John Burridge

Mark and I flew to his Mother's home in Suffern, New York.  The Child had gone a week prior, on Mark's Birthday, and we had a week alone at home, doing what most parents do when their child goes away on a week-long vacation:  we slept a lot.  Okay, and other things.  

Normally, we visit Mark's family about once a year.  Frequently, there's a family gathering of some sort that involves the brother from Virginia, and the sister from Pennsylvania, and occasionally the other brother from Buffalo converging on Mark's Mother's House.  Mark's Mother is a Great-Grandmother, and it is not uncommon for grand-children and their families to vist, too.  

Covid put the kibosh on travel last year, and various health issues dictated a smaller gathering this time around.

The morning of our travels, Mark took Aoife to Doggy Daycare.  She knew something was up -- probably from the suitcases -- because early that morning, she crawled into my lap and pressed herself against me.  Mark reported that she uttered a Dolorous Cry when he drove away, leaving her in the care of the Doggy Daycare Ladies.  

The cats were delighted that we were leaving. 

When we got to the Portland Airport, it looked like everyone in Oregon had decided to get one last flight in, despite the Covid Delta Varient going around.  The signs to the parking lot lied when they said there were spaces available, and it was only after a lengthy search and some creative decision-making processes on Mark's part that we were able to locate an empty spot the car would fit in.  

Luckily, we'd left in plenty of time. 

The terminal was packed.  An ocean of travellers serpentined through the security check line.  Social distancing was a joke.   Mark had anticipated this situation, and we managed to expedite the TSA lines by going through pre-check.  It was like a Disney Fastpass; we sailed through empty lanes up to the check point and were through it in about five minutes.  Considering how much my cary-on baggage's strap was biting into my shoulder, I am very grateful Mark had the foresight and we had the means to arrange dodging the non-socially-distanced masses.

The flight was mostly uneventful.   

I had a window seat -- it's always interesting to me to see the calligraphy of the canyons in the mid-west, the exclamation points of wind turbines, and the regular  patchwork grid of roads once you are flying over Illinois.

Mark sat next to a woman who ordered two beers and a lot of snacks.  The moment of irony was that the very nice flight attendants were forced into tech support and spent ten minutes handling her iPhone so she could connect to the plane's WiFi, activate her credit card on the airline's app, and participate in the contactless payment method for her food and beverages.  Mark double-masked when her first beer spritzed out of the can and onto him.   

Despite all this he managed to get far on his knitted socks.  

The sun set while we were somewhere over Chicago, painting the trailing edges of the wings with red gold.  Later, the full moon rose and turned everything silver.   I was struck by how many times we've been travelling on a full moon; I can can think of three other instances.  Our wedding ceremony seventeen years ago was on a full moon, so this was technically a lunar anniversary.  

As we began our descent, we flew below the cloud deck. 

Tropical Storm Henri threatened to give us a bumpy landing, but our pilot got through it smoothly.   We must have been between storm bands when we landed.

A car rental, a trip through some really heavy rain, and about ninety minutes later, and we were at our hotel room.   I'm pretty sure we fell asleep quickly. 

I heard through the grapevine that this year Eugene ranks as the highest pollen count in the nation.  Mark is really wiped out this year.  The pollen is making me tired, I think.  Which in turn is making me tired.  Which in turn is making me grumpy and listless.   I wish I felt creative and energized instead of like The Void is gaping right next to me, which is tiresome.

Ah well, time do mash together songs like "I Need You," and ... well, nope -- just a straight up rendition will do.

 This spring we broadcast various California poppy seeds around the yard.  Alas, only one plant reached maturity, and it is in an awkward place on our backyard steps.  Mark is hopeful it will self-seed in a more out-of the way place next season.

It's possible a few will show up next year in various spaces around the yard.
Not to be daunted by the lack of random broadcasting's success, I made a concerted effort to plant seedings in peat pots in the late spring and then place the established plants about the yard.

This Saturday, the first of the plants flowered.  These appear to be a darker orange variety.  Our soil isn't the best,and the first bloom appeared in the best soil.

There is something cheerful about California poppies.  They make a nice contrasting plant to the foxglove Mark has established, and I'm hoping we can have some more blooming next year.

Sunday we went to Sahalie and Koosah Falls.


We got there about 11:45, and the sun made rainbows in the waterfalls' mist.  Koosah Falls especially reminded me of the Bifrost Bridge, and so I was humming bits of the Rhinemaidens' leitmotif and Siegfried's Funeral March.

For the last couple of weeks, I've been on a stay-cation.  I always think that I'm going to get more writing done than I actually do, and in some ways I'm looking forward to the induced discipline of having to schedule writing into the demands of the Day Jobbe and family.  

I did get out more than I usually do--I entertained various friends, saw Guardians of the Galaxy and watched some other moives on Netflix.

I did manage to wake up around 6:30 most days, but I became somewhat crepuscular, and I could tell that I really wanted to stay up until 1 or 2 in the morning and sleep in until 9 or 10.

But now it's time to get back into the swing of autumn.  I think I've got a few more weeks of being able to write outside on the patio before the weather turns beastly wet.

This morning's story:  glass sphere photo prompt story.
This morning's word count: 742.

We took a boat tour of Crater Lake.  The boat went "an astonishing 13 miles and hour," which provided a nice cool breeze.  All the tickets for stopping off at Wizard Island had been sold, so we did the two hour tour of various features instead (and saved a bundle of money: those tickets aren't cheap).  

One of the  interesting features is Phantom Ship.  It's part of an old lava dike that forms a spur climbing the rim of the caldera.  I want to say it's two football fields long, but it might be only one; it's about nine stories high.  

What I liked about it was that it really did look like a ship, it had trees growing on it, and it had cool basalt formations.  Also, it's easy for a boat to get close to, so you can see finer details than most of the other geologic features of the tour.


If I were going to hide a sword that a Once-And-Future King might need to find, I would hide it on the Phantom Ship in Crater Lake.

Actually, if I were an Evil Genius and I needed to hide my secret lair, it would be at the bottom of Crater Lake, and it would be powered by one of the lake's hot spots.

I'm not sure where I'd put the monorail, though.

When I visit national parks, I like to take detail shots of the buildings.  Somewhere deep inside, I want to duplicate what I see and install it where I live.  

These are details of curtains hanging in the Crater Lake Lodge.  Mark thinks the lodge is too much like a bar, and prefers the lodge at Yellowstone, which is more lodge-like.  I will admit that the Crater Lake Lodge has a slicker, smooth, and intentionally distressed look to it - which comes from extensive remodeling and refurbishing.  The Crater Lake Lodge is more open and restful.  

I like the pattern of these curtains because they look like the local desert paintbrush flowers which grow on the slopes of Crater Lake.  I like the orthagonal geometry of the design.  I mostly like the colors, and I can't decide if I'd replace the purple stems with green ones, or if that would be too Christmasy and pedestrian.



These door pulls are attractive and sturdy; I've always liked door latches like these.  It's the Visitor Information building at the Crater Lake headquarters.  I like the arrowhead, which is the National Park Service logo; but you don't need to know in order to enjoy looking at.  

I thought when I took a picture of the Administration Building that the sign on it was larger.  I was more interested in the architectural lines than the typeface, apparently.

[UPDATE:  After Googling around, I found more font examples on the signs for the Science Center and for the North and East Entrances of the Park.  I looked around the Department of the Interior's website, but this particular typeface isn't coming up.]

Sunday during our trip to Crater Lake, we stopped at a visitor information site.  I liked the architecture there; it was designed to handle the ten months of snow which lingers at the high elevation of the lake.    



Of course, I had to take a close-up of one of the signs because I really liked the typeface.  The serifs make the signs easier to read, and the drop-down stems on the R's, the M's and the N's make this type face feel like a more laid-back copperplate.

Curious, I visited the National Park Service's typeface page:  http://www.nps.gov/hfc/services/identity/typefaces.cfm, but neither typeface listed there is what this sign is using.  It's not a part of their signage page, either.

Looks like a mystery to solve!

We're back from Crater Lake.  It was nice and cool, if a little smokey from forest fires.   I'm going through pictures, and this is one.


More later.

Yesterday we went to the Oregon Country Fair.  It started out nice and cool, but by 1 PM or so, the sun came out and it got up to something like 90F.  We took a bus there, which is probably the best way to get there, as parking (and driving out with half of the Eugene-Springfield metro area) can be a chore.  I want to say the fair's been running for fifty years or something.  Imagine Eugene hippies, the Ken Kesey bus, alternate energy folks, Celtic knots, tattoos, a lot of jazz/blues bands, hemp culture, fairy wings and dust, and bare breasts painted bright colors.   And crafts!


Next to the fire-makers dressed like cavemen in deerskin shorts were some folks playing a hurdy-gurdy and a Swedish keyed fiddle or nyckellharpa.  They kindly let me photograph their instruments.

 I'd seen hurdy-gurdies before, but not up close.  The woman playing this one showed me the C and G drone strings, and the interior strings which the keys manipulated.  The instrument was squeaker than she liked, and she explained how she needed to take a big of cotton and sort of pull it out so that it could get wound up around the drone strings.  She also demonstrated a buzzer, sort of a vibrating bridge the done-string went over that she could cause to loudly vibrate by spinning the hurdy-gurdy's crank (and rosin wheel) more vigorously and provide a bit of percussion.

I'd never seen or herd of a nyckellharpa before.  It was a fiddle with four main strings and about twelve or sixteen resonator strings.  It's an older instrument, so the keys are the same as the ones on a piano.   Both instruments were quiet, but I was standing close enough to hear them; they sounded like they would be nice instruments for a Nordic night in a cabin with a fire.

After my cousin's wedding, we went for a hike on the island.








We came across a cliff that had eroded.








At several points in the past, the beach must have been higher, because different layers of rock and sand were piled onto each other.







This was near a tiny waterfall--more like a water-trickle. The large stones procted the sediment underneath them from eroding.







The cliff side had been there long enough for moss to start growing on it in some places.







It was easy to imagine one was looking at Arizona cliffs. I almost expected to hear the Road Runner.

We're back from a visit to the Stout Redwood Grove, near Crescent City, and the Oregon Caves.

 Sunday we took a hike through the Douglas firs and madrone growing near the Oregon Caves--and this is one of the snails we found.  It's endemic to the area, about a quarter size of my fist, and bright red.  I heard a park ranger say that the snail eats the moss growing around here.  Since the mountain the caves are in is made up of a lot of marble, the moss has a high concentration of calcium in it.  The snail gets so much calcium its shell is extra thick and sturdy.

 We're back from a trip to the Redwoods and the Oregon Caves.  While we were near the Stout Memorial Redwood Grove, I managed to get a close-up photograph of this dragonfly.  I'm not sure if it had just molted or what.  It didn't fly away when I walked up to it, although it did flap its wings like crazy for long enough for me to get about three macro shots of it.  This one came out the best.

One of my friends recently asked me for a book list for Qyeer NeoPagan books.  I came to the conclusion that there wasn't really a list so much as there was an anti-list.  And that I like sarcasm.  I've yet to find a book for queer men which addresses using ritual for transformation, celebration and communion; that uses ritual to balance mind, body, heart, and spirit; that blends influx, maintenance, and distribution with the previous elements in a Graceful way.

Under the solstice sun I sit

We went to the coast. Camping was smokey, noisy, fun! ('Cause I'd unpacked my adjectives...). At Norton Gulch, we discovered this very large beetle. I think it was a "gold bug" because it looked like the beetles I used to see at Arcosanti. Mark thought that it had gotten blown way off course, and we both agreed it looked bemused at being on the Oregon coast.

More pictures once I wash all the smoke and sand out of my hair.

The dog days of August are upon us.  Last night was one of the first nights there wasn't a midnight breeze to blow through the house and cool it down.  This morning the house resounds with the whir of large box fans near the windows.  It feels like being aboard an aircraft -- either a dirigible or a turbo-prop plane -- but it's worth it because two fans have managed to cool the house down by seven degrees down to 72F in about an hour.

Not a whole lot from the Dream Department that I'm comfortable sharing.  This morning I suddenly remembered last night's dream and started laughing.  I did what with who?  At least it's kind of funny instead of icky.  And it was in a cool forest house made out of stones half-set into a hill.  I'm still trying to figure out what the dream means. 

My writing discipline has gone out the window.  This week's goal is to actually finish one of the several unfinished manuscripts I've got in my pile.

But first, the Day Job.

There was an Alice in Wonderland themed party. I was going to go as a playing card, but I didn't get my act together; so I went as the March Hare instead.