Here was mere smokiness, unlike the Tempe-like temperatures breaking records in the Bay Area while Houston sweltered under floodwaters that ain’t going anywhere soon, similar to the self-fulfilling disastrous Reign of Trump…rain, reign, it’s all the same; heat. Not going away.
Meanwhile in the Wet Mountains it rains most ev’ry day and rarely tops eighty. But time exacts its toll; Lefty’s mighty back legs, the legs of the original ‘dancing dog’, are becoming so puny he needs help in and out of the truck and when helped is inevitably attacked by the uncontrollable
Aggie, very psychotic, very mysterious, typical pack behavior according to our vet next door.
Doggie DNR; when one member declines, kill ’em. He is not happy about this.
On the other hand Chanterelles in the pines continue to delight, particularly when crisped up
in goat butter, but by week’s end they’re coming up stiff as wood and not so good.
This year my annual online visit with the Burning Humans came extremely late and was…well, they really shouldn’t leave the mic on while banal idiots self-fascinate with laser-cutting programs, let alone insert said laser-cutting into the screen…jeez, talk about being MORE boring than watching paint dry! The scene looked less populated in terms of “art” or humanity than times previous, but I later learned* that unforeseen high temperatures [why high temperatures on a Nevada dry lake in August/September wouldn’t be foreseen is a bit beyond me] kept many ensconced in their self-made Bangladesh of Motorhomes. As Barbra Streisand put it, “People who need people / are the luckiest / people in the world” even if they’re inside by day, burning diesel to keep the AC going, only to emerge at night to make the hookups and the deals. 70,000 shades of GREEN…
*Given that my on-scene informant spent HIS days at BM inside a dark-colored van nestled up against a 12V swamp cooler plugged into the cigarette lighter his POV may be a bit suspect.
Me, I’m just unlucky that way, I guess.
On the other hand from here, considerably cooler than Kuwait, Black Rock City or San Francisco, the webcast after dark looked more like Vegas than paint drying, but by the time I got my camera the Burn [including one self-immolation, not shown] had Begun, so I failed to capture what had captured my imagination and the live feed went away soon after, unlike former years when the extended sounds and events of ‘exodus’ fascinated…
Out in our west, just west of BM’s Big Fun, Twisto was digging the heat and sez we still have good water, but only from the one well while Down South [the only thing going on in the Whole World, if you believe NPR], god Rewarded the Righteous by making it possible to raise fuel prices on the Last Big Weekend of Driving Season. As for those who had to suffer, the great god She-He-It is just “testing their faith”. All praises to She-He-It, whatever your belief system dictates, and hang on because…here comes IRMA, faster than you can say “bye bye DACA”.
In the interim we make our wandering rounds while we can;
another smoky weekend, eyes on the ground, the crappy air ever crappier.
Monday is Lefty’s physical with Dr. Hecht at High Horse Stables, homegrown vegetables
and reassurances. He’s perfectly fine for a sixteen year old dog, just a little creaky.
Tuesday up to Dean’s, errands of errands, the little/old dog much happier with mild meds from
High Horse and the Yellow Season beginning as smokes continue to increase, drifting down
from disasters in the North, while we unlucky ones are
content to watch alone as the moon rises from a mountainside in extremely southern Colorado
and will even get another, hopefully without so much smoke, before we’re outa here
if it’s raining so much , how come there’s smoke, not washed away?
It’s a mystery, somewhat..but the rains may be mostly down here while the rest of the West keeps burning…
..always like to visit — virtually — Dean’s studio n paintings
The dude, despite not even having a cellphone [or computer] does have a website, for more virtual delectation; http://www.deanflemingpainting.com/
There’s another dean Fleming in L.A. whose stuff is completely different…nice guy, though.
You are reminding me of our smokey summer last year and the strange things it did to the light and atmosphere. Relieved to hear that Lefty is just old and creaky and needed meds…sounds familiar!
So Burning Man has turned into a trailer park, and “burning man” will never mean quite the same thing again. We may get a swipe from Jose, now a hurricane again, or maybe more, and Maria is following an identical track to Irma, and while still a “tropical storm”, is traveling over the same very warm seas. The islands and keys hardly need a double whammy.
Lefty seems sad and resigned. Aging dogs are so touchingly sweet, and when the loss finally comes it is always monumental in a way that we never completely expect. It seems we do get very attached to the things and creatures that we take care of.
Burning Man’s been a Bangladesh of motorhomes [though that may demean Bangladesh somewhat] for many years and the one person I talked to who was there said the overall soundscape was predominantly generators powering their a/c. I’ve never been [SO not my kind of thing] and though the media play up the colorful spectacles and dusty nudity [“] by day I do understand it’s really all about the night…
Lefty is sometimes happy, dozes a lot but yes, often seems sad, resigned, bemused, confused. Dunno how much longer [he’s been with us sixteen years come October] but as you say, touchingly sweet.