25 Years ago this morning, was the so-called Northridge earthquake (it was actually centered in Reseda not Northridge, fun fact, I spent my elementary school years in Reseda, it was called elementary then).
The above picture is of one our freeways that broke off. The below one is an apartment building that collapsed on the first floor (it was one of those kinds that have the parking structure under it and 16 of the 57 that died was there).
Looking at these 25 year old pictures brings back terrifying memories. My own apartment at the time was far enough away from the epicenter that we did not sustain damage. We were lucky. But it was scary as hell.
Today is the last day it’s supposed to rain after raining all week. We aren’t supposed to see any more rain for the rest of January.
I was unable to update anything yesterday as I have been working on my flash fic. Fortunately I will have something up tomorrow morning on here for the flash, and I hope to get a chapter of The Experiment up today.
Also today, Betty White turns 97 and my friend at work’s daughter turns 3, so Happy Birthday to them.
Three day weekend this weekend and I am looking forward to it!
Oops! I meant to publish this Monday! HA. Oh well
Here we are at the beginning of another week. A full work week, though this coming weekend is a three day one for both of us. Teachers in LA start their strike, too. And it’s supposed to be rainy for the next several days.
I intend to get chapters up for The Experiment. I also intend to, cross your fingers, get the next chapter up for The Mysterious One. I need to get something written for Friday too.
I need to get moving more this year, so we went for a walk Sunday afternoon. It was all right. Because of the rain, that might be it for the week, we will see.
I am getting stuck seeing The Mule on Tuesday (Clint Eastwood). I have no desire whatsoever to see it, but M and his cousin want to see it so I agreed. I will advise how it was.
I know everyone has seen the two above videos but I wanted to post them here again because I’m feeling very Spirky right how.
I love them both for different reasons. I saw the first one first, and it took me a while to find out the whole soulmate audio came from Dawson’s Creek. I love it because it’s AOS and though JJ wanted to shove Spock and Uhura down our throats, Spock and Kirk are soulmates here too. They just are.
I love the second one even more. They use the same Dawson’s Creek Audio, though it’s faster, and then the song is perfect too. And it’s got both AOS and TOS and my favorite parts are the TOS ones here because of the use of the older versions. I love them in that time period and all the scenes from those just bring out the feels so much.
It makes me sad that the AOS guys will never get to play these characters older like this. I treasure the 3 AOS movies and always will, but they will never get to be them at that age and it sucks. I mean obviously they won’t have to deal with the whole Anton/Chekov part now and the guys can be together in our imaginations, but well,I am sorry to lose them as OMS. At least on screen.
And for me, they always will be my One True Pair. Spirk.
“We don’t have time for this,” Frank growled.
Winona ignored him as her gaze surveyed the space station for her son. Where he’d gone to, she didn’t know. She had just gone to the bathroom and had left Frank there to keep an eye on him. Obviously she couldn’t trust him to do anything right.
“The shuttle leaves in less than ten minutes,” the man next to her whined.
She had grown to hate him. What she had ever seen in him, she no longer knew. It was thanks in large part to him that she’d nearly lost two sons. Sam was gone. She didn’t know where to find him. Had just walked off one day, Frank told her. Jim confirmed it.
And then Frank had sent Jim away.
To that hell hole.
Yes, she hated him.
But she hated herself more. This was really her fault, wasn’t it? If George had lived he would be so disgusted with her. But of course—
“Wi, the shuttle.”
God, she had grown to hate that nickname. She turned on him. “Well, why did you let him out of your sight?”
“The little shit tricked me,” Frank protested. “Said he wanted something from the vending machine.” Frank looked sullen. “And you said to feed him whenever he was hungry because-because-”
“I know why.”
Overhead they announced final boarding for the shuttle.
“If we don’t go now we’re going to miss it! There’s not another shuttle back to Earth until tomorrow morning.”
“You get on the shuttle,” Winona said. “I’m not leaving here without my boy.”
“He could be anywhere. He might even be on another shuttle somewhere else. Look—”
“Go, Frank,” she said, giving him a shove. “Get out of here. And when you get to Riverside, you can get your stuff out of my house.”
“Wi—”
“I’m done, Frank. I should have been done before you destroyed my family. Get on that shuttle and out of our lives for good!”
“Bitch,” he muttered as he turned and headed for the ramp that would take him onto the shuttle and back to Earth and away from her and her son for .good. She only hoped it really would be that easy.
“Ma’am.”
She turned toward the guard she had reported Jim missing to earlier. “Did you find my son?”
He nodded. “I think so. Come this way.”
They rounded a corner and then she saw her boy. So skinny, like a skeleton, really, and she wanted to weep at the sight, but she had to be strong for him. For her son. He was only thirteen and so fragile right now.
Jim was not alone though. He sat on the floor of a waiting area, sitting in the corner next to a boy who looked a few years older than him and Vulcan, from the looks of it. They looked to be having a very intense conversation. Jim kept nodding at whatever the Vulcan boy said, but she was relieved to see that Jim didn’t look afraid.
“Is that him?” the guard asked.
“Yes. Yes, thank you.”
She hurried over. “Jimmy!” Jim flinched as he looked up at her, blue eyes wide behind his glasses. He shrank back against the Vulcan boy. Her heart clenched in her chest. She forced herself to relax and to smile. “There you are, honey.”
“Hi Mom.” He glanced at the boy with him, who stared at her with dark, intense eyes. “Mom, this is Spock. Spock, my mom.”
“Hello, Spock. It’s nice to meet you.”
Spock held up his hand in a Vulcan gesture she could not recall the name of but before he could do more than raise it, a human woman dashed up to them, and she was holding two drinks. She smiled at Winona.
“Hello there. I’m Amanda Grayson. Spock’s mother. You must be Jim’s mother.”
Winona nodded. She was surprised the Vulcan had a human mother. She had never met any Vulcan who seemed to be particularly tolerant of humans, yet she could see that Spock sat very close to Jim, and her son did not seem to mind.
“Jim got lost, I guess, looking for food and something to drink, so I thought I’d just leave him here with my son while I got them a drink. And some candy.” She held up candy bar. “Is Jim allowed to have this?”
“Oh,” Winona said faintly. “Yes. Yes, he can.”
“Wonderful.” Amanda handed the drink and candy to Jim and then handed a drink to the Vulcan boy. “I was intending to have them page you after I brought their drinks.” She lowered her voice. “It’s just…he seemed so hungry, you know and I thought–“
“Yes. Thank you. Come, Jim.”
He bit his lip. “Do I have to go?”
“Jim—”
Spock said something very softly to Jim that she couldn’t hear. But whatever it was, Jim nodded, and stood up, going over to Winona. Spock also stood.
“Where’s Frank?” Jim asked then, looking around.
Winona patted Jim’s arm, and then turned to the woman and her son. “Thank you so much for looking after him. What do I owe you for the drink and candy?”
“Oh, nothing. It was a small thing we could do. I’m glad you found your mama, Jim. Please stay safe. Come, Spock.”
Winona drew Jim away as the woman and her son departed. “Honey, Frank is gone.”
Jim frowned. “He left on the shuttle without you?”
“I told him to go,” she said fiercely. She hugged his small bones, tears springing to her eyes. “He’s never ever coming back.”
“He…isn’t?”
“No,” she whispered. “It’s just the two of us from now on, Jimmy. I promise. Nobody else. You’re going to be my priority.” She drew back and put her hand on his cheek. “We can’t go out of the space station until tomorrow. So we’ll get a room tonight. But in the meantime, are you hungry?”
Jim nodded, swallowing.
And of course he was hungry. It was a stupid question.
“We’re going to have a big dinner.” She held his hand, gently for his bones were fragile, and she turned to call out, as a thought occurred to her, “Amanda!”
Amanda Grayson and her son, Spock, stopped, and turned back toward them.
Winona smiled. “We have some time here. And Jimmy and I are going to have dinner at that restaurant down at the end near gate D. Would you like to join us?”
Spock turned that intense gaze on his mother, who smiled. “Yes, I think Spock and I would very much like to join you.”
Jim brightened instantly and he gave Winona a very tentative smile, but it was there, as he hurried to walk beside the Vulcan boy, who said nothing, but inclined his head in a way that seemed to please Jim, and they made their way to the restaurant.
“I’m Winona…Kirk.” She’d about to introduce herself with her married name with Frank, but then changed at the last minute. “And of course, you’ve met Jim.”
“Yes. And Spock is my son with my husband, Ambassador Sarek. We’re on our way back to Vulcan, but we don’t depart for a few hours ourselves.”
And she continued to chat as they walked along and Winona watched as Jim’s step was just a little lighter.
Tomorrow, you will get to read Lost, my Friday’s Flash Fic, which I think has a bit of a double entendre going on.
I have also thought of a Flash Fic for the next Friday, though admittedly I have barely started it.
I updated The Experiment again. Go me.
I have been trying to find a way to be able to get a weekend in in Morro Bay, but it’s just so damn expensive and I have no funds right now at all. This is the cheap season too, once you hit Spring, it all goes up. It’s depressing to me that I haven’t been there since last February and I just don’t know when I am going to get there. This is my recharge place. And for now, at least, it isn’t happening.
We are in a bit of a rainy pattern at the moment with chances of rain Saturday, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday of next week. So far, of course. That all changes easily and it’s varying degrees of chance if rain.
That’s pretty much it, I guess. I just came on here to whine. Sigh.
Oh, BTW, we went to the above place after work yesterday because M was curious. It is TEENY TINY. I felt like a bull in a China shop, scooting this way and that to avoid running into anything. He got a latte and half a pound of ground coffee. $15! Wow. Fresh from the chicken eggs were $8 an dozen. We got no eggs. Interesting experience though.
Well certainly the news about a potential fourth Star Trek movies isn’t good. But perhaps someday. My own positive spin on it is that it means I can safely have Spock and Uhura broken up for good in any future offerings I may have. Hey, I take what I can get!
Speaking of, I updated The Sight today. I know…shocking. I actually had the start of chapter 7 written way back when I posted my AN about deleting it. I got a few more requests in recent days to continue it, so I picked it up again and finished it. The chapter not the fic! Ha.
In other news, of the writing kind, I got a Flash Fic done for this Friday yesterday. It’s not at all related to the boys from the Christmas Flash, but I think it is, dare I say, sweet.
I have begun the fic related to First Footing as well. The part you read on here will be the first chapter, aptly titled, First Footing. I don’t have a name for the overall fic yet, nor a plan as to when I’d start posting it. Not a for a while I think. Maybe not until it’s finished. We shall see. back in the very early days of 2013 and The Bond Between Them, I finished the whole darn thing before I posted it. Weird days that.
Okay, so I have officially posted my T’hy’la Bang story, Wonderful Life, on AO3. I think most of you have seen it, but if you haven’t, take a look. I am pretty proud of that story.
This week I hope to get more written on The Experiment in the hopes of concluding it in the not too distant future. I also need something for my Flash Friday. I wanted to have the next part for my guys from the Christmas Flash I wrote a couple of weeks ago but I am stalled on that and them, so I might have to just whip something up fast so I have a Flash for this Friday.
I should be seeing Aquaman tomorrow if all goes according to plan.
Otherwise, this is a full work week for the first time in a while so that is going to suck. We do get MLK off on the 21st but that’s two weeks away. Of course after that we have no holidays until Memorial Day. It is a long stretch. I’ll be dipping in to vacation days for sure.
This time last year I was looking forward to the cruise. I have no such plans this year as I need to pay off some stuff. We shall see.
We had some rainy weather over the weekend, but all the undecorating is officially done and life is, such as it is, back to normal. May you have your version of normalcy.
