Scary Stories...

"I love s'mores. Something about cooking them over the fire makes marshmallows the best sugar ever."

"Cooking or sacrificing? I mean, that's pretty burnt."

"Don't yuck my yum!"

"Okay, fair enough. You enjoy your sweet little charcoal brick."

"Stop it you two! Okay, scary story time! Who wants to go first?"

"Oh! I've got one about these very woods."

"Then clearly you get to go first."

"Did you notice how we walked through a perfectly lovely meadow before we got here to make camp? It's flat and open and would be perfect to put tents, but NOBODY ever camps there. Do you know why?"

"Because it's too close to the parking lot? I mean it's barely in the woods at all?"

"No." she glared at the interruption, "it's because it's haunted."

"Haunted? By what?"

"Nobody really knows. No trees ever grow there. Never have. And years ago a shepard decided to use it to feed his sheep, one night he and the entire flock just disappeared. No trace."

"They didn't just go home? Back to the paddock?"

She sighed, "I'm sure people would have checked there. No, they just disappeared. But that's not all."

"It never is."

"There was a little girl and her dog who disappeared as well."

"Oh that's really sad."

"It was. Everyone looked for her. They did a grid search of the whole woods and never found a trace of either of them. But then, five years later, she just showed up again. Walked right in the front door of her house. And she hadn't aged a single day."

"Oh that is creepy! Did she say where she was?"

"She never said another word. Ever."

"What happened to the dog?"

"What?"

"The dog. You said a girl and her dog. She came back, what happened to the dog?"

"I don't know. Why would I know that?"

"You knew what happened to the girl."

"Of course I knew what happened to the girl. The girl coming back was the whole point of the story! That's what makes it a scary story!"

"Doesn't her coming back make it a happy story?"

"No! The fact that she was gone for five years but didn't age at all makes it creepy."

"Hunh. So do you think whatever took the sheep took the dog to help herd them? Like they were starting an agricultural society so they took a sheepherder and his flock then took a dog? Like if we put some cows out there maybe they would disappear too."

"Oh my god...Okay, I'm done. Who's next? Good luck telling your scary story with this one here!"

"It's not my fault I can just reason these things out."

"Reason, sure, like the sheep and the dog were abducted by something trying to start a new agricultural society. That's reason."

"Well, you have to admit it's not really all that scary either."

"Fine! You think you have a better story? You try."

"Okay. This one happened right here in these very woods as well. In fact it happened right where we are sitting. One night, under a sky full of stars a young woman burned her marshmallow beyond all recognition...AND THEN SHE ATE IT!"

She tried not to laugh and failed. "Oh fuck you..." 

"Sorry I ruined your story like you ruined that marshmallow. I promise if you tell another one I'll keep my mouth shut."

"I don't have another one. But you can make it up to me by making me another s'more."

"I KNEW you didn't want it that burnt!"

"Shut up and toast me a marshmallow..."

(Where this came from: There is a meadow in Croatia that has these two stories attached to it... I heard them from the worst story teller and it made me think of this, but instead of it being a bad storyteller I made it a bad story listener)

Books Chapter 14...

 Books Chapter Thirteen

Ellie hung up the phone. She had been talking to Jade, making plans for when she would be back on campus. They were going to meet for coffee and a quick summer catch up. Or not exactly a catch up since they had been talking all summer. But a face to face catch up, and Ellie was pretty sure Jade was going to let her read something she had been writing. That was a big step for her, and Ellie knew it.

Ellie was more than ready for the semester to begin. She was ready to get back into the full schedule of classes instead of the small handful she had taken over the summer. She was also hoping to see more of Gloria since she wouldn’t be working full time. Maybe she wouldn’t be working at all, just going to class. It would be nice to actually just have some down time with her best friend for a change.

Which she knew was pretty selfish. She knew Gloria was working to be able to afford the day-to-day things that Ellie just took for granted. Having money in her back account was just a thing that had always been. Not that she could spend however much she wanted, or at least she assumed she couldn’t, but her parents kept her account topped off. It had never been an issue for her. And she hadn’t minded paying for everything, and her parents hadn’t minded if Ellie paid for things for Gloria as well. But Gloria had, so she worked all summer.

And Ellie had missed her terribly.

Is this what it was going to be like next year when they were done with school? What if Gloria got a teaching job someplace away from Ellie and they only saw each other during the holidays? If that? What if their friendship tapered off and disappeared? Most people didn’t see their best friend from elementary school past well, elementary school really.

She just couldn’t imagine what life would be like if Gloria wasn’t part of it. They had been Ellie and Gloria and Gloria and Ellie for so long that it was almost impossible for her to picture a life of Ellie without Gloria.

The front door of the apartment opened, and Gloria hadn’t even gotten three steps into the living room before Ellie had launched herself at her best friend and wrapped her arms around her.

“Whoa…are you okay? Is everything okay? What’s going on?”

Ellie let go of her friend and let her take a step back.

“I just missed you.”

“I was only gone for a few hours?”

“No, I missed you forever. Like pre-missed you. I’m just being stupid and emotional. I guess our last year of school has me freaked out about the changes coming. But I don’t need to freak out right? I mean we’ve always had a plan for our lives, and we will always be in each other’s lives and…” Ellie trailed off. “I’m being weird. Sorry.”

Gloria smiled, “It’s okay, you’re allowed to be weird. Creative temperament, right? In fact, we should probably make you a little weirder. You’re going to give off way too conventional vibes on your first book tour. All writers have to have some sort of trauma and you…well…”

“My only trauma is imagining that my best friend might move away.”

“Well let’s not go full blown trauma. That’s a lot for your first time. I mean, not having me close by all the time. How would you ever survive? The horror!”

“Okay, now that I think about it maybe it wouldn’t be terrible after all.”

They both laughed and then Ellie said, “I mean I don’t know why I’m worried about it. We are set. Nothing has changed. We have plans. We are the most locked in people I’ve ever met.”

Gloria nodded and smiled at her friend, “Yeah, we have plans. It’s what we’ve always wanted.”

Just Over Three Weeks Away...

I'm torn right now between thinking that the election is going to be a runaway success for the democrats and thinking that we are all in for a nasty surprise.  Again.

As even more damning things come out about Trump I just cannot believe that this is even close. Like how in the world could they even find someone who was willing to vote for him? Then I see pictures of his rally in Aurora and 10,000 people showed up to listen to him lie. And he did lie. He lied about FEMA, he lied about immigration, he lied about what was happening in AURORA for goodness sake. And yet...they cheered. 

He's running on a platform of hate. Mass deportations. Taking away citizenship from people. And they still want him. He rambles and loses his train of thought and puts together jumbles of word salad and they eat it up. 

And I know, I've talked before about how a lot of people are actually drawn to fascism. That they like "strongmen" leaders. And being told what to do is fine with them as long as someone else is portrayed as the problem and not them. 

But as someone who bristles against ever being told what to do without my input I cannot wrap my head around why that's appealing. 

I've had enough of anyone who says they don't want Trump but won't vote for Harris for whatever reason. Fuck you. It's a binary. I know it sucks that it's a binary but it is and if you aren't voting for one you are saying the other is fine with you. Don't try and hit me with any bullshit if you cannot understand something that simple. 

I've had enough of the talking points from the other side trying to paint Harris as anything less than supremely qualified. If she is elected she will take the office after already serving in all three branches of government. And serving successfully. Hell if she'd done nothing else with her time in the Senate but make Kavanaugh admit that there are zero laws defining what a man can do with his own body that would have been enough for me. 

And yet...I've seen people who are supposedly very intelligent defend voting for him and not for her. People who have decided that she's not only not qualified but somehow dangerous. That if she wins the country is ruined. 

Umm....

She's not the one saying there won't be a need for another election. Or that she'll be a dictator, but don't worry, only on the first day. She's not the one who is a fucking convicted felon. A rapist. And if the new allegations in the latest Woodward book are accurate a fucking traitor. He's been on the phone with Putin multiple times since he left office. A private citizen who is holding on to classified documents and directing the Congressional Republicans to do his bidding, has been on the phone with Putin. Multiple times. And honestly, he's a traitor even if those allegations aren't true. He incited an insurrection. My god people...pay the fuck attention. He's running to stay out of jail. That's his main motivation. 

And yet...they will vote for him. 

I will never understand the appeal. 

And I'm glad for that. 

Just over three weeks to go before we find out how this one will land. I'm hopeful. I'm sure it will all be fine and it could be amazing. And I'm terrified and slightly panicked that it will all go to shit. 

What a time to be alive... 

Here We Go!

Today is Brent's last day at work until mid December. It's the last full sabbatical he'll ever take. That's one of the things they got rid of this last round of cuts. People, benefits, bonuses, blah, blah blah... and the 8 week sabbatical was a casualty. 

This will be his fourth sabbatical. They are (were) the absolute best perks that Intel offered. A long stretch of time off. Enough to actually disconnect and relax. 

So what are we doing? We keep telling people not much. It's a low key sabbatical. And that's really only because for a lot of people sabbaticals tend to be their long European or Asian adventures. They are gone for 4-6 weeks on big multi country tours. We aren't doing that. We talked about doing that this time the last time we took sabbatical. For our last one we took a lot of couple week trips. We also did our Alaskan cruise, but that ended up being not a sabbatical trip since we had to reschedule the start. But anyway...we had talked about doing to Grand Tour for this one. 

Then we got the cats. And you can't just leave your pets for a month. Even with Katie being able to come stay at the house while we travel we can't really ask her to stay for a month. Or a month all at once. She's going to stay for close to that this time just all pieced together. 

No big Grand Tour, we are doing Christmas Sabbatical instead.

Everything except our first trip is going to have something to do with Christmas. The first trip is to Hawaii (I KNOW you are all shocked) but instead of Maui we are going to the Big Island to do a night time manta ray snorkel. We tried to do this like ten years ago but it was too stormy and our trip was cancelled. So this is the raincheck trip. 

It's interesting in a way...it's been a bucket list item for me for a long time. And when we couldn't do it on that one trip (last night we were in town so we couldn't take them up on a reschedule) we kept saying we would come back and do it. But we really like Maui. And really like going during whale watching season. So it kept getting pushed off to "someday." Finally Brent was like "Okay! Sabbatical, this is now someday" and he booked the time on the Big Island. 

We are scheduled right now to do it the first night we are there. That way if it gets cancelled, or we don't see any rays we can reschedule for one of the other nights. Maximize our chances. But...if we don't see any that's okay too. After getting it all scheduled I realized that Brent and I have already swum with rays. Just in Maui. And during the day. And actually swimming with one. It was amazing. We were out snorkeling off the beach by the hotel and one just swam right under us. We swam along with him for a while until we realized how far out we were getting and turning around to head back to shore. So graceful. The ray, not me. 

But the nighttime snorkel is supposed to be amazing and I'm looking forward to it as well. But also a little not. See, the licensing is awfully lax. And the tourist dollars are awfully fat. So those things have combined over the past ten years to make it an overdone area. We are going out with a reputable company that has done it for a very long time, but even so... If it wasn't something I've wanted to do for ages I probably wouldn't do it. Sort of like the swimming with dolphins. That was a thing I had wanted to do for ages but by the time we could afford to do it I wasn't interested anymore. Captive dolphins for tourists to swim with are sad dolphins. I'd rather see them out in the ocean swimming along side the boat. 

So I'm swimming with the manta rays. And I hope to see a few. And I think it will be wonderful. But if not I won't try to do it again. 

It's not quite guilt about doing it but it's close. If it tipped over to guilt it would be a no go. 

So anyway... the other trips are not nearly as fraught. 

We are going to Michigan. We'll catch a football game and visit with family. Brent's cousin has been battling cancer so it will be good to see her and we might even get to meet the newest first cousin twice removed. Totally understand if Mom and Dad say no to travellers exposed to lots of germs, but we will see. And the Christmas section is a trip to Frankenmuth to the giant Christmas store. 

Then we will go to Disneyland during their Christmastime. We've done it before and it was really lovely. And after that a trip to Leavenworth, Washington to their Christmas village.  And in-between we will see The Hip Hop Nutcracker, and Storm Large's Holiday Ordeal, and Holiday Brass with the Portland Symphony. And this year will for sure be the year we make it to The Grotto.

(it's become a family tradition, saying we will make it to The Grotto and then not actually making it to The Grotto, but this year, for sure this year!)

We will also do some house things like patching nail pops, winterizing the garden, doing some deep cleaning and rearranging, you know the fun stuff...

But sabbatical starts in just a few hours. 

We will squeeze out as much as possible from this one. The last one. 

Enjoy it before we have to miss it. 

Good life lesson, that. 

Different Season...

Looking at the tree outside the office window, the leaves are turning. There are still some all green ones but most of them are a mottled red and gold. 

The ones that are changing colors right now are done supplying nutrients to the tree. No more photosynthesis there. So right now the tree is sealing itself off from those leaves. 

The leaves will fall and the tree will spend the winter conserving everything it has in its trunk and branches. Then when spring comes it will spend some of that energy to produce new buds. Those buds will become leaves. The leaves will unfurl and start processing sunlight into food for the tree. 

It's a great system. One we should all follow.

If something is no longer serving you then it's okay to seal yourself off from it, let it go. Habits. Situations. People. Drop them like a leaf that is no longer serving the needs of the tree.

It's okay and necessary to let things go when they are no longer doing us any good.

Even if we have to spend a season alone. Looking a little scraggly. Nourishing only our core. 

When the season changes we will be ready to bring on the new. 

Life is all about seasons. And respecting those seasons. Are you in a season of growth or do you need to spend some time conserving your energy? Are you holding on to things that aren't serving you well anymore? Even if they used to be great? 

I think letting things go is one of the hardest things for most people to do. We get into a groove and just keep doing the same things. We have our habits and our schedules and our routines. And it takes something big to shake us up and make us look around and see if maybe we need a change. If maybe those things aren't really serving us anymore. 

I've written about it a lot. The things that I drop when they stop serving me. And the times when I am not paying enough attention and keep doing them longer than I should. 

I also know that over the next couple of months I'll be out of my routine so I'll get a chance to really look at what I do and don't do and see if there are some leaves I need to seal off. Let them drop away and leave me space for something new. Or let them drop and leave me time to nourish my core. 

Don't keep things that aren't serving you around. Drop those bad habits. Those worthless routines. Those outmoded ways of thinking. The people who are not doing you any good. All of that. Seal yourself off from the drain and preserve your energy for what comes next. 

No Way In...

I have been working on a story for weeks. Which is absolutely not my way. Normally I sit down and write for a bit and I'm done. Sometimes I have an idea when I sit down, sometimes I peruse a writing prompt list to get an idea, but either way I tend to write in a flurry. If I re-read it before I post it or send it to Dana I count that as editing. 

Even when it's a longer story, like Witches in the Wonky Tower, or Books, I write each section in a flash. I don't tend to plan any of it. And I rarely know where it's going. If I do have a final scene in my head I don't know how I'm getting there, just that that is where I'd like to land. And even that can disappear when I start writing. Like the Books series I've been posting on Sunday originally in my head was a totally different story. Different ending. Different type of story. And then when I found my way in it was through a different door that led to a different story. And even that all happened one weekend while I was writing something to send to Dana to start our swaps. 

But this one? I had a dream a month or so ago and when I woke up it stuck in my head so I took a few notes. I thought, this might actually be something. Then I let it just rattle around in my head firming up a little more. And yeah, I think there's something there. Then I started trying to write it into a story. 

And I'm stuck.

I cannot find my way in. That's the problem. I know the middle. I know the end. I know what the beats of the story are. But I don't know how to get in to it. Where do I start? How do I get the set up premise going? Because there is a set up and a payoff and I have to have those in or it's not really a story. 

And honestly, that doesn't usually bother me that much. I've written a ton of things that aren't really a story per se, so much as a scene. A section of a life pulled out and looked at. Things that could, if I were a different person, be part of a larger book. A whole big story. Some of you might even have said to me, "I want to know more about this person!" and I'm always like, "Good luck with that."

Because I write for fun. I write in a flash. I write as it comes to me. And if it's good then that's bonus. 

But this one? I really think it's good. Or could be good. I think there's something there for a little short story that will be good and creepy and fun. Just perfect for October. 

If I can figure out how to write it. How to find my way in. How to pick one of the multiple entry points and go from there. 

I've tried writing the middle and going back. That's a thing they tell you to do in those "how to write" books, but I need to know how I'm getting in. I'm blocked on the rest until I figure out how to get there. My brain just works that way. I'm almost at the point where it will just go away for awhile. If I get a flash of "Oh of course this is the way in!" then I'll come back. 

I don't want to do that just yet because I still believe in the story. I still think it's going to be good. But maybe I've put too much pressure on these poor guys to live up to the idea of them. Maybe they are hiding waiting for me to stop screaming LIVE UP TO YOUR POTENTIAL at them...

Which fine, that happens.

But now I need another story to send to Dana on Sunday. 

Damn it...

Oh...That's High...

We went to the Michigan game up in Washington on Saturday. It's been on our calendar since they announced it. Since it was so close to Katie's birthday it was going to be like pre-Covid days when we would try and take her back to Michigan for a game for her present. Bought tickets for the three of us and her roommate Amber. 

Then this week Katie got Covid so she had to back out. And Amber, for some reason, didn't want to spend the day with us without her so she backed out. (Though she ended up getting Covid as well so she would have backed out last minute anyway). So just the two of us. 

Sold back two of the four tickets for less than we paid because these two teams have not been living up to last year's records but at least we got a little back from them. 

Ended up with a few small travel snafus as far as parking goes. The original plan was we would park at the park and ride in a charging spot and charge the car while we were at the game. Ride the train (like the Max in Portland) in and not deal with the crowds at the stadium. This was not an original idea. The garage was totally full. We ended up going to the airport and parking in the garage there. The good news was that instead of just three electric spots they had four rows of electric spots. The bad news is that all of them were also full. Oh well, looks like we will be charging after the game. 

So parking situated we rode the train into the stadium. Super convenient stop. Like right outside the entrance gates. And they were ready for crowds. Lines set up and security to man the lines. Bossy, but efficient. If you can use it for transportation around Seattle I would recommend it. 

Got in to the stadium and headed up to our seats. And up. And up. And up. 

Now, I knew they were pretty high and it was pretty steep. We bought them through friends and I saw the view from the area. I had even asked Katie if Amber was okay with heights because I thought that they could be triggering for someone who had problems. And I had Brent look to see what he thought since he's the one of us that doesn't like heights. I'm fine. 

Normally. 

But for some reason the combination of pitch and heights was no good for me. 

If I was looking out at the city view or the lake view it was fine, but looking down onto the field was not great. And since we were there to watch a game ...

The two biggest issues were first the people in front of us. Michigan fans as well so anytime something exciting would happen they would stand up. First it was the guy directly in front of me so I would look over to the jumbotron and watch that way. Then the ladies next to him started standing and that blocked the jumbotron so to see I'd have to stand. Stand up, look down at the field, stomach drops like during turbulence in a plane, sit back down, repeat as often as something exciting happens. Which, I guess, lucky for me wasn't often...

Then the second part happened. When the sun went down the light show started. Pulsing lights on the field. I couldn't deal with it, triggering not quite vertigo (thank goodness) but not good either. I'd have to close my eyes when it started and wait for them to turn back on the game lights. Finally Brent was like, you are miserable, let's go. So we left at the end of the 3rd quarter. 

Walking up to our seats I was like, this is a lot of stairs, man this is high. Walking down from our seats I was like, this is really steep and I feel like I'm going to slip. Full on shakes by the bottom. Crazy. 

I don't like ladders and I don't like really steep stairs that are justthisclose to being ladders and I think that the pitch of those seats and steps triggered that uncomfortable feeling. If it were just high and we were on a flat space I'd have been fine. Brent still wouldn't have been great, but he would have stuck it out anyway. 

But as he pointed out we will still needed to charge the car before we could leave so it was fine to head out a little early. 

Got back to the airport parking garage and a few spaces had opened with the chargers. Plugged in and discovered they were slow chargers so to get enough juice to leave we would need to charge until 1 AM. Found a fast charger on the map and headed over there. Took a bit of finagling to get it to work, but eventually got it going. Charged for about 45 minutes then hit the road again with enough to get home and a bit of a buffer just incase. 

Rolled into the garage with 5% left in the battery. It's not sucking fumes since it's not a gas car, maybe chasing sparks? Either way, we made it. 

Long ass day. We left the house a little before 11 AM (ran a quick errand on the way out of town) and got home at around 12:25 AM. The cats were not amused...

And to top it all off Michigan lost. Bah. 

So Katie's birthday game was sort of a bust all the way around. But only sort of.

The Washington stadium is lovely. Honestly with the lake right there and the view of the campus? It's just gorgeous. And we got a chance to see Chad and Raquel for a bit. And we heard Nathan (and the rest of the band) play and they are very good. So it could have been better for sure, but it wasn't the worst way to spend a day. 

Next time we will be buying tickets in the lower bowl though...eek!