Blizzard Ramblings

Not a lot of snow yet but shit-tons of wind. At right is the wave action at 7AM. That’s a lot for our quiet bay. I expect things will get even more interesting as the day progresses. We’re basically prepared.

Today is Jen’s birthday—we have plans for a feast of calzones and other Italian delicacies followed by some at-home cinema magic. It’ll suck giant lizard monster wang if we lose power but, we’re resourceful, we’ll still have fun celebrating Jen’s earthly inception. After all, we’ve got CAKE.
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Word for today is Kuchisabishii.
It’s Japanese. The exact translation is lonely mouth. I love this!  

My mouth is lonely—it needs a cuppycake to keep it company.

Less poetical than lonely mouth, kuchisabishii is a term/phrase meaning boredom eating.

I’ve gained so much weight during my recovery (and the pandemic) because I suffer from acute kuchisabishii.

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I just skipped through a book, a ghost story, for which I’d held high hopes. It’s about an angry, about-to-be-torn-down, 19th century mansion and a crew of salvagers.

When an old house faces demolition, a deconstruction crew offers an alternative to the landfill: Unbuild it piece by piece to preserve and recycle its period materials. (source)

The book reads like a mashup of a This Old House ep and a Stephen King novel. Sounds great, right? Ah…yes and no.

I’m constantly looking up things. What are Dutch doors? What does a Gothic Revival mantel look like? ‘the fuck’s a pie safe? This is cool—I’m learning some fun shit but, taking breaks to investigate all the architectural terms, is distracting. I found myself wanting to read more about the house details and less about the human characters and ghost. 

Coco watching the storm

The author switches back and forth between interesting descriptions of house details to miserly hints of a ghost’s possible existence. One minute I’m in a book about architectural salvage and, a wee tick later, I’m getting spooky whispers about cemeteries, creepy dark barns and doors slamming and locking themselves shut. The transitions are jarring to say the least. 

Too damn frustrating so I skipped to the end. Sadly, the house—the most interesting character—was, post-salvage, torn down. The humans all survived. Fine. MAYBE the two tales—house details and ghosts—mesh better farther into the story? I just don’t have the patience particularly when none of the live, breathing players were particularly engaging or likable.
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I want to visit St. Kilda, an archipelago 40 miles west of the island North Uist in Scotland’s Outer Hebrides. Why? The remoteness, the rock stacks, birds and the human history of it all. (In another lifetime I'll be an archeologist. TRUTH!)

How would I get there? A flight to Glasgow with a connector to Stornoway on the Isle of Harris. From there I can get a day tripper boat.  

No one lives on the the islands anymore, there aren’t any B&Bs or Hostels but camping //shudder// is allowed. Oh to be healthy and sturdy enough to spend a summer week there, enjoying the birds, sheep and splendid isolation.