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Beryl, Garnets, Mica & Smoky Quartz
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- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: Blog
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The weekend (my weekend, an early day Monday, so the afternoon, Tuesday, Wednesday) - bills, errands, and numerous trips to the east shore.
I'm looking for the Garnets Brad spoke of, no luck as of yet, a dozen beaches combed, nada. But some good beach rocks, to be integrated into other projects.
Visit the Smoky Quartz place, dig for an hour, searching for pockets, I have a theory, yet to be proven, and I have yet to cough up the evidence. No pockets, but an unwelcome tick on the back of my neck, found before it latched but - always - how many did I miss?
Bloody hell.
Visit the Mica quarry, my fifth, sixth trip there, big (ish) books of mica, maybe an inch or two across, in the dirt, and I've dug holes, scraped the surface, can't find out why. I mean, I suspect a decomposed pegmatite, but then wouldn't the mica decompose first? Feldspar, after all, is a lot harder, and where's the smoky quartz?
Anyways, take my big boy pick and randomly trench, dig through the roots, gather my books of mica, and I finally find it, a beryl on feldspar, loose, it just falls off. About a centimeter in all directions, white, not at all gemmy, but 5 times here and I'm starting to find them - which means dig harder and deeper.
Staves, thick wood staffs to be collected for Wizarding purposes, Eagle feathers, a deer skull - I'll let it bleach out a little longer before I collect it, I've three months to gather my winter's work.
We'll see.
These days off, I want nothing more than a plate of tacos, food, put my feet up, read a book, people watch, but it's summer and make hay while the sun shines and before the ground freezes and there are too many holes to be dug, too many places to go, and I find myself paralyzed, unable to choose...
They're here!!!
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- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: Blog
- Hits: 1187
Yesterday, driving to work. A beautiful day, and the traffic is unprecedented. Parades of bikers, BC, Alberta plates. hundreds of cars, plates from all over the USA, there's more people heading to Alaska than have ever lived in Alaska, from Wyoming, Idaho, Washington, Arizona...
The day starts off, busy and busier and, with all the beach seating, it's crazy. You can't keep up. Summer's here, and it's been so long, everyone is out and about - like a Saturday, busier even, like a Saturday on a long weekend, one lull in business, time for me to scarf a quick burger, I work in a restaurant and am starving to death Goddamnit!!!! Then back at it.
Tips, good, bad, ridiculously good. People are glad to see me. I wonder how rough your life is that you're glad to see me? Nonetheless, run, run, run, there's bills to be paid, and today, today I'm hurting. I'm getting too old for this.
3 Months to go.
Of Ken and Angelica Huston
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- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: Dreams
- Hits: 1261
At a party, of sorts, a few people I know, mostly ex's that I haven't seen forever.
Talking to them and everything seems to be forgiven.
There's a stair running down a wall, and there's a large, dark haired woman wearing a close fitting velvet mask over her face - covering it entirely, except for the eyes and mouth, even the lips are covered in velvet...
She's here for Ken, about their child, and she reminds me of Angelica Huston, or Elvira, those oversized beauties, and I'm laughing at Ken, I didn't know he had a daughter, how did this happen? And Ken's beneath her on the stairwell, talking earnestly to her, and then I hear on the radio about Shag Harbour, and how abuse of seniors is common with orderlies, and I'm laughing at Ken and Angelica/Elvira is nodding earnestly at me as if I've figured it out....
***
Now I'm talking to these ex's, and I get the feeling somehow that I'm to reconnect with one of them - there's one, she's beautiful, so-and-so but not so and so, she's not as I remembered her, not at all, and she's aged, like me, only not so much, matured, covered in freckles that have grown together, beautiful by no conventional measure but I find her so nonetheless, and we're talking about pleasant things and I invite her for coffee, it's been so long, just coffee...
The King of Balfour
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- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: Miscellany
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The Jackpot has been carried forward. Goddamn!
My numbers, they didn't come up and now I'm committed, what if the lotto was won with my numbers, or they came up and I didn't play them? You hear of it all the time....
I'm damned. At least until somebody wins.
I told the customers, "The Coronation is taking place at the Superette, just before I don't go to work..."
And now I've had to defer it. It's not a big deal, really, a surprising number of villagers didn't turn out for my much-anticipated Coronation on Saturday. And I'd so prepared:
"Thank you, loyal subjects and humble peasants that have come for my coronation...your virtues and good judgement are not unrecognized, and will be amply rewarded..."
As I kneel before the lotto-ticket-verifying-machine...
It's a bit much for the Superette, and they're losing patience with me.
Meanwhile, at work we're laying all sorts of plans for my impending Kingship. Chris, by means of sportive competition, has declared himself "Duke of Balfour", and I can sort of see it, after the Duke Character in Huck Finn.
I use the extra time wisely, I have surreptitiously applied the King's touch to the entire town of Balfour and cured it - entirely - of Scrofula.
And I educate the staff. "Teach the girl to curtsy!" I tell Ken when the Kitchen help fail to acknowledge my presence. He apologizes for me, then tells me later that he could teach them, he watched an entire episode of "Game of Thrones" dedicated to the subject...
I forgive them. They are but Scullery maids, educated by none-other than Quasimodo.
Ken doesn't get this, and so I explain. As I must whenever the pop-culture reference don't involve spaceships and easy alien-girls.
I devise names for the villagers.....so-and-so keeps chickens, and so I call them "The Poulterer", and so and so fishes, and becomes "The Fishmonger", and as King I feel delighted to be so in tune with my humble, adoring Villagers.
There is, of course, a back-up plan. Just in case I don't win the full 70 Million (which a quick Google search suggests I may not have...). The plan for subsidiary prizes:
The Marquis De Balfour, with a list of sexual deviances that I intend to popularize (De Sade didn't INVENT Sadism, he merely POPULARIZED his vices...), so that every working girl will know the trick when a client asks for a "Lord Balfour" or, quite simply, a "Balfour".
But here I'm a little confounded. And I'm needing a little inspiration - or a lot, and I'm sure it will come. Meanwhile I'll content myself with asking every reasonably attractive girl for a "Lord Balfour" and see what comes up...
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