Where’s Waldo?

Let’s set the scene. The temperature is 80 degrees, the skies are mostly blue, and there’s just enough breeze to make the prayer flags flutter ever so slightly. Keola Beamer is playing The King’s Serenade, and if there is a prettier summer tune I don’t know what it would be.

***

Our long hot summer here in Paradise is beginning to mellow just the slightest, as if it is getting tired of having its way with us. Daytime temps have returned to the upper 80s, falling into the 50s at night. Oh blessed relief! O happy meteorology!

If this isn’t happening out your way … condolences.

The sad garden that came out of Spring’s optimistic startings is grudgingly giving up a tomato or two instead of the gold and crimson avalanche dreamed of in May. One does learn from one’s mistakes, however, even though the number I made this year almost choked up my learning channels altogether. Most importantly I learned that I won’t have much of a garden next year, if at all. Freedom from the chores of watering, fertilizing, watering, weeding, watering, and smacking grasshoppers is looking pretty good at the present moment.

Did I mention watering? Rain has pretty much been absent during this growing season. So of course I would try to grow one of the most water-hungry plants (tomatoes) that I could find. And not just one or two of them, but more than a dozen. Fools rush in, where … and now that I think about it, there have been no angels around recently, either.

This sort of weather is not good for growing things, at least not the things we usually try to raise in these parts. My very uneven tomato experience is echoed by that of my neighbors. Local strawberries are small and wizened things. One of our favorite seasonal delicacies is corn-on-the-cob, but this year the ears are half their usual size, with kernels that are shallower and less sweet.

Maybe … next year … bananas would work better? I would have to be aware of those deadly black tarantulas, but otherwise … .

******

.

Visitors can play some classic old games at the booth by throwing darts at balloons or knocking milk “bottles” down by pegging baseballs at them. One very popular new game with Repubicans this year is Hide The Ballot Box. This is where a standard ballot box is hidden somewhere on the grounds, and if you can find it you win one of those oversized stuffed bears. White persons are provided an easy-to-follow map, while other visitors must search without the help of visual aids while wearing a ball and chain.

But, hey, it’s Iowa. What can you expect? I used to have a brother-in-law who was in the Iowa Chamber of Commerce for a while. One year he was on a committee which was assigned the task of developing a list of the Top Ten Best Places to Visit in Iowa. They could only come up with eight.

You have to feel a bit sorry for Ron DeSantis. Even if he were the only guy running in that primary, he’d still come in at Number Two in the polls.

******

From The New Yorker

******

Something kinda remarkable is happening in the world of country music. A song written and released by a black female urban folk artist more than thirty years ago is presently #1 on the country Billboard charts. It is a cover version by Luke Combs. A very respectful cover, I might add, with few changes from the original.

It’s like I always say (to the exasperation of everyone that I know personally), a good story well told never goes out of fashion. Fast Car is a ballad that tells such a story.

******

I seem to have transferred my enthusiasm from motorcycles to bicycles, especially the electric ones. That was not a planned occurrence. But for a couple of decades the innovations in motorcycling had been trending toward more power, bigger bikes, and almost no environmental awareness or sense of responsibility. Last week in Silverton I saw a Honda Gold Wing trike that was almost absurd.

A gargantuan mass of metal covered with another huge pile of plastic. All to carry two persons who probably think of themselves as adventurers. The price of that thing was more than $60,000.

In using bicycles as transportation, however, there is a big reduction in carbon emissions, along with improvement in the rider’s physical strength and wellbeing. Developments to watch in e-bikes include:

• Efficiency of the motors
• Use of belt drives versus chains
• Transmissions instead of external gears and shifters
• More options for passengers and cargo
• Building safer and lighter tricycles for riders with special needs

Unfortunately with the explosion of interest in electric bikes, there has come a sort of horsepower race as well, at least among a few manufacturers. Just like back in the day you can burn rubber, but now it’s with a bicycle.

******

Movie special effects people go to great lengths and use their fantastic imaginations to create screen monsters that will give us a chill. One of those that was particularly effective in causing me to feel unsettled was the one in Alien. But actually there is a critter here on earth that just looking at it makes me grateful to be here in Paradise, where they are not found. And that is the biggest reptile on earth, the salt water crocodile.

Now here’s a creepy fact that I came across this morning. They can sleep, and still keep a close eye on you, with one eye open.

Australian legend has it that crocodiles sleep with one eye open – and scientists have now proved it to be true. Australian saltwater crocodiles join several aquatic mammals and birds in being capable of unihemispheric sleep, which involves shutting down only one half of their brain at a time, keeping the other half alert to danger.

The central nervous system is wired up such that the right eye remains open when the left side of the brain is awake, and vice versa.

Discover Wildlife.com

Unihemispheric sleep … I think that I’ve got it, too. It would explain a lot of things. It would explain, for instance, why I don’t fall out of bed at night. Or why when I set the alarm for 6:00 AM I will wake up at 5:59 AM. Perhaps if Robin would stay awake and watch me for a few nights she could see if one of my peepers was constantly keeping track of everything around me.

That’s not going to happen, of course, because Robin treasures her sleep more than she is curious about whether I have yet another peculiarity for her to deal with. And truth be told, it would give me a shiver if I got up one night to use the bathroom and found one of her eyeballs tracking me even as she slept. I think I might begin sleeping on the couch.

******

******

From The New Yorker

******