Daisy Chain

(1) A type of hawser dating from the croaking, misty ancient days of wizards and dragons. Made of long-stemmed but sturdy flowers, they were used to secure slip-thin elfin boats to supple wharves at night. After long centuries this practice finally declined. A shortage of blooms and rising wage demands among the blossom weavers was most responsible, plus a scarcity of elves. A lot of weavers also left for less taxing, glitzier work in the hospitality and entertainment industries as Las Vegas mushroomed after the second world war.

A typical daisy chain required 260,000 flowers, took 300 weavers six weeks to create, and wilted to uselessness in 12 short hours on exposure to dragon breath. As with so many traditional crafts, the death of daisy chaining was inevitable as synthetics eventually overtook the market and nylon cable became the norm, outperforming the original vegetable solutions (and attracting fewer bees and biting lizards). Elves thinned out to the point of non-existence, not to mention wizards. And when was the last time you saw a dragon? Hey, really, when? (Though the lingering smell of their breath remains in a few distant and dark valleys.)

(2) If using rope, and you put lots of loops into it you have what is called chain sinnet. It's a method of shortening a piece of rope while leaving it usable as a rope, and can be released in an instant. Other names for this effect are chain shortening and monkey braid. (If sewing or embroidering, your result is instead known as a chain stitch, but it's purely decorative.)

(3) In backpacking, a daisy chain is a length of webbing that is sewn onto a flat surface (like the front of a shoulder strap) and left with lots of slack to form loops, which vaguely resemble chain sinnet. So anyway, for backpacking, you can hang various doodads from these loops or lash things to them. If you don't have any doodads you can use any doohickies, doojiggers, gimmicks, gizmos, gubbins, thingamabobs, thingamajigs, thingummies, whatchamacallits, whatsises, or widgets you might have at hand, or just leave the loops empty and let them snag on twigs and branches as you walk by, like most of us do.

(4) An arcane and highly intricate sexual practice rumored to be engaged in by wood nymphs, but seldom if ever witnessed and far too stimulating and inappropriate to talk about here.

 

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Have anything worth adding? Then try sosayseff@nullabigmail.com
Me? Wishing I was more inappropriate.

 

Etc...

so says eff: sporadic spurts of grade eff distraction
definitions: outdoor terms
fiyh: dave's little guide to ultralight backpacking stoves
boyb: dave's little guide to backpacks
snorpy bits: nibbling away at your sanity
last seen receding: missives from a certain mobile homer
noseyjoe: purposefully poking my proboscis into technicals

Easy Trail

(1) A trail requiring limited skill with little challenge to travel. Easy is defined as relaxing, posing minimal difficulties and able to be traveled with little physical effort. Moderate is defined as not requiring excessive or extreme physical effort. Difficult is defined as physically strenuous requiring excessive or extreme physical effort. And so on.

(2) A trail of less than four miles (6.5 km) round trip and with less than a 2000 foot (610 m) elevation gain. Round trip hiking time is generally 45 minutes to 3 hours, but inexperienced hikers may take longer, and some of them choose to either get hopelessly lost, or even die sometimes, only one or two steps off the pavement. (Go figure.) This is only a guideline not a rule. You may die in some other, more interesting way.

(3) "Easy Trail" is a description you might use if you want to encourage others to die attempting to negotiate what almost just killed you. If you're that kind of person. Maybe you are. Who can say?

(4) The gummint and assorted experts and hangers-on have gotten into this cookie jar too, and gone ahead and defined difficulty once and for all and for ever and ever, so you no longer have to think. An easy trail is one that someone has decided is relaxing, posing minimal difficulties and able to be traveled with little physical effort. There is nothing really wrong with that. Just assume that trail means a long and narrow piece of ground with few stores fronting it, and you more or less have it. Sort of a skinny park. Yawn. Are we done yet? Can we go home now?

Example: Barb preferred doing the easy trails with Ed, because if she limited him to those trails he didn't end up whining so much.

 

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Have anything worth adding? Then try sosayseff@nullabigmail.com
Me? Easy, peasy, but still slow and wheezy.

 

Etc...

so says eff: sporadic spurts of grade eff distraction
definitions: outdoor terms
fiyh: dave's little guide to ultralight backpacking stoves
boyb: dave's little guide to backpacks
snorpy bits: nibbling away at your sanity
last seen receding: missives from a certain mobile homer
noseyjoe: purposefully poking my proboscis into technicals

Deciduous

(1) Deciduous means anything that falls off.

This can be something that falls off your body or someone else's body, or a thing that falls from some other place and lands on your head. So keep one eye on that hanging stuff up there. Someone gets whacked every so often, and in the woods no one can hear you scream, or cares if you do. Lots of weird stuff goes on out there all the time and none of us pay much attention unless it looks good to eat or happens to be coming right at us with personal intent. Especially if it's getting dark and we just want to close our little eyes and get on with our snoring.

And then if the something that falls is a thing that falls from your body, well don't tell. Don't tell us, anyway, and we won't ask. Keep it secret and keep it covered at all times if at all possible. Don't scratch that spot it in public. Don't brag and don't whine. It happens to all of us now and again, and tends to happen more to people who look like you. It's probably genetic but if not then the rest of us really truly don't want to catch it from you. Wash your hands. Cover your mouth when you cough. Keep away. Wear clean underpants just in case. (You know what Mom said.)

If you are a tree, and your leaves change from that boring flat green color to lots of nice acid-trip versions, and the season is autumn, then you get a pass. This is not only supposed to happen, but everyone absolutely loves it for some reason. You should know this by now so settle down, stop your rustling, and do it already. It's what you were put here for.

If you stand still and look majestic (and are a tree or other certified vegetable) we'll even take pictures of you and put them up on the internet, which is a thing you don't need to know about. Lots of people do this and we don't want to be any different. They tell us it's normal.

So relax. We are children of the universe and no doubt something is either gracefully unfolding as it should or is headed this way to destroy us. Either way it's life — well-known as a definite crap shoot.

(2) "Deciduous", a prose poem by Max Ehrmann, a minor poet and lawyer from Terre Haute, Indiana.

Although some originally claimed that this poem was ancient and profound, and was miraculously found entirely by accident taped to an obscure church basement wall, that's the sort of thing that Aunt Martha says every time she finds some random newspaper clipping slapped on the church basement wall, and you know what she's like.

The rather mundane and awkward original poem of this name, about being stuck in a world full of crimps and spungs and feebs (to use Faulkner's words), was actually heavily edited by some anonymous fool before it was prank-published under the title "Desiderata" before it then got shared around by an army of Aunt Martha clones and slapped on myriads of church basement walls and their greeting card equivalents, but the original was much edgier and boils down to something closer to:

You are trash along the freeway of life. Remember, you have the right to remain silent, and we will ask for your opinion only if we want it. But as far as we are concerned you should just surrender now.

Listen — seriously — you are dull and ignorant. We can tell even from across the room. Any room. No matter how big. You have no story that needs to be told, or that anyone wants to hear.

If you compare yourself with others you will come up short, so don't start. Instead, try to enjoy being a runt, for not everyone can be, and at least you know which hole is yours to fill.

No matter how short the line, you will be at its end, and allowed in last, if at all, especially considering the way you dress. So fake it with caution, if you feel you must try, but you actually have nothing to gain.

Be yourself then, and embrace your loserhood, for that is how we see you. Realize that the world is full of tricks, and all of them will be played on you, for you are also a sucker.

Especially do not feign intelligence, for we know what the real stuff looks like, and it does not look like you, not even a little.

And while love may be a perennial flower spreading joy to the entire world, no joyous bee will be coming over to pollinate you. Forever and a day.

So heed the advice of your betters, who are also much smarter than you. Which is just about everyone, your relatives excluded of course.

We mean it. Give up. The sooner the better. You deserve misfortune, and fatigue, and loneliness, because, if for no other reason, we enjoy watching your clumsy efforts to deal with it.

Be gentle with yourself because no one else has the time right now. Or ever, truth be told.

OK, you probably do have a right to be here, if only to serve as a warning to others. And whether or not this is clear to you, it is increasingly clear to us as your life unfolds.

Therefore be cheerful, for everyone loves a genial idiot, for they are endlessly amusing. (Just switch on the TV for crying out loud — you'll see.)

So strive to be happy. If nothing else your doomed struggles to appear even adequate only enhance your entertainment value.

 

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Have anything worth adding? Then try sosayseff@nullabigmail.com
Me? Mine hasn't quite hit the ground yet.

 

Etc...

so says eff: sporadic spurts of grade eff distraction
definitions: outdoor terms
fiyh: dave's little guide to ultralight backpacking stoves
boyb: dave's little guide to backpacks
snorpy bits: nibbling away at your sanity
last seen receding: missives from a certain mobile homer
noseyjoe: purposefully poking my proboscis into technicals

C7 Vertebra

The knobby protrusion at the base of the back of your neck when you lean your head forward. It's used for backpack sizing.

C7 is important.

You need it.

C7 means that it's the seventh (last, bottom) cervical (neck) vertebra. C7 is part of your neck bone, which is connected to your head bone and connected to your back bone and used to measure you for a pack bone. Memorize that.

Anatomists like to number similar things, which is why C7 is C7 and not Louise. (Glad we cleared that up too.)

Anyway, the vertebrae in your neck are like all the rest of them in your whole spinal column. (Because the Lazy Principle. Once you got a thing what works, keep using it, 'K? Then you can take more naps and do less fretting. Fretting is for amateurs and noobs. Laziness is for professionals. Whoever designed the human body is obviously a lazy bastard professional, as you probably know by now.)

So these bony vertebrae things help keep your various body parts together and allow you to stand up on your hind legs with your head held smartly in line as all the other self-respecting tailless apes do. It's a thing, a handy one, a handy thing. And people point and laugh less when you do it like this too.

These vertebrae provide a nice home for your spinal cord while giving various bodily muscles handy places to attach themselves.

Two things about C7 are especially important.

The first is that it works with the other vertebrae in your neck to keep your head attached, of course, as you should know by now, and the other is that the knobby protrusion at its back (the "dorsal process", a place where your muscles grab hold) is a handy landmark for measuring what size pack you need. See?

Measure from C7 down to the top of your pelvis and compare to the manufacturer's chart for the pack you're eyeballing. It's easy from there on out if you're not exceptionally stupid. You're not, are you? (Please see the next paragraph to be sure.)

Note: "C7" is not the same as "C4", which is a plastic explosive and not part of your body, and should not be taken internally and tastes bad too.

That's about it. Time for my nap.

 

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Have anything worth adding? Then try sosayseff@nullabigmail.com
Me? No — the taste of C4 is not getting any better, even with strawberry jam.

 

Etc...

so says eff: sporadic spurts of grade eff distraction
definitions: outdoor terms
fiyh: dave's little guide to ultralight backpacking stoves
boyb: dave's little guide to backpacks
snorpy bits: nibbling away at your sanity
last seen receding: missives from a certain mobile homer
noseyjoe: purposefully poking my proboscis into technicals