Basta!

Abject failure. Abysmal flame-out. Pathetic fizzle.

Robin and I set out to hike up to Black Bear Pass, which we did handily eight years ago. This time of year it is a grand walk, with waterfalls and flower-filled meadows and views … my oh my, the views.

We didn’t make it.

The path to the pass is 3.1 miles with a 1991 foot gain in altitude. We made it to within half a mile of the top, at 12,100 feet, and ran completely out of gas. Our bodies were yelling Basta! Enough! so loudly that we felt we might be disturbing the peace of others in this remote area. Somewhere in that eight years we had lost a step, at least it seemed that way that day.

So we trudged back to the car and drove down into Ouray, with the plan of drowning our sorrows and shame in ice cream from Chocolate Mousse. Treats in hand we stepped out to find all of the sidewalk tables occupied. We must have appeared a forlorn pair because a young couple invited us to share their table and we gratefully accepted.

They were from New Jersey and were on a long Western tour by car. The two were charming people and the conversation was delightful. When they took their leave we invited another pair of lost ice cream bearers to share what was now our space.

These folks were a middle aged couple who had only recently relocated from Boston to Boulder. Another interesting sharing of stories and experiences ensued.

So, actually, the afternoon was a resounding success, the only niggling bit being that we didn’t complete the planned hike.

But we totally scored on frozen desserts and making brand new best friends we’ll likely never see again. Not too shabby after all.

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We took no photos on this hike, so here are a handful from our successful one in July 2016.

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In 1968 Harry Nilsson recorded the song Everybody’s Talkin.’. It found its way onto the soundtrack of the 1969 movie Midnight Cowboy, which made it famous and a fairly big hit for Nilsson. Everyone alive that year in the USA heard it on their radios without even trying. Here is Nilsson in 1968, on a European stage.

Much much later some of my favorite people recorded it in 2012, with quite a different arrangement. It looks like everyone in the room was having a very good time. Why not? They were the best playing with the best.

(This band is so good it hurts to listen to them.)

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From The New Yorker

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Perhaps this is not true of you, but most of the people I know have quirks. For my own use I have developed a scoring system to help me sort things out:

• 1-5 obvious quirks = average person
• 5-10 obvious quirks = bit of a duck
• >10 obvious quirks = space cadet

I do not attach any value judgments, pejorative associations, or good/bad dichotomies to this scale. It is simply descriptive, numeric, gender-neutral, non-ageist, and possibly of no practical value at all.

I classify myself as “bit of a duck,” but another person might easily put me into the “space cadet” category by coming up with some behaviors that I don’t think of as odd at all, but which to them are totally bizarre.

There are the matters of popcorn and toast, for instance. I had noticed that when I popped corn at home and sprinkled on some melted butter it resembled what I would get at a movie theater. However if I melted any butter substitute the popped kernels would collapse as soon as I poured that noxious liquid onto them.

Looking into the matter I found these startling numbers:

• Butter is 10-15% water
• Margarines and other substitutes can contain up to 40% water

And then I began to notice that the same thing was happening in the morning when I applied these same spreads to my toast. Flaccidity reigned.

Pondering it all, I thought of ghee. Ghee has no water in it at all. In the process of ghee-making you heat butter until the moisture entirely evaporates.

I tried it on popcorn and the kernels did not wilt. I tried it on toast and the toast now had a crispy crunchiness to it.

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From The New Yorker

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This is one of those stories that make me laugh out loud. Some of the citizens of Barcelona are fed up with being squeezed out of affordable living spaces to accommodate an avalanche of tourists. They would like those wanderers and all of their AirBNBs and the like of the world to please go away.

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