Once upon a time, when I was a wee lass, my mother took me to Kenai, which is an hour and a half away from where we lived, but was big enough to have small mall/shopping center, and a big grocery store. We would go to Kenai/Soldotna to buy exotic things like peppermint ice cream.

If there was a reason other than getting to see a baby tiger this time, I don’t remember. The important thing is that I got to hold a tiger cub and have my picture taken on Polaroid (no doubt for a nominal fee).

It’s a bad scan of an old photo, but ain’t we cute?

I was listening to the Clancy Brothers & Tommy Makem, and their commentary in live concert recordings is absolutely hilarious. One track begins with one of the brothers quoting (in his lovely Irish voice), “Boys and girls, ladies and gentlemen,
Our revels now are ended. These our actors,
As I foretold you, were all spirits and
Are melted into air, into thin air:
And, like the baseless fabric of this vision,
The cloud-capp’d towers, the gorgeous palaces,
The solemn temples, the great globe itself,
Yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve
And, like this insubstantial pageant faded,
Leave not a rack behind. We are such stuff
As dreams are made on, and our little life
Is rounded with a sleep.
…what I’m askin ye, in Shakespeare’s words, is, have ye no homes to go to?’
The audience responds that no, they haven’t, and so they proceed with another song.

Once I wrote odd things in the margins of my notes during a philosophy class:

“Brad, I’m breaking up with you. You don’t recognize me as a self-determining human being.”

permanent obligation to tell the truth, not necessarily obligated to tell whole truth
AXE MURDERER: Mel, where’s Joe?
MEL: I refuse to tell you Joe’s whereabouts on the grounds of my belief that you do not intend to treat Joe as an end in and of himself.
AXE MURDERER: Tell me or I kill you.
MEL: Though the consequences of my actions may be to die, I will make a moral choice.
AxE MURDERER: Damn Kantians.

priest to evolutionist: what have you learned from your years of study of God’s creatures?
evolutionist: that he has an inordinate fondess of beetles.

locate your place in social space!

So I’m visiting my parents for a week, taking advantage of free food, shelter, and wireless internet that doesn’t require precise positioning of the laptop (unlike the wireless we’re, umm, sharing at the apartment in Seattle) and have thusly been inspired to create an offshoot record of the randomiliciousness I look at on the internet, as much so I can find things without resorting to bookmarks as anything. Bookmarks have never helped me overly much…

‘Bet you’d rather be in the mountains.’
It took a second to realize his comment was directed towards me, but I was the only one standing at the bus stop wearing a frame pack, leaning back against the wall of the sky scraper.
‘Oh, yeah, definitely,’ I said, as much to be polite as anything.
‘Better than waiting here with all the addicts.’ He took a swig of his Mt Dew, looking at me sideways. Fortyish, a little grimy.
‘These things happen,’ I replied with a shrug.
‘It’s just not right,’ he sighed, and knelt to tuck the soda bottle into his backpack.
In retrospect, I expect he would rather have been in the mountains himself, than be waiting at a bus stop in downtown Seattle, with the addicts. I was waiting for the bus to the airport, not worried about not being in the mountains because I was about to fly to Alaska, where the mountains would be waiting for me.

Today I got home about a quarter to eight since traffic was slowed down due to the immigration protests. In support of that cause, I’m watching Desperado this evening. So far it seems to be a lot of gratuitous violence. Why does Antonio Banderas shoot everyone everyone a dozen times when once would surely do? It doesn’t speak a lot for his shooting accuracy.
On the way home, the bus was super crowded and the bus driver didn’t make anyone pay. There were three UW students near me who were talking. Two from Alaska, one from somewhere hot. The Alaskans were explaining about summer in Alaska, and how as a small Alaskan child, when you first leave the state in summer, how strange it is to find it both warm and dark. ‘But it’s never warm at night?’ asked the third girl.
‘No,’ said the Alaskan girl. ‘It never gets dark.’
I almost started laughing, because I understand this so well. I remember how amazing summer seemed when I went to summer camp in Pennsylvania. That and fireflies.
The other thing I always find odd about living Outside is that people pay for salmon. That’s not how I was raised.