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.

Simple

No novel today. Just some pictures I took over the last couple of days.

The first one I took out in the little garden beside the house. Its nice in there, full of little birdbaths, false stream beds and a couple of rose bushes. Actually I'm not sure if this is a rose or not. It may be something that looks like a rose and is masquerading. In any case, I snapped a picture of it as soon as I noticed it. Flowers in that little garden tend to dry up pretty damned fast in the summer.

You can see its already starting to burn in the sun. California sun might be some of the best, but up here in the mountains it tends to fry more than anything else.

And here we have a couple of little critters that I received as a gift while at work. The library has been getting a bunch of books on knitting and crocheting little animals and creatures of all sorts. I would love to be able to knit or crochet, just so I could make some of these creatures. It looks like it'd be a lot of fun. Alas, I am more likely to get tied up in the yarn than create something cute and wonderful like this young lady did. She showed me an entire family she'd made using the mysterious art of crochet. Then she handed me these and said they were for me! I LOVE them!

I'm told that the white one is an alien, from the planet Crochet. He's very cute, and I'm going to have to figure out how to hang him off my backpack. Next to him are a set of cherries. One is happy, and the other is sad, like theatrical masks. The cherries came complete with stems and leaves. I love it. Maybe I can hang them in my car. :)

I really need to learn to crochet. There was an entire book on how to make everything from monkeys to zombies. Looked like a lot of fun. *sighs* Yet another thing to learn before I expire. In due time of course.

Saw and Heard

Once again, I'm going back to Arizona to tell of a trip to one of the more internationally known museums for Native American history and art. The Heard Museum. Just to give a quick background, the museum was originally built as a mansion for a wealthy couple. The Heards. Actually the husband married into money; is wife being the daughter of the family that opened and still owns Ace Hardware. They moved to Arizona for the husband's health, and ended up becoming a patron of sorts to the native peoples of the region. The Pueblo, Pai, Navajo, Hopi, Apache, and others I'm sure I'm forgetting. Arizona is a desert, and most people are amazed at how many native peoples inhabited this arid and seemingly barren area. I'm not so surprised, but I think that has to do with my own background of being a docent for a Natural History museum. The training for which was intensive, and thorough. My brain is still crammed with knowledge, such as before the Spanish arrived in CA, there were 800 distinct dialects (this means that the languages had diverged and remained separate for several thousand years) spoken by native peoples in CA alone. I can't begin to imagine how many there would be if you factored in for the rest of the country. AZ was obviously no different in diversity.

I digress. The Heards decided to leave their entire estate, and extensive Native American items collection to the Native Americans of Arizona. Inside their mansion is housed one of the finest collections of pottery, arts, dolls and other things of that nature in the world. And having been there, I can tell you that this is not a case of gradeurized boasting. The collection is extensive, especially where pottery is concerned. Much like a car museum, you can see just about every make and model from ancient to recent, from every tribe that had anything to do with carrying something in some form. Other rooms offered exhibits on famous Native American Artists, such as Allan Houser whose work I really enjoyed. I would not mind getting a reproduction of some of his works (best way to see some of his work, is to use Google Images search). Another room was filled to capacity by Hopi Katsina (kahts ee nah) dolls of every type that I'd ever seen, and some I'd never seen before. They're beautiful, whimsical, solemn, frightening, and altogether powerful as they represent benevolent spirits who visit the Hopi twice yearly. Generally they are the spirits that bring the rain, and are given into the care of the little girls until they're around 10 years of age. Please don't take this as gospel, as I'm dragging up possibly misheard information from a tour I took nearly three weeks ago.

On the second floor there is a room dedicated to the American government's attempt to "educate" the Native Peoples. For those of you who don't know, this was the work of a combination of good christian ethics (sighs. Some of the worst events in history have been done because someone thought God wanted them to.) and money/land hungry government and business people. Basically schools were built (they called them schools, but they were more like military boot camp.) for Native American children, which were in many cases ripped from the arms of their family, loaded onto trains like cattle and shipped off to parts unknown. I wish I could say they weren't treated like cattle, but they were. Their clothing was taken from them, their braids were shorn, and then kerosene was poured on them because obviously they must have lice. (never mind that they almost certainly didn't because of the way they cared for their hair) They were also beaten or reprimanded if they spoke their own language. America stopped the practice in 1960s, which in itself is sort of appalling given we're supposed to be one of the most accepting and tolerant of differences, although I still meet extremely small minded people from time to time. Most of these schools are gone, and only two still operate, and only because they're the only school close enough for the kids to get to. Needless to say the curriculum and treatment has changed dramatically. This room really brings it all home though, because the stories of these kids, now grown and elderly, tell of their experiences of being forced from their family, their home, the train ride, the schools... Made me sick, and then angry. I don't have a high tolerance for blatant stupidity.

It's a beautiful museum, and it is a must see if you ever go to Phoenix, AZ. Just don't expect a terribly friendly reception. This was my interpretation at least of going there, but maybe they were just having bad day. All of my museum experiences in Phoenix were strange come to think of it. One was closed. Another was way more money than I was expecting, and not what I would've paid for once I got inside. Too many exhibits were broken, inoperable, or simply closed. It's sad to see museums being run like roadside tourist traps, which is essentially what they were. I must be spoiled. I'd never had that experience before, but then most of the museums I'd been to were in CA, and while CA is NOT doing well by any means, the museums were/are ... fun, inviting.

At the Heard museum I had the unpleasant notion that I was seen as a thief. Leave large backpacks at the door lockers, wear your purse around your front so we can see it, don't take pictures if you intend to use a flash.... By the time they got done with all the rules, I felt guilty just standing in the lobby. And I took maybe 4 pictures inside before I stopped, because one of the staff was there staring at me. "I wasn't using the flash." I said quietly. The woman stared at me for about 15 seconds (trust me, 15 seconds is a LONG time) before saying,"Good." Then she walked off down the hallway. I'm not normally intimidated, but by the time I left I felt like hiding in a corner and crying for a while. My friends didn't seem to have the same feeling, but then again I didn't tell them that we were followed through the whole place by at least one staff member, and not always the same one. The gift shop was nice. I mean Tiffanys nice, and way the hell out of my price range. I didn't get anything, but my friends got a bracelet and some CDs.

So, there are really only two pictures I took. One because I loved the artwork on the pottery, and the other because it got a rare smile out of me on an otherwise nerve wracking experience.

I'll apologize now for the photo, because of the poor quality, but I was shaking a bit when I took it because I had someone drilling holes in my back as soon as I took out my camera. This is Pueblo pottery style, with a painting of who I think is a representation of Koshari the Clown. The Pueblo and Hopi share many of the same spirit legends, so its not unusual to see him on pottery, but Koshari is usually seen as a Hopi Katsina. Koshari was a spirit joker of sorts, like Coyote is in other Native American cultures. He taught social traditions through tricks and humor to keep the peace in the community. I've seen him before, but I hadn't known his name until now. He was always one of my favorite characters in paintings and carvings.

This one had me smiling. If you can't tell what it is, its another piece of pottery by a Pueblo artist and this one must be quite recent. Its a Harry Potter bowl! I guess everyone really DOES love Harry Potter. In it you can see Harry's broom and suitcase. The car that Ron Weasley crashed, Mad-Eye Moody's all seeing eye, and the escapee toad. There was even more chuckling because of 'Potter', pottery, etc. But I thought this was cute, and this made me feel a little better for a while. A really little while, because this was the last picture I took before I put my camera away for the rest of the excursion.

I would love to go back and really look everything over when I'm by myself, and perhaps when the staff isn't quite so... attentive. Everything about this place was beautiful. Balsa wood wraps the walkways, and walls, providing very few hard edges to the place. It is dark though, sort of like the Rosicrucian Egyptian Museum in San Jose, Ca. Dark, with well lit exhibits. I used to go there with my grandpa when I was little. We'd go every time my grandmother went to have her hair done while I was visiting, because it generally took her an hour. I can't remember how many times I went through there, but there was always something new to see, and it was quiet. It's another place I'll have to go back to. :)