Tag Archives: ricardo cabeza

Some notes from years ago

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well … like 8!

01/06/07

time?

yes, where i live is somewhat ‘in tune’ and aligned with what this season should be like for the latitude. cold and snowy. easy to see it as bleak.

Running: i’ve been joking that the every-other-daily jorg is when i feel the best i’ll feel all day. i have a direct hand on the throttle administering the pain, instead of being the passive (and unwitting?) recipient of it.

Hockey: Ricardo Cabeza said that his soon-to-be five year old granddaughter has started to ask religious and ‘god’ questions. i joked that my ‘church’ has not had a meeting for a month, and there is a delay of another week. my team’s next game is not for another week-and-a-half. yes, the church of the stick & puck.

my wife (!) would like to play. perhaps i’ll surprize her and get eqpt / proper skates (she really likes her LLBean quasi-figure skates, which would not be allowed in the hockey league! as they have toe picks. after a while, there might be women-only leagues… as the women who do play are mostly in “my” league — the novice league. and… my son should play! he would be really good. in a different lifetime, if we had lived in minnesota or north dakota, or … he probably would have played. little opportunity living “in the desert” as we do. until recently.

The roons: with the kids long-time gone, the cats / dogs / horses / turtles / fish / and tortoise are the kids. some days (usually NOT when it’s icy and cold) i feel like a sort of gardener, the custodian of the adjoining piece of paradise. yeah, right. oh well, this part of the creation, the continuity, the infinitum, the … nexus of the time/space/ continuum in which i inhabit.

Betty is visiting her mom in W. Palm Beach for about a week yet. I had planned to do what is perhaps my most therapeutic art work — work on the scrapbook. haven’t yet. maybe tonight. i did, however, transform a couple of my more-or-less completed short stories into ‘small book’ form, print some out, and mail them to perhaps a dozen unlucky recipients.

Food and beer: ricardo and i visited the Nepalese last night. we are fairly regular customers there — much more so than any other place.

Mr. Cabeza says he is a bit depressed, his most recent candidate for significant other just up and dumped him. He stays busy, what with a jazz band, being bingo caller, comrades-in-arms (or whatever type of comrades) to do stuff with, and the never-ending drama of his families lives. Interestingly, he is on good terms with his ex-son-in-law. The very same ex-nephew-in-law Betty and I go golfing with.

I suggested to him that I show up at bingo, and win all or most the jackpots. “What?! Again!? This guy wins again!” — and we split the proceeds afterwards. Yeah, in a dark alley with dirty used envelopes.

He wouldn’t go along. So, I still have to either buy the winning lottery ticket and/or start being real nice to rich senior (more ‘senior’ than I) citizens…

Hanukkah, Islam, and: i think X-ukkah (think X-mas) has passed this year. betty still wants a new more modern teevee (will it be toooo technical for us? it’s been YEARS since we knew how to program the VCR. we’ve gotten used to the flashing “12:00” all the time. THAT used to bother us, a few years back.) and a couch. my son gave me a GOOD bottle of scotch and some fine cigars. that’s fine –> stuff i can ‘use’ NOW and soon. no more stuff to eventually end up in the attic or garage or bequeath to the landfill eventually.

wha gwan in muzik: at least Señor Cabeza plays, is current. As is my bro-in-law. But me? definitely on the down slope of my not-quite mediocre career. maybe i’ll have my annual two daze “in the sun” horrifying the crowd at an athletic event i have been announcer for in early may.

The always impending end of time: seems like it. it’s never far away. but of course, any ‘end’ is a beginning.

Orgasms, flatulence, drooling — no shortage of the flatsch and drools. i include ‘orgasmz’ due to the infamous line from the movie “adventures of baron von munchausen.”

Lookin’ forward to stuff –> it’s always good to look forward, to eagerly anticipate, to aspire. i should be IN the moment more, rather than suffer through the “monday” (mundaneness) of any schedule. schedules? suck! but perhaps the open secret is to accept the yoke of a schedule, the necessary stuff, with the same open-ended/open-minded attitude one might have if the day were long with no appointments. heh.

i decided to start another of my insipid failed uninspiring essays. but this one is intended to have more than just a minute touch of therapy. heh.

it’s all part of the big adventure — but most the time for me it’s hidden behind the curtains. ah, to know it all as i did when i was 20 or 21 or so. what i KNEW then was not “facts” but the certainty that it was all connected. had a positive ‘out’. we’d prevail. the dude abides.

01/31/07

the peak of the sun’s eventual disappearance possibility (wint-solstice) has passed, the sine wave of the annual solar exposure curve definitely is waxing. sometimes i’m axually off to werk before the sun comes up, though.

darn work. that too, has waxened and waned, but the waning continues. a couple years ago the semi-retired was ongoing, but the leash has shortened.

i used to feel i had some “ownership” over my work-realm, but THAT has evaporated. i go through the motions. every once in a while i consider just up and giving the notice. like back in 1998. up and quit. i segued into the present employment three months later. doubt if THAT would again …

Running: part of the ritual. with more time, or volition, and/or wise time-management (possibly my character never will again allow that. ingrained habituals moan and groan and die with diffyoccultly.

Hockey: it’s started again. the one night per week of the mixture of terror, self-loathing ’cause it’s MY FAULT we’re already at the league cellar (if i stopped ALL shots, we’d win, right? — it would help if the rest of the team scored more, AND didn’t allow the other team so many one-on-one’s with the goalie. game before last there were a handful of two-on-one’s, and one three-on-one!)

The roons: we are in a shedding mode, rather than acquisition.

Islam, and: jewishness. Xtianity. a repeat of last bloRg: that it’s all part of the big adventure, the biggest part of the adventure. the mis-adventure. ah, to KNOW IT ALL as i did when i was 20 or 21 or so. what i KNEW then was not “facts” but the certainty that it was all connected. had a positive ‘out’. we’d prevail. the dude abides.

material boy and gurl: we did acquire the “new more modern teevee (will it be toooo technical for us? the couch is on hold for now. the new thingy in the house seems to have taken care of the 3 holidaze i got betty nada: anniversary, x-ukkah, and her recent birthday.

had a dream two or three nites ago which was “back” in / at Sierra Moreno. i mulled over how to write it down, perhaps write a novelette of the mis-adventure captured therein. there i was, except (as usual) i wasn’t “i” — running a sort of minerals-exploration crew. maybe we were looking for treasure. i think it was something else. el dorado …

we were in a familiar town — i’ve dreamt of it before. similar terrain to near here — semi-arid, low hills gradually giving rise to higher ones, with perhaps the high peaks in the distance. scrubby pines, arroyos. the town was not remarkable — nothing really note-worthy, mostly wood-frame older buildings. there was a congested ‘downtown’ — or central area with people milling about.

i drove off with a few others in a SUV / 4-wheel-drive. it seemed more ‘work-related’ than a recreational trip. i was trying to follow a route, or path, but it wasn’t long before the terrain was impassable to the vehicle. i was addressing the other workers, suggesting we deviate off into three groups to try to achieve the objective. even in the dream, the ‘objective’ was somewhat vague.

when i awoke, i briefly considered the story line. WHAT were we looking for? in keeping with the theme of Sierra Moreno, it might HAVE to be something fantastic, something not of the present, the real world. a nexus of force and energy coincident with the periodic emergence of some extra-dimensional serpent-force line?

i read one of the (zelasny?) ‘chronicles of amber’ series — wherein the “real world” — called Amber, is at the core of many ‘shadow’ worlds, one of which is the “earth” we know and love. or whatever it is we’re doing in and with it.

the big dog discorporated from the physical manifestation late last week. i buried him out north in the desert, up near a big mesa at the edge of the bookcliffs. we’d also ‘lost’ a fish earlier in the week. i thought back to the veritable pantheon of departed family-mates. two horses, a donkey, perhaps a dozen or two cats, the two german shepherds, two turtles (and two ran away), more fish. part of the swarm, the sheath of consciousness enveloping the planet. see comment on Amber, Chronicles of, previous paragraph.

there would be other layers. of what, we can only conjecture. oh, speak up now: YOU know some of those layers, what they’re “made of.” a maelstrom of crushed dreams and frustrations? a cloud of turbulent swirling terrorist death threats? and there’s gotta be not-so-scary stuff — the big puffy cumulous happy thought sphere?

anyhow, there is, contiguous with the planet, the accompanying life force. i don’t know, but sometimes i think it is all ONE, just seemingly separated into the illusion of separateness. but it may be billions and billions of discrete units — when viewed “from a distance” appears to be one big mass.

that is what i thought of when considering the recently departed. all the departed. the lives to come. hopefully there’ll be a lot to come.

do the life forces migrate / transbulbulate to other planets?

in the hot tub last night i was thinkin’ of … oh, never mind. but i was pondering the inevitable. oh, what to do, what to do … (when (and not “if”) it comes).

moovin’ along on the depression train: i can’t retire yet, well, i can retire, but i/we can’t afford to, yet.

i wanna ‘close’ on a seeming positive note, but heck, maybe this IS positive …

 

awn tawppuv the whirled @ LAND’S END WHACKAROONY

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A nite or two ago, out peeeng in the yarrd, cigar in the other hand, the warm nite breeze stirring what’s left of my ever-diminishing hair, clothes scattered somewhere in the house, dogs snuffling about in the bushez nearby, i … Continue reading →

BEATLE’S SONG BIRTHDAY

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Cancíon de los Beatles por mì cumpleaños BEATLES SONG BIRTHDAY (with unrelated Gunnison River Escalante overlook mountain-bike sojourn accompanied by the dogs) Rosco’s cousin, Ricardo Cabeza, entered the seventh decade of, uh, I was gonna say decadence, but no! decade … Continue reading →

Of Hydraulic Conductivity, Perhaps

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hydraulic2

hydraulick

OF HYDRAULIC CONDUCTIVITY, PERHAPS

One must strive for inner naked bo-buddhiditty.

— Ricardo Cabeza

“What do you know about hydraulic conductivity?” the Goat King asked the Corpse.  “Every molecule of water adjoining other water is in contact, so to speak, with all other water molecules in the pool.  Water molecules in contact can pull each other along.  When you step into the ocean, you are in hydraulic conductivity with all the water in all the seas.”

Corpse just shrugged.  The Goat King was showing off, as usual, and eventually the conversation would segue to something they all could relate to.  Beer, hopefully; or bar skanks, or maybe a pool hall with a strong possibility of fights.

Dave (the Goat King’s ‘everyday name’) was not to be ignored.  Turning to the others in the room, he asked, “Does anybody know where we are?”

“The ride, man, the ride.”  That was Jason.  He had just finished shaping a four-foot-long ‘party’ sub sandwich into an alligator shape, even sticking bits of bread in as legs.  The ride he was alluding to was a carnival ride they may or may not have gotten onto.  The Lost Highway ride.

Under cover of darkness, the carnival pitched its tents, midway, and appurtenances thereto.  The following morning, residents of the nearby town of Green Hill (known affectionately among many residents as “Green Hell”) seemed surprised at the appearance of the next-door neighbor.

“Looks kinda creepy,” offered Jason, fingers making a visor as he peered through the fog.  Although having been erected overnight, there was a hint of moss already.  As if emerging from the humus, proto-amphibian-like, spontaneous generation.

The Corpse could not resist carnivals.  The lure of gambling, no matter what form, was usually irresistible.  Karma was similarly inclined.  Without much difficulty, they dragged the gang along.

They lost most their pocket change in the midway.  Not even a medium-sized stuffed bear to show for their efforts.  “We’re not schwinging successfully,” lamented Jason.

“Let’s go chill on a slow ride,” suggested Jowers.

They ambled towards the furthest end of the midway.  Under flickering lights, partly veiled by overhanging tree branches, one could easily miss the entrance to The Lost Highway ride.  Chaz, the sixth member of the group, involuntarily gasped in astonishment.  Astral dragons, multi-faceted fingers of mist, the shimmer from beyond.  Chaz blinked, and saw the entrance clearly.  “Whad ya see, Chaz?” sneered Dave.  Though Dave would ridicule the quiet and shadowy borderline-outcast member of the group, the Goat King realized the utility in a combination court jester/empath.  Chaz only shrugged.

“Anyone got tickets left?” Dave said as he stepped past the androgynous stunted gate-attendant.  Jowers fumbled beneath his coat and produced the requisite string of segmented light cardboard.

A screeching sound alerted them to the approach of the next ride car.  Sparks and the smell of ozone.  All but Dave tried to get in but the Goat King stopped them with an upraised finger.  “Jowers, Corpse, and … uh, Jason; get in this one.”

The first trio disappeared through the hanging-down rubber strips, much as a tray of dishes is sent into the washer.  Dave turned to Karma and Chaz, grinning.  “You guys think that this is not as it seems?”  Chaz attempted to conceal his answer, but was betrayed by involuntary shaking and beads of sweat on his brow.  It was not a warm evening.

The next carnival-ride conveyance arrived as screechingly as the previous.  Karma was beyond annoyed.  This experience deeply penetrated and ravaged the thin façade of a mere waste of time.  The tinny static-y polka music through the loudspeakers was bad enough.  The flickering neon lights portraying Americana highway times gone by – Karma fought back expurgation of recent midway hot dogs and chili.  Exhibits of Model T’s chugging over rocky hilly passes, the obsolete donkeys pulling wagons waiting off to the side.  The Cleaver family, glowing hair, radiantly freshly-scrubbed with shining apple cheeks, off to Disneyland in their Edsel.  Subcompacts full of collegians hurtling, lemming-like, to the beach at spring break.

With a crackling of ozone-punctuated acrid nostril-searing smoke, the second car crashed into the first.  Angry yelling.  Dave turned to assess Chaz’s reaction.  Chaz seemed as swept up in the illusion as anyone else.  Surprisingly, it was Karma who first stepped back from emotion, so to speak, and attempt to rationally weigh the situation.

He grinned.  The others were so swept up in their mass hallucination, that Karma could actually see the emotional and energy fields surrounding them.

They were in a sort of room.  Like a mobius strip, the floor eventually became the ceiling, sound became visible objects, and thoughts were actions.  Everyone was comfortably seated.  The sun shone in, the moon brightly illuminated, they could see the milky way at noon.  Events, pictures, what might have been, what could be, flowed in.  Flowed past.  Swirled.  “Kind of like hydraulic conductivity,” remarked the Goat King.

“What?”  The Corpse was annoyed.  Later even Corpse would have to admit that each sensation they experienced would fade, drawing an adjoining related vision.  The core of each would largely overlap the previous, but different in some aspect.

Dave launched into a contemporaneous treatise on the inter-connectedness of all things.  Only Chaz and Karma feigned any interest, the others yawned, held fingers to their ears, scratched – anything to ward off Dave’s attempt at labeling the unlabelable.

Later, Jowers would reminisce that it was like a front porch party that lasted for hours.  Unemptiable coffee cups; beer mugs.  Jason was custodian of a large sandwich.  The others frequently hungered, but satiation was forthcoming and, briefly, absolute.  Chaz started to disrobe, muttering something about his favorite philosopher.  “Get dressed, idiot!” barked Karma.  “That Spanglitch Carbooza writer has you brainwashed.”

The screeching crackling sound of a ride car interrupted their reverie.  It stopped on tracks they hadn’t noticed until now.  Dave motioned for Jowers, Corpse, and Jason to get into it.  Back to Green Hell.  He and Karma and Chaz stood, waiting for the next car.

Correr con los Zombies

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Los Extra-Térrestres:  otra vez hay uno de sus platillos voladores, disfraza como un nublado.

Mi esposa y yo estàbamos zombi’s en una carrera el sabado pasado.  Felizmente, no tuvimos una càmara — estuvimos tan ocupado cazar y perseguir corredors quien estan en “El ùltimo carrera de su vida.”

Corredors tuvieron correr por entre un ciento “zombies.”  Fue muy divertido.

Betty lleva una peluca (la mujere agente del gobierno de “Los Juegos del Hambre.”)  Yo llevo una hacha-de-carne a travès de mi cabeza, y una camiseta que tiene un zombi caza un tractor con un granjero (campesino).

“Eat locals.”

Domingo fuimos a recoger nuezes de piñon con mi hermano y su novia.  Tuve una bolsa para recoger — sentì como un niño a Pascuas.  Los arboles fueron lleno de nuezes.

Fuimos àpice o tope de “9 Mile Hill” — que es cerca del “Olivivas Wilderness” y “Cactus Park” — lugares que estuve y visitar de vez en cuando.

Entre nosotros todos, tenemos muchos perros (siete, pienso …)  Arriba, Ricardo Cabeza y algun de sus perros.

Y, otoño, tiempo por oro en los arboles …

Si … justo (derecho).

nadie sabe que manaña traer

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la casita de sherie ve la mar

Tengo un cuñado, Alex, quien tuvo una novia, Sherie.  Ella tiene una casita en la playa cerca de Tampa.  Tuvimos un dìa muy agradable allì, dos años pasado.  En el imagen, arriba, los dos personas en el agua son A y S.

el entiende que yo ver (y foto) lo

Este pajaro fue en la playa ese dìa.  Parece que el entiende lo que hago (tomar fotos).  Hace mucho calor aquel dìa, recuerdo …

un pescado de ben, mientras dos perros vigilar

Mientras, en nuestro lago (estanque, actualmente) mi yerno y yo vamos pesquerìa.  Sus perros acompañar.  Fue un buen dìa por pesquerìa.  “Atrapar y libertar.”

un puente sur de tampa — vamos a nuestro hado, o ruina

Sì, hay un puente sur y oeste de Tampa, muy grande.  Fuimos a visitar mi Tìo, Jose, quien es el ùltimo tìo tengo.  Fue un otro dìa agradable, y importante para mì, porque no visito unos de mis familia con frecuencia.

‘bruce’ — es el tortuga (no es tortuga del agua) de ‘betty’

Bruce tiene diez-y-siete años, mas-o-menos.  Betty conseguir B en Florida y B fue pequeño (peso quinientos gramos).  Ahora, B peso casi veinte kilogramos.  Come mucho.

gato en un otro dimensiòn

Hugh es el gato de mi hija.  Encontraba H hace algun años pasado, en un campo cerca de mì casa.  H fue un gatito, muy pequeño.  Mi hija quiso H inmediatamente, y tomaba el a su casa mas tarde el mismo dìa.  H esta muy contento y vive un vida lleno de experiencias y muchas casas.

los espìritus en los arboles

B y yo fueron en “la Mesa Grande” el verano pasado — y los arboles fueron interesantes.  ¿Espiritus en los arboles?  ¿Porque no?

ricardo cabeza (izquierda) y su cuñada, betty betunada, buscar por “dios sabe que” en el desierto alto cerca de whitewater, colorawdough

si.  fue un dìa  fresca y nublosidad en el desierto alto.  y todos su perros, y algo mas.

los betunadas tienen un encuentro con espìritus animales y tiempo extraño

ah.  otro dìa en primavera y temprano en verano en “Cactus Park.”  Fue un dìa con la familia (y alugunos perros, por supuesto).  Un otro dìa casi en paraìso.

cosas hacerse mas extraño

Es aguardariente.

el gato ‘hugh’ todavia esta bien (por ahora …)

No esta despues los dimsiònes a este fecha.

¿quatro? o cinco? perros a lado de la forraje

Mire inmediato.  ¿Mire el ‘perro’ a la izqueirda?

es tranquilo y lleno de paz en la cueva

Siempre, cosas son tranquilo en la cueva, especialmente en invierno.

betty y su caballo, mitch, trabajan en la arena

B tuve muchos años agradable con sus caballos.  El tiempo con caballos por nos termina receiente.  Lo siento …

ùltimo, pobrecito ‘Dopey’ hacerse perdido

¿ Supone algo mas ?

los mariachis digame que el es el mundo-pequeño

Mi ensayo pròximo (en español) es de mi nieto, el mundo-pequeño.

innunguaq ramblings

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INUKSUIT ramblings

(“i used to make wombats”)

Ah … a span of time without anchors.  A day off from work!  No chores at home either (leaky faucets, doors not plumb within frames, unsightly detritus on the premises).  Spouse off to her job ’til the dark evening hours, weather not too hot nor too muddy nor too frigid to be outdoors.  Time to go ramble, with the dogs.

We (well, the dogs have little choice, they bark and lean over the sides and sometimes poop in the back of the truck) drive a short distance from the house.  I go to trailheads where the likelihood of encountering others is slim, partly ’cause that’s the way I like it, and the dogs need time to be free-spirited unleashed beasts without boundaries.  Reducing the possibility of bothering karmically-challenged people who worry about strange dogs intruding into their sacred spatial arenas. The buttheads.

I’ve brought two cigars for this trip.  And filled-up the brandy flask.  No telling, really, where the muse will take us, long as whatever it is ends by dark-thirty or earlier.  I did tell Betty a different destination, but the almost-usual last-minute decision dictated elsewhere.  I park 6.5 miles from the house, but it could be a few thousand years away.  After a half-mile along a trail, we’ll diverge.  Chances are after another half-mile, we’ll see little or no indications of other people having been there.  Cows, maybe.  This is Federal land.  And where we’re headed, there aren’t supposed to be any trails…

I used to make wombats.  I don’t know why I ever embarked on this pastime, nor do I remember my first wombat.  A back-country dog-hike was not ‘good’ until I found a spot to spell out “W O M B A T.”  (In rocks. on the ground.)  The less likely anyone will ever see it, the better.

An inuksuk (plural inuksuit) alternatively inukshuk is a stone landmark or cairn built by humans, used by the Inuit and other peoples of the Arctic region of North America.  The inuksuk may have been used for navigation, as a point of reference, a marker for hunting grounds, or as a food cache.* 

Now wombats are on the back burner.  I had been considering, experimenting, constructing ‘test’ inuksuk, or inunnguaq (if one wants to get technical as that is the human form of the Inuit cairn-expression).  And about two weeks ago the muse, or the subterranean intradimensional influences, or the mental/psychic/emotional equivalent of a long-overdue quasi-artistic urge, manifested in an inuk manner.  I found the spot, the materials were available, an inuksuk assembled itself … with some help from me.  The dogs just wandered around sniffing and digging and occasionally checking on me and then wandering off again.

So we wander.  I have a general area in mind.  A ridge beyond where even I occasionally sojourn.  Perhaps the ridge after that.  It just depends — on the so-called muse, and, of course, the muse would take a good location and decent construction materials into account.

We cruise up the trail, and where it turns to continue up the ridge just north of Highway 141, we don’t.  Zigzagging down across the next valley and up the slope to the next ridge.  Then down, and up the next ridge and we’ll proceed with the muse-gates more receptive and open on the other side.

I see human boot-prints, and am glad somebody else forsakes the established trail to bushwhack.  Whoever it is, an artifact hunter? worse yet, someone with a gun? or a random itinerariless wanderer with an agenda as vague yet esoteric as mine? helps me decide that we go yet another ridge.  Beyond the pale, whatever that means.  Actually, I wonder if anywhere on this earth is beyond the pale, what with the GPS eyes in the sky and the ever-more accurate precise mapping of everything.  Personal, and I’m sure, general experience has shown that one can not just tweak, but whack the pale out of the park with the right mix of psychotropics.  But that is not to be seriously approached with my preferred combo of brandy and cigars …

Pale out of the picture, the horizon looks as it probably did a few hundred, nay, a couple, three thousand years ago.  The circum-polar landmark potential beckons.

Dogzeneye survey the ridge-top we’re on.  The inuk-spot location optimization does not exactly call out for action.  The dogs become pre-occupied with pee-mail nexuses and bones to chew on, olfactory delights.  I decide that a rock ledge half-way up from the valley bottom to the top of the next ridge north is our candidate location.

But it is not.  There comes a time when the line in the sand has to be drawn, and attaining the 5th or 6th (it’s easy for me to lose track) ridge-top north of Highway 141 will either be THE SPOT and if not, we’ll back-track to one of the more-promising locations considered earlier.

It is breezy, nay, windy on this ridge.  The approaching winter storm is stalled a few miles to the west.

The word inuksuk means “something which acts for or performs the function of a person.”  An inuksuk is often confused with an inunnguaq, a cairn representing a human figure. There is some debate as to whether the appearance of human- or cross-shaped cairns developed in the Inuit culture before the arrival of Europeanmissionaries and explorers.  The inunnguaq is distinguished from inuksuit in general.*

I begin the

inunnguaq creation by following a process I initiated a couple weeks before.  Gather material, pile it around ground zero.  Choose big blocky chunks for the feet.  These have to be stable!  Take care that the leg-pieces are also flat and preferably square-ish.  You will need a couple or more large flat ‘body’ pieces to rest on the legs — and not of the inferior quality sandstone which would break to pieces if you dropped it from waist-high.  Be sure there are several thin small pieces for shims and ‘chinking.’  Take care to locate strong and long rectangular rocks for the arms.  Enough solid preferably cubic blocks for the upper body and to weigh down the shoulders.  A collar-bone section, upon which the neck pieces and, finally, the head can securely rest. 

Periodically, rock the structure-in-progress gently with one hand and note where shims or ‘chink’ pieces should be inserted to dampen sway.  You do want this to withstand a windstorm, not to mention death by bird-perch.  Granted, if a cow were to bump into it … I’d need either a half-dozen labor crew and/or construction machinery to make an inuksuk that large!

The dogs have little or nothing nearby in the olfactory delight availability, maybe the wind or impending storm has them apprehensive, and they are glad to leave.

There is a customary Inuit saying: “The great peril of our existence lies in the fact that our diet consists entirely of souls.”

(By believing that all things, including animals, have souls like those of humans, any hunt that failed to show appropriate respect and customary supplication would only give the liberated spirits cause to avenge themselves.)*

I do not exactly backtrack, and make this a circular, not out-and-back, wandering.  I’m not tired, the dogs are more energetic than I, there is yet another cigar and the brandy flask has heft.  Unlikely, but perhaps my diet of recent has been mostly comprised of souls.  No wonder my seemingly sedate existence is paralleled by the great peril a millimeter away.  So I build a smaller inuksuk up but across the valley from the ridge-top one.

Later on, I spell out a ‘wombat’ on a windswept hilltop much closer to the car.

* thanks to Wikipedia.com for selected excerpts