2019-08-01 - Evening in the Garden of Branch & Bole

The outdoor plant section of Branch & Bole has a seldom realized function as a spot for August to have dinner with people. They closed a litle early ('It's my month, I can do what I want'), and now various potted plant offerings have been shuffled around to make space for a stone moasic table with a broad umbrella for shade. Tupperware and glass containers surround the umbrella's stand: herb braised rabbit in one, bacon wrapped dove poppers in another, noodles in brown butter and mizithra, saffron rice with dates and almonds, a few selections of summer veggies (roasted and steamed). Other people get to bring something to drink and the dessert, as August has declared these not his problem. ('It's my month, I make all the rules.')

He's relaxing in a chair (so he can tell any yellow jackets to fuck off), reading a book ('Poisonous Plants of the Pacific Northwest', it looks fairly old), and drinking some water from an old, battered, REI water bottle, awaiting everyone else. It was warm today, so he's in dark gray cargo shorts that reveal a smidge of the ravens tattoo on his left thigh, deck shoes, and a plain, slim fit, dark blue t-shirt.

Ignacio is never in shorts. Ever. His t-shirt has a shirtsleeve button up over it that's a nice melon orange.Just because the guy is eternally casual doesn't mean he looks like a schlub at least. Having mentioned that Julia wants to meet the 'dysfunctional Scooby Doo Family(tm)' and having time free? Yeah, he's absolutely grabbing her for an invite and will even pick her up in Rafael's dependable wreck of a car in bad need of an update. At least it's clean. As for dessert? Sopapillas. It's the only way to go and in with the tin doth Ignacio strut... okay still limping but he's making it stylish.

Finch arrives after a short walk from the bus. She has a Styrofoam cooler full of ice and a couple six packs worth of Thomas Kemper root beer. It’s from Portland. She figured August could appreciate that. She’s in electric blue tights with combat boots, a short black mini skirt, and a yellow tank top, with a hoodie tied around her waist in case it gets chilly after dark. Her hair is still blue, and so are her nails.

The cooler gets set down near the table, but not in a tripping path, because she’s pretty sure that bad luck thing is still going around. Because this is the fourth pair of tights she put on and the first one that didn’t have a rip in them. “Hey boss,” Finch greets.

Itzhak put on a shirt with buttons. Forest green, it makes the green in his eyes really show. His jeans are snug and black, complete with skull belt buckle, but he's wearing Converses instead of workboots. The Converses are normal looking, black canvas, until he takes a step and reveals the fact that their soles are vibrant rainbow. Itzhak's flying the colors today. What he brings is babka, chocolate-cinnamon-walnut edition, in a white deli box that he contributes to the table. "De Santos, when are you gonna let me find you another car?" is how he greets the team, tossing a hand in the direction of Raf's beater. "This's embarrasing."

It is a such a relief to not be walking around smelling like fried food. Instead, it's a sleeveless gingham top tied off at the waist, a pair of capris, and old fashioned Keds, with a bandana twisted into a headbang to keep her hair back. As she is coming to someone's home (more or less) she shows up with a contribution - a large mold pan covered at the top. As for her contribution? Flan. Looks like dessert will be full on.

She walks in next to Ignacio, grinning sidelong at his cheery entrance. "Thanks for having me." she offers to August, and eyeing the dishes, lets out a little whistle. Finch is given a little wiggle of her finger while still gripping her mold. "Hola." says to Finch. "Gotta say, love the hair." And then there's Itzhak, who also gets a wiggle of her fingers.

"Hey." August sits up as everyone starts arriving, sets the book aside. He pulls a bottle out of the cooler to have a gander at it, smiles. "Aaaah, TK. Thank you, haven't had this in a long time." He doesn't crack it open immediately, though, instead sets the bottle down and nods a hello to Julia. "Pleasure to have you. And, meet you, under circumstances where weird museums aren't trying to kill up with lamps." His tone implies this is de rigeur in Gray Harbor, meeting people under circumstances both morbid and strange. He offers his hand. "August, Roen."

The Spanish saffron crocuses have all been pulled from their arrangements and repotted, and are even now arranged around the area, adding a bit of brilliant purple and white color. Bumble bees trundle about among the hydrangea and late blooming iris; hummingbirds threaten one another from the tops of the maple saplings available for sale.

Ignacio lets August greet their latest addition and then points the other two, "And Itzhak , and Finch." He adds with a roll of his hand, "They were in your cooking class. Peeps, this is Julia." He looks from Julia and Itzhak, "After we eat we might have some notes to compare but... shit dude that smells really good." His had tilts to Finch, "You bring Miss Mags with you?"

Finch notes that Ignacio and Julia came in together and she gives the woman a small smile. “You must be Ig’s other boss. Finch, and thanks. I change it up a lot. Easy since they came out with really good temporary paste colors, so you don’t have to fry your hair with actual dye over and over.” She moves past Itzhak and offers him a dap on the way. “You gotta finish Gran’s land yacht first. Though we might all die of old age with the amount of work it needs.”

She glances up at the jousting hummingbirds. “The adorable assholes of the bird world. They’re lucky they’re cute,” Finch remarks with a smirk. She claims a root beer for herself and slides into a chair. Her eyes flit to Ignacio and she gives him a half-smile. “No. Not with things being all wonky lately. I was worried she might get hurt or something. She’s home in her cage.”

"Hi," Itzhak says to Julia. "Had to ditch the cooking thing, I didn't expect there to be half a dozen blenders all going off at once. Nice to actually meet ya." He offers his hand over, big, calloused, tattoos on the knuckles. Finch gets a dap in return, and he even wraps an arm around her for a quick rough half-hug. "I got some ideas how we can speed it up to run by ya, boss."

He slings himself in a chair, all long limbs and knees and elbows. "I keep expecting those flowers to be yellow," he says to August. "Or is that tumeric?"

Julia can't really shake hands with the flan tin in her hands, but once she sets it down, she does shake August's in turn. Perhaps with an impish air, she introduces herself. "Julia Mariposa Corazon Reyes Herrera Velez. Just Julia's fine. This is beautiful." Meaning their surroundings, and the presentation of th meal. More hand shaking and smiling, though she winces in August's direction. "Yeah, uh...about the museum. Sorry."

Of the saffron flowers, August says, "Some cultivars are yellow. It's a crocus, after all. But the color comes from the stamens, and that's what comes out yellow. Tumeric flowers also comes in a variety of colors, but the spice is ground up from the rhizome, which has that really bright, orange and yellow color, like an orange sweet potato." He realizes what he's doing, makes himself stop. He listens to Julia's litany of names, returns her handshake with one that's firm and friendly. "Thanks. I probably don't take the time to eat out here often enough." He shrugs about the museum, waves a hand. "No, don't worry about that. Hardly any of us knew one another, half of us were being strangled..." He shrugs in a 'what can you' way. He nods at the desserts she and Itzhak have brought. "Thanks for bringing those." He nods at Ignacio in confirmation. "I take classes when I can. Don't really like eating out." Except when a shitty day has ruined things.

Gesturing at the food, he says, "Help yourselves; if you don't eat meat there's plenty of vegetables and rice and noddles." He doesn't dig in himself, instead taking a root beer and opening it. He winces as the cap manages to score a nice, big cut along his thumb, sighs and shakes his head. "You were saying," he says to Finch, grabs a paper towel to put pressure on it.

Ignacio does his best Arnie, "Eets not a Tumeric." He pauses finding a place for the dessert, "And stop pickin on my brother's car. If it's crappy people know he came by it honestly. Builds...trust or somethin. And the answer to that is after I rewrite half my next book where it's not soing fuckin wet. That pays out I'll maybe totally think about a car. Promise." He looks back to Finch admitting, "Probably a good idea before some idiot feeds her cheese." Looking back up to Julia he squints, "You're beating me on names. I'm a lil jelly."

Finch sniffs at the containers curiously as she pops the cap on her root beer with an opener on her keychain. She grunts at August’s bottle cap related injury and wiggles her fingers in his direction, like a puppeteer pulling strings. Strings of spirit glimmer which work to sew up the cut on his thumb. Easy peasy. She grins at Itzhak. “Just lemme know. Gran is back in town.”

Finch nods to Ignacio over a sip of root beer. “Yeah. I think she senses shit is off. She seems perfectly content to be in her little house. Smarter than the rest of us.” She looks to Julia, “The cooking class was fun. Are you going to offer more of them?”

Itzhak snorts laughing at Ignacio. "Ahh shaddap, ya yutz." This is how New Yorkers express affection to each other. It's in a similar spirit he says, "Roen!" in aggravation as August cuts his thumb. "Jeez. I'm not letting you touch anything with a sharp edge, I swear ta God."

To Finch, he says, "Well, you know how you fixed the coffee pot? Why shouldn't you be able to do that to, say, the rust spots?"

Julia, he just looks curiously at, eyebrows quirked. Maybe he's shy.

There's a sly smile for Ignacio. "As if the women of your family don't have similar ones." she teases, and then nods in relief to August. "Thanks. The thing is, I saw one of them trying to influence you, and I had no way of knowing if you were being forced or complicit. I was too scared to gamble." She adds, "Based on this," a hand sweeps over their fare as she starts to help herself, "I feel like those classes are a bit basic for you." Her expression for Finch is grateful. "Probably? They're good for earning extra cash, and I enjoy teaching, though it's not necessarily the full on path for me. Until Clumsy McFuddlehands grabbed that knife, poor guy." At Itzhak's regard, she inquires with mild amusement, "You wanna take a picture, companero? It'll last you longer."

August grunts at Itzhak, rolls his eyes. "Guess I'm not telling you the saga of cooking all of this." There were casualties in his kitchen, oh yes. But he needed to replace that baking dish and those tongs anyways. He eyes the cut as Finch heals it. "Thanks," he says, wadding up the paper towel and tossing it into a nearby trashcan (the office trash can, which has been relocated outside for the moment). He arches an eyebrow at Julia. "Huh. I hadn't realized that. I just thought I was being choked. Scuse me a second." He disappears inside briefly to wash his hands in the office sink, comes back out less than a minute later.

"Cooking classes, they get me thinking about other ways to do things," he says to Julia. "You know, you make something for six years, you get into a set pattern. I had to cook for myself a lot when I was on assignment, just got used to it, but I was limited in what I could do. So I find it's always good to learn a new way to do something. And, you can." The later is directed at Itzhak and Finch, and Ignacio with a glance. "It takes practice. I mean, it took me practice, you might pick it up much faster. Each material's a little different, I had to learn how to work with them on their own terms."

He takes up his traitorous rootbeer for a drink, coughs at Julia's comment to Itzhak.

Ignacio pauses with a furrowed brow and a thoughtful look, "Yeaaaaah. I need to give my sister a call next week. It's her birthday. Raf''s gonna kiiiiiill me..." He pulls out his phone to plug a note to himself in there. He looks up and blinks looking guilty as hell until he realizes Julia didn't mean him. "OH shit yea, Cole's alright. That was just fuckin unlucky." Looking to Finch and Julia he asks, "Yellow or purple?" That half-grin returns at Itzhak calling him a yutz earning him a shake of his head.

Finch looks at Itzhak as she mulls over what he’s saying. “Well, shit. That might be brilliant. We can try it. I mean, it’s just oxidation right? I could probably fix any broken parts we can’t find replacements for too.” She rubs at her chin as she contemplates the benefits of this.

Ignacio’s question catches her offguard. “Yellow or purple what?” she asks, blinking owlishly at him.

Izthak gives Julia a hell of a funny look, while grabbing a root beer for himself. "Why, I can see you just fine--oh. You're insulting me. Right. I got it now." He tips her an ironic little salute, although he's turning red. Then he pops the cap off the root beer with a key, and absolutely nothing goes wrong. He hikes his eyebrows at Finch as he takes a swig. "Yeah, that's what I'm thinkin'. If you could at least put the metal back the way it was, that'd be a huge help. Maybe even the paint would come back? I dunno, that's not my thing. If it did, that'd be pretty fuckin' sweet."

"No, I was flirting with you. But don't take it personally, I flirt with most guys, and it can be very confusing. Ask Ignacio. I confuse him on the regular." Julia seems quite mild about it all, and finishes dishing up her helping and going to sit down. She looks between Itzhak and Finch. "You work with metal?" she asks the of them. "I mean, with the..." she wiggles her fingers. "I had no idea that was a thing."

"Practice on other metals first," August suggests. "Just in case something happens." 'Something', like the whole car dissolves into rust. Or the paint turns into something toxic and gross when you mess with it. Because that's about how this last week and change has been going.

He arches an eyebrow at Julia's response to Itzhak, half turns so he can give Itzhak a hidden, 'not bad...' kind of look. Then he gestures at the containers. "Food," he reminds Itzhak, adding a nod to the plates and utensils. "I don't want to fight off raccoons like last time." Not that there are raccoons in evidence, though a few sparrows and chickadees have begun landing in nearby potted shrubs, waiting to see if crumbs will magically find their way to the ground.

"We can work with a lot of materials," August says, wathcing everyone plate their food like its his sworn duty to ensure disaster befalls no one. "But I think it's easier to work with some than others. Plants, and plant materials like wood, or dirt, or fibers from animal hair, that all comes really easy to me. Inorganic stuff, that's a little more work. Feels like I," he makes a face, "have to get to know it."

Ignacio pauses and looks up to Itzhak pausing, "Nooo that wasn't an insult." He pauses and looks to Julia, blinks, and nods in agreement, "You are a super confusing woman. I consider it a test of evolution though." He gestures with his phone Ignacio's direction, "Get him caught up by all means." You have my endorsement to positively harass mi amigo. He looks to Finch still looking for someone to help him make a colour decision here. That said there is food and it's been forever since he's had rabbit. "Boss..." Not helpful. "Roen," More helpful. "What'd you season this bunny with?"

Finch is in the middle of nodding to Itzhak over the car restoration plans when Julia mentions flirting. All the time. With Ignacio. For a moment something crosses her face, but she quashes it quickly. She pulls out her phone, pretending it just vibrated in her pocket. “Need to take this,” she says, and gets up to make her way into the shop again and the office proper, for a breather.

Itzhak had been getting red; when Julia says she's flirting with him, bam! Solid red all the way, baby, right down his neck into the collar of his shirt. "Count me confused," he says, trying with all his might to play it smooth. "I can't do none of that healing stuff, but I saw these knuckleheads," nodding to Iggy and Finch, "heal a pile of shattered glass back into a coffee pot. If it works with glass, it'll work with metal. That's the theory, anyway, can't wait to test it." He gets up to pile August's cooking on a plate. "Man, can you cook, Roen." Distraction! Nobody will notice he's dying of mortification now.

"This rabbit is wonderful." Julia agrees, adding, "We had Rabbit Isabel one week on special back in San Francisco and it was amazing." To August's remark about abilities, she admits, "I tend to work in broad strokes. No finesse, though I have a nice trick with a bottle cap." And well, August knows what she can do with a bedroom dresser. At Finch's excusing herself, her brow furrows and she looks back at Ignacio. "Esto va a ser un problema?"

Ignacio is totally left hanging. He sighs and looks up and flips a quarter which goes wide and he still, fortunately, catches it with a palm before it flips into his food. Tails. "Oro it is." Looking up to Julia he blinks shaking his head, "Nah, just sending my sister a fuckton of flowers now and it's gonna bite lean on rent. I can get the landlord to give us an extra two days, but Raf's going to pop a blood vessel." Lookig around he says, "It's been a long fuckin week and -" Itzhak's giving him credit for fixing anything and he shakes his head. "I destroy shit, be real. Those two got talent and Finch fixed the coffee pot." He pauses looking to Itzhak, "Oh! Tell Julia about the hole idea."

Finch stays parked inside for a good while, just recalibrating. Garrus Vakarian would be proud of these calibrations. It’ll be a while before she comes back out.

"Parsley, thyme, rosemary, oregano," August says, ticking them off. "Red wine, garlic, broth..." He shrugs. "Not much different than a beef burgundy sort of thing, honestly. That's why I figured I'd try it out." He says all this while watching Itzhak use food to hide how completely and totally red he's become. "Thank you," he says to the compliments, dipping his head, and moves to put his own plate together. He watches Finch go, turns a bland look on Ignacio which speaks volumes. He keeps plating some food for himself, though. If anyone's fixing that, it's Ignacio.

"Rabbit Isabel, don't think I know that one." He takes a seat next to Itzhak, starts on a dove popper. "What's it involve?"

Itzhak glances up at Ig, mouth full of rabbit. He swallows. "Hole idea, what hole idea? You're gonna have to use ya words, de Santos."

"You take rabbit filets and you make a parcel with it, with a mix of leg meat and eggs, good bacon laid over, and then coated before being cooked." That's a quick summary of what is likely a more complicated recipe, and then Julia looks between Ignacio and Itzhak. "Hole? You mean like el velo?" Taking another bite, she notes, "The reason I asked Ignacio to introduce me to all of you is because beyond what we can do, there's a lot more to deal with and we can all help each other. If you guys decide I'm worth your time."

Ignacio sighs in that way he's got no fucking idea what's going on anymore, takes his rabbit and gets comfortable dropping into a seat next to Roen. "Whaaaaaaaat?" Looking to Julia and Itzhak he wiggles his fork between them "Si, si. He's talking about opening a hole like a damn door to the other side, but get this, last time he saw it it weren't all fucked up and awful." He glances back to the door where Finch is still walking off a long fucking day that can only be defined as a comedy of errors. It's all still happening. This is concerning. "So given that anyone else have their last three days go to hell in a handbasket?"

August listens to Julia's description, scratches his beard. "Hm, that'd take some trial runs," he admits. "Sounds pretty damned good though."

Between bites of noddles, August says, "Right, looking across, instead of," he gestures, "going." He glances at Itzhak surreptitiously, says to Julia, "We had an idea that, maybe it'd be safer, if we could just look. Get an idea of what things are like over there before we start traipsing around. So we thought, we'd try to find a thinner point and glance, instead of diving in."

He has some rootbeer, nods in agreement with Julia. "Definitely a lot to deal with. That thing that's happening to that poor guy--what's his name, Alexander. And that fucking house." He sighs, shakes his head. "And the thing on the beach. Anyways," he points at Julia with his rootbeer bottle, "it's more are we worth your time, I figure. I'm sure you're worth ours. I don't know hardly a damned thing about all of this, I'm just making it up as I go along."

"Yeah, yeah." Itzhak gestures with a fork at everyone in general. "Open a window, right? So they can see what I saw. Not everything over there's all fucked up and nasty. A lot of it's beautiful. Maybe dangerous, sure, bein' out in the wild is dangerous even if you know what you're doing. But it ain't evil, and I..." He hesitates, embarrassed, realizing he's going on about it. "I wanna show everyone," he finishes, mumbling, and takes a long swig of root beer.

"That takes a lot of power." Julia notes to Itzhak solemnly. "Have you had your gifts for a long time? I haven't met anyone else who can open such doorways besides me." Her smile increases a degree. "I'm betting there's more of us." Considering her food, she admits, "Any time you open a door, or a window, it goes both ways. But if you do decide to step inside, make sure someone can get you out again. That's also something some of us can do. But just looking in is pretty static. You'll only see what's in line of sight. And the Dark Men are there. I know how to detect them when they're influencing someone, but I haven't figured out how to actually stop them. Just theories."

There is such a thing as having too good of a poker face. Ignacio's got a lot of things to consider and a lot of bunny to stuff in his face. Really only talking about food makes him hungrier even though he's already eating and daaaaamn if he doesn't approve. "I caught my brother moving things across the room before. I can ask him... what he knows." He looks to them wondering, but more so, listening.

August grunts about the doors (and windows) going both ways. "That's for sure--I figure, that's how the thing on the beach go over here. And that pond monster everyone keeps reporting." Another sideways glance at Itzhak, this time with a small smile, then, "We were mostly thinking, to get other people comfortable with the notion of going there. Because," he nods at Julia, "as you say, They're over there, doing--whatever They do. And what They're doing, it's influencing things here. And things are leaking over too. The beach thing, the pond monster--so it's not a bad idea to get familiar with the landscape. Even if," a brief glance at Ignacio, then back to Julia, "not everyone's comfortable with going, some people probably need to, and do some exploring."

Itzhak glances at August and Ignacio first. As if he needs to gauge what's okay to say by their reactions. Whatever he sees must give him the okay, because he nods, cautiously. "A while, but it came to me strong. I can come and go across the border. I can open a door, well, obviously. I hear it strong in you, too. As strong as me. I heard it strong in other people, but in other ways. You're like me." Now that, he says with a wondering tone.

Remember that smile she earlier was flirting? Itzhak gets it again. "Or maybe you're like me." Julia looks around at everyone present. "On this side, you can see them if you look in a mirror. Reflections can show you where they are. I keep a makeup compact on me for a reason beyond worrying about a shiny nose. You might want to make sure you all carry something reflective too. The Dark Men, they feed off negative emotions. The problem is, I don't know what, if anything will hurt them. Positive emotions? Some kind of neutral peace?" She shrugs. "But I want to stop them. And exploring the other side, maybe we can discover how to do that." She looks back over at Itzhak. "You do things with your power that I don't, and I bet I do things you might not know how to do. Well, I'll show you mine if you show me yours." She looks around the table. "We should be doing that. Sharing talent. Experimenting. And using it to make ourselves and others safe."

Ignacio rubs the back of his neck with one hand and admits to Julia, "Finch and I have a total negative bias on it. Her experiences with it are bad. Mine were really fuckin bad which... you got the gist of." He looks back to Roen then Itzak and then Julia, "I tried to remember all the shit we covered but my memory's not great. What I wrote down and learned from you though? Well... we might be able to keep people alive. And the things over there that WE talked about?" He looks to the other two, then the door to the shop and Julia, "I think they'll definitely want to help." Setting his jaw he looks apologetically to them, "I told you," He laughs with a grimace, "I'm kinda shit at this stuff but... yeah. Maybe. Okay."

August casts another amused look at Itzhak when Julia says that to him. He frowns about the mirror, bobs his eyebrows. "I know someone who was...dragged through one. Into the Veil. But I'll see what I can do." He's already considering alternatives. A chrome lighter, maybe?

He nibbles on a bit of glazed carrot, says, "Exactly," to what Julia's said. "I can't do the fire thing. That Finch does?" He shakes his head. "But maybe she can show me how. I can move things, but," he winces, "not anything big. Not like you two can."

Now he looks at Ignacio. "You're probably really good at it, or can be. We just need to help you learn it."

Itzhak promptly blushes like a tomato again when Julia smiles at him. He clears his throat. "...mirror, huh? I didn't know that. I don't spend all that much time lookin' into mirrors that aren't on the side of a car, yannow? I gotta experiment with that." He quiets for a minute--hang on, mizithra pasta required--swallows. "They're Unshaped," he goes on, about the Dark Men. "They don't got no shape at all, not even temporary. I don't know how to hurt 'em, either, but my first thought would be starving 'em out. Like that's likely," he adds, bitterly, "nothing can stop people from hurting each other, and that's what the Unshapes eat. We need a lot more data," he nods to Ig, "exactly. A lot more. And I have a friend over there. I don't wanna say she'll help us for sure, she's got her own stuff going on. But she could maybe point us in the right direction."

"The question we go back to is how to starve them." Julia replies. "Or find another way to hurt them. Do you think the other side is their home?" she asks suddenly. "Could something that was also from where they come from hurt them, do you think?" It's not a question they can answer right now, though she turns widened eyes to all three men. "A friend over there. On the other side?"

Ignacio grins with amusement giving Julia the nod of approval. Eeeeh lookit our little cherry tomato all grown the hell up. Ad then that damn story. It needed to happen and he weathers it well using Julia as his litmus in this. "Yeaaaah Itz had this real thorn in teh lion's paw ordeal happen when he was there. I mean naturally I find everything suspicious as hell but I wouldn't be your local friendly lovable neighborhood dickweed if I wasn't. But... yeah it seems like it checks out. Now ask him what he saw."

"Well if They have no shape that definitely makes fighting Them harder," August muses. He leans back in his chair, toys with his beard. "Starving Them seems like a good start, at least, maybe even something we do regardless the rest. Once we know how." His brow furrows at the question about Their home being the other side. "I guess that's something we should find out. Because that'd make the most sense, right? Can't protect themselves from things that come from where they are."

He smiles at Ignacio, a mix of gratitude and amusement, looks back to Itzhak. He never tires of hearing the various explanations of what Itzhak experienced in the Veil.

"To be real honest, I don't know if it's Their home. I only know for sure it's Their hunting grounds. There's other worlds, too. The Veil, it's sorta a crossroads. They live there, but do they come from there? That, I dunno." Itzhak makes a face at Ignacio, hmpfs, but can't resist smiling a little. He sets his plate down and leans forward, getting engaged, talking with his hands. "I met a girl over there who told me all that stuff, and who showed me how to get back out. She's--" uhoh, here's the troublesome part. Itzhak's eyes go unfocused. Then he says, firm and decisive, "She's a unicorn. Her people don't live there, but they go there on business. I know how it sounds, okay, but it's true. We got a lot to learn about that place."