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When the going gets tough I get... cooking. Occasionally, the weight in the heavens speaks louder than forecasters. All day, yesterday, Storm Team clones regionwide were revving up the special reports with special effects in predicting yet another snow tsunami. Leaving the studio, and ducking into grocery nirvana, it was pretty obvious that everyone was taking it seriously. Bread-milk-toilet aisles emptier than Dubyuh's head (and dreams of world dominance)... I swear, you could hear echoes. Never ceases to crack me up, these necessities. I never drink milk, seldom eat sandwiches, and don't have a shitfit when the bad ones come. The sushi counter was intact, though. Cheers to that. The tension was palpable on the street, as well. Complete gridlock, in a town that has no contingency plan. A ten-minute trip to Biggles' house became forty-five. Once I'd found an escape route, I thought I'd found a shortcut on a side street... a shortcut on the Paris-Dakar rally, more correctly. Sure, it had a street sign... but immediately became a rutted, hilly path, where no car must've travelled in weeks. And this trip, in belly-rubbing Miata, flinging mud in plumes. Off-roading at its finest. Just to deliver a Stylistics CD, and give him my extra Arsenal shirt. No good deed goes unpunished. There was already a dusting on the lawn when I awoke, nothing more. The air felt expectant, though, like Odin was rolling out a big carpet over the landscape... I passed out some Rock Marathon programs, grabbed some pastries and jetted back to the bunker before it rolled overhead. Just in time. Instead of the usual sulking, I made for the kitchen. Excavating the beer supplies, cooking up the yeast starter (with a little of the Hen's Tooth left over from the night before), steps were made for the big production, tomorrow. And then I thought, "let's get some rice coooking," so I could get my maki technique in better shape. Now, I get it... a little less blob of rice so it rolls, instead of pushing the fillings out. And I commandered dinner. My Valentine's good deed. Good thing, since I finally played the tape of Ame1i�... and fell totally in love with Audrey Tatou. Mon Coeur! The promos didn't do justice. So, this is why I took six years of French. I don't know what preconcieved notions kept me from this one. It's been a long time since seeing a film with so much wit, culture, and color... to the point of surrealism. Plus, she can park her Doc's next to mine, tous les temps. Wonder if she needs a cook? ....................................................................... Hostel Environment Day Twenty: New Meadows to White Bird Wind, rustling the tent walls... introduction to the day's constant companion. Unseen pressures tugging and pushing like ghosts with attitudes. Everywhere, the unpoken presence of those that called this place home. The Little Salmon River widened and complained as it merged with its parent, tracing a gorge with sage-and-juniper covered walls on either side... mostly pleasant downhill, under a postcard sky. The River Of No Return... great title for a sci-fi, only if the bones of ancients under the rims would be considered. Unnavigable, the entire length... even more fierce as we approached Riggins. Above the settlement loomed green peaks on all sides, called the Seven Devils by the local tribes. Each peak, mythologized to be the home of seven demons that overlooked the river.
From what truth did that come, I wondered. Sometime during all of this, we were told to set our watches up an hour... we'd been propelled in time by crossing back into the west, curiously. Obligatory t-shirt later, we made on for White Bird. History places this as a scene where tribal habitat was disrupted by "westward expansion." Taking, always taking, our predecessors, until the Nez Perce said no more. Shots fired, white people killed... tribal backlash quelled by Chief Joseph's peacemaking. A party he sent to reason with soldiers, fired upon under white flag. And all hell broke loose, in the name of the mountain and the chief who drew a line in the sand.
White Bird Hill. Tomorrow's obstacle. Eight-and-one-half miles of snaking road, from bottom to top. Paved in blood. The wind spoke of it, as day passed into night. |
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