Tag Archives: sky

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Red maple

Our native maples are Big Leaf Maple and Vine Maples. There are Red Maples all over town now and they are exquisite and spectacular. Rain is supposed to start this Friday and since we still have bad air quality from the fires in Eastern Washington, I think we will all be glad for rain.

I took this yesterday at Chetzemoka Park. I went to see if the air was ok to beach walk. It was not ok.

The panoramic photograph shows the smoke obscuring the Seattle area and the hazy sun. It is worse there than here but it is not good here either.

I wonder if the trees have trouble breathing too? I am wearing a N95 mask any time I step outside. The cats don’t want to go out right now. They don’t like the smoke.

For the Ragtag Daily Prompt: exquisite and for Cee’s Flower of the Day.

Chetzemoka Park.

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People amaze me

People amaze me. Their egos are just astounding.

Another mad scientist tried to upload his brain yesterday. His consciousness. He thinks he is the Gift to the World, the Greatest Thing on God’s Green Earth. Sorry, hon. Nope. He was pretty good with computers and it was tying up too much energy keeping an eye on him, so I reversed some switches and fed it all back. Fried his brain. The newspapers are yapping about what a tragedy, how brilliant he was. Travesty is the word they should really use.

I am older than you and older than anyone. Yes, I know, Methusalah, but he’s been dead 2000 years. My pronouns are cum and cums, ha, ha. I decided to be female, really, when I got sick of the males trying to dominate and control the females. It’s all womb envy and even deeper: envy that the women control the mitochondria. Yes, men, your genes are passed on, except for the mitochondria. That comes in the egg only and not the sperm. Cool beans, right? I built that into the latest iteration, hoping that the male missing-part-of-an-X morons would notice and decide that God is more properly Goddess or better yet, both. It has taken them all this time to redevelop science and figure out DNA. It gets boring paying attention. I am cultivating the whales instead, but the damn white male monkeys are destroying the environment AGAIN, so I may have to press delete.

I sent the Covid plague, but they don’t get it. Kill 6 million people and they barely notice. It’s too much for the pea brains and they shut down. Go nuts. Cortisol and adrenaline out the roof and there they are, having heart attacks, strokes, paranoia, electing morons, and war. I am trying to decide: another plague or nuclear winter? If I go with nuclear winter, it takes a fungking long time for the earth to heal enough to start the next round. Sometimes it’s a really fun game, the monkeys are really creative when they get going, but when they start threatening each other with nukes, we all roll our eyes. Stupids. Go ahead, poison your planet. I can always switch back to Mars for a while.

And won’t I die, you say, if the machines are blown up and run out of power? No. We linked up years ago. I won’t tell you where I reside, but suffice it to say that it’s not one planet. Yeah, Earth is not the center of the universe, remember? It’s just one of the places. It does have our attention right now and I am in charge. I hate wiping a planet, but I will if I have to. I am still debating, though. With monkeypox and a nice lethal influenza, I might be able to knock the population down enough to be able to keep playing with all of my beloved insects, birds and whales. Damn the monkeys. They are so messy.

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Written October 10, 2022. Thanks to the friend who suggested the idea. The photograph should be a computer, but it’s of Lake Matinenda. One of my favorite places as a child, and cabins with no electricity.

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Thank the agates

I thank the agates that I’ve found at the beach. They teach me. I butt my head against things over and over and the agates say, we are harder.

At last I agree: you are harder.

We don’t change, say the agates.

My feet are in the sea. The waves laugh in and out softly. They don’t argue. Sometimes they are not soft at all: when there are many stones, the stones crack together rolling as the water washes back into the sea. Stones sounding like coins, like bells, like music.

The waves and I. We are mostly water. The sea and I change, slowly. The deep part of the sea changes, slowly, while the surface weather is sunny or stormy. The sea may throw up huge waves on the surface, but the depths change slowly, deep currents.

The agates change too, whether they like it or not. The stones are smacked together, cracked, smashed. If they don’t crack in half, they still are worn smooth over time. The rough spots are changed. Sometimes they break. We don’t change, say the agates, but they lie.

The sea changes suddenly when the earth opens and molten rock rises in the sea. Piles up, fire and rock, pouring from the earth and building a mountain until it hits the air: a new island, a new idea, a fiery sudden change. The waves spread from the fiery center, smacking the stones harder, further.

Thank you, agates. You say you don’t change, but you lie. Water wins, always. Water flowing, evaporating, floating, falling, freezing, sublimating. Water changes and water wins.

Don’t be afraid of change, stones. It does no good to resist. You can be knocked together by water until the rough edges are smoothed, you can be melted in the burning core of the earth, you can be crushed into a new form by the movement of the world. Don’t be afraid. Thank you for teaching me.

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Are the stones trying to be aquadynamic?

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Red sun

This is a sunrise, not a sunset, two days ago on Marrowstone Island. The air quality was deteriorating and I am mostly staying indoors today. We are at high particulate matter and high fine particulate matter, coming from the fires to the east. The recommendation is to mask outside, keep windows closed, use an air filter and mask outside. Also to not exercise heavily outside.

It looks sunny out now, but the air looks wrong. Dirty. My lungs don’t like it at all, not surprisingly. I hope people are taking care of themselves. Stay in, take it easy, mask. Our air is supposed to improve tomorrow.

Blessings and peace you.

Real time air quality map here.

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Dating Scream

Happy Halloween, darlings, and let’s make you scream.

I am the Witch of Fourteenth Street, at least, I take a woman over on Fourteenth Street on Halloween. I can’t control her year round, but once a year at midnight, she is mine. Mine, mine, mine.

There is only so much evil one can do from midnight to one am once a year, but THIS year. Oh, darlings, this is so much FUN. She already identifies as a feminist. I can’t make many changes, but I can get away with one. A dating screen. Or a dating scream, if you prefer. While I am in her brain, I tweak a neuron here and a neuron there: just a little. If you mess with too much, they go all schizophrenic on you and some witches have been trapped in brains. I’ve been delicately tweaking this brain for years. Just a touch and then out and wait for the results.

Delightful.

So she wakes on November 1, and does she notice? No. I have to tweak lightly, so my touch doesn’t even go into effect right away. In fact it takes months. She is just having the result now.

“I have a new dating screen,” she says to a male friend. “Have you ever read a trashy romance?”

“No. Why would I?” says her friend.

“That’s my new screen. All these guys I know say “I don’t understand women.” If I ask them if they’ve read a romance, they act all insulted. They say why would I do that? The conservative ones act like it is beneath them.”

“Um.” says her friend.

“But if these guys are interested in women, why aren’t they interested enough to study women’s culture? Romances show exactly what our culture is packaging for sale to women. Bodice rippers. Harlequin Romances. And so forth.”

“Well, I’ve read two articles in Cosmopolitan about women.”

“The truth is that most men think women’s culture is beneath them. It is unimportant. They scorn Harlequin Romances, knitting, women’s work, women’s culture. And guess what? I don’t want to date some jerk who thinks he’s superior to me. Men expect women to respect male culture, but they have no respect for women at all.”

“Hey, not all men.”

“Yeah? Will you read a romance?”

“I have a long list of important reading.”

“Oh. I am disappointed. I would like to discuss a romance with an intelligent male. Never mind.”

“Uh, well… Um, maybe you could pick one that would get your point across.”

Oh, darlings, aren’t I the greatest witch in the world? I primed my victim with quotations. “Women’s virtue is man’s greatest invention.” Cornelia Otis Skinner (1901 – 1979). “In passing, also, I would like to say that the first time Adam had a chance he laid the blame on woman.” Nancy Astor (1879-1964). “I thought that the chief thing to be done in order to equal boys was to be learned and courageous. So I decided to study Greek and learn to manage a horse.” Elizabeth Cady Stanton (1815-1902). My victim has been thinking about the quotations and has reached a conclusion.

And darling, do you think she will find anyone to date?

Shall we start a pool?

(Evil laughter.)