Absentee Camera

Every once in a while I actually remember to take my camera with me, because I've spotted something on the way to work, or something along the way that I'd like to take a picture of before it's gone. This happens frequently when I'm on the road. They'll be a cloud formation that's just totally unique, or the way the light is slanting through the trees onto dried out grass. Or dawn over the divide, above mountain peaks jutting up from a thick low fog bank. There was the sunset that happened right after a huge storm last September that literally emblazoned the sky with broad sweeps of vivid pinks, yellows, oranges and light blues. It looked liked a shattered stained glass window thrown into the sky.

And I didn't have my damned camera with me in all these instances.

So when I saw this in the small grass area in front of where I park my car at work, I brought my camera the next day. This had also happened last year, and I was about to go outside and snap a shot of them, but before I could, someone plucked them and brought them to me as a gift. I didn't have the heart to tell him that I prefer my flowers alive, and smiled my thanks while inwardly cursing my wonderful luck.

Anyway, I believe these are called Naked Ladies. These are growing wild near my workplace, and I see them every year. This year, there were a lot of them.

There are several more sets of Naked Ladies on either side of this one, and I had a hell of a time getting this picture, because they've nestled themselves comfortably inside a rather unfriendly sticker bush. I have scars to prove it.

I'm glad I took this picture when I did.

Because the next day the county very helpfully parked their umpteen ton tractor on it.

..... i find progress very irritating sometimes.....

*sighs*

The Aquarium Saga

When I asked for an aquarium a couple of years ago, I don't think I had fully contemplated the difficulty in actually having fish live in it. An aquarium is a wonderful thing when you get it set up just the way you like it, with colored rocks, gravel, sand, ... whathaveyou. Then you turn on the light in the aquarium hood and you admire your handiwork, and think,"Yes, if I were a fish, I'd love to live in there, with the little treasure chest to hide in, and the fake plant life to play in."

You know what? Ignorance really is bliss. Because there are factors that you tend to ignore when you're looking at your handiwork, and patting yourself on the back. Such as... oh, the pH balance of the water (which is freaking high, and it doesn't go down regardless of how much neutralizing agent I dump in there). Or insignificant things like 3 gallon tanks don't have enough water in them to keep a stable temperature to the water (which is also a problem if you have certain types of fish). There is also the possibility that the brand, spanking new pump, that came with the tank, that has a fantastic track record of not dying, does the unthinkable. It dies.

But, let us go back to actually putting fish into your perfectly set up tank. When I started, I put three Red Phantom Tetras into a three gallon tank to "start the tank". Which means introducing enough fishy poop and right types of bacteria to help get the bio-filter going. One tetra died at the end of the first week. That was to be expected, because he was tiny and unfortunately for the tiny, they don't do well in really wacky tap water. Tap water that is actually from a lake higher up on our mountain divide. Tap water that has a pH balance of 7.8, probably higher, given that my tester only goes up that high. It's also hard water, and is treated with... god only knows what. So, when fishy number 1 expired, I was saddened, but not surprised. The other two fish went on happily living in the 3 gallon tank for about 2 months. Then I introduced the Peppered (I got the name!) Cory Cat... who died unexpectedly 13 days later. I have no idea what happened, but I was annoyed.

During all of this, I'd been running water down to the pet-store to have it tested... and tested... and more tested. They kept saying,"You're water is fine. Just need to lower the pH." After a month of trying to lower the pH, and failing with wild abandon, I asked if they have fish that like sky-high pH balanced water. "OH! Sure we do!"

.... why the HELL didn't you say that to begin with?! WHY?!!

Oh, and,"Try changing your filter. It might be a bad filter."

*my eyes roll beseechingly to the heavens*

This is how I found myself standing poised over my 3 gallon fish tank with a bag of new filters clutched in my hand... and realizing that the pump had died. In which case the filters would do me no good whatsoever. Gee... maybe all my problems were from a bad PUMP!! It ran for 2 months and DIED! I peered into the tank at the two little tetras. They peered back. They looked fine. Listing, but fine. I stood up and decided that the two tetras were in fact mutants.

Teenage Mutant Ninja Fish? nah...

Spider-fish? no.

X-Fish?...

Tetra-loids! That'll work.

At this point I took a second look at them and began to wonder if my Cory Cat hadn't been murdered. The tetras appeared innocent, but ... Let's just say my suspicions have been aroused.

The next day I once again made an appearance at the pet-shop, this time with a dead pump. Much exclaiming and shock was tossed about as the pump from an eclipse system was examined, prodded and bashed against a professional hand. Apparently this doesn't happen often. In fact they said something to the effect that this hadn't happened in 6 years. Yes, I'm special. At this point I threw my hands up in disgust and bought a 6 gallon tank, a back up pump/filter, and some more decorations and gravel for the new tank.

I set up the new tank, using the water from the old tank, and waited patiently for a day, for the crap to settle in the new tank. Not literal crap. When you put gravel into a new tank, they tell you to rinse the gravel until it rinses clear. This is in fact bull sh!t. You can rinse your new gravel until doomsday, and it will never rinse clear. Thus when you put water into your new set up, you will have the silt of ages happily fluffing around the tank for, in my case, three days. Yes, I rinsed for hours, and it doesn't help much.

Meanwhile one of the Tetra-loids had begun to swim with a pronounced list. I wasn't too worried because this particular Tetra-loid has been strange since day one. But, he'd been eating, pooping, swimming and bullying his fellow mutant for some time now. His rather tattered buddy wasn't much better. He almost never stays in an standard north position, but I chalked this up to the fact that his eyes are not in the same spot on either side of his head. If your world is askew, then so should you be. However, by the next morning I'd lost another mutant fish... and creepily he was stashed in the same place I'd found the Cory's corpse. Face first down, in the middle of the grass plant. Took me forever to get it out of there. The whole time the last Tetra-loid looked on from afar. Granted that you can't really get far away in a 6 gallon tank, but still, it watched my every move. Although I watched closely he never actually rubbed his fins together in morbid glee.

A few days later I decided to thumb my nose at Fate and bought myself a really nice little Beta fish (aka Japanese Fighting Fish). He lived in a plastic bowl for a day, then I decided I'd pop him into the big tank and see how he'd do. So far, he's just fine, although he managed to get his tippy tip fins on his tail shredded. None of other other fish in there currently are aggressive towards him, and he's not aggressive towards them. I suspect he was sleeping, and got his tail fins caught in a prickly type plastic plant (I'll be removing it soon, as it's tried to kill two fish so far by trapping them between itself and the tank wall) in the tank... Panicked when he realized he was caught, and did the damage himself. But I can't say that for certain.

A few days after I got the Beta, I decided I'd get some of the fish that supposedly do well in high pH balanced water. Anything that bears live young are supposed to be alright with that, which means Guppies, Mollies and Platys. Guppies were out. First... I'm not fond of Guppies, and secondly the Beta, although quite placid with the Tetra-loid, may lose himself to blood-thirsty aspirations when presented with a small bodied fish, dragging a damned banner behind it, in all its fluttery, colorful, delicate glory. This leaves me with Mollies and Platys. I asked about Platys, and was presented with Mollies instead. Quite frankly I can't tell the difference between the two. Anyway, the Mollies, of which I purchased two, are currently living in the tank with a very very placid Beta, and the Tetra-loid. No deaths have occurred yet, but that may change.

Why? Well, because the Tetra-loid has gone insane. He thinks he's a barracuda. He's staked out the middle of the tank and nips anyone either coming into his 'territory' (except the Beta), or showing any sort of display. The Mollies like to display at each other with their colorful little bodies (not that sort of displaying, that's just sick. Shame on you.). Tetra-loid doesn't like this at all. This shameless display must cease IMMEDIATELY! When he's not playing at fish gestapo, he's attempting to school with the Mollies, who given his behavior, want nothing to do with him. He's like a stalker. Nice one minute, evil psycho the next.

In his mind its all about the schooling, and Mollies don't school. "Why won't you school? Stop showing off at each other! This isn't how it's supposed to be! SCHOOL DAMNIT! ITS BEEN SOO LOOOOONG!" If he had hair, I'm sure he would've pulled it all out by now.

This is in part my fault, as I haven't gotten him replacement Tetras... although with the way he's been behaving I'm not sure its such a good idea to introduce naive new fish to the tank. Its like dumping a bunch of teenagers at the camp where Jason resides. Or telling a bunch of cute girls that Norman Bates runs a fine upstanding motel.

*sighs* And the whole reason I wanted an aquarium was because I thought it'd be nice to watch the fish swim around. Relaxing you know?

.... the car accident was more relaxing... sheesh!

Random AZ

While in AZ (you can petition to stop the Arizona stories if you wish), as I've said before, I had a lot of free time on my hands. Thus I found myself spending a lot of time wandering around downtown Phoenix, and also sitting in the little shopping area across the street from the hotel. There was a little waterfall there that was surrounded by small stone seats. You'd think this would have provided some respite from the heat, but it only made it humid. Despite that, I found myself sitting here quite often thinking deep and quite possibly meaningless thoughts.

There were other places to sit under misters and in the shade, but I tended to end up sitting on a little hot stone seat. Mostly because when I tried relaxing on one of the benches outside a Cold Stone Ice Cream shop, which is where I took this photo:

... it made the patrolmen nervous. Nervous enough to come over and ask me if I needed water... or to go inside to cool off... And to ask why I hadn't taken off my sweater if I was too hot. Then they wanted ID, and asked where I was staying. They also sniffed me. As in, leaned in close and took a deep inhale through the nose. Alrighty then. At a guess, they were worried I was homeless and they didn't want me expiring from heat exhaustion on a bench in their shopping/business district. Paperwork is such a hassle these days when bodies are involved. In reality I was just sitting on the bench with my head tilted as far back as it would go, so I could stretch out the vertebrae in my neck. Traction feels good on a neck with aggravated nerves you know. Apparently it also makes you look drunk.

In reality I was comparing the palm trees of summer Phoenix AZ, to the pine, fur and oak trees where I live, during winter covered in heaps of snow.

In my opinion, the best time to truly appreciate a fresh snowfall is at daybreak when everything looks blue, untouched and is perfection held motionless in silence. Mist is still clinging to the taller branches, the snow remains unbroken pristine. It feels like you're the only thing alive and aware on mornings like this.

For whatever reason, the palm trees drifting slightly in the breeze high above my head, while stretching out my neck reminded me of a morning snowfall. Not the same, and yet... similar in feel and experience.

The New Tenant

As some of you know, I set up my little 3 gallon aquarium in June and managed to get two fish to survive in there until now. Rest assured that the two little Red Phantom Tetras are doing just fine, despite the abnormally high PH of the water. I've been trying to get it to go down, but haven't had much success even with the PH balancer I bought at the pet shop. Apparently the Tetras I have, have adapted to it which I was told was amazing. Usually they all die. This is what I get for living high on a mountain with water that comes from a dammed lake. Very hard water, with a high PH balance and added chlorine that makes it smell and taste like I've dived into a swimming pool.

All that aside I was told today by the fish guy extraordinaire that the water was fine and I could get some fish today. I could get just about any fresh water fish they had. Except Red Phantom Tetras, or Tetras in general because they're sensitive to high PH. *sag* Well hell... I think he noticed my immediate depression, and suggested I get a Cory Cat. "They're like roaches," (I'm add libbing) he told me,"When I moved up here, I had to give away my Corys. I had 4, but when I went to give them to the person, I could only find 3." So he emptied the tank, loaded it up in his car with all his worldly possessions and drove the 6 hours to his new home. Upon arriving he went to set up his tank, and started filling it. .. and out comes the missing Cory. It was just fine. Now that's a hardy fish. Hopefully I won't kill him. :P

So, I came home with a small Spotted Cory Cat! I'm not sure if that's right though, because all the pictures I find on the Internet don't look like him. Here he is!

There are all kinds you can get, but I liked the spots and the light eye color. It's hard to see, but he also has iridescent blue stripes behind his gills. They're so pretty flashing in the light. Did you know they blink? They don't have eyelids, but they can pull their eye down inside their head to clean foreign material from their eyes. Supposedly they do one eye at a time, but mine has been blinking both at the same time. I hope he's not smashing his brain matter into mush. And I found out they blink because I watched him for an obsessive two hours to make sure he was going to get along with the persnickety Red Phantoms. They have had a love hate relationship with each other since the one died some months back. I can't say I understand the mind of fish, but it would do them a world of good to have another three Red Phantoms in there with them. They're happiest in a small school. They've torn each others fins to splinters. I'd say shreds, but it doesn't look like shreds.

The little Cory has been very active since I put him in the tank. Actually I'm sort of worried he's going to kill himself from sheer exhaustion. The up side is the Red Phantoms are much more active since the Cory is so active. Usually they hide in the little treasure chest all day. Now they're being more adventurous and hiding behind a spindly fake plant. Here's the proof. I can actually take a picture of the little Red without him spooking. The Phantoms have been trying to school with the newcomer and its just not working, because his swimming pattern is too erratic. Makes for some good laughs watching them try and keep up with the Cat as he zooms all over the tank. Up, down, up to the surface to skim, then down again behind the rock... then he goes foraging in the gravel for a while and the Phantoms don't know what to make of that at all.

Now all I have to do is pray he doesn't drop dead on me. I like him too much already!

What Do You Think?

During my years of trundling up and down the mountainside, to work and back, I have witnessed many off the wall things. A bear being chased by a bunch of dogs do a somersault through a barbwire fence. A wild Tom Turkey doing his best to scare off passing cars, with his sumo-style stomp and feather display, from the center of the road. A car full of morons making a u-turn on a blind corner... veeerrrrrry sloowwwlllyyy. A flasher standing by the side of the road during winter (Not the appropriate time of year dude.) But I have to say that tonight's commute experience was the one that topped it all.

For almost a week now there has been a dead skunk laying in the middle of the road at a particularly bad corner. Normally the Turkey Vultures would have taken care of it by now, but as I said, the corpse is in a bad section of the road, and Vultures however ugly are not stupid. Skunk Corpse smells awful. You have the stench of skunk, mixed with the stench of death, and it makes even me gag. There is no keeping it out of your car, even if you have all the vents closed. We commuters have learned not to breath for the 45-50 seconds (at 55 mph) that it takes you get past the really ripe dead skunk and its aurora of cloying haze.

So, here I am driving home, a little later than usual. Which means I was not surrounded by home seeking commuters who don't really care if they're speeding. This turned out to be a good thing, because as I came up on 'Skunk Way' which is a blind corner I had to slam on the breaks and swerve to the right side of the road, and then swerve back to avoid a parked car. Why you ask? Because there was a man standing in the center of the road leaning over the Skunk Corpse with a spray bottle in his hand. I slowed. What the hell is he doing?! He's going to get himself killed! As I watched in stunned amazement via the rear view mirror this man sprays the skunk corpse with a bottle of Fabreeze. FABREEZE!! The man is risking death to spray roadkill with AIR FRESHENER?!

O.o

.... i drove the rest of the way home in stunned silence. Okay, not exactly true. I was listening to a Lily Allen CD, but usually I'm singing along with it. Good God, man! Yes, the smell is totally offensive, but what got into that pea sized brain of yours to try de-oderizing roadkill???

I think this must be some sort of all time high for freaky instances of Road Hazards R Us. Am I wrong? Do things like this happen to YOU? Am I just special?

What do you think?

Mistakes

Last night I dreamed. Not that this is unusual, but generally my dreams are a lot more ... zombie-horror flick-ish. Bloodshed, mayhem, violence, screaming, breathing closet walls.... etc. Most of them are in vivid color and are too complex to completely remember. Rarely do I have dreams where it's peaceful enough for me to feel at ease, which is what makes last nights dream so unusual... and weird.

From what I can remember, I was floating, probably without a body, and it was quiet, peaceful. I was just drifting in darkness, looking around me, watching stars, planets, galaxies, and a multitude of other entities of space floating with me. There was no weight to drag me down, no worries to cloud my mind... just drifting.

And a little girl's voice, breathy and light with quiet cheer, next to my ear said,"Why do you think there are so many stars, planets and galaxies out here?"

I thought about it a moment, and replied,"I don't know. Why?"

The voice laughed,"These are all of God's trial runs. His mistakes. He made a lot didn't he?" The little girl voice became a bit more expansive and broader in scope, seeming to encompass everything before us, "He made all this, in order to learn how to make Earth in 7 days."

I laughed. "But God doesn't make mistakes supposedly." I stopped wondering if I should tell her that I wasn't a big believer in an all powerful omnipotent being. And that being the case, I didn't believe that the world was made in seven days. I've found that most people ... get odd when I tell them that. (In fact I'm having reservations now about even posting this.) There were also the implications associated with so many mistakes, and if true, it explains a LOT. In general.

I could hear the smirk in her voice as she answered my unspoken criticism, in a sing-song voice,"That's what YOU think."

And I woke up. Weird WEIRD dream. What did I get out of this? That it's alright to make mistakes. You have to learn somehow. I could go in a completely different direction with it, but essentially she wasn't talking about God. She was talking about actions and results. Made a mistake? That's alright. Just figure out what you did wrong in the given situation, and then move on and try again. Don't freak out because you looked stupid, or you lost your job or whatever. Embrace the mistake, Learn from the mistake, Apply that knowledge to the next similar situation. Its just that simple.

As odd as this sound, I know I'm right because the sleeping hind brain hasn't risen from its slumber to raze me with its caustic wit. ... Yet.

.... and yes, I know. You all think I'm totally nuts now, and are wondering if you should even come back to this blog in the future, and risk contamination through reading it.

Its okay. I understand.

Crunch... crunch... *pause* ... crunch

There's a saying that 'when the cats away the mice will play', yes? It does hold some truth. Generally speaking, some of my weirdest experiences have happened while I was home alone. For example, when we were living in a motor home outside our earthquake damaged house, my sister and parents went to a friends house for dinner. I stayed home because I wasn't feeling good. They leave. It got quiet. Then the storm blew in, and the next thing I know there's a bay tree leaning on the motor home, which is up on blocks to keep it level. Visions of the home on wheels going over the side of the embankment with me inside did not fill me with the glee one finds on an amusement park ride. Rest assured the sturdy little box on wheels stayed right were it was, but my parents did get a slightly panicked phone call from me.

There was also the time that the kitchen nearly caught on fire due to someone turning on the wrong burner on a stove. That was NOT me. Someone wanted tea and turned on the burner under a pan full of bacon grease instead of the burner under the tea kettle. Ah... please note that when you do as you were taught by very serious firefighters in grade school "You can use baking soda to put out the fire by dumping the box on it.", that what they do NOT tell you is that when you have a fire shooting three and a half feet into the air, and you dump a box of baking soda on it, that the fire briefly and surprisingly, shoots out three and a half feet to the sides before being extinguished. Yes... That would've been handy to know. Earlier. ehem...

But I think the 'home alone' instance that tops all others (so far, that is) was when my parents were visiting my uncle in AZ. This was the year that we'd had out first trouble with a critter getting at the chickens while in their hen house. Right at the beginning of summer we'd forgotten to close up the door before it got dark, and of course, the one night we forget is the one night something decides it wants chicken for dinner. And of course it isn't something small like a fox or a bobcat. Nooooo. We end up with a yearling black bear in the hen house. We lost two hens to the bear eating them, and one just plain vanished. That's still a mystery. No feathers, no nothing. Bears are messy eaters, and would have left some evidence behind. I'm wondering if the bear had been accompanied by a fox that night. Fox are often seen puttering around near bears. Anyway, that was a first... actually there were a couple of firsts. First time we lost chickens to a predator, first time we forgot to close the metal door on the chicken coop, and the first time I've ever seen my father grimly loading a revolver to go shoot whatever it was that was in the chicken coop. Actually that was the last time I've ever seen that last one.

So, here we are later that same summer, while my parents are out of town, and I'm left home to take care of the raptors, and the dogs. Not a big deal because I couldn't get out of work anyway. It was hot that night so I had all the windows wide open so we'd get a breeze. No central AC of any kind here in the boonies. I prefer it that way, considering AC dries out my nose something fierce. The dogs were sacked out on the floor, sprawled really and attempting to pretend that panting wasn't a necessity. As for myself, I had plotzed down on the sofa and was watching some show on TV that has obviously done bad things to my brain cells, as I can't recall what it was.

The volume wasn't up high on the set, because the house is a lot quieter with just one human and two dogs in it. This made it easy for me to hear anything going on outside. I'd been half listening to a couple of Western Screech Owls call back and forth to each other, and there was the general faint noise of neighborhood dogs barking.... and there was the...

*Crunch* *Crunch*.. pause.. *Crunch*

...noise of something approaching the house through dried leaves. .... which failed to register completely on my radar until the dogs both sat up with ears perked. Growling ensued. Alrighty then. They don't do that for deer. Being paranoid my first thought was "Sh!t! Someone's going to rob the place." Except the dogs weren't barking in a "There's a HUMAN we don't know out there!" They were growling in a "We're not sure what it is, but its not pleasant." sort of way.

The sleepy part of my brain that only wakes up to tell me I'm being a dolt for not seeing the obvious, clobbered me with a mental pillow before rolling over and going back to sleep, saying,"Its the bear you exquisite fool." Don't ask me why I smiled. The Bear, I thought. Well! Its not getting the rest of my chickens! NOT TO-NIGHT!

Muttering highly unflattering remarks about said bears heritage and upbringing, I went out on the porch and made a lot of racket with two metal dog pans. The bear, (yes it actually was a bear; the sleepy hind brain is rarely wrong), was already in the driveway, halfway between the house and the chicken coop, and it didn't seem to care one wit about me and my noisy shenanigans. It paused in lazy fashion to stare at the strange creature making all the noise, then turned again to pursue its late evening snack.

I was incensed! How DARE he ignore me. So, I threw one of the metal dog pan at him, and of course I missed. He didn't even pause as he looked over his shoulder at me with a grade school smirk as he mosied towards food. I'd been trying to spook him, but now I was pissed. My second throw was hard and aimed with precision... the rim of the dog pan smashed into the bear's head, and made a sound like a gong. The bear stood still for a second, then sat down and weaved a little bit. After a few seconds he got up, shook off, and started for the hens again. This bear was WAY too used to people, and I didn't have anymore dog pans to hurl at him. I ran back in the house and got my car keys. The chickens were locked up, but he'd easily peeled back a couple of sheets of thick plywood the last time he'd visited to get at the chickens. I had no illusions about the wood surrounding the metal door. He'd go through it like butter.

I stormed out of the house and across the driveway to where the car was parked, my hind brain pointing out lazily that the bear could easily run me down before I got to the car. "Shut UP!" I said, and got into the car. My car at that time was an 1981 Oldsmobile Omega. Basically an 80's commute car. It was old, and not terribly pretty to look at, but it made a hell of a lot of noise, and its actually made of metal instead of spiffy, shiny plastic! And I'd learned through experience that cranking it over while little old people were walking past tended to scare the hell out of them. I couldn't see why it'd be any different for a fearless yearling bear. And it wasn't, especially after I chased him all over our 3 acres at speed, with headlights, and horns, and a blasting radio and me behind the wheel laughing like a madman. When I couldn't find him anymore (I lost him in a cloud of dust as I wheeled hard into a magnificent spiral... He must have jumped the fence in a panic) I drove back to the hen house and idled in front of the door for an hour. When I got back in the house the dogs eyed me warily for the rest of the evening. My evil streak was showing that night I guess.

It dawned on me later that my neighbors must have thought someone over here had lost their mind. It turned out that the neighbors who would've had a front row seat weren't home that week, and the other was also away. I had a laugh though. Never had another bear on the property that went after the chickens. Now we don't have any bears to speak of at all thanks to an international poaching ring. Nor do we have cougars, bobcats, otters and most of the fox are gone too. The fact that we've had a fox eating our chickens this spring and summer is a GOOD thing. I'm glad they're not gone completely. I haven't seen a bear up here in two years, and that's just sad.