RDP Tuesday: Purple Haze
Haze? Purple haze? In front of your eyes. Not rose-colored haze, right? Because that’s a whole different matter.
Day: 03/26/2019
POSTS AND OTHER KINDS OF POSTS – Marilyn Armstrong
FOWC with Fandango — Post
This post is about a post, or to put it another way, I’m writing a post about a post.
Right now, we new a new post for a new mailbox in front of this house. And this post is about that. Actually, the post for the mailbox will enable the Postal person to put packages sent by the Post Office into the box, so there’s a lot of posting going on.
I opened up the computer this afternoon in hopes of seeing more information posted about the Mueller report, only to find more agitation about what we don’t know. As a long time viewer of courtroom and cop dramas, I “get” the whole difference between knowing a guy is guilty and having the cold, hard evidence on which to convict him. We have never convicted a sitting president and current bylaws for our Attorney General decline to so do — even if we actually HAD the evidence, which apparently we don’t.
It’s doesn’t mean Trump is exonerated (the report clearly points out that this is not the case), nor does the evidence indicate that this is an innocent guy. What it does indicate is even if there were evidence that might convict him, given his status and power in our government, it would probably not be enough to “get the job done.”
We got off “cheap” because Nixon resigned rather than embarrass his party.
Trump doesn’t give a rat’s ass about his party or for that matter, his country or how we stand in the world.
I have to say I never expected a different result from this. I hoped it would be a stronger evidentiary case, but I was pretty sure that given one thing and another, it wouldn’t be enough to see the Bad Guys led away in cuffs. That was never going to happen, no matter how much we wished it would.
So it’s back to the election in 2020. It was always about the election in 2020. Anyone who knows anything about our history — American history — knew we were going to have to vote our way out of this disaster. We are going to have to strap on a national pair of brass ones, get down to business, stay on track, and put a better president in the White House. Otherwise, we will live another four years with this nightmare.
It is up to us and it was always up to us. As a nation, we got ourselves into this soup and we are going to have to get ourselves out of it, too. If we succeed in doing that, we will be a much stronger country. If we don’t, we’ll be a blip in the history books.
Do we have the National Balls to fight this battle or are we going to wimp out, whine, and complain to each other about how we got tricked? Garry still thinks it’s going to go the way of Al Capone; that in the end, we’ll get him (post-presidency) on money-laundering or tax evasion or something like that. You can’t always prove The Big Charge … but you can usually nail them on “smaller” ones. There are a lot of cases still pending and the New York FBI is a powerful organization … and so are the courts.
Meanwhile, it will cost about $20 to buy a new post for the post box so we can get our post from the post office. And this post is free of charge.
ROOTS, ROCKS, AND STONES – Marilyn Armstrong
New England was one of the first place in North America that Europeans set down roots. I’ve always wondered why. Especially in New England.
Those people were farmers and if there’s one thing you can say about this area is that it’s not great farm country. Not only is the weather awful, but there is no topsoil in most places. It’s not a bad place for orchards and dairy cattle, but everything else? It’s pretty hard to find a large, flat area with good earth.
Up the driveway, stone fence holds up the garden. Owen hauled those boulders from the middle of the woods
Between the hills, mountains, boulders, and trees, there’s almost no earth you can plow without moving a lot of rocks first. That’s from where all our stone fences emerged. They were not created to divide areas of land. The farmers just needed a place to put all the rocks.
This is also why you find rock walls in the middle of nowhere. The middle of the woods. Where the stone fences were put didn’t really have a lot to do with location, just how far they could haul that rock before they said: “Okay, this is as far as I am going!” The horses always agreed.
Eventually, someone got the bright idea to dig up the rocks and pound them into gravel. It turns out that you can never have too much gravel and sand in this world. We also have a lot of big holes in the ground that have filled up with water because no one is using them anymore.
Photo: Garry Armstrong
Is there a child who, one hot summer’s day, won’t take the plunge into an old quarry? This doesn’t always work out well. Over the past few decades, cities throughout the region have been trying to fill in those holes. Too many kids diving in, hitting unexpected rocks and drowning. It would also seem that diving into a quarry is the easy part. Getting out can be fraught with challenges.
Last night, my son pointed out this his house is actually built on an old gravel pit. That probably explains why they have such a nice, flat piece of ground … but also explains why the backyard is about 12 feet lower than the front yard.
New England has quarries. Lots of them. In use, out of use, full of water. That’s what you do in a land full of rocks and roots. Dig!
AVAILABLE TODAY! THE LATEST DAVIS WAY CRIME CAPER, DOUBLE AGENT by GRETCHEN ARCHER
DOUBLE AGENT – A DAVIS WAY CRIME CAPER #8
By Gretchen Archer
Print Length: 252 pages
Publisher: Henery Press
Publication Date: March 26, 2019
It’s a category four — and soon-to-be category five — hurricane. They call it Kevin, but at the Bellissimo Resort and Casino in Biloxi, Mississippi. they are calling it the “the end of the world.”
Maybe not the absolute end, but close enough. Nothing this powerful has come ashore since Katrina flattened Louisiana. The Bellissimo has been built to withstand a reasonable amount of weather stress. It is, after all, on that frequently thrashed southern U.S. coast … but nothing is built strong enough to take this kind of pounding.
So, the name of the game is evacuation. Davis Way wants to get everyone out the door and most especially, her twins, her husband and of course, everyone on the casino and resort staff. It looks like she and Fantasy have more than enough time to get it done.
They’ve been carefully monitoring the track of the storm. They have to cash out ten slot machines, secure the funds, then move everyone out of the reach of hurricane Kevin.
Sounds easy enough, right?
Wrong.
After clearing most of the slot machines, fifty million dollars of the cash vanishes. Instead, they find a corpse.
Definitely dead.
That would be bad enough, but there are more bodies to come. Bodies keep turning up while Davis is desperate to get everyone out of the Bellissimo.
At which point who should arrive but her boss and body double, Bianca Sanders. A woman who doesn’t appear to have a grip on what’s going on because she has fled to the Bellissimo to get out of danger, but while she was fleeing, the storm changed direction.
Who else has shown up?
Eddie, Davis’ ex-ex. And his pet pig. Or is it his girl friend’s pet pig? It’s definitely someone’s pet pig. Eddie has been shot and is sure he’s dying, but as it turns out, he’s not dying, but he’s sure his girlfriend is dead. She’s not dead either … but someone else IS dead because they found the corpse in the fountain in the main court.
There’s a double agent somewhere. Instead of evacuation, it’s more like coagulation including some very odd people. All of whom claim to be inspectors from one official agency or another, but … well … neither Davis, Fantasy, or Bradley … or those very strange and drunken meteorologists thought so either.
Meteorologists?
As the storm finally begins to make landfall and there’s a whiff of poison in the air. As Davis, Fantasy, and Bradley do their best to track down who is who and doing what and whether the Bellissimo is the victim of one incredibly complicated heist or possibly several unrelated but intertwining heists, a lot of lives and more than a few deaths are on the line as the various knots are teased apart and the water finally recedes.
This is by far the most lethal, complex, and frightening Davis Way caper to date. You’ll need your best mystery-solving abilities to find your way to the end. It’s an exciting ride with never a dull moment!
This is a sophisticated and extremely complex mystery. Until the end, I was not entirely sure who were the bad guys, the worse guys, the worst guys … and maybe not such bad guys after all. And occasionally, a good guy.
Gretchen Archer’s ties up all the ends into a neat bow. And it all makes sense.
AVAILABLE ONLINE AND IN STORES — TODAY, MARCH 26th, 2019!
HUNTERS AND HUNTED – Marilyn Armstrong
We live in the Blackstone Valley. During our 18 years here, more and more predatory animals have moved into the region.
A relaunch to the feeder from the rail
We used to have rabbits and chipmunks and other small mammals. I remember when the chipmunks used to line up and chatter at us.
Meanwhile, we have gotten bobcats and many more coyotes. Many hawks and eagles (American eagles, mostly, but also Cooper’s and Red-tailed hawks and many others … and Fishers … and bear tracks have been found all over the area and I don’t think they have been hibernating this winter, either.
Tufted Titmouse
I have not seen a rabbit or a chipmunk in years. We saw bobcat tracks after the recent snow, so we know they are in the area again … and the coyote never leave. The fisherS are part now a regular part of our wildlife. A few days ago, a Cooper’s Hawk glided past the deck and the feeders and the birds fled.
The squirrels hid under the metal table on the deck.
I think they feel safer on my deck than they do in the woods. Many of them show a lot of scarring from encounters with hawks.
Two Red House Finches
For several days, the feeders were empty. Today, they’ve started to come back, a few at a time. The Cardinal was back, some nuthatches and finches. They are easily frightened by the hunters.
Oh yeah? What are you gonna do about it?
We seem to have a massive number of hunters and a serious lack of prey.
I’m sure the increasing urbanization in other areas of New England is forcing wildlife towards this region which remains relatively rural and wooded … but there isn’t nearly enough food for all of them.
How did we get heavy with predators and light in prey? Usually, the small mammals outbreed the predators which maintains the balance, but that has not been happening.
Squabbling Juncos
And is there anything we can do to balance things?
I can’t think of any answers. This has happened mostly during the past 10 years, but with the upsurge of the coyote population and the roaming bobcats, it has gotten worse. With the weather warming up, the bears will become more lively, too.
It’s going to become very interesting around these parts!
