Compared to how things have been going lately, things... haven't changed much, really. I'm still on night shift at work and it looks like I will be for another couple of weeks; September at the earliest. There's a lot going on right now and things aren't in place yet. That's about all I'm in a positin to talk about, and all I really know. Everything involved in that happens during the day, and I work a good twelve hours after all of that (which is also after everybody clocks out for the day and goes to bed). So there isn't …

It's July 4th as I sit outside and write this post, after quite a few years of wondering if I should type this up. But, I figured, I'm not getting any younger and if I ever get around to writing my memoirs I'm going to put this in there, anyway, and there's no guarantee that I'll remember this if and when I ever do. So, here goes.

Content warning: Gore. This is kind of the definition of trauma for a little kid so if you don't want to read about fireworks accidents you might want to close the tab and …

I didn't get a chance to post about it at the time, but Lyssa, Keely, and I went to Washington, DC's Chinese New Year Celebration downtown. Once again, I went in cold because I was curious about the experience, mostly because barely-remembered memories of television shows about Chinese New Years from my childhood aren't really anything to go on. I knew in some hazy fashion that fireworks were involved, but I hadn't realized that they'd be unrolling gigantic strings of firecrackers - Black Cats, we used to call them. Specifically, they were strings that, when coiled up, were about three feet …