There is a German tradition in the south called Christbaumloben. It's done in the time before Christmas where people come to visit your place and give compliments to your Christmas tree. Every time someone gives a compliment to it, people cheers and have a schnapps. So with that, and not knowing how your island looks like, I follow _refugee_ and say "those are some great animals!" and have a drink on you!
I am not sure what Animal Crossing is, but I trust that code leads to a slice of finely-crafted digital heaven. I've been mostly off the grid for a couple of weeks. The experience is usually good for my psyche, but this time it was significantly more so. The information we are dining upon is toxic. These are not easy times. I'm not sure what you are dealing with, but I am wishing you the best. hugski
I'm finding myself permanently angry at my father. Nothing has changed, really, other than the fact that I found out from my aunt last week that SWAT had raided my childhood home in April. My father's girlfriend's son, GR, had apparently come into a pickup bed's worth of "pelts and tusks." He had further chosen to hide out at the house I grew up in, which my father isn't currently living in, instead choosing to live in the house his parents built in the '60s. Thus did SWAT call my father to inform him that they had knocked the door down with a battering ram. My aunt calls GR a "meth addict" because he's on methadone so I figured I'd get the actual scoop from my sister, who I am also on diffident terms with. My sister confirmed the key details ("tusks and pelts") and reminded me that GR had also recently bought a brand new Kawasaki on credit, had it seized by the bank, had my father pay the fees on it, had GR take out a payday loan on it, had my father pay off the payday loans on it, and now they have a brand new Kawasaki they've paid three times over for. She was most incensed, of course, about the fact that my father was ready to pay $250k for GR's hepC treatment last year despite the fact that there are programs that pay for it in full. All about the benjamins, that one. Two years ago I found out my father had been in the hospital for a week with kidney failure because she called me up to beg me not to contest the will. We discussed the utter New Mexico-ness of it all; her ex-boyfriend somehow came up and she discussed how the most New Mexico thing in her life was how she fell in love with him when he tearfully confessed having to shoot a guy in the back of the head because if he didn't he'd get shot by his boss. I pointed out that was kind of like how he didn't have a choice but to call in bomb threats for six weeks or else he'd have to take a chemistry midterm. Don't worry the story has a happy ending; they were rear-ended while together which got them both years of physical therapy and a $250k settlement which they both spent on drugs. His head ended up on the side of the road outside Amarillo because he crossed the Zetas and she has an architecture degree she doesn't use. That was after my parents had invited him to live in the house for nine months, of course. Fuckers slept in my bed. Parents went to Brazil for three months and left their seventeen-year-old daughter and her 23-year-old street pusher boyfriend there to feed the dogs. And...see... I had a friend released to my recognizance at the age of 18 by the Santa Fe PD because he was beating up his mom. The home town PD released my sister to me a couple times because fuckin' hell I was the only one who would answer the phone at 3am. I never got so much as arrested. In a town where the chief had officers follow and harass me for nine hours at a time because my mother was invited to a lesbian wedding in the '80s, I never had more than two points on my driving record. Really, I lucked out; no less than three officers died in "friendly fire training accidents" in the '90s and there's no way Brian could have survived as long as he did except as a CI. The corrupt incompetence of my home-town police department earned a friend of mine a $2m settlement in the 2010s but back in the '80s/'90s it was just dirty good ole boys. I called up my dad when Ethereum went from 50 cents to six bucks and he called me a criminal because "the only way to use bitcoin is for crime." When I broke a million dollars I sent him Gilder's Life after Google and he threw it in the garbage and called me a criminal again. This was about the time his common-law son-in-law was emptying my childhood shop of every socket, air tool and other vaguely-valuable-object to pawn for heroin. I looked it up; by then, GR had been convicted seven times. It's been pointed out to me that some people's approval is not worth seeking. It's so hard, though. I became an engineer because my father is an engineer. It's also been pointed out that having a successful wife, a successful business, a smart happy kid and a Porsche in the garage is the right kind of vengeance but vengeance is never something I've sought. I think I've internalized that my father associates with people he can feel superior to, so the minute he decided I was doing better than he was he just stopped calling. It might be a factor in why he's so much closer to my sister; she's always in need of more help. It's certainly a factor in why everyone around him is now a Breaking Bad guest star. I'd be lying if I said I don't see the tendency in myself. Up until 25 or so there was no one so fucked up I couldn't fix 'em. So really, the fact that my father has ignored me my entire life is the highest complement he can pay. And I can say that? But the little kid inside me still doesn't understand. This week's ABC Afterschool Special brought to you by the word "tusks"
Several people I know get upset with me that I haven't seen my father in person for about 20 years. We talk on the phone a handful of times a year and that's fine with me. People assume many things about our relationship but in the end I don't need closure and it's easier to not go there. At some point I'm going to take my daughter to see him, because she wants to meet him. I'm sure it will go fine, a weekend in NM isn't 19 years, there isn't enough time for things to get screwy enough that I'm worried it'll all go out if control.
I wondered for far too long what fauna in the US might have tusks. I was at narwhals and walruses before I even remembered wild boars are a thing.
I'm surprised there's still a market for ivory, even an illicit one.
Oh I wouldn't assume there's a market for ivory. GR is not the kinda guy who ends up on profitable schemes. I'm fully willing to believe that someone had some ivory etc. that they discovered they couldn't fence, so they got someone to tip the village idiot off. The village idiot grabbed the goods and then attempted, from scratch, to divine the market in rural New Mexico. Theme from Raising Arizona plays
Couple weeks back, one of the local titmice ran into our window and spent about an hour resting on our porch before flying off into the trees. I love these lil friends; they're always up to some kind of antics: chasing each other around or hanging on my windowscreen and watching me through the window. I have all the pictures for truck drum brakes, but I have yet to do the writeup. Since she's a 4x4 truck, the front brakes are extremely non-trivial and since the wheel bearings are due for replacement anyway I am going to get a local shop to do both. Book time is 3 hours so I am feeling like not doing it myself was perhaps a good choice; plus, when something rusted breaks it's not my problem! It still feels weird that we actually have enough money to afford hiring a shop to do it. Spent last night digging around in the dashboard of my metamour's car and hopefully rehabbed a couple of servo drives that were "getting lost" due to a weak internal connection. They're part of the AC system, so not a big deal if they fail again, but hopefully that saved about $350 in parts. I'm getting very close to being done with my part of a big paper and I'm quite excited to pick up my research again.
Let's spin the wheel! What did bfx get sick with?! A common cold? Could it be COVID19? Try...Salmonella...? It's the only thing I can think of that would have hit me like a truck like this. Had a salad a couple of nights ago with raw onion and by the next day could barely make it up or down a set of stairs, splitter headache, basically every common symptom except for diarrhea, thank god. https://www.cdc.gov/salmonella/newport-07-20/index.html Feeling a little better today which puts me at a solid 50%. Check your onions everybody!
Yeah, it usually is! I feel comfortable with the greens, they came from a farm I pickup a CSA package from on a weekly basis and have had before from them. The onion...not so much.
I haven't even thought about that song in decades but a machine I was hooked up to at TGH last week had an alarm that beep beeped to that tune! It took me about 8 syllables to name that tune. hehe
My summer holiday starts in ten days. We have pushed Covid down hard, but now a bunch of metrics are picking up again as people come back from holidays abroad and young people are gathering and going to parties kinda like the old days. They're now at similar levels as they were ten days before my previous holiday early March. R has been above 1 since July 1st. Not looking forward to a second wave. This time around we're staying in the country, going camping somewhere in the remote parts that were almost unscathed last time around. Away from business and people for sure. When we come back, my sister's getting married; really hoping for her that that day won't be ruined.
Had a socially-distanced happy hour with the people on my block last night. Wife sent an email. Everyone came out. There are 8 houses on my little dead-end, one-way street. We repaved the whole thing last year at a cost of $50k, split evenly amongst the houses. We wanted to get together and celebrate, but a neighbor's son-in-law killed himself, and we all hibernated through the winter. Then COVID. It was nice to sit around chatting, drinking slightly too much, talking about yard maintenance, and cats and dogs and kids all wandering around being peaceful with each other. It's a goddamn fucking blissful little suburban sanctuary and a I love it. We have two gay couples (one female, one male) a single mom-and-teenage-daughter, my wife and I with no kids and our roommate, and two older couples who are grandparents and have their kids and grandkids over all the time. There's one other single woman who is a bit of a loner, and one rental house owned by a complete and utter asshole, who has been renovating it and clearly is getting ready to sell. There are two black people on the street, one South African woman, two Veterans, and two single Moms. A couple more conservative types (the grandfathers, who both used to be in construction) and raving liberals. And Zero cases of COVID. We really have a nice little microcosm of Seattle culture here. I am so very, unimaginably, lucky. And I know it. And I appreciate it every day. It keeps me sane. (And staying away from Social Media, too.)
I miss Seattle (well, Bothel). Lived there as kid and remember having block parties every summer. Now I'm in New England and people avoid each other like the plague. We have cordial relationship with our neighbors, but not all neighbors have interest in meeting people from the other side of their direct neighbor. The closest thing to a neighborhood get together is when the Greek church up the road has their annual Mediterranean Festival and we bump into each other. But people will still only sit and chat with direct neighbors. Ugh. Although, I really shouldn't complain because I hate socializing.
Bothell has always been a weird spot for me ... the half way point between anywhere I'm going. I did fall in love briefly with the McMenamins they opened up there. (I'm in Burien, so Bothell is "up" to me.) But going to the other side of Seattle was always such a trudge... you gotta bring food, water, camping supplies, and disaster kits, because you never know if you will ever make it through the downtown core... so going to Bothell is off the table for me. Nowadays I just take 405 to i90, go to Snoqualmie, and north thru Carnation, if I need to go northeast (to see my brother, for example). Longer trip, but prettier, and less chance of getting eaten by zombies.
Have you spent much time in Vermont? If not, I’d give it a go! To me it’s the New England equivalent probably more similar to Portland / Bellingham, but with more of a permaculture focus. Great skiing and trails, too!
Yes. My my mother-in-law and two of my sisters-in-law live up there. We used to go monthly when the kids were younger and then spent two weeks during the summer. My mother-in-law's town is like 500 people and they view us as interlopers. The one sister-in-law lives in a touristy area and the locals also have a dim view of us. The other sister-in-law lives in the boonies, so interacting with locals is limited to the dollar store. She at least is dating a local farmer so we go to his parties, but again most locals at the parties view us as outsiders and keep us at arms length. If I ever get to retire we will most likely move to VT. I enjoy the countryside and my wife will be able to spend more time with her family.
I've been in pretty bad shape since May or earlier. Definitely earlier but I was kinda okay for a couple weeks or so. Doing a little better in the past couple weeks in a few ways but not overall Personal problems aside, my youngest brother is a violent schizophrenic. Not always but sometimes. Because my dad's his custodian and treats him like shit. My brother spent like two months in the hospital after hitting my Dad and his girlfriend and when he got out tried to find a residential facility for him but none of them would take Medicaid so he found some Jamaican lady who'd do it for the price of his disability check I guess. And she kicked him out twice My other brother set up a gofundme for $30,000 which is also depressing because that crazy large figure is less than 2 years of care lil sorry for not replying to the dm
cooking and gardening has been a good way to keep my mind off things - i think i might try to restart Grubski again if i can remember to take more pictures of what i make than just the finished product of gardening there were two basil plants that were really overgrown when i moved into this apartment, and although the two original plants have been finally taken away by the former roommate that bought them i have three (3) cuttings that i'm rooting in water right now, so hopefully the legacy will begin again next thing i'm gonna try to get started growing - green onions i lost 10 pounds since i started fasting about a month ago and i feel proud - the only other time in my life i managed to lose weight was when i was on a rice-egg diet in japan for lack of cash and i feel like i'm getting more food and better food than that while keeping the same success the withdrawal side effects are waning and i think i've gotten out the other side successfully, so signs are good and i feel emotionally good right now - by that, "appropriately unhappy given everything going on" might be a better way to describe it, but that was already how it was when i was still on antidepressants so i guess it's fine i really want to send love out to everybody here - even if i'm not responding, i'm always reading and wishing the best for you guys, for however much that means