White Pickups, Episode 54

Thursday, November 24, 2011

“I’ll have to say, this is one of the more unique weddings I’ve ever performed,” said Patterson, standing on the steps above the pool. The two couples — Sondra and Cody, Tim and Sara — stood at the bottom, flanking the preacher. The wedding party consisted of Ashley and Lily as flower girls, Max and Cleve as best men, and Tina and Jennifer as bridesmaids. The brides wore white, or at least cream-colored, dresses they found in Laurel; Tim and Cody looked decidedly uncomfortable in their found suits, but the layers did keep the late November chill at bay. The rest of the community spread across the area between the stairs and the pool. “But it gives me hope as well. After all that has happened in a few short months, there are people ready to commit themselves on this Thanksgiving Day not only to each other, but to the defiance of doom. By joining themselves in holy matrimony, they signify to us — and to the world — that the human race isn’t finished yet. Not by a long shot.

“But all the same, this is still not a step to be taken lightly. These couples have committed themselves to each other as best they could, when there was no clergy, but today they make it official — not only in the eyes of the community here, but in the eyes of God. And so, without shame or reproach, if any of you is uncertain in any way about joining yourselves in holy matrimony, speak now.” Nobody spoke. “If there exists among those of you present, any reason these couples should not be joined, speak now or forever hold your peace.” Again, silence, except for a sigh from Caitlin (or perhaps Kelly).

The ceremony went on as ceremonies have forever, even with rings — Tina knew of a jewelry store near the mall; it had been looted but Cody and Tim found plenty of modest wedding rings. Finally, as the grooms continued to kiss their brides, Patterson grinned and said, “As our couples have agreed to join their surnames as well as themselves, I present to you: Tim and Sara Karsten-Petro, and Cody and Sondra Lucado-Sifko!” The others cheered.

“Reception’s inside!” Johnny bellowed; everyone cheered again and followed the wedding party up the stairs.

As people started filling their plates, and Sheldon and Ben debated the best way to filch a beer or two without getting caught, Delphinia floated through the crowd with that eerie grace. She walked to the big window overlooking the pool and removed her Braves cap; again that shimmering blonde hair flowed down to her shoulders as she spread her arms, silhouetted against the window. Few saw that, but when she began to sing, everyone stopped and turned:

Love and joy, life and light
Witness to God’s power and might!

Sorrow, gloom, turn away
Celebrate this glorious day:
Lift your heart, feel the joy
Man and woman, girl and boy

Empty house, empty halls
All be filled by children’s calls,
As we make the world new
With the help of God so true —

Love and joy, life and light
Witness to God’s power and might!

Winter comes, cold it be,
Then spring — rebirth — glory be!
Summer, fall, moon and sun
Seasons in their courses run.

As we learn what is real,
Earth shall in her slumber heal
Love and peace unto you
Until all is made anew!

Love and joy, life and light
Witness to God’s power and might!

So rejoice, children true
Love endures, and is your due!
On the day you must part
Hold this joy close to your heart —

Though your heart wants to break
Healing pours from heaven’s lake.
For all will be made new
In heaven we will find you!

For a long moment, no one spoke, no one moved. Some said later that they’d heard harmonies, as if she sang in multiple voices. Ben and Sheldon gaped, their attempt at minor delinquency forgotten. Delphinia herself broke the silence: “Let the feast begin!” and the brides and grooms resumed filling their plates.

“Excuse me,” a small voice reached Delphinia, smiling upon the party. She looked down; Sheldon and Ben looked wide-eyed back up at her, wringing their hands. “Is there anything we can do for you? Would you like a plate?”

She gave them a blissful smile. “Why, thank you. That would be very kind.” They scurried away to join the line.

Patterson sidled up to Delphinia. “Were they bothering you? Is everything okay?”

“On this day,” she said, turning the Braves cap in her hands and watching the line, “all is love. All is light. All is laughter. Those boys will grow to be fine young men, and loving husbands to their wives. We shall mold them.”

“We?”

“Of course.” She donned her cap but left her hair and hood down, and turned to watch the sun break through the clouds and dazzle the puddles on the pool cover. Patterson watched her watch the water for a moment, then left to congratulate the newlyweds and greet the others.

“Um,” one of the boys said a little later, “we brought you your plate.” Each of them offered her a plate, heaped with food.

“Wonderful!” she said. “Let’s find a table, and ask the good reverend to join us. I believe you brought enough for us all!” She led them to an empty table, and waved Patterson over as he turned to look a question at her.

continued…

I’m Back!

Did’ja miss me?

While you count the turtles on the dock next door to Dad’s place, enjoying one of the last warm days this side of spring, I’ll ask an age-old question: what’s worse than dialup? Obviously: no Internet at all. Or perhaps Internet on a not-iPhone with a tiny screen. I actually picked up a wifi signal from a friend of Mom’s across the lake, but they wisely had it locked. I tried tethering to my new phone, but that didn’t work out either (still working on that for later needs). I was mostly able to keep up with Twitter, but that’s about it.

Anyway, we had a pretty good time visiting with Dad. We went golfing several times, until a tendon in Solar’s arm decided it had enough. I guess that’s the advantage of dealing with a baby; all the lifting kept me in good form (and I actually started getting off the tee fairly well once I slowed down my swing). We had a small party for his 80th birthday… for the things he complains about, I just hope I’m doing as well when I’m 80. We ate out (a LOT) and ate well when we ate in, too. I got more pictures, some of which will end up on Picasaweb and maybe here sooner or later.

I got home last night around 11:30 p.m. and Mason was asleep (whew!). Of course, we were getting rapidly re-acquainted at an earlier hour than I would have liked. Mrs. Fetched and M.A.E. said he called down the hall for me for a couple days after I left. He changed quite a bit in five days: his hair is a little longer and a lot thicker, and he’s gotten tall enough to reach the tabletops from the floor (eep!). He had his one-year checkup last week, and he’s still 20 lbs. — not much weight gain in the last four months, but the doc says it’s not a concern. He just runs off what he eats, and has minimal baby fat. He’s been trying to talk for a while, and hit on saying ahhhh for a drink before I left. Of course, he’s getting into anything he gets a chance to get into, often looking over his shoulder to make sure we him him doing it… then running away and laughing when he grabs something he shouldn’t.

But I digress. My first day home, I get a call from the sheriff’s office, asking me if I can pick up my car. What has The Boy done THIS time??? The dispatcher couldn’t get any info from the state trooper, who was making the bust almost right on her doorstep, but took my number and called me back when she got the info: speeding and suspended license. Turns out the second charge was bogus — he had paperwork showing he’d done what he had to do to avoid that, and the DMV agreed this afternoon — but 64 in a 45 zone is going to leave a mark… on his wallet. The Boy, of course, is in high dudgeon about it, and is ready to sue anyone he can find who’s attached to the situation. (I told him to look up “sovereign immunity” but, like Mrs. Fetched, that wasn’t what he wanted to hear so he dismissed it.)

Vacation in general was pretty nice. The week at the resort is almost like a distant memory, and don’t even ask about work (although I’ve peeked at email a few times). But today’s event was a reminder that I really need to start looking forward to my daily escape from the free-range insane asylum.

White Pickups, Episode 53b

Contents

They skirted around the ramp, still in place but beginning to show signs of wear. As always, with observers present, the trucks had paused in their mindless self-destruction. The newcomers gawked at the sight while Tim explained it to Patterson. “Glory to God,” Patterson said, “they can be destroyed. Though it be the work of generations, the land may yet be clear of this pestilence.”

Nearly everyone in Laurel turned out to catch a glimpse of the newcomers. A few even cheered, making some of them nervous. As Patterson explained later, “They’re not used to people watching them — in a friendly manner, anyway. Give them a little space, a little time, and they may yet adjust.”

At supper in the Laurel Room, the newcomers mostly kept to themselves, sitting together in one corner and watching the others. They exceptions were Patterson, working the room and introducing himself to everyone; and one of the woman, tall, pale, and thin, dressed in a worn grey cloak and baseball cap. She quietly walked around the room with an unexpected grace, stopping at each table and looking over the people, sometimes speaking a few words.

“You must be the original inhabitants,” Jeremiah said, sitting and offering his hand to Cody, Tina, Sara, Kelly, and Sondra. “Jeremiah Fortune Patterson is my name. That’s a mouthful, so you can call me anything you like.” Cody grinned.

The woman in the cloak approached the table. She gave Cody a long look, then glanced at the others before returning her scrutiny to Cody. He began to fidget; Sondra glared at her and slipped her left hand under the table. Kelly wasn’t sure if Sondra really had her gun with her, but despite the possibility of gunplay at close range, she found herself suppressing a laugh — Sondra was so dramatic —

“You got a problem?” Cody asked finally, crossing his arms and glaring at the woman. The preacher began to say something, but she spoke first.

“Thus says the Oracle,” she said, slipping back her hood and removing her cap. A cascade of striking blonde hair poured down and flowed over her shoulders. None of them had noticed just how blue her eyes were before. Kelly suddenly remembered a woman at a Celtic festival she and her mom had attended last year; she looked like this woman, and had danced while playing the fiddle… it seemed so incredible, and they both moved with a certain kind of grace. “Though you be brought low, be true to what is right. You will be raised up, and become the Abraham of the new age, a father of nations.” She fell quiet and continued to watch him.

Cody continued to stare a moment, then relaxed. “Father of nations?” He grinned and put an arm around Sondra. “That makes her the mother, right?”

The woman glanced at Sondra, then squeezed her eyes shut. Her face became a mask. “The Oracle saith not,” she said, and walked away.

Cody turned to Patterson. “What in the — the heck was that all about?”

“I don’t know. She’s always been a bit strange, even by the measure of homeless folk. She gives her name as Delphinia — just Delphinia, no last name. She’ll say things from time to time — I’ll tell you about it later — but I’ve never heard her say anything like that.”

“Spooky sh– stuff,” Cody said. “Hey. I’d like to talk to you after you get settled in.” He rubbed Sondra’s back, it felt wooden and he looked at her. She continued to watch Delphinia, the protective anger now mixed with worry. “Sondra? You okay?”

She slowly let herself relax under Cody’s gentle backrub. “Yeah,” she said. “Blondie just spooked the hell out of me is all. Don’t know why — she’s just a crazy woman, right?”

“Perhaps,” Patterson said, “but it’s impolite to refer to people that way.”

“Yeah. Sorry.”

“She might agree with you, though. Or more likely she would ignore you. But I think your friend here wanted to talk to me? Now is as good a time as any.”

“This concerns her too,” Cody said. “Let’s step outside.”

“Very well.” They rose and left.

Tina watched them go, and sniffed. “I smell… a wedding.” She smiled.

“Yeah,” Kelly said, her face a mask like Delphinia’s.

Tim and Sara looked at each other. “Wanna make it a double?” Tim grinned.

“Now you call that a proposal?” Sara laughed.

“Why not? It all comes to the same thing — you and me, forever.”

“Now you’re talkin’.” They rose and followed the others outside.

continued…

White Pickups, Episode 53a

Contents

Tuesday, November 22, 2011

“People!” Palmer yelled into the radio. “People hiking up the freeway!”

“Stand by,” Sara said. “And don’t yell.” She let go of the mike button and looked over the balcony, where most of the community was still at breakfast. “Cleve! Palmer says there’s people on the freeway!”

Sally’s voice cut through the answering hubbub from below: “Well, they invited them here, right?”

“No,” Sara shook her head, thinking Cleve woulda killed them.

“Not enough folks left to be choosy!” Sally snapped. “Tell ’em to bring ’em here!” Everyone started talking at once.

Cleve’s police whistle cut through the commotion. “Look: we’ve been expecting to find other people,” he said. “We’ve talked about it, what to do — now it’s time. Sara: tell ’em to come back. Tim can take me out there, we’ll have a chat with the newcomers, and if things check out we’ll bring ’em here. We can take care of things if they get hostile — right?”

Nobody objected. “Okay,” Cleve said, “get your acts together and we’ll see what happens.”


“Where’d they go?” Tim asked nobody, looking up and down the freeway from the overpass. The trucks, and the usual debris, were the only thing on the road on either side. “We weren’t gone long enough to lose ’em — even if they turned around, we should still be able to see ’em.”

Cleve looked around, then down. “They might be underneath us.”

“Ah!” Tim smacked his forehead. “Yeah, that could be. Let’s roll down the off-ramp and have a look.”

“Yeah,” Cleve said, and thumbed the mike button. “We think they might be underneath the overpass. We’re about to check it out.”

They coasted down the on-ramp, looking over their shoulders as they descended. They made room for a truck to pass them on the right, then cut across the apron to the shoulder — and braked quickly and dismounted as several people under the overpass stood to face them. They all looked wary, except for one who stepped out to greet them.

“I believe I know you two,” he said, a short bald man in a frayed overcoat. “You stood against a mob who would sacrifice your enemy.”

“Jeremiah Fortune Patterson!” Cleve laughed. “How could I forget a name like that!” Cleve and Tim holstered their pistols and stepped forward to shake the preacher’s hand. “How’ve you been? Who’s your friends?” He gestured toward the others, watching from the shadow of the overpass.

“Well enough, under the circumstances. As for my companions, they are my flock, those who have heeded the call to find a new dwelling place. As they are the homeless, they also might say one place is as good as another.”

“The call?” asked Tim.

“Indeed. Now I consider it disrespectful to open one’s Bible and and point to a random verse, as if one were consulting an oracle. But random phrases have been much on our minds lately, and when put together…”

“A prophecy?”

“Perhaps. Judge for yourself: ‘Behold, the city has been made desolate.’ ‘Come out of her.’ ‘I will bring you to a new place, where you may dwell in peace.’ There are others, but you get the idea: get outta Dodge.”

“So you’re the Moses of Atlanta,” Cleve chuckled. “Hey… you think any of those dreams from about a month ago had anything to do with it?”

“Ah… did we share a single dream that night? It must be true. A great Evil is loose in the world, and what is to be done…” He shrugged.

“Yeah. Where are y’all headed?”

Jeremiah gestured to his companions; they stepped forward: four men, two women. “In the words of the personal ad columns: ‘Street preacher and homeless flock seek to join non-judgmental community.’” He grinned. “It may take a while for them to get used to living in a community once again, but God will bring the healing as He sees fit.”

“Have you seen any other groups?”

Some of them shook their heads. “A few individuals,” the preacher said. “No organized groups.”

Cleve thought a second. “Well, there’s plenty of room where we’re at — we’ve taken over most of the townhouses in our subdivision. There’s a few left, but your flock might be more comfortable in a house. Maybe a halfway house of sorts. Once they get used to the rest of us, they can move into the townhouses if they want. I can’t speak for all of us, but we’ve been expecting to find other people and one of our older ladies asked why Tim didn’t invite you to our place right away.”

Tim nodded. “We’ll put it to a vote, but I don’t think anyone will object. Then you can get a meal and pick out your new places, right?”

“God’s blessings upon you and your community,” Jeremiah said. “Lead us to the promised land.” Cleve grinned and picked up the mike.


“Hey.” One of the “flock,” a black woman, called to Cleve. “You were a cop, weren’t ya?”

“I quit a year before the trucks,” Cleve said. “You can’t still smell bacon after all that time!” Cleve was playing it light, but Tim could tell by now when his friend’s defenses came up.

She half-laughed, half-cawed. “I thought I recognized you — you busted me!”

“What?”

“Yeah.” She broke from the others and moved to walk beside Cleve on the other side of his bike. “It’s you, awright. It was a year ago spring. I was out on the street, starvin’, and I needed money for food. I never turned no tricks before, but I figured one time would be okay and I could eat for a few days —”

“And you offered it up to a plainclothes cop,” Cleve shook his head. “Y’know, I kinda remember that now, but not what came of it.”

“Oh, I got eleven months at the county jail,” she said. “Which wasn’t so bad. I got to eat and I still didn’t have to turn no tricks. I got out and ran into Preacher Man back there, and he did what he could for me. Then them trucks came along…” she shuddered. “That’s some voodoo right there. I figured I’d rather starve than climb in one, y’know?

“Anyway. My name’s Elinaeya. You can call me Elly. And this time, I ain’t sellin’ nothin’.”

“Cleve Isaacs,” he grinned. “Good thing too, I’m the closest thing to a cop we got where we live. Don’t make me bust you again!”

She let that boisterous laugh loose once again. “How much longer?”

“Couple miles. It’s a short bike ride, but kind of a long walk.”

continued…

White Pickups, Episode 52

Contents

Saturday, November 19, 2011

“Hey cat,” said Cody, walking up the steps with Sondra in the evening gloom. Shady mewed at Sondra, then leaped off the top step and into Cody’s arms. He laughed and stroked the purring grey kitten.

“That’s Kelly’s kitten, right?” Sondra scratched Shady’s back, watching Cody.

“Yeah. He keeps slipping out in the evenings and waits for me here on the steps to take him home. It’s like a routine now.”

“Hm. He really likes you.”

“Yeah, me and cats have always gotten along,” said Cody. “I guess we’re both like, let us be who we are. We know each other that way.”

“Kindred spirits, I think that’s called.”

“Did he get out again?” Kelly asked, climbing the steps behind them. “I should have named him Houdini!”

Sondra looked toward the hallway, then at Kelly. “He just gets out?”

“Yeah. I mean, it’s like he can be sleeping with Cheddar in the laundry in the afternoon — and the second me or Mom open the front door, he’s gone! Then he waits for Cody.” She took Shady, who looked resigned to the situation. “He really likes Cody. God knows why.” She grinned. “’Scuse me.” She slipped around them and down the hall.

“What is it?” asked Cody, watching Sondra watch Kelly depart.

“Nothing.”

Cody would admit he knew next to nothing about girls, but even he knew (from experience with his mom) when Sondra said Nothing like that, there was something. He also guessed she would be moody the rest of the evening, and maybe tell him what he’d done wrong after he’d forgotten it ever happened. He nudged her to get her moving, and they took the short walk to their door. Down the dark hallway, Kelly stepped into #202.

“You know, we ought to string some LED lights in these hallways,” said Cody, just to break the silence. “We usually have enough juice to run a few, at least long enough for everyone to get inside for the night.”

“Hm. What about those yard lights with the little solar panels, like we have marking the path to the johns?”

“Hey… good idea. As long as everyone remembers to bring ’em back out in the day.” They stepped inside. Sondra immediately veered to the love seat and cranked her windup flashlight with more vigor than usual. The grating whine of the little generator followed Cody into the kitchen, where their cooler sat. Groping in the near-darkness for one of his last cans of beer, his hand first found the wine bottle. He stopped and thought a moment.

Sondra glanced up from her book without really wanting to, as Cody came back. He had a mug and glass in either hand.

“Something to drink.” He put the wine glass on the end table where she could reach it, then sat in the lounge chair opposite with his mug. “You wanna talk?”

She sighed, put down her copy of Virgin of Small Plains, took up the wine glass. “It’s not you, Cody. Sorry.”

“What is it, then?”

“You really don’t know.” She was not asking.

“As Johnny would say, not a freekin’ clue. Well, I added the freekin’ part, but anyway.”

She crossed her arms, wine glass in hand alongside her face. “How long has her kitten been ‘getting loose’ and greeting you?”

“Uh… Shady? I don’t know… oh. You know what? I think he did it the first night we moved in here.”

“Uh-huh. A strange coincidence, don’t you think?”

“I dunno. You know how cats are. Sometimes they don’t accept that they’ve moved right away. Sometimes it takes a couple months.”

“It’s been a couple months.”

“What… you think Kelly’s been letting him out? Why would she do that?”

Sondra sighed and took a long drink. “I don’t know, Cody. But it just doesn’t add up for me.”

“Shoot. It’s not like Kelly’s interested in me or anything.” Sondra just looked at him, and Cody gaped. “Do you really think…? No way! Just no way!” He looked toward Kelly’s end of the townhouses and glowered, curling into a prickly ball.

“Back when it was just the three of us, and even after we brought Tim and Sara back with us, I thought she was nice looking, sure. A little preppy maybe, but I didn’t know if there was anyone else our age left. You know what she told her mom? Word got around.” Sondra shook her head. “She said she didn’t want to date me even if I am the last guy on earth! But even before, I knew. She looked at me like, like I was… what is it…” He waved his free hand for a moment. “Necessary evil. That’s the vibe I got from her, she thought they had to have me around but she didn’t want anything to do with me. And that’s fine, I’m used to that…” he flapped his arm. “No way.”

“What about now? How does she look at you now?”

“I dunno. I haven’t looked at her much since I met you.”

Sondra snorted, then laughed. She stood, crossed the three steps to Cody’s recliner, draped herself across his lap, and pulled the lever to lift the footrest. “You know: for someone who thinks he doesn’t know much about girls, you sure know the right thing to say.” She kissed his forehead.

“What, the truth?”

“Don’t ever change, Cody.”

“I won’t.” He grinned. “You either. We can be ourselves forever.”

After a thorough kiss, lasting several minutes, involving much tongue and more than a little groping, Sondra sat up gasping. “I wanna read a little while longer before we go to bed, okay? I’m getting into some of the good parts.”

“We were just getting into some of the good parts here.” Cody grinned and reached under her loosened sweater, stroking her breasts one more time. “What’s it about?”

“It’s a mystery. A girl turned up dead in Bumfuck, Kansas, and the townies all tried to hush it up. It’s like twenty years later before anyone gets around to figuring out what happened.”

“Sounds more interesting than what my mom used to read. Those trashy romance books with the steamy covers, you know?”

“Yeah. There were a bunch of those laying around my old place from before my mom took off.” She climbed off the chair. “This one’s pretty good. Maybe you’d like to read it when I’m done.”

Cody laughed. “My mom used to say the only books I ever picked up had a spaceship on the cover. That’s not completely true, but…” He shrugged. “Whatever. I guess I can run back and grab my PSP, it should be charged up enough for tonight.”

“What are you playing?”

“Zombie Hunter 3. I might finish it tonight, probably tomorrow. Unless you read a long time.”

“No… I won’t be reading too much longer. Maybe an hour.” She settled back into the love seat. “Hurry back, okay?”

“Sure. Hey… I love you.”

“Love you too.” Sondra grinned as he slipped out, then went back to her book. Pretty Little Kelly might be after Cody, but he refused to believe it and didn’t seem to care even if it was true. A certain tension, that she didn’t even know had been there all this time, seeped away.

continued…

Everything Happens at Once

We came home from the resort on Friday. No big deal.

Saturday, we had another birthday cake for Mason, this one so The Boy (who was still in jail on Monday) could participate. Go check out the pictures — the last nine are from Saturday. He fed his parents each a bite of cake and I got pictures!

I also got serious about the woodpile out back on Saturday. In the photos linked here, the second pile has been completely removed and the first has taken a big hit. The Boy and I split up what was left needing splitting this afternoon. There’s still plenty to pick up and stack… I’m just trying to figure out where to stack it. What we have now might be enough to get us through the winter, especially if it isn’t too cold. I should have it all finished up by tomorrow, then I can start to finish (heh) the shower room.

Speaking of the shower room… as I came out of it this morning, I was treated to this particular sight in the bathroom. Now Andi gets to see them outside, 15 feet up in the air. Me, I get them in my personal space. It saw a bright flash, then the Atomic Flyswatter blasted it oblivion.

I don’t have a problem with spiders building their webs where I’m not going to run into them or open a cabinet door into their webs. When they get that close, it’s go time.


In the sigh department: The Boy came home last night… with Lobster. This might be construed as a TS03, but Lobster came to apologize to us for the stuff he’d done. OK, we’ll clear that alarm and move on. He got in with the Job Corps, got certified as a welder, and is hoping to find a welding job around here (sounds good, anyway). This evening, we had to run some stuff down to M.A.E., and decided to eat at the Steak & Shake where The Boy and M.A.E. used to work. The Boy met us there… with Lobster (so much for “move on”). Anyway, remember when M.A.E. and Moptop moved out? Well… her job started getting flaky soon after, with one decent manager and one Psycho Manager From Hell, and her hours got cut back. So she moved in with SPOW, her mom, at the end of the month. Mrs. Fetched predicted this would last about two weeks.

So while we’re eating, M.A.E. calls us: her mom’s having a psycho tantrum, can we come get her? Sure… why not? They got back, and I momentarily had to check my calendar to make sure it wasn’t 2005: The Boy, Lobster, and M.A.E. were all there once again, perhaps the first time since we unloaded them. The Boy took Lobster home, but M.A.E. and Moptop are here with us.

So we have The Boy/Snippet, DoubleRed, and M.A.E./Moptop. I told Mrs. Fetched I need to start hitting on the extra women, maybe they’ll move out.

Mason's Birthday [UPDATED]

A few shots from Mason's birthday party yesterday.



Click the picture to see a bunch more.

Update 9/11: we had another cake today, so The Boy could participate. I took more pix, and added nine of them to the gallery.

White Pickups, Episode 51

I can’t let this go without saying: Happy Birthday, Mason!!!!

Contents

Tuesday, November 15, 2011

The maul bounced with a hollow thunk. “Dammit!” Cody snarled, glaring at the marks in the wood.

“You wanna hear a trick?” Johnny gave him a sympathetic smile.

“I’m ready to try just about anything.”

“Okay.” Johnny touched the piece of tree trunk, about an inch from the edge, where the darker outer wood met the yellow center. “Hit it right about there. Work your way around the edge of these bigger pieces, hit ’em along the grain. Once it’s smaller, you can split it down the middle.”

Cody shrugged, took aim, swung. This time, a slab of wood about six inches wide and an inch thick split away with a satisfying tearing sound. “Ahhh,” he grinned at Johnny. “I should’ve thought of that myself.”

“I did a lot of splittin’ when I was your age. Before I was big enough to swing a go-devil, I was picking up what got split and stackin’ it. So I got to see how it was done up close before I ever had to do it myself.”

Cody turned the piece and split off another slab. “Where’d you grow up?”

“White County, outside of Cleveland. Cleveland Georgia, that is.”

“I figured. So how’d you end up down in Atlanta?”

“Long story.” Johnny wrestled a whole piece into place. He swung and hit it right in the middle: whack! it split most of the way apart.

Cody goggled. “How did you do that?”

He shrugged. “It had a big crack in the middle. If you hit it just right, sometimes they bust like that. It’s worth a try, anyway… if it don’t bust, you can always work around the edges. Anyway… I grew up around a bunch of narrow-minded people. Lots of times that happens, you grow up like them too, but it didn’t happen to me. Thank God.” Johnny finished breaking the wood apart then knocked off a piece from one of the halves. “And maybe it had to do with my granddad. He used to say, ‘It don’t matter if we don’t like how they are, it’s America and they got a right to be that way. And if you look at it from their side, they prob’ly don’t like how we are either.’ That stuck with me.” He turned the second half and broke it apart with two well-placed strokes. “Lots of people never get over the notion that anyone who’s not just like themselves ain’t normal, somehow.”

“Tribalism,” said Max, from the other side of Johnny.

“Yeah. So anyway, when I went to UGA, I found out just how different some people could be. It didn’t faze me, ’cause I remembered what Granddad said and I made some pretty good friends that I wouldn’t have wanted to take home to visit… for everybody’s sake. Matter of fact, I think Max there was finishing his last year when I started my first. Not that we ever met.

“Anyway, I majored in business. My folks really wanted me to learn a trade — you know, like an electrician — but I had a four-year scholarship. I compromised. I figured I could at least manage some kind of contractor business… the money would be better and I wouldn’t have to do real work for a living.” He laughed.

Cody hit his wood a little off-center and it split partway open. He pried it apart, using the maul to separate the slivers holding it together. “Yeah, I know what you mean. My dad probably would have gotten along with some of your neighbors. I decided a long time ago I wasn’t going to grow up to be like him. So I was kind of an outcast at school, and that described what friends I had too.” He split the remaining pieces. “But you ended up in Atlanta anyway. Roll me another one down here?”

“Yeah, I got into computers when I was in college. I saw that was the coming thing, and so I took some classes so I could at least understand the nuts and bolts of that business.” He looked around, then rolled a piece with a protruding branch off to one side. “That one’s for the hydraulic splitter. Those knots can be about impossible to break through by hand. Don’t tell Tina, but I was working for her number-one competitor. Here, try this one.”

“Hey, I had my eye on that one!” Max grinned.

“Me too!” Charles said from farther down. Kelly, who was helping her dad, walked down to Cody.

“What’s the big deal about that piece?” she asked, looking at the wood. It had a crack in the middle; Cody turned it to line it up with his swing.

“Maybe it’s gonna be an easy one,” he said. He hit the crack dead on; it split partway, snagging the maul.

“Ha! Some easy one!” Kelly grinned.

“No problem,” Cody said, pushing down on the axe handle. “It got started.” He worked the maul free and took another swing; this time, it split nearly all the way apart. “Ha! Me Ogg the Caveman! Oook oook!”

Kelly laughed. “Let me try that. Dad won’t give me a chance.” Cody shrugged and handed her the maul. “Wow… this thing’s heavy.”

“Let it do the work,” Johnny said. “Don’t try to power-drive it through the wood. It’ll do the job for you. Besides, you’ll have a better chance of hitting what you’re aiming at. And aim for the edge, about an inch in.”

Kelly nodded and raised the maul, let it drop, knocked off a chunk.

“Oook! You Klogg the Cavewoman!” Cody grunted. Kelly grinned and swung twice more, then leaned against the handle and panted.

“I think Klogg is out of shape,” she gasped. “This is a workout!” She pulled off her sweater and tied the sleeves around her neck; the tight t-shirt underneath showed a hand above and below a squashed basketball, with CAN’T DUNK THIS! printed over it.

“Yeah, why do you think I handed it over so quick?” Cody grinned, looking over the t-shirt.

“What’s going on?” Sondra said, walking up. Her voice was light, but Cody saw something flash in those dark eyes.

“Johnny and me were showing Kelly how to split firewood,” Cody said. “Um… you wanna try?”

“Sure.” Kelly passed the maul to Sondra and took several steps back. Cody thought Kelly looked both amused and a little wary at the same time… and why does Sondra look pissed?

Sondra looked at the big piece, hefting the maul. She raised it and brought it down hard with a yeaah! About a third of it tumbled away; the bigger piece fell over. The others goggled, even Johnny, then Kelly shrugged and rejoined her dad down the line. Sondra looked at Cody and laughed. “That felt kinda good,” she said. “Get some circulation in this stupid arm.” She stood the big piece back up and split it twice more, with less force. “Yeah.” She handed the maul back to Cody and picked up an armload of split wood. “Now me carry wood back to cave.”

Cody watched her go, admiring her backside for a moment before turning to Johnny. “You got any idea what that was about?”

Johnny gave Cody a wary look. “Not a clue.” But he thought: I think Sondra’s just a weeeee bit territorial.

continued…

Escape from FAR Manor?

Well… not right away.

Things have been a little slow at work, and I have all this vacation to burn, so I asked for the next three weeks off. And got it. This is going to be the longest stretch of not working I’ve had, if you don’t count the stretches where I was looking for another job. The stretch can be easily broken into three separate weeks:

Week 1: the resort, on and off. Technically, we should be there right now as I type this on Friday night, but Mrs. Fetched was tired (what a shock, I say) and we can go tomorrow. Mason’s first birthday is Monday… heehee, it was labor for Snippet anyway! And it’s labor trying to get Snippet to do much with him now. Actually, she’s been better the last couple of weeks, getting up at night with him some of the time and dealing with things in the mornings. The Evil Chickens go away Wed. night, so Mrs. Fetched will be back here at the manor. The Boy also gets out of jail on Wednesday… oh, I didn’t mention that, did I?

The Boy’s got his own week of vacation, at the Cinder Block Hilton. Seems that he came home drunk as a lord a couple weekends ago, around 4 a.m., and then he had to get screened at 6:30 a.m. (as in, 2.5 hours later). Since he’s not supposed to be drinking as a condition of probation, you can connect the dots. Well, you and I can — he had convinced himself that it wouldn’t show up.

Anyway, I also expect Week 1 to include a call or maybe two from work. I lined up the ducks as best I could, but I’m sure someone will freak out about something and get my boss involved.

Week 2: Mrs. Fetched doesn’t know about this yet. I’m going to stay around the manor and take care of unfinished business — like the woodpile that’s been patiently waiting for me since June, and finishing up the shower room. Maybe I’ll tackle the bathroom window replacement, too. Expect pictures.

Week 3: Off to North Carolina to visit Mom for her birthday. Yay, more September birthdays! (Yeah, January is a boring month otherwise, huh?) There may be a call or two from work, too, and I’ll probably start checking work email a little more carefully as I ease back into the life of a working stiff.

In between all the other stuff, I intend to get a good bit of writing done. God willing, I’ll finish White Pickups and then I can dedicate my writing time to Book II.

White Pickups, Episode 50b

Contents

In the end, they got plenty more help than they needed: just about everyone came out. Those who didn’t come to pull came to watch, and none of them would be chased off. Ms. Sally and Ms. Katie (and Stefan in his wheelchair) watched over the kids, Rita let Sondra go but stayed with Big Ben herself, and they were the only ones left behind.

Cody and Johnny tied four ropes to the framework, then tied knots in the rope for hand-holds. Nearly everyone brought gloves, for the chill as well as protection. They assigned four people to each rope, and Johnny, Palmer, Max, Charles, and Tim took up positions at the bottom. “Pull!” Johnny yelled, and the ramp began scraping across the pavement. “Wait! Wait!” Johnny waved everyone to a stop, then ducked underneath and jacked it up. “I guess we’re all anxious to try this out, huh?” Laughter from the others.

“It might work just as well that way,” Cody muttered to Sondra, Tina, and Kelly, sharing one of the inside ropes. “It won’t be as easy to get up the slope, but if something happens it wouldn’t slide back much either.”

Johnny’s cry, “Pull!” cut off any response, and everyone hauled away. The ramp rumbled up the hill; this time the extra help kept it going. The onlookers cheered as it climbed the incline up to the street. As the people at the end of each rope neared the street, they stopped and hauled on the ropes, creating some bunching-up — but the ramp was already up the steepest part of the driveway. Johnny dropped the jacks again; Cody untied the ropes and took his place with the men.

“We’ll need to turn it a bit before we get it in the road,” Cody said, pointing at the bottom of the ramp. “It’s not straight.”

Johnny nodded and raised the jacks again; they straightened the ramp, waited for a break in the traffic, then pushed it into the street; Johnny quickly dropped the jacks and everyone backed up to watch.

They only had to wait a minute: a truck rounded the corner from Satellite Blvd., climbed the ramp, and went over the top. The front of the truck dropped, smacking the pavement with a flat THUD, then it slowly went tail-over and landed on the cab and bed with a crunch sound. Many cheered; others gasped.

“One less of the fuckers,” Palmer said. “That one’s for you, Stef.”

Another truck rolled up the ramp and nose-dived into the pavement; the first truck caught and held it, tail pointing almost straight up. More cheers. A third truck climbed the ramp, braked, and ended up caught on the ramp hanging partway over; a fourth stopped at the bottom of the ramp. After a moment, it backed up, waited for oncoming traffic to clear, and went around.

“Looks like they’re routing around a road hazard,” Cleve said. “I guess the show’s over. At least we nailed two of ’em and trapped a third.” The onlookers, and many of those pulling the ropes, decided there was nothing else to see; they turned away and walked or biked back to Laurel.

“A lot of effort to take out three trucks out of… however many,” Tim said, “but worth it.”

“We’ve learned a thing or two, I think,” Charles said. “We know the trucks can be tricked. Maybe we can come up with a way to take out more of them.”

“Yeah, like run a road over the edge of the Grand Canyon,” Cody said. “I’m not sure if the world would run out of trucks or the canyon would fill up first.”

“Good point,” Charles said. “Maybe we should duck inside and talk about this for a few. This wind is starting to cut right through my sweater.”

They turned toward the QuickFill, and seconds later heard another THUD-crunch — they turned back to see one truck on its cab and a second truck climbing the ramp, dropping off the end and then falling onto its side.

“What the…” Tina said for all of them. “What happened?”

“It’s like the other trucks disappeared as soon as our backs were turned,” Tim said. A third truck climbed the ramp and landed atop the other two. “It’s not the same, the first pile only had two trucks and neither one landed on their side.”

“I’ve got an idea,” Charles said. “Everyone turn away. Don’t look at the trucks.” Shortly after they turned: THUD-crunch. “Don’t look!” A few seconds later, they heard another truck climb the ramp and THUD-crunch to the pavement. Charles nodded; they turned. They had heard two trucks go over, but only one lay shiny-side-down in the street.

“Huh,” Charles said. “It’s like a reverse quantum effect — instead of requiring an observer, this requires no observer. Come to think of it, did anyone ever see a car change into a pickup?”

Everyone shook their heads. “So they are disappearing?” Kelly asked.

“I think so, hon. They’ll jump the ramp, crash, and — as long as nobody’s watching — disappear.”

“And they’ll keep doing it,” Cody grinned. “Well… I’d say this was well worth the effort, then.”

continued…

White Pickups, Episode 50a

Contents

Friday, November 11, 2011

They built the ramp in the QuickFill parking lot — twenty feet long, eight feet wide, four feet high — using lumber and plywood purloined from a nearby home improvement center. They built it sturdy; Johnny realized that it would be too heavy to carry long before they completed it, so they mounted hydraulic jacks in the framework and built around them. Most of the adults helped with at least part of the project, but Johnny and Cleve were there nearly constantly, even sleeping in the QuickFill one night when darkness snuck up on them.

When the last nail was driven on a sunny, windy, chilly early afternoon, Johnny, Cleve, Cody, Tina, Kelly, and Tim were there. Johnny ducked under the ramp, raised the three jacks, and they rolled it sideways across the parking lot. The ramp wobbled, but rolled without scraping the pavement. Johnny dropped the jacks and said, “I guess we need to test it. The trucks gotta weigh what, three or four thousand pounds? How are we gonna get that much weight on it?”

“The six of us together might weigh a thousand pounds,” Cody said. “Let’s all climb on and see what happens.” He scrambled up the ramp, slid a little, and crouched. “Careful, it’s a bit slick,” he said. “You think the trucks will lose traction on this thing?”

Tim stepped onto the ramp, and pushed with his boots. “I’ve got pretty good traction,” he said. “But I’m wearing hiking boots instead of tennis shoes… you know, when this thing gets rained on, it will be slick.”

“Could we tack something on it?” Kelly asked. “I don’t know, maybe cut up some old tires and lay the treads on it?”

“Hey,” Cleve said. “You know how they’d put those grates down where they did construction? I bet if we got some sturdy wire mesh, we could just nail it in the tracks and there wouldn’t be a problem.”

“How about those rain gutter covers?” Tina said. “Were there any left after you guys put them on the townhouse gutters?”

“Three or four boxes,” Johnny said. They’re in one of the storage rooms in the clubhouse.”

“I’ll get ’em,” Tim said. “I’ll have ’em back here faster than anyone else can.” That was true; everyone was getting used to biking everywhere but only Palmer and Janet could keep up with Tim when pulling a load (Stefan as well, before his accident). Nobody objected, and Tim rode away.

Charles picked up the new radio, pilfered from a ham radio store down Buford Highway. “Tim’s on the way,” he said. “He’s coming to get the gutter guards.”

“Okay,” Sara’s voice came through over a low hiss. “They’re in the clubhouse basement, right?”

“Yeah. QuickFill out.”

“I’ll double-check. Laurel out.”

“What do you think is gonna happen when a truck goes up the ramp, Johnny?” Cleve asked.

Johnny laughed. “You’ve been workin’ with me on this all this time, and now you finally get around to asking me that? Everyone else who helped asked, and I’ll tell you what I told them: I don’t know. I’m hoping it’ll flip over. I guess we’ll find out.”

“Hey,” Tina said, “is Big Ben coming or what?”

“He’s still sick,” Johnny said. “Rita and Sondra have him in the infirmary.” Rita had set up her infirmary in what was once the clubhouse offices; several rooms were well-lit by day and she saw her patients there. An early-season flu bug was working its way through Laurel; Ben was one of eight or ten people who had caught it, but so far was the only one requiring more from Rita than advice. One of the houses in the development yielded up a hospital bed; Ben was likely lying on it now. Johnny was taking a “leave of absence” from helping Rita for the ramp project, leaving Sondra and the kids to help out and learn what they could.

“Doesn’t mean someone else can’t do the camera work,” Cody said.

“I don’t think it matters,” Johnny shrugged. “Let’s just see what happens. Ben writes down everything anyway, we can just tell him what happens.”


Tim returned with the gutter guards, hammers, and tacks; they flattened the mesh pieces and tacked them onto the ramp. Cody walked up again. “That worked. Let’s climb this thing.”

Everyone climbed the ramp, trying to even out the weight between the tracks. “Feels pretty solid,” Cleve said, “but we still don’t add up to a truck.”

“Let’s all jump,” Johnny said. “One… two… three!” They all jumped, coming down nearly at once. Tina stumbled, and Kelly steadied her mother.

“Solid as pavement,” Cody said. “Well, we can either roll it out there and see what happens, or we can get twenty more peeps out here to stand on this thing with us.”

“I’m game to try it myself,” Johnny said. “Anyone object?” Nobody spoke up. “A’right — let’s roll it out there.”

They soon hit a snag: the seven of them were not enough to push the ramp up the incline. Cody cursed and spun around, putting his back to the supports and pushing with his legs, reminding Tina of how he’d pushed the truck out of her garage. She turned and pushed backwards with him.

“It’s not working!” Tim yelled. “We have to let it roll back!”

“Easy!” Johnny panted. “I don’t want anyone getting run over!” They let gravity push them back to level pavement; Johnny ducked underneath and dropped the jacks. “Everyone okay? Good. We’ll need to get some more people to help get this thing up the hill.”

“How?” asked Kelly. “There’s barely enough room for us to push!”

“Get some ropes,” Cody said. “We can have people up the hill pull while we push. That might do it.”

continued…

Pack Rats Rule, and a Farewell to iPhone

Serendipity: the occurrence and development of events by chance in a happy or beneficial way

With The Boy working (he has A JOB!!!), and Daughter Dearest back to college, I’ve had to jump back on the motorcycle and ride to work. I got a chain, put it on, got it adjusted, and all that a couple weekends ago, so that was no problem. The problem is, I’ve been carrying the iPad to work with me and there’s the occasional “slight” chance of rain for that ride home in the afternoon. I thought, what I need is a waterproof pouch that I can stick the case in, and decided I’d make a run to the motorcycle shop to see if they had anything.

As it turned out… I was looking for Mason’s sling one day this week and found something else — a zip-sealed plastic pouch that the case came in! Not only is it waterproof, it’s a perfect fit and it was free with the case. WIN! I remember when I got the case, thinking I might be able to use that pouch for something… at last, the pack rat in me gets the best of the situation! Of course, now that I have the pouch, I haven’t needed to worry about rain.

Now that August is winding down, and our cellphone contract along with it, Mrs. Fetched wanted to go into the AT&T office and see what we could save by dumping our iPhones. Mine has been flaky for several months now, and what with the iPad and numerous open wifi spots between the office and home, I’ve been ready to walk away from having a cellphone at all. Of course, Mrs. Fetched didn’t want that — while she pitched her objection as me being able to call her if I have a problem, the actual situation is that she wants to be able to reach out and nag me whenever and wherever. :-) But I digress. We went in to have a look, and it turned out that after saving $120 a month (by dropping the iPhones and reducing our minutes to something closer to our average usage), dropping my phone line would save only another $10.

Grumble… time to pick a phone and hope it works well with Macs. I tentatively decided on a Sony-Ericsson W518a, a “Walkman” phone. They have Mac drivers on their website to sync with iCal and Address Book, and another one for iTunes/iPhoto. It’s not a perfectly smooth solution, but I doubt that anything short of an iPhone would be. But since we won’t pull the trigger on this stuff until Tuesday, I’m open to suggestions (has to be on AT&T, though).

Episode 50 of White Pickups is pretty big, so I split it up into Monday and Tuesday posts. Stay tuned to see what Johnny had in mind…

Head in the Cloud(s)

I haven’t lost my mind, it’s backed up on tape somewhere. — Unix fortune cookie

Tech-utopians believe that we’re approaching the point where the human mind could actually be uploaded into — and run on — computer hardware. I’m firmly in the skeptic camp on this one: perhaps some memories and sensory impressions could eventually be copied; after all, it’s already possible to stimulate certain memories or impressions by probing certain parts of the brain. If quantum computing offers insights into how our minds work, those copies could happen. BUT, can personality be both captured and then run on some kind of hardware? I doubt it.

On the other hand, some of my memory — and most likely some of yours as well — is already stored outside our heads. From the paper address book/calendar, to the lowliest PDA, to our calendar programs, to the fanciest cloud-based PIMs, we’ve offloaded a lot of the basic information we need to do our work (or not get whined at by a friend or family member whose birthday just went by), replacing it with a habit to “check the calendar” on occasion. A lot of this information is useful and even crucial — your mom’s birthday, your anniversary, that scheduled meeting with a potential customer. Some of it, like Amazon’s wish list, can be hazardous to your budget… instead of forgetting about that gadget you saw and thought was cool, add it to your wish list and come back for it later.

The tricks are, of course, to:

1) Make it so easy to add that information to your repository, wherever you are, whenever you need to, that you just do it without thinking much about it.

2) Extract that information — or better yet, have it automatically presented to you — at the right time.

As much as I like to slag on cellphones, they really do help with part 1 — even if you don’t have a signal at the crucial moment, you can often configure the phone to bring up an audio recorder without too much effort. I set up my old Samsung Sync to bring up the recorder by pressing one of the arrow keys, if I remember right. Of course, the smarter the phone, the easier it can be to find useful information entry apps. On the other hand, if you want to pay for Jott, you can use any phone capable of dialing a number (Jott converts a brief voice message to text and can return it to you in a large number of ways).

But the other side of the coin is getting that information back at the right time. Again, there are plenty of ways to make that happen. While Remember the Milk is popular, I kind of like Chandler for its open-source, cross-platform goodness. Unfortunately, the client is currently broke for Leopard and Snow Leopard; there’s supposed to be a workaround, but it didn’t work for me. Once they get the client working again, I’d love to see a full-function iPad client; right now, there’s a write-only “Chandler QE” (Quick Entry) iPhone app that’s okay for brief notes and events. Directly accessing notes at the Chandler Hub is a workaround on the laptop for now… I can’t enter text from the iPad for whatever reason though (grumble mumble) except by using the iPhone app (snarl hiss).

One thing I’ve started using Chandler for is to capture whatever random thoughts about White Pickups wander through my mind at any given moment. I thought I was going to start working on the last part of Book I today at lunch, and realized I needed to give the plot a little more thought… into the iPhone I went and added the information, now it’s on the hub whenever I’m ready for it.

So as always, you get your choice between free (or Free) and community-supported, or paid for and (maybe) reliability. The big problem I see with the latter is that going with a commercial cloud-based service is like giving your data to some corporation and then renting it back. Everything’s fine until you can’t make the next payment.

Only in Sector 706…

You’d think that soldiers tossing grenade simulators at people in a parking lot would be crazy enough for Planet Georgia.

Now The Boy tells me that the local Chevron got raided and shut down for running a gambling operation in a back room and selling designer drugs? (couldn’t find a link) Too bad they weren’t selling moonshine, at least we could have made jokes about liquor in the front and poker in the rear.

Things break down in August. My car and Daughter Dearest’s are two recent casualties. I guess the heat is starting to fry what’s left of the pod people’s brains too.

White Pickups, Episode 49

Contents

“So Stef’s gonna be okay,” Johnny told the others, eating a late lunch at a large round table in the Laurel Room. “He and Palmer are moving into #107 so he can get out and around. Palmer and Tim are hunting up a chair for Stef right now; Rita gave them some med supply places to check out. When they get back, we’ll roll Stef into #107 and he can start healing.”

“I guess if there was one piece of technology that still worked, I’d want it to be cellphones,” Rita said, sitting close by Johnny. “I know it’s necessary to make these trips, for sanity’s sake if nothing else, but if both of them had been seriously injured —” She shook her head.

“What about radios?” Cody asked around a mouthful of sandwich (peanut butter and jelly in one of Sally’s rolls). “My dad had a CB rig in his car, mostly to listen to the truckers tell everyone where the cops were.” He grinned at Cleve, who snorted. “He bought an antenna to have one in the house, but the H-O-Assholes wouldn’t let him put it up.”

“Prrrroperty values über alles, mein Herr! Ja wohl!” Johnny gave a Nazi salute, sandwich still in hand. Cody snickered; the others rolled their eyes. “Y’know, now that you bring up the CB, I had an uncle who was into ham radio. He could talk just about anywhere with that setup. Maybe we should look into getting some of those. I remember him saying you had to have a couple different kinds, depending on whether you wanted to talk across town or across the ocean. Maybe we could get in touch with anyone still out there while we’re talking to ourselves.”

“Sounds good — so who’s gonna Google the Yellow Pages?” Kelly grinned. The others laughed; that was a running joke since the first day everyone came together. “Maybe there’s a store or two that sold radio stuff around here.”

“Wonderful,” Sondra said, but with a smile. “More stuff to charge in the evenings. Speaking of which, how are the solar panels doing?”

“Plenty of capacity,” Cody said. “Even with everyone’s stuff charging, it’s still charging the battery until 5:30 or so on sunny days. Then we’re turning on lights anyway. If we get some more panels, we could probably get by without the generators unless we get a bunch of overcast days in a row. Y’know, if we could get one panel for each of the occupied units, we could run some lights at night.”

“Figures,” Cleve laughed. “Tim and Palmer are out on an expedition now, and we’ll have two or three more for them before they get back!” The others laughed with him. “I guess we gotta get those radios though, we might not be so lucky next time.”

Nobody spoke for a long moment. “What I don’t understand,” Rita said, “is what happened to the bicycles. Ben showed me the video where Cody threw a crowbar through the truck out by the gate. If Stef was already off the bike, and he’d have been likely killed otherwise, shouldn’t the truck have simply passed through it without damaging it?”

Sondra nudged Cody. “Um,” he said, “I might have an idea about that. We can check it out after we finish eating.” He popped the last bit of sandwich in his mouth and chewed slowly.

“Well, what are we sitting around here for?” Kelly glared at Cody. “You had this idea, and you weren’t going to share it?”

“Sure I was!” Cody growled around a mouthful of sandwich, crossing his arms and returning Kelly’s glare. “I don’t see why I’m always the one who has to think of these things — I was waiting to see if someone else would think about it.”

“Well, what is it?” Johnny laughed. “You gonna share now?”

“Sure,” Cody said. “I think I stashed the crowbar downstairs. If someone wants to get Ben to video this, we can be done in half an hour.”


Word got around, and once again everyone gathered at the gate. Cody grinned at Charles and took a stance much like his “lecture” stance, with the crowbar behind his back. “Awright, let’s review what we know,” he said, then pointed at the truck with the crowbar. “Shush, you, I’m lecturing here.

“So we know if you touch a truck —” he stepped over and gave it a gentle kick — “or touch it with something —” he rapped the hood with the crowbar — “it’s solid. It’s there. But —” he tossed the crowbar onto the hood and watched it drop through — “if you throw something at it, it goes right through.” He reached underneath the truck and retrieved the crowbar.

“Hey,” Johnny said. “I just thought of something. If we got some ropes with hooks on ’em, do you think we could pull this sonufabitch off the property and roll it into the street?”

“Good question,” Cody said, “but not ger— uh, not relevant to our experiment today. Ben? Zoom in on the front of the truck, just get everything between the wheels in the frame.” Ben fiddled with a rocker switch and nodded; Cody gave him a thumbs-up and turned the pointed end of the crowbar to the pavement, leaning on it like a cane in front of the truck. “Okay, Stef was off his bike, and the truck smashed it anyway. So we’ve thrown things at the truck, but we never leaned anything against it.” He propped the crowbar against the grill of the truck and let it go —

And it stayed in place, leaning against the truck. The others murmured as if Cody had pulled off a spectacular magic trick. Cody himself watched it suspiciously for a moment, then took up the crowbar.

“The truck is solid to other objects if they’re touching a living being — or if they’re touching the ground,” he said. “Y’know, if they ever decide to make trouble for us…”

“Yeah, well maybe we should make some trouble for them,” Johnny said. “And you ain’t the only one around here with ideas.”

Cody grinned. “About time! What’s the plan?”

continued…

A Little Quiet

I took the day off work today to help Daughter Dearest head back to Reinhardt for her junior year. Mrs. Fetched also enlisted Panda to help with various items. Last night was a bit of a crisis; she had some hard drive corruption and her MacBook suddenly decided to refuse to boot. Then Disk Utility said it couldn’t fix the problem. DD said I spent five hours on it altogether, but that was because I didn’t want to invoke the nuclear option (but had to in the end): copy her home directory to an external drive, reformat the internal, then copy her files back after installing Snow Leopard.

I got her refrigerator out of the studio first thing this morning, just to make it easier to move. Then I found an inch of ice in the freezer compartment, so I let it sit outside with the door open. A couple hours later, it hadn’t thawed much, so I took a hammer and chisel to the ice. A spray and PSHHHHHHHH let me know I managed to knock a hole in a freon area… dammit. I took the beer out of my fridge and let her take it instead.

There was a 40% chance of rain today, and light sprinkles were already starting just as we finished loading the truck. Panda tied a tarp over the back, and off we went — and the rain quit a few miles away, naturally. We both managed to find parking slots in front of the dorm and started hauling. For some reason, Mrs. Fetched insisted on bringing Mason with us, so the first few trips up I had Mason in the sling and what little loads I could carry with my free hand. Finally, I wised up and gave him to Mrs. Fetched and I was pulling full capacity for the last two trips.

Two females in a tight space means not a whole lot of room… but after about 20 minutes of putting stuff away, there was enough floor open to move around a little. Once it was slightly more under control, the rest of us bailed for home… and that’s when the rain really started coming down. Mrs. Fetched’s car has some tires on the back that are really prone to hydroplaning on certain roads, and she thought we had a flat tire. She wanted me to stop NOW, but we were going down a hill and I didn’t want to change a tire on a slope. “I don’t care, you could damage the rim!” she yelled. Oh yeah, really nice, the rim is more important than my foot getting crushed when the car falls off the jack. My mind tends to shut off input when it gets that irrational… and of course, none of the tires were flat when I got out in the rain to have a look. We continued on, slowly, until the roads cleared up.

So DD is gone all week and many weekends to come. Fortunately, Snippet has been stepping up a bit in the last week, getting up in the mornings and taking care of business — and DD has been visibly more pleasant to Snippet in response.

Plenty of stuff to do tomorrow, some work-related. I’ve also done some writing on the White Pickups sequel… and did I mention I had a couple ideas for spinoffs?

White Pickups, Episode 48

Contents

Saturday, October 29, 2011

Rita was showing Sondra and Johnny how to compress a large wound when Palmer burst through the door, scratched, scraped, and hysterical. “Stefan! He’s —” he waved his arms and pointed at the door, panting.

“Calm down, Palmer!” Rita snapped. “What happened?”

Palmer collected his wits and started over: “We were riding up the shoulder of ’85 against the traffic. We started racing and we bumped. Stef went over the guardrail — the bikes —”

“Never mind the bikes right now!” Rita said. “Where is he? Was he conscious?”

“Yeah. I think he broke his leg. I had to run all the way back here.”

“Could be internal bleeding. We need to get to him, stat. Palmer! You can get hysterical later, but you must take us to him now!”

“I’ll get Tim,” Sondra blurted, and ran out the door.

“Good idea,” Johnny said, “Tim can get you there faster.”

Rita finished packing her go-bag as Tim ran in. “Sondra told me what happened,” he said. “I’ll put Rita on the back of the tandem. Palmer, you ride my single. Trailers are already hooked up. Get us there.”


Two mangled bicycles, lying partway in the right lane, marked the spot. Trucks in the right lane eased over to avoid the wreckage. Stefan lay on the other side of the guard rail, feet resting on a pile of gear.

“Did you put him like that, Palmer?” Rita asked; Palmer nodded. “Good, that should help with any shock.” She stepped over the guard rail, legs a little wobbly from the fast pace Tim and Palmer set, and knelt next to Stefan. “How you feeling, Stef?”

“My leg hurts like hell,” Stefan said. “Other than that, okay. The damned trucks keep asking me if I want a ride. As if.”

“That’s good… if you weren’t hurting, I’d be worried.” She pulled the blood pressure cuff and stethoscope out of her bag. “Gonna check your vitals.”

“Still gotta pulse, doc.” Stefan laughed.

“Hm,” Rita said. “BP looks normal, which might be a little high for you athletic types. Pulse is a little high, but strong. I’m guessing you don’t have any serious internal bleeding going on, but we’ll have to get you back to Laurel to be sure. So… do you remember what happened?”

“Yeah. We were riding along, minding our own beeswax, and we got to racing each other. I was a little ahead, riding next to the guardrail, and Palmer and I must have bumped. I don’t remember exactly what happened after that, until Palmer was trying to get me comfy. He was freaking out, and I told him to go get you. I really need to pee.”

“Hm. Better check your leg, then.” She pulled out a pair of scissors. “Hope you don’t have any sentimental attachment to these pants.”

“Nope. Just what’s in ’em.”

“I’ll give you a coupon for a free pair from Town and Trail,” Tim grinned.

“Pair of pants, I guess — you can’t replace the pair I care about!”

“Boys will be boys.” Rita rolled her eyes and cut the lycra pant leg. Stefan grimaced.

“Hey,” Tim asked Palmer, “what happened to the bikes?” He looked over the mangled remains on the fog line. “Looks like a truck ran ’em over.”

“Well, Stef’s bike bounced into the freeway when he went over the guardrail. I guess a truck hit it —”

“If Stef wasn’t touching it, why did it get smashed? Remember Cody’s crowbar trick? If you weren’t touching the bike, it should’ve gone right through without…” Tim flapped his hand.

“If your ankle isn’t broken, we might be able to put you back together,” Rita reassured Stefan. “Your leg’s broken for sure, though. Looks like you’ll be riding a wheelchair for the winter. We’ll find you one.”

“I don’t know,” Palmer told Tim, “and right now, I don’t care. I just want Stef better and riding again.”

“Guys,” Rita called, “I need your help. We need to get Stef’s leg splinted, then get him onto the trailer so we can get him home. I don’t dare give him any painkillers until I’m sure there’s no internal bleeding, so this isn’t going to be fun for any of us. Especially Stefan.”

“Too bad we didn’t think about bringing Cleve,” Tim said. “Wasn’t he medevac in the Army?”

“We’ll make do.” Rita rolled up a cloth. “Stef, I’m not gonna try to bullshit you: this is gonna hurt. A lot. Bite down on this, so you don't lose a piece of your tongue.

“Palmer, you take his arms. Hold his hands, whatever. Tim, we’re gonna lift his leg and put this wrap underneath, then you’re going to pull to get the bones more or less realigned while I wrap it up. I’m gonna sit on his other leg so he doesn’t kick someone.” She straddled Stefan’s good leg and laid the wrap on the other side. “Okay, Tim, don’t pull yet, just lift a couple inches when I say to… ready? Easy up.” Stefan gasped as Tim lifted; Rita slipped her hands underneath, lifting with one and pulling the wrap into place with the other. “Okay, down easy. You okay, Stefan?”

“I guess that was the easy part,” Stefan said around the gag.

“Right.” She touched his ankle and worked her way up. “Good news, I don’t think your ankle’s broken. There’s a lot of swelling all up and down the leg, but it’s broke here.” She touched the center of the swollen area. “I’m betting it’s a clean break, which is really good. It’ll heal without surgery. Now comes the hard part: Tim’s going to pull and I’m going to try to set the break so the bones are together, then I’ll wrap it. With any luck, it’ll stay put until we can get home and I can put a cast on it. You’ll need to not pull back — relax those muscles as much as you can. Deep breaths, all of you… okay Tim, easy.”

Tim pulled; Stefan clamped down on the gag and screeched as Rita worked. At last, “Got it! Okay Tim, ease off and I’ll wrap him up.” She wrapped the leg and secured the splint with a pair of Velcro straps. “How you doing, Stef?”

Stefan was pale. “I’ve had better days. Are we done yet?”

“Well, we have to get you onto the trailer, then off it back at the clubhouse… Palmer? You alright?”

Palmer shook his head in a big figure-eight. “A little woozy. I’ll get over it.”

“Quick, I hope. I need you and Tim to roll Stef onto the backboard, then hoist him over the rail and onto the trailer. You think you can do that? Dropping your boyfriend would be a Very Bad Thing right now.”

“Yeah. I’ll get the board.” Palmer stood, a little wobbly, then stepped over the rail and retrieved the backboard from Tim’s trailer.

Rita looked at Tim. “What about you?”

“I think I’m okay… I’ve seen injuries like this on rides before. Had a lady tangle with another rider once, she went down and broke her wrist. Fortunately, the ambulance could come right up to her back then. We’re kind of on our own now.”

“Yeah.” She turned to Stefan. “You think you could take a little water and not throw it up?”

“Yeah, that would be good.” She handed him a bottle. “I know — sip it. I still have to pee, though.”

“Uh-huh. Maybe you can hold it until we get you home.”

“Where do you want this?” said Palmer, holding the backboard.

“Over here,” Rita stood. “Tim and I are going to roll him on his side, you tuck the backboard underneath, then we’ll put him on the trailer and strap him down.”

With the leg splinted and wrapped, rolling Stefan onto the backboard was easier than expected. Tim and Palmer loaded Stefan on the trailer and strapped him down as best as they could. The backboard, and Stefan’s legs, hung over the end of the trailer. Palmer drained his water bottle, and they started back to Laurel.

continued…

Sunset, Sunrise…

Buster T. Butthead punched his ticket — the one-way trip to the Great Porch in the Sky, where the slow truck made of meat rolls by every hour — just a couple days before his legacy saw daylight:



I just hope this litter turns out better than the last batch. I really hated it for them… three of them died of possible birth defects, one was completely blind, two were partially blind and/or deaf, one was “normal.” There’s eight of these… we thought there were nine, but I only see eight in the photo I took above. One of them has already gone walkabout, demonstrating the Houdini-like “quality” of its mom and managing somehow to get out of the pen entirely. Fortunately, I found it lying outside and returned it.

Since I didn't get a chance to post these earlier, have a couple of crepe myrtle pics too. This one is a big sturdy booger behind the house; it had no problem being used as one end of a woodpile. I don’t ever remember it blooming out like this before; it started at the top and worked its way down.


This is one that Mrs. Fetched and I put in a planter near the detached garage. It and the lemon balm are busily trying to choke out everything else. Mrs. Fetched hopes it will get taller and the branches will get out of the way; right now, you have to brush past it if you park the car next to it.


The Evil Twins and family are coming up for lunch… time to get started.

White Pickups, Episode 47

Wednesday, October 26, 2011

When Cody and Sondra announced that they were building a shooting range at Cody’s old house, Cleve, Johnny, and Max volunteered to help. They stacked landscaping timbers, scrounged from overgrown flower beds whose owners had long driven off, to build a backstop. Since the patio had an overhang and no screens, they designated the edge of the concrete the firing line. The previous owner of Johnny’s unit must have made a hobby of target shooting, as there were plenty of targets to go with the carbine, and those all came along.

“Don’t flinch like that,” Sondra told Cody. He stood at the firing line, Sondra’s revolver in hand, while the others looked on. He had his head pulled back and his body twisted into an odd angle. “Relax. You’ve got earplugs. It’s gonna make some noise, but so does your music.” She poked his ribs.

Cody lowered the pistol, shoulders shaking. “How can I shoot if you’re gonna make me laugh?”

“You’ll shoot better if you’re not tense. It’s just like that shooter game you were showing me…”

“With a really heavy controller!” They both laughed.

“Okay, now let’s try it again,” Sondra said. “Stand up straight, don’t shy back. Just point, pull the hammer back, and shoot.”

Bang! Cody’s arm snapped up; the target acquired a dark spot — below and to the right of the bullseye, but in the rings. Cleve, Johnny, and Max applauded.

“Not bad!” Sondra kissed his cheek. “Try again. This time, keep both eyes open.”

Bang! This time, the spot appeared below and left, but closer to the bullseye.

“Not bad, first time shooting!” Cleve said.

“Yeah, I’ve played video games,” Cody said. “Same idea, but it feels a lot different.”

“Yeah. Now try shooting twice. Take your time, look straight at your target, shoot. Pull the hammer back while your hand drops back to the target, and shoot again. Sondra, show him what I mean.”

“Sure.” Cody handed her the pistol. Bang — bang, about a second apart, and two holes opened in the target, no more than an inch from the bullseye.

Johnny whistled. “Amazes me each time I see it. Hey…” he stood up, holding the carbine. “I wanna try something. You game?” He wiggled the carbine at Sondra.

“Sure! Soon as Cody does the two-shot.” She passed the pistol back. “Don’t concentrate. Just do.”

Cody raised the pistol. Bang … bang, about two seconds apart. The second hole was in the bullseye.

“That’s what I’m talkin’ about!” Johnny laughed.

“Lucky shot,” said Cody, with a big grin, as Sondra hugged him.

“The only difference between lucky and good,” Cleve said, “is how often you get lucky.”

“Good one!” Sondra laughed. “So what do you wanna try, Johnny?”

Johnny picked up an empty soda can from the table and handed the carbine to Sondra. “Hey Cody, you mind if I use that busted table over there?”

“Sure.” Cody shrugged and took Johnny’s seat, pistol pointed at the floor between his feet.

“Hey,” said Cleve as Johnny hoisted the wobbly table from the corner of the patio and carried it into the yard. “Like this.” He took the pistol, opened the cylinder and laid it on the table, pointing away from everyone. “Now you know it won’t go off.”

“But there weren’t any bullets left.”

“I’ve seen plenty of guns go off that didn’t have any bullets in ’em.” Cleve gave Cody a grim look. “When I was a cop, I had to clean up a couple messes after someone thought a gun wasn’t loaded. You don’t wanna trust, you wanna know.”

A V of geese flew overhead as Johnny set up the table in front of the backstop. He paused to watch them for a moment, perhaps thinking about shooting one, as their honking calls drifted to the ground along with a few leaves. “Okay,” he said at last, jogging back to the porch. “Shoot at its mouth.” The can lay on the table, its top facing the firing line. The mouth made a dark O at the bottom of the larger silver O.

“Hm.” Sondra hefted the carbine. “Hey… this thing is lighter than it looks.”

“Yeah, they make a great huntin’ gun,” said Johnny. “Doesn’t wear you out luggin’ it around and it’s short enough that it won’t catch every stray branch. It’s what I use to bring the meat home. No scope, but that’s better when it gets dark anyway.”

“Nice.” Sondra lifted the gun, looked through the sights, and thumbed off the safety. “Live on the line.”

“It’s a bit loud,” Johnny warned her.

“Whatever.” She took aim. Boom! The can flipped off the table, bounced off the backstop, and tumbled to the ground. “Whoo! Safe on!” She stepped away from the line and Johnny jogged out to retrieve the can.

“Sweeeeet!” he yelled, looking at the can. “Check this out, guys!” He jogged back, can in hand. The others gathered around. He held the can with the mouth end facing them.

“Huh. What’d she do, knock it off the table without hitting it?” Max cocked his head.

“Guess again.” Johnny turned the can around; there was a small hole on the other side near the corner. “Right through the mouth, out the other side — from fifty feet. You can’t get much better than that!”

Sondra grinned and patted the carbine. “I like this thing, Johnny,” she said. “You might have a hard time getting it back.”

“No problem — as long as you do the huntin’!”

“Haha, I don’t like it that much!” Sondra handed it back. “But I’d like to borrow it from time to time, if you don’t mind.”

“Sure thing. I was thinkin’ about seeing if anyone left a deer rifle in one of these houses anyway.”

“Two doors down,” Cody said. “Mr. Henderson was a gun freak. He was always showing off some piece or another to my dad. You’ll find something there, I almost guarantee it.”

As it turned out, Henderson apparently drove off with most of his arsenal. He left a deer rifle and two pistols behind, though.

continued…

11th Month-Day

Mason was 11 months old as of yesterday… has it really been that long? In another month, we’ll be off to the resort… but we’ll have to come home to celebrate his first birthday party.

Things have settled down a little, what with M.A.E. and Moptop in their own apartment, and while Mason was happy to have someone to play with, now he doesn’t have to worry about Moptop knocking him down (his balance is still marginal) or waking him up with one of her shrieks when he’s napping. He’s still too busy to accumulate much baby fat. He’s started to crawl under things, and that led to one rather funny incident from last weekend: he crawled under this “music table” toy and got stuck. He squawked about it and I lifted it off of him. He crawls under the daybed (which we need to take down now that M.A.E. is gone) and verrrry carefully raises his head because he’s already learned he’ll bonk the bottom otherwise.

It’s just him and me this morning, and he just woke up from his morning nap. I’m seriously thinking about taking him to the library, just to get us out of the house for a while. I took him for a brief walk down the road and back this morning, carrying him in the sling because both of the strollers have mildew after sitting in the garage. His nap happened shortly after.