White Pickups, Episode 32

Contents

Cleve reluctantly agreed to let the group split up. Tim took some riders to his shop to get the Kidd Haulers, while Jason and Ben rode to the nearby Borders to grab any gardening books and field guides in stock. Cody and Sondra went to Breakbeat Music, across from the food court — and Caitlin Cooper, the girl who had sat with Cody, insisted on coming with them. The chubby redhead — she could have been Tim’s daughter — clung to Cody’s hand along the way.

“Is she your girlfriend?” Caitlin asked him.

“Yeah,” Cody said. Caitlin looked at her feet as she walked for a moment, then looked at him again.

“Can a boy have two girlfriends?”

Cody goggled at Sondra, who stifled a laugh and turned away.

“Can I live with you guys?”

“Um… uh —” Cody stammered. “We only have one bedroom.”

“That’s okay. I can sleep in the living room.”

“We’re like a big family where we live,” Sondra said. “You might not live with us, but you’ll see us every day if you want to. Everyone spends the evenings in the clubhouse, we have supper together, then we’ve got games, a couple computers, and a DVD player. And there’s no trucks.”

“You have electricity? It went out here a long time ago.”

“We have two generators, and we siphon gas from the station around the corner. Cody was a lot of help getting it together.”

“Here we are,” Cody said. Breakbeat Music was dark, like everything else, but the last clerk hadn’t bothered to close the security gates before driving off. He turned on his flashlight. “Welcome to Breakbeat Music, how may I help you?”

Sondra and Caitlin both laughed. “Do you work here or something?” Caitlin asked.

“I did, before everyone drove off,” Cody said. “Wednesday was the last day I worked. They wanted me to come in on Thursday, but Mom’s car turned into you-know-what and I said I couldn’t get here. So what’s your favorite video game?”

“Super Mario Kart.”

“That’s a Wii game, we don’t… hey, no reason we can’t get a Wii too.” Cody pried his hand loose, ducked behind the counter, and came up with a key. “Lucky there’s so many TV sets around the complex, we don’t have to lug one of those all the way back home. Pick out some games you like, and some your friends will like, and we’ll bring a console and extra controllers along. Batteries, too.” He unlocked the glass and slid it aside.

“Cody?” Sondra said. “This is gonna add a bunch of weight to the load. Is this really worth it?”

“Sure — the kids can play the Wii, and the rest of us get the Playstation.”

“Maybe we ought to get another Playstation, then. I don’t think that thing got a minute of rest last night.”

“That can be arranged!” Cody unlocked another slider, thinking neither did we and grinning. “You ever play Barnstormer? It’s a racing game, but with old airplanes.”

“They have it? Get it for me! Pleeeease?” Sondra mock-whined, hands clasped, making Caitlin laugh. “I wanted to try that one, but I never got a chance.”

“They had a couple here on Wednesday. I doubt they sold out by Friday.” Cody opened a third door and played his flashlight along the shelves. “Yup, here it is!” Sondra cheered as he tossed the game on the counter; he reached down and picked up a Playstation. “And here’s our other console. Hey, I think we had a couple lefty controllers in stock, get one on me. And get a few of the other kind.” He shined his flashlight at a rack behind them. While Sondra looked at the accessories, Cody brought out several large bags.

“Can I get an iPod?” Caitlin asked. “I want a pink one, like that.” She pointed at the display.

“Sure,” Sondra said.

“Yeah,” Cody said, unlocking the display case. “You’d better go find some CDs you like, though. I think the Internet’s gone for good.”

Sondra helped Caitlin pick out some CDs while Cody got an iPod for each of the kids and loaded their haul into three bags. “Hm,” Cody said as they returned with a handful of jewel cases. “Probably around fifteen hundred bucks, including tax. They can take it out of my last paycheck. I’ll pay ’em back the other thirteen hundred later.” Caitlin took one of Cody’s hands before he could pick up the bags; he rolled his eyes and took one bag while Sondra took the other two.

“Hey,” Sondra said. “We need to get a jacket for Caitlin, don’t we?”

“Yeah. But we’ll be going through Sears, we’ll pick one up on the way out. Sweaters, too.” He paused a moment. “You know, I feel stupid for thinking about this just now: why didn’t we just pick jackets and sweaters out of the houses we’ve been cleaning out?”

“I guess it’s because everybody wants their own clothes. I know I didn’t really want to spend the rest of my life wearing clothes someone else left behind when they drove off. It’ll happen sooner or later, but there will be plenty of time for used stuff.”

“Yeah.”

“By the way: it was nice of you, offering Max your dad’s jacket like you did.”

Cody shrugged. “Well… it’s not like Dad’s going to be needing it.”

“Not just that. You know what I mean.”

“Yeah.” Cody looked down and let his hair cover his eyes. “But he’s accepted us. He apologized for being rude, and you set him straight about Philip. I don’t hold grudges… not anymore, anyway.” He flipped his hair back. “Let’s go.”


“Where did all the people go?” Caitlin asked, walking down the mall and clinging to Cody’s hand. “Did they die?”

“We don’t think so,” Sondra said. “We think they’re all driving around in those pickups.”

“Why don’t they stop?”

“Maybe they can’t,” Cody said. “But nobody knows for sure.”

Tina looked amused as the three emerged from Sears with their bundles. “You know… you guys could pass for a family.”

“It would be a… a very strange arrangement,” Cody said, looking embarrassed.

Sondra stepped over to Tina. “Caitlin wants to be his girlfriend too,” she whispered, making Tina laugh.

“Hey, he’s already got an older girlfriend,” Tina whispered back. “Why not a younger one too?”

Cody stepped forward, Caitlin in tow, as Tina and Sondra laughed together. “Hey… where’s the other kids?”

“They’re over there, with Kelly and Jennifer. Why?”

“I got an iPod pico for each of them. I guess we can pass them out after we get home and charge ’em and get some music on ’em. We also got a bunch of other stuff — a Wii for the kids, another Playstation for everyone else, some games and controllers, that kind of stuff.”

“Quite a load,” Tina said. “We probably could have found all that in Laurel.”

“Maybe. But at least we know we’ve got the stuff now. Like Sondra said, there’ll be plenty of time for used stuff.”

continued…

Boom-Squawk-Boo

Wow, the week’s already gone by?

I'm running on battery power, writing through a thunderstorm. Funny how I was thinking earlier this week that we hadn’t had much nasty weather this month, when April weather on Planet Georgia often has a violent temper. Ta-daaaah! We’ve got a tornado watch now and maybe more to come tomorrow. Looking at the local radar loop on weather.gov, it looks like once this goes by we’ll be in a quiet spot… maybe the rest of the night.

Mason has unlocked a new ability: he pulled himself up to a standing position in his playpen today! Next thing you know, I’ll be posting video of him walking around. He was squalling for all he was worth a few minutes ago, being tired and mad about being tired. I fixed him a bottle and Mrs. Fetched is feeding him… the way he was acting, he’ll be sound asleep before I finish this.

I used to do an irregular podcast, but it’s such a chore to block out enough time to produce one — pretty much half a day to edit up a 20- to 30-minute episode. A new site, AudioBoo, looks like it could do for podcasting what Twitter did for blogging. You can post up to five minutes of jibber-jabber, using a file upload or directly through an AudioBoo app for iPhone (or Android). My first boo, Banned from the Band, is about a minute long and explains what I did this afternoon and why. At least I won’t have to flag a TB25 for a while. But I think I’ll use this to knock off a few “Shiny Things” segments. I can probably do a five-minute segment in less than half an hour, which means I’ll be doing them more regularly.

Watch this space: I’ll have a Mason pic up tomorrow (weather permitting). Next episode of White Pickups will be up Monday morning as usual.

White Pickups, Episode 31

Did I mention that this is going to be a long day, story-wise?

---

Contents

After a brief pause, everyone slipped behind clothes racks or shelves. “What was that?” Cody hissed.

“We’re gonna find out,” Cleve said. “Petro. Lucado. Let’s go.”

“What?” Cody yelped, grabbing Sondra’s arm as she stepped forward. “Sondra…”

“I’ll be fine, Cody,” Sondra said, kicking her shoes off. “I’ve been in a gunfight before. You trust me?”

He let go, reluctantly. “Yeah. But be careful, okay? I don’t want to lose you.”

“You won’t. Careful is how I survive.” She joined Tim and Cleve at the edge of the mall entrance, still walking a little funny. Cody picked up her shoes, tied the laces together, and draped them around his neck.

“Tim!” Sara whispered across a couple clothes racks. “Keep your head down, okay?” He grinned and nodded.

Cleve whispered to the others, and pointed down the mall at pillars and open store entrances where they could take cover. When Cleve was sure they understood, he turned to the others. “If you hear shots, everyone come a-runnin’,” he said. “Make lots of noise, yell, stomp, so it sounds like the Army’s rollin’ in, okay?” They all nodded. “Let’s go.”

The three of them darted down the mall, one by one. The other two covered as the third dashed to the next cover. The others watched them go; another clatter from farther down got the bravest squinting and peering for any sign.

“What’s down that way?” someone whispered.

“Just the rest of the mall,” Cody said. “Food court’s almost all the way on the other side. I’ll bet that’s where they’re going.”


Cleve, Sondra, and Tim disappeared into the gloom well before reaching the halfway mark. Skylights gave a little light here and there, but the mall looked dim and sinister. They continued down the mall, the last in line hustling (Sondra on tiptoe) past the others to the next available cover. Cleve pointed the way. Tim was about to dart out when the clattering noise came again; he froze and waited for Cleve to nod and point. It took them nearly ten minutes to reach the food court.

A crunching sound echoed from the food court. Cleve waved the others to him, then peered around the corner. He saw movement, and jumped out, gun in front of him. “Freeze! Police!”


Cleve’s yell and an answering shriek echoed down to Sears.

“Shit! Sondra!” Cody yelled, and jumped forward; Charles caught him just in time. “Let me go!” he snarled, trying to pull free.

“You’re not armed, idiot!” Max hissed, grabbing Cody’s free arm. “Besides, that wasn’t Sondra!”

Cody yanked once more, then stopped struggling and stared at Max. “You sure?”

Max nodded. “I’ve known her since March. I know what she sounds like.” He paused. “Someone’s coming. Probably Tim. Let’s see what happened.”

They stayed under cover until they could see Tim jogging their way. “Everything’s okay,” he said. “We need some help, though. Everybody come on. But Cleve said you don’t have to be noisy.” Tim wasn’t winded in the least; he turned around and jogged off before anyone could ask him what happened.

“Stay in groups of at least two or three,” Charles told the others. “Cody, why don’t you stay with Max and me?”

“Yeah, whatever. As long as you don’t slow me down.” Cody looked at the floor, hair covering his eyes.

“Fine. Let’s move.” They hustled down the mall, spreading out as the faster left the slower behind. Charles, Max, and Cody were one of the first to arrive at the food court, and stood confused for a moment. There were too many people…

“It’s safe,” Cleve said. “They say there’s nobody else in the mall.” The “they” were five children, all maybe age ten. Sondra sat with them, comforting them as best as she could while Cleve and Tim looked on. Cleve held Sondra’s pistol; the kids all looked scared, hungry, and a little sickly.

The others started murmuring: “Look at that.” “Why haven’t we seen any other kids?” “What did they eat?” “How did they not drive off with their parents?” “Have they been here all this time?” Cody edged toward Sondra and the kids; she whispered to the kids then nodded to him. He and Kelly walked over and sat down with them; a chubby red-haired girl wrapped herself around Cody and cried as he gave her an awkward hug. Sondra smirked and rolled her eyes.

“They need food and water,” Sondra told the others, putting her shoes on. “A little at a time, though. I guess they’ve been scavenging. Like us.”

“Quite a feat, if they lived for… what, close to two weeks?” Max said. “Then again, we did it. Why couldn’t they?”

Jennifer Lane collected an armload of water bottles and energy bars from the others and brought them over. She sank to her knees and handed water bottles to each child. “Drink it slow,” she told them, “or you might throw up. Just a little sip at a time, okay?” The kids nodded and opened their drinks as best as they could; Kelly and Cody had to help two of them. “Good. Now why don’t you tell us what happened.” Jennifer opened energy bars and passed them around.

The kids all talked over each other, and argued about some points, but they managed to tell the story between sips of water and nibbles at energy bars: School was closed Friday, so our moms took us to the theater to see Fish Story. It was the 1 o’clock show. They were supposed to come for us at 3 when the movie was over, but they never did. And the theater people were gone when we came out too. Some of the other kids went outside to see if they could find anybody, but the white trucks… they were everywhere. A couple of the moms who were at the movie took their kids and some of the others. They told us to come too, but we ran back inside when they got in the trucks. We ate popcorn and candy, and we slept in the theater. Nobody was there the next day, so we took the quarters out of the cash registers and played video games upstairs until the power went out. When there was no more candy, we came here. It was Ben’s idea. We don’t guess our parents are coming for us, are they?

“I guess we have to take them with us,” Kelly said. “We sure can’t leave ’em here. But how?”

“My bike store’s just up the street,” Tim said. “I have some seats and Kidd Haulers there — that’s like a cargo trailer, but set up to carry a child. These guys are probably a bit larger than the rated capacity, but they’ll hold up from here to home. They made tandems — to carry two kids — but I didn’t have any in stock.”

“Do you guys want to come home with us?” Sondra asked the kids.

continued…

The Week in Pictures

Just a few of the things, normal and not-so-normal, going on around the manor this week…

The dogwoods shook off their yellow early in the week, and are now their usual blazing white. The blooms aren’t as plentiful this year as they have been at least some years past.

This particular shot is the dogwood at the corner of the driveway, with a gigantic cypress in the background. I’ve joked about renting a bucket truck to string Christmas lights on that sucker.


Mason loves being outside, and loves getting a bath. He got too big for the bathroom sink, so now he gets his dunk time in the kitchen sink.

I didn’t have any pix from the various baby food showers he administered to his grandparents this week, unfortunately. On the other hand, I don’t have to worry about cleaning off the camera lens if one of those sneezes got directed that way either.

The Boy takes Mason outside in the stroller; sometimes he sits and plays guitar for him. Mason is fascinated by the guitar and the sound it makes… but most of all he enjoys his “dad time” (what little he gets). He also met Buster T. Butthead, who is officially the first dog he’s petted (stroke, stroke, grab handful of hair). When he’s running around in a few months, I expect Buster will be his best buddy. We’ll probably need to give the dog a bath, now that I think about it…


I spent much of yesterday cutting up a poplar tree with Mr. Sunshine. This was not my plan for the day — I was going to do the Bakin’ Fool thing and hot up the kitchen all day. But they’d dropped it in the area in front of the chicken house, where feed trucks will soon need to go, so it needed to be taken care of. It took us most of the day, cutting off the smaller branches to clear the work area then feeding them to my chipper-shredder… once the work area was clear, the rest of it went fairly quickly. Everything is stacked or piled up here at the manor except for the trunk pieces. We moved them out of the way and Mrs. Fetched said she’ll get the splitter down there and finish that up this week.

Now that’s not even beginning to address what’s waiting for me behind the manor — the above picture tells that particular tale (left side morning, right side evening). Mrs. Fetched has complained for a while about several oak trees close to the house out back; one does make a bad habit of dropping limbs on the roof above our bedroom. Since the renters requested removal of a similarly-positioned tree at the old place, she decided to deal with both jobs at once. So now I have quite a bit of raw firewood to process, and I won’t have to go far to get to it. I’ll have to see if The Boy is interested in getting started on it. I think we’ll miss that extra shade in the evenings, but what do I know?

But even though my day got spent cutting trees instead of kneading, what I wanted to get done yesterday actually happened. Instead of making bread, we bought a loaf. DoubleRed made cookies. And after supper and a brief rest, I made some cinnamon rolls. I took a few to Daughter Dearest, since her Spring Concert was today. Still plenty left, come by the manor and grab one!

Squash shower!

Mason is a proto-vegetarian, as Daughter Dearest was a proto-feminist. He doesn’t like the taste of the beef (or turkey) baby food (the facial contortions are amazing), and DD did what the boys did because that’s who she had to play with.

Earlier this week, Mrs. Fetched asked me to make up some cereal for Mason’s breakfast. This is a pretty easy deal: get the mixed grains baby food out, make a little thin mush, stir in some applesauce, shovel it into the baby. No problemo. So about the fourth spoon, Mason took it and AH-CHOO! — I got a shower. Not the first instance of baby goop on me, not by decades, and probably not the last. I had a wet rag intended to wipe his face and hands afterward, so I cleaned up and kept feeding.

Mrs. Fetched, when she heard about it, was amused. “That also happened to Snippet,” she said. “It hasn’t happened to me, because I watch and I know the difference between him opening his mouth for a bite and getting ready to sneeze.”

Pride goeth before a fall, so they say. Last night, Mrs. Fetched was shoveling butternut squash into Mason. That’s his second favorite food, #1 being sweet potatoes. So he got a big bite and… AH-CHOO! — it was Mrs. Fetched’s turn to get the baby food shower! Everyone else at the table was quite amused.

White Pickups, Conversations: Cleve Isaacs

This is strange. I’m usually the one asking the questions.

Think of it as expanding your horizons a little, then.

Haha, I can deal with that! OK. I’m Cleve Issacs. Um… now what?

You’ve been around a lot. Army, police…

Yeah, and chief peon and CEO of C.I. Security.

That’s a little too brief. Let’s expand a bit.

Sure. I graduated from high school in 1999, as in “party like it’s.” I didn’t have any job prospects, and wasn’t really thinking much about college, so I joined the Army. I figured I could do a hitch or two, get some training, then get some college on Uncle Sam’s dime afterwards if I wanted.

Then 9/11 came along. I got sent to Afghanistan, re-up’ed, and got out in 2005. I was pretty well fed up with Army life by then, but I might have stayed on if they’d agreed to put me through MP training. By the middle of my second hitch, I know I wanted to be a cop when I got out. I figured having some MP experience would have given me a leg up. But it didn’t work out, so I walked. I got into police academy, graduated pretty close to the top, then came back home and joined the Atlanta force.

What about your family?

Not much to tell. I was part of a stereotypical urban black family: Dad was long gone, Mom on and off welfare and trying to raise three kids. One thing that broke the stereotype, though: she wasn’t having no excuses about us dropping out of school and “getting work.” My sister was a few years younger than me, and Mom made sure me and my brother watched out for her. Yeah, she had boyfriends, and she probably slept with at least some of them, but we chased off the creeps and users. So we all graduated from high school. My brother Carver was good with languages, and aced his Spanish classes all through school, and he ended up with a construction company because they needed someone who could tell the Mex— the work crews what to do. My sister ran off with some guy, and we all lost touch with her. She was about Sara’s age. I’m pretty sure they all drove off.

Why didn’t you?

Drive off? It just never occurred to me. My clients were dropping off the face of the earth, so I was really busy trying to keep an eye on everything — I guess I just didn’t have the time.

Then the looters came along.

Yeah. I was trying to tell everyone that we needed to watch for stuff like that — authority was pretty well gone by Friday afternoon, and the looters figured that out by Friday night. I was kinda surprised how many of my neighbors were armed, though — and that goes double for Sondra. It was touch and go for a while — I was pretty sure one of us were gonna get hurt, maybe even shoot each other — but then the looters got tired of getting shot at. I suggested we all move together onto one block, and that turned out to be a pretty good idea. We got lucky; I was organizing our defenses for another round of looters on Saturday afternoon when the bashers rolled up on their Harleys, so we were already outside, armed, and ready. It could have been a lot worse. As it was, that idiot Muldoon just walked out to them, hands out, peace and love dudes, and got hisself shot dead for his trouble. We all opened fire, and they ran for it. I shot the guy who killed Trey, and Lucado took down three more, one shot each — she shocked the hell out of me, lemme tell you.

What do you think happened?

No clue. This doesn’t really fit the standard investigative model — it had to be either God or the Devil who made all those trucks, and how do you go about arresting them?

Good point. What are you going to do now?

Keep harping about security, I guess. Everyone else — and I mean everyone — has let their guard down since we got up to Laurel. Even Tim. He’s a good guy, but half those bashers are still out there. Over half, if our friend Joseph rejoined ’em, but I don’t think he did. Even if they gave up and went back to their cave, there’s probably others just like ’em out there. Sure, there’s more of us, but we’re not as well-armed and we’re not out looking for trouble. We need to start looking for trouble, so it doesn’t just drop in and visit, you know?

Back to Episode 30…

White Pickups, Episode 30

Contents

Tuesday, September 27, 2011

Cody and Sondra were busy cuddling, giggling, stroking — starting another round of lovemaking to begin the day — when someone rapped at their door. They sat up, both looking annoyed; Cody slipped out of bed and grabbed the robe Sondra had been wearing the night before (one of his mom’s robes, and she’d had very little on underneath). “I got it.” He shrugged the robe on.

“Yeah,” she said. “I’ll get some clothes on, once you tear your eyes off my boobs.”

Cody blushed and ducked out the bedroom door, looking over his shoulder at Sondra then closing it behind him. Tim was waiting at the front door.

“Hey, you look good in pink,” Tim grinned. “You just getting up? We’re getting ready to loot the mall!”

“Aw crap, we… uh, overslept. You wanna come in?”

Tim stepped in and sniffed, which made Cody notice the musk of last night’s… housewarming party. He blushed again and ducked back into the bedroom, where Sondra was finishing dressing. “It’s Tim,” he said, grabbing some clothes. “I think we’re holding up the trip to the mall.”

“Dammit,” Sondra jumped up as Cody started dressing. “No time for coffee, then.”

“You want some coffee?” Tim asked as they emerged. He held a thermos. “I brought a little.”

“Oh God, Tim, you’re a lifesaver!” Sondra ducked into the kitchen, walking stiffly. “Let me grab a cup, and we can go.”

“You gonna be up to riding today?” Tim asked.

“What do you mean?” Sondra barked, stomping out of the kitchen, the coffee cup forgotten, glaring at Cody. Cody concentrated on his tennis shoes.

“Cody didn’t say anything,” Tim said, tapping his nose. “The nose knows.”

Sondra sniffed and blushed. “Jesus, it stinks. Why didn’t I notice it before?”

Now it was Tim’s turn to blush. “Don’t tell me I walked in on your first time!”

Sondra sighed. “First morning after, more like,” she said at last, dropping onto the love seat next to Cody and pulling on her socks and shoes, looking only at her feet. “Cody, can you go get my coffee cup? Now I really need it.”


Sally and the other older folks volunteered to “stay behind and hold down the fort.” They made up their shopping lists, and everyone else agreed to bring back what they needed. Sondra insisted on coming, but she kept as much weight as possible off her bike seat without making it obvious. To Cody’s surprise, he was a little sore himself. They opened the gate — and for the first time, a pickup waited in the dwindling shade of the oak trees lining the drive, whispering its invitation. Sondra shook her pale arm and cursed, everyone else ignored it as best as they could.

Nobody said anything, but they all rode past their turn and stopped on the I-85 overpass to watch the traffic. The parade of white pickups was now steady, almost regimented, on both sides of the freeway. “It doesn’t get any less weird, no matter how long you’ve seen it,” Johnny Latimer said.

“September 27th,” Ben Cho said for the benefit of his video camera, as he pointed it down the freeway. “Day 14, I guess, counting from Wednesday the 14th. We haven’t seen a motorized vehicle that wasn’t a white pickup since Day 4, the Saturday when we got attacked by the bashers, and those were motorcycles. You can see today that the trucks are getting more evenly spaced. Some get on and off the freeway, going who knows where, and that does throw off the pattern.” He panned to the off-ramp, following one of the pickups. It turned left and went by them on the overpass. “Thirty-two of us have gathered together in suburbia, in a gated community that the trucks have left behind. All of us, including three of the original residents and two other suburbanites, have moved into the townhouses. With shelter taken care of, our primary concerns are water, food, and fuel. But today, we’re going to Gwinnett Place to secure winter clothing and whatever else we can find that will help us get through the coming winter.” He pointed the camera down the line of bicycles, then turned it off. Tim signaled to get moving, and they turned around.

They took what Tina used to call “the back way” to the mall, south on Satellite Boulevard, approaching the mall from behind. It was a little longer than the direct route, but nobody wanted to ride the breakdown lane alongside the freeway. They crossed the parking lot, empty but for debris and a single pickup, to the Sears. The morning sun was on the other side of the mall, but it still lit up the first twenty feet or so past the entrance; except for the lack of lights, the store looked —

“Frozen in time,” Ben said, camcorder once again in hand. He turned on a light attached to the camera; it did a good job of lighting what he pointed the camera at. “There’s some merchandise on the floor, maybe from Friday evening ‘bargain hunters’ who probably drove off afterward, but nothing like what the surviving suburbanites said about some of the local grocery stores — perhaps because Sears doesn’t carry booze. We’re here for sweaters and jackets, and we hope to find some camp stoves and heaters.”

“Water filters, too,” Tim said.

“Rain barrels,” Cody said. “I’ll bet the one at my old place is full after all that rain. We could filter that water.”

“Or just use it for washing as-is,” Sondra said. “I’d like to heat it though… I could go for a hot shower.”

“Yeah,” Johnny said. “Couldn’t we all? But let’s go get us some warm stuff now. This place kind of creeps me out.”

They fanned out, skipping the end-of-summer sales racks for the fall fashions. There were a few heavier jackets on the racks, and everyone took turns trying out various sizes. There were more people than jackets in the end; they drew straws and both Sondra and Max lost.

Cody looked at his new jacket. “You know what?” he said. “I have a good winter jacket at the old house. Can I give this one to Sondra?”

“Sure,” said Max. “I doubt it would fit me, anyway.”

“Yeah — but I think Dad’s old coat will fit you. You want to try it when we get back?”

Max paused for a moment. “Sure. Thanks.”

“Suck-up,” Kelly said, but she was grinning. “I’ve got a winter coat, too. Who’s got the list for the stay-homes? Will this one fit Ms. Sally? It’s a medium.”

Charles consulted his list. “Women’s medium… yup, let’s take it along.”

“Sweaters are over this way,” Tim said. “Let’s go.”

The sweaters were on the other side of the mall entrance. As they crossed, they heard a clatter from down the mall and froze.

continued… (Episode 31)

Conversations: Cleve Isaacs

Bloomin’

Last Sunday was Easter, and that’s the day when the kids get christened. Mason was right up there to get his head wet and he didn’t mind the attention either. Left to right: our paster (he sounds like Ricardo Montalban), Mason, and Ashley (a girl who fills in where needed, most of the time).

The reason I didn’t have this up earlier: the drawback to DSLRs is that the RAW photos gobble up disk space pretty quick. I got a 1TB outboard drive Thursday evening and moved all the photos to it — MUCH better. A back of the envelope calculation suggests that the new drive should be good for like 50,000 photos. One of its nice features is a button on the front that can be assigned to launch any application, so I have it launch EOS Utility to pull the pictures off the camera.

Meanwhile, Mason is now crawling pretty well — he crawled right off the edge of the bed last night. Fortunately I was anticipating that and caught him, and it didn’t faze him a bit. He’s also beginning to babble-talk. He’s started this ah dyah dah dah dahhhh noise which means “pick me up!”


Spring has definitely arrived on Planet Georgia: the pollen count is somewhere between Ridiculous and F%#@!ing Insane, and the wild violets are running riot in the yard. I mowed over the violets last weekend, and they just ducked under the blades. I’m going to try digging some up and potting them — seems that the only way to kill a weed is to make it a not-weed.


The flowering cherry outside my window is doing much better than the dogwoods so far. The dogwoods are running a little late this year, they just now opened up and they’re still a little yellow. I’ll get some shots of them when they get a little more up and at ’em. Meanwhile, enjoy the pinkitude; you don’t see too much of it on this blog.

Sometime in the last week, I hosed up my foot. I think I stepped on a rock at the chicken houses and it retaliated. The only good thing about it is that I get to stay out of the chicken houses this week… I’d rather have a less painful reason for that though.

Slings and Arrows

With the tax refund making an audible THUD as it landed in our checking account, I decided to splurge on a baby sling. I’ve been wanting one since I’d heard about them, shortly after Mason arrived, and decided now was the time.

After using it for one evening, my only regret is that I didn’t have one when The Boy and Daughter Dearest were babies, let alone having one sooner for Mason — these things are Teh Awesum [sic]. I can drop Mason in it and walk around without straining my arms, or sit and have both hands free to type, and he loves to sit in it and chew on the fabric. In fact, he fell asleep in it last night without my even trying. So yup… his @$$ is in a sling! It’s a Maya, if you wanted to know. It has a nice little zipper pocket on the end, which could stash a number of useful items… especially bibs, the way he slobbers these days. 7 months old today, how time flies.

Time flies like an arrow, fruit flies like a banana, and Daughter Dearest flew out of here with my laptop yesterday. She came down with a rash, which may have originated from a scratch by Mom’s cat, and I ended up taking her to the ER around midnight Saturday morning; we got home at 3:30 a.m. As things hadn’t improved quickly enough by Monday, she emailed her profs and went to our doc. This threw off her schedule, which involved her making a DVD of her conducting something or another for one of her classes, and for whatever reason I have a DVD burner in my laptop and she doesn’t. Being the nice guy I am, I let her take it. sob Then when we were supposed to meet this evening to hand it back off, she forgot to bring it. sob Fortunately, I have a backup: this Mac mini running Xubuntu. I brought it out of DoubleRed’s room and stole the Ethernet cable off The Boy’s Xbox (which he hasn’t noticed yet) to get a network hookup. If I could get her to email me the next episode of White Pickups, I’d be OK for another night or two. But I’ll be glad to get it back.

White Pickups, Episode 29

Contents

Monday, September 26, 2011

Shady sat at the top of the stairs as Cody mounted the steps. He mewed a greeting; his glowing eyes reflected Cody’s flashlight.

“Hey, cat,” Cody said, leaning forward to scratch the kitten’s head. Shady responded by grabbing Cody’s hand and wrapping his back legs around Cody’s wrist. Cody grinned and picked him up as Shady gently chewed on his fingers and purred. Cody thought for a moment: Tina and Kelly were in… “oh yeah, two in #202.” He walked past his own unit, #207, and tapped on Tina’s door.

“Cody, what —” Tina began — “oh, there he is!” She looked over her shoulder. “Kelly! Cody has your kitten!”

Kelly ran to the front door, looking relieved. “Whew! He bolted out the door when we came in this evening — where did you find him?”

“He was at the top of the steps,” Cody said, stretching his arm toward Kelly. She unwrapped a reluctant Shady, who mewed in protest and swatted at her as she took possession.

“Huh,” Tina smiled. “He likes you.”

“We understand each other,” Cody grinned. “Hey, I gotta get back. I ran a bit late this evening. Bye.”

Sondra was cocooned in a robe and blanket against the damp chill, reading on the love seat by candlelight and flashlight. One of the candles was scented, something that smelled like cinnamon, and it helped with the last of the refrigerator smell. They got their first choice of townhouse — an upstairs, one-bedroom unit directly across from the clubhouse, and Sondra loved the furnishings — but Saturday and Sunday brought steady rain, the first since the Truckalypse, and they had to wait for drier weather to move their belongings. Cody offered to set up his Playstation in the clubhouse, for everyone to use, and the offer was well-received.

“What did you do, play through an entire game?” she asked.

“Well, I had to test it!” he laughed. “No, we had it in the big Laurel Room, but there were card games going on, and people talking, and the game was making too much noise. I guess we should have thought of that earlier. We had to carry it all downstairs, clean out one of the rooms, run extension cords to the gennie, all that. It didn’t take as long as it could’ve — there were people lining up to play and everyone was like ‘what can we do to get this done?’. We can go by Breakbeat tomorrow to clean out the game rack when we’re at the mall. I guess we’ll rip up some carpet out of one of the houses for the floor, it’s cold in there. Then Kelly’s cat was on the steps coming up, so I took him home.”

“That was nice. So did we forget anything at the house?”

“Nah… nothing we need right away. We got the food, the Playstation, music, Dad’s laptop, and the books. If we decide we need anything else, we can always go back for it.”

“Good.”

“Can I ask you something?” Cody said.

“Sure.”

“Why were you so pissed about not being able to move on Saturday? This is nice, but we had everything we needed at my place.”

Sondra put her book down and stood, wrapping herself and the blanket around Cody. “That’s just it. It was your place. It was at the back of the subdivision, away from everyone else, but that didn’t bother me so much. But I wanted it to be our place, and I just couldn’t make it happen. Now we’re in our place.”

“I can see that,” Cody said, stroking her back. “I just wish I saw it before. I guess I was just so happy, having you with me, that I didn’t notice you weren’t… I’m not sure what the word is. But now — our place.” He tested the words, said them again.

“It was a place I was staying,” Sondra said, “because you were there. Here, I’ll be living. We’ll be living.” She kissed him.

“What’s important is that you’re with me. I — I love you.” He shook his head. “Why is that so hard to say?”

“I know you do, but it helps to hear you say it. I love you too, Cody. You’ve been hurt before, haven’t you?”

“Yeah, a few years ago. She wanted to change me, make me wear different clothes, cut my hair, and I let her. And then she laughed at me. I swore I’d rather be alone forever than let that happen again. But I think I was in love the minute I saw you.”

Sondra hugged him tighter. “You don’t have to worry about that now. I love you the way you are. You’ve been so helpful, so giving. Lots of people get so cynical when they get hurt, and don’t want to help anyone.”

“I was like that,” Cody admitted. “But then the trucks came and Kelly and Tina were the only people left here besides me. They didn’t know how to be self-sufficient, but Tina was trying. They weren’t rude, they needed help, and what was I going to do with stuff they needed and I didn’t? Just hang onto it? Besides, it’s too easy to be alone now. All you have to do is walk down the street.”

“Yeah.” She grinned. “Wow, I didn’t mean for us to have such a serious discussion tonight! I want to celebrate. C'mon, we’re gonna have a housewarming party.” She led him to the dining nook off the kitchen, where a bottle of wine and two glasses waited on the table.

“Housewarming? I should have brought some firewood, then.” They laughed; Sondra filled their glasses and they clinked them.

“I can’t think of a toast,” Cody said. “I haven’t had a lot of practice.”

“That’s okay,” Sondra said. “To our place. To our love. To the new world we’ll help make.”

“Together,” Cody said. “I’ll drink to that… ahh. That’s where the warming comes from.”

After they finished their first glass, Sondra wrapped the blanket and her arms around Cody again. “Some of the warming, anyway. Now you can open your present.”

“But I didn’t get you anything.”

Sondra fished a foil packet out of her pocket and pressed it into his hand. “It’s more like what we’re giving each other,” she whispered.

Cody’s eyes grew wide. “Uhh —”

“It’s time. I think so, anyway. What about you?”

“I — I’ve been ready all along. But yeah, this is the right time.” He hugged her tight. “Now?”

“In a minute. Let’s drink another toast first. Then we’ll go to the bedroom and you can unwrap your present. And I’ll unwrap mine.”

“I hope… I hope it works for us both.” Cody shivered, not from the chill.

“It’s our first time. Let’s take it easy and not expect a lot right away. We’ll practice.” She laughed.

As it turned out, third time was the charm. And fourth time. They were both worn out by the fifth time, and drifted off to sleep in the middle of things, wrapped around each other. Their house was quite warm by then.

continued…

Snippity Snippet

Home. No supper cooking, which is no surprise. More surprising is that The Boy was the only one here, but no surprise at all that he was on my laptop. Oh well, he finished his Facebook’ing and left, giving me a clear shot at the blog.

I work at home Wednesdays and Thursdays, but it’s not the orgy of productivity it used to be. I could blame Mason, and indeed he’s the proximate cause since he ends up on my lap quite a bit, but the real problem is that Snippet seems to want to have the bare minimum (if that) of involvement with her baby (and Daughter Dearest tells me she had him all day today). In the afternoon, she’ll sit and watch TV (the Judge Whoever shows, Springer if she can get away with it), and let him squall in her lap — which makes it hard for me to focus on what I’m supposed to be doing. Her primary goal seems to get him to go to sleep so she can do what she pleases… and Mason picks up on that (which, in Snippet’s mind, means “he’s spoiled”). He’s happy when The Boy has him, because his dad will at least put PBS on the idiot box and interact with him, but I think he’s growing distant from his mom.

I did get a fair amount done yesterday in the late morning, since I had pretty much the entire house to myself, but after lunch Snippet came in and told me about how awful Mrs. Fetched was to her — Cousin Splat is getting married in June, she’s been tagged to be a bridesmaid, and Mrs. Fetched wouldn’t let her go with the bride-to-be (the less said about her the better) to look for dresses. She concluded that Mrs. Fetched is a control freak, and she can be controlling at times, but I figured there was more to it than I’d been told. Snippet, like most people, will omit or gloss over certain details to polish up her side of the story.

Sure enough, Mrs. Fetched furnished the missing piece. Earlier on in the morning, she had asked Snippet to watch Kobold’s daughter (and there’s a story I haven’t told yet) through the afternoon, and Snippet agreed to do it. But when she heard about this dress shopping expedition, the commitment she’d made was suddenly forgotten (SN07 without too much of a stretch) until Mrs. Fetched attempted to hold her to her commitment. This turned into a big argument, and it’s fortunate for all involved that the fatal SN01 didn’t come into play. In Snippet ’s mind, the commitment she made didn’t matter (SN05) when she was given another choice.

OK, I can understand that part. She’s immature, and that kind of crap is to be expected. What I can’t understand is her profound lack of commitment to Mason. When The Boy and Daughter Dearest were babies, our lives revolved around them. Mrs. Fetched’s parents were nearby, and they got their share of grandkid time to be sure, but we didn’t just dump our kids on the grandparents and try to take off every weekend. If we went out, we usually took the kids with us — exceptions being a yearly office party or something similar, and that was two or maybe three times a year.

I doubt talking to her (or both of them) will make any difference, but I’m duty-bound to try.

Fighting Sleep

Mason, that is. In fact, he was rockin' and rollin' until about 5 minutes ago. He’s finally drifting off on Mrs. Fetched’s shoulder. I’ll shortly be laying him in his crib… Mrs. Fetched caught him about to climb out of the bassinet this morning, so that’s been taken down. Kobold gave us his daughter’s old baby bed, so we’ll set that up probably tomorrow.

It’s too bad The Boy and Snippet feel like they need to visit Cousin Splat more than they need to take care of their own offspring.

White Pickups, Episode 28b

Contents

continued from yesterday…

The man on the overpass watched them approach, concerned neither with the rain nor the guns pointed his way. As they drew nearer, they could see him better: tall, grey, almost gaunt, dressed in a suit with something tucked under his arm. As they reached the on-ramp, he spoke: “If you truly be men, bid me come down.”

“Come down then!” Frank called back, and the other turned to the on-ramp.

He was slow; the drizzle started again and all but Frank were fidgeting by the time he stood before them. What he was carrying appeared to be a gigantic old Bible. “Peace be unto you,” he said. His mouth was twisted, turned down on one side in a perpetual scowl, marring an otherwise noble-looking face. Every strand of his grey hair was in place, slicked back against his head. The rain beaded on it and ran down.

“You too,” Frank replied. “But let’s get outta this rain right now.” They moved quickly to get under the overpass; now that the old man was with them, he seemed to have no problem keeping up.

“You got a name?” one of the Bobs asked.

“Of course. I am Reverend Carlton Worleigh,” the old man said.

“Hey,” Ray-Ban took off his shades to peer at him. “Aren’t you that guy my dad used to listen to on the radio?”

“Verily,” Worleigh said, looking pleased that he’d been recognized. “I was faithful to preach the Word of God —” he pronounced it Gowd-a, lifting the improbably large Bible — “a generation ago, to those who had an ear to hear. As Satan cannot stand to hear the true Word of Gowd-a, he so lifted up those of his worshippers whose religion they are pleased to call multiculturalism. They in turn did the devil’s dirty work, speaking all manner of lies and gossip against The Lord’s servant until I was banished from the airwaves. Yet have I continued my ministry, out of sight of those who would do all the Lord’s servants harm, unto this very day.

“Of course, I speak freely among you, for I perceive you are friends of Gowd-a. You have been doing His work in this modern-day Gomorrah, have you not?”

“Yeah,” said Jared, scuffing a tennis shoe on the pavement. “Not that it turned out so well.”

“You failed in your purpose, as did the disobedient Jews after Gowd-a doomed them to wander in the wilderness, for you put your trust in your worldly weapons and not the sword of his Word-a.”

“In Remington we trust,” Ray-Ban grinned, patting the barrel of his shotgun.

“Verily, that is the attitude that defeated you. You use the righteous tools that Gowd-a has given unto you. But instead of putting your trust in the tool, put your trust in the Maker of all things! Do not raise up the made thing to be your Gowd-a! For thus you worship a false idol, and cut yourself off from the power of the Lord-a!

“But lo, I tell you a mystery: the sodomite and the nigra hath fled this place. They have received a warning from their dark master, for I saw them on bicycles, fleeing north as if the agents of Hell were fast on their heels! And yet, they shared the highway with those selfsame agents —” he pointed at a line of pickups gliding by — “in which the damned souls of this world even now are being tortured in their own rolling Hells-a! The Lord has verily brought His rapture to bear, but He instead chose to take up the billions of unrepentant sinners and allow them to witness the Tribulation from the so-called freedom of the highway!

“But some Gowd-a chose to leave behind, righteous and unrighteous alike, that they might personally witness His mighty hand at work. For verily the seven years of tribulation, spoken of in His holy word-a, have begun. The evildoers have fled Gomorrah, but do not think that in so doing they shall escape the judgement! For Gowd-a has tested you, and found you wanting — but without His power, are we not all to be found wanting? You were laid low by the work of your own hand — are you now ready to be lifted up to bear witness to the work of the hand of the Lord?”

All of them nodded or grunted, Steve even cheered. “Then return to your homes. Keep the commandments of Gowd-a, and keep the calendar. On the first day of the new year, I shall meet you at this very place, Lord willing. Then you shall be anointed to move in the power of Gowd-a, and be victorious in Him. The sins of the evildoers will surely find them out, and the righteous shall inherit the Earth to build His new Jerusalem! Go now, to your homes, and await the appointed time.”

continued…

White Pickups, Episode 28a

This one ran a little long, so I split it in two. The second half goes up tomorrow at 7.

---

Contents

Saturday, September 24, 2011

Six men played poker in a conference room at the Marriott Suites; a seventh watched the rain outside the window with a rifle slung across his back. Other firearms lay within easy reach of the poker players. All wore jackets against the chill that had worked its way inside several days ago.

“Jared. Hand me a beer,” the man at the window said, not looking back.

“You sure?” Jared looked up from his hand. He had a pair of sixes; he planned to go up big if he drew another six.

“If I wasn’t sure, I would’na asked, numbnuts.” He continued to watch the rain. “You gonna ask more stupid questions or what?”

Jared opened the cooler next to him and fished a Miller Lite out of the tepid water. “Geez Frank, you don’t have to get so pissy about it. We’re runnin’ low here. You were the one talkin’ about cuttin’ back until we went and got some more.”

“Whatever.” Frank looked back at the poker table; Jared tossed him the beer, letting it flip end over end in the air. “You asshole. I’m gonna open this over your head.”

Jared ignored him and addressed the table: “Y’all want one while I got my stinky feet in there?”

A chorus of assent; Jared sent cans around the table. “One left. I guess Joseph gets it when he comes back.”

“If he comes back,” Ray-Ban said. He’d perched the mirrored sunglasses that gave him his nickname on top of his head (where they wouldn’t reflect his hand to the others). “Retard. Shouldn’t have gone off ‘to reconnoiter’on his own.”

“Not like we did so well as a group,” one of the Bobs said over the pops and hisses of beer cans opening around the room. “J.D. shot the faggot that came out to talk, then that fat nigger shot J.D. and almost got me, that skinny queer with the ponytail took out Thurman, Jesse, and Sid: pop, pop, pop, one right after the other. Then W.L. and Charlie jump in the trucks. Six of us, gone in thirty seconds. What the fuck are we doing here, anyway? We oughtta either be goin’ home or goin’ up big.” He pushed most of his worthless cash, looted from nearby establishments, into the middle of the table. “Just like that. Go big or go home. I don’t care which, anymore.”

“What, and tell everyone the faggots chased us off?” Frank spat.

“Who says anyone’s gotta know? We took some losses, but we wiped out a big ol’ nest of gang-bangers,” Jared said. “We get our story straight right here in this room, and nobody will know different.” He looked at the ante. “Screw this. I fold. I’m ready to go home.” He stared at the others around the table.

“Me too,” said Ray-Ban, pushing his cards into the middle of the table. The other Bob did likewise.

“Chickenshit,” Frank opined, pointing his beer can at Jared and pulling the tab. It snapped, but made no other noise. “Ah, shit. It’s flat.”

“Nope,” Jared said. “I popped it before I tossed it!”

The others laughed. “You’re smarter than you look,” Frank said, tipping his can back. “Sometimes, anyway.”

“Yeah. So maybe this is the smart thing to do. Pack it up. This is just a frickin’ waste of time. And friends. I bet we don’t see Joseph again either. That makes seven. Half of us, just… gone.”

Ray-Ban pulled his glasses down. “That’s somethin’ to think about. If we couldn’t get the job done with fourteen, what makes you think we can do it with seven? Huh, Frank?”

“Fuck you,” Frank said, staring back out the window. After a long pause, “If the rest of y’all wanna go home, fine. I guess I’ll make sure you don’t get lost on the way. We can pack it up tomorrow.”


Sunday, September 25

The seven of them trudged west through intermittent rain to US41 then north, sticking to sidewalks where they could, ducking under awnings or storefronts when the rain got heavy, watching the pickups pass them by. All of them at one point or another thought how nice it would be to hitch a ride — which always seemed to happen where one of the trucks had stopped — but nobody wanted to take W.L. and Charlie’s way out.

The rain let up as they sighted the I-75 overpass. As they drew closer, Frank snarled, “Cover!” and ducked behind a parked pickup; the others scrambled to follow. Everyone tried to ignore the whispering: No more fear. No more fighting. No more hiding. Climb in. Why walk?

“What is it?” Ray-Ban hissed.

“Someone on the overpass,” Frank said. He detached the scope from his deer rifle and peered through it. “Doesn’t look armed,” he said. “Tough shot from this distance, and if he hasn’t seen us, he would before I could get closer.”

“Hey,” one of the Bobs said. “If there’s only one of him, and he ain’t armed, what are we all worried about? He might could help us, and if not, we can always shoot him.”

“If he ain’t armed, how could he help us?” Jared snapped. “But what the hell. He might have something up his sleeve, or he might just jump off the damn bridge. Either way, we can take him if he gives us any guff. As long as we don’t assume anything.”

“Works for me,” Frank said, surprising Jared. “Worst thing that happens, we all get killed. Still ain’t as bad as some things I can think of.” He glared at the pickup; its whispering grew quiet for a moment.

continued…

Knock Me Over…

The Boy got a rather large tax refund, due to having a real job much of the year. Against my better judgement, he (with Mrs. Fetched’s not-so-tacit approval) talked me into getting him a “Valve King half-stack” (a rather large speaker with a vacuum tube amp for that “just so” sound) and he would pay me back the $1000 that it cost when he got his refund. He was into Mrs. Fetched for a similar amount.

Well, knock me over with a feather: he got his refund, for whatever reason, on a Visa cash card — but the ATM would let him withdraw $400 at a time as many times as he wanted. Yesterday, that’s what we did, and Mrs. Fetched and I both got our $1000 in cash.

Off to the bank tomorrow… and I had a rather large tax refund myself this year. Just in time to drop $200 on a 2TB outboard hard drive, and that’s what I’ll put my photos on.

I’ve gotten out of the habit of posting these short but frequent updates. I should get back to doing them.

Looking Up!

Friday’s only a few hours away, after all! Not to mention spring sproinging up here on Planet Georgia… and health insurance reform passing… and Nathan “Raw” Deal resigning (when you live among pod people, no reprehensible is A Good Thing). Even Monday at work was pretty tolerable. Sure, there was a meeting that took all afternoon (and I mean all afternoon), but it was about some user interface issues — for the longest time, it seemed that I was the only one in the company who cared enough about that to make any noise about it — so there’s finally some progress on that front.

Mason has pretty much mastered the walker that we picked up for him in Florida. He managed reverse gear almost immediately, but now he’s got forward down pretty well. He’ll trundle right up to whatever he wants to get his little mitts on. In fact, that got him his first hand-slap yesterday: he was trying to grab the lamp cord and Mrs. Fetched gave him his first taste of a word he’ll soon love to hate — “NO!” He let out quite the wail over that one.

I worked at home the last two days, which meant I got a fair amount of Mason time when I should have been working. But it wasn’t too bad; I was reading specifications (which I can do one-handed) and held him until the text knocked him out cold (it almost got me today too). He’s had a bit of an upset stomach the last couple of days, and I have trouble remembering to not jounce him around — he loves it, but it can lead to a mess…

For reasons I can’t figure out, this has been a week for making cookies. I got bored Sunday night, got out the Betty Crocker cookbook and the bag of chocolate chips, and had at it. Mrs. Fetched decided to throw two cents in and got the white chocolate chips into the mix, so we had piano-keyboard chocolate chip cookies. They lasted… until Tuesday night. So last night, I went to get a cookie, and there already weren’t any (except a few I took to the office with me, hee hee), so I grabbed the cookbook again and started peanut butter cookies. Mrs. Fetched once again threw in two good cents and replaced the jar of Jif with some “natural” peanut butter. Much more tasty that way… of course, I didn’t read far enough down the recipe when I started and I got to the part “chill at least 3 hours.” Seeing as it was already 9 p.m., I tossed them in the fridge overnight and finished them this morning. Again, I filched a few for the office, but the rest of the crew has already made a serious dent. Mrs. Fetched suggested I double the recipe next time, and that might be a good idea. For the record, I’m not sure what kind I’ll make next.

Next week’s White Pickups is going to be a double-feature: it ran a bit long, so I split it in half and will run it Monday and Tuesday mornings. I think I’ve figured out the rest of the story, I just need to hook up the pieces I have and write some other pieces. A sequel is already suggesting itself, but maybe it’ll let me bang on some short stories and a few FAR Future spinoffs I want to mess with.

I think I’m going to slip into bed a little early this evening, maybe I’ll be able to get up early and take my time getting going…

White Pickups, Episode 27

Contents

Tina stood before the entire group, gathering inside the clubhouse after lunch. In a distant past, little more than a week ago, the “Laurel Room” was available for events too large to host in a house. It was more than enough to accommodate everyone, overlooked the pool, and had its own pool access. There were plenty of chairs, but most of the newcomers stood to rest their sore saddle muscles.

“I’d like to welcome all of you to Laurel Hills,” Tina said. “Some of you may know, I’m Tina Ball — Charles’s ex-wife. We’re going to try to be civil to each other for the duration.” A few nervous laughs. “Actually, it’ll be me with the trying part — Charles has always been civil.” More laughs.

“There are nearly two hundred detached homes in this subdivision, and thirty-two townhouses. Although you’re welcome to pick out a house if you like, we think the townhouses might be your best choice, for several reasons — not the least of which is that all of them have fireplaces, they’re next to the clubhouse, and they’ll require much less fuel to keep warm this winter. Those of us who were already here will be moving into the townhouses ourselves in the next day or two.

“I understand that you left a lot of your belongings behind. We’ll be going out to, as Cody says, loot the mall. But I’d like everyone to see what’s in the townhouses first — you might find that the drive-offs left most of what you’ll need. Anything you can’t use, or don’t want, bring it here for anyone here who does need it… no sense taking a two-hour trip if you can just walk across the parking lot, right? Oh, and if you want a dog or cat, we’ve rescued most of them and you can adopt as many as you like.”

“’Scuse me,” Johnny Latimer said. “Where are y’all getting your gas? Any chance we can get our hands on some generators too?”

“We’re siphoning from the holding tanks at the QuickFill. My daughter Kelly worked there, so she knew where to find the keys. As for getting your own generator… you might find one, but bringing it home is the hard part. Besides, once the fuel’s gone, we won’t be getting any more.”

“You guys know gas goes bad, right?” someone called from one of the standing areas. “After a few months, it won’t be any good unless we dump preservative in it.” The group murmured for a few moments. “Besides, Tina’s right. It’s a temporary thing. We need to start thinking about what we’ll be doing when we don’t have gas anymore.”

“What about solar panels?” Cleve said. “Windmills, for that matter. We could hook something up, that should give us enough power to make ice or charge up batteries. Just Google for ‘Atlanta solar panels’ — oh.”

“Yeah,” Kelly said dryly. “Kind of hard to Google anything when the Internet’s gone.”

“Oh, for goodness sakes!” an older white woman snapped from the back. “Haven’t any of you heard of the Yellow Pages? There has to be a printed phonebook in this godforsaken suburb!”

“Should be one in the office, ma’am,” Tina said. “The door in back goes into the lobby, the office will be on your right.” She huffed and walked to the door. Tina continued, “I think electricity falls into the ‘nice to have but not essential’ bucket. What’s going to be more important, going forward, is securing a clean and reliable water source. Bottled water, like everything else we’ve scavenged from various convenience stores and supermarkets, won’t last forever. We can collect rainwater, but you’re all aware we can go six weeks or more without significant rain here, usually during the summer when we need it most. Surface water is suspect, but we can probably filter it with some effort. We can boil it, if we have a reliable fuel source, but that’s also going to be a critical issue going forward —”

“Sunlovers Solar!” the older woman said, bursting back in and waving a thick phone book. “60-something Buford Highway, Norcross! I can’t read that tiny print like I used to.” She handed the phone book to Tina, open to the right page.

“Thank you, Ms. —”

“Sally McMinn. If you want to be formal about it, Ms. Sally will do.”

“Okay, Sally. We’ll look into it. But as I was saying, our fuel and clean water supplies are what we should be focused on at the moment. Later, but not much later, we also need to start planning our crops for next year. Does anyone here have experience in gardening or farming?”

All the newcomers turned to Jason Graham, a tall thin black man. “Yeah,” he said, standing up, “I help with the Urban Gardens project. Or did. We gardened in vacant lots and people’s yards, taught low-income folk how to grow some of their own food. But we got — what, thirty, thirty-five people here? We’re gonna need a lot of land, especially if we’re gonna grow enough to live on. Guess we don’t got a choice, though.”

“Would you object to being in charge of the effort, then? It’s critical that we do this right.”

“Sure. But Ms. Sally there ain’t no slouch at the gardening, either. You’d be amazed at what she pulled out of her little postage stamp of a back yard this summer.” Sally smiled and folded her arms, nodding at Jason.

“We should also consider hunting and foraging,” another man said. “Not so much here in the subdivision, it’s too well-manicured — but I saw a stand of blackberry vines on the way, close to here, and there’s plenty of edible weeds around. But foraging, along with hunting and fishing, could see us through if we have crop trouble or just underestimate how much we need to plant.”

“Excellent,” Tina said. “Can you show us what to look for and so forth?”

“Sure. My name’s Ben Cho, by the way. I brought my field guide with me, and I’m sure we can find a few more when we go to the mall. We’ll swing by a bookstore or something.”

“Good idea,” Jason said. “We can grab some extra gardening books while we’re there. I brought a couple of mine with me, but we should make sure we have as many copies as we can lay hands on.”

“We could set up this room as a sort of common area,” Charles said. “Until we get some longer-term power sources, we’d only have to light up one place in the evenings instead of twenty or thirty, right?”

“I had the same thought,” Tina said. “It will give everyone a chance to get to know each other, and I really didn’t want this building to go to waste. In fact, I considered the possibility of having us all living in here, until Cody pointed out that the high ceiling and this glass wall facing the pool would make it difficult to heat in the winter. There’s a workout room and utility areas downstairs, which we can put to use during the winter, but this will be convenient until it gets cold.

“Well, I suppose we need to start getting people matched up with their new places. If nobody objects, we’ll let the biggest groups get first pick. Does that sound fair?” Nobody objected. “Great. If you haven’t done it already, you might want to talk among yourselves to form a larger group. There are three-bedroom townhouses at each end of the rows — four of them. Of course, being on the end and being as large as they are, they’ll be hardest to heat. Most of the others are two-bedroom, except for eight one-bedroom units in the middle of the building. Floor plans are here on this table.”

“We’re going to get one of these, right?” Sondra squeezed Cody’s hand.

“I guess so,” Cody said. “I keep thinking I — we — don’t need to move ’cause I already got my own place, but I guess a one-bedroom place would be easier to keep warm in the winter.”

“Good. Let’s sign the list. One-bedroom preference.” They walked to the table.

continued…

So Happy It’s Thursday

Mason had his 6-months checkup last week. Yup, ½ a candle now. His weight and size are right at the 50^th percentile, meaning he’s dead-on average size for a kid his age. Our doc did say his head’s a little bigger than normal, to which a wide-eyed Snippet went, “What does that mean?” (It means he has some extra storage for the spare brains he inherited from his granddad, silly!) He’s cut three teeth now, and is continuing same, but at least he’s back to sleeping through the night. He adjusted to DST by the simple expedient of ignoring it, and he’s up — up? rockin' and rollin', more like — until 11:30 or even midnight now. At least he sleeps past 8.

He loves his Auntie Dearest, and gets excited just hearing her voice on the phone. We’re all (well, all of us but Snippet) looking forward to her coming home this weekend.

The Boy’s band had their first gig, and it went pretty well as such things go — they had maybe 30 people there, most of whom know one or more of the band members personally. Jake, the front guy, broke a string on the first number and they had to stand around for a few minutes while he made a quick field repair. I suggested to The Boy that they put together something they can play three-handed to buy some time for the next occurrence, something about a broken string (maybe a bikini string).

If you’ve never been to the Masquerade (a pretty good guess), it’s in an old factory/warehouse building and they have three stages which they’ve dubbed Heaven, Purgatory, and Hell. The latter is where the no-names go to perform, but they did put their name on the marquee (except that it was rendered “22 to 7” instead of “22s at 7”). The same night, Infected Mushroom (a psy-trance act, my kind of music) was playing in Heaven. Since 22s at 7 opened the evening festoovities, if I’d known a bit earlier I’d have planned to slip upstairs afterwards and enjoy the music. But 22s at 7 isn’t bad — they sound a bit like Molly Hatchet. The guy who booked them for the Masquerade was happy enough with the performance that he said he would book them for a venue in Buford next month.

Some money shook out at the last minute, so I was able to buy my own ticket. After being assured repeatedly that bringing a camera would be no problem… it wasn’t a problem. I guessed right on my lens choice — 50mm f1.8 — and after a few exposure checks, cranked the ISO up past 1000 and let ’er rip. I put the SpeedLite in my cargo pocket, but it wasn’t necessary. The built-in flash lit up the venue way beyond what I expected, exposing (no pun intended) an ugly concrete-block wall behind the stage. I’m surprised they haven’t put a black drop-cloth over that wall, or even painted it. The SpeedLite would have been overkill, so it stayed in my pocket for the duration. There’s more pictures if you want to see them. Canon’s “Digital Photo Professional” software did a pretty good job of correcting the white balance and cleaning them up in general, in addition to being a really nice way to sort through the pile of shots and quickly delete the blurred or malfocused pictures. Much faster than Photoshop Elements for batch-fixing stuff like this.

Snippet reaaalllllly stepped in it afterwards — a couple of guys from Ether (the punk band that The Boy used to play in) showed up, but got there late and missed the set. Completely forgetting the connection, she gushed, “These guys sound a lot better than Ether did! Ether kind of sucked.” They laughed it off… Raymond (their bass player) said “it was punk, it’s supposed to suck.” Their front guy moved away, so Ether is all but dead. Long live Ether, I guess… they’ll live on archive.org, anyway.

White Pickups, Episode 26

Contents

Friday, September 23, 2011

“Rush hour” was one of many things the white pickups carried away. What they brought in its place was a near-constant stream of light traffic, day and night. The first group, led by Charles and Max, left immediately after breakfast and a hurried conversation with Tim and Cleve.

“Keep them in single file, mostly,” Tim said. “Most of them know what they’re doing. I think your biggest problem, though, is going to be reminding Stefan and Palmer to not get ahead of you. I’m more worried about dogs than people, but either way…” he waved his hands. “You guys be safe, okay? I’ll see you at the clubhouse.”

“You too,” Charles said. “Don’t feel bad about pushing the laggards if they’re going too slow. See you there.” He took the lead and they rode away.

“… we can come back for stuff later if you decide you want it,” Cleve was telling the newbies as Tim joined them. “You got water, sport drinks, energy bars, and y’all took your potassium tablets, right?” Everyone nodded. “Good. Red, you got anything you wanna tell ’em?”

“Just stay together,” Tim said. “Ride single file, give the person in front of you enough room so both of you are comfortable. If you have any kind of problem, pull off to the side and call out. If anyone behind you says they’re stopping, pass the word up so everyone knows to stop. It’s better if you don’t cramp or wear yourself out in the first place, so pace yourself. No shame if you have to walk your bike up a steep hill. We’re not racing the other guys, or each other, we’re trying to get somewhere. Remember to breathe slow and deep while you’re going uphill, so you don’t get dizzy. Janet will ride the line and give you some tips if she thinks you need them, or if you ask. We’ll start off by going a mile or two, see how everyone’s doing, and make adjustments as needed.

“Everyone ready?” They all nodded or voiced agreement. “Then lead us out, Cleve.”

To Tim’s surprise, the oldest — even the trike riders — kept up well, and they made reasonable time. Everyone was willing to push on after the first two miles, so Tim let them continue on to the first five-mile stop, then tightened a couple of loose axles and cables. Everyone was glad for the rest, but ready to move out after Tim finished his adjustments. Occasional clouds and a light breeze kept the morning pleasant. Nobody developed cramps or wore out, and everyone was in good spirits by the time they reached the exit to Laurel Hills shortly after 11:30.

“Hey, we really are gonna make it in time for lunch!” Cleve grinned. “Red, you lead us in, you know the way.” Tim took the lead for the last two miles and brought them to the gate where Sara waited.

“Is this everyone?” Sara asked Tim, opening the gate. “The others have been here a couple hours.”

“They must have took their time, then,” Tim said. “Any trouble?”

“Max said he shot at a dog that got too close, but that was it.”

“Great. It’s good to see you.”

“Yeah, you too. Get ’em all in here, and we’ll get on up to the clubhouse. Cody and that Sondra girl are grillin’ up a storm.” A stray breeze carried the smell of food. “I think some of your friends worked up an appetite.”

“I dunno about Red there,” Cleve grinned, “but I sure did. He might-a wore himself out keeping his speed down, but that’s all.” They mounted up and Tim led them to the clubhouse, Cleve glancing back at Sara before the gate disappeared around the first curve.

The first group cheered as they walked in. Several of them splashed in the chilly pool; others sat or stood with drinks and snacks. A generator chugged in a far corner, powering the pool filter and a refrigerator inside the clubhouse. Charles napped in a lounger; Max chatted with Tina and Kelly. Cody and Sondra waved to Tim from two grills standing side-by-side.

“I made him save you one!” Sondra said, handing Tim a beer from the cooler at their feet.

“Hey, it’s even cold!” Tim said, opening it up.

“Yeah, that stuff is pretty nasty otherwise,” Cody said. “I guess when we can’t make ice anymore, we’ll have to save it for winter.”

“Sooner or later, we’ll be making wine or moonshine,” Tim said. “A college buddy of mine used to make his own beer, but Lord knows if we could do it now.”

“Why not?” Cody said. “There’s probably a store that sold supplies over by the mall.” He turned back to the grill and checked the meat. “The fish is done, burgers are about done. The chicken and steak will take a little longer.”

“I guess you have that worked out, then,” Tim said, sipping his beer. “I think I’ll go change, maybe take a dip, and you should have it all ready by then.” Several others who rode up with Tim jumped in the pool without bothering to change. “Too bad this isn’t indoors,” he said. “If we could figure out how to keep it warm through the winter, we could have a public bath like they did in the Roman days.” He looked around. “Everyone we know, the people who didn’t drive off, are here… and we’re not even enough to crowd a suburban community pool.” Tim shook his head and walked off.

“Now there’s an encouraging thought,” Cody said, flipping the burgers. “If there’s other people around, I sure hope we start finding them soon.”

“We will,” Sondra said, scratching Cody’s back and making him smile. “At least, we’d better. We cleaned up a lot more than thirty places while Tim was gone.”

“Yeah, I don’t want that effort to go to waste. Speaking of which, the burgers are done.” Cody lifted them to the warming rack. “Do I dare ask you to hand me a couple of plates?”

“Any time.” She kissed him and went to the table where they piled the supplies.

continued…

The Politics of “Enough”

My last day off was Wednesday, and a friend of ours (the Evil Twins’ dad) gave a call just to see what was up, and as he admitted, because he was bored. This guy is a religious-right type, but not into teabagger territory; he supported Huckabee in the primary and voted the way his preacher told him to in the general.

Anyway, he likes to ramble from topic to topic, and the incoming rain led to discussion of water issues in general — primarily the drought that we left behind for now. Water politics is pretty complex on Planet Georgia, when it’s not a complete hairball. Lake Lanier is one of several Corps of Engineers reservoirs, but seems to draw the most attention since it’s Atlanta’s primary water supply. The lakefront counties want some of the water themselves, the (mostly) wealthy lakeshore property owners want their docks to stay afloat, Atlanta and smaller cities downstream want a drink, and there has to be a certain amount of water in the Apalachicola to maintain barge traffic. None of this was an issue 20 years ago, when we had an even worse drought (the pasture here looked like a Marscape), before people started flooding into Atlanta and points mostly north. At some point, the population and its water demands exceeded the minimum supply. I pointed out that limiting further development would go a long way toward preventing even worse problems in the future. And he said…

“But when you talk about limiting growth, you’re also hurting income!”

“Well, what would you rather have?” I asked. “Income, or a drink of water?” He changed the subject.

A lot of the problems we’re facing today — climate change, peak oil, water and soil depletion, the economy, etc. — stem from an inability (or more likely, willful refusal) to determine how much is enough. People cruise along with their lives and careers, perhaps with a vague notion that their locale or the world are reaching carrying capacity in some aspects, but make no attempt to do anything about it. Perhaps they expect someone else to solve “the problem” (which, as the Archdruid is fond of saying, is actually a predicament); perhaps they are afraid to make waves at home or work. The result, in either case, is the same.

“Enough” is a good place to be. A small, slightly ratty-looking car is fine for getting me to work and back and is less likely to be molested by thieves or vandals. Enough house costs less than too much house, in terms of both mortgage and utilities. Enough income… well, with FAR Manor, there’s never enough income, but if the expenses would go away you can bet I wouldn’t be working so much. Enough commerce would support a stable population without creating environmental issues. I could go on, but you get the point.

The problem is, finding a politician brave enough to say “enough.”

Spring #3 Comes In Like a… TS02?

Daughter Dearest and I returned from vacation to find Spring #3 ramping up. It quickly got to be nearly as warm as it was in Florida last week — but both of us had our priorities in order: 1) Mom and Solar-bro; 2) 550 miles from the chicken houses; 3) The weather. Monday was productive; I gathered up a bunch of firewood that had been at least partially cut and The Boy did most of the splitting while I stacked. Mrs. Fetched deemed the resulting stack “impressive.” I’m going to do a lot of cutting this spring, then we’ll have (mostly) dry firewood come next fall.

But Spring #3 can be the wild one of the bunch, even if it’s going to be the “real” spring this year (we might get a Winter #4, but it would have to be mild and short). DoubleRed and I came home this evening to a TS02 in progress, with Mrs. Fetched sort of refereeing and Mason watching with frank interest. Snippet finally huffed off and went upstairs, leaving The Boy (who had been simmering in the lounge chair) to fill me in on the details. Apparently, this has been something that’s been going on for a while — maybe since the big TS02 over Valentine’s Day (VD) weekend. Mason was a bit more concerned than he let on; he let out a loud squawk of relief right in my ear a few minutes later.

I should have expected something like this: Snippet dropped SN05, SN08, and SN09 errors on me just this morning; The Boy has been throwing TB22 and TB25 errors a lot as well. Turned out that the day after DD and I vacated, Mrs. Fetched lowered the boom on them both — and they both straightened up and took care of business (and Mason) much better than before. It carried forward, as The Boy did pretty good with the firewood.

Speaking of Mason, I noticed a couple changes when we returned — his hair is a little thicker and his face a bit chubbier. He also caught a cold, poor guy. I had him yesterday afternoon and he started getting fussy… making “I’m hungry” complaints. I made some formula, used about half of it in a bowl of cereal for him, and started feeding. He took four or five bites and started crying like he’d been slapped — I checked to make sure he hadn’t gotten pinched in the high chair — then got him out. As usual, by the time I got to the bedroom he’d stopped crying… but he started moaning a little, which is his “I’m tired” noise. Shortly after, the “hungry” noises began and DoubleRed offered him another spoon of cereal. He clamped his mouth shut, so I asked her to make another four oz. of formula and add it to what I’d made. This made a full 8 oz. bottle; I offered that to Mason and he started chowing… and chowing… and chowing. He finally dozed off when there was a couple thimbles of formula left — whew! — then slept for two hours. Smart kid, he knew he needed his fluids.

Yesterday, I did something I probably don’t do enough of — exercised grandparent’s prerogative. I had Mason in the lounge chair, standing in my lap, when he bent over and started grunting. The radiation alarms went off a few minutes later, and I gave him (and his atomic diaper) to Snippet to decontaminate.

The Boy’s band — 22s at 7 — will be playing at the Masquerade (in Atlanta) this weekend. He really wants me to come, but with money as tight as it is I told him he might have to buy my ticket. :-P They spelled the band’s name wrong on the ticket, which I suppose is a rite of passage for new acts, but he doesn’t seem to care.

Well, it’s back to the office tomorrow. I checked my email yesterday evening and the place hadn’t caved in yet, so tomorrow and Friday will be spent on some administrivia and maybe even getting some work done. Will Snippet leave The Boy? Will The Boy finally land that music career he’s wanted for over half his life? Will Mrs. Fetched ever get some rest? Stay tuned…

White Pickups, Episode 25

Contents

Thursday, September 22, 2011

The vote went as Charles predicted: a few voiced doubts, but in the end everyone voted to leave for Laurel Hills. They deployed extra sentries for the night, in case Joseph returned with friends, but only the pickups disturbed them. Tim joined the sentries after a few sleepless hours, and stayed with the shifts through dawn.

After breakfast, Cleve (who had slept little better than Tim) accompanied Tim to the bicycle shop. Each of them carried their damaged bicycle, weapons, and a pack. A twenty-minute walk brought them to their destination, Midtown Velo. The previous owner — or last employee — had left the door unlocked, and Cleve pushed it open as Tim watched the street.

“Clear,” Cleve said. “Nothing’s changed since Friday.”

The cash register had been rifled and left askew on the counter, but otherwise the place seemed unmolested. Tim lit a lantern, cleared a space under the counter to stash the cash register, then assembled a camp stove from his pack.

“What’s that for?” Cleve asked.

“Coffee,” said Tim, lifting a small kettle and a jar of instant coffee out of his pack. “Not exactly Jamaica Blue Mountain — but after last night, I’m gonna need it to get through the day.” He filled the kettle from two water bottles, set it on the stove, then lit it. “I brought us a couple mugs, just in case there’s no styrofoam cups here.”

“Good idea. I’m gonna need some of that too. What are we gonna do while we’re waiting?”

“Take inventory. Find us some new wheels. I think our tires and tubes are okay, I’ll just swap ’em over.”

Tim found the shop both well-stocked and well-equipped; he quickly found suitable replacement wheels for his own bike and Cleve’s. After swapping the tires and straightening brake levers and shifters, he rode them up and down the street and pronounced them fit for service.

They found some folding chairs in the work area, and took two out to the sidewalk with their coffee. They sat, watching the sun try to burn through the clouds as the occasional pickup whispered by, doing their best to enjoy the coffee. “I never did get used to drinking this stuff black,” Cleve said, taking a cautious sip.

“Aha,” Tim said, digging some packets out of a pants pocket. “I knew I was forgetting something. Cream and sugar?”

“Red, you are a lifesaver!” Cleve grinned, tearing open several packets after giving them a bare glance. He sloshed the contents around and took a second sip. “Ahhh. Much better!”

Tim poured a creamer packet into his own cup. “Yeah. Stuff’s almost palatable now, huh?” He yawned, blew on the coffee, and took a big gulp.

They sat for a while, quiet except for slurping and the occasional yawn. “You ready for the tune-up group?” Cleve asked at last, lifting the walkie-talkie.

“Sure, bring ’em on. I can get another cup while they’re coming,” Tim said.

Fifteen of the city folks already had bicycles, with various amounts of riding experience; they arrived in groups of three. Tim went over each bike, adjusting brakes, shifting, and spokes, and replacing the rare worn part. A few of the occasional riders requested and received upgraded components. After breaking for lunch, which Charles brought with the last trio, it was time to tackle the eleven newbies. Many of them had not ridden a bike since their teen years; the oldest two were unsteady enough or lacked enough confidence that Tim gave them adult trikes. This took the rest of the afternoon and Tim finished with his last three customers around 6 p.m. Tim picked out a new cargo trailer from the shop’s stock and loaded it with enough spare parts to refit several bicycles before he and Cleve escorted the final group home, riding slowly and giving them pointers.


After supper, Tim gulped down another mug of coffee and addressed the entire group: “You have a twenty-mile ride ahead of you tomorrow. That sounds like a lot to some of you, but an easy pace would get you there in two hours without stops. We’re going to make it a really easy pace — I’m expecting the last of us to arrive about four hours after we begin, including rest breaks every five miles or so. That means if we leave right after breakfast, we’ll be there in time for lunch.” That drew a few laughs, and broke a latent tension among the newbies.

“For some of you, this ride will be no big deal. You could get there in an hour, maybe a little longer, if you know where you were going.” More laughs. “But I’ll need at least one of you experts to accompany Cleve and me with the newbies. We’ll be pulling trailers with extra water, spare parts, and tools. Before, this wouldn’t have been so important — but now, we’re all we’ve got. No sweeper van to carry extra stuff or pick up breakdowns, no family to call on if there’s trouble.

“So when you pack your things, think of what is absolutely irreplaceable. Suburbia is well-stocked with the junk of everyday life, so you can leave nearly everything here. If you haven’t been using it the last few days, you probably won’t need it. The lighter you travel, the easier it’s gonna be on all of us. Don’t forget to take your potassium tablets in the morning; we don’t want any leg cramps.

“The people who are used to riding will go with Max and Charles. Cleve and I will lead the second group. The two leaders in each group will always be first and last, so we don’t lose anyone. We will stay together, which means everyone in the group will ride no faster than the slowest member. If you’re in the first group and feel you’re slowing the others down, you can drop back and hook up with us. But let Max and Charles know so they won’t come looking for you!

“We’ll take breaks every five miles or so, unless the entire group wants to push on. Don’t pressure someone who wants a break, and if you need a break, don’t be shy about saying so. You will all need to stretch, drink some water, and get off your butts for a few minutes anyway. Some of you will be sore afterwards, it’s not the end of the world.”

“Yeah, that already happened!” someone shouted. The others laughed.

“Right,” Tim continued. “Sore butts will heal. The ride will finish at the clubhouse, where Sondra and our hosts will have a ‘welcome home’ cookout for us, after which you’ll pick your new homes.

“We leave right after breakfast tomorrow. Each rider will have a bag with water, energy bars, and directions to Laurel Hills in case of trouble. Any questions?”

“What if it’s raining tomorrow?” one of the newbies asked.

“We ride anyway,” Tim said. “You won’t sweat as much, or overheat, so it might be better if it does rain. You can always wear a poncho.”

Nobody asked a second question. “Let’s get some sleep,” Tim said. “We’ll need all the rest we can get.”

continued…