The Train
~Rach
What Kind of Music Do You Like?
Have you ever been asked that question?
What kind of music do I like?
How do I answer that question?
I know how you’re supposed to answer it.
I like heavy metal.
I like country.
I like (crap somebody throw me a name that people like right now) uh, The Lumineers. (Thanks, dude.)
So how about you?
I like… all of those things. Sometimes. There’s not a lot of metal that I like, but now and then I’ll find a song that makes my heart fly. Same with country.
I like a lot of pop music, but a lot of it makes me want to take one of Lux’s pistols and put a couple of rounds through the radio in the truck.
So what is it that I like?
I like musicians with good stories.
I like to hear honesty bleeding out of my headphones.
I like heartache with a soundtrack.
I like music with beautiful imagery.
I like music with raw, devastating imagery.
I like music that makes me think of the way the pink buds come out of the brown trees in late March.
I like music made by people who aren’t really in it for the money, but more for putting their songs into people’s ears.
(Listen, I still think they should get paid for it. I’m really, really poor and I pay for all my music.)
This is what I am excited about buying: Akeda by Matisyahu. Have you ever heard this guy? Don’t ask me what genre he is. Actually, don’t ask him either, because after he says it, you’ll forget, anyway. You’ll have to write it down and you won’t be sure what the proper spelling of Chassidic is.
Here’s one of the new tracks, Reservoir. What does it sound like?
…..?
It’s beautiful, I don’t know. It tells you something about him.
Know who else I love? The Rocket Summer.
This song, 200,000 makes me happy no matter what.
Music that tells a story.
Music that shows me a piece of your soul.
Music that makes me…feel.
That’s the kind of music I like.
Hey…. what kind of music do you like?
Book Trailer for The 7th Judge
Book Trailer for The 7th Judge
Friends and Children (prologue)
Overgrown by
Joakim Olofsson
Friends and Children,
In the year 2101, humanity fell asleep. Most never woke again and the few that did scrambled to survive as the human infrastructure fell apart. Power grids failed. Food sources dried up overnight. Fire and flood raged unchecked. The remnant of humanity sat by a fire made of their possessions eating beans out of a can and telling sad stories.
Disconnected from safety of our power grids, we had no heat but what we could burn and no food but what we could steal from the dead. Generators helped us play at civilization for a time, but eventually the gasoline stores dried up. Batteries were used up and then tossed away by the hundreds, the thousands. We had no friends left but our solar-powered calculators and our pods. We could comfort ourselves with the music of the old world, but we couldn’t call each other up to say hello.
For the first five years, we looked for a savior, someone who had the knowledge to turn everything back on, but none came. There weren’t enough of us left. So we slogged along, always a little hungry, always a little cold, always a little lonely.
We died in desperation, one at a time, until there were almost none left.
We believed it was the end of the world.
And it was, in a way. But I’m sorry – I won’t bore you with the details. You’ve heard this story already from your parents and from your friends and from your teachers.
You will remember, then, that thirty years later, one small civilization budded in the ruins of New York City. In those days, most of America was wild and largely uninhabited. There were clusters of men near the safest places – the Nova Lenape in Jersey. The Old Order Amish in Pennsylvania and Ohio. They say, that a great peaceful commune once domesticated the mild jungles of San Diego. I have no way to confirm this, but also no reason to doubt it. For the most part, empty suburbs and burnt hulls of cities dotted America’s landscape. We had no power sources and no king. But in New York, there were still people, enough to love and steal and kill. Enough to be classed and ruled. And so a council of seven men presided over the boroughs as judges, decreeing right and wrong. Who was allowed to reside in safety and who had to leave. Who could work in peace and who had to hide in the shadows.
I was born at the same time that the judges convened. My mother and I, we were among those who lived in the shadows.
Today I will tell you the story of a man named Alexander Jackson, though history simply calls him Lux. Lux was the 7th of the judges, a single man among the council. The youngest. The least learned. The roughest of hands. The simplest of speech. He was a working man who sought to rebuild the Bronx with common sense and his own hands. Eventually the justice of the boroughs – and the fate of the world – would depend on him.
But first, he became my father.
And that’s the story I am going to tell you today.
-Summer
S.E.H.
July 4, 2176
Beautiful Herbal Bath Bombs
Have you ever wanted to make a simple, natural bath care product that makes a fantastic herbal Christmas gift? Yeah, me, too =) My friend Joei came over and taught us how to make Bath Bombs yesterday and I am so excited to share her very simple recipe with you today.
The ingredients are few: The ingredients are linked to a great place on-line where you can buy them, but you can buy all of these things locally, too
Baking Soda
(You CAN buy this on-line but you should buy it locally unless you are going to buy a huge amount and you were going to place an order anyway in which case you can buy it here.)
Citric Acid buy here
Witch Hazel buy here
Essential Oils as desired for scent or for helpful qualities (We used Peppermint, Orange, Lavender, and Lemongrass)
Natural color as desired (We used a green oxide, turmeric for yellow – not too much or it will stain, and paprika for pink)
Also, Joei added Himalayan Pink Salt to add more softness to your water and for gorgeous sparkly color.
First step – gather your ingredients all together before you get started. Citric Acid will be the hardest to find. Joei found hers at a local natural grocery store. If you can’t source it locally, try Mountain Rose. They have it in 1lb and 5lb quantities for very reasonable prices (1lb is more than enough for a nice batch like we made, but 5lbs would be great if you want to make a whole bunch of them and give them to everyone you know.
Second step – mix the dry ingredients. Have a nice big bowl and mix together one part citric acid to two parts baking soda. Mix thoroughly. We did four separate bowls so we could make four different scent recipes.
After the dry ingredients are thoroughly mixed, you can add color and scent. We did four different recipes.
The Recipes
Joei made a straight peppermint oil bath bomb with a pinch of paprika for pink coloring. She added peppermint oil til the scent was clear but not pungent, then mixed it thoroughly. Once the scent and color were mixed in, Joei added the pink salt for dimension. This was an EXCELLENT recipe for Christmas gifts, and Joei used a mini gingerbread silicon pan to shape hers (we’re almost there).
Olivia made a peppermint-orange oil blend. It smelled lovely and sweet, and she used heart-shaped molds. She used a pinch of turmeric and a pinch of paprika for an orange color. Be careful to not be too liberal with turmeric as it can stain if the concentration is too high – Olivia’s fingers were a bit yellow afterwards.
My mother (JenniFaye) made gorgeous yellow bombs with turmeric for color and lemongrass for smell. These smelled HEAVENLY.
And finally, I made mine a lavender-peppermint oil blend. I used a green oxide I had on hand to lightly color them and molded them in Christmas tree molds that Joei brought with her. These were so cute and would make wonderful stocking stuffers. Next time we make them, I’d like to add very finely ground lavender buds to the mix for dimensions. Readers of my blog know that I am a lover of lavender and use it with my children all the time. It is such a useful and gentle oil.
Third Step – once you have thoroughly mixed in any color, scent, and add-ins you want to use with your bombs, it’s time to activate them. The way Joei did this was brilliant and made the recipe so simple. She filled a spray bottle with witch hazel. Witch Hazel is as thin as water so you can use any ordinary spray bottle for this, just label it with a marker like Joei did. Then lightly spray your mixture and begin to knead it. You want the mixture to be like sand that is *just* wet enough to mold – no more. Err on the dry side – you can add more moisture but you can not take any away. It will fizz a tiny bit when you first spray it, just mix that in. Once it is the right consistency, begin to mold it right away – you don’t want it to dry again before you get it into the molds. If you did more than one recipe, as we did, work one bowl at a time.
Fourth Step – Now it’s time to mold. Scoop it up in your fingers and press it firmly into the molds. You don’t need to grease the mold or anything like that because the mixture will dry all the way. I do strongly recommend the nice silicone molds – they turned out so well. We let them dry for an hour before popping them out of the molds to air dry more before bagging them. If you don’t have any silicone baking molds and don’t want to buy any, a plain old muffin tin will work just fine – let them dry a little long and if you need to, slide a butter knife around the round shape – they will slide right out.
To use the bath bombs, drop one large or a few small into your warm bath. They will fizz and sputter and soften your water and all the goodness of the essential oils will go into your bath. Delightful. If you use gentle oils they are nice for children, too. Julius was thrilled to have one in his bath and he is very difficult to coax into taking a bath.
Thank you, Joei, for this fun idea and sharing the great day with us! I hope everyone enjoys her recipe and has a great time making homemade herbal Christmas presents for everyone they love!
The Toilet Dream
I had the toilet dream again.
It has happened too often to be a fluke – it must be a sign.
Obviously I am pre-ordained to spend a significant portion of my life in the bathroom.
The toilet dream goes like this: in my dream, I am suddenly looking for a toilet. There are various reasons, though usually in the dream, I simply need to use the bathroom.
So I find one, and there is always something significant about it. Sometimes the stall is too small and I can get in but not get out. Sometimes it’s overflowing or especially dirty. Especially large or open with no stalls.
And then I attempt to – ahem – use the toilet. To no satisfaction. Afterward, I need to find another toilet, ad nauseum.
Until the pattern repeats itself enough times that it registers in the conscious part of my brain –
YOU NEED TO USE THE BATHROOM. FOR REAL.
Last night, the dream went like this – I was doing research. On toilets. The first set were in a sprawling public bathroom. Most of them were completely useless. Broken doors, broken bowls, paper hanging out. Stalls too small or too open. The usual. One stall was occupied by David Bowie, who was working on a new tune. One of my companions asked if he found the environment inspiring, and he said that finding inspiration in filth was his specialty. Sadly, I never saw his face.
The second part of the dream consisted of my doing a survey of a ritzy neighborhood. At first I was just finding more of these run down public restrooms. Then I decided to give up on that and look for port-a-potties. I figured there had to be some somewhere – aren’t there always in a fancy neighborhood? As soon asked as answered, and soon I was walking into one. But then it promptly cut in half, vertically, with the side falling down as if on a hinge. Time to give up and wake up.
After waking up and taking care of business, I went back to sleep and dreaming a magical, mysterious scene that would fit right in with the NaNoWriMo story I am currently serializing over at JukePop (Sarah Elizabeth Jones, Time Traveller). And promptly forgot every detail of it. Thank you so much, Sandman.