Craterellus foray (no words on A, but some outlining on B&C)

I just have to learn to resign myself to not getting things done when everybody else is around. Lots of reasons -- I need to be with them, I need to cede the machine to them, I need to do other things, and I can't think straight when they're here all day. But anyway. I now know most of what I need to write about Bella and Chain. Chain is a bicycle messenger, and his secret has to do with knowing more than he thinks he knows. Possibly because of things overheard while on the job. And that is probably why his name is Chain. Something to do with some incident famous among bicyclists. I could steal a bit from life: perhaps a broken chain while mountain biking in some godawful wilderness like Henry Coe Park resulting in a near-death experience. Possibly involving mountain lions. And that incident may be something that gave him more knowledge than he knows he has, or perhaps it was an assisted accident because he already knew something.

Speaking of bicyclists, Zak said he has been finding chanterelles and craterellus in his "spots" which, unfortunately for us, are miles away, up steep mountain paths in the Forest of Nicene Marks. It's kind of late for those, but they're often a little later than some other fungus, and we'd seen like two little buttons of chanterelles up in Fall Creek this year, that's all. So we decided to go after chanterelles. It was getting late in the day so instead of going way the hell up Empire Grade to Fall Creek, we took a shorter walk on University land off Empire Grade nearer to town. The results can be seen in my new gallery, "Empire Grade Craterellus Foray" -- most of the galleries are currently empty while I rework them from scratch -- the forest is tremendously beautiful this time of year and we brought home half a big grocery bag full of craterellus which are kind of forbidding looking but they taste a lot like chanterelles. The dog kept climbing onto downed trees but the camera is slow and I haven't figured out how to outwit it and I got many terrible pictures and only one not too horrible one of Truffle climbing a tree. And now I think I have a tick but I can't catch the little bugger, and I hope my immunity to poison oak holds a little longer because it was leafing out all over.

In other news, did I tell you I have normal cholesterol readings? I guess I did.

Anyway, I will catch up with Afterwar tomorrow.