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So here we are, or perhaps aren’t, sifting through the cosmic debris of Mac Giotto’s peculiar genealogy, each name a stutter across that badly stretched canvas of 'not the feck knowing’, each act a small revolt against the crushing gravity of ‘making sense’, that weight of it all.
Let's hear it for senselessness.
It’s all a type of palimpsest, a work-over really, simple horticulture raking through; a scribble of begetting and becoming, the garden teeming with shadowy figures—Mac Duccio, Mac Giotto, Mac Duchamp, Mac Donald, Mac Joyce, and the rest—gathered at some herbaceous border or other, where myth shifts into memory, and vice versa, visible perhaps, if you simply take your glasses off and squint.
Somewhere between art’s apostasy and Mac’s irreverence, the story threatens to collapse in on itself, a black hole of jest and jesters, yet still the universe insists on its spiralling drain-gurgle, as if collapsing was part of the deal from the get-go, the driver even.
But that’s the story: that unravelling is as ‘sacred’ as the weaving. Ask Penelope or Molly Bloom. Consider any repetitive action, come to think of it, including the manic rocking of the disturbed child. Abuse might be a constituent of that gyrating ‘key’ and keyhole, part of the essential rhythm of life and death, of restarting.
Apparently, every garden east of Eden might be blessed with its own trickster, gnawing at those roots and weeds, while the silverfish, cloned sheep, and malic moulds carry on, obliviously gambolling and despoiling. And in that unravelling, maybe, we find a measure of ‘truth’, or some equally glorious ‘tissue of lies’, —not in the veneration of gods or humans, but in the gentle, persistent absurdity of beginning again, or at least noticing when we might be given the opportunity to breathe as dust, whilst concurrently absorbing the shock of that inevitability.
There is a wonderful opportunity afforded to us having been brought up on that ‘Emerald Isle’, and the gift of mispronunciation conferred there, where ‘to breed’ and ‘to breathe’ sound exactly the same. This, I contend, might afford us an opportunity to be lyrically playful.
This way to the Gift-Shop, ladies and gentlemen, and non-binary personages. Matching Tea Towels and Jigsaws in the works, coming soon! The full set includes venerable old names such as Mac Jams Jooss, Mac Do-Chomp, Mac Gee Otto and Mac Frag O' Nar, all represented equally with Mac Bunksy and the three google-faced gurriers (And a pulsating Emoji heart into the bargain).
Welcome to 'Universal Equality', where our full range of 'place mats' is constantly changing.
"Ineluctable modality of the visible: at least that if no more, thought through my eyes. Signatures of all things I am here to read, seaspawn and seawrack, the nearing tide, that rusty boot. Snotgreen, bluesilver, rust: coloured signs. Limits of the diaphane."
Ulysses (Trieste), P. 30, Chapter 1, written 1915.
Joyce describing Infrathin, even before he 'met' Marcel, indicating how primed he was, how far ahead with Marcel he was, describing us, the yet to be born.
My self-portrait on the cover of a book. I licensed it to marchand de feuilles
You can read more about it on my blog. :)
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For a two volume ebook, a very pretty drug-addicted street prostitute allows her life to be documented by photographs and tape-recorded interviews for an entire year while she is working the streets of Atlanta. She does it for an ebook available from the usual websites. Here is Volume One on Amazon:
Street Prostitute: A Streetwalker Tells Her Story While She’s Working the Streets
If you want to read what happens her first full day in the hospital, check out Volume One. You may read it in its entirety for free by clicking on "Look Inside this book."
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I get out of the car and lean against the hood. If Ronda does keep me waiting, at least I can spend the time taking in the stirrings of spring. The jonquils are already in bloom...the redbuds will be bursting forth any day...the birds are beginning to sing...
"Mar—Mar—Mar—Marcie—"
Ronda is suddenly back. A sweater draped over one arm, she is stuttering her hooker friend Marcie's name.
Very emotionally, her voice breaking, she tells me Marcie had just admitted that she did indeed have the ring that Ronda thought she had stolen from her. And then, after Ronda told her she could keep it, Marcie had started to cry...
Ronda seems so moved by this, I'm thinking. Really and truly and genuinely moved...
Suddenly she grabs my shirt—just below my neck— twists it—hard —and jerks me toward her—
"Give me some money for a pill—or I'm gonna kill you!"
"WHAT!?" I'm shocked.
She releases my shirt. Her tone had been only half kidding.
"You're full of shit," I say. "What are you talking about? You know I'm not gonna do that."
"I'm getting strung out again, George. I discovered the other day I'm getting strung out again... Please. "
"I will not!" I declare.
"Pleeeeease!"
"I told you what the deal was before. And I'm not changing."
"Don't be on principle!"
"That's not—"
"Fuck principle!" She's almost shouting.
"That's not just principle."
"Principle sucks, man!"
I back up: "What do you mean...you're... What do you mean that you're stru— You said you discovered the other day that you're strung out again."
"I am, I'm strung out again. I know I am."
"All right, explain to me what that means... That you're strung out again."
She yells her answer—
"I—WANT—A—FUCKING—PILL!"
"Okay"—my voice is normal, or fairly normal—"but that doesn't mean strung out. I thought, basically, strung out, the way you've used the term strung out...was that you had to have it so damned much and you were doing it constantly— "
Ronda interrupts: "I have been doing it constantly—that's the problem."
"Well, Melvin said you've been averaging two a day. How many have you really been averaging?"
"Five or six. He don't know what I've been doing."
"Okay. You've been doing five or six a day?"
"I'll give you this watch."
"You've been averaging five or six a day for how long?"
"I don't know! "
She clenches her teeth in frustration.
"A week?" I push. "Two weeks? A month?"
No answer from Ronda.
"Two months?"
Still no answer.
Then: "Since my coat got stolen. At least. Before then. I don't wanna talk about it. Pleeease, George, what can I do?”
"You have been averaging five or six a day for...a month? And Melvin doesn't know that. Is that correct?"
"What have I got to do?" she asks—no, demands. "Have a goddamn—" She stops.
"Is that correct?"
"Yeah." [Sounding definitive.]
"Okay. Well, this is what I've been asking you for a long time, was to tell me the truth about the pills. So you're getting strung out? "
"I am strung out."
Now I raise my voice:
"But you're not getting strung out like you have been, Ronda! Because I know how you were."
"Well, lemmee..." She gives a frustrated little sigh. "You can have everything in my house," she offers. "You can have Melvin included. You can have me. "
I just look at her.
"I'll be your personal slave for a week," she says—and laughs. "You can say, 'Ronda...'"
"You're lying. You have not been doing five or six a day for that long."
"I have," she contends. Her brow furrows... "A hundred and fifty, two hundred...about three hundred dollars a day. That's six, right? Yeah."
"So where do you shoot up?" I ask, looking her hard in the eye.
"Here. At Rick's. They don't tell anybody. [Pauses.] What can I do?"
"So... So you're strung out again..."
"What can I do?" she interrupts, repeating her question more forcefully.
"Well, what do you usually do?"
A sound of exasperation is her response.
Then suddenly I'm wondering:
Did she mean something more by her question? Something more crucial? More hopeful?
So quickly I ask: "What can you do about what?"
"George," she answers," I will do anything..."
My hopes evaporate.
"...I swear to God I would."
"I'm not," I say, "in the business of supporting your habit. You understand? I don't like it!"
"I know... That's not..."
She stops in mid-sentence and for a minute she's quiet.
"I would do it for you," she says finally.
"And besides that," I remind her, "we had a deal. We had a deal. We had a deal."
Ronda snaps her fingers:
"Broke."
"What?"
Another quick snap of her fingers:
"Broke."
"What's broke?"
"The deal just got broke. Now. Look..."
"It did not," I counter. "Not on my side it didn't."
"It's not supporting my habit"—she softens her tone—"it's not that."
"Please," she adds in a sexy little voice.
"Ronda, we made a contract on this deal. And I work thirty or forty hours a week on it." I pause. "Look, just get...get in the car and we'll go to Popeye's and—"
"If you'll buy..."
"...you're not hurting that much!"
"If you'll buy me a pill, we'll have a four-hour interview!"
She laughs. She's obviously enjoying this new line of argument.
"You've just had your methadone..."I say again "...you're not—"
"Fuck the methadone! The man won't raise my goddamn dose— I'm tired of his bullshit. He takes it personal if I can't make it to counseling. It hurts his feelings..."
She lowers her voice: "I'd do anything; I swear to God I would. I'd kill somebody. If I had to. But I ain't got no way to kill somebody."
"You would kill somebody?"
"If I had a gun."
"If you had a gun, you would kill..."
She interrupts, speaking louder now: "No, if I had a gun, I'd take it to Rick and trade it for a pill."
"Okay, but otherwise," I continue, "if you couldn't trade it for a pill, would you kill somebody for one?"
"I'd rob somebody. [A pause.] There's gotta be something I could do."
"Well, you could turn a trick, right?"
My question is met by a long silence.
Finally I say very nicely—and hopefully, "I wish that we would just go...get something to eat...and do this interview. They've got to be done, Ronda! If this book is gonna come together."
"Uh...let's get it," Ronda says. "I promise, we'll sit...we'll sit for hours. Upon hours."
"I can see— I can see that you are...you must... You've got to be strung out again."
"We'll go to your office..."
"I really... I really could not tell it before..."
"We'll go to the office..."
"...because you haven't done this..."
"In a long time," she finishes for me.
"In a long time."
"We'll go to your office," she says again, "and we'll just sit there. Because the pill, you know, it'll hold me for...about four hours. I'll just sit there and talk, talk, talk. Four hours, I promise."
I level my eyes at her. "After all the work I've put into this book, I'd ditch it before I gave you the money for a pill right now."
"Please"—now she's sounding like a little girl—"I'll pay it back to you."
"Give it up, give it up. It's not like you're hurting... physically hurting."
"Yeah"—she places a finger on her chest. "Right here it is. Right here."
"But you just had your methadone!"
"Fuck that methadone."
There's a silence.
"How do you feel about getting strung out again? If you are."
"I—just—like—the—way—the—stuff—feels. Okay?"
She climbs up onto the hood of my car.
"If you've been doing five or six a day"—I address her up there—"that means you've been on the street a fair amount. Right?"
Quickly: "Not in front of the hotel! George, you know I get that check the first of the month—can't you go on that?"
"Ronda, I'm not available for this."
"Pleeease!" she implores. "I don't know nobody to ask. ... Don't fuck with me."
"Ronda, I'm not gonna do it. So if you need to get it, go ahead. I'm not gonna do it."
"Why?" She asks it like she truly wants to know.
"Do you want me to spell out the reasons?"
She nods that she does.
"Number one," I say calmly and seriously, "we had a deal. Which you agreed to. I'm sticking to my part of the deal. In what I will do and will not do. That's the main thing.
"Number two: I don't have that kind of money. I'm in debt myself right now. Number three: you're always able to talk folks into...getting your drugs for you."
"No, I'm not!"
"You're not able, " I say, "to talk me into it."
There's a long, frowning silence from Ronda, still perched on my hood.
"But I wish to God," I say, "that you'd...get into shape or whatever, because if you get totally strung out, the only time I'll be catching you will be a little bit on the street, and that's it."
She slides down off the hood. With great agitation, she walks to the rear of the car—then back to me...
"Jesus Christ! Fuck it. I've gotta go turn a date, George. I'm sorry, I can't—"
"I'm sorry too. Now when are we gonna do this interview?"
"We could've done it right now."
"All right. Are you—" I start to ask, "are you—"
Wheeling around, Ronda walks off.
I draw deeply on my cigarette. Across the street, an old woman is sweeping the sidewalk in front of her house. As I'm watching her, I hear the slamming of my car door, and turning, I see that Ronda has climbed into the car and is pulling her shirt off over her head. I look quickly away. Through the windshield, I'd caught only a brief glimpse of her small but pretty breasts. I watch the old woman sweeping until I hear the car door shut again.
Now wearing the sweater she'd brought out from Rick's, Ronda is standing by the door, her eyes on me.
"I appreciate the, uh...I appreciate that," she says. Her tone is sincere. "You know?"
"What?"
"The, um...respect you just showed by not watching. I appreciate that."
"Well," I reply, "I would appreciate it if we can—even if you get strung out—if we can continue on this book without you making—"
She interrupts: "Where are you gonna be? At your office?"
"Yeah."
"After I get my dope," she says, "I'll come see you."
"You'll what?"
"I'll get a trick to bring me over there."
For a few seconds she just stands there.
"You don't want to loan me just ten dollars if I lay something on it?"
I shake my head.
"I've got to go straight broke, right?"
"Yep."
"Okay. Fuck you."
This she had said without raising her voice. But she sounds, for the first time today, truly angry.
She starts walking away.
I say to her back: "Are you saying you're coming over there?"
She stops; she turns and faces me:
"I'll be over there. I don't know why. Because I'm mad at you. I'm real mad at you, but I'll still come over."
"Okay."
Again she starts toward Ponce de Leon, then speaks over her shoulder:
"I'm coming because we're friends. You know what I mean?"
--------
A little hopeful, I wait at my office.
She never comes.
_________________
For a two volume ebook, a very pretty drug-addicted street prostitute allows her life to be documented by photographs and tape-recorded interviews for an entire year while she is working the streets of Atlanta. She does it for an ebook available from the usual websites. Here’s is Volume One on Amazon:
Street Prostitute: A Streetwalker Tells Her Story While She’s Working the Streets
Chloe: *eyes wide, stutters* “R-r-reef, I—”
Reef: *forges on* “Because, for me, lovin’ you is like breathin’: instinctive. And even when I take it for granted, I’m still well aware that if I ever stop, I’ll die. If you could just love me half as much as I love you, I figure we’ll still have more between us than most other couples ever—”
Chloe: “Whoa! S-s-stop! Just stop t-t-talking!”
Reef: *mouth closes with an audible click, as he starts to rise from the bed*
Chloe: *grabs Reef’s arm, clinging to it* “N-n-no, don’t go! I d-d-didn’t mean…”
Reef: *with a casualness that doesn’t match the hard set of his jaw* “No worries, Chlo. I didn’t mean to push. I’ll just give you some space and we’ll talk about it later.”
Chloe (forcefully): “N-N-NO! Stay! *exhales loudly* You know I’m s-s-slow when I’m upset. Just give me a d-d-damn second.”
Reef: *settles back onto the bed* “Okay.”
Chloe: *takes several deep breaths, carefully begins choosing her words* “I am not upset over the depth of your feelings for me, Reef. I am upset that you think you love me more, and you just accept it like that’s the way it’s gotta to be and you’ll settle for it.”
Reef: “I will.”
Chloe: *holds her finger up, fierce look demanding silence* “Who says you love me more? Who made that decision, huh? And I didn’t realize love was a quantifiable commodity that you can weigh and measure! Or that this was a contest!”
Reef: *suddenly angry* “What about Z?”
Chloe (nonplussed): “What about him?”
Reef: “You loved him for years, Chlo. Are you telling me that it’s all gone? Maybe another girl could pull that off, but not you. You don’t love easily and you don’t forget. You don’t work that way!”
Chloe: *matching Reef’s anger with her own* “No, I don’t! And I never said I didn’t love Z anymore! I just don’t love him like I love you!”
Reef: “Right. Because you love him more!”
Chloe: *growls in frustration* “Geeeez, Reef, sometimes you’re so…*quickly pulls her legs underneath her, bouncing agitatedly on the bed*…ugh! I didn’t even realize this was an issue for us anymore! How long has this been festerin’?”
Reef: *violent shrug* “I didn’t realize it was until just now. Green-eyed is so not cool, Chlo. You think I don’t know that? I hate feeling this way! You’re my best girl. He’s my brosef. Hell, I’m frickin’ sick of it! The jealousy. The fear…afraid I’ll do something to push you away. Turn you off. Realize you can do better. *buries his face in his hands, softly* I’m not him, Chlo. I never will be.”
Chloe: *stricken, crawls over to Reef, encircling him with her arms, propping her chin on his shoulder* “I never asked you to be! I don’t want you to be! I don’t want you to be anyone but you.”
Reef: *shoulders rigid, refusing to look at Chloe, mutters* “Sure.”
Fashion Credits
**Any doll enhancements (i.e. freckles, piercings, eye color changes) were done by me unless otherwise stated.**
Chloe
Crochet Top: watbetty
Short: Mattel – CaliGirl Barbie
Boots: Snow’s Shopping Paradise (ebay)
Necklace: Me
Bracelets: Knife’s Edge Designs – Into the Woods – Earthly Delights Bracelet Set
Red “Bracelets”: Goody’s Hairbands
Doll is a Costume Drama Giselle re-rooted by the amazing valmaxi(!!!).
Reef
Shorts: Gwen of Gwendolyn’s Treasures
Tank: Mattel – Playline Ken – Underwear Pack
Necklace: Me
Doll is an IFDC High Elite Pierre.
Twenty are Whimbrels, but two are Knot. And the collective noun for Whimbrels include bind and fling. Although I doubt that many of these collective nouns were really used, though they persist through quiz questions. They were supposed to be a covert way of communicating between hunters, without giving the game away to those not in the know (A bit like Rhyming Slang or Palare).
Whimbrels breed on northern tundra around the globe, but in America Hudsonian Whimbrels lack the white V on the rump. In Britain they are rare breeding birds, mainly in Shetland, but passing through in large numbers each spring and autumn while traveling to and from their African wintering grounds. They are similar to Curlews, but a little smaller with a shorter bill and a stripey head. If you click to zoom in you can see the stripey heads. They also have a stuttering whistling call, which gives rise to their folk name Seven Whistlers, and which is quite unlike any Curlew call.
I photographed this V-formation flying south along the Northumberland coast in late July, probably failed breeders heading down to Africa. There are two breeding plumage Knots in positions one and three in the flock. Most of the Knots that winter in Britain are from Greenland and Arctic Canada but they stop to refuel in Iceland. So I think these Whimbrels are probably from the Icelandic breeding population and this is where the two Knot latched onto this flock. But that is just my idle speculation.
The expression "In a bind" means in a box, or hole, or jam, or tight corner, or tight spot. In a difficult, threatening, or embarrassing position; also, unable to solve a dilemma. It was also one of the opening lines of the Charlie Daniels Band 1979 hit The Devil Went Down to Georgia (...he was looking for a soul to steal. He was in a bind 'cos he was way behind, so was willing to make a deal). It's not an expression I hear very often so I think it was this record that brought the words to mind.
14-05-2019 New Jersey USA
[order] Charadriiformes | [family] Scolopacidae | [latin] Actitis macularius | [UK] Spotted Sandpiper | [FR] Chevalier grivelé | [DE] Drosseluferläufer | [ES] Andarríos maculado | [IT] Piro piro macchiato | [NL] Amerikaanse Oeverloper
Measurements
spanwidth min.: 37 cm
spanwidth max.: 40 cm
size min.: 18 cm
size max.: 20 cm
Breeding
incubation min.: 20 days
incubation max.: 24 days
fledging min.: 17 days
fledging max.: 18 days
broods 3
eggs min.: 3
eggs max.: 5
The Spotted Sandpiper is a medium-sized shorebird with a bill slightly shorter than its head and a body that tapers to a longish tail. They have a rounded breast and usually appear as though they are leaning forward.
Colour Pattern
In breeding season Spotted Sandpipers have bold dark spots on their bright white breast and an orange bill. The back is dark brown. In winter, a Spotted Sandpiper's breast is not spotted; it's plain white, while the back is grayish brown and the bill is pale yellow. In flight, Spotted Sandpipers have a thin white stripe along the wing.
Behaviour
Spotted Sandpipers are often solitary and walk with a distinctive teeter, bobbing their tails up and down constantly. When foraging they walk quickly, crouching low, occasionally darting toward prey, all the while bobbing the tail. In flight, Spotted Sandpipers have quick, snappy wingbeats interspersed with glides, keeping their wings below horizontal. Listen for a few high whistled notes as they take off from the shoreline.
Habitat
Look for Spotted Sandpipers nearly anywhere near water—along streambanks, rivers, ponds, lakes, and beaches, particularly on rocky shores. This species is one of the most widespread breeding shorebirds in the United States and is commonly seen near freshwater, even in otherwise arid or forested regions.
The dapper Spotted Sandpiper makes a great ambassador for the notoriously difficult-to-identify shorebirds. They occur all across North America, they are distinctive in both looks and actions, and they're handsome. They also have intriguing social lives in which females take the lead and males raise the young. With their richly spotted breeding plumage, teetering gait, stuttering wingbeats, and showy courtship dances, this bird is among the most notable and memorable shorebirds in North America.
Hermosa Beach, April 2011
This is probably the 2nd wedding arch I saw that day. There's something that drew me in taking a photo of this one: Is it the calmness before the craziness? Or the calmness after the craziness? The arrangement of the seats in perfect pattern? The lonely cleaning guy? I really don't know.
Nikon D50 50mm 1.8d lens reversed. Aperture of f8 and 1/500 stutters peed with pop-up flash. Follow my 500px for more photos: 500px.com/iloveburgersomuch
To see details in this drawing, try the largest image size...
The weather was hot, the creeks were spring fed and cold.
There was a BLUE MOON at this gathering! I wrote a long story about our trip, full of run-on-sentences. No names were changed to protect the innicent. All facts are just my opinions. I am not a journalist. Here is the story....
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Rainbow Recollections
1996 Missouri
"Who fears today
His rites to pay
Deserves his chains to wear.
The forest's free!
This wood take we,
and straight a pile prepare.
Yet in the wood
To stay 'tis good
By day till all is still.
With watchers all around us placed
Protecting you from ill.
With courage fresh, then,
Let us haste
Our duties to fulfill......" - Goethe
My daughter Skater (aka: Pixie, Shine, age 13) and I had a grand time at the Missouri Rainbow. We arrived Sunday June 23 and left July 3, and those were 11 magical days! Our drive in was 12 hours, and started with thunderstorms and a downburst in central Illinois that forced us off the road near Springfield. Big booming lightning! Old Mother Nature's power chords! Ba-BOOM!! Ka-Pow!!!!!
We got in about 1 am, drove right past FS road 3173 in the dark. Whoops! When we hit Thomasville we turned around and headed back north. Right exactly at 3 miles on the odometer from Thomasville there was FS #3173 off to the right. We drove on in quietly without seeing a single cop. There was the big green and yellow "Welcome Home" banner and a quiet group with a lone drummer singing and pounding out his heartsongs. We parked in the dark fog and decided to get some sleep in our old pickup until the sunrise. Just before dawn it rained hard for about 45 minutes, and that made the air smell clean and sweet! :)
We got up and meandered through the parking lot and met a lot of kind folks at the front gate. Out in the lot we met Katie and Brian and Althea (shy white Siberian husky puppy with pretty blue eyes) in the green bubbletop "Save the Buses" bus from Chicago. We also shared munchies and explored with Funky (Matt) and Shannon in the green VW camper bus, and met Victor and Kevin. At dawn we started packing for the hike in towards Kiddie Village where we would set up our camp.
It was nearly 3 miles to Kiddie Village. The first mile was dry and hot, then we started crossing the streams and it was like heaven to stop and play in that cold water. There was a steep incline down to the first stream, too steep for bikes to ride, but not too steep for horses. Spring creek was it's name, filled with tadpoles and there were lovely Spicebush and Pipevine Swallowtail butterflies hovering about the banks.
The second creek crossing had MARVELOUS sand!! SO nice on bare feet! The White Dove kitchen settled here and had the secret luxury of a hidden beautiful white portable shitter with a lid. "Pixie" was a frequent stopper at White Dove and we kept their secret close to the vest. Up the hill from the "good sand" crossing was the first clearing, a beautiful meadow with five tipis. The path here was named Hanuman Highway.
The main path crossed Spring Creek again and opened onto the big meadow with main fire circle and C.A.L.M. and good water piped from underground springs. We drank copious amounts of the spring water for 11 days with no problem. Our friend Question Mark happily spent his time filtering the water for anyone patient enough to get that extra protection. The pipe system evolved and grew with the gathering, so that eventually you were always close to a source of underground spring fed clean drinking water. We give an A+ to all who hauled pipe and ran samples for tests. GREAT water is such a luxury! :)
The next creek crossing had a pipe with roaring spring water you could shower in! Fill up the canteens! No waiting! Cold clean showers! The bridge there was called H20 bridge or Rainbow Bridge, and the crossing was called "Copperhead Crossing" after a snake was sighted in the water by some shady bushes. The original location of C.A.L.M. was to the right just after H20 Bridge. Continuing up, the main path was called Son Dance Trail and opened onto another fine meadow.
At the end of the meadow on the left side was Kiddie Village, which eventually grew to a City of Wonder! We parked our camp halfway twixt original C.A.L.M. and Kiddie Village, up into the shade of the tree line in the raspberry bushes by a big broken tree. Flattening out a place for our sleeping tent we ate juicy raspberries as we stomped. There was poison ivy everywhere so we sacrificed a shade tarp to cover the ground for safe lounging and relaxing. We set up a second small dome tent for all our gear and food and clothes and schtuff. We were on the map, had our own gnome home at home!
Pixie donated a pile of her old Golden Books to Kiddie Village. She talked with the smaller kids while I helped a crew installing support poles and guy ropes for that immense circus-tent-sized tarp for the main play area. I was amazed how four folks could hold a 25' ladder firmly in the air while another person climbed fearlessly to the top to adjust rope connections. The kids were having a blast here! There were four teeter-totters and the kids had figured how to "launch" each other, so the adults were trying to calm their butts down. Then we gravitated over to Kiddie C.A.L.M. where she helped Pat take care of several kids. One had poison oak all around his eyes.
Water and Flame were the main healers at Kiddie C.A.L.M., but Pat and the Swedish Bitters woman also put in huge hours there. Pat's dog Gaia was hilarious to play stick with. Gaia would plunge pell mell into high thick weeds and come out in a nanosecond with the very same stick you'd thrown. We trudged back to parking and got a second load of supplies that day. We donated a lot of apple juice and zuzu drink (cola) and that made for heavy loads to haul.
We learned to linger in the shade. In the stretches of sun it was best to conserve energy and keep moving towards the shade. We drank constantly from our canteens and often poured as much on our heads as we put in our mouths. We quickly learned all the places we could get water and paced our water consumption accordingly. It was close to 100 degrees everyday, and only rained one other time just before dawn for about two hours (July 2nd). Two pack loads in one day (and setting up the camp) wore us out, so we collapsed at sunset and slept with rainbow dreams. The Missouri whippoorwills sang us to sleep.
The next morning we found our Lovin' Touch kitchen up in the trees on the hillside in the shade. The big sign said "Kitten Safety Zone, All Dogs On Leashes!" and we met Grace, who had three kittens and a full grown cat! Grace told us how she and Steps had come in on June 10th and started Lovin' Touch in a shady patch of poison ivy. They knew where to find the good spring water, and they brought in a reporter from the West Plains Daily Quill. Grace opened her trunk and showed us the beautiful photo of the start of Lovin' Touch kitchen that made the front page of the June 13th Quill, along with an excellent article. Great public relations!!
Steps gave us the best hugs of the gathering and Piper played his didgeridu, and Lizard had made some great pancakes with apples and strawberries in them. This was OUR kitchen! I helped Justin chop wood and Pixie found every cat and dog in the area and gave em all hello hugs! There was a big tie-dye of a pot frond and hammocks strung all over. John was reciting poetry in the corner and Buddy Paul floated in with his beautiful cutaway Applause guitar and just let anyone play away on it.
The next morning we went to Copperhead Crossing for a shower and to splash in the stream and we met Nancy who was entering 6th grade in the fall. She was lugging around a big heavy bedroll. Pixie and Nancy became best friends instantly. I put her gear in my backpack and we trudged off to her mom's van back in A-camp, then came back to Kiddie Village. On the way they caught 50 tadpoles at the first creek crossing and had them all in a single drinking cup! Nancy slept about half the time in a hammock at Lovin' Touch. Nancy traded for two matching filigree rings and gave one to Pixie, and they changed their names to Sunshine. Pixie was Sun and Nancy was Shine. Nancy showed us where the kids were swinging off a rope into a deep cold spot in the creek. It was too cold for me, but the kids could stand it and had a great time!
There was also a swing/hammock for kids to swing in over the creek, and children's toys scattered about. The milk for Kiddie village was stored in the cold water, a natural refrigerator. Then came early dinner call at Kiddie Village! Many courses! Seconds and thirds for all who wanted!! Filled us up (yummy!) and we went off burping to the main circle to hear all the news and see how big the OM circle was getting. My best guess was two to three thousand at the site on our arrival June 23rd. When we left on Wednesday, July 3rd there were maybe 10,000 and it was growing every hour with the four day weekend approaching.
About Thursday, June 27th, Pixie patiently had sat through another evening main circle and eaten good Rainbow food. She went to her first "Sister Circle" with an older friend. The hot topic was the rape of a sister in A-camp. It turns out a young woman had gotten real drunk and been passed around and passed out. She wasn't with the girls discussing the hearsay at Sister Circle, she was already back getting loaded with those same brothers at A-camp who had taken advantage of her. The news I heard was that she was "consenting" until she passed out, but I wonder how could she consent while unconscious? A sorry story, but she apparently knew and stood by her rapist friends even afterwards. They were her drinking buds. A more tragic story was a pregnant 14 year old who miscarried at the Rainbow. I never met either woman, just passing on what I heard at the site.
The RUMORS on the computer newsgroup alt.gathering.rainbow (when I got home to read it) were really silly! The National Guard was not called out! No one was shot in A-camp. Hillbillies were NOT beating up hippies! The locals thought we were a godsend and treated us kindly with smiles! The police traffic checks were only for driver's license/insurance/registration. We passed in and out many times and most times there was no traffic check, or they just waved us by without stopping. Pixie did catch an ancient box turtle at the gathering, and had it in her lap on our way in when we were stopped. The Forest Service made her set the turtle free, it was a protected citizen of the Irish Wilderness!!
There were about 8 horse cops we met on the main trail and we learned the names of all the beautiful horses. Rebel Command and Ollie were our favorites. The riders were especially courteous, three women and five men, I think. There were about four FS cops on mountain bikes, and they ate a lot of dust from the cars on FS road 3173 going from the site to the police command location about 2 miles down the road. We stopped and greeted the FS and Dept. of Interior police we met and they were all friendly and kind. We even had a FS cop by A-camp get out of his jeep and paw through his supplies to find Pixie a Band-Aid for a finger cut.
One woman (who was a little crazed) climbed on top of a FS jeep and jumped up and down, denting the roof! And she wasn't arrested! Many were openly rude to the cops, calling out "Six UP!" or "Doughnut!!" as they went by. A select few chanted OM towards them. I always asked if all was well, and never heard any problems, although some were nervous and would say, "No problems .... yet!" I give the cops a C+, they are only human. We saw very little of them inside the real gathering, and only on the main trail, and always preceded by shouts of warning. I wish they would have stayed out of the church altogether and turned in their guns. HA!
The main trail crosses Spring Creek again to the right of Kiddie village, and heads upwards past the Animal Rainbow Family first aid for dogs and cats (Arf Arf!!) and Teen Village and Granola Funk Express kitchen. If you follow it all the way to the end there were three ropes tied across the trail and a sign that said "Turn around, Private property". Just before that sign, if you turned left, you could meander down to Cafe Cough Fee (Coffee Coffee) and find the best swimming spot of the gathering! Spring Creek is 12 feet deep here, fifty feet across, and cold cold COLD! The bank on the Coffee Coffee side is full of good mud and music all day. Those who can handle the cold water swim across and scramble up the rocky bank, and the adventurous climb up to dive off rock ledges 20 and 30 feet up.
There was a cave upstream to explore, and some kind souls left an inflatable raft for kids to paddle back and forth. Frisbees hummed back and forth as didgeridus droned and the mud people drew designs on themselves. This was a hopping swim hole! Musicians would gravitate in and stay for hours singing heavenly songs. We met Megan out by Coffee Coffee and she blew Pixie dust on Skater, then told her she was now a Pixie and had Pixie dust in her blood! That's when Skater changed her name to Sunshine Pixie, but she shortened it to Pixie later, and we got some gold glitter dust so she could turn others into Pixies. Skater was a glittering gold-dusted free spirit the last five days we were there. One bottle of glitter covers a LOT of people! :) Sparkling like star dust in the moonlight and sunshine!
Early in the gathering we met Steve and Cheyenne and their daughter. Steve was giving out water about the 1 mile point from A-camp at the end of a long dry path in the hot sun. Each day Steve and Foxfire (aka: Bridge Troll, Pegleg) went on a water run to Birch Tree and brought back water to give out at the water station, as well as "PowerBurst" electrolyte drink. Steve and Cheyenne also brought two riding horses and hung out a sign that read "Horse Camp". They brought a white horse (age 13) named Patches, and another spirited brown horse, both elegant females. Cheyenne took Pixie for a four hour horse ride one day, while I baby-sat their younger girl Kailey. Kailey was 15 months old and an energetic whirlwind. Kailey was born premature at only 1 pound and hydrocephalic, but was obviously doing well and happy to be at her first rainbow!
Cheyenne and Pixie washed the two horses and brushed them and got them water. Then they rode them down the steep path to the first creek for an hour or so and tried to get them to drink. Pixie rode the white horse, Patches. The brown horse drank some and had a coughing fit, Cheyenne thought maybe she had swallowed a tadpole! Then they went up into the first meadow and galloped around the tipis. They decided to take them all the way in to Kiddie Village and back.
In the main circle meadow they walked the horses through the big fire pit and really stirred up some ashes and dust. Then Pixie had to hold on as Patches decided to take off and run some around the main meadow, even leaping over some logs by where the wash station was later set up by the water people. Patches was the type of horse that needed to be ridden firm or whacked a bit with a stick to get going. Pixie was uncomfortable doing that, but she had a great time riding nonetheless. They rode through the thick fog of the gathering at sunset and came back after dark with the fireflies twinkling around them in the mist.
When they returned, Pixie had bowlegs and saddleburns and was worn out! That's when Cheyenne's stomach began to hurt a LOT! She tried some herbal cures from C.A.L.M. but nothing seemed to help. We all felt for her. She wound up going in to the hospital the next day before feeling better, and came back to the Gathering again. After her long ride Pixie volunteered to run the water station. It was dark and she was lit by a lantern and offered weary incoming travelers water or electrolytes or pixie dust. Just about everyone wanted pixie dust! A kind soul gave her a bag of little chocolate bars with the instructions to only give them to girls, but she gave them to everybody! We were given strawberries and watermelon and also changed Kailey's diaper twice! We stayed until after midnight, then closed down the water station and finally wandered back to our tent by the light of the big smiling moon.
One evening after main circle I went to wash our dishes while Pixie played hacky-sack with a group of teens. I met George while washing. His 12-string guitar was autographed by Peter Yarrow (of Peter Paul and Mary) and Stanley Jordan and Kenny Burrell and John Prine and Stevie Ray Vaughan's nephew Roy Vaughan, and about 40 others. He was from Austin and sang me a song he wrote about the Wyoming gathering... "on July 1st there was a fire, on July 2nd there was a fire, on July 3rd there was a fire, on July 4th there was a Raaaaaaainbow!" ...and as he sang the sunset disappeared quickly... where was Pixie?
The hacky-sack group was nowhere to be seen. I started looking for Pixie in her dark purple shirt. I circled the fire twice, the drummers were already roaring, a BIG crowd! I had lost her! I circled inside right next to the fire so Pixie could see me if she was there, I was wearing her giant red & black Dr. Suess hat. Night had come on in a hurry and it was too dark to see faces even up close. Being a parent is a wonderful thing, and I was VERY concerned. The gathering had grown to a sizable city. I wandered away from the fire and hollered out "Ska-a-a-a-a-aterrrrr!!!!" and she called out "Right here, Dad!" right under my feet! What a relief! After that I stuck with her like glue, and brought a white T-shirt for her to wear after main circle sunset!
That night Pixie wanted to stay by the fire, so we crept in close between the drummers and found two saxophone players and sat near them listening to the sounds. Pixie kept wanting to sit closer and closer to the fire and we wound up almost IN the fire! The fire tenders had to walk over us as they added logs, and we were well-done and roasted by the heat of the flames! All our clothes were covered in soot and the next day our throats were sore from breathing so much smoke! But we stayed right in the thick of the drums and dancers and hung in there until that blue moon finally went down behind the trees over the mountainside. Just before the moon disappeared she met her friend Eagle, they talked as the fire crackled and the dark night settled in around us. After about six hours at the main drum circle we crept back to the tent and brushed our teeth and slept.
All that night and most every night we visited the fire there was a big menacing dude like Big Daddy in sinister sunglasses with a shaved head. He apparently thought he was King of the Fire or something and would stop the drums and recite a short poem to tell us to listen to the birds or hear the spirits talk. He also threatened to shove the trombone up the ass of a trombone player! He also would occasionally give slices of sweet melon to everyone in the inner circle of the fire, and maybe also drinks of electric punch. He never bothered us, thank goodness, and Pixie was able to dust him with Pixie dust the last day we were there. Good work, Pixie! We always ended the day by brushing out teeth and started the day by brushing our teeth. We were probably the only two at the gathering that didn't have morning breath!
Three nights later it was a full blue moon! The main circle was filled with pomp and drama, lots of poetry and heartsongs and then a special OM circle where we all laid back and chanted to the sky while holding hands laying down! After the food there was a Rainbow Wedding and we got right up close to observe and take part! The crowd was swept up and chanting "HO!" as the couple exchanged vows and were blessed and covered with incense smoke and then there was a huge group hug and OM chant. Pixie had big stars in her eyes and she said, "Dad, I want a hippie wedding!"
They had piled up a huge pile of logs for the fire, and after the wedding it ROARED into life and there were tons of wild dancers circling the fire. Little blond 13 year-old Eagle came up with half his head shaved and the other half dyed bright green with braided dreads. He raced naked around the fire in circles leaping and cavorting! We were among the first to spot the moon's entrance over the hill, and the drumming soared with that big lunar energy! We hung in with the drums and the fire and wailed on our bells and trumpet and rhythm egg up till the moment of fullness at 10:58 pm, then meandered back listening for vampires and werewolves on the paths!
The full moon night, Pixie was asleep by midnight and I wanted to stay close to the tent but soak up some sounds of the gathering. About 50 feet away by the trail that leads to Lovin' Touch kitchen was a couple of flute players and a drummer that were jamming their asses off. Both flutists were singing and scatting into their flutes as they played, and throwing wild jazz riffs back and forth like two Johnny Heartsman clones with Roland Kirk egging them on! A person nearby with a laser light did a light show at their feet with that eerie flashing red light, and Piper wandered down from Lovin' Touch with his "D" wood flute and joined in.
This was the best music I heard at the gathering, these souls were on FIRE! I nestled up right next to them and leaned on my walking staff and just inhaled the magic for a half hour in delight! Afterwards there was a couple banjos and a guitar and a real fine fiddle over at Tea & Toke kitchen a hundred feet to the north of our tent. I sat down and played on the rhythm egg, and a big golden lab drooled all over me wagging his tail. They were playing real Ozark bluegrass, and they ripped through a dozen tunes and had a captive audience of about 40 clapping for more each time they would stop!
The first day we packed in I was lured into the Popcorn Palace kitchen by the sounds of Robbie playing a mandolin and singing. Robbie was older and his legs were crippled, but he could and did sing like a songbird and played that mandolin all the time beaming a big rainbow smile! He'd also been at the 1980 gathering and told us about how they had finally jailed the guy that killed the two girls hitching to that West Virginia national. While I was talking to him and his friends, a 17 year old named Cheshire Cat was trying to attach himself to Pixie! Cheshire was hard to escape the next two days. He found and followed us wherever we went. Finally Pixie met Eric (age 17) and then it was in reverse, with Pixie dragging Dad all over trying to find and hang out with Eric. After Eric, Dad got dragged around as Pixie hung out with Eagle (age 13) all day.
Eagle had a fake English accent and claimed to have 190 wives. His Mom had brought him to gatherings about every year and also to regional gatherings in-between, and he was a creative soul! After Eagle, a different fellow named Weasel decided to hang with us non-stop and try wooing Pixie. Weasel was 19, but shorter than Pixie by a couple inches, and liked to hang out with the younger kids. Weasel was extremely polite and good company, but he really had no business with a 13 year old just out of grade school. After a couple of days I told Weasel he was a little too old for my girl and he respectfully backed off. Rainbow men are cut of a finer cloth, I think. I had done my utmost patient share of being flexible and mellow and allowing Pixie to meet and mingle with a LOT of folks, all the while never letting her too far out of my sight. I did about seven days of non-interfering chaperoning before explaining to Pixie that we weren't there to chase and be chased by boys. Amazingly, she agreed! The rest of the time we hung together and still managed to have major fun!
Out in the parking lot after an early visit to Steve and Cheyenne to see about riding horses, Pixie serenaded the FS with her trumpet. They drove past in a jeep and stopped right in front of us and asked if she would play them a song. She pulled out her sheet music for "This Land Is Your Land, This Land Is My Land" by Woody Guthrie and blasted them with about three full verses with choruses! I was mighty proud! Afterwards we sang the two banned socialist verses to folks in the lot, and a day later I heard Pixie singing those verses to people at the Bliss kitchen!
"As I was walking, in the shadow of the steeple,
by the relief office, I seen my people.
As they stood there hungry, I stood there whistling..
(whistle melody to "This land was made for you and me")
As I was walking, I saw a sign there!
And on the sign it said, No Trespassing!
But on the other side, it didn't say nothing...
THAT side was made for you and me!"
The Krishna commune in West Virginia sent a bus and a couple of Swiss brown work bulls to the gathering. The bulls were twin brothers named Gita and Bhagavad. They were HUGE! We saw them as they arrived in a big trailer, and later grazing in a meadow. The Krishna's brought their usual assortment of fine musicians, including Indian drums and a harmonium, and put on theater in a stage in the first clearing. They had two big tipis and two large tents. Pixie and I stopped in their first tipi right after it went up, the incense was real fine and sweet and they were singing sweet songs to Krishna.
The inside of the tent had little triangular flags all around in a circle with some of the many names of god written on each flag. I wrote down the name of "Ksamah, one who is patient in all things!" Pixie grew impatient to leave and we tried to wait until their song ended, but it turned out to be an ENDLESS song so we snuck out quietly. They gave Pixie a glossy postcard of a blue lotus Shiva with four arms holding a nice talking drum and a ceremonial spear. Krishna was late arriving this year and we never made it to their kitchen, which opened about July 1st. Their kitchen has a reputation for the sweetest food!!
Josef arrived for the full moon sans his beard, but he brought his bagpipes! He remembered us from the Kentucky gathering where he worked communications and organized healers at the C.A.L.M. tipi. We also met Caribou, who maintains an unofficial Rainbow Family of Living Light homepage on the internet. Also it was a pleasure to meet Running Bear, an elder and cartoonist who posts regularly on the "alt.gathering.rainbow" internet newsgroup.
Early on we met Woody and his niece and her young friend David at the main circle. They were from West Virginia, and Woody told me an interesting tale of searching caves in Belize for artifacts. He was in a tight spot in a cave and poked at a mound of bat guano when a cloud of guano dust burst into the air and right down his lungs. He went into distress almost right away and developed histoplasmosis, a dangerous lung disease. After years of herbal and natural remedies, Woody's histoplasmosis is now in remission. Beware the guano dust in caves!
Woody's camp was near ours but on the other side of the Son Dance Trail and right next to Spring Creek. Woody heard some funny sounds one night and got up with a flashlight to find two armadillos had waddled out of the creek and were rummaging through his camp! He followed them a ways with the light as they waddled slowly off, and the next day he thinks he found their burrow a bit further downstream.
I would have loved to see those critters myself, but had to settle for the armadillos we saw hit by cars on the highway. Pixie and I stopped when we saw our first armadillo road-kill. The poor thing had really been clobbered by cars and we dragged it off the asphalt and into the weeds. Soon after we saw another armadillo in the classic four feet in the air bloated road-kill posture. Woody was a trader and kept business hours by his tent with wares on display luring folks in from the main trail. His demeanor was elegantly mellow and I liked him a lot. He had been at the Kentucky National in 1993, so I brought him some apple juice and a copy of the map I drew of that Gathering. He gave Pixie a beautiful ankle bracelet with bells. Later we brought him a set of juggling balls because the ankle bracelet was so sweet.
Everywhere we went we saw juggling sticks and Pixie was fascinated. The first juggler we saw with them was in Lovin' Touch kitchen, and he was a MOST excellent and smooooth juggler! Eric's friend Sage was playing an extended set of songs on Buddy Paul's guitar, and this juggler was sitting cross-legged in the dirt and working magic with those sticks in time with the music.
Sage was playing Nirvana and other tunes. He was real young but could play like my friend Johnny OH and sing like Kurt Cobain.
Sage and I traded songs later at their camp out by Granola Funk Express. Pixie was embarrassed to hear Dad chomping out bad versions of God Save The Queen (Sex Pistols) and Hey Baby (Hendrix) while she was trying to make eyes at Sage's friend Eric. Eric had a joker's hat and gave Pixie a necklace that came apart later. Pixie was sweet on this guy after getting that necklace! He was a drummer without a drum, promised to meet Pixie by the Kiddie Village swimming hole, but we couldn't find him. It's easy to lose folks at a Rainbow.
Trader's blankets were spread out at all the congested spots on the main trail, slowing foot traffic and bringing the shopping MALL spirit into the church. Call me a relic but I remember in 1980 the traders were NOT allowed to peddle inside until July 4th, when they flooded inside to the main meadow with all their trinkets glittering on their blankets. For many of these traders the Rainbow is just another stop on the flea market trail, and I resent this crass materialistic merchandising. Pixie was constantly drawn to gawk at their wares, and Dad (the Old Grouch) was given to grousing & crabbing & whining & beefing as I tried to pry her from those little portable stores. Jesus threw the bastards out of the temple on their ears, didn't he? Heeheheeheheee! Enough... :)
This was the first national where I didn't squirm my way into blowing the conch shell at main circle to call the family to grub. I must be getting old. The conch blowers I heard were doing their best but weren't getting the volume that the tuba player from Michigan got back in Kentucky in 1993! We had meadow neighbors from Urbana, Illinois, that brought a trombone and blew reveille way too EARLY one morning right next to our camp! Pixie had been sleeping but that blew her right out of the tent into the morning sunshine! Another trombonist at the Gathering liked to haunt the main drum circle and would let anyone pass around his trombone while he wandered off for hours. Way up by Arf Arf!! there was a cackle of five saxophones that regularly gathered in the shady trail and jammed together. They sounded to me like Frank Zappa's "The Eric Dolphy Memorial Barbecue // Dwarf Nebula Professional March & Dwarf Nebula", a real soaring pack of honkers in disarray.
Ours was the only trumpet we saw, and carrying it around a coupla days, we indulged a lot of requests from former trumpet players to play on it! It was played at the swimming holes with didgeridoos, tooted with wandering clarinets on the trail, and covered with fire soot at the main drum circle. We saw hordes of wood and orchestral flutes. There seemed to be a hundred didgeridoos! There were scores of guitars from the precious to the silly variety, and hundreds of big and small drums (the new Rainbow instrument of choice). SOOOO many drummers! Deep in the thundering buffalo stampede of oblivious amateur drumming there lurked a serious core of talented and demented real percussionists. The good drumming would surface and carry the energy in surprising places, even in the Walmart parking lot in West Plains!
There was a hilarious handbill posted at info about the telltale warning signs of drum abuse! It's interesting to note that lots of regional gatherings are just called "Drum Circles" now. The domination of the rhythmic ones has beaten the melodic minority to the sidelines! All hail the thumping BEAT!! Just kidding, I like drums a lot. Someday I would like to have a talking drum and a real low pitched booming tabla. I got a chance to play on both at the Shawnee regional in Early October! I didn't see many of either at this years National, but for all I know there were undoubtedly some real fine drums out there lurking in that foggy misty pulsing valley.
Pixie's new Rainbow friend Flipper was 19 and had been married and divorced twice already. Claimed to have already owned a house and had a high powered job at one point. He had a green spiked mohawk that kept lying down without his spray and mouse, and Pixie loved to take her fingers and mess it up! For him life was black leather and tattoos and musical angst (post-Punk) but he was obviously filled with joy and had a happy soul enjoying the Rainbow. He left July 2nd, hitching his way to Colorado with friends. A kind dude!
My Rainbow friend Jarrod had sliced three toes open in a farm accident loading hay bales a week before the rainbow. He wandered into Kiddie C.A.L.M. limping on a cane with no shoes or socks, and had flies crawling in & out of the mud caked around his wound! The Swedish Bitters woman decided he needed to clean that and apply Swedish Bitters. She prescribed Swedish Bitters for everything! We donated a clean sock for him to wear and he kept returning for more Swedish Bitters and cleaning each day. By the end of our stay he was walking without a cane, and new skin was growing on his wound. It was looking 100% improved! We poured through the ancient herbal tomes but never did find out the secret ingredients of Swedish Bitters. What the hay, Jarrod was healing fast! Center for Alternative Living Medicine does it again! May the Goddess praise Swedish Bitters!
A-camp, or Alcoholic Camp, lived up to it's bad reputation as usual. While there were a few kind souls welcoming folks home out on the road before parking, the welcome home info board area was home to a motley crue of sordid motorcyclists and macho self-designated Shanti Sena bosses. There was a giant "my-size" Barbi doll, naked, with duct tape over her mouth greeting everyone. The next day we went by and they were doing rather unspeakable things to her in the grass. I had Pixie turn her head and we walked quickly by.
The next time we went by, there was a crowd trashing a compact car. They had broken all the windows and were kicking in the doors. Some people have their own special forms of amusement, I guess. For a couple days there was a nice three-wheeled motorcycle that looked like a hearse parked right at the front gate, and the cycle gang members who brought it in were loading up on beer before hiking in where their feet would have to carry them.
The woman who had jumped up and down on the FS jeep without being arrested eventually calmed down a lot. We saw her several times being reeeeeally wacky but in better control. That day when she jumped on the jeep she had been hugging people on the trail, then tearing off their metal jewelry and throwing their rings and bracelets off into the weeds. Our friend Funky had his silver ring and silver bracelet thrown down into a ravine filled with poison ivy. Pixie and I and Cheshire Cat climbed down into it and helped him search. The bracelet was found quickly, but it was a long while later when Cheshire finally found the ring. Another brother lost an amulet and necklace and was extremely upset, but did not file charges against the woman.
One brother I met had the handle of "Less Stress". Now that is a good name! We can all use less Stress! Have you heard of "Vermin Supreme"? He is the infamous Disco Ball and giant toothbrush wielding hippie we met in Kentucky. He was here and passing out bumperstickers that said VERMIN SUPREME `96 "Brush Your Teeth, It's The Law!" We ran into him with a group that was asking cosmic questions of a Magic Eight Ball. I asked an important question and the 8-ball gave me the answer I was hoping for, but the exact words were, "Of course, you dork!"
The new summer edition of the 1996 Rainbow Guide was given away at info and there was a big color photo of Vermin Supreme with a shit-eating grin right on the cover! Fame!!! We had met Vermin in Kentucky in 1993. Vermin wandered around at night with a mobile and raucous party entourage. They carried that giant-size disco mirror-ball everywhere they went, shining flashlights on it and calling out for all to "Bow down and worship the Sacred Disco Ball!!" It was too-o-o-o hilarious! :)
Out in the parking lot we met and shared grub and laughs with Geo (George) from Minneapolis. The next night we heard machete whacking sounds back behind our camp in the trees, it seemed to go on all night! It was Geo and several of his Minneapolis friends carving out a shady campsite from the poison ivy and poison oak and raspberry brambles! Wack-a-wack-a-wack!! While we had set up at the tree line and had a tarp for protection from rain, the angle of the morning sun slanted in and heated up our tent in the early morning, ewwwwwwww!!!! Hot! Geo and friends did the extra work and wound up with a fine cool site with all day shade! A few set up tents out in the baking sun, only to move them the next day when they discovered how HOT the sun can be!
Our big hot meadow suddenly FILLED with tents on the weekend of June 29 and 30. An explosion of people arriving really changed the chemistry of the gathering from seed camp to full national homecoming! I crawled from our tent to find both paths we usually took to get to the main trail were now covered by new arrivals. There were tents everywhere!! A German shepherd from out of nowhere took umbrage at my emerging and growled and advanced on me to chew on my skinny leg!! I yelped backwards and grabbed my walking staff, which saved me! Dogs do not like big sticks wielded with a little bravisimmo! This big shepherd belonged to a tent two tents over, turned out to have a name (Nebraska) and took huge shits wherever he pleased.
The next night we tucked Pixie's sandals under the drop tarp next to the door of out tent because they were too raunchy and sandy to bring inside. The next morning Nebraska was using one of her sandals as a chew toy! I took several time outs during the gathering to move and cover other folks dog shit on the main trail. As much as I love cats, the Rainbow just makes me love cats all the more! I saw several people dive in to break up dog fights and almost got bowled over by fighting dogs a few times myself. As Bob Dylan says, "If dogs run free, then why not me? Across the swoop of tiiiiime........"
My favorite dog of the gathering was a three legged little black terrier that thought he was Napoleon! His name was Weasel. He stayed wherever he wanted, and had friends at Lovin' Touch and out at Horse Camp. His owner said he had picked a fight with a big German shepherd and got his leg bit off as a result. I was baby-sitting Kailey out at horse camp when a brother handed me Weasel and pleaded with me to hold him long enough for him to get away with his lady doggie that was in heat. Weasel had been romancing his pooch non stop, haahahaahaha! Who would bring a dog in heat to a Rainbow?
We also saw a beautiful brown/gray Afghan dog roaming without an owner (I like Afghans) and several big wolfhounds. There were a number of real classy fancy doggies whose owners kept them sensibly in tow, but 90% of the dogs just ran free. We came walking down the trail when two dogs locked in intercourse were captured by their owners who tried to separate them, but they were stuck! Pixie's eyes almost popped out of her head! Here were these silly humans pouring water and oil on these two pooches to no avail and trying to pull them apart. Oh the pain! I tried to move Pixie down the trail but all her friends had stopped to gawk at the sight.
Pixie was helping at Kiddie C.A.L.M. when a guy asked her to watch his little black cuddly puppy named Zodax while he ran a quick errand. Three hours later, the guy finally comes back! In the meantime, Pat had diagnosed Zodax as starving and loaded with worms! Pat and Pixie and I marched this guy down to the Animal Rainbow Family (ARF ARF!!) first aid camp. There he got medicine for his puppy and free food and a lecture, but the next day we found out he had given the puppy away. Rainbow people are BAD to their animals! Just my $.02 opinion! We met a family of 3 week old kittens in a sack. The mother had died, they said. They were taking care of them, they said. They had no milk, no food. My heart went out for them and their chances of surviving the Rainbow. :(
We saw lots of kittens but only about four adult cats. Adult cats will not put up with these conditions! Grace had a beautiful black and white cat named Fat Cat that ran free and safe at Lovin' Touch, but there was an uncomfortable and vulnerable black cat on a tied leash at the Popcorn Palace. We saw a couple of people on the trail carrying adult cats as they hiked. We saw people carrying mice and leading goats. Someone brought a rooster that crowed all day long! There were ferrets and pet birds and snakes and baby dwarf rabbits. Pixie caught and released her box turtle, caught and released butterflies and tadpoles. She got bit by a crawfish in the creek. We were all enjoyably nibbled on by little fish.
We both got chigger bites and TRIED not to scratch `em. We still have `em *scratch scratch* to tell ya the truth! There weren't many flies or mosquitoes or spiders. The great paranoia about Lyme disease from ticks was totally overblown. Any black bears or snakes probably fled the area after the first drum circle. Several folks went out of their way to seek out and kill some snakes, and their unlucky hides wound up as wares on the Trader's blankets. There were beautiful little golden finches fluttering around the kitchens and Red Tailed Hawks circling the updrafts above the hills. We spotted some fast little lizards that were black with narrow yellow stripes on their backs and bright blue tails.
I was really happy with the diversity of butterflies! Beautiful butterflies everywhere! Harvesters and Checkerspots and Blues and Viceroys and Fritillaries and lovely Dark Tiger Swallowtails! Saw my first live Zebra Swallowtail ever! And tattoos of butterflies! Tattoos everywhere! Tattoos in progress in the dust of the main trail! Pierced lips and tongues and nipples and belly buttons and ears and genitals and whole body irezumi tattoos. One woman from New Orleans wore an owl foot, alligator teeth, eagle feathers, and a gris-gris bag of zu-zu mamou! The further you got from A-camp, and the closer you got to the great swimming by Coffee Coffee, there were a lot of folks who wore only woven leaves of grape vine, or creative mud designs, or just shone with the light of their smiles! Rainbow spirit embraces all!!
Packing out the tents on our last trip down the trail, we came upon a man pushing his son (Zack) in a baby-buggy with little swivel wheels. The dirt path reached a rocky bUmPy stretch, so we swept the buggy up in the air and Zack was flying down the trail like a bird! We reached A-camp after a block-long flight, and set him back down on the dirt path. Dad suddenly took off and pushed that buggy about 200 yards down the path at a full sprint, with Zack laughing all the way! We were left smiling in clouds of buggy dust!
We saw a couple unloading a cello case from a van, so I asked about it. Sure enough, the kind brother got out his cello and treated us to a Bach concerto right there on the road in A-camp! Marvelous!!! I loooove cello! He was nailing the pitch and playing those hammer-ons and trills and getting those bow-stutters in there. I was in heaven! But soon we were loading the last of our gear into our old pickup truck. We ambled out of parking and onto FS road 3173. Eagle spotted us and ran to say farewell, then we headed out slowly, winding up through the Irish Wilderness towards Route 99. Farewell Rainbow `96!
Here's a partial list of kitchens and campsites we saw by July 3rd:
KITCHENS:
Tea Time
Granola Funk Express
Lovin' Touch/munchateria
Instant Soup
Ship of Love (Diva Diner)
White Dove
Bliss Kitchen
Brew Ha Ha
Popcorn Palace
Jah Love
Milliways (Cafe At The End Of The Universe)
Sun Dog
Musical Veggie
Have a Beautiful Day
The Woderfull Whirrled of OZ
Avalon
Everybody's Whatever Lovin' Ovins/NERT
Kool Aid Coroner
Cofee Cough (no fee, pop free)(Cafe Cough Fee)(Coffee Coffee)
Dee Bakery (Da Bakers)
Beeck Party
Jesus Soup Kitchen
Tow Back Go Kitchen
Krishna Kitchen
Turtle Soup
Dragon Kitchen
CAMPSITES and ORGANIZED MAYHEM:
Kiddie Village
Kiddie C.A.L.M.
C.A.L.M.
Info/Rumor control
Welcome Home
A-Camp
Bus Village
Teen Village
Kiddie Camping
Sorta First Aid
Celestial Tea & Toke
Lost Tribe
Kaw Valley
Mo Love/Dragon Camp
S.H.Y. Camp
Morning Star
Illinois Dysfunctional Family
Yoga Loca
Camp Got A Minute
Be Here Now
Butterflies & Roses
This Camp (Not That Camp)
That Camp (Not This Camp)
Thier Streak - Frier Camp
Sacred Space
Shama Lama Ding Dong
RME RUNE
Top Secret Research Facility
Area 51
Poison Ivy Camp
Teen Barbarian Space
Know Mun Land
FAEREYE Camp
Faerie Camp
Pixie Camp
Multi 4th Dimension
Polka Dot Camp
Safe Love Bowl
Baby Nap
H(({{OM}})) KLA HOMA
Sparrows Nest
Bliss Pit
Madame Frogs
World Peace Pilgrimage
Purple Gang
A.R.F. Animal Rainbow Family
Rest Area
Prop-A-Ghandi Camp
Seven Minit Low
Children Of The Sun
Health Info
Bench March
Calif Cove
Freedome Village L.P.
Camp Calm Union
Kamp U Can't Fine
Fallen Tree Tribe
Flip-N-Tripe E.E.
N.W. - S.W. Western Tribe (Scroll Deaf Tribe)
The Nurd Ick
Mother Ship of F.U.E.L.
NVR NVR LND
Bufins Party
Camp Of Know Repute
Yell Oh Flash Lite
No Feds Tree House
White Hawk
Kumformeee
Ora Gone Camp
Hum Zah
Bah Ree
Bi The Way
Serenity Ridge
Blissters
Cody Massage
Rooster Shack
Blues Party
Mayan Camp
Zoe (Ask For Oness)
High Times
Palm Tribe
Greenwitch Village
Sister Space
Aloha Camp
Om Home
Nowhere
Minnesota Camp
Turk's Head/East Wind
Katuah
No Butt Heads Be Us
The MADD Tea Party
Choc Olate Roomers
All Around The Universe
Coo Cool Ka Chew
Good Space Grove (New Amsterdam)
Well this rambling blathering spew has gone on long enough!
We had a great time and all was good!
The only way to describe a Gathering is to be there, really.
The vision doesn't get through to all,
but enough get the drift to keep this magical thing afloat now for 25 years!
Thanks for your patience and ear,
Lovin’ you,
guano
Fluorescents 'R' Us.
I was ingesting New York like a testosterone driven, heart-torn, needy monster, with my friends dying around me. I had no idea how, or where, to start.
Where to begin and how to make a record of it all?
I knew I wasn't 'normal', and didn't care. That was, at the very least, a great start.
This is a single exposure edited in Lightroom. 1.5 second exposure with multiple flashes from my flash unit to create the double exposure. The strobe on stage to the left of the dj had also been going off which created a stutter on the deck in front on the dj.
ISO: 400
f13
Shutter speed: BULB
Flash trigger: Thumb on the 'test flash' button.
Flash Settings: M 1/8 power.
On aspirations beyond one's background or capabilities. There is a certain irony in the recognition that this has never changed.
To laugh might appear to be the best response.
This film (1962) impressed me as an 8-year-old. Perhaps it had something to do with the fact that a stutterer doesn't stutter whilst singing. It felt good to let rip, to allow words, now and then, to flow. The yodelling would be part of the warm-up, I guess.
I fantasised about being chosen to be in the 'Vienna Boys Choir'.
Then along came Julie (The Hills Are Indeed Alive), reminding me that a certain Mr. Hitler was Austrian.
This was the colour of my hair, more auburn than ginger, and the freckle proliferation is about right. Freckles are difficult to 'tie down' in Infrathin.
That this was all happening 'mid-Hayley Mills' and 'The 5 Find-Outers' was only doubly confusing.
I did end up singing a stutter-free 'Panis Angelicus', solo, in church.
Two of the boys on the poster were ginger, which seemed to convince me that young paddies were in with a chance.
'Sean Scully', even, blimey O' Reilly!
(no, i did not stutter)
can you tell that i am really looking forward to spring?
art teacher friends/contacts: see much more of my school's work on Artsonia. :)
Born in Newtown, NSW in 1888, son of James and Ethel Inglis; husband of Kathleen Inglis (nee Corderoy).
He was educated at Barker College 1905.
He enlisted with the AIF 20th Infantry Battalion, later 55th Battalion 14 June 1915 and served in France.
He was killed in action 2 September 1918 Peronne France aged 29.
He is buried in Peronne Communal Cemetery Extension, Picardie France. Plot IV, Row E, Grave No. 2.
Australian War Memorial (Panel 161)
We were in action at Peronne. Lieutenant Inglis was killed alongside me. I went out a few days after and found his paybook and other effects. Shell fire was still going on but the body had been removed. I handed his effects in to the Company Clerk. He was buried but I cannot say where. He was very popular in the battalion. He had been shell shocked previously and had a slight stutter through it. He was in C Company (55th Battalion). I had a section in his platoon, he appointed me just before we went up. He took out 22 of us and 3 of us came back. He was aged 28 to 30, height about 5’6’’.
[Informant Private 2728 J McGee, 55th Battalion – Australian War Memorial A J Inglis Red Cross Wounded & Missing file]
Lest We Forget
[Photo: Barker College World War 1 Memorial]
i was ready to tell
the story of my life
but the ripple of tears
and the agony of my heart
wouldn't let me
i began to stutter
saying a word here and there
and all along i felt
as tender as a crystal
ready to be shattered...
(Rumi)
British Real Photograph postcard, no. 110. Photo: Paramount Pictures.
British actor Henry Wilcoxon (1905-1984) was best known as a leading man in Cleopatra (1934) and many others of Cecil B. DeMille's films. He also served as DeMille's associate producer on his later films.
Harry Frederick Wilcoxon was born on 8 September 1905 in Roseau, Dominica, British West Indies. His father was English-born Robert Stanley 'Tan' Wilcoxon, manager of the Colonial Bank in Jamaica and his mother, Lurline Mignonette Nunes, was a Jamaican amateur theatre actress, descendant of a wealthy Spanish merchant family. His older brother was Robert 'Owen' Wilcoxon. Henry had a difficult childhood. His mother disappeared suddenly and mysteriously when he was about a year old, and his father took him and Owen to England with the intention that his own mother Ann would take care of them. But, because his mother was too frail to care for the children, they were first sent to a foster home, where they became ill from malnutrition and neglect and they were moved on to an orphanage. There, Harry suffered from rickets, and Owen developed a stutter and had epileptic fits. They were rescued from the orphanage to a new foster home. After several years Harry's father 'Tan', with his new wife Rosamond took the children home with them to Bridgetown, Barbados, where they were educated. Harry and Owen became known as 'Biff' and 'Bang' due to their fighting skills gained in amateur boxing. After completing his education, Wilcoxon was employed by Joseph Rank, the father of J. Arthur Rank, before working for Bond Street tailors Pope and Bradshaw. While working for the tailors, Wilcoxon applied for a visa to work as a chauffeur in the United States, but upon seeing his application refused, turned to boxing and then to acting. His first stage performance was a supporting role in an adaptation of the novel The 100th Chance, by Ethel M. Dell, in 1927 at Blackpool. He joined the Birmingham Repertory Theatre the next year and toured for several years. He found critical success playing Captain Cook in a production of Rudolph Besier's The Barretts of Wimpole Street at the London Queen's Theatre alongside Cedric Hardwicke. In 1932, He played at the Queen's Theatre in Sir Barry Jackson's production of Beverley Nichols' novel Evensong alongside Edith Evans.
In 1931, Harry Wilcoxon made his screen debut as Larry Tindale in The Perfect Lady (Frederick J. Jackson, Milton Rosmer, 1931), followed by a role opposite Heather Angel in Self Made Lady (George King, 1932), alongside Louis Hayward. In 1932, he appeared in The Flying Squad (F.W. Kraemer, 1932), a sound remake of a 1929 silent film based on the novel by Edgar Wallace. Altogether he made eight films in Britain till 1934. In 1933, a talent scout for Paramount Pictures arranged a screen test which came to the attention of producer-director Cecil B. DeMille in Hollywood. He cast Wilcoxon as Marc Anthony in Cleopatra (Cecil B. DeMille, 1934) opposite Claudette Colbert as the man-hungry Queen of Egypt. Harry was renamed by DeMille for the role and from then on he was Henry Wilcoxon. He was next given the lead role of Richard the Lionhearted in DeMille's big-budget spectacle The Crusades (Cecil B. De Mille, 1935) opposite Loretta Young. That film, however, was a financial failure, losing more than $700,000. After the lack of success of The Crusades, Wilcoxon's career stalled. He starred in a number of B-films, like The President's Mystery (Phil Rosen, 1936) and Prison Nurse (James Cruze, 1938) for Republic Pictures, and he portrayed the supporting role of Maj. Duncan Heyward in the commercially successful Last of the Mohicans (George B. Seitz, 1936) starring Randolph Scott. Wilcoxon himself called 'his worst acting job' Mysterious Mr. Moto (Norman Foster, 1938) featuring Peter Lorre. That year, he also played in If I Were King (Frank Lloyd, 1938) with Ronald Colman, and featured in Five of a Kind (Herbert I. Leeds, 1938) with the Dionne quintuplets. In Great Britain, Wilcoxon appeared as Captain Hardy in Lady Hamilton (Alexander Korda, 1941), alongside Laurence Olivier and Vivien Leigh. When America entered the World War II in December 1941, Wilcoxon enlisted in the United States Coast Guard. He served with the Coast Guard until 1946, gaining the rank of Lieutenant. During his period of service, he had three films released in 1942, among them Mrs. Miniver (William Wyler, 1942), which received considerable public acclaim, as well as six Academy Awards. Wilcoxon, in his role as the vicar, re-wrote the key sermon with director Wyler. The speech made such an impact that it was used in essence by President Roosevelt as a morale builder. Upon his return from war service, Wilcoxon picked up with Cecil B. DeMille with Unconquered (Cecil B. DeMille, 1947), starring Gary Cooper. After starring as Sir Lancelot in the musical version of Mark Twain's A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court (Tay Garnett, 1949) with Bing Crosby in the title role, he featured in DeMille's Samson and Delilah (Cecil B. DeMille, 1949). Wilcoxon returned to England to feature in The Miniver Story (H.C. Potter, 1950), a sequel to the multi-Oscar-winning Mrs. Miniver (1942) in which he reprised his role as the vicar opposite Greer Garson. In the late 1940s, young actors and actresses came to Wilcoxon and wife Joan Woodbury and asked them to form a play-reading group which in 1951 became the Wilcoxon Players.
Henry Wilcoxon played a small but important part as FBI Agent Gregory in DeMille's The Greatest Show on Earth (Cecil B. DeMille, 1952), on which he also served as Associate Producer. The film won the Academy Award for Best Picture in 1952. He also acted as associate producer on, and acted as Pentaur, the pharaoh's captain of the guards in DeMille's remake of his own The Ten Commandments (Cecil B. DeMille, 1956). Wilcoxon was sole producer on The Buccaneer (Anthony Quinn, 1958), a remake of DeMille's 1938 effort, which DeMille only supervised due to his declining health while his then son-in-law Anthony Quinn directed. After DeMille died, Wilcoxon worked on a film based on the life of Lord Baden-Powell, founder of the Boy Scout movement, which DeMille had left unrealised, and was also ultimately abandoned. After a relatively inactive period, Wilcoxon appeared with Charlton Heston in The War Lord (Franklin Schaffner, 1965). He was co-producer on the TV tribute The World's Greatest Showman: The Legend of Cecil B. DeMille (1963). At the opening of the DeMille Theatre in New York, he produced another short film. In the last two decades of his life, he worked sporadically and accepted minor acting roles in TV shows including The Big Valley (1965), I Spy (1966), It Takes a Thief (1968), Gunsmoke (1970), Lassie (1973), Cagney & Lacey (1982), and Private Benjamin (1982). He also appeared in a few films films, including F.I.S.T (Norman Jewison, 1978), starring Sylvester Stallone. He also had a memorable turn as the golf-obsessed Bishop Pickering, struck by lightning, in the slapstick comedy Caddyshack (Harold Ramis, 1980) with Bill Murray as his caddy. His final film was Sweet Sixteen - Blutiges Inferno (Jim Sotos, 1983). By loaning money from his early film acting, Wilcoxon assisted his brother Owen to establish himself in 1931 as a partner in the Vale Motor Company in London, and for a short time he showed a personal interest in the development of their sports car, the Vale Special. At that time his girlfriend was a London-based American stage actress Carol Goodner. Wilcoxon married 19-year-old actress Sheila Garrett in 1936, but they divorced a year later. In 1938 he married his second wife, 23-years-old actress Joan Woodbury. They had three daughters: Wendy Joan Robert Wilcoxon (born 1939), Heather Ann Wilcoxon (1947) and Cecilia Dawn 'CiCi' Wilcoxon (1950). The couple divorced in 1969. Henry Wilcoxon passed away in 1984 in Los Angeles. He was 78 years old and had been ill with cancer.
Sources: The New York Times, The Scott Rollins Film and TV Trivia Blog, Wikipedia and IMDb.
And, please check out our blog European Film Star Postcards.
1. Green I, 2. printed dolly, 3. how i got my stutter, 4. Green II, 5. My love of Green Doors, 6. Pay Attention To Me, 7. Untitled, 8. Those Cookies, 9. India Rose Textiles, 10. "Wonder Frog"..., 11. Little Green Mittens, 12. Sporting Vintage Brooches, 13. 0145, 14. shades of green, 15. work in progress...Green 1 inch squares, 16. green wednesday, 17. Untitled, 18. New rainboots, 19. Green Lady PC1, 20. DETALHES. DETAILS., 21. *secret bunny* wrap skirt...green and pink, 22. see the doll. . . ., 23. NA - Pastel green/Green dotty Vintage kerchief dresses (1 left), 24. green, green, 25. Cupcakes
Fourth mosaic for my colour week:
Created with fd's Flickr Toys.
If I cry
The whole day long,
They say that I
Must be more strong.
If I'm hard
And I am strong,
They say that
That, is very wrong.
And if I birth
Till I am poor,
I must be stu---
pid, that's for sure.
And making money,
Saving cash?
They say that I
Am much too brash.
Then if I laugh,
When I am witty,
I am crude,
It is a pity.
And if I pout
And look quite sour,
I'm a stubborn,
Sullen, dour.
When confessing,
Stutter, halt...
Yes, you guessed,
It's all my fault.
If life throws me
An awful curve,
It is a pain
That I deserve.
So makeup on,
Yes, it goes.
Perfumed head
To perfumed toes.
'Cause lipstick's red,
And red, rouge paint,
Will make ya what...
Ya think you ain't!
Hilary McRee Flanery
She comments: 'I write short stories and books to bare my soul because after 10 kids, God KNOWS I can’t bare my body.'
Cavendish Mews is a smart set of flats in Mayfair where flapper and modern woman, the Honourable Lettice Chetwynd has set up home after coming of age and gaining her allowance. To supplement her already generous allowance, and to break away from dependence upon her family, Lettice has established herself as a society interior designer, so her flat is decorated with a mixture of elegant antique Georgian pieces and modern Art Deco furnishings, using it as a showroom for what she can offer to her well heeled clients.
Today however Lettice’s drawing room, usually a haven of peaceful gentility, has been given over to a more joyful and exuberant festive atmosphere as Lettice hosts a bottle party* for friends after a wonderful day out at the Henley Regatta**. At a recent dinner at the Savoy Hotel***, Lettice’s beau, Selwyn Spencely, son of the Duke of Walmsford, has devised a plan to help thwart the plans of his scheming mother, Lady Zinnia, and Uncle Bertrand to marry him off to his cousin, 1923 debutante Pamela Fox-Chavers. Lady Zinnia has been snubbing Lettice, so he and Lettice have arranged for Lettice to attend as many London Season events as possible where Selwyn and Pamela are also in attendance so that Lettice and Selwyn can spend time together, and at the same time make their intentions so well known that Lady Zinnia won’t be able to avoid Lettice for too much longer. So far, they have been seen together at the Derby**** the Fourth of June at Eton*****, the Crystal Palace Horse Show, Ascot Week****** and today the Henley Regatta. The party at Henley consisted of Lettice, Selwyn and Pamela, Lettice’s friends Dickie and Margot Channon, who are part of Lettice’s Embassy Club coterie, her old childhood chum Gerald, also a member of the aristocracy who has tried to gain some independence from his impecunious Wiltshire family by designing gowns from a shop in Grosvenor Street, and a young debs delight******* whom Pamela is attracted to, the wealthy son of a banker, Jonty Knollys.
Edith, Lettice’s maid, fled to the relative quiet and safety of the Cavendish Mews kitchen as the party decamped noisily in the drawing room, discarding hats, canes and parasols across available surfaces before collapsing in fits of boisterous laugher into chairs and on the Chinese rug in the middle of the room. Now comfortably ensconced in the comfort of Lettice’s Mayfair drawing room, the party gets underway. Dickie insists on playing his usual role of barman as he relishes making cocktails for his friends with bottles purloined from Lettice’s black japanned cocktail cabinet in the adjoining dining room. Whilst he whips up concoctions for the pleasure of his friends, they all sing along with Gerald as he plays the latest tunes on his new banjo********.
“Yes we have no bananas, we have no bananas today!” the party sing joyously as Gerald concludes ‘Yes! We Have No Bananas’********* before applauding as he ends the song with a flourish.
“Oh, I wish Cyril was here.” sighs Gerald wistfully.
Lettice glances up in alarm from her seat opposite him where she had been toying playfully with the orange ribbons on her apricot dyed wide brimmed straw hat. As her eyes grow wide, Gerald realises his mistake in mentioning his secret lover’s name aloud.
“Who’s Cyril, old boy?” Selwyn asks with piqued interest as he takes a sip of Dickie’s cocktail concoction from his highball glass.
“Oh he’s… he’s…” stutters Gerald.
“He’s a musical chap who lives as a border in the home of Miss Milford, one of Gerald’s and my friends.” Lettice pipes up quickly, covering up Gerald’s awkwardness at trying to formulate a reply. “He’s quite theatrical type; performs in shows on the West End and enjoys a sing-along as a result, doesn’t he, Gerald?”
“Yes, yes he does!” replies her best friend with a look of extreme gratitude on his face.
“Milford?” Margot asks with a slight slur from her seat as she cocks an eyebrow lazily at Lettice. “Isn’t that the same name as your new milliner, Lettice darling?”
“What? Oh yes.” Lettice replies a little awkwardly herself. “She takes in lodgers too.”
“You’re friends with your milliner?” Margot continues with a perplexed air as she tries to piece the story together with a slightly alcohol addled mind. “How frightfully irregular.”
“Well… I… err.” stammers Lettice, glancing down the front of her apricot cotton summer frock.
“Oh Angel!” laughs Selwyn good naturedly. “You really shouldn’t try and cover for Gerald. Telling falsehoods doesn’t suit you, and it gives you away since you are no good at it.”
Both Lettice and Gerald blush with embarrassment.
“You are a black horse, aren’t you Gerald?” Selwyn continues, reaching down and giving him a soft brotherly slap on the back. “So, it isn’t a Gaiety Girl********** you’ve been hiding from us at all! It’s their landlady.”
“I say, Gerald old boy,” pipes up Dickie. “I do hope she doesn’t have a face like the ones you see portrayed in Punch every week!”
“Yes,” giggles Margot, releasing a hiccup amongst her titters. “All fat doughy face and washerwoman’s arms!”
“Or perhaps she is,” adds Selwyn with a conspiratorial wink at Gerald. “And he’s just using her to get to the prettiest of her Gaiety Girls.”
Gerald laughs cheerfully as much with relief at not being found out as being a homosexual for his inadvertent gaffe, as in an effort to go along with Selwyn’s thoughts and encourage the idea that he has a pretty girl cloistered away somewhere. “Well, a gentleman never reveals his secrets, Selwyn.”
“Oh, enough Selwyn!” exclaims Pamela. “Stop being a brute and teasing poor Mr. Bruton. His private affairs are his own!”
“Sorry Pammy.” Selwyn hangs his head in mock shame.
“I should think you are, Selwyn.” Turning to Gerald she addresses him. “Ignore him, Mr. Bruton. Anyone would think him a common labourer’s man rather than a future duke! My cousin can be a charming man, but when he is in a teasing mood, he is relentless.”
“Oh, I know Miss Fox-Chavers.” Gerald replies with a knowing smile. “You forget that I know your cousin well. He and I are members of the same club at St. James’.”
“Which you seldom attend these days” Selwyn points out, enjoying his ability to tease Gerald again. “Evidently because you have a better offer from somewhere, or more to the point, someone else.”
“Selwyn!” admonishes Pamela again.
“Gerald, won’t you play us something to dance to?” Lettice pipes up in an effort to change the subject and draw the attention away from her dear childhood friend who is evidently uncomfortable under Selwyn’s scrutiny. “I should so like to dance. What about you Miss Fox-Chavers?”
“Oh yes!” She looks hopefully at Jonty Knollys sitting next to her.
“Not I,” Margot manages to slur. “I don’t know what you put in these, my dear,” She glances at her husband as he adds a fresh slice of lemon to the lip of a highball glass full of a violent green looking concoction. “But whatever it is, it has gone straight to my head.” She sinks back into her seat and cradles her glass in her hands against her stomach.
“Oh my love, you’ve never had a head for cocktails.” Dickie says with a loving sigh as he shakes his head and looks with affection at his wife.
“How about a two-step?” Gerald asks as he starts searching noisily through the pile of sheet music he has brought with him from the back of his Morris***********.
“That sounds fine to me, Gerald darling!” Lettice enthuses. “You aren’t too overcome by Dickie’s cocktails as well, are you, Selwyn darling?” she adds teasingly.
“Certainly not, my Angel.” Selwyn replies, depositing his half drunk cocktail down onto the black japanned coffee table and offering her his hand chivalrously, helping her to rise from the comfortable white brocade cushions of her rounded tub armchair. “Shall we?”
“Aahh! Here we are!” Gerald says, withdrawing a piece of music with a creamy yellow cover adorned with red writing. He quickly tunes a loose string on his banjo and begins playing the opening bars of the ‘Auto Race’************ two-step.
Lettice falls into the now comfortable feel of Selwyn’s arms as he begins guiding her across the drawing room floor. They move carefully around her furniture as they move in time to the music, whilst also being careful not to bump into Pamela and Jonty who look happily into one another’s eyes as they too move in time to the jolly two-step.
“You know I’ve had such a lovely day today, Selwyn darling.” Lettice confides with a beaming smile as she looks up into her dance partner’s handsome face.
“So have I, my Angel.” he concurs with a purr. “A ripping day.”
“This little plan of yours seems to be working out quite nicely, Selwyn darling.”
“For whom?” Selwyn asks.
“Why for us, of course!” Lettice relies in surprise. “Who else?”
“Well, I don’t think Uncle Bertrand thought it was fearfully ripping when he laid eyes on you sitting next to me, and Jonty Knollys sitting alongside Pammy.”
“Yes,” Lettice muses with a juddering sight as she casts her mind back to earlier in the day on the Thames when Selwyn introduced her to his uncle as Bertrand drew the punt containing he and his second wife Rosalind alongside the punt containing their party. “I did notice the colour rise in his face. I don’t think it was caused by indigestion from their picnic luncheon in the bottom of their punt.”
“How perceptive you are, my Angel.” Selwyn says with a chuckle. “Still this is what we agreed to, wasn’t it?” After Lettice nods, he continues as he carefully guides her around the back of one of her armchairs, “And Zinnia must be aware of you by now. Our photos have appeared in the society pages of all the major newspapers. Uncle Bertrand’s firsthand observations will only add credence to the stories and rumours that are no doubt filtering back to her in Buckinghamshire. She cannot go on ignoring you forever.”
“Selwyn?” Lettice asks a little apprehensively. “Selwyn are you sure we’re going about this the right way?”
“Whatever do you mean, my Angel? I thought we agreed that this was the course of action that we were going to take. You just said yourself that you thought it was working out quite nicely for us, and I agree. You aren’t having misgivings about it are you?”
“Well, a little.” Lettice admits. “I mean, it does smack of rubbing your mother’s and uncle’s noses in it rather, don’t you think?”
“I told you, Zinnia is the best player of ostriches that I know. She happily sticks her head in the sand so she can’t see what she doesn’t want to. We have to get her to see, and Uncle Bertrand too, that you and I are not going to be persuaded to break our involvement. And Pammy deserves a chance to pick a suitor that she likes, not one that Zinnia and Uncle Bertrand have chosen for her. She deserves happiness every bit as much as you and I do. You are happy, aren’t you, may Angel?”
“Oh yes, of course I am, Selwyn darling. And, I’d say we aren’t alone in that happiness,” Lettice nods towards Pamela and Jonty, who only appear to have eyes for one another.
“Indeed yes.” Selwyn agrees in acknowledgement. “He’s one of the good chaps.”
“He seems it. Lovely manners, and he seems to make your cousin happy.”
“Well, I’m pleased because he only fancies Pammy for herself, and not her money.”
“He comes from the banking Knollys, doesn’t he?”
Selwyn nods. “So, he doesn’t need her money, like some of the others buzzing around her do. There are too many young men with ancestral castles and country estates falling into decrepitude who look towards Pammy as a means to restore their fortunes. I’d hate for her to throw away her heart on a cad.”
“You love her very much, don’t you, Selwyn?” Lettice smiles.
“I do.” Selwyn agrees. “She is my cousin after all.” He feels an almost imperceptible change in Lettice as she stiffens slightly in his arms. “But don’t worry, my Angel. I love you more.”
Lettice’s stance eases. “That’s just as well, Selwyn darling, because I love you too.”
The pair move together happily in silence for a little while whilst Gerald’s lively jaunty banjo notes and the sounds of Dickie squirting soda water into a cocktail fill the air around them.
“Have you worked out how you’re going to break the news to Mrs. Hawarden yet?” Gerald calls out to Lettice as she and Selwyn dance near to him.
“No,” Lettice sighs with exasperation. “Not yet.”
“Mrs. Hawarden?” Selwyn queries. “Isn’t she the woman you visited during Ascot week who wants you to redecorate her drawing room?”
“That’s her!” pipes up Gerald.
“And her dining room.” Lettice adds a little despondently. “She wants me to redecorate rooms that I feel should really be left unaltered. They are fine as they are, but she seems to have it in her head to tamper with them and ruin them with inferior fabrics and foolish ideas about what she thinks makes for tasteful redecoration and modernisation.”
“Well, can’t you talk her out of her ideas? I sense some trepidation, my Angel.”
“She won’t be told,” Gerald announces to the room as he continues playing without missing a beat. “So Lettice has decided to turn her down.”
“Not trepidation,” Lettice corrects Selwyn, picking up on his question of her. “Genuine fear.”
“Of what?” Selwyn asks. “Of her? Of saying no to her?”
Lettice nods as they move in time to Gerald’s playing. “She really is very domineering, I’ve discovered, and whenever I make a suggestion that counters her opinion, she just talks more loudly and stridently over the top of me to drown me out. She is convinced that I am the only interior designer who has her vision – even though I don’t. She telephones almost every day in an effort to wear me down. It’s become such an issue that I’ve had to make Edith lie to her and tell her I’m not at home, just so I don’t have to speak with her.”
BBBBRRRINGGG!
As if on cue, the silver and Bakelite telephone suddenly begins to trill loudly.
“Well, thinking of the devil, herself.” Gerald remarks as he continues to play.
“Oh don’t say that, Gerald!” hisses Lettice as Selwyn sweeps her away again.
BBBBRRRINGGG!
“Oh Margot,” Lettice calls from Selwyn’s arms as he continues to lead her in the dance. “Be a brick and answer that will you? Edith doesn’t like answering the telephone at the best of times, so she certainly won’t answer it in front of all of us.”
BBBBRRRINGGG!
Margot sloppily pulls herself up out of her chair and her slight alcoholic stupor and deposits her glass clumsily onto the surface of the low coffee table before her. Leaning over in a rather ungainly way, she grasps the receiver and picks it up just as it is about to ring again. Leaning over the arm of the chair she pulls the long curling black flex towards her and mutters into the receiver over the top of the noise around her, “The hon… honahhrable Lettice Chet… Chetwynd’s residence.” She pauses, her partially smeared lips hanging open as she listens. A distant deep male voice burbles down the line quite loudly and then stops. “Ssshhhh!” she hisses to everyone around her, waving her spare elegantly bejewelled hand in a sign to temper their noise before placing it against her uncovered ear as the burbling voice begins down the line again.
Gerald stops playing and both couples stop dancing abruptly. Dickie holds the soda syphon in his hands, his finger on the trigger, paused to add a dash of soda water to the glass before him. All eyes focus on Margot and the telephone’s receiver.
“Well, it’s not Mrs. Hawarden,” Selwyn notes as he hears the decidedly male voice yelling from his end.
“Ssshhh!” Lettice hushes him, patting his chest with her hands.
Margot leans back into an upright position and smothers the mouthpiece of the telephone with her hand as she takes the receiver away from her ear. She looks up to Lettice. “It’s your father.” she says dully. “He says it’s urgent.”
Lettice pushes herself quickly from Selwyn’s arms and rushes over to the telephone. She takes the receiver from Margot.
“Hullo Pappa.” The distant deep male voice speaks loudly down the line again. “No, no Pappa. That was Margot.” The Viscount blasts something unflattering about Margot at his daughter. “Well, we’ve been having cocktails you see, after our afternoon at Henley.” Lettice closes her eyes and hopes to avoid a rebuke. “I told you that we were going to the regatta today. Remember Pappa.” The Viscount starts talking again at length. “What? Oh, oh no Pappa?” He continues, and as he speaks down the telephone line from Wilshire the bright colour in Lettice’s face drains away. “Well yes of course, Pappa.” More speaking from the Viscount’s end of the line. “Yes, well Gerald’s here too. Of course, we’ll set off straight away.” His distant voice softens as he says goodbye. “Goodbye Pappa.”
Lettice hangs up the receiver which releases a bright tinkle as she replaces it in the cradle of the telephone. She stands still for a moment, staring ahead of her but seeing nothing.
“Lettice?” Gerald asks, but she doesn’t answer.
Suddenly she snaps out of her momentary stupor and walks with purpose into the dining room towards the green baize door that leads to the servant’s part of the flat. “Edith! Edith!”
“Yes Miss?” Edith pops her head around the corner of the door a moment later.
Lettice lowers her voice. “Edith please make us all some coffee and then go and pack me an overnight valise. Please pack my black crepe dress and a few of my more sombre frocks and my pearls will you. Mr. Bruton and I shall be departing for Wiltshire very shortly.”
“Yes Miss!” gaps Edith.
“I’ll explain later, Edith. Just serve the coffee as quickly as you can and then pack for me. You can clean up after we have all left.”
“Yes, Miss.”
Turning back Lettice strides across the dining room and back to the drawing room.
“I’m sorry everyone, but we’ll have to bring this party to an abrupt conclusion, I’m afraid.” Lettice announces shakily.
Margot, Dickie, Pamela and Jonty all groan and complain loudly.
“Whatever is the matter my Angel?” Selwyn asks, walking over and grasping his sweetheart by the shoulders. “You look so pale.”
“Lettice?” Gerald asks again, putting his banjo aside. “You said I was here.” He says softly. “What is it? Is it Mummy?”
Lettice doesn’t answer immediately, stunned once again into silence by shock.
“No,” she says weakly at length, an air of disbelief in her voice. “It’s Uncle Sherbourne.” She references Lord Tyrwhitt, patriarch of the family of the estate adjoining her own family’s estate, and father of her sister-in-law Arabella. “He’s collapsed whilst out on the estate.” She looks at Gerald. “We have to go to home to Wiltshire right now.”
*Bottle parties, a private party to which each guest brings their own liquor, came into vogue during the 1920s and 30s initially especially after prohibition in America and liquor licence restrictions in Britain.
**The Henley Royal regatta is a leisurely “river carnival” on the Thames. It was at heart a rowing race, first staged in 1839 for amateur oarsmen, but soon became another fixture on the London social calendar. Boating clubs competed, and were not exclusively British, and the event was well known for its American element. Evenings were capped by boat parties and punts, the air filled with military brass bands and illuminated by Chinese lanterns. Dress codes were very strict: men in collars, ties and jackets (garishly bright ties and socks were de rigueur in the 1920s) and crisp summer frocks, matching hats and parasols for the ladies.
***The Savoy Hotel is a luxury hotel located in the Strand in the City of Westminster in central London. Built by the impresario Richard D'Oyly Carte with profits from his Gilbert and Sullivan opera productions, it opened on 6 August 1889. It was the first in the Savoy group of hotels and restaurants owned by Carte's family for over a century. The Savoy was the first hotel in Britain to introduce electric lights throughout the building, electric lifts, bathrooms in most of the lavishly furnished rooms, constant hot and cold running water and many other innovations. Carte hired César Ritz as manager and Auguste Escoffier as chef de cuisine; they established an unprecedented standard of quality in hotel service, entertainment and elegant dining, attracting royalty and other rich and powerful guests and diners. The hotel became Carte's most successful venture. Its bands, Savoy Orpheans and the Savoy Havana Band, became famous. Winston Churchill often took his cabinet to lunch at the hotel. The hotel is now managed by Fairmont Hotels and Resorts. It has been called "London's most famous hotel". It has two hundred and sixty seven guest rooms and panoramic views of the River Thames across Savoy Place and the Thames Embankment. The hotel is a Grade II listed building.
****The Derby Stakes is one of the greatest sporting events of the London Season, and is held in June at Epsom Downs Racecourse every year. It gets its name from its founder, Edward Smith-Stanley, the 12th Earl of Derby, who inaugurated the race as a lark in 1780. It is perhaps the most democratic of all events on the London social season calendar as it was not founded by royalty. It grew in popularity because of the patronage of the Duke of York (later King Edward VII) who found the race to his liking and attended every year, often entering horses from his own stud. As well as being a place of great joy, it also witnessed a tragedy in 1913, when suffragette Emily Davidson threw herself in front of King George V’s horse to draw attention to the plight of women wanting the vote. Sadly, such a heroic act killed her, turning her into one of the most famous martyrs of the suffragette movement.
*****June the fourth is an important day for Eaton College in Windsor. The day is celebrated annually with a tradition known as the “Procession of the Boats” or the “Swan Upping Ceremony”. During the ceremony, the reigning sovereign’s swan marker and his assistants row up the River Thames in traditional skiffs to check on the health of the swan population. Eton College students, dressed in their distinctive black and white uniforms, also participate in the ceremony, riding up and down the river in their own boats, accompanied by the school’s band playing lively tunes. After the ceremony, the town of Eaton and the college celebrate with a variety of festivities including music, food, drink and parties.
******Royal Ascot Week is the major social calendar event held in June every year at Ascot Racecourse in Berkshire. It was founded in 1711 by Queen Anne and is attended every year by the reigning British monarch and members of the Royal Family. The event is grand and showy, with men in grey morning dress and silk toppers and ladies in their best summer frocks and most elaborate hats.
*******A “debs’ delight” is an elegant or attractive young man in high society who is also an eligible bachelor and thus a suitable match for a young debutante.
********Originating out of America during the 1920s the banjo quickly gained popularity in Britain too because it was reasonably cheap as an instrument, portable, easy to learn on and musical duelling matches were played like draughts or chess.
*********"Yes! We Have No Bananas" is an American novelty song by Frank Silver and Irving Cohn published on March the 23rd, 1923. It became a major hit in 1923 when it was recorded by Billy Jones, Billy Murray, Arthur Hall, Irving Kaufman, and others. It was recorded later by Benny Goodman and His Orchestra, Spike Jones & His City Slickers, Kidsongs, and many more. The song became a best-selling sheet music in American history. It inspired a follow-up song, "I've Got the Yes! We Have No Bananas Blues", recorded by Billy Jones and Sam Lanin (with vocals by Irving Kaufman and others) in 1923. Al Jolson recorded on film, an operatic version, in blackface, in the 1930s
**********Gaiety Girls were the chorus girls in Edwardian musical comedies, beginning in the 1890s at the Gaiety Theatre, London, in the shows produced by George Edwardes.
***********Morris Motors Limited was a privately owned British motor vehicle manufacturing company established in 1919. With a reputation for producing high-quality cars and a policy of cutting prices, Morris's business continued to grow and increase its share of the British market. By 1926 its production represented forty-two per cent of British car manufacturing. Amongst their more popular range was the Morris Cowley which included a four-seat tourer which was first released in 1920.
************”Auto Race” is a popular two-step composed in 1908 by American musician Percy Wenrich (1887 – 1952), who is perhaps more famously known for his hit songs like “Put on Your Old Grey Bonnet” and “On Moonlight Bay”.
This 1920s upper-class drawing room party is different to what you may think at first glance, for it is made up entirely of 1:12 size dollhouse miniatures.
Fun things to look for in this tableau include:
Lettice’s tea set is a beautiful artisan set featuring a rather avant-garde Art Deco Royal Doulton design from the Edwardian era. The jam fancies are also artisan miniatures from Beautifully Handmade Miniatures in Kettering. He has a dizzying array of meals which is always growing, and all are made entirely or put together by hand. The glass comport is made of real glass and was blown by hand. It too comes from Beautifully handmade Miniatures.
The books that you see scattered around Lettice’s drawing room are 1:12 size miniatures made by the British miniature artisan Ken Blythe. Most of the books I own that he has made may be opened to reveal authentic printed interiors, although these are amongst the exception. In some cases, you can even read the words of the titles, depending upon the size of the print! I have quite a large representation of Ken Blythe’s work in my collection. What might amaze you even more is that all Ken Blythe’s opening books are authentically replicated 1:12 scale miniatures of real volumes. To create something so authentic to the original in such detail and so clearly, really does make this a miniature artisan piece. Ken Blythe’s work is highly sought after by miniaturists around the world today and command high prices at auction for such tiny pieces, particularly now that he is no longer alive. I was fortunate enough to acquire pieces from Ken Blythe prior to his death about four years ago. His legacy will live on with me and in my photography which I hope will please his daughter.
The magazines on the lower shelf of the coffee table were made by hand by Petite Gite Miniatures in the United States.
The very realistic floral arrangements around the room are made by hand by either the Doll House Emporium or Falcon Miniatures in America who specialise in high end miniatures.
Margot’s umbrella comes from an online stockist that specialises in miniatures, whilst her red handbag with its gold chain strap comes from Kathleen Knight’s Doll’s House in the United Kingdom
Lettice’s drawing room is furnished with beautiful J.B.M. miniatures. The Art Deco tub chairs are of black japanned wood and have removable cushions, just like their life sized examples. To the left of the fireplace is a Hepplewhite drop-drawer bureau and chair of black japanned wood which has been hand painted with chinoiserie designs, even down the legs and inside the bureau. The Hepplewhite chair has a rattan seat, which has also been hand woven. To the right of the fireplace is a Chippendale cabinet which has also been decorated with chinoiserie designs. It also features very ornate metalwork hinges and locks.
On the top of the Hepplewhite bureau stand three real miniature photos in frames including an Edwardian silver frame, a Victorian brass frame and an Art Deco blue Bakelite and glass frame.
The fireplace is a 1:12 miniature resin Art Deco fireplace which is flanked by brass accessories including an ash brush with real bristles.
On the left hand side of the mantle is an Art Deco metal clock hand painted with wonderful detail by British miniature artisan Victoria Fasken.
In the middle of the mantle is a miniature artisan hand painted Art Deco statue on a “marble” plinth. Made by Warwick Miniatures in England, it is a 1:12 copy of the “Theban Dancer” sculpture created by Claire-Jeanne-Roberte Colinet in 1925.
The carpet beneath the furniture is a copy of a popular 1920s style Chinese silk rug, and the geometric Art Deco wallpaper is beautiful hand impressed paper given to me by a friend, which inspired the whole “Cavendish Mews – Lettice Chetwynd” series.
NEW YORK, NEW YORK - JULY 11: <> attends the 2022 Freeing Voices, Changing Lives Gala at Guastavino's on July 11, 2022 in New York City. (Photo by Dimitrios Kambouris/Getty Images for American Institute for Stuttering)
I need to exercise my demons
they're getting out of shape
rush along my life in line
(the dead are running late)
I want to name you after nothing
because nothing has never been more loving
and I'm sunning myself
just beyond the war drums thundering
the fireflies are out tonight
deftly dancing
in their stuttering shining
morse code messages
from warriors wandering
go lightly, go brightly, go boldly
coldly fusing my faith
in the human race
to the timelessness of tears
(it's been ten years)
a decade decayed
a dream for a new night
a firefight burning
both sides of the kitchen table
once you let the broncos break
there'll be no one
to say who's unstable...
© Steve Skafte
lal·i·o·pho·bi·a (lal'ē-ō-fō'bē-ă),
Morbid fear of speaking or stuttering.
[G. lalia, speech, + phobos, fear]
Erle Stanley Gardner - The Case of the Stuttering Bishop
Pocket Books 6007, 1960
Cover Artist: Charles Binger
League of Heroes: Ascent
Episode 3: Darkest Before Dawn - Part 2
“We interrupt our continuing coverage of the New Brickton prison break, it seems that we are getting an unexpected live feed from the madness in Midtown.” The news anchor stuttered, nervously shuffling through the stack of papers on the news desk. “Frank, can you switch us over…”
Static… and then the picture suddenly changed from the busy news room to a devastated street. A blonde woman, statuesque and menacing stares into a shaky camera lens.
“Good morning citizens of New Brickton. From this day forward, it will be remembered that you sent forth your champions to face Celedon the Destroyer… and I have found them wanting. They lie here now in pathetic heaps, driven before me and broken at my feet. Is this really the best you have to offer? I demand a challenge worthy of my strength! For every hour that I am unsatisfied, I will raise another block of this insignificant city! Your only other option is complete surrender. Death or servitude, I give you the gift of choice mortals. Your first hour begins now.”
The broadcast suddenly cuts to a rainbow test pattern. Unseen by the camera, a winged figure descends to the devastated street. Upon touching down on the pavement, she kneels over the motionless form of the Indestructible Man.
“Wake up! Please!” She shakes Fred’s seemingly lifeless body, “Fred, I don‘t know what’s happened to us, but I do know that you are still alive and I know that we need to get you and your friends out of here.”
This was built for the League of Lego Heroes Group… www.flickr.com/groups/llh/
Jay Cortez and Jade Kalvin-The beginning!
This is a story of Jade Kalvin and Jay Cortez. And before they have become the very hard to control, an yet irrevocably in love, relationship couple they are today.
The summer of 2010, rite before senior year, Tuesday, August the 1st.
The town of Spirit city, bus number 748, came rolling up to a stop at the bus stop at the Spirit city mall. A girl with red hair, green eyes, yet with some form of fireyness in them, hopped off the bus. She had a purple one strap sling backpack with her, and had bright neon yellow and orange headphones on her ears. As she walked to the doors of the mall, the man watching her stepped out of his brand new Chevy truck. He saved up for it all summer and had made a deal with the owner of the dealership to get it. It was his favorite color, metallic blue. As he stepped out of it, taking one last look in his side mirror, pushing his shaggy, but perfect blonde hair off to the side then back, styling it the way he likes it. He always tried to accentuate his natural tan skin, and his dark blue eyes. He locked his truck, and followed the girl inside.
As the girl with the firey red hair went into a Zumiez store, looking at pretty much everything, but stopping at the skateboards in the back. The blonde tall man had followed her in. He knew that this was pretty weird. But, all through the school year last year, he'd liked her, he just never had the guts up to ask her out before now. He was trying to get through his study's anyways. But this year was going to be different. He would ask her out.
"Hello, Welcome to Zumiez, can i help you find anything today?" A salesman asked him. "Nah, im good. Just lookin' around." He replied back with a smile. "All right, if you need anything, dont be shy to ask." And the salesman was off in a flash. The blonde man made his way back to the skateboards as well, looking up at each vivid colored board hung on a pipe on the ceiling for show. He looked over, seeing the red haired beauty only 5 feet away from em. She looked at him then, and he gulped nervously, and smiled back. "Y-you like skating?" he asked her, not able to help the stutter that left his lips. The girl smiled at him, and nodded. "Yea. Im pretty good actually. Though i mostly just like to ride the long boards, or any cruising kind of boards...what bout you?" she asked him, stepping up one step towards him. The blonde man smiled, an nodded. "Yea, i skate now and then. More into BMX or racing though. Kind of more of a... a thrill, you know?" The girl smiled, and giggled a chiming shy sound. He loved her laugh, it gave him butterflies. "Yea, i know watchu mean. Thats why i surf, snowboard, and even dirt race as well...Im Jade Kalvin..you?" Jade said. She'd finally introduced herself, professionally at least. He smiled, and shook the hand she held out, smiling. "Im Jay Cortez. And nice, the dirt racing sounds really kool. I’ve never done it before." he said, honestly. Jade smiled, and shrugged. "Perhaps i could show you sometime." She turned her head though when the salesman he saw when he came in walked up to her. A short man, with a red Mohawk that was about an inch or two long. "Can i help either of you back here with anything?" he asked, and Jay couldn't helped but glare at him, cause he was checking out Jade's chest. "Yes. I would like to buy one of those boards up there. I jus, cant really decide between two." Jade said to the man, not seeming to notice he was being a pig. "Well. Which two is it between miss?" he asked, as he grabbed a ladder, and set it up to place. Jade pointed to two area's of the square of hanging board that they were in. "Its either that cruiser Element board there, or, that cruiser Purple panda board there." The man saw the walking distance, an gulped. He wasn't in the greatest shape.
He got em both down though, and handed them to Jade. "Well, which one calls out to you hun?" he said. Jay wanted to wring his fat little neck for calling er that. But Jade just looked at himself anyways. "Which one do you think i should get Jay?" Jade asked him. His stomach had that butterfly feeling again when she acknowledged his existence. He couldn't help but smile again, looking at the boards though. "Well. The Element one is pretty kool, but...i think the panda one looks like it could be more, You, you know?" He smiled, and he hoped that he didn't give emself up that he'd bin watching her secretly, but not like a creep.
She smiled though, handing the salesman back the Element one. "I think i'll take this Panda one." she said with a smile, an he smirked when he saw and heard the man sigh and grumble that he had to go back up. His arm got grabbed though by Jade, and willingly, he was pulled over by the trucks and the wheels, and the grip-tap, and bearings side of the store. "Wanna help me pick out everything else Jay?" Jade asked him, again with her beautiful smile. Jay just nodded and smiled. "Of course. I'd be glad to."
For the next 30 minutes, they had spent 20 of that in Zumiez, getting Jade's new skateboard, and a few new clothes and shoes. The next was in Spencer's for the rest. And now they were headed to the food court. Jay was almost like a puppy dog. He had the puppy dog, follow you around for life, kind of feel. But he didn't hate it like he usually would hate it. He knew then, that Jade was the one that he was waiting for.
When they had to split up in the food court to get food, cause Jay couldn't eat the food Jade wanted, he hurt all over. They met up in a few minutes though, in a kinda, sticky, situation. See, they didnt see each other, and had ran right into each other, thankfully only spilling on the floor, an not each other. "Oh no. I am so so so sorry Jay. I am a total klutz. I am so very sorry." Jade said. He could see how much she was sorry. "It is as much my fault Jade. We are both klutzes" he said with a chuckle, grabbing some napkins off the table, and wiping the drinks puddles up. "Shall we sit?" he asked her gentlemanly with a smile, pulling her chair out for her. She smiled, and sat down in her chair down, taking her backpack off first, and then her purple jacket. Which now he realized why the salesman at Zumiez stared. Her breasts were so luscious. He just wanted to press his face in between them, and he'd be completely safe there. He pulled his mind back from his day dream, and pushed the chair in when she sat. Sitting on her right side, they began to eat. When they were almost done, only eating there fries left, Jay gulped, trying to find the words for what he was about to say. Jade interrupted him first though. "Hey Jay...can i ask you something?" Jay's eyebrows rose a bit curiously. "Uh, yea sure. Anything." he said.
Jade gulped audibly, fiddling with her drink cup. "Uhm..well, I have this..friend..an she likes this guy..." she bit her bottom lip nervously. “Go on.” he said. Jay wondered if there really was another friend, or if she was just using a medifor for herself. "And well, she is really afraid of what to do next. See, the relationship is new in itself, and she doesn't want to ruin anything with taking it further, but, she feels that if she doesn't, it'll be the biggest mistake of her life." She looked up at him with innocent scared eyes. He knew it was about her then, and just smiled at her, saying simply whilst laying his hand on hers. "You do what feels right Jade. If risks weren't worth taking, people would just be in there living rooms, watching TV. I say just to take the chance." His words made her smile, and that means that he smiled back. "All rite. In that case. I uhm...i have something to say to you." she said, biting her lip again. "Look..i like you Jay..alot. I know we met an all, like, just today, but, i want things to be more. It feels like it should be more, you know?" She looked at him straight on, there eyes meeting. Jay smiled, and leaned in his chair to her, holding her hand. "I feel the same way Jade. I just didnt want to freak you out by asking too fast." he smiled, and chuckled a bit.
Jade blushed, holding Jay's hand right back. She'd never felt this way before him, least not this strong at the first meeting. She even wanted to have sex with him this soon. There were connections with them out the wazoo. "Would you like to see a movie Saturday?" Jay asked her. She smiled, zoning back in. She nodded, and leaned forward to kiss his cheek. "Yes. I'd love that. A lot" Jay smiled, and he stood up. "I'd hate to leave though..but i uh, gotta go to work." he said, and she pouted a little bit, but stood up. "Oh, right, the construction job huh? Well, guess I’ll see you Saturday." Jade said, and Jay hugged her. He was so tall though, that the top of her head could actually fit in the crook of his neck. She liked it there. She felt protected there. A feeling she hadn't felt in a long long time. "You have my cell number right?" Jay asked her, and she nodded. "Course. You have mine too, rite?" He chuckled, and kissed her head. "Of course, of course." he smiled, being all smarty-pants like.
Jade didn't have anywhere else to go, so she asked Jay if he could drop her off at her house. He'd be picking her up on Saturday night anyways. "So, i guess i'll see you Saturday..." she said, fumbling with her keys in her hand. Was he going to kiss her or not? Or was he really only one of the select few that actually had manners. That was a total shock to her. "I want to kiss you, you know Jade. I just, i don't want to go that fast. That is usually when things go bad. We have a few days till Saturday though. We can call each other and hang out, and text, and IM as well. Lets just save the kiss till then, all rite?" Jay asked, totally throwing her off her guard as she just stared at him, shocked. She'd nodded slowly though, amazed. This was the one for her. And as she got out of the truck an waved him off, and unlocked the door to her 2 story modern city house, she knew that he was the one that would change everything about her. And it scared her a little bit.
"Hi sweetie." said Jade's mom, Julia Kalvin. She really didn't look like her mom, or her dad, for that matter. She often wondered if she was adopted. But, they had the blood tests and everything to prove that she was there's. Plus, when two fire spirit controller's have a child together, there child rubs off on them that way. Meaning, her Fire controlling, is one hell of a mess. She has to watch herself all the time.
"Hey mom." Jade said back to her, dropping her bag down at the couch as she sat down, smiling. "Someone had a fun day at the mall. Did you meet someone hon?" she asked her, Jade just blushed. "I guess im easy to read...but yea...i did mom. I really did. An uhm...he asked me...out...for Saturday....and I said that i'd be glad to go..." she said to Julia, gulping. She was almost never allowed to have dates. She always just used to sneak out her window at night.
Julia just looked at her and shook her head sighing. "Jade honey, you know your father doesn't like you dating. Why do you keep trying to?" she asked her. Jade just glared at the floor, picking her shopping bags up, and her new skateboard. "Im not dealing with this now mom. Cause thats a crap rule! Im 17 fucking years old! I should be able to do what i want! I have a job, i get, okay grades in school, its not fair!" She yelled, storming up the stairs, and turning in the hall an running to her room, slamming her door, and locking it shut. Julia sighed, and went back into the kitchen to make dinner. "That child will never learn her role in life if she keeps going like this."
Jade was slumped on her bed, face first of course, her head buried under a stack or pillows. "This fucking sucks. Im trapped in this house..." She said mumbled into the pillows. She wasnt all that trapped. I mean, her parents had provided the job for her, even if it was at a pizzeria, they knew the owner, and had made her sound good to him. And not to mention the room she had. She kept it dirty mosta the time, cause she was just too lazy to clean it. But her room was a purple angled ceiling room, with posters of skateboarders, rock-stars, and a few...dozen, half naked man pics as well. She has the most, to her, advanced laptop of all time, including a number of gaming systems. And a pretty big walk in closet. She even had one of those windows, where it opened up to a little balcony so she can sit out there...that was also how she snuck out most of the time.
"I guess they know best..." Jade said, sitting up an pushing the pillows back up at the head of the bed. Standing up, she went to her bathroom, yeah, she had one of her own too. "Need to shower for work..god, why do i need to do that..." she groaned, but started to undress. She couldn't help but look at the scar on her flat, but muscular stomach in the bathroom mirror. She'd gotten it when she was a baby. She couldn't remember it, but her parents said she had to have her appendix taken out. Her fingers brushed the smooth surface of it. "I hope Jay wont mind looking at it while he.." Jade gasped. That thought of him, seeing all of her, and being inside of her, hadn't fully, crossed her mind. "Great...now im gonna be even more nervous for Saturday." she said with a sigh. She touched the tips of her shaggy, mixed length real red hair, and smiled a little. She never considered herself beautiful. She was and probably will always remain a tom-boy. She blushed though, remembering when Jay had looked at her breasts in the food court earlier. She felt beautiful then, cause he wasn't just looking at her breasts. He was looking at her. "Maybe...Saturday could be bigger then i thought." with a little smile spreading on her face, as she stepped into the steaming shower.
50 minutes later, Jay was taking his first break of 3 for his shift. Eating a turkey sandwich and a coffee mug beside em, he pulled out his cell phone, and dialed the number he'd already memorized. Jade's number. He chewed fast, not wanting her to pick up on him eating while they were talking. The ringing kept on ringing though, and he worried if his dream was about to come crashing down on him. His stomach started to clench when he heard a distant "Hello?" He nearly chocked, coughing to clear his throat. "Uhm, hey, its me Jay. You uh, busy?" he asked, though the voice had sounded odd. "Er...this is not Jade....this is her mother." His eyes had widened, and he'd dropped his phone. "Hello? Jay?" Jade's mother asked, and he scrambled to pick it up. "Sorry bout that...im on break at work, and i just got bumped and dropped my phone...so uhh...your her ma...huh..." "Yes. Jade is in the shower right now, if you wanna call back, i can tell her you called." her mother said to em. He could tell it in her voice, she did not like him. "No. thats fine. I'd like to talk to you actually. About, maybe, allowing Jade to go out with me Saturday night. She uh, said you guys are pretty strict with guys and her dating, and i just wanted to say that, im a nice guy, i have a job, a great one, i get straight a's in school, i dont do drugs or anything, and i dont look for sex anywhere. I just want to go out with her for one night, and if she doesn't like it, i swear i will leave her alone." Jay didn't realize that he was rambling though.
"Jay Jay Jay, stop. Just, take a breather." she said, sighing. "Look, i know you like her, and by that reason, im betting on a lot. But its not up to me...its up to her father. He is really protective when it comes to her. So, maybe tomorrow, you could come over for dinner tomorrow. Its a Wednesday, and neither of us work, so, i figured that'd be an okay date." Jay's eyebrows rose up. He didn't work either, but he was still surprised that this was happening. "Uh, yea, i uh, guess i can do that...should i bring anything over mam'?" he asked, gulping. "Just be yourself. Be over at 8, all right? And my name is Julia Kalvin, my husbands is Marty Kalvin." Julia said. Jay gulped, nodding, then realizing she couldn't see him. "Yes mam'. It was a pleasure talking to you." "As was you. See you tomorrow. buh bye." And she was gone. "Well, that was interesting...." Jay said as he shut his phone and finished off his sandwich. "But, gotta get back to work now." He stood up, putting his empty sandwich baggy in his lunchpack, and his coffee mug, carrying it inside the paper mill employee wash-up area, and putting it in his locker. He turned around and got right back to work.
"Man...only 8...how the hell can time be going by soooo sloowwwlllyyyy?" Jade groaned as she was surfing the net on her favorite website, Gaiaonline. "I want this night to be over already. And tomorrow, started." She said, smiling. She was really looking forward for dinner with her parents and Jay. Just then, she looked around her room, seeing the mess. "Oh crap...we will come up here, i know it...i gotta clean up." She got up, stepping on a overturned skateboard half under her bed, and catching herself before any horrible damage was done. "Okay...what i trip over something in this place, its time to clean you way more often." She said to, the room. For the next hour though, she had turned on a series of bands, most of them punk, a few country, rock, rap, an hip-hop songs. Currently, she was singing along to Eminem's and Rihanna's 'Not Afraid' song, as she picked up some last bit of laundry when her cell phone rang. She dropped the clothes in the basket by her bed, an picked her phone up from her bed, an looked at the caller ID, smiling as she picked it up, saying with a cheery. "Hey Jay. How's it goin?" She heard Jay chuckle, and it sounded so warm, she wished he was with her now to laugh in front of her. "Its goin good. Just, relaxing from a hard days work. What about yourself?" Jade sat down on the bed, crossing her legs and getting comfy. "Its okay. I just spent the hour cleaning a very dirty room." She paused, and faced palmed herself. Why had she said that! Of all things, she thought she could just get away with hiding her lazyness. "I mean, it wasn't that dirty or anything..but im not a neat freak or.." She stopped talking when she heard him laughing. "Your funny Jade. You know i dont care if your a little dirty, or overly clean right? I still like you. Nothing's gonna change there." Jade's heart began to swell, really feeling what he said, and almost crying. "I..i know..im just, nervous for tomorrow, and Saturday...cause uh...if my father doesnt like you...its not happening.." She gulped, whispering. "Although its not like iv'e never snuck out on a date or anything...but he checks on me now." She heard Jay sighed a bit. "It'll be all right hun. If we hafta keep the relationship a secret from your father for us to work, it'll happen. But im not gonna give up on you just cause your dad's a...your dad. Im only leaving if YOU say to leave. I wont force anything on you. Ever." Jade smiled a bit, she wasn't sure when it happened, but she'd turned on her stomach, and was waving her feet in the air slowly. She totally now got why those pre-teens on TV sat like that. They were talking about, or to, there true love. "Yea. But i dont think i'll ever say those words. So, your here for life hun." She giggled a lil bit, smiling, hearing him chuckle his deep throaty chuckle again. From that moment on, they'd spent the entire night from 8:30 pm, to 5:45 am, talking on the phone, sometimes in hushed whispers cause each of there parents would check on them, more so her own though.
"Jade, wake up. honey, wake up. Only a few hours left till that guy gets here." Marty Kalvin had said, shaking Jade till she woke up. She yawned, and stretched, curling back up. "Come on. Get up....I'll tell em he's not good enough if you dont get up." Marty said, smirking a bit. Jade glowered up at her father, mumbling. "You wouldnt..." As she sat up then, looking around. "So, i really slept all day then?" she asked her father, and he nodded, making a tsk-tsk noise. "Yes. Really. Seemed like zombies couldn't even wake you up for the longest time. Now hurry up. You need to shower and change an be ready in 2 hours." Marty said, standing up an leaving Jade's room. "Oh damn.." She said, looking at her alarm clock, and then her phone, seeing she had a text, from one friend, her friend Cho, and Jay. "Hehe. kool cho." she replied to her, then looked at Jay's text.
'Jade, cant wait 2 c u, im bringin a surprise, c u soon. <3 Jay'
"Awww. cute...surprise huh...wonder what it could be." She said, plugging her phone in to charge cause it was on her last bar, then going to the bathroom to brush her nest of her hair out, an hopping into the shower. Exactly 2 hours later, she was out of the shower, and downstairs, helping he mom out with the cooking when the doorbell rang. "Oh! He's here! Get the door dad!" She screeched happily to her father.
Jay was super nervous, waiting outside the door. He saw a man open the door, thinking it was the father. Gulping down the vomit that he thought would come up at any moment, he extended his free hand to him. "Sir. Im Jay Cortez. Its nice to meet you." Marty shook his hand back. "The feelings mutual. Please, come in." as Marty stepped to the side to let him in. Jay walked into the living room, it was a little bit bigger then his own living room. Much nicer though. It had green walls, a earthy colored carpet, and pictures of sports achievements by all three family members hung on the walls. There was a large couch that circled around a giant flat screen television, with cases of dvd's on a free standing shelf next to it. "This is a nice place you have here sir." Jay said to Marty, who was right behind him. He gulped a little bit nervously, leaning against the couch. "Have a seat. I'll go get my only daughter." Marty said, walking past em an into a different room. Jay let out a little sigh, sitting down in the middle of the couch. The TV was turned on, and there was a Paula Deen episode on. She was making pot-roast.
All of a sudden, warm hands were over his eyes, and he jumped a little bit, getting a kiss on his cheek. "Im really hoping thats you hun, cause if its your dad, im gonna be a little bit afraid." He chuckled, Jade laughing, an letting him see, coming around the couch, an he just stared at her, drooling a tiny bit.
"Your beautiful Jade." Jay said to her, smiling. Jade was wearing a very sexy purple jean skirt, kind of short, and a white blouse, with a purple bra, one of the top buttons was undone, so he could see the top of her perfect breasts underneath. He had to look at his feet, cause he was getting to excited. Standing up, he picked her hand up, kissing it. "Its a pleasure to see you miss. Your incredible." Jade blushed, and sat down on the couch, he followed along, sitting close to her, his hand still in his pocket with his surprise in said hand. "Sooo...i am actually really curious Jay..but uhm....what was this 'surprise' you said earlier?" She asked him and he just laughed, leaning back against the couch. "You'll see. Lets wait for the night to come to an end first." He smiled. Jade made a puffy pouting kind of face, and Jay just pressed his finger lightly on her lips. "Oh you'll see...how long till the dinner starts?" he asked, and she looked past him at the room Marty had disappeared in, and she'd entered. "Mom said it'd be about 20 minutes...wanna come upstairs an see my room?" she asked, an Jay smiled, holding her hand. "Only if its all right with your parents. I dont wanna get my ass kicked before they get to know me more." Jade stood, pulling on his hand that was in hers. "Oh come on. They know where to find us. Sides, we should have some privacy, cause i know that my dad's listening to our every word right now." Her eye had twitched then, and he turned around on the couch, Marty came into view a few seconds later, his arms crossed. "Sit back down Jade. No one is going into any of the rooms." He growled, flames appearing in his eyes. "Uhm, yes sir." Jay said, looking down at his hands. Jade was glaring at her father though. "We're not gonna do anything dad! And i jus wanna show em my room. God." Marty just shook her head, Julia calling for em though. "Dear, could you come here please?!" Marty sighed, saying "Yea, coming." Glaring once more at Jay, an then going to the kitchen. Jade had grabbed Jay's hand, and was surprisingly pretty strong as she pulled him up, and pulled em up the stairs, and to what looked like her room, pulling an in and shutting an locking the door. "Phew. I think we have about 5 minutes." Jade said, sitting on her bed, smiling cutely. He gulped, sitting hesitantly next to her. He'd never bin in a girl that he liked this much, room before. "So, this is your place, huh? Its really....purple." He chuckled, smiling at her. Jade was biting her lip, and he realized that she was kneeling close to him, her knee's touching his thighs. "Uh...something wrong Jade?" he asked her, and she just blushed. "No. Nothing..its just...." she looked up a little bit shyly at him. "Id you like me...how come you haven't kissed me?" Jay's eyebrows rose up, his cheeks going pink. "Er..i have wanted to. I just, didnt want to move that fast..." he looked down. About 30 seconds past, and Jay looked up at her, shifting on the bed so one leg on crossed half on the bed, one leg still touching the floor. "Jade, may i kiss you?" Jade smiled at him, and nodded, blushing a red color. "Of course you can." She said.
Jay took the side's of her face in his hands lightly, leaning forward into her, she leaned a bit as well, as they sweetly shared there first kiss together. He tasted her lips with almost a starvation. She tasted like burnt marshmallows, lilacs, and heat. Lots of heat.
Jade wrapped her arms around Jay's neck, shifting a little, still kissing em, and sitting in his lap. He tasted so delicious. Like a blueberry Popsicle, he was hot at the same time, like a bottle of Tabasco sauce. Things were heating up between them. All too fast, though, it seemed like neither of them wanted or could stop.
An abrupt sharp knock sounded at Jade's door though, ending there very steamy kiss, in which they both sighed heavily. "The 2 of you down stairs in one minute, or else!" Marty's voice said through the door, clearly pissed that they'd both ignored his orders. "Oh come on dad! Im just showing Jay my PS3! Chill out!" Jade said to Marty, at the same time, grabbing a remote on her bed, and clicking a button, so a shelf popped out of the entertainment center, showing her PS3. "I dont care Jade! You know the rules! Now get down here in one minute, or else Jay's gone, and your forbidden to see him again!" Marty yelled at Jade through the door. Jade just glared at the door, saying back to him challengingly. "You cant do that dad!" Marty just saying. "Yes, i can. im your father, and i can have you sent to military school!" Jade's eyes started to tear up a bit, and Jay wanted to punch Marty for making those tears form. He just held her hand though, standing up, saying to him. "We're coming sir." Marty growling, and pausing a second more before his footsteps were heard going down the stairs. "Hey...its all right. We have Saturday." He said with a smile to her, leaning down an kissing her cheek, wiping the tears away from her eyes. Jade just nodded, and they were out of her room in 30 seconds, entering the dining room. And right as they entered, he pulled the chair for Jade out for her, she smiled at him, ad sat down, and he went and sat across from her. Sniffing and looking around the room, smelling pot roast and mashed potatoes filling the house, and saying to Julia with a smile. "Everything smells great Mrs. Kalvin." Julia smiled, setting a napkin on her lap. "Thank you Jay. I hope you are hungry. Im afraid i made a little too much." They both laughed a little bit, Jay smiling an saying. "Mam, i dont think i ever get full. My brother and i often have contests to see who can eat the most without throwing up after wards" Only a second past when he cleared his throat. "I mean, i guess that's not dinner conversation..but yeah...." He bowed his head, fumbling underneath the table in his hands. "Would you mind saying grace dear?" Julia asked Marty. The room fell silent, and Marty began. "Thank you lord, for giving us this food on our table. Thank you Julia for preparing such a delicious meal. We thank you lord before we eat, imagining you here beside us so as we may dine with a friend. Amen." And a group "Amen" was heard after his.
Jay was on his 2nd plate, Marty almost never took his eyes off of him, Julia and Jay kept up most of the conversation, while Jade just stayed quite, not wanting anything to go wrong that would make her be banned literally from Jay. She couldn't help but look at her father for his reaction on a few Jay's responses. She must have bin loosing her touch though with him, cause she couldn't make out some stuff. She just knew it wasn't good faces, and it freaked her out even more. She didn't know what her father was thinking, but she really hoped that he approved of Jay.
It was 2 hours later that the 4 of them were in the living room, sprawled out on the couch. Julia had her head resting on Marty's shoulder, believing to be asleep. Jay was nodding off a tiny bit also, but he remained awake. Jade was practically curled up on his lap, her head more though, resting on him, passed out, they were watching the only thing on TV at that night, and old re-run for Sports center. Jay had his arm around Jade's waist, every so often to say something to Marty, still a little bit nervous. "So, i felt it when you stepped in my house, and i didnt want the girls to hear...but your a water user, yes?" Marty asked Jay, being taken completely off guard. "Er...yes sir...." Jay said, biting his lip. He looked up at Marty though, glaring a bit, saying quietly so not to wake the girls, but harshly to Marty. "Why would it matter sir?" Marty just shook his head. "It doesn't. Just dont want my little girl being outnumbered cause you decide to use your ability on her and weaken her." His eyes were narrowed at Marty, now super pissed that he'd even think he'd use force on Jade. His arm tightened around Jade's waist. "Sir, i would never force Jade into something that she didnt feel comfortable with herself. And i am very insulted that you insinuated id do that in the first place sir. I did not do that with you at all. And i dont appreciate you doing it to me." They just stared at each other. About 15 minutes later, Marty turned the TV off. "Should probably get the girls in bed, i should hit the hay as well. Work in the morning." Marty said, lightly nudging Julia to wake her up. "What is it hon?" Julia asked Marty, looking up at him with one eye open. "Time for bedtime." Marty said with a tiny smile, kissing her nose tip sweetly, seeing her blush. Jay did the same nudge to Jade, Jade didnt open her eyes though, she just grabbed the purple throw blanket on the end of the couch, and put it over her head, mumbling. "Nu uh. Not moving. And neither are you." she said. He chuckled, and looked at Marty and Julia who stood up and headed for the stairs. Marty was looking at him. "You have 5 minutes." Marty said to him, and he picked Jade up into her arms, keeping the throw blanket on her, and heading up the stairs after her parents.
Getting into Jade's room, and leaving the door a couple inches cracked so Marty didnt freak out, Jay layed Jade down on her bed. He started to take her shoes off when her hand on his arm stopped him, and looked up at her. "Sorry...thought that you were asleep..didnt mean to wake you.." He said, gulping. Jade just looked up at him, sleepily, but happily. "Its ok Jay. I know my dad is going to say yes. He didnt kill you on his first sight of you...your home free." She smiled at him, sitting up onto her elbows, still laying somewhat. Jay just stared at her, dumbstruck. Why'd she put him through all the night of thinking he hated him then? He got it then. She was testing him. To see if HE could handle her father and all he through at him. And probably seeing if he was brave enough to stay with her in the first place. "You Jade, are a little bt of a game player, aren't you?" He asked her, eyes narrowed a bit, but he sat closer to her, up by her hip, leaning his head down to hers, so he was only an inch or so away. He could see her blush clear on then. "I just wanted to know...if you could...handle...my dad..." she said, looking down. Jay tilted her head back up to him, and before she could say anything, kissed her sweetly. And just as it came, it started out slow, and then became hot passionate kisses all over her lips and neck, nipping at the thin skin on her neck also. Why was is so easy for them to get physical? He's kissed girls before, he'd guessed that she'd kissed guys too. But for some reason, it seemed like it was only her, that he wanted to kiss now, and the only one that ever got his blood boiling, like she did. He pushed himself away from there make-out session, panting a little bit, cause he hated himself for ending it. "Sorry i just...need to think Jade.." he said to her, looking down. Jade looked at em worriedly though. "Maybe you should go home then...cause i think if you stay here...with how we just were...neither of us will make it through the night with our clothes on..." she said, chuckling a bit, even if those words were 100 percent true at the moment. They kissed goodnight, for a minute or so, and then he headed out to his truck and headed off for home, where he ran into his father watchign TV with his mom in the living room. "Hey Jay. Good dinner?" His mom, Molly Cortez, said. "Yea..was deffiantly eventful..." he muttered the last part so they couldnt hear him, as he landed on the peach flowered couch beside the twin couch his parents were on. He noticed his dad had a can of beer in his hand and his other arm was around his mom's shoulders. There were also a few cans on the coffee table beside him. "So Jay, whats the family like?" his mom asked him in her regular sweet tone. He was so much like his mom. Sweet, caring, dark blue beuatiful eyes like his. And there personalities were almost alike. Only thing different was there gender, and hair color. Which was kind of confusing. She was a pure dark dark dark DARK brown haired woman, and his dad had red hair. Yet, hisself and Kai were both blonde as blonde could get. Jay cleared his throat a bit, crossing his leg like a man does. "They were pretty kool actually....her dad...kinda doesnt like me i think though...her mom reminds me of you though ma." he said with a smile to her, and she smiled back. "Im hoping that that is a good thing hun." his mom said, his dad chiming in with a oh so charming. "Its cause he doesnt want his girl gettin preggo. Duh. And your someone who looks like the guy he'd look out for." Jay just stared at him, a little bit pissed that he'd say that. His mom chimed in before he could get the chance though. "Hun, dont start anything please. And Jay, he's a little bit right. More just about his daughter dating. It sounds to me like her father doesnt want to let go of her so easily. Its not necessarily directed entirely at you." Jay sighed, standing up and stretching. " I guess..i gotta be at work in the morning...gotta catch some z/s...night." he walked over an kissed his mom on the cheek, heading down the hall to his room, and shutting his door, landing on his bed. "Man...im tired, but i cant settle down either..." he mumbled to himself, turning his stereo on to some techno music. Taking off his shoes, shirt and jeans, and getting into bed in just a pair of blue boxer briefs, he looked at his own chest, seeing not great muscles there, or on his arms. "I gotta buff up if i wanna be with her...she's not gonna want to wanna see a stick like me with her all the time...gotta protect her when i have to." thinking about something else, like work in the morning, put him to sleep in an instant.
((goin to bed. will finish this later))
" “If that’s what you’re into,” Harry said, hopelessly honest, and leaned in and kissed him again, holding him pressed up against the doorframe and kissing his mouth, the curling corner of it, and his jaw and a place near his ear. Malfoy made a little sound, broken in the middle, that made Harry’s heart stutter in his chest." - Drop Dead Gorgeous by Maya
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(Disclaimer: Photo has nothing to do with the text.) *makes whimpery sniffly noises*
Please read for backstory: raining-on.livejournal.com/154583.html
I wanted to try another batch of jello filled bulbs. The first photo was from a batch of bulbs that had been in the refrigerator for a long time so that the gelatin had really set. This one is from a bulb that had only been cooled for about an hour. So the jello was more jelly-like. It does look different.
It's pretty obvious which kind of bulb is which after the shot. The well set jello leaves a bulb behind that has a hole through it. the fresher jello is just all over the set-up.
Vela was set at 2usec/six shots/~200usec spacing.
Getting hot today, I'm guessing about 87F. It will be hotter tomorrow. I may skip the bike ride and try and find a cooler place to hike. I can't wait for fall/winter. Even if it's another crap-out for rain it will be a bit cooler.
Cheers.