Saturday, September 26, 2009

Taking a Break on the Rocks


While a bit of summer still lingers and the skies are still blue and dry, I am going over to beautiful Leavenworth, Washington into Icicle Canyon for a spot of mellow rock climbing to end the season.  You'll see the white streaks on the granite buttress, where many climbers have swept aside the lichen following a line of bolts.  Easy routes up to 5.8 in beautiful surroundings, with shady places under fragrant Ponderosa pines, and then off to town for dinner at South, a very nice restaurant featuring the foods of South America.   Try the "Plata Cubana" featuring fried plaintains.  Yummy!

Wednesday, September 16, 2009

The Madwoman from Mendota

One more barn burning and off she went, escorted by the Sheriff to Mendota, in restraints because she just couldn't keep her hands off the matches and kerosene.  The judge asked her why she did these things, and she replied, she loves to stare into the flames.  Smoke gets in your eyes.

Tuesday, September 15, 2009

Mummy's Wrath 2.5

Lars the mummy snatcher has collected more contraband; a small cat was prepared in the 2nd millenium to accompany a royal queen upon her journey to the afterlife.  Never, never separate a cat from her queen, or there will surely be a serious karmic debt to pay!  Especially when kitty didn't get the full 9 lives.  As if the queen's displeasure wasn't enough.  Imagine how a wrathful cat mummy might take revenge ... 
AIEEEEE!
And here's a portrait of that smirking disturber of the dead, that wretch, that erstwhile archaeologist, Lars.   

Wednesday, September 9, 2009

Lars, Jasper, and Patent Medicines: The Mummy's Wrath II

From the far flung remote and dessicating sands of the Gobi Desert a new mummy arrives for the Museum, drawing throngs of the curious in Kenosha.  It's another ambitious project of erstwhile archaeologist Lars Olafson.  Lars, not one to miss a profitable opportunity, and Jasper Elkhorn, purveyor of nostrums and anodynes, not one to miss good publicity, have struck a deal and plastered the famous remains with advertising.  Neither gentleman being known for his subtlety, each has missed just how misdirected and annoying their pioneering efforts at advertising may be.  It is enough to raise the dead.  The Kenosha Museum of Antiquities and Dry Goods Emporium will soon regret this new project:  he stirs -- first Lars, then Jasper, then Kenosha, then, well, the world.  BWAAhaHA.


The Mummy's Wrath

The royal lady Nefer-nefer.  It wasn't that they married her off to her bucktoothed brother, it wasn't the ancient thieves who interrupted the royal repose and made off with her funerary riches, it wasn't those 2,500 years in an obscure pit in the the Valley of Queens, no.  It wasn't that dratted Lars Olafson, self-styled archaeologist, disturber of the dead, who shipped her, not first class, but as freight, mind you, freight, and the side trips as misplaced luggage to Abu Dhabi and Dubai, oh no.  It was the trip on the rattling train to the museum in Kenosha.  Kenosha!  Ptah knows, a girl has her limits.  That was the straw that broke the camel's back.  She stirs, and she is, to put it mildly, peeved.  Kenosha will know the horror of royal disfavor!  And she hasn't entirely forgotten that wretch, Lars, either.

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

Halloween is coming, and that means it's time for things that go bump in the night.

Stay tuned for the continuing story of Lars Olafson and his misguided efforts to collect antiquities and make a buck or two at the Kenosha Museum of Antiquities and Dry Goods Emporium.  Soon Kenosha will pay the price of his greed and poor taste.

BWAAAhaha!