Well, a solar eclipse came and went without us. Robin and I were distracted by an upcoming visit by the Hurley family, and by the time we realized that the event was underway, we had nothing available with which to look directly at the sun, and had to settle for the old pinhole camera trick.
For those of you who have not tried it, using a pinhole camera is about as exciting as watching paint dry … no … it’s less exciting by half. You take a cosmic happening and reduce it to a black and white squibble of an image on a white sheet of paper that’s the size of a pencil eraser. Wow. Be still, my heart.
So that was a fizzle. But the visit went well. I had talked Neil into bringing his fly fishing hardware and we went down to the river for a couple of hours to do absolutely no harm to the fish population. The thing about fishing is that when you start off on an outing that will get you nothing, you don’t know it. So all the hope and anticipation is there each time. It’s only toward the end that you get the idea that supper will be PB&J sandwiches once more, and not trout almandine.
The proper response at such times is Oh, Well.
And to remember that you’ve just spent two hours on a beautiful river in a beautiful country with a friend and you can tell any tale you want when you get home because every fishing license comes with a Freedom to Embellish clause. It’s right there in the fine print.
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From The New Yorker
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Our cat Willow has developed a new habit. Formerly she would bring in a mouse, toss it around, and eventually get around to making a meal of it. That was yesterday. Now she brings in a mouse, gives it a couple of pats, and then watches it to see what it will do. Will it go behind the refrigerator? That’s interesting. Will it go into the master bedroom? How fun! How about under the sofa in the living room? Très amusant, she apparently thinks, as she makes no attempt at all to recapture it.
Her human companions are not amused. While the occasional episode of stepping on a leftover rodent part barefoot in the mornings was gross, this is worse. We are going to have to learn to be good at catching mice, because Willow seems to have lost interest in what to do with them once she nabs them and brings them indoors. Other than watching them, that is.
Last evening an attractive little critter ran under the washer and dryer. It may still be there, although I left a door open for it to escape to the garage. But this really can’t go on, or Robin will be leaving me the house and all of its occupants in the divorce settlement and taking everything else.
I’ve started a trap line. It’s not exactly Jeremiah Johnson territory, but it’s as close as I’ll ever get.
This song is by Brennen Leigh, from her album “Too Thin To Plow,” which title is borrowed from Mark Twain’s delightful comment about the Missouri River – It’s too thick to drink and too thin to plow.
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Yesterday we went for a drive up on the Grand Mesa, where we found some new snow scattered about. There were very few others up there except for workers at the resorts. It was a blue sky day and the air was clear and crisp. Trout were rising in every lake we passed, of course, since I’d taken no fishing gear along.
Camp robbers were everywhere, looking for careless tourists. I really enjoy watching these small birds, who are excellent at slow flight.
BTW, when it comes to angling, I have realized that all of my life I’ve been hearing one of these two phrases:
1. You should have been here yesterday, they were jumping into the boat.
2. The day after you left the fish went absolutely crazy.
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From The New Yorker
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I recently watched the series The Pacific, a Tom Hanks/Stephen Spielberg production.
Robin started out watching with me but the gore became too strong for her. The battle sequences were much like those in Saving Private Ryan, and if anything these were even harder to watch.
I had uncles in this theater of war, but never heard a word from them about their experiences. I can see why. What comes across clearly in this series is both the bravery exhibited and the extreme viciousness of the fighting. Fighting on the islands of Peleliu, Okinawa, and Iwo Jima seems to have been truly the nightmare of nightmares.
The series became even more interesting to me when I realized that all the characters were based on real people, and that one of those boys portrayed out there in that Pacific hell wrote a book about it years later. A book that I read three years ago. His name was Eugene Sledge, and the book was With The Old Breed.
When the military draft was discontinued I worried that having an all-volunteer army would make it more likely that leaders who were weaker men would use it. Which is what has happened. Iraq … Afghanistan … anyone?
More people need to see films like this series, which should be mandatory viewing for anyone who has anything to do with sending men and women into battle.
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Little Home In The Valley 