Life has thrown all kinds of detours and challenges my way over the last several months, August was no different.
I am preparing for our "Naked Tuesday" celebration tonight. It's held each time there are 5 Tuesdays in the month. COVID certainly challenged the practice and it hasn't yet returned to previous glory. It's been hosted by a local art's group that focuses more on artistic self expression, than nudism. But body acceptance and normalizing nudity are certainly a consistent theme.
Tonight's event is a celebration of its return. There is no expressed theme, only the request that everyone express themselves in something more than just a naked human. One of the earlier events was a metal theme, with a forge, fire dances, etc. I created a chain jumpsuit for that event. I decided to recreate the jumpsuit and put a bunch of dangly things attached to it. It should create some appreciation from an artistic expression perspective.
2 events punctuated August this year. 1st was the local electricity utility contractor damming up the flood control channel for my neighborhood. I used to free hike back in the woods adjacent to the creek that the channel flows into, but the county built a frisbee golf course in those woods. During the height of COVID, the park was closed, and I was able to free hike and nude bike the trails again.
The county had maintained the channel until Hurricane Harvey, five years ago. The neighborhood flooded, including all of the houses immediately surrounding me. The water was less than an inch from coming into my house, before retreating. After that, the flood control district was charged with maintenance. It hasn't been touched since. Anyway, with the draught continuing into August, I took it upon myself to explore the conditions of the channel and found several areas completely silted in and the channels blocked completely along the electrical distribution powerlines.
I contacted the county, the flood control district and the electrical distribution company and was able to have the dams (2) opened, but only after the rain started. The channel maintenance issue has not yet been resolved. I did ride my bike through the woods behind my property onto the frisbee golf course. I donned a wrap initially, to see if there were any golfers out on that muggy and muddy day. As I expected, a few people were playing the front holes, but they avoided the back due to the wet conditions. I was biking through the slosh when suddenly, surprising a lone back country golfer. We shared greetings and continued on, no harm, no foul.
My goal that day was to check that the dams were indeed opened and water was draining. It was.
The second significant event this month was the theft of my truck (Monster). It's a 20yo diesel Ford with 1/2 million miles driven. I never thought anyone would go to the trouble of stealing it, but there you go.
My daughter and I swapped trucks so I could replenish the freon in her truck, she had parked it at the upscale restaurant where she was working when it was stolen. A week later, it was found. They had crammed a screwdriver into the ignition and had been driving it around for several days. Apparently, the screwdriver jammed and the starter burned up, leaving the truck unable to go any further than the Kroger parking lot where it was recovered. They stole every shiny thing including the radio, bed cover, bed liner, even the horn, but except for the ignition damage and starter, was mechanically intact.
So, this past week I have been working on the truck in the driveway. I would shield visibilty where I was working, avoiding offending the nude sensitive neighbors. The thieves left a assortment of items in the truck including a new office chair, clothes, toys, an AR rifle (toy), etc. I put the office chair at the curb and a neighbor stopped to make sure I was offering it to first dibs. They politely waited for me to put something on before approaching.
I had to ponder the AR rifle for a couple days. It wasn't, in my mind, an appropriate toy for children. Very authentic and realistic, with sound and lights. What kind of parent would buy this for their children? I ended up giving it to my brother. He volunteers at a local ministry. I have no idea what became of the toy, I will not ask.
I have been negligent in posting, sliding back in the shadows while attending to life's distractions. I have been keeping tabs on the lot of you and hope to find more opportunities to engage this forum going forward.
As always
Stay Safe, Stay Bare!