Hot August night

In just over two weeks we'll be leaving for Guatemala. It is no comfort to me that it is now hurricane season in the Caribbean and we are headed in that general direction. As always, I am the reluctant traveler but I am also excited. We have been getting ready for a couple of weeks already making lists, stacking and sorting piles of clothes and gear on the floor. This weekend I am going to pack my backpack and see how how heavy it is, how much room is left. All that. We are already running out of time. Our silk travel sheets arrived today. They come highly recommended. They're light, 6.3 oz, and are supposed to be an effective barrier against bed bugs and other nastiness associated with cheap rooms.


I have been cutting back on the seed in the Bird Park to prepare the birds for when we leave but the place has been hopping anyway. Pigeons cram the tubs bathing in flocks then doze in the sun. They are unique. Other birds come and go, with always an eye for death from above, but the pigeons relax and air their wings. Even sleep. I love them for it. And the quail are back, all ages. I have seen no sign of the hawk but there was some excitement this afternoon when a couple of young males had a real chest bumper. It went on for about ten minutes. That's long in quail time. All in all, the scene outside my window has been a rollicking bird circus but two days after we leave it will be empty, only an occasional bird dropping by on the chance that somehow the feeders are full again. And so it will be for months. I hate that part about going away.

Obama was fantastic in Denver. They all were. I love Biden. Clinton and Clinton were heros. Michelle Obama outstanding. Wonderful. So we shall see...

It's a hot August night here in Nevada. Crickets trilling away in the dark.

Back it up

Still reeling from losing so many files yesterday. After a night's sleep, I remember more clearly just what got sucked into the Big Black Hole in the middle of cyberspace. Every time this happens I die a little inside. And whatwhatwhat have I learned this time?

Hmmmmmmm..........?

BACK IT UP, asshole. On a regular basis. Oh and... check the back up, honey.

My big mistake rescuing files from the crashed hard drive? Didn't check to make sure files transferred properly. Lovely. I can blame microsoft. Their crappy "copy" feature, after all. But that's useless. So. Have I learned this time? Back_it_up.

Now will I do what I tell other people to do? Who's sorry now? Oh goodie. I get to practice detachment and renewal. Pruning is good for the soul.

Shit.

Thanks Hillary

"No way! No how! No McCain!"

Meltdown

M. Lee rebuilt my computer today while I was in Reno. It crashed several weeks ago. I thought I had backed up all my files... but no. I missed an entire directory. Lovely. Makes me crazy. Okay, it's a lesson in detachment. Crazy. That's how I feel tonight. I'm in a reverse spin. And I lost another batch of files that didn't copy properly, including the one with my Firefox settings. Poof. So now I will have to spend x time tweaking and customizing my browser. My fault for not checking. I have learned nothing if I haven't learned to check and double check everything. So. That's it. I hope your day went better.

Laddu and the crow

Yesterday was Janmashtami, Krsna's birthday, and we attended the festivities which were held at a Buddhist temple in Reno. Great food. Interesting mix of people, mostly Indians. Seems the majority were there for the Rishi, a tiny, handsome, songbird of a fellow in town for the week raising money for his charity in India. We were there because some ISKCON devotees, in town for Burning Man, were sharing the evening and the microphone. Couldn't resist.


There was kirtan (chanting). I played my kartals (brass hand cymbals). That was a treat even though it all stayed pretty tame. And we endured a couple of canned lectures, the most egregious being the devotee from ISKCON. I know the phony Indian accent and hand-me-down metaphors are considered parampara but really... the less talking, the more chanting the better. Anyway, the feast was delicious.

Then, just as we were leaving, M. Lee got into a conversation with a young guy from Krishna Camp, the group attending Burning Man. He was born in ISKCON. His parents are still there. Nice fellow. Clear-eyed. Friendly. Curious. Turns out I know, knew, his guru, before he became a sannyas. Radanath. Krishna Camp is his creation. M. Lee did a little online research this morning. Seems I, as one of the Brijbasi Players theatre troupe, was part of Radanatha's first road tour. That was at the Rainbow Festival, precursor to Burning Man et cetera. 1980. Ironically the following year, when eight of us, the press, were preparing to leave the movement Radanath, who later became known as the Rainbow Swami, was sent by the temple to dissuade us, knowing we trusted him. We left anyway. Long story. Dangerous times. Then the temple authorities sent him to New York to track us down. Last night, for me, was 27 years later.


Janmashtami kirtan, Reno



~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~



I brought home a laddu from the feast for the birds. Prasadam. Holy food. If the story is true, one bite guarantees a human birth in the next incarnation. That would explain Bush, Cheney, McCain, Gonzo and the rest of those bastards. In their last time around they were probably a pack of alley rats with a dumpster behind a Krishna temple on their rounds and nibbled a crumb or two of prasadam along the way. Anyway, the crows were wild about the laddu. Charlie clucked and cajoled all morning demanding more. He finally gave up on sweet talking me and just sat in the poplar tree squawking at my window. Clown. I had to go out and tell him to cool it. Neighbors, ya know. Gets us both in trouble.

River dog's life

River dog riding the bus for a day on the river.

Jeff Heathcock really gets it right. If I ran the world, this is exactly how things would be.

"I just want them to feel like they are having their own life".

It's a dog's life.

Red River Canoe Rental

Spiders and bees

I felt like this all day.










Why did the bee die in the flower? Photo from my garden. No. I do not use pesticides.

Old Guy Hills

I suspect that the quail the hawk made off with the other morning was the mother of one of the families in the Bird Park. Yesterday, after the hawk grabbed someone, the quail laid low all day but today one of the families made an appearance in the afternoon lured, I imagine, by the tasty thistle seed the sparrows drop on the ground. But there was no mother in the covey. The father kept watch alone and when the family was done eating and perched on the fence, he climbed back up into Old Guy Hills and walked its ridges, back and forth, looking, listening, waiting. Quail mate for life so, if she is dead, it is his great loss and I am sad for him.

His mood reminded me of an elderly gentleman I met in a park when I was a young girl, just married. He had recently buried his wife. We talked briefly. I wanted to comfort him but he was inconsolable. He was so polite. Thanked me. I sputtered a few trite things like, "I'm sorry" and went on my way.


Why should calamity be full of words? - Shakespeare

Dirty business

A friend emailed me this little fable the other day which seems worthy of passing along.

Young Chuck, moved to Texas and bought a donkey from a farmer for $100.00. The farmer agreed to deliver the donkey the next day. The next day he drove up and said, 'Sorry son, but I have some bad news, the donkey died.'

Chuck replied, 'Well, then just give me my money back.'

The farmer said, 'Can't do that. I went and spent it already.'

Chuck said, 'Ok, then, just bring me the dead donkey.'

The farmer asked, 'What ya gonna do with him?

Chuck said, 'I'm going to raffle him off.'

The farmer said, 'You can't raffle off a dead donkey!'

Chuck said, 'Sure I can. Watch me. I just won't tell anybody he's dead.'

A month later, the farmer met up with Chuck and asked, 'What happened with that dead donkey?'

Chuck said, 'I raffled him off. I sold 500 tickets at two dollars a piece and made a profit of $898.00.'

The farmer said, 'Didn't anyone complain?'

Chuck said, 'Just the guy who won. So I gave him his two dollars back.'

Chuck grew up and became a corporate lawyer.

***

I changed the ending. Originally it went, "Chuck grew up and now works for the government." I think the new ending is more reflective of the times. After all, corporations now run America through their lobbyists and lawyers are siphoning off everything, nailed down or not.

It's been trying to rain all day but the desert never does get much of a break. The wind came up. It grew dark. Temperatures dropped. A few drops fell then it passed. Even that was some relief. Not many birds came by today. No quail. Now at sunset the Pine Nut range to the west and the clouds sweeping overhead are both orange against a blue sky and the wind is up again but still no rain. The neighbor across the street comes out like the coo-coo from a clock to hand water his lawn. His face is red as raw meat. He doesn't notice me sitting in the grass. He looks like he somehow managed to swallow a large fitness ball then re-inflated it. His stomach and ass are one perfectly round protuberance. And so he stands, hose in hand, swaying in the grass. Still no rain.

Life and death in the Bird Park

Lots of commotion in the Bird Park this morning after a hawk burst out of a tree. By the keen lament that followed, I'd say she managed to grab one of the quail. Currently, a couple of large families spend a lot of time here. These guys scurry after one another in a constant effort to stay together. They define the tight-knit family. The youngsters even nap cuddled in row touching, as their parents keep watch. So this morning the family huddled beneath the lilac bush and mourned and we mourned with them, coffee cups in hand, watching through the window, knowing somewhere the hawk was feeding her children, and that was good, but taking no pleasure in any of it.


Quail dust bath party, 2006

Thornburg Canyon

I'm beat. We did an eight hour hike in the Sierra today, eleven miles over a 2500 ft. elevation gain. That's slow but I don't care. It's not like I punch a time clock in the forest. Today's destination was a saddleback at 8400 ft located at the top of Thornburg Canyon. Great views of valleys and mountains beyond mountains. Even a cobalt blue lake nestled in a far away forest. I found some petrified wood along the ridge, a generally unfriendly place for trees given the beating of wind and weather, but who knows what conditions were like there a million years ago? I picked up four chunks but on our way down gave one to a mammoth tree under which we stopped to rest. This tree must have been at least thousand years old itself and still robust. It is an honor to take shelter of a being who has witnessed the passing of so many centuries. I felt very safe and extremely small, like a firefly. Photos to follow but at the moment I am lying on the bed with my laptop ... winding down ... listening to crickets .... looking forward to sleep.

After five

Tonight, having written nothing new, all I have for today is a fragment from a notebook sitting nearby.

Photo source: Trevor's Blog

half in
half out
turning around
to better see
who
what
I am becoming
or is that you
coming after
consuming me
as I go?

Insane

Seattle walkabout, part 4

Fisherman's Terminal - Salmon Bay, Seattle

The docks at Fisherman Terminal   were home briefly in my twenties.
It wasn't a good time in my life

so during our recent trip to Seattle

I had to visit the place again,

put old ghosts to rest or perhaps

bring them home.

They are welcome with me.

"Glorified One" by Leo Kenney
Taken at Seattle Art Museum, July '08

Salon mouseover madness

Slate has published a very cool mouseover diagramming the roles a few people in the Bush Administration played in five of the many high crimes and misdemeanors committed during the Republican reign of terror. It's fun, in a gallows humor kind of way. Check it out.


Slate mouseover crimes and misdemeanors Bush Gonzales Cheney

Dog years

See it? Don't miss it.

Synopsis: "Ben 39, Leo, castrated mongrel needs love, G.S.O.H essential."


DOG YEARS


Link to Dog Years 2. "It's definitely a dog day afternoon for one mutt who gets a surprise visit from his vet's finger."

Official Dog Years site here.

Sink hole

Whew! I thought my camera died this morning but this test photo confirms otherwise. I did, however, fail the first maxim of troubleshooting. Always begin at the simplest, most obvious point. After much mucking about, M. Lee came in, pulled the battery and reseated it. Thank you, Mr. Lee.

And it's not just me that gets in a cluster fuck over thinking things. I knew a guy who drove himself beyond despair wrestling with a fucked up computer. He couldn't, wouldn't, take a break and come back fresh the next day. He had wrestled with it for three long days by the time I dropped by. I can take no credit for solving the problem. It was pure luck and, in fact, it even seemed to make matters worse when I happened to notice that the damn thing was just switched off.


But sadly, half way through the year, I have blown my New Year's resolution to keep my office organized. My other desk is in no better shape. In fact, I am surrounded by desks and they are all cluttered. This is very bad. My office is a sink hole. I had a little reprieve in Seattle but the minute we got back home, I fell into my old ways, go to Huffpo and comment, check my blog stats, back to Huffpo, comment, Daily Kos, stats, tinker with photos, stats, blog post, stats, email, stats... It was so much easier in Seattle. I actually made some progress on a poem I've been working on for a while. I am in big fat RUT. When I'm alone, I'm in bad company. Set it here. Lay it there. Pick it up in a minute. Lies. All lies. And I fall for it every time. I hope that when, if, we go to Central America this fall, I will shake off some of this crust. When all else fails, travel.

Lonesome George

We're home from Seattle to Lonesome George calling from the rooftop. I've never mentioned him before, though I've meant to. Lonesome George is the one poor fellow who does not have a mate this year. He spends a lot of time on the rooftops calling out over the valley while the quail couples wiggle and snuggle in their dirt baths below. The one mitigating thought I have is that Lonesome George could fly away and win a mate somewhere else if he wanted to. Perhaps he likes his home more? It is pretty sweet between Dwayne's giant, sprawling willow tree of life and the Bird Park. It is good to be home.

Frank and Sukie

I couldn't resist teasing Frank and Sukie with toast the other morning but they know I'll succumb to their charms and share bites so are quite willing to play along with the game.

UPDATE: I did an annotated version if this video but it only plays on YouTube.


Tasty bites

Seattle seagull french fry party

Seagulls love french fries and I like feeding them. Together we make a perfect loop.



UPDATE:
As Don mentioned in the comments, the party's at Ivar's. I should have included that. So go there. The seagulls are waiting.

Seattle walkabout, part 1

Seattle hillside in the spring.

The dogs and us are finally settled into something of a routine here in Seattle. We have become a tight little pack taking lots of walks and even a few rides in the car for good measure. That's the high point, even for Frank who, I am told, doesn't generally like going in the car. We are flattered. Plus M. Lee and I have managed to take long walks on our own nearly every day, mile upon winding mile, so here are a few more photos from those.

Seattle Public Library. I've posted photos of both their weird escalator art and the delicious red hallway during other visits here. They are part of my regular loop. The face in the elevator was not particularly welcoming but I took her picture anyway.

Also, this rust stain on the sidewalk in Chinatown caught my eye. It looked like a forlorn ghost which made me think of my grandfather who used to live in this neighborhood during the final days of his alcoholic life.

Then this hotel lobby also seemed haunted. Perhaps my grandfather stayed here from time to time during those last sad years, when he could afford a room. In my mind's eye, I could see him carefully descending the stair, hand on the railing, briefcase in hand, going out into the day to sell ballpoint pens from from it. Five for a dollar. We used to correspond occasionally.Perhaps a letter from me was waiting for him behind the desk when he came back in the evening.

You gonna eat all that?

But none of this seems to occur to Suki or Frank. Dogs are good company for a melancholic like me.

Science and the art of making dogs smile

We are at my brother's house in Seattle for the next few weeks, taking care of his dogs Frank and Suki, while he attends a conference in the UK. The weather is fine. Earlier this month the area made headlines for being "colder than Siberia", but not this week. Heat wave and clear blue skies. Even Mt. Ranier is out. Lucky us. It's 40 degrees cooler in Southampton. I feel kind of bad for my brother and his wife but hey, they're Seattleites. They may not even notice. So I'm sitting in his office staring at the titles on the bookshelf. However I arrange them in my mind, they suggest strange poetry.

The Elements... An Eternal Golden Braid... Rat's, Lice and History... The Origins of Order.... Catastrophe Theory... Turing's Delirium... Fermat's Enigma... Complexity... Something Under the Bed is Drooling... Fractals, Chaos, Power Laws... Chaos... Catastrophe... The Curse of Madame C... The Collapse of Chaos... Ecological Time Series... The Biology of Mind... Cognitive Ecology... Neurophilosophy... The Organic Machine... The Mathematics of Behavior... Principia... The Mismeausre of Man... Evolution of Life Histories... The Curse of Lono... Evolutionary Games and Population Dynamics... Endangered Species Recovery... Complex Stochastic Systems... Artificial Worlds... A Brief History of Time... The Future of Life... Tree Huggers... Groping in the Dark... Silent Spring... and this gem

The Great Salmon Hoax

Opening to a random page, I find my brother looking back at me from Chapter 7, The Rise of the Flow Theorists and the Fall of Science. Turns out he's one of the good guys after all. (The Flow Theorists being the bad guys, of course.)

First I need to establish one point. No matter what, I love my brother. So. When we were kids, we had a running debate, science — progress VS poetry — enlightenment. Occasionally it even got physical but then he also resorted to underhanded things to make his point, like setting a pan of chemicals on fire in the middle of my bedroom floor or tricking me into sniffing a concoction that smelled like farts. When we were in high school, I had an infuriating argument with him and the incredibly immature science teacher who lived across the street. They smugly claimed that science was superior because, one day, science would make X-ray sunglasses that would enable them to see though women's clothing. Turns out they were right, only it's the creepy government doing the X-ray spying and they are peeking through everyone's clothes.

Of course, when we grew up, the great debate became a running joke. We stopped looking at our differences and started focusing on our similarities but, given that he was (and is) the Principal Investigator Director of Columbia Basin Research at the University of Washington, I couldn't help but see him as one of the contributors to the river's salmon disaster. After all, the BPA (Bonneville Power Association), cut the grant checks and they are a murky government institution resentful of hippy-dippy concerns like eco-sustainability. But The Great Salmon Hoax brought me up to date on all that.

"Dr. Anderson is a chief target of the salmon managers, who have never forgiven him for producing CRiSP runs that showed that their salmon measures made no sense, and for proving that their FLUSH model made no sense either."

And this delicious comment:

"But mere ad hominem attacks have not silenced all the critics. Some, like Dr. Anderson, are even spurred to greater efforts."

Way to go, little brother! Too bad I read about it first in a book but then I suppose this still is a bit of a touchy subject between us.

But back to the Great Salmon Hoax.

"Recognizing the need to silence the pesky scientists in Seattle once and for all, the state and tribal harvest managers are in the process of slowly attempting to take over the most critical salmon research in the Columbia Basin, the efforts to measure survival through the river using PIT-tags."

To which my brother responded:

"The proposal lacks an ecological framework, ignores biological mechanisms, mathematical formalism, and hypothesis testing" adding that, "the experiment is beyond the capabilities of the Fish Passage Center, and that its "principal investigator, Michele DeHart, has no track record in research".

Just for measure, Al Gore agrees with him and the other pesky Seattle scientists, seeing them as part of the:

"solid base of support for the difficult actions we must soon take."

Now I understand. I asked Jim awhile ago how the salmon were doing. Yes. I admit it. I was being a bitch. He replied in very tired voice, "Oh... that river is hopeless. Better to just helicopter the fish somewhere else and start over."

Sad. At this point, even the oceans themselves, and all their vast and wondrous life is suffering under the boot of human stupidity and greed and rapidly approaching a condition from which there is no return.

Dinner party

"Go, go, go, said the bird:
human kind cannot bear very
much reality."
~ Burnt Norton, T.S. Elliot

Elliot was right, so back to the library. I think, after all, that this is one of the most important books on the shelf...

97 Ways to make a Dog Smile

#74 Call of the Wild
Make it a ritual during each full moon (or anytime you feel like it) to join your dog outside for a no-holds-barred howling session. Letting loose with a great howl is a liberating release for both of you."

Email to Suki and Frank
Date: Sun, Jun 29, 2008 at 10:21 AM
Subject: woolf woolf

dear sukie and frank

we are in england - its a bit further across the lake from where we walked the other day. we visited a place called stonehenge today, it's a big circle of stones. From the best I can make out it is a ancient dog pee circle where the old dogs of old england would meet and exchange p-mail, You would really like it. And you could explain to me all about the messages left on the stones over 21,000 years, that's dog years of course.

I hear its hot in seattle, please keep cool and don't let asha and lee get lost in the park.

love the boss

Coin of the realm

We are off to Seattle for a few weeks to babysit my brother's dogs. I'd like to leave you with something besides political rants, photos of tombstones, secondhand store anomalies, and videos of crows eating naan but no time to search out this tiny world for something different. I will do my best, however, to entertain you from Seattle. In the meantime, here's a short movie based on tech support horror stories. Enjoy. Now, I've got to chop some peanuts for the 7 o'clock magpie. These days, she comes at 8. Birds aren't on daylight savings time, you know.

I leave you with a coin of the realm. Do with it as you will.

Bush can't buy a wave

Bush just can't believe these two guys won't wave back so, abandoning the Presidential facade, he gives them a second wave, this one designed to intimidate, if not charm, them into waving back but again... no response. Unable to let it go, he tries a third time to get their acknowledgment but they never give.


Ha ha, asshole.