ph_logs | [OPEN] observe the month of spring

[OPEN] observe the month of spring

Who: Zivia (

tehilim127_1) & all comers (with prompt for Degas)
What: Settling in, and scrambling to prepare
When: April, prior to the event (backtagging welcome!)
Where: At home, at work (Town Hall), at the docks, at the Oak & Iron, at wits' end
Warning(s): To be added as relevant

At home
There's a lot of work that goes into making a house one's home, even when one receives it fully furnished. Zivia's resigned herself to doing it in stages, and moreover to those stages happening out of the order she would prefer, since according to the best-approximation calendar she's discussed with Lev-Lyubov and Anzu, Pesach is coming. Which means getting ready for that first.

She's put up a request on the community bulletin board; if it pans out, they'll be able to bake matzah, at least. Cleaning out the house she's been allotted is taking up a good chunk of the rest of her free time, though she might be willing to take a break to talk with a visitor.

At work (Town Hall)
The filing system isn't too hard to learn, it turns out. She takes notes during her brief training, writes up a couple of cheat sheets, and keeps one at her desk and one on her person. The chair and desk aren't particularly ergonomic, but they're sturdy and functional and won't completely ruin her wrists or spine, so she'll call it good.

It's been a while since Zivia's done any purely paper filing, but it's funny how it all comes back to you. Anyone else working there or visiting may overhear her humming to herself as she works.

At the docks (for Degas)
She hasn't forgotten the preacher's offer of help, so he's the one she calls on when she first comes across a task that needs an extra pair of hands. And, she's hoping, a cart or wheelbarrow or something to that effect, to help haul a bunch of items from her house down to the water's edge and back.

At the Oak & Iron
This city isn't the one she's always thought of as hers, but it's hers now, at least for now. She has to remember that. Has to learn that, internalize it until it feels like the truth. And that means, first and foremost, coming to know its people.

So even if she's a little tired most evenings now, Zivia makes a point of coming down to the pub after work at least twice a week, to meet her neighbors. Find her in the common room with a hot tea or a cold beer, looking for familiar faces or new ones.

At wits' end
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She grins at his joke, and listens.

"Last couple of years. You've been here that long? -- Sorry, I've been assuming you're not local."

"Mm? Oh- no, uh- let me back up."

He takes a sip of his gin, then continues.

"Like I said, I was an army doctor- I got drafted, mind you, I'd rather be stretched over a rack than 'serving', but I'm also not a fan of firing squads or court-martialling either. So I did surgery there, but we also handled everything- dietary issues, vaccinating kids, delivering calves on a few occasions. That was my couple of years. Here, I've only been here a couple of months. Not a local, I'm from this nutty place called Earth, maybe you've heard of it."

"Oh, would this be the Earth with the United States of America in it?" She grins again. "New York City? Hollywood? Superman comics, World Series, Coca-Cola?"

Hawkeye sighs wistfully,

"It's like I'm back there. Apple pie, Betty Grable, and all. You know it?"

"Born and raised. Though, uh ... could I ask what year it is, where you came from?"

It's the mention of having been drafted that catches her attention there.

Hawkeye pinches his face into a little bit of a wince and answers-

"1951 or thereabouts. And you're about to tell me that I'm old enough to be your grandfather."

She makes a rueful face. "Well, not in 1951 you're not. I'm here from sixty-some years later, what gave it away?"

"Honestly? Lucky guess. Most people I've met have been from later years. But you also mentioned Superman comics, so you couldn't have been that much older than me anyway, and if you had been, then Betty Grable wouldn't have made you ask what year I'm from."

He takes a sip of his gin, "that's my diagnosis anyway."

"Good guess," she says, "mostly solid, but it wasn't Betty Grable that made me ask." She lifts her glass, and then sets it down without drinking and says with sudden earnestness, "D'you have any idea how tempting it is to make up something about apples going extinct in the 1980s, or nobody knowing how to make pie anymore? Terrible. I'm ashamed of myself."

Hawkeye cackles at that, slapping the countertop in delight.

"You know you would've gotten me with that?-" he starts, and then leans in just a hair, either providing some way to check something or providing Zivia with a second opportunity to fuck with him.

"Did we actually get to the moon in the future?"

She beams. "We did. Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin, July of 1969. Sadly, we haven't got a city or a moonbase or anything up there, though. Maybe someday."

"When I get back home I'm writing a stern letter to the editor of Buck Rogers and Flash Gordon about the inaccuracy of their strips."

Shakes his head.

"So sixty whole years, huh? More than half a century. What s it like?"

"Well," she says, "a lot's changed, and I hope you'll be pleased to hear the part that tipped me off: they got rid of the draft. I want to say sometime in the seventies."

If Hawkeye looks incredibly massively relieved at that, it's because he is.

"Don't suppose you can tell me they threw the concept of war out entirely with the draft?"

He's not hopeful.

She sighs, smiles ruefully, shakes her head. "Wouldn't that be nice."

"Yeah, I wasn't going to put money on it."

A small sigh.

"Small progress though. They also told me about- I think they were 'cell phones'? You got those?"

"Yep. Portable telephones. Anyone tell you about the internet yet? That's probably the other biggest new thing."

A pause. "One of the other biggest things. Damn, if I had internet access on me, I could just look these things up."

"Only in passing. Someone once said I resembled an internet troll, and I don't know if it was a compliment or a dig at my nose."

Anyway-

"So it's like an encyclopedia?"

She can't suppress the snort of laughter.

"Probably not a compliment, but context is everything. Okay, it's --" A pause. "Think of it like you've got a piece of paper, and that piece of paper can be any page in any book in an enormous library, if you can just tell it where to look. So you can use it to look at an encyclopedia, or today's newspaper, or an adventure novel, or, uh -- oh, or this notebook where someone wrote you a letter this morning. And you can write back to them, and they'll see it right away because they've got a magic paper of their own. With me so far?"

"Didn't think it was one by his tone, no," Hawk starts. But Zivia's explanation makes his eyes widen in awe, and pretty quickly the dig from Tarantulas is at the very back of his mind. At a volume just below a whole yell-

"That's incredible. So- so I could write a letter to someone halfway around the world and have it get there instantly, because they have this internet paper? That's- and you can look up any page?"

"Yep! And yes, any page that anyone's put there. I should be clear though, it isn't actually paper, that was just a way to lead into the idea of pages. So yeah, that's sort of the starting point of the internet -- tons of information that anyone can look at from wherever they are, and being able to send letters at the speed of a phone call."

A beat. "Then it gets even more interesting, because people can share pictures, and music, and videos -- that's like, little movies. Or full-length movies, even. And," lifting a finger, "you remember that notebook where someone wrote you a letter and you wrote back? Think like that, but public, like a bulletin board where you can tack up your replies to other people's notes and they can do the same. Or a graffiti'd wall where people have whole conversations in writing, without ever seeing each other."

Hawkeye grins in sudden understanding.

"So what Tarantulas called me was the equivalent of the sort of guy who writes rude graffiti in bathrooms?"

She laughs. "Pretty much. Targeted rude graffiti. Or starts arguments just to make other people mad, or harasses them for fun -- it's definitely not a compliment."

"I'll have to get him back for it- I only mess with people who have it coming. Like him, now, for instance," he says with mock indignation.

"That's got to be incredible though- I mean, we felt it over in Korea, all these amazing films kept coming out and we'd just hear about them secondhand- we were lucky to get reels from two decades ago actually sent to us. And nothing good, either. I mean you see one Shirley Temple flick, you've seen all of them. And music- if I had to listen to another hour of the patriotic military-approved radio- the U.S.A wasn't going to collapse if they played some Dinah Washington or Thelonious Monk for once."

"Oh my lord, music, that's another thing that's changed, massively. I have no idea if you'd like any of the newer stuff, a lot of people did and a lot of people hated it. Several times over. Damn, now I really wish I had my phone, I could play you some of it."

(The lack of phone and internet connectivity doesn't stop her from mentally composing the beginnings of a Sixty-Year Sampler playlist.)

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