it was an odd week all around, exhausting but noteworthy.

...

My father took a day off work to head down to Sedro Wooley (WA) to visit his sister, my Aunt Emily. Her condition had been gradually worsening over the past few years - from a silly and trivial injury, something along the lines of stepping on a nail, gone untreated leading to gangrene, amputation of the foot, higher, higher, not enough - leading to vague internal organ (kidney?) problems and either strong medication or reliance on machinery, intolerable either way.

The treatment was harsh. Too harsh, she finally decided. She'd decided to terminate the treatment, but the family was extended warning of a few days for peace to be made and good-byes exchanged.

He asked if I wanted to come down with him. Yeah, like dwelling on the imminent death of a relative will ease my depression. Nice try, Dad. Too bad I'm not better-adjusted, since this opportunity only comes once.

...

    Spent a day stomping around in the hot (and rare!) Vancouver sun with a human foot visting from Toronto and this database. I've been getting spoiled on great grand noder-conventions - I've almost completely forgotten how to interact with newly-met people in one-on-one situations. Fortunately my mouth remembers the motions, and my brain can fake it on demand.

    A remark was made regarding something she'd observed - at a public Internet terminal within her eyeshot, someone accessing everything2 and her having had from somewhere the infernal restraint necessary not to greet the anonymous user. If they were noding from non-work/home space, chances are they were travelling... and if they were travelling, they ought to have dropped a line before leaving and arranged a lunch date or something. WHOEVER YOU ARE... know that my agents are everywhere, and spare no expense in the tailing of your shadowy movements. Vancouver remains my inviolate domain.

    Later that night, we mastered once again the secrets of water and fire, or, a node-to-be: How to produce large (meter+ diameter!) fireballs from tea candles using only a propane torch and a bottlecap of water. Photographs will be posted. Pho at dawn concluded, always one of the better endings.

    ...

    What were the crows doing? Wriggling, shimmying through the grass on their bellies with wings unfurled. We know crows engage in play behavior, but this looked like nothing so much as pathetic attempts at recovery after having their wings dislocated by some thuggish onlooker. Still, they hopped up and flew away neatly enough as I approached to investigate the matter. Were these just goofy birds (no stranger to the bather of Maxwell) or was there a substance on the ground they were rolling in, a kind of crow-nip? Ants, there are ants on my shoes! Stepping back a bit and shaking my feet I observe that the area of almost highest ant activity correlates almost exactly to the mysteriously favoured spot of the crows.

    After repetitions of this spectacle (never before observed, then a dozen times in a couple of days), our eventual hypothesis: the crows were intentionally seeking to introduce ants on to their bodies, insinuating them between feathers to eat or otherwise take care of parasites living on the crows. Shit, I knew them crows was smart birds, but if I was a crow I would be spending so much time in the air and trees that I wouldn't ever have even seen an ant, let alone been aware of their theraputic capacities.

    (My subsequent question: do they roll in anteaters to get rid of the ants? She swallowed the bird to catch the spider that wriggled and tickled and jiggled inside her...)

    ...

We were never particularly close. Well, aside from my playing Mendelssohn's Wedding March during the procession at her wedding.

My aunt died at 11:30 this morning. My father has extended another invitation to me, to come to her memorial service. Not having found sufficient will or interest to say good-bye with her, where might I dreg some up to say good-bye to her?

in our last episode... | p_i-logs | and then, all of a sudden...