Category: big weather

Sometimes Words Just Don’t Get It

This morning, I sat quietly at my desk thinking about an appropriate blog post for this warm Friday.

A post that would wrap up all that went down this week, the highs, the lows, the heat, the headaches.

I found that I just didn’t have all the words to put together in a nice clean way that would properly explain it all.

So I had a bright idea. I would get my camera out and I would take a photo.

One photo that would explain it all. A visual metaphor for the week.

So I got my gear and I polished up the lens, checked battery levels, and figured I’d go outside to take the snap.

As I worked, I thought about potential shots in my head…

A wilted red rose on a drooping bush, weary in the heat?

A great macro photo of the beat up stop sign at the end of the road?

You know…something arty like that.

With camera ready, I turned and aimed the lens out my window to be sure it was working.

That’s when I saw the perfect image.

The image that properly describes everything that went by this week. A week that a former coworker would refer to as “being pulled through the knothole.”

Yup.

Here it is. I had to go no further than the table in front of the window to find my muse.

Yes, she’s awake. No, I don’t know why she’s laying there like that. She held that position for quite some time.

Right before rolling over and falling off the table, then getting stuck behind it.

If that’s not a metaphor, I don’t know what is.

A boy scout, I am not…

“Be prepared.”

Yup, that is the motto to which all those two-finger-holder-upper kids with the yellow kerchief around their necks swear to every chance they get.

Ah yes, be prepared. Think ahead. Plan your next move. Expect the worst and all that.

Sometimes, as the grown up I’ve become, I’m quite prepared. Oh I’m thinking about “what’s the worst that could happen and how will I take my bacon back outta the fire when it does.”

And then there are the days where the gas tank light is on and the needle quivers over the E and I forgot the tickets for the event I’m attending and I can’t put my shoes on the correct feet.

So which was it on Sunday? You see, by the good grace of the baseball gods, I had some of the best seats in the major league stadium where I like to watch my favorite baseball team play. On this day of interleague play, my Giants are facing their across the Bay rivals.

Ooh baby! I’m ready! I’m prepared!

Tickets? Got ’em right here.

Gas? Plenty!

Sunglasses? Yes.

Spending cash for ballpark schwag. Certainly!

Portable radio already set to KNBR? Heck yeah!

Cool clothing for the warm day? Check.

Jacket in case it cools off? Sure.

Parking pass? Without a doubt.

Hooray! I’ve got it wired tight!

Off we go! We get to the park and plop into our seats that are THISCLOSE to the field and oooh, there’s the players almost close enough to touch and what a beautiful day and rock ooooon!

So the game is starting, and what do I do?

Well, I’m a burgeoning photographer! I pull out my carefully packed camera and my 75-300 lens that will get me RIGHT in the middle of the action!

Yes! I even remembered to charge my battery! And the spare battery too!

This is gonna be so great! I’m going to wow the world with these shots! I will win awards! There will be accolades! I will get my invite to be an AP photographer with open access to the camera well on the field.

I am a rock star!!!

And so I begin to snap some photos, looking to take light levels and see about making adjustments for this bright sunlight.

Click goes the shutter.

And click once more.

Then I hit that little play button to review the shots.

And the camera says on its pretty little LCD screen:

No CF card,

NO CF CARD?!?!?!? What the seventeen kinds of sam hell does this damn camera mean no cf card?

And then I remember…

I left the memory card on my desk at home.

I was feeling sooooo Captain Prepared that I was going to do a full clean off of the memory card, reformat and be ready for the game.

Except I forgot to do that with all my attention on all the other careful pre-game preparations.

Uh. Whoops.

So you see, here’s that amazing shot of Aubrey Huff at the plate right before he hit that first homerun:

Oh wait…

And that amazing shot of Pablo Sandoval taking a walk:

Yeah, no.

And that fabulous look of concentration while Andres Torres runs like a cheetah around the bases!

Heh. Nope.

Be prepared.

Be fracking prepared!

BE PREPARED DAMN IT!

Prepared, my ass…….

Anyone for a Mojito?

So let’s see, I moved to this odd and fascinating Golden State of California in 1997.

This is now 2010…

So that would make it…let’s see, do the math…carry the one…

Ah yes. Thirteen years that I’ve lived here.

Thirteen. That’s a lucky number!

And you’d think that in thirteen years I would have arrived at the place where I no longer pick hayseeds out of my hair.

You’d think.

But you’d be wrong.

What a yokel I am.

Here’s the latest.

Brace yourself for another backyard adventure.

Today I was out in my side yard. There is this scrubby, invasive, grows too fast tree/bush thing out there that I *hate*.

It’s so unlike me to have vitriol for something that is only a plant. But I do.

So I was out there hacking away at the damn thing because if I don’t stay on top of it, soon it will grow taller than my roof and the neighbors will complain. It tends to invade the nextdoor neighbors yard as well.

Ticks me off.

So I trim the crap out of it.

Here’s how it looks now:

Never fear, oh mighty plant lovers. In a month it will be back at roof height. Gawd I hate that thing!

Anyhoo. After I was done committing gross violence to a bush/tree type a deal, I looked down and saw a few huge weeds. Well…I had my gloves on and the ground was soft, so I started wiggling them durn weeds out by the root.

At one point, I noticed a row of different looking weeds growing from the crack where the outside wall of the house meets concrete.

So I gave them a hearty tug.

Suddenly, all I could smell was this minty odor. I smelled my hands. Leather gloves and mint.

Weird.

So I took a small plant sample inside so I could Google it.

Sure enough. We have mint growing wild in our yard

I have no idea where this came from and I don’t recall mint growing in the yard before. It just, I don’t know, appeared out of nowhere this year.

Look, I’m from New Mexico. I’m used to coaxing things to grow in the yard with a lot of vigor and pleading.

Not here. This sh*t just grows wild! There ya go! Something magical. Didn’t even have to try.

Next up on the list of fruits ripening in my untended backyard:

Figs!

Yes! Love fresh figs.

I’m ready for ’em!

Anyhow. This has been a very big day. Maybe I need a nap.

Oh, and in closing…this for my friend Natalie who likes bird of paradise.

That’s a biggun!

I swear to god that thing blooms all year long. That shouldn’t happen. And yet..it does.

The Power of Evaporative Cooling

You know, growing up in the high desert, the weather gets hot. Real hot, like high nineties and occasionally slipping up over 100 degrees.

And people joke all the time about, “well at least it’s a dry heat!”

And inevitably someone will make a scoffing noise and say that “dry heat” doesn’t matter.

I’m here to say…it matters.

It matters to me, anyway.

About three weeks ago, I was in Las Cruces.

The temperatures hovered in the high eighties, touching 90 at one point. The humidity was 7%.

It was fantastic!

I basked. I was like a salamander on a rock. I looooved every moment of it.

Yesterday, in the part of the Bay Area where I live, it topped out at a bold 77 degrees.

Yes, just a small 77 degrees.

With 84% humity.

I almost died.

Well, ok, no. I didn’t almost die. But I felt like I was gonna.

Look, the human body was made to be an evaporative cooling device.

You sweat, either the wind blows across the sweat or the air evaporates it, or, ideally, both, and your body manages to maintain a good temperature.

Add an indoor a/c unit and a glass of iced tea into the mix, and those warm summer days are quite tolerable!

At almost eighty degrees with NOTHING helping me dry the sweat and every frappin’ place I go (including my own home) has NO air conditioning (zero, ziltch, nada)…well, I had only a cool glass of iced tea to get through the day.

It wasn’t enough.

I. Was. Miserable.

I actually was *grateful* for the fog rolling in around 4:00. Thank gawd for that Bay Area temperature inversion that I usually curse!

As sweat poured off of me, I could feel the wind ahead of the fog and the temps dropped fast and I enjoyed the peace I hadn’t been able to find all day.

Today promises much of the same. I shall position myself directly in front of a fan and not move around much.

The Good Man likes to tease…..”Oh you, my Woman of the Desert*…where’s your heat tolerance now?”

It’s back where it might be very, very hot…but at least it’s a dry heat!

*That’s a reference to the book “The Alchemist” which I found neither spiritual nor interesting. The main female characters says that about herself…a lot. “I am a Woman of the Desert”….yeah. Whatever, sister. I am a Woman of the Red Couch. Hear my Cheetos roar.

Oh my mortality

I had a doctor’s visit this morning. Nothing special, just a routine check up for blood pressure and all of that.

My doctor was running late so I had some time to sit and entertain myself.

When all my email was read on the iPhone and I’d caught up on Twitter, I started people watching. You know, people watching at a medical center is quite a thing. You see a lot…

Anyhow, pretty soon, a nurse came down the hall pushing an elderly man in a wheelchair.

They came into our waiting area and the nurse helped the man to get up onto his feet, and he then took a few steps with the aid of a cane.

As he shakily got to his feet, he said to the young nurse, “Who would have thought it would come to this, eh?”

He said it in a wry way, but it carried a deep note of sadness.

The man was, by all appearances, pretty healthy. He was probably in his late seventies and from what I could see, was suffering a very bad hip.

The nurse helped the man get settled into the seat, with a groan.

He gave me a weary smile and I smiled back.

The nurse said to the man, as she departed, “one of my patients told me that his best advice was simply this: just don’t get old.”

“Yes, certainly,” said the man, with a sigh.

The whole exchange made me a bit melancholy. I remember when my dad struggled with rapidly advancing lung disease. His mind was fine but his body crapped out on him way too early.

How angry that must make a person, your legs, your lungs, your eyes, your whatever body part you want to name just doesn’t work like you know it should.

Ugh.

And me. Still fairly young but full of the knowledge that I’m not taking care of myself as well as I should. Now is the time to tend to these things.

Time marches on, whether I’m keeping step with it or not.

And even now, I know some parts of this ol’ rig don’t work like they should. But I still have time.

Time to remember to enjoy my legs that still carry me easily, a heart that still beats strong. Lungs that take in air without coughing.

Yes. It was just a nice reminder, a needed wake up call.

Because one day I might be uttering to a kindly young nurse, “who would have thought it would come to this?”

Sorry for the sort of down post today. The rain and the doctor’s waiting room has me in a very thoughtful place.