Running Around Montana & Wyoming

Butte Folk Festival 2015

The music was great, the rain poured down, and the crowds danced with abandon.  A great event with its shit together.  The lack of hot weather and added challenge of not getting soaked in the rain enhanced the fun experience.  It helped that we'd all dragged our rain jackets along. 

Good friends and the epitome of crowd watching rounded out the day.  This three sided chalk board is something new.  Quite intriguing to see what folks decide to put down to represent themselves.  And the discovery of the Front Street Market import store, hiding out in plain sight in downtown Butte, loaded to the brim with items you would never imagine (pickled patty pan squash anyone?) was a real gem to discover.  

Seeley Lake June - Maiden Kayak Voyage

It was a gorgeous day for my first outing and I thoroughly enjoyed it.  I had forgotten just how much I love the water. 

Fairview Hike June 2015

This 9 mile hike is perhaps the longest hike I've done in one day. The area is north of Helena, with a group doing a "key exchange," half the group starts at each end and drives the other half's vehicles, then returns the owner's key at the half-way lunch stop.  A lively group of speedsters, moderates, and slow poke photographers, the group was spread apart over several miles.  A perfect cooler, slightly overcast day presented perfect hiking conditions.  A narrow rocky cliff trail challenged those of us with slight height issues.  I never did look at the no doubt spectacular view, but rather kept my eyes on my next step ahead of me.  Steady breathing kept me at an even keel.  One false move would induce an unhappy ending for the unlucky hiker.  I did not want to fill that role, and safely made it to the end of the offending trail. Several pooh-poohed those of us who stated a more dicey stretch would certainly have proved problematic.

Bizarre shit  happens, and it is wise to take these circumstances seriously.  Look at those three young bible hikers who launched over the falls at Yosemite a few years back.  Just wading out for a photo op in shallow waters at the edge led to their untimely demise, one after another trying to save each other.  Not the smartest folks, they breached the "do not pass barricade" signs and climbed over the guardrail.  The many onlookers witnessed a disturbing event, their young kids in tow, as they saw the scared eyes of the three realize they were about to meet their end.  

More

How do you interact with someone who sports a razor thin comfort zone? Respecting the boundaries presents challenges I had not encountered prior to this individual.  Discovering how very flexible I am myself also came as a surprise.  

Very rigid types need the fluidity of a go with the flow, turn on a dime companion.  Due to their narrow, narrow focus though, these traits will not only go unappreciated, but totally unrecognized.  This, the flexer must accept, over and over again, like ground hog day.  The restrictive bonds feel tight to wear, the urge to breathe deep and rip the seams strong.  Let's just _____, fill in the blank, keeps popping in my brain.  Accepting the ironclad rules someone you care for deeply places on their being, a lifelong sentence burdening each moment of each day is pain by association.  Nothing I can say or do will ever make a dust speck of a difference.  A hard pill to swallow.

Memorial Day Weekend

Water is very healing and this lake is one of  my favorite Montana places.  The steady rhythm of the waves colliding with the shore induce a calming mood.  

Buzzing around the lake, touristing the small artsy main street shops and sampling the local microbrews doesn't hurt either.  

People watching as a full time sport includes the spectacle of thundering Harleys roaring down the quaint town center, projecting a "you may not care for us, but you will not ignore us" vibe.  The leathered up ladies wearing their "don't fuck with me" scowls, perched up on their elevated thrones behind their men, each sporting an enlarged, jiggling middle section.  I'm not sure the image in their heads matches the impressions of the onlookers.  

Montana winters are long, and spring is a slow motion dance of fits and starts before summer finally arrives.  By then you are faced with cramming the most you can into 10 or so weekends of travel, outdoor activities and the local music festivals.  Packing the summer schedule is an art most Montanans hone out of necessity.  Those of us who are transplants also learn the skill.  Lest you approach the short, autumn days with a downtrodden, sinking feeling that you missed your chance and now face the long, dark winter before the sunshine warms your skin again.

San Francisco 2015

Life is full of adventures.  I like mine full tilt.  Taking risks is a scary proposition, but not taking them is death by apathy.  My whirlwind long weekend to San Francisco was full of surprise encounters, great food and drink, sights, sounds, smells and three days of companionship with the most unique and interesting person I've ever had the fortune to spend time with.  I am forever thankful for these memories emblazoned on my soul.

Artistic Expression - The Lines Are Not So Blurred

Got to Give it Up vs. Blurred Lines

This has nothing to do with evoking a feeling or emotion.  Listen to both songs.  I'm glad the case recognized you cannot simply overlay a new vocal track with different words and call it a different song.  The backing track, complete with hoots and hollers and "cow bell" is very nearly identical.  For Farrell and Thicke to claim they were only inspired or paying tribute to Gaye is a crock.  Rather than put a crimp in creativity, hopefully this case will compel artists to come up with their own ideas, instead of lazily copying the masters in their field.  Imitation may be the purist form of flattery, but plagiarism is just stealing someone else's art and calling it your own.

Friday the 13th Pizza & Beer

 Defrosting the frosty glasses post party, a friendly affair featuring homemade pizza and pineapple upside down cake topped with vanilla ice cream, a sit down dinner for eight.  My dinner party was a ploy to deplete my generous supply of Montana IPA's leftover from my New Year's Eve bash, but my plan was thwarted.  Red and white wine walked in the door with my guests, and a six pack of bottled Dos Equis, half consumed by the guest who brought it, only added the three remaining bottles to my stockpile in the fridge.  

It had been only five plus years since I'd been toying with the idea of throwing a dinner party. The living room newly painted my "pea soup," and the art changed up and rearranged, the space is quite inviting.  Just a few hours prior to the party, the guest list included a total of five of us, then a last minute call upped the ante to eight, and I scrambled to garner a few more supplies, another jar of red sauce, an extra bottle of red wine, to up the pizza count to three, two veggie, one meat, to be sure the crowd was not left wanting.
As it is, they munched the chocolate covered almonds and pretzel sticks as we played our "complete the saying" game, and finished off the wine.  The beer took a slight hit, but alas, I still have 25 bottles chilled in the fridge.  Very fine varieties all, I suppose I may have to now hold a "BEER" party if I hope to make a dent in the cashe.

Childhood

Mourn the childhood you didn't have, accept the one you did.  Revisiting the past over and over in your head serves no good purpose.  As if reliving the hurt, isolation and loneliness will somehow create your happy ending.  But you stand at the end point, your life as it is at this moment.  Point A, your childhood, led to Point B, you, an adult, now.  Refuse to succumb to the burdens of your history.  Learn, love, live.

The only way to right the wrongs you suffered is to live your life according to the path you wish you'd traveled in your youth.  Be kind to the children who cross your path, listen to them, acknowledge them.  Be thoughtful to all you encounter, as we are all just grown children, products of our past experiences.  You must strive to be like the dandelion growing out of the crack in a rock on the hillside.  Reach skyward, towards the light of the sun.  Don't focus on the rock, leap into the present.  You are your own teacher, parent, guardian.  Raise yourself to be the person you've always been at your core.  Your best self.

You have arrived, you survived; lived to fight another day, but fight the good fight.  Don't clutter up the battlefield with what ifs and whys, end the needless battles with yourself.  Refuse to let the abusive teachers, unloving parents, mean bullies at school, or random strangers determine who you are now.

You are in control of your perception of the past.  No one else.  Spin that motherfucker into the self-guided tour that led you to this moment.  Rejoice in your blessings.  There are many and they multiply once you start acknowledging them.  Come out of the darkness into the daylight.