#as i once said to a person... oso is like if their dad was a girl and cho is like of their mom was a boy. there's something sinister with e

[madnglorp]

How I feel after reading 20 essays on characterization and symbolism from anti-bl tumblr users; watching 1980-2000s anime to have cultural references; trying my best to absorb random osokun manga; and ONCE AGAIN fucking rewatching/replaying utena/twin peaks/lisa/disco elysium/whateverrrr for 84727th time for emotional and thematical inspo.

All just to write Osomatsu and Choromatsu as well as Jyushimatsu and Ichimatsu giving up on life and future and the expectations society places in "cishet" men and deciding to have evil codependent sex that is somehow both psychologically damaging yet uplifting because it's the first time in their lives they're doing something Nice for each other

[sincerelyasomebody]

Pinky Promise || Oscar "Spooky" Diaz

(GIF Credit: @merakiaes)

A/N: I've had this idea in my head for a while. It will be a two-part imagine/story. Apologises for any grammatical errors found. Once again, don't hesitate to correct me on the Spanish translations. 

Pairing(s): Spooky x Reader 

Summary: Life can change in an instant.

Warnings: allusions to absent parents; death; options within pregnancy, angsty, fluff, language, unplanned pregnancy

Word Count: 1282

- ♤ - ♡ - ◇ - ♧ -

Becoming the accountant for a few businesses in Brentwood allowed (Y/N) to live above her means. A complete change from the two years out of (college/university) where she barely scraped by, even moving back in with her parents when she was unable to keep up with the rent at her apartment. Thankfully, she was able to bring herself out of that predicament. Those two years were stepping stones into the success she's experiencing now. 

She eventually branched out and took on being the accountant for Joe's Diner in Freeridge. Despite hearing negative things about the area, she couldn't help but admire the community. Their friendly faces, charismatic personalities and willingness to help one another without expecting anything in return reminded her of the small town her grandparents lived in.

When (Y/N) got the opportunity, she'd go back for a visit. Only with her family though. Going back by herself would be a bit too painful. 

Not only did she admire the community she fell in love with it… and with somebody. 

Oscar 'Spooky' Diaz. 

The pair met while (Y/N) was double checking the hours each employee wrote down on their timesheet. He sat in her booth and started up a conversation. Love at first sight wasn't something (Y/N) believed in, but she couldn't deny that they had instant chemistry. All it took was a date for the pair to become an official couple. 

(Y/N) couldn't have been happier. 

She was making good money, she had met somebody who "got" her and for all intents and purposes she was content. Completely satisfied with the way her life was going. 

And then a curveball was thrown. 

"... measuring about six weeks… discuss your options… a follow up..." 

(Y/N) remembered bits and pieces of her doctor's appointment. Going in for a simple check up resulted with the black and white picture in her hands. She was going to be a mother. Shaking her head she quickly tucked it into the pocket of her jacket and walked up the pathway of the Diaz household. She was surprised to see none of the usual Santos members hanging around outside, but figured they had more important matters. 

She was thankful though, as much as she liked the group she felt a sense of relief that they wouldn't be around to hear the news. 

"Está roto tu celular?" Oscar asked, as she walked through the door, when he received a head shake he continued, "then why haven't you been answering your phone?"

(Y/N) took a seat opposite him at the table, instead of answering his question she had one of her own. "Do you know what a wombat is?" 

"Why?" 

"Come on, just answer."

He scoffed, redirecting the conversation, "where were you?"

"I was busy." Was her response.

"Busy? That's all I get?" He glared, "for three days? No contact. Nothing. For three days!? I know you like your space (Y/N), but fuck! At least give me a heads up or something. Give me something. I'm dealing with shit from Cuchillos and 19th Street and all you can tell me is that you've been busy? To answer my calls?" He stood up, "fuck that!"

She watched as he began to pace between the kitchen and living room, "I'm sorry… but, uh – a wombat? Do you know –" 

"I don't give a fuck about a wombat, (Y/N)!" He yelled, walking back towards her, "after the second day of you not answering my calls and finding out that you used up a week of your sick leave I sent Sad Eyes and Oso by your place to check if anything had happened," he took a deep breath, "your car was parked in front and you weren't there. Only reason I stayed behind was in case you'd come here. You're here now and you can't even give me a straight answer." 

"A wombat is native to Australia and their poops are cubed," she blurted and giggled, "isn't that funny?"

"(Y/N)."

"Cubed poops, Osc. And, they –" 

"(Y/N)."

"– use it to mark their territory," she whipped out her phone and searched up an image of a wombat to show him, "see? Aren't they cute? Oh and let's look at the –" 

"(Y/N)!" 

She looked up at him, "yes?" 

Oscar huffed and moved towards the door, "you know what? Fuck it, get out. Spend another three days by yourself or whatever. I don't give a fuck anymore," he opened it up, "porque tenía mejores cosas que hacer con mi tiempo." 

(Y/N) knew she messed up. 

She didn't mean to downplay his feelings or dismiss his concerns. She just needed to build her way up to reveal the news. Now, she realised that it would've been easier to come out and say it. Rather than talk about one of the multitude of facts she had read recently. 

"I–I'm sorry, Oscar," she blinked back tears and reached into her jacket pocket, "whenever you called, I wanted to pick up. I really did, but I held back 'cause saying it over the phone wouldn't have been the right thing to do, you deserved to be told upfront." 

His eyebrows furrowed, "(Y/N)? What are you going on about?" 

She stood up, "I've been feeling unwell for a while. At first I thought it was nothing, especially since I decided to indulge in a (burger)." 

"You've told me that your body –" 

"I know… but, I just couldn't help myself, okay?" Pulling out the paper she held it in her hands, "anyway, I went and saw the doctors. I was given some news… and, I distanced myself 'cause I just needed time to think. I'm sorry that I never contacted you, I just needed to get myself together," she held it out to him, "I've gone over my options and… you can be there for them, we don't need to be together."

He walked towards her and took the paper out of her hands, unfolding the paper his eyebrows furrowed in confusion and then a look of realisation came upon him. (Y/N) took a step back as he stepped forward, she looked down at her feet until she felt his hands lift her chin. Her eyes connected with his. 

"You're pregnant." 

"I'm sorry." 

"No, (Y/N), don't ever apologise for this, okay? This is as much as me as it is you." He pecked her forehead, 

She took his hands away from her face, "like I said you don't need to be -" 

"Why wouldn't I want to be a part of this? Be a part of this family. My family." 

"You… still want me? No, wait – us?" 

Oscar wrapped his arms around her, "absolutely bonita!" he held her at arm's length, looking into her eyes, "we're in this together."  

"Really?" 

"Yeah, I'm not going anywhere, baby." He replied, easing her worries, "I'm gonna do better than what was done for me. This baby is gonna know who their dad is. And that no matter what, their dad's gonna be there for them." 

Not to be the bearer of bad news, she knew it had to be said, "what about Cuchillos and 19th Street?' 

"They'll be handled. You and our little blessing come first." 

(Y/N) gave a watery smile and placed his hands on her stomach. There wasn't a bump yet, it would probably pop out in a few months. Oscar bent down and placed his forehead against hers. The couple continued to embrace each other, enjoying the sense of peace that surrounded them. 

When they broke apart, he held her face in his hands again, "we're gonna be dope parents." 

- ♤ - ♡ - ◇ - ♧ - 

Spanish Translation(s): 

Está roto tu celular? - is your phone broken? 

Porque tenía mejores cosas que hacer con mi tiempo - because I've got better things to do with my time.

Bonita - beautiful

[angelbabyszn]

Believe Me (Sad Eyes X Reader) - Part Two

Gif by @merakiaes

A/N: This imagine was requested! Read Part One to understand: Part One

Imagine Based On: Can I request where you and sad eyes just had a baby girl named Valentina and one day sad eyes gets told that Valentina isn’t his but it’s not true, and he finds out that he’s been told lies about Valentina not being is, because he took a dna rest turns out he’s 99% the father and he comes and try to make up for it, but reader makes him work for it. Is there a way it can be a happy ending??

OMB Masterlist

Recap:

"I love you Y/N." said Sad Eyes but you didn't respond for the first time. 

Sad Eyes turned back straight and slowly closed the front door on him. 

Once you heard the door shut, you quickly ran to your bed that you used to share with him. You dropped on it as you started to cry the tears of your tears out.

Who knew one DNA test could ruin a whole new family in just a few minutes.

Part Two:

"Mommy," said Valentina and you quickly stopped watching a Netflix show and went over to your daughter and her toys around her to play.

"What is it, honey?" you asked and Valentina turned around and grabbed a frame with a picture in it.

You grabbed it and you saw Sad Eyes kissing you in your wedding dress on the cheek after being wed about two years ago.

You look up and you see Valentina making a sad face. Your heart started to hurt in pain for Valentina because she hasn't seen him in three months.

Yep. It was Valentina's birthday today and you and Sad Eyes were planning a first birthday for her. Due to everything that went down, it will be a small party for her today with your family later on today.

"Daddy." said Valentina sadly and your eyes widened a little bit by what you saw in Valentina's eyes. You start to see Sad Eyes in them and your heart starts to hurt again.

You still love him after what he did. You know he didn’t do it on purpose but it was still shady that he didn’t believe you and did it behind your back. 

You know you have to become strong and be there for Valentina. It's been hard these last three months being by yourself and taking care of her.

It was also hard falling asleep without the guy you love but you can't be falling into his arms again. 

"I know you miss him. Come here." you said and you reach over to grab Valentina and hold her in your arms.

You started to rock her and her eyes slowly started to close until they were completely shut ending in her falling asleep.

You got up from the floor and put her in her crib carefully in her room. You give her a kiss on the head and Valentina did a small smile, making your heart melt.

You carefully walked out of her room and shut her door quietly. You walked back into the living room and started cleaning her toys off of the floor with memories with Sad Eyes starting flowing in your mind.

You miss him so much. You want to be in his arms right now. He didn't believe you, making you come back to cold hard reality.

Once you were finished, you got a message on your phone. You opened it to see it was from Spooky.

Spooky🖤: come over. bring Valentina too.

You: why? 

...

You: Spooky?

You sighed because Spooky wasn't responding. You looked back at Valentina's room and growled because you just put her to sleep.

-

A few minutes later, you arrived with Valentina still sleeping in your arms at Spooky's house in confusion. You guess it was one of the rare days you don't see the gang hanging out in the front yard.

You knocked and a moment later, Spooky opened the door and you felt Valentina being taken out of your arms.

"Spooky! What are you doing with Valentina?! Give her back!" you whispered, screaming at him because she was still sleeping.

"Don't worry, I got her." said Spooky. 

Before you could speak again, Oso quickly put the blindfold over your eyes without you realizing he was behind you.

"Oso?! Spooky, what the h*ll?!" you shouted as you tried to take off the blindfold off of your eyes but it was too tight on you.

A moment later, Valentina woke up and she started to cry. Spooky quickly calmed her down by bouncing her a bit in his arms, making her stop.

"Shh. It's okay. It's just uncle Spooky." said Spooky and Valentina smiled and giggled, making Spooky do a little smile.

"Spooky, get this off of me now!" you demand as you still tried to take it off.

"Nah. Just grab Oso's hand and follow him in his footsteps." said Spooky and he opened the door a bit wider. He let Oso and you enter the house.

A few moments later, you stopped walking and Oso let go of your hand.

"You ready, Y/N?" asked Spooky and you turned your head to his voice.

"Yes! Get this off of me!" you said and Oso took the blindfold off of you.

Your eyes widened to see you were in the backyard with everybody you know yelling surprise.

You turned your head to see a banner saying "Happy One Year Valentina" and gifts for her underneath on a table.

"Oh my gosh. You guys did all of this for Valentina?!" you said, surprised as you walked in front of everyone with happy tears started to come down your eyes. You thought you would have to do a small party today for her. 

"Yeah. We did but one certain someone planned all of this." said Spooky walking up to you.

"Who? Ruby?"

"Sadly, no. I wanted to. Could've made this even better." said Ruby with an upset face and crossing his arms against his chest. 

"Then who planned this?" you asked in front of everyone.

"I did, my reina."

You turn your head to the voice and see Sad Eyes coming out of the crowd and going towards you.

It was the first time you saw him in person ever since that night. You started to breathe heavily.

"Hey...reina, please. Calm down." said Sad Eyes, looking at you as he continued to get closer to you but you stepped back.

"I'm fine just...it's the first time I've seen you." you said softly. 

"I know. You look...beautiful." said Sad Eyes taking another step closer to you but you stepped back again.

"Thanks I guess." you said trying to avoid eye contact with him.

" I miss you Y/N. So much." said Sad Eyes looking at you deep. You slowly look back up at him to see his eyes begging for forgiveness from you.

"I'm so sorry. These rumors and predictions got into my head and it got me thinking if Valentina was actually mine." said Sad Eyes.

"She has the same smile and eyes as you!" you said and Sad Eyes looked from you to Valentina to see a small smile on her face like his. 

"You should've talked to me about it." you said as you felt your heart beating out of your chest full of hurt and disappointment for him.

"I'm sorry Y/N. I threw this whole party for not only my daughter but for you. You're been the most wonderful wife in this whole world and I could've asked for a better mother for my daughter. I begged you to forgive me for what I did." said Sad Eyes looking into your eyes with consent. 

He bends down on one knee and looks up at you with his eyes staring into your eyes begging for forgiveness.

You started to hesitate because you didn't know what to say. You turn to Valentina still trying to get out of Spooky's arms and go over to her father on the ground, happy to see him again.

"Daddy!" said Valentina and Sad Eyes turned to her and gave her a small wave where she waved back with her little right hand.

Your heart melts at the interaction with them. You realize what you need to do. For Valentina.

"Sad Eyes?" you asked and he quickly looked back up at you.

"I'll forgive you but I won't forget. For Valentina. Only because she needs her dad in her life." you said with a serious face and Sad Eyes stands up and looks down at you with a smile. 

"But for us, you have to earn that back. I'm not saying I love you until I think you deserve it." you said and looked at him with your arms crossed against your chest.

"Oh course. I'll take it. I'll do anything to be with you again. I love you so much." said Sad Eyes and he grabbed both of your hands with his. 

Just feeling his hands made you start to feel a way. It’s been a long time since you felt his touch.

Sad Eyes pull your right hand up with his left hand and  slowly kisses it as he looks into your eyes deep. His stare just made your heart skip a beat.

"Well um, how about you go say hi to your daughter? She misses you." you said quickly backing up and getting out of Sad Eyes's touch.

Sad Eyes looked at you for a few moments and nodded. He walked over to Valentina and took her out of Spooky's arms.

Valentina smiled and started to hug Sad Eyes happily to see her father again. You smiled at them as the music started the party trying so hard not to take a photo of them.

Oh course you failed miserably so you quickly took a photo of them quickly so nobody don't notice.

-

A few hours later, you close Valentina's door and walk into the bedroom. You see Sad Eyes in bed sitting up with a small box in front of him.

"Um, I got you something and I think you may like it." said Sad Eyes, kinda stuttering which made you giggle because you like when he's nervous.

You sat next to him and took the box from him to open it.

You gasped to see a gold necklace that says "Valentina" in diamonds. You looked at him with your eyes widened.

"You did not-"

"Oh yes I did. For you. You deserve it." said Sad Eyes and you slowly start to look at the details of the necklace.

You took the necklace out of the packaging and started to put it on but you couldn't. Before you could even ask, Sad Eyes took the necklace by the lock and put the necklace on for you.

Your heart skips a beat as you feel his touch again through his fingers once he grabs the necklace. He went behind you to put it around your neck. 

You got up and looked at the full length mirror at the corner of the bedroom to see the necklace.

"It's so beautiful." you said looking at the necklace through the mirror.

"Just like you." said Sad Eyes walking behind you to see the necklace on your neck through the mirror.

"Thanks." you said looking at him through the mirror and he nodded. 

A moment later, you gasped as you felt a pair of arms wrap around your stomach. Your heart skips a beat again as you see Sad Eyes close to your body through the mirror.

"Is this fine?" asked Sad Eyes and you nodded. It's crazy he still makes you feel this way after everything that went down.

"How am I doing?" asked Sad Eyes through the mirror, referring to working on your relationship. His jaw was sitting on your right shoulder. 

"I love you. I'm sorry for what I did." said Sad Eyes looking deep into your eyes, trying to make everything better again.

"It's okay. I still love you." you said, caressing his left cheek, making him gain a pink blush.

"Really?" asked Sad Eyes and you nodded.

"You found the perfect way to make things right again. You made our daughters first birthday special." you said and Sad Eyes smiled.

"Thanks. I was just finding the perfect way to get both of you back. I miss both of you so much. It was so hard not wanting to come here and talk to you everyday begging for you to take me back." said Sad Eyes. 

Sad Eyes starts to look from your eyes down to your lips slowly and back up to your eyes.

He slowly starts to close his eyes and lean to you with his lips until you stop him with your right finger.

"You don't own that yet, baby." you said and Sad Eyes chuckled underneath his breath.

"It was worth the try. I miss our kisses." said Sad Eyes looking at you with a pout face.

"Well keep working on that. You ain't getting nothing until you deserve them." you said with a sassy tone, causing him to look at you crazy.

"Come on Y/N. You gotta be missing my kisses too." said Sad Eyes.

"In your dreams." you said and you walked out of the bedroom, leaving him with his jaw dropped at your response.

"Wow. It's like that now uh?" asked Sad Eyes with a smirk.

"Yep. Now come watch a movie with me and get me snacks." you shouted in the living room as you sat on the couch getting comfortable.

"Yes, my reina." said Sad Eyes with a grin and turned off the lights in the bedroom and walked into the kitchen to get snacks.

You and Sad Eyes watched movies all night and started talking to each other again like you guys never went on a break.

Eventually, Sad Eyes earns a kiss again from you after putting in effort into your relationship and it's better than ever.

You and Sad Eyes couldn't be more happier than being together again while raising Valentina together as a family.

[taramatsu-san]

I want to read something differrent and strange,I want to see an au where Oso and his adopted child(girl) with "I wish you had never been born" i want to see some headcanon that Oso can be father for once^^

Oh man, what a prompt. Warning for referenced suicide.

Read on Ao3 | Writing Prompts Closed

“I wish she had never been born.”

Osomatsu stood in front of the house he had spent the first twenty or so years of his life living in. The place that had once been his home, but now was no longer. He had a new home. This was just a place full of memories and some of those memories he didn’t want to revisit. Unfortunately, his mind thought otherwise, and as Osomatsu looked up at the house, he couldn’t help but to remember.

It all started about two years prior. Everyone had been very excited for Kinko to come back to visit. It felt like it had been forever since they last saw her. One brother was especially excited, well as excited as he could ever be. Ichimatsu.

Although Osomatsu had occasionally seen him writing letters, he had never asked him about them. Turns out he was writing Kinko all along. They had become very good friends during that time. And during that fateful visit, they became more than friends.

Of course Osomatsu had been jealous that another one of his brothers had gotten a girlfriend before him. Not too mad of course. They all loved Kinko, and seeing how happy she made Ichimatsu was enough to convince everyone to let them date. Ichimatsu became like a different person when he was with her. He no longer called himself trash. It was like Kinko allowed him to see the worth he had inside. Ichimatsu became the person he was always supposed to be. For that, Osomatsu owed Kinko a debt of gratitude.

It was no surprise when Ichimatsu proposed to her. Of course with Ichimatsu leaving their family home to get married, everyone else started to filter out as well. It was a bit lonely at first, but Osomatsu could still go and see Ichimatsu at his job, or any of the others. It felt right that they were all becoming adults now. Osomatsu knew better than to try and fight it.

Shortly after the wedding, Kinko and Ichimatsu announced they were pregnant. Osomatsu had been floored of course. He was going to be an uncle! He was proud of Ichimatsu starting his own family. It felt unreal. Out of all the brothers, Osomatsu expected Ichimatsu to he the last to become a father. Maybe Jyushimatsu or Karamatsu first, considering how much they loved kids, but Ichimatsu? Osomatsu couldn’t wait to see how he handled fatherhood. (And to spoil the baby rotten like a good uncle.)

Life isn’t always so nice.

Sometimes life can be very cruel.

Kinko died giving birth to their daughter, Kiyoko.

Ichimatsu had been absolutely devastated at the loss of his wife. All the happiness drained from him. He became an empty shell. But with a baby daughter, Osomatsu hadn’t expected what happened after than.

Unable to bear the grief of losing his wife, Ichimatsu took his own life.

Osomatsu closed his eyes for a moment. If only Kiyoko hadn’t been born, none of this would’ve happened. He would still have his brother. Kinko would still be alive. It wasn’t fair! He wanted his family back.

But here he was, going to visit his niece. His parents had been taking care of her since Ichimatsu’s death. Osomatsu felt bad about that since they were getting older, but it wasn’t like anyone else could take care of her. And despite him wishing she had never been born, Osomatsu was going to visit her. She was still family, after all.

Taking one last deep breath, Osomatsu walked up to the front door and knocked. It was a little strange to knock on the front door of his former house, but it would feel stranger to just walk right in.

Matsuyo opened up the door, carrying Kiyoko on her hip. “Osomatsu! I’m so glad you could visit. Come in, come in.”

Osomatsu nodded, entering his childhood home. It felt so familiar and nostalgic. Nothing had really changed since the last time he had visited. The only real difference was the lack of him and his brothers.

“Would you like something to drink?” Matsuyo asked as they entered the living room.

“Sure.” Osomatsu sat down at the table.

He wasn’t expecting his mom to set the baby down next to him. “Watch Kiyoko for a moment?”

“Okay?” Not that he really had a choice. Matsuyo left the room leaving them alone. What was Osomatsu supposed to do with a baby? He had no idea.

Kiyoko crawled closer to him. Osomatsu noticed how much she was growing to resemble Ichimatsu, now that she was growing older. Maybe she had Kinko’s eyes, but her nose and mouth definitely resembled Ichimatsu. The little bits of hair she had stuck out at angles like Ichimatsu’s always had. It made him a little sad to look at. He missed his brother so much.

“Uh!” Kiyoko cried out, grabbing Osomatsu’s hand. Well she really only grabbed his pinky finger, her hand was so small that’s all she could get it around. She was so tiny.

Kiyoko shook his hand up and down. “Do you need something?” Osomatsu asked, like a baby would be able to answer him.

“Da-da!” Kiyoko looked him in the eyes, smiling up at him. “Da-da!”

Osomatsu felt tears prickling at his eyes. Did Kiyoko mistake him for her father? “I’m not your Dad.”

“Da-da!” Kiyoko let go of his hand in favor of crawling into his lap.

“Oh.” Osomatsu smiled down at her. She settled down on his lap, resting her head on his chest. She seemed perfectly content to just sit there.

Osomatsu felt his heart overflowing with new emotions. This tiny child, for whom he had carried so much resentment for up until that point, had given him a complete change of heart. How could he blame her for the death of Ichimatsu? It wasn’t her fault. In fact, now he felt slightly angry at Ichimatsu for leaving such a precious child behind.

Osomatsu put a hand on her back, patting it softly. He wanted to protect her. He wanted to make sure nothing bad ever happened to her again. He… loved her.

“Da-da.” Kiyoko said with a sleepy yawn.

Behind him, Osomatsu heard a gasp. Matsuyo was standing there with two glasses of iced tea. “Did Kiyoko just say her first word?”

Was that her first word? Osomatsu felt himself tearing up all over again. “I think she confused me for Ichimatsu.”

“Maybe.” Matsuyo sat down next to him, placing the drinks on the table.

A crazy idea struck Osomatsu. And once it hit him, he couldn’t let it go. “Hey mom, what if I adopted Kiyoko?”

[mysterygreentea]

osomatsu with no. 99 and/or 29 (no i didn't forget i was gonna give u a prompt until now, what you talking bout??? >___>;;;)

Here we go!! I went with 99 because an idea came to me super quickly with that one. I’ve kind of…been thinking of that scene from this week’s episode a lot, you’ll see what I mean (warning in advance for feels and fluff). Hope you like it!

———-

“You’re never this quiet, what’s wrong?

Osomatsu had been lost in thought when Choromatsu entered the room, but looked up as the third eldest sat down at the table across from him. He held two steaming cups of tea, one of which he placed in front of Osomatsu, and his eyebrows were drawn in concern.

“What d’you mean?” Osomatsu asked, feigning confusion, as he pulled the tea closer to him and cradled it in his hands. He felt an odd stab of guilt for trying to conceal the truth, but maybe it was better to try and keep up the facade that everything was fine.

“Osomatsu, don’t lie. I can tell something’s up. You haven’t been yourself for the last few days.” Choromatsu paused long enough to sip his own tea, then fixed Osomatsu with an intense look. “You’ve been quiet and withdrawn ever since that day Iyami crashed the house. Are you upset because Mom and Dad threatened to take away our allowances until we could pay off the damages?”

“Pfft. No, I’m not. They won’t actually do that…you don’t think they actually would, do you?” Osomatsu asked, tipping his head questioningly at Choromatsu. “I mean, they wouldn’t actually do that to their own kids, would they?”

“Probably, when their kids are adults who should know better,” Choromatsu remarked drily, raising an eyebrow at Osomatsu. “And you’re evading the question, by the way.”

“Right. What was the question again?”

“Osomatsu.” Choromatsu rubbed the bridge of his nose in aggravation. “You’re a piece of work, you know that, right?”

Osomatsu realized he may have been taking this too far and bowed his head. “Ah, sorry,” he mumbled.    

“See?” Choromatsu prompted, as if proving a point. “You’re being submissive. You’re never submissive. So tell me, what’s up?”

Osomatsu placed his cup of tea down on the table, watching the thin trails of steam curl upwards as he considered what to say. Did he really want to confess what had been on his mind since that day? Maybe Choromatsu would think he was being stupid, or had brought it on himself…

“Oso.” Choromatsu’s voice pierced through his nagging thoughts, and when Osomatsu glanced back up at him he saw his expression was a sincere one. “You know you can trust me, right? Whatever’s up, I’m not going to judge you. And I won’t tell the others, either.”

“You won’t?” Osomatsu asked cautiously, just to be sure.

“Of course not. It’s not like I would try to make personal gain from it. Who do you think I am, Todomatsu?” Choromatsu offered a small, sly smile as he said this.

Osomatsu chuckled, though with some reservation.

“So come on. Just let me know. You don’t have to keep it to yourself just because you’re the oldest, after all. Sometimes…sometimes I think you hide things from us just because you want to protect us, Osomatsu. We don’t want you to do that. We want you to be able to talk to us.”

“Yeah…I know.” Osomatsu rubbed the back of his head, tousling his hair. “It’s just kind of hard to do that sometimes, that’s all.” He sighed. “But okay, I’ll tell you. If you promise this stays between us.”

Choromatsu nodded, watching him expectantly.

“I was just thinking….about….being alone for the rest of my life.”

“Eh? What do you mean?”

“I…okay, so you know how you get annoyed at me for a lot of things?” Osomatsu asked. “Things like…well, just now. For never being open, for evading questions, that kind of thing. I guess I was kind of thinking–okay, worrying–that if I keep acting this way, well, what if I drive people away from me with how I act? What if I do end up alone for the rest of my life?”

Choromatsu’s eyes widened. “Oh, Osomatsu…I had no idea you were still thinking about that.”

“Well, yeah, I mean, it’s not like I mentioned it or anything…” Osomatsu mumbled, glancing away and scratching the back of his neck. “I didn’t really want anyone knowing I was worrying about something so pathetic.”

“It’s not pathetic,” Choromatsu insisted. “I can understand why you might feel like that, sometimes. I’ve felt like that before, too. But it’s not true.”

“How not, though?” Osomatsu wanted to know. “It wouldn’t be the first time I acted like an ass and had everyone close to me leave me…”

“I know, that was bad,” Choromatsu confessed. “And you could have been more open about your feelings then, too. But just because everyone was mad didn’t mean they would stay like that forever. We would have made up eventually. In fact, look, we did. And we’re all here now.”

“Yeah, and that’s really something to be proud of,” Osomatsu scoffed.

“Look, my point is, I know you’re scared of being left alone someday. It’s a terrifying thought. But it’s not going to happen, because when that day comes when we all do move on with our lives–when all of us are ready to– we won’t be alone. We’ll still be brothers, and we’ll have each other’s backs.”

Osomatsu met Choromatsu’s gaze again. “You really mean that?”

“Of course. If I learned anything from that brief time away from home, it’s that moving out shouldn’t mean moving on. I still needed my brothers even though I was on my own. So no matter what, we’ll stick by each other, and as long as we do that we won’t be alone. You won’t be alone. I promise.”

“Wow. That’s so…nerdy.” Osomatsu couldn’t help but laugh a little, but when Choromatsu crossed his arms and gave him a stern look he sobered up and became serious again. “Sorry, I guess…I don’t really know how to react without making this corny.”

“It’s okay to be corny sometimes, you know. We’re brothers, and even if we’re shitty brothers we can still watch out for each other.”

“I know…sorry. What I really want to say is, thanks, Choromatsu.” Osomatsu smiled a little, a genuine smile. “That really means a lot to me. I’ll try to remember that from now on.”

Choromatsu softened a little. “Alright. That’s good. And Osomatsu…if you ever feel lonely, just let me know, okay? I won’t mock you or anything.”

“Yeah, I know that now. And you too, okay? If you’re ever sad or lonely, just talk to Nii-san. I’m here for you.”

“I will. Thanks, Osomatsu.”

“Hey, I should be thanking you.”

The brothers stopped talking then, lapsing into a comfortable silence as they drank their tea next to each other. Osomatsu felt oddly warm inside, a warmth that had nothing to do with the hot tea. It came from letting himself have a heart-to-heart moment with his brother for once, rather than guarding himself as usual. It left him with a more fuzzy, happier feeling than he’d anticipated.

Not that he’d say that out loud, though. One sappy moment was enough for the day.

[jyushimatsu-falls-in-love]

steven universe/crystal gem(atsu)s au

Alternative post title: ‘In which Nature tries to make a silly Matsu AU out of something she hasn’t actually watched but because it’s so prevalent on Tumblr she picked up a lot about it and is now trying to make a silly Matsu AU out of what she knows’

I’m going to get hate for this aren’t I

So yeah, as mentioned above, I don’t actually watch Steven Universe (I think it’s mostly because the fandom scares me orz); however I do love some of the concepts it has, like the Gems themselves, and fusions, and some of the lore surrounding the Gems. Oh, and the songs! I’ve listened to some of SU’s songs and they’re absolutely lovely :D

I was talking with @chororine yesterday about the recent SU episodes, and she linked me a couple of Gem!Matsu AUs that are really cool! And then it got me thinking of ideas for a Gem!Matsu AU which I kinda feel bad thinking up of since I haven’t watched the show orz 

Perhaps those who watch SU can tell me if this makes sense as a Matsu AU-slash-SU adaptation or not? XD;; Feel free to correct me on certain things, or even share ideas! This AU’s actually kinda really fun :’D

Anyway, all of it under the cut! (It’s very long orz) Content warnings for suicide mentions and pregnancy, but that’s all there is to it I think.

So, as always when it comes to these Crystal Gem AUs, the Matsuno brothers are a set of six similar-but-different Gems. Tbh I have no idea what kind of Gems they would be; some AUs make them the same type of gem, some make them different kinds of gems. I still want them to be “brothers”/“sextuplets”, in a way; is there a way to strike a balance? (This person’s AU has all six be a kind of gem that can be dyed different colors; that’s a good idea, but I feel like if I applied that here I’d be ripping them off...) But either way, they’re Gems. (I have no clue what their roles in Homeworld would be, either...)

The thing about the Gem!Matsus is that they’re not part of Rose Quartz’s rebellion - but at the same time, they’re not totally loyal to Homeworld either. If anything, the boys’ true loyalties are to themselves and to each other (for the most part). So they’re neutral parties in the Gem War - but they do consider Homeworld, well, home, and can’t imagine home being anywhere else.

Then one fateful day, the Gem!Matsus end up becoming displaced from Homeworld. Maybe it’s because of the Gem War, maybe they were running away from someone/something, or maybe they were dicking around in space and then they crashed their space ship, I dunno. Either way, the Gem!Matsus lose their way home, and they find themselves stuck on Earth - specifically, they find themselves stuck in a small coastal town somewhere in Japan.

With no means or even any idea on how to get home, the Gem!Matsus settle down on Earth. They assume - some of them (e.g. Choro), hope - it’s a temporary thing; after all, Homeworld is home, and even the shittiest Gem would want nothing more than to be home, right? So they stay there and wait for help, or anything to come their way that can bring them home. (Meanwhile, maybe they can fight corrupted Gems that they come across? Assuming there are corrupted Gems in other places besides Beach City. And maybe the boys don’t even know they’re corrupted Gems at all...)

Years pass, and the Gem!Matsus are still stuck, but still trying to make the most of their time in that Japanese coastal town. They observe the humans going about their daily lives, but never really interact with them and kinda look down on them the same way the Crystal Gems initially looked down on humans. And then one day, a certain yellow Gem strays far from the Gem!Matsu’s main base to a part of the beach he hasn’t explored yet - and there he sees a pretty human girl with freckles on her face, standing at the top of a really high cliff facing the ocean...

Because Jyushi is a Gem here and not human, I don’t know if he’ll be able to pick up on or understand Homura’s suicidal tendencies like he did in Ososan canon; but either way he distracts-slash-talks her out of jumping off the cliff. He does notice that this pretty human girl is very sad though, which isn’t good! Humans are cute and nice when they’re laughing and smiling! So in true Jyushi fashion, he does whatever he can to make her smile and laugh. Through her, he also gets to understand humans more, and thus be able to empathize with her (and by extension other people) better. Perhaps he also learns her backstory, and surely tries to assure her of her worth despite it.

The other Gem!Matsus don’t understand why Jyushi’s so enamored with this Homura person. Oso and Kara shrug it off and say, hey Jyushi’s having fun, let him have fun with his human friend as long as she doesn’t hurt him (and soon enough they end up befriending Homura too); Choro and Totty are more worried about it, why is Jyushi fraternizing with a human, what if she gets him (and by extension us) into trouble? (although maybe they warm up to her eventually); and Ichi is rather irritated that this dumb human girl is taking all of his best friend’s attention, but seeing as Jyushi’s very happy with her, he tries to suck it up as much as he can (although he’s still rather prickly, if civil, towards Homura).

Of course, it leads to Jyushi and Homura falling in love with each other, as well as Jyushi falling in love with the planet Earth itself and with human beings (and baseball!). After everything, he realizes he doesn’t want to return to Homeworld; instead he wants to stay here on Earth, so he can be with Homura and make other human friends and play baseball! This gets... mixed to negative reactions from the other Gem!Matsus. (Oso and Kara are torn, Choro and Totty are upset, Ichi is fucking pissed.) They all probably argue about it for the next couple of years - not that it really matters, as they’re still stuck on Earth whether or not anyone wants to stay or leave.

And then things get worse when said couple of years later, Homura finds out that she’s... pregnant. With Jyushi’s child. This causes yet another stir among the Gem!Matsus, as they never knew humans and Gems can have create children together; however it also causes more issues and more arguing between them over what to do now that this baby’s a thing. Half the team still want to go back home, after all.

Then another bad thing happens - around the time Jyushi’s baby is about to be born, Jyushi ends up having to give up his physical form for it. I’m not sure how or for what reason exactly, but it has to happen and there’s no escaping his fate. 

This leaves the other Gem!Matsus incredibly upset. I mean sure, Jyushi's no Rose Quartz; he isn’t a major figurehead in any wars or rebellions, he doesn’t have a huge legacy to follow. Hell, he isn’t even the leader of the Gem!Matsus. But for the brothers, losing any one of them can be just as devastating as losing a major figurehead - especially since the one they’ve lost was the sunshine of the group. This leaves Homura extremely devastated too, not to mention that the poor woman is now left to be an unmarried single mother.

The Gem!Matsus figure that there’s no point returning home now that Jyushi is gone, so they reluctantly decide to stay with Homura to help her watch over her child. Imagine their surprise when they see that the baby (who I decided would be a little girl, mostly because the idea of the Matsus trying to raise a little girl together is funnier) is half-Gem, half-human! She has her dad’s exact same gem somewhere on her body, all shiny and yellow. The boys come to the conclusion that part of Jyushi is still there, so resolve to stay on Earth so that they can help raise the girl as well as train her in order to be a good half-human, half-Gem. They may or may not have a plan to bring her along with them back to Homeworld once they deem her ready, so they can finally be home and complete...

Homura names her daughter Aiko (”child of love”; because tbh Homura would be a sap when it comes to naming children :P). She, Aiko and the Gem!Matsus move to a house that a relative used to own, and Homura takes a stay-at-home job as a translator (like Yotsuba’s dad from Yotsuba&!). (She can’t bring herself to work outside of the house, as she’s still ashamed of some parts of her past; that and she wants to be able to raise as well as home-school Aiko by herself and watch over the Gem!Matsus. Maybe Gem technology can provide free fast WiFi? :P) The Gem!Matsus are once again NEETs, doing nothing but staying around the house all day; their only job is training Aiko in the ways of being a Gem, so training her to fight and shapeshift and fuse with other Gems and stuff like that. Also getting her in trouble.

So begins Aiko and The Gems, the adventures of a little girl, her single mother and her five Space Rock Dads. Hilarity (and some angst, but mostly hilarity) ensues.

so yeah it’s basically Rose and Greg’s backstory ==> Steven’s story but with Matsus and Homura and a fanchild instead how original right

Compared to canon SU, this AU might be less... serious? I mean, there’s still a lot of sad things, all the Gem!Matsus + Homura have serious issues they need to deal with, and there’s still a lot of room for character + relationship development; but at the same time, the Gem!Matsus don’t have as much pressure on them to keep fighting off anything and/or preserve a rebellion’s legacy as the Crystal Gems do? They’re neutral parties who just want get home-slash-want to take care of a kid. Unless there’s something I missed and the boys could very well still be in trouble with the Diamonds...

(Also it’s probably not as serious as SU because the Gem!Matsus are, well, Matsus. :P)

Honestly though this AU idea is a lot of fun!! :’D I have a few more ideas based on it; I’ll get to writing a post about those soon (later?). Um, so tell me what you think, I guess? :’D

Also, please: if you have ideas for this AU too, please tell me!! Building AUs with others is fun c’: (That and I’m not an expert on SU anyway, as mentioned above; maybe you guys know better than me XD)

(P. S. @chororine​ @irkimatsu​ @risuquest​ you guys like SU, right? You guys might like this, hopefully :’D)

(P. P. S. Not Gem!Matsu related, but still Gems - even though I don’t watch SU yet, for some reason I thought that Phillipa Soo could be a guest star VA on it - and I would love that. I’d gladly watch for her :P)

[latenightwordsandthoughts-blog]

Am I the toxic one?

II think it takes a lot of strength to realize your own insecure, or toxic, behaviors. When we are heartbroken, it is so easy to see how we were wronged or treated poorly. We are so easily able to see other people’s poor choices and toxic behaviors-- why aren’t we able to see our own so easily?

Quarantine has been so beneficial for my mental health. At first, it was ROUGH. I cried every single day. There were days when I didn’t eat, didn’t leave my bed, and just cried all. day. long. It took awhile to get passed that, but once I did I began to grow. I’ve realized what I want in life. I’ve realized my own issues and what I need to do to change them. I am still working on the root of my issues but I’m making progress.

The first thing I realized is that I struggle with intimacy. I don’t mean physically, but I struggle with really allowing myself to be fully open and honest with someone. I am so terrified to let anyone in and see the real me. I think that stems from my childhood. My dad left at a young age and I never really realized the profound impact it had on me. One of my earliest memories is sitting on the steps outside of our house, with my backpack, waiting for him to come pick me up for the weekend. He said he was on his way, but after awhile my mom realized he wasn’t coming. I sat out there for HOURS and refused to get up because I was adamant he wouldn’t go against his word to me. It was sunset before my stepdad came and just picked me up and brought my sobbing little self inside. Besides that, my mom has always been very codependent and an emotional mess. At a young age I had to be the level-headed mind between the two of us. I was more her parent than she was mine. I’m so independent that. it’s hindering my life. I am so scared to let someone in because it gives them the opportunity to hurt me like my dad did. I’m scared to rely on anyone because I don’t want to end up like my mother. 

I’ve only had one really serious relationship and I realize now that even during that four years, I never truly let him in. He saw my family and the reasons I am the way I am. I still hid a large portion of myself from him though. I also was dating someone that I knew wasn’t my person. I never for a second thought he was the person I would end up with. He was safe, I knew he would never hurt me, and that was what I needed.  I came to the realization that I was hurting myself and him by playing it safe. I was wasting his time when he could be out finding the person he was actually meant to be with. I was staying in a situation because it was safe and comfortable. Isn’t that what my mom did that I hated so much? Am I really any different?

I’ve never dated anyone that I’ve been insanely in love with. I’ve felt that love one time and it was the most incredible feeling. We weren’t technically together but I still have hope that one day we will find our way back to each other. This is where realizing my own toxic behaviors comes into play. I was so madly in love with this person but still tried to remain “indifferent” so he wouldn’t know his power over me. I thought if I pretended to not care that it would save me from having my heartbroken. Spoiler alert, it didn’t. Things never officially “ended” between us. He just stopped hanging out with me as much, slowly stopped talking to me as much, and just went on about his life. It DESTROYED me. I was left wondering what was wrong with me, why wasn’t I enough, why I wasn’t good enough,  etc.. Another spoiler alert-- sometimes it’s about the other person and has nothing to do with you at all. Besides all of that, I was left regretting being cold and trying to be apathetic when it came to him. I had this enormous love for someone and kept trying to hide it from them. I know he was fully aware of my feelings for him-- somethings you cannot hide no matter how hard you try. 

So here’s where I go from here: It’ll be scary as fuck but I don’t want to suppress my feelings ever again. I’ve realized that being apathetic is a terrible way to live. Yes, heartbreak is a terrible feeling, but the I would go through it all again for the time I got to spend loving on him. I’m working on myself so I can be more open and not as allusive. I hate that it comes across as sketchy or untrustworthy when I’m really just terrified to let someone see the real me. I am a wonderful person who has so much love to give and is deserving of being loved completely. Hopefully one day we’ll meet again, oso. 

[yousaidminkey]

Old Tour Stories

The Always A Bridesmaid Tour (June 7th - June 22nd 2006)

The Pictures

The Mission: Take up to 15 people (10 to start... 5 people would not be joining us until June 15th) to the North Country Fair in Driftpile, Alberta... then go and attend/play/best man at John Guliak and Christine Ferguson's wedding in Edmonton.  Between the 15 people, we could create at least 6 full bands... Carolyn Mark and Her New Best Friends, Hank & Lily, Amy Honey, Clay George, Hearse and The Dave Lang Band

The Cast: Vehicle #1 "Gwyneth Paltrow" (a 1980 Dodge Ram Van) - transportation for Tolan McNeil, Hoff, The Goose and Clay George. Vehicle # 2 "Freedom" (1990 Dodge Caravan) - transportation for Hank Pine, Lily Fawn and Emma Crow Vehicle #3 "The Hong Kong Lady" (1992 Toyota Camry) - Transportation for Amy Honey, Carolyn Mark and Andrew

June 7  Vancouver - Osoyoos 10-4 Good Buddy, We've Got Walkie-Talkies Things look good.  It's a sunny day.  Most of the Victoria contingent (everybody but me and Amy) arrived in Vancouver early.  We've bought some walkie-talkies for communication reasons (only Tolan has a cell phone)... and The Goose's Dad reaffixed the front license plate to the Hong Kong Lady.  In fact, everything went smoothly until it was time to leave.  Tolan and crew are going to be late... the free van he got for the tour has some paperwork issues that were not apparent until the last moment.  He has to spend the afternoon running all over Victoria getting shit signed.  Consequently, although the first two vehicles hit the road by 2:00, Gwyneth won't even be getting on the ferry to Vancouver until 5:00.  Anyway, the big plan is to stay in touch via the walkie-talkies (we have radio check times and nasty handles... Carolyn is "Bouncy C-Word", fr'instance, and Hank is "Fuckyou Killjoy"), and hook up for some camping in Osoyoos.  We hit the road and try our radio check... nothing.  In fact, except in one case, for the whole trip, the walkie-talkies would do nothing except eat batteries. The drive was mostly uneventful; the only excitement was that near Princeton, we were stopped by some police at a roadblock who were looking for an escaped murderer.  Also, around this time it started to rain.  Every day of the tour (except for one) it would end up raining, everything from scotch mist to full on thunder and lightning storms. Upon arrival in Osoyoos (approximately 8:00) we scoped out the camping spots in town.  It looked like trouble... all the camp grounds were full of the elderly, golf shirt, sandals and socks crowd and/or the younger, screaming kids, golf shirt, sandals and socks crowd.  It didn't look as though they would take kindly to 10 rowdy drunks disturbing their vacation... and we were sure as hell not going to want listen to their whining (nor deal with the inevitable cops).  Hell, those are the people you get out of town to get away from.  After checking out all the available possibilities (which, by the way, came across like suburban neighbourhoods where you can actually see and hear your neighbours), we (Amy, Carolyn and I) decided to tee up a hotel room instead.  Up to this point we had had no contact with the other two vehicles.  Phoning Tolan, we found that his new van had overheated in Chilliwack, and they had not yet managed to leave the Lower Mainland.  Their ETA in Osoyoos is around 2:00 AM.  Radio check for the Hank and Lilymobile turned up nothing until suddenly we started getting very garbled messages. Apparently they were also in town, looking for us.  We pulled into the parking lot of a likely hotel called The Spanish Fiesta (or Spastic Fiasco), and suddenly Hank and Lily came in crystal clear... they were parked about 50 ft. away. Things worked out pretty good, and it seemed as though we had the hotel to ourselves, so we retired to the beach for wine and beer and smoking.   Later in the evening Carolyn broke my car key off in the door of the car.  No worries, as we had a spare.  Always have a failsafe, that's what I say.  

June 8  Osoyoos - Nelson Plastic Gardening Clogs R Us (Well... Them, Actually) In the morning we found that Gwyneth had managed to make it all the way to Osoyoos, and her crew had slept in the van in the hotel parking lot. We all made some informal wagers at that point as to which if any of the tour vehicles would make it all the way home without a major breakdown. They all had issues... Gwyneth's were readily apparent by that point, but Freedom was also desperately in need of a new fan belt, and was gouting out huge clouds of exhaust whenever it was started.  The Hong Kong Lady, we had recently heard from our mechanic, could happily use two or three grand worth of mechanical repairs.  But what's life without adventure?  That's the question we decided to ask ourselves instead of dealing with our shit. Upon arrival in Nelson, we immediately sought out the thrift stores (for Amy and Carolyn), and the excellent coffee store (Cafe Oso), for me. There was something very odd about Nelson, a fashion thing, that cut across all sectors of society... men and women... geezers and whelps... squareheads and fleabags... the brightly coloured plastic gardening clog.  Perhaps the ugliest piece of footwear outside of putting plastic bags on your feet when it rains.  Even pretty girls can't rock them.  In Nelson they are everywhere.  I wanted to ask some of the people who look like (clogs aside) they should have a clue; what the Hell was going on, but in the end I figured that I really didn't want to know the answer. Since I'm mentioning fashion... let me talk for a moment about The Goose's white derby hat.  It was one of his prized possessions, and an essential part of his on stage garb... part of his shock and awe... and it really tied his whole look together.  Looking somewhat like an egg, The Goose usually treated as if he were a mother hen (or a Mother Goose, heh).  This morning he had broken with tradition and let Lily Fawn play with it.  Once we got to Nelson, Goose (and Lily) had the sickening realization that it was still in Osoyoos.  Fortunately Lily, being so small and cute, was about the only person on the tour who could get away with losing it. Soon enough, we hooked up with our "friend in town", Laoh, a Victoria expatriate, who was going to be able to put some of us up for the evening.  Laoh had only been living in Nelson for 6 months, but already seemed to know everyone there.  I knew Nelson was a smaller town, but even still, knowing everyone there would be a bit of work.  Laoh is just one of those guys who can do that.  Hell, I had never met him before, and after ten minutes, we were yakkin' along like old buds. The show, at the Royal, was a ton of fun.  A lot of people showed up, and regardless of their age, they seemed to like their Rock... or to be a bit more accurate, their Cowpunk.  Amy had one of her best shows of the whole tour.  Tolan was on fire on guitar... and Hank and Lily were really fucking amazing.  Hank and Lily added a really interesting element to all the shows.  Carolyn Mark and Clay George could most certainly be described as Country (of various speeds), and Amy can be anything from Country to Metal, but with a definite populist edge that opens a lot of doors.  Hank and Lily are much more of a travelling freak show, with costumes, personas, smoke machines and quasi-nightmarish songs about things that lurk in the dark; yet everywhere they went, they didn't seem to weird anyone out, even in the most taxidermy encrusted small town farmer bars.  In fact, they often got the loudest applause, and the most audience participation.  Just goes to show you that no matter where you go, people just like a good show. I don't remember much of the rest of the evening, but I ended up losing my glasses at Laoh's house.  No worries, as I still had my contact lenses.  Always have a failsafe, that's what I say.    

June 9  Nelson - Slocan Valley This Bug Spray Doesn't Work For Shit Tried to get a new key cut for the car, but found that my replacement key had apparently been made by "someone who was drunk or stupid, or both" and copies made from it were nonfunctional.  I hate not having a failsafe. Today we would be heading up to an isolated Eco Lodge in the Slocan valley, run by "hippies", but "not the annoying kind, you know".  There would be a BBQ and the bands would play in the living room / concert hall.  Laoh knew the best butcher in Nelson, and he set me up with some specially marinated Buffalo steaks.  Things were looking good. After a long drive up a dirt road we found the Lodge, and in the beautiful sun it looked like the best place in the world.  Outside of the guy who operated the place and an eccentric mystic lady from Buckinghamshire, a nice lady from Quebec and a sinewy traveling cyclist from who knows where, the place was deserted.  I asked Carolyn who the bands would be playing to.  She said it was a really weird thing... every time she had played there before, the parking lot would be empty, but people would "just come out of the woods".  At the end of the evening, they would return to the woods.  We had some time on our hands before the show, though, so we amused ourselves by playing badminton, flying kites and in Hank's case, going swimming.  On our way to the river we ran into a very pale Hank returning from his swim.  Apparently there were leeches in the water and he ended up with one on his scrotum.  We decided not to go swimming.  Around this time we figured we were running seriously low on beer, and Tolan and I volunteered to take the Hong Kong Lady into town to get more.  We cranked the CCR and drove like the Dukes of Hazard.  We came very, very close to hitting a deer, and the gravel road did some serious damage to the muffler.  For the rest of the trip, at city speeds, the Hong Kong Lady would sound like she was gargling Drano.  We made it back just in time for dinner, and The Goose showed another one of his many talents by BBQ-ing the Buffalo steak to perfection.  It was one of the best meals I had ever had, but only the second best one of the trip. It was around this time that we all collectively realized that the bug spray that we had been using was of little to no use.  Mosquitoes were eating us alive.  Hoff, Hank, Lily and Carolyn were all particular favourites of the little monsters, and after a short while, they all appeared to have contracted chicken pox. Just as Carolyn had said, after dinner, people started "coming out of the woods".  Even more to my surprise, I actually recognized a couple of them.  They were two brothers who used to play in a Vancouver band, The Way Out.  They were attending some Eco-camp "over there" (with that statement they waved vaguely in the direction of the woods).  Soon enough there was around 50 people there, and the show commenced.  The Lodge had a decent stage and a good sound system, and the show was great.  All the people there were very attentive, and Clay George especially seemed to have a good show.  The right music for the right people in the right place.  He even sold a few CD's.  Here is as probably as good a place as any to mention... Clay was actually the only person on the tour who had his shit together enough to bring any CD's with him.

June 10  Slocan Valley - Nanton R.I.P. Lolita We all left the Lodge at different times, but somehow we all managed to arrive at the retro thrift store in Creston at nearly the same time.   Unfortunately there had been a tragedy.  Hoff had received a phone call from her roommate informing her that here Chihuahua, Lolita, had passed away.  She had been ailing a bit, but it still came as a nasty surprise.  The Goose said it well (at least from my point of view) when he stated that "Lolita was the only little dog that didn't annoy the shit out of me".  Apparently, Lolita's remains were then kept in the freezer for Hoff to deal with when she got home.  Seriously. It was a pretty long drive today, and probably the most dangerous one, as we had to go through the Crow's Nest Pass, and near dusk, around the town of Elkville, suddenly there were elk all over the place... including the road.  We had to drive very slowly, but we still got a number of scares.  Dark brown does not show up too well against a gray and black background.   The cool moment of the drive was passing the Frank Slide, which buried the town of Frank, Alberta in 1903.  103 years later and it's still pretty impressive. As the drive continued we began to become concerned that our host, Ali, was going to be inconvenienced.  We had initially informed here that we would be arriving around 7:00, but it appeared that we wouldn't be getting there until midnight.  Ali lived on a farm half way between Nanton, Alberta and Vulcan, Alberta.  A place that could quite easily qualify as "the middle of nowhere".  The driving instructions we had included the final missive... "pull up the driveway, and don't run over the puppy".   Upon our late night arrival, we were immediately greeted by the puppy, a three-month-old blue heeler / border collie mix named Cash (after Johnny, of course) owned by Ali's neighbour, Wayne.  He was kind of bitey... but cute.  Wayne and Ali, we found in Ali's kitchen, very drunk (they've been drinking in expectation of our imminent arrival since 5:00), and surrounded by the mostly eaten appetizers Ali had prepared for us hours ago.  After making our apologies for the late arrival, we thought it polite to get as drunk as our hosts as quickly as possible. Once again we are eaten alive by bugs, but Amy seems to have come up with a repellent that actually seems to work, Ungava.  Once I started using this, I hardly got any bites.

June 11  Nanton The Big Gun Fight Today we were faced by a tough decision.   In one direction lay the town of Vulcan, who were celebrating "Spock Days", an annual event honouring all things Star Trek.  Vulcan really riffs off its vague association to the show.  It even has a statue of the starship Enterprise downtown, as well as a Star Trek themed science centre.  Some years, for Spock Days, they even get someone from the show (one time it was Councilor Troi) to come and preside over the festivities. In the other direction lay the town of Nanton, where the bands would be playing that evening, which featured an excellent vintage store (Buffalo Gals) that was also about to close, so everything in it was for sale at discounts ranging from 80 - 100%.  Needless to say, the ladies of the expedition had no interest in going to Vulcan.  I always like to suck up to the ladies, so I volunteered to drive them to Nanton, while the rest of the gang went to Spock Days.  From their later report it sounded like an anticlimactic visit to Spock Days.  All the cool stuff had happened yesterday, so all they got to see were the pancake breakfast and a home run hitting contest. Now, I like shopping as much as the next guy... well, probably slightly more than the next guy... which means that I have a tolerance for it that lasts somewhere between 15 minutes to an hour (depending upon the store).  Buffalo Gals turned out to be a very pleasant surprise, though.  There was a lot of really cool men's Western gear, as well as an interesting selection of generally cool knickknacks.  The prize find in my books was an antique, 1940's Hungarian made, crack action pellet gun.  Amy was unimpressed... very unimpressed and showed visible relief when I was told that the gun was not for sale today, because it might be included in a bulk sale to a theatre company.  But I could put in an offer and pick it up the next day it the theatre people didn't want it. I was crestfallen, but Dreanne, the lovely lady who ran the place, seeing my distress, asked me if I liked "things that go bang".  Upon my sullen affirmation, she handed me over a big box of vintage Hand's fireworks from the 1970's... which included the Burning Schoolhouse. Free. It was about the best thing ever. Between all the thrifting we had all been doing, plus all of our regular luggage and the musical equipment we were carrying, space in all three vehicles had become very, very cramped.  Our car was so full, that in order to fit Carolyn in, we pretty much had to grease her up and take a running start. The show at The Auditorium that evening was great.  The bar was really old school with taxidermy all over the place, and one of the local farmers, Lance, joined the bands on stage with his pedal steel guitar.   Lance apparently plays in a lot of bands, but only when they travel through town.  He's an amazing player, in fact of the best I've ever seen, and the coolest thing was when he played with Hank and Lily.   Despite the fact that he had never seen or heard them before... and despite the fact that they play a kind of music that is, in my opinion, not a type that I would immediately associate with pedal steel... Lance fucking smoked!  I don't think I've heard a pedal steel played like that before, and I stood in awe.      

June 12  Nanton The Best Steak in the World It was a day off.  We were all feeling kind of bad at what we had done to Ali's house.  When we arrived, everything was as neat as a pin.   Minimalist.  Spartan even.  Now ten people worth of stuff had been dumped all over her living room and ten people worth of empties had clogged up her kitchen.  It seemed good we would be leaving tomorrow, as we had definitely imposed ourselves sufficiently upon Ali's hospitality.  Fortunately, she was gracious enough to take it all in stride. After some grocery shopping in Vulcan (which, as a town, kinda sucks actually... I way prefer Nanton), we came back to Ali's. We played with the puppy, did some Hula Hooping, and prepared for a big BBQ. Someone, who shall remain nameless to avoid Amy's wrath, took a trip into Nanton, and much to my surprise/elation, came back with the pellet gun for me. Lance, and his wife and daughter came out to the festivities, and brought with them some steaks from Lance's sister's farm.  These were the best steaks I have ever had in my life. Hands down. It was akin to smoking the cigars cigar makers smoke, or drinking the whisky the distillery owner drinks.  It was just that good.

June 13 Nanton - Calgary Grid, My Ass Ali joined us for the trip to Calgary... probably she just couldn't stand the mess we had made of her house.  Calgary, I used to like...   but she has become such a boomtown that on this visit it was hard to see the things that had initially attracted me to it.  It was like seeing an old girlfriend who used to be all wholesome and winsome and girl-next-door suddenly all dressed up like a creepy real estate agent wearing too much makeup.   Not having any personal connections in Calgary, Amy and I had decided that we would get a hotel tonight.  It was not to be.  We searched all over town, but were told (often smugly) that there was not a room to be had.  A big oil and gas expo was happening in town ("the biggest one in North America"), and at one place we were told that the nearest available hotel room was in Red Deer.  Maybe.  Fortunately, Carolyn's friend Diane (who was also going to be playing bass for some of the bands that night) proved amenable to taking on a few more guests.   Despite the fact that Calgary was all supposed to be laid out on a grid with everything being easy to find, it took us a real long time to find her place.  Consequently, half of us ended up arriving kind of late for the show.   The bar that the bands would play at was a new one, The Palomino, and it seemed pretty decent.  The main floor was a Western styled Bar bar, and downstairs was another bar, where the live music happened.  Calgary has some strange smoking laws.  You are able to smoke inside a bar, but you cannot smoke on the patio.  It was very reminiscent of the good ol' / bad ol' days of rampant smoke everywhere.  Even as a smoker myself, I found it somewhat overwhelming.  Calgary fans have historically enjoyed a good rockin' show, and Amy managed to wow them with her tribute to Black Sabbath song, Sabbath! Hank and Lily, as always, impressed, and Carolyn played the fastest paced set I had ever seen her perform.  Lance even showed up to play some speed pedal steel guitar. After the show, it was raining again, but a local good ol' rockabilly boy offered to give us all a ride home in his gigantic pickup truck.  He managed to transport thirteen of us, although about six people had to ride in the rain in the back.  They seemed to enjoy it.  

June 14  Calgary - Edmonton Goilers! We headed to Edmonton where we picked up another five people (who together comprised two more bands).  Dave Lang (Regina) and Garth Johnson (Toronto) who are the main components of The Dave Lang Band, and J. McLaughlin and Grayson Walker who form the excellent Victoria band, Hearse.  Dave's lovely partner Laura and another of our Vancouver Island friends, Sylvia, also came along for the ride.   There was mayhem in the air when we arrived in town.  It was game 5 of the NHL playoffs, and the Oilers were on the brink of elimination.  When we drove down Whyte Avenue, there were so many cops it looked like martial law.  The show was to be at one of the all time great live venues, The Black Dog.  The only drawbacks were that a) the Black Dog was on Whyte Avenue, and therefore would be super packed with people... b) they would be showing the game on televisions there, and the show would not be able to go on until the game was over... and if it went into overtime, it could conceivably last for hours... c) if the Oilers lost, the crowd might get ugly. Fortunately, although the game did actually go into overtime, it ended fairly quickly, and the Oilers won.  Whyte Avenue exploded into revelry.  I decided to take a walk along the street to see just what was up.  I don't know exactly what had happened after other games (apparently some broken window, bonfires in the street and other assorted drunken hooliganry), but the cops were taking no chances.  They seemed to be everywhere, herding people along the sidewalk, pushing people off the actual street, and giving everyone the hairy eyeball.  In my short walk, I saw them arrest one guy who wanted to debate whether on not he was allowed walk in the street (he's wasn't) and I had about a million people shout "Goilers!!!" in my face.  I saw lots of people driving around honking their horns and yelling... often, if they had a pickup truck, they had a giant tinfoil Stanley Cup in the back.  I was also required to give out lots of high fives, which I did until I came across the guy who gave me such an enthusiastic high five that he nearly took my arm off.  After that I walked down the alley instead. The Black Dog was packed to the point of insanity which made for some difficulty in moving around and, more importantly, buying beers, but the place is blessed with some of the greatest bar staff this side of the Railway Club.  By the time I was lining up to buy my second beer of the evening, the bartender already recognized me, and would have my beer of preference open and ready for me by the time I got to the front of the line.  Which was a good thing, especially because the place was so damn noisy that even screaming at the top of my lungs, it was hard for anyone to hear me.  Once again, it was a really good show...   jam-packed, elated, drunk Edmontonians really know how to have a good time.  And as an added bonus, we ran into Jerf, one time drummer for Red Cat Records label stalwarts, The Doers.  For those who know him, and miss him, he asked me to tell you all that he's doing great, playing in a band called Field and Stream, and has no intention of moving back to Vancouver.

June 15  Edmonton - Driftpile Attack of the 6 Ft. Kimonoman The goal on this day was to drive 4 hours North of Edmonton to attend/play the North Country Fair.  It's held just outside the township of Driftpile, Alberta, (near Lesser Slave Lake) and was a 3-day Solstice celebration.  We were warned that there would be rain and hippies. We were arriving a day early so that the bands could play a special show for the volunteers.  Needless to say, these events are usually chaos during the actual event...   to arrive a day early ensured that things were really upside-down-town.  Hell, they were still constructing a road to where people could park.  The Hong Kong Lady took even more undercarriage abuse as a result, but we took solace in what was to become the tour mantra (at least as far as the vehicles were concern), "ahh fuck it, it'll be fine."  Amy, Dave, Laura, Garth and I pitched our tents in the performers' campground, "Shady Hollow".  It's always tempting when camping to start drinking before you set up your tent, but Amy and I had discipline (and, as I said, we had been seriously warned about rain), so we quickly cobbled together something that looked like it would probably "do", and then set out to find where the others had camped.  Tolan had taken Gwyneth to the farthest end of the campground, far away from other campers, but close to the stage were tonight's show was to take place. His camping posse included Hoff, Carolyn, Clay, Sylvia, and Goose, and they had opened up Gwyneth's side door, and strung up a tarp that extended out from there to cover a seating area and a (against Fair rules) fire pit.  The beers were cracked, and Black Sabbath was cranked.  With one of my last lucid thoughts of the day, I started second guessing the rainworthiness of our camp ground, but when I went back to check it out, I found that Garth and Dave (who love doing shit like this), had taken down our crappy tarp set up, and instead constructed a sturdy tarp-opolis that covered all three of our tents.  We then all sojourned back to Gwyneth to continue drinking and camping and awaiting someone to come by and tell us when the show was to go on.  Here is an important fact that escaped all of us. Driftpile is pretty fucking far North (compared to, say, Vancouver), and around the Solstice the sun does not set until well after midnight.  Consequently we drank and smoked and hung around in the assurance that, somehow, it was perpetually around 9:00.  This illusion was somewhat dispelled by a shaggy, intense, old hippie guy in a kimono who appeared at our campsite.  Apparently he was the stage manager of the stage that the bands were supposed to be playing at.  He was upset that it was well after midnight and no one had played yet.  We informed him that no one had told us anything, and anyway, we had no idea where half of our musicians had wandered off to.  This didn't mollify him in the least, and he proceeded to inform us that some "professional musicians" were impatiently waiting for us to get going...   apparently they were a "smoking blues band from the city".  We said, that since we didn't know where everybody was, "the smoking blues band" might was well take the stage whenever they wanted.  Then we returned to drinking.  I won't go into the gruesome details, but after hearing some garbled comments from the stage about "professionalism" and "courtesy" and "smoking blues"; we were treated to some of the most pedestrian, wanky, bullshit blues you could ever imagine being subjected to.  If you have seen the movie Ghost World, conjure up image of the band Blues Hammer.  Blues Hammer would have been preferable to the craptacular display that was M64.   Fortunately Gwyneth's sound-system could mostly drown them out.   Eventually it actually got dark, but I have no idea what time the bands finally took the stage (late, late, late, that's for sure)...   it was by far the drunkest show of the entire tour, kind of a trainwreck in places, but no one seemed to mind and the bands didn't stop playing until it was light again.      

June 16  Driftpile Shore Is Muddy While we were sleeping, it rained.  Hard.  Dave and Garth's tarp-opolis worked wonders, and we all stayed dry.  Amy and I were woken to the sound of Garth shouting that we should all get out of bed, and that we were lazy bastards, and the kitchen was cooking up breakfast and there were "big bowls of bacon", but we'd have to hurry because breakfast was nearly over.  We dragged our sorry asses over to the performer's kitchen area were there was a big spread laid out, but there were no (and there never was to be) any "big bowls of bacon".  The rain (which continued off and on all day) turned everything to mud.  I was okay, as I had thought to bring a straw cowboy hat, at big military trench coat (which Amy hated, but easily held six beers in it's pockets) and gum boots.   Some of the other were not so fortunate.  Clay for instance started drinking before he set up his tent, consequently he had not set up a tarp to protect his tent...   he also neglected to bring a sleeping bag (he had to use his dirty laundry as a blanket)...   and he left his regular shoes and his gumboots outside his tent, so they filled up with water.  He cut a miserable hungover figure when he finally emerged for the day.  Hank Pine had been more forward thinking with his camping arrangements, but his major malfunction was that he had neglected to use enough bug spray.  Whenever it wasn't raining, there were tons of giant mosquitoes and no see 'ums.  At one point he lifted up his shirt to show a ring around his torso about thee inches wide that was composed of around 50 bug bites of various sorts.  The visible parts of his body were almost as badly off. Today was the official start of the festival, and as the day continued, tons of people started arriving.  Considering the weather, it was quite impressive.  Unfortunately, when it came time for Carolyn to take to the main stage and kick off the Fair, it was discovered that 1) the soundboard had gotten soaked overnight  2) it was also missing a major component that it needed to be functional.  Soooo...   while they dried out the board, someone had to be contacted in Edmonton to drive up the missing part. Things finally got started 4 hours late.  Once it began, it was a great evening of music, and we were even treated to the reunion of Carolyn Mark and Her Roommates (Carolyn, Tolan and Garth).   Carolyn and Hoff especially deserve kudos for rocking the "long evening dress with six inches of mud around the hem" look all evening.

June 17  Driftpile - Edmonton The Shabbiest Wedding Guests Evar We really tried to get going early.  I just wanted to say that for the record.  Hank, Lily and Clay were staying at the Fair, but the rest of us had to attend the wedding of John Guliak and Christine Ferguson.  I had to get to Edmonton especially early (3:00) because I was the best man.  With this in mind, we did our best to hit the road by 10:00 (counting on a four-hour drive and then an hour to clean up and make ourselves presentable).  Didn't happen.  We got going around 11:30, and even though I matted it, we didn't actually arrive in Edmonton until 3:00.  When we arrived, we were a mess.  It's amazing how quickly one can degenerate from (vaguely) civilized to a smelly, dirty, bearded caveman...   covered head to toe in mud.  Amy was not much better.   After what amounted to a quick hosing down, we tore off the wedding, which took place in the Guliak/Ferguson backyard.  I will state for the record here, and for all time, I was a terrible, terrible best man.   John, if you ever read this...   I'm terribly sorry.  When I arrived at the lovely family event, I was wearing a badly wrinkled suit...   a mud and blood stained shirt...   muddy, scuffed combat boots...   I had a patch of beard the size of a toonie on my chin that I had missed when I shaved...   and I had bumped my head on the trunk of my car, and there was blood trickling down my face.  On top of this I was hungover, burned out, stupid and had a hacking cough from all the cigarettes and campfire I had inhaled at the Fair.  Amy was not quite the freakshow I was, but later in the evening she finally realized that one of her shoes was a significantly different colour than the other. The reception featured a table full of Edmontonians glued to the Oilers Stanley Cup game on a portable TV.  They did a pretty good job of not yelling and swearing too loud while the speeches were going on.  The Oilers won, and once again Edmonton exploded.  Even though we were well away from Whyte Avenue on this occasion, you could still hear all the horn honking and general brouhaha.  The reception also featured the long awaited reunion of The Fixin's, a band that John had been in with Carolyn, Dave and Garth back in the olden days. At the end of the evening, I got chewed out by Christine's mother for not having had the courtesy to introduce myself.  She was right to do so, most best men can do better than that.

June 18  Edmonton - Edson At Least It's Not Raining I was very pleased to find out, when I woke up, that I was now sick.   Yesterday's cough was not entirely attributable to smoking my face off; it was actually a precursor to a foul illness.  At least we are on our way home now, and although it will be a long drive, we were all promised a couple of evenings in a luxury ski chalet near Kamloops with a hot tub.  Our plans, as you might have guessed, were of the pipe variety.   About two hours out of Edmonton, in the middle of nowhere, we blew a tire.  No biggie...   we pulled over, and I set about getting out the spare tire (which was a real spare tire and not one of those stupid tiny ones).  Unfortunately, at this point Amy and Carolyn noticed that there was a lot of steam coming out from under our hood.  A quick inspection revealed that simultaneously to blowing our tire, our radiator had developed a large crack.  We (well, the ladies, actually) were soon able to flag down a guy with a cell phone and we were able to get BCAA to send out a tow truck. Don, the tow truck driver informed us that we would need to go to Edson, the nearest town.  He also informed us that as "basic BCAA" members the first 5 kilometers of towing was free.  It was approximately 80 kilometers to Edson.  Although expensive, Don's company on the tow was pretty cool.  He was widower who just drove a tow truck all day long, and when he wasn't driving the truck he tried to "drink Canada dry".  He told us stories about hunting foxes in Virginia ("the poor hounds would come back from the hunt just covered in ticks").  He also told us how, when he was younger and was doing some farming in Alberta, he killed two (or perhaps three) birds with one stone by running a big water hose into the gopher holes on his land and thereby irrigated his field at the same time as he drowned the gophers.  Those that didn't drown were easy to shoot. We got into Edson (Home of the Giant Squirrel), dropped off the car at a repair shop (which was closed for the day) and left a note telling them what we required.  We found a hotel, The Odyssey (We Sell Sleep), and fortunately got the last room, although we were informed that no rooms would be available tomorrow (big oil patch convention, or something).   With nothing else to do, we bought booze and watched TV.  As we lounged around, we did our best to look on the bright side of things.  In this case, the bright side was that, for the first time on the entire tour, it didn't rain a drop all day long.  Still, there is the nagging suspicion we should be in a hot tub.  Gwyneth's crew is.  

June 19  Edson - Hinton Gimme A One Way Ticket To Hinton We got the call first thing in the morning.  The repair shop wouldn't be able to fix our car for a couple of days.  Apparently they needed to order a new radiator from Edmonton.  It would also cost around $600.   Considering we wouldn't be able to get a hotel room in Edson tonight...   combined with the fact that we sure as hell didn't want to stay in Edson for two more days, we decided to call all the places in town.  A bunch of brain dead yokels basically told us the same thing...   2 days, lotsa $$$, and really they had better things to do.  Carolyn, on a whim, started checking a bit more afield.  In Hinton, the next town down the road, there was a guy who specialized in radiators.  He figured that if we could get the radiator out of our car, and bring it to him...   he could fix it, and for significantly less money.  When we told him that getting the radiator out of the car was beyond our abilities at the moment, he said that, in our case, he could probably take the radiator out himself.  All we'd have to do is get the car to Hinton.  Once again, BCAA was called.  I tried signing up for a Premium Membership, which would have entitled us to 100 kilometers of towing, but they're smart, upgrades don't apply to preexisting conditions.  So it was a 100 kilometer tow (first 5 free) and the tow truck driver wouldn't take all three of us. Carolyn and Amy went with him, and I hung around town until I could catch a Greyhound bus to Hinton.  I've been a lot of places in my life, but they don't get much worse than the Greyhound bus station in Edson, Alberta.   When I finally got to Hinton, I found a note stuck to the door of the Greyhound bus station there informing me that Larry (the radiator guy) would not be able to repair our radiator (stupid plastic radiators), but he would be able to replace it...   he could have it done before noon tomorrow...   and it would be about half as expensive as any other quote we had gotten.  The note also said that Amy and Carolyn were holed up with some beer and wine at a hotel not too far away.  We spent the evening drinking and watching the Oilers lose the Stanley Cup on TV.  We should be in a hot tub...   Hank and Lily are in the promised hot tub tonight.

June 20 Hinton -  Sun Peaks Finally, The Hot Tub Larry was a man of his word, and at 11:00 AM; the Hong Kong Lady was once again ready to hit the road.  After a couple of days of enforced inertia, it was really good to get back on the road again.  We were going to take the Yellowhead to the ski chalet, because at this point we were damned if we weren't going to get at least one night of sitting in a hot tub.  The Yellowhead is a great drive.  The mountains were beautiful, and we saw lots of wildlife, including two bears (one a Grizzly) and an escaped bull that was just walkin' down the highway (he also had the largest balls any of us had ever seen on a living creature).  We arrived at the chalet, for which we can thank Bob, the local golf pro, who has connections everywhere.  For instance, he helped scare us up a show tomorrow that Carolyn and Amy could snake their way onto. Luther Wright and his buddies, The Shiftless Rounders, were to be playing the opening show for the volunteers at the Salmon River Roots and Blues Festival (ever wonder whatever happened to Ten Years After?...   they're playing at the Salmon Arm Roots and Blues Festival).  Then we hot tubbed, and it was good.  

June 21  Sun Peaks - Salmon Arm The Best Connected Golf Pro In The Valley Another good drive through the Shuswap, and when we arrived in Salmon Arm, we found that Bob (who is amazing) has teed us up rooms at the best hotel in Salmon Arm (don't laugh, it was fucking amazing).  Our room overlooked a bird sanctuary; we looked right down on an Osprey's nest.   Pretty damn cool.  Amy, Carolyn and I were getting kind of worn out, and we made a beginner's mistake...   we forgot to eat, but we didn't forget to drink.  Still, it was a fun evening, and it was cool seeing The Shiftless Rounders for the first time.  Good ol' hobo bluegrass.

June 22  Salmon Arm - Vancouver Feel Like I'm Fixin' To Die It has been a long and tiring couple of weeks.  Personally, I was looking forward to sleeping in my own bed.  It was a pretty subdued drive back to town.  We managed to drop Carolyn off at the Ferry Terminal in time for the last sailing, and then headed home to die.