Fire Alarms After Midnight

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

The Little Girl on the Floor

A little girl playing on the floor of the store melted my heart and opened my mind. In doing so she tilted the fabric of spacetime as one would water pour from a pitcher into a drinking glass. Doorways of mind and heart closed momentarily and yet holographically appeared as a line of portals between parallel universes. My timeline felt bifurcated. Both lines vanished into the future as quickly as turning the water tap in the kitchen sink on then off. All drains still lead to the same underground pipe. All was done inadvertently from her end, however, such was her power on those around her. She was one of the most adorable little toddlers I’ve ever been fortunate with whom to engage. This child was not only incredibly cute, but she also demonstrated a degree of presence unusual for any human being. Usually I’m one to shy away from the young children of others. This little girl with shaggy blonde hair, however, reeled me in with her playful curiosity, intense focus, and ability to seemingly anticipate adult commands.

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Big Dawg in the Parking Lot

An urban vignette

After I parked my old green minivan at the Greenwood Fred Meyer store about 21:50, a young couple with a pit bull bounded down the entry steps mad as Hell. They were yelling & arguing over whether or not their dog had taken a big poop. Made me forget for a wee bit why I drove all the way there after work to buy food & toiletries. Did the dog take a big doggie dump inside the grocery store? Next to all the food? Or not? Well, dayum!

People are something else. Humans are a mess. Life is messy, and people will choose to do what people do when they remain unaware they have choices. And Big Dawg in the parking lot? Big Dawg clearly didn’t give a shit and wasn’t about to shit for the asshole yanking back on its leash as they both bounded down the concrete steps from the store into the parking lot ahead of the woman yobbling out behind them. Dayum! Oh, shit, are these too many damns and shits for thee? Read on, thy fair readers. Tis merely a vignette!

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Cape Disappointment Happy Blues 2007

Snapshots in time of a family in the wind

Early January 2007

Cliffs at this edge of ocean were forbidding, terrifying, and hypnotic in their power. We felt mesmerized as we watched massive waves roll in thru wind and rain to explode upon the rocks below and roar up cliffs into the sky. The Columbia River surged down from the Canadian and American bowels of Cascadia into the vast Pacific Ocean. River and sea currents smashed together to form one of the most chaotic, dangerous, and dynamic river deltas in the world, the Columbia River Bar. Kristina’s Dad goes out fishing in it all the time.

Bass-Katayama Family near cliff’s edge at Cape Disappointment, Washington. L2R: front row: Talia & Kate; middle: Kristina & Morgan (now Dylan); rear: William. Pics recovered from Kristina’s old camera fone. Tuesday 2 January 2007.

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Exploring Spider Meadows, 2006 & 2007

Two journeys deep into the Glacier Peak Wilderness, one alone with my lover Kristina in August of 2006, and together with our youngest in August of 2007. One was an erotic, lust-drenched, sweaty exploration of high alpine meadows & a rocky mountain pass above a dying glacier. The other was a family misadventure awry with unexpected misery, voracious, nose-stuffing flies, & insane giggles.

*This is unfinished, a work in progress. Most of the pics & associated journals were lost in a house fire. This help builds what remains. Thanks for being here. Enjoy!*

William & Kristina in Spider Meadows. Timed selfie shot from the top of a rock left in the meadows from some long ago avalanche. Sunday 13 August 2006.

Spider Meadows sprawls deep within the Glacier Peak Wilderness. Phelps Creek rushes down the middle of wild copses of dark woods and open mountain meadows to plunge down a gorge of its own making to eventually flow into the Chiwawa River. Glacier Peak is one of Washington State’s still-live stratovolcanoes and dominates as the central giant of the USFS Wilderness Area named after it’s Anglo-American name. The Native American tribes referred to it as DaKobed, among other names. The volcano rises as a giant pyramid cone at the head of the Dakobed Range to a lofty 10,541 feet or 3,213 meters, but one is unable to see it from Spiders Meadows. The meadows is edged by a ring of 8-9,000+ foot-high peaks. During August of 2006 I ventured into the wilderness into what became an alpine celebration of hot, lusty, forest love. A year later, however, proved harrowing and disorienting. Two very different trips! Such is the joyful, tearful, giggly ass messiness of Life!
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