Showers of Projects

Things happen on their own time at FAR Manor, even maintenance projects. I have to gather my motivation, gather tools and materials, then find time to actually get the work done. So it is with the hole above the shower.

When we last left this particular project, it was January and DoubleRed had given me the key to making the water leak go away. Mrs. Fetched had carefully stowed away the insulation pulled out of the ceiling (i.e. tossed in the garage where it wouldn’t be bothered), so it was just a matter of getting a piece of sheetrock and putting it in the hole. The sheetrock came home about a month ago, and it was a couple of weeks waiting for Mrs. Fetched to retrieve the utility knife that we usually keep here but was (of course) at the chicken houses.


It would have been nice to just cut a piece of sheetrock and patch it in, but as you can see there's too much mold and water stain to make that a reasonable fix. Fortunately, the boundary is not too far beyond the hole (going toward the left), but goes all the way across the ceiling the other way (about 7 feet).


Now comes the very best part of any of these projects: the part where I get to take implements of destruction to FAR Manor, and even rip out chunks of it with my bare hands. First, the crown molding comes out. Where I couldn’t get the pry bar under it, I just rammed it through the ceiling then pulled it down.

Next step, the grungy sheetrock itself. By taking some care with my happy trashing, I was able to not rip out any hunks of the sheetrock that shouldn’t get ripped. I used the utility knife to finish things off along the edge. Here’s what I ended up with:



I measured the hole, measured it again, sketched out the dimensions on the back of an old business card, measured everything again and made sure I didn’t have it backwards. With everything in hand, I took a chalk line and tape measure and cut the replacement piece. Then I went back inside, stuffed the insulation back into the ceiling, and chiseled off the glue on the rafters that the original builders used to hold up the sheetrock while nailing it into place.

I decided the glue was a good idea, and Mrs. Fetched had a $25 gift card from Home Despot, so we went to pick up that and a few other things.

Of course, I had to check the fit before gluing anything. Amazingly, I only had to make a 1/8" cut along the shortest edge to make it fit! Knowing it was going to work, I applied the glue, slapped the sheetrock up, and nailed it into place.

There was more of a gap above the door than I would have liked, but I didn’t realize that wall bowed out just a little bit. Oh well, I’ll just putty it up and the crown molding will cover it. I’ll have to put a thin coat of plaster over the replacement sheetrock, as it’s not quite as thick as the original piece. Big deal.


Of course, projects at FAR Manor never stop at just one thing. Since the wallpaper was peeling, Mrs. Fetched decided we should replace it while we already had the shower room half-shredded, and Daughter Dearest took care of business a few days before I attacked the ceiling. Of course, there was a second layer of wallpaper underneath, and (as you can see) it’s peeling too. We’ll have to tackle that next. Let’s hope it’s soon…

White Pickups, Episode 45

Contents

Thursday, October 20, 2011

The kids talked among themselves, sitting on the front porch of an empty house, waiting for Jason to arrive. They kept their voices low so the others couldn’t hear.

“So Tim’s been staying over since Tuesday,” Ashley said. “I guess he’s gonna be my new dad.”

“Wow, you’re lucky,” Ben said. “You’ll have a mom and a dad. Tina’s nice, so’s Kelly, but…” he shrugged.

“You think they’re doin’ it?” Sheldon asked, smirking. Lily blushed and tittered, Ben and Caitlin snickered.

“Yeah,” Ashley said, rolling her eyes. “They keep it quiet, but sometimes you can hear ’em.”

“That’s why Jennifer moved us out of #107,” Caitlin said, looking up and putting her hands on her hips. “‘Jeez-zus Christ you two,’” she said in a good parody of Jennifer’s voice, “‘it’s not gonna kill you to give it a rest.’ I heard Jennifer say lots of stuff like that before we moved. I guess Cody and…” she trailed off. Nobody spoke for a few moments.

Lily broke the silence. “You still love Cody, don’t you?”

Caitlin blushed behind her freckles. “No I do not!” she bit off each word.

“If he asked you, would you do it with him?” Sheldon leered.

“I don’t know!” Caitlin sputtered. “Maybe when I’m older —” she clapped a hand over her mouth and looked over toward Cody, talking with the grownups across the way.

“We’re gonna move into #116,” Ashley said, rescuing Caitlin. “Me and Caitlin will have a room, and I guess Tim and Sara will get one. Jennifer will get the other one. I think Tim and Sara are trying to have a baby. I heard them talking about it.”

“That sounds cool,” Ben said. “That’ll be like having three parents. Four, if Jennifer gets a boyfriend.”

“Four parents?” Sheldon shook his head. “You’d never get to do anything!”

“We get to do lots of stuff,” Lily said, “and it’s like everyone’s our parents now. We don’t have school like we used to, and this is kind of cool, getting to do real stuff like helping with the gardens. Cody’s teaching us how to skate, Kelly’s teaching us basketball, and we don’t have to worry about getting run over in here. I just wish mom and dad were here too.”

The others nodded, even Sheldon. “When’s Jason gonna get here?” Sheldon asked.

“Sooner or later,” Ben said. “I’m not in a hurry anyway. Maybe he had another dream and it kept him up.”

“Have you guys had any dreams since that one with everybody in it?” Caitlin turned back to the others. “The one where Cody threw his shoes?” The others shook their heads. “Me neither. Not those kind of dreams, anyway. It’s spooky, how we all were in each other’s dreams like that. You think we’ll have more?”

“Why don’t you ask Cody?” Sheldon said, without the leer. “All the grownups think he knows everything about the trucks.”

“That’s just dumb,” Caitlin said. “Why would he know more than anyone else? I mean, he’s smart and all, but he didn’t make ’em.”

“Hey,” said Ben, “here comes Jason.”


Jason looked over the gardening crew: all five kids, Cody and Sondra, Tim and Sara, Palmer and Stefan, and Kelly as the only singleton over age ten. The kids and teens were regulars, pulling gardening duty three days a week as a break from more traditional schooling; the adults were volunteering. Sondra divided her time between gardening and learning what Rita taught about first aid; Johnny was helping Rita as well, but he smiled as he thought about Johnny’s true intentions there. Of all of them, only Jason and Johnny did any gardening before the Truckalypse, but the others were learning. “Anyone remember the motto?”

“Nothing goes to waste,” Ashley said.

“That’s right,” Jason replied. “You pull a weed, or a dead plant, it goes in the compost. If we were mowing grass, it would go too. But we’re gonna be raking leaves pretty soon. Why is that important?”

After a moment, Kelly spoke up: “Grass clippings, weeds, and leaves provide carbon. Kitchen scraps provide nitrogen. You need both to make compost.”

“Right. So why is compost important?”

“It’s like…” Sheldon twirled a finger in a circle. “Stuff comes out of the ground — uh, the soil — and compost puts it back in.”

“That’s not the whole story, but it’s good enough,” Jason smiled at the kids. “And it’s nutrients that come out of the soil, in the food we grow. Well, let’s get started.”

Jason watched the crew, moving from group to group to check on their progress and thinking about how much work they would have to do next year. Even with Ben’s confidence about foraging, and Johnny Latimer’s stated intent to “do some huntin’ now that it’s cooler,” growing enough food — and more important, enough nutrition — was going to take more effort than any of them realized. Before, barely six weeks ago, a crop failure in the garden was a disappointment and meant a few extra trips to the grocery store. A year from now, it might mean starvation and some hard decisions…

Especially with mating couples forming up. Palmer and Stefan couldn’t reproduce, but Jason figured that Cody and Sondra — not to mention Sara and Tim — would be expecting before the winter was out. Johnny and Rita too, if Johnny had anything to say about it. A new generation would be important, but feeding them would be just as important.


“What’s this?” Lily said, picking up something soft from under a tree.

Jason looked it over, then looked up at the tree. “Oh… a persimmon tree,” he said. “It’s a fruit, but you have to wait for a frost before you eat them, or they’ll be really sour. We’ll probably have a frost in the next week or so. Good find — and a good reminder to not look just at the ground. I’ll bet there’s an apple tree or two around, too.”

Lily picked up another persimmon and sniffed. “They smell good,” she said. “What can you do with them?”

“Most people make preserves with them. I guess you could make a pie too, but I’ve never heard of anyone doing that.”

“Oh.” She ran to join the other kids in the garden.

continued…

Rest of the Week Roundup

All the other stuff that happened this week…

Yesterday came the last step of that little procedure I had last Monday — in other words, they took the stitches out. Once again, this went smooth as warm butter: I hardly felt it, even when they warned me to “let us know if this one hurts much.” Of course, it’s right in that part of my back that I can’t reach, so I still can’t scratch it when it itches. They told me there might not be much of a scar, which is kind of a bummer; scars are part of my history, reminding me of things that happened. “Yeah, this one is from when I was 7; I was riding my bike down the dirt road by my house and I hit a loose patch of dirt and went into the ditch.” (and so forth)

Some (ahem) twit took out the name LibTardBot on Twitter and attached it to a skr1pt. Basically, it scans the public timeline for tweets containing the word “teabagger” and retweets them with a pre-programmed insult. At least, I think it’s a script: with teabaggers, it’s hard to tell. Either one spouts their talking points on cue, and neither one can actually learn anything — it’s all programming.

Mason is getting better… actually, he’s pretty much over the ear infection and other sickness. The amoxicillin started helping almost immediately; by Saturday night he was wanting to get down and play a little instead of being clingy all the time. But he was still fighting an infection, and between that and trying to be his usual busy self, he was waking up ravenous in the middle of the night. He’s starting to get that back to normal too, fortunately… he slept all Wednesday night and only woke up once last night (and The Boy & Snippet got him). He’s also doing what The Boy used to do at that age: point at stuff and go “dat” (as in, “what’s that?”). He loves pulling wires, pushing buttons, and so forth… yup, geek in training! He figured out the OFF button on the TV this week, much to my amusement (nay, delight) and everyone else’s chagrin. I applauded him and Mrs. Fetched said, “No, he’s not supposed to do that! I popped his hand last time!” So when he went to do it again, I tried to tell him NO but was laughing too hard.

He has fat little feet, like the people on the Axiom in “Wall-E.” I’ll try to get a picture soon. As much as he runs around, I’m stunned that he has any foot fat at all.

The Boy & Snippet were nearly handed a perma-ejection this week. Personally, I’d have gone ahead and done it; I have no clue why Mrs. Fetched gave them Yet Another Chance. Daughter Dearest is a little cranky about the whole situation, and has threatened to move out a couple of times. Maybe the only reason she hasn’t is that I’ve threatened to move in with her. Meanwhile, M.A.E. and Moptop are still here, but they now have a firm departure date — two weeks from today. She lined up various public and private agencies to help her out, and she signs the lease on her apartment on Monday. Yes, she’s had a lot of help from Mrs. Fetched and others, but she’s taken a lot of initiative, found a job, talked to the various aid people, and basically made a lot of things happen. If The Boy and Snippet put half that kind of energy into getting their act together, nobody would have a problem.

Mrs. Fetched has been on me for a couple of weeks to pull some stock out of my account to raise some moolah for DD’s college (and, I hope, kill another credit card or two). I farted around for a while, then couldn’t get into my account. As it turned out, the delays were good because the price went up a buck & a quarter in the meantime… so I got to keep 40 or so shares that I would have otherwise had to give up to raise the same amount of money.

What kind of oddball things have you seen this week?

You KNOW It’s Monday When…

OK, imagine for a moment that you work behind the counter at a certain Moe’s, somewhere in Sector 706 of Planet Georgia. A middle-aged couple comes in just ahead of the lunchtime rush and places their orders. As you’re wrapping their burritos, a truck driver comes in. “Hey,” he says, “I got your delivery. I wasn’t sure you wanted it though, I heard this store is closing tomorrow.”

deer in the headlights

“I gotta talk to my manager!” she says, in one word, and dashes down to the cashier. They talk quietly for a moment, then she returns and finishes the order.

That was either a mean joke, or the exact w0rNg way to hear about your impending job loss.


That was last Monday, shortly after I came out of the doctor’s office. Yesterday, I glanced down at the walkway rimming the office and saw:



He’d had the worst kind of Monday, the kind that isn’t followed by a Tuesday. My bob-sister Christina tells me it’s a yellow-shafted flicker, a kind of woodpecker (he got shafted, all right). This isn’t the first bird I’ve seen lying on the walkway after trying to kamikaze the office building — it happens a few times a year — and often they’re just stunned. I’ll scoot the stunned ones off to the side where they can collect their wits without getting stepped on… but this one was beyond scooting. You can see the line of tiny ants marching in for the buffet.

May your Mondays contain no unpleasant surprises.

White Pickups, Episode 44

Contents

“Sure,” Tim said, and Cleve took the cheap plastic chair next to Tim; it squeaked a little under Cleve’s weight. “Maybe you’ll have an idea.” He pulled a beer out of the styrofoam cooler and handed it to Cleve. “Not ice cold, but it’s been sitting out here all evening so at least it’ll be cool.”

Cleve stuck the can in the holder on the arm of his chair and scooted the chair around to face Tim. “Red… is this about the dream, or something else?”

“Both, I guess. These truck dreams — everyone’s having the dreams together, right?”

“Yeah, as far as anyone can tell.”

“So if Sara… in the dream…” he trailed off. “I want to believe I’m seeing what I think I’ve been seeing, but—”

“Sheee-it,” Cleve laughed, popping his beer. “You finally wakin’ up?”

“What do you mean?”

“I’m gonna tell you something, Red, something I wouldn’t say if you weren’t my best friend. More than that, my brother in arms…” He took a long swig of cool beer.

“What is it?”

“Just this: we both want the same woman, and she only wants one of us. And it ain’t me.”

“So — she —” Tim drained his can and waved his arms.

“Yeah, she —” Cleve waved his arms in mockery, sloshing his beer a little. “But she ain’t gonna wait forever for you to make up your mind.”

“Yeah.” Tim stood, weaving a little in the chilly October air. “Can you believe it’s not even been two months since this all happened? But sometimes, it feels like years. Sometimes I try to think about Rebecca, remember what she looked like, and — and all I see is Sara. Cleve… thanks. I owe you one.” He walked back into the townhouse.

“Damn right you do!” Cleve laughed, not sure if Tim heard. He turned his chair back to the wall and watched the waning moon through the thinning leaves, pushing through a few wispy clouds over the roofs of the houses. “Well, Mr. Moon,” Cleve said, putting his feet on the railing, “I just threw away a long shot at love, but at least I did the right thing by them both. And maybe I’ll get some sleep now.” He hoisted his beer can heavenward then drank.


“Tim? Are you okay?” Sara whispered at the figure at her door.

“Hi, Sara,” Tim said, using the door frame for balance. “Yeah, I’m okay, I guess. I’ve just been doing a lot of thinking…”

“Hi Tim,” Ashley said, peering around Sara. Tim thought her fuzzy pink one-piece made her look even younger. “What’s up?”

“Ashley, I know you don’t want to sleep, but Tim and I need to talk for a minute, okay? Go back to bed.” The girl shrugged and walked away.

Tim smiled. “You two doing okay?”

“Yeah. I think that dream last night’s about the only thing that ever got to Ashley. The girl’s like a rock sometimes, it takes a lot to get her off-balance. Jennifer and I are talking about taking over #116, you know; it’s that three-bedroom place up by the street that nobody wanted. We think it’ll be good to have the girls together, and there’ll be plenty of room.”

Tim nodded. “Sara, I — I’ve been wondering for a while —” he reached for her.

Sara stepped forward and took his hand. “It’s about time,” she smiled. “But from the smell of you, you’ve been doing more than thinking tonight. You come back tomorrow when you’re sober, and we’ll see where we want to go from here.”

Tim’s beer-flavored whew about knocked Sara down. “Oh… thank God. I was hoping I wasn’t just imagining it.”

“Go on back, Tim,” Sara said. “We’ll talk tomorrow.” She kissed his cheek before he had a chance to react, and closed her door.


A nudge brought Tim out of a restless sleep. “Cleve? What’s up?”

“Not Cleve,” Sara whispered. “You better?”

“You mean sobered up? I guess so. You okay?”

Sara sat on the bed. “Yeah. Ashley finally gave up and fell asleep, then I couldn’t rest. I put her to bed and made sure she wasn’t gonna wake right back up before I came up. It’s five o’clock now, I hope that’s okay.”

“It’s always okay for you, Sara. I hope you know that.” He worked an arm out of the covers and reached for her; she took his hand.

“I do now. I kept wonderin’ if you’d ever come around.”

“I was… afraid, I guess. I didn’t believe that you’d go for me, with the other guys around here.” He put his other hand on her back and rubbed up and down her spine.

“Mmmm. You can do that all night.”

“I had something else in mind…”

Sara chuckled and kicked off her slippers, then slid under the covers. “Yeah, me too. But there’s two things I want to make sure we get straight first.”

“Uh-oh,” Tim laughed. I’ve already got one thing straight, he thought, putting his arms around her. They kissed briefly.

“I don’t want you sayin’ nothing about never being with a black girl before,” Sara said. “We all got the same parts, and they all work the same way.”

“Just a different paint job, right?” Tim said. “What’s the other thing?”

“We’re not using condoms.”

Tim laughed again. “I can’t get away from the Catholic women, can I?”

“I’m not Catholic, Tim. But I’ve always wanted children, and with the way things are now… people need to be having kids. Cody and Sondra will probably be having a baby sooner or later; Jennifer moved out of #107 because she got tired of hearing them goin’ at it ’most every night and she didn’t want to have to explain it to Caitlin.”

“Yeah… okay. If it doesn’t work out with us, I’ll still help raise our kids. That’s only fair.”

“I was hoping you’d say that,” she said, and kissed him. He returned the kiss, and they wrapped themselves around each other for a few minutes. Sara reached up to unbutton his pajama top; he unzipped her flannel.

“Too much stuff in the way,” Tim said, tugging at the sleeve of her gown. She pulled her arm through, then her other; he pulled off his pajamas. Naked, they came together again, kissing and groping. Tim rolled onto her and thrust inside, trying to be gentle about it; Sara moaned and wrapped around him, pulling him in all the way. They rocked together a long time on the bed, kissing, moaning, gasping, grasping.

“Come with me!” Sara gasped. And he did, hard and deep.

For a while afterward, neither moved, except for the occasional twitch, nor spoke. “I’ve got to get back,” Sara said finally, gently rolling him off her. “I don’t want Ashley to wake up and not know where I’m at.”

“Can I come with you? Ashley will have to get used to me being around anyway.”

She kissed him, then shrugged her robe on. “Why not?”

Tim threw his pajamas on, found his slippers, and followed Sara back to her unit. They made love again, more quietly but just as satisfying, before falling asleep.

continued…

Bummer of a Drummer

An old friend of The Boy — from B.B. (Before the Blog) has come back into the picture. Not living here, thank God, he wouldn’t live very long. He was really not much of a prize back when they were in high school — for example, he scratched “I LOVE MEN” into an antique headboard on The Boy’s bed — and when we moved The Boy into the private school they sort of lost touch. Over the intervening years, the kid cleaned up his act then let it get… not so clean.

In the last few weeks, The Boy has been trying to form a new band (I guess it’s harder to get kicked out of your own band) and this guy has picked up on it. I’m not sure what the deal is there; the drummer from the older band (Ether) has been hanging out too and I think he’s a better drummer (I think he’s doing the vocals). I’m not sure why The Boy has brought him over; he knew this guy was banned for life over the headboard incident. But since he’s been around, he’s hit on every female around the manor except for Mrs. Fetched (DoubleRed hasn’t been around). I would love to see him try to hit on Mrs. Fetched… the carnage would be glorious.

So, assuming he’s not re-banned shortly, we shall refer to him as Horndog from here on out.

While My Grandson Gently Sleeps

A little update while Mason’s napping…

My stitches itches. But that’s pretty much it. Except for a tiny stinging, it hasn’t hurt at all. I’m supposed to get the stitches out on Thursday, and then I don’t have to worry about scratching it anymore.

Daughter Dearest went to Savannah with her roomie-to-be this week. The roomie’s mom does a lot of traveling, so they make an extended outing of it. It’s been really nice for DD, it’s a few days away from the cRaZy and time to do some girlie things. We picked her up last night and brought her home…

… to a very dark house. Some storms came through, and the power went out around 9 (about an hour after we left). J, Kobold, Brand X, and Evil Lad NOT were up here for some reason. Snippet rounded up a few candles and lit them up so they could navigate. We have plenty of LED flashlights in the bedroom, so we got ours and were able to move around pretty well after that. Somewhere in all that, one of The Boy’s friends decided to drop in around 11 p.m. You have to wonder sometimes… Mrs. Fetched told The Boy to send him home ASAP, and he left after ten minutes or so. The power came back on around midnight, and everyone went to their respective homes and beds.

Mason’s more than a bit under the weather at the moment. The Boy and Snippet got sick with this early in the week, and Mason decided to catch up. He started not feeling good Thursday afternoon, as that’s when he started getting clingy. He had a fever on and off much of yesterday. Mrs. Fetched called the doc yesterday evening and they were booked for the day, so this morning Snippet and I went looking for a place that would look at him. The “family care, minor emergency” place up at the freeway doesn’t see anyone under 3, and opened about 20 minutes late, so we went up to the hospital were Mason was born and took him into the ER. They were amazingly quick about getting him in; I stepped out to use the bathroom and the ER doc was poking and prodding him (which he objected to at full volume) by the time I got back. He has an ear infection, which some amoxicillin and some infant acetaminophen should take care of.

Oh… and DD’s new roomie is OK, and so is her vegan mom. Her brother asked her out last night. Wouldn’t be a problem, except that he’s 32. He’s a big guy, recovering from a parking lot accident in which he had a leg and shoulder broken up pretty badly (the car that hit him was totalled), so at least she could put some distance between them if necessary. But it’s a little disconcerting.

And that’s all I got. New White Pickups episode goes up, as usual, Monday morning.

My Little Cyst (with photo!)

A while back, I mentioned in passing that the doc checked out the Eternal Zit on my back and told me it was a cyst. I got the appointments confused and thought she was going to yank it the next day, but it actually happened on Monday of this week. I figured (correctly) that they would use a local pain-killer on me, but I had no idea how I’d feel when I was done, so Mrs. Fetched offered to drive me. No problem.

So I got there, and a brand-new medical assistant intern put me on the scales… and promptly kept sliding the slider the wrong way. (Yup, she’s blonde, but I figured it was first-day jitters.) They hauled me into a corner room I’d never been in before, and I shucked my shirt and emptied my pockets.

“Hey, you brought us your pocket knife!” one of the nurses said. “We won’t have to use ours!”

“Knife?” I replied. “I figured you’d just drill the stupid thing out!”

Having never had this done, I was a little surprised at the numbing process: they stick you several times, around the cyst, because poking the cyst could make it more difficult to get out. The second shot is the one that hurt most; after that, I have no idea how many times they stuck me because I was pretty well numb. In came the doc, and she got to work…

“That was easy!” she said, “I thought it would be bigger.” She laid her prize on the table. It took her less time to do the work than it did to prep me.

“Looks like a blueberry that’s not ripe yet,” I said… and it did. It even had a stem at that point. My initial squeamishness went away fairly quickly.

“You must have some around your place,” she said, cutting some suture. “I planted some, but they all died.” She sewed me up and slapped a bandage over it. The admonishment to take four ibuprofens in the afternoon wasn’t needed; all in all, there was very little pain and a little more itching.

Being around all the weirdness at FAR Manor has rubbed off, because I had to get a picture:



The little round dark thing right of center is the cyst. It got knocked around a little bit and the stem went away before I could get the picture.

White Pickups, Episode 43

Contents

Tuesday, October 18, 2011

Nearly everyone got a slow start to the morning. Many seemed to simply go through the motions. Cody left a cold Pop-Tart half-eaten on his plate while Sondra stared at an empty coffee cup.

Cody finally shook his head, trying to clear it. “I’ll make you some coffee,” he said. “I might try a little myself.”

“Yeah. Thanks.”

He started the camp stove, on an end table under the living room window, and opened the window a crack for air. He put the kettle on and sat back down. “You had the dream, too.” It wasn’t a question.

Sondra nodded, then gave him a thin smile. “I didn’t know you could throw a shoe that far. Remind me to only piss you off when you’re barefoot.”

He grinned, took her hand, and stared at his Pop-Tart.


As it turned out, everyone in Laurel — perhaps everyone in the world — had the dream. Most of them talked about it through lunch, filling each other in on details one or another had missed, then stumbled back to bed for a nap. Last night’s sleep was anything but restful…

They are all seated in a huge stadium. Other people — thousands, perhaps millions — are there too, all of them talking among themselves.

“I think this is everyone,” Charles says to Johnny. “All of us who didn’t drive away.”

The racket is deafening, but somehow Johnny hears him clearly. “Best watch for the bashers, then.”

“Take care that ye not be deceived!” another voice cries from some rows ahead.

“That sounds familiar,” Tim says to Sara and Cleve, seated on either side of him.

“Yeah…” Cleve begins, but a gigantic screen that nobody noticed before lights up before them. Music begins playing. The hubbub dies down a bit, but not entirely.

It’s fast-paced, like an infomercial, but with black and white imagery and a soundtrack straight out of '50s educational films. It begins with a line of white pickups rolling past the camera; the boos in response are good-natured at first.

“Why walk, when you can ride?” the cheery male voiceover says. “Join our survey crew!”

All over the stadium, the boos take on an edge. A forest of middle fingers sprouts from the crowd, swaying in the still air.

“Your friends, your family —”

“Not my family!” Kelly screams, Charles and Tina on either side of her.

“— are all enjoying the freedom of the open road!”

All the kids hold their guardians tight, crying. Sara pulls Ashley into her lap and buries her face in Tim’s shoulder. “Tim!” she cries. “I can still see it!”

Tim puts his arms around them. “It’s okay,” he says. “They can make us watch, but they can’t make us join.” He closes his eyes, but he too can still see and hear.

The voiceover continues, persistent and inescapable over the roar of opposition: “As a valued member of our team, you will be freed from all physical issues, including eating, sleeping, bathroom breaks…” the video cuts to the inside of a truck, showing a series of vistas through the windshield: freeways, suburbia, cities, lakes, wilderness. “You’ll never get tired, never get uncomfortable, never get bored. Your emotions, your addictions, your urges… you’ll be freed from it all!”

Cody steps into the aisle, kicks off a shoe, and throws. It seems like miles, but his shoe sails all the way across the stadium and bounces off the screen. Cody’s area erupts in cheers as he throws his other shoe. A middle-aged man across the aisle stands, turns his back, and calmly moons the screen. More cheers; the man pulls up his pants then he and Cody high-five before sitting down.

Over the raucous jeers, through the averted and closed eyes, the covered ears, the images and sound persist: “Not only the things you see as part of our team, but the experiences of your entire life — even those you have forgotten — will be preserved… giving you the gift of IMMORTALITY!” The word unfurls across the screen as the narrator speaks it.

A large group begins chanting as one, “NOOOOO! NOOOOO!” Others take it up; the roar is ear-splitting but cannot drown out the soundtrack playing in their minds.

Sondra stands and empties her revolver; the bullets strike the screen but seem to bounce off like Cody’s shoes. The air fills with shoes, pocket knives, and other belongings. The roars of protest are impossibly loud. Many men, and even a few women, moon the screen.

The final image shows a single truck, filling the screen. The cheerful music builds to a crescendo; the driver’s door opens as the voiceover concludes, “So why resist? Climb in! Get on board! We’re waiting for YOU!”

Some of them remember, just before waking up, a voice shouting “Our souls, Beliel! And what of our immortal souls?”

The kids were up later than nearly everyone else that night, their fear of another dream greater than their need for sleep. But what kept Tim awake was not the dream itself. He would leave #214, the two-bedroom unit he shared with Cleve, walk up and down the dark and chilly hallway for a while, then return, sitting on the balcony and opening another can of beer. As he was working on his fifth can, Cleve opened the door between the balcony and his bedroom; he wore a black robe over a grey sweatsuit.

“Trouble sleeping, I guess,” he said to Tim. “You wanna talk?”

continued…

Pictures, Food and Fights…

…but not pictures of food fights. We’ll start off with the pictures…

Mom and Mason


Golf carts on parade…


Mason meets his first clown. He did quite well.


After contemplating the daisy for a few moments, he attempted to eat it (of course).


And, now to the fights. For an evening there, I thought M.A.E. was going to go back to her cheating a-hole of a boyfriend. Well, that now seems to be inoperative. He doesn’t seem to think he’s done anything w0rNg, and thinks that M.A.E. is the one with the problem. But now he’s pulling the control-freak card, threatening to take Moptop (fat chance with a felony drug conviction there, d00d) and making veiled threats (“you’re about to have a very bad week”) and a not-so-veiled threat to get her fired from her job. So she just got her smellphone number changed and who knows what will happen next there? Stay tuned… soap operas aren’t this weird.

Finally, food. Mrs. Fetched said “After I’m done at the chicken houses, I’ll bring some chicken up from Mom’s and we’ll do something with it for lunch.” This is code for, “I’m going to run way overtime, so you might want to fix something if you don’t want everyone here to starve to death.” There were a couple of steaks from last week’s grillin’ in the fridge, and I found some other stuff to make…

Steak Parmesan Pasta Salad

1 16oz box macaroni
8 oz grilled steak, sliced thin
1 cucumber, diced
1 tomato, diced
1 med. onion, sliced thin
1 20oz can corn, drained
1/2 c parmesan cheese (grated)
1/2 c vinaigrette

Prepare macaroni according to package directions. Rinse in cold water and drain well. Combine all ingredients in a large bowl. Cover and chill for 3 hours (preferred) or serve right away.

Everybody liked it — but they were hungry.

Dust and Fallout

As the dust begins to settle on vacation, we also ponder the fallout of The Boy and Snippet. As usual, they pushed things right to the limit while we were gone. I made a deal with them that they could use my laptop, and I'd leave it logged on for them, if they didn’t have any visitors staying overnight. They managed to stay within the letter of the agreement, even if they trampled the spirit thereof: one person slept in the detached garage (but not in the house!), and Lobster (who is banned from the manor permanently) came to visit. M.A.E. and DoubleRed were both here and their stories pretty much agree. Now The Boy and Snippet are planning to move out since they don’t think we’re being fair. But Mrs. Fetched has an ace in the hole, and I will talk about that if and when the time comes.

As you might have surmised from the vacation post, Mason is doing a pretty good job of walking — and he’s getting better at it. He’s also waking up at night a lot; I think he’s so active right now that he’s not getting enough food to fuel the legs and needs that midnight snack.

Of course, I have to include a photo — especially since it’s so cute. I think I should get an award for this one, don’t you?

Oh, M.A.E. (and Moptop) are still here. They were going to move in with Big V, but M.A.E. didn’t really want to do that — see, I told you she was smarter than she gives herself credit for! Seriously: if Snippet made the effort that M.A.E. does to raise her kid and improve her lot in life, she’d be doing pretty good right now and she wouldn’t have any friction around here to complain about.

While I was on vacation, my iPhone really started to act up: when it gets warm, the entire unit resets itself and comes up to the “plug me into iTunes” graphic. This happened even when I removed the SIM and/or put the iPhone in Airplane mode (which turns off the phone), so that kind of put a cramp in my whole Skype-phone scheme. While I’m completely on Skype now, phone-wise, if I want to have a wifi phone I need to carry the iPad (if I don’t have $200 for an iPhone 4, I certainly don’t have $300 for a newer iPod touch). Fortunately, work isn’t blocking Skype so I can leave the app running on the work computer. The home and work MacBooks pair with a Jawbone I have laying around, but there are some strange audio issues going on there — I haven’t had a chance to try messing with it just yet.

If I get a chance, I’ll do a vacation photo-post this weekend.

White Pickups, Episode 42

Contents

Nearly everyone came out to watch, until Cleve and Tim protested. “We only need three others,” Cleve said. “Nothin’ for you guys to see out here anyway.”

“You be careful, Tim,” Sara said, hand on his arm. “We’ve lost enough people to those things already.”

“I’ll be fine. We’ve got big guys to hold our leashes. Besides, it’s Cody doing the hazardous part.”

“Where is Cody?” Sara looked around.

“He and Sondra went to get some rope from his old place,” Charles said.

“Yeah,” Max chimed in. “Maybe they won’t stop for a ‘layover’ or anything.” Everyone laughed at that.

“Nope,” said Cleve, “They know it’s time for business. Besides, here they come now.” He pointed down the street toward Laurel, at the couple biking toward them. Each had a coil of rope slung over a shoulder. Most of the crowd was walking or riding the other way.

Cody and Sondra joined them at the intersection, in the empty lot across from the QuickFill. A “NO PARKING - TOW AWAY ZONE” sign stood above the weeds, a relic from the old world of last month. Trucks went by in all directions, under a sky that promised rain but not right away. The holdouts had a crude barricade, knocked together out of scrap lumber, and adorned with a STOP sign borrowed from inside the development. Cleve, Max, Charles, Tim, Big Ben, and Sara stood around it.

“Here’s the rope,” Cody said, handing his coil to Tim. Sondra handed hers to Max, who hung it on the end of the barricade. She shook her right arm; outside the truck-free confines of Laurel, it tingled and sometimes went numb.

Tim paid out the yellow nylon cord. “Not ideal,” he said, “but good enough.” He cut off about ten feet and wrapped it around his waist and each leg, tying it behind his back and leaving several feet of “tail” dangling. “Homebrew safety harness.” He cut two more lengths and wrapped one each around Cody and Ben, then tied a length of remaining rope to their tails.

“I guess I’m ready,” said Tim, picking up the DSLR camera they found in one of the abandoned houses. He turned it on, checked the battery, opened the flash, and removed the lens cap. He set the focus and exposure, then looked through the viewfinder for a moment. Ben picked up his camcorder and nodded.

“Let’s do this,” Cody said. Cleve picked up the rope attached to Cody, ran it around his back and wrapped the end around his arm; Max and Charles did the same with Ben’s and Tim’s ropes.

“You be careful too, Cody,” Sara said. She and Sondra took up each end of the barricade. “Don’t be no hero.”

“Right,” Cody said. He shook his head, and his hair fell across his face before he swept it back. “If it looks like I’m getting in…”

“Yup,” Sondra said, patting her holster, “I shoot out your legs and hope Rita can fix it. You ain’t getting away that easy!”

The women checked the street, then carried the barricade out. Ben was already recording. They set the barricade at the edge of the intersection, then hurried back to the side of the street. Shortly, a truck rolled up, silent as always except for the hum of tires on pavement. It slowed and stopped.

“Let’s go!” Cody yelled, running out to the pickup while Ben and Tim took up positions at the passenger door. Cleve and the others braced themselves while Cody yanked the door open, tilted toward the interior for a moment, then jumped clear and hoisted both middle fingers at the truck. Tim held the shutter down; the camera kept clicking, although the flash quit after the first few shots. Ben zoomed in and out.

“We’ve got what we’re gonna get!” Ben shouted after a minute. “Let it go!”

Cody kicked the door; it shut with a chuff as Sara and Sondra dragged the makeshift barricade out of the street. As soon as the way was clear, the truck rolled away. Cody sat down in the grass, puffing and smiling as he and the others untied their harnesses. “That went okay,” he said.

“I felt it pull you,” Cleve said, winding the rope. “Dunno how I stood without trying to yank you back.”

“It pulled us too,” Ben agreed. “But it wasn’t that bad. We could have done it without the ropes.”

“Yeah, but who wants to take chances?” said Tim. “Let’s get on back and have a look at what we got.”


Everyone crowded around the big-screen TV in the Laurel Room as Ben hooked up his camcorder, chattering among themselves and peppering Ben and Tim with questions. Cody stood off to the side with Sondra, arms around each other, watching the others. “I don’t have any idea what the video quality’s gonna be like,” said Ben. “It was kind of dark in the viewfinder. But we’ve got the stills from Tim’s camera, and the first few had flash, so we probably got something.”

“Roll the tape!” someone called in the crowd.

“It’s all on a flash card, there’s no tape!” Ben laughed. “But let’s see what we got.”

The video began with Sondra and Sara carrying the barricade into the street, then Ben panned around to watch a truck approaching. The view jumped as Cody shouted “Let’s go!” and Ben and Tim hustled forward to the door. Cody jumped into the frame, yanked the door open, lurched forward for a moment, then jumped back. Ben zoomed in, rocking a little as the truck tried to pull him in —

The screen showed a woman sitting at the wheel and a little boy strapped in next to her. Both were bone white — skin and hair — but from their features, they may have been black before driving off. The woman’s purse lay on the floor in front of the child. Neither turned toward the people outside; the only sounds were the men breathing and Tim’s camera clicking. Ben shouted, the door slammed shut, and Ben once again panned to the women, this time dragging the barricade out of the way. The truck rolled away; several people laughed at Cody giving it the finger one more time before walking off-camera.

Sondra stepped forward to break the silence. “It stands to reason,” she said, raising her right arm. “My arm got bleached when I stuck it in one, why wouldn’t it bleach the drive-offs entirely?”

“They didn’t even look at you,” Kelly said. “It’s like they were zombies or something.” She shivered all over.

“How are they eating?” Johnny said. “You ever see one of them things stop for more than a few seconds at an intersection? Besides the ones waiting for the rest of us, I mean. It’s like they never sleep or nothin’.”

The TV flickered as Tim connected the DSLR. A still frame displayed the woman and her child in more detail. Most of the interior was washed out from the flash. Tim stepped through the next two, to the first photo without a flash. The interior appeared to be a uniform grey, perhaps vinyl, but with no texture.

“You remember it looking like that?” Cody whispered to Sondra. “When you stuck your arm in.”

“No. I was trying to keep it from pulling me in, I didn’t bother looking at it.”

“It seems we’re left with more questions than before,” Charles said. “Well, we’ve learned something anyway. Maybe it’ll turn out to be useful later on.”

continued…

A few random vacation pics

Having a good time, except that Mason is waking up at 6:45 every morning so he doesn't miss out on all the stuff going on. He loves to chase Mom's kitty all over the house:



Yesterday, we put some shutters up on the back of the house. Much "fun" was had, mainly by Wicked Stepfather going UR DOIN IT RONG constantly. Mom held the (plastic) shutters while I screwed them up in:



I keep threatening to do this to Mrs. Fetched, so Daughter Dearest did it to me. Yup, I raised her right!



More to come, probably when I get back home.

Welcome Back, M.A.E.

Those of you who have been kind enough to stick with TFM through all the weirdness, fictional and otherwise, might recognize the name Ms. Almost Einstein, whom I usually just call M.A.E. Waaaayyyy back when, she was The Boy’s girlfriend, the one he swore he’d kill himself over if we tried to break them up. (Drama queens come in more than one gender.) She was one of the original FAR Manor boarders and hangers-on, and continued to live with us even after The Boy (after sharing a house with her for a good long while) broke up with her over the phone while we were in Florida. Somewhat over three years ago, she left the manor to be close to her new boyfriend.

That didn’t last long, and she eventually found another boyfriend, reproduced (deliberately), never did quite marry the guy. M.A.E. and Mrs. Fetched have stayed in touch, and even went to the resort with us (and little Emma, who now has the blog name Moptop) last September. Then the boyfriend ran into some trouble, going to jail for drugs, and not exactly being a model father and SO after he got out. Somewhere along the line (according to M.A.E. anyway), he started cheating on her and she finally had enough last weekend and bailed (with Moptop of course). She spent a day at SPOW (her mom’s) place, but her mom makes Big V look like a model of sanity and she bailed on that situation too…

… and guess where she landed?

Mason certainly doesn’t mind — he likes watching girls, and Moptop is definitely a girl. We had a daybed in the garage, and were able to set it up in the living room with just a little furniture shuffling. M.A.E. and Moptop were both going to sleep in it last night, but DoubleRed had some place she needed to be for a few nights so she got her own (very large) bed. She brought a ton of food with her, and we’re taking a lot of it for Big V to have some chow.

I can’t wait to get some photos of Mason and Moptop together. They ought to be tooth-rotting cute!

White Pickups, Episode 41

Contents

“Caitlin was talking to somebody in a pickup,” Little Ben was telling Big Ben — or rather, his camera. “I was afraid she would get in, so I hit her with the soccer ball. She picked it up and threw it back, and that’s when I woke up.” Little Ben went back to his lunch.

“That’s… eerie,” Jennifer said, and Big Ben turned the camera on her. “Caitlin said she had the exact same dream last night! What the hell is going on?”

“Beats me,” Ben said, putting the camera down. “But a lot of people had some kind of dream about the trucks last night. Did you?”

“I might have.” Jennifer paused, scratched her head, looked at her fingers. “Damn, I hate not being able to wash my hair every night. My scalp itches. I think I had a dream, but I don’t remember it.”

“Several people had similar — or identical — dreams last night.”

“I guess the trucks are all on our minds more than we think. It stands to reason, I guess — they took away almost everyone we knew and cared about.” Jennifer raised her mug and slurped. “Who made the soup? This didn’t come out of a can!”

“Some of it did,” someone said from the next table over. “Miss Sally put it together. All of it came out of cans, but she made it soup. Max made the rolls, they’re pretty good too.”


Kelly dropped into a chair across from Cody and Sondra, surprising them both. “Hey,” Kelly said, then slurped some soup from her mug. “Hm, that’s pretty good.”

Sondra glanced at Cody, looking at his mug as if trying to decide if he wanted it, then back at Kelly. She felt a flash of annoyance at the intrusion. Kelly looked much like any young woman these days: dressed in a sweater and jeans, but just a little tight instead of comfortable and slightly loose-fitting, showing off her body to best effect. Sondra wasn’t nearly as well-endowed… not that Cody seems to mind, she thought, and almost smiled. Like Sondra’s, Kelly’s hair was slightly greasy and pulled back in a ponytail. Nobody under forty bothered with makeup these days, but Sondra had to admit that Kelly looked good without it — and everyone was getting toned, walking or bicycling everywhere and gathering food and firewood and other items against the coming winter. Still, Kelly was pretty in a way Sondra never would be. But looks aren’t everything, are they? she found herself thinking. You thought you could slag him off until you were ready to own him… you snooze, you lose.

“You heard, right?” Kelly asked. Cody looked up at Kelly, but she was looking at Sondra.

“The dreams?” Sondra felt a chill, and her right arm tingled for a moment.

“Yeah. So was I in your dream last night, or were you in mine?”

Cody: “What was your dream about?”

Kelly scowled. “I was riding fifth wheel on your honeymoon trip, God knows why, and your car started turning into a pickup. You and Sondra jumped out, and I was trying to get out before my door disappeared or the damn truck crashed.”

“Yeah, that was my dream, too,” Cody said, returning his attention to his soup mug. He lifted it, took a sip. “But I didn’t know if you guys got away. Maybe it was your dream, if you saw that and I didn’t.”

“So why didn’t I dream it?” Sondra asked, scowling at Cody too. “Maybe I’m the fifth wheel here.”

“I don’t think it was our dream,” Cody said, concentrating on the mug. “If it was just the two of us, I’d say yeah — but a bunch of people had dreams. Not everybody… or maybe they did and don’t remember. I heard a couple people say they dreamed something, but can’t recall it.”

“So whose dream was it?” Kelly asked. Both of them dropped the scowls.

Cody looked at each of them, holding his soup mug in front of his face as if hiding. He finally took a sip and put it down. “It came from the trucks, obviously,” he said, his post-Truckalypse confidence returning. “Or whatever sent the damn things.”

“What do they care? Or it?” Sondra asked.

“Hell, I don’t know. And if I ever met the SOB, I’d be too busy trying to kill it to ask.” Cody tore into the corner of his sandwich and talked around it. “Maybe we’re unfinished business. The fish that got away, 'cause we were swimming against the current.”

Kelly gave him a curious look. “Huh. I thought you liked it this way, and you’d kill the truck maker?”

Cody stammered, “I— they— hell yeah, I’d kill it. I’m glad the preps and jocks are gone, but not everyone who drove off was them. My sister… the kids remind me of her, she was about their age. She would’ve liked them. I want her back, but I don’t think anyone who got in a truck is ever coming back — I don’t know that for sure, it’s just a gut feeling. But I’d jump in one of those fucking things myself if I thought it would bring her back.” He wiped his eyes and paused a moment. “Thing is, I don’t think we can rescue anyone. All we can do is get rid of the trucks. And maybe get some payback on whatever sent ’em.”

“How do you figure we can do that?” Cleve asked. The three teens jumped; they had gathered an audience unawares.

“What, just because I wear black and have long hair, I’m automatically the authority on All Things Evil?” Cody mock-sniped at Cleve, and grinned. “You still profiling?”

Cleve laughed, as did several others. “Busted the cop! But seriously, do you have any idea how we can fight those things?”

“Not yet. Maybe if we knew more about them — about what happens to people who drive off — we’ll be able to figure out what to do next.”

“Yeah. So what’s the next step?”

Cody took a deep breath. “You know what? I think I have an idea.”

continued…

Phone Booth at the Crossroads

After a few calls to support, and a little troubleshooting on my own, I’ve concluded that my iPhone 3G is pretty much toast. It works OK until it gets warm, then the phone part blows a gasket and thinks it needs to be restored. The rest of the phone works fine when this happens, including the wifi; if I turn it off and let it cool down, it comes back like nothing ever happened.

With the new iPhone 4 out, you might think this was a wonderful excuse to upgrade… but Mrs. Fetched has been complaining about the phone bill for a while and put a preemptive kibosh on upgrading. The two small areas between the manor and the retail district where we lose signal are (for her) a reason to go back to Verizon. But smartphones on Verizon are even more expensive than on AT&T, and frankly I’d rather not have a cellphone at all than live with how Verizon cripples their not-so-smart phones.

So I’m seriously considering a more radical move: keep the ailing iPhone, remove the SIM card, and turn it into a Skype phone. The IdioTs at work block wifi access for personal equipment, but that’s what an office phone is for. There are plenty of open wifi hotspots between work and the retail district, and I really shouldn’t be on the phone in the car anyway, right?

Doing a little figuring in my head, it seems like I could probably do all the phone stuff I really need on Skype for maybe $10/month, maybe a little more. For what I’m paying to have an iPhone, a few inconveniences don’t seem all that substantial…

State of the FARf

Shortly after Mrs. Fetched got off the phone Friday afternoon and told me about my doctor appointment coming up Monday, my phone and computer also got in on the act. I punch those follow-up dates into my phone on the spot so I'll have some warning.

But when Big V somehow managed to end up at the manor, with Splat's kid Skyler, it was a somewhat less than restful night. Big V passed out in the rocker that we use to get Mason to sleep, so he was up for quite a while… The Boy and Snippet ended up taking him upstairs with them until he wore himself out. Each of the babies woke up through the night, and I just don't sleep through that… so when morning rolled around, I didn't start rolling until it was impossible to get to the doc's office on time. I called and they said I could be 20 minutes late without having to reschedule, so I jumped in the car and booked it. I just made it, even with the obligatory slowpokes, but just barely.

Blood pressure was good, even with the hassle of getting there. They ran an EKG, which seemed to go OK since I didn't get referred to a cardiologist. She put on The Glove… and assured me she'd take to dinner first next time. That wasn't so wonderful, since she found a bump that didn't belong there. Now I get the full reaming, boo hiss. A large "eternal" zit on my back turned out to be a cyst, and that will get yanked tomorrow.

Might as well get all the scary stuff out of the way since I'm still employed, right? At least Big V was at her own house last night.

White Pickups, Episode 40

Contents

From the diary of Ben Cho, fall 2011, condensed:

We planted spinach and turnips, and a few stored onions that started sprouting. We gathered trailer-loads of walnuts, and a few buckets of hickory and pecans. One of our field guides told us how to get the bitterness out of oak acorns — put them in a cloth bag and leave them in running water for a few days — but we don’t trust nearby creeks to be running clean just yet, so we’ll let that food source pass this year. It’s clear we won’t starve though, even if the gardens fail; we just have to let things grow and know what to look for. Johnny Latimer says he’s going to start hunting, it would be nice to have some fresh meat. Feral dogs are becoming a problem, but the fence keeps the most dangerous ones out and everyone is armed when they go outside.

Water is a tougher nut. We can count on numerous rain barrels scavenged from garden centers, at least through the winter, but rainfall in a Georgia summer is anything but reliable. So many things we need water for: drinking, cooking, sterilizing (by boiling), washing, irrigation, and some of us still find ourselves trying the faucets from time to time. We decided that the creeks might be all right for irrigation and washing by spring, and we’ll start drinking from them (with filtering) this summer if we have to. We covered the swimming pool for the winter, but we’ll probably use it as a swimming pool at least one more year.

A lot of us have been having weird dreams lately. Everyone’s an amateur psychologist…

Part III
Dream Warfare

Sunday, October 16, 2011

“Cody!”

Cody hit the bedroom wall, bounced back flailing. “Uh!” Moonlight made his red robe a dark spot among shadows.

“Cody, are you all right?”

He paused a moment. “Uh. Um… yeah.”

“You must have been having a dream,” Sondra said, sitting up and wrapping her robe around herself. “You remember it?”

“Yeah.” He sat down, reached under the blanket, found her hand. “It was… weird. We got married and we were driving to Florida for our honeymoon. The weird part was, Kelly was in the back seat, I don’t know why. She said, ‘Look, we’re taking off,’ and we raised up off the ground… but the car started turning into… you know. You were yelling at me to stop, stop, and I was standing on the brakes. Then I said, ‘We’ll have to jump,’ and I opened the door and jumped out. I hit the pavement — I even felt it — and was hoping you got out too. Did I just run into the wall?”

“Yeah, you did. You okay?”

“I guess so.” He felt himself over, then shivered and climbed back under the covers. They wrapped themselves around each other. “It’s cold out of bed. I guess when winter really gets here, we’ll have to move into the living room, in front of the fireplace.”

“Sounds romantic. So… getting married wasn’t the bad part?”

“Not really. As long as it was you, anyway. Problem is, I think all the preachers drove off.”

“We’ll work something out when the time comes,” Sondra whispered, kissing him. “As for keeping warm…”

They went back to sleep, but not right away.


Jennifer Lane woke with a start, and gasped at the silhouette against the moonlit window.

“Miss Jennifer? I had a bad dream.”

“Oh. Caitlin. It’s all right, you’re awake now. Do you remember it?”

“Yeah.” The little girl shuddered, even wrapped in her blanket from the futon in the living room. “I was playing outside, and a truck stopped. My mom was in it — I couldn’t see her, but I knew it was her. She said to get in.”

Jennifer thought a moment. “Did you?”

“I didn’t want to. I said you were taking care of me now, and I was scared of the trucks, but she said I had to come. I started walking toward it, and someone — I think it was Ben — threw a soccer ball at me. I threw it back at him, then I woke up.”

“You want to know what I think?” Jennifer asked, and Caitlin nodded. “I think you had that dream because we went and got your stuff from your old house on Wednesday, and we had to stay there overnight because it was too far to ride back home before dark. That made you think about your mom, but you didn’t know you were thinking about her, so you had the dream.”

“But I did think about her!” Caitlin wailed. Her breath caught for a moment. “I did. I — I didn’t wanna make you feel bad, because I know you’re taking care of me now, but I wished she was home and I could just stay there with her.” Jennifer could see her tears in the moonlight.

“It’s okay, Caitlin,” Jennifer said. “I’d be disappointed if you didn’t feel that way. It’s normal.” She took Caitlin’s hand, and the girl slumped onto the bed, crying. Jennifer let her cry, and Caitlin cried herself to sleep on the bed, still wrapped up in the blanket.

Jennifer looked at the sleeping girl for a moment. Caitlin couldn’t help being a little clingy; her parents had split last winter. First her dad had left, then her mom drove off. Her crush on Cody was likely just his “luck” at being the first older boy she’d met. The girl was already losing her fat — with no TV to speak of and lots of work to get ready for the winter, even the kids were getting in shape — but was still too heavy to pick up. After a moment of thought, Jennifer got another blanket from the closet and went to the futon. Good enough for her, good enough for me, she thought. She slept — and had her own dreams.

to be continued…

The Cluster-Post

Since I can’t seem to get to these nearly as often as I’d like… they all get rolled up into one big post.

I’ve only had it for a few days, and I’m finding the new iPad is a game-changer, at least as much as moving from desktops to laptops was. It’s already changing how I read email, use Twitter, read blogs, and play games. Once I get a Bluetooth keyboard for it, I expect that I’ll be on it more than I am the MacBook since I’ll use it to blog and work on stories too. Actually, in landscape mode, the on-screen keyboard is big enough to touch-type on. I have to look at it though because I have no idea whether my fingers are drifting off their correct position, though.

I really wish Google would come up with a way to allow writing and editing in Google Docs with the iPad. But until they get it figured out, I’ve found that Yahoo Notepad at least works for tapping out something into the cloud. Obviously, I’d settle for limited functionality with Google Docs.

Mason had his 9-month checkup this week. He hasn’t gained any weight, but our doc didn’t seem too concerned about that since he’s so active (which he demonstrated quite well in the exam room). She said his iron’s a little low, feed him some baby vitamins… and meat, if we can find any he’ll eat. Actually, there’s an organic turkey w/vegetables combo that he seems to like OK.

As you can see in the pic here, he: 1) is constantly in motion; 2) has figured out how to carry something around when he has his hands otherwise occupied. He’ll be walking pretty soon — this afternoon, I watched him get to his feet “open-field” (that is, not pulling up on anything), so he’s getting a little more confident with his balance. He has also taken a couple of steps, ran three more and dropped to his hands and knees once he realized what he was doing… looks like all he needs a little more confidence. I’m rediscovering how one can turn stuff laying around into instant baby toys: large pill bottles are just the right size to hold (but not eat) and can really be interesting with a few beads or jingle bells inside; cardboard boxes and upside-down laundry baskets are perennial hits; even a stack of old magazines can be a happy distraction for pulling down and strewing around.

One of the downsides of Mason’s continued development is that he’s learned how to cut loose with this blood-curdling screech when he wants attention. I guess I’d better warn the Wicked Stepfather to turn off his hearing aid when we go visit.


Reality is stranger than fiction, at least around FAR Manor, and the two sort of came together this weekend at church. The little teen girl who sings in the choir introduced me to her friend Caitlin on Sunday morning. And… Caitlin is this little redhead, just like Caitlin Cooper in White Pickups (the one with the gigantic crush on Cody). The real-life Caitlin is fairly slim, but the chubby fictional Caitlin is slimming down what with… well, some upcoming episodes will explain. I have to say, meeting one’s own characters IRL (when they more or less introduced themselves from thin air to begin with) ranks right up there with some of the weirder writing-related things I’ve run into. Speaking of writing, I’ve been making pretty good progress on the story lately… I have episodes sorted through #60 and have about eight more that need to be ordered and laid out (with one more to insert). From there, I know how it’s going to end and mostly how to get there… and the details tend to be there when I need them. Then it’s on to Book 2!


And… what would a week (or a day) at FAR manor be without some TB/SN/TS errors? Snippet has constantly been throwing SN06 errors lately (sleeping all morning, sometimes into the afternoon); her excuse is (SN05) she can’t deal with Mrs. Fetched or Daughter Dearest. Seeing as DD is in Florida this week, she should be getting up twice as soon since she only has half the can’t-deal-with to deal with.

Yesterday, she wanted to go tubing on her off-day, leaving Mason with us (of course) and Mrs. Fetched vetoed it. Snippet, of course, got all defiant and threatened to “take Mason and she won’t see him for a long time.” That qualifies as an SN08, because she can’t usually get her skinny little @$$ out of bed before noon — what makes her think (if one can call it that) that she’d be able to do even a halfway job of taking care of an active baby?

The Boy, meanwhile, has been indulging in multiple instances of TB03 (not coming home) and TB21 (in bed half the day). And several TS03 (bring weird friends over) — one of them was here all weekend and wasn’t out until Tuesday. Despite the uglification he’d obviously worked hard at, he wasn’t all that bad… he would keep Mason entertained and watched over, and was a fair hand at the piano. Snippet doesn’t like him, so that’s maybe one more thing in his favor.

Oh, and I’ve been continuing to work on the wood spill. More later…

White Pickups, Episode 39

Contents

The laden trailers slowed them down, which suited Cleve just fine. They stuck to the side of the road, using bike lanes or sidewalks where available. The drivers of the pickups seemed happy to share the road, but nobody wanted to listen to the constant invitations. The late-morning sun was warm, and the four of them worked up a sweat in a hurry. Everyone kept an eye out for other riders, but Tim guessed that between the head start and their load, whoever had passed by Sunlover’s was long gone.

Sara waved them to a stop shortly before Pleasant Hill. “Listen! Is that a dog barking?”

“Sounds like two, maybe more,” Johnny said, hefting his carbine. “Safeties off?”

“Not yet,” Cleve said, peering down the highway, “but let’s move slow enough where we can stop quick. Don’t worry about kickstands, just let the bikes fall over if we have to. Sara, you sure you don’t want a gun?”

“I’d just shoot myself or one of you.” She unhooked the air pump from its mount. “If I have to, I’ll whack ’em on the nose. That might slow ’em down enough for one of you to rescue me.”

They moved slowly, crossing Pleasant Hill behind a few trucks (who treated all major intersections as a four-way stop). The barking grew louder, then they saw movement up ahead. “Safeties off now,” Cleve said, stopping long enough for all of them to comply, and they hurried forward.

Up ahead, a woman faced two large dogs in a church parking lot, backed up against a truck. She had positioned her bike so the two dogs facing her could only come at her from one direction, and she had her air pump in hand. A third dog lay in the road; the occasional thump-thump of a pickup rolling over it suggested the dogs had crossed the highway to attack.

“Back off!” Cleve shouted at the dogs, who turned to face the newcomers; the woman looked up as well. They barked and darted forward, but did not close. Tim waved at the woman to get out of the way; she picked up her bike and slipped around the white pickup, as quiet as possible. One of the dogs turned back to her, but too late — Johnny fired four times as soon as he had a clear shot. Both dogs dropped to the pavement, twitching for a few moments, then lay still. The woman slumped to the pavement behind the truck, and Sara ran to her.

“Are you all right?”

The woman looked up at Sara. She was dark, nearly as dark as Sara herself; she had her long straight black hair pulled back into a tail and tucked into the collar of her shirt. A cap lay on the pavement nearby. “I think so. They didn’t bite me.” Tears ran down the rider’s eyes. “What will you do with me?” There was a lilt to her voice, an accent Sara couldn’t quite place.

“You can come with us, if you like,” Sara said. “We live a ways north of here.”

“This is why we don’t travel alone, and we don’t travel unarmed,” Cleve said, a little winded from running to catch Sara. “I guess you’ve been lucky so far.” Tim and Johnny joined them.

“Lucky? I suppose.”

Sara shook her head at Cleve. “I’m Sara Karsten. This is Johnny Latimer, Tim Petro, and Cleve Isaacs. We live… a little north of here.”

“I’m Rita Diaz. And thank you all for coming when you did.”

Tim asked, “Were you who I saw about an hour ago, riding up the highway?”

Rita nodded. “I was alone. I thought if I couldn’t find other people, I might find a farmhouse somewhere in the country where I could grow my own food. My parents used to tell me about the way they lived in Mexico; I thought if they could do it, perhaps I could too. I stopped at a gas station a ways back to rest and get a few water bottles. If you hadn’t come along… when I saw the dogs, I thought I could get into this church and claim sanctuary, but they came too fast. So perhaps God sent some angels instead?”

Johnny laughed. “We’re no angels, but we’re not bad folks either. We live in a fenced-in subdivision, and some of us are already turning it into a big ol’ lawns-to-gardens project. The trucks are all outside the fence, so I guess that makes it a little slice of Heaven. Shoot… maybe we are angels, then.” He laughed, and Rita joined him.

“May I ask… what are you carrying?”

“Solar panels, control boxes, spools of wire, batteries, all that junk,” Cleve said. “Some of us gotta have our creature comforts, you know.”

“Very resourceful. I should have thought of that myself,” Rita said. “Maybe I didn’t think things through as much as I should have. Being out in the country would make it hard to scavenge while waiting for the harvest.”

“You think we’re resourceful?” Tim laughed. “You haven’t met Cody yet!”

“I’d be glad to learn from him, and the rest of you. If you’ll have me.”

“Sure,” Cleve said. “There ain’t enough of us to worry about crowding, any time soon.”

“Thank you so much,” Rita said. “For saving me, and for taking me in. How far do we have to go?”

“Ten miles, maybe?”

“I’ll try not to slow you down. I’m not used to bicycling everywhere yet. Could we stop by a medical clinic on the way?”

“Why?” Cleve asked. “Are you hurt?” Tim caught Cleve’s suspicious look that said: or are you a druggie?

“No… I want to pick up some supplies. I’m a nurse-practitioner, so I thought it might be useful to have some things around in case they’re needed.”

Nobody said anything for several moments. “Well, you’re an answered prayer, then,” Tim said. “You sure you’re not the angel?”

to be continued…

From the “Holy Crap!” Department…

OK, I know I gripe a lot about stuff in my life. Then something like this comes totally out of right field…

Mrs. Fetched’s older sister came to visit today, bringing much food for me to grill. She handed me this iPad and said, “I thought you might like to play around with this for a while.” Oh, but of course! “This isn’t the 3G kind, just wifi,” she added… no problem, we have wifi here. (I sometimes like to think of FAR Manor as a tiny oasis of civilization in the midst of cultural darkness.) But there was much grilling of food to be done first, naturally. I got to fiddle with it a little, anyway.



She’d loaded several eBook readers and music streamers on it, and more than a few ebooks, videos, music tracks, and so on. Our media preferences don’t intersect all that well, but who cares? It was fun to fiddle with. There was “only” 20GB left (on a 64GB iPad)… I learned a while ago that an 8GB iPhone fills up pretty quick, so I figure to get at least a 16 or 32GB version next time (which may be soon, as my iPhone craps out when it gets warm now).

Then we brought to the food down to the in-laws’ place for lunch. She hugs me and whispers, “Since I didn’t get you anything for Christmas this year, I figured you could have that.” [FARf→floor]

Yeah, I complain a lot about the stupid stuff that goes on around here, but sometimes… something like that happens. Like winning a Kindle at Christmas. Okay then: the Ultimate eReader Smackdown is about to begin!

Wood Spill

I finally got serious about cleaning up the wood spill behind the manor.

After dispersing the spill with power and hand tools, there ’s still a couple major plumes of wood…





Nature is lending a hand at eating the spill, although it would take a long time…



Some of the smaller wood particles have drifted into the woods, where they won’t cause any problems…



Some of the spill has been recovered and stored…



Still lots of work to do, but I’m hoping to have the spill cleaned up in the next week or so. It would go a lot faster if I could get The Boy in on the action.

White Pickups, Episode 38

Contents

Thursday, September 29, 2011

One by one, Cleve, Johnny, Sara, and Tim rolled up in front of Sunlover’s Solar. Cleve and Tim took up positions on either side of the strip building, covering Sara and Johnny as they pulled up. Sara was unarmed, at her insistence, but Johnny had his carbine slung over his shoulder. Morning was bright and warm, a perfect early fall day. As usual, a single white pickup whispered to them in the parking lot; others rolled north and south on Buford Highway. An overhang shaded the storefronts, but the sun reflected off the windows and doors of the trucks.

Sunlover’s had a small window; Sara peeked in and saw a few displays but no movement. She gave the door a try. “It’s locked.”

“Figures,” grumbled Johnny, watching the street. “The most important place we’ve looted so far, and the first one we’ll have to break into.” He stepped out to catch Cleve’s eye. “It’s locked, Cleve! Now what?”

“Johnny, come down here. Cover me while I check out the back door. Sara, go over to Tim’s corner and help him watch.” They split up.

Tim stood watching the driveway to the back; it was wide enough for a transfer truck. The next strip building squatted on the other side, uphill beyond a few shrubs in a four-foot landscaping island. Sara jogged to the corner.

“Watch my back,” Tim said.

“Above or below the belt?” she laughed.

He gave her a wary smile. “Good thing I didn’t tell you to watch behind me.”

“But that’s what you want, right?”

“Yeah.” She shifted to his side to watch the back lot.

After a quiet minute, Tim spoke: “You been doing okay?”

“Sure. I walked to my job at the Saver-Mart most days. Riding a bike’s a little different, but you get used to it.”

“Yeah. But I really meant, with all… all this.” He waved his hand at the street.

“Well, those trucks ain’t been what I wanted to look at the rest of my life, but I’ll get by. I’m keeping Ashley now, so I’m doing something useful. What about you?”

Tim sighed. “Has it really only been a week since I found Rebecca? It seems like a lot longer than that.”

“A crisis does funny things to time. That’s what my kin in New Orleans would say. They should know, they were there for Katrina.”

“Ow. I’m sorry.”

“Me too.” She put a hand on his arm.

“Thanks. You know? Maybe… it’s better this way. Sure, I’d rather she lived long enough for us to find her, but it would have been awkward, being around her all the time.”

“That bad?”

“Oh yeah. We’d have been checking out each others’ new interests, and probably approving them. Or not.”

“Wow. ‘Up in each other’s bidness’ is what my family called that. That wouldn’t have gone well.”

“Tell me about it.”

Johnny poked his head around the corner in the back. “Hey! The back door was unlocked, we’re about to go in. Meet us up front, but Cleve said not to stand where anyone inside can see you from the window.”

“Okay!” Sara answered. “C’mon, Tim… Tim? What is it?”

“I… I could have sworn I just saw someone ride by on a bicycle.”

“Which way?”

“Going north. On the other side of the road.” Tim pointed then walked down the storefronts, watching the street and in front of him.

“Did they see us?”

“I don’t think so. They didn’t look this way.”


“We’ll have to be careful going back, then,” Cleve said. They stood inside Sunlover’s, watching the traffic through the window while Sara looked at the displays.

“Eco-Mergency 2000,” Sara read aloud. “Portable power at home or away from home.”

“I don’t think they saw us down here,” Tim said. “He — I think it was a he — didn’t even look our way. He would have had to look over his shoulder to see me, anyway.”

“GridFree — When you’re ready to cut the cord, or when the cord isn’t long enough. Ha. Cute. Optional RV mount available.”

“So do we do anything different going back?” asked Johnny.

“I don’t guess so,” said Cleve. “We just have to be watching for places where someone could jump us.”

“Ask about our fall special: free delivery and 50% off installation. Hm. Sounds tempting. I bet they didn’t expect all their installers to drive off, though.”

“Looks like we’ll have to deliver them ourselves,” Tim said. “Nice displays. I guess the merchandise is out back?”

“Yeah. And I still can’t get outta the habit of flippin’ the switch,” Cleve grinned. “They must have one of their systems up on the roof, ’cause the lights actually came on. ’Bout gave me a heart attack!”

“You put down the doughnut, maybe you won’t get a heart attack,” Sara laughed.

“Babe, why you gotta go there?” Cleve grinned. “Nah. I think I’ve lost five pounds already, and it’s only been two weeks. The end of the world is gonna gimme back those fifteen years I was gonna lose!”

“Hey Cleve,” Tim said, still watching the window. “I just thought about this. Were any of you guys downtown smokers?”

“Damn… you know what? I don’t think any of us smoked. I used to, had to put ’em down at the end of ’08. I swore if we got a black president, I’d quit… and damn if it didn’t happen. Then the world had to go and end!”

“Stands to reason,” Johnny said, after the laughter died down. “The trucks would’ve ‘picked up’ on that right away. ‘Drive off, we got smokes.’”

“Picked up? Tell me you didn’t just say that!” Cleve fanned the air in front of his nose. “Y’know, we’ll never get this stuff loaded if we sit here shootin’ the breeze. We can do that at home. Johnny, you watch out front. We’ll bring the bikes around back and load up.”

“Beats liftin’ stuff,” Johnny laughed, patting the carbine. “You want me to shoot first and ask questions later?”

continued…

Self-Published Publicity (NSFW?)

… or “Boobs, Books, and Buzz.” Or "Marketing 101 in the Internet Age.”


Have you heard the names “Hayley Williams” and “Paramore”? Until Saturday, I hadn’t, although Daughter Dearest insists that I’ve heard some of their music on the radio. Anyway, this self-snapped shot (look at the angle of her left arm) appeared in her TwitPic stream on Thursday night — OK, I’ve slightly doctored it to keep this post PG-rated:



The pic was pulled down, but not soon enough for it to get copied (obviously, see above) and the old Whoops, I got hacked excuse popped up in her tweetstream. 'Course, some folks checked the pic’s EXIF data and found the shot was snapped about eight minutes before it got posted… making the possibility of a hack, shall we say, extremely remote. A much more believable explanation would have been “it was supposed to be for my boyfriend and I messed up when I emailed it.”

For those of you who have to see the original, I found out about the whole kerfuffle in an [!!!!!NSFW!!!!!] article from TheRegister [!!!!!NSFW!!!!!]; it includes the picture in all its nude-tastic glory as I type (and ElReg tends to give the meaty middle finger to take-down notices).

So… this all happens on Thursday. I read about it on Saturday. And by Monday, I’m off to Amazon’s MP3 store to check out Paramore’s music selection… which turns out to be pleasant to listen to as well. There has been a ton of press about it, and “Hayley Williams” is a trending topic on Twitter at the moment — you just can’t buy publicity that good. Hey, if I thought I’d get a huge traffic bump by posting (and taking down) a nudie of myself, I’d go for it too… but my bits just aren’t as interesting to look at. IMHO.

Clothing choices aside, I like her face better in the above shot than the one in a more “turned-out” publicity pic (in which she looks like a Jennifer Aniston clone, not that I think Jen is unpleasant looking). Hayley, lose the makeup and the hair stylist, you look better and more like yourself without them.


Now that I’ve got your attention…

Last week, I mentioned, among other things, J.A. Konrath being the subject of a Publisher’s Weekly hit-piece and his response. This week, he embarks on a fascinating experiment he calls Steal This eBook: he makes available a zip file containing Jack Daniels Stories (one of his own books) in various ebook formats (and a direct link if the first one doesn’t work). The really audacious part is where he asks people to share the file far and wide via the usual “piracy” channels.

Konrath sums up his experiment thus: “I've said repeatedly that there is no proof piracy hurts sales. So I'm manning up and putting my money where my mouth is.” Indeed. This experiment has just sailed, so it’ll be interesting to see how it pans out. But I can already say, Konrath has put one of his books in my reading pile where there were none before. I’ve never been one to shy away from making predictions, so I’ll throw one out here: I think he’ll see a negligible effect on sales for this particular book, and a noticeable uptick in sales of his other books.

Of course, it can be debated (and is being debated in the comments on Konrath’s blog) whether this is actually “piracy” or not — after all, the author himself is encouraging spreading the file far and wide. Perhaps this should be better considered a “loss leader,” an old sales tactic where a store sells one product at a loss in hopes that people will buy other (more profitably marked-up) stuff while they’re grabbing the Great Deal. But successful buzz generation means you have to get people to notice what you’re saying — and is “A free ebook” or “Hey, pirate my ebook!” going to get more notice? Or, in the case of Hayley Williams, did “hey, music” or “BOOBZIEZ!!!!” turn more heads? (Big hint: of the thousands of bands out there, who’s getting the attention right now?)

Publicity is not for the faint of heart, and DIY publicity doubly so. I think there are some lessons to be learned here, though, to make things a little less scary…

1) You can only do this thing once. Williams’s stunt definitely lands in the category of “tough act to follow.” Konrath took a more modest approach, but even if he offers another freebie later on, a lot of people will go “yeah, yeah.”

2) Know what results you’re looking for. I’m guessing that both Konrath and Williams did, and got them.

3) Seize the opportunity when something goes wrong. Sometimes, you might get free publicity in a way you neither expected nor particularly wanted. Once the genie is out of the bottle, no amount of whining nor DMCA take-down notices will get it back in… and you’ll just end up looking clueless and petty. Make it work for you instead. Get out in front of the story so you’ll have at least some control — and for your own sake, don’t come up with a lame explanation that can be easily debunked (e.g. “I got hacked”). On the other hand, if you can extend the controversy (which is an unpleasant way of saying “extend the free publicity”) with a silly comment, it might be worth it.

Consider the sad case of Stephanie Meyer throwing a hissy-fit when an early draft of Midnight Sun* got leaked onto the net — she decided that she’d “been violated” and walked away from the work. To her credit, she soon acquired a partial clue and posted a copy herself (although with the usual “Any retranscription or reproduction is illegal” stuff), but still has no plans to finish it. She would have been far better off, publicity-wise, had she said something like “I’ve been rewriting this and what hits the shelves will be different and far better, it’ll be out on [some date]. Hang in there.”

*Thanks go to Daughter Dearest, a Stephanie Meyer fan, for supplying both the book title and the author name when my memory couldn’t produce either one.

Cheap electronics and public networks have changed creative media forever. It was once said, “freedom of the press applies only to those who can afford a printing press.” Now the electronic equivalent can be purchased for a few hundred bucks new, or sometimes fished out of a dumpster for free. Of course, the old “talent” issue still applies — Sturgeon’s Law says “Ninety percent of everything is crap,” and many would say Sturgeon was an optimist — and so publishers and the recording/movie industry can claim to be a filter for that ninety percent. Still, people like J.A. Konrath are making a comfortable living without having the mass-market appeal that the gatekeepers/filters demand, simply by using the tools available today and finding a way to get noticed.