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KNOT SEW sturrrraayngge nooze frum Portland (ver 2.0)

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“what the predator sees”

“Grand-pa” and “Grand-ma” went to Portland (OR) earlier this month for the main purpose of BABYSITTING.  Our daughter was scheduled to work nights and Dad was out-of-town on an extended work field trip.  This past summer, Betty (gramma) flew out for a week and the airfare cost was about half of what the all-night babysitter would have charged.

Our send-off omen leaving home (west Colorawdough) was the spiral-mandala-cloud of sunrise.

For being first-time grandparents, and “the kids” living fairly far away, we’ve been lucky to visit with Eddy more than we expected — this would be Gramma’s 6th time.

I had thought to bring something bought at the downtown market a couple years back, the clever unique meat-cleaver thru’ the head thingy.  We usually try to attend the weekend downtown market each trip out there, and wearing the thing helps? contribute to the free-wheeling rollicking carnival atmosphere.  Fortunately, I forgot it, and we didn’t make it to the event anyway.  However, arriving at the airport, I did buy something which at first was IRRESISTABLE —

A kiosk of “made in Oregon” products had Rogue Brewery’s tribute to the essence of WEIRD Portland — I could NOT pass up VooDoo Donut Bacon-Maple beer.  Lovely kaopectate-colored bottle, eh?

As you might sus/ex/pect … one would have to be awwfully thirsty, borderline desperate — and just plain feelin’ wee-urd … which I was when we returned to the airport the following week.  It was, well, beer, but I’ll pass on the next one.  (Rogue’s other, more-normal, products are quite good!)

We tried to do and/or go somewhere/something every day — the sort of stuff we don’t have back home.  None of us, Rachel included, had ‘officially’ been to the Portland Zoo.  (We had been to it while running the Zoo Run during past Thanksgivings).

I thought I had taken photos of baboons, lions and tigers and bears oh my.  Either didn’t turn out or weren’t took.  “Bear profiles.”  (Eddy and me standing against a poster showing how big and tall various bears are.)

And guys feeding big seals.

Grandson watching seals, and seals performing while being fed. Scary, sorta.

eddy seez da seelz

We walked down a tunnel to see the seals below, in the wet stuff. Eddy involved in grokkation with the sealz …

Unda waddah and r and eddy mingling wif da sealz

Nearby, outside the boa constrictor cage, there was a camera and screen showing “predator” heat-imaging!  You know, the Predator sees our heat (or lack of).  Ostensibly, this is how the boa constrictor sees — in the infrared.  I don’t think we look very edible …

Speekinuv beasts …  we also communed and visited with Eddy’s “big brother,” Hugh.  Hugh has been with Rachel since 2003 or so.  I found Hugh and his sister as very small kittens in the field below our house.  I carried them up and Rachel, who was visiting but leaving right then, said “I’ll take this one.”

She (and Hugh) have lived at a half-dozen locations in Denver, two in Portland, and we have kept Hugh for many weeks and months when Rooch ‘n Ben would go on long trips (e.g., 6 weeks in New Zealand).

Hugh is obviously a dude.

Quite often we went out to eat, and quite often made good meals in the house, but sometimes I’d get hungry …

Nutella — Why hasn’t anyone told me about this before?

Above, we’re at House of Louie, in Chinatown.  I had to get my Dimsum fix.  This time was somewhat disappointing.  There’ve been occasions of enjoyable and quite satisfactory dimsum gobbling previously, in Portland Chinatown.  Hopefully next time as well.

Right after this, we toured the Chinese Gardens, in the rain.

Daddy came home earlier than expected.  They got the same eyes, nose, ‘n ears.

The first four daze there, the weather was uncharacteristically dry.  Warm.  Sunny.  Good climate for women playing guitar, women breast-feeding. Hippie stuff? We ain’t hippies … (no moah).

Ben had been wanting to cut down a ‘dangerous’ branch high up in a tree.  The branch was hanging on by the proverbial xylemical thread, and he eliminated the possibility of it falling down and killing someone.  And he wanted to play with his climbing gear.

After the successful dropping of the problem branch, Ben announced that he wants to “do big walls.”  Gear-intensive.  Rachel did not look very sympathetic nor excited about this.  I have a work-mate who wants to “do big walls” and I’ll see if they can get together…

Prior to visiting Oregon, I went on-line and entered myself and daughter in the ORRC “Blue Lake 5k.”

We’re starting …  I’m the veritable pixure of grace, tight-fitting racewear, form, eh?  (Ha!).  Below, I’m just goofin’, but shortly after decided to pick it up.

For many months now, each time I entered a race, I usually set my PW.  Runners strive for and talk about their “personal record” (PR) for a given distance.  Well, those times for me is long gone.  I figured I’d set another PW and planned on takin’ it easy.  A couple days before, Rachel and I ran around a park while Granma went swimming at the community rec center.  My daughter hadn’t run a race in over a year,  but was still in good shape, primarily due to riding her bike to and from work.  I mentioned, as she motored away from me on an uphill, pushing Eddy in the stroller, that she could probably run a 22-minute time easily.  “Probably,” she shrugged.  I figured I’d run in the 25’s, setting yet another PW.

“Da rooch” (my beloved daughter Rachel) cruises, smiling …  There were several out-and-back sections of the course, and each instance I’d count women ahead of her.  When she passed, I’d hold up fingers for what place she was in the women’s race.  As runners know, this race-within-a-race can sometimes be difficult to assess due to the numbers of men.  The first time I saw her, I held up 8 fingers.  The next time, I held up five …

She would finish a close third among women, 13th among all runners, in a time of 20:19.  The next day, when we were running around Tryon Creek State Park, she turned and said “Maybe I’ll start training.”  By that, I assumed she might start training specifically to run faster, in races.  Oh — I ended up not setting a PW, hitting the finish in 22:55, my fastest time for over two years.

Excellent form, eh?   “a thing of beauty”

Eddie plays with one of our “finisher medals” at breakfast afterward.  We each ended up winning our respective age group.

We enjoyed our week-plus out there, but there was a lot we didn’t do nor see.  The downtown market.  A day-trip to the coast (ocean experiences are few back where we come from).  This rock, below, basking in the west Colorawdough sun, was sediment in an ocean, more than just a few years back.  An ocean of lichen, eh?

the spiral sunrise of what some might consider the promise of a bright tomorrow, but, jaded Betty ‘n me, we know better …

KNOT SEW sturrrraayngge nooze frum Portland — “Draft”, ver 1.0

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For my two or three ‘followers’ – SOME GOOD NEWS. I was away from the home docking-port, and the computer system where I was temporarily (?) stranded did not have the port nor aperture nor wherewithal to accommodate my digital camera disc.

So … we’ll have to IMAGINE, without pixures, what nonsensical irrelevant whimsical insights? (outsites?), observations, summaries, outrages-in-progress, etc. and so forth have accrued so far.

I will insert pertinent (?) and (probably) impertinent? un-pertinent? pixures in the following ver 2.0.  heh.

 

Lets go to Hoobity-ville & Wankett some Boobideebapps

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boobaroosaurusscan

Yes.  As the man said, driving the Interstate thru’ Pendleton, Oregon over 30 years ago, the Suruasooraboob was seen crossing the road.  I’ve been on a mission ever since.

Basically — don’t look for what is there.  Keep searching for what isn’t there.  Not long after, I formulated and internalized a kind of dictum-operandi:  it’s THE GLUE BETWEEN THINGS.

You don’t have to live in an area with big rivers to contend with the bridges …

We cross the bridge between day and night.  Between sleep and waking up to begin the day.  The job and what you do after the job.  What may seem ridiculous; what is actually sublime.  Dreams, wallowing in the mud.  Recently, many of my dreams seem to involve mud-wallowing.  Could it be I might find a diamond or gold while mucking about in the mire?

 

one of the WEIRDest

discoveries was, after    working for a fellow  named BEN BULBOUS  for a few years (and not knowing we worked for him)  was the chance stumbling upon a picture of W B Yeats’ gravestone.

“Cast a cold eye

on life, on death.

Horseman, pass by!”

From Under Ben Bulben (“Last Poems and 2 Plays” 1939).  And yes, it seems most of my friends are, in more ways than the merely corporeal-dispatched, expired in other aspects of “gone.”

Oh, poor lonely dino …  wandering the landscape seemingly alone.  But few things are as they seem.  You are never, really, very, alone.

I was part of a close-knit group of compahdres for most the teen-aged and early twenties years.  As we didn’t exactly have a mentor, considering ourselves more-or-less equals, we invented an entity whom we named BEN BULBOUS.  Little did we know, that perhaps Ben Bulbous, in a sense, invented us.  Below, Ben and his muse frolic at ocean’s edge …

Professor Bulbous re-entered our collective lives a few years later.  Aspiring psychology students, all (well, most) of us, we acquired research positions based in the Univ. of Colo. Muenzinger Psychology Center studying a fledgling and cutting-edge project tentatively called “Amphetamine Psychosis.”  The lead researcher was, to our surprise — Benjamin.  (At first we all were mind-blown.  Later some of us claimed that this wasn’t a ‘surprise’ — that Prof. B had, behind the scenes, arranged for this juxtaposition of serendipity and continued joint exploration all along).  Well, I was surprised.

Below, some of our research subjects on a rare supervised trip away from the facility.  They had to be chained together, as if not, they would wander off and cause trouble in three different places.  This way, if they shambled off, the trouble was usually confined to just one location, and we usually could find them fairly easily.  Before they got into more trouble.

We can’t verify this with a high degree of certainty, but we are darned sure a couple movie-writer/producers were aware of our work with Delmar, Everett, and Pete and based the main characters in a big budget movie they made many years later on them.  Everett had an obsession with hair gel, it was either Pete or Delmar who considered gophers and other ground-dwelling rodents a delicacy when roasted on a stick, and the other guy frequently thought he was in danger of transmogrifying into some sort of reptile.

Our work with Delmar, Pete, and Elliot was mild compared to the ever-elusive and seldom-seen Dopey.

And I thought we had endured enough dumpster-diving while previously unemployed as starving under-grad students.

After a few months of amphetamine-psychosis research, we were prepared for what Professor Bulbous called “the next steps.”

“Look for the energy vortexes.  You might actually see the lines connecting many different life forms.”

Watch the river.  But, remember, that is but a small part of what is going on .

The river is watching you.  And there’s no way you can even begin to think you know what it’s thinking.

It might be safe to say that “Pete” (or whoever this is, below) is not only fascinated by the river, hypnotized by it, but

about to surrender part, or all, of his life-force to it.

Under Ben Bulben?

Or is Ben Bulben under everything?  W B Yeats was no light-weight …

Okay, this doesn’t have much to do with anything, but Everett, having briefly come home for a visit,

presents an ichthylogical present to his not-too-obviously-excited mom.

Delmar, temporarily free from the toadal and/or froggy influences, has a message which hopefully will deter Gort from destroying the whirled:

GORT!  KLAATU BARADA NIK-TOE !

GRAND MESA “Color SATYRday”

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Above:  “the Mesa” last winter.  For my two or three (ir)regular readers, it’s pretty much THE VIEW from our house to the east.  In later September, ‘fall’  was hitting the high country at full peak, so …

d dool forest

Betty decided that a trip up dere wuzz a good idea, to ride our bikes, get the dawgz out, and take lotsa photos.   B ‘n “Doolie” on the Mesa-Top Trail.

We drove up Land’s End Road which is not the way to get up there for anyone in a hurry.  The Road is ‘serpentine’ — winding, switchbacking, gravel with a good crop of washboards a lot of the time.  The upper five or so miles it’s barely wider than a vehicle, so special caution is recommended there.  However, today, we stopped frequently to try to capture the changing of the seasons, and the few other people we encountered were of similar dispostion.

view towards top

We  slowly gained in altitude.  Above, we approach being level with the Mesa rim.  The Grand Mesa is often called “the world’s largest flat-topped mountain.”  Could be true.  Geologists say that umpteen (25?) million years ago, there was a volcano 15,000-some feet higher than the present 10,000-foot plateau.  A combination of the volcano blowing up and an outpouring of lava down to the valley floor resulted in the somewhat impermeable difficult-to-erode basaltic layer comprising the Mesa top today.

Looking down at what we’ve just driven up.  The Mesa top is over 5,000 feet higher than the Grand Valley floor, our house included.  What isn’t characteristic in this photo is the HAZE.  Usually things are a lot clearer.  There was a big forest fire up north in Wyoming, and the winds ‘n breezes must have been prevailingly nor’easters.  So, we were afflicted with a much-more-so-than usual diminishment of clarity.

However, we discovered that the haze also diminished as we gained in altitude.  The sky became clearer, blue skies, long as we didn’t look down the mountain.  Still, you can tell that off the foot of the mountain the landscape is the ‘high desert’ of west Colorado.  Also — if not for the haze, we would be able to see the LaSal Mountains just east of Moab — about 100 miles to the west.

Not all the aspens change at the same time.  Generally, however, this is a function of altitude, and the higher we went, the larger percentage of trees had experienced “the change.”  There was more red than we expected.  I hope that is reflected in later photos.

I’ve backtracked in sequence a little.  More haze, a couple thousand feet in elevation down from the top.

We are on top, the top of the world, looking south at the Flowing Park / Indian Point arm of the Mesa.

Above, is the view adjoining the previous.  Dropping off into the haze, down to the desert.  You might be able to recognize that a pine tree (fir, I think) towards the left in the far foreground (in front of the golden wall of aspens) is also pictured in the previous shot, towards the right.

I jump out of and back in sequence — this is perhaps 1,000′ or less in climb to go, with another darned section of washboards in the road.

Dually hangs close to Betty.  The other two dawgz were (as usual) off harassing small creatures and/or looking for mud bogs to roll in.

I don’t know about you, but the zenith of the Autumnal Peak practically is shouting here.  And I didn’t notice the contrail ’til later.

A few more colors in the palette used here — reddish, orange, yellow, green, the grey of the brief pavement section in this section of the Mesa.

Note (and memorize) the profile of the distant hazy ridge.  You should recognize it again, further away, in the next photo.

Yes, we’ve stepped back from the previous view.

Back home, this bizarre fellow was clinging to our door.  Stick-bugs might be abundant where you live, but for us, this is a more-rare sight than the more-common praying (preying?) mantises out our way.

On the other side of the door … we also recently lost (so we fear, it’s been several days now since we last saw him) the H P A (one of Walter’s other nick-names, the “Humongus Pongus Among us”).  He was our favorite.

A typical vista for the day — just a bit down from the Mesa rim — with the trees framing the typical basalt cliff-face which, in turn, frames the Mesa top.  The exposed cliff-rock is the edge of the foundation, as it were, of what makes the Grand Mesa what it is.

Time stood still at Hungry Charlie’s

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Time Stood Still at HUNGRY CHARLIE’S

( a true story of love of the cosmic and comical sort, and, to some degree, about hamburgers)

On November 5, 1972, a Harvard Square hamburger joint, Hungry Charlie’s, was the stage for Act I, Scene I of the Betty-&-Rosco-Betunada Chronicles.

In an earlier time, perhaps ten or fifteen years earlier, I might have said that I had a rocket in my pocket and a two-dollar bill.  However, in 1972, I was young, perhaps terminally optimistic and idealistic, and with $600 in my pocket had embarked on a journey which (in my mind) conceivably could go anywhere in the world.

In a sense that was what happened.  I had hitched from Colorado with a friend to Boston.  He was reuniting with his girlfriend, and I was on phase one of the aforementioned trip around the world.  We hitched because our pre-arranged ride stood us up.

There was a massive early-winter snowstorm enveloping, it seemed, the entire country.  Traveling through such conditions, in such an unpremeditated mode of transportation was an epic assault upon the imagination.  And the senses.  We arrived in Boston after three days on the road.

We got to my buddy Jeff’s love’s apartment.  There was a spare bedroom for me and I slept for about eighteen hours straight.

Jeff, Holly, and I went out for lunch.  She lived near Harvard Square, so we ambled there.  Where to eat was easy — the ubiquitous greasy spoon — with a sign depicting a caricature of a wild-haired crazy man descending on the all-American plate of fries and a burger.

The place was packed.  As we shuffled up to the order counter, I scanned the room for an empty booth.  A solitary dark-haired young lady and I locked eyes.  She was grinning.  Sparkling.  Beaming, actually.  As our separate gazes melded into unity, I felt sensations which to the merely sane would have been disturbing.  It was like the curtains of reality parted, shimmering, giving glimpses of misty behind-the-scenes wavering shapes and shadows.  The floor became rubbery.  Time itself stopped.  Within that moment-less moment, I thought of nothing — but on the other hand, I could have considered and seen and visualized everything.

Children.  A long life together.  Adventures and memories and frequent joint escapes from the flying monkeys.

But it didn’t matter if we were to be together or not.  I was totally happy just knowing such a person existed.

It could have been that there was no place to sit except at her mostly-empty booth; or it could have been that I was uncharacteristically forward, and … carpe diem … seized the moment by sitting next to her.

I rationalized that by being so positioned, she could not easily see me eating this big juicy greasy hamburger.  (My anticipated messy eating habits could not be easily observed.)  Jeff and Holly left the “pick up your order here” area, scanned the room, and were just a little bit surprised at my seat selection.  Still, they did not miss more than half a beat.  They sat themselves down across from us, uttered a few polite sentences, then began eating.

I can’t remember what I first said to her, nor her to me.  I was, no doubt, affected by the initial cosmic time-stopping gaze.  That, coupled with the follow-up seating arrangement and all that that implicitly and ultimately implied was, of course, much more than mere words.  Much more.

We were married 364 days later.  And Hungry Charlie’s, a burger joint in Harvard Square, no longer exists.

by Rosco Betunada

Cosmic Romance0001

 

Tweaking a Weakly into a Substantial Weekly — a week in May, 2007

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NOTICE & FAIR WARNING:  see the comment as to what the category “memory lane” is about.  Weeks like this. mid-September 2012 I either have done NOTHING interesting enough to try to describe — or, more importantly, I lack the whatever-it-is to write interestingly enough to make even spending the whole day on the couch sound like fun.  Or, if not ‘fun’, challenging? adventurous? intradimensional?  i astrally projected to the planet Twiraun?  Not hardly.  And so,

while ruminating through the moldering swampy muck of “blorgs (I don’t “blog” — I “blorg”) of a by-(woe-be) gone era, I came across a barely-legible mini-diary of just one week.  A week in May, 2007.  I apologize for the length. 

W E E K Y   W E A K Y   T W E A K Y     mid-may (2007)

wiki-wiki: “quick” in Hawaiian.  a quick week?  seemingly timeless, at times, during.

sunday:

(not the) SON OF THE DIVIDE CREEK SEEP

The phone rings just after noon and one of “my citizen informants in the field” (eyes and ears) tells me that there are “bubbles” coming up from the ground in a field which has just begun to be irrigated.

As the state’s regulatory commission’s representative, it was not only good, but incumbent, and necessary for me (for someone, anyone) to go check.  Only 75- or so miles from the house, so not a long trip — compared to some trips (see Tuesday and Wednesday).  Long (boring to most, but to those in the affected area, not boring) story summarized:  it was only air.

Brief? background:  a few years back, methane gas bubbles were observed in a nearby creek.  This was determined to be gas escaping from the compromised wellbore of a gas well a mile or so away.  So, local residents are rightfully wary.

monday:

GAME  7  OF THE STANLEY CUP FINALS

Not really.  But for the two surviving teams in the local ice arena’s novice hockey league, this was it.  For me, from a personally-biased perspective, the epitome of the tournament was game #2.

After playing a 12-game regular season, meeting each of the league’s other four teams three times each, the Bombers had levitated from last place to next-to-last during game 11.  So, in the post-season tournament, we played the 3rd-place team first.  The winning team got a first-round bye.

We lost that first game, and played the other ‘losers’ in our next game.   The other team was the Firefighters (comprised mainly of fire department personnel).  During our three regular-season meetings, we had gone exactly even — one win, one loss, and a tie.  I felt my usual lack of confidence.  No expectations.

I don’t remember much of the game, I played my normal lackluster uninspired usual — no embarrassing  moments (that I remember),  just mediocrity.  In all the sporting activities I participate in, mediocrity is a step or more above the level I normally operate at.

We were tied 4 – 4 at the end of regulation.  There was a 5-minute ‘golden goal’ (whoever scores first, wins) overtime period.  Reinforcing my pessimism was that we started the period with TWO GUYS in the penalty box.  (Actually, that turned out to be just one.  The other team had a player with a penalty, so we started with four, and they had five).

I think I did all right.  After the over-time, we were still, obviously, 4 – 4.  However, proceed to the …

PENALTY SHOOT OUT.  I’m just absolutely brimming with confidence here.  Yeah, right.  To streamline matters, there are three shooters for each team.  Should keep it simple.  Astonishingly, each goalie stops 2 out of 3.  (‘Astonishingly’ when you consider who one of the goalies is).  NOW, we proceed to just one-at-a-time.  “Golden” goal — whoever scores and the other doesn’t in a given rotation, wins.  I can’t remember when I’ve felt so much pressure.  I stop opponent #4.  So does the other goalie.  Same for #5.  And #6.  I stop #7 … our #7 skater SCORES!  Pandemonium erupts from our box — I’ve NEVER been a “sports hero” before!  (If that had happened previously, I certainly don’t remember it.)

The fact that three of us brought beers into the locker room to share for the post-game sedation and hydration seemed, to me, a symbol of a pre-meditated resignation.  Anticipation of the end of the season?  Never-the-less, we were quite festive.  “Still alive.”  I don’t expect this to last long.

Game 3 of the double-elimination tournament:  we play the team we lost to in Game 1.  However, our elusive and rarely-available “ace in the hole” goalie shows up.  He plays periods #1 and 3, and I play the middle.  Amazingly, our team “gains ground” during my period (Bombers 3, Pioneers 2) and we live to play another day.

I continue to be un-optimistic about our chances — especially as the ‘ace’ goalie says he’s out of town for a few days.  However, the goalie for the team we just beat hitches his wagon to our star, and shows up ready to help for game #4.  Before the game I tell him he should play the first period, and I the second, and then decide who concludes.  He does okay period #1, and I’m very nervous — I felt I had personally lost to the “Kegs” three times before — but I have a stellar period:  (Bombers 3, Kegs 0) and am so relieved that I insist Bob finish the game.  We prevail, 6 – 4.

Game #5 against the top-seeded Frozen Reservoir Dogs is the next day.  I hadn’t been looking beyond the game at hand.  This is too much, too soon.  I had “signed up” to play hockey once a week, and the thought that five games in ten days is overwhelming.  Besides, I had a prior engagement.  (I could have postponed or re-arranged that, but I am “hockeyed” out — and besides, we have Bob (the walk-on goalie from the already eliminated team)).  I tell Bob we’re lucky we have him as he’s “it” for the next game.

After our dinner with Andre — oops, my brother Chris and his date and daughter and friend, Betty and I hurry to catch the end of the game.  The stands are more full than they usually are for “C” league games — maybe 30 or so people!  We watch the third period and though it’s somewhat close, the Bombers are the better team.  The final game is the following Monday.

Immediately I begin to get very nervous.  I don’t think that, at the start of the tournament, any of the Bombers expected to “be here.”  Of course I have to play, some.  And, of course I’m worried that I won’t help the team.  The possibility of the ‘ace in the hole’ goalie, Bob, and myself all showing up is somewhat amusing — we’d play one period each?

Unbeknownst to me, some of the Dogs complain to the Hockey Director about us using a player not on our roster.  (It is highly possible, okay — probable, that the Dogs are hoping I’ll be the opposing goalie.)  The Director decides to abide by their request, and I think he also decides to do something to make them wish they hadn’t complained.

We have a player on the roster who is not supposed to play goalie in the novice league.  Rich’s goalie abilities are pretty good (he can do a “full butterfly” seemingly effortlessly.  I think when I try to do that, it resembles an inflexible cocoon).  He plays goalie in a more advanced league and is “supposed to play out on the ice” in our league.  Rich is approached about being the Bombers goalie for Game 7 of the Stanley Cup Finals.

When I told some people that “my team really wanted to win” that game — all of them knew what that meant.  Minimize MY playing time.  Of course I understood, but NO WAY I’m NOT going to play some.

Betty decides to go watch.  As I show up, Rich has a ‘quirky’ look on his face.  He talks to me in the locker room.  Due to the other team’s complaint about the previous game, the hockey Director made the decision that we could use Rich as a goalie.  I joke that perhaps I should play just the first and last minutes.  We’ll see…

Things are, predictably, as ‘charged’ as you’d expect.  More people in the stands, maybe 35, or more.  I’m sitting glumly in our box.  Glum because if the game is close, I might not get the chance to play.  The score will have to be padded somewhat, in our favor (or a blow-out the other way) before I get out there.  After two periods, we’re ahead 2 – 0.  I’ve made up my mind to get out on the ice at the start of the 3rd period.  It might be my only opportunity to get out there, even if only for a brief while.  I tell Rich to quickly come out and replace me after the next (first) Dogs goal, or 5 minutes, whichever comes first.

Rich really is optimistic or faking it pretty well.  “Try to last the whole period.  Preserve the shut-out.”  That hadn’t even occurred to me.

I make a few unspectacular saves, and 5 minutes have gone by before I know it.  At 7 minutes the Dogs put in a sloppy goal I should have been able to stop.  I hurry off before the mid-rink puck drop and Rich is back on.

With 4 minutes to go, we’re up 3 – 1 and Rich shouts at me to get back out there.  Boy, is he really optimistic.  I’m not ready — I can’t get my helmet on quickly, but the next time he shouts, I’m out there.

I last 10 seconds before the Dogs whip one in.  Rich comments that that puck would have got past him — but I’m skating off quickly and he’s back on.  Although the Dogs apparently scored once or twice (called back due to infractions) and they’ve replaced their goalie with a 6th skater — the 3 – 2 holds up as the buzzer sounds.  We are ‘C’ league champions, again.

toosday:

START OF THE ANNUAL RANGELY INJECTION WELL INSPECTION

Or — the annual flirtation with the seemingly inevitable packer fluid shower.

I’ve managed a project for my employer for a few years now — that of the annual EPA-mandated inspections and tests of all oil and gas wells intended to inject ‘stuff’ BACK into the ground — not those which are designed to extract stuff FROM beneath the surface.  For the first day of field tests, I was asked to take the new trainee engineer along.

This is as good a time as any to bring out the lamp of “The old Litany of Why I (& People ‘Like Me’) Can’t Get Promoted and/or Get A Better Job” and rub it three times so the Gnome of Doom can pop out and piss (or poop) all over me, and anyone else who is in the vicinity.

Years ago, circling around in the seemingly never-ending downward spiral of languid fetid backwater at the Department of Energy office, I was discussing job inertia with two of my ‘mates.’  Each of us was approximately the same age, had similar experience and knowledge, and was consistently denied promotions and career advancement opportunities.  The Litany practically wrote itself.  We decided that often we would apply for a job, and be considered qualified enough to be interviewed.  The other candidates for whatever position were just as qualified as each of us, but there were a few minor differences.  They were BETTER-LOOKING, SMARTER, YOUNGER, LESS OF AN ATTITUDE PROBLEM, HEALTHIER (less of a drain on the health plan), FIT SOME RACIAL/SEX/E E O DEMOGRAPHIC (the D.O.E. got “more points” when it hired minorities, women, disabled — nothing wrong with that .  Consider, when you’re equally qualified as someone else who will make the DOE EEO program “look good” — well, you’re S O L.) AND WILLING TO WORK HARDER FOR LESS MONEY — each of us had just as much chance of getting the job as did these others.  And so here we were.  Three of us, feet up on the desk, smoking (yes, we were all smokers — and I’ll bet if the DOE was aware of that, we would score even lower), the light bulb of illumination and enlightenment turning on as we jointly arrived at this discovery.  It’s been one of my mantras ever since.

Anyhow, the “new guy” got the promotion I had been encouraged by my boss to apply for.  I was interviewed.  Not made to feel too much like I was looking for a job as a village idiot in a series of villages all of which already had one.  But limbo, none-the-less.  Apparently the muck-heads at the Denver office didn’t like the candidates they had ended up with, and continued the job search until this 22-year-old crossed their radar.  Bingo.  I could be his grandfather.  I have been becoming increasingly disgruntled about this job for a couple years now.  What is “beyond” disgruntled?  Well, I’m there — ‘beyond’ — and might try to describe THAT, later.

New trainee engineer meets me early in the morning (he’s a few minutes late) and we drive in my vehicle the almost two-hour trip to Rangely.  I’m civil.  Try to be pleasant.  Informative.  I’m fairly sure he has no idea that he took “my promotion.”  Better that way.

We arrive at the Chevron office and the next hour is spent talking and getting the paperwork in order and renewing all my acquaintances.  In a few years they might be HIS acquaintances, as well.

We test about twenty wells (I’ll spare you the exciting details) and I end up, as usual, trying to help with the manual labor.  And I get slightly sprayed from the pressurized wellbore “packer fluid.”  Happens every year.  I don’t know what the stuff is, but it is a preservative oily lubricating fluid which inhibits corrosion in the piping, thousands of feet below the ground.  It has a penetrating odor as well.

New trainee has nice new clothes on — and I suspect he will wear older ones in the future.  But he does try to help with the cleaner aspects of the job — there is a bit of repetitive paperwork.  We finish earlier than I expected, stop at Subway and drive home, chatting amiably.

He knows what I mean when I say “last night my team REALLY wanted to win.”  I have no sense, no feel, for how he’ll take to this job.  He’ll come back up with the other inspectors to do more well inspections the day after tomorrow.  I would have come back up, but the job I had scheduled tomorrow might go two days.

wednesday:

WATCHING CEMENT BEING POURED DOWN AN ABANDONED WELL, during which (not at all related?) — BETTY’S MOM DEMISES

I’ve been trying to manage another project — to clean up a leaky abandoned oil well in an otherwise quiet clean (clean? because it’s windswept) subdivision a mile or so outside of Craig.  I wake up about an hour earlier than the previous day as I’m to meet the subcontractors at about 8, and have 155 miles to drive.  I figure if I live through this day, I’ll coast for a while.

This phase of the reclamation involves the actual well itself.  We are to plug (“and abandon”) it.  Yeah, we rarely, if ever, just “plug” a well — we plug AND abandon it.

The crew comes up in three vehicles — the wireline truck, a somewhat large truck pulling a trailer with materials and equipment, and a regular pick-up truck.  There are four of them, and when one of them jokes that their company is “Cowboy Wireline” I recognize him as the former produce manager at the grocery I go to.  We talked one day about what to do with vegetables and fruit the store has to toss.  Alas, he couldn’t just give it away…

The work is not without “the usual” deviations and slight mishaps.  If the cement truck they hired had delivered the expected five cubic yards — that should have been more than enough, and we would have finished a couple hours earlier.  As it was, the local cement truck drove away, and we (gu)estimated that we had 60 or so feet of 9-inch pipe to fill.  So, we hand-mixed and dumped, and mixed and poured some more, perhaps a couple cubic feet at a time.  I was starting to get a little pessimistic.  They had run out of gas for the mixer, and would need more water soon.  Two guys were sent to town in the pick-up.  The two guys remaining and I kept at it — and finally we dumped enough cement (and the occasional miscellaneous piece of metal and piping.  I left to go look for more metal pieces and noticed that a 4 x 4 piece of wood lying nearby had disappeared when I returned.  Hmmm…) to reach the surface.  I hope we’re done with phase two.

In many, most, all? things I do, I rarely am certain a job is done.  I hope it is done — as something seemingly always happens to render things I thought ‘complete’ … not.   I did visually verify that the well was full to the surface with cement.  When we get around to the ‘dirt-work’ and contouring and removing rusted metal oilfield junk and verifying that all the oil-contaminated soils are remediated, THEN we’ll be totally done.  Well, not completely.  We still have to re-vegetate the site, and waiting for the plants to establish might take more than one growing season.

Betty calls at about 4:30, leaving the message that her mom had just died.  I was leaving just then, all the more reason to buy beer for the trip home.

thirzday:

THINGS BECOME MUCH SIMPLER

I wrote a letter to my daughter, accompanying a copy of a short story I’d written (entitled “In The Belly of The Beast” — about a one-game “hockey adventure”).

ROOTSCH (‘n Ben.  Rachel:  can Ben read?  Is this reading?  I mean, philosophically, can this be “read”?  Do we ever REALLY “know” anybody?  Do we know ourselves?  Is “knowing” like the struxure of the atom — you know — 99.999…% empty space?  Is …)

okeh.  ’nuff.

You said you couldn’t download.  So here is …

I’m mulling (W-T-F is “mulling” anyhow?) about writing a few things.  Our weird whacky/WACKY? but ultimately TRIUMPHANT hockey season.  how I contributed GREATLY to the world’s religions by the insight that there is a BIG BULBOUS IN THE SKY which is

   i   n   f   i   n   i   t   e   l   y      bulbous.

& other stuff.

I’m staying away from werk — &, Dennis T called to ask me to show up at “a venue” to play the annual nashunull anthem.  how can any mediocre wanna-be musician pass THAT up?  –> you have a captive audience of many hundreds who HAVE TO BE QUIET & then applaud afterwards, no matter how bad you played?!

So I’ll do that, and derive Dee to the hairport Satyrday and, having lived that long, coalesce, as it were (like an amoeba?) & slither into the rest of my life.  as it appears.  at that time.

Y

PHREDD

Up until yesterday it seemed things were a bit complicated.  With yesterday’s news it’s like everything was pushed over the edge.  Beyond complicated.  Things are much more simple now.  I’m tottering on, an hour at a time. 

I hadn’t dwelt nor planned nor considered Betty’s mom ever dying.  We joked that as a nasty old feces, she’d stay alive mainly out of spite, for years.  Betty would remind me occasionally that we’d (well, she) stand to inherit enough proceeds to possibly retire, or at least ‘throttle back’ a bit.  On the drive home I’m considering giving my notice to my employer.  Letting one person in particular know that I feel insulted by the recent new hire.  Might have been the beer fumigating/ruminating.

fryday:

THE MEDIOCRE MUSICIAN HAS A CAPTIVE AUDIENCE

But i was grumpy anyway.  I am somewhat particular in how i play the national anthem (the U.S.’, of course).  Today that order and preparation and etc. was altered and not by me.

I informed my supervisor as to Betty’s recent news, and to his and the “company”s credit, it seems I am off-limits re: work calls and such — for a few days.  Actually, they pretty much leave me alone for another week.

A few days ago I requested some time off today.  This was, of course, prior to Wednesday’s news.  I was asked to help at a high school sporting event — including playing the national anthem.

(Above: two of my implements of evil, or auditory destruxion — and my son’s 6th-Place-at-State-Discus-Medal, and a Plaque awarded my daughter for yet another school record (800-meters) )

satyrday:

THE MEDIOCRE MUSICIAN DOES HIS SHOW THE WAY HE LIKES IT, after which BETTY FLIES OFF to help settle the estate?

How do I like to do the show?  Without anyone announcing in advance what is to come (the Announcer did THAT yesterday), — I just grab the mike and play a few bars of the bluesiest stuff I can do.  THAT usually gets “their” attention — especially as one never expects the Spanish Inquisition!  Then I say “Ladies and gentlemen, now that I have your attention, will you please stand for the national anthem.”  I then play it ‘straight’ — the song is difficult for this mediocre harmonica player without embellishments.  And, as I conclude, the audience applauds.  (Relieved that it’s over?).  The event is a high school track (and field) meet — the biggest each year in this half of the state.  Perhaps 4 or 5 dozen schools, with several hundred in attendance.  How can any mediocre musician pass that up?

I then helped set up and take down hurdles, and monitored one corner of a relay.  Then home to drive Betty to the airport.

We won’t begin to know until at least TOMORROW (after this particular week) as to how this is going to shape up.  But Betty’s focus on the matter at hand seems to have shifted to curbing her greedy sister’s evil plans.

Betty was as close to her mother as anyone.  It is imperative that she go out — as soon as she could.  She called whatever airline right after the news on Wednesday — expecting whoever to conscientiously abide by the “medical emergency” request.  How soon could she get out?  Saturday at noon was the soonest they could arrange.

She and siblings will arrange funeral/memorial services (her mom will be cremated); start to wade through the spaghetti-bowl of stocks/bonds/funds/ etc.; and just do what close family members should do.

The movie ends in a fade out.  Cut to turbulent seas crashing onto a rocky shore.  Brooding dark overcast sky overhead …

gato miscelàneo

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Saludos, amigos. Quiero mostrarte algunas fotos de nuestros gatos.  Otro que esto, no rima ni razòn. Sobre, Milli y Vanilli descansan en “un estanque en la selva.” El gato de mi hija, Hugh, algunas veces esta en una dimensiòn contiguo con … Continue reading →

Sunny Day in Bongo-ville (she knew the nagual, and the nagual knew her)

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She? and what she knew … we’ll get to that.  But first, wha gwan a la casa baytoonawdaw …

Slev & da Rox watch the SunTea Brewin’.  Broodin’?  Does a watcht pawt ever boil?  May a Moody Baby Doom a Yam? (i borrerrd thet frum Bela Fleck, a palindrome sawng).

I made up a palindrome once.  Maybe it’ll fit in, somewhere, nicely, some day.  Probably not.

A big windstorm swept through our place over a week ago.  Among the usual tree branches and trash cans donated to downwind neighbors (and inheriting similar from houses upwind) the inuk-thingy in the middull of the yard blew over.

I started to rebuild it last weekend.  I mentioned to Betty that I’d been considering quadripedal inunnguaqs (except that particular werd applies to “human-like”) — or inukshuk.  “Why not start now, with this one?” she said.

I’ll build another, as soon as.  Prob’ly ain’t obvious, but I have a toadull amphibious aspect in mind.

View from opposite dye-erexion.

The people who built our house, almost 60 years ago! were the only inhabitants ’til we acquired it some 20 years ago.  Yeah, “my, how time flies” — or the maggots self-propagate, or whatever.  Anyhow, the lady of the house took pride in her roses.  Won ribbons at the county fair.  It’s amazing the roses persevere, regardless and definitely IN SPITE OF our continuing benign neglect.  Above is just about the last rose of the season.

There aren’t many pixures of Terry, or sometimes “Serena.”  Terry struts down the walk and by choice/volition doesn’t get out much. (At first I didn’t notice the Inuk-of-the-Lower-Yard, at top).

No-one’s gettin’ in the lower level door without this doorbell ringin’.  Or, more probably, a lotta tail-waggin’ and droolin’ from Doolie.

Bruce is about to attack a pile of dandelion leaves.  A new era, in whatever form it’ll manifest we have no idea, is underway, in that I discovered Bruce likes certain kinds of DOG-FOOD.  (I didn’t know that ’til today).

Dandelion devourment.

milli hangin’ with “the bird”

This is one bird, the only bird on the premises, which the cats usually leave alone.  Da bird is ensuring that the flower-planter-box on the north side of the house continues to be inhospitable to flowers, as it likes to lounge in the safety and comfort many afternoons there.

Earlier today (mercifully NOT pixured) I ran a 5k race and failed yet again at what has become my only goal in any race –> DON’T set a new P W (for non-runners: “personal worst” — slowest time ever).  I smashed my previous PW.  But I’m still, barely (barelier) sub-8.  Then … Betty bought a new bed (to replace the one we’ve had for 20-plus years) and to prepare for the delivery in a few days, we spent a few hours clearing, cleaning, re-arranging, cleaning, tossing stuff out, un-re-arranging, consolidating and, while we’re at it, put up new curtains and hardware over some windows.  The heavy lifting was done by two of Betty’s college life-guard swimming buddies who moved the old bed and all appertunances thereto to the garage.  You don’t want any pixures of that, do you?

Retreating back in time, I went into the secret laboratory and brought an old essay back from the crypt.  Not quite a blast? (more like old w(h)ine) from the passed.

blorg of the least beast high on fermented yeast?  or —

 She knew the nagual, and the nagual knew her.

okeh… how’s that for the start of the book?  depends.  if i conjured up 300-some pages to go with it, great.  however, the never-ending downward spiral seemingly is infinite.  sigh.

i do NOTHING well.  that is, i’m really good at nothing.  everything, or anything — for that matter — i’m not so good at.

i aspire to be mediocre at various things.  golf:  mediocrity would be a step up.  hockey:  gosh, i’d like to improve two or three steps to become merely mediocre.  home-improvement projects:  well, i think mediocrity is within reach, but it slips away, usually.

i am good at a thing, or two, but i can’t really tell anybody.  really.  whether or not i’m right about that, it doesn’t matter.  (yes, it’s like that).

now, back to the realm where mediocrity is a possibly unattainable dream…  a guy i knew about 20 years back joked about starting The Institute of/for the Useless.  he was a/the prime example.  at that time i felt somewhat above useless.  but when talking about it, i had not only empathy, but what i thought were good suggestions for the curriculum.

now, i’m not so sure — about being “above” useless — what with the aspirations for mediocrity and all.

there have got to be good and positive and healthy and spiritual and emotionally-uplifting things going on, for somebody, somewhere.  has to be.  a counterbalance to all this negative stuff.

what negative stuff? someone might ask.  whoa — somebody might question the absolute force of negativity in this whirled?  heh …

ah, fee-yuck.  shuck the attempts to be filosawfeekal.  the flip sighed uv the quoin is apprehension of the open-ness, the un-folding, whirled without comprehensible end, omen.

tomorrow betty wants for us to participate in a double-suicide attempt.  take both horses out on the trail.  maybe it’ll snow, or the good news snoid will slither by with directions to the treasure chest in the forest, or one or the other or both of us will be struck in the head by the effervescent esoteric luminescent tendril of good sense and/or sublime intelligence or in some other fashion have my/our/her I.Q. instantly elevated to at least double what it/they is/are presently.  ah …. (intoned after a good voiding).

suicide? tomorrow, continued:  and in a vain/futile attempt to re-establish a semblance of familial harmony, she has arranged for my brothers and us to go out for dinner tomorrow.  the sort of experiment i/we don’t need.  speekin’ of weird experiments … in a little over a month we venture with the one (non-disparate) brother to las vague-ass to attend the spamalot show.

but, what is it, if anything, i’m looking forward to?  perhaps i’d like to be in the mindset or spirit-set where i really do have to pay complete attention all the time.  not a lascivious, greedy, soul-sucking sort of attention.  attention to … it.

she knew the nagual, and the nagual knew her.

sara didn’t know she knew the nagual.  it was a gradual thing.  the nagual, of course, didn’t care.

Who is “sara”?  she is the protagonist (the main one, other protagonists take the stage from time to time) in my ongoing novel (gnawvell) which will probably never be published.  The way I’m “writing” Sara, she does seem to intuitively know Naggy Wall, but not let it affect her.  It’s like she doesn’t know she knows.  Kind of like how I think I might feel some of the time when I depress the clutch on the personal-interaction-with-the-world mechanism, and just, let, it

rosco betunada, in the year 2007, hadn’t, fundamentally, changed, at all.

UGGETTA BUGGETTA

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UGGETTA BUGGETTA

Uggetta buggetta.  I’m sittin’ in the forest by myself.  Or so it seems.  I’m tuned in to “llama central” so I’m never really alone.

How did it come to this? — You might ask.  I was “just goin’ along for the ride.”  My job.  Carrying stuff for tourists, but basically addin’ ambiance.  Plenty of time to hang with the pack later, and, before now.  Yes, I can will myself to ‘before now’ as easily as ‘tomorrow.’  After all, “time” is a human construct.  Wugetta, gugga-bugga.

Millennia ago, we ruled.  Proud herds in the uplands.  But we could not elude the invaders for long.  Well, our so-called ‘ancestors,’ the guanaco, were and still are the wild ones.  Buggetta wuggeta.

This quarrelsome couple shows up where I live with my fellow ‘pack animals.’  “We are going to trek in the wilderness,” she says.  “We think it would be cool to have a llama carry all our stuff.”

He sniffs, “you think it is ‘cool.’  I’d rather rent a horse.”

“That’s so typical of you!  So heavy-footed!  I want to tread lightly.”

They bickered but she won.  I was next in line to go trekking.  ‘Trekking’ — that’s what the idiots call it.  I call it bidin’ my time.

The obligatory tutorial:  “Don’t beat your llama.  When it’s tired it will lie down and there’s nothing you can do until it is good and ready to continue.”  That’s nice — my so-called “owner” knows that about us.  Buggetta, buggetta.

We dispatch from the trailhead.  My owner drives away with the horse-trailer.  She and he gaze at each other, attempting to beam their affinity with nature.  Wugga wugga.  I tolerate her good-natured efforts to ‘befriend’ me.  If I were reduced to experiencing human feelings, I might, as usual, entertain the hope of getting through this without major mishap.  At any rate, I do hope that it will be a while before I become encumbered again.  Buggetty wuggetty.  Sinkin’ back into my unique cellular subconscious …

Each and every one of my race knows one another — regardless of time or displacement.  To a human’s understanding, we are at one with the universe.  But we don’t call it that.  The continuum stretches out into all directions and dimensions most humans cannot begin to fathom.  We traverse many of those trajectories without difficulty.  But, back here on earth, we plod along …

She brightly engages in continuous narrative.  He grumbles.  They switch.  He attempts to catalogue all they see into his worldview.  She objects frequently.  “I don’t think that that mountain gives a shit about us!”

“Honey, people like us are at one with the world.  That’s why I suggested this trek, so we can re-connect.”

“You’re the one needing re-connection!  I’m already there!”

And so they alternatively bicker, make up … (ugh, do I have to watch their love-making?  Shuggetta shagoo.  I project elsewhere.)  Bickering re-begins almost immediately.

“You don’t give a damn about how I feel!  Make an attempt to last longer!”

“You don’t know what you want!  Everything could be perfect — but you still want it your way!”

Finally, nightfall.  I’m tethered near a stream amongst the late spring grass.  And they’re mercifully quiet.  Shuggetta wuggetta.

The invaders, these people among them, will have to either eventually TRANSFORM themselves, or the more-likely alternative, kill themselves off.  We project and hold to a future where they haven’t destroyed everything for us.  Daybreak …

“You are such a pig!  Can’t you piss outside?!”

“You’re jealous!  Just ’cause I can go in a bottle and not have to leave the tent?!”

“That doesn’t matter!  You’re pissing in the tent and I don’t have to put up with this!”

Their attempts to re-connect with nature and the universe during breakfast lack the sincerity of the previous day.  They argue over who gets to have the llama accompany them on their respective solo hike.  He wins.

“I’ll tell ya’ buddy,” — yes, he’s talking to me — “I really love her.  We’re soul mates.  You poor animals probably don’t know anything about that.”

I shake my head to remove the flies.  Puggetta waboo.

“But she drives me crazy.  Perhaps it’s ’cause we’re so close.  It’s rare to find someone as enlightened as oneself.”

And on and on he talks.  I tune in to llama central.  Puggetta wamboo.  We’ve established a network over much more of the planet than we used to occupy.  There are other places similar to the Andean highlands, which IS good news, once we’re rid of the invaders.

Gunshots echo off the valley’s rock walls.  He curses.  “She brought her gun too?!”  He pulls out his 9mm Beretta from beneath his jacket, inspecting it.  “What’s she shooting at?”  I hope he’s not expecting an answer from me.  Puggetta wubba -wubba.

Back at camp.  She’s been there a while, sulking and cleaning her Ruger 22-caliber Mark II automatic pistol.  I betray my usual tranquil manifestation, involuntarily fertilizing the ground with both the solid and liquid varieties.  “Why the hell did you bring your gun?” he thunders.

She does not thunder back.  After a dead-silent-several-second pause, she looks up, slowly, with a sickly smile on her face.  This is what high noon in front of the sheriff’s office might have been like.  He sits down on a rock across the fire ring from her.

He has forgotten to tether me, but I lie down to wait this out.  Whatever this is.  Actually, I’ve been expecting it.  Puggetty wuggetty.  Plenty of cud to chew on.  Llama central promulgates a few discrete scenarios as to the disposition of the invaders.  I might be witnessing one such outcome in miniature.

She slowly gets up, having finished cleaning her gun.  Without a backward look, she walks off into the forest.  He looks at me, as if I might counsel him otherwise.  I don’t.  Puggetta, puggetta.  Patting and checking a pocket beneath his jacket, he follows her.

Gunshots.  Silence.  I wait a few minutes.  Continued silence.  Think I’ll just sit a while, takin’ it easy.  Uggetta buggetta.

Snake in the Dryer

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I left for work and was halfway there (see map) when Betty started doing the laundry.  She opened the dryer …

My cell phone rang.

“We’ve got a crisis at home and you should take care of it.”  My heart missed a beat.  A fire? or a tree fell on the house? or a pack of rabid dogs banging at the doors …

No.  It was worse.  “There’s a snake in the dryer.”

“I’ll be right home.”  I called my boss, telling him I’d be a little late.

I was just about at the point of no-return on the commute to work.  Any further, and I suppose I’d continue on, and hope for the best.  But I’d worry.  I wouldn’t focus on the job at hand.  Reviewing plans for gas (and oil) wells in our region.  Ensuring that the governmental regulations were adhered to.  I wouldn’t be paying the attention the job warranted and natural gas development would suffer.  Well designs would be inadequate.  Higher prices at the pump.  Citizenry in uproar.  Civil unrest.  No telling how much worse things would get.

I hurried home.

Betty understandably didn’t survey the situation with quantification in mind.  I was relieved.  A large snake, an angry snake, maybe even a rattler (not unknown in our neighborhood) would definitely be cause for concern.  How did it get there?  The dryer vent exits the house into a window well.  The poor thing probably couldn’t get out of the window-well, and the more-accessible vent was the only escape.  Directly into the dryer.

A few years ago I had ‘rescued’ a rattlesnake which had taken up residence in a fiberglass enclosure over a disposal well up north near Wyoming.  I duplicated the procedure, which was to place a bucket near the hapless reptile, and gently persuade it with a stick.  Betty demonstrates, above.

Good thing this healthy youngster didn’t unwittingly go through the drying cycle, nor somehow escape into the house.  The cats would not be nice to it.  And there’d probably be a mess to clean up.

Good-looking little guy or girl, isn’t (s)he?  Betty briefly considered adopting it, “keeping it” but she’d have to take care of it.  She did say later that she’d get over her fear of snakes with this as a pet.

The first thing I noticed was this wasn’t your usual striped garter/garden snake.  Nice diamond-y pattern.  Perhaps someone can identify — amateur herpetologists, anyone?  Our guess was probably ‘bull snake.’

He/she is probably really relieved to be getting out back into the grass.  We made sure it ended up far enough away from the house so as not to end up as a cat toy.

I think the dryer, and laundry room, are back to whatever passes as normal.  (Higher gas prices and oil-field chaos and anarchy averted, until some later day …)

( And … Betty told me that last night she dreamt of a snake in the house. Hmmmm….)