campfires, bats, and the 4th of july

short and sweet? 1:35am on 7/5.

last night we "fake-camped" in the corral garden, in the firepit we "liberated" last year from the foreclosed house behind ours. damn. i shoulda got a picture. we made hotdogs, joked about the girly tablecloth, fired up the coleman lantern, got smoke in our clothes and our hair, burned a few hotdogs over the fire, and laughed. my whatever's youngest son came over and joined us outside, spent some time talking with his dad after i went to bed, then took off back to walnut creek where he lives.

insert random picture of campfire here...

last time we had a fire, there were bats swooping down to get the bugs that were drawn to the light. that was last summer, as i recall. i huddled inside my hoody and finally bolted screaming for the safety of the house.

i can face angry dogs without mussing a hair (have. frequently). i can handle and feed big ol' snakes. love snakes. i can wrangle cats and horses and kids. i never use a flashlight in the dark, and i joke that this is because i'm the meanest thing out there anyway. the dark does not scare me at all. i feel most comfy, as it happens, walking around in the silence outside at 2am. love how peaceful the world gets when everybody else is asleep.

can't handle bats. phobic. FO-BICK. the little brown bat is a mouse with wings. tiniest critter EVER. they make me run screaming. stupidest thing you ever saw. i'm ashamed. deeply.

ok, seen like this, it does look pretty creepy. they just seem really unnatural to me. photo courtesy of luke ormand. check his blog here: wild long island photography. brilliant stuff, maynard!

(turns out, upon a bit of reading, that the probable reason why there aren't any bats around this year is because they're dying in droves from a disease called "white nose syndrome". horrible fungal infection, 95% mortality rate, no known cure. much as bats scare the bejesus out of me, i have to admit they're worth their weight in gold as mosquito catchers, and i love all animals, even the creepy ones...)
 
worked today till 5:30pm, came home to find my whatever was entertaining his brother and his brother's girlfriend. i can't remember the last time his brother came up to see him, so this was a very cool thing. i came in, put on my grubbies, and then we chatted and shit, talked geraniums, played with snowshoes, cat of terror, laughed, etc etc, before they took off to go watch fireworks.

my whatever and i went back inside, and we both fell asleep. work kicked the crap out of me, and i actually felt kinda sick.

and that about wraps up the 4th of july for me.

morgan hill's annual 4th of july parade. i was a volunteer safety marshal last year, but i had to work this year. i AM sorry i missed this. it was really fun. we've got a really great parade. check out the photos from the morgan hill times... but i think you have to have an account on the website to view them. your call. cool pictures. i have to admit, i love living in morgan hill. first time in a really long time i've felt like i belonged to a community.

 random thought: almost cried at work because 11 years ago, on the 4th of july 2001, my mom died of cancer. i purposefully did not write a big, prominent paragraph about this fact. i did not mention it first thing. i'm just telling you this so you don't think i'm weird. i don't know what today was about, but it wasn't mostly about my mom's death. i didn't have a quiet moment to myself to think about my mom's death. i may have to take some time tomorrow, call my mom's sister and have a bit of a grieving space with her.

other than that, no epiphanies, no great spiritual change, nothing remarkable happened, except that my whatever didn't appear to have a problem with his son knowing i pretty much live here. i asked if we should cancel our sleepover and he said no, no reason to cancel. he didn't seem to care that his brother knows for that matter. don't know what to think about that. guess there's no point in analyzing it, and frankly, i feel pretty comfy not analyzing anything. the world is what it is.

left my whatever a $20 for utilities - i figure i should start paying him something since i'm here using the lights and whatnot when he's gone at work.

ok, tired. achy. still feel kinda sick. gonna take my sorry ass off to bed, in my trailer tonight. that's all i gotta say about that.

toodles all...