Today was the first of four, no, perhaps, five late days in a row. It’ll be a long week. But it won’t feel like it, until it does, which will probably be … Wednesday.
I walked outside twice today. Once, in the middle of the day for a reason I’ve already forgotten. And then, in the evening at about 7:45. (As I said, long week.) This was the first day of the year I’ve been surprised by how warm it was when I took that step across the threshold. And then I wondered why I couldn’t conduct today’s meetings, and emails and all of the rest, outdoors, under a tree.
Tomorrow it will be a mind-boggling sunny and 82 degrees. Wednesday, rainy and 72. Then the 50s and 60s into next week.
Spring officially begins in 16 days.
Time to return to the most popular feature on the site, the weekly check with the kitties.
Phoebe has re-discovered the guest room, and a great place to hide from me before I head out in the morning.
What doesn’t make so much sense is how habitual she is. This is the time of morning when she should be sunning herself in a window — she will wait in our bedroom until we open the heavy curtains, because she knows where the sun is — but this room, the guest room, faces the west.
Poseidon was cold this weekend. And shy.
He also was able to wriggle his way into forcing me out of that chair, which was an impressive feat for a 10-pound cat.
I finished the Willie Morris memoir this weekend. He took a plane from New York back to Texas, to speak at his alma mater, and then drove over to his home in Mississippi. His little boy in tow, seeing the old places with his mother and grandmother, and then, the next morning, he caught a plane back to New York. An altogether unsatisfying ending, but that’s a memoir at 31, for you.
Still, some 36 pages before the end, this is the part that has stuck with me.
So I started, yesterday, a journal by the poet May Sarton. A local author I know quoted her last summer on the anniversary of her death. “Keep busy with survival. Imitate the trees. Learn to lose in order to recover, and remember nothing stays the same for long, not even pain. Sit it out. Let it all pass. Let it go.” I did a little research and bought four of her books, her journals, just on the basis of that quote. I’m now on the second of those four books, a year of dear diary of a woman trying to figure out life, herself, her poetry and her gardening. But around all of that she will make you sit up and re-read a passage now and again, like this one.
I figure I should read a month at a time, and in two weeks I’ll need another book.
Another book to go with Embracing Defeat: Japan in the Wake of World War II, which I also started this weekend. This is a 2000 Pulitzer Prize winner, and I am reading it on my Kindle, where I have a collection of dozens of books waiting for me.
I need to read more books, and so I will.
Believe it or not, we are still playing catch up on the Re-Listening project. I am playing all of my CDs, in order, in the car, and I am woefully behind in writing about them here. These aren’t reviews, just for fun and, sometimes, memories. And, at this point in 1997, we are entering a jazz phase.
And there’s some really good jazz in here. Up first, is a 1993 record from Jay Thomas, a multi-instrumentalist, with, now, 50 years of music on the books. Even back then, he’d been at it for a long time. You can hear him playing trumpet or flugelhorn or alto, tenor, or soprano, or flutes on more than 100 records. He’s fronted almost two dozen of his own. And you may not know his work, if you, like me, aren’t deep into jazz, but you’ve heard it. He shows up in commercials and movie scores quite a bit, too.
That’s the title track Blues for McVoughty. I wish I could say I had a good ear for jazz as a young guy, but I picked this up by chance off the giveaway table.
Somehow, sadly, most of this record hasn’t been uploaded to YouTube, but if you need an entry point to jazz, or easy atmosphere, or need to know what all the cool jazz aficionados were listening to in the 1990s, this is a fine place to start.
I am sure I picked this up to add something more sophisticated and mature to my collection. Can’t imagine why, though. And we’ll have two more jazz records back-to-back in our next installment(s) of the Re-Listening project.
For now, enjoy some of this nice weather, before it grows stormy again mid-week.
Our friend Sally Ann came up from Nashville this weekend. She brought an agenda, and I am pleased to report that each of the items on it were discussed. No one entered new business in a Robert’s Rules of Order sort of way because, honestly, it was nerdy enough.
Every now and then I do some obscure Robert Rules of Order thing in the hopes that someone will call me on it, so I can walk into my home library, pull my tattered edition — the August 1986, 17th printing of Jove Books’ edition — of Robert’s Rules off the third shelf of my first book case and point to to the appropriate passage.
I made it to the state finals in a parliamentary contest in high school, because I knew how to have fun.
Anyway, I’m feeling much better, thanks. Feel just like myself, in fact, except for the cough that won’t quit.
On Sunday afternoon we took Sally Ann to the Exotic Feline Rescue Center, which is about an hour away. This was our third trip, and her first, and it’s still a great time. Also, you can get a few nice pictures.
This is Tiger Lilly … or Tiger Jilly. I can’t yet tell them apart. They are sisters, and they live in the same giant enclosure. They came to the rescue by way of an Amish farmer who owned a roadside zoo. He had to find them a new home in 2017, and they’re now the first big stars of the walking tour.
This lion is Cera. She’s from Pennsylvania, where a vet there had an exotic animal rescue center, but he got to a point where he physically couldn’t take care of the animals there, so several of them are at EFRC now.
I think this was Jade. I didn’t take careful note of the enclosures this time. It had rained recently and I was trying to avoid the mud. Let’s assume I have that right: Jade and nine other cats came here from an Oklahoma traveling animal show in 2009 when the Okie lost his federal licenses.
All of the cats here are here to stay. They’re well-cared for, regularly attended and live in carefully planned
spaces. Over the years, EFRC, one of just a few such places in the country, has cared for more than a dozen different species. Today, more than 100 big and small exotic cats, are living out their lives there.
Rocky has been here since 2008. His owners lost their license, and he’s been here ever since, always watching the people passing by.
You think “Cute!” But these guys are all thinking, “If this fence wasn’t between us … ”
I’ve never been to Africa, or seen any of these sorts of animals in the wild, and this might be as close as I can get, but it’s difficult not to be humbled by the power of a lion’s roar.
You don’t even have to be near him to hear him. In fact, each time we’ve heard Zeus get chatty we’ve been around some other cats. They say, though, that neighbors two miles away can hear him.
An animal trainer in Peru, IN retired from the circus and just put all of his animals — lions, horses, an elephant — in a barn. The cats were kept in circus cages, their manes matted from sitting in their urine and feces. For nine years Zeus and his brother, Thor, lived like this. They could barely walk in 2010 when they came to this rescue, but both recovered well. Thor died a few years ago, but Zeus still rules the place, and he runs all over his great big yard. They say he will lose his patience with visitors, though, and that he’ll let you know when it is time to move on.
You go on this walking tour with a volunteer. It lasts about an hour. Though if you are there when it is slow, as we were last Thanksgiving, they will walk you through as slowly as you like. Our volunteer on this trip was a lady who works here when she’s not volunteering at a humane shelter. She’s very pleased and excited about doing all of this, as you might imagine, though some of it involves continually telling people to step back fro the fence. Which is a good idea because, while chain link is a useful invention, it would just serve to slow down a properly motivated tiger. That fence gives you a little head start and a false sense of security, that’s all.
This is Beaux. He’s not an albino, it’s just an exceedingly rare genetic trait. It seems that research points back to one particular line for all of the white cats in the U.S. Three of them live here. And, like a lot of the cats here, he has a ridiculous story.
Beaux arrived, at 14 months old, in 2016. A preacher in Virginia took in unwanted tigers from the circus and used them … to teach Sunday school. Three tigers came to this rescue when the preacher’s health began to fail him.
Beaux was pacing around because as we walked the one way, his friends, the people who are feeding the cats, were working their way toward us. Beaux was hungry, and it was quite something to see all of the cats get fed.
Just as hearing a lion roar is a humbling experience, hearing these powerful jaws snap bones is another reason to glance down to make sure your shoelaces are tied … just in case.
Our guide told us about the recent Big Cat Safety Act, which was signed into law in December. Essentially, this law prohibits the private ownership of big cats and makes it illegal for exhibitors to allow direct contact with cubs. The second half of that, once you hear all the details of how those normally work, is a good development. The first part should, effectively reduce the need for large cat refuges in the United States in the next 20 years or so. If people can’t own them, they can’t abuse them, can’t be outgrown by the cats, can’t need to give them to a rescue center. This should be a good thing.
I got in a little ride Saturday morning, before our company arrived. It was just 20 miles, and a little slow, but it felt a lot more comfortable than I did on Wednesday, when I was still recovering from my cold.
The 2023 Zwift route tracker: 75 routes down, 44 to go.
Time for a quick pass through the Re-Listening project. I’m listening to all of my old CDs, in the order that I picked them up, and writing a bit about them here, and I’m well behind. These aren’t reviews, but they can be fun, or prompt some nice memory, or, really, just an excuse to put some music in here.
Which is what we’re doing today, as we do a quick scan through a compilation, Son of Frat Rock that was, I am sure, desperately desired in 1988. This one was part of a trilogy, it seems, and this was the second one, which has some great old tunes, and some fun one-hit wonders. This was a giveaway, I’m sure of it. And I’ve probably listened to the whole thing four or five times. Mostly, it was good for a quick tune here or there. But for the Re-Listening project, everything gets heard.
And this is a good policy because, wouldn’t you know it, there’s some fun stuff on here. This one cracked the top 20 in 1964, and I am only vaguely familiar with it.
The Music Explosion, The Kinks, Tommy James and the Shondells are on the front half of this thing, and then there’s the timeless Mitch Ryder & The Detroit Wheels.
And then Bill Deal & The Rhondels comes on and you think, “that sits at the intersection of doowop and big band, and, thus, that’s rock ‘n’ roll.”
Which is silly, that’s blue eyed soul and the beach, and it works.
At which point this huge blind spot in my musical education is unavoidably apparent. (My in-laws will be aghast. I’m going to play them a few of these songs on our next visit, and see how long it takes them to name the groups.)
This one they’ll nail. It isn’t the same on the computer, but in the much-better speakers in my car I found myself thinking, “This is a Rev. Horton Heat song, 30 years too early.”
That’s Ernest Maresca, he was a songwriter first, a record exec second, and then a reluctant singer. He wrote some of Dion’s biggest hits, like “Runaround Sue” and “The Wanderer,” but never thought much of his own singing. That one made it to number six in 1962. He also wrote hits for acts like The Regents, Dean & Jean, Bernadette Carroll and Jimmie Rodgers.
All of which makes part of the experience, here. I’ve had this CD for a quarter century, I’m discovering music almost ready to retire, finding mostly positive things to say about it. And then a song pops up and think, “I see here why we were so ripe for the British Invasion in 64 …”
I’m a generation behind this stuff, and there’s no fault in that, but about half of it was new to me when I picked this up in the late 90s, and some of them still feel new to me, today. Like this cover of a young Stevie Wonder song.
Who knows about The Blendells without using Wikipedia? And when does there music come into the public domain? After running across this in the Re-Listening project I started searching for some of their other stuff, this was a good band. Mexican American brown-eyed soul from the 1960s in East LA. It certainly fits a tunes, probably helped define a place, and there’s still some life in these tunes.
The next song was La Bamba. If I play that here I’ll have to watch the movie again. It’s a rule or something.
Gary U.S. Bonds is 83 and is still playing shows. He’s got one coming up at the end of this week in New York, and that’s worth playing the gold record. He sold a million units of this after it was released in 1961, when it sat atop the charts for two weeks, and here we are, 62 years later … dancing to a quarter to three.
A lot of ink has been spilled about the recorded quality of that song. Accidental, deliberate, whatever it was, the lower fidelity is a signature part of it, at least these days. There are a lot of people trying to do the same sort of thing now.
This is less a gloss over than I intended, but we’re going to make up for it tomorrow, when the Re-Listening project continues with a record that … just wasn’t for me. Maybe it’s for you though. Come back and find out.
Monday / photo — Comments Off on Koff sniff hack 20 Mar 23
I’m good and proper sick. First cold in four years! It’s sinuses. And a cold. And a head cold.
Fortunately, the kitties do not care.
They are just happy we’re back.
Anyway, things will be likely be light fare around here this week. I’ll try to get something here every day, but I can’t imagine doing too much this week other than, hopefully, feeling much better soon.
Right now, I’m conserving energy. And, so you see, I am mostly I’m trying to avoid talking about the Symptoms Of The Day.
Good morning from Andorra. This is the view from our balcony. Not. Too. Shabby.
Today we set out for a bit of sightseeing. Not that there’s anything to marvel at around here.
It was a Hot Picture-Taking Date. I think you can see why.
Here’s a panorama. Click to embiggen.
And here’s the first of several videos of some of the day’s views.
We stopped my a place where several different hiking paths intersected. On one side of the road there was a little cut out for drivers to park and enjoy the views. On the other, a low wooden rail fence, beyond which there was a grass clearing.
A truck was parked there, the local version of a park ranger. No one was around, and you could stand there, feeling like a small king near the top of the world. Naturally there was a stone desk set for your photographs.
That’s 6,496 feet to you and me. Almost 1.25 miles above sea level. Sometimes, when you get to a certain elevation, it feels like you’re looking down on other mountains.
This was the first bit of downhill we’ve encountered in Andorra. The road hit the valley floor and immediately started going back up.
Some more video views.
And I now invite you to enjoy another amazing panorama. Click to embiggen.
Oh, look, here are the tourists, doing touristy things.
Such tourists.
Next we visited Mirador Roc del Quer.
On the sign out front someone named Raimon Diaz Marino has left visitors a message. Pardon my awkward translation.
Mother Earth is magical and sacred. She keeps memories of life and the universe. She witnesses wisdom on every mountain, in every drop of water and in every living being. She nourishes us and we are all her children.
And this place is the Roc del Quer, “The White Mountain.” In the heart of the Pyrenees and what Canillo looks upon.
You want to become an observer? We invite you to visit the route.
Observe and feel what surrounds you and keep this place in your heart.
Think about that as we walk out.
This is the view off the right side of the trail.
Here’s a panoramic version of that view. As with all of the panoramas, click to embiggen.
We are somewhere between 6,379 and 6,276 feet above sea level here. (There were signs at both ends of the short trail, and this is taken in the middle.) The now seemingly low clouds are a good reminder.
“Wisdom on every mountain, in every drop of water and in every living being …”
by artist Miguel Ángel González, whose calm and meditative attitude invites visitors to do the same. Sitting on a beam, undaunted, it appears as if the height causes him no fear whatsoever. And in fact, it doesn’t: it fills him with strength and confidence.
We’re standing 40 feet off the side of the mountain, on a walkway, taking in these spectacular views, enjoying what The Ponderer is sharing with us, the valleys of Montaup and Valira d’Orient, the new spring ready to burst forth, the winter well into it’s early retreat.
The Pyrenees are about 85 million years old. Moving tectonic plates closed the sea. Refracted rocks fold, faults form. The stones go up, and the valleys too for a time, which is why you can find the seabed so high up. The most extensive glacial erosion in these parts, the signs say, was between 20,000-40,000 years ago. Then the planet’s weather shifted. Ice and snow melted away, and you see these rugged shapes, hints of the still relatively new mountains, though, as the signs note, erosion and evolution of the landscape continues.
“Everything is in constant motion and change.”
There, I just summed up 85 million years of geology, and seven signs about it written in Catalan, in 92 words.
Now, when you walk away from the Mirador Roc del Quer, back up the 400 meter trail, and then down the road a short way to the parking lot, and then drive on down into the valley below, you have a chance to look back, and up, to where you just were. See that horizontal bit jutting out of the mountain on the right?
We were just standing on that.
Here’s a video of some of the views from around that region …
We’ll stop there for now. That’s 18 images, three panoramas and four videos. That’s a high quality hot picture-taking date!
When I mentioned, last Thursday, that this site recently marked its 5 millionth visitor I coolly said I have no idea why people visit. Only I do know why.
You’re here for the cats.
Phoebe, as ever, is here for the sunshine.
This is my second favorite in-house joke right now. I say to my wife, I say, “On the floor of our house is a medium-grade residential carpet pad. On that carpet pad is stretched a standard 21st century carpet. On that carpet, there is an overstuffed ottoman. On that ottoman, there is a pillow. And that is where your cat is sleeping.”
Perhaps an even better joke is this one. I say to my lovely bride, I say, “On the floor of our house is a medium-grade residential carpet pad. On that carpet pad is stretched a standard 21st century carpet. On that carpet, there is an overstuffed sofa. On that sofa, there is a fuzzy throw blanket. On top of that fuzzy throw blanket, there is another fuzzy throw blanket. On top of that second fuzzy blanket, there is a third fuzzy blanket. And that is where your cat is sleeping.”
Occasionally, Poseidon also looks for the people inside the television.
They’ve gotta be in there somewhere …
This was the Day of Three Presentations. It was a day full of presentations. Many presentations were given, some of them better than others. One was maybe great! That’s the thing about having a lot of things: there will be variance.
I’ll spend all night staring at a wall thinking about every flinch and stumble. Every tone and tenor, time I squinted or had vague eye contact.
But none of that is important. What’s important is what is coming up at the bottom of this post.
Yesterday afternoon’s bike ride featured some dinosaurs. How many giant reptiles do you see in this graphic? I count six.
After that ride, we went outside. This is The Yankee’s first bike ride since her massive crash last September. Look at that smile!
Part of this is physical, sure. The bone is now starting to heal. (Turns out, she busted herself up so badly it has taken this long for the mending to begin.) Part of it is about getting out of your own way. This is perfectly understandable and reasonable. I was in a similar boat in 2012, when it took me five months to even want to ride again.
So we went out for six miles on quiet, empty roads. Whenever a car came along I put myself between the two of them, and we smiled some. It was cheery and emotional. It was a little more normal.
