Monthly Archives: June 2024

“Borat! Mom!”

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Navigating while crafting the sea of language back when my then 15-year old daughter underwent wisdom teeth surgery

Soon after the surgery.

My oldest adult child is now a 30 year old nonbinary person named Dylan Blair, and I love them so very much in the way a doty old father stubbornly loves them from nearly 3,000 miles away. I’m bad with pronouns and get my tenses all mixed up. Always have been even before pronouns were a socio-cultural evolution of diversity and inclusion in our chaotic world. Always scrambled my tenses, too. Yet they remind me, still do, and forgive me anyway. Usually. I think. For I do my best to honor one’s choices, and, yes, I mess up sometimes.

Stumbled upon versions of this one foto during a now decades-long project to recover, clean, sort, organize, and share pictures salvaged from the March 2010 house fire. It’s somewhat of an iconic foto in our family. Felt inspired to write about it. Back then, Dylan was known by her birth name Morgan Hannah, or just Morgan. Her mother, Gwen, now Vie, and I wanted a strong, feminine name for our oldest, a name evocative of both mythic warrior women and sorceresses. We wanted a Celtic name, and “Morgan” does have origins in Ancient and Medieval regions of what’s now Wales, Ireland, and even Scotland. Morgan was born a Pisces, and being such a water spirit enhanced our love for the name’s interpretation as “bright sea dweller,” or “bright water nymph.”

Hannah, her second name, originated in the Middle East as a Semitic name and as such is popular among both Arabs and Hebrews of the Levant where it means, “favor” and “grace.” Curiously, too, versions of Hannah are found in old Celtic Gaelic naming, but the connection to the Levant is vague. For my then-wife Gwen and I, Morgan Hannah represented a blending of our historic cultural and religious origins and influences. Ethnically the two of us descended primarily from a mix of Pagan Celtic and Germanic peoples and were raised in a Western civilization based upon Judaeo-Christian monotheism. The Roman Empire tied it all together in unexpected ways. So we called little Morgan Hannah our “graceful water nymph.” Continue reading →

The Debate: Biden versus Trump in Atlanta

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A disaster unfolded last night in Georgia

You watch or listen to The Debate last night?

Missed it myself as has to work. But did watch segments of replays later.

In the moment, it was the most cringe inducing cringe fest in politics I’ve ever witnessed. In hindsight it’s apocalyptic.

Trump clearly won. On style. And was mostly lies and fantasies. To paraphrase one commentator, “Trump was all hot air, but at least he had the air.” Biden was mostly facts, but clearly had no business being up there. The list of reasons is long. The media continues to hash out excruciating details to inadvertently demonstrate both candidates are bad for America. One must choose which man will, intentionally or unintentionally, best preserve and maintain our capitalist constitutional democratic republic and which man who will, intentionally or unintentionally, destroy it. Continue reading →

Two couples, three countries, me, and you

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Sometimes the best part of travel is when the travelers come to you

Good Morning, People! Time for travel tales, true travel tales! I work at a large outdoor adventure and travel retailer on the edge of Downtown Seattle. We often engage with people coming and going from all over the nation and from all around the planet. Such encounters are one of the great and fun aspects of working there.

On the first Friday in June of 2024 met and worked with a couple from Iceland in the Climbing Department. In their mid-30s, maybe about 40ish. Spoke English that was a little too perfect with an odd lift of the vowels, but the man’s T-shirt gave it away, some little scenic place no one ever heard of outside Iceland except map freaks like me. So they were a little impressed. “Come to Iceland!” they said.

The woman went from being solemn to moving as if in some kind of slo-mo shadow dance as she described, eyes closed, her sadness so many people outside of Iceland seem to dismiss her native country as merely freezing glaciers surrounded by the cold, icy ocean.

“We also have fire!” She said as her arms and hands and fingers weaved mind crafted shapes in the air. “And volcanoes! We have volcanoes! And earthquakes. And the Aurora Borealis! And wild, wild oceans! We are a land of fire and ice constantly being born again from the depths of the Atlantic.” Continue reading →

Troubled People on the Interurban Trail

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Broken minds are everywhere, invisible

Today is the 80th anniversary of D-Day. Would have been an extremely different and horrifying world if Nazi Germany and its Axis Empires had won the Second World War – and they very nearly did. Thoughts of our history with changing attitudes toward duty and sacrificed blazed around inside my mind. Went to hike the Shoreline section of the regional Interurban Trail system. Brisk walk with a daypack up to Trader Joe’s and back home to my apartment complex. Part of regaining my health so I could backpack in the mountains once again, thruhiking the Timberline Trail around Mt. Hood in Oregon at the end of July weighs on my mind, so first had to walk swiftly on the flats without passing out. Off I go. Soon passed a homeless White man in pink clothes wearing white, puffy booties as he sat in the sun enjoying the late spring weather. He focused on using his hands to crank or turn parts on what looked like a small wood and leather puzzle box about the size of a softball. 

Later passed a well-dressed, young Black man, looked like a college student with a beige V-necked sweater on, as he stomped from the Shoreline Trader Joe’s over to the trail while hollering about God. His daypack burst with clothes and books. The man’s voice is really loud, his arms and legs jerk with agitation, and he lets the whole world know he is “angry!” When he looked over and saw me trotting along with my one trekking pole, he shouted, “By the Almighty God, by His Holy name, I’m gonna kill you for having that stick!” Continue reading →

Fire Alarms After Midnight

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Couldn’t wake up & even dozed off sitting on the potty 

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“What’s going on here?”

Click on link above to watch short video from 2:03:23 in the morning.

Faithlyn, my wife, probably has a different memory altogether of what happened. The following, however, is what my sleepdrunk mind recalled the morning after.

Deep sleep is, for me, a rare and precious experience for it’s so difficult for me to fall asleep and stay asleep. Had gone to bed about a half hour after midnight. I was sleeping hard when the fire alarms went off. Earlier took one capsule of deep sleep herbs plus one capsule of ibuprofen for a headache with a tall glass of water.

See, I am not only a neurodivergent insomniac but also HOH, Hard of Hearing. My hearing loss is labeled moderate to profound, bilateral, originated from birth trauma some 65 years ago, and has become more severe over time. Many Hearing people are surprised to learn I don’t sleep with my hearing aids in. Oh, I’ve tried, and all the loud sounds of the night from baying dogs to vroom-vrooming cruisers would keep me up. Plus after wearing them all day long I need to get those devices out of my ears and off my head.

Faithlyn and I live in a new apartment complex in Shoreline just north of the Seattle city line. The complex is shaped like an enormous triangular battleship. Clearly I’ve seen too many science fiction movies. This is the first time the fire alarm had gone off in the middle of the frickin’ night. The fire alarms are so loud it even wakes me up, which I suppose is now good to know as we weren’t sure if the alarms would do so. My wife is even deafer than me, but she was up transfixed by some convoluted crime show on “NettlesFlicked.”

Groggy, I rolled over to sit on the edge of the bed. Confused by the loud sound. Must be time to go to work, I thought, but didn’t feel my pillow thumper go off. I reach out to turn around my clock to see the time: gosh, don’t remember what I saw except twas close to 2:00 in the morning. Damn. Not time to wake up for work. Felt even more confused. What is making all that racket? Just wanna fall back asleep. I was finally, finally sleeping hard!

My wife steps into the room and turns on the light. She gestures at me. Dazed by the lights, I look over at her thru squinted eyes, and feel even more confused. Can’t hear anything. She shouts at me something about a fire, a fire alarm, the fire alarms are going off,  and we need to go. I think she said all those things for her moving lips appeared blurry without me wearing my eyeglasses. We need to get out of here. Now! What? First I need to go pee. That big, tall glass of water is coming thru! Continue reading →

Solo Trek in Mt. Rainier National Park, August 2009

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Solo exploration, lots of solitude and quiet, and, occasionally, people

A Foto Essay Adventure from Sunday 2 – Tuesday 4 August 2009

Self-portrait by the author up on Plummer Peak in the Tatoosh with Mt. Rainier (Ti’Swaq’) in the background with glimpses of Paradise, Monday the 3rd of August 2009.

This was one of the few times I traveled out solo while my wife, Kristina at the time, and the kids stayed home or engaged in other activities. Sometimes one needs to be alone. While I missed my family, I also valued these rare moments all to myself out in the vastness of Nature. Ambiverts such as myself often need time for one’s self as well as time in the midst of others. The presence of the Divine was everywhere every time I paid attention.

Selfy shot from just below the summit of Eagle Peak in the Tatoosh Range. Yup, that’s me, William Bass, early August 2009.

Squeezing between the early morning and noon crowd waves as I followed behind this SUV into the park at the famous Nisqually Entrance, Sunday 2 June 2009.

Continue reading →