Garlic, How do I love Thee?

Sweet baby Jesus*, do I love me some garlic twelve ways from sunday.  I'll eat three raw crushed gloves in a plate of pasta and not bat an eye (a habit that basically turns me into the equivalent of a federal Superfund Cleanup site for the next four hours), and a half dozen cloves go into most things that I preserve.  (Peppers, pickles, etc.)  Also, sautéed garlic is a staple that deserves to be on the lowest rung of the now-defunct food pyramid, in my humble opinion: eight or more helpings a day!

Okay, I'm exaggerating, but I really do love the stuff.  It's good for you, it's delicious raw or cooked or pickled, and it's truly the easiest plant to grow.  You poke a clove into the ground in October, and then come back the next July and scoop out the matured bulb.  At least around here, I never bother to water or feed it--I just make sure that the bed that it's in is richly amended with compost, and let the rains do the rest.  My grandfather used to keep a jar of pickled garlic cloves by his bedside (from bulbs that he grew himself, of course), and whenever he would feel heart pains, he'd eat a couple; he claimed that the pains would go away quickly.  Raw garlic is also, in my experience, a hangover prevention: if you've enjoyed the new year's celebration too much, swallow three cloves of garlic and you'll wake up tired and stinky, but not hurting.

Half of the 2011 garlic crop, drying

The first year that I was serious about gardening (2008), I planted about twelve softneck garlics in unamended heavy clay soil.  My reward for that excessive inattention was a crop of bean-sized bulbs with no flavor.  So last year, I devoted a 4'x4' bed to garlic, ordered hardneck porcelain seed garlic from Filaree Farm, and made sure that the soil was fluffy and rich.  As a result, I have almost 100 fat bulbs, each 2" across and sporting six or seven large cloves each.  I also enjoyed the benefit of ~100 delicious garlic scapes in the spring!

Nice 2" bulbs

For 2012, I have lost my mind.  Having just harvested the bounty above, I realized that I have more than enough garlic to save for seed and store for cooking over the next year, but alas, I've already ordered more seed garlic from Filaree.  Approximately three times more than I planted this year, enough to fill a 4'x12' raised bed.  This means that next year, I am going to witness the Garlic Apocaplyse.  Is it possible to have too much garlic?  We shall see.  Whatever the answer, I am never going to have to order seed garlic again....

And now a gratuitous picture of Finn with a dab of yellow paint on his kitten snout:

Just because

UPDATE:  The garlic has been drying in the garage for a couple of hours now, and OH MY GOD does the garage smell amazing!


*Did you know that, strictly speaking, uttering the name "Jesus" is not "taking the lord's name in vain", according to christian texts and history?  His name in aramaic was "Yeshua", which translates in english to "Joshua".

Eight Wednesday Things

TREES!

• This new greenhouse ROCKS.  That's a coffee bean tree and a bay laurel tree (as in, "bay leaves" or "roman laurel wreath") above.  They are loving the 80ºF temps in there, as are the peppers.  Next year, tomatoes and eggplant!
• Getting people hooked on something you love is really awesome.  I've turned Laura into a gardener!
• I have too many Lego
• Funny quote from tonight: "No punishment is too draconian.  A good thrashing with the town eel, perhaps.  Then, a written letter of apology to the eel."
• Finn has slept for 23.5 hours today.  I envy that cat.
• Twitter is the most ridiculously silly thing ever
• I don't have enough Lego
• Honey badger don't give a shit!

Finn Returns

Sleepy man in my office

Finn finally came home tonight, ten days after he'd left.  Today it had been overcast and raining for the first time in a month, and I'm guessing that that's what drove him back home.  He didn't appear to be hurt at all -- just missing his collar and quite a bit thinner than when he left, but otherwise obviously happy to be home: chatty and hungry.  He's purring on my leg at the moment.  His amazing new skill is the ability to fall into REM sleep after about 90 seconds of immobility, and to wake up to full alertness in about the same amount of time.

Laura said "I'm as happy now tonight as I was inconsolable last night."

Finn is now grounded.  As much as we believe in letting him live his life as he wants to, he's only a year old, and one day out of ten is not enough, especially if he's going to be losing a $20 collar and tag every time he goes on walkabout.

Ugh

Things that I'm up to tonight (or was):

1. Packaging the Cherokee Purple seeds from their fermentation.

2. Pondering one-way functions.

3. Shopping for a dream oscilloscope.

4. Starting to reread the classic of classics.

5. Comforting a very sad woman about the apparent loss of Finn.

6. Realizing how much unresolved shit I have in the back of my head that is holding me back from actually being a whole human being, still, even at this point in my life, and wondering what the hell I have to do to move past this.*

7. Laughing at how absurd that is.

8. Pouring a drink.

9. Understanding that that's not a long term solution, but telling the world to go fuck itself anyway.

10.  Big sigh.

*Crying women seem to stir shit up in me.

R.I.P. Zapho

Several years ago, back when I was struggling through graduate school, I lived in the basement of a very fine house owned by a good friend of mine.  His sister lived in the room next to mine.  The three of us (and later four, when a younger brother moved in) made a kind of impromptu family, and we all became very close.

Shortly before I graduated and moved out, the sister got a couple of small kittens.  Oh my god, they were adorable!  We played with them for hours and hours.

Time rolled on, and the kittens became cats.  She called the all-black one Alexander, for some reason, but the rest of us called him Zapho.  If you ever watched Sifl & Olly, that will make sense.  He was a good cat with a sweet personality -- he would friendly right up to you, given even half a chance.  Eventually the second brother would move in some other animals (a pit bull and a ferocious alley cat) who beat the living crap out of Zapho for several years, but that was after my time in that household.

Eventually, the sister moved out, and she took her cats with her.  By that time, Zapho was permanently traumatized by years of abuse from the other animals -- which was not her fault at all, since she couldn't afford to live anywhere else.  It was what it was.  He ate a lot, since it was his consolation.  But after a while, he gained a LOT of weight.  And today, she wrote me that his heavy weight had led to liver failure, and that she had put him down as a result.  She was really sad, and I can only imagine (from miles and miles and miles away) the tears she must have cried while writing to me.

As it turns out, I'm the only one with any pictures of Zapho.  And he looked a lot like Finn.  Who is still missing, and today was a week.

Young Zapho

The Nightshades

My tomatoes have begun to develop something that is either early blight, or else a magnesium deficiency.  It's too early to tell, but I've dosed them with dolomite lime and an epsom salt dilution, and I'm always regular about watering, so the next week or so should tell.  Here's the evidence:

Note the yellow tinges between the leaf veins.  Here's to hoping that it's not blight! I have a bit more evidence to support that it isn't, namely the upper leaf-curl:

That is definitely not a sign of blight, but it does speak to either another disease or to nutrient deficiencies.  Whoever said that tomatoes are the easiest garden plant to grow was an idiot.

In other news, I dumped one of the 30-gallon potato pots today.  It had been ravaged by deer and was not doing well, so I put it out of its misery.  Here are before, during, and after shots:

Before, with tarp at the ready to catch the dirt

Right after dumping the pot -- you can see some potatoes peeking out

The tiny harvest

These were german butterballs again.  The harvest was far below what I expect out of a 30-gallon pot: only about 3-4 lbs of potatoes.  Normally there should be more like 10.  But the deer really cut this pot's season short -- the other pots have at least another month, maybe two, of good tuber growing.

Finn is still gone.  My neighbor tonight said that he saw a coyote in his yard early one  morning recently.  Things are not looking good for the little man.  Laura is making "lost cat" flyers to put in our neighbors' mailboxes.  But it's been a week now, and I'm starting to think that the little dude is really gone.

Sunday Night in the Garden

Finn is still AWOL, but not for want of my presence outside to trigger his chuminess instinct.  I went into the forest this morning to look for him, and walked a few miles in either direction up and down the closest trail, but there was no sign of him.  Water still running in the creek, lots of little critters, and warm temperatures, so I'm still holding out hope that he's just on walkabout and is taking care of himself just fine.

Anyway, as I hinted, I spent the day in the garden.  Here are the fruits of today's efforts:

New 4'x4' raised garden bed

A new garden bed!  I spent the day today sawing out the notches by hand, and then drilling holes to accomodate 3/8" rebar that I will hammer down on the corners to hold it all together.  This is the first of many that I am going to put in place along the south side of the house, which I have identified as being the primo garden real estate on my lot.  Here's how it looks now:

 The barren waste land

As you can see, I haven't done much with that side of the house.  That's compost that I'm starting to spread out over the clay, and I do have a row of various plants along the house proper, and they're doing quite well.  Which is how I know that this strip of land is the best that I have for gardening, because I come out in the early morning to water and there is already beaming sunshine all along there.  The reason I haven't done much with it is because, in the dark of winter, I mistakenly thought that my main back yard area would be the best -- and it is, but only for things that need shade.  Anyway, along the house I have:

Vigorous tomato plants (this one is 5.5' tall)

The variety that I planted this year is Early Girl, an F1 hybrid.   I didn't want to go with hybrids, but this being the first year that I tried gardening for real, I figured that I should go with something straightforward.  And man, are they growing like crazy.  There are about 30 young tomatoes getting bigger on the vines, and the vines themselves grow 3-4" every day.

Slicer Cucumbers

The cucumbers got off to a slow start, but they are now growing like crazy in the 75ºF days.  As small as those guys are, there are about 25-30 little cucumbers growing on them, already.  I'm weaving them through the tines of a trellis that I've got leaning up against the house.

A tiny ear of corn (you can see the tassels!)

I decided to try my hand at sweet corn, too.  Hell, I planted about one of everything, to see how it would go.  The corn is really doing well, with big, beautiful, strong plants, and now finally some ears starting to develop.  About two months behind the rest of the country, but hey, that's the pacific northwest for you.

Russian Mammoth sunflowers

I've always loved sunflowers.  I love the way that they follow the sun -- I remember taking the commuter train to Munich in the morning and passing fields of sunflowers, their heads all facing east, and coming back in the evening and seeing the same flowers looking in the opposite direction.  Mine do the same thing, although they have yet to flower.  Those glacier wands (the sticks with the orange flags) are there to give the flowers support when it gets windy -- the flower on the left was 3" shorter than the top of the wand that it is tied to, only four days ago.  It's growing like mad!  Also, around the bases of the flowers are my patented (well, not really) slug deterents.  Anyone who has ever tried to grow sunflowers in slug country knows how much slugs love to devour small sunflower seedlings.  But not with my system!  (Basically just a liter soda bottle with top and bottom cut off.)

Anyway, these babies are supposed to grow to 9' tall, with enormous seed heads.  In their own way, they're my favorite plants in the garden.  I am happily anticipating some beautiful flowers.

Here's a sample of what's going on in the "main" part of the garden:

Thirty-gallon potato pots getting close to harvest

Everyone laughs at me for growing potatoes here, because you can buy a metric ton of potatoes for less than what it costs to drive them back home, it seems.  But you can't buy the varieties that I'm growing.  German Butterball alone is so very much worth the effort -- an amazing potato, delicious and buttery, but delicate.  It wouldn't hold up well to commercial production.

Tender lettuce heads

I seeded these guys a while back and I totally forget what they are, but I need to remember because they are vigorous and the slugs don't seem to like them.  All I remember is that the seeds came from Uprising Seeds, inc.

Black Beans!

Seriously, life would not be worth living if it were not for black beans.  I adore them.  So I planted a handful, and look'it'em go.  That giant lettuce in the background is one that I'm letting go to seed, just to see if it produces anything worth propogating.

Anyway.  There are a ton of things happening right now that make me not so happy, not the least of which is Finn being gone for nearly a week, so I'm glad that I have this little oasis of mine to tend.  Who knows, maybe he'll come back soon.  Maybe some favorite voices that have gone quiet will  be heard again.  Maybe my sister's marriage won't fall apart.  Maybe all the other ridiculous things that seem to be off the rails at the moment will right themselves.  But, well, if they don't, at least I'll have a lot of beans.

UPDATE: PZ Meyers of Pharyngula is going to be in Seattle at the Pike Brewing Company on tuesday!  I am sorely tempted to take the day off and drive down there to buy him a beer.  In case you don't know, I am a big fan of PZ.  He is a take-no-prisoners empiricist, which I admire, for I am not of the Dawkins breed of empiricists; no, I tend to be rather vehement, like PZ.  But I don't have his fortitude under fire.  I try for a while to keep up pointing out logical fallacies, but after a while a sustained approach of ad hominem attacks will beat me down.  Not PZ, though. 

And, I love the Pike Trippel, for it is one fine, fine beer.  Finally, to complete the trifecta, I have been telling my friends for what seems like forever that I need to go visit the Pike brewery.

Friday Night Music: John Barleycorn

I've listened to Traffic for years and years and.. years. This old folk tune adaptation of theirs has always appealed to me. It is a metaphor of learning to grow, and to brew.

Finn has been gone now for three days. If he doesn't come back soon, I will be hitting the wares of J. Barleycorn, I think.

BONUS! Arctic Monkeys!

She walked away, well her shoes were untied,
And the eyes were all red,
You could see that we've cried, and I watched and I waited,
'Till she was inside, forcing a smile and waving goodbye

Wednesday Night Music

More Tarrega tonight.  I actually spent a good amount of time looking for the best version of this tango, and the one I finally found was the first one that I saw.  And it's not bad at all, although the user's name is... questionable:



But I kinda like how the dude is wearing a sport coat.

In other news, I have tomatoes growing, finally, and black beans too. Finn is chasing Zooey up and down the hallway as I write this, and Laura laughed and smiled as she went to bed.

On Atheism and the Acceptance of Religion (In Some Sense)

I used to date a woman who was a devout catholic.  Every day, come rain or shine, she attended mass.  I went with her many times, because I was fascinated by the homilies.  If you're not catholic, the homily is a commentary given by the priest after a reading of a bibilical passage -- an interpretation and explanation, if you will.  I liked to hear the statement on morality, and then the priest's explanation, because it's really useful to hear this stuff.  How else do you know what you believe, if you don't hear what is possible, and decide how you feel about it?

I laugh a bit now, when I think of her.  We had sex, she wore leather, and she was an ardent supporter of the death penalty.  And yet, she parroted the catholic teachings of abstinence-only education, she claimed to be a vegetarian, and she was a strong supporter of "life" in the sense of "abolition of abortion."  I kind of wonder why I was ever with her, now. 

Not that I demand absolute consistency from my friends and lovers, because I don't.  Expecting that kind of thing out of a human would be setting oneself up for disappointment.  But I do wonder how someone can espouse a philosophy publicly, and deny it privately, at least in some sense.  I may be many things, but at least the face that I reveal publicly (in terms of my life philosophy) is the same one that I show to my closest friends and relatives.  I wonder: how can one decry the use of animals for food, but yet wear leather pumps?  It's okay to kill an animal for its skin, but not for its flesh?  How can one tell teenagers to practice abstinence in public, but fuck like a bunny in private?  Weird.

Finn didn't come back from the forest last night.  He goes out almost every day, and spends hours in the woods before coming back, happily meowing, to chomp at his food bowl and then sleep in a tight curl at our feet.  It's been predictable and familiar, all spring and summer long so far.  But last night he didn't come back.  We shook the treat jars outside, trying to call him back, over and over, until far after dark.  At midnight it became apparent that he was not coming back that night, and my imagination turned towards the worst.

I woke up with the realization that I really had become attached to that small animal, and the thought of his permanent absence gave me pause.  I woke up at 9:00am, somewhat depressed.  I went through the motions of the day, going to the store and doing chores, but I just kept thinking: Finn, where are you?

Finally, I decided this: it was a great pleasure to have known that small animal.  We gave him a good life, and he enjoyed his time in the forest to the fullest.  I had no regrets about letting him roam free, even if it had ultimately resulted in him getting caught and eaten by some predator.  He would have hated a life cooped up inside.

So I drove back home, thinking about how a little creature like that can give such companionship and satisfaction to one of us lumbering primates, and felt better.  As I walked through the door later in the afternoon, the first thing that Laura said was:  Guess who came home.

Finn was sound asleep on the chair next to her.  He had apparently eaten a full bowl of food, and has now been sleeping on the spare chair in my office for close to nine hours, interrupted only by me or she as we come in to pet him and scold him for causing such worry.  No one knows what he had been up to all night and half the day, but he had come home tired and hungry and was happy to be back.

In a way, I guess that I can see how people turn to religion sometimes.  Feeling what I did about just a kitten, I can't imagine what it is like for someone to lose a child to a predator.  And in a way, everyday life is a kind of constant beat-down.  It makes sense that people turn to a source of hope like religion.  I may disagree with its precepts completely, but I cannot deny that solace.

I am glad that Finn has returned.  It means that I get to appreciate his company for a little while longer.  As an atheist, I know that that is valuable -- having him here, well, that's a just a brief moment in time, and I need to enjoy it.  But I also need to do right by him.  Finn would not love his life if he were locked inside -- he needs to be free.  So I will let him out into the forest again tomorrow.

Monday night music

Julian Bream plays BWV 1000

I'm getting back into playing classical guitar, after a long hiatus, so I'm enjoying videos of great players. Here is Bream playing a rather difficult fugue, courtesy of Bach, of course. I love me some Bach. Years ago I played and recorded this on my answering machine:

These days I think that I'd be lucky to remember how to read the music. However, it is coming back relatively quickly -- those neurons may be out of use, but they're not completely gone yet. My girlfriend back then called me up recently to say that she'd heard this piece and was reminded of my answering-machine piece, and that really took me back.

I remember playing a lot of music when I lived in Germany, mostly because (1) living in Germany as an expatriot, without a job, is an extended lesson in Suck, and Suck is only really relieved by Art; and (2) it gave me a great excuse not to have to interact with people.

Meanwhile, back in this world, here is Finn being all cuddly and friendly next to my Bay Laurel tree seedling, wanting to get inside and have a snack:

And here is my proudest plant, an onion that was part of winter time salsa and whose foot got thrown out into the compost heap, only to come alive in the spring. I rescued it and gave it a place on the edge of the garden. It has now sprouted into a bunch of green onions, one of which is now sprouting a seed bulbil. I am just gonna let this little guy grow without interference, and maybe I'll get some seeds out of it!

Reevaluation

I was thinking today about what it means to live an authentic life. By that I mean: to be living as an aware being, choosing a path, and not just blindly repeating the same motions day after day. Because that's what I've been doing the last few months: get up, eat breakfast, work at the computer for four hours, go work out, work four more hours, tend the garden, eat dinner, watch a film, read a book, sleep.

Repeat x120 days, modulo random variations.

This is not what I want my life to be. What I want more of:

• Real interaction with people in my life, instead of screen time (computers and television)
• To stop doing leisure time activities that I really don't like
• More stop & quiet

For the first one, I want to push the keyboard away, and figure out how to fill the spare time with my people.  Play backgammon with Laura, hike an evening trail, help mom haul some compost.  This sitting in front of screens thing has got to stop.  Really, it just has to.  Facebook is stupid, and a $5 comcast movie is a waste of both money as well as time.  I used to read a book a day, and I remember thinking and being challenged.  Now, I feel like a lemming, waiting for the next round of entertainment.

For the second, this is harder.  It means some real introspection.  You know what?  I really don't like the mountain rescue stuff.  They consume my weekends and my weekdays, and honestly, there were only four callouts last year and I was unavailable for all of them.  The guys in that group do it mostly to get away from their families for a night or a day.  That's not the kind of dynamic I want to be a part of.  I appreciate their efforts, but really, it's not fulfulling, and it's wasting my time.  If I'm going to volunteer my time for a cause, I want it to feel right.  I don't want to be a person who does things to get away from his life -- I want to do things to be a part of them.

For the last, it's the hardest of all.  I'm so sick of supermarkets playing pop songs in the background, and radios in the car.  Why must we always have noise?  And why must we always be moving or doing?  The best times of the last month that I can remember involve.. nothing that would make any headline.  I remember Finn sitting beside me as I crouched by a garden bed, shivering as he does when the ground is cold and his foot pads get wet.  I remember the warmth of Laura's skin as we stood together, watching the sun set in the forest.  I remember waking up and then lying still, listening to the frogs croaking in the stream bed outside.

Well, tomorrow is the start of a new day.  Let's see how it goes.

Stupidity

Uh Huh.

So I've got this huge train of thought going about free will and automata and what constitutes independent thought, free of biological or environmental imperatives, as I should, being an overeducated AI researcher -- a train of thought that I've been fermenting on trips to the store and back, while skiing, when pulling rocks out of the garden beds, and....

Well, and then I come inside and the cats look at me like I'm a goddamn idiot.  "We're in front of the fire sleeping, my man," they seem to say.  "Do not disturb."

Being human seems to mean being an idiot.  I got an email that read "So guess what Venus is up to," and I read it.  The cats, at this point, would roll their eyes and say "idiot writes, idiot reads." 

What is it about us that leads us to follow those toxic people in our past that we have left behind?  Seriously, what is it?  That's something that will never make sense from a neurological model.

Oh, No You Don't

Exhibit A: Infinite Depth of Kitteh

So, I had a huge rant ready to post about the latest Mt. Hood climber disaster and the usual laymen response to it (blah blah "they're insane" blah blah "ought to force climbers to pay for rescue insurance" blah blah "ZOMG MAH TAX DOLLARS!" blah blah "danger to themselves and the valiant rescuers!" blah blah Blah BLAH), but after about ten pages of fuming I got it out of my system and decided: be it resolved that (a) daring people aren't going to stop pushing their boundaries, and (b) whiners aren't going to stop whining, and (c) there are enough infuriated people around already: then, why, I suppose I'll just shut up. Perhaps have another glass of wine and ponder how spaghetti is harvested:

UPDATE 12/18/2009: Here ya go, Wombat--

On Being Thankful

My sister and her boyfriend are visiting us this weekend, from faraway North Carolina. That seems odd to write: "faraway North Carolina." But it's accurate. Sometimes the people on the other side of this nation are like aliens, in their manners, their habits, and especially their speech. From my travels around the world I got the distinct impression that people think that the "USA" is one country, but it doesn't take much wandering around these states to realize that though they might be united in some sense, they are still very different states. I can no more understand a native from the hills of carolina than I can someone from the hills of Wales.

Finn decided to go AWOL upon their arrival. As soon as sis+BF walked through the door, he was nowhere to be found. It turned out that he'd burrowed underneath the duvet on the bed in the master bedroom and -- in lumplike form -- was hiding there. Slowly, over the course of hours, we finally coaxed him out. Perhaps he was filled with scared memories of the recent move, and of riding in a moving car for two days, or perhaps he just got frightened because his newly secure world in my home was suddenly disrupted again -- whatever the cause, he was terrified. But he came out, finally, and made friends. Perhaps because we were in the living room sipping wine for hours, and laughing and chatting together like family do.

For whatever reason, it's gotten me thinking about language. Perhaps it's the Carolina factor, or the introduction of the new and the strange to a little fellow who did not expect them. Regardless, I'm chuckling at it now, before I go burrow under that same duvet myself. Chuckling at how my 5-year-old nephew sternly corrected me for calling a "torch" a flashlight, or how he broke out in peals of laughter when I declared that I "can't find my pants" one morning at his mother's (my sister's) home. How "brilliant!" is such a multifaceted expression in England and Australia, meaning everything from surprise and joy to irony and disgust.

But mostly just happy that there's black cat flying around the house, a sleepy girl under that duvet, my sister in town, the downtime to think about ridiculous things, and a few days of sunlight in the forecast. What a big change from a couple of years ago!

Home Again, Home Again, Jiggity Jig. Good Evening, J.F.

Cat Tower, Fireplace, Open Box, and Window Sill: Ready for kitties before they arrive

We're back from Denver after two long days on the road, a day of packing and loading the truck the day before them, and a couple of days of decompression upon return.  Driving halfway across this country (in any direction) is always enlightening; America is not only not just a single entity, but its various components aren't even the same over even small periods of time.  To drive across such a great distance, without staying more than a few hours (or days, or weeks, or years) in the same place, is to see nothing but the transience of endless road and the imperative meanness of the intermittent stops that punctuate it, but we can still sense the gulf between who we are, and who they are, whoever they are where we stop.  It is dangerous to one's sense of perspective to grow too comfortable in one place, I think.

There were great changes along this road that I've already traveled four times before.  For example, where once there were only coyotes and antelope, I found endless acres of wind generators in the high mesas of Wyoming and Idaho to share their company.  In Boise, the endless road construction along I-84 has resulted in tasteful walling with graceful artwork along the interstate highway.  And, if it were possible, there seemed to be even more power lines leading out of the Columbia River Gorge, more vines in the Yakima Valley, and more tailgating hummers going up I-90 towards Snoqualmie Pass.

Laura driving somewhere ahead of me in the desolate wastes of southwestern Idaho

People say (and I also believe) that traveling with someone is a true test of a relationship, be it anything from a friendship on up.  We had FRS (Family Radio Service) radios, she in her Saabaru, and I in the moving truck, and we chatted back and forth, laughing at the ridiculous, marveling at the marvelous, and bitching at the hummers, with long intervals of silence as we drove in independent thought.  Once or twice, there was an emergency: Zooey just puked all over the front seat, stressed out as she was, which necessitated a roadside cleanup.  "Oh well," said Laura, "I'll buy myself a car detailing for christmas."

We pulled into B'ham relatively early in the day (5:00pm-ish) after an uneventful trip over the pass (thank the gods), but of course it was pitch dark at this latitude.  We let the stressed animals out into the house, which they immediately began to explore, and we moved the few things that we really needed out of the truck cab and the car into the house.   Sleep follows quickly on the heels of a couple of 12-hour driving days.

Now, two days past that, Laura is settling in and the kittehs are acting much more like playful animals, and less like freaked out spasmotrons, and it seems like a good thing.  Now begins the harder task of Figuring It All Out, which I am beginning to think might not be as hard as I thought.  It is dangerous to grow too comfortable in one's sense of perspective, I would say, to paraphrase myself.

Finn's laser eyes weaken your resolve

Going Back

There are only three sports: mountain climbing, bullfighting, and motor racing -- all the rest are games.

-- Ernest Hemingway

The best climber in the world is the one who's having the most fun.

-- Alex Lowe

I can't understand why men make all this fuss about Everest--it's only a mountain.

--Junko Tabei (first woman to summit Everest)

It has now been nearly three years since I have made any kind of serious attempt on any serious mountain -- much less thought about an expedition -- and I'm starting to get itchy.  I led a route up a 5.easy this summer so that Laura could get out on the rock, and it was fun -- but my lead head is definitely gone.  This is a dangerous combination: rusty on technique, but itching to get out on some steeps.  So I'm telling myself to calm down and just wait until she gets out here, and then we can get out on a more regular basis and start the process of reacquiring lead confidence.

The deal is, everyone is afraid of heights.  Everyone.  You show me a person who can look at 2000 feet of air between her legs while she stands on dime-sized toeholds with her last piece of protection 30 feet below her without feeling some trepidation, and I'll show you someone with a mental disorder.  No, the point is that the fear is there, but after enough time on the rock, or ice, or steep snow, or whatever, you learn to compartmentalize it.  The next move is what matters, and even if you're at a rest stance, you know that you need to make it soon.  Carefully and confidently, but soon*.  And if you're not at a rest stance, you know that your muscles are going to fail in short order, so "soon" takes on a whole new meaning.  Nobody can stand on a flexed calf, or stick to even a straight-arm hang, for more than a couple of minutes.  If it's taking you that long to figure out the moves, you'd best french free the thing and recover.

So I'll get it back.  A goal of mine for several years now has been Chopicalqui.  The Andes (and the Cordillera Blanca in particular) are simply amazing, and I need to get back there.  Huge, huge mountains in desperate wilderness, but perfect weather (mostly) and not too far away from me!  Peruvians are pretty awesome people, too (the spanish elitists notwithstanding).  And I know where the good pizza joint in Huaraz is, as well as the gear store.

Patience and practice, patience and practice.

And now for your weekly Finn.  Laura sends me these things on a regular basis, and I die from Teh Cute, so I take every opportunity to kill others as well.  He's like Medusa, slaying the hordes with his very appearance.

*My first lead was a vertical wall, about one pitch, with a ledge halfway up.  The crux move was off the ledge.  I psyched myself out, and sat on that ledge for nearly an hour while I tried to summon the courage to make the move; my belayer had godlike patience.  I went back to that climb, a few years ago, and climbed the entire pitch in 10 minutes.  I remember moving over the crux and thinking "wow, this used to be hard."  Proper perspective with experience.

UPDATE:  Oh, I forgot.  I did make an attempt not long ago on a moderate route on Rainier, but a guy on my rope bonked and so I turned the rope around.  I guess I just blanked that from my memory because (a) I was pissed off that we turned around 1000' from the summit after all the hard climbing was done, and (b) I had to leave behind $150 in ice screws in the rappels back to camp.  Grumble.

Cute Overload

Finn

Here Comes Finn

Finn Attacks!

Next week I'm going to be driving down to Seattle to spend a few days with Laura, who is flying in for some class or seminar or something, I dunno.  That woman takes a lot of classes.  And she's got a lot of letters and titles after her name to show for it.  Whatevs, it's going to be FunTime2000™!

A month after that, she's moving up to my town, bringing with her that little fella up above, who will henceforth have the chance to attack not just her helmet (lower right), but also my helmet (upper center).  With his laser eyes.  Guesses about how fast his butt was wiggling at the moment that shutter closed are welcomed.

I see these things as very positive developments, and I'm looking forward to knocking Finn over on a more regular basis.  You wanna stand up, little cat?  No way.  I'm going to push you over.  What're you going to do?  I weigh more than ten times what you do, and I have to maintain the social pecking order.  You lose, blackfurryman.  Until night time, that is, when you leap upon me every five minutes.  Hence we shall call a truce: I don't knock you over, and you don't wake me up.  (Fat chance of this cease-fire holding very long....)

But I'm probably going to end up leaving the fireplace burning a lot for that little guy, knowing how much he's going to miss his Colorado fireplace (upper right).  A guy can't go from warm soaks in front of the stove every day, to cold floors underfoot, it's just not fair.