Esther's Reflexology Garage

Starting next Thursday, Reflexology therapy is now available at Esther's Beauty Garage. Or will be next Thursday. At Esther's Beauty Garage. Next Thursday. Got it? At Esther's.

Esther is big on Reflexology. It's a thing. Reflexology resembles Plumbing Therapy®, in which a sensitive pudgy guy with a prominent butt crack thoughtfully massages your home's pipes to relieve leaks, squeaks, squawks, and creaks, without the inconvenience and associated high costs of having a plumbing license, business license, or anything other than a butch butt crack. Like Esther. She's butch too, Esther is, and she can reflex like crazy.

What is Reflexology anyway? It's a thing. That's about all anyone knows, so let's ask WonkyPedia. The WP knows all, eh?

• Reflexology is one of the most used alternative therapies in Denmark. (Wherever Denmark is, and does it actually count?)
• There is no consensus among reflexologists on how reflexology is supposed to work. ('K...Check.)
• Reflexologists posit that the blockage of an energy field, invisible life force, or Qi, can prevent healing. (Invisible! Qi? Quiche? Cheese? What?)
• ...no evidence found to support the use of reflexology for any medical condition. (Jeez — not again. Not this too...)

But a couple years back the Australian Government Department of Health & Stuff reviewed 17 alternative therapies to determine if any were worth paying for. Reflexology was in there but no one could figure out what it was, so at that point they all went out for cookies and beer.

All fine by us. If the cat lady down the block thinks it's a good deal, WTF then, I'm easy.

Come live the ultimate body care experience with Esther. Her reflexology massages will make you feel beautiful and healthy from the inside out. Different massages will make certain parts of your body feel a lot better.

Probably, especially if you catch Esther within a day or so after her monthly bath, and ask her for "The Special".

Do you want to try it? Just call Esther, she lived many years in the US and speaks English, so she'll be able to understand your needs.

Woof!

Bajada del Padrón 4-07 and Calle Larga, in front of Hostal Casa del Río. Monday to Saturday, 9 AM to 6 PM. Look for something resembling a garage. That will be Esther. Come prepared for a little friendly arm wrestling.

P.S.: How about a spring tuneup?

• Have your muffler probed for pests.
• Tinkle therapy by request.

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Comments? Send email to hoofist@nullabigmail.com

It may or may not help.

So, Monday

Category: Things my sister has apparently read all the way through.

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Yeah, so I got up Monday and had a reminder to myself by email notifying me that Tuesday was a national holiday.

Oct 9 Tuesday  Independence of Guayaquil   National holiday  <- See?

So I had lead time to buy some food, since you never know what's going to be closed. Mostly everything. But hey — I had a day to get it sorted out, so no probs.

I followed my usual lazy schedule, and after a late-morning shower I got dressed and went to lunch. All OK.

But then I noticed that things were really quiet. Not much traffic on the streets, not that many people. Some shops open, some closed. Eh?

Then I turned the last corner, the one only a few feet from el Túnel, and the menu boards weren't up yet. Well, it was a little early, so... But then I saw that the doors were closed up tight. Another oops moment. So I went back to my apartment, ate, and headed out for Supermaxi, hoping that they were open.

Luckily, yes. Coral was open last Xmas day even, but you never, never know, and Supermaxi is a different business, so I always feel lucky when something works. If one or the other is open, you can get pretty much all you need, though Supermaxi has a better selection of food, and at Coral you can buy tools, clothes, or a kitchen range if you suddenly feel a need for one.

So I loaded up on the basics and braced myself for Tuesday.

As it happened, I didn't bother going out Tuesday. Had plenty to do, and food, and the water didn't go out, or electricity, or the internet, which is excellent here after Henry worked things out while I was gone last summer. I don't know what he did though he said it was hard, but at least the wifi here has been stable, and that's a big deal. Like everything else, around here you just don't know what's going to happen next.

So the maid was still here, and I had to go hide while my apartment got cleaned on Monday, but I skipped hauling my pack full of dirty clothes to the laundry — wasn't worth the exertion. Lots of places take an extra day off when a holiday comes, Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday being a nicer break than just Tuesday. I figured that I'd try for laundry on Wednesday, which worked out, and I had two days off as well, though I don't have anything to do anyway.

So, aside from minor panics like not knowing where I'll find my next meal, things are generally quiet here. The weather suddenly warmed a lot after the end of August, and the sun is back, though a lot of the days are still cloudy. We're definitely headed for summer. Too bad I'm getting bored again.

I did take a one-month Spanish refresher, taught by an ex-teacher from the U.S. who's been here for seven years or so.

You can tell she was a teacher because she can go a full two hours without either closing her mouth or taking a breath, even once.

Edgewise was a way you could not even get a word in. I know, I tried. She'd stop and look dazed. But.

There were two others in the class, both new here. Holly, who I don't know much about, a pleasant woman who apparently is about 63, and trying to get residency mumbo-jumbo sorted out and get her cats here, which is easy but complicated, and Bones, a former 39-year Harley-Davidson dealership owner who spends a lot of time rumbling around the countryside on his locally-bought on/off road motorcycle.

Ultimately the class didn't amount to a whole lot, but I was able to get out a bit and talk to at least a few people for a few hours a week.

But bored, me.

I've been wondering if there's another place to go.

It still seems like Portugal might be one of the best places to relocate to. Close to the rest of Europe, good infrastructure, good climate, not too expensive. Then Hacker News had a piece on it. Still a possibility.

I've also looked at Santa Fe, NM, but then wondered about Flagstaff, AZ. It looks like the general climate in Flagstaff is milder, more agreeable, and it's closer to the backcountry in California, Nevada, Utah than Santa Fe is, and looks like it might have a more reliable water supply, which is going to be more and more important as the years go by.

You can tell that i'm thinking of making the same mistake i've made several times already — moving back to the U.S. and trying to be 30 years old again. Maybe, maybe not, but this time I'd buy a van and live in that. Last season living in my little Nissan wasn't that bad, but nowhere near adequate since I had to keep most of my my things in storage, and was tied down by that. And if I got a van, it would almost have to be a new one for mucho bucks, so there's that.

Might be better to take a "vacation" starting and ending in Cuenca, like touring Britain, or Iceland. But then Cuenca is a godawful long way from anywhere else, and expensive to commute from. Don't know. Will have to dither some more.

One thing that mostly worked was that I managed to dole out gifts pretty well. I had 18 bottles of Dr Bronner's soap for the nine girls, and 10 little LED flashlights for the boys, plus a few things for a couple people's kids. Unfortunately, there were two new women working at el Túnel, and one bottle of soap leaked on the way here. Then Paólo quit working at my hotel, and MaríaJosé and Oskar no longer work at el Túnel (they're both university students now) but I had things for them, and for MaríaJosé's daughter, but luckily I found out from Xavier that MaríaJosé is his wife now, and Oskar is her brother, and Xavier sees him almost every day, but with the two new women working there, I didn't have enough bottles of soap to go around (not to mention the empty bottle that leaked).

And when I talked to Henry about the children's books I brought (Sandra Boynton, translated into Spanish), they seemed too simple for Sonia's girls (8 and 10), but Santiago has a daughter who is about 4, so maybe, I thought, that would work. Santiago was covered (LED light) and I found out that he's married to Joanna, the other maid at the hotel, and I had her covered with soaps (one lavender and one rose for each, except for Eva, Anita, and MaríaJosé because I just didn't have enough to go around so I bought some semi-high-end chocolates to cover for that, and though both Eva Anita work at the hotel, they're part-timers, so maybe...).

So that left four frog lights for Sonia's girls (plus a sheet of Hello Kitty stickers), and I gave one to Santiago's daughter, and one for MaríaJosé's daughter, but I had enough LED rechargeable tube lights so I could give one of those to Xavier's son, who was hanging around at el Túnel while school was out. And since Paólo was gone, I had an extra, until I came back from lunch one day and saw Paólo at the hotel. He was picking up his last paycheck or something, and I felt a little bad that I no longer had anything to give him, but I got a hug anyway.

As far as I know, that about covers the story of the gifts, except for Janet and Luís, the owners, who were on vacation, but I kept their things in my closet until they turned up, so they got their treats too (LED light and soap). Arrr.

And then yesterday I was coming back from lunch and heard "DaBEED! Buenas tardes!" as I came around the corner. It was Sonia (Sonia from the hotel, not Sonia from el Túnel) and her two girls heading into the hotel, and that's how my name is pronounced around here. School goes in two shifts, morning and afternoon. She had her girls with her (Pamela and Carolina, in their spotless little school uniforms). I looked up, caught off guard, but mumbled something and waved just in time to trip over a nubbin sticking up from the sidewalk and almost fell, but mostly just bounced a couple of times on one foot until I recovered.

Sonia had gone into the hotel entrance by then, but her two girls were trailing, and one grabbed me around the hips and gave me a hug and also said "DaBEED!", and then the other girl gave me a second hip hug (they're really short, about the height you'd expect to see on five-year-olds except they're eight and ten). So anyway, I guess they got their flashlights and kitty stickers and I forgot what I was saying, but it sort of looks like things worked out so far.

Now I'm watching for those little six-piece boxes of Guylian chocolates so I can start hoarding them for Xmas presents. My bread store (Rey Pan) is gone but the laundry is still there (Kleenex Lavandería), and two of the three dwarves (haven't seen the woman, just the two guys), and the legless guy who sits begging on a skateboard all day on one of the streets near here. The dwarf guys really appreciate seeing me because I give them each a dollar coin every time I come by, and leave them their popcorn balls to sell to someone else (it's how they make their living and it must be a pittance). And the older wheelchair guy who tries to sell candy bars by the ATM — I give him a dollar too and just say thanks when he holds up a candy bar — he can keep that for someone else.

And then there's all the dog shit on the streets, but I at least know two friendly cats, when they're out, but other than that I'm sort of bored, so we'll see how this shakes out. At least there is always something going on around here.

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Comments? Send email to hoofist@nullabigmail.com It may or may not help.

Los Balcones, My Home, eh?

Hang time, 3^rd floor.

So I'm back here. Cuenca, Ecuador, late winter (September 1^st). Loving it.

Temporary room.

My apartment wasn't ready so I was stuffed into one of the regular hotel rooms. Anything but regular, but that's why I like this place. One of the reasons. The people here, the staff, are Reason One, and the businesslike nature (i.e., honesty, fairness, predictability) of the whole enterprise is Reason Two. Or maybe it's the other way around. Anyway, it's good. Good here, and good to be back.

From another angle.

I spent my first 26 days in country at another place, Hogar Cuencano. It's OK, but I like it a bit less every time I stay there. I am certainly glad to give up the lukewarm shower and the dirty AC current, which scared the snot out of me (I thought my laptop had gone on the fritz but it was definitely the current — both the laptop and the electricity are OK-fine-and-dandy in my apartment).

View three.

The day I left Hogar Cuencano I gave the owner, Maggie, a treat of assorted chocolates. They have lots of gift bags here in various sizes. If you buy those you don't have to wrap anything — just find a bag big enough with an agreeable design on its outside, and plunk your thingy in that. Whenever anyone sees you pull out a gift bag they immediately know what's up. And then they can re-use the bag when giving their own gifts.

Obligatory bathroom shot (everybody around here photographs the bathroom).

So when Maggie saw me pull out a gift bag she grabbed it, held it tight, and scurried around to her bedroom, went inside and locked it up. This was in front of her employee, the person who does most of the heavy lifting of floor mopping, stair sweeping, toilet cleaning, and bed re-sheeting. "Yep." That's what I thought: "yep". Worst fears confirmed. Maggie is a real tight-ass. I don't think I'll go back there.

View through the doors from the balcony, on the building's corner.

It was good that I was conservative. I had brought two bags of assorted chocolates, one for Maggie and one for the young woman who works for her, but I only gave Maggie her gift and kept the other hidden. Good thing that I did. Maggie might have bullied her and confiscated the second give as soon as I got out of sight. (It's a thing here.) But it turned out fine in the end, better than I could have expected, and the maid got a treat too. (Keep reading.)

Looking west, up Gaspar Sangurima.

It was later that day that something magic happened. First, I hoofed it over to Hotel los Balcones and left my valuables. My apartment would be ready "later" they said, after 2:30, so I went to lunch.

Looking south, along Presidente Borrero.

After lunch and some messing around I was ready to haul over the rest of my things. I returned to Hogar Cuencano, where they were stashed in a closet under the stairs. I looked around. All quiet. Dang. Now what? Eventually I heard some tapping upstairs. Someone sweeping the steps. Eventually the maid came down. After waiting politely for her to finish I asked if Maggie was around. No.

Hmmm. I don't speak Spanish well, and she didn't speak English, which Maggie does. I needed a taxi. Now what? Again.

Looking east, also along Gaspar Sangurima.

So I tried my best. Something like "Necessito un taxi", with a few por favors thrown in. It worked. She understood, and was more than happy to help. But she couldn't manage to locate a taxi company by phone. She tried two phones, at least. Maybe three. No luck.

So she had to run outside, and down to the corner, and stand on the street to try flagging a taxi by waving her arms, which is the usual method around here. I waited.

A look north along Borrero.

It worked, but while I was waiting, standing over my three duffel bags in the hostal's entryway, I pulled out that second gift bag. It's good that I'm not always slow in the head. I'd given up on getting a thank-you gift to the young woman but this was my chance. Our chance.

I had it ready when she located a taxi. I was outside by then, and waved at the taxi and pointed at the street, indicating where to stop. Then I went inside to get my first bag, but the woman was there ahead of me, hauling it out for me.

I said something inadequate, on the order of "No, no — please.", and grabbed it. Then I set it down and reached for the gift bag. "Para usted", I said, "For you." "Gracias por su ayuda" — "Thank you for hour help." Then I grabbed that first bag and hauled it out to the taxi.

Across the street, kitty-corner.

By the time I got that to the taxi and headed back for the second bag, she'd already gotten it halfway into the street. I felt bad again, but could only mumble something like "No, no", pleading.

When I took it from her, she clasped her hands together and said something. It was almost like I'd saved her baby from a tiger. She was trying to thank me for being respectful, for paying a little attention, for appreciating her worth, for thanking her, for the little tiny gift I gave her.

Then the third bag got stashed inside the taxi and I was off. I waved goodbye. I only wish I could have done more.

But up on the roof, around back, it was laundry day.

So then I found out that my apartment wouldn't be ready until manaña, about 4 p.m. Arrr. But I got to see what one of the fancy rooms was like, which is where the photos came from.

Street style.

So that got worked out, and now I'm in an apartment. Not the one I wanted, but it works. I'm home. I have privacy, and room to wander around within my own walls, and hot water. The electricity is clean and it's always on. The internet works. One of my kitty-cat friends lives around the corner, and when I feel like I need being bitten, I drift by there and see if he's home. I rub some of his fuzzy parts and he gets happy and then he bites me. It's a relationship — you know how they work.

Across Borrero on the corner, from my balcony. A typical roof. A shop downstairs and WWII upstairs.

Now I'm getting settled in. Today is September 18 and I've been here since September 1. It seems like about six hours. It has been pleasant. Even though this is the "wrong" apartment (I'm in #3 and want to get back into #4, if possible), I'm OK. I'm fine. I'm content. I like it here.

West, a higher view, looking across the third or fourth floors at the mountains just outside the city.

But wait — there's more...

One of the smart things I did, if I'm allowed to judge myself, is that I brought back gifts. Two 2-ounce bottles of Dr Bronner's liquid soap for the ladies: Sonia, Jenny, Maríajosé at el Túnel, and Sonia, Janet, Joanna, and Anita at Hotel los Balcones. (One bottle of Rose and one of Lavender.) For the guys, one "Nitecore Tube Tiny Keychain USB Rechargeable 45 LED Flashlight" each. The flashlights cost more, but the cost for the ladies vs the boys is kinda-sorta equal.

The guys got toys and the girls got an experience. I tried to be as fair as possible and mostly, I think, I got it right, except that at el Túnel, Maríajosé and Oscar were no longer there, and they'd added two female kitchen helpers, and at los Balcones, there was an extra female staffer. And the children's gifts I had gotten didn't quite shake out.

So I fudged.

The top side of the "New Cathedral", with another church in the background.

Sometimes you have to fudge.

The children's books didn't go to Sonia's girls, but they got flashlights that looked like frogs and a bunch of "Hello Kitty" stickers.

The children's books went to Santiago's daughter, along with a frog flashlight. And I found out that Santiago is married to Joanna, who also works at los Balcones, which I had no clue about. Now I know that.

Maríajosé was gone, but she's Xavier's wife, and has a daughter, and I had planned for them, so she got one bottle of soap and some chocolates and her daughter got a frog flashlight.

Xavier's son got a rechargeable LED flashlight, just like all the grownup guys, and I had one for Oscar too, even though he no longer works for el Túnel, because he is Maríajosé's brother and Xavier's brother-in-law.

Paólo is no longer at los Balcones, so that freed up one LED light (Whew!)

Anita and los Balcones' new employee, Eva, each got one soap and some assorted chocolates instead of two soaps, so even though I didn't have enough soap to go around and one bottle leaked itself empty en route, that sort of worked out. Not all the ladies got two bottles of soap, but they all got something more-or-less adequate. I don't think that anyone felt left out.

And...I think I'm done.

The three blue domes — Cuenca's icons.

So now I can kick back a bit, and am mostly happy. I get up, read the news, go to lunch and try to end up having walked around five miles a day, and then I go back to bed. Pretty good so far.

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Comments? Send email to hoofist@nullabigmail.com

How's It Going Then?

Yeah right. Am I happy? Am I having fun, yet? Are things going, and well?

Sure, why not. I am my own happy meal. I sit, endlessly gnawing at my leg, and one day it may finally come off. Until then my life is a set of oscillations between despair and boredom. Gnawing helps pass some of the time.

Most days when I wake up I don't see any reason to keep breathing either, other than that I'm doing it because the alternative is worse. Pointless. It all seems pointless. But that may be a personal thing.

I expect that my level of exuberance may be due to getting here at the end of February, in time for two months of heavy rain with nothing to do. I lasted through the wettest April on record in Western Washington, followed by the warmest and driest May on record in Western Washington, while still not being able to go hiking let alone backpacking because most trails are not even close to being melted out until mid-July, oh happy days.

As William Least Heat-Moon said in "River-Horse", the price of life is death. I'm feeling it.

Coffee helps. I haven't brewed a real cup since February when I personally made my last cup of Café de Loja. (How short a time it has been since I forgot the name of the grindery, which, no, has just come back to me: "El Tostador". Well, no loss either way — El Tostador will be there when I return to Cuenca, whether I remember its name or not, and because coffee.) But I have a large-size container of Walmart's best Syntho-Feine in crumbly form. Coffee crumbles. I sleep next to them.

Mornings, I fill my mouth with those crunchy bits and push them down my gullet with cold water as soon as I get out of the car, and then wait. When things go well my mood lifts. This is no substitute for coffee but at times it works. Sometimes my bowels also start dancing.

Then I both feel better and feel better while running for the bushes. I leave the valuable part of my effort in the forest as a thank-you to the trees, and take away the white paper puffs and donate them to one of several dumpsters in need of them.

Am I happy? Am I having fun, yet? Are things going, and well? Sure, why not.

I have only five months to wait until I return to Cuenca, where I was endlessly bored, and where lunch was good, and cheap, like the coffee, and the season was always spring.

Time marches like ants on a string, but ants never sleep, do they?

Living In Public

I got here too early. Way too early, at the end of February.

I wanted to get a good deal on a used car at a time of year when car sales are slow, and to pick up one from at least a year ago rather than a few months ago. Via Hertz Car Sales, anyway, more reliable than Bob's Random Car Sales Lot or a private party.

I have no home here anyway, so I needed to make a transaction happen within a span of days rather than of weeks or months. That part worked. And then what?

I sat. In the rain. In the rain inside the library. In the rain inside the car. In the rain, sleeping, at night, in the car, listening to the rain pound down. For a long time now. Like a week short of three months, although the rain let up about a month back. Despite that, I still have to wait.

First I waited for the rain to end, and now I'm waiting for high-country snow to melt.

I've checked. Anything above 4000 feet (1200m) still lies under snow. Can't walk there. Can't drive close enough to walk there. The backcountry is closed, the roads are. Even some low places I could go have washed-out roads, so I can't go there either. And now the Memorial Day weekend is here, and all sorts of nuts will be out driving around. Have to wait that out.

Maybe in a week. I will get out. I will. That's why I'm here.

Right now, though, I'm waiting. Still waiting. Waiting is harder than it sounds, partly because everywhere I go, I'm visible. Out there. A fixture of any public place I happen to be in, and there are no private spaces for me here.

I used to live here. I had an apartment. I liked it. I was in my apartment a lot, and when I wasn't in there, I knew that I could return to it, go through the door, shut the door, and be home. Alone. Alone and quiet and safe and private. I can't do that now, not here, not at this time.

I have a car. I can move, I can drive, I can go, but I can't drive home. I can't be home. I have none. I can be a guy sitting in his car eating in a parking lot, or a guy parked, sleeping in the back of his car, in what I hope is a place that no one will investigate.

Everything I do is public now — sleeping, eating, bathing, pissing, shitting, traveling, cleaning house, making my bed, reading, sorting, packing, unpacking. Everything. All of it.

Even if I'm out in the woods, privacy is temporary, if I happen to be in a place where no one else is, at that moment, then I am alone for that moment only. When others are around my privacy is partial — screened from one side if I'm on the other side of my car, which just leaves me open and visible and vulnerable, at least to being seen, on the side I'm on, anyway. There is no resolution, no absolute, as in closing the solid front door of my apartment and shutting out all the world without exception.

Now I'm out there, out here. I'm here, and if you are too, then you are too, and all I can do is to put up with it, or drive away. Meanwhile I have to do only those things that are allowed in public, and not do the others, and try not to look too "suspicious", which is a description these days.

It gets stale. It does.

If I do any more of this next year, and I might, or might not, I'm doing it in a van. It would not be glorious or luxurious but it would be private. That's all I really crave. I could sit on the floor of a van with a squirt bottle and washcloth and bathe. I could do that, with the cover provided by even a small van, and be satisfied, in my own little way, but I can't do that in the vehicle I have now, which is too small even for me, and all windows.

So later then. We'll let things stew for now. I have months to go. We'll let things stew and later on I'll decide yes or no, or stay or go, but I won't do things this way again. I am not a public person and need to live up to that

In Case Of Problems, Steal

One of my recent problems has been walking into a supermarket and forgetting to bring my own bag. You have to do that around here now.

I moved away at the end of 2012, and when I came back six months later, bags cost 5¢. If you wanted one, which duh?

And then they give you one of those old ⅙-bushel brown paper bags that begin to rip as soon as you touch them, like what we got every time we went grocery shopping in the 1950s. Progress, eh?

But they really expect you to bring your own, and if you walk out of Al's Sooper Markit without a bag, carrying a few goods in your hands, then they want to see your receipt. Unlike if you walk out of Al's Sooper Markit with a bag, carrying a few goods in that bag (which you got at Peggy's House-O-Valu, and carrying Peggy's logo), no one blinks.

Well, pisser anyway. So what do do?

Q: What to do about what?
A: What to do about going into any and every store and forgetting to bring my own bag.

Ah - I finally figured it out: Steal one.

I buzz through the produce section and grab a couple of those clear plastic bags they have hanging there. Some stores even have more than one size/weight option. They're small, but if I'm not buying much, I can use one of those.

Then, on the way out, I also drop my receipt into it, with the store logo facing outward, and don't have to get searched for not carrying my stuff in a $20 "sustainable" heavy cloth shopping bag, or a brown paper one which if I'm really lucky will mostly hold together all the way out to my car.

But wait - there's more. A better idea is to steal some of these produce bags every time I buy something. Then I hang one from a small 3M Command Hook I've stuck onto the passenger side of my car's dash, and use it for trash. Being plastic, albeit lightweight, they're good for both dry trash and wet trash.

I also bought some larger bags for random larger cruft I accumulate, and I can put several of these small bags into one of the larger plastic trash bags, and get the effect of double-bagging if I have something really messy, like dripping food cans, or used toilet paper/wet wipes. (I clean up after myself.) Or worse. (In case I need to do something while squatting inside the car. It happens.)

Neat. This works. I get the bags I need, and since I grab these produce bags only when I buy things, I'm sort of paying for them anyway.

One online vendor chosen mostly at random sells 2000 of these produce bags for $45, which is 2.25¢ each, retail. Wholesale is probably a tenth of that price, so three seconds of the cashier's time reaching for a paper bag to sell me costs more for both of us.

I'm not worrying.

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Comments? Send email to hoofist@nullabigmail.com

Privacy Curtains

How to do it. I think.

Step One: I bought a car that was not a van, so then I needed to come up with a way to block views of the inside.

Step Two: I tried stuff. It didn't work, so I tried other stuff. That didn't work either, so I kept trying. Now I think I have it.

Conclusion: Every iteration has ended with a simpler, easier, cheaper solution, so that's good. Maybe I can quit now.

Why: Invisibility.

(1) When the car is parked, and I'm inside, there are times when I will need not to be seen, such as when changing clothes, having a sponge bath, pooping, peeing, sleeping, or metamorphosing into a glorious winged flutter-by. Since the car has 360° windows, I uh, I have to block them.

(2) When the car is parked, and I'm off somewhere, like backpacking for days on end, I will want the interior of the unoccupied car to be invisible, because my valuables are in there, and because I can't just put everything into a 40-ton vault.

Invisibility in this case will be a stand-in for security. I'm hoping that if things are not visible, then anyone nefarious will tend to try being nefarious elsewhere, because of being uncertain of the payoff of breaking into a car that does not have valuables in sight (and might just possibly have someone inside, though you can't really tell, but just might). And like that.

Definition: Invisible. Here it means "not able to be seen", and does not mean being transparent.

Transparency would be nice, since then no one would know there was anything to look at, but invisible in the sense of "a blocked view" is the best I'll be able to accomplish, and will work.

My first pass involved two layers of black bug netting backed by a sheet of what they call "clear" poly film with a thickness of 2mil to 3mil. "Poly film" is dropcloth material — polyethylene.

My thinking was that the bug netting would give the curtain a no-gloss surface and sort of fuzz it out, and in a way, from a distance, it all would not look too different from professionally-tinted glass, while the poly film would be partly transparent, but since it's actually milky (the genuinely clear stuff is no longer sold for some unknown reason), it would blur the view to the point of obscurity, though on a bright day I could still sort of see out a bit from the inside. Plus, since it's sort of white-ish, any light inside the car would bounce around inside the car, and help with visibility when I was in there doing something.

The problems were that this required cutting three pieces of stuff, attaching the pieces together, and then hanging this thing, and getting it all right. Didn't work.

The concept was fine, but without a really good place to work (i.e., somewhere indoors with a decent work table), it wasn't possible to do the measuring, cutting, and assembly with enough precision to make it work. And then there was the problem of how to hang these curtains.

Wandering around a Fred Meyer store I had come across 3M Command Hooks. I'd used these before, in apartments, and realized that the really tiny ones might be a good bet for the narrow spaces inside a car. I bought some and mounted them. Everything seemed fine until it was time to hang the curtains, which turned out to be misshapen and wrongly sized.

So next I decided to try using cut-open trash bags, the dark green ones. In lightweight bags, this material is really thin, and naturally translucent, so it does let some light pass through, but also does obscure the view well.

I put tabs of duct tape where the material would need to be held by hooks, and used a hole punch to make a proper hole. I also placed the holes just a tiny bit too far apart, so that the material would need to be under light tension, so that it wouldn't hang limply, or hang with wrinkles. All went well enough.

I didn't have to actually cut anything, just use a scissors to cut open a bag into a long and narrow piece, put the tape and holes where needed, and hang it.

But.

At some places in the car, the interior plastic lining where I was putting the hooks is unaccountably slippery, as though it's been waxed. I couldn't clean these areas well enough, short of using a nuclear-grade solvent such as acetone, which might well permanently damage the car's interior. Hmmm.

So. Next I went looking for different hooks.

I decided to use badge straps. Or "ID badge strap clips", or whatever. (They have several names.) There is a spring-loaded metal clip on one end, with a narrow vinyl strap attached to it, and a pair of snaps.

Take a look at what Office Depot has...

I already had duct tape, and the vinyl strap would offer a decent place to anchor the clip with the tape, and so on. Didn't work, for the same reason: Some of the car's interior was just too slippery.

So. Next I tried something completely different — I skipped adhesives and stuffed the clip's strap and its two snaps sort of behind the wall. I pulled the hard plastic interior lining of the car out a bit, just enough so I could slide the strap and the two snaps behind it, and then let go. What I ended up with was the metal clip protruding into the interior of the car. Once the clips were placed, I verified that I could hang cut-open plastic bags from them.

This method is awkward because I can't put a clip just anywhere, and hanging something from the clips takes three or four hands, but it does work. There is no adhesive involved, so there will be nothing to clean, ever, and there is no damage done to the vehicle. There is a line inside the car where the headliner meets the "paneling", and I can stick a hook (mostly) anywhere along that line. There are one or two places where this technique will not work well, or where I need to use some tape, but I'll be able to get by.

Success.

Photos:

---

Comments? Send email to hoofist@nullabigmail.com

Hacking Through It

Living is a hack these days. I like it better this way. It's better than living with bags of regret and no remedies.

I won't say what I have to regret, but there is something almost daily. If I didn't care I wouldn't care, but I've always been reflective and it's not going to stop this week, or next, so out of desperation I guess, I found something else to do besides hate myself for what I've done in the past out of ignorance, or shyness, or inexperience, or laziness, or wrong-headedness.

Now I hack. Hack myself.

Maybe this approach started due to the influence of Craig and Lucy. They are retired dairy farmers. They now own a cafe in Cuenca, Ecuador, the Windhorse Cafe. They follow Tibetan Buddhist practices and lead meditation sessions at the cafe. It's a thing for them, a big one, and also apparently for others.

I heard a woman in her 60s gleefully exclaim "I'm a Buddhist!" Go for it, gal. Done in the tone of the Smothers Brothers' "Streets of Laredo" parody: "If you have an outfit you can be a cowboy too."

Point One: Being a buddhist (in, if I may say, the real sense), means that you don't claim to be one

Point Two: If you're a Buddhist you don't get there by buying a t-shirt and wearing it around town.

Point Three: Diet isn't a thing. Claiming to be a Buddhist and being a vegetarian and using one to prove the other doesn't prove anything.

Point Four: You're grown up. You should know better by now.

I taught myself to meditate beginning back in 1964 or 1965. It took 10 or 15 years before I started to catch on. I wanted to be a Buddhist too, but I'm not a joiner. There was no one to join in Bismarck anyway, but still I don't play well with others, so I had to do everything the hard way while being honest with myself.

The years tell. As decades go by, a person matures and gains perspective on things simply while continuing to breathe. Things stick to you the way lint sticks to a shirt. Things have stuck to me. I now claim that there is no magic. I will never be a Buddhist, and don't want to be one. I still have sporadic episodes of meditation, but that's my private deal. It's not going anywhere. Meditation doesn't go anywhere.

I can say that the single most important thing I've learned is how to meditate. I'll stand by that.

However, I'll also say that there is no enlightenment — it's a brain hack. Meditate and you hack your brain.

Keep hacking and eventually you change the way your brain operates. That's it. No magic. No religion needed. No rituals. No secret handshake.

Hack harder and longer and you will probably get bigger changes sooner, but there is no guarantee, and no matter what you'll still get old and ugly and then die, unless you die sooner, in which case you'll still die, but with less oldness and less ugliness.

Meditation does change how you think about things and how you feel about things, and overall it's a good deal, but going around squeaking about how advanced you are or how Buddhist you are this week or how much you know that no one else knows is not a sign that you have the real item. In fact, you never have anything — you change a bit here and there, subtly, and maybe take a more nuanced and helpful approach to life, and don't get your shorts tied in so many knots.

That's about it.

And then for the rest, I'm extending the hacking idea to my life in general.

When something happens I try to figure out out why, or to figure out what could have made it work, if it possibly could have worked but didn't, and then yell into my internal ear "HACK!", and remember it. Then do the hack next time, to get things right, rather than doing the same dumb wrong thing over and over. Or feeling nasty about myself.

Now, currently, I'm in western Washington state. I arrived February 27. I wanted to come early to get a good deal on a used car, at a time when there was still a good supply at depressed winter prices, and little competition. That worked.

What hasn't worked quite so well is that, once I accomplished that, the weather turned especially bad, and there has been nasty rain for the last month. Mostly I've been spending days at the library and nights sleeping in my car in the rain. Heavy rain. Rain and wind. Record rainfall. Waiting for the car's paperwork to grind its way along. That took the full 45 days, oh joy forever.

But, there is a hackishness to this too. I am tired of waiting, and am way behind on such projects as modifying the car's interior to make it more amenable to living in and to sleeping in, but I know that the weather will catch up to the calendar. I know that things will improve. I know that spring will really come, and then that real summer will be here, and then that I will forget what I'm going through now, and that I will be doing a lot of fun traveling and fun backpacking.

But not yet. Not today.

Today, as in weeks previous, and for some (small) time to come I will be moving slowly and will continue to be frustrated by weather. But the deal is that I'm hacking the hiking season. I'm living outside, though (gratefully) protected by the hard shell of a car, with plenty of money for fuel, a car which supplies mobility and heat and electricity to power what devices I have, and all that, and I have two places where I can shower up any day I need to (each). I'm OK here, sitting but sitting alertly, just as though I'm some goddamn meditation master smirking at the universe and watching it unfold.

"Gimme shot — gimme best shot, you. Hah! You call that shot? Piss on you, eh?" That's me, sort-of.

I'm getting to see the hiking season develop. Getting to see my opinions change, my plans change, my gear closet fill up, my thoughts about where to go and when and where to go first, and second, and later some time, and then maybe where to go at the end of this season, and what to do with my car and my clothes then, and what about next year, if there is a next year. I'm learning. I'm watching the lotus blossom.

Which means that I'm hacking my life some more. I'm gaining perspective. It's like a meditation retreat, except while sleeping in my car. And eating in my car, and urinating in my car, and changing clothes in my car, and (although not yet, not yet this trip), defecating in my car (into a plastic bag, of course).

Yeah, so lucky me. I could be in Cuenca now, watching fall arrive. There now, in Cuenca now, the season is the equivalent of mid-November, because Cuenca is south of the equator. In truth, Cuenca is deep into winter, winter being the rainy season, when not huge amounts of rain fall, but when rain falls regularly and when the temperature overnight is in the low to mid 40s (°F) and the day's high might touch 55°F. It gets effing cold with no heat and almost no sun. But still it's more pleasant than what I'm in now. But still, this here-and-now stuff is what I wanted. Go figga.

So, nothing especially to do now, at this moment, but to continue observing, learning, and updating my approach, i.e., keep on with the hacking.

Which sounds good. Not that bad. OK. Tolerable.

I hope I'm as smart as I sometimes think I sound.

Rainwet

No — not yet. September. September, 2016.

Friday, then Friday night, then Friday night rain.

I'm a turtle, inside my shell, sleeping while the rain beats at it. Let it beat. I'm down for the night, shelled in a car.

Then I'm up, and it's Saturday. Another day, another day at the library.

So that's Saturday, then there is Saturday night, and then Saturday night rain.

How familiar by now, and back to Turtle Island, my car, floating, dreaming in the rain. Turn the good ear up and it's pain. Turn the deaf ear up and it's an endless long hum.

A hum caught in the sky's throat. The sky takes long nighttime showers, takes the full night, goes all in. I dream of Frenly Denwa, of Fulsom Honeydew, of Mindy Fresh. Know them? I don't think so either. They only passed by once, full in their beam of portable sunshine, while I loitered in the darkness.

Then Sunday comes. Hope. Should be better, no?

Better then? No.

Off to the park for my own washup, needed. How bad can this state park shower be by now?

Shitbucket.

The hygienic equal to diarrhea soup, served cold. Like a deep bowl of cold diarrhea soup to stand in.

One test token turns the shower on but twirling the knobs only bounces it from off to full glacier. By mistake I tune it to variably tolerable. Someone failed here, so why not, and leverage their oversight, enduring the warm to hot to warm to chilly cycles and bathe anyway. Ha! Beat you! Sorta.

...Dave's qwikwash interlude...

Then back to my car in a solo umbrella parade. Sunday. What a fine day for laundry. So I do that.

But the weather itself fails later, and dies, and weak sun burns in. Yeah. Always later, isn't it? But sun.

Monday then, today, and how is it? Partly to mostly sunny. For now.

And tonight? And tomorrow? How about? Oh.

Rain.

How Is Car Living?

"How is car living?" you might ask, if you knew me. (Although you don't, but I can pretend).

If you did, and had too much time in your life to deal with on your own, and needed to kill some of it in probably the worst possible way, then you could ask. Why ask is your problem, because you won't, so then I will never have anything to do with this question, like answering it, but you still have to deal with the why of it all, because you're thinking about it, aren't you? Eh? Or would be if you existed.

So anyway, if I know one thing, that's it right there. I'm on my own.

Yes, and living in my car. What separates me from the rest of the homeless population around here is that I have a car. I make sure to remind myself to remember that. To remember that I left my warm cozy life of waking up late and only trying to make it to lunch by noon and then doing nothing else all day except possibly buying some fruit and going for a walk, for this. I spent a bunch of money for this. For this living in a car, which has around two thirds the floor space of my former bathroom, which was in turn just large enough that if I turned around exactly slowly enough I would not bump into myself. Slowly. Not faster.

Counter, toilet, and half the bath tub. That's my car, but without the headroom, or the plumbing. I'm living in my bathroom without the washup option and can't also flush away what needs to be flushed away.

A plastic bag, paper toweling, and a bunch of those wet wipey-wipes do work, but your aim has to be accurate right up front, assuming that you do have room behind the driver's seat. And no one is looking. And after that, The Disposal Routine. Problems that it doesn't even occur to a normal bathroom to think about.

But that's life these days. Free as a bird.

A bird named Ed, for example. A bird with a cigarette-stained beak, one leg, a bad cough, graying feathers, a limited time horizon.

Or not. Maybe some other Ed.

The watchword is carefulness. That's it for now: Think first, then act. Move slowly. Don't spill. Especially don't spill. Anything. This car needs to be resold at some point. If that's in a few months then Pay Attention Now, Hear? But if I keep it and continue breathing for two or three more years, then it doesn't really matter unless I miss the bag, and lay my secret right on the floor. Probably best at that point to pull a cap down around my ears and burn the car and hitchhike back to Ecuador without saying anything.

That's where carefulness comes in. I'm practicing it.

Carefulness is like mindfulness but not dressed in black leather or moving to the music. Mindfulness is trendy now, and sleek and slim, but "carefulness" is barely even a word. It's doesn't go to parties or get its name dropped every 10 seconds. It means "Don't eff up, then, putz-face", and means to mean it, and will give you a slap across the forehead right now, not even one second from now, no time to even begin thinking up an excuse, just Whack! if you forget and let your attention wander and do something you shouldn't.

So, yeah, I'm having fun. Life is real fun now, sleeping inside a damp car 25 miles out of town, listening for engines in the night, remembering to wake up by 6:30 so I can get into town and have a shower before it locks up a 9 a.m., having a cup of coffee, buying food from the refrigerated section, and spending the day at the library, inside of which is has not rained. Yet. And then going in reverse in the evening and hoping I won't need to use a toilet until right before tomorrow's shower, and waiting for the car's title and registration and plates to arrive, and drier weather and all that so I can tool around and remain being a homeless guy but one out hiking in the summer.

Something like that.

Exciting to think about if you're the right kind of person.

---

The story of Ed: I rescue this dog. He rescues the bird. The bird rescues all of us in a weird sense and it's just a miracle. A different Ed.

Helicopter toilet

Good Enough

Overnight.

Parked in the woods, at my hilltop stop. As the car door closes and locks, the rain begins.

I am inside alone in the wet until until dawn, listening to drops tapping their dances atop my car. Cozy sleeping but cramped. Little air but enough. I can manage.

My facilities are reduced. I have an empty jar, if I need it, and I will. No reason to go out, to stand in the rain. Better to stay dry, inside, to bleed pressure from my bladder. As long as I don't spill.

"If you live long enough, everything is possible," they say, so one day I will urinate my car. "But not tonight," I hope.

The moon is with me, above, but it hides. I know it is watching behind its curtain of clouds. We are separate tonight, cannot see each other. The moon has been keeping me company for days now. Nights. For nights. We will get past this and resume our conversation directly, but not this night.

The moon itself is always dry, you know, but cold — the eternal tradeoff. Wet or cold, pick your pain. The moon is dry but I am wet. We both suffer then, in our separate ways, and talk later.

In the morning after showering with the other homeless men I visit a laundry to let a dryer have at my towel. It will never come dry otherwise, today, not inside the car inside the rain all day. I have money, and it is well spent. The towel revives.

Then, surprised, hours later, the following evening, last night, parked again at the same spot, there is no rain, not all night, and I see stars while outside, not needing my jar, or chancing a spill. I see stars, and tonight was due the deluge. Later, I guess. It will still come, I think. It will. The year is still too young to be dry, and the storms still range free.

Very well. I have to accept all outcomes because there is no choice among them. At least I have seen stars again. They are still doing fine, and the hazed moon was only slightly hazed. Beyond the clouds, but only slightly out of reach.

This is good. Good enough, I guess.

What Place Is This America?

I'm back inside the United States. I have observations, made on-the-fly.

Random.

They don't necessarily follow a sequence, add up, or fall into a hierarchy. Nevertheless, some things have struck me about this always odd land.

In a supermarket checkout line, I noticed that the people ahead of me, evidently a mother and nearly-adult daughter, had a lot of packaged foods. Among them five or six tubes of potato chips. Tubes. Chips packaged in plastic tubes that may outlast the pyramids.

I used the restroom at Millersylvania State Park one morning. The gent walking out ahead of me went from the restroom to the parking lot, got into his large SUV, and drove 200 feet back to his home-away-from-home, where he exited the truck and went back inside.

About half the land area here seems to be parking lots. There are no free-range people at large on the streets. Everyone is in motorized wheelchairs (Ford, Toyota, Mazda, Jeep, Kia, whatever).

The streets are desolate. (See previous item.) We are all isolates in our steel cans, drifting separately. Most afoot these days are homeless.

No one has children. In supermarkets, you see a few infants sitting in the grocery carts pushed around by Mom, and occasionally see one carried in a harness (usually on Mom's front side), but you don't see children walking with their parents. The three to 10 cohort is missing. There are no family groups walking around together anywhere, holding hands.

People are afraid of contact. Two years ago, out of practice from being away, I crashed my grocery cart into someone else's. The guy apologized, to me. It seems that one of the worst things a person can do is to get close to anyone else. Within two feet you hit the warning zone. People stop, jerk upright, look around, brace themselves for evasive action.

Within two feet things go critical. People begin actually taking evasive action, say "Sorry!", "Excuse me!", "Whoops!" in hopes that they won't under any circumstances actually make physical contact. Closer than that and anything can happen. If you actually touch someone they may erupt in anger and get in your face (without getting any closer), or erupt in an abject apology and slink away. Or do something completely unpredictable.

But on the road it's all close calls. While I'm driving safely and not holding up tens of vehicles behind, or any, I have people floor it and roar around me so they can slam on their brakes and screech to a stop at the impending stop sign just ahead — but ahead of me. That's the important thing. It's those two or three critical seconds that Americans will not let get away. Or will die trying to hold fast to.

Speed seems to be the most important thing in life.

Back to the supermarket: You get an apology from the cashier if the transaction of the person ahead of you takes more than 30 seconds. As if that mattered. On the road: The speed limit is seen as a minimum, especially so if the road is familiar and the person roaring out to pass from behind you has been over this stretch a couple of hundred times without crashing or murdering anyone's children, so hey, if the speed limit is 30 then it should always be safe at 50.

Aggressive, uncompromising moralism applied to random events: As I stood in the supermarket aisle reading the label on a can of beanless chili, a guy passing behind me yelled out "There's a lot of salt in that!" There wasn't, but he couldn't help it. He had to warn-criticize me in public for being so perverse as to buy chili in a can, possibly containing some of this week's evil edible. And why was it his business? Because he was moral and I wasn't. So there, guy, watch your salt.

The stores are full of the crippled. Especially food stores. They travel in motorized carts. Those able to walk do so but hobble. These are people who have never walked farther than from the cab of their giant SUV to the restroom door and back. They are stiff. Their spines no longer flex. Their knees hardly bend. They rock from side to side as they walk, and quit as soon as they can.

Obese. There are huge numbers of obese people here, growing all the time. They take up so much otherwise beautiful space. When I was young a fat person was a rare sight, something to wonder about. Now they are an ever-present shuffling obstacle course.

Packages. Nearly all the food is in packages, each fulsomely decorated with clever graphics. The raw meat, fruit, and vegetable sections continue to decline. They are not trendy, and at best represent yet more work to do once you get home. Instead of ripping open a convenient package and just stuffing the contents into your head, which is what God intended, after all, isn't it?

Shiver Me Nubbins

I can't say that I'm enjoying all of this. Not all of it.

I've been spending nights at a trailhead parking lot. It got expanded since I've been here last. The original was sort of a drive-through place: a loop at the end of the road with space for a dozen cars, if everyone was friends and played nice.

Now they've extended the road up a hill and have carved out a new lot. It's big and broad and flat and above the trees. There must be room for 500 cars up there, and the gravel is easy.

Generally, I've been using the lower lot, the old one. Hardly anybody goes there.

I park, go to sleep, get up, and leave. Anyone hiking or biking uses the upper lot and never even sees me. Most everyone. It's been good.

But it has been cold. The last clear night must have taken me down to about 20°F. Even wearing lots of fleece and hiding inside a 25°F bag, inside my car, I was still cold. Not last night though.

Last night was rain. I dreaded it but it was benign. I needed to get up just once during the night and that was during a gap in the rain. I have the windows covered so I can leave them open a bit for ventilation, which in this case, now, isn't freezing. And the weather was warm — around 40°F, which is a huge improvement.

Two mornings ago I had to scrape frost off the inside of the windshield. Not today, though I did have to wipe the fog off it with paper towels. I am not complaining. It took only seconds and did not immediately freeze over.

Now I'm waiting for the arrival of goods I've ordered, and trying to figure out how to register a vehicle and update a driver's license in Washington while not having a fixed address. Tricky

Jumping through hoops. That's what I'm looking at.

I queried the Department of Licensing about how I could do this without having to leave the state and become a resident of some other state.

As a result I got back a reply that said I could not become a Washington resident without living in the state. That sort of thing is why I quit working for government. I refuse to associate with idiots.

Wetless (Bath-Wise)

Closed.

Which is always fun. Even more fun than you can imagine, shower-wise.

I've been camping at a Capitol State Forest trailhead. It's really a day-use area but there are no signs prohibiting overnight parking so I'm going with it.

I arrive somewhat late in the day, keep a low profile, and burrow into my nest inside the car at dark, which is usually after everyone else has left.

So far Saturday night and Sunday night have been busy times, as expected, but my first night there, last Thursday, was totally quiet. This isn't surprising since Thursday, Thursday night, and early Friday were rainy. Friday night was clear and intensely cold, at least for around here. "Here" is Western Washington, which recently had a hugely atypical cold spell. But also totally quiet.

Spring is coming, and buds are out, but though heavy frost, and snow, are done with for the year (we all hope), the rain will continue for over two more months. I can handle it.

Sometime today I'll have my "side window deflectors" for the car. Once they're installed I'll be able to sleep in the car with ventilation in even heavy rain. That is only a matter of time.

The issue now is bathing.

Millersylvania State Park is my bathing home base.

The main restroom is open as usual, as it is all winter, but the shower is undergoing maintenance. There is a shower available at "Bathhouse 1" down by the lake, from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m., so the sign says.

It works, the shower. That is in fact better than a lot of the showers at this park, but the issues don't end there.

The problem is that the one available shower at Millersylvania State Park is not open when it should be. I've used it as late as noon, and as early as 9:30 a.m., but so far it's never open by 9:00.

If I wait around, or try to find staff, I waste time.

I was hoping to be at the library, working on things, by 10:30 today, a half hour after it opens. Well, I made it by noon.

I killed almost an hour waiting to see if the park shower would open, without luck. As a second and last resort, I went out of my way to buy a small bottle of soap that would fit in the tray at the Olympia Center. It has public showers. After buying soap in a small bottle then, I reluctantly went to the Center to see what the ground rules were these days.

Homeless guys wash there. True, I am one now, at least for a while, but it's not a great place to hang out, nor are most of those people.

The showers in this place used to be available from 8 a.m. to about noon, or until 10 a.m. on Saturdays. That was in May 2014. Now the hours are 8:00 a.m. to 9:00 a.m. (10:00 a.m. on Saturdays) I can't even get into town that early. Fun, fun, fun, but no woots.

No bathing for me! Kinda. Unless I have nothing else to do on that day, and can hang around Millersylvania all day.

So today I tootled on up to Priest Point Park in Olympia. I already needed to tank up on water, and today is dark, so even though I was there at 11 a.m., it was like dusk.

I wheeled around to a little-used part of the place where there's a shelter but no water or playground equipment or anything — the kind of place that people use as a last resort. The shelter was full of picnic tables standing on end, keeping dry until spring. Perfect. (If you have low standards.)

If not perfect, then usable.

I wet my head, soaped it, and rinsed. Done with that.

Next up: crotch.

I wetted a paper towel with rubbing alcohol, sidled backward, in and among the stored picnic tables, dropped my pants, and went over my pee-pee, then used the towel on my backside, which needed a good cleaning because of what I did with it earlier this morning.

Done.

Next, I took off my shoes one by one and with a fresh towel dripping with rubbing alcohol I went over each one.

After that I actually felt good.

The cold water on my head was a shock but nothing you don't get used to while backpacking. The alcohol wipes were quick and effective. My feet feel great. But the rest of me is still old and greasy.

Unless I knock off early and try the state park again, I won't be able to bathe until nearly another 24 hours from now, but hey. I have a partial solution for now, on days when no rain is falling — just trail-bathe. It mostly works, and anyone seeing me won't be able to tell: my hair won't be matted and greasy-looking. My crotch and feet will be cleaned off and disinfected. That's something.

Not enough, but something. Quite a bit, actually.

Anyhow, for today, I hereby declare adequate happiness and contentment.

Formless

"We've gone formless."

A sign I saw at a Fred Meyer store. It fits. I'm formless now too.

No daily routine, no old regulars to talk to, no familiar walking routes. Nothing much now is as it was only a couple of weeks ago.

I'm rebuilding a life.

My luggage got searched at the Quito airport because I was the last person to check luggage on that flight. They do that. If I was smuggling I hope I'd be smart enough to check my luggage a little earlier. As it is I'm not smart.

A member of the American Airlines staff pulled me off the plane shortly after I got pleasantly seated, then encouraged me to run across the terminal. Nope.

Anyway, I had to wait for the search to begin.

I've been through this once before, when I walked past my luggage, not realizing that I had to pick it up, even though it was supposedly checked all the way through from Cuenca to Seattle. That time I spent over three hours chasing it down, then got searched.

Nothing found, either time.

But by the time I got back to the loading gate, the plane had been sealed. Once they do that they don't undo it.

Maybe I should have run on the way back. Maybe I should have taken the wheelchair they offered, so they could push me real fast. But I think not.

So instead of going from Cuenca to Quito to Dallas to Seattle, it was Miami-Phoenix-Seattle for me, and 12 hours tacked onto my trip. Then I caught the last airport shuttle bus from Seattle to Olympia, mostly by accident. But I caught it.

After a few hours of sleep I woke to rain. Rain and cold. Beauty, eh?

Shivering, wet feet, leaky umbrella, but at least I had a place to stay. A terrific place to stay: Lori Lively's AirBnB hideout, so I was set. For a few days.

I had to buy a car. That worked. I got a Nissan Versa Note from Hertz Car Sales in Burien at a good price. The transaction was reasonably fast, and reasonably painless, but then I got back on the highway a few minutes past 3 p.m., which put me into the middle of the southbound rush hour.

It took me around two and a half hours to go around 50 miles. Woo-hoo, etc.

But getting to the U.S. and buying a car were the big humps to hump over, and I got those done.

After eight nights at Lori's place I was on my own. I parked in the woods. Then it rained some more, with me sleeping inside, with the windows up, because Nissan doesn't have "side window deflectors" available. They are those things that let you keep the car windows open a bit while keeping the rain out.

But I did find a place that still sells them for my 2016-model car. Though they wouldn't accept my credit card.

Night one. Check.

Night two I tried another place, one which is really nice, and closer, but gets heavily used on weekends. Less rain. Slightly better.

I did find a different vendor for the window shades, and accepted my order, but they ship via ox train, I think. Maybe due tomorrow, after about a week, just as the rain will be starting again, so I won't be able to put them on. (The weather has been much nicer the last few days.)

So now my life is more or less trying to get the car set up and stable in a known condition. First up was buying a second key, which cost me $121 plus change, and requires a battery. The old days were better, weren't they? While I was doing that, the dealer found a crack in the car's serpentine belt (what used to be called the "fan belt"). Had to get that fixed, for sure. $210 plus change.

While there they found a leak in the "transfer case". That has to be fixed too. But the serpentine belt was fixed under warranty at zero cost to me, so woot already.

Woot 2: The transfer case leak is also under warranty. While they do that I'll have the 35K service done, and get the car inspected overall, kind of like a pre-purchase inspection, post-purchase, so I know if anything else needs attention.

But I'm still sleeping in the woods.

And lost my driver's license.

Which I found was missing while reviewing mail that had piled up since December at my mail forwarder. In that batch of envelopes was one from my credit union, and inside that envelope was my new debit card, mailed on December 18, 2017. It expired on February 18, 2018, so I had to get that worked out. To do that I needed to show my driver's license, which wasn't there.

I guessed that I'd left it at the self-storage place I'd rented space from two days earlier. I let the staffer there use the address on the license, which is for an apartment I haven't lived in for five years. I was praying that she hadn't mailed it back to me. But she hadn't. She was holding it, and had called me and emailed me. I missed all that but I had my license back.

Then I high-tailed it out to my camping spot and started supper. Partway through I realized that it was going to be a night of hard freezing, so I was glad I had my heavy sleeping bag in the car. But it wasn't. I'd left it at the self-storage place.

So more driving then.

Got the bag, finished supper, nearly froze, and so on.

Things have been less interesting the last few days, but there should be rain again tonight, so at least I have something to look forward to.

Me Sharpen Me Tool

I recently realized something. That's good.

What I realized wasn't that important in itself, but the process is. It's my new modus operandi. Hacks.

Lately I've been regretting things. A lot of things, some of them from way back in the past, like even before I went to kindergarten. Go figure.

Now, what should I do about those? What can I do? How do I change something I did 60 years ago, or more? This is not easy to figure out, but I'm not giving up. I want to improve, but I can't sneak back there and do anything differently.

However, I can do things differently now. Now is where I actually live, and I can do things where I am, or not do things: do intelligent and good things and not do stupid and bad things. So I want to try that.

I've been treating life in my apartment that way, which is what inspired me to try extending it to my whole life.

I've figured out how to fix the windows to stay open only as far as I need them to, but not too far, even accounting for the fact that one of them has a broken latch.

I've figured out how to exercise in my apartment.

I've figured out where to put my shoes to keep them away from the silverfish.

I've figured out how to keep the refrigerator from running all day because it's empty of everything besides air and a pitiful few footstuffs.

I've figured out how to get a substance to clean my laundry with, if not using what's available here, which all stinks (of industrial-strength perfume).

And many other things.

Case in point, Proper Hiking Technique:

1. Go fast enough to keep up with myself.
2. But slow enough not to leave my soul behind.

In these days of competitive hiking and/or proving to myself that I still got it and can go fast if I'm light enough. Should work.

Tricks. I'm looking for tricks, ways to make things work out.

Still don't get my point? Then try this.

When preparing to wash dishes, my mother routinely filled one side of the kitchen sink with hot water — about two gallons. Then she squirted in about an ounce of dishwashing detergent. That worked, but used lots of water and detergent, especially for only a few dishes, and sometimes didn't work that well, since the detergent was dilute.

What I learned from a friend: Wet the dishes in the sink. Squirt a small amount of detergent onto a sponge. Rub sponge over dishes. Rinse dishes. Done.

This uses almost no detergent, very little water, and works better than my mother's method. The detergent is highly concentrated this way, and cleans better. And you can use hand soap as well, to make it even simpler. Large quantities of dishes and things like pots with baked-on food need a modified technique, but that's also a different case.

Hacking be very cool, as far as I'm concerned, and my life improves almost every day. Now I feel a little less guilty about past things, but I still won't tell you what those are, so forget it.

I will say that I've also decided to live as though everything I do will be made public, because it usually is anyway, so I get to act more responsibly up front and then just forget about it, because at the end I have absolutely no actions to keep private.

Life On Wheels

I'm not sure yet, but it's got to have wheels, engine not optional. I need a vehicle because it's going to be my home.

I've been living somewhere nice, outside the U.S., but I'm close to the end of my life and I'm bored here. It would be a good place to die, but so far as I can tell, that won't be today, or tomorrow, or even next week, so I might as well get up on my hind legs and move around.

I have places to see, and I can walk. The other version of that is that I can walk and have places I sill want to see, and they aren't here, mostly.

At "home", in the U.S., I know where things are and how to get to them, which means having a vehicle. That's going to be it. I don't own a house and I guess though I could buy something going by that name, it would be pointless to have, because houses — normal houses — don't move. "Mobile homes" don't count. They aren't. Mobile. Or homes, mostly.

The same applies to apartments. They're even more expensive than houses in most ways, but still fixed, and then you always need to keep one eye open for the landlord, not that you're doing anything wrong, but you always have to be ready to present a presentable presence.

In other words, you need to constantly, in effect, wear your best clothes and be on your best behavior.

Screw that.

Anyway, I can't afford to rent anything. Going by the one-third of your income to rent rule, I can't afford anything I'd consider living in, unless it, like any house I'd hypothetically buy, was somewhere I would not want to live. Because that's where the cheap is.

So vehicles, but which?

Going by the Lust Rule, I need a Toyota Yaris iA, s rebadged Mazda 2, available with a manual transmission. Tight, crisp, tiny, responsive, cheap-ish, and frugal all around. But for living in? Eh. About two-thirds the floorspace size of my current bathroom, which is just barely large enough so I don't bump into myself every time I turn around quickly. Take that and figure in about six inches of headroom, and you have a decent coffin for two, but not a great space to call home during a rainy week.

Going by the Rule of Practicalities, I need a van, a cargo van, but they're screamingly expensive, large, skeletal, sloppy, loose, wide, wallowing, unresponsive, and profligate on fuel use. I don't want a 350 cubic inch (6 liter) V8 engine dragging around an empty steel box that retails for $35K at the bottom end. (Or used, 10-15 years old with 150K to 250K miles on it.)

Then there is everything in between.

Like the Kia Soul, a hatchback SUV-wannabe built on the Kia Rio chassis, which has little ground clearance, not much interior room, and lousy fuel economy for such a small vehicle.

Or a step up, a Kia Sportage, Hyundai Tucson, or Nissan Rogue: compact SUVs, which are really smallish to medium-sized family cars with an aggressive look and lots of cupholders. Cupholders are a big thing these days. They appear in car reviews and their numbers and placement affect the final score. And the "infotainment" systems. Fuck infotainment, you ask me. Of my first two cars, which I drove for a total of almost 30 years, neither even had a radio. A radio is enough for me, so fuck infotainment systems.

All of these look decent, and I'm focusing on them because they're readily available through Hertz Car Sales, which is where I'm focused for now. Want used? Check there. Good selection, good deals, but not for every vehicle made.

Other than that — not a bunch. Kia Forte looks great. I had a Hyundai Accent during the summer of 2016 and it was fine, aside from a suspension system consisting of several springs stolen from ballpoint pens and a few marshmallows for dampening. Even drive near a part of town where there's a bump or a dip and you bottom out, then top out, then bounce for half a mile until things settle down. Not much ground clearance either.

Kia Rio looks good, but small, as is the Accent.

Larger Kias and Hyundais are larger, but not much bigger inside, and still low-riding.

Toyota Yaris: no. Not with four-speed automatics. And very small. Toyota Corolla: OK, but a more-expensive version of various Kia, Hyundai, and Nissan models.

If I go cheap, I'll likely pick a Nissan Versa Note, a redesigned version of the Nissan Versa sedan,d and a hatchback with a relatively giant back end. Relatively. You can get one for under $10K, but they're still small inside, have little ground clearance, and relatively small wheels. You get what you pay for, which is, on the good side, high fuel economy and a pretty decent vehicle for the price. Backup: Kia Soul or Hyundai Accent Hatchback.

Most likely to succeed: a Nissan Rogue, a relatively fuel-efficient SUV-styled vehicle with better interior space and decent ground clearance in the 7-inch range. And 17-inch wheels. And the fuel economy is better than the competitors, the Kia Sportage and Hyundai Tucson, which would be the backups. All in the $15K to $17K range, depending on mileage.

So geez — no idea yet. Buy cheap and be cramped but OK or spend 50% more and still be cramped, not get the mileage, but have better wheels and ground clearance for those times when driving on sketchy unpaved roads is the only way to get places.

In a way, no bad choices here, but nothing really stand out, except that it's impossible to find any vehicle which meets all my needs: small on the outside, huge on the inside, cheap but well-built, powerful but economical to drive, built low and sleek for minimum wind drag, but still riding high to handle rough roads.

At least I have both some halfway-decent vehicles to choose from, and, practically speaking all the money I need to get it.

So I guess I'm just whining and ringing my hands again.

Footing It

Today I walked six miles. I'm shooting for at least five a day, or 35 a week. It's a minimum.

A few months ago, during the rainy season here, I hit 45 miles one week. (Or was it 48?) That was tough. It takes time.

You get up, do things, then do more things, then remember that you have a commitment to yourself, wash, dress, and get out there. And then you walk. And walk. And walk some more.

It does feel good but it takes time. It does feel good and I almost always carry a camera, and find wonderful surprises to capture, but it takes time. It takes time. That's the main thing, but I always end up feeling better for it. Even if I'm wet, which happens. But then there is not so much time left for anything else.

Today I walked six miles. It felt good. I'm shooting for at least five a day, or 35 a week. It's a minimum, and this week I'm a bit behind, but catching up. And now the weather is nice again, though not so much this week — mid-afternoon rain.

When we get mid-afternoon rain, I can't go out for lunch, come back and work, and then go for a walk later to air out my head, because that's when the lightnings are out flying around the sky. Lightning does that. And there is the rain too.

Rain. Inconvenient.

So hitting 45 miles in one week (Or was it 44?) was hard. I don't know how I did it, but I did it. It's good for health, one way or another, but it seems that when I'm not home in my apartment or at lunch or walking, I'm standing in line.

I get to Coral at least twice a week: Apples, bananas, cheese, butter, yogurt, vinegar, tuna, hot sauce, instant coffee (should I run short of the real stuff), bar soap, disinfecting alcohol — whatever I need, most of it's there. It's a good place. I stand in line there, waiting for fruit to be weighed. They have to do that. Weigh it and put a price tag on it. Then I go and stand in line to pay for it.

Sometimes it takes weeks. I try to go early in the day. Afternoons are impossible, but still. You never know. Minutes, or weeks.

At times someone ahead takes 10 minutes. I can't tell why. People come and go, and stand there, and now and then someone comes over and puts a finger on the print reader and then nothing more happens.

Once I was quietly standing in line and a guy came along and slipped in ahead of me. I wanted to brain him but that would have slowed me down even more. After two or three minutes he left, and tried another line. I moved ahead a bit and repositioned myself so anyone else trying to slip in ahead of me would have to fight me to get in. But I got out of there that day without causing an international incident.

One thing I've noticed is that people sometimes work in pairs.

A person in line in front of me for five minutes or more will suddenly pull out and go join someone else in a different line. Makes sense. See who gets on deck first, then go with that person. But there's only one of me so I can't try that.

One day at Rey Pan, where I buy bread, there were several people there ahead of me. It's a narrow place, around three feet wide (true, with bread display cases on each side). I stood just outside, leaning against the doorway. More people came. They wedged themselves into the doorway so the people inside couldn't get out, and, of course, I couldn't get in. So the original people fought to get out (people climb over each other here), and then the new people wormed their way in, and then more people came. I waited. And waited.

It's like when the bus comes and everyone rushes the door. Whether it's Greyhound or Ricaurte S.A., that story is the same, but politely waiting to buy something and being recognized as already here isn't a recognized quality in these parts.

Yeah, so I don't have that much trouble just walking around, so that's what I mostly do, while dodging traffic.