Chapter Text
September 1st
The kids are back in California now. Their party was exciting, as expected. It’s hard to believe they’re 13 when I’ve only just met them. I’ve missed out on so much of their lives, it saddens me. They enjoyed my gifts, thankfully. Mabel was completely thrilled by the sticker especially, and immediately went to put it in her scrapbook. Dipper enjoyed the Letsgos, but he was significantly more awkward about his gratitude. Ah, to be a teenager. It had me reminiscing on Stanley and I’s own teenagehood. They weren’t quite the best of times, but they were the times when he and I still got along, so I look back on them fondly. I’m grateful now for his dedication to bringing me back home, even if I was quite angry with him initially.
Stanley also decided that Soos will take over the Mystery Shack while he and I are going on our adventures, so we’re getting prepared and settled for that. We’ve gotten the boat already, but Stanley seems to be hesitant to leave the Shack behind just yet, so he’s been taking his time packing. I understand, this has been his home longer than it ever was mine. In the meantime, today I did a little more research into the subjects mentioned in my prior entry, the recession and Hurricane Katrina.
Both of these events, as well as the September 11th attacks, were under former president Bush’s administration. It’s a wonder how little I’ve seen about him being a bad president. The hurricane made landfall on August 29-31, 2005, so almost exactly seven years ago now, and it was one of the largest ones to make landfall in the U.S.. It hit Louisiana, specifically in New Orleans, which was apparently particularly devastating, as NOLA’s flood protection system was flawed. If F had been on the engineering team…
Anyhow, according to my research, former president Bush’s administration did next to nothing to help during this event. The Federal Emergency Management Administration was particularly useless, but I feel as though most of that stemmed from a lack of information about what exactly it does. Stanley said that he remembers watching this happening on the news, before making a crude comment about former President Bush.
Then, the Great Recession. It was the worst economic depression since the Great Depression! All while I was in other dimensions! It started at the tail end of former president Bush’s administration and went on until nearly three years ago, but I’m sure the effects are still being felt by much of the nation. The causes have only recently been published, and most of it seemed to have been due to poor national financial regulations, similar to the Great Depression, only this time it was the housing market. It seems policies have since been put in place to prevent this from happening again. Apparently, a few million American households have lost their homes because of this crisis. Stanley said that the government is fully to blame, and that if it were up to him, he would do some increasingly violent acts to the people in power. I can’t quite say I disagree with him on this one. He lived through it, after all. He says that tourism was at an all time low at that point, too, as nobody could afford it. It seems like that has only recently been starting to look back up.
I cannot say with certainty that I’m disappointed I wasn’t around for these events. While it would have been nice to not be dimension-hopping, I’m afraid that might have been the better alternative compared to this.
I may fail to update this journal as consistently once I’m on the sea. Stanley is insisting that I ‘enjoy the journey’ rather than writing down the various things I learn. Or, in his words, “nerd out” about everything I see. I can’t help it, research has been my whole life up to this point. I understand where he’s coming from, though, and of course I will make an effort to respect his wishes.
I was unable to tell my family before the kids left. Of course, I wasn’t about to make their birthday about me, but now I’m at a loss. Perhaps I will tell Stanley first once we leave.
Tomorrow morning we’re moving furniture onto the boat, so I will rest now. Goodnight.
Ad astra per aspera.