Round Robin: About the Monsoon!

When I posted the topic for the current Round Robin Challenge: About the Weather, my part of Tucson had just had its first big monsoon storm of 2014 on Sunday, July 13th. How big? Take a look:

 

The Arizona monsoon is a seasonal weather pattern that starts in mid-June and runs through September. It accounts for the vast majority of our 11" of average annual rainfall. The monsoon used to be calculated as starting on the date certain conditions were met, based on dew point and other stuff I don't understand. Nowadays it has an official start and end date, but this year the actual weather conditions arrived July 3rd, which is about average.  With climate change and all that, we've been in drought more years than not in the last decade or two, with monsoons that fizzled out without dumping all that much rain in the city itself.

But the storm that Sunday was a good one. Here is the view through my windshield as I sat in the parking lot outside my dad's place.

When I reached the street, I found some rather interesting debris.

I drove from my Dad's to Pantano River Park, to see how much water was in the river. Most of the time there is none. On that late afternoon, there was the most I'd seen in several years.

There is a wash (a usually-dry creek bed) in my neighborhood called Alamo Wash. I've photographed it a lot over the years. Here is my attempt to paste together two photos so you can see the whole scene that afternoon.

Tucson has something called a Stupid Motorist Law, designed to discourage people from driving through washes when they're full of swiftly-running water a foot or more deep. That is quite enough to get a car and its driver in deep trouble. People have actually died! So if someone is stupid enough to drive through a flooded wash and then need rescuring, the city charges them for the service. On that Sunday afternoon in the Terra Del Sol Neighborhood, no one was taking that chance, at least not where the wash crossed Betergeuse behind the high school. The cars you see above were mostly parked. One of them turned around, and so did I.

 Now, was there another way through, where the water wasn't so deep? How about this way?

No, I wasn't willing to chance it, although I did see a truck do it. Over by Terra Del Sol Park, it was just as bad as over by the high school.

Here, too, it wasn't safe to drive through. As I drove around, I saw a lot of neighbors out and about on foot, enjoying the post-rain 74 degree weather, down from 100+. The fact that power was out in some homes may have had something to do with people being outside.

I went back out to a main road and found another way home that did not involve crossing a wash. Then I took the dogs for a walk. Cayenne, who is afraid of thunder, was not overly concerned as I managed to photograph distant lightning.

Now, other than having to comfort Cayenne, I really enjoy monsoon storms. They're dramatic, they don't last long, and we always need the rain. But as I was driving home the next day, I was reminded that it's not all fun and games. Down on the corner, my neighbors were looking at the tree in their front yard, half-destroyed by a lightning strike. Even at that, they're lucky. At least two neighbors have had major roof damage in past years when a tree fell on their houses.

Karen

Be sure to check out all the Round Robin entries this week!

Karen - Posted!
Outpost Mâvarin
http://outmavarin.blogspot.com

Ellen
Ellen's Phlog
http://ellensphlog.blogspot.com/

Carly - Posted
Ellipsis
http://ellipsissuddenlycarly.blogspot.com

Round Robin: Wild Night with Wolfie

I admit it. This week's Round Robin Challenge: Wild Ways wasn't the most straightforward one we've had. I asked to see pictures of "the wild ways of any living thing." It could be an actual wild animal, a wild plant, or even a pet or a human being wild in their behavior. I was kind of expecting to post archived photos of wild animals. whether found out in the desert, up a mountain or in the Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum.

I wasn't expecting to meet Wolfie.

 

She's not really a wolf, and her name isn't Wolfie. It may be Izzy, but that was just a name in a Facebook comment that may or may not have been from someone who knows her. She came into my life at 7 PM on Monday, and left it about 1 PM on Tuesday.

What happened was this: I was coming home from seeing my Dad when I saw a coyote - no, a dog - wandering up a street near my home. I stopped the car, and she stood in front of it, out of sight from me, but I knew she was there. I rolled down my window, and she came and put her paws on the window. I got out and opened the car door, and she jumped in. I figured any dog with that little fear of strange cars would be in danger on the street overnight, so I took her home. She happily followed me into the house, much to the consternation of Cayenne and Kito!

 

Next thing to do was to place a "found" ad on Craigslist, something I've done once before after finding a dog in the street. It was free; that wasn't the problem. The problem was getting a picture of her. This dog would not stand still for two seconds for the first few hours she was with us! She was constantly exploring, or trying to play with Cayenne and Kito - much more energetically than they were willing to do.

 

 She was quite friendly and affectionate, which also didn't sit well with Kito...

..or Cayenne.

I eventually got an acceptable photo and placed my ad:

This friendly young dog came up to my car about 7 PM Monday, 6/23. Sweet female, very dusty, hungry, no collar, tags, etc. Have her at my house a block or two from where I found her. Identify to claim. Thanks! (Sorry for the poor picture quality; she hasn't stopped moving since she got into the house!)

 I also wrote her up on Facebook. It was about this time that I settled on Wolfie as a temporary name.

Between her exploring (including sniffing at household poisons, so we moved them) and pestering the other dogs, there was no way she could be left unsupervised. I put her on a leash and walked her around the neighborhood, hoping she would lead me to her home, but the house she liked (near where I found her) had no doorbell and nobody answered my knock. I took her back to our house.

We put her outside a few times, but she would scratch on the laundry room door, to the point where I worried she might destroy it. So I left her on the leash and kept her by me all night. Eventually I managed to get about 90 minutes of sleep, sitting up on the couch with her leash still tightly in my possession. This dog was absolutely exhausting!

By morning I had not heard from the owner, and there was no "lost" ad for her yet on Craigslist. But I did have an email from a group called Lost Dogs Arizona. They have a Facebook page for helping to reunite dogs with their owners, helpful FAQ pages for lost dog owners and finders, and even a reward poster generator. 

I took Wolfie for another walk, but got no closer to finding the right house. None of the neighbors I spoke with knew where she belonged. And that one house still had nobody answering the door.

By this time it was clear that we could not wait for the owner to find my ad or the Facebook listing. I updated the listings to indicate that I would have to take her to a shelter if her owner did not get in touch soon. Next I took Wolfie to St. Michael's while I printed out the poster. She came with me as I stapled five of them up around the neighborhood. Then I drove her to the Humane Society of Tucson.

The block the Humane Society was on had a Street Closed sign and barriers in front of it, due to sewer repair by the city. I eventually found an alternate route and took her inside, having failed to reach them on the phone. I had read online that one needs an appointment to give up a dog to them, but I figured that I could make the appointment in person.

The people there were very nice and helpful, except that they couldn't help me. The first available appointment to turn her in was not until Monday the 30th. There was a $35 ($30?) fee, and she would need her DAP (Diphtheria/Parvo) shot first. The alternative was to take her to Pima Animal Care Center, better known as "the pound." They assured me that Wolfie was a year-old purebred Husky, highly desirable and extremely unlikely to be euthanized if her owner didn't claim her. When I said she was too much dog for me to care for, I was told that huskies are too much dog for most people, being high-energy escape artists, bred to be able to run in front of a sled all day. Sometimes they go through several owners before finding one capable of hanging onto them. I also learned that Wolfie had recently been groomed, a good indication of an owner who cared. However, she still had no collar, no locator chip, and no sign of obedience training. I kept thinking about Jack London and The Call of the Wild.

So Wolfie and I went across town to PACC. We had to wait outside in the 90+ degree shade for about 40 minutes for our turn to come in, during which time a dog waiting in a car after having been hit by someone else died for lack of immediate medical attention. So sad! I turned Wolfie in, gave the PACC person info to complete the paperwork, took note of the dog's ID number, collected my collar, bandana and leash, and left.

Shortly after I got back across town, I got an email from someone directing me to a Craigslist ad that had finally been placed for the lost dog. That was definitely Wolfie's picture! I called the owner, and asked what part of town the dog had been lost from. "Uh, actually, I just got her back, here at the pound."

I told her I was the one who took her to PACC, said I was glad she had her back, and wished her a pleasant week. I don't think she said thank you. She may not have believed I was the one who helped her dog. Maybe she felt that Wolfie would have been better off left to wander home on her own. Maybe she was annoyed at the steep fee PACC charges if you let your dog go missing and it's turned in there.

But I still think I did the right thing.

Someone asked on Facebook what the dog's real name was. I had not asked. But someone posted another comment. All it said was, "Izzy."

Karen

Linking List
as of Saturday, 6/28/2014, 2:30 AM MST

Karen - Posted!
Outpost Mâvarin
http://outmavarin.blogspot.com

Teri - Posted!
A Creative Walkabout
http://a-creative-gonewalkabout.blogspot.com/

May Flowers, Arizona Style

For the Round Robin Challenge: May Flowers, I asked to see fresh photos of flowers from this brand new month, if possible. Just in case I didn't manage any decent shots in May, I started a few days early, myself. But I'm happy to say I did get out for some actual flowers actually photographed in actual May 2014. Let's take a look!

I'm beginning to think there's a 90% rule in Tucson flower identification, as in, "90% of the floral hedges are oleanders." Here are some examples from the hedges lining the park behind St. Michael's:

The flowers don't look very similar, but the leaves do. The white ones are along the back boundary of the park, while the pink and red ones are along this hedge between the park and the library (and St. Joseph's Hospital):

By the way, about a minute after I took this photo (and these were all on the iPhone, hence the iffy quality), I stepped in a rut and sprained my ankle. Again. Not a bad sprain, this time.

Later that day, when I visited my dad, I photographed a few small but interesting flowers outside the Memory Care unit, this time with my Canon:

That was all on Thursday. On Friday morning, I took a moment in a bank parking lot to get you some real Arizona specimens. This is a Yucca. I think it's a Soaptree Yucca, which is native to Southern Arizona.

And I really should show you the Arizona State flower, which was in the same parking lot! It's a little early in the season, but here are the flowers of the Giant Saguaro!

All in all, I think I did pretty well for someone who doesn't even like flowers!

Karen

Please check out all this week's entries:

Linking List
as of Saturday, May 3rd, 2014
1:41 AM MST

Karen - Posted!
Outpost Mâvarin
http://outmavarin.blogspot.com

Carly - Posted!
Ellipsis
http://ellipsissuddenlycarly.blogspot.com

Jama
Sweet Memories
http://mummyjam.blogspot.com

Round Robin: Fancy Dress (both kinds)

For the Round Robin Challenge: Dress Up, I asked to see "Any kind of costume ..., any dress, tux and tails, doll clothes, anything worn by anything or anyone as long as it's out of the ordinary." Although I'm feeling pretty wiped out tonight with a bad allergy attack that's gone on for the last 15 hours or so, I can supply examples in several of those categories.

My immediate inspiration was the idea of cosplay - fans making and wearing costumes that represent characters and creatures from their favorite books, movies, tv shows and comics. Over the years I've taken more than a few photos of fans in costume at Gallifrey One, the annual Doctor Who convention in Los Angeles. It's been several years since I made it to Gally, but I recently managed to buy a ticket to the 2015 convention in the 75 minute window before it was sold out. So let's celebrate that victory with memories of costumes past. I'll try to avoid reruns from past postings:

 From 2010: A Clockwork Droid threatens Reinette, 

a.k.a. Madame de Pompadour.

From 2011: Amy Pond in her Kiss-o-gram police uniform, 

with Rory Williams, the Last Centurion.

The last time I saw people in cosplay as Doctor Who characters was last year, at Disneyland of all places.

 

The Tenth Doctor, Captain Jack Harkness, 

and the Eleventh Doctor, Disneyland, May 2013.

In the U.K., "fancy dress" means a masquerade costume. Here in the U.S., it tends to have a more literal meaning.

A young woman poses for photos at Gates Pass, September 2013.

This one is a rerun: a wedding party at Reid Park, 2009. 

That green dress looks like something Tinker Bell would wear. Love it!

But let's go back to Disneyland for a moment. Come to think of it, Disneyland is full of fancy dress, and fancy dresses!

Tiana from The Princess and the Frog, Disneyland, May 2012.

I have many more, but that's enough for tonight. Let's so see what all the Robins came up with for this Challenge!


Linking List
as of Saturday, April 5th, 2014
1:54 AM MST

Karen - Posted!
Outpost Mâvarin
http://outmavarin.blogspot.com

Mande
Simply Learning to Explore and Use My Camera
http://simplyturtlepictures.blogspot.com/

Carly - Posted!
Ellipsis
http://ellipsissuddenlycarly.blogspot.com

If it's still the weekend, it's not too late to play along yourself! Go for it, I say!

Karen

Round Robin: Someone Else's Family

For the Round Robin Challenge: Family, I asked to see pictures of family, or pictures of something that represents the concept of family. I knew it was going to be a tough one for me to do; John does not allow me to take pictures of him, much less post them. The only family in reach is my dad, and I post lots of pictures of him already!

But I did have a few family-related encounters in the last month. First off, there was the All Souls Procession in Tucson on Sunday, November 3rd. Most of the people who take part in this annual local tradition do so on honor of dead family members. They often carry a photo of the deceased as they walk through the streets of downtown Tucson.

 

After the procession passed by me, a family set up to sell ice cream to passersby:

Here is a little film I made of that night. Note it doesn't play on mobile devices for some reason.

The other encounter with a family was last Saturday, November 23rd. It was a rainy, cold, blustery day. I took my dad for a drive, and stopped briefly at Agua Caliente Park, a place I've photographed before. I got Dad to walk around for about five minutes, at the end of which he was complaining his hands were cold. As we returned to the car, I spotted a woman in a bridal gown, and her family!

Agua Caliente Park is a beautiful place for a wedding, but not on a day like this! Note the bridal gown under a dark jacket.

 As we left, the bridal party was gamely carrying folding chairs from their cars to set up for the ceremony. "I bet you were hoping for better weather than this!" I called out to the father of the bride (or whoever).

"Sure was," he said ruefully.

Now let's see the other Robins' family photos!

Linking List
as of Saturday, 12/`/13, 1:18 AM

Freda - Posted!
Day One
http://fredamans.blogspot.ca

Karen - Posted!
Outpost Mâvarin
http://outmavarin.blogspot.com
http://www.facebook.com/mavarin

Carly - Posted!
Ellipsis
http://ellipsissuddenlycarly.blogspot.com

Karen

Travels With Frank #7: Wandering the Desert

Saturday is my day to take my Dad out for "lunch and adventures." I had an idea today that I might try again to take Dad down to Bisbee, Arizona, but it was raining and the check engine light is on on the Prius, so...no. We started out east on I-10, but I pulled off at the exit for Vail and Colossal Cave. We drove down to Colossal Cave at the very end of Old Spanish Trail. At the entrance I asked whether there is anything to do there on a rainy afternoon with a man of limited mobility. Not really, was the answer, because "it's mostly all stairs in there." In the cave, I presume. Stairs. Go figure.

So I drove up Old Spanish Trail, and we took the loop road in Saguaro National Park East. Dad kept asking how long the loop was. It's only 8 miles, but with a speed limit of 15 mph on a one way road with steep hills and hairpin turns, it takes a while. Dad was bored. He's not very interested in nature. He'd rather have lots of signs to read, and traffic to keep an eye on. "How much did this cost?" He asked, with the implication that it wasn't worth it. But it was free today. The first time we went there, I got a lifetime Golden Age pass for a pittance. It gets us into National Parks, Forests and Monuments for the rest of Dad's life.

Saguaro National Park East.

After that we stopped by St. Matthew's Church briefly, where I work on Thursday afternoons, and then went on to Amber Restaurant on Tanque Verde. Tucson apparently doesn't have a German restaurant but it has two Polish ones. Amber's pierogies, red cabbage, sauerkraut and sausage are all quite good.

Ice cream at Amber Restaurant.

To finish up the afternoon we followed Tanque Verde until it turned into Redington Rd, and that until it became the rough dirt road of Redington Pass. On the way back I drove around the parking lot of Agua Caliente Park. Again, Dad wasn't interested, except in the people in the parking lot. He thought I should ask a woman in the parking lot, but I don't know what the question would have been.

Oh, and Dad asked again today about his wife. Once I realized that he really did mean Ruth, my stepmother, I told him again that she died of cancer last year. I said that Ruth told me before she died that she always thought she'd be there to  care for Dad, which is true. Then I said Ruth passed on that responsibility to Jan and me, which is something she didn't actually say out loud to me. But it's true anyway. Dad smiled and laughed, and asked no more questions.

Redington Pass.

 

Twists and turns.

Karen

Round Robin: Gladly Beyond

somewhere I have never traveled, gladly beyond
any experience, your eyes have their silence:
in your most frail gesture are things which enclose me,
or which I cannot touch because they are too near

--from Somewhere I Have Never Traveled by E. E. Cummings

For this week's Round Robin Photo Challenge: Someplace I've Never Been, I asked to see photos of someplace you've never been, whether it's a new restaurant half a block away or a whole new continent. (That's not exactly what I said, but you get the drift.) My inspiration is this: I've been going on long drives with my Dad, and exploring museums with him, sometimes on the same day. The idea is to try to keep his mind engaged with new experiences, and mine too. So where did I find to go last weekend that I'd never been before?

Well, here. I know it doesn't look like much; it's just an obscure little restaurant called Seoul Kitchen in a strip mall called Crossroads Festival, which sounds more festive than the shopping center deserves. I was looking for someplace different to take Dad, preferably something that would also work for RRPC. I'd seen the name of this Korean restaurant while driving by. Seoul Kitchen! Cute name! But when I initially chose it over Smashburger (what an exciting name for a burger joint!), parked and went up to the door with Dad and his walker, I almost chickened out on going in.  My tastes in food are not very adventurous, and I got pretty nervous when the posted menu items had names like Spicy Squid, Bi Bim Bap and Mandu Guk. Furthermore, I was not at all sure my dad could handle such choices; he barely copes with a menu in a familiar American chain restaurant. But he surprised me, pointing at menu items that had relatively familiar names and ingredients. "I think it's all right," he said, or words to that effect. Thus he very nicely shamed me into trying the place after all.

Having taken the plunge, I looked the menu over and actually went with an entree with a delightfully exotic name: Bi Bim Bap. This was a rice bowl with a little shredded beef, nicely crisp mung bean sprouts and other veggies, and a fried egg on top. I was a little disappointed there wasn't more meat, but that was my fault for choosing Bi Bim Bap over some of the meatier items. Dad had chicken with Yakisoba noodles, which is to say that he ate the chicken and left most of the noodles. That's exactly what he does with all pasta dishes, so I wasn't a bit surprised.

The neat thing about the meal was the extras. We started with miso soup, which was minimalist but nicely low carb. Then with the meal we had individual dishes of marinated veggies as seen above. I liked the cucumbers, and Dad actually liked the kimchi, which turned out to be fermented cabbage. That was a little too spicy for me, but Dad ate most of it. The service was excellent and the prices were right, so overall it was a successful adventure in going "somewhere I have never traveled, gladly beyond."

After lunch we went to the Ft. Lowell Museum at Ft. Lowell Park. I'd certainly been to the park before and photographed the ruins somewhat extensively, but I'd never been inside the actual museum. It turned out to be a total bust in terms of interesting Dad in its people or contents, but I enjoyed photographing a docent who wore period clothing and demonstrated how to load a period rifle.

Another docent was also connected with the Pima Air and Space Museum, which Dad and I had visited the week before. The part of it devoted to World War II is currently closed for expansion and renovation, but that was the area of this docent's particular interest. He was very interested in my Dad's history as a B-17 navigator and Stalag Luft 1 POW, which, by the way, my dad no longer remembers at all. I gave the docent Dad's particulars and my contact info. He promised to do some research and get in touch.

After that we went for a drive, as the monsoon got ready to start monsooning. I went looking for a back way to Mount Lemmon, and found myself on a section of Snyder Road that is definitely "Not a Through Street." Kind of pretty, though!

Eventually we made it by all-too familiar route to Catalina Highway. I took one more detour, onto a road less traveled, by me at least. But I'm not quite certain that I've never traveled it.

After that I couldn't resist driving up Mount Lemmon, a place I go all the time. But it doesn't usually look like it did that day! I brought back lots of pictures from that, some of them quite striking, I hope. But they definitely don't fit the "somewhere I've never been" criterion, so I'll post some of those in a separate entry.

Meanwhile, let's see what new places our other Robins photographed!

Linking List
as of Saturday, July 27th, 2013, 12:52 AM MST

Karen - Posted!
Outpost Mâvarin
http://outmavarin.blogspot.com
http://www.facebook.com/mavarin

Carly - Posted!
Ellipsis
http://ellipsissuddenlycarly.blogspot.com

Jama
Sweet Memories
http://mummyjam.blogspot.com


Karen

Round Robin: Only the Car Gets Wet

When I posted the topic for this week's Round Robin Challenge: Get Wet!, I was frankly hoping that sometime during these past two weeks there would be an awesome monsoon storm here in Tucson that I could catch people and/or dogs getting wet in. But most of the rain so far this season has happened at night, often when I'm asleep. Usually there are lots of little storms in the late afternoon, but the few daytime ones I've seen recently, aside from the first one (which I forgot to photograph), have been, well, less than awesome. So it's on to Plan B, right?

The main reason I've known about the nighttime storms is that I come out in the morning and there are spots all over the car. Clearly the car has been getting wet - just enough to get dirtier instead of cleaner. I've had the car washed twice in two weeks, but look at the driver's side window as of this evening. All the dust in the air gets on the car, and the rain turns the dust into dried-on dirt drops.

Okay, so I have no great monsoon pictures yet for this year. But on the Fourth of July I started the day with a walk with the dogs down to the nearest part of the Boneyard, where the retired aircraft are. I carried a collapsible mini bowl for the dogs' water, and filled it at a water fountain under a ramada (a sort of canopy, in this case over a couple of concrete picnic tables). Kito drank two bowls of water almost by himself, and then got the concrete slab under the ramada more than a little wet by knocking over the bowl.

Cute, but not impressive. Clearly I'm going to have to go to the archives to get something decent here!

Back in April I took my Dad on a tram ride up Sabino Canyon. It was already hot enough that people were cooling off by getting wet in Sabino Creek, the closest thing we have to a beach around here.

Now let's see what other Robins found that was getting wet!

Linking List
as of Saturday, July 13th, Midnight MST

Karen - Posted!
Outpost Mâvarin
http://outmavarin.blogspot.com
http://www.facebook.com/mavarin

Freda - Posted!
Day One
http://fredamans.blogspot.ca

Jama - Posted!
Sweet Memories
http://mummyjam.blogspot.com

Holly (Canceled due to family illness)
Easy Living the Hard Way
http://easylivingthehardway.blogspot.com/

Carly - Posted!
Ellipsis
http://ellipsissuddenlycarly.blogspot.com

And it's not too late to jump in on this topic yourself! (What do you mean, this Challenge is all wet?) ;)

Karen

Round Robin: Before and After: A Change for the Worse

This is my second entry for this week's Round Robin Challenge: Before And After. The "Before" image in the other one is a bit disturbing, but this entry is safe to look at, I promise!

Once upon a time, there was a venerable old shopping center at Broadway and Wilmot in Tucson called The Mercado. It featured pink adobe buildings with tile roofs. Once years ago I wrote about one of the shops there, called Choc-alot, which had an astounding variety of gourmet chocolates in different shapes and recipes. Years before that, the United Whovians of Tucson honored Doctor Who actor John Levene at a restaurant there called The Good Earth. That restaurant is long gone, but just a month ago I had lunch at a different restaurant there called El Charro.

But one weekend recently there were suddenly dozens of flags and banners flying outside the old pink buildings. Some of them were Tea Party-inspired, some were about cars and even tattoos. Odd. A few days after that, this happened:

First a bunch of tiles were knocked off the roof of El Charro. Was it malicious, or were they renovating the building? Either way, the restaurant had been closed. But that was just the beginning.

Soon the building was just a shell.

Then it was a pile of rubble. And the building behind it was starting to go the same way.

For a while the building that once housed Choc-alot survived.

But no more.

So what's the point of all this destruction, of these neat old buildings holding decades of memories?

It's going to be the site of a CVS Pharmacy, in a town that always had several CVS pharmacies, some Osco locations and a Walgreen's at practically every major intersection. What else? Phooey.

That's it for this one. Check out my other entry if you can handle blood and guts type stuff. And definitely please also go see the other Robins' entries:

Linking List
as of Saturday, May 18th, 12 AM MST

Jama - Posted!
Sweet Memories
http://mummyjam.blogspot.com

Karen - Posted! (two entries)
 Outpost Mâvarin
http://outmavarin.blogspot.com
http://www.facebook.com/mavarin
@mavarin

Carly - Posted!
Ellipsis
http://ellipsissuddenlycarly.blogspot.com

Thanks!

Karen