Lost and Found
As you may or may not know, depending on how faithfully you follow these on-line postings, several months ago we became the proud foster family for a pair of baby desert tortoises that we wound up naming Uno and Dos in honor of our Spanish heritage (our living-in-Tucson heritage, not our actual lineage, which is not Spanish, but is in fact Scottish (Katie) and German (me) and which would have led us to name the tortoises Yin and Twa or Ein and Zwei, depending on whose heritage we wanted to honor). We also named them Uno and Dos because it was catchy and clever (and the names Connor suggested were ridiculous and silly), which is often the goal when coming up with names for animals, although there is a school of thought that animals shouldn't be given names at all because it's confusing to small children who begin to think that animals are people when they're really not, so you should name a duck, Duck or a chicken, Chicken, or a guinea pig, Pig (which is generally what I call whatever guinea pig(s) happen to be residing with us at any given time). Anyhow, these two baby tortoises are very, very adorable because they're little tiny creatures - and because tortoises are kind of cool looking even when they're not little or tiny, and we quickly set about updating our tortoise den so it would be suitable for babies. This involved digging out all the dirt that our dearly-departed-and-still-greatly-missed tortoise, Albert John, had dug into the den, then adding some cinder blocks around the outside so it was enclosed, putting down a layer of pea-gravel, adding a wading pool and some landscaping, and then covering the whole thing in chicken wire so the big bad birds can't swoop in and grab our little critters. Needless to say, the end result was both aesthetically pleasing and practical, and any tortoise would be thrilled to move into such a high-class joint. And so, Uno and Dos moved in and promptly went into hibernation. Every once in awhile, we would check up on them just to see how they were doing, and they were doing just fine until one day about a month or so ago, Katie went out to check on them and discovered that, while we thought they were sleeping, the little imps had actually been cooking up an escape plan. I'm not sure when they did it, but the little sneaks were secretly burrowing under a boulder that made up one of the walls of the enclosure (not sure if they were sneaking out the dirt by carrying it in their pockets, then dumping it on the ground, but I wouldn't put it past them). So when Katie discovered this, she burrowed in after them, and to her dismay, only found one of the tortoises - ironically enough, the one tortoise she found was Uno. Which meant that Dos was missing. She immediately formed up a search party and we wandered around the backyard calling, "Dos, Dos. Wherefore art thou, Dos?" and whistling and making tortoise calling sounds, but much to our dismay, Dos was not to be found. So we fortified our enclosure to keep Uno from following Dos and hoped that Dos would somehow manage to survive in the wild. As stated before, that was about a month or so ago. Well, yesterday afternoon, Carrie was walking out into the backyard and who do you think she spotted sitting by the door? That's right, it was Dos. He was looking kind of scraggly and dirty, but his eyes were shining and he obviously had been having a fine old time wandering around who-knows-where and getting into all kinds of mischief. And so this story has a happy ending because Dos is now back at home with Uno, the enclosure should be escape-proof (we hope), and… okay, I guess there is no and, because that's it.
Living the High Life
Katie and I spent the weekend in Estes Park (Colorado) celebrating cousin Molly's nuptials. It always feels a little surreal to get on a plane in Tucson, where it's pushing 100 degrees, and then a little over an hour later to arrive in Denver, where it's most definitely not in the 100's. Anyway, I suppose the wedding was beautiful and all that junk, but the most important part of all this (okay, the most important part to me, which just goes to show where my priorities lie) was that it gave me a chance to run a goodly portion (18 miles) of the Estes Park Marathon route in preparation for the Estes Park Marathon which I'll be running in about three-and-a-half weeks, and I have to say that the course is absolutely breath-taking. Partly because it's spectacularly beautiful as you wind around lakes, follow mountain streams, gaze up a snow-capped peaks, and pass through and pine/aspen forests and alpine meadows where deer and elk are grazing, and partly/mostly because the elevation is between 7,500 and 8,100 feet, and there's not nearly as much oxygen at 7,500 to 8,100 feet as there is in the "Old Pueblo" (elevation around 2,500 feet) and it's especially breath-taking on the four-mile stretch that goes up from 7,500 feet 8,100 feet. So after huffing and puffing my way around the course, I'm pretty sure I'm not going to set any speed records during this event, which I was pretty much figuring going in, but I'm also pretty sure that this might wind up surpassing the Anchorage Marathon as my favorite and most scenic course.
That does it for this edition, so until next time may your pens remain filled with ink, may your words of wisdom be honored and obeyed, and may your wayward wanderers return safely home (unless you want them to stay away, in which case, I hope they stay away).
Monday, May 18, 2009
Thursday, May 7, 2009
The Heat is On
The iceman cometh…
Here in the "Old Pueblo" we have a tradition which goes back lo those many years and which involves making wagers as to when the "ice will break on the Rillito River." When I first heard about this, I was rather confused - for a couple of different reasons. One was that while the sign next to the Rillito River says, "Rillito River," it doesn't really seem like much of a river, mainly because (except on rare occasions when we get big ol' rainstorms) it doesn't have any water in it. So how can you have a river without water? It's kind of like going to the restaurant and ordering a big ol' juicy hamburger, but then the waiter brings you a bun with no hamburger. Maybe there's a pickle and lettuce and a tomato and an onion slice, but you ordered a hamburger, not a pickle/lettuce/tomato/onion sandwich, right? So you storm out of the restaurant and vow to tell all your friends never to frequent this establishment, and if you're really, really steamed (and of the litigious mindset) you file a lawsuit against the restaurant for extreme mental suffering, which winds up taking over a large portion of your life and leads you down a self-destructive pathway tbat leaves you worse off than you were on that fateful day you walked into the restaurant in the first place. All because of the hamburger-less hamburger. Or the waterless river. And then the second confusing thing is that when I heard the phrase about the "ice breaking" it was May, and when it's May and you're in Tucson, it's generally pretty darned hot, so the only ice that you can find is in your freezer (or in an ice machine at the grocery store). So what was this ice people were talking about? Well, it turns out that they're not really talking about ice at all, and instead are being ironically humorous (as residents of the "Old Pueblo" are known to be) and what the phrase actually is referring to is the first day that the temperature officially goes above 100 degrees. Apparently, that day is today (though I haven't heard the official word yet) and it seems a couple of weeks too early to me, so in honor of the "ice breaking on the Rillito," here is a list of similes to describe exactly how hot it is now that the "ice has broken."
How hot is it?
It's as hot as…
…a sidewalk that's so hot you can fry an egg on it.
…the sun when it's surrounded by about a million other suns that are beating down on the sun with all the power of a million suns.
…a fire that's made out of wood that's been marinating in acid for a really long time (oh wait, that wouldn't work because the acid would eat away the wood, wouldn't it? So let's say it's acid-resistant wood that's been marinating in acid for a really long time).
…a furnace that's filled with that same acid-resistant, acid-marinated wood that's burning like a raging inferno.
…a towering inferno were people are trapped inside and everyone watching the movie is sure they're going to die, and some of them actually do (well, not actually, because it is a movie, after all).
…pepper that's been crushed and grated into little tiny pieces, but then one of the little tiny pieces somehow works its way under your gumline while you're eating so that it burns really bad.
…a piece of metal that's been in a forge for a really long time - but not until it melts - or wait, yeah, it is melted, because that's how hot it is - hot enough to melt metal.
…the hot air that's used to make a hot air balloon rise into the sky, only this hot air is so hot that the hot air balloon just keeps on rising until it leaves the atmosphere and goes into outer space (at which point, it loses its heat and the hot air balloon and everything in it reenter the atmosphere and burn to a crisp because hot air balloons aren't designed with heat shields like space shuttles are).
…the hot seat that you would be sitting on if you were in really bad trouble for doing something that was really bad and then you got caught and somebody had called you into their office and made you sit in the "hot seat."
…the extra hot hot sauce that's green instead of red and that has a warning label that says something like, "Warning, this hot sauce is really hot and may cause extreme discomfort if ingested by anyone who doesn't like really hot hot sauce."
…those little blackish-reddish peppers that come in Szechwan food - you know, the ones that you sometimes accidentally miss and wind up picking up with your chopsticks (if you use chopsticks - I don't because I get too impatient and it takes too long to eat with chopsticks) and putting into your mouth, and when you bite down on it, it feels like your whole mouth is on fire, so you drink a bunch of water, but that doesn't really help, and your face turns red and you start to sweat and it's really, really uncomfortable (though everyone else at your table finds it highly amusing).
…a really hot day in the desert, like when it's May and the temperature has just broken 100 degrees for the first time, and everyone is walking around saying things like, "I guess the ice has broken on the Rillito."
…a black leather car seat when the car has been sitting in the parking lot of the Tucson Mall for a couple of hours in the afternoon on a a really hot day, like the first day of the year when the temperature goes above 100 degrees, and you forget how hot it is because you're still in the "cool-weather mode" so you didn't put up the sun shade, and you're wearing shorts and you hop into the car and sit down without thinking about it.
…a big steaming bowl of five-alarm chili that's been cooking all day - at a high enough heat that it's bubbling, and then you take the bowl and put it in the microwave for a couple of more minutes, and when you pull the bowl out it's so hot that it burns the tips of your fingers, and when you put a spoon into the chili, it's so hot that it melts the metal so you have to tip the bowl out and pour it into your mouth, which is a really bad idea because anything that's hot enough to melt a spoon can't be good for your digestive system.
…a steaming vat of hot water that's been sitting over a roaring fire for so long that all the water has boiled away and all that's left at the bottom is a scorch mark and some mineral deposits.
…the planet Earth after the level of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere reaches a high enough level to create an extreme greenhouse effect that melts all the polar icecaps and raises the level of the oceans and wipes out all the coastal areas and makes large swaths of land uninhabitable, changing life as we know it forevermore.
…the bottoms of your feet when you go walking down a street on a really hot day when the sun is beating down on the blacktop and heatwaves are creating mirages on the horizon and buzzards are circling overhead and you're starting to hallucinate because you've got a mild case of heatstroke.
…my high school senior picture - which was displayed for my 8th grade class during a student presentation today thanks to my lovely wife who conspired with one of my students to provide secret information about me to that student, who then shared that information (in the form of a poem) with the aforementioned 8th grade class along with the aforementioned photo during her aforementioned presentation.
Okay, I could probably come up with a few more, but you get the idea (if you stuck around through all that mish-mash). So until next time, may your prose be purple, may your knots be tangled, and may your jellybeans come in all your favorite flavors.
Here in the "Old Pueblo" we have a tradition which goes back lo those many years and which involves making wagers as to when the "ice will break on the Rillito River." When I first heard about this, I was rather confused - for a couple of different reasons. One was that while the sign next to the Rillito River says, "Rillito River," it doesn't really seem like much of a river, mainly because (except on rare occasions when we get big ol' rainstorms) it doesn't have any water in it. So how can you have a river without water? It's kind of like going to the restaurant and ordering a big ol' juicy hamburger, but then the waiter brings you a bun with no hamburger. Maybe there's a pickle and lettuce and a tomato and an onion slice, but you ordered a hamburger, not a pickle/lettuce/tomato/onion sandwich, right? So you storm out of the restaurant and vow to tell all your friends never to frequent this establishment, and if you're really, really steamed (and of the litigious mindset) you file a lawsuit against the restaurant for extreme mental suffering, which winds up taking over a large portion of your life and leads you down a self-destructive pathway tbat leaves you worse off than you were on that fateful day you walked into the restaurant in the first place. All because of the hamburger-less hamburger. Or the waterless river. And then the second confusing thing is that when I heard the phrase about the "ice breaking" it was May, and when it's May and you're in Tucson, it's generally pretty darned hot, so the only ice that you can find is in your freezer (or in an ice machine at the grocery store). So what was this ice people were talking about? Well, it turns out that they're not really talking about ice at all, and instead are being ironically humorous (as residents of the "Old Pueblo" are known to be) and what the phrase actually is referring to is the first day that the temperature officially goes above 100 degrees. Apparently, that day is today (though I haven't heard the official word yet) and it seems a couple of weeks too early to me, so in honor of the "ice breaking on the Rillito," here is a list of similes to describe exactly how hot it is now that the "ice has broken."
How hot is it?
It's as hot as…
…a sidewalk that's so hot you can fry an egg on it.
…the sun when it's surrounded by about a million other suns that are beating down on the sun with all the power of a million suns.
…a fire that's made out of wood that's been marinating in acid for a really long time (oh wait, that wouldn't work because the acid would eat away the wood, wouldn't it? So let's say it's acid-resistant wood that's been marinating in acid for a really long time).
…a furnace that's filled with that same acid-resistant, acid-marinated wood that's burning like a raging inferno.
…a towering inferno were people are trapped inside and everyone watching the movie is sure they're going to die, and some of them actually do (well, not actually, because it is a movie, after all).
…pepper that's been crushed and grated into little tiny pieces, but then one of the little tiny pieces somehow works its way under your gumline while you're eating so that it burns really bad.
…a piece of metal that's been in a forge for a really long time - but not until it melts - or wait, yeah, it is melted, because that's how hot it is - hot enough to melt metal.
…the hot air that's used to make a hot air balloon rise into the sky, only this hot air is so hot that the hot air balloon just keeps on rising until it leaves the atmosphere and goes into outer space (at which point, it loses its heat and the hot air balloon and everything in it reenter the atmosphere and burn to a crisp because hot air balloons aren't designed with heat shields like space shuttles are).
…the hot seat that you would be sitting on if you were in really bad trouble for doing something that was really bad and then you got caught and somebody had called you into their office and made you sit in the "hot seat."
…the extra hot hot sauce that's green instead of red and that has a warning label that says something like, "Warning, this hot sauce is really hot and may cause extreme discomfort if ingested by anyone who doesn't like really hot hot sauce."
…those little blackish-reddish peppers that come in Szechwan food - you know, the ones that you sometimes accidentally miss and wind up picking up with your chopsticks (if you use chopsticks - I don't because I get too impatient and it takes too long to eat with chopsticks) and putting into your mouth, and when you bite down on it, it feels like your whole mouth is on fire, so you drink a bunch of water, but that doesn't really help, and your face turns red and you start to sweat and it's really, really uncomfortable (though everyone else at your table finds it highly amusing).
…a really hot day in the desert, like when it's May and the temperature has just broken 100 degrees for the first time, and everyone is walking around saying things like, "I guess the ice has broken on the Rillito."
…a black leather car seat when the car has been sitting in the parking lot of the Tucson Mall for a couple of hours in the afternoon on a a really hot day, like the first day of the year when the temperature goes above 100 degrees, and you forget how hot it is because you're still in the "cool-weather mode" so you didn't put up the sun shade, and you're wearing shorts and you hop into the car and sit down without thinking about it.
…a big steaming bowl of five-alarm chili that's been cooking all day - at a high enough heat that it's bubbling, and then you take the bowl and put it in the microwave for a couple of more minutes, and when you pull the bowl out it's so hot that it burns the tips of your fingers, and when you put a spoon into the chili, it's so hot that it melts the metal so you have to tip the bowl out and pour it into your mouth, which is a really bad idea because anything that's hot enough to melt a spoon can't be good for your digestive system.
…a steaming vat of hot water that's been sitting over a roaring fire for so long that all the water has boiled away and all that's left at the bottom is a scorch mark and some mineral deposits.
…the planet Earth after the level of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere reaches a high enough level to create an extreme greenhouse effect that melts all the polar icecaps and raises the level of the oceans and wipes out all the coastal areas and makes large swaths of land uninhabitable, changing life as we know it forevermore.
…the bottoms of your feet when you go walking down a street on a really hot day when the sun is beating down on the blacktop and heatwaves are creating mirages on the horizon and buzzards are circling overhead and you're starting to hallucinate because you've got a mild case of heatstroke.
…my high school senior picture - which was displayed for my 8th grade class during a student presentation today thanks to my lovely wife who conspired with one of my students to provide secret information about me to that student, who then shared that information (in the form of a poem) with the aforementioned 8th grade class along with the aforementioned photo during her aforementioned presentation.
Okay, I could probably come up with a few more, but you get the idea (if you stuck around through all that mish-mash). So until next time, may your prose be purple, may your knots be tangled, and may your jellybeans come in all your favorite flavors.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)