Fluid Flow

As a child I learned that I had super powers that would get me out of almost any predicament. To invoke them, I merely had to say a magic word.

For some unknown reason the magic word was the name of a Mexican volcano. So when I found myself victim of a extreme tickling session etc, all I needed to do was utter the word “Popocateptl” to transform myself into Super Tom and escape the danger.

Had the magic word been “Eyjafjallajokull”, I am pretty sure I wouldn’t be here today.

I am not sure why. Perhaps it’s because I am approaching 50 (in a year or so), perhaps it’s because I am reading Farley Mowat’s “final” memoir, I am not sure.

It certainly isn’t because I have something to write. I have never had a desire to write. Prose and poetry do not leap from my keyboard. The only time that my writing has achieved passing marks is in journalism, geology, and one composition class at UCSB, where the teaching assistant did not mind my simple and direct approach.

It isn’t much to hang your hat on.

But I do like telling stories and I have lived long enough to have a few.

So I have started an outline. The two top headings are “Timeline” and “Themes”. I don’t know where this is going to go, but it seems worthy of exploration.

My electric razor is older than I can remember. The rechargeable battery, which was pretty high tech when I got it, essentially died a few years ago. But, if you kept the razor plugged in, it would work just fine.

Until this past Monday, when I flicked on the razor and was greeted with this high pitched shriek that seemed to be saying, “Hey, I am old tired and have given you years of service, but I am done!”

Not so fast I say, taking the razor to a local appliance repair shop.

The repair shop can replace the battery and my razor will be good as new in a week.

“A week?” I ask. “A week.” I am told.

So I say, “I guess that I will be getting fuzzy”

The repairman states, “You can use a blade.”

“Huh???”

A simple statement on Facebook, “Depression is just anger without enthusiasm.”

I could comment on this, but really I can’t. It is just not that simple and it can’t be explained in a comment.

Depression isn’t “just” anything…

It is having your entire life, dreams, and aspirations ripped away from you. Leaving you hanging above this empty hole with nothing to latch on to.

It is being in perpetual pain, yet unable to locate or isolate the pain.

It is being unable to tell anyone what is wrong, because you think it might be contagious.

It is knowing that all the kings horses and all the kings men can’t put your life back together again.

I could go on…

In short, there are a lot of things that depression is. A simple statement is not one of them.

March 1977.

I had received my drivers license just two weeks before. I am out on my own in the family station wagon. Styling as best you can in a Plymouth Belvedere. I go to Banana Records, that strange little box on El Camino (near Frys for those of you who are to young too remember).

I walk into the store and find Yessongs, an album that I have been lusting after. I buy it, I head outside elated. I backup out of my parking space and crease the car next to me big time.

I walk back into the record store and ask for the owner of the car I just creased. He is cool, and did something similar when he was 16.

I have never asked how much that album cost my folks. But I still have it and I digitized it today.

“And here’s another thing”

Pop uttered this while washing dishes. Most people would have no idea that this is an iconic phrase in our branch the Clifton family.

It got me thinking. There are hundreds of phrases that have become entrenched in the family vocabulary that have little or no meaning to the outside world. Perhaps we should catalog these and provide a background on their origins. That way future potential inclusions into the family can understand the unique aspects of the Clifton language.

Here is a sampling of the terms and phrases that could be explored:

Black Snake

Sweet Acidophilus Brown

He was sorry the moment he’d done it.

I never.

Right here.

The clever child…

Two ossifer

The word is shit.

Who is it?

You don’t shit through feathers.

You were certified bright.

And many many more. So I am thinking of creating a site that will allow us to explore the Clifton family lexicon, what do you think?

Mt Hood at dawn

My self-imposed embargo has lifted and I can now write about my current travels. I have been on the road since last Sunday and traveled as far north as Seattle. I couldn’t post prior to today, because I was in stealth mode, wanting to sneak up on my brother for his birthday yesterday.

As a result, I have a backlog of photos and tales.

The trip started out as my recent trips have, with me leaving behind an important piece of gear. In this case it was my therma-rest pad. Fortunately I remembered it before I got out of town.

Sunday’s drive was uneventful, I made good time up I-5 and got into Redding before sunset. From there I struck east on 299 to Burney. Since it was getting dark by then, I decided against camping that night. The next morning, I realized I had made the right call. I had forgotten how cold it can be at 3000 ft in December.

Burney Falls

I started the day by heading up to Burney Falls State Park, just another place I had never been in California. I think I was the first one into the park that morning. I did a little loop around the Falls and took a number of photos. On the hike, I discovered that the Pacific Crest Trail cuts through the park and is only 500 ft from the Falls loop trail.

So I went up to the trail and walked about 10 yards along it. Just so I could say that I hiked a portion of the Pacific Crest Trail in December (and hope that I might get a mention on Two-Heel Drive).

After that, I continued north, made a short return to I-5 (about 5 miles) before heading north on US 97 towards Klamath Falls. The last time I drove this route, I saw some bald eagles along Klamath Lake. But that was in May. This time, I was greeted with a dense fog, so the highway birding suffered.

US 97 from there north isn’t too exciting, unless you like trees, basalt outcrops, and the occasional deep canyon. Lots of things to check out if you are not on a schedule. Driving through Bend, OR, I was looking for a fast-food place to stop for a little food and relief and didn’t see anything that fit the bill until I got north of town, strange.

Also north of town, I got stuck in traffic behind a crossover accident. Not a pretty sight.

After that it was a run up US 26 to Oregon 35 (Mt Hood Highway) to Don and Rosie’s house. Google Maps had the road name wrong and placed their house a few miles up the road, but I remembered enough to find it.

Tuesday morning, I started out with an idea of a route that would get me to Seattle in a reasonable time while minimizing my time on I-5. Through Google, I thought that I had a route that would work. It crossed the Columbia and then headed north from White Salmon. Unfortunately, the roads aren’t well marked and Google’s idea of a good road may vary from yours.

That said, I didn’t have any problems with the roads (even after they narrowed to one lane and became unpaved). I was, after all, in the truck with a full tank of gas. The one thing that I didn’t account for was the overcast and drizzle that made dead reckoning a little more difficult. And afterwards, when Don asked if I had used my GPS, I had to say, “Oh, I guess I could have…”

Anyway to make a short story long, got heading west instead of north. At one point, I got flagged down by another truck and was asked if I could give a ride to this kid from the forest service. He had rolled his car off the road the previous night and needed to get home. Unfortunately with the truck full to the gills with the fish tank and camping gear, I was unable to help. A few miles later, I came across the car, it on its side about 20 yards down the side of the road. Must have been an exciting ride.

The truck only started sliding once as I was coming around a corner while trying to slow down. It handled the wash-boards well and I avoided enough of the pot-holes that the fish tank survived.

I finally got to paved road and got dumped out on Wind River road (about 60 miles from where I thought I was). While road signs were generally lacking, I finally figured out where I was and started heading north again. The revised route took me up forest service route 25 that runs east of Mt St Helens.

I saw two other cars during the next 60 miles. I also saw some Gray jays (a new bird for me)! Unfortunately, they took off before I could get the camera out.

The remainder of the drive was uneventful and I pulled into Roland’s in Seattle at about 4 pm.

To be continued…

More photos…

Merced

Clara was adopted today. That leaves Merced. Funny, but I thought she was the cutest of the four. Just goes to show you what I know. Merced and Clara were the more personable kittens of the litter but they are the last to go.

While she is a little skittish when you walk into the room, Merced is the first to jump up on my desk, walk on my keyboard, and lie down in front of the monitor. She has been known to inhibit work.

So I have one more kitten to get to a good home out of the five that I picked up along Coyote Creek. I lost one but with the rest finding homes, I am more than a little pleased with this years fostering efforts.

Last night I had this dream about our upcoming Settlement Discussion.

It wasn’t being held where you would expect it would.

It was in the chemistry lab of some generic university. Yep, you’ve got the picture, the long, tall desk with the black top. Down the middle was the narrow island with an assortment of lab glass on it, a long trough and drain ran underneath the island. Metal pipes coming from the ceiling fed natural gas to the island and the regularly spaced spigots.

While a half-dozen lawyers and accountants talked in gibberish that I was supposed to be both paying attention to and understanding, I was tasked with assembling some arcane chemistry contraption. I kept running around the lab desk looking for one of those three-fingered thingys that hold test tubes and flasks. All I could find was some soldering wire.

I woke with my heart racing, trying to figure out how to build the contraption with soldering wire and hoping like hell that I hadn’t missed anything important in the discussion.

So I have been struggling the past year with the fact that I can’t read small print.

My short focus has set in at about 2.5 ft and anything smaller than about 8 point at that distance is illegible. This makes reading the comics in the morning especially trying.

So I finally broke down and got some reading glasses. They help quite a bit.

Of course, I did the first thing that you are supposed to do after getting reading glasses.

I lost them.