My Camera Won't Talk To My Computer And My Phone Doesn't Take Pictures Because It's A Cheap Piece Of Shit

Quaint vignettes from my charming rural idyll!
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Last winter, for the first time in twenty years, our town flooded.  Note that when I say 'town' the legal definition of this dot on the map is 'A Hamlet' but let's move on.  The water was pecker deep all around my house for a few days; thank God for tall foundations.  I was looking out at it going 'Oh my God there goes my garden.'  Basically screw the neighbors; it's everyone for themselves in this mans' Apocalypse - BUT NOT THE ROSES DEAR GOD WHY.

After that went away, the weather turned.  We get two solid weeks of below-zero weather and constant high winds from the North; and thanks, Canada, I really appreciated that shit.  We left the water dripping from all the taps, but they froze anyway, and burst.  The plumbers arrive, open up the side of my house, fix the pipes - and discover that one of Gods lil' creatures has chewed through the connection between the water supply and my hot water tank!

I asked God "Why did you send one of your lil' creatures to do such a random, stupid, You-damn thing?" And God replied by killing my washer-dryer.

And lo, a new washer-dryer was installed, yet it did not wash, nor did it dry.

The repairman came out and discovered that a ground wire had been dislodged.  That good, kind man re-lodged it, and said that he'd fake up a report about a bad switch so we wouldn't get charged for the service call-
and HE DID.

Jubilation reigned here at Rancho FirstNations! The tide had turned! Lady Luck was shining her light on us once again!

Oh, and my garden?  HAS NEVER LOOKED BETTER. (see the title of this post.)
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I am going to give you my personal, single experience of this quarantine. I realize that I am in the minority when I claim this, and I realize that it's simply a matter of luck and disposition, but I am enjoying it.  I don't socialize much, and when I do, I keep things casual and light.  I live in a small town, and that's how you survive, and fortunately I'm just fine with that, even without it's being necessary and enforced now. I've been doing social distancing like a boss, bitches, way before it was cool.

People are not dying up on nearby Reese Hill Road - a notoriously steep, twisting, off-camber two-lane road that goes up into the mountains.  I'm on the main road through town, the one that most vacationers take to reach the Mt. Baker Wilderness Area, and it turns into Reese Hill about a mile down the road from here. I haven't heard a single siren, night or day, in two months.  That has never happened in all the time I've lived here.

All the neighbors are outside in their yards, or strolling around town, riding bikes, skateboarding, and I've met more people this year than I ever knew lived nearby.  Most of the jobs nearby are rated 'essential' and so we haven't been hit very hard economically. The man who developed the lot next door is filling the units. People are behaving themselves in the nearby stores.  Most importantly, the Trump Shrines are coming down.
In the reddest corner of the bluest state, The Trump Shrines Are Coming Down.
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Front porch shrines, little decorative arrangements off to one side, are A Thing here.  I never saw this (maybe around Halloween or Christmas if at all) in Oregon, not even when I went back to visit, but here in Washington nearly everyone has something.  Usually a straw bale with a few pots of flowers on top, and a decorative sign or a house star or a scarecrow, that kind of thing.

I have a front porch vignette too.  It's an old, old bar room chair, a rifle* leaning in the corner nearby, and a sippin' jug.  My decorative sign does not say 'Welcome Friends' or 'Live, Laugh, Love'. It says "Guns Don't Kill People - RELIGIONS DO."
By the time I answer the door for the JW's, half my job has already been done for me.
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SHOUTOUT TO 63 MAGO:  I can't comment on your blog at all.  But I am reading it and thank you for mentioning me!


*We took the wood stock off an old Daisy Air Rifle and replaced it with a length of electrical conduit painted primer black.  On the side of the stock that faces the wall, my Biker has written 'Don't Bother Stealing - It's Not Real.'  We've found it lying in the yard a couple of times.