ROCK OF THE WESTIES

I have excellent news but I'm gonna make you wait for it. HA!

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We have had the most gorgeous, gradual Autumn here, warm and full of color.  We get windstorms and  rain, of course, this being Washington; but it isn't as utterly out of control as it was back in Sumas.  I am not seeing peoples' roofs go cartwheeling past my house every Fall and Winter, in other words. Nor have I lost all my belongings to high floodwaters recently. *ahem*

Last week, though, was that one wild, stormy week that always comes at the end of Fall.  We live on a bluff overlooking Puget Sound, in what is essentially a forest full of tall cottonwoods, the leaves of which turn a pure, saturated Canary yellow in Autumn. I wish you could have seen it!  The rain was hitting the windows in slashes and raising a fog as it hit the ground. The high winds  came ashore in enormous waves. All the yellow leaves went flying off the trees like billowing clouds of smoke, and then suddenly they went fountaining straight up into the black sky at the edge of the cliff!  This was huge weather.  Man I love a good storm! I sat here with my coffee and my Pat Metheny and was cozy and snug and watched it. 

I had soup too. It was seafood chowder.

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OK OK OK OK I AM SO STOKED!

Honestly I can't remember being this stoked in years! Decades! Several decades, even!

Here's why:

   IT'S OFFICIAL!!  

WE ARE NOT MOVING TO THE SOUTH!!!!

         

People, you have no idea how hard I've been sweating this.   

  

I'm going to indulge in a little whining here. It isn't punitive whining; I've blocked everyone in my family from this space. It's only "Wah wah poor me" whining. 

To continue. 

My Biker has always had a (big ol' inbred) bee in his bonnet about the South. It comes from a song that was popular back when he was growing up in Alaska. 

That song is

GREEN RIVER 

        grr rend tear argh        

Now I like Creedence. I do!  I like this song! I like their music! I do not, however, like what this song has done to my marriage. 

I get it. The Biker grew up in Alaska, so far North that he lived a good third of the year buried under 15 feet of snow, not seeing sunlight for three months at a time, in sub-zero cold, in a region so remote it could only be accessed by plane, with his entire dysfunctional family all crammed into one Quonset Hut. That is ROUGH. I get it. I do.  You'd need to have a dream limned in gold to look forward to, and for him, it was this 'Born on the bayou, barefoot girls dancin' in the moonlight, dootin' doo-doo' stuff. Images of warm weather all year 'round, sunny and lazy.  No walruses.   

I mean shit, I had my happy fantasy future too, all hippies and sitar music, backpacking through Europe and smoking pot braless and hobnobbing with Ram Dass and so forth. 

Ah, but then, you see, I was no longer 13.  I grew out of it.

NOT SO SOME PEOPLE.

Anyway, as soon as retirement began to loom on the horizon, suddenly We Were Moving To The South. 

Gonna happen, done deal, no argument brooked.   

And Lord, the fights we have had since then. 

Since we have lived here, though, all that changed.

I gave up and gave in. Fine, the man had a dream. I'd make myself like it.

Meanwhile, he was slowly coming to the realization that yes, it's hard to move to an area when it's being obliterated by hailstones the size of grapefruit, generational inbreeding, tornado clusters, an utter lack of giving a fuck, record hurricanes, or has completely washed off the side of a mountain...

 

...which is what happened to the town that was first on his list. I mean, all of the above issues plagued the place, but that last thing kinda...yeah. 

And this has held true over the past three years. Every single area he's been looking at (which, Lord love him, have been all the depopulated backwood slums where the median age is 72) have been flamboyantly destroyed by natural catastrophes, social catastrophes, or both.

A few days ago he sat me down and told me gently "We have to start looking at places on this side of the Rocky Mountains," which I took well.*  

I also marked the day down on the calendar: October 22.

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**I may have said "If you think that's a good idea," in a doubtful tone. 

Nothing hardens this man's resolve like anything that can possibly, possibly be construed as questioning his judgement. Was that manipulative on my part?  

Yes it was.        

Debunking the Fly Rotato

 I just saw a black squirrel go past my window carrying a bloody squirrel head in its mouth. 

like this only a squirrel head

I thought you should know. 

Prongfrites Wayward Phlossbottomus

 

Welcome to psychedelic Thursday!  Same sound, different letter! 

I know what I mean!

When your mind goes a-wheelin' and a-walkin'

     

I broke a tooth last week. Out of nowhere. No reason. So I go to the dentist and find out that I broke two teeth. 

Of course, going to the dentist is not my favorite thing to do. This time was particularly extra crappy, though. Why? Because midway through the exam I was suddenly subjected to a hard, hard sales press about a 'special' cosmetic process that takes four sessions. It was, in fact, strongly hinted at by Hard Sell Nurse that I could not proceed with my exam until I had scheduled this procedure, so up up up, let's scoot along to the receptionist and do that little thing!  

Now I was born at night, but it was not last night. 

   

When you search 'elderly babies getting high' there are no actual images of elderly babies getting high, for which I am grateful but by which I am also perplexed, the Internet being as it is

   

I remained civil. I said 'No.' The jacking continued, though. I got interrupted twice more with repetitions of the 'hurry hurry let's go schedule eight hours of unnecessary dentistry' fandango until I finally brought up INSURANCE PRE-AUTHORIZATION. 

   WHOOSH    

Ms. Hard Sell disappeared and did not return, to which I said 'Huzzah' only silently because imagine how that would go over in a dental clinic ffs, some random old broad exclaiming 'Huzzah' aloud while you're in the middle of getting your teeth filed, or whatever bullshit, unnecessary thing Hard Sell nurse has talked you into. 

The good news is that I get two new crowns which our insurance will fund, and also that my bone structure is that of a firm and healthy young goddess, and I will not need false teeth or bridgework in the future, unless I get kung fu'd in the face. Watch this space.

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My ex-sister-in-law was a nice little dumpling girl who grew up into a dumpling woman, and during those years in-between she found time to go live in Minneapolis and PARTY WITH PRINCE.  

Here I am the worlds coolest person and no. I did not get to party with PRINCE.  She did. 

From the way she told it, the scene was all very casual. He'd throw potlucks. He'd be outside grilling on the Weber. Kids would run in and out and folks would holler into their phones. You'd think Prince would always be doing flips and twirls and jamming on his guitar, looking fly, wearing eyeliner and maybe a bolero jacket, but no. Apparently he was like real folks and wore t-shirts and whatever, and partied with my ex-sister-in-law, and ate potato salad off a paper plate. 

It was only this year that I bothered to check the timeline on that.

...yup.

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Fall has fallen or whatever it does, and everything looks very Autumnal. 

Why what's this?  It's one fine day in Autumn. Do continue.

This guy is so very, very Bellingham that he might as well be called Mr. Bellinghamasaurus Rex. I mean LOOK AT THIS DUDE.

Welcome to Goods, our local, excellent in all respects

Of course it's in an old gas station. Where did you think you were, Utah??

The stores here have been set up for Halloween since September, and the shelves abound with Squishy Brains and skeletal armadillos and giant honkin' bags of candy.  The woods are filled with color. It is Bushmills and a cigar weather.

It is also Chicken Livers on Toast For Breakfast weather.

You will not find a simpler, better, more sustaining breakfast for a chilly morning that Chicken Livers on Toast. You should have some quickly. Here's how:

Two large slices of toast (white bread)

About 1 1/2 to 2 cups (volume) of raw chicken livers, rinsed

1/4 to 1/3 cup of unsalted butter

Lawry's Garlic salt

Method:  

-Melt the butter in a small, warm frying pan. Do not allow to sizzle. When it is too hot to touch, place the chicken livers in the pan.

-Sprinkle a goodly amount of Lawry's Garlic Salt over all.

-Partially cover the pan with a lid.  You are poaching the livers, not frying them. Poaching in butter prevents the livers from developing a metallic flavor, and makes them smooth and rich.

-When livers are set and no longer bleed when pressed (oh ew ick GET OVER IT) lift and place aside. 

-Reduce pan drippings if necessary. 

-Chop livers - not too fine! - and add back into butter drippings, toss to combine, and cool in pan until temperate enough to put on toast.

You will bless my name and the rails I run on. You will. This is really good.

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I'm going to go put in some laundry.

                                                You need to go put on your scary underpants.