the weekend

 i had a pretty internally and family focused weekend and it was good. i mostly stayed around the house and such this weekend.

saturday night i went and had dinner with my auntie, who is resplendent in her new abode. she moved back to the same complex she was in before, but the nicer model of 1 bedroom, it’s much larger and she is very happy. some people just can’t live with other people and i think she is in that place. two of my brothers that live locally were there too, along with their women. my mom, my sis and i were there. it was sort of crowded, but fun =) we all talked and sort of caught up with each other. i actually sort of bellydanced for them….i showed them my bellyroll which made them all go "ewwwww" it’s quite odd looking if you’ve never seen one….especially on a plus-sized dancer =) let me tell ya, i got some belly to roll…..i always joke that the goddess just gave me an extra ass on the front in case mine ever got completely chewed off.

daughter is doing most excellent. this week represented the first week in which she was no longer considered training and SHE MADE TIPS!! to the tune of $65!! not bad….their store is small and people are still learning that it’s there, i don’t think they advertised that one at all. so, they pool all the tips for the entire week, then on friday night, based on how many hours you work determines how large a percentage of the tips you get. well, that was her share. she actually got mad at me that i made her buy her own food this weekend, but that’s okay, she can be mad…she needs to begin to understand that all she wants in life is not free and how to be frugal with her money =)

sunday, i was really tired. slept in, and then i absolutely HAD to do something with my room. i am not generally a very organized person, but something has to give. with d and i living in the same room, i have a whole lot of crap and it was everywhere. this really frustrates me and i think the room being so dirty was also really doing a number on my sinuses. so, i got down and cleaned yesterday. i hadn’t taken the time in a long time to go through and organize things. i had piles of stuff everywhere! funny enough, i found all the stuff i had brought back from the philadelphia gathering for the old MWWLW board. gosh what an awesome time we had in philly! i had a moment of laughter as i found the schedule and callie had the entire time scheduled, which truly amused me. down to the point of "1:30-3:3:30…free time". that makes me laugh. it was great to get all those memories put away safely though. also did pantheacon the last few years, my trip to new york, and some stuff for my kids that i had lying around.

so, soon i am going to break out the sewing machine, to do some sewing for burning man and some magickal sewing. i want to make an altar cloth because i found where i want to put a small altar that shouldn’t interfere much with anything else. it’s amazing what you find when you go through all your shit! i found gifts i had bought for people on my adventures that i had never given them because i couldn’t find them again =) i am still missing a few things that i thought i had, but i am hopeful that they will turn up again. i also need to make a bag for some jewelry and for my rider-waite tarot deck. i made some cool bags last year, and i’d like to repeat that. i have some raw silk i found again that i am anxious to utilize for these smaller projects and want to get a gold glitter fabric pen to make some decorations on them, perhaps find some simple jewels. my creative wheels are turning, now =)

because i write so seldom, it seems that short and sweet journal entries are not in the cards for me lately.

i will make a conscious effort to update more often so that when i do write, it doesn’t turn into a novella, as is my habit =)

have a great day, everyone.

peace.

small town americana……

this is the last from my trip to central nevada. there are a few more unique things about austin that i wanted to share because i was highly amused….

on a "map of historic austin", there was a listing of businesses, and i swear, on this list, it says "austin baptist church & rv park".

oh.

no.

you.

didn’t.

so, of course, we had to investigate. and no, lie, there they are:

and then, on the building, we saw a sign that left no doubt:

please notice that on the wall, it does, in fact, say "sanctuary" and below that "restrooms" and "showers".

i do believe, that’s my kind of church, if i went to church =)

this intends no disrespect to anyone’s beliefs. this is more to revel in the marvel of small towns and the things they sometimes do to make themselves remain viable.

this was a lot of fun =)

good weekend….

 well, i had a really good weekend.

now, not only do i know what a gridley days is, but i know a lot more about my state’s history than i did, and at the same time, got to hang out with some really cool women, have fun, relax, dance, hike, see people from my own town that convince me yet again that the world is too small, and see some of the most disgusting, prehistoric mutant ninja bugs from hell there ever were, to be sure =)

so, who knew that austin, nevada, was so integral to our state’s and our countries history? not me….considering it almost looks like a ghost town. turns out the gridley days were named for someone named, you guessed it, gridley. seems this man lost an election bet and had to carry a 50lb sack of flour from one town to the next on his back. he did this, and then auctioned off the flour to raise money for the Sanitary Commission, which was a relief organization for Union soldiers and also the precursor of the American Red Cross. He auctioned off the same sack of flour all over the place, eventually raising $275,000 for this organization. cool, i can celebrate that =)

as we were driving into town, we passed a few brown smears on the road. our biggest fear was that we would have to experience mormon crickets, some infestation of these disgusting bugs that happens here in different places each year. i see how folks could truly consider this a scourge of biblical proportions. they are absolutely disgusting and they come in such numbers that they swarm over everything. *shudder* the arrived in the town just as we were leaving. yuck!! i am very much a "live and let live" kind of girl, but these things are just gross, truly. this is what they look like on the side of a building:

on the road:

nasty, i am telling you. it makes my skin crawl just to think of going through them, stepping on them and they crunch. just, ew.

overall, however, the weekend was a roaring success. we were there to cheer our friend on in the parade. we think we were definately the loudest of anyone in the crowd watching the parade, which probably numbered less than 50 people. in fact, i daresay that the number of people IN the parade was greater than the number of people watching the parade =) ahhhh, small town americana, to be sure.

the cool thing, though, is that we did learn an awful lot about nevada history, got some really cool resources that applied to the whole state and this little town might have had only two restaurants, no viable store, and more bars and churches than anything else, but they had some damn fine shopping =) nevada is like a geologists wet dream apparently, and there were crystals and gems and native turquoise that was awesome.

we had take a lot of booze with us, but really, our paltry offerings were nothing compared to the level of seasoned professionalism we experienced in the drinkers that were there for the festivities. we saw a man vomit his way down the main street, and it honestly made us wonder if this is the real reason they once made sidewalks from wood planks….because the vomit just sort of runs through the cracks, no mess cleanup =) we had a bucket of margaritas and some home brew. it made things a lot cheaper for us, but really, we were no match.

there were two restaurants in the town, and apparently neither of them were ready for the influx of about 100 people into their normally 20 person town =) the one cafe, we waited over an hour for our food. apparently they needed to keep the cow alive until the last second and only cut off a piece at a time so they could use it for other stuff as long as possible. this was surrounding my friends request for a chicken fried steak =) or, it could be that we are just spoiled city folk who are used to immediate gratification and smaller town folk just don’t respond well to that, which is more likely the case =)

the town is sort of like virginia city, without all the touristy trap stuff. this is kind of laughable if you’ve ever been to virginia city, that might have a population of 500. when i think of the fact that i saw that many people on a single subway train in new york city, it puts things in perspective rather nicely for me =) i may post more pictures when my friend posts them.

on the way home sunday morning though, we had a really good time. every time we saw a historic marker, we stopped and read what everything was about. we learned about nevada’s pony express, early settlements, and mining towns. it’s pretty amazing that a hundred years ago, there was a booming town in the spot of the marker and now, there’s just nothing. sometimes not even a rock or a part of a foundation. just emptiness.

we also came across a petroglyph site that was pretty amazing. they estimate the glyphs are between 5,000 and 10,000 years old. pretty cool stuff and a very, very easy hike. there are some hidden caves around that sound pretty cool too. so, we found lots of stuff to do on future forays, also.

i talked to my son for about an hour on the phone last night. the life lessons are coming hard and fast now. he totally blew me away last night. he called my husband, who he’s always had an adversarial relationship with. he’s always looked down on my husband in that "know-it-all" way that is so charming with teenagers like he was a washed-up old man. now that he’s kind of doing stuff on his own, he sees that d has always been there for him and he’s had a pretty nice life. d has proveded for him, and we’ve always allowed him to be his own person and supported him in whatever he wanted to do. the competition and discension between them has been something that has hurt me forever. to have two of the people i love the most in the world act like they hate each other just tore me up.

so my son called d yesterday and told him that he loved him, thanked him for being a good dad, told him he was proud to call him dad, and apologized for not being the greatest kid in the world. this made me cry to think that he’s finally seeing these things. you can’t force a young person to see stuff like this, they have to come to it on their own. he wasn’t a bad kid, but he did always treat us like we were inferior or something. it was an attitude thing. it’s good to see that he’s seeing life a little different these days….

as soon as they finish up where they are in petersburg alaska, they are headed to nome, alaska, where he hopes to do a bit more technical stuff. he’s doing good, no more near-death experiences, which is good.

daughter did good all weekend, she worked and to hear her tell it is a rising star at one of the ice cream shops where they make your combinations by hand on cold slabs and sing you songs when you tip them. it amazes me that this is fun to her, but more power to her if she enjoys it.

i better end this novella for now. good to get it all out, though.

peace.

ho hum….

it’s very hard to be.

i am sad for people that i have read here for a very long time who have just experienced a tremendous loss. it certainly puts things in perspective for my sad little life that isn’t sad at all, compared to what some others are going through.

right now, i am not in a good headspace.

i just typed out a bunch of stuff and then deleted it.

i am having a conversation i don’t feel very well equipped to have.

the girl i had a brief fling with next year, she moved away. now, she’s moving back. i don’t know how to feel about that. in some ways, i have moved on.

my son called me tonight to tell me that he loved me because he says he almost died today.

i am a swirl of emotions right now.

more later…

peace.