beautiful and sweet
strawberries of this morning
bursting from within

Wrapped up Disney's new Willow series...  my mixed feelings at the start intensified in both directions as it went along until the 4th episode really turned me around and the 5th decisively won me over.  I had stuck with it because decent fantasy is hard to come by, and now I'm glad I did (and hoping for a second season!).

The YA young adult angst and interactions were definitely annoying at first, and the modern songs in the soundtrack jarring in the fantasy setting.  But the characters do develop and really start growing on you, as does the sense of tense camaraderie, humor, and modern language/music that Disney seems to have borrowed from Marvel.

​To me it very much had the feeling of a D&D campaign with its diverse cast of main characters who start out at first level and grow together through various challenges of combat, magic, questing, and soul-searching...  It was adventurous, fun, and kinda cool.  By the end I thoroughly enjoyed it, and if you are a young adult or just tired of the serious heavy dystopian doom that hangs over contemporary storytelling, you might also love it.  I definitely recommend at least giving it a try--

Happy Holidays everyone!  If you have Disney+  I can heartily recommend The Guardians of the Galaxy Holiday Special.  It's completely ridiculous and also quirkily heartwarming in just the way that Marvel seems to excel at managing...  and it's got Bacon.  What more could you ask for?!

And by the way, if you celebrate any of the many not-christmas holidays, this is offbeat and irreverent enough concerning its Christmastime setting that I'm pretty sure you can enjoy it too. In fact, you may especially enjoy the original Christmas song in the first scenes, as did I (...I'm personally still not a huge Christmas fan...)

I went for a short run today for the first time since the hot, humid summer began...  This is probably mostly because my lovely wife said my cute little butt is starting to get a little soft, but also I've definitely been spending too much time working with that cute butt in a chair, and anyway moving swiftly is good for the heart, mind, and energy flow--

The increased circulation drove my murder-hornet attack wound mad with itchiness (it still looks a little red and angry) but I'm happy to report that's just superficial.  The underlying muscle and knee joint is fully operational.  I took it light and easy so as not to strain anything, but I'm looking forward to getting back out there tomorrow.  To health, safety, and a firmer butt!

UPDATE:  Showered post-exercise with a cup of soy milk yogurt instead of soap...  now I'm feeling fresh and smooth and maybe delicious...​

Last night we were in the darkened atrium watching The Rings of Power on Amazon Prime when suddenly, right in the middle of a very tense scene surrounded by orcs, there was a thud followed by thumping up on the roof...

We were startled, turned on some outside lights, and went up to the loft to close the ventilation windows.  In the loft I could hear whatever it was cross from the east side all the way across to the west side as I was closing windows right below it...

Still have no idea what it was.  Our roof is a high-ceilinged 2-stories without external access except to flying creatures.  There are no squirrels or raccoons here.  There are monkeys in nearby mountains but I've never seen any in our little valley and the nearest tree is much too far a leap.  Don't know what kind of bird it could have been thumping around on an open roof in the middle of the night, but that's the most probable answer so far.  The preferred answer would be a flying squirrel gliding down from the surrounding cedar trees.  They do exist but they are rare and I've never seen one.  I would love to add flying squirrels to the menagerie that we have somehow organically developed here over the past few years--
​
Let it be a flying squirrel.  Please not goblins.  nor monkeys.
Fluffy Flying Squirrels would be delightful.  (I think)

UPDATE:
Climbed through the ventilation windows onto the roof this afternoon to investigate during the daylight...  I'm not Aragorn, but I'm pretty observant and I found nothing of interest to report.  So we are left with a mystery to be solved another time...

Survived a major typhoon last night with no damage.  Very thankful!
Today I got stung on the knee by an Asian Giant Hornet while clearing downed bamboo and branches from the driveways...  Ouch!  She must have been agitated by the intense storming, because even though they're known as Murder Hornets in the US, my interactions with them here are usually pretty calm and uneventful.  I felt light-headed with elevated heart rate and was a little concerned about being alone in such an isolated place, so a very kind neighbor drove me to the nearest hospital to wait out any adverse reactions...

Well, now I'm sitting in the lobby waiting for my wife to pick me up from having spent the typhoon helping at her family home.  Thankfully the only adverse reaction is pain...  it's considerable.  it's bearable.  and it's definitely nothing like the time my foot was run over by a forklift...

I'll still have to hobble around and clear a few more big bamboo branches before we can drive up and park the car, but with a little reiki and a lot of gratitude for what didn't go for the worse, I'm looking forward to a good night's sleep safe and sound--

what Craiyon AI thinks a mad murder hornet looks like...  yeah, pretty close...

Father’s Gift

A love of landscape
     of smooth deserts
     of broken mountains
and lakes like flattened wads of tinfoil
     some with water
     some without
but no oceans

A sense of adventure
in cars
     taking turns fast
in jeeps
     not so fast
     but slow winding treks
     to abandoned mines
on two wheels
     churning in the mud
     and chasing
     imaginary water
     irrigating the sage with desert
in a boat
     churning a hard channel
     to ski in
     and mapping edges
and hiking
          the top of Angel’s landing
          1000’
     wading
          the end of Whittier narrows
          miles between the cliffs
     scrambling
          into the rutted crater
          of an ancient volcano
     and stumbling
          in dark limestone caverns
          mostly shallow and dirty
          and pissed in
Risking
     severe abrasions
     broken arms
     running out of gas
     always imminent flash floods
     one possible lava eruption
     and rattlesnakes
But no sea-faring

An eye for scavenging
     in red-brown desert dumpsites from the 50’s
          bits of old, dulled glass sun-colored blue
          and rusted tin cans in the shape of log cabins
     in mineshafts and leveled grey cabins from the 1850’s
          rags of stiff yellow newsprint
          shell casings, square head nails, and railroad spikes
          bed frames
     caves and sandstone cliffs
          for mineral rosettes, veins of gold, arrowheads,
          and fossils
     lakes and piers
          dredging with five-pound magnets
     And old TV’s, VCR’s, stereos, and cars
          for bits of colored wire,
          good transistors, diodes,
          switches,
          and condensers to make shocker grenades

A taste for wild game
     venison
     rattlesnake
     rabbit shot with a revolver from a moving camper
     and wild boar never found
     bass, trout, catfish
And how to gut it, skin it, and preserve it

Fascination with artifacts
     wired
          circuit boards, copper wire, silver solder
          housed in metal and wood
     geared
          transmissions, brake systems, pulleys
          caked in dry, sticky dirt
     cast and machined
          engines and their parts
               pistons
               cylinders
               manifolds
          guns and their keys, pins, and stops
          bearings—balls, rollers, and their cages
          metal
          all wrapped in fine oil
And how to dismantle them
     feel them
     and fit them

A green army belt
A nickel plated .357

A combat medic dress coat
complete with shoulder braid
I am particularly fond of that shoulder braid

The smell of sage

The smell of leather
and light machine oil

Cool dank castles of large appliance boxes
that could be broken down into tank treads
to roll away in
down-hill, when too confining

--Jeffrey Scott

One of my recent "guilty" little pleasures...  because I like Fantasy, I enjoy Adventure, I love Character, but I'm not fond of violence.  This webseries is pretty nerdy, but it satisfies my fantasy adventure cravings and preference for character development with a tolerable level of violence, all in short, easy-to-watch clips that don't eat up my valuable time or test my patience...

So if you've ever enjoyed fantasy RPGs and need a little distraction now and then, you might find this video webseries to be nicely balanced fare--  especially for being free!

UPDATE:  now that I've gone through Season 2...
It gets even better as it goes along, and I'm happy to report that it has proven to be both racially diverse and LGBTQ friendly, so now I can wholeheartedly recommend this to any of my friends who enjoy fantasy adventure, role-playing, creative reenactment, or online gaming...