~Rach

It was a beautiful morning to stand in the bread line. Low 60s, filtered sunlight. I stood between two white men. One was a man my age with a five-year-old daughter playing Barbie dress-up on a battered previous-gen iPhone. He declined the cabbage but said thank you for everything, wished all the helpers happy new year, and talked about how he uses the day-old bread to make homemade croutons and bread crumbs. He was good-looking, almost professional-looking, but I didn’t like him. He sounded too much like me. The other man was older, mid-fifties. He talked to me the whole time in line while we filled out forms for our new year’s registration. He told me about solar flares and sunspots and how President Obama has warned people to be ready for a drastic solar storm. He told me that he’s interested in a group that thinks they can predict earthquakes based on solar winds. He tried to steer the conversation into talking about our corrupt government but I asked him questions about the sun instead, prying away at the edges of what he knew, dancing away from the parts where I could tell he was starting to make things up.

This afternoon we took the kids hiking. We got a little lost in town trying to find the right place so we stopped at the tourist center and got lots of maps and brochures. They got us pointed in the right direction and we took a little hike through Texas woods. Compared to Pennsylvania, Connecticut woods were denser and darker and felt a little taller. But Texas woods are short and scrubby. Still dense and pretty dark but the trees are weirdly short, almost like tall bushes. And there are cacti here. Are they just succulents? What is the difference between a cactus and a succulent? Is one a subset of the other? I’ll have to ask Google.

We didn’t hike for long but my legs were very grateful for finally getting to walk. I miss Bristol badly and I hate living too far from anywhere practical to walk to. There I said it. But hiking now and then will really help.

My little sister is the primary reason I wanted to move down here. Instead of 24 hours drive from her, we’re now a three hour drive. We’ve lived here for what… three months now? And have visited her four times. This pleases me. The past visit was highlighted by something we’ve all been waiting a long time for – the Bostwicks got to ply our first table top RPG. Not pictured – my gorgeous amazing sister breastfeeding her baby while GM’ing for us. I want to remember that she did voices for all of the NPCs and they were excellent. She made the story herself but it was in the Mouseguard setting. A sort of Redwall-meets-D&D which is perfect for her. Pictured, though, are my daughter along with her step-cousin – they finally had the sense to recognize each other as kindred spirits. Also my brother-in-law holding my amazingly gorgeous nephew, and yes, my sister GM’ing. Just not while nursing. We also had my thirteen year old gaming with us but he declines pictures.