scrubjayspeaks

For those planning to make exercise part of their lifestyle in the New Year but unenthusiastic about lifting dumbbells or running on a treadmill in a gym, we have an alternative opportunity. Through partnerships organized by the community clinic, you can be paired with another local in need of help at home due to injury, disability, or other life circumstances, and get your exercise from activities like hauling groceries or walking pets. Clinic staff have sorted chores according to skills built, from strength training to cardio to psychic resistance, so you can improve yourself and serve your community.

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LL#1346

Congratulations and prizes go to the group of middle school students who successfully located and burned down this year's Solstice Beast, which had been hidden in a culvert beyond Arrow Point Lookout. This year, the highly flammable straw statue installation was made in the shape of a very fine pronghorn, complete with horns that shot fireworks when ignited, thanks to local sculptors, chemists, and farmers. This is the quickest discovery since 2009, though not the quickest burning, after the 2022 raccoon Solstice Beast was incinerated by a bolt of lightning before discovery.

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LL#1340

For those who might be new to Lewisia, we wish to offer some tips regarding Black Friday sales at local businesses. To ensure that employees, craftspeople, and shoppers alike can properly enjoy the holiday, no stores will be open earlier than 8 AM, so save the midnight campouts for the next full moon. Door-to-door delivery service will once again be available, courtesy of the Urban Sled Creature Club and their teams of dogs, ponies, infernal goats and other friends (donations appreciated).

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LL#1334

While all Lewisia restaurants and businesses pay their employees a living wage (or equivalent thereof for non-living staff), tipping can still be a means of showing one’s appreciation for excellent service when done appropriately. As a general rule, staff prefer tips to be made in the form of accepted currencies, small high-value goods that can be easily taken home with them, or minor boons from lesser entities. Remember, if you and your waiter have to discuss the age at which your first-born child will be offered up, you are negotiating, not tipping, and you should consider waiting for their paid meal period to continue or just leaving cash instead.

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LL#1328

If you are struggling to get last-minute Halloween decorations up, due to work demands, mental health issues, new responsibilities, or just the unforgiving nature of time, local creatures are here to help. Cryptids, nocturnal animals, and unsettling weirdos living in local abandoned sheds and alleys are happy to spice up your yard or front door with ominous looming and half-seen movements in the peripheral vision of passers-by and trick-or-treaters. It is considered polite to reward these efforts with a portion of the season’s bounty--king size candy bars may even earn you an eerie and threatening entryway well into November if you wish.

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LL#1322

Thankfully, the cause of the recent rash of sadness, malaise, and general low spirits has been identified and is being counteracted now. It turns out an upcoming candy maker, looking to outdo Fendler’s Sweet Shop for the Halloween season and thereby make their name, has been illegally siphoning whimsy from the town to cut costs without losing the active ingredient in most high-quality candy. The confiscated sweets will be distributed to the community to help in the recovery of this vital resource and bring our collective mental state back into alignment.

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LL#1316

We find ourselves poised on the very lip of the grave, friends, nearly ready to plunge into a temporary, voluntary underworld. Perhaps you might prepare some traditional funeral offerings and use them as your work lunches, sharing a meal with your future neighbors in the afterlife. Consider carrying a little extra cash for those in need, to practice for your own payments to the ferryman some day hence, lest you find yourself needing to busk at the on-ramp to the River Styx.

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LL#1310

We have heard a rumor that a new shop is going into the rotating storefront on Chicory Lane, and this time it is soup. We plan to use the remaining un-soup-suitable weather to speculate wildly about the possible offerings of the new business, while conversion of the space takes place. We encourage everyone to report sightings of workers, chefs, food deliveries, and any other hints at the nature of the future soup, which promises both tasty food and cooler weather to come.

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LL#1304

In observation of the holiday, the Historical Society has created a rare publicly available collection related to labor movements of the past. From saboteurs and Luddites to pamphlet printers and strike marchers, come see a fascinating selection of the methods, legal and otherwise, used to secure basic dignities and compensation for workers. We can only assume that this will be a purely theoretical education for any viewers, and that no one would ever still have reason to picket, curse, bomb or infest with hydraulic gremlins their workplace or boss’s residence.

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LL#1298

The Roving Spindle, a modified camper van on the outside and a spinning, weaving, tailoring workshop on the inside, is passing through Lewisia. If you have longed for a dress spun from actual starlight or a suit of living flowers, the duo of spinsters can create it, all with the convenience of a house call. Unlike many in the business, they have no interest in firstborn children or ransomed kingdoms, though they may require questing for certain raw materials.

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LL#1292