A Perhaps Weekly Pandemic Periodical, #14

 

I'd never seen a Stellar's Jay before, having grown up and lived most of my life in the eastern United States where the Blue Jay is the most common jay. The Stellar's all-black head and nape blew my mind the first time I spotted a pair of them at our feeder. The pair, I believe, is nesting over in the fir about 150 meters behind our house, or at least that's where I hear them squawking most of the time. Still, even after seeing them many times now, whenever I catch sight of one or both of them, I can't look away.

A Perhaps Weekly Pandemic Periodical, #13

Smooth fringecup

It's been over a month since my last post and what a month and more it has been. The baby is not a baby anymore even though we still call him "the baby"—he be full-blown toddler now. He runs, jumps, slides, swings, throws little tantrums, asks for what he wants, screams for what he wants, knows colors, colors with crayons and chalk, has preferences of what he likes to watch on TV. I don't think I even watch TV anymore, I just watch kid's shows. 

A Perhaps Weekly Pandemic Periodical, #12

 

On a cool early spring morning in Washington, D.C., I spent the better part of a Saturday playing dead inside the United States House of Representatives. I was not there for a tour nor any official posting. Rather, I was roleplaying, along with several dozen other soldiers. 

It was a drill for a biochemical attack -slash- mass casualty event. 

A Perhaps Weekly Pandemic Periodical, #11

 

So, there's a vaccine—two, actually. But not much has changed, here, where one river empties into another. It's easy to suppose that "major breakthroughs" are going to change the state of things. Yet as I look out the window at the fog closing in, at the silhouette of Mt. Hood darkening under dusk, as the snow across the western faces of the eastern hills becomes gilded like white gold... not much has changed.