Stephen Mark Rainey's Blog, page 99

Just Divine

Had to make my usual visit to Martinsville to look after Mum on Friday and first part of the day Saturday, but I was able to get back yesterday afternoon so Ms. B., Kidlet, and I could head out to hit a couple of wineries and enjoy a very pleasant day in the Yadkin River Valley. Our first destination was Divine Llama, which Ms. B. and I have visited a few times in the past. They only have a couple of dry reds — a reserve Merlot and a Cabernet Franc — but they're both exceedingly good for NC wine, and even a couple of their whites weren't too ugly on my palate. Their oaked Chardonel was actually smooth and buttery enough to make me consider having a glass of it. That is all kinds of different, my friends. Now, Ms. B. is all about  stainless steel–aged, crisp-and-citrusy, non-oaky white wine, but everyone is entitled to at least a few minor shortcomings. Alas, there were no llamas in evidence this visit; just a lot of bumbly bees and a few children. (Parents, cut that the fuck out. Wineries are for adults.)

From there, we went over to nearby Cellar 4201, which is a decent enough place, with more choices of dry reds. However, their tastings are way overpriced — $9 for seven wines (with a very small quantity of each wine — about half an ounce) in a stemless glass, or $15 for the same seven in a stemmed glass, which you get to keep. Please! Now, I certainly prefer a glass with a stem, but good lord, you wouldn't even get a half glass of wine for your $15, and the last thing I need is another tasting glass to bring home. For comparable wine tastings, most Yadkin Valley wineries charge you from $5 to $10 for up to ten wines, and more often than not, you get to keep the glass anyway. I confess this little bit of gouging irked me, but it wasn't hard to make the best of things, what with the company and everything. Bottom line is, with so many wineries in the area that offer you a better deal (and some with better quality wine), I am not much inclined to make 4201 a destination to revisit in the near future.

Upon departing the vineyards, our trio headed to Little Tokyo restaurant in High Point for sushi, which certainly proved a high point of the evening. Great food, and a nice two-for-one deal on sake for Saturday evening. One of the better venues for not-terribly-dead fish in the Triad.

Today, there was caching. Fun, happy caching. Sadly, Kidlet will be leaving us tomorrow. It has been a fine two weeks having her close at hand. Well, mostly. I mean, you can see a bit of scariness in the visages down below. Rough stuff, my friends, rough stuff.

The Browns Summit Chainsaw Massacre?

I love finding haunted places while I'm out geocaching, and I came upon a mighty fine one this afternoon. It's out in Brown Summit, a few miles north of here, on the edge of Bryan Park North, a relatively new extension to the already sizeable park. There's over five miles of hiking/equestrian trails in these woods, only a portion of which has so far been claimed by geocachers. I had gone out after a couple of new ones, and my search led me to the remains of an old homestead, with a crumbling farmhouse in the woods; a couple of collapsed tobacco barns; a field full of abandoned, rusting automobiles; a chugging generator; and an honest-to-god roaring chainsaw somewhere just beyond my line of sight. There's a couple of squalid, dilapidated houses just beyond the woods, both clearly inhabited. The geocache (GC6DNBN) was virtually within sight of this rather forbidding property, and during my search, I kept a keen eye and ear open for the approach of any hostile beings, human or otherwise. Obviously, I lived to tell the tale, and I rightly look forward to heading back out that way in the coming days.
Multiple dead cars... multiple dead bodies? It fall down! Still alive to tell the tale — for the moment.

Wining and Sciencing

Kidlet came into town from New York City last week, and she's staying with me this weekend. She wanted to see the Greensboro Natural Science Center, as she hadn't been there since she was a wee youngster and it was a single building with just a few displays — and except for hunting geocaches on or around its premises, I've never been. It's now an extensive, multi-million-dollar complex, with lots of live animal displays, dinosaurs, rocks & minerals, aquariums, and a treetop rope course (which Allison did not care to do, but I'm quite sure I want to give it a go). We spent a good couple of hours seeing the sights, the highlight surely being the pair of tigers who have a nice big area to roam and mingle with guests — well, almost. We were also quite taken with the pair of fishing cats, a passel of penguins, a bunch of otters, and stingrays of all sizes, which you can pet as they glide past through the pool. There's a huge octopus, which we were told only rarely makes an appearance, but it was kind enough to treat us to a brief appearance when it came out from its cover of rocks to check out the passersby. Bet he would have made for some serious tako-su at any of the nearby Japanese restaurants (octopus is one of my favorites, by the way).

Out in the zoo area, there were several dinosaur-sized tortoises; a number of playful gibbons in the trees; some shy lemurs gathered together in a hovel and grooving on a pict; and a peacock strutting around the pedestrian walkways, which made me wonder whether we had stumbled onto the NBC lot by mistake.

Afterward, we headed over to Stonefield Cellars Winery in the Stokesdale area — by way of a few geocaches — which made for a most pleasant afternoon, the weather kindly cooperating with sunshine and balmy temperatures. We shared a bottle of their Synchronicity red blend, which is one of their many excellent red selections. It was nice to see that Stonefield has a new winery cat, named Fizzgig (from The Dark Crystal ). Some time ago, their original winery cat, Noah — a beautiful bengal cat — passed away. Fizzgig — whom Allison referred to as Francis — proved himself affable company while one is drinking wine in the great outdoors.

Then, finally, we made our way back into town and met Ms. Brugger, Jenny Chapman, and Doug Cox at Casa Vallarta Mexican Restaurant for dinner. Fair Mexican fare, excellent company. Today, the kid is preparing us a nice lunch. I hope to survive to tell the tale.
Brought to you in living color. Droolie in his dreams Fishing cats, sans fish Fizzgig, a.k.a. Francis Dad and Kidlet

Coming Up on Jack Taylor's House Party...

Thursday, March 17, 2016 — hey, that's St. Patrick's Day! — I'll be doing a live Q&A session on the Jack Taylor's House Party radio show on WFJX FOX Radio 910 Roanoke at or around 2:00 PM EDT. Co-host Vance Pitzer (or should I say Mr. Pitzer — you know, of Pitzer Hut fame) decided I should get the roast or some such, and what could I do but oblige? We'll talk about my writing, scary stuff in general, possibly some geocaching, who the heck knows? At any rate, it ought to be wicked fun, so if you've got the time, we've got the torture for you.

You can listen live on the web, or get the Tune-In Radio apps for Android and iPhones to listen anywhere, anytime. The shows are recorded, so you can always come back and torture yourself at a later date.

Pop in!

Discoveries: Best of Horror and Dark Fantasy

Received today: my contributor copy of the paperback edition of Discoveries: Best of Horror and Dark Fantasy from Dark Regions Press. This one features my pleasantly deviant little horror tale "Megan," which originally appeared in the mini-anthology Darker Discoveries in 2008. The new anthology, edited by James R. Beach and Jason V Brock, features stories from various Dark Discoveries Press projects, including the magazine, the newsletter, and the anthologies NW Horrors and Darker Discoveries .

Here, we also have works by Paul Bens Jr., Ray Bradbury, Jason V Brock, Kealan Patrick Burke, Elizabeth Engstrom, Paul Finch, Bill Gauthier, Cody Goodfellow, Gerard Houarner, Richard Laymon, Tim Lebbon, John R. Little, Nick Mamatas, Brett McBean, Michael McBride, James Newman, William F. Nolan, Gene O’Neill, Weston Ochse, Wilum H. Pugmire, David A. Riley, Michelle Scalise, John Shirley, Steve Rasnic Tem, Jeffrey Thomas, Tim Waggoner, and Matthew Warner.
Discoveries: Best of Horror and Dark Fantasy is currently available in ebook and trade paperback; Dark Regions Press will release a deluxe, signed hardcover edition later this year. You can check it out at Dark Regions or at Amazon.com (ebook here or paperback here ).

Night Cachers

It's unusual in the extreme to have an impromptu nighttime caching outing these days, mainly because I've had Greensboro essentially cached out for a matter of years now. But with the infusion of damn near 400 caches in town in recent days, courtesy of Mr. Night-Ranger, there's at least enough to keep me busy for a matter of weeks. Tonight, Mr. Robgso, Ms. Cupdaisy, and I decided to get together to go after a dozen or so in northern Greensboro. Well, it took some shaming from the lady to coerce Rob into joining us, but join us he eventually did. We started out at dusk, just in time to witness the rainbow over the golden arches, which you see in the above photo. This was all nice and everything, but it was after the rainbow vanished that the rain actually began. It pelted us for a little while, but once it let up, it left us in peace for the rest of the evening.
Yep, walking dead things in the woods
Most of the caches were of the park-&-grab variety, but there was one that took us into the woods off Lawndale Drive, with lots of tree frogs piping eerily, and something went tromping through the darkness nearby that gave Cupdaisy a start. And my favorite location was one that I didn't realize existed — an old, abandoned apartment complex some distance off the main road, which was pleasantly creepy, with old benches overgrown with weeds, trees growing out from a once-tended pond, and the sounds of wildlife singing and scurrying in the darkness. Once again, caching brings us to interesting, previously undiscovered places in our own own backyard. Happy day. Or in this case, happy night. I don't know if we'll managed anymore night outings in the area real soon, but this one sure was a treat.

My daughter is in town, and she was treated to a couple of cache finds last night, and a couple of more this morning, all quite against her will. There might be a little more of that in her future before she heads back to New York. Let's have a little evil laughter, shall we?

Happy hunting and good-night.
Hurry up and sign the log, Rob, I think there's one of them walking dead things coming this way.

The Creep's New Threads

Yeah, the Sandy Level Creep is watching you. Apparently, the Creep has changed into his best spring attire, as you can see in the accompanying photo. He's shed his tattered gray raincoat and donned a red long-sleeved button-down shirt, off-white slacks, a sassy hat, and a pair of ultra-stylish shades. He still wears his customary broad smile and offers a cheerful wave to folks driving past on the old Axton Road in Henry County, VA, just north of the NC state line.

As friendly as the Creep appears to be, he's very much the strong, silent type, and I've yet to see him engaged in conversation with anyone. Presumably, the Creep's family lives in one of the mobile homes on the property, and I can deny a certain temptation to stop and see if they're the chatty sort. I'd love to hear the story behind this fellow.

At least, I think I would.

Too busy to blog much lately. Life is running me ragged. At least there's a whole slew of new caches to go after in my snippets of spare time, courtesy Mr. Rich "Night-Ranger" Colter — 380 of them, give or take a few. Happily, there are a fair number I can grab on my increasingly regular comings and goings from Martinsville. They do add a sparkle to the day.

Peace out, creeps.

Caching and Wining in the Yadkin Valley

Nice lady and old grump (perhaps less grumpy than usual) at Medaloni CellarsIt's about time, I say. It's been an intense few weeks with all kinds of deadlines, pressing family responsibilities, taxes to tackle, busy days at the office, and very little time for rest or relaxation. Finally got a little bit of that in today, although I headed out early to grab a few new geocaches not far away. Happily, I got first-to-find on three of them. Then Ms. B. and I headed westward to visit a couple wineries in the Yadkin Valley — Medaloni Cellars and Hanover Park, the former for the first time, the latter being one of our longtime favorites. Medaloni Cellars had a couple of standout dry reds, and, quite naturally, Hanover Park blew us away with their 1897 and Michael's Blend red blends.

There were only four caches on our planned route, but they were all nicely done, not your typical base-of-sign park and grabs. The NC Civil War Geotrail series has been a favorite of mine, and one the caches took us to the Battle Branch Cafe, out in a nicely hidden part of the county, near Huntsville, which was pillaged in 1865 during General George Stoneman's famous raid. We didn't stop to eat at the cafe, but the fare looks great and the reviews are good. Perhaps next time.

There's caching with the Old Farts slated for tomorrow, and then it's back down the mine for another week of it. Someone's gotta do it.
At Hanover Park, still not too grumpy Ms. B. at the old cabin at the Battle Branch Cafe, near Huntsville

Stalker of the Wild Wind

What you see above is a painting, by artist J. B. Lee, inspired by my World War I historical drama-slash-Lovecraftian (or perhaps Derlethian, if one must) horror tale, "Stalker of the Wild Wind," which appeared in the 1999 Chaosium anthology, The Ithaqua Cycle , edited by Robert M. Price. Mr. Lee posted the reproduction of the art on Facebook and graciously allowed me to share it here. I think it perfectly captures the spirit of the story, which — unlike much Lovecraftian fiction — is very much about the human characters, the monster being a catalyst for events rather than the focus of the events. I look forward to seeing more of Mr. Lee's work, wherever it appears.

"Stalker of the Wild Wind" was a precursor to my novel, Blue Devil Island , which takes both the war drama and the supernatural menace to a whole new level. (My short tales "Children of Burma" and "Epiphany: A Flying Tiger's Story" also belong to the same cycle.)

The Ithaqua Cycle is still available on Amazon.com for $15.95. Check it out here.

"Rainey's story ("Stalker of the Wild Wind") is, to me, a modern weird story classic that should be mandatory reading, and if it had published during the fifties it would be constantly in print. Derleth would have loved this story. I read this when it was first published, when it was republished in this anthology, and when I re-read it again for this review, and I've never forgotten it, and it never ceases to entertain."—Mark Louis Baumgart

Fears, Defibrillators, and Wankpuffins

Suntigres faces her fear. The lurking horror
behind the camera, perhaps?
For the old man and Suntigres (a.k.a. Bridget), the geocaching trail led us to numerous destinations in and around Raleigh on this gorgeous February Saturday. She needed to pick up several items from her son, who lives over that way; the Hibernian Irish Pub in downtown Raleigh was beckoning her like gold at the end of the rainbow; and the caching bug was biting with nasty great pointed teeth, so she ordered me along to navigate any unruly or otherwise challenging terrain we might chance to encounter. In the end, terrain challenges proved minor and relatively rare, but we did turn up several unique and exceedingly well-done hides. We started with a couple of caches in a series called "Face Your Fears," and face them we did, though we did not, in at least one particularly frustrating case, succeed in finding the frightening little bugger. We solved a couple of brain-challenging puzzles, discovered a comically macabre diorama underneath a lamp post skirt, and lost our marbles at a couple of expertly crafted cache containers courtesy of Motrin Man (a.k.a. Fred) and Blinky7 (a.k.a. Cindy). In one instance, what appeared to be a standard lamp post hide proved to be a bit of a shocker, damn near requiring a defibrillator at the end of it all. It wasn't a monster haul today — I think I logged 18 total — but after several difficult weeks, it was damn nice to get outdoors and get my moniker on a few new logs. Not to mention some kick-ass chicken wings at Hibernian.

A good day.

And on a completely unrelated note, I saw today, in reference to Donald Trump, the word "wankpuffin." A fine word this, a good woody-sounding word, not at all tinny. I quite like it.
Best light-pole cache I've ever found. Old man needs defibrillator after being shocked by sneaky, springy, snaky thing.