Red Rocks -- A Day Trip

July 27, 2015
from center front clockwise: Silas, John Riley, Sonja,
and John Ryan

That's my son, his lovely wife, and their two brilliant sons. They live in Texas, so they particularly enjoyed our relatively mild mid-day temps. Their daughter was in Alabama for a mission trip. We missed her, but maybe she can come up later this year.

Red Rocks was 'discovered' in 1820 by a U.S. Army expedition. (The Ute apparently knew it was here long before that.) The Beatles played Red Rocks 51 years ago this month on their first American tour. And, after living 6.5 miles from it for almost four years, we've added it to our list of favorite day-trips. 

Running the steps in the amphitheater is a popular pastime with the locals. I make do with hiking the trails and taking too many photos.

And maybe sometime soon I'll add it to night trips. (Movies on the Rocks--live music, a comedian, and a classic movie. All for $12. BYOP--Bring Your Own Picnic.) 

The Rocky Mountains are primarily granite,    but scattered about in Colorado are magnificent  outcroppings of sandstone, testifying to the area's ancient history as a great inland sea.


And yes the sky is exactly this blue. 

Because we are in the rain shadow of the Rockies, our climate is that of a high plains desert.

And our native flora are often as architectural as the mountains. 
This is Common Mullein and, although it was the
end of July, it was not yet in bloom. That tall, leafless bit
at the top boasts brilliant yellow blooms now.

Many of our other wildflowers were showing the wear and tear of our fierce sun
and sporadic rainfall.

Pineywoods Geranium                              Toadflax                                     Dwarf Golden Aster

This year is being considered a 'wet' year. Keep in mind, however, that even during our wet years we measure rainfall in fractions of an inch and rain events rarely last longer that 20 or 30 minutes. 

While we were in the park we met a young man from Illinois. I explained about our arcane water laws. By interstate compacts with our downstream U.S.neighbors and international treaties with Mexico, we may keep only one-third of the water that falls on Colorado. It is illegal to catch and hold rain water that falls on our property. It is illegal to dig a water well without permission. That water is all spoken for.

And, this year in particular, our neighbors in Utah, Arizona, California, and Northern Mexico are in particular need. The young man from Illinois could not understand. When it comes to water, his home state is a land of plenty. The Southwest United States is not.

This is as close to lush as we come,

and we love it.

Profanity and Curses -- an essay

image from economist.com

   Not exactly topics for this holiday season, so if you want you can note it in the back of your mind and come back to it after the New Year when you’re hung over and thinking along these lines anyway.

   So what got me going on these subjects? I went to the movies. The youngest person in the audience was my daughter Grace. She’s 25. There weren’t that many people there, probably fewer than 20. None-the-less, I expected a certain level of decorum. We were after all in a public place not in someone’s living room. Or den. Or garage.

   As usual the theater starts with advertising their treats – popcorn, soda, Starbucks. Then they go to the next standard fare and we hear from the white-haired man behind us “Now we gotta sit through the damn trailers.”

   “I didn’t know Dad came with us,” My witty daughter said. He had not. Though in defense of my husband, he may have thought it, but he’d never have said it out loud in a movie theater.

   And ‘damn’ is certainly not the worst thing I’ve heard in public. The *f* word bandied about in McDonald’s will get me to say something pretty quickly. Usually it’s young people that need to be spoken to. But more and more often it seems profanity is used by all age groups and genders, not so much to shock but as common conversation.

   Okay, I admit it. I’m old. I have white hair and I grew up believing that people who resort to profanity have limited vocabularies and no imagination.

   I’m not a complete prude. A flat tire in the middle of I-whatever during rush hour. Stepping barefooted into the dog’s accident in the hall in the dark. A heavy vase dropping within inches of you from the upstairs balcony. Unpleasant surprises especially if they carry a sense of danger are all well worth an expletive or two. And the simpler, the easier to bring to mind and quicker to say.

   One can be trained to say acceptable things in lieu of what they really mean. Like Winnie the Pooh and his “Oh bother!” or my Grandmother’s “Fiddlesticks!”

   I started this as a rant against, but I seem to be warming to the subject.

   I think of Shakespeare’s insults and curses. While gentle and obtuse by today’s standards, they were apparently rude and obvious to his audiences.

From Henry IV, Part 2

“You scullion! You rampallian! You fustilarian! I’ll tickle your catastrophe!”

   I don’t know exactly what it means either, but it sounds really bad. Maybe I could use it the next time Sonic messes up my hamburger and puts mayonnaise on it.

   Though I don’t appreciate profanity in public, I do think it has its place in literature, movies, music, etc. When I told Grace the original title of this blog post (Perversion, Profanity, Blasphemy, and Sacrilege) she asked if I was writing a review of one of John Irving's books. I love John Irving's writing. He is brilliant and I enjoy his juxtaposition of tragedy and humor shot through with the absurd. Considering my stand on socially unacceptable language and behavior in public, I cannot listen to his audio books in Oklahoma's summer time at the drive-in hamburger joint. Can't roll down the windows without turning off the book, dontcha know. Hmmm. Can you get earphones for the speakers in your car?

   One of the more fun parts of writing my books is making up profanity. If you've read Murder on Ceres, you know I write Science Fiction/Murder Mysteries. Just as time and tide wait for no man, language changes whether we want it to or not. Which gives me a wonderful opportunity to make up my own profanity for my future world.
   Certain bases for profanity will continue into humanity's out-migration from Earth. Excrement and bodily functions come to mind. *sh* will still be quite useful, but generations of knowing chicken only as brewed protein rather than a two-legged, feathery creature will do away with any connection between the words 'chicken' and *sh.*
   The concept of a religion-defined 'hell' will probably be dropped from human consciousness as various religion-defined forms of marriage are being dropped now. So there's another opportunity for a new word for where you can damn someone to.
   The concepts of blessings and gods will change, too. The greatest of gods will probably continue to be the creator of human life. We humans have always recognized light as the symbol of that god no matter his name, though not always because we understood the Sun provides energy for life -- human or otherwise. At least as we know it.
   Another religious symbol will be water. Already among desert peoples (including the Judeo-Christian culture that grew up in the deserts of the Middle East) water symbolizes life and is used as an important part in religious sacraments. In our move into Space where water is rarer and more difficult to obtain in life-sustaining quantities, humans will probably continue to use water as a symbol of a life-giving creator.
   No doubt, the new blasphemies will malign the Sun and Water. Humans hurling curses at their fellow humans will threaten to cut them off from Sun and Water.
   These will also be the bases for blessings.
   In Robert Jordan's The Wheel of Time series, the Aiel, a desert people used to too much sun and too little water, say "May you always find water and shade." In the darkness of Space the blessing may come to be "May you always find water and sunshine."
   A blessing I offer to you.

Sun and Water

     image from adsoftheworld.com

Words Are My Life

Pig or Hog

Actually this is probably a gilt, meaning a female pig who has not yet given birth. She's a Duroc which is my personal favorite breed of swine. 

 

All Natural Sausage

INGREDIENTS:

PORK, WATER,

CONTAINS 2% OR LESS OF: SALT, SUGAR, BLACK PEPPER, SAGE,

RED PEPPER, SPICE EXTRACTIVES.

This is not the list of ingredients in my favorite sausage, but I had some for breakfast this morning and it was pretty good. My favorite sausage has a few more ingredients.

 

The point of these pictures is the use of the word 'Natural' by the marketing folks. Now other than the long line of chosen genetics for the beautiful Duroc, she is natural. I'm sure there is a great deal of pork in her and quite a bit of water, too. And some salt. As for peppers, sage, and spice extractives, I doubt there is anywhere near the 2% listed for the sausage.

 

Now, don't get me wrong. I'd much rather have the pork with additives at my table for breakfast than the pig in the other picture. Though I once knew a perfectly well-behaved Pot-Bellied Pig named Beverly. She had pierced ears and lived in the house. Pigs are very bright and actually quite clean when given the chance to be.

 

But it's the words marketers use that set me off on this rant. The words indicate to me that our society is either woefully ignorant, apathetic, or willing to be led by the nose. The old story of  "I don't know and I don't care. What do you want me to do?"

 

This morning I bought a quart of buttermilk to make biscuits. Normally I use powdered buttermilk because it's cheaper and keeps well in the fridge. That buttermilk I bought today was identified conspicuously as 'reduced fat.' Buttermilk is what you have left after the butterfat is removed? How much fat could there be in it? And, no, they had no buttermilk without the 'reduced fat' identifier. That's because ALL buttermilk is reduced fat. Naturally.

 

Now that I think about it whole milk is only 3.25% fat anyway. About the same as cooked, skinless white chicken meat. Compare that to ground beef which ranges from 3% to 20% depending on how much you want to pay, or how much will cook away.

 

If it ain't got wheat or wheat products in it, it's gluten-free. Including those fat-free after dinner mints and ice.

 

GMO? Give me a break. Most of what we eat is genetically modified either through selective breeding or genetic engineering. We would not recognize the original, natural orange or potato or corn on the cob. Or hog, for that matter. And strawberries!

 

And, friends, if you want a no calorie, caffeine free, artificial dye and artificial flavor free drink that's natural -- try water.

 

I know, I know. Chlorination and fluoridation. That's a whole 'nother story. It's called improved public health and I won't jump on that soap box today.

 

Words! Words! Words to mislead us, massage our insecurities with promises that this or that is better and we needn't think about it, we needn't make any kind of decision because somebody somewhere will show us the way -- preferably somebody who deals in magic. Smoke and mirrors. Snake oil.

 

Come to think of it, I've known some well-behaved snakes who lived in their people's houses, too.