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Maybe for lack of interesting things to share, I've been
hardly keeping this journal. It's been warm and dry this
December which is pretty unfortunate. Makes me want to
look at cabins in Vermont or something. Spent some time
working on the rock retaining wall around the garden and
listening to Hardboiled Wonderland and the End of the
World. Played a bit of Rimworld with Y, and got a new
used dining table. I've got most of my most recent
collectibles scanned in and I'm trying to convince
myself to work on the coding aspect of archiving but I'm
worn out from doing that day-in and day-out during the
week. Y is due in March so that should be a nice break
from the screen.
I have adopted a pattern of napping for a few hours each
evening. I'd probably try to break the habit but it's dark
by 4pm anyway so changing the time I'm active after work
doesn't really make a difference on my activities. Not
super tired yet. Maybe I'll maintain the nap until the
inevitable sleep quality shake-up of having a kid.
A drizzly day, lovely crop of mushrooms in the yard.
Went to a sale at a nearby ranch, old mans wife had passed
and he was packing up to go home to canada. After fidgeting
with a number of old av toys, I got a 35mm film strip
viewer thing. Beautiful goats on buck mountain. Passed by a
sign for Fungus Forest which seemed like a burning man
gathering or something and I was too autistic to go up and
say hello. Got some wood for the trellis and stopped by
Sierra Moonshine for brewing aupplies for a cider. I'd
picked up a box of swingtops from the side of the road for
free. John at Sierra Moonshine, former Cincinnatian,
friendliest guy ever, got me started on supplies and a basic
beer recipe.
It started snowing this evening, just after I got home from
checking out my parents new place. Played some DF and read
the magazine from the yuba watershed institute. I want to
get my fireplace to work now
I got up early and took a table and some living essentials
over to my parents before heading down to georgetown for a
sacramento area mushroomers fungi foray. We all met up in a
parking lot at a school- bunch of nice folks from a variety
of backgrounds, couple folks my age-- a high
schooler/mycological wizkid, someone whose first job out of
college is at a startup using mycellium as a base for meat
substitutes, a fish biologist-- older folks, professors,
docents, foreat service workers, fema employees. We went to
a equestrian campground but found it was too snowy to find
much so we went to Darling Ridge which is apparently pretty
popular. I found a couple polypores, but others hit the
jackpot with a bunch of matsutake mushrooms. The weather
was great and I'm glad I made the trip out there. Had pizza
for a bit with some of the regulars before heading home and
getting some furniture with my parents at the restore. I
was wiped by 20:00
It was a wonderful rainy day-- about 2 inches came down. I
did one task at work and signed off. I helped set up Ubuntu
on Y's computer and got a cool moving background configured
for her. All because I couldn't figure out how to get
Windows to install. But fuck it, if Windows is going to be
a pain, it can go fuck off. Anyway, I drove out to Yuba
City, down the gorgeous road from Smartsville to
Olivehurst. Being wet out, the fields were verdant green
and full of pools of water. Cows and sheep working at the
grass. But the central valley was a mess of impoverished
dwellings and giant suburban cookie cutter developments in
the middle of flat nothingness. I got a changing table from
a woman in one of those houses who was in the midst of a
pretty rough seeming breakup. Back home I began taking
boxes of my old shit from my parents back to my house. I'll
go through those boxes in due time. In the evening,
rearranged furniture and created a writing table in the
bedroom while listening to a couple pretty solid djs on
kdvs playing synthwave followed by edm.
I didn't sleep much due to the sound trees cracking and
falling. Got up at 6 to triage the yard--tried scraping
some snow to limited effect. Sustained damage to the deck
railing, a limb is still half-attached to a tree and the
house. Got Y out of the house and down to the Stevensons
place along with the frogs. They have a whole house
generator and five days worth of fuel in addition to a
wood-burning fireplace. Definitely wish we could heat our
house that way or that I had figured out how to fix our gas
fireplace. Did my best to help Kelly clear out trees and
debris. I'm so incredibly exhausted. Downed powerlines all
up Hillsdale, but La Barr was cleared up by some vigilante
tree cutters. Grateful for the self-reliance out here. No
one will dare take money. Staying with the Stevensons was a
bit awkward but an absolute lifesaver. The frogs would have
died by now. They gave us a little generator that let us
get the house up to 60 before we went to sleep. I don't
think our fish are going to make it.
Tuesday, day two and spent it clearing trees. Stopping by
the Stevensons to check on the frogs and found one had
escaped. Y nearly had a panic attack, but found the fellow
under a cabinet. Time to leave the area, doesn't look like
power will be coming back any time soon. Bruce got in last
night and this morning got out a backhoe and cleared the
rest of the road with the help of many other neighbors with
chainsaws and ingenuity, got the power line suspended high
enough to allow people and cars to pass under. I wonder
when the power company will come assess our damage,
apparently the neighborhood to our south is a hellscape and
much more densely populated. After the roads were clear,
fuel runs commenced and a neighbor brought back enough
diesel to allow Vruce to clear my driveway, allowing Y and
I to evacuate out of town-- leaving just before sundown and
taking the long journey to stay with family in San Jose.
Mental note to get a garden tractor. On our way out, we
dumped off some of the food from our refrigerator, several
gallons of water, and a chainsaw to my parents. They are
still snowed in, but handling it calmly, even without a
functioning well. Melting snow on the stove and using it to
flush the toilets. "Just like the old days on the farm" my
mother told me thinking back to her childhood. Y's family
is out on vacation so we found ourselves a
comfortable-enough spot in their fully functioning home and
passed out.
Went to back to work from the couch, but found I couldn't
get my mind off the storm. I went out and bought a
generator, another chainsaw, several gas containers, candles,
non-perishable food, batteries. Yvonne ordered a portable
solar panel that fits our big power bank. I'm still so
frustrated we couldn't get a battery installed for our home
solar install in time for this storm. I would have had to
climb up on the roof and clear the snow from the panels
and probably fallen on my ass but at least I would have
felt some return on that investment. Instead– due to line
safety issues– if the power is out the solar panels are
turned off. Our home is sitting there with the main breaker
flipped, the water and gas shut off. In the evening we got
dinner with some of our friends in south bay and played
rummikub with Y's family.
Another day of limited-deployment-window work, but this
time Y's mother insisted that I use her office. It's
sound proofed and incredible. Actually got some stuff done
and kept my mind off the storm. Still calling my parents
every couple of hours to make sure they are alright. Y
can't understand why they would be so stubborn in not
coming down with us to San Jose. They've got boxes to
unpack and neighbors to get to know, they'll be alright.
Y's mother taught us how to make her famous banh mi
baguettes– an incredibly elaborate ritual that produced
the greatest bread I've ever had. No chance I'd ever
repeat a recipe that complex, but still fun to have once.
In an attempt to make this evacuation at least feel a
little like a holiday, we took a trip to the California
Academy of Sciences in Golden Gate Park, SF. We got in
early enough that it wasn't terribly crowded. It's a cool
museum with genuinely good science, but still awfully
corporate with google sponsorships and weird VIP lounges
and stuff. I think my favorite part of the museum is the
specimen room– full of skulls, taxidermy, and shelves of
interesting books. If I'd been thinking I'd have looked
through one of the books on arboreal science. As the
museum got more crowded we sort of rushed through the
butterfly garden and aquarium where we would have likely
spent hours had Y not been 7 months pregnant. We
considered stopping in Japantown for a bit, but massive
crowds convinced us to go straight to our evening's
destination of San Mateo. We had dumplings and stopped by
B Street Books where I got a few tomes I'd been thinking
about since the last time I visited six months ago. We
went over to a friend's place to play some games and start
drinking in the new year. Before getting too drunk I
booked an airbnb in Auburn for the next week so we'd have
a place to work out of. After some Sichuan, we assembled
cocktails and popped an $8 bottle of brut. Y stayed sober
of course and didn't seem too irritated by us. Played the
latest Jackbox and Mario Party until about 2am. Great to
visit again.
- Frogs in the driveway
- Snow shoceling and chainsaw with katie and doopelgamger weird
- lucian was blond then had black hair