A Cranky Ol' Lady Goes a'Blogging

Oooh, poor feet!

2009-06-24T14:39:00.002-07:00

Yesterday, Shedd Aquarium; today, Chicago Art Institute; tomorrow, Field Museum? Man, my legs are feeling the strain and are grimly forced to repeat. We are having a great time -- perhaps spending too much of it moaning and resting, but the room is comfy.

We do a lot of walking, Grumpy talking nonstop about what building used to be there or what used to be in that building, and what is utterly new since 30+ years ago when he lived here. We stopped at the old water tower that survived the big fire and found an exhibition of photos there documenting the aftermath. I've learned about "air rights" over train tracks and more political history than I can possibly retain. Right now I sit in the spanking new library, which is beautiful and ornamented along the roof-line with green, spiky, and oddly creepy figures -- something like a hybrid of gargoyle and space alien.

We've walked north from the hotel as far as the Chicago River where we caught a water taxi to Navy Pier and then to the Shedd Aquarium near the hotel. The lake is beautiful, and one can sit in the cool breeze watching picturesque passersby along the bike path almost indefinitely without getting bored. We stopped where Grumpy's dad used to take him fishing, and we saw where the young Grumpy had witnessed a small boy's body being retrieved from the water after a fatal kidnapping. With some difficulty, we found Grumpy's dad's grave, thanks to my iPhone's google maps. The Prius' navigation system failed royally.

Almost daily I open the "bar" in our room and drool over the display of candy and exotic alcoholic beverages, but I don't succumb. Three bucks is just too much for a pkg of Reese's peanut butter cups. About a block from the hotel is a liquor store. I bought a 4-pack of a Belgian beer called Barbar, flavored with coriander and orange peel (great stuff) and a half-size bottle of Glenlivet, a single-malt scotch. The Hilton bath towels are so thick and heavy, one almost tips me over while drying if it all falls to the same side. The a/c not only does not roar, but it also pours out into the room instead of straight up under the window curtains as in every Motel 6 or Super 8 I've stayed in so far. And, great pillows! Not perfect, however: Grumpy flooded our room the first morning with water running out of the shower, which is not separated by so much as a speed bump from the rest of the bathroom and the bedroom. Who designs these things?

Beautiful weather so far, highs in the 80's, but the humidity is killer. Even so, I am glad we have a full week here. It is a beautiful city -- so many gardens, trees, and a Picasso sculpture in Daly Plaza!

Chicago

2009-06-20T15:59:00.002-07:00

After four days on the road, we finally made it to Chicago. Grumpy used hotwire.com to get us a room at the Hilton for $87/night. What they don't tell you is, it costs $43/night to park the car! Well, Grumpy is having none of that. He'll drive around and find someplace cheaper to park, if such exists. It also costs $7.50/hr to use the internet. I was miffed at being charged $2.99 to use it 24 hrs at Motel 6 last night in St. Louis. Little did I know.

Grumpy got excited about going to a White Castle, so we stopped on the edge of St. Louis, and of course it sucked. Why on earth anyone likes those crappy burgers is beyond me. He says, well, they're better in Chicago. Yeah, I'll bet.

The hotel is right near Grants Park, the Art Institute, and who knows what else. I expect we'll have a fine time once we get over hotel shock and start wandering around seeing things. We are here for a week, splurging. But right now all I want to do is lie horizontal with A/C in our luxurious room with TWO bathrooms.

Flagstaff bird trip

2009-06-14T13:51:00.003-07:00

Friday I headed up to Flagstaff to tuck in at a Motel 6 for an early-morning birding trip Saturday. Arriving mid-afternoon (uncharacteristically early for me) and excited by the cool, sunny weather, I took a notion to walk to the nearest coffee shop, which turned out to be a Wicked AZ about two miles away, at least a mile of it steeply uphill. Anticipating a sit-down breather before the walk back, I was disappointed to find myself seated on a curb surrounded by parking lots, as it was strictly drive-through (and, fortunately, walk-up). Still, the coffee was very good. By the time I got back to the motel from this impulsive 4-mile walk, my left knee was complaining, not a good omen for Saturday. Feeling foolish, I did lots of leg-therapy exercises and hoped for the best.

The bird trip was a delight -- mostly at about 7-9,000 feet elevation, surrounded by quaking aspens and conifers, bathed in brilliant sunshine and cool breezes. The only downside was a bit too much breeze. This seemed to make a lot of the birds hunker down more than usual, and the wildly waving aspen tops made it harder to find a bird amongst flapping leaves and branches. The trip leader kept apologizing, but I was having a great time. I'm almost as delighted at waving aspen tops against blue sky as at birds, frankly. I could have simply stretched out for hours, at any one of several of our stops, and grooved happily on whatever happened to come along. We started just below the snow bowl, on the same trail I mentioned months ago where Grumpy, dog, and I only went a little way, took pics, and I swore to return. We ended up at a spring past the end of Hart's Prairie Rd (FS 151 off hwy 180), a little piece of heaven to which I will most definitely return, maybe tomorrow, and stay longer.

I won't mention every bird we saw, but perhaps most of them: A brilliant western tanager (yellow & black w/ orange on the head) posed at the top of a dead snag singing it's heart out. Williamson's sapsucker (male) flybys were plentiful enough to give me a good look at everything but its head. Mountain bluebirds (male & female) showed off along a barbwire fence beside an open field -- possibly the most ecstatic display of blue I've ever seen. Most intriguing and frustrating was an abundance of red-faced warbler songs (identified by our leader & replayed on his nifty iPod for confirmation) in several locations and not a single viewing by any of us. Spectacular bird, would love to have seen it. Also warbling vireos singing all around us, and despite innumerable repetitions I failed the song ID "quiz" toward the end. It's just so hard for me to remember calls; too many new ones in one day. One western bluebird, but not a very good look; sun was in wrong place to see its color very well. Ruby- (seen, flashed red crown) and golden-crowned (heard only) kinglets, chipping sparrow, mountain chickadees, Clark's nutcracker (heard), Stellar's jays. Saw Lewis's woodpeckers at Museum of Northern Arizona they hang out there all the time, I hear, but I didn't get a good enough look to actually see the colors & was too tired to wait around very long. Broad-tailed hummers at the feeder.

The excursion was about five hours long, relatively easy walking with driving breaks, so I'm surprised how tired I was. By the end, at the spring, I felt I couldn't go another half mile to save my life. My legs were begging for time off, and a very low uphill incline on the last bit had me puffing like an invalid. Man, I'm sick of this lousy fitness level, more determined than ever to get over it. Upside, although I had pain behind the left knee and zinging hamstring, the pain was not exacerbated by pressure and didn't impair walking, just aggravated me. This morning there is no pain left at all. How could there be, as I fell immediately into bed when I got home mid-afternoon and didn't get up for about 15 hours! Nevertheless, this will be a day of rest.

All-round delightful trip, and I'm going back as soon as I possibly can. Grumpy has a break coming up and wants to do a road trip to Chicago. At first, I thought, gee, I'd love to get to know Chicago a bit, and thought I'd like to go too. But after this Flagstaff trip, all I want to do is go to beautiful places to walk and see birds. A city trip feels wrong at this moment. I might just stay home and take my own trips instead.

This morning, I was rubbing Grumpy's cranky shoulder and chatting about birds I'd seen. He responded with grunts, then said he needs to get a bb gun to take out some of the pigeons around the house. GRAWK! What am I doing with somebody who thinks like this? I need some meeting of minds.

Steep hike, very short

2009-06-11T10:02:00.002-07:00

I was out of bed by 6 this morning. Yes, doubters, I did it. Since coming back from the trip gloating about the trogon, I've been shamelessly lazy. To get any exercise outdoors here, one must be up ridiculously early. Six wasn't early enough, but it's a start.

It was 7 by the time I got out of the car at North Mountain Park and headed straight up hill. That hadn't been my intention, but that's the trail I found myself on, shrugged, kept going. Sun's up, no time to reconnoiter. All types traipse up and down this trail in the morning. I can tell most of them are regulars. They are in a hurry; many have dogs; they have that go-get'm tension about them. Me, I stop a lot to pant and look for birds. Us fat ones exchange knowing looks and grins. One wizened old man with C-shaped back and deeply striated leathery calves astonished me; I stared.

I saw a pair of Gambel's quail with their ridiculous topknots, looking like they'd lost the parade. Then a young family of cactus wrens, naively fearless, buzzing and hopscotching around. Next a pair of broad-tailed hummingbirds, male with startling crimson throat, playing tag among the scrubby branches of creosote bush and palo verde.

Before the summit, I sensed my limits and headed back down. I might have done a mile, in all, but my leg muscles were in shock. No complaints from the knee, yay! Still only 75 degrees at 8 am, the radio claimed, but it felt closer to 90 on the hill in the blazing sun. Next time, 5 am.

Bursting with wellness

2009-06-07T14:24:00.002-07:00

I may have to change the name of this blog, as I just don't feel all that cranky these days. In fact, I feel younger, stronger, and more like my old self every week. This "old self" I'm referring to is back when I was more of a nature queen, the part of me eclipsed by a bad marriage and subsequent exhaustion from community college teaching and single-momhood in a landscape I didn't much enjoy getting out into. I slid slowly into a pit of mental and physical ill health. Now I think I'm slowly creeping out of that pit, almost able to peer over the lip.

Writing poetry has helped tug buried emotions out into the light. Nipping back on "metabolic syndrome" in the nick of time has kept physical recovery within my reach. Retirement has given me back the time to take care of myself. A not-so-bad marriage has given me comfort and reassurance even as I see myself outgrowing it and wondering how to manage future changes. The commitment I made to T, my younger son, to put him through college (thanks to my frugal mother) has pushed the limits at times but now appears to be bearing fruit. He's definitely teetering on the edge of the nest and trying his wings with the "grand finale" Ecuador trip for his last university credits for the bachelor's degree.

Finding the trogon last week was symbolic. I'm starting to feel like I can still do it -- "it" being toddle around in the woods finding stuff and knowing or figuring out what it is. My knack with binoculars is back. My knees are back. I can mostly keep my balance and get around safely. Losing that has been sad and frightening. I'm still too fat and too slow, but I definitely feel my body integrating and pulling itself together. I am buzzing with energy and alertness -- the most recent improvement and suspiciously coincident with starting on alpha lipoic acid supplements on top of the glucose and cholesterol meds and exercise.

I've done some deep (for me) reading on alpha lipoic acid lately. Cellular biochemistry has never been my strong point in biology, but I've been able to extract quite a lot of info to understand what this supplement does from a collection of review articles: Oxidative Stress and Inflammatory Mechanisms in Obesity, Diabetes, and the Metabolic Syndrome, edited by Lester Packer & Helmut Sies, CRC Press, 2008. My next step is to get hold of enough of the cited references to understand it even better. Yeah, it's my latest project. Briefly and simply, it promotes appetite suppression (action in the hypothalamus), accelerates glucose metabolism (action in mitochondria of cells, especially in skeletal muscle), and probably aids in reduction of insulin resistance (action in beta cells of pancreas). Studies are ongoing, but what's known so far is exciting for aiding recovery of those of us who've allowed ourselves to slip into the triad of obesity, inflammation, and insulin resistance -- the slippery slope into type II diabetes. (Three of the 20 review articles in the above-referenced book deal specifically with effects of supplementation with alpha lipoic acid, including studies using rats, mice, and human subjects.)

Now that I've risked alienating readers with this dip into the technical . . . Ah, had to do it, but I promise not to overdo it!

Chiricuaha Mts trip

2009-06-04T15:27:00.003-07:00

Here's a view of part of the Chiricahuas from the winding narrow road across to the other side (from the Portal side through Pinery to the Chiricahua National Monument on the west side). I dunno, I just took a notion to subject myself to one-lane blind hairpins at day's end, which then meant I had to go way south (because I'd already been north, and what's the fun of that?) to Douglas (border town) to get around to the east side again with two lanes. After all, I hadn't seen a trogon yet. A Black Bear hustled to get out of the road as I came along.

I spent Tuesday afternoon and Wednesday morning exploring the Cave Creek area on the east side of the Chiricahua Mts. Mission: see Elegant Trogon. Mission successful Wednesday morning! Here's a view of one small part of Cave Creek Canyon.

After visiting the research station (run by the American Museum of Natural History for researchers and for visitors if there's room), I had a pretty good where and how to find trogons and what else of birding interest might be around. Since the trogons sit around waiting for something to catch and eat, they tend to not be moving but often calling. I'd read weird descriptions of their calls, but the helpful museum worker's imitation of the gutteral croak was a lot more useful. Listen first, then look -- that's what works. The "hot spot" of the moment was South Fork Canyon, adjacent to Cave Creek Canyon.

The road into South Fork passes this intriguing cave. When I got out to take a photo, I noticed a tempting footpath, but settled for wondering how difficult it might be. I'd love to see into the cave...

I'd been told to cross the little bridge, park, get out, look and listen. Here's the bridge (below, viewed from having crossed it). I didn't hear any croaking, and I didn't recognize any of the bird songs except the canyon wren, so I went down to the creek on the left side, thinking I'd follow it a little ways, pausing every little bit to sit, listen, look. I saw my first painted redstart, gorgeous black, crimson-breasted bird, and linked it to the call I'd been hearing all around. Clambering over rocks and dodging poison ivy, I had fun but didn't see much. It was, after all, mid-afternoon, which is not the best time for bird activity (though another birder I met said not necessarily so re trogons). I tried the right side, same result. I drove to the end of the road, wandered around, found the trail that follows South Fork Creek farther, and resolved to return the next day, earlier.

Next day I got there about 8:30 am. Stopping at the bridge, I thought "Wow, those look like giant hummingbirds!" They had conspicuously blue throats, and the field guide mentioned the unusually large size of the Blue-Throated Hummingbird. Four or five of them were buzzing each other like a family of pesky kids, paying no mind to me. I also saw a bunch more redstarts along the roadside and a flash of bright yellow-and-black that might have been a Scott's Oriole (I'll never know). I parked at the road's end about the same time as a carload of ear-splitting hollering boys and their almost equally loud mothers. My heart fell, but I sat around a while getting tantalizing glimpses of things I couldn't identify (some sort of tanager, a maybe-vireo, a flycatcher) and old familiars -- creepers, white-breasted nuthatches, bridled titmice. Finally, the noise abated as though they'd disappeared into thin air, though the car was still there. I hoped they'd scare the bears off roaring down the trail ahead of me.

I'm sure I walked less than a mile, round trip, along the trail and in and out of the rocky creek bed (no camera, sadly). It was so pretty, loaded with Arizona Sycamores, lizards, bird calls -- I did manage to identify Mexican Jays, Black-Throated Gray Warblers, and finally got a good view of the Canyon Wren whose amazing call I've been hearing so much lately. Best of all, I heard a soft, gutteral croaking and froze -- could that be a trogon? I moved to the edge of the creek bed, gazed into sycamore leaves on the other side, spotted a reddish smudge, and there it was, sitting in full view: an adult male Elegant Trogon! I watched it for quite a while before it flew off, getting a good mental recording of the distinctive call and swelling up with the happiness of the moment. Now I have the urge to drag everyone I know to the Chiracahuas to see the trogons.

Wilcox, AZ

2009-06-01T20:49:00.002-07:00

In classic fashion, I'm off to Cave Creek Canyon, having left home about 4 pm. I got as far as Wilcox, pretty close. It's good to get away when stricken with ambivalence. Clears my head, or maybe just sweeps things back into their dark corners. I stuffed myself with liver & onions in Benson, and my head is still zinging from the coffee. I maybe should have driven farther, but the towns along the way from here are so teeny I'm not confident of finding a place to stay, other than the spiffy places near the popular canyon. Tomorrow I'm sure I'll find that I've been too cautious. Oh, well. I'll know better next time.

The canyon is on the east side of the Chiracahua Mts., almost in New Mexico. Never been there before, but I'm expecting to enjoy it. It's one of the few southern Arizona canyons to have running water year round, hence high biodiversity (and poison ivy). Instead of the single trogon that visits Patagonia each year, this area boasts of a dozen or so. Maybe I'll get lucky. At least I'll be distracted from myself.

Raw

2009-06-01T10:22:00.002-07:00

I woke up this morning raw, exposed. I'd had one of those long, dubious dreams that seem to make sense and then seem to make no sense at all. Only this time, when I woke, things knitted together and made sense after all, in the shower. Another piece is that without writing last semester's series of long, self-delving poems, I wouldn't be here at the spot in the middle from which the sense is visible.

In the poems I found that I stay with Grumpy because he gives me unconditional love, which I desperately need because I didn't get it when it would have been of use, as a child. At the time of finishing that last poem, I thought I'd learned something that made sense of my long (for me) and incomprehensible (to me) marriage, made it all right. Suddenly I am looking from inside the mirror, and it seems fatal. In the dream nothing fit. A lot of my dreams are like that. (I suppose a lot of everybody's dreams are like that.) There were clothes, people, backwards structures where people stand for an event, ladder-like stairs oriented backward and dangerous, there were clothes coming apart, falling off, other clothes given to me that were the wrong size, etc. etc. etc. When I woke, I felt the same about the dream as about Grumpy, like nothing fits but I keep going on like it does, like I always have with men in my life, giving them what I think they want and not asking for much, or more frankly, keeping my needs secret.

My libido is making a comeback, which timing leads me to attribute to alpha lipoic acid supplements. I was doing fine without it, though in fact sex was originally our main reason for being together despite conspicuous reasons not to. For years I've barely been able to generate a minimal level of performance to just meet Grumpy's absolutely lowest acceptable level. But now mistiming left me horny one night (and a fabulous session with vibrator next day), then sex the next night for which I totally faked desire and pleasure. Then the crazy dream where nothing fits, waking up to make sense of it as a life in which nothing fits, but we get by, needing to believe it does in order not to be lonely. Is that a good enough reason?

I just woke up, haven't had coffee yet, so all this might be garbage . . . or not. It might just be the misfit sexual timing this particular weekend. Or it might be a destabilizing revelation about our relationship, one I should act upon. How can I tell?

Walnut Canyon

2009-05-28T16:29:00.002-07:00

The last time (and first time) I visited Walnut Canyon National Monument (near Flagstaff), I was limited to the rim trail. I had my dog in the car (not allowed in the visitor's center or trail down into the canyon), and it was too hot to leave him there. But even more limiting, my knee was in bad shape for uphill walking at my weight, and the descent/ascent was steep. So, I swore to come back when I was stronger and dogless. The view from the rim was enticing.

Last week, returning from my road trip to Oklahoma, I stopped there on my way home. I'd been using non-weight-bearing exercise to get my knees, thighs and calves into shape before asking them to haul my heavy body up the steep trail. Biking (indoor and outdoor) has been the ideal exercise to accomplish that. I was ready.

The trail (actually paved, with concrete steps and handrails provided) was a little disappointing. Oh, the canyon was beautiful, but the trail was very short and didn't go all the way to the bottom. Still, I (who until recently had had to give up stairs) wanted to try out my knees. The elevation change was a modest 185 feet, but it was concentrated into a very short distance, with the rest of the trail very easy. The distance was only 0.9 miles round trip, hardly a challenge. It's main objective was to allow visitors to view ancient dwellings used almost a thousand years ago by Sinaguans (yes, the name translates to "without water"), as the stream bed at the bottom is dry for a significant part of the year. The residents had to collect water during the wet season and store it.

The geology is interesting and visible even to folks like me who could never get excited by "rocks" class -- memorizing types devoid of context in labs devoid of field trips. The upper layers are limestone, flat deposits (inland sea) whose softer layers had been eroded by wind to provide sheltering overhangs easily walled in for protection of dwellings, work areas, and storage. Below the limestone is a striking layer of rocks with striations going in all directions. This is sandstone, wind deposited, displaying variations in angle due to changes in wind direction and topography. Below is my favorite shot of this layer through swirling juniper branches.

In the shot below, both layers are visible.

And here's a more inclusive view.

It's such a lovely canyon, and I wanted to walk along the bottom, looking up. No deal. There was a beautiful bird call coming from every direction that sounded like sparkling water singing as it bounced down the canyon walls. When I got back to the top, I asked around and learned that it was the song of canyon wrens. I huffed and puffed on the way up. Even with frequent pauses, my heart and lungs were seriously stressed. But my knees were perfect! No pain, no weakness, no wobbles. Hurray!

Adam Lambert

2009-05-28T15:02:00.003-07:00

I never watch American Idol. I wouldn't be caught dead watching American Idol. The fact that my poetry instructor this past semester started every class with a commentary on American Idol made it difficult for me to be polite and inhibit my sneering, eyeball rolling, knee-jerk reaction to the recent invasion of television by pop-trash reality shows instead of dramas with plots, good acting, and good writing. (Just as well, actually, as I still spend too much time following the shows I still admire.)

Somehow, against all odds, I found myself watching the grande finale with one eyeball while playing computer solitaire. This happened only because I was visiting my cousin in Tulsa, who despite her uniquely quirky down-to-earth rational intelligence and no-bullshit personality, watches American Idol.

My eyeball flicks upgraded to full head-twisting when Adam Lambert performed. Glamorous, cocky, daring, yet devoid of pissed-off in-your-faceness -- he sang, and I tuned in. Here was no ordinary crowd pleaser. I just heard a commentator on NPR refer to him as the "gay Elvis" that America needs right now -- an original. The other guy was so blah, so everyday, so all-American nice guy that off course he won, but now the rest of us are all ears to see what Adam does next.

Chihuly glass exhibit

2009-05-25T22:24:00.003-07:00

I visited the Desert Botanical Garden on Sunday to see the blown glass exhibit and to inspire T&W on a biology assignment. Chihuly's glass sculptures were scattered among desert plants like exotic visitors trying to pass. Bizarre, uninhibited, joyful -- they were as nature gone wild. I kept exclaiming, "Wow!" with terrific originality.

This one (above) could almost be real, red being a color actually seen on desert flowers, insects, etc. I wish he'd scatter these in the landscape for hikers to marvel at. Dream on.

Fleetwood Mac in Phoenix

2009-05-25T20:39:00.002-07:00

Awesome show, yes really, even though all I could see were little stick figures between heads. That might be Lindsay Buckingham on the right, the little stick in white area between two heads. The guy in front of me was about seven feet tall, and of course no one was sitting down, and I'm only 5'3". Grumpy was kind enough to switch seats and even offered to help me balance standing on a chair, but I didn't have the nerve. There were lovely video screens, but sometimes I like to glimpse the actual flesh of performers. So, I leaned and craned sometimes, and watched the video screens other times. Exhausting. They were so energetic I got exhausted just watching them. I thought L.B. was having a heart attack a couple of times. Mick Fleetwood bugged his eyes and acted like a crazy man, especially when he turned loose at the end and went on drumming on and on and on and . . . Stevie Nicks' gravelly soulful voice was as good as ever, and Buckingham's orgiastic lovemaking with the guitar was screamingly intense. They played about two hours, including two very long encores. My only complaint was charging $40 for a t-shirt. No, I didn't buy one.

Clines Corners -- world's worst coffee

2009-05-22T23:39:00.003-07:00

I stopped at Clines Corners today, and I am moved to broadcast a warning to all coffee drinkers: Do not under any circumstances EVER drink the coffee at that restaurant. Now, I've had bad coffee, and I've been known to turn up my nose at mediocre coffee on many occasions. However, when traveling, I bend over backwards to be tolerant. But this coffee was beyond the pale. It was so bad that I actually refused to pay for it. I asked the waitress to take it away and give me a glass of ice water instead. She did so, without protest.

The Southwest Turkey Melt was a good sandwich, slathered with chopped, sauteed, mild chile peppers. I reached for a sip of ice water to wash it down. Immediately I understood why Clines Corners makes the world's worst coffee -- It's the water! Therefore, I expand my warning to include the water, the coffee, the hot or iced tea, and anything else they make with their own tap water. Yechhhhh!!!!! I remember that I always used to insult Oklahoma City water, and when I moved to Phoenix, I used to say that Phoenix water made Oklahoma City water taste great. Well, there is a new champion. Clines Corners, New Mexico, has water that makes Phoenix, Arizona, water taste great. I have never in my life tasted such foul tap water. I'm sure it exists, but I haven't encountered it yet.

Glenfiddich, Ribs, & Cherries

2009-05-22T20:33:00.002-07:00

It's been sooooo long, but I'm back.

I'm almost home from a trip to Oklahoma for my 90-year-old aunt's funeral. Two days (late-start days) on the road usually gets me there, but there was rain in Albuquerque that slowed freeway traffic to about 25 mph. I got off for a while, and now I'm in Holbrook, Az, and tired out already.

Stopping early, I decided I deserved a treat. I found cherries on sale at Safeway and figured they'd go well with booze. I keep hearing about Glenfiddich (or is it that other one, Glenlevit?) and never tried it until now. Expensive! But I got $9.00 off on the cherries, supposedly. Then I saw a sign about a BBQ rib place called Bubba's. Yeah, it's the real thing. Wow. I bought a whole slab of ribs, which came with a nice strip of meat along the spine that is even better than the rib meat. Lucky I have a fridge in the room so I can save more than half of it for Grumpy. I can remember when I have eaten a whole slab of ribs in a restaurant, but I don't think it was anywhere near this big or this good. Holbrook, I'll be back. And Glenfiddich single malt scotch whiskey is awesome. Sorry, that's trite. Phenomenal.

I'm getting drunk, thought I'd write a lot but I've lost my drive and creativity for the moment.

Lazy Friday with poetry and science

2009-04-17T15:07:00.005-07:00

I sit here, still in my nightgown, because there's so much good stuff on NPR that I can't do anything else but listen. They just interviewed the director of "The Wrestler," who turns out to also have directed another one of my all-time favorite films, "Requiem for a Dream." He is extraordinarily gutsy and demands an audience willing to take it in. It's a tribute to how he does it that he finds that audience.

Then of course there's "Science Friday" which is always good, this time about algae (Venice is going to build a power plant run on algae, growing algae and burning it, recycling the CO2 back to the algae culture), Luther Burbank (who described his work innovating new varieties of plants as "evoluting"), and a play looking for wider audiences throwing historical and modern scientists and clerics together to find common ground. I wish I could see it. Maybe I could fly to wherever its last show is, I forget, gotta look that up.

My income tax bill was so high this year that I nearly choked to death, then remembered the farm sale and calmed down a bit, making sense of it. By the day after the email telling me how much, I was in a good mood again, remembering that I am so disinterested in money (aside from the pleasure of doing things with it) that I never plan ahead so I can anticipate these blows. So, it's nobody's fault but my own.

Yesterday I heard a poetry reading by Chris Hutchinson at ASU, the MFA program's ordeal for graduation, open to the public. I was awed by his ingenuity with words, stunned at moments by a turn of phrase, causing me to miss the next line. He must be a very good reader, because I looked him up online and found some of his poems, an when I read them they don't have that same bang. I wasn't reading aloud; maybe that was part of it. His inflections and pauses make them come to life. I wasn't able to do that or didn't try hard enough.

Since I am hoping to get into a master's degree program myself, I was delighted to discover that I would also be allowed to listen to questions from his committee members, questions designed to probe both his creative process and his knowledge of the work of other poets, especially those who most influenced his own poetic development. Fascinating. Other students in the program, his colleagues, mostly filled the room. They were fascinating. There was so much rapport among them, and the shared happiness of launching him together was palpable. The collaboration among them was honored by one of the poets on his committee, lauding the sweet nourishment they provide for each other's growth. How I'd love to be part of such a thing! Or would I back into a corner, quiet like a rabbit, as I mostly did when I was a grad student in biology? I don't know.

This semester I've been writing long, long narrative poems about myself. The poems aren't great but they have helped me mine my life history, comprehend it better, and use it for other poems. I came up with one already, an extension from my own remembered experiences and suspicions. Then we got an assignment to write a poem based on a myth or fairy tale! It's almost as if the prof was determined to kick me out of my rut, though really I cannot imagine that I have that much of her attention. So, I wrote a poem about Leda and the Swan, from the point of view of the swan, that poor victim, the discarded vehicle of a god's lust.

That was fun to write. I enjoyed the research -- the story (mythology is not my strong point), lots of poems already written about it, some artwork, and how big is a swan's penis. (Yes, they have one; so do ducks and geese... and ostriches, tinamous, and a few other odd birds.) There is one species of duck that has a penis 45+ centimeters long! After sex (always on the water), he has to flip onto his back and stuff it back in. I'd like to see that. The penis of these waterfowl is hydrostatic (fluids move in to swell it up, but not blood; I think I read it's lymph fluid), and the semen runs along grooves on the outside of it, not through the middle. It is speculated that since they have sex on the water, sperm would otherwise risk getting washed away if they used the cloacal "kiss" typical of most birds. Well, that doesn't explain the ostrich!

Fear at the border

2009-03-24T13:05:00.002-07:00

The weather is so fantastic and so soon to turn hellish. I really want to go back to Miller Canyon and try that trail, described as "everybody loves it" for about 2.5 miles until it takes off to climb up to a peak. I could easily do the five-mile round trip now. But I'm nervous.

In both Carr and Miller Canyons, when one drives into the National Forest area surrounding the canyons and trails, there are scary signs warning that illegal immigration and drug smuggling may be encountered in the area. The recent heating up and boiling over of this drug gang stuff across the border, and now they say crossing the border, gives me pause. I don't want to be paranoid and deprive myself, but on the other hand I don't know how to evaluate the actual risk in the specific areas I'm interested in. Maybe I should call a ranger station and see if I can get any clarification. I anticipate liability-fearing gobbledegook devoid of content, but maybe it's worth a try.

Both canyons are conspicuously underpopulated compared to Ramsey Canyon, which not only has the Nature Conservancy Visitors Center but is tightly packed with private homes for a couple of miles on the way to it. People were crawling all over the place, mostly grayheads like me carrying binoculars, on a weekday. Deer don't even spook until you are about ten feet away, and even then they don't run far.

The smart thing to do would probably be to visit Garden Canyon instead. Situated inside Fort Huachuca, it's a good bet that smugglers and gangsters don't go there much! The attraction is very specific directions to an elegant trogon nesting site. Also, I just read about Cave Creek Canyon over near the New Mexico border -- that looks to be a prime spot I've missed. Okay, now I think I can leave Miller Canyon alone for a bit and rest my mind.

I must be tiring of good weather, as I'm off to Portland Thursday to visit older son J. over a long weekend. I'm packing my raincoat and snuggly warm stuff.

Wild turkeys strutting

2009-03-12T22:06:00.004-07:00

Yesterday morning early I visited Ramsey Canyon again. Sitting by the trail on a rock, I was watching yellow-rumped warblers (Sibley guide says "abundant and conspicuous", so I guess I didn't earn any kudos finding those!) and a pair of lesser goldfinches. A man walked by carrying a pretty big camera on a monopod, said he was looking for wild turkeys and had I seen any. I said no, I hadn't, and he walked on. Pretty soon he was back, no luck, and we talked a bit. He said the turkeys are supposed to be strutting their stuff right about now and he sure was hoping to get a shot of the larger Mexican species (or variety?) for his photo collection. About half an hour later, I was trying to leave the parking lot, and there he was right in the way, all excited, shooting pictures of a flock of wild turkeys. I re-parked and joined the crowd gathering to ogle the seven males and two females who seemed totally oblivious to their audience. They were magnificent, puffing up and shaking their feathers, doing a little side-step now and then. Such silly birds, and awfully stupid I guess, but sometimes it's enough to be beautiful.

Along the road leading up to the visitors' center, a female Cooper's hawk was in a nesting mood, trying to break sticks off of trees. Golden eagles and Arizona woodpeckers were sighted by others, but I missed them.

I left Ramsey Canyon with a guide to birding in southeastern Arizona from the book store and some good tips (from the turkey man) for finding the elegant trogons nesting in May. I took off to look at adjacent Carr Canyon, which has a long and very narrow six miles or so of switchbacking rutted road to a high point where there are two campgrounds and some excellent rare bird sightings. My and my citified Prius found the road intimidating, so I stopped at a viewpoint about two miles in (this road is said to offer spectacular views) and turned around. Next time I'll rent a high-center vehicle and go all the way, maybe even camp up there.

Next was Miller Canyon. The drive in was short and easy. I parked and walked just a little ways on Miller Canyon Trail. It takes about a half mile to work its way around some private property, then takes you to an absolutely beautiful Arizona sycamore bottomland. I grooved on that a while, then headed home.

Ramsey Canyon

2009-03-11T04:36:00.003-07:00

I finally made it to Ramsey Canyon and an uphill hike to test my progress in knee rehab. It wasn't a long hike. The trail through the canyon on Nature Conservancy property is only a mile long, the first half-mile only mildly uphill along the bottom, followed by a half-mile climb to the rim that is pretty steep by my standards.

I was shocked at how difficult I found the uphill walking, less so when I realized it was 5500-6200 feet in elevation. No wonder. I live and breathe pretty much at sea level in Phoenix. I guess that helps explain the challenge, but it doesn't feel great being such a wuss. I was grateful for the nine benches breaking up the half-mile climb. I used every single one of them.

The good news is that although my lungs and heart did not shine, my knees were fine. That is a great relief and my invitation to keep on biking but also to get back to conditioning myself for hiking again. Though I hiked in my Keen boots, most of the time I've been wearing MBTs, which seem to help a lot in straightening out whatever misalignment was bothering my knee. I hope this means that one day I'll be a hiker again.

The downside of visiting Ramsey Canyon is staying in Sierra Vista, a decidedly unattractive town. Maybe it has to do with being a military base town. The last time I was here I accidentally drove right into Fort Huachuca while searching for someplace to eat. The gate personnel seemed thoroughly fed up with tourists making this mistake. Since the single street through Sierra Vista heads straight into the base, I don't know why it surprises anyone that we end up there! I thought I had simply run across another one of those pesky border checkpoints that try to nab folks after they think they've made it.

Avoiding Denny's, I've eaten twice at Ivey's so-called home-cooked cafe, and I am not impressed. Out near the canyon I came across a fancy little place, Outside Inn, with tablecloths and indulged myself in spending too much for dinner. It was good. But I miss Patagonia. I'm going through there on my way home today.

Not much to report on birds seen. In the canyon bottom, acorn woodpeckers showed off shamelessly and non-stop. They seemed to be checking out a tree hole. Nesting interest already? Up higher, another birder saw Arizona woodpeckers, but I didn't. Back down below, I saw dark-eyed juncos.

Oh, and about that Canada trip . . .

2009-03-06T00:31:00.002-07:00

Saving the east side for later -- For my summer solo journey, I think I will go west, through Oregon, and on up into British Columbia. Oh, boy .

The Ph.D. thing

2009-03-05T23:44:00.002-07:00

So, I was saying about the science thing, how it wasn't really a fit for me...

I recall that I started four different biology Ph.D. programs in four different places and didn't finish any of them. I fizzled every time. That should have told me something -- either I didn't really want to do it, or I didn't have what it took to be a successful professional scientist.

I was confused about this for most of my life. I had fixed on the idea that what it took was intelligence, and I knew I had plenty of intelligence, so there was no reason for me to keep bailing other than somehow doing it wrong each time. I'd eventually try again, certain that this time I would get it right.

Even very recently, when I took some classes at ASU to help me decide whether to give it one last try, I was talking to one of the bio profs and I said something about the need to find out if I was still smart enough. He immediately corrected me. He said that intelligence is not really the issue. The most important factor is (not his exact words, mind you) determination, perseverance, the clamp-jawed stubborn refusal to quit. When he said that, I remembered being told that before, more than once. The pros know this. I kept ignoring it, proud of my good brain and how easy it is for me to understand and learn biology, how much I love learning about it, as if that's the same thing as being able to do it.

It took several weeks for this to sink in last semester, but when it did, I was finally at peace with letting it go.

I have realized at last, and permitted it to sink in, that the key factor missing in my psychological makeup is confidence. I doubt myself. I would always get to a point where I just didn't believe in myself any longer. I would start doubting my methodology or my observations or my plan. I was also so neurotically shy that I could not screw up the courage to talk about this. On the other hand, that probably would not have helped anyhow. Scientists don't sit around nurturing each other, bolstering each other's egos. With rare exceptions, even mentoring major professors do not do any such thing. I never even had a mother who did that, so I had to use strategies such as swaggering around acting like the tough silent type who didn't need any help. I was never tough enough to hold onto that act long enough, and posturing without substance doesn't usually work in science. There are plenty of competitive types who just love to discover another scientist's weakness and expose it to one and all.

Being female in a man's world was certainly an issue in the early days, but by the time of my final stab at it, that wasn't really an issue any longer.

Fortunately, doubting oneself is no handicap in poetry! Constant reflection, looking at things from all angles and shifting one's viewpoint to try on new ones, is what it's all about. Finding the root of something, digging at the painful spot and learning something from it, then sharing it in the sharpest language possible is what writers do. The universality of human experience ensures that at least some others will also see the truths in what I write and can share the joy and pain of recognition in that discovery.

Fortunately, at my age, I don't have to sweat being able to make a living writing. I can just do it -- maybe publish if I'm lucky, or just share it in some of the never-ending workshops and classes going on all the time all over the world. This is just about the most satisfying thing I've ever done.

Word pusher

2009-03-04T01:02:00.002-07:00

Man, a couple days in the high 80's and I'm shaking in my boots. Today's respite, 81, isn't as many degrees above normal. Scary. Too soon.

I'm having a revelation. All these years in science classes, doing good work but never speaking up in class, unsure of myself, intimidated, self conscious -- now, here I am in a lit class and a poetry workshop, excited, speaking up all the time, intensely boring into things and sharing my perspective. No, it's not just that I'm older. I've taken science classes recently, and it's the same as always. I am now where I might well have belonged all this time.

Here's a thought -- with all the writing I've done and even published a few short stories, I've never taken a creative writing course until now. Maybe, along with poetry, I should take a few workshops in prose writing, see what that opens up. That might improve as well. I can see me spending the next couple of decades pushing words around all over the place.

This semester the poems I'm writing are more autobiographical, more personal, and have me frowning and digging to pull up more truths than are obvious, to make more connections. The poems are longer. The process is less fun but more satisfying. I must be getting closer. I feel stronger.

Sure-fire weight-loss program

2009-03-01T13:05:00.002-07:00

I lost six pounds in two days! No fun at all when it's accomplished by firehose-style evacuation from both ends, sometimes simultaneously. No kidding, it's been a ferocious weekend. Grumpy was a sweetheart, cleaning up after me and sympathizing. Maybe it wasn't such a bad idea marrying a nurse.

Today I set my alarm for yoga class, got up, and got right back into bed, dizzy. Nothing doing. I'll catch up on reading for my Canadian Literature class, finally a book from farther north, Yellowknife. Various odd sorts from all over for random reasons end up there, working at a radio station. The quality of light plays a large role.

I have a plan. This summer I'm taking a solitary road trip north. I've been wanting to visit Montreal for years, and I hear that farther north from there is absolutely beautiful. I'll take notebooks, soak up my environs, and write inspired poetry.

Knee solutions

2009-02-26T23:00:00.002-07:00

I'm still fiddling around over my left knee problem. The doc was right about one thing. Biking (whether mobile or stationary) is good exercise for me. The knee gets lots of work without bearing my considerable weight, and it doesn't get sore. Walking, and especially stairs, sets off strange consequences (pain behind the knee, and the curling worm sensation of movement on the right side of my kneecap), which are helped a bit if I do some down-dogs or forward bends to stretch out the backs of the knees, alternating that with sitting on the floor on my heels or squats to squish the joint in the other direction.

This week I have added two additional facts to my knee investigation. First, in Foot Solutions for another objective (customized arch supports), we got to talking about MBTs, how I used to wear them and then quit after I retired from teaching. The guy practically confessed that if I were still wearing them I probably wouldn't need the orthotics. So, this week I wore my MBT sandals to school, and by golly, after my total 1.5 mile walk from the parking lot to class and back again, I had no knee symptoms whatsoever!

Second, this week I took the stairs to the second floor for class instead of the elevator, thinking maybe it's time to work on stairs again. Monday I was in my NuBalance shoes, which are kind of flat. I noticed that I tend to place my foot flat on the stair, so I started to use my foot as it should be used, and the stairs were easy and painless. Wednesday, I wore the MBTs; even better. Their curved soles force me to use my foot properly. This flat-footed tendency started when I was at my heaviest and weakest, some years ago, and I've just kept doing it. It's far more work and clearly not good for my knees. But at that time, my feet and ankles and calves just weren't strong enough. I'm much stronger now, though almost as heavy, so I need to break this bad stairs habit. Maybe activating those muscles helps align my knee better.

I broke my mileage record for biking today: 25.2 miles. The last ten miles of that were mostly against a 20 mph headwind. I'm feeling pleased with myself. I also found (with another biker's help) the route from the canal to Dreamy Draw Drive and the entrance onto the bike path in Dreamy Draw Park. Soon I'll make it into the park, but that means more hills than I'm used to as well as a longer ride. I'll work up to it. Then I'll have to work out the loop through the park and back to the canal. My biker helper told me all about it but I can't remember all that. Too much information for one day.

I had a rest stop at a duck pond in a park, saw ring-necked ducks among the coots, mallards, and Chinese geese. I watched flying birds and blowing trees, marveling at the simple beauty of it all.

First bicycle crash

2009-02-26T12:57:00.002-07:00

Yep, I crashed, but it was a little-old-lady kind of crash. I have a couple of nasty bruises and a raked shin -- no harm done. The worst thing was its stupidity (my stupidity).

I had entered one of the narrow little bridges crossing the canal and stopped because a young girl, large dog, and toddler were sprawled out right in the middle of it enjoying the view. When they saw me, they all scrunched over to one side, and the right move would have been to walk the bike past them. However I was into wrong moves that day. I tried to ride past them, got too close to the railing, going so slow I started wobbling, grabbed onto it to steady myself. I was soon reminded that while I was moving, the railing was not -- duh! I fell over in a heap just past them, whacking my head (thank you, helmet!) and becoming rather intimately entwined with my bike.

About ten minutes before, I had watched a car run over and demolish my dropped water bottle. This was not going to be my best bike ride. However, I kept going and am glad I did. The weather was abnormally perfect for February, low 80's, and I managed to do 12 miles before dark sent me home.

Thanks to the weather, I had never before seen so many pedestrians (and one golf cart) in the canal underpasses, which I normally whiz through at terrifying speeds approaching 20 mph. I also had several awkward moments involving indecision at sharp turns onto sidewalks. Can I make the turn? Yes! No! Last minute stops almost in traffic. I was not at my best. I recall the previous ride, sailing along smoothly, making good decisions. Clearly I was rattled by the crash. I'll try again today.

Who am I?

2009-02-16T01:02:00.002-07:00

Writing poetry again. Our second assignment for this semester's class was to write a poem, using personal experiences, "about your view of/complaint about gender roles or differences." I wrote a poem spanning roughly forty years of my life, starting with my first marriage. Heck, I could have started another ten or fifteen years back. My whole life has been a series of whiplashes jigging from one side to another around what a woman is supposed to be. Reading the poem, I feel dizzy. It's title is "Who am I?" and I really do not know. I have paid far too much attention to "supposed to," whether to defy it or obey it. I cannot seem to learn to forget about it and go my way. Making a choice, I soon come to doubt it and kick away.

I've just spent two hours watching "The L Word" and "Big Love," two solid hours of nonstop petty bickering. Every few months I get into a state about being married to Grumpy, but at least we don't bicker. In fact, it's a calm and peaceful life. We are nice to each other, sincerely nice. Yet I can't stop doubting it. But getting older has slowed me down. I don't kick away so fast. I wait for the feeling to pass. And it does.