Cocoposts

Can't you just see the wind?

Mom's holding her hair out of her eyes, squinting behind ray-bans and glaring up at him and that damn pentax he got for Christmas. Mistake, she thought, turning back to the campfire to stab at the steaks.

Her mood and the wind came up at the same time. She'd begged him to leave it at home, that camera. She'd had some dentistry. The partial wasn't ready. She didn't want her gapped-tooth smile immortalized and she sure isn't smiling in this photo. But you can see that dark space anyway as her mouth is open a little saying, "Oh for God's sake Dave."

He took her picture all day like he always did. Our weekend and holiday camping trips and picnics were elaborately documented. If there'd been an internet then, my father would have facebooked, geo-cached and tweeted every one of our trips. As it was, he left multiple trunks of 35mm slides, rolls of super-8, shoe boxes of 3x5 prints, and a small library of photoalbums.

In the pictures from this day the wind is like an unwelcome family member, a crazy Aunt who visits for extended periods every spring and spends the afternoons screaming and crying at you for something that isn't your fault.

Turtleback Mountain Diary 3

Fiesta Dresses are a distant topic from sex torture and murderous pitbulls.  Given the continuing notoriety of the David Parker Ray case and Sierra County's apparent desperation for economic stimulation, I'm greatly relieved and a little surprised no one has had the idea of re-creating the "Toy Box" as a museum piece - at least that we know of.
 
Lessons from that horrifying history seem limited to: A) Gosh, we sure hope that's history; and B) "Let this serve as a warning to girls." 

It's infuriatingly common to hear that this is what happens when girls do X, Y or Z.  Such victim-blaming is blazingly evident in the justice system and the Ray trials.*

The focus on the victim and her part in sex crimes doesn't change behavior - least of all men's behavior toward women and girls.  But it does evoke generalized fear and suspicion on the part of one-half the population toward the other. This is hardly the basis for a healthy community but it's great for gun sales. 

Pleasant and un-prurient interests abound in Sierra County, as fiesta dresses remind me.  The Geronimo Springs Museum also has a most fabulous pottery collection, including a Mimbres Black-on-White pot with an exquisite crossword puzzle-like design - as if the artist was tripping and picturing a New York Times of the future. But the fiesta dresses are my personal favorite.

My Mother, Aunts and every other female I knew had a fiesta dress or three during the day.  These particular rick-rack on-net artifacts of the 50's home sewing era were winners of T or C's annual Fiesta Dress competition. They're kept lovingly dusted and displayed in the "Barbara and Ralph Edwards Suite" along with fifty plus years worth of parade and pagent memorabilia - walls full of B-movie stars' signed photos and smiling fifty faces of Miss Fiestas.

Ralph Edwards died in 2005 and in the 2006 parade the Sierra County Sheriff's Posse honored him with a riderless horse. The Fiesta event has cooled as the town struggles with finances in the absence of Edwards's largesse. But they're still crowning "Miss Fiesta" every year.

 

*For a detailed account see Consequences: The Criminal Case of David Parker Ray, by J.E. Sparks.  But better yet, don't.  Take a picnic or go to the museum where you won't see a thing about it.

But Mostly, Chickenwire

Trees don't weep for the death of newspapers. Or beavers, for that matter.  We should read our print on hemp. But hey, we may also skip ahead to not reading at all, if you want to get all sad about it. 

It would completely revitalize our economy to retool American agriculture for hemp production.*  Maybe it scares Big Agriculture, but probably not. Maybe my tinfoil hat's talking, but if they can genetically modify and patent the weed seeds and corner markets for hemp products they're all for it.  I'd be a little surprised and disappointed if they're not doing that already. But first, you gotta #legalize.

And then, beavers. Easy to assume they are avenging slaughter of their ancestors for early 19th century top hat fashion. But they're just being beaver - murdering huge beautiful valley cottonwoods like they've always done.  On far edges of bosque places they girdle entire huge trunks in one night, inner bark for winter dinner. Cottonwoods bent by the last big valley floods a hundred years ago are doomed. Things that live in dead trees enjoy housing boom.

Painstakingly encircling the trunks with chickenwire stops their mighty teeth.  That, and maybe pepperspray.**  (On the tree bark, not the beaver himself.) 

Mr. Coyote has no doubt made a play for Mr. Bigtooth.  While contemplating a slingshot or airgun attack on this bold coyote (as an alternative to chasing him with a broom, which apparently just amuses him) I am paradoxically cheering him on in what I imagine to be his daily pursuit of that beaver, especially now that he has wiped out the neighborhood guinea fowl. I'm working on zen acceptance of his sandhill crane hunt.

 That's undoubtedly the answer to the beaver question as well.  Afterall, there are still many trees.  Especially from the viewpoint of the one holding a roll of chickenwire.

 

*It would revitalize our local economies and truly revolutionalize our culture to not just retool but also rescale agricultural production for hemp. But, alas, that's perhaps too bold a dream.

**There is such a thing a Comprehensive Beaver Management Planning but I have no comment on that.

Tiny House Living Lesson 101

It's just stuff.

The last move was about a year ago and I've been downsizing ever since.  I'd rather be doing anything else - which is why it took so long.  Spring cleaning was a real reward because there was less to deal with. I jettisoned furniture, books, clothes and collectibles going from a 2400 to 750 square foot house. 

Honing an attitude about how material stuff really doesn't matter helps with downsizing.  I can't say I personally felt that way, but I'm sure it does help.   Just because you can't take it with you to heaven, or wherever, doesn't mean you can't cram it into the shed now.  It may just be stuff but it's your stuff.  George Carlin comes to mind: That's all your house is - a place to keep your stuff while you go out and get more stuff. 

The urge to purge is much weaker than the desire to acquire.  Thinking of it as pulling weeds in the garden to give remaining plants more strength helps with the item thinning.  I can't say I personally thought of it that way, but I'm sure it does help.  I gripped tightly to huge chunky antique furniture and piles of dishware that I knew wouldn't fit in my tiny house and paid to move it twice before giving it away. 

 Property is theft. Nobody “owns” anything. When you die, it all stays here. (101 Greatest George Carlin Quotes.)

Weed War

Weeds rule the weed ranch.  Stickers on steroids assaulting tender paws and skin.  It'll be goatheads the size of golf balls in the fall if forces are not mustered now.

But it is sure to be another long expensive war.  A mercenary I asked for a yard work estimate drove up in a Jaguar.

Year Six Blog Anniversary

Rain falling on the United States contains radioactive material from Japan at levels that exceed federal safety thresholds.

Federal officials on Tuesday urged calm in the wake of the discovery of iodine-131, which blew across the Pacific Ocean from the stricken Fukushima nuclear power plant, in rainwater.

Source: The Bay Citizen (http://s.tt/12bQH)

The sixth year anniversary gifts are candy and radioactive iodine.  Whoops, I meant iron.

Rain falling on the United States contains radioactive material from Japan at levels that exceed federal safety thresholds.  Federal officials on Tuesday urged calm in the wake of the discovery of iodine-131, which blew across the Pacific Ocean from the stricken Fukushima nuclear power plant, in rainwater.  (From Bay Citizen)

But remember not to worry.  New plants will be built better.  Promise?

Rain falling on the United States contains radioactive material from Japan at levels that exceed federal safety thresholds.

Federal officials on Tuesday urged calm in the wake of the discovery of iodine-131, which blew across the Pacific Ocean from the stricken Fukushima nuclear power plant, in rainwater.

Source: The Bay Citizen (http://s.tt/12bQH)

Rain falling on the United States contains radioactive material from Japan at levels that exceed federal safety thresholds.

Federal officials on Tuesday urged calm in the wake of the discovery of iodine-131, which blew across the Pacific Ocean from the stricken Fukushima nuclear power plant, in rainwater.

Source: The Bay Citizen (http://s.tt/12bQH)

Rain falling on the United States contains radioactive material from Japan at levels that exceed federal safety thresholds.

Federal officials on Tuesday urged calm in the wake of the discovery of iodine-131, which blew across the Pacific Ocean from the stricken Fukushima nuclear power plant, in rainwater.

Source: The Bay Citizen (http://s.tt/12bQH)

Chupacabra Sighting

 West Seattle - Alki Beach.  I've been compelled to investigate. 

Return of Coco Jones

The beer. Seattle PI's Washington Beer Blog, "Everything beer in the Evergreen State" has coco news, straight from the Raven’s mouth:

The elusive Coco Jones is about to make a rare appearance.  I’m not talking about my disowned second cousin, Ms. Coco Jones. Last I heard, cousin Coco was still doing two shows a night in Vegas, proudly walking on the wild side. Nope, not that Coco Jones. Today we are talking about Black Raven Brewing Company’s Coco Jones Coconut Porter.

Release Date is Tuesday March 15th.  (I've never done Vegas.) 

Oppenheimer's Crisis

While Director of Los Alamos Scientific Laboratory between 1943 to 1945, J. Robert Oppenheimer and his wife Kitty would ride two days on horseback from the mesa to his summer home in the Pecos, "much to the dismay of the FBI agents who had to accompany them." Oppenheimer frequently rode a spooky horse aptly named "Crisis."  

(Sources: Ferenc M. Szasz, Larger Than Life:  New Mexico in the Twentieth Century. and J. Abraham Pais, Robert P. Crease, Robert Oppenheimer: A Life. Photo: historycooperative.org)

Worst of Cocoposts Vol. 1

Idea for a blog post series dedicated to such ill-advised content as Barbie P*rn, which showcased my formidable vintage collection in various dance poses.  Remaining family members, being unappreciative of the Barbie aesthetic in general and the implied homoeroticism in specific,  reacted with distain disdain and stopped reading my blog.  I've since gotten over it and crammed them in a huge suitcase.  The dolls, not my family.