Who Da Ho?

 WE 

GOT 

OUR 

STUFF!

Making A Silk Cow Out Of A Cars Ear

 IDAHO SO FAR:

People here are unfailingly nice, polite and helpful.  I mean like 1950's small town America polite and helpful. Please and thank you, excuse me, do you need help with that, let me get that door for you. 

There's some MAGA stuff., but nowhere near what I'd expected to see. There's one MAGA barbershop and two MAGA houses, one here and one in Payette. A couple of bumper stickers. Some lingering 'fuck Biden' sentiment. I expected WAY more idiocy. Shit, Lynden WA has more MAGA stuff. Even Bellingham had more, and it's liberal. Also, no open carry.  At all. It's legal here, you just don't see it. You sure in shit saw it in Bellingham.  As they say in America, 'Wow'.

Even though religion is very very very very very big here, not one single person has mentioned it. Not even at the super hard-shell Baptist Separatists separatist primary school thrift sale, and those women and their daughters were in full modesty garb. Not. A. Word.

The Mormons are big here.  They have their own bank, they live out in the hills in fenced compounds comprised of huge McMansions, and the white SUV's with the blacked-out windows patrol the streets in the evening.  Around the corner is a Brethren church (look it up Paco, you're sitting in front of the internet) and the Patriarch and his wife, both elderly, both in Plain Dress, have taken a long, slow stroll past to peek in and see what's up.  Six blocks down is the Roadside Worship Revival church, which I'm assuming is some kind of Pentecostal set-up. Having had my fill of Ecstatic Religiosity, I intend to give their happy asses a wide berth.  Two different Catholic organizations (one from Oregon, one from Idaho) compete for those who don't have enough guilt in their lives.  Three blocks down is a Methodist church that I have yet to look into. Traditionally, Methodists have been LGBT friendly, but who knows what the fucks' up with these Idaho people.

...ooooh!  Nations is gonna sell out! Well shit yes I intend to sell out. A bitch is new in town and I want to meet people. A nice, low-key communion out this way might be just the thing. I mean come on people, trust me, I'm gonna do my research. And it's not like I'm going to rock up in a Borsalino smoking a Petit Nobel and put my feet up on the seats. 

OK maybe at the Brethren's. 

The price of living is really, really low here in Idaho ,and it's even lower three miles away in Ontario Oregon (which is where everyone shops and buys legal marijuana to take back across the Idaho line and into the waiting arms of the police.)  We've been able to assemble a nice little makeshift household for about 300.00 - and that includes all the absolute basics, like beds and sheets and a coffee maker and soap ffs.  And groceries. Now that we're actually living in our apartment instead of a motel room, the flow of blood money going out is down to a trickle. Which is a damn relief.

The area we've moved to is called Fruitland because of all the gay people who live and work here in social harmony with the rest of the residents of this humble rural garden spot 

...in the early days this was allllllllll fruit trees. Nowadays trees are out and root crops are in, chief among them onions. 

The onions are being harvested now. This entire town smells overwhelmingly of onions. It has for the past month. It does now. It smells like onions 24/7 - except when it smells like the decomposing onion gravy left in the beds of all the trucks and railcars. 

Strongly.  Nay, violently.

The local joke is 'Oh you get used to it after awhile and you just think 'Oh! Onion rings! *Tee hee!* 

- except no. That does not happen. Honestly WTF. Nobody is looking up suddenly from their mundane tasks going 'Why I do believe I smells onion rings, senor!' 

The good thing about this is, if you happen to be low on onions, just stand on the corner of 16th and Whitley (also known as Gayway Corners) and hold a sack open. The gutters are full of onions! They send out road trains full of onions from this place - three trailers long!  Who is eating all these goddamn onions????

We are in the sagebrush steppe region of Idaho.  It's generally hot and very dry, but here at the confluence of three rivers it's extremely green down along the water's edge and extending about a block inland. After that you need a little irrigation to get things rocking - and holy SHIT does it pay off. This is astounding growing country!  Folks here, when they can be bothered to try, have incredible gardens.  But as you drive through town you'll notice an interesting thing -You'll have a street lined with glorious Victorian homes and gardens, say, but one property in the row is neglected - and it will have reverted entirely back to bare gravel, sandspurs and sagebrush. It looks artificial, like one person decided to go all 'Boot Hill' with their property., but no, that is not the case. You can easily tell who in your neighborhood is a lazy chunk of fuck.

This is Louis L'Amour's' Old West.  It looks exactly like every cowboy movie you've ever seen, except 'Midnight Cowboy'. There are buzzards and wagon wheels and horses and outhouses and tin shacks; horses everywhere, miles and miles of rolling grassland and round brown hills. There really are deer and antelope playing out there. Of course the ones I saw were splattered all over the highway, so not playing. Playtime was done. Still, you got real cowboys, real sheepherders, real farmers and an entire local culture based on generations of rural life.  I never knew there was such a mindset. Some of these folks grew up with no electricity and no indoor plumbing - not because they were poor, but because they were remote.  

If you took the aroma of all the car air fresheners, all the punk aftershave, all the cheap deodorant and all the bargain laundry soap in America and mixed it in a huge vat, it would smell like every single indoor space in Central Idaho.  This smell is following us around. From outdoor garage sales to the offices of the local telephone company, from McDonalds to El Cameron Mexican Restaurant, you  smell this smell. Our apartment smells like it - I've been cleaning frantically trying to get rid of this smell. I got up at 3:00 AM two days ago and damp mopped the whole place, trying to get rid of it. It is wretched! It gets into your clothes and hair! Tomorrow  we're going to be visiting one of the pot shops over on the Oregon side to see if they have any hardcore incense we can burn! 

Honestly just incense. The cops on this side would pull our out of state plates over in a FLASH if we brought over any dank.

I like it here so far. Not the hot weather. The hot weather blows. That, I hate. But everything else is pretty good.  

Of  course, 

I'D LIKE IT A LOT BETTER IF I HAD MY GODDAMN STUFF.

And you may ask

 Well?  How did I get here?

And I would answer myself 'in a black car, with malfunctioning air conditioning, during the hottest part of the year.'

And I would be right.

Let's skip the preliminary eight day visit, and the to-ing and fro-ing between Washington and Idaho in a black car with NO AIR CONDITIONING.  And let's skip driving all over the Idaho panhandle in that same car looking at apartments.

Let's skip that.

Let's go right to the part where arrived at our motel room only to find that not only was our entire house full of belongings NOT there to greet us, "...it might not be there until next week. It's impossible to say."

That was last Thursday.

Blue-Collar Heroine

 The days are ticking past and in a matter of hours, now, we'll be packed and on the road, leaving 

Washington for good.

So given the circumstances, I did the logical thing, and bought a Barcelona chair.

And here it is, prior to my purchasing of same.  

I have wanted this chair forever. And even though I know that I am now the kind of person who owns a Barcelona chair, I refuse to feel anything but unbridled GLEE because 1. It's a Barcelona chair and 2. I GOT IT AT LYNDEN CHRISTIAN THRIFT STORE FOR 95.00 BUCKS!!!!!!!!!!!! 

______________________________________________________________________________ 

UPDATE:

Well of course it's a knockoff. I got it for 95 bucks at Lynden Christian.

       

Movin' on down to Idy Hoe

We did it!  We found the perfect place! 

It was amazing. The places available for us in Idaho, we never could have set foot in here in Washington. We saw luxurious! Luxurious!! places - newly built, newly remodeled, several in renovated Victorian buildings with exposed brickwork and marble counters and deluxe appliances...honestly, if it's getting too expensive for you wherever you are, you could do a lot worse than the Idaho Panhandle region. 

Now us, we are intrepid trendsetters. Not for us conventional luxury. We went for the remodeled 1920's lawyers office in the funky little brewpub-area of

Yes, John, FRUITLAND.

And this is it:

                        Fine. This is the front door. But yes, the front door is screamin' titty pink.   

We are right in the historic downtown, one block down from the trendy brewpub, around the corner from the tattoo parlor, and next door to the Toy museum.  When we get moved in, I'll post up more pictures. This is the only one that I took that didn't come out completely shitty.

Folks, this just might work out fine.

Holy shit.

Aye d'Haoe

HOLY SHIT PEOPLE WE ARE IN IDAHO AND IT IS 

   ANOTHER FUCKING PLANET    

I am not even kidding. I have never been any place like this.  People have been responding to us based on our looks (elderly, white) and have been saying some of the most amazing things...

As for me?  Not a single shit, piss, cunt, fuck, cocksucker, motherfucker or tits have I spoken. Not even a damn, a shucks or an 'oh boogers'.

Have you ever seen any of those Mormon Expose' shows, where they have the immense houses on closed compounds, and their own bank and shit?  It's here. That shit is real.  We have seen some of the most virulent anti-woke propaganda signs, and stickers, and entire houses decorated in American and Trump flags, and  HOLY SHIT PEOPLE.

The TV stations here are, how do I describe this. OK. Home Decor, QVC, Religion, Religion, Adventure ( shows featuring cops, bikers, truckers, game wardens, firefighters - sounds like one of Peenee's magazines, doesn't it?) Western, Vintage (literally right now playing Ozzie and Harriet) Fox News, Real Estate TV-all listings that scroll slowly by - and one other one I forgot. I mean yeah we're in a motel right now and cable is all they have, but HOLY SHIT PEOPLE.  Oh I remembered - Law Enforcement TV, which is all cops chases, cop arrests, cop beatdowns, cop crashes, fatal crashes, fatal chases, rousting drunks, jacking up poor people and questioning sessions. 

HOLY SHIT PEOPLE.

But we have seen two fantastic apartments already!

Both of them are in remodeled historic buildings in the downtown of Fruitland. We'd be right down the street from the brewpub, the tattoo parlor and the funky resale places.  I've done the research on both, and they're not too good to be true - we just happen to be able to afford them. Just as we are able to afford all kinds of places here, for at least a thousand dollars less than we're paying now. WITHOUT getting our retirement income taxed! 

So golly gee whiz, folks, we gonna be living in the light of Jesus here in Idyhoe.

HELP

Age, Controversy and Bare-Titty Economics

Today, this morning, for the first time ever I have spoken the words "The goddamn government is fuckin' around with my Social Security check." 

I guess this is a milestone moment in my life. Like butt hair, or one's first federal charge.

This is exactly how I am focused and what I am focused on at this moment, just the minutia of my life and my petty inconveniences, because every fucking thing outside the limits of Whatcom County Washington is going STRAIGHT TO HELL. You watch the news. You know what I mean. 

Pride is going strong here. The 'No Kings' protests were well attended and peaceful.  Around the county the Trump flags have come down, mysteriously. There was even a 'Trans Rights' protest in Lynden!!!!!

   I mean, no shit. There was.   

     

We here at the El Apartmento have just officially retired. We filed for Social Security and Medicaid. The Biker quits his job in a couple of months, for good. 

And we are moving to suburban-rural Idaho.

  

Why? Because it's way, way cheaper to live in Idaho. 

But yeah. Idaho.

Believe me when I tell you that I NEVER FUCKING SAW MYSELF HERE in my advanced age, getting ready to leave the West and move inland - much less to motherfucking Idaho.

IDAHO PEOPLE

IDAHO 

I mean seriously fucking IDAHO.

And I might as well add that there is at present one person living in Idaho who has threatened to kill me. 

This person is at large right now, in IDAHO.

No seriously I am not fucking with you. This is a real fact. 

 

Of course this person is Ozzy Osbourne-level permafried from way back, and is in and out of jail pretty often, but with my luck - and you know my luck - he'll be the dude driving the moving van full of our shit, and he'll recognize me.

Those of you familiar with the regional cultures of the United States will be trippin' balls right about now wondering how my sad red ass is going to survive living in Idaho. The rest of you don't have a clue and are wondering what the big deal is, so pay attention. 

 Idaho is, and always has been, very very conservative, a few pinpricks of liberalism surrounded by miles of uninhabited rangeland, ignorance, and potatoes, most of it owned and operated by ultraconservative Big Honkin' Ag.  This is when one of you pops up with 'Well my aunt lives there and she says it's really cool and I've visited Idaho on numerous occasions and people were super nice to me so yeah YOU'RE JUST DEALING IN NEGATIVE STEREOTYPES'.  

Well of course I am.  Yet the fact remains - here in Bellingham WA it is socially unremarkable to walk around being whatever the Lord made you. In most of Idaho, it is socially unremarkable to walk around covered in White Pride tattoos.  

Why Idaho?  Frankly, this is an economic decision on our part. We can't afford to live on the Washington anymore, now that we're retired. Shit's too expensive. 

Mr. AI tell us:

The cost of living in Washington State is significantly higher than the national average, with housing being the primary driver of this difference. While some basic necessities like groceries and clothing are also more expensive, the biggest cost burden is in housing, which is substantially above the national average. 

There it is.   

Not to despair, though! (I write those words as much for me as for you, gentle reader.)  Idaho is a good compromise for us. Environmentally, Idaho is very much like Oregon and Washington. The culture there is a lot like the 'Sixties and 'Seventies we grew up in, and a lot like the Sumas we spent over twenty years in too.  At our age it's nothing to navigate our way through that bullshit, and we know how to find our own people. 

Another thing that Idaho has going for it is next to no suburban or rural 'homeless' encampments.  

I have not written about what they call 'The Homeless Phenomenon' here in Bellingham.  I am going to do that now, and you may not like what I have to say or how I say it. 

  

I have been very poor. I was on Welfare for sixteen years. I've been homeless.  I've been in shelters and on public programs. Having been a poor person, I promise you that I don't have a problem with poor people or homeless people. No. This is different. This isn't a 'homelessness crisis.' This isn't a group of unfortunate people who just need a hand and a place to live. This is a subculture of squalid, predatory, feral humans who take over abandoned properties and lay whole neighborhoods to waste. They are highly mobile. They have money.  They are not people who simply lack a certain background, or the economic 'breathing room' to be nice - they aren't nice, they don't care, they would rather take, and yes it's the bad actors who always stand out, I know - thing is, most of them are bad actors.   It is a different thing entirely from just homelessness. That's what you have to understand.  Within the last four years Bellingham has become inundated with these groups, from the wealthiest neighborhoods to the log booms on the waterfront.  They are busy taking over the apartments right across the fence from me, and my landlord has been battling it nonstop as long as we've been here. ( Remember  my upstairs neighbor, the one who was almost murdered by her boyfriend?  That's what was going on with her. That was the behind-the-scenes story of that.)

There is no way to make that pronouncement sound good, and I know because I've been trying for three days to make it sound good. I wonder if I sound like one of the old people in the Sixties who saw a hippie and started ranting about the end of the world and the downfall of Western Civilization, and I decided that I don't care because it's fucking scary living here now.  Scary and expensive.

I love Bellingham and adore the liberal culture here and would never, never leave if I could afford to stay and be reasonably secure. But, well, that ain't the case, so...we move to Idaho, and I get rid of damn near every t-shirt I own so I'm not shot at a stoplight by a Nazi.

I mean I'd get new t-shirts. I would not be sitting at a stoplight in rural Idaho bare titty. Unless someone dares me.