The Dog and Bird show

A bee bit my bottom, now my bottom's big.

2008-11-10T16:41:00.008-07:00

I was sitting here thinking about a situation that happened to me a few summers back, thinking about the story itself and thinking about how to draw some significant meaning from it. A good writer will find a way to do that sort of thing often. A simple thing happens and years later the poetic significance of it shines forward like a zen koan, a master phrase which encompasses a great life lesson. Both writer and reader move forward after such enlightenment with a new understanding of the world, the universe, everything in it. You exist at a higher level. It's awesome. Or so I would imagine.

My story on the other hand, after numerous times told in my mind, embellished or simplified, straight truth or with Twainian hyperbole, never revealed any secrets to me. I was a little disappointed at this, but it is all I brought to the blog table today, so here you go. May you be slightly amused.

I was working as a carpenter's apprentice in Chicago. On this occasion, my work took place north of the city in a well moneyed place called Highland Park. The project house was a century old if it was a day. Old as dirt. Older, if you ask me. We were doing a partial remodel, my partner Mike and I. My task, for three weeks that summer, was to remove every inch of the ornate and irreplaceable trim on the windows and doors, strip off twelve and a half decades of paint, and replace said trim to its original position, naked to the grain, where it would get a fresh coat of paint. Mike got busy smoking a lot of cigarettes and hanging around in the back yard.

In order to remove the thick crust of paint, I used a product called Strip-eeze. I took the trim out to the drive way and set it up, two or three pieces at a time, across a pair of sawhorses. The horses stood on a thick plastic tarp. My stripping tools included a bucket, a barge load of steel wool, giant rubber gauntlets, and a face shield. I also wore my trusty respirator, as the magical ingredients of Strip-eeze had the less than magical side effect of causing massive neurological damage to the unprotected user.

A word about Strip-eeze; It is vibrant, pink, and gelatinous. It burns flesh like a phosphor flare and, as mentioned, will melt your brain when inhaled. It also strips paint quite handily.

I poured some of the pink goo into my bucket and then swabbed it onto the trim with a wad of steel wool, which for some reason my nine-fingered boss called a potato. As in, "Damien, hand me a wool potato!" I then stood back while the magic happened. Within three or four minutes the pink goo had worked its way through the eons of lead based Dutch Boy, raising the paint in one slick nasty layer up off the wood where it puckered and cracked like a fungus floating on a slime mold. Very cool. At this point I simply wiped the toxic crud off the trim with a wool potato and slogged it onto the tarp.

After several hours of this brilliantly entertaining chemistry experiment I noticed something else about the Strip-eeze. It attracted an inordinate number of bugs. Primarily the kind with stingers on their butts. I gave it to the way the sun reflected off the pink nasty, it must have hit those buzzers in their multi-faceted eye balls like the lights of the Las Vegas strip, beckoning all to come and enjoy the gooey embrace of sudden neurological meltdown. It was like a landing strip coated in soft porn. Perhaps half the local population of flying insects was suddenly way too interested in what the hell I was up to.

I hear there are more bugs in one cubic acre of the American Midwest than there are humans on the whole planet. I believe that to be a conservative estimation. For three weeks I was surrounded by wasps, bees, hornets, flies, at least four unidentified stinging species (now extinct), and an entire brood of fourteen year cicadas that had the unfortunate luck to hatch and subsequently perish just then. I slogged bug guts in equal parts to ancient paint. I feared for my very life from the constant threat of a sting, intentional or accidental. And yet, I suffered no such calamity. Remaining calm in the face of such piercing terror, I proceeded to clean nearly three thousand board feet of trim, passively observing the mass suicide of an entire ecological niche. I can't say if they died happy or not. The bugs would fly head on into the pink goo. A few seconds of ecstatic twitching, and then they were still.

Each day I would arrive to a job site that I had meticulously cleaned up the previous evening, thus making me feel slightly removed from the carnage that was about to commence. By mid morning, however, I was near ankle deep in a horrid sludge of used goo, spent wool potatoes, ancient paint, and innumerable wings, abdomens, heads and thoraxes. And each day I operated in a constant state of fear for my mortal hide, not sure one way or the other regarding my allergic response. I never grew numb to the swarms. The bigger ones would occasionally ricochet with a loud "Thwack!" right off my safety goggles, then adjust their course and dive straight to their doom. Had I not been wearing my respirator I probably would have inhaled more than a few bees. And yet I was still without a sting.

Finally my task came to an end. The half mile of trim was clean and back in place, ready for fresh paint. A few dozen hefty trash bags full of my criminal leavings sat in the back of Stumpy Digit's Astro van, and I had a big red dent on my face from my respirator, a mark that remained for almost a week thereafter.

As I tossed the last saw horse into Mike's crappy old pick up truck, I marveled that I had not been stung. I could not fathom how I could be so lucky. Heck with it, I thought, and hopped into the truck. We were a few blocks away from the house when the bee flew in my open window. I casually shooed it away, but instead of going away it went down by my feet. Then behind my legs. I responded by rising up off my seat and trying to shoo it away some more, but this merely encouraged it to fly up the back of my shorts. I, in turn, freaked the hell out. A moment later I felt a searing pain just below my left buttock. The truck was almost to a stop sign, but that didn't bother me. I just threw open the door and, angrily mashing the bee against my ass I tumbled out of the still moving vehicle, narrowly missing a fire hydrant with my face. As I rose to my feet, still clutching my swelling ass, I paused to note that a very pretty girl had just stepped out of the coffee shop on the corner and stopped to stare in bewilderment. A few other members of the sidewalk cafe set paused as well to note that a filthy, possibly deranged man just fell out of a moving truck, grasping his own butt for some reason. My embarrassment was immense. I imagine my cheeks were as red as my left ass. I stood tall and tried to gain some composure by shaking the mashed bee out of my shorts with a queer little dance. I doubted that any of my audience had any idea what the hell my problem was. In an effort to explain myself I said the first thing that came to mind, quoting the sagacious Homer Simpson:

"A bee bit my bottom! Now my bottom's big."

I didn't score any points with that one, so I just got back in the truck and rode home without ever actually sitting down.

We be truckin'.

2008-11-04T07:30:00.003-07:00

I knew October would be a busy month. Too much going on and not enough discipline paid to putting words on the screen, but I am back now.

Last night I had a dream that I was driving a big stinking dump truck through narrow streets crowded with pedestrians and small cars. The dump truck was an odd one. It was more like a giant Radio Flyer wagon than a dumper - I stood on top of it to drive and steered the beast with a long yoke that gave me precious little control. The brakes were so bad that I was forced to look into the future and anticipate events that had not yet occured - traffic lights changing a mile ahead or people randomly stepping into the street. I had to take evasive action and veer off the road several times into vacant lots. This only slowed my progress a little. The momentum of my truck was unstoppable. When pedestrians stepped into my path I leaned on the horn, but it gave out only a feeble quack. People grew angry with me, understandably, as I was about to run them down. All the other cars moved with grace and efficiency. I trundled forward like a blind buffoon, barely containing my load, narrowly avoiding mass homicide.

I think this dream means I need to go vote. I think I can change things if I do that. If this old dumper keeps on as it is, I am going to have to leap off into some bushes along the way and let the beast go do its worst. There is still a chance, however, that I might just be able to reach the E-brake or steer the thing into some alternate path where the rest of the world isn't going to get pissed off that I ran over everything they hold dear. A small chance, but it is there.

Good luck, America.

The things you don't do, the symbols of who you are.

2008-09-26T21:14:00.008-07:00

How many times have you had a strong compulsion to do something you know you had better not do? It happens to me often. I don't know what that says about a person's character, though I am sure there are several different interpretations. I am not one for spending a lot of time doing character dissections, not since my days as a theater major. A brief analysis will reveal that I tend to prefer acting by intuition over thorough scrutiny of the choices. On the big issues, that is. It is the smaller items, I believe, which merit lengthy and pointless deliberation. What kind of pie will it be? Soup, or no soup with the club sandwich? No soup today, Helen. No soup today.

One occasion took place while working with my good friend Scott at the Chicago Tribune printing house. We were installing some a/v equipment in a training room. When we broke for lunch we took what we thought would be a shortcut through the building. An unmarked door lead us to a catwalk that spanned a large room full of the very machines that make the newspaper come alive. And they were alive. Huge blue steel rollers sent an endless sheet of newsprint through a labyrinth of printing and pressing and cutting machinery. The noise was deafening. The scene was astounding. I wanted nothing so much as to throw my Snapple into the works. Scott offered me a dollar to cry out "STOP THE PRESSES!" I had to pause for a moment to compose myself - I very nearly became one dollar richer. Of course we would never have gotten away with it. The consequences would haunt us to this day. Try as we might to escape, crippling laughter would have rendered us unable to run from a stone sow. Reason overcame temptation, and we went to lunch.

It all started when I was little. On a trip to Pentwater, Michigan, sitting on my mom's lap as we drove down the highway in our late 70's green and white Dodge Tradesman 100 van. Yes, I said sitting on mom's lap at highway speeds. Could have been that the seat belt was around me too. Knowing mom that is probably how we rolled, but I was still in the front seat, a blasphemy by today's standards. Sounds crazy, I know, but we thought we were the safe ones. In those days a lot of my friends would literally walk around the moving vehicle while their parents drove. Standing up on the seats, leaning out the windows, and so on. My friend Matthew would sometimes be seen riding on the roof of his mother's Cutlass Sierra, wearing only a Lone Ranger mask and Incredible Hulk Underoos. Society is more cautious about child safety now. Much, much more cautious.

Anyway, there I sat, playing with my dad's new hat. It was a gray/green fedora that included a bit of netting that could be worn over the head and neck to ward off flying insects. Pretty nifty idea. I held this lightweight handful of mesh in my fingers and - here's the part where memory and fact diverge - I rolled down the window and either let the thing go intentionally, or the vacuum from the only open window sucked the thing out of my hand. I don't know the truth. It was one of those two things, and either way the netting was gone for good. Dad was pissed. The hat had suddenly lost a major feature. His neck would pay the price, as it was undoubtedly black fly season in Michigan. We always went during black fly season. I said something about stopping to retrieve the net, but for reasons lost on my six year old mind, that was out of the question. Actually, I still don't get that one.

So did I throw the bug net out the window on purpose? I only ask because as I grew up I often found myself feeling the urge to chuck important objects out the window of a car, off the side of a boat, into a deep chasm, into the polar bear enclosure at the zoo, and so on. It seemed like such a great idea! Any time I was holding something important and in a position to dispose of it permanently, I sincerely felt that the world would be better for it. And yet I have managed to restrain myself these many years. Mostly.

Since the Tradesman-bug net incident I have followed through on a few marked occasions. I threw a ring off a bridge over the Mississippi one day. Just upstream from the I-35 bridge that collapsed last year. The ring was a gift from a girlfriend. I credit the power of the big river on that occasion. It overwhelmed my foolish and romantic sensibilities, and the spirit of the moment took me to a better place. I should have chucked the relationship with the ring, but that lame duck hung around for another year or two. Regardless, I have a fond memory of dispatching that tiny shiny memento with a long wind up, letting it sail for several seconds through the sun of a crisp autumn day until it was almost out of sight, then plopping without a sound into the turbulent and indifferent waters below. On the far shore stood the remnants of an old flour mill, roof caved in, silos falling to ruin. The industry driven by the falls at Nicollet had long since moved to more profitable locales. I should have read the significance in that picture and taken a likewise course with my life but as I mentioned, I was fool in those days.

I don't count premeditated disposal of baggage on this list. I speak to those moments when chance afforded me the opportunity to do something I could never undo, something that may have far reaching consequences and bear significantly on the remainder of my days. I want to say something here about freeing oneself of an albatross and pay homage to the Ancient Mariner, but the idea of consequence implies the opposite of what I plumb my memories for; actually acquiring this figurative dead bird by the act of removing a significantly endowed object from one's possession. Sort of ironic. The object was supposed to be the albatross. Instead it was the touchstone that kept the burden at bay.

The premeditated cutting loose, on the other hand - that is an act performed by someone seeking to be free. Like the time I went for a solo autumn camp at the Palisades and built a nice big cheery fire and proceeded to throw into it virtually every memento, photo, knick-knack and trinket from my first wedding. There was an amazing catharsis in watching each item transform from bitter memory to meaningless ash. It felt so good. I still have the memory, but the physical permanence is gone. The memory is mine to use as I see fit. The red hot embers of that pyre composed themselves to cook me a fine supper that night.

We imbue objects with such great power - let them hold station over our psyches, like a teetering bookshelf full of personal histories. I have a necklace that was once my grandfather's key chain. He carried it on his postal route, and everywhere else he went I suppose, and if he ever lost his keys this little metal tag would insure that the keys find their way back to him. This in the time of good deeds performed without recompense. This little tag is as sacred to me as any artifact in a museum collection, but to anyone else it is a tiny, worthless bit of metal. I take good care of it, but it has served time on the list. I have felt it call, "Hurl me into those falls now." "Drop me in the middle of this great deep lake now." "Out the window with me."

Why didn't I release myself from this piece of matter? I loved my Pipere, still do. To lose the little bit of metal would make me sad. It keeps his memory alive in me, keeps me aware of his influence on my life. I could keep all of that without this talisman. Why choose to carry such things?

For the sake of remembrance. What other reason could there be? I could sit here and write about my Pipere, but in the end this key tag speaks volumes to me. I will carry it on and pass it down, bearing great reverence to what is worthless by any other account. I will pass the albatross to the next generation, and she can find her own understanding of how to endow trivial things with deep meaning. And then be compelled to throw them to the abyss, or show restraint and carry on the symbol of my memory.

Dreams of sepia and stuffing

2008-09-21T09:41:00.004-07:00

I have been meaning to play dream scribe for Melissa for a long time now. I know - that conjures up images in your mind of me sitting by candle light, late at night with a big huge feather quill and an ink bottle, stocking cap tilted haphazardly over one ear as I feverishly jot down strange and peculiar notions from the sleepy mind of my love. You've got it exactly.

One upshot of having a baby who sleeps about two hours at a go is that you never get into the deep and truly useful sleep your weary soul so badly needs. That sentence was originally intended to have a positive ending. I can't hide the truth from you - it's insane. My point is that when woken so frequently the dreams you do have are much closer to the surface of your conscious mind and therefore much easier to recall. I believe that I do dream when I sleep a full night, it's just that I was asleep and so I can't remember the dream.

Lately I dream mostly of matters related to a life in the service industry. But I did not come here today to write about my own dreams.

When she woke this morning Melissa told me that in her dream someone had sent her Pandora's Box. She did not know who the sender was. She just knew that this item was better left alone, unopened. And she could clearly see that it was made of styrofoam. Now I could be wrong about this, but I don't think Greek mythology identifies styrofoam as one of the many gifts of Zeus. Come to think of it, I have heard that it was actually Pandora's Jar, which sounds to me like it would be way easier to open than a box. A box can be locked, clad in iron straps, made of lead, and so on. A jar - that pretty much implies something fragile with a cork stuck in the top. Something that begs to be opened. But I digress.

In Melissa's dream Pandora's Box was made of styrofoam. I envision something I might use to keep my beer cold. Not something I would use to store the sorrows of mankind. And in my experience, the lids on those styrofoam boxes never stay on quite right anyway. But there you go - her dream. She went on to tell of being with her mother and her mother's boyfriend, a fictional conjuration of her sleeping mind but a man nevertheless of massive proportions, a man the size and shape of an antique French armoire. She told him not to mess with the box but, in an apparent attempt to find a cold beer, he opened it anyway.

The myth tells of sickness, fear, hatred, all things vile and nasty swarming out in a great black cloud and sweeping over the land bringing misery and old age. The myth also points out that the jar/box was in fact an accessory item that came with a wholly separate gift, a way better gift - women. Specifically, Pandora. It goes that before she showed up, it was just a bunch of Greek dudes cavorting around, presumably footloose and fancy free. I don't know about that. Anyway, this curious girl shows up, opens her bottle, and the shit hits the fan.

Instead of seeing a cloud of misery and woe, or beer on ice, Melissa was physically taken to a different place. She found herself at a gathering of some sort, perhaps a party, when suddenly the people around her took on a strange sepia hue and stopped moving normally, but rather began to gently drift around. Her description made me think of the footage I have seen from one of those ROVs exploring the remains of an old shipwreck, like the Titanic, where everything is in a decrepit stasis, suspended forever in an invisible medium, never quite still but moving only slightly by an unseen force. Imagine that you are at a party and suddenly that happens. Time to call a cab.

And that is pretty much where the dream ends. She usually gets to a point like that and then starts to talk or holler, and I put my arms around her and murmur about the good things in life.

Oddly enough, I did have a short dream after that. I know I said I wsn't going to bring up my own dreams, but this one bears mentioning. It was vague and cloudy, disjointed like most of my dreams these days. The flotsam and jetsam of a catch as catch can subconscious, trying to break through to the surface and have it's own irrational way for once.

I dreamed about one of those "Build-a-Bear" workshops, one where something went horribly awry. The bears all came to life somehow and naturally they all completely freaked out. Bears dressed as fire men and ship's captains and bakers with aprons and rolling pins were terrorizing mall shoppers. Mass hysteria. Unfinished bears sat half made, stuffing spilling out, with pained and quizzical expressions on their fuzzy faces, as if to say "Dear God, WHY?!?" It was a scene of utter chaos, one that I will not soon put down.

I will never take our child to one of those stores.

Just in case.

The Trouble With Beeves

2008-09-11T23:06:00.001-07:00

Sometimes I think that I'll start pissing off my friends if I talk too loud or too often about my opinions regarding the American food industry, or the state of our energy system, or how much we seem to carelessly consume whatever we can. My friends, if I do, just let me know. I'm not going to shut up, but at least I'll know who my friends are.

Then there are those other times, when I have difficulty holding my tongue even in the presence of total strangers as I watch them stuff their faces in an orgy of self loathing - or so it would seem, for did they not know of the fantastic array of malicious ingredients compacted together to form that meat-wich patty? I am, perhaps unfortunately, less inclined to raise my voice against drivers of Hummers or people who think E85 and "flex-fuel" are anything but horse shit! More like Big Oil flexing it's fat foot in your ass. Not to sound above the fray, I do drive a less than super-duper efficient truck of my own, after all. My Taco is not a novelty item, however, it's a beast of burden, and frankly I don't see a lot of people who drive H, H2, H3, or whatever other derivative they keep barfing out of the auto mills using their overblown rides to transport allied troops through hostile territory. You know what? I don't see any. Equating that with dropping your runts at soccer practice is a most asinine notion. These people should be publicly humiliated, and then given Smart Cars.

My belief is that the true solution to our looming energy crisis is in diversity. With all the freedom offered in the principles of the American way, it should be no surprise that we produce at least a few real technological innovations that will see us clear of our dependence on fossil fuel, "ancient sunlight" as some have called it, and of course thereby end our dependence on the corrupt kingdoms of oil and human oppression, and the immensely unclean process of powering our greedy lives.

Back to the food hole.

I wonder why people (in general) seem to blatantly ignore the mounting evidence which illuminates a rampant deficiency in the quality of their food. Because the FDA said OK? Lest we forget this is the same institution that told us those morbidly sick cows were just sleepy and no, don't worry about all the mucus they excreted into the milk supply. Got that crap all over your upper lip? Yummy. The more I learn about what is good for us and what is bad for us the more I realize that capitalism and economizing leads to what I guess old Tom Brokaw would call "The Fleecing of America." What is really in that meat patty, anyway? SOME meat? Also nutritious sawdust and important meat related parts, the supporting cast of the bovine opera, the filler that barely escapes the sluice farm floor. And why is corn syrup the first or second ingredient in damn near everything? Take the corn diet test, as my friend Josh suggested once. Eat nothing but corn for a week - from the can or from the cob. See what happens to your digestive system. Or let me spare you the dance with death; we do not digest the stuff. Modern corn is a genetically manipulated grass crop, which cows can't even digest anymore, not with all seven of their stomachs. It makes them sick and the beef makers response it to pump the beasts with antibiotics and steroids which remain in the meat. That is also why their milk is beyond bad for us. These outrages against nature smack of Moreauvian shenanigans. Soon the corn will walk right into our mouths. It will grow arms and legs like the hot dogs and candy bars that keep telling us with that irresistible jingle to just go out to the damn lobby and add some fat to our asses. Then one day, somewhere in Western Illinois (Garst country, where they grow corn favored by pirates, or so I am told), an errant ear of corn will, by some mutation, grow teeth where the kernels once were and it will bite the hand that shucks it. I can't freaking wait for that day.

Simple Gifts

2008-09-11T22:24:00.001-07:00

I took Lucas for a short walk a few nights ago. In that time we were given a sweet taste of some of the finest aspects of life in the desert. In brief:

At first steps we heard an owl. Then another, and another still. Their haunting calls echoed with decreasing volume from farther down the small valley where we live.

A small squadron of bats soon joined ranks with us, presumably following the gnats that followed us. They would be our escorts for the duration.

The backdrop was spectacular - an enormous lumbering giant of a monsoon stormed its way across the valley, from the east. It rose into an otherwise clear sky, rose as if to devour the waxing moon. From our position, it looked as it it just might do so. The setting sun illuminated the rain wall with soul pleasing hues, drawing to mind a deep pink gown on the expansive girth of the beast that destroyed prom.

A pack of coyotes began to yip and howl from a few hundred yards away. Thunder joined the chorus, and the 'yotes stepped up their frenzy.

We made a short loop, Lucas off leash. On the return we saw the Great Horned Owls again. Two together this time on the roof of a neighbor's house. They looked for all the world like winged house cats. The larger one hooted, the other mimicked, not quite in the same cadence. Lightning flashed from the flanks of the storm, as the cheeriness dissolved and the pink diminished, turning her dress a deep foreboding gray.

We returned home just as the first drops began to fall, heavy and noisy. The air was alive with anticipation of the coming deluge. We lingered on the street, just taking it all in and enjoying a few fat rain drops.

I love this place.

Open letter to "Anonymous L"

2008-09-08T14:33:00.005-07:00

Nice of you to identify yourself. I thought that was you.

This is a special post in response to your comments; enjoy! This is the only time your words or thoughts will infect my blog with your special blend of ignorance and hate. This blog is intended to be a happy place detailing the events of my life that I feel are worth telling - not a place for inflammatory remarks that have no basis in reality.

Here then is your last comment, as it was posted on our birth story;

"M- Actually I know both of you well and it's pretty sad to see this blog, and the new one as well. So many people can't conceive and not only does Damien bitch about the people who arguably saved his daughter's life... but he leaves his 10 day old baby and his wife to go hiking all day?! You are both clueless. And I don't call myself your friend anymore because you have both changed for the worse. It's a good thing you moved. And if people aren't allowed to voice their opinions, then maybe you should disable the option to post comments if you can't handle someone calling you out on your bs. -L- "

Okay anonymous L, my first reaction to your comment is; you suck. You really don't know us at all. I am afraid your self absorbed life of delusion prevented you from ever truly knowing us. Now you are just being pointlessly rude - no surprise there, but for once you should try thinking about someone other than yourself. You do have a right to your opinions, but in this case you are flat out wrong. The opinions of other people (myself included) are worth entertaining if their foundations are well reasoned, but yours are mired in nonsense. Do not dare suggest that my life or my choices are BS - part of the reason we moved was to distance ourselves from the BS that you surround yourself with. You never once made an effort to see the other side of the story, to tear down that thick wall of shit, so why should we again go out of our way to make amends? It's always about you.

For six months we were two of those people who could not conceive. Six months is not long, but it was a difficult time for us. This is an extremely personal issue. Some dear friends of ours will never be able to do it - we don't know that sorrow, but we had our taste of wondering if it would ever happen for us.

To say I am bitching about the medical staff... wow. That just tells me you did not read the message in the blog. Try again, maybe you'll get it. Was it the shower cap comment that threw you off? Was it the part where I called the staff "brilliant professionals"? Maybe comparing the anesthesiologist to Wolfgang Gullich was lost on you. Coming from a climber, that is a great compliment. The dude was rock solid. I said we were not happy to be at TMC - that much is true. I was illustrating the several hours of stress and uncertainty that we had to deal with. The people who moved us through this time were amazing. I have eternal gratitude towards them; the TMC staff, the midwives, our doulla. All of them. I could have bitched about a couple of the nurses we had to deal with during the three days of post-partum recovery, but that was irrelevant, because we had our beautiful little girl. Nothing was going to upset us at that point. The delivery was an adventure, a thing that happens when your plans fall apart. When have you ever heard me bitch about adventure? Adaptability is a life lesson we live by. The reed bends, the rod breaks.

Speaking of adventure, when you try to call me out on my choice to go for a hike, you miss the mark by a mile. First off, I was not gone all day. I was gone from 6am to 4pm. Ten hours. Considerably less than a typical day out. Second, do you suggest that I lay down my long standing lifestyle, cease doing the things that feed my spirit because we have a baby? What difference does it make if she is ten days or ten years old? I will always have a heart for hiking, climbing, paddling, etc., and Melissa knows this. It is part of what makes me the man she loves. To ignore this call would be to snuff out a part of my soul. I took a risk, yes, but it was a well informed risk and as per SOP, Melissa knew where I would be (so did my friends) and she was not alone, she was with my mother. To suggest that I eliminate such risks is absurd. To hide in your house because you think it is safer will ultimately serve only to foster an unrealistic judgment of the things you do not know and bolster your irrational fears. I had a fear of heights once. Now it is a very healthy respect. I know my limits, and by testing my skills I have overcome the irrational fears and learned to handle the rational fears with much more respect. This is what we stand to gain from accepting certain risks in our life, and I can tell you it is an amazing reward. Besides that, your sheltered life is not without risks of its own.

I am all for free speech and keeping the dialog open. I will not censor commentary from anyone, but I will move hateful commentary to a more appropriate thread. Game on.

A bad turn unintended

2008-08-26T09:13:00.014-07:00

This was written on August 25th, 2008.

5:07 AM. Amelia wakes again and starts in with the hungry song. I sit up, on autopilot, and put my feet on the floor. With my first step I realize I made a mistake the night before by not bandaging my Achilles tendon. The new skin that formed over night while I "let the wound breathe" has no elasticity, and it tears open as my foot flexes. Oh hell. I limp around the foot of the bed and kneel somewhat painfully (this time it is my aching quads) by the cradle to extract the source of our joy from her swinging nest. She is doing very well at ten days old - sleeping almost three hours straight between feedings. I deliver her to Melissa, still in bed, and they begin the simple beautiful act that has sustained the Mammalian Class for... an absurdly long time.

This post is not about the two girls that I am so in love with. It's about my selfish self, and a bad decision I made two days ago.

5:00 AM (two days ago). My alarm wakes me and I sit up. I have had about two and a half hours of solid sleep since Amelia last woke us. She and Melissa stir gently, but sleep on. I get up and make my way to the pile of clothes I prepped the night before, dress, and go make a triple espresso. I load my pack with 132 oz. of water; 100 in a Camelback bladder for myself and the rest in a quart bottle for Lucas. Everything else we will need is in the pack already so I take it to the truck then come back in to make a protein shake for myself and some toast for Melissa. I take her the toast with cold water and some fresh fruit. A kiss to each of my ladies and I am off.

6:00 AM. 40 mph on the Mt. Lemmon highway, Lucas drunk on the wind. We stop at the upper Bug Springs trail head and start hiking up the steep, well maintained trail. This trail gains several hundred feet as it cruises up a ridge line for about one mile, then drops off into the south facing slopes of Molino Basin. That is not our destination, however. I just wanted to see if this trail would take us close enough to some impressive and enticing looking crags to the north. With perhaps an hour of contour bushwhacking, it just might be the way. Adventure potential noted, save this one for another day. Lucas and I turn back and trot down the trail, arriving at the truck exactly sixteen minutes later.

8:00 AM. We arrive at the top of the ski lift road, the highest point to which one can drive for about fifty miles in any direction. Altitude, 9,151 feet according to my watch altimeter. So far, so good. I keep Lucas on a fifteen foot lead. He is generally fine off leash, but encounters with other hikers and their dogs are frequent here, especially on a Sunday, and especially this close to a major trail head. My real concern, however, is a rattle snake encounter. Lucas has responded well both times we have come across rattlers on the trail - he gets out of the way very fast. Faster than I possibly could. But you never know.

There are also black bears here.

The Lemmon Lookout trail is a two mile spur that connects the Mt. Lemmon trail to the Wilderness of Rocks trail, creating an eight mile loop around three enormous upper mountain crags; Rappel Rock, The Ravens, and The Fortress. The WOR trail winds through an amazing area of pristine forest and fantastic boulder formations. A splendid creek follows the trail for some length, with several secluded pools and falls. This is the perfect place to get away for a few days. My goal today is to drop down the spur - an elevation loss of roughly 2000 feet - and into the Wilderness of Rocks area for a nice picnic and a swim with Lucas. An early start would put me back on the road home by 2PM. My buddy Jeff might meet me with another friend or two.

Almost exactly one hour later Lucas and I arrive at the trail junction where the spur trail hits the Wilderness of Rocks trail. I have never been here before, so I decide to take a twenty minute detour down the WOR trail before returning to this junction to swim in the nearby creek and relax while I wait for Jeff. I cross the creek and follow the path over a small rise, then drop into something wonderful as I encounter what I believe to be one of the happiest places in all of Arizona. A magnificent stand of very tall, very old pine trees. The kind of trees that create their own weather, maintaining a cool and peaceful atmosphere among the towering trunks, allowing ample space between for sunlight and bird flight, and laying a deep bed of sweet smelling needles that cushion the ground. Beyond a few dozen yards the pine cones scattered over the russet needles look like peppercorns on a bed of cinnamon. The sunlight dapples everything with a permanent hue of autumn so that when a jay appears his blue plumage stands out with intense contrast. This place was not missed by the seasons of fire - I can see a few smaller trees that did not survive. Now all that remains is standing charcoal. Most of the giants, however, wear a thin coat of char on their lower trunks and appear none the worse for it. I stand here for a long time, just breathing, living, thanking.

We scout forward another ten or fifteen minutes and see that there is much more here than I can explore in one day, or one lifetime. Turning back we pause again in the happy pine acreage, then cross the creek to the junction. This time I head up the other leg of the WOR trail, and when it crosses the water again I stay in the creek, hopping from boulder to boulder until I come to a large pool with a sun drenched slab of bare stone for a beach. I strip naked and wade into the water. It is so cold that my hot feet are instantly numb. The rest of me soon follows. I sink my body into the deepest part of the pool and marvel at the refreshing silence. Lucas swims to me with his powerful webbed toes. The water inspires him to completely freak out, a thing at which he excels. After a few minutes I rise, dress, and gather my pack. I return to the junction and set up my hammock near a small fire ring. Here I wait for about forty minutes while I eat my lunch and nap.

11:30 AM. No sign of Jeff. I decide to give myself some extra time to make the hike out. 2000 feet and two miles down hill in one hour is a reasonable pace, but I had better plan on at least twice that to get back out. An extra half hour on the end just to play it safe - I want to get home to my girls before dinner. I am almost packed up when a fellow about my age comes up from the WOR trail, having started the loop hike at sunrise. We chat briefly, I tell him the spur is the fastest, albeit steepest, way back to the trail head. He carries a small half empty bottle and no pack. That's brave, I think, but do not offer some of my own water to him. I probably should have, but I was about to start the toughest part of my day, with about %65 of my water supply remaining, and no filter for the abundant natural source. Foolish choice, that. Anyway, if this guy really needed water I would probably find him parched on the trail soon enough, and naturally at such time I would oblige his thirst.

Lucas and I begin the ascent. The first half mile or so is mellow and well marked, gaining little altitude. We come to another water crossing where we meet two more guys in their mid twenties. They ask me what trail this is, and say the last half mile they came down was very poorly marked and maintained. I had come that same way only a few hours earlier, so I figured they were just a little green and having a tough go at reading trail sign - the odd branch laid across a misleading path, the occasional cairn when the path itself is hard to see. Stuff you need to be looking out for. I describe what lies ahead for the two fellows and take advantage of a brief pause in the shade. My thighs are already complaining, and I figure it's because I haven't had more than four hours of uninterrupted sleep for over a week. New babies will do that to you. No time to lament for more sleep, however, I have nearly 2000 feet to climb over less than two miles. It seems like a very little distance in my head, but I knew it was going to be hard work. I press on.

As it happens, within a few hundred yards I am utterly lost. I spend several minutes back tracking to the water crossing and looking for sign, but the path absolutely evaporates before my eyes. I see cairns and foot scuffs here and there and I follow each possibility into nothingness. Only rocks and trees and steep, steep ground. I know I am within a dozen yards of my salvation, but it eludes me still. I grow prematurely frustrated and curse the baffling circumstances I find myself in. What the hell! Without even realizing it, I am in the very last place I want to be - I am off trail. As I become aware of this fact, I start to think of alternate lines out of this wild place, this place so close and yet so far from something familiar. Somewhere in the distance, voices cry out. I cannot make sense of their words, but the tone seems casual.

I tell myself that I know the lay of this mountainside. I have climbed on Rappel Rock once before - four years back. Two old friends and I were on the second pitch of our ascent of a route called "Black Quacker" when a not so surprising summer storm turned our route into a sudden fury of falling water, driving us off the crag in a desperate soaking rappel. I knew I had hiked at least from the base of that crag back to the high ridge trail that would take me back to my truck. From my current position, the base of that crag was still about 1000 feet above me, up a fifty degree slope of loose rock, pine litter, and nasty thickets of extremely shitty undergrowth. A mile of very steep off trail bush-crashing to the base of Rappel Rock, then roughly another mile of the same to the ridge trail. That was one choice. Or I could try to follow the water up the gully to its source, a three inch pipe sticking out of the ground near a small tin shed on the ridge trail. I assume that shed covers, protects, and maintains a natural spring, but I am not certain. At any rate, this option involved climbing over a lot of loose rock on steep slabs, with heavy vegetation jealously guarding its precious water source. This was a pretty poor choice for me, even worse for the dog. The third, wiser option never even occurred to me. Go back and find the damn trail. In retrospect I know this is what I should have done. The line was there. I simply had not looked hard enough. Perhaps sleep deprivation muddled my thoughts - whatever the case, I broke a cardinal rule.

I chose option one.

At this point I was already off trail, so why waste more time? Easy to answer that one now. I could see a few less horrid looking stretches between the thickets, and I made for these weaknesses. I moved at a slow but steady pace, trying to conserve my energy reserves. As I gained altitude I remembered a survival tactic of back country orienteering. If I kept the towering hulk of Rappel Rock to my left and the drainage gully to my right I would eventually make enough elevation to suss out a contour path across the gully, inevitably intersecting the spur trail which I knew was to the right, or east of my position. Orienteering 101. I kept plodding upward. The pine litter was a slippery mess and I lost my footing frequently. Lucas fared a little better than me. It was very slow going, and I realized quickly what a horrible thing it would be to take a tumble and break an ankle, or worse. Getting found out here would be a stunning feat. There were countless hiding places under boulders and bushes, places a person could lay for days without being discovered. Now, more than ever, I had too much at stake to make such poor decisions, to behave with such selfish ignorance, to go off trail. On the other hand, this was not some vast tract of forbidding back country wilderness. This was our beloved Mt. Lemmon, and only a few steep square miles of it. In all likelihood, there was not one single bear within ten miles of my location. I had food, a water source, warm layers, a 250 lumen "Fenix" torch, pretty good legs and a very strong dog. Indeed, I could almost see my house from here. But the chance of a misstep was high, and a bad bump on the head could lead to a very unpleasant night. More than that I feared the idea of Melissa at home with the baby, not knowing what had become of me. I trust my durability to weather a mild night in mid summer, but what thoughts she could be dealing with... that just ain't right.

1:45 PM. The base of Rappel Rock. The granite behemoth towers up and over my head almost 500 feet. The first peoples to name this mountain called it Babat Do'ag, meaning "frog mountain." Looking at Rappel Rock from various distances I have noticed that it somewhat resembles a frog, crouching and preparing to leap. Either that, or the head and shoulders of an angry gorilla, scowling at the sky. It all depends on how you look at it. This was a sunny day. This day, the rock was a nimble frog for me. No angry apes, just me and the dog and a brief rest at the foot of an ancient friend. I took off my left shoe, pulled off the sock, and peeled away a flapper of skin from my Achilles tendon. I muttered something about how unprepared I am - no moleskin, not even a roll of climbing tape, something that I always carry. What was I thinking when I packed? Apparently I wasn't.

We began to make our way up and around the flanks of the crag. I was looking for climber sign, as I knew this rock was a popular place for multi-pitch trad routes. My timing was no good, however, as this crag had also been closed to climbing for several months due to raptor nesting. Any recent tracks had been washed away or overgrown. Plenty of small game trails came and went through the dense thickets, however, and after coming to a vertical wall of granite some twenty feet high, the only choice left was to follow one of these scant pathways. Of course they only seemed scant to me - to Lucas they were the shining paths, and so I told him to lead on. Time and again he located passages between the brambles that I would not have seen. I followed the dog as he cut a rough contour to the east - exactly the direction I wanted us to go. I could only hope we would not encounter any large and ornery mammals - or rattlers.

2:00 PM. I take the lead back from Lucas as we finally emerge from several hundred yards of the nasty undergrowth. More than once while in the thick of it I snagged a foot, stumbled and fell hard into the vegetation. I swear the thickets were set like crude snares intending to drag me down. Dead branches suddenly sprang out with malice aforethought. I managed to deflect most of these with my face. My shins were soon bloodied by the clawing brambles. My feet raged but stamped on at my stubborn behest to fight the inexorable tug of gravity. At last the thicket thinned. Small aspen stands gave way to open slabs as we drew near to the water course, a series of stepped falls , ten to twenty feet on average. We pushed on to a ledge where one shorter fall landed, splashing merrily on its search for a lower point. Lucas drank long and deep and I knelt beside him, letting the water soak my head and shoulders. I splashed water on my face and chest, I filled my hat with water and put it on my head. This water was among the finest I had ever worn.

Refreshed but still weary, I took a vantage point atop a large boulder and looked at the shape of the slope across the gully. I estimated another few hundred yards of traversing and bush whacking along this contour line. Then, as if waiting for me to take this particular point of observation, a family of hikers appeared on the spur trail, about a half a mile away, and then vanished into the woods again. Now, for the first time, I knew for certain that we were very close to being on our way out. Standing still on the boulder I felt my quads seize up like cinder blocks again. They protested further use, but I gingerly stretched them out and hopped off the boulder. We were close to the real trail.

Indeed only a quarter mile past the drainage, my theory proved sound. Cresting a small rise over pleasantly clear ground, I saw the wide and well worn track of the spur trail. I thanked Lucas and took a brief pause. From here it was just one step after another on auto-pilot. None of this orienteering nonsense, no more bush crashing insanity. No thinking required from here. The trail head was only about a mile away now. After a few minutes I paused again in a nice shady spot and took a long sip from my drinking tube. Not much water left, but enough. I gave some to Lucas. Voices rose up from the trail below. I waited, and soon the three hikers I had seen about three hours earlier appeared, moving slowly together up the trail. When they saw me they stopped in the shade, and we discussed our various adventures. According to them, the trail was never an easy find, and they foundered in roughly the same place as me. Their saving grace was a GPS device that allowed them to backtrack along their own errant path, eventually taking them to the spur trail near the point at which they first lost it on the way down. We continued on up the trail, and they gradually moved ahead of us.

I found out later from Jeff that he had crossed paths with all three of those other hikers, but they made no mention of meeting me. Nor did they tell me they had seen anyone else on the trail that day. Apparently, Jeff and I had missed each other while I was off trail. That made perfect sense. Of course. By the time I finished my staggering march back to the truck, my blister was screaming and Lucas was lagging about ten feet behind me. The big shiny machine never looked so inviting - not since last summer's unintentional fifteen mile rain soaked tramp with Melissa and a couple other friends - maybe you have read that blog post already...

Amelia's Birth Story

2008-08-16T09:59:00.028-07:00

This post has been moved to a new blog. Please contact me for the URL. Thanks!

Volunteerorism

2008-08-07T11:20:00.003-07:00

One hour to go in my first shift as a volunteer for The Nature Conservancy. I think I am going to make it through this thing. So far in the past three hours I have answered the phone seven times, received three parcels, and watched the wind move leaves across a gravel parking lot outside the window. Totally birching.

Last night I told Melissa that I am a fool for volunteering to do anything that did not pertain to the imminent arrival of our baby. Now I am not so sure. This is okay. This is worth it. This is boring as hell.

When I first walked in the door two weeks ago to apply as a volunteer, I figured front desk duty might be on the task list. I had, and still do have, a much keener interest in doing actual nature conservation work, whatever that entails. Dressing like a newt and sneaking around marshlands to assay rodent leavings, or jumping out of clean energy airplanes to rescue endangered raptors mid-flight. I really have no idea how these things work. I just want to help out a little, since I love nature and spend a lot of time out in it and from time to time dig a hole and leave a trace of myself behind. There is virtually no way to literally "leave no trace" unless you just don't go there in the first place. Like me today. Anyway, the point is that we have got to take care of the places we love, it is just that simple.

Having sat here on my ass thus far, I can safely conclude that I don't want to volunteer to do much more than sit here on my ass. If they want my mad skills out in the big old world, they can pay for it. I do have enough of my own work to do out there, unpaid, uninsured, at times un-legal I'll bet. How big of a pile of debris can one leave in one's backyard before it represents a public nuisance, by the way? Should I instead make several smaller piles of debris around my property? Perhaps there is a "white trash" clause which I can skate through by chucking a couple old tires and some baby shoes up on the roof. Then maybe I will strip down a 1986 Dodge Diplomat and leave it on blocks in the front yard. I know I am getting off topic - not very nature conservationistical of me. My mind wanders these days. There is a lot on it.

Concession as an afterthought.

2008-08-07T10:57:00.002-07:00

I regretfully neglected to post any follow up information on the presidential bid by the Dog and Bird. They are both out. The dog has been photograped in a compromising situation invloving several rabbits, and the bird is desperately addicted to cheese. Not necessarily a bad thing until you take into consideration the fact that if cheese is made visible to the bird, he will stare at it and shriek until it is given to him. Alternative and/or future positions in government and political service are not currently under consideration. Vote Obama.

My Wife is an Animal

2008-08-03T17:09:00.007-07:00

It is mildly terrifying to be a mammal. Sometimes I think it would be way easier to be a robot. Or a paramecium. But then again, this whole ability to create another sentient life form is pretty great. In the sense of continuation, I mean. The scariness is in the mechanics. Now, more than ever, my wife is an animal. A thriving, primal, essential member of the cohort Placentalia. I guess I am too, but right now that seems utterly irrelevant.

I am amazed on a daily basis by what she is going through. Yes, I am a dude, so I have no real grasp of this experience, but I am with it enough to understand those fearful mechanics and realize that any fear is irrational here. Granted, one can apply as much or as little internal distress as they want to the situation based on a little research or a lot of hearsay regarding potential unpleasantness, but I have a mind in part inspired by certain heroes. In this case I'll take a page from the great cosmologist Carl Sagan. All else being equal, just look at the numbers. The odds are well in our favor that my wife and our baby will pass through this transition without harm. When the reasons for fear are demonstrated to be irrational, the fear is made distant and meaningless, like a Christmas snow globe for sale in July.

We have chosen to have a natural birth, away from the hospital, away from doctors, away from needless pharmaceutical interventions. I am perplexed by the increasingly common practice of choosing those other options. As if it were a simple decision, chocolate versus vanilla. Sure, the option is there for us should complications arise, but I know we will not go down that path. My wife is an animal. So am I. Our Class have been doing it this way for countless eons. So long, in fact, that we have refined our engineering to the point that we can completely bypass the natural way of things and use wholly unnatural techniques to deliver our progeny into the world. Yes, this is necessary at times. But I can't rationalize the choice to do so without a reasonable attempt at the old school style. Neither can my love. This is her choice, after all.

All I can say is that the choice to schedule unnecessary surgery to extract your baby from your body with drugs and knives is baffling to this dude. It also seems terribly selfish, if you look at what is really happening to your baby, who is another human and not a tumor, after all. This egocentricity would be in keeping with the mode that American's seem to have chosen, if you read the numbers, but I don't believe that is what we really want as a nation of individuals. I believe that we are much more alike than the town criers would have us think. Again, all things being equal... Events that drastically alter the state of the world are not likely to happen to you in your life time. Unless you have a child. Now this is mere speculation on my part. I have a strange feeling that my life is about to change in a very profound way. Parents, you just might understand.

Top 10 Reasons Why My Dog Should be Our Next President:

2007-11-03T11:57:00.000-07:00

10: If looks count for anything, he's way ahead of the human competition.

9: He is undeniably loyal, and acts only in the best interest of the pack.

8: He would give his life to defend his pack, instead of hiding like a pussy cat whenever strangers come around.

7: He lives to serve the pack, has no cronies, and can't be influenced by lobbyists.

6: He loves his job, and is ready to work 24/7.

5: His love for the pack is pure and unfailing.

4: He can learn new tricks.

3: He knows when natural disasters are imminent, and will respond appropriately.

2: He is an excellent hunter. (Just let him sniff one of Osama's socks.)

1: He is smarter by far than our current head of state.

So I urge you to consider the true independent candidate, and his choice for VP - look forward to Lucas/Yoda in 2008.

And that's just a little bit more than the law would allow.

2007-10-09T10:55:00.000-07:00

I Just got back from Nashville. Working for Arizona Bob with the Hooligan Crew, we were in residence for the weekend at The Gaylord Opryland. This place is a mind blowing absurdity of indulgent waste. Example: at the burger joint they individually wrap each veggie so you can build your mediocre meat burger yourself and then discard the custom made plastic box that previously encased each pickle or tomato slice. The whole place, in fact, is in a giant box made of glass and steel. A huge, individually wrapped, self contained model of life on the moon, or some sterile fabricated future of climate controlled outside inside world. Seriously weird. I really wanted Pauly Shore to be show up, somehow thinking an appearance by the Weaz would ease my mind and take the reality out of this all too real place. It was not to be.
After two days in the dome we started joking about the "outlands" and told tales of something called fresh air. Our destiny was to stay, however, four nights and three days in the Gaylord, where I never saw this Gay Lord, by the way. I could only sense his presence hovering above somewhere, ensconced in one of the inaccessible glass turrets that topped each of the four humongous atria, watching the plump tourists mill about in his perfectly manicured little world of wonders.
The smallest atrium was about two acres, surrounded on all sides by the walls of the hotel room wings. Each atrium was filled with plants and waterworks. One had a giant island where we found a glorious buffet. This impressed me dearly, as I personally regard the concept of the buffet in very high esteem - if managed correctly that is. It is one of the crowning achievements of modernity, after all, though also often one of the most poorly executed.
Another atrium was home to what I could only call the Degobah of Nashville, a bubbling steamy lily pad laden soup where Cirqe du Soleil cast-offs played bizarre cantina band covers to imbue the atrium with an ambiance that bordered on jungle madness. I dared not linger here, lest my sanity be lost.
Our work was dirty and thorough. We fixed about 200 rigging points to the ceiling of a massive event room, a space where one could have assembled a life size replica of Red Square. Apparently the convention business is alive and kicking in Music City. We rocked out the job in under three days, and on Sunday night we hit the town, leaving the safety of the Gaylord for the first time since our arrival.
Contrary to our fears, none of us were afflicted by the so called "outland syndrome," another purported danger of leaving the enclosure. A few pitchers of the local Yazoo, and our anxieties relaxed. Life was just the same as ever. We could come and go from the glass house at Opryland as much as we pleased, with no ill effects. They must put something in the air in that place, the way they do in Vegas, to keep the guests inside and in a docile state of mind. No wonder so many of the other Gaylord denizens were so well endowed of girth. There was little more to do there than breathe the sweet air and sup from the buffet, the burger joint, the pizza place, the many breakfast nooks, the sushi bar, the Old Hick'ry manor house where one evening's tab was in excess of $900.00, or the Jack Daniels tavern where the band faithfully covered Waylon Jennings - to name just a few of the available feeding troughs.
A few days outside the glass and I can see the place clearly for what it is; a well disguised factory farm, where humans are the livestock and the end product is a stupendous amount of cash in the pocket of Mr. Gay Lord, whoever that may be.
During my stay I felt always a degree removed, as a true outlander along with the rest of our crew. We were often dirty and unkempt from the efforts of our labor, roaming about in a pack like coyotes, indulging ourselves in pleasures we would not normally enjoy.

Yes, I'll go back. Wouldn't you?

Three days in Chicago

2007-09-16T12:08:00.000-07:00

It was a short trip, packed with plenty of activity. We saw a lot of friends and ate a lot of pizza. Not the over loaded and over hyped "Chicago style" pie, but real normal pizza made by real normal Chicagoans. I know a few people who say Giordano's stuffed pizza is the best, but in their heart of hearts they know they are fooling themselves. It's tolerable stuff, but it just doesn't compare to a good quality thin crust. This has nothing to do with New York. Nothing at all. Their pizza is as good or as crappy as anywhere else and they can do whatever they want with it as far as I'm concerned, so long as they keep it in New York and stop bragging about it.
I see a few places here in Tucson that try to call themselves "Chicago style," as if that means anything. If you want to savor a place, go lick the pavement there. A city is not defined by the food they serve, I think it is more likely the other way around. It is equally easy to find good and bad selections of any given cuisine in any well heeled city. Some places, like Chicago, are greater metropolii with greater populations of big fat egos. They may claim they are the preeminent city of X "style" of food, but at the end of the line it's usually the same imported labor teams assembling the same haute cuisine. Supervised by Mr. Food, overseen by Mrs. Sauce, masters on high who refuse to respond to any name if not prefaced by "Chef (insert name here)". The people who actually do the work are part of the labor-borg, the same faces from town to town, a vast army of choppers, slicers, dicers and platers assimilated into one being. They move the food that moves the earth.
I was trapped in a high end kitchen for a lengthy a/v install this past winter, so my presumptions are based on a limited exposure - I beg correction from any who have an opinion that differs from this reality.
I do not consider myself a foodie, but I do recognize talent and good craft, and I respect it tremendously. The truth is, I like to make fun of the people who act as if the food they serve deserves more respect than the underpaid kitchen staff that put it on the plate. Or the wise-ass a/v installer. All food winds up in the same place at the end, and the people who pay too much to eat it are probably more concerned with how they look and who is watching them eat than what the stuff tastes like. Give me honest pizza.

What about the other two days?

Glad you asked.

The weather was good, the company was pleasant, and the futon put kinks in my spine. I am glad to back in my own bed. I know we've lost something in a few relationships which were made convenient by proximity, but others have grown stronger with absence.

Birthday in the Land of Sand and Eggos

2007-09-04T16:58:00.000-07:00

I turned 33 on Labor Day. Melissa and I were in San Diego, just having a good time vacation weekend. We stayed with my cousin Ben and his wife Lydia, the expecting young parents of a real human baby. Saturday evening we watched the sun disappear into the Pacific.

For dinner we ate at a Persian restaurant featuring a madman on synthesizer who accompanied the Persian equivalent of Robert Goulet, singing in his mysterious foreign tongue. By the time the belly dancer emerged, I was so stuffed with lamb that my view of her contortions was filtered through a shimmering meaty haze. At some point during our repast Ben sneaked away and paid the bill, clearly illustrating "The San Diego Way." I shook my fist at him in rage and gratitude.

Sunday we slept in, and by late morning made our way down the coast to La Jolla. We strolled along the shoreline, watching scores of snorkeled pink tourists bobbing about in the water. I marveled that more of them didn't drown, or founder and become dashed upon the rocks. They drifted around in a delirious mirth, somehow staying afloat in spite of lacking any sort of flotation devices. Melissa reminded me that it was salt water and furthermore, fat floats. A few seals appeared, but mostly they seemed to prefer the depths than give show to the masses.

We ate brunch at a cafe on Prospect street where the service was rude beyond the pale, but the food was decent and the fruit was fresh. I have been told that all avocados in California are hand picked by blonde lifeguards, but I was unable to verify this claim. We strolled the streets of La Jolla for a couple hours, then drove south past Sea World and Mission Bay to Ocean Beach.

I had a boogie board, but something about the volume of humanity already at sport in the sea deterred me from even sticking a toe in the surf. I complained that the ocean was more fun when you went at it with a friend, but Melissa doesn't go in the water. In retrospect I realize that the ocean doesn't give a crap who your friends are and will generally try to throw you out of it no matter the company you keep. We gave up the broasting sands and walked under the pier to the rocks. Along the way some grubby youth requested that we support their acid research program with a small donation; we politely declined. Further along we encountered some apparent subjects of severely failed research projects. We had to leave the side walk to avoid stepping on the needle mottled limbs and torso of one subject in particular. He only moaned at the sky, while his silent companion slumped into himself like a deflating Barney the dinosaur forgotten in the scorching sun.

We made it to the rocks. Here the sea was bold and refreshing, clapping and bursting against the stubborn stone, hurling through crevices and erupting in foamy heaves. Tiny crabs danced around in their tide pools with sideways choreography, and countless pea-sized snails did nothing interesting at all.

Later that day we drove to Oceanside, where my Minnesota college accomplice Steve made a tidy home with his wife behind the gates of a hilltop subdivision. The well known Scott Silbor joined us there, having navigated the treacherous 5 from the Palisades with one arm in a sling. Two days prior he himself was dashed against the sands by the insolent Pacific, resulting in a torn deltoid. After dinner (including more of the afore-mentioned avocados) we set about making music in Steve's home studio. There may exist somewhere some recorded evidence of our impromptu cover of the Sesame Street theme. Anything can happen.

My alarm went off at 5:30 the next morning. I had been awake at 4, and was drifting in and out of semi-sleep until the beeping peal commenced. Melissa had a shower while I loaded surf boards and other necessities into the truck. BY 6:30 we were back at OB, where Rob Stevens was pacing the shore in wait. My first lesson in Surfer Boarding Man began, and I spent the next three hours eating a vomitous quantity of sea foam. By the end of it I was totally taken by the thrill of the sport, though my oceanless desert residence does make regular practice a bit of a hassle. Maybe next time I'll actually stay up for more than ten seconds. Maybe I'll find myself riding on the face of a wave instead of looking up at it from below the surface. Or maybe I should just focus my efforts on the thousands of feet of granite in my own backyard. I'm sure I'll try surfing again but my real game is on the rock, on the end of a rope, the other end of which is tied to my beloved Melissa. The falling is not as much fun here for the landing is far worse, but the escape is much easier. At any given beach there is but one focus, one direction, and all interested parties are in it at once together. In the mountains the paths are countless and varied and your limits are set only by your will to walk and your skill to climb. The farther you push yourself, the fewer people you encounter on your journey. I don't know exactly why, but for me that is an essential element to the satisfaction of my soul.

We hit the road by noon and made it back to Tucson just before seven. It was a very good 33rd, and I am extremely grateful to all those involved. To those who reside in CA whom I was unable to see; my apologies, and I know we will meet again.

Our Resident Python

2007-09-04T12:48:00.000-07:00

There is a bull snake thriving on our property. We like him being here, as his presence would imply a reduction in the local pack-rat population, but we learned the other day that he enjoys a more complex palate. Recent opportunity afforded the snake a less movable feast, as these pictures will show.

Two Tales From Down East

2007-08-05T11:25:00.000-07:00

As a teen I used to go to Martha's Vineyard every summer, spoiled brat, but something about real world responsibility has gotten in the way for the last several years. Until now. Next week I'll be taking Melissa there for her first visit, and our first vacation in a long time. The trip is actually a wedding gift to us from my cousin Rachel, who has lived on the Island for some time now. Her other home is the Island's polar opposite, NYC. I guess about the only thing these two places have in common is that they are surrounded by water.

I am sure the Vineyard has changed in many ways since the last time I was there, around the turn of the century (what a time to be alive), and I wonder what things remain the same. Thinking about the island in anticipation of our trip floats two stories to the surface of my mind. Here they are, unfortunately without photos since those previous trips took place before I had a digital camera, before I had a cell-phone, before I had an awesome wife. Anyway, this is just a taste of the past. Most likely a new blog will come along to tell of whatever trouble we get into next week.

I Should Have Walked

The long lagoon between Vineyard Haven and Oak Bluffs has always been a fine spot for water games. Every summer allowed for many days of great fun motoring up and down the mile long lagoon, where the water was calm and less populated than the rough and busy harbor of Vineyard Haven Sound. Any island kid with either gumption or fortune would do his best to acquire a boat capable of pulling a skier. Such was the case with two of my mates, Marin and Zeke. Marin was well possessed of fortune, while Zeke had labored hard to afford his craft. Marin's boat was a thirty-four foot cabin cruiser which we used as a base station. It was well appointed with comfortable deck accommodations, a galley, a long bowsprit, and every one's favorite, a poop deck. Zeke had the ubiquitous "Boston Whaler," a sixteen foot flat boat with a double V hull and a 50 horse out board Evinrude motor. Perfect for water skiing.

We spent a long day playing in the lagoon waters, seven or eight of us in all. I don't recall exactly who was there, but for sure the group included myself and the two boat owners, as well as my cousin Rachel, and our friends Aaron and Amy.

Around five in the afternoon Zeke had to quit the fun and get back to Oak Bluffs to serve chowdah and lobstah to wealthy tourists. He roared out of the lagoon in his whaler, leaving us in his wake on the cabin cruiser with mild sunburns and salty skin. The tide was ebbing away with the daylight. We motored slowly toward a long dock, planning to unload everyone but Marin and myself, and also to pick up the little wooden rowboat Marin kept there upside down on the sand and well above the high tide line. About fifty feet from the dock I noticed that we were in very shallow water, nearly the same depth as the boat's draft. We were in danger of running aground so we turned back towards Marin's mooring, about 100 yards offshore in the placid lagoon waters. The tide was almost fully out, and we couldn't get near the dock. Time to come up with plan B.

At this point, with no warning whatsoever, Aaron threw himself overboard and swam for shore. His pale white arms shone against the dark water as he swam, clearly visible in the fading light. This kid never took any sun, in spite of all his time shirtless on the beach. We laughed at him, and yelled encouragement. After a few minutes he dragged himself ashore and made his way to the rowboat. He intended to row back out to us in order to ferry our party back to the shore. The rowboat was small, with room for three people and a few items, so we would have to make at least two trips. By this time we had reached the mooring, and in a few minutes we had the big boat securely tied up and shut down for the night.

The wind had been picking up for a while, and now it was steadily blowing across the lagoon. The little rowboat was light with only Aaron aboard. He kept having to adjust his course as a result, and before long his efforts proved too weak against the wind. He quickly drifted off course against his best efforts, loudly bemoaning his situation. I decided that I could and should swim out to him, and with two of us rowing as well as my extra weight in the boat, we would have no trouble getting back to the cruiser. The distance between us and Aaron was growing, however. Now he was becoming harder to see in the twilight, a pale white torso in a pale white boat. I hastily donned a PFD and grabbed a pair of diving flippers. No problem, I thought. Now I float, and I can swim even faster! I dove in, anticipating a hero's welcome from Aaron on the rowboat, and perhaps again at home among friends later that evening.

The water was cold and dark, but that didn't bother me. Sea grass and kelp interfered with my progress a little bit, but that didn't bother me. Aaron had given up rowing at this point, and chose instead to smoke cigarettes and comment on my progress. That bothered me. I splashed a little louder so I couldn't hear his witty remarks, and I wondered how he had managed to keep his cigarettes dry. The big boat was lost in the dark behind me, the shore was indiscernible but for a few distant twinkling lights. From my point of view, eyes at sea level, I felt tiny - engulfed in a vast briny darkness. For a few moments I thought I might just be lost at sea. I fixed my intentions on Aaron and the rowboat and swam with all my heart. Aaron finally stopped smoking and put a little effort into fighting the wind to meet me part way. After what seemed like an hour of swimming, though was more likely only twenty minutes or so, I was almost there. I was getting tired and not looking forward to the effort involved in rowing back to the cruiser, and somewhere during my swim it occurred to me that we might just have easily untied the big boat and motored out to Aaron in only a few minutes. I let that thought sink; it only interfered with my determination. At last I reached the rowboat.

Aaron yelled something useless with the intention of being helpful. I don't remember what he said, but it was probably something like, "Nice flippers!" Because I recall throwing them aboard since they had given me blisters on my Achilles tendons. Exhausted, I prepared to heave myself aboard. I grabbed hold of the gunwales and as I did so my body went from horizontal to vertical in the water. Just as I was about to pull myself into the boat, my feet touched the bottom of the lagoon and I stood up, barely waist deep in the water. Aaron was now just below eye level as he sat in the rowboat. He looked at me and started laughing. I looked back and saw the shadowy shape of the cabin cruiser, about a thousand feet away. A thousand feet that I swam, through only three or four feet of water. I could have walked the entire way. I thought I was saving the day, but clearly I had simply been wasting time. Utterly dejected, I positioned myself at the stern and began walking, pushing the still laughing Aaron and the rowboat back to the cruiser. Just then Marin fired up the engines and came to get us.

The Bounty of My Inter-Net

To this day I do not know why they call it Gay Head. You can do the research on that yourself, but as far as I can tell it is only a name. Gay Head is the Western highland region of Martha's Vineyard. Colorful clay cliffs drop in steep crumbling ripples to the long breaks of the Atlantic Ocean. This has always been a less populated area of the island, somewhat more remote and difficult to get to. Tourists frequent the one small public beach here, but mostly keep to the little shack-shops around the lighthouse at the top of the cliffs. Getting to the beach requires a fair amount of walking, a thing which displeases most tourists. My friends and I knew, however, that a thirty minute walk would give one access to one of the best beaches on the island.

It was to these fine sands that we walked on this particular day. There had been a hurricane a few days prior, far to the south on the Eastern American sea board. Though we had seen none of the familiar elements of such a huge storm, the seas were full of atypically large, beautiful waves. In short order I found myself happily body surfing. For some reason, my friends decided to stay ashore. After a few good runs I felt a strange little pinching sensation from within my bathing suit. I reached in and found a tiny little brine shrimp on my upper thigh. Plucking it off my skin I inadvertently crushed the fragile little mollusk, but satisfied that I had found the source of my discomfort, I swam out to catch another wave.

I surfed in, and in shallow water I again felt the pinching in my shorts. I removed another little brine shrimp. The waves were too good to let this minor irritant persuade me from the water, so I swam out for another wave. This time as I swam, I realized that the water was quite busy with the little shrimp. No wonder they kept getting into my shorts. I decided that I just had to catch a few more waves. On the next run in I distinctly felt the same pinching, but this time it was not only once, and not only on my upper thighs. Finishing the ride I stood in waist deep water. I looked down and saw that the water was not just busy, but literally teeming with the tiny shrimp. Millions of them. A pint of glass drawn from the water would have held a hundred or more, each less than a quarter inch long. Now my shorts sang with the pinching tickle of countless sea monkeys, focused primarily on my nether most regions. That was enough for me.

I ran out of the water and into the tall grass at the base of the clay cliffs. I didn't care if anyone could see me. Pulling down my bathing suit, I looked at my crotch and saw a veritable fisherman's bounty of brine shrimp spill forth from the built in netting of my swim shorts. The little bastards were all over me as well, tiny scales and claws causing tremendous frustration to my most sensitive parts. In a few frantic minutes I managed to remove them all, and after emptying my inter-netting I pulled up my shorts and returned to my curious friends. I simply told them, "I had shrimp in my shorts."

I did not go back in the water.

Rain Dogs and the Butterfly-Bigelow

2007-07-30T11:14:00.001-07:00

Saturday, June 28, 2007

In need of a good long hike, M~ and I decided to take Lucas up to the Butterfly trail in the Santa Catalina mountains north of Tucson. We planned to finish the path that we started the week before. Short on time on that last visit, we only made about a three mile trip out of it, turning around and retracing our steps when time grew short. This trip, however, we were prepared. Plenty of food and water, and ample daylight to finish the roughly ten mile loop. Setting out from the trail head, M~ had the clever idea to take a digital snapshot of the trail map, clearly displayed on a large metal sign at the edge of the parking area. We could then use the in-camera zoom function to take a closer look at our course and track our progress. Good. I also penciled in a rough map on the little waterproof notebook that Carrie and Elic Bramlett gave me because they think I am some sort of amalgam of John Muir and MacGyver. I fail to see the resemblance, at least in terms of hair style. In light of our recent Mountain Lion encounter (see M~'s blog, "Thanks for nothing, Hummingbirds!"), I also decided that from now on I would keep my big knife close at hand. I'm not trying to be Crocodile Dundee. The knife isn't even all that big. What I really want is a good Roman sword anyway, but I imagine the park service might give me some trouble if they saw me brandishing that kind of steel. Trouble, eh? Just the stuff I am usually looking for... but I digress.

The logic behind the possession of a pointy thing, as discovered about twelve thousand generations ago, is of course to give one a slight advantage over Nature's guile. Be it a sharpened stick or a well shaped chunk of chalcedony, it might just be the thing that makes the difference between having a nice walk in the woods and being a nice walking buffet. With keen eye and patience we enviously watch the birds enjoy their freedom, but these same senses do not reveal the complete picture of life in the forest. Wherever one goes, if there are animals present they almost always know you are there long before you know they are there - if you ever do. In general, they prefer to keep it that way. Sneaking about in the attempt to come upon a bear or a mountain lion unawares is categorically futile. If you are deft enough to accomplish the feat, the most probable outcome is a mortally close observation of teeth, claws, fur, and mostly your own blood. I say 'mostly' because I do carry a knife, after all. The thing about bears though, is that they are so damn thick. And lions so damn quick. Sticks and stones may break my bones, but they suck against enraged carnivores. I realize the near uselessness of my big knife, yet I cling to that outside chance that it will save a life, if only by harming another.

The first two hours of the hike were pleasant, to say the least. The views of the northern slope of the Santa Catalina mountains and San Pedro valley are grand. For about two and a half miles the trail descends a thousand feet from it's starting altitude of 7,500 feet. The next three miles ascends roughly 2,000 feet to a saddle pass just below the summit of Mount Bigelow, where a service road meanders back to the trail head. We never saw this service road - but I am getting ahead of myself. The hike took us through a mile or so of dense undergrowth plants; ferns, tall grasses, brambles of all sorts that have overtaken the area after a devastating forest fire four years ago. To our delight, however, we saw that many new young Pine trees were growing through the choking thicket, not to be stopped on their journey towards the sun. With any luck we'll be able to come back here in about a century, then we shall see what a good healthy Ponderosa Pine forest looks like. By then the standing char and ashes that are here will be long gone, recycled through the course of things. By then maybe some of my own ashes can be scattered here.

A few miles along, Lucas suddenly perked up. He was keenly interested in something just out of sight. The walls of a steep canyon were gradually closing in, and something was moving down below us and around a slight bend. Normally Lucas fixes his intentions on squirrels or rabbits, but this time he behaved in a different way. He was more tentative, more alert (if that's possible) to whatever was down there. We took a momentary pause and fell silent, reading the dog's body language. Then we began talking again, to make a little noise. Suddenly a loud bugle call blurted through the woods, as if the devil himself was blowing on a rusty old horn, and a White-tailed deer went crashing through the bushes about sixty feet to our right. It was large female, fast but graceless as it bounced away.

Approximately two and a half hours in, we began heading up the canyon through which runs Novio Spring. A jaunty little creek, it babbled along over rocks and roots, forming clear pools here and there that invited Lucas to submerge his face and drink heartily. As inviting as the fresh stream water was, Melissa and I drank only from our pack bladders, full of cool water safe for human consumption. We spoke for a while about what has changed since the days when native peoples and pioneer explorers would not hesitate to quaff their thirst from even brackish pools, and how such a clean flowing brook would have been a very happy find indeed. Were people just stronger in those days? Were they better suited with a disease fighting bacterial soup in their G.I. systems, or were they just as susceptible to Giardiasis, Schistosomiasis, intestinal cysts, and who knows what else that swam unseen in that water? Of course the dog was fine.

Following the path upstream, we came to a well trodden area that seemed to diverge from the main path, though it was hard to say for sure where the main path went at this point. We continued along the waterway, and shortly came upon an unexpected sight indeed. Strewn about on the ground were large chunks of metal - pieces of an airplane engine, which later we learned were from a jet fighter that crashed there in the mid 70's. The wreckage seemed otherworldly, and there was a feeling that something was still functional about it all. We quickly determined that this was not the trail, just a well trampled area of great curiosity. Backtracking for a few minutes we found the proper path, and proceeded up a series of steep switchbacks.

Now the path kept climbing, gaining 2000 feet over a distance of a couple miles. Somewhere into the first mile, rain began to gently fall. It had been lingering in dark clouds over the ridge line northeast of us, with low rumbles threatening to dampen our spirits, but until now there had not been a drop. I paused and shucked off my pack, digging for my rain shell. At first M~ said she didn't need hers, but within a minute the rain intensified, and she changed her mind. Lucas just gave us a look as if to say, "What did you expect?" It had rained on our drive up the mountain, but the few hours of reprieve gave us the false impression that there would be no more, in spite of all those dark clouds. We trekked on up the path.

Ah, the path. Soon it was less a path, and more a stream bed. It was, after all, the only bare section of the mountain side, everything else overgrown with raspberry brambles and pine trees. The only other place that plants did not grow was on the sheer rock walls that surrounded us. Since the path itself was the way of least resistance for the water, gravity guided the flow directly down the way we were walking up. Within minutes our water proof shoes were full, demonstrating remarkable water retention abilities. Sock and toe soup was on the menu for the duration of our hike. The higher we climbed, the heavier the rain fell, and the wetter we got. I recognized a seldom seem expression on M~'s face. It was something between irritation and endurance, with a dash of exasperation that was kept in check by the simple knowledge of no alternative but to keep on walking. I felt something similar in my own cheeks and teeth, tightly clenched around that ever-present tooth pick. Lucas paused to shake off the rain, and like a wrung out sponge he immediately absorbed as much again.

Now more or less careless about the wetness, I concluded two things; First, we had plenty of daylight, and second, less than half the hike lay before us. We would certainly walk out of these woods before dark, and had no reason to suspect otherwise. Even should some calamity befall us, we were prepared to suffer through a miserable night. As hard as the rain may fall, it could not seriously injure us. As far as objective hazards go, rain is very low on the list. It is the secondary hazards that rain might bring about which began to play in my mind. Loosened rock tumbling from above. That enraged carnivore I mentioned before, now much more easily surprised since our progress was muffled by the sound of the rain. And most dire, the increasing frequency and proximity of lightning. I told M~ not to walk too close to me, reasoning that if one of us was struck, the other was less likely to be hit at the same time. I tried to remember my CPR training, telling myself again that I need to take a wilderness survival course. We pressed on, each soggy step bringing us closer to the radio towers at the end of the trail. We paused briefly along this penultimate stretch to snack on fresh sweet raspberries that grew in great abundance along the path.

A little over five hours into the hike we came to the high point, passing a very pleasant meadow and an impressive heap of giant boulders. This would, on a dry day, be the perfect spot for a picnic and a nap. This day, however, we made a mental note and kept trudging along our trail/stream. The rain kept falling, as hard as ever. We had already been in it for well over an hour. Here, near the top of the mountain, there was little ground above us for the rain to wash down from. Below us lay over six thousand vertical feet of catchment area for this flood to wash into. Anything that fell to the south of our position would end up, eventually, in the Tucson basin by way of ravine and creek, pretty little water falls maturing into massive and destructive torrents of debris-laden water. These floods are more like wet cement than water, full of sand, plants, boulders, all churning and mashing their way to the lowest possible point. This is how our desert landscape is formed, in violent burst of earth moving power, separated by long spells of dry calm.

We came to a trail sign marking an intersection of four pathways. An odd hum filled the air here, audible over the steady rain. It came from the direction of one of the paths. The sign indicated that this was the last short leg up to the Mount Bigelow watch tower, which was surrounded by a large array of communication antennae. I had been there once before, in high school. Under the circumstances, it was the last place I wanted to be now. Our proximity to so much tall metal only eased our minds a little, in so much as that any lightning strikes that hit in this area would likely be drawn to the towers, and not us as we quickly passed over the summit of our trek and began down the path towards the Catalina Highway. Our intended course would have taken us to the base of those very towers, where the dirt service road offered an easy four mile stroll back to the Butterfly trail head. Our plan now was to descend from here to the Catalina Highway, and take the less attractive but somewhat safer paved route back to our truck, that rolling island of comfort and safety.

It was a good choice. I was suddenly and involuntarily brought to my knees by a mighty crack and blinding flash, as the fabric of space was rent asunder by lightning. The world was momentarily an overexposed picture of white hot pink and orange, as the simultaneous sound ripped through my body. From far away thunder is foreboding, deliberate, mysterious. This close it is no longer thunder, but the shrieking agony of billions of atoms instantaneously charred into oblivion. Way too close for mortal flesh. Lucas looked back at me, still on my knees in the watery path. His wet dog glare seemed to ask, "What the fuck is wrong with you?!" I turned around to check on my wife, a similar look on her face. We walked much faster for a while, hunched slightly over. That was the second closest I've ever been to a lightning strike.

The path down towards the highway was like something out of "Lord of the Rings." Huge blue-gray boulders interspersed with giant old growth pine trees and a clear under story littered with a bed of fallen red needles. The broken stone path was at times a gurgling runoff, and at times just bare slabs of weather worn granite. We practically skipped along on our way down, happy to be more or less out of harm's way. The path gave way to the highway, which we crossed. On the other side we took momentary shelter under the eaves of the visitor's center, near a sign which proudly declared the center "NOW OPEN." We decided against bringing our wet selves within, and took some time to wring out our socks and dump out the shoe soup. A hummingbird idled at a nearby feeder, seemingly indifferent to the rain. I wondered if any hummingbirds had ever been hit by lightning. It seems highly unlikely. M~ and I began laughing at ourselves, our general state, as a forest ranger poked her head out the door and asked us where we had parked. She had a look of bafflement about her. We explained where we had come from, and now she seemed both baffled and irritated - were we fools? She disappeared for a moment, then returned to say that a gentleman inside had offered us a ride up the highway to out truck. We thought about it for a moment then agreed, if only to put her at ease. It would have been a nice cool down, walking a few miles on a mountain road in the rain. The fellow with the car was a very nice guy. A dad with two young daughters who squealed happily as Lucas licked their fingers from the back of the vehicle.

Finally back at our truck about six hours after we left it, we shed our wet clothes and drove down the mountain wearing no pants. Lucas, naked as ever, quickly went to sleep in the back seat.

The scent of a rain, man.

2007-07-25T20:24:00.000-07:00

I've been reading a book that M~ found at a little shop up on Mount Lemmon. The book is (so far) all about the way native people, specifically the Tohono O'odham (a.k.a. Papago), managed for centuries to live off the arid lands of the Southwest relying on only scant rainfall to produce an amazing diversity of crops. Plants you and I have never known, indigenous varietals of wheat, beans, squash, melons, you name it. Modern agricultural science has attempted to reproduce the same plants with modern hydrology, but the plants grow better with water that comes down from above, not up from below. Now we have removed so much of the ground water from this area that it may well be far too late to resuscitate the old ways, but some folks still manage to make it work. A century ago there were ten thousand acres of cultivated land out there. Now there are perhaps one hundred acres still farmed in the old ways, a mere curiosity in the face of mechanized progress.

These things have been on my mind in part from the book and in part from the current weather - the monsoon season - which has been tempestuous indeed. Yesterday I drove across town through a river that had once been Grant Road (See video #1: monsoon season in Tucson). People here talk about the way the desert smells after a rain. I did not have the time or inclination to stick my nose out the window, but this desert clearly smelled one hell of a lot like rain yesterday. M~ says it just smells like wet dust. It does, but I think there's something deep about that dust.

Since we just moved here, we're not used to the normal cycles of things yet. Back in Chicago it was increasingly difficult to identify normality - ten years there and I saw the seasonal predictability factor drop like a brick in deep water. Locals there will tell you that's the normality, but I do remember a time growing up in the Midwest when summer gave on to fall which turned to winter who set the stage for spring and so on. The last five years in Chicago I don't remember more than a weekend or two of autumn each year. The cold came fast and lingered well into April, even May. Then heat and humidity chased off the few weeks of spring conditions, and summer endured until late September. Normality? Any body's guess, but the chubby fist of GW increasingly seemed a likely culprit. Maybe because it's all the hype these days, the environment, the way we're messing up the weather. Maybe because it is true.
I know I will not miss another winter in Chicago, much as I love the snow. There we had plenty of snow, but it quickly turned to grey snot and packed ice that few landlords saw need to scrape off the walk in front of their property. Why put any actual work into the task when filthy chemistry can do a half-assed job for you? Scatter some de-icer out there and call it a day. Be thankful your tenants don't sue you when they deck out, perhaps saved from a broken wrist by the flab most of them are encased in these days. Sorry, bit of a rant, truth is we have many good and healthy friends back in Chicago. It is just a simple and unfortunate reality that the human baseline is getting dumber, lazier, and more greedy by the minute.

Today the monsoons are building up again, and I think I'll avoid driving down Grant Road. We're heading to Brooklyn Pizza for some good old cheesy grease and gluten. I don't subscribe to the %100 granola life. I can and will eat the occasional Junior Bacon Chee, and it will not kill me. I like a life of moderation, instead of daily indulgence - which seems to go hand in hand with ignorance. Let the weather indulge itself. Umbrellas are for the weak.

Middle of Somewhere: Quetico 2005 Journal

2007-07-25T16:34:00.001-07:00

The Legend of Kashipiwi

Trip log of Damien “Gravel Pit” Geoffrion
Quetico Provincial Park, June 2005

First camp, Day 1:
Dell Lake, after two rugged and thankfully short portages. 76 rods of rock and pudding, easy. (One rod = 32 feet. The portages are measured in rods, according to the methods of the early Voyageurs, Lewis and Clark and their contemporaries.) The mosquitoes are bad, but we still smell nice on day 1. I anticipate my internal repellent systems will kick in soon. Must eat more garlic.

Should have been here sooner, should have been farther in tonight, The Quetico had other plans for us. We aimed for Kashipiwi tonight, but found no portage off Shady. Two or more hours lost for search and backtracking. Camp here on Dell is a nice spot. For dinner, grilled cheese with a fine stinky Dubliner cheddar, tomato soup. I am glad for the spork. Laying in my tent, I don’t sleep until near first light, just listening to the deep woods. The distant lightning, showing for a few hours over the horizon, finally closed in from the south under a heavy cloud mass. Moments before the wrath of the storm hit I saw a strange light weave through the trees along the edge of our camp, looking every bit the part of a lantern carried by an unseen hand. No explanation.

Day 2 (6/27/2005):
First on the agenda today was clearing up the confusion of day 1, so we groused out the portage from Dell Lake back to Shady Lake. It was spotted with relative ease from the Dell side, pointing suspicion for the previous day’s foundering at malicious deadfall and bleached shore stones obscuring the way. On with the planned route we intend to portage from Dell Lake to Grey Lake. The Quetico troubles us again however, as somehow we run the Dell-Shady portage a second time by accident. It is almost baffling and several moments are lost wondering how in the hell we could screw this up. Apparently it is very easy, but we blame the trickery of these woods. We finally find our path; It was an uninviting bog that had to be crossed, 55 rods mucking between two impressive bluffs wrapped in tattered sheets of lichen. We finally made Grey Lake. Lunch of PB&J in tortillas, pistachios and Electrolyte powder, the last of which displeases Dances With Trees. The banquet table is an exposed slab of Canadian Shield, cracked and split and looking about as exhausted as the four of us. Portage Brutality. I feel a lot better after much needed protein and a dash of shade and shut eye. The bugs are mild as the sun is high and the wind is strong.

We paddle on to the next portage, 115 rods to Yum-Yum Lake. A very pretty lake, with 100 foot cliffs straight to the water’s edge, coated in brittle, flaking lichen. We were greeted by waving white caps and a head wind as we dug in and crossed the mile or so diagonal. The lee side of Yum-Yum Lake was a bit easier going. We close in on the last portage for the day, the way to Kashipiwi Lake. It is 280 rods, crossing the gamut of our civilized descriptions of life and occurrence in the portage community. That is to say, you had to be there. Roughly defined; much of this leg was passed staring at my own bog-blasted feet as they heaved me up and forward, under the rude beam of the pig boat Sawyer. Before long I saw the tracks of a very large cat, then moose scat, then crusty mats of what may have been wolf hair. Next, some unknown carnivore scat thick with hair and a few gnawed shirt buttons. Perhaps I imagined the buttons. My feet hurt. By now the trail has climbed a couple hundred feet up a steep and painful slope. Coming down again seems like a positive thing until the trail bogs out into muskeg again. Mmmm, muskeg. The air is still, stirred only by the wings of countless sinister insects, we are nowhere near any lake or stream. After twenty rods or so the soup gives way to another steep rise. High stepping up and over cracked stone slabs and ankle clutching roots, the goal is to find the path of grace and least resistance, the effort required to do so negating any profit over simply trying to keep my ass from tumbling into the curiously deep muck. Abu Patches and I double back for the last pack. One load too many. We announce our presence loudly, wary of the uninvited large mammal encounter. Seems like a good idea. This was a murderous portage, on a good day.

Finally on Kashipiwi, we discover The Island only moments before a white squall sits down to thunder for a spell. Hard and fast, we’re all soaked through. The storm exhausts itself briefly, enough for us to set up shelter and the impostor of dry space, then it returns. The rain is softer now, but prepared to spend the night.

Day4 (6/29/2005)

Slacking off now in James’ red birthday hammock, I watch through binoculars as two We-no-nahs, followed later by a third, land seven men on shore across the lake. It is perhaps a mile away. Probably not at all near that, but everything is perhaps a mile away when you are in a hammock, on an island, here in this lake. A mile or a damn great deal more. The group has landed by the remains of the ranger station. Scant rumors of a foundation, footprints and mortar crumbs. Deliberately placed on a rock lay a rusted barrel hoop and a quart jar. Left by whom? What? Perhaps the cabin itself rose up from its foundation and walked right into the lake, leaving only these odd clues behind. Perhaps… The lid of the jar is rusted on with age, and through the glass can be seen an unidentifiable substance. Blue and white and crystalline, it reaches the 4oz graduation line, creeping further here and there. Water-Strider and I saw all of this yesterday. I wonder if the seven paddlers, miniature on the far shore, think this is the place to stay the night. If the wind drops at dusk I think we should be able to speak to them across the water. It is still early, maybe they’ve only stopped for second lunch.

30 minutes later;

Another We-no-nah and a tin boat have come down Kashipiwi from the north. The Turbo Beaver makes its third and closest pass, visible for a brief moment over the tree tops far to the Southeast. Yesterday, from the top of the old watchtower we could discern no other sign of human presence – save for the bright red hammock on the island, perhaps a mile away – only well aged forest and lakes like long black fingers reaching to the horizon. Today humanity abounds in relative terms, giving a little peace of mind after all.

Yesterday Water Strider and I could have come to serious harm in any number of fantastic ways with not a human soul in reach for all we knew. (Patches and Trees had taken a day trip of their own, and were long gone to parts unknown. ) Perhaps a sudden unexpected encounter with a large and incensed animal - four distinct species were likely in the area. A slip on moss while ascending a long and sketchy 5.7+ climb with no protection. Electrocution while standing atop the tallest object for a hundred miles or so, which happened to be made of metal. Well, we’re no fools. We take educated risks, we find great joy in this. Praise be to Turbo Beaver!

We had seen the watch tower from our island, rising through the trees on a bluff across the lake, too inviting to pass up. We paddled across the calm waters of Kashipiwi and began bush whacking up a cliff and through tick infested woods. Finally we arrived at the base of the structure. The ladder didn't start right away - we had to climb about twenty feet up the over-sized erector set and traverse a thin steel beam to reach the first rung - then it was another 80 feet or so to the top, where a rickety wooden platform gave us a hexagonal perch about six feet across. No railing, just a little deck, swaying in the wind, 100 feet above the forest floor. At the top we rested, and took it all in. Endless beautiful insolent wilderness. I plucked a couple bear ticks off my inner thighs and flicked them into space.

Returning to the lake, we found Abu, paddling solo. We spent some time fishing here, and had some small success. Too late in the day and too tired to clean the small mouth bass, we released it to continue the life of a fish. I hear tell of old sturgeon in the dark depths of these waters, dwelling in the cold and lonely heart of the ancient, submerged mountains. Great scaly beasts that may live more than a century. I'm glad we didn't catch one of them.

We returned to the island as dusk set in, passing two gorgeous loons on our way across Kashipiwi. Of a species old and mysterious, these birds own the Quetico shores and show little fear of our human intrusions, as if to tell us "We'll be here when you are gone." I hope that this is true. That night, just offshore from our little island, the loons sang wild songs into the small hours. I wish I knew what they sang about.

Day 5 (6/30/2005)
Today I am staying on the island with Dances With Trees. Across the water the landers are now entrenched under a long blue tarpauline. I wonder if they’ll hike to the tower, brave the climb up the swaying ladder, and find the note Water Strider and I left there.

(The rest of this journal was written in Chicago after the trip, as the final two days offered little time for reflection.)

Leaving the comforting hug of the birthday hammock that afternoon, I set to exploring the island. The area of it was roughly three acres. Our base camp was at the top of a long slow rise of roots and stone, a natural staircase with soil filled ledges between the roots. At the bottom of this seventy foot slope was the canoe garage, a perfect little bay some twelve by fifteen feet, sheltered on two sides by sloping granite slabs, shallowing to only a few inches depth and with a fine sand and gravel bottom. On the island side of this bay the root mass overhung the water’s edge, providing a pleasant and welcoming first step ashore. This Northwesterly slope was clear of any undergrowth, probably the result of centuries of use, from early Ojibwe and hearty Voyageurs, to us in our high tech sneakers and fragile skin. Only mighty tall white pines stood here now. We would stay for three nights – the island too fine a place to leave without good reason. Small island camping is the best, but never forget that bears swim well.

The south side of the island was easily reached by a wide path running parallel to the west bank. Here along the path was room for a few more tents. Sudden granite buttresses rose at the end of the path, forming a headwall that dropped instantly to deep dark water. Normally I would have hurled myself off the rock, but I was spooked by the ghostly white fingers of a giant drowned pine, reaching up from the dark abyss, failing to break the surface but for a few feet. The headwall broke from the water into a loosely terraced slope which was covered with dwarf blueberries, and little white flowers that kept the bumble bees busy. Dwarf blueberries? Maybe just normal, not the typical GM variety. I picked about a pint over the course of three hours – this early in the summer each bush could offer only a few fully ripe berries. Yet the most tempting berries dangled out of my reach, growing right off the vertical rock, fifteen feet above the water. I didn't feel like swimming - not today, so I gave up on the berry hunt.

While I was busy on the far side of the island, Dances With Trees spent the day alternating between the hammock and the fishing rod. Abu Patches and Water-Strider had left camp at first light with the intention of running a fifteen to twenty mile loop through the Quetico interior, thereby connecting with passages made in expeditions from seasons past. We expected their return around dinner. Around dinner, however, the weather turned foul and we eventually gave up on keeping a strong fire. We just tried to keep the red beans and rice warm for the return of our friends, and mulled over various contingencies. Soon the rain worsened, and a strong gale began to blow, causing three foot waves to rake from south to north up the length of Kashipiwi, in the direction from which we expected the boys to return. More time passed, and the wind began to howl in the tree tops. We could only hide in our tents, or stand in the dark and driving wet, waiting for some indiscernible sign that they were almost home. We nested our brightest lights in the rocks at the foot of the little bay, hoping to provide a target beacon but only illuminating a narrow patch of the tempest. Around 11pm I thought I heard a shout. And again. The wind? I looked at DWT - he heard it too. The wind was indeed howling, but a third time there it was - no words, just a gutteral call. We ran to the end of the litte bay and shone our lights into the dark rain. Finally I heard paddles striking the gunnels of a canoe, and then actual words. They cried, "Get that light out of my eyes!" I pointed the light towards the calamitous surface of the lake, and soon the kevlar bow of our We-no-nah came into the light, followed by the hunched form of Strider, and then Patches at the stern. The boat was half full of water, within a few minutes of being swamped by the waves. They struck shore and we pulled them out of the water. Later map consultation revealed that they had paddled over 40 miles in fifteen hours, with little more than a couple Cliff bars and a demonic will to fuel them onward. A man's a man, for all that.

A long and much needed night of rest, and we struck camp for the trip out. The weather had improved, slightly. With ambition driving our souls (and thoughts of pizza and beer in Ely, MN) we decided we would paddle out of the park that day. We knew the path, and we had strong motivation. As it happened, however, the weather was much stronger, and utterly indifferent in regards to the pizza and beer. We made it to the last big lake crossing and were greeted by a seething mile of white caps under a wicked headwind. We let the current bank us up on some barren split rocks among several small islets. Taking a break and looking for some moss to nap in, we kept a baleful eye on the water for signs of a clear crossing. The waves were just too big, the wind too strong. To capsize in these conditions surely would mean losing gear, swimming and drifting with the swamped canoe for a few miles until making some random and uninspired landfall, well off course. As if to prove the point we saw two tin boats, probably boy scouts, make a feeble attempt against the wind. Both were swamped within minutes. They barely managed to pull their boats and themselves ashore on a miserable little island half way between us and the far shore. We decided to camp on this dark little patch for the night.

The following day the wind had calmed sufficiently, and we set out for the last ten mile paddle to our first put-in. Nearly sprinting our final portage into Basswood lake, we were driven by a redoubled desire for civilization - showers, hotel beds, a hot tub, maybe seeing a pretty girl or two. We could not paddle hard enough across Basswood. The lenticular clouds looked just like pizzas, the lake itself began to smell like a fine sudsy Northwoods brew. Perhaps because this lake in particular allowed for motorized boat traffic, but whatever gave us that extra push. Finally the dock drew into sight, our arms and backs aching, our canoes driving nearly surfable wake behind us. Dry ground. My filthy SUV. A twenty hour drive to my future wife. Life was good. Our trip had come to an end.

Abu Patches: James Janega
Dances With Trees: Matt Cassidy
Water-Strider: Scott Steiner
Gravel Pit: Damien Geoffrion

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