diverse stores, whether the kinds of operations or who runs them. Independent stores these days range from longtime traditional sellers such as Books & Books to pop-up stores, mobile shops and one that began as an online store and Instagram account, Black Walnut Books, in Glen Falls, New York.

Once overwhelmingly white, the booksellers association added 46 stores last year that reported diverse ownership, among them Rooted MKE in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, and Black Garnet Books, in St. Paul, Minnesota. Hillary Smith, owner of Black Walnut Books, is a member of the Dry Creek Rancheria Band of Pomo Indians who is focused on queer and Indigenous titles and works by authors of color.

“I am a mission-based bookseller,” she says.

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Another new store owner, Heather Hall of Greenfeather Book Company in Norman, Oklahoma, also sees her job as a calling. Before the pandemic, she had planned to work in the legal profession, but found herself thinking of other possible careers and was surprised to realize that she had the financial resources and enough of a potential local market to go into bookselling — a seemingly distant dream.

Hall is a self-described “loud mouth” who soon became active in countering the state’s book bannings. After a Norman high school teacher was criticized (and eventually resigned) for sharing the QR code to the Brooklyn Public Library’s Books Unbanned Project — an initiative to enable students nationwide to access books banned in their communities — Hall decided to give away T-shirts with the library’s code.

“Being loud and obnoxious is a normal part of my life,” she says with a laugh. “I am 100% in with the ability to have a conversation about every aspect of books. I’m not talking from an ivory tower perspective. It can be romance novels, science fiction, genre fiction. I’m talking about graphic novels. These conversations are the things in my life that make it better and happier and more wonderful.”

Hill says sales appear “softer” in 2023 than in the last couple of years, but still anticipates further growth for the trade association, with 56 member stores added so far and 18 closing.

Prospective owners include 32-year-old Paullina Mills of Perry, Iowa, who had worked in education for the past decade until recent state legislation — including proposed restrictions on what books can be taught — made her consider a new path. This summer, she plans to open Century Farm Books & Brews, and have it live up to its name as a gathering place for drinks and books and bookish conversations.

“I wanted a place where people would come and get a glass of wine and maybe have a book club,” she says. “I think in general we have missed personal connections (during the pandemic) and this seems like a great way to fill a hole in our community. It seemed like a pipe dream at first, but then I found a building and it was like, ’OK, I’m going to jump in headfirst and see how it goes.”

People think actual books aren’t selling…they literally brought back Books A Million at Park City. Yes, it was because their rent agreement went out but still...we all thought it wasn't coming back and it did. It's smaller but seems to do much better (I've haven't been there for mobths but I know it's going good) than it was before.

Even Barbes & Nobles seem to be doing well.

Books (not eBooks or audio) aren't going anywhere.

[frommyviewtoyours]

Day dreaming of this perfect fall day.

Photo taken on Graton Rancheria, Coast Miwok and Miwok land.

[rabbitcruiser]

Rancheria Falls Recreation Site, YT (No. 6)

Empetrum nigrum, crowberry, black crowberry, or, in western Alaska, blackberry, is a flowering plant species in the heather family Ericaceae with a near circumboreal distribution in the Northern Hemisphere. It is usually dioecious, but there is a bisexual tetraploid subspecies, Empetrum nigrum subsp. hermaphroditum, which occurs in more northerly locations and at higher altitude.

The species has a near circumboreal distribution in the Northern Hemisphere. It is also native in the Falkland Islands.

Evolutionary biologists have explained the striking geographic distribution of crowberries as a result of long-distance migratory birds dispersing seeds from one pole to the other.

Empetrum nigrum grows in acidic soils in shady, moist areas.

The fruit is edible and can be dried. However, it has an acidic taste and can cause headaches. It is abundant in Scandinavia and treasured for its ability to make liqueur, wine, juice, or jelly. In subarctic areas, the plant has been a vital addition to the diet of the Inuit and the Sami. The Dena'ina (Tanaina) harvest it for food, sometimes storing in quantity for winter, sometimes mixed with lard or oil.

The species can also be grown as a ground cover, or as an ornamental plant in rock gardens, notably the yellow-foliaged cultivar 'Lucia'. The fruit is high in anthocyanin pigment and can be used to make a natural dye.

Source: Wikipedia

[sartorialadventure]

Wayuu (also Wayu, Wayúu, Guajiro, Wahiro) is a Native American ethnic group of the Guajira Peninsula in northernmost part of Colombia and northwest Venezuela. The Wayuu language is part of the Maipuran (Arawak) language family.

A traditional Wayuu settlement is made up of five or six houses that made up caseríos or rancherías. Each ranchería is named after a plant, animal or geographic place. A territory that contains many rancherias is named after the mother's last name; that is, society is matrilineal. The Wayuu congregated in rancherias are usually isolated and far from each other to avoid mixing their goat herds.

The typical house is a small structure called a piichi or miichi, generally divided into two rooms with hammocks to sleep in and keep personal belongings such purses or mochilas of acrylic fiber and ceramics to keep water. (see image #8: the hammocks are visible in the building behind them)

Traditional Wayuu music is closely tied to economy and social life. For example, they sing to their cattle. They also use music for meetings and celebrations, as well as mourning rituals during funerals.

Girls are taught a dance that is at the heart of the Majayura, the ritual passage of the "young Wayuu virgin." She must dance in a courtship dance (baile de cortejo) with prospective suitors. With her head covered and wearing a fabric shawl and dress, the girl dances forward with small steps and arms outstretched, swooping like a bird, within a circle made up of people from the village. The male dances backward before her, coming close and yielding as they circle around, until he finally falls to the ground. The adult men play traditional drums and musical instruments in their ring around the dancers. If a male is respected in his clan and accepted, he must pay a dowry to the girl's mother and male relatives. This used to be in the form of goats and sheep for the support of the clan.

1. Photo by Luis Miguel 2. Wayuu courtship dance 3. Wayuu girl in a wayuushein, which is a traditional Wayuu dress, and a susu, a traditional bag 4. Miss Anzoátegui 2012, Adriana Escalante, wearing a wayuushein at ExpoTaparas 2012, a charity event aimed at helping low-income Wayuu communities 5. Miss Mérida 2012, Claudia Baratta, ataviada con un vestido tradicional wayuu, wayuushein, en ExpoTaparas2012 6. Rociree Silva Fernández, Miss Península Guajira 2012, wearing a wayuushein, a wayuu traditional dress at ExpoTaparas 2012. She is Wayuu herself. 8. Two women outside a Wayuu rancheria 9. Venezuela

[doctorcolubra]

How about Eleanora or the Fall of the House of Usher for Jarrich? (Fluffy or no, I'm interested in what you do with these!!)

I say that I want to write drabbles or ficlets and then end up with almost 3K, typical. I really want to get better at short-form stuff (still taking prompts if anyone wants to send more). 

I’m in a haunted house mood for fall so here’s Fall of the House of Usher! 

_____________

Richard doesn’t like driving, or at least he doesn’t like traffic. The hostility, the birds flipped, the goddamn honking. He’s doing okay out here in the country, on empty roads where no one can take offense at his speed, his signalling, his sloppy lane changes or his occasional hasty U-turns. Jared’s in the passenger’s seat, asleep. Collar askew, hair windblown, lips parted—keep your eyes on the road, Hendricks.They’re driving back to Palo Alto from the Central Sierra Audobon Society Birders’ Convention. “I was going to be Muriel’s plus-one,” Jared had said one day last week. “But I suppose I can go alone. I have my safety whistle.”“For what, bears?”

“Of course. With black bears, your best strategy is to stand your ground, if you’ll forgive an expression sadly tainted by the legal system. You make yourself look as big as you can.” Jared held his arms out wide, hands in his raincoat pockets to make his skinny frame broader. “And that’s where the whistle comes in. Noise frightens the bear off. Those same tactics would probably get you killed if you ever met a grizzly, though,” he added. “But you won’t. In spite of what the state flag would have you believe, the last grizzly bear in California was shot in the ‘20s.”

“Where is this place?” Richard said, and then: “Don’t go alone, for fuck’s sake. Can I go? With you, I mean?”

“Richard…” Jared lit up. “Oh, I would love to take you. But I couldn’t possibly take you away from—you have so many things to think of…”Even Jared couldn’t quite pretend that Richard is still a busy CEO.So they did BirdCon. Richard was wondering if he needed glasses or whether he was just bad at this hobby, because Jared and the other birders kept losing their minds over woodpeckers, warblers, flycatchers, sparrows, raptors and vireos. Richard, once, correctly identified a squirrel. Jared drove here, anyway, so Richard’s returning the favour on the way home.And he’s not lost. He’s not. He’s supposed to be in some town called Confidence on the edge of Yosemite Park, and follow the highway from there to Modesto, and from there he can figure his business out.The Google Maps lady has been giving suspicious instructions for awhile now, though, and Richard doesn’t think he’s anywhere close to Confidence. Which, ha ha, super funny. He’s on a stretch of road that’s…well, not desolate. It’s pretty. Hills, grass, trees. Whatever. But he’s trying to figure out if Google Maps Lady is on the level, and the land around them doesn’t hold any clues.When a cop car rolls up behind him, he’s almost relieved. (Almost. He’s sweating a lot.) Jared jerks awake while Richard fumbles with the window switch.The stocky, brown-skinned cop bends to the window. “You boys looking for the casino?”“Wh—no,” Richard says. They couldn’t have blundered into Nevada somehow. Right? No, absolutely not. “We’re…are we near Confidence? The town, I mean?”“You’re on Miwok tribal land,” says the cop. “Tuolumne Rancheria.”“Oh.” Richard has no clue where that is in relation to Confidence, Yosemite, Modesto, or Palo Alto. Fucking Google. “Um, sorry. Are we allowed to—we shouldn’t be here, right?”The cop avoids a complicated question of colonialism. “You’re not in trouble, just thought you might be lost. Casino’s down that way. Where you coming from, Jamestown?”“We were up in Yosemite, for—for BirdCon—and we were supposed to pass through Sugarpine and then Confidence,” Richard says, disconnecting his phone from the cord and showing the officer the screen. “The GPS voice kept saying to stay on 108, and I was doing that, and then the road turned into the E17…”The cop looks at Richard’s phone and chuckles. “You’re real lost, wow. I don’t even know how you did that.”Between the two of them, they determine that Richard had made some catastrophic error while typing the address into GPS, and Maps is now trying to send them to Confidence, New Mexico. Richard is indignant—the one thing he wouldn’t fuck up is data entry—and blames Google’s shoddy user interface and aggressive auto-correct.“Yeah, maybe,” says the cop with a shrug. “But you’re still going the wrong way.”“Oh,” Jared says suddenly, softly, looking ahead. He’s been quiet and bleary from taking an extra allergy pill, but now the haze has lifted. “Oh, no, I know just where we are.”Richard turns back to look at him. “You do?”“I used to live near here. For awhile. Not on the reservation, naturally. But I know this road. Thank you, officer, we’ll be fine from here,” says Jared to the tribal cop, who wishes them goodnight and heads back to his truck.“You don’t have to drive,” Richard says, plugging his phone back in. “My fuck-up, I got it taken care of.”“No, not at all—I’m so sorry I fell asleep on you, Richard.” Jared is straightening his collar, brushing his dark hair back into place with his fingers. “I should have stayed awake to navigate—”“Come on. It’s the end of the day, it’s my turn.”“Okay. But could we…no, that’s self-indulgent of me…”“What?”“I think—I think I might like to drive past the house. If it wouldn’t take us too far out of our way. We don’t have to stop, even, but…” Jared trails off, looking out the window at the hills. “Only if there’s time. I’m sure there’s not.”“There’s lots of time, now that we’re not…going to fuckin’ New Mexico. Just—point me where we’re going, it’s okay,” Richard says. Muriel would have stopped for Jared. “We’ll take a look.”The house is low and white and dead, like a broken eggshell lying amid the trees. Peeling paint, windows boarded, a child’s plastic car lying sun-bleached on its side, no cars in the gravel driveway. Jared doesn’t seem disappointed—in fact, he’s quietly elated. “It’s empty,” he says in wonder, staring out the window. “It’s all empty.”“That’s…too bad,” Richard says, but he’s guessing. “Is it? Did you like this place?”“No,” Jared says, the way he always says these things. Light, soft, without rancour. He hasn’t looked away from the shabby house in the trees. “I didn’t at all. Could we—no, I’ve already taken us out of our way…”“You want to get a closer look?”“Maybe. Yes. For a minute or two, Richard, not long.”The grass is knee-high around the front yard, where the trees clear, and Richard can see glimpses of weeds out back that would come up to his shoulders. He’s picking his way carefully toward the door, convinced that he’ll step on a snake at any minute. Poisonous snakes. He’ll get bitten. Richard is not mentally or spiritually equipped to be bitten by a snake, it’s haunted his nightmares ever since he was a reluctant Boy Scout in Tulsa. He’ll end up in the hospital being laughed at by that goddamn doctor. Then a painful death, then—“The door’s off its hinges,” Jared says. “We could go inside.”“Is that safe?” Part of Richard wants to shake Jared out of this reverie: don’t look at this, don’t remember, don’t get lost. But he knows that if he did, Jared would apologise profusely and never mention the house again. And that’s bad, Richard knows. Because something bad must have happened here. “Are you okay with this, man? We don’t have to go in. I mean, I will. I know you came to check out Peter Gregory’s stuff with me, so. Fair’s fair. But…I’m not trying to—to talk you out of it, unless…like, unless you want me to talk you out of it?”Jared has opened his backpack (practical, pristine, everything tucked in orderly pockets) to get out his flashlight. But he looks back at Richard and smiles. “It’s funny,” he says. “I barely remember the year I lived here. The brain is an amazing organ—there we are…” The flashlight’s blue-white glow shivers over the front hall of the house. “Hello? Anyone here?”Silence. The flashlight’s a necessity, but there’s still some sunlight streaming in from outside, and that’s all that’s holding Richard together. It’s not dark yet, but as Bob Dylan said, it’s getting there. Everything’s dusty. Good thing Jared’s already popped an allergy pill.Richard follows Jared, using his phone for more light, looking at the time capsule of a house. Harvest gold and avocado kitchen, landline phone on the wall with its cord a cramped spiral tangle. Warped bookshelves disgorging hoarded piles of magazines. Someone must have tried to clean the place before giving up: there are garbage bags and boxes everywhere, Pine-Sol and Febreze bottles, mops and brooms at rest in the corners. The ceilings are water-stained and in places the paint has buckled away from the wall, bubbling outward in layers that Richard instinctively wants to peel away.“What are we looking for?” he asks Jared.“Nothing,” Jared says, tentatively pushing open a half-closed bedroom door. A teenage girl’s room, walls papered with Tiger Beat and Big Bopper pages. Jonathan Brandis, the Hanson boys, Leo in his salad days, young and green. (Richard knows too much about magazines from this era. But that’s another story.) “Nothing special—oh, Richard, don’t look so frightened, please. We can go back to the car.”“No,” Richard says, stubborn now. “Not until you’re done with…this. Closure. Right? That’s what this is. Isn’t it?”“Maybe part of the process of closure, yes.” Jared moves to the next bedroom door. “This wasn’t the worst place I ever lived. I think I was relieved to get here. It felt safe, safer. Back then. The Alguires were strict, but they didn’t hurt me. Just…I’ve forgotten so much about living here. If you’d asked me yesterday to list all the homes I’ve ever had, I would’ve left this one off the list. But I was here for almost a year. Eleven months, I think.”“How old were you?”“Ten.”“I don’t remember ten either, really,” says Richard, staying in the teen girl’s room and raising his voice a little to be heard. “I mean I know where I was and what I was doing. We never moved, same house in Tulsa all my life. But I don’t remember being ten. It sucked, I know that.”“How come?”“School.” Richard used to rage over this, why did they do it, what was wrong with me, but in Palo Alto everyone else had a similar story, and he got over it. Kinda. “Everyone hated me.”“They just weren’t ready for you,” comes Jared’s voice from the other room, as inexplicably fond as always. “The solitary genius.”Sometimes Richard’s not sure if Jared’s making fun of him or not. Who could actually believe this stuff? What would it even be like to be so earnest? Terrifying, Richard thinks.He’s afraid that somewhere in this house they’ll find something really dark: chains and shackles on a radiator, or a potty chair in a locked closet. The house is depressing, but in an ordinary way. The former inhabitants must have verged on clinical hoarding, but the situation wasn’t bad enough to get on TLC. Just a particularly good archaeological record of the early ‘90s.Richard makes his way further down the hall, still on the lookout for snakes. It’s darker, and then, suddenly, brighter—the back door is gone, open to the audience of Sonora pines. Shafts of slow gold afternoon sunlight break through into the dark little house, nurturing a tidepool of vegetation. Moss is spreading across the rotting wooden floorboards, with leggy weeds crowding in the brightest spots. Tiny green tendrils trace paths from the shadows into the light, breaking into full leaf where the sun hits. The air smells damp, fresh, alive when everything else in this house seems dead. Flourishing.He wanders back to find Jared in the other bedroom. Jared’s poking through a big Rubbermaid tub that seems to be full of toys: headless Barbies and uncanny baby dolls, loose Lego, die-cast cars, green plastic army men, neon water pistols empty of their charges.But then a look of recognition breaks over his face and he reaches in to pull out a recorder, still in its blue plastic sleeve, a sheet of music folded inside.“Mrs. Alguire hated noise,” Jared says. “This was her house, the year I lived here. She used to confiscate inappropriate toys. I don’t mean to say she was unkind—she was a step up from my aunt’s place. But she did like silence. And I…” He slides the recorder out of its plastic sleeve. “I always wanted to play an instrument, or—when I got to Vassar I was allowed to sing. I liked that. But one day I found this in the inappropriate toys box. Even if I couldn’t make music, I thought…I thought I could make noise. Maybe somebody would notice if I was loud. I don’t know what I wanted them to notice. I was already getting as much help as anyone could give me.”“Not enough.” Richard is beside him, digging through the Rubbermaid tub too, examining the Barbies and the Hot Wheels and all the other miscellanea in the pile. “I had one of those plastic recorders for about three days,” he says. “My parents took it away too. Not that—I mean, it’s not the same as your thing.”“Well, some adult reactions become more sympathetic as we get older.” Jared polishes the dust off the recorder with a clean tissue from his pocket. “But the recorder was a very important part of early music, you know. Some beautiful airs were written for it. No instrument sounds very pleasant when it’s made of plastic and costs a dollar.”“Yeah, true.” Richard fishes the sheet music out of the recorder’s sleeve and unfurls it, skimming the notes. He has no talent himself, something he discovered from the childhood piano lessons that he got and Jared didn’t. “‘Early One Morning’—oh, I remember this from an episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer…”Jared laughs. “You’re so cultured, Richard.”“Okay, that, right there, that was making fun of me,” Richard says—he’s grinning, not even mad, just relieved that he finally caught Jared just teasing him for being an idiot, the way a normal person would. “You know goddamn well that’s not cultured.”“I would never judge you for—”“You should, though, Jared. You should judge the hell out of me. For everything.” Richard bumps his arm gently against Jared’s, one of the few tactile gestures of friendliness that he’s learned how to use properly. “You’re gonna blast some ‘Early One Morning’ right now, aren’t you?”“I shouldn’t.”“It’s your moment, c’mon.” Richard likes to tempt Jared—sometimes to make him do things he needs to do for his own good, sometimes for more selfish reasons. To enjoy Jared’s purity, and to feel it crumble. “We’re a million miles away from anything. You’re not gonna bother anybody.”“Well…” Jared looks down at the recorder in his hands and smiles. “A little bit. Okay.”They walk out into the sprouting back hall, over the crumbling floors, where the weeds are winning in the sun. Richard gets his phone earbuds out of his pocket and puts them in as makeshift earplugs.Jared takes a deep breath and blows the recorder like a shofar, a raucous high-pitched whistle. Not playing any note in particular, just blasting it as loud as he possibly can, with all the air in his lungs. Not music, only noise. Serious noise. Richard can hear it even through his earbuds. It echoes through the pines, loud enough to frighten off a black bear.It’s a silly, childish sound—it brings back memories for Richard too. He used to annoy his parents with plastic recorders and cheap harmonicas and the repetitive sounds of Bach’s French Suite No. 3 by way of Tetris on his GameBoy. He’d had the freedom to bug people without having to worry about whether he might lose the roof over his head for it.When Jared stops, he looks satisfied for a brief moment, then guilty. “I feel so foolish,” he says. “I don’t know what I was expecting. We came so far out of our way just for that.”“You were trying to remember and you did. And we’d already gone out of our way, right?” Richard smiles at him. “I was trying to take us to Confidence, New Mexico. I’m the foolish one here, I’m Boo Boo the Fool.”“Never.” Jared reaches out for Richard, almost aimless: straightening one of the strings on his hoodie, fingers brushing over Richard’s shoulder.Jared starts to say something, and Richard is afraid that it’s thank you, which is bullshit—I’ve given him nothing, I’ve done nothing but take—so he leans in to wrap an arm awkwardly around Jared’s waist. “Let’s go home.

[spr0sse]

21.September 2019

Zunächst weckt uns der Regen, dann der Wecker - wir drehen uns aber nochmal um. Nach einer ausgiebigen Dusche (ein Luxus des Full Hook-UPs) entscheiden wir bei der Rezeption frühstücken zu gehen. Die Auslagen sahen gestern schon sehr gut aus. Es gibt eine große Auswahl an amerikanischem Frühstück, wobei sich die unterschiedlichen Gerichte teilweise nur darin unterscheiden, ob es Speck oder Würstchen oder Speck und Würstchen gibt. Wir entscheiden uns beide für einen Egg-Bun und bekommen das leckerste Frühstück seit langem serviert: ein Brötchen gefüllt mit Ei, überbacken mit Cheddar und Bacon. Währenddessen genießen wir den Ausblick auf die Brücke, die den Teslin Lake überspannt und Caspar flirtet mit den Brückenarbeitern, die am Nachbartisch mit Essen versorgt werden.

Anschließend erfolgt die morgendliche Routine: Gunnar stöpselt uns ab, Cati macht den Innenraum fahrtauglich und verstaut alles in den Schränken. Danach geht es wieder auf den Alaska Highway in Richtung Watson Lake. Die Fahrt führt durch die Einsamkeit der kanadischen Wildnis. Kaum ein Auto ist mit uns unterwegs. Die Landschaft sieht aus wie von einem impressionistischen Maler mit gelbem Pinsel bearbeitet - hier ist der Herbst wirklich angekommen. Wir durchfahren Teslin und überqueren die Nisutlin Bridge. Sie ist mit 584 Metern die längste Brücke des Alaska Highway und hat einen Boden aus Gittern, sodass man die ganze Zeit das Wasser sehen kann. Etwa 130 Kilometer vor Watson Lake halten wir an den, vom Reiseführer empfohlenen Rancheria Falls. Vom Parkplatz aus läuft man 500m durch den Wald und über einen angelegten Plankenweg zu einer Anhöhe gegenüber den beiden Wasserfällen. Dort nehmen wir uns die Zeit sowohl für Drohnenaufnahmen als auch für Fotos mit Filter.

Zurück am Wohnmobil gibt es eine kleine Mittagspause und dann fahren wir die letzten Kilometer zunächst am Campingplatz vorbei nach Watson Lake rein. Der Ort ist mit knapp 1000 Einwohnern nicht nur die drittgrößte Stadt des Yukon, sondern inzwischen bekannt für den Sign Post Forest. Vom Schilderwald hatten wir gelesen und auch bereits Fotos gesehen, seine Ausmaße überraschen uns dann dennoch. Über 100000 Ortsschilder und Autokennzeichen sollen hier an unzählige Pfosten geschraubt sein. Entstanden ist der Schilderwald, weil ein US-Soldat aus Danville, Illinois aus Heimweh ein Schild mit der Entfernung zu seinem Heimatort anbrachte. Viele Soldaten und Arbeiter und dann auch Touristen folgten seinem Beispiel. Wir sind schlecht vorbereitet und haben kein eigenes Schild dabei - umso größer ist die Freude, als wir ein „Dortmund“-Schild ( 11103 km ) finden und unsere Namen darauf hinterlassen können. Auf dem „Borsigplatz“-Schild wäre nicht genug Platz gewesen.

Wir fahren anschließend zum Watson Lake Campground, welcher direkt am See liegt. Leider gibt es keinen Strand und der Wald endet direkt am See. So machen wir nur einen kleinen Spaziergang (entdecken dabei Kot eines Bären) und flüchten dann vor dem Regen ins Wohnmobil. Vorher waren wir noch kurz mit einem älteren Pärchen aus Anchorage ins Gespräch gekommen, die letzte Nacht auf dem gleichen RV Park genächtigt haben wie wir. Die Beiden waren vor zwei Jahren schon einmal auf dieser Strecke unterwegs und meinen, dass sie damals alle paar Meter Wildlife gesehen haben. Dieses Jahr haben sie aber auch noch keinen Elch entdecken können. Wir fragen uns, ob es an der bestehenden Jagdsaison liegt, denn eigentlich bekunden überall Schilder, dass Elche und Bären die Straße queren können. Das einzige Tierchen, für das wir heute bremsen mussten, war ein Eichhörnchen, sodass Gunnar gerne ein Schild hätte mit der Aufschrift: „Ich bremse auch für Squirrels.“

Unseren direkten Platznachbarn muss Gunnar später auch noch zur Hilfe eilen: Vater und Tochter sind beide nicht in der Lage die dicken, vom Campingplatz gesponserten Holzstücke in handliche Lagerfeuerviertel zu zerteilen.

Caspar verspeist den Brei heute erstaunlich gut und auch uns schmecken die selbstgemachten Burger. Da es sich eingeregnet hat, verbringen wir den Abend im Wohnmobil, lesen und schauen unseren Nachbarn zu, die dem Regen am Lagerfeuer trotzen.

[athousandfootsteps]

8th June 2019

On Thursday we drove from San Francisco to Shaver Lake, which is part of the Sierra National Forest. We thought that it was part of Yosemite, but apparently it is not, which was a little disappointing, but it was still beautiful and I wanted to make the most of the little time that we had there.

First we got an overpriced lunch, I got a lettuce wrap sandwich with two slices of lettuce, some onions and capsicum and they charged $8.95usd, which I think is a rip off but that’s what happens when you have a restrictive diet and are in the mountains. The day prior in Berkeley, we stopped at Saturn Earth Cafe and I ordered a peanut satay dish and it was one of the best vegan meals I’ve ever eaten, and the portion size was massive! It reminded me a lot of Veggie Bar in Melbourne, I loved it.

First we went on a walk to Shaver Lake which didn’t take too long and was really pretty at the lake. Then we decided to drive further down the road to get to Rancheria Falls. It was further than we thought but we eventually found it and it was a 2 mile hike to the waterfall. It was a bit tough because it was a constant up hill and some of it was trekking over slippery melting snow with big drops if we slipped which was scary. But eventually we made it to the waterfall and the sheer force of it was breathtaking. We got as close to it as possible and the waterfall was spraying water at us. We got a few photos and then turned back, the walk back was much easier.

Then we slept in a teepee that night, which was a fun experience, it was a little cold but definitely a fun experience. :)

We woke up early on Friday to drive back to San Francisco airport, drop the car off and catch our plane. We left just before 6am and drove to the airport and made it through with just enough time to not have to stress too much. After we checked our bags, we had about an hour to go through TSA security and then wait at the gate. We boarded in one of the last groups and then boarded. We had a young man sitting next to us. The flight was a bit scary because firstly a man a few rows ahead of us got up and went to the toilets as the plane was taxiing to the runway and did not get back to his seat as we were taking off and did not return until well after take off. Then people were getting up and moving around before the seat belt sign was even turned off. 

The flight was a little turbulent but not too bad but the flight attendants did not even do a safety check as we were coming in to land because they said it was too bumpy. They served drinks during turbulence and it was not even turbulent when they said it was too unsafe for them to come through the aisle. So that was a downside. I am flying Delta 6 more times during my trip in America, so hopefully next time I like it better.

We made it to Seattle a little bit early and then we picked up our hire car, a Jeep Cheroke, which made us feel like travelling in luxury. We dropped our bags at our accommodation in Shoreline called North Seattle Guesthouse, then we ate Chipotle for the first time. I loved it and I definitely see myself eating Chipotle a lot more on my trip!! It’s a lot like Guzman y Gomez.

Then Mum and I went grocery shopping at a Walmart Neighbourhood Market and then cooked at the accommodation while talking to an elderly couple from Minnesota.

Today we left at about 10am after breakfast to do our Kurt Cobain tour. First we stopped at his house on East Lake Washington Boulevard, the house his body was found it. It was a little emotional being there, and it is hard to believe it happened 25 years ago... I wasn’t even born then. I wrote my name on one of the chairs at Viretta Park, took some pictures and then we went back to the car. 

Then we drove out to Montesano, saw the house where Kurt lived with his father from 1978 to 1982. But the area looked dodgy and rundown and I was nervous about the kind of people around so I just took a quick picture and then we left.

Then we drove to Aberdeen, 15 minutes down the road. We pulled off at the Welcome to Aberdeen - Come As You Are sign. I have wanted to see this sign and have my picture with this sign for the longest time so it was amazing to finally see it in real life. Aberdeen, much like Montesano, looked low income and dodgy, so I was a bit nervous. We saw Kurt’s childhood home 1210 East 1st Street, which was a tiny house on the corner and then we found Kurt Cobain Landing, which is a memorial park where he used to hang out under the Young Street bridge. There was a weird guy fishing under the bridge, so I was a bit nervous, but he soon left, but still I didn’t want to hang around for too long. I got some pictures of the park and the bridge and then we left. We went to Walmart to go to the toilet, ate lunch and then stopped at 7/11 before driving back to Seattle. 

When we got back, we did our laundry and rebooked our Chicago accommodation before going back to our guesthouse and eating.

Although it was a little nervewracking being in these small country towns that we didn’t really know anything about as an outsider in dodgy areas, but it was interesting to learn and see how Kurt grew up and the areas he grew up and hanged out in. Seeing the Wishkah river and the bridge really brought a lot of things together and I felt re-connected to Nirvana.

Tomorrow we are going into Seattle, seeing some grunge locations and I want to go on the Space Needle and then the next day we fly to Chicago.

[squatsteader]

Hillbilly squatter attempts to build a Miwok house in the sierras

The Miwok is a loose nit group of North central Californian Amerindians, still present today in a number of small ‘Rancherias’, like reservations in miniature. What’s interesting about them is their adaptation to three basic geographical locations, and their semi-nomadic relationships with these regions. The pacific coast offered a rich source in protein and pretty much everything one needed for nourishment, so much so that pre hispanic corn cultivation  never really caught on…..why? They didn’t need it.

The central valley of Cali runs  north-south through  practically the entire state, and was also a rich source in wild food supply. Back in the day, before most all of it was drained off, massive networks of lakes, swamps, inlets and rivers was the predominant feature, providing the Miwok families with reeds to build tightly constructed, waterproof, and architecturally intriguing lodges. Reeds were the main material for canoe making as well. So many wildfowl lived here, and migrated through here, that the old trope of “wings in such number as to darken the skies” was a common occurrence, especially in Fall and Winter for the migrations.

The foothills and higher ranges of the Sierras offered much as well during the summers. The Miwoks in that region concentrated on acorns as a dependable food supply, augmented by fishing, elk and deer hunting, etc. Berries also grew in profusion throughout the ranges.

These early days of prehistory must have been a wild food paradise, which afforded the people much free time for a culturally rich existence, replete with myths, dancing, gaming (including gambling ironically) song, and sport. This was completely destroyed as the Catholic “Missions” of the Spaniards became, basically, slave labor camps where the Miwok and many other groups were forced to work, subsisting on inferior diets. Many took to the hills, some rebelled. As many as 90% perished, though their numbers have rebounded some, in the latter 20th century.

When the “americans”, Scotch Irish, German, English, etc, arrived on the scene with the intense gold fever that infected the mountians, the Miwok were literally hunted like game, as the minors used dogs, poison, cannon, deception and trickery, and rifles to very nearly commit mass genocide. But the Miwok clung to an existence of the hidden refugee, finally reaching a modicum of legal security by the 20th century.

Tho basically an Appalachian raised hillbilly without a drop of Indian blood, Ive always been fascinated by all facets of Native American life, and so, exploring the Sierras in the Yosemite region, homeland to the Miwok and others, I found a little secret glade off the road to try and build a Miwok traditional lodge. Their basic structure included Large planks of bark and outer wood peeled from large pines cedar, and sequoia. Many of the larger lodges were grubbed into the ground several feet, especially the  meeting houses, kind of a communal livingroom space for the entire village, where much gambling was had, important political meetings conducted, ceremonies held, and story telling that reached deep into the night, as logs were draped on the fire, which burned slow in a pit at the center.

My lodge was much the same, tho I used mainly deadfall for the structure, leaned tepee style, around a circular pit roughly three feet deep. The extra dirt I then mounded around the bottom of the structure, adding further insulation for those fall and early spring nights still white with frost.

My lodge still stands, I hope, probably curtained with drifts of snow 20 and more feet, which means its mostly buried. I often think about the lodge at night, in the dark of my squat in the city, I picture lazing by the pit fire at the center, gazing at the stars  through the  smoke hole above. Listening to owls and Coyotes…

I’d like to think the ghosts of those people could still be heard singing, their drums adding as rhythm pounded from the earths center, its heartbeat. But those drums have quietened, for many many generations. Even so, I hear that ceremonies still take place in the rancherias, that programs dedictaed to the revitalization of their native language are strong, and indeed drums can still be heard in the rancheras, with the rich smoky tang of acorns slowly cooking in massice iron pots. The heart of the earth still beats...

What can we learn abt these intriuging people? Let’s imagine we were able to get our population levels down, maybe a pipedream, maybe an impossibility. But just imagine a central vally reflooded with massive lakes supporting very nearly an equal amt of food recources as today. I’m not a back-to -the stoneage kinda guy. We very likely cannot afford to try and save our planet without it at this stage. But: we can most certainly learn from those who were able to sustain themselves comfortable wothout damaging thier environment.

Here’s TO THE GREEN NEW DEAL AND A GREEN NEW CIVLIZATION

[thanidiel]

Choices

Prompt 11: World Building, First Person What if World of Warcraft took a different turn with its inspiration? What if the game was actually based entirely around science fantasy, particularly cyberpunk? I was a cheesy bitch and did The Modern AU(™). For a long piece, use what skills you’ve learned and practiced to narrate AS your character in this different world.

What would their occupation be? What is the world like? Factions? Races? Conflicts? Try to write about a normal or abnormal day for your character in this world—is their name different too? Write in your character’s perspective, and take on a very in-depth look of a different personality and worldview.

[I was very cheesy and went balls deep into a Modern AU story to exercise a more modern narrative style. Lots of references to others and events from World of Warcraft roleplay or Thanidiel’s background, try to catch them all. alsoimsorrythiswassolong.

Mentions: @jessipalooza @stormandozone @captainswingbeard @azriah @immunologist @kinari ]

“Alright, alright. Just, shut the fuck up for, like, I don’t know, an hour. Ethan, cradle your beer, you’re good at that. Elena… I don’t gotta tell you shit.

Let’s start with… the beginning.

So, let’s just get this shit out of the way. Auberry, up in Fresno County, California. Small-time fucking town. My dad was a new recruit to the police department, there. First-generation son to some Lithuanians that couldn’t read shit for English. My mom is a Mono Indian, from the Big Sandy Rancheria next door.

1990, Dad knocked her up when she was in town. I was the result, that she passed right back to Dad. Grew up happy without her, ran around just fine with myself, my Staffordshire, Ted, and all of the neighborhood backdoors left open. Grandparents were out of the picture by then, and Dad had shit hours, so it was up to the Abuelas and Grandma Sallys. Suited all of us just fine.

One day, Dad gets shot up breaking up a domestic dispute. I was six. And as much as we all want to think about those crazy stories up on Reddit and Facebook, no one fucking walks away from a hunting rifle. His coworkers stopped by, took me to the tribe headquarters in town to figure out what to do with me. Off to Big Sandy they sent my ass. I hear the Grandma next to us took Ted.

As much as I want to say things got more chill from there, it didn’t. See, my mom was half-white, already. Mix that with some straight-out-of-Europe dude, and you get a blue-eyed blonde haired kid running around with the Mono. Mom didn’t want me either, and she made that damned clear to the elders, so I was back to being a community effort on a new Grandma’s sofa.

Bless Grandma, she tried. Fed me. Taught me a handful of Monachi. Taught me how to fucking read and write English. Driving, eventually. Hooked me up with a new dog too when I got there, Tamuapaya, albino-assed thing. All of the good parental shit you’re supposed to do, with everything she had.

I ended up as black of a sheep as it gets, though. Scraped with the other kids whenever we crossed each other, dogs got in on it too. Adults couldn’t fucking stand me outside of Grandma ‘cause I didn’t think they deserved anything but lip. And, let me just say, it’s fucking awkward when you realize you’re a fag, hours out from a real city. I was never really accepted with them outside of cook-outs, but that was when you had to take everyone registered in the tribe.

Eventually, I get old enough to start itching to work. So I start the uphill battle of doing the most shit possible small-jobs for the most shit payout for these folk, and as you two know, I am stubborn as fucking shit about my work. So I did every bit of work they pissed at me, with fucking excellence.

Then that got too small when I was like, fifteen, and wanted some real fucking cash. The other black sheep got me then, and let me know it was easy money running drugs between us, peeps at the Casino, Auberry, and Fresno. Next thing I know, I��m sitting in a truck bed heading to Fres’ at 1 A.M. in the morning to pick up with them.

Didn’t take long for Grandma to figure out I wasn’t running off to catch friends at Auberry. She switched me more times than I can remember to try to beat it out of me. Didn’t work, and she didn’t have any full-on proof to get others in it, either - hid the FUCK out of the cash and what we were distributing.

So, eventually, I’m like… seventeen? And I’m passing crack to this military guy visiting relatives in Auberry and wanted some fun up by the Casino. And when he puts the cash in my hand and I put the bag in his, he doesn’t tell me to fuck off. He gives me a good look, asks how old I am, I tell him, and he asks me what the fuck am I going to do out here for another seventy years. I don’t even get to answer when he tells me I should get the fuck out of here, go talk to a recruiter at Fres’.

That got me thinking, so a year later, I’ve found all of my documents and shit in Grandma’s house. I have a pile of cash. And I want to get the fuck out of this shithole. I stuff it all into my backpack, I go with the boys to Fres’. I dump off all of my shit into Christian’s bag; free myself of it. I take a bus to get my ass right to the opposite end of the city. Spend my night in a homeless shelter with my backpack underneath my shirt and sweater, my arms wrapped around it, sleeping on my stomache, and a switch under the extra jacket I was using a pillow.

Next day, I get a free gym trial. I shower and make myself look as respectable as I need. After that, I open up a Bank of America and drop the eight-k. I had into my first savings. I keep three-hundred on me, I grab some Burger King, and I make my way to the Army recruiter.

Guy helps me get set up because it’s like the third time in my life I’ve done paperwork excluding the bank, which did like… everything, for me. After that, it’s floating between the shelter, gym, and getting odd jobs helping at taquerias and panaderias, with their dishes or pushing garbage and carts around for a month. Taking all of those damned test and then waiting for them to process. Grabbed an iPhone 3G during the wait, that was pretty cool.

Fort Jackson for a year, as it goes. Nothing significant in the grand scheme of things; shit was fresh hell, but nothing I couldn’t handle. For the most part. Met Casey there. My age. Actually graduated H.S., attending community nearby for sports medicine. It would still be another two years before fags could be open in the military, but we… got together. When we could. You could—… it was dating. We started dating when I was in B.C.T. And made it work after that.

After basic, I get hauled off all over the place. Okinawa, Hawaii, Ansbach. Mid-2011, they let us be out and loud in the U.S. military. Bad move for my career, but, first thing I did when I took my leave is fuck Casey and ask her to marry me. No ring or any big romantic gesture, we didn’t work like that. She said, yeah, sure. The process went underway, it’s all done by the time I’m heading back to like, Fort Irwin.

We’re separated for a while, then, like, she graduated, because she was a lot fucking smarter than me. And she started living with me on base. Which is fucking awesome. It’s not what I asked for, because she had all of this potential to work with back at home. But, hey, she wanted to travel too. We had our years, we were fucking twenty-years old. I let her come.

So we fucked around in South Korea, Alaska, Italy, it’s almost a blur after everything. Eventually, I get put out in Camp K.A.I.A. in Afghanistan. She’s back in Kansas, ‘cause, naturally, they’re hesitant on letting me drag a U.S. civy out there of all bases. It’s seven months into my deployment, she wants to visit and I let her.

April 28th, 2014. I took her out, a bit south of the airport in city proper for a meal, in the early morning. We were eating lamb korma with turnips— I still can’t fucking handle smelling and eating lamb. Or any soft fucking food: deuces to mashed potatoes and bolognese. God.

So we were eating—… we were eating that. And there was an airplane with a fucked engine that had been making its way towards the airport. It didn’t get close to the runaway. It veered and dropped, right into the city. The wing went right through our building.

I was sitting northward. She was sitting southward. My mind slowed down time, and I watched the way all of this debris and broken cable and a fucking airplane slammed into her back. She hits the table and it’s shooting off. All I see is blood and curry everywhere, then it hits me, too.

I wake up in the hospital two days later. My head feels like shit because my brain got ping-ponged. A sheet of metal opened up my torso from collar to hip, and a piece of flying drywall smashed my right cheek and orbital socket. They couldn’t save the eye. The ceiling falling after meant some heavy shit landed onto my left hand. They couldn’t save that either. And they couldn’t save Casey. She died on contact.

—I’m fine, by the way. Just pass over the whiskey. I’m not finished.

Cutting that long story of recovery short, I stabilize. They get to Landstuhl in Germany. Eventually, I end up back in the States. Sans eye and hand. A little ugly, now, too. Medical discharge. Sucks, but I’m hooked up with a nice prosthetic, at the least. That all takes about eight months to wrap up - not a lot of interest in keeping an uneducated, handless, soldier around.

And, you know, that’s where you come in, Ethan. I don’t think Elena knows this part about us, so bear with me. Ethan, here, was my Sergeant for a damned while. His ass phased out in ‘13. We always got along great, he kept up with us babies even when he was out. Group texts were a great invention; Snapchat groups even better. Now we both get to see all of the stupid shit the rest of those idiots are doing on deployment.

Ethan is basically like my fucking dad. So when fates aligned and I was in the Brooklyn military hospital, he started driving down from his apartment in the city, seeing me about once a week on his weekends. Then, when I was out, he offered me a place to stay, no costs. Naturally, I fucking took it. The last thing I was going to do now that I was out, was gonna walk my ass back to the Mono in that Cali shithole. Not fucking smart to be alone after the shit that had happened.

And, honestly? It worked really well. I used the time he’d be gone with his job at the nearby library to do… basically all of the adult shit I didn’t do in the military. Got my license, borrowing the car from his coworker and our close friend, Esther (nice girl, did volleyball and track for high-school and college, then decided she liked things quiet). Took the bus to therapy with a guy through the V.A., ‘till I grabbed a beat up 2009 Chevy truck from Craigslist. Eventually, started classes for a G.E.D. too. Collected my military checks, saved it all and got pocket-money with a part-time at some flower hippy’s cafe—and, you know, I never realized how fucking hard it is to make legit money in the ‘real world’ until then. Ethan, you’re a fucking saint. Like, three-hundred or whatever a week? Chump ass change compared to when I bounced with the kids in Fres’.

All of that good shit. Plus, it was nice that we both had a drinking buddy. And we both had a way of navigating each other’s bullshit well. Like, Elena, you just heard my wife-story. And you’ve heard about the fire, too. It’s not the fucking same, but it worked out that we had about an inkling of what to do when the other dude’s fucked up.

Eventually, it’s the day for appointment hell. Check up, physical therapy, actual therapy, then likely, a stop by the pharmacist. It’s like, early ‘16, at this point. And before we even get started, the doctor sits me down. Starts talking about this experimental stem-cell research, for organ implantation. Taylor says it’s not at a complex enough stage to restore my hand, but my eye and facial scars would be within the window of possibility. Gives me a card for a Brianna Lalwani-Jindal if I’m interested in volunteering for it.

I get through the day. I finally catch a meal at Jersey Mike’s, and after me and Ethan talk about it over some Coors, like if I wanna do it and how it feels fucking weird, to like, erase what happened to Casey through this, I say, sure, I’ll call. It’s like, eight P.M. She answers like four seconds before it just shoots to her voicemail. The bitch fucking slurs out like she snorted too much Vico, “—yeah, I know I’m fucking late, I’ll be there, I prooomise.”

So me and Ethan pick our jaws off the floor hearing this shit and I’m like, “Nah, Tony Dawson. Doctor Taylor Woodson at the Brooklyn V.A. Hospital referred me to you, about your research trials with the organ implantation. Lalwani?”

There’s a gasp, a lot of shuffling, and a lot of me and Ethan passing around another beer can between us. Then she really starts spilling and it becomes a game of my fucking brain trying to comprehend this Indian accent mixed with that lightspeed fucking way people from those big cities talk, like “Oh shit, okay, okay, okay. Yeah, you’ve got me. Where do you live? What are you missing? When can I meet you? Tomorrow?”

So I tell her about my fucked-up face, but really, I want to know what the fuck I just got myself into with this chick. I don’t get the chance, she blurts out over me, “Sounds great! EYE will see you later, Tony. Tomorrow. Four P.M., Just… show back at the Hospital. We’ll find a vacant office. Ciao.” Then the fucker hangs up. Eventually, we decide that I should probably text the number back, at least. My ‘See you then.’ gets back a kissy-face and ‘I like coffee.’ Subtle.

A vanilla latte and unsweetened black tea, fifteen minutes of us wandering the Hospital, thirty minutes of her talking my ear off about a bunch of medical-scientific garbage, then five minutes of us filling out all of the paperwork, and I was Bri’s new, shiny, case study.

Skipping over all of the shit she ran my face through, we’ll sum it up as: I need contacts and I fucking hate it, but she did what she set out to do. The meetings themselves, were more interesting. I don’t know if she like, fucking sensed that I’d let her get away with her shit. But I’m going to assume that, since she still has her fucking job.

It got unprofessional, pretty fast. Like, beyond what she already hit me with. I’m not sure what got into me, honestly. I hadn’t even considered another girl since the crash. But I spent our introductions looking at her like a piece of meat whenever her back was turned. First real meeting, she’s prodding me about all of my personal interests and shit in some fucked small talk, starting to get into my dating life. I take a risk and just drop straight out that I dig chicks.

She gets a bit quiet, which doesn’t make much of a difference because it’s clear already that she’s a fucking loudmouth. But she gets curious, and keeps looking at me after that the whole time I’m there. Then the meeting after that, we ended up on some fucking talk about blindfolds for some reason, and let me just say that she got a little too into that before we started talking about how, like, I needed to turn down my drinking.

So the whole time I’m letting her and the other doctors Frankenstein my face, there is sexual tension to cut with at every goddamned interaction to be had. It never gets anywhere, because neither of us are fucking stupid. But, just, Jesus Christ.

Cut to a year later at the end of 2016. My face is put back together. Getting used to fucking contacts, getting used to checking my emails for interview requests out of the wazoo for five-hundred documentaries and news sites, after her team’s paper on me came out. By all accounts, I’m looking good and so is the implant. She’s onto new volunteers, my appointments are getting passed to another doctor on her team and stretched out to semi-annuals. That should be the end of the story.

But, uh, couldn’t get her out of my head, frankly. Not for a lack of trying, either. By now, I was really amping the weights at gym to try to get my energy out. Quit the hippy cafe and lined up a new job in armed security. Did my registration for online classes at the community, for a Statistics program. Eventually, it’s like, I don’t know, two months, after the last time I saw her. Ethan drags me out to a bar. Ethan fucks off. I meet a girl, some rich one, named Valencia. We get to talking, for like, fifteen minutes. Next thing I know, I’m texting Ethan I’ll show up later and I spent the night at her place.

It’s fucking great, Valencia’s fucking great. But I’m texting Bri the next afternoon at Starbucks that I want to see her that goddamned night. She shoots me the address of another bar, says to bring friends. Naturally, that means I tag in Ethan and Esther. We show up, she has good ol’ Elena here.

Everyone clicks just like that. And that’s fucking great. Lots of material to work through, especially when Bri started going on about how she and Elena met; some wild case when she was a med. student and the Roma communities in the whole state were having outbreaks. Apparently Elena helped with her outreach a lot, a sort of guide between worlds. Then the two quiet girls started going on about their herb gardens, not to even mention all of the stupid military stories me and Ethan had. We hung out for a long ass while. Eventually, we’re all back at Bri’s place. And our BOI Ethan, here, finally communicates what’s up to you and Esther. So Esther ‘takes you two out to for fast food’ and out of our hairs.

Shit takes even shorter than Valencia. Bri locks the door, we fuck. Then I wake up in the morning, wake her up for another fuck. We sleep around, get some take-out for a late… brunch… hang out, I end up taking her with me to that huge football party Tim was hosting and meeting up with the whole friend group. Then it’s just straight back to her place for a repeat performance.

So, basically, it went from zero to like we had always been fucking dating. I practically moved in with her after the first two weeks. I know all of my stuff ended up in there by the fourth month. Then we put me on the lease entirely sometime during the seventh month when she was renewing it. It all flowed natural as shit too, I didn’t even know how ‘fast’ we were going ‘till about the third time I was throwing shit I needed into boxes to toss at Bri’s and Ethan called me the fuck out when he asked: I just said it’s convenient with how much closer to work she is.

And I know a lot of people were, and still do, giving me shit about it, or just about the whole relationship in general. Apparently we talk too hard at each other and act too casual for it to be serious. Looks like some sorta fling, especially considering our ‘differences’ as people put it. You know, racist people, or people who think I’m fucking stupid ‘cause I got a gun in the drawer.

But lemme just say that I think it takes some real fucking balls in a person, where the first time she ever woke up to me having a PTSD episode, is to slide her ass out of bed, rummage through my coat for my medication, and slap my benzos in front of me with leftover tea and a Crunch bar. All without a single word. It takes real balls, any other person, after getting that from her, is just a discount bitch.

It’s not all her pampering me, either. I realized quick she’s a ‘talker’ with her research. If she isn’t with one of us, she’s locked in the bedroom with a stack of journal articles and a Macbook talking off Luke’s ears like he can fucking bark back. So I started reading everything she had and really going over her team’s paper on me, plus whatever the fuck else her scholar databases had, and a lot of Dictionary.com. And, one weekend, she’s complaining to me over coffee and tea about her shit, I pop that shit right back at her, her jaw drops, she probably shits herself a little. And, from then on, I’m her new interactive rubber duck. And people think I’m fucking dumb.

I mean, not to mention all of the random shit I pay for that bitch, with all of the money I’ve been getting lately between disability, financial aid, and work.

So, we’re basically to the present now. There isn’t much detail to fill in after that besides that life is pretty fucking great and Bri is pretty fucking great, from then to now, the middle of Year of Our Lord, 2018. Which takes us to the crux of this whole ass speech I’ve been going on.

Now you two know my life-story. What I wanna know, now that we’re all open and drunk here, is your fucking thoughts on if I’d be making the best, or the worst, decision of my life if I asked her to hitch with me. I’ll be fucking real; I don’t fucking know what it’s like to make a good choice besides like, I don’t know, where to buy my graphics cards.”

I watch the two shitfaces in front of me process what the fuck I just said. Elena brightens like the Irish daisy she is, pressing her hands together, abso-fucking-lutely wiggling in her seat. Her purple scarf slides off the back of the chair in the process. Ethan is still stretched out across the whole damned table like he’s gonna pass out, with the dopiest smile stretching across his face, but as usual, he’s the ‘loud’ one of the two and starts to talk over Elena’s vague ‘Oh… oh…!’

“Dude? That’s… that’s great. That’s really fucking great. I… Man. Fucking, just fucking go for—”

“So are we just a homeless shelter now, or like, is this a reverse Alcoholics Anonymous?” The door slams shut, Luke is rushing off of the couch, and all four of us are just JEERING (barking) Bri’s name back at her, like it makes it fucking better that these idiots are still in the apartment.

“I was thinking homeless shelter and giving them the living room.”

“Cool. Maybe the floor’ll delay Ethan breaking his back another day.”

“Hey… hey, man. I ain’t that old.”

“Oh! Don’t say that - what if it does happen?”

Twiddle Gray and Twiddle Orange are both looking at me funny right now, considering what was cut into, and Bri is starting to pick that up as she’s putting her keys and shit away.

“So! What were you all talking about? Are you finally leaving me?”

“Food, actually. We were thinking that Himalayan place you like. They can eat the basic bitch shit, I was gonna grab us fried okra and tandoori.”

“I hope you aren’t expecting me to pick my ass up from the couch, now. That shit, ain’t happening. Long day working with by-the-book dunderfucks.”

The Twiddles give each a look, then, and then Ethan launches in.

“Nah… naaaaah. You know what? You sit there. You hang out. The three of us will walk down, sober up.”

“With how you made my fucking apartment smell, not sure if that’s gonna happen. But ‘kay. Have fun, leave me all alone. After I just came back from work. A l o n e.”

The three of us are already draining our waters and grabbing our jackets and wallets. I push Elena towards the door and Ethan is right after her as I shoot back at her,

“Shut the fuck up, you whiny bitch. Thirty minutes. You’d be spending it ignoring us and doing your shitty Buzzfeed quizzes anyway.”

“I mean - you’re right. But you’re still leaving me alone. Shit friends. Shit girlfriend,” she sighs, “What a shit life.”

Elena is the one pushing me through the door now by my arm, forcing me and Ethan’s fat asses into the hallway as she tries to assure Bri.

“It’ll be fast! I love you!” 

“Awh. That’s cute.”

The door slams shut.

[rabbitcruiser]

Rancheria Falls Recreation Site, YT (No. 4)

Annual precipitation ranges from 380 cm (150 in) in coastal mountain sites to only 65 cm (26 in) inland. Snow gathered on the branches helps protect them from wind and heat. Firs in general act as a snow fence, leading to the creation of meadows through extra moisture accumulation.

The tree is highly shade tolerant, but very vulnerable to fire, short-lived, and slow-growing. Despite having weaker wood than some of its timberline associates, it can survive by its ability to adapt (growing in a krummholz form) and reproduce via layering in clusters at high elevations. At timberline, a single tree can leave behind a ring of trees (an 'atoll') via layering. The species has benefited from wildfire suppression in more recent years.

Various animals, including mountain goats, take shelter in subalpine fir clusters and krummholz. The bark is browsed by game animals and its leaves are eaten by grouse. Songbirds, Richardson's grouse, Cascade pine squirrels, and other mammals consume the seeds. It is host to pathogenic fungi such as the species Delphinella balsameae.

Source: Wikipedia

[aiiaiiiyo]

I was able to capture this beautiful sunset in Yosemite. Taken on a backpacking trip, glad I lugged my camera gear with me. Rancheria Falls, Hetch Hetchy, Yosemite, CA [OC] [5472x3648] Check this blog!