the bithentennial

My fellow Americans, hope you all had an enjoyable 4th of July however you celebrate. 250 years young.

I, for one, am old enough to have been around and remember the bicentennial in 1976. My main memory of that celebration was that, at school, we took a special class picture in the spring. We were told to dress in red, white, and blue.

JUST prior to that photo shoot, I had broken my two front teeth in a glorious skateboarding incident. I put on a fave red, white, and blue button-down shirt and took up my place in the far right of the front row. Several of my classmates - part jokingly, but not really - gave me pointers on how to "smile" for the photo. Basically, they said not to.

I recall my two front teeth being a jagged mess. I didn't know what to do with my face for photos. In fact, other than the x-rays at the dentist, I doubt any other photos of me were taken during my "toothless era" .

It wasn't until I was seated among my classmates, facing the photographer, that I realized I should've come up with a face strategy rather than put all my efforts into what shirt to wear. 

Then *FLASH*, the deed was done. 

The result was not awful, I suppose. My fellow middle-schoolers and I, in our red, white, and blue, flanked by American flags, holding a "1776 ~ 1976"  banner. There I was on the end of the first row, my face slightly turned, giving a side-eye, mouth slightly opened in a confused not-really-a-smile. 

I no longer have that photo, but I can picture it in my brain. In hindsight, my look was much like this now-famous kid, except brunette with worse teeth.

Now, here we are, 50 years later. If any kid found themselves in a similar circumstance this year, how lucky are they??

My timing was just off by 50 years.

Moo. Who knew?

This week, was [the story] of two young daredevil "influencers" who climbed to the tippy top of the Empire State building, unfurled a banner, got engaged, etc. They were arrested afterwards.

I found their instagram profiles. Apparently, this is just what they do. In this case, it brought felony charges. An engagement to remember. 

Now, had they been cows...

These 50 acres we recently purchased? It's in some foothills above town, surrounded by other similar parcels. Some neighbors live up there year 'round. Our spot has a decent shed, but really, no other structures. Purely recreational. 

On our initial visits, we had a curious discovery: cow pies. Not lots of them, but a few such adornments that left us scratching our heads. 

This week, the online chat helped clear up that little mystery.

So, we learned that livestock owners can just let their cattle roam and graze wherever they please except for state land. Private land is open for all-you-can-eat buffet. It's up to the property owners to keep them out. This herd comes up from the valley below. The discussion thread included different fencing strategies, where to get materials, etc.

We have no fences, and I like it that way. It's not like we have a garden or anything I'm worried about being eaten - now that I know we don't have a marijuana stash as far as I've discovered. Go for it, cows. Still, that's quite a lot of cows.

In similar boonie news, there are many reports of this ursine family, romping and playing. We have yet to see them. So far, we've just seen deer.

We did mount a trail cam, so we'll see if anything fun/cute/ scary/ paranormal... shows up on video.

Mom and two cubs. I wonder what they think of the cows.




Today begins a long weekend for the 4th of July, which always feels to me like the "start of the end" of summer. 

The summer session at the college is past its halfway point already. So much material crammed into 10 weeks. 

Three of my current tutees are enrolled in the course which has the esteemed rank of "Most Failed And Retaken" among all courses in the catalog. At this point, I'm thinking two of the tutees are going to help the course retain its title, but the third one might actually pull through. 

But speaking of sightings, one of the potential fail-and-retakers does have an observant eye and appreciation for aesthetics. As we were packing up yesterday, he told me he liked my chrome calculator keys. This was after I had already stashed my calculator away. 

I never really noticed, so afterward, I took out said calculator - just a handy go-to that fits easily in my backpack. They cost ~$25

No doubt, some industrial designer said those right side keys should be shiny. Difficult to see in this photo, but they are in fact, chrome plated plastic - a finishing touch that adds nothing to functionality. 

It was my first ever calculator key compliment. I'll take what I can get.

treehugger, not pot, EMS, one thing

"Dirty almond milk treehugger", the woman said to the other woman. 

No, they weren't arguing, and no, this wasn't said to possibly insult an environmentalist. Magnum and I went on a coffee bike ride this morning, and this was another customer's order to the barista. Neither of us had any idea what she'd ordered as we sat sipping our medium roast drips. Such boomers.

But speaking of tree hugging, we were up on our land yesterday. Huggable trees are pretty sparse, as I've mentioned the place is still recovering from a 2012 wildfire. Our kids were all with us to help dig out some trails. 

While I hiked around, continuing to get my bearings of the place, I came upon this bit of greenery

my foot for scale

I thought it looked almost like cannabis, but not quite. I'm no expert, though, so I googled. Nope, it's not weed, but a weed: common cinquefoil. I read that its leaves can be used in salads or as a common pot herb, so that's the only relation to "pot".

As we headed out, we had to pull over to let a fire truck and ambulance go by. Some medical emergency for one of our neighbors. As it's out in the boonies, it's good to know the EMS people can make it up there, but I hope the person is all right. No word of it from the online group. The only new discussions have to do with cute bears roaming around and tactics for getting rid of mice.

It was a good productive time, but we didn't stay too long as it was quite hot out, plus people had places to go. I'm coming off some lower back crap, so I purposely didn't do much of the heavy work. I played supervisor and did some lightweight stuff when I wasn't traipsing around looking at possible marijuana.

One day last week at the college, I was in the student center and stopped to read a few of the "insPAWrations" students tacked up at the end of spring semester.

Many seemed a bit trite, and I suspect they were possibly put up there by administrators to get the ball rolling. But in my brief perusal, I picked a favorite:

Hmm, what is my one thing? What's yours?

I'll leave it here and wish everyone a Whole Assing week ahead. 

dinner and a show

The fire engine pulled in slowly, parking next to my vehicle. I sat a few feet away with my new friend, Jerry. We watched as three young, burly men, oozing testosterone, stepped from the cab. 

"Is that your husband?", Jerry asked, indicating the driver and largest of the trio.

"PFFFT, I wish!", I replied, giving Jerry an elbow as he gave me a big toothless smile. But really, I probably couldn't handle that much husband.

"Husband" and another approached us while the third guy took up his position directing traffic. They began talking with Jerry while I hung back like Casper the friendly (and invisible) ghost. Feeling like the 5th wheel, I decided it was time to go.

This went down yesterday around 6:30pm. Chaco's in town, and the gang was all at our house for Thai takeout. I was returning home with the goods. As I approached a main intersection near our house, I saw a heap of something in the road. It soon became clear that it was a bicycle and a person. Someone was helping the person up, and another ran over to move the bicycle from the road.

Aha, another bicycle accident I'd just missed witnessing. I pulled over to put in my two cents if needed.

"Has anyone called paramedics?" I asked the other two assisters. The one helping Jerry to the curb wagged their head, no.

So there I was, making a 9-1-1 call as my Pad Thai, Curry, Se Ew, etc. sat simmering in the front seat of the car. 

The dispatcher asked me a series of questions other than "what's happening", "where are you"... Was he breathing, what's his age, was he conscious... He was conscious, breathing, talking. I guessed his age to be about 70, then I realized I could just ask him.

"I'm 80", he said with a mouth of few teeth.

The dispatcher asked me to stay with him until paramedics arrived, help flag them down if necessary. She had me describe my car, which I suppose is why they parked the fire engine next to it. 

As we waited, I gave Jerry a certified untrained bystander assessment. He didn't seem too beat up. He had some bruises and scratches, but they were not fresh. Plus, there was the teeth situation. No new injuries I could see. 

I asked him if anything hurt, and he said, "Naw, I'm fine. Really."

He struck me as a tough old guy. I noticed he wore a "Vietnam War Veteran" hat. He had been wearing a bike helmet, which lay on the road beside us. His bike was an e-bike with a few items bungeed to it. While I'd been talking with the 911 dispatcher, I overheard him make a call to "Mama", saying he was going to be "a little late for them steaks".

I'm still not sure what happened. I think someone may have cut him off, causing him to crash in reaction, but didn't crash into him. If so, whoever they were didn't stay on scene. One of the earlier helpers told me he'd hit his head pretty hard. Good thing for that helmet.

Later, I checked the dispatch log and saw that the incident was closed after 22 minutes. I'm pretty certain Jerry declined an ambulance. As we'd sat there waiting, I told him he looked really good for 80, which seemed to please him. To myself, I noted, not good in an aged-like-fine-wine kinda way, but more of a he-can-handle-a-smackdown kinda way.

Nice meeting you, Jerry. I hope you got to enjoy them steaks.

book burn

"Although having a girlfriend or wife didn't exempt some of the men from being assholes, they were usually more comfortable with me"

That's a quote from a book I'm currently reading. [Hotshot: A life on Fire]. It's a memoir written by a woman who'd worked several seasons as a wildland firefighter. (Note: they currently identify as nonbinary, but during the firefighting days, "they" was "she").

I'd originally picked up the book for tips on building trails and managing the surroundings at our boonie property, but it's interesting learning her experiences in such a physically grueling, male-dominated job. I purposely chose a book written by a female author for those latter reasons. 

It's also interesting to me since we live in a state that gets its share of wildfires. In fact, our new property is in recovery mode from a 2012 fire. The book isn't just memoir, it gets into ecology and pros and cons of wildfires. I'm learning stuff.

It also marks my 26th book of the year. Recall I'd set a goal to read 26 books in 2026, and I'm ahead of the pace. Here are the books I've completed since my last update in April. Recognize any?

 

Goodreads profile pic

I will note that none of these scream "Favorite book of the year!" for me. They were all fiction except for "Eager" and "Cheap Land Colorado.

For the most part, I liked all of them well enough or I wouldn't have finished them. But they're quite a mix. "Bunny" is super weird, for lack of a better term. The two books by Emily Austin deal with pretty flawed main characters and read like a series of random journal entries. Some readers don't like that, but heck, I read blogs, so that works okay for me.

Whacha readin'?

sticks and stones

I was supposed to have a remote tutoring sesh a little while ago, but my student no-showed me. I texted her at 5 minutes after and got the old "Oops, forgot to tell you I have a doctor's appointment..." 

Speaking of lies, that excuse is about as worn out as the homework eating dogs. Welp, two strikes and she's out as per the general rules. I've got another student scheduled for this afternoon, so the day's not a total bust... so far.

Yesterday, Magnum and I found ourselves with some extra free time, so we headed up to our place in the clouds to do a little trail bustin'. 

It was a beautiful day for it, and we broke out our shiny new trail building tools, one of which is called a Mcleod. We'd bought it a few weeks ago, and it was brought out to us all shrouded up. We undressed it, and I was a bit surprised to see that it's yellow. The catalog showed it as "dark metal" colored.

I'm not disappointed, I saw it and immediately thought of Big Bird, mainly Big Bird's feet. 

That's it parked next to my rough draft of trail. "Trail" seems too impressive for what I've created so far. "Path" is maybe more fitting.

I tried spotting places where the deer have already formed trails and following their lead. Hopefully they'll continue to travel that path, thus helping to maintain it.

So it was just nice to be out there in the quiet and fresh air. A turkey vulture circled overhead, likely waiting for one or both of us to keel over.

Meanwhile, we're getting used to the idea of owning this land. There are actually several other landowners surrounding the area. We met our closest neighbors on our last trip, and we've since gotten access to the discord group, which seems friendly and welcoming. I'm sure we can use their advice on all relatable things.

As I was toiling along, I thought, "wouldn't it be fun if I dug up something of value?

Nevermind, that sort of thing doesn't happen to me.

But who knows, as we get to know more of these "mountain people", maybe they've got some cool cult we can join.

Okay, never mind. I may have gotten too much sun.

no filter

"Is that why you like True Crime? Because you're happy you're not the victim?"

"Yeah", I say, "but it's also because I'm happy I'm not the perpetrator".

In the latest novel I'm reading, the main character likes to listen to true crime podcasts in her spare time. I also like me a good dive into certain true crime stories, and I know I'm not alone (otherwise, I'd be a little paranoid about the interest). It's my understanding that many, women in particular, are into the genre. 

The character in my book is mainly into serial killers, which don't hold much fascination for me. What I sometimes get caught up in are the people who appear to be "normal" - or exceedingly above normal - who turn out to have a whole 'nother thing going on beneath the surface.

Ruby Franke, Chris Watts, Kouri Richins, and Elizabeth Holmes are of the criminals whose stories I dove into a bit further than the surface. 

I think what I find so interesting is their ability to lie and keep on lying, creating huge snowballs of lies that eventually crash into them. Do they think the stories will just "go away"? I get stressed out just hearing about their actions. Heck, I get stressed out when I see a friend on social media who has used an obvious filter for their profile pic. I mean, aren't they worried about people running into them in real life and wondering what happened?? 

This morning, we met with Wolfgang and Meego for breakfast. We do this about once a month. As was typical, there was a waiting list for seating. I didn't want to get on the list until we were all there, and Wolfgang was running late. He let us know he was on the way, and the restaurant host told me there was about a 20-min wait. 

So I went ahead and gave my name, table for 4, and painfully stated, "yes", when asked if all 4 of us were there since I was 90% sure Wolfgang would arrive within 20 minutes.

Damn if that host didn't text me TWO minutes later that our table was ready! So the three of us checked in. I had to confirm 4 people. 

"Yes, he's in the parking lot...", omg, what is happening to me?

Wolfgang did arrive a few minutes later, before I was completely overcome with guilt. But still, the ordeal was enough to swear me off the lying. Enough criminal activity for me.