The Wood Beyond The World Forum Is anybody out there?

Is the Wood empty?  It's awfully quiet out there. . . Well, for Pete's sake, somebody say SOMETHING!  I can't stand awkward silences.

Jeanie

It happens every summer...no, not baseball, but he the silencing of the woods. 

 

Nick.

Nick, thank God!  It was getting creepy in here all alone.

lol yep, I'm checking in every so often, but everyone seems to be busy.

I hope everyone's having fun at least!

Zuri,

Nice to know you're still lurking out there. Fun?  Nope, just working and trying to survive the Alabama heat.

Jeanie

Aha!  So Nick is out there.  And Zuri.  And Loekie over there on his own delightful thread (to which I've just posted.)

 

The few, the proud, the loyal Woodfolk.

 

Nick's right.  Last summer we had a long slump too -- I think the more northerly of our members get caught up in getting outside, don't feel like hunching over their computers after a long, hard winter.  Jeanie, I commiserate with you, stuck in Alabama in the summer.  I put in my 18 years in Louisiana.  We've been back Albuquerque almost exactly a year -- last summer the Wood was buzzing for awhile about my family's trek to get here.

 

So it's hot here in the desert too, of course, but we're at a high enough elevation to cool off at night, and dry enough that in the shade in the daytime is fairly tolerable.

 

Any other weather reports?

 

What's it like in Australia this time of year, for example?

It's winter here. Lovely Winter.

We've had a bright sunny morning but now the clouds have come over and it's going to rain soon. I love weather like this.

The only downside is that my husband want to take his Joey Scouts out spotlighting in the park tonight and they might get wet. At least it won't be too cold for them.

 

I've also checking in every few days and not finding anyone. We need one of Loekies discussions. Any topics we haven't covered?

Have we discussed race? And I don't mean elves and men. Is everyone in your book white or do you have mixed communities?

In Servant of the Phrenet there are not 'races' as we know it. Some people have white skin, some black, some olive,  just as some people have blue eyes and some brown. It is just a physical trait and not a definition.

Does any one want to run with this topic?

Gayna  

Fear not, Gayna, that is a topic we shall cover. You have no idea on how many threads I have in my mind. Be afraid, be very afraid. Hee-hee.

But many of the active denizen of the Woods now have nice weather and more important things to clutter our lives :-) I can actually spend time down the street, in a delightful park and write. Or be on a terrace, with a beer and write. Or do my favorite pastime, walk about the city and people watch. That is where I got the idea for my latest thread - see a blind person helping another blind person crossing the street.

For me, up in the snowy north of Canada, the weather has been totally bizarre. For a few days it will be in the 90's and then drop to the 50's. My biggest b***h is all the f**king rain! We got tons of snow this year and now it is rain. I have lost count how many times I have gotten to work or home soaked this year. Yes, Nick, I know there is a device called an umbrella that could help but they hate me. It is a conspiracy.

And Jeanie, it is never silent in the Wood. I always here the sounds of chirping and tittering. But as you can see, be it Nick, Leah or myself, we are never far from the Wood. Yet I will ask, should we be the only ones breaking the silence? There are amazing people in the Wood, all have something to say. Speak your mind, start a thread, rant, rave, pontificate...

Oh-oh, I think it is time for my meds :-)

The weather in London has been improving slowly but steadily. The last few weeks have been really good but I think everyone's on edge about whether we'll get a summer this year. Last year we didn't and the nation was despressed for the whole winter!

 

An umbrella is neccesity for me too for the most part of the year, and even though I love when it rains, I hate getting wet. I end up buying loads of umbrellas cos I end up carrying them around even when I don't need them and lose them all over the place. The trick to mastering an umbrella, Loekie, is to find the right length and colour to match you and betwitch it. Then it will behave and stay upright during the winds!

 

Good to see you all.

I've never had any luck with umbrellas. They usually break the first time I use them. I don't know if it's because I buy cheap ones or because when it rains here it is usually windy. I prefer the good old trusty raincoat.

 

One rainy afternoon at school all the mums were keeping their kids undercover. All except one little girl.While her mother talked to another mother, Emily was happily dancing around in the downpour that was coming off the roof. The children watched enviously while the mothers were horrified. The girl's mother was not concerned when she saw her. I guess you don't worry about your kids getting cold and wet when your husband is the local paediatrition.

My problem with umbrellas has always been losing them. I had an entire utility room full of umbrellas in Louisiana, but I never used 'em because I knew they'd end up in the Umbrella Triangle if I took them out of the house.

My dad would never ever let us play in the rain, no matter how warm it was, and I was always so envious of the kids with bad, neglectful parents who would. So I always let mine do it, if they want to. Summer rain here in NM is icy cold, usually, so it isn't as much of a temptation as it was in LA. In any case, I don't think we've had unusual levels of illness as a result of periodically getting soaked.

We haven't had a drop of rain for months -- and before that it had been months too. Lots of forest fires in the mountains, especially earlier in the spring when the high winds were kicking up. Today it sprinkled a little in Old Town, but not so much as a spit here at home. If I don't water the shrubberies thoroughly at least twice a week, they'll die. Rainy season is scheduled to begin in mid-July, about the time of Santa Fe's annual Rodeo (rain and Rodeo comprise a local conspiracy theory.) But I think we might be in for a drought this year.

My favorite time of year here is fall, but really it's pretty darn nice almost all the time. Seldom too hot, and never too cold (for me at least.) Sometimes I get a little tired of it being sunny almost all the time, but I guess I can live with that.

I complain a lot about the heat, but right now it's not too bad, as Alabama summers go.  It's a balmy 94 degrees in the shade, which is cool for this part of the world.  As the summer progresses, it gets hotter, hovering around the 100 degree mark, with heat indexes several degrees higher than that. 

The thing that wears me out is the duration.  Some years, it gets hot here in April or May, and stays hot until October.  The humidity is awful.  It's like being slowly stewed alive.  Thank God for air conditioning.  When I was a kid, we didn't have air conditioning in our cars, houses, or schools, and I don't remember being all that miserable.  Guess I didn't know any better.

But, on the plus side we have mild winters, so I'll quit my bitching.  My husband is from North Dakota, so he knows about the cold.  We went there once in the wintertime, and I thought I would die!  Of course, I didn't have the right kind of clothes, which probably didn't help.  I came away from there with a supreme respect for Mid Westerners. 

Jeanie

 

Jeanie:

 

My husband, Ron, says the same thing of childhood summers in Louisiana without air-conditioning -- they didn't seem unbearably hot.  My theory is that they weren't.  There was more green in those days, less concrete, fewer cars, and -- here's the ironic part -- no air-conditioners spewing out heat all day long.

 

I agree with you about duration -- southern summers are interminable, just like northern winters.  At least up north we HAD a summer -- in the south there's no winter to speak of.  I'm definitely addicted to having four distinguishable seasons.

Leah,

I agree about the concrete thing.  I believe we are defintiely heating up the world with pavement and parking lots.  We need flying cars, that we can dock in mid air, doing away with the need for highways and parking lots.  Of course, an alternative fuel source would be nice too.

We have lots of kudzu and fire ants down here, and cockroaches so big you can put a saddle on them and ride them to work.  If somebody would just figure out how to make fuel out of any of those things, the south would be rich! 

Oh, and armidillos.  We have lots of those, too.  Some brilliant person brought them into Florida, and now they're everywhere. They have dug big holes in my yard.  Creepy little things.  They give me the willies. They just ain't natural looking.  Like some prehistoric holdover.

Stinkbugs give me the willies, too, but that's a different story.

Jeanie

Ooh, yes, armadillos are weird.  On observing one crossing the street one night in our quiet little Louisiana town, I figured out why they're the most common form of road kill wherever they dwell -- they're so dumb they forget which direction they're going in the middle of the street and start wandering around in circles.  If  a car should come along, they're toast.

 

Mosquitoes and fire ants -- I'm not sure which is worse.  We have neither here in Albuquerque, be we do have some pretty outstanding roaches.  They live in the sewers, and party under the lampposts at night, get into the house through any crack they can find, in walls or plumbing.  Exterminators are useful in this regard, except that every morning you have to sweep the dead roaches off the porch and patio.

 

We have black widow spiders too, and centipedes. The spiders aren't so bad, as their messy webs are recognizable, and if you keep your carport or garage tidy they don't establish residence.  Centipedes are sneakier.

 

I've never seen a scorpion in town, but have out in the desert.  Rattle snakes too.

 

We had a snake that looked dangerous once in our backyard in Louisiana.  My husband called the police department and the dispatcher told him "Ah can't send d' snake-man -- he in jail -- fo' fightin'."  A sheriff's deputy came out, revolver at the ready, but ended up just picking the offending reptile up with a long stick and flinging it into the neighbor's yard.  He said he didn't think it was poisonous.

Leah,

Hey, he got rid of the snake for  you, didn't he?  I reckon you didn't know that snakes respect property lines, and don't cross over  into your yard once they been flung. What you had there, ma'am, was a gen-u-wine snake handler.  You pay extra for that.

Ah, yes, life in the South!  Everybody here is a character, and everybody knows yo' mama, so you best be on your good behavior.

I lived in New York the first year of my marriage, and used to take great delight in walking down the streets of Manhattan and saying good morning to the busy commuters.  Talk about freaking some people out!  Folks in Manhattan don't break line, and they DON'T say good morning to strangers on the streets.  It's just not done.  They'd get all wild eyed and hurry off.  We lived in Jackson Heights and Queens was a different story.  I felt right at home there. 

Here, everybody talks to everybody, and everybody's in everybody else's b'ness. My husband has lived here since '78, and is still amazed.

On the other  hand, he sings Broadway tunes at the top of his lungs in the dentist office, and nobody thinks he's weird.

Okay, maybe they do think he's weird, just not any weirder than anyone else around here.

 

Jeanie

And I thought Australia had all the bugs and dangerous critters.

We have a dugite snake (very poisonous) that sometimes lives near the house. I've seen it about four times in ten years, but I suspect it is usually around. I saw it last summer under the bush where the  children some times play. We were having a water filtration tank installed so there there ment moving around and I watched it go under the bush and into a hole in the retaining wall. I called Alan, our local snake man, but he was out with a broken leg. I haven't seen it since and the children don't play there any more.

One day when Stephen was just a baby the snake went around the house looking in every window that went to the floor. That was creepy. We got rid of the bird avary that was breeding the mice it ate soon after that.

Gayna

Gayna,
Snakes looking in the windows of your house like Freddie Kruger trying to get in, that's way scary. 

My twenty-six year old niece recently grew tired of a local opossum eating all of her cat's food and decided to try and catch him.  She called the city, and they gave her a trap and told her how to bait it.  She checked with the local police and made sure it was all right for her to shoot the possum once she trapped it, and they said yes.  She baited the trap and waited, and, sure enough, caught the possum.  She went outside to shoot it. . . . and couldn't do it.  She called my husband, a great big macho kind of guy, and asked him to come and shoot the wicked catfood eating possum.

My husband sailed out of here with his gun. . . and came back 45 minutes later.  Neither one of them could shoot the possum, which was big and fat and sitting in the cage looking all pitiful and depressed.  The two of them loaded the possum up in the back of the car, and drove him to a state park about ten miles away, and released him.

I thought it was all very funny.  I knew my soft hearted husband couldn't shoot a caged possum.  Our Lab, the mighty hunter, once caught a chipmunk and paralyzed it.  The look on my big strong husband's face when he had to put the chipmunk out of its misery was unforgettable.

Jeanie

Thought I'd make the time to check in.  A couple months ago, I was asked to put together a reunion of people who descend from the Hudson's Bay Company employees who worked at Fort Langley in British Columbia, Canada, between 1827 and 1886, and have been hip deep in beating bushes, locating, sorting, and collating genealogy records, sending out emails and snail mails to folks, some of whom I haven't "spoken to" since early August 2002.  Been mostly successful.  However I hit a moment when I realized that though I can recite from memory the children of 4 Fort Langley families, and who they married, I had not a clue as to what day of the week was until I looked at my cell phone.  It was time to come up for air.

A cool thing has happened.

Back last November, I was in Fort Langley on Douglas Day (Nov 19 [Douglas as in James Douglas, the first governor of British Columbia]) for the parade.  Got to chatting with the nephew of the Kwantlen First Nations chief and in the discussion that ensued I was invited to attend a seminar in March.  I thought this was a cool thing because I am eager to learn about my great great grandmother's people and traditions. 

I went.  It was great.  A sister of the chief asked me afterwards if I would like to come speak at a thing they were doing in May.  I said, "Sure."  It just doesn't suck to be invited to things by a member of the chief's family, never mind them both being really nice people I'm pleased to be able to call friends.

The Thing was called "Oral Traditions: Hear Our Voices".  I spoke on the second and final day.  It went well.  The last speaker was a fellow named Richard Van Camp.  Métis fellow out of the Northwest Territories.  And a published author.  He had heard my 30 minute speech.  When I mentioned I had done some writing, he asked a few pointed questions.  When I'd answered all 20 questions, he urged me to pitch my story to his editor.  I thought about it for, oh, all of 5 maybe 7 seconds.  I looked up Kegedonce Press on the Internet. 

It's a small publishing house out of the Cape Croker Reserve in Ontario, Canada.  They're Native owned and operated.  There's a nice page on Richard Van Camp.

The timing of this…  Between the chain of events leading to meeting Mr. Van Camp, and that I had just finished applying something I had not really understood until a fellow named William W. Wraith--great guy.  Some of you here may know him--explained it. 

I sent in a letter of introduction, a description of my story, a brief biography, and the first 10 pages of the 2nd chapter of SomeWhen Over the Rain Clouds.

Only time will tell if I fully grokked the concept and proper application of action verbs, but I am hopeful.

Got an email a few days ago from the publishing coordinator at Kegedonce Press.  After acknowledging the receipt of my submission, I was told that though the managing editor had not yet had the chance to read it, she would with in the next two months.  Ya know...?  I could work with a publisher like that.  Perhaps I'll get a chance.  <crossing fingers ... toes... eyes...>

Wow, Lisa, that is great!  Gives me shivers how the cosmos works!  I hope it goes well for you, and I will keep my fingers crossed!  To be published. . . . whoa.  Way, way cool.

Jeanie