Carrion Luggage (Book)

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Carrion Luggage

Carrion Luggage

Native to the Americas, the turkey vulture (Cathartes aura) travels widely in search of sustenance. While usually foraging alone, it relies on other individuals of its species for companionship and mutual protection. Sometimes misunderstood, sometimes feared, sometimes shunned, it nevertheless performs an important role in the ecosystem.

This scavenger bird is a marvel of efficiency. Rather than expend energy flapping its wings, it instead locates uplifting columns of air, and spirals within them in order to glide to greater heights. This behavior has been mistaken for opportunism, interpreted as if it is circling doomed terrestrial animals destined to be its next meal. In truth, the vulture takes advantage of these thermals to gain the altitude needed glide longer distances, flying not out of necessity, but for the joy of it.

It also avoids the exertion necessary to capture live prey, preferring instead to feast upon that which is already dead. In this behavior, it resembles many humans.

It is not what most of us would consider to be a pretty bird. While its habits are often off-putting, or even disgusting, to members of more fastidious species, the turkey vulture helps to keep the environment from being clogged with detritus. Hence its Latin binomial, which translates to English as "golden purifier."

I rarely know where the winds will take me next, or what I might find there. The journey is the destination.

Show Recent Comments

10 Most Recent Blog Comments:

Ren~Busy as Usual

about 16 hours ago
In response to "Pay Me"

The floating ads…I have abandoned many a web page because of these. Ads in general, I ignore them all, the same way I get up and go to the bathroom or get a snack during television commercials. Oddly enough, I worked in advertising.

1 Like

🌖 HuntersMoon

about 18 hours ago
In response to "Pay Me"

Duly noted! I wrote a poem (item:2148922} which ended with the final stanza:

My greatest fear is they'll attend
my funeral and, at the end,
they’ll rent the space inside my casket:
I'll get eternity in a wastebasket!

2 Like

Robert Waltz

about 19 hours ago
In response to "Pay Me"

Stik to My Own Beat

- it might have, if I remembered it existed.

1 Like

Stik to My Own Beat

about 20 hours ago
In response to "Pay Me"

I take it the Wayback Machine also couldn't send back a usable version?

1 Like

🌖 HuntersMoon

a day ago
In response to "Entropical Storm"

So, what he's saying is that everything will end. No shit. Of course, that ending is so far in the future as to be never for those of us alive today. I see why I've never put too much faith in philosophy.

Stik to My Own Beat

Sep 13, 2025 at 10:16pm
In response to "Zucchi-NO"

As someone who is a bit mad that Noodles and Company recently removed the zoodles from their menu, I take mild offense to pretty much any anti-zucchini sentiment out there.

It can also be a literal pain in the ass, if you know what I mean.

I'll just leave this

right here. (Sorry about the vertical nature of it.)

The internet is overgrown with zucchini bread recipes (which, guys, is just spice cake with weird, wet fiber smuggled inside).

My aunt made zucchini bread when I was a kid, and I remember liking it. I don't remember this texture thing the author is alluding to. Then again, my flavor of autism has more issues with meat textures and is way more forgiving when it comes to plant-based or mostly plant-based foods.

I think the problem with being a food writer is that you get jaded pretty quickly, and always seek out the new and shiny over the tried and true classics.

That might be a subcultural thing. Sometimes in the Midwest the classics get more attention from food critics than the zany new stuff. The State Fair is an exception to the rule.

Which is to say, zucchini is definitely work. It needs to be cared for, both in the garden and in the kitchen.

Really? I've always found it easy to work with. I do sauté it, but I also grill it and sometimes roast it. After cooking, I like to add it to scrambled eggs. And one of these days I'm going to put my new-to-me spiralizer to work. Someone left it in the building lobby with a sign saying it was free. I was all, "Thank you very much!" and brought it home. You can tell who misses zoodles.

1 Like

Ren~Busy as Usual

Sep 13, 2025 at 5:13pm
In response to "Zucchi-NO"

I guess I’m weird. I love Zucchini and so does Z, though he only likes it the way I make it, so he really likes butter, Turmeric and pepper but he, that’s okay. I like it cut like into spears and breaded, then fried and dipped in sauce. Damn, I really just like bread and sauce.

Nevermind. That went south fast.

1 Like

Jayne

Sep 13, 2025 at 12:55pm
In response to "Zucchi-NO"

I never understood "it doesn't have a taste." Same with people who say parsley doesn't taste like anything.

Parsley most definitely tastes like the epitome of green. It's a pleasant green, unlike the monstrosity called kale, or the medicinal bite of oregano.

Anyway.

Zucchini definitely has a flavor, the same way cucumber has a flavor. Both are useless. However, one is inoffensively, and perhaps pleasantly, useless, unlike zucchini. Zucchini: the dishwater of vegetables.

Eggplant earned it's status as an emoji. At least it is now somewhat useful and often amusing, which it is definitely not in its culinary form.

Of course, I'm old now, so I eat the same rotation of 12 meals because I can't be bothered. I guess I won't make it as a food critic.

1 Like

🌖 HuntersMoon

Sep 12, 2025 at 12:26pm
In response to "Teamwork"

So... did they ever accomplish anything? Of course, I mean noteworthy. I mean, come on, I can drink whiskey and eat ice cream for Pete's sake. I even have the "heart of a poet" thing covered.

1 Like

🌖 HuntersMoon

Sep 11, 2025 at 11:08am
In response to "That's Life"

No comments yet? Well, let's see if I can take advantage of my Darwinian evolution and find something intelligent to say.

Nope.

2 Like

September 15, 2025 at 8:36am

#1097412

Pay Me

Okay. Fine. I give up.

I ran the RNG as usual this morning, but when I went to the corresponding saved link, I found it had been paywalled. Too bad; it was an interesting story about the origins of a cryptid. But I couldn't find a non-paywalled version, so, ploink, into the trash.

Then I pulled another number out of the metaphorical hat and, behold: another paywall. This one would have been about the conception of the universe in the Middle Ages. But no, we can't have nice things.

Just to be clear, I'm not expecting everything for free. If I'm interested enough in a website, I'll subscribe. But what it does is put a damper on sharing articles. Now they've missed out on not only my subscription, but that of my legions of fans. I'm sure they're wailing and moaning about having three fewer subscribers, right now.

People who do the work deserve to be paid for it. Even writers. Traditionally, the main source of income for article writers is, ultimately, advertising. But no one seems to be able to make non-annoying ads, ads which, when I find something to read on my phone (which doesn't have ad-block), render the site essentially unreadable, what with hidden click-through points and constantly shifting floating ads.

Hence my use of ad-block, which, look, I know that makes me part of the problem, but there's a war on and I need my defenses.

Anyway, from what I've been hearing, ad revenue is drying up (possibly due to the proliferation of ad-blockers). Likely, this has prompted more sites to go to a paid subscription model. That can work if the site has decent content on a regular basis, but again, I can't share those articles here.

The existential problem with the advertising model, though, is that the advertiser gets to control your content, at least to some extent. Publish something controversial? Ads get pulled. Show a political bias different from the advertiser's? Ads get pulled. Dare to show a bare breast? Ads (and maybe other things) get pulled.

It's the golden rule once again: they who have the gold make the rules.

I'm not saying I'm changing the way I do blog entries. Just taking a break today to express my annoyance at the festering pile of bantha fodder most of the internet has become.

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