I keep looking for distractions

Hope the feeling passes.

Erinaceinae

Hedgehog:

The snail moves like a

Hovercraft, held up by a

Rubber cushion of itself,

Sharing its secret

With the hedgehog. The hedgehog

Shares its secret with no one.

We say, Hedgehog, come out

Of yourself and we will love you.

We mean no harm. We want

Only to listen to what

You have to say. We want

Your answers to our questions.

The hedgehog gives nothing

Away, keeping itself to itself.

We wonder what a hedgehog

Has to hide, why it so distrusts.

We forget the god

Under this crown of thorns.

We forget that never again

Will a god trust in the world.

Paul Muldoon.

Memories, How They Fade (Not) So Fast

Sadie reminded me today that it is the official start of Birthday Month.  That's a tradition Ericka and I began when the kids started being aware of birthdays and holidays, mostly to forestall the incessant demands for gifts in the lead-up. 

So nobody is allowed to submit wish lists (now coming in the form of slide presentations, lol) until 30 days prior.  It's always been sorta like Advent, and to this day I still give the kids small gifts and extra coin along the way, up until the Big Day.

Sadie's birthday, though, has long filled me with anticipatory anxiety because a day not long afterward (July 26) is an anchor of grief.  For starters, in 2020 that was the last time the kids (or anybody in the family) ever saw their mother.

That was taken at their regular supervised visit on East Madison Street in Seattle.  Ericka had been staying with her parents down in Estacada, and would drive up on alternate Sundays to see her kids for a few hours, but after this one, she never went back.  

Instead, she decided to go on a little crime and mischief spree across the country, getting arrested a couple times in Newport, Oregon, and leaving bread crumbs in Florida, Puerto Rico, and Arizona.  Then...nothing, until she was found dead in Portland about 8 months ago.

In 2021, the date did not become happier.  I had to call the mobile vet, and say goodbye to Old Man Mexico.  My heart shattered further.  And 2024 really wasn't any better.  

I came home from working on the mainland, Bailey Bee was happy as usual to see me, and even had energy to take what would be her final walk.  She hadn't been able to do that much in her last few weeks, and now I get the sense it was a farewell tour of her favorite places to sniff and pee, leaving messages telling everybody that she'd not be returning.

By the evening of Saturday the 27th, it became clear that I'd have to make another heartbreaking phone call soon, so I had the kids say their goodbyes just in case Bailey took the decision out of my hands.  She did.

I do my best to stay present and focus on celebrating Sadie's nativity, but there's a nagging sadness that never leaves my side.  Really wish I could lose my memories at times...

<exits singing, Look back, there is no escape>

They Are a Breed Apart and Make No Sense

U.S. and Canadian history are more intertwined than people realize. A contingent of the Continental Army was briefly based in Montreal in 1775-76 in an effort to recruit Canadians to the revolutionary cause. Learned a lot about our shared history at the Château Ramezay Museum. pic.twitter.com/ITO3ntR6Wu

— Ambassador Pete Hoekstra (@USAmbCanada) June 18, 2026

From the people who told us that J6 was a day of love, here is what they call "an effort to recruit Canadians":

As he approached the Palace Gate on Quebec’s northern shoulder, Arnold swung into Dog Lane to follow the wall toward the Lower Town. The parapet overhead immediately erupted in muzzle flashes and ferocious musketry, raking the Americans with plunging fire from the Royal Navy Battalion. “We advanced as fast as we could … but was obliged to leave our field piece,” a gunner later told his journal. The sled and 6-pounder were abandoned in a snowdrift. Hunched men instinctively narrowed their shoulders and hurried forward, unable to see anything above the high gray wall except that fatal winking.
...

Captain Jonas Hubbard, who had survived Bunker Hill, would not survive Dog Lane. He too fell, mortally wounded. “March on,” he called, “march on.”

March on they did, for six hundred yards before the lane bent south into the dim labyrinth of the Lower Town. Ahead loomed the first barrier, a ten-foot wooden wall with musket loopholes. Arnold had no sooner ordered his men to prop ladders against the barricade than he crumpled to the ground: a bullet fragment had sliced through his left leg below the knee, lodging in the calf muscle above his heel. Bleeding badly and in excruciating pain, he shouted encouragement through gritted teeth while hobbling to the rear with help from two men, who carried him the final mile to Dr. Senter’s surgery table at the convent hospital.
...

The Holland House plan called for Arnold to rendezvous with Montgomery at this spot before advancing uphill. Not only had casualties reduced the column, but as many as two hundred men had lost their way in the snowstorm and were wandering around the docks, sheds, and riverine warehouses. Wet firelocks needed to be dried; prisoners required careful watching.

A strange tranquillity settled over the Lower Town as the order was passed to each company: wait here for General Montgomery and his men. “I was overruled by hard reasoning,” Morgan later said. “To these arguments, I sacrificed my own opinion and lost the town.”

Consistent with our anti-Catholic bigotry, at least.  Anyway, if you want more on our Recruiting Mission to Quebec, here's the Wikipedia article.

More importantly, though, I just noticed that I had the wrong link on a footnote in one of my old posts, which of course I can no longer edit since Typepad is deader than Captain Jonas Hubbard.  The exchange I had in mind in Last of the Mohicans, from which this post's title is derived:

Hawkeye: My father warned me about you...

Cora Munro: [interupting] Your Father?

Hawkeye: Chingachgook, he warned me about people like you.

Cora Munro: Oh, he did?

Hawkeye: He said "Do not try to understand them".

Cora Munro: What?

Hawkeye: Yes, and, "do not try to make them understand you. That is because they are a breed apart and make no sense".

Followed by:

Cora Munro: A breed apart, we make no sense?

Hawkeye: In your particular case, Miss, I'd make an allowance.

Cora Munro: Thank you so much.

Seems fitting in the context.

Selah.

The girl was never there

It's always the same.

Self-evident

BLK History Month:

If Black History Month is not

viable then wind does not

carry the seeds and drop them

on fertile ground

rain does not

dampen the land

and encourage the seeds

to root

sun does not

warm the earth

and kiss the seedlings

and tell them plain:

You’re As Good As Anybody Else

You’ve Got A Place Here, Too

Nikki Giovanni.

This Day in Pack History

Kayla joined The Pack on this date in 2006, thanks to my dear friends C&D (sorry, Mex, for missing your 20th earlier this year).

Remember what the Dormouse said

Feed your head.

Public Thing

Respublica:

The strident high

civic trumpeting

of misrule. It is

what we stand for.

Wild insolence,

aggregates without

distinction. Courage

of common men:

spent in the ruck

their remnant witness

after centuries

is granted them

like a pardon.

And other fealties

other fortitudes

broken as named—

Respublica

brokenly recalled,

its archaic laws

and hymnody;

and destroyed hope

that so many times

is brought with triumph

back from the dead.

Geoffrey Hill.

#throwbackthursday

Bubsy bubsying with an Atriot audience.  (2010)

Ooh, it's so good, it's so good, it's so good, it's so good

It's so good.

ephēmeros

Momentary:

I never glimpse her but she goes

Who had been basking in the sun,

Her links of chain mail one by one

Aglint with pewter, bronze and rose.

I never see her lying coiled

Atop the garden step, or under

A dark leaf, unless I blunder

And by some motion she is foiled.

Too late I notice as she passes

Zither of chromatic scale—

I only ever see her tail

Quicksilver into tall grasses.

I know her only by her flowing,

By her glamour disappearing

Into shadow as I’m nearing—

I only recognize her going.

A.E. Stallings.