Frogs and Ravens

City Trail - 10/30/08

It's been awhile since I've been on a hike, and even longer since I walked this trail.  With the leaves falling off, a lot of the river canyon is revealed that had been hidden before.  I took advantage of this to walk (bushwhack? scramble?) along the official unofficial trail that runs between the official trail and the river.

I saw:

• Four deer, white tails uplifted, high-stepping through the brush, fleeing...
• A human family down by the river
• A couple, walking
• A white-haired woman in a red coat, with her dog
• A man in a baseball hat
• Several teenagers
• A jogger with two dogs
• A chipmunk
• Many squirrels
• Robins
• Various small birds
• A huge bird with a long neck that made a sound like a chainsaw starting up (I've been told it's probably an egret)
• Graffiti
• Lots of fallen leaves

I heard:

• Leaves crunching
• (The sound of me walking on the trail:  crunch, crunch, CRUNCH, crunch, snap!, crunch... pause, look around, listen, crunch, crunch...)
• Water gurgling
• The sound of leaves falling, one at a time
• Chipmunk and birds rustling
• Deer walking and trotting
• Cars

Early Voting

Why you should vote early if the option is available to you:  Vote. EARLY.

Anyway, today I did.  Vote early, that is.  The early-voting centers opened today, and what's nice about them is that they are open to everyone in the county - you don't have an assigned polling location.  So you can go to whichever of the four is most convenient.

I went to the one that was on the road leading to office supplies and cat food, on the grounds of a large church.  The parking lot was busy with cars coming in and out, and people were walking to and from the room where the polling booths were set up.  Everyone was dressed warmly - the temperature dipped into the 40s today - and grateful that there was enough room for us to wait inside. 

I'd estimate that there were about 20-30 people in the line at any given moment, and about 10-15 people actively voting inside.  Most people were middle-aged or elderly, but were a good mix of race and income and gender.

It all moved very smoothly - they had plenty of volunteers, most of them older women.  The electronic ballot was clear and easy to use, though I remain irked by the lack of optical scan ballots.  My main gripe is that you have no paper trail (I took several photos with my camera phone).  A secondary irritation is that the program will not accept "incomplete" ballots - so even if there's no candidate you'd like to vote for in a given race you have to vote for someone.  (Or several someones.  In one race, you had to pick three. My options were the Democrat, three Republicans, and two Libertarians.  If I only voted for the Democrat, leaving the others blank, it would not accept my ballot.  I do not think that this is good.)

After I left the booth, someone thanked me for voting, and that was it. 

I do wish I'd gotten a sticker!

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Read

This.

Place-sick

Once I lived in paradise - a worn-out, much-abused, challenging paradise, but one just the same.  Just when I think I have reached an accommodation with the place I live now, a feeling of overwhelming, grievous longing rises up and rips me from heart to gut.  The feelings I have for my current place are fond but as shallow as a fleeting crush.  My feelings for the American West, for California, for the mountains, deserts, and chaparral of the southeastern corner of that state, are deep roots, clinging hard to the gritty soil.  Reading about them, as I am now, is as painful as seeing a lover with a new love, a beloved teacher with a new student, through a mirrored glass.  Separate, you cannot reach your love.  They do not see you; they go on without you.  And you - you yearn soundlessly, leaning against the tear-streaked glass.

I believe that it was Wendell Berry who was of the opinion that when you find your heart place, the place that speaks deeply to your soul, you should settle there and make yourself a devoted native of it. 

I have always hated Berry - or whoever it was - for that piece of supposed wisdom. 

It's a fine thing to counsel when the place that thrums your innermost strings is a hospitable, resilient place like Vermont or the upper Midwest.  It's a fine thing to say when your livelihood is flexible and not dependent on place - or when the place is yielding and cooperative to your needs.

The place I live is denied me, and even if it weren't, I should deny it - out of love.  My deserts and backcountry hills are fragile, arid places, capable of supporting at most a minimal human population.  They are vulnerable to the abuses of development, of greed, of indifference - and of selfish desire.  For their own good, I should be only a visitor, a casual guest at Thanksgiving and the holidays, rather than a resident or member of the family.  The house is only so large, the budget only so much.

And the path I have walked on is one that has few branches leading to those places, or even nearby areas.  So I try to tell myself that it is for the best, and to love the place I live, consoling myself with books and memories and photographs, and an occasional walk to where a western pine tree grows.

My heart, though.  It doesn't believe that story I tell myself. 

It wants to go home.

CEC - Green Trail - 10/13/08

Fall is pretty much here, despite the weather having turned warm again. 

I went out to the environmental center again, this time with the long lens on the camera, to walk in the late afternoon light.

I saw:

• A jogger (same man as last time I think)
• Some birds
• Grasshoppers
• Bees and wasps
• Colorful leaves

I heard:

• Bird calls
• Car engines
• Crunching leaves
• Insects rustling

I smelled:

• Leaves
• Late afternoon dew settling on plants
• Pine sap

CEC - Red Trail - 10/9/08

I drove out to the environmental center to see what's been going on out there, and to get in a hike.

I saw:

• Trees turning color (but not really there yet)
• A turkey vulture
• Two squirrels
• Jays
• Robins
• A jogger
• Two workers (one loud and chatty) hauling invasive plant debris on a golf cart
• A car being towed in the parking lot (not mine)

I heard:

• Insects - crickets, perhaps
• Chickadees
• A woodpecker
• Cars on the bordering road
• Twigs snapping under my feet
• Something that squawked loudly before plopping into the pond, unseen
• Beeping from the tow truck

I smelled:

• Pond water
• Sun-warmed pine needles
• Dust

(I also walked the western half of the trail that features labeled coniferous trees - and gave up after reaching Tree 25.  With the exception of the Eastern species, and one or two of the Western, all of the other trees (from Asia, Europe, and the Western US) were dead, dying, or obviously unhealthy.  It was pretty depressing.)

My Office

...is a mess.  It has been one since the day that the movers arrived, and all miscellaneous boxes were directed "to the back room" with a wave of the hand.  The mess has evolved since then. 

Boxes unfold their petals and disgorge books, knickknacks and Beanie Babies.  Books drift onto shelves and off them, stacking up like layers of humus and leaves.  A solitary picture has made it onto the wall; others lean against the stacks below, preparing for the ascent.  Teaching notes and utility bills from grad school creep from the file cabinets and cardboard cartons into plastic tubs, and seek refuge in the dim rocky habitat of the basement.  Pens and papers pile up in the cupboard, pretending towards ambitions of organization.  Photographs and slides in boxes sit quietly behind my chair, hoping I'll get back to the scanning one day.

I sit at this table that serves as my desk, lean back in my chair and gaze out through the rippled glass and paint-flecked screen.  The barn-shaped shed outside has doors that warp open at the top, providing a sunny ledge for wasps.  Within it soil and pots wait for spring.  Directly above me, on the other side of the ceiling, a cache of yarn and fleece is stored against the winter chill.

I am a squirrel perched in a nest of leaves, an owl in its borrowed burrow, a chuckwalla puffed up in her crack.  I am surrounded by the loving clutter of my possessions, the reminders of past and future enthusiasms.  D. bakes in the kitchen next door, and b twines at my feet and perches on the window sill like a familiar at my shoulder.  My life is within a few steps in all directions; I sit at the center of my loving web.

I wonder if this room will ever be tidy.  I wonder if I truly wish it were.

That Nucular Thing

Look.

I know you don't like the woman.  I understand that her pronunciation of nuclear bothers you, and makes you think of Bush.

But give it a rest.

Saying "nucular" rather than "nuclear" doesn't mean you're an idiot.  It doesn't inevitably mean that you're trying to be folksy (or as some have put it, "fauxksy").

I say "nucular."  My father says "nucular" - hell, when he's under stress, or spends time with his relatives, he'll even say "Warshington."  I also drop final "g"s, say "kinda" and "gonna" and "you know" and "like."

It requires effort and concentration for me to pronounce words in a way that people have decided is the way that intelligent people speak.

I have a Master's degree, and a Ph.D.  So does my father. 

We are not stupid. 

We understand that the way we both grew up speaking is considered the intonation of hicks and imbeciles.  We both, as a result, try to speak "better" especially when we are in public.

But you know what?  How you pronounce a word says nothing about your character, your intelligence, your values, or your education.

All it says is whether you are (a) one of the lucky people who grew up speaking "the right way" as your native accent, (b) one of the people who did not, or (c) one of the people who did not and makes a conscious effort to abandon the speech patterns of their childhood to fit in with the expectations of others.

I get that people have linguistic pet peeves.  I hate the misuse of apostrophes, and of their/there/they're, and I dislike the use of words like "utilize" and "impact."

But that's because there are established linguistic rules of grammar that are required for educated writing.

English has established rules of spelling - essential in a language where the pronunciation of words is all over the place.  I'm never going to spell "nuclear" "nucular" unless I'm making a point about the word's phonetics.  My father and I both know that the word "Washington" doesn't have an "R" in it, and that the word for a small stream is not spelled like the word for a pain in the neck.

But that's spelling.

Again, it requires effort and conscious attention - repeated every time these words come up in conversation - for us to sound like intelligent people.

Because so many of you are so prejudiced against regional and working-class accents that you assume that anyone who has them must be an ignorant hick. 

Now, Palin's doing this in reverse - she's using her accent to distance herself from her upper-middle-class lifestyle, her position of power, and her lofty ambitions. 

And you know what?  For some people, it may work.  Because for years we have all been told that a person with imperfect language must be stupid, just as a person from a small town must be a clueless rube, and you know what?  It gets old.

I don't want to sympathize with Palin.  She is selfish, power-hungry, and opposed to everything I value.  But some days, like now, it's pretty hard not to.

Angry Squirrel

There is an angry squirrel behind our house.  I first noticed it when we lost our dial tone and the repair guy came out to fix it.  He was checking the connection at the house when the squirrel appeared on the junction of the power lines, and began barking furiously.  I oveheard him mutter - I bet it's your fault, you little bugger - a sentiment he later repeated in a calmer tone to me. 

Anyway, I figured it was a one-time squirrel eruption, but yesterday the squirrel was back.  I was sitting here at my desk, doing some research, when I heard squirrel chatter very close to me.  I looked out the window (it's right next to my chair) and there, on the porch, was the angry squirrel. 

I thought to myself, hmm, maybe I'll put out some corn for it.  So I picked up an ear and opened the door that leads from my office to the back porch.  No sign of the squirrel.  But!  Then a furious barrage of squirrelish barking - the squirrel was on the fence only a few feet from where I was standing. 

The squirrel did not run away.  The squirrel did not stay where it was, chattering.

The squirrel - the angry, angry squirrel - came towards me.

It swerved before it reached me, and stalked along the edge of the porch until it reached the small tree at the corner of the house.  There it sat, hidden among the leaves, screaming at me.  I went inside, but it continued to scream for a good while after that.

I still don't know what I did to make it so pissed off.