Everything's better on the moon.

Hands down, the best book for obsessive sisters is We Have Always Lived in the Castle, by Shirley Jackson. Wait. Are we talking about the same Shirley Jackson who wrote "The Lottery" and The Haunting of Hill House? Why yes, the very same. There's also cat fancying. Loads and loads of cat fancying. Oh, and strangeness for days. It's practically perfect in every way. 

via Amazon

via HamBone

Somehow I managed to make it out of middle school and high school without ever having read "The Lottery". Or Lord of the Flies. I know, right? (And a side note: "The Lottery" is really amazing. The other stories in that collection are fair. Just fair.) My point is, that while I was aware of Shirley Jackson, I hadn't actually read anything she'd written. But then, wonder of wonders! My friend Dan, who is some kind of genius with book recommendations, told me to give We Have Always Lived a whirl. He thought it'd be right up my alley. (I'm using italics because I'm almost certain it's a quote. Almost.) What with the extreme sistering and all. 

via Wikipedia

And it was. It was right up my alley. So up my alley that I made Catherine read it. And it was up her alley too. And while I may have mentioned it to Monika, I don't know if my mention conveyed my admiration for this book. As I know I've mentioned before, probably my all-time favorite opening paragraph is from We Have Always Lived in the Castle.

            

My name is Mary Katherine Blackwood. I am eighteen years old, and I live with my sister Constance. I have often thought with any luck at all I could have been born a werewolf, because the two middle fingers on both my hands are the same length, but I have had to be content with what I had. I dislike washing myself, and dogs, and noise. I like my sister Constance, and Richard Plantagenet, and Amanita phalloides, the death-cup mushroom. Everyone else in my family is dead. 

Le sigh. I'd step into this book in a heartbeat...if only such a thing were possible. My point, if I have one, is that you should pick up this book. Also, Monika: I found you a used copy and will be mailing it out posthaste. You lucky duck, you. 

Please, please read it so we can trade quotes like:

Jonas and I dislike rhubarb. 

On the moon we have everything. 

I thought of using digitalis as my third magic word, but it was too easy for someone to say, and at last I decided on Pegasus. 

And Monika, if you read it and don't love it: I'll straight up kill you. 

For more truly intriguing covers from We Have Always Lived in the Castle, go here.

Small Town Saturday Night

I was very homesick this weekend--yes, again--so I risked a trip to Tacoma. I knew there was a snow situation in Snoqualmie Pass, but I thought I'd be able to sneak through unscathed. Unfortunately, as I neared the pass conditions worsened and I finally resigned myself to either turning around and heading back to Spokane, or finding a place to stay over. Thus, I ended up spending the night in Cle Elum, WA.

At the Traveler's Inn. My room smelled like horse dust. From a very, very dusty horse.

I had to buy a bunch of necessities, like contact lens solution and toothpaste and beer, all of which I didn't have with me because I thought I'd be at Mom's house by 6:30. Obviously, I wasn't prepared for the possibility of weather delays. What a terrible former Girl Scout I am.

But the weather was fine on the eastern side of the state. See? Columnar basalt cliffs along the Columbia River. 

Here are the wind turbines along Ryegrass Summit on the other side of the Columbia. Doesn't everything look promising?

But the pass was all "compact snow and ice and multiple accidents due to adverse weather." Boo. This is entering the Wenatchee National Forest the next morning. 

And heading up the pass. Pretty, right? But let me tell you, the roads were not pretty. 

I tend to allow myself to get really worked up when my plans are foiled. It's annoying for others, I know. Usually when my plans go awry due to weather conditions, I attempt to get myself back on a reasonable track by thinking about Lewis & Clark or fur trappers dealing with similar weather. Something along the lines of: I could be in this exact situation but with a mule train. More often than not, this little exercise puts things into perspective. 

Still, I regret nothing! 

And I rediscovered my Hal Ketchum cd. 

new black hat

I bought a new hat. WHY?

I don't know. It was on sale. Sometimes I just do these things. 

Hello, bordello.

Or more appropriately, bordello museum, which would make it, of course, a defunct bordello. Wow, those two words are super-depressing together. Not that an operating bordello is something to get ecstatic about, but what do you picture when you read defunct bordello? 


Something along these lines, perhaps?

The ladies stayed for four months at a time and then
moved to another brothel. A sex worker circuit, if you will.

I bet it is.

All this was left by the ladies. Not the mannequins and packing peanut- simulated bubble bath, but everything else. Yes, that includes sheets, Mr. Bubble, and lingerie, which the mannequins now wear. 

So, yeah. This is the Oasis Bordello Museum in Wallace, ID. Catherine and I went for a visit last Saturday. It was...creepy. Honestly, I don't know what I expected. Well, I think I expected it to be creepy in a way that didn't actually creep me out as much as it ended up creeping me out. Creepy-funny, not creepy-think-about-it-while-trying-to-fall-asleep-and-being-incredibly-disturbed. It was so very much the latter in this instance. 

The bordello operated until 1988--it stopped because the FBI set up shop in town to investigate the crooked sheriff. But before all that came to pass, the ladies of the evening made a tidy profit (around a 100K/year, according to our guide) serving up to 40 gents a night. All right, calling them gents is bit of a stretch. I believe Catherine called them dirty husbands...as in, "Can you imagine your dirty husband getting his paycheck and going there before coming home?" I think we all can. 

The dirty husbands entered through this door. 

While Catherine had the good sense to ask about condom usage--there were regulations in the 1980s, but they were not enforced--we really wanted to know about the doctoring. There was a weekly exam and blood work, but we were skeptical about the regulation of this, too. And what about the STDs and pregnancies from the unenforced condom policy? Good questions, which we did not ask. Not because we were shy (we did ask to have the sex menu decoded and now know what the half and half option entailed), but because we got the sense our lackadaisical guide would not know the answer. We preferred to come up with the answers on our own--our imaginations are quite thorough.  


However, we couldn't come up with an explanation for this. 

It's just an extra mannequin leg. Whatever. 

I can sum the experience up thusly: it was like going to the 4H tent at the county fair and seeing the cow with the visible stomach (You know, the window?). It's a learning experience, but it's also gross, and somehow sordid, and really doesn't seem as acceptable as it once was. 

Do not rent a room here. 

The term for cow windowing is cannulation, by the way. Did you think you were going to learn that today? I certainly didn't. You're welcome. 

holiday

In honor of the occasion: two Lincolns and a Washington on my windowsill.

These are from Maya. She found them at a swap party, so I think they can be considered mostly free.

I went out for a bit this afternoon--when I returned, I found this little mess.

I put everything back in order.

Right down to the blue bunny's bow tie.

The culprit?

Little Miss Matilda.

This has nothing to do with that.

I went back to work today and even though I felt a little iffy in the morning, by the end of the day I was right as rain. Yippee! I was so happy to be feeling better that when I got off work, I decided to make a trip 1. to the liquor store and 2. to the yarn store. Now, I know me saying that I'm going to the liquor store sounds...bad (Bad? Hey, I'm an adult.), but I don't plan on drinking tonight. It's an errand that needs (yes, needs) to be run, and they're not open on Sunday (my regular errand day). 


You see, I finished up everything in the house before I got sick (which had nothing to do with me getting sick--it began as a cold and moved onto the stomach flu) and it wasn't at all important while I was sick, but now that I'm not sick, I can envision a weekend where drinking a couple of gin & tonics or bourbons, neat (my friend, Dan, taught me neat last year. Before that, my bourbons were plain or regular), would not be such a bad idea. And I should also say, because I felt like a super-lush carting four empty liquor bottles out to the recycle bin this evening, that it took me a while to drink those. It's not like this restocking episode is a weekly or even monthly occurrence. It just so happens that I found myself at the bottom of those bottles around the same time.


Wow. I went on the defensive right away. And not much to say about the yarn store. Guess I don't expect Mother dear to frown on that half of the excursion.


Moving on...


I've been waiting for the right moment to show off some of my estate sale and thrift store finds, from our out and about in Tacoma over Second Christmas, but I realized that the right moment is a ways off (because I had to leave all the unpackable {not a word} items at Mom's), so I better just get to it. Here's what I was able to bring home with me.

A handful of hearts

A vintage telephone and address book.

The cover is all satiny. Ooooooh.

And the pages are all blank. Just waiting for me to put pencil to paper.
This is a very important step in writing oftener.

A colorful assortment of gift cards

A 1968 copy of True Grit

It has an appropriate amount of wear, I think.

What an oddball assortment of items, but I suppose it fits with the oddball assortment of topics in this post. Oh well, I can't always tie everything together. Wait. Rooster Cogburn and drinking. You must admit, that just about gets there.

nighttime lamb

This little lamb (Matilda) keeps leaving

Oh, hello.

this little lamb (seen in a previous post) in my bedroom doorway.  

Watch out lamb, Matilds is coming for you.

I go to sleep: No lamb. I wake up: Lamb! Just like nighttime magic...nighttime Matilda magic.