Weekend Assignment #275:: Stay Cool

This entry is late - again - because I was wracking my brain for a new Weekend Assignment topic. I've even started writing up the entry, only to discover that I've asked the same thing before, more or less. Perhaps I'm overthinking it. Let's go with something simple:

Weekend Assignment: #275: What's your favorite way to stay cool in the summer? Is this even an issue where you live?
Extra Credit: Was climate a significant factor in deciding to live where you do?

This topic was belatedly inspired by something I went though earlier this week, as recounted in my EMPS entry. We had a power failure for nearly two hours on Tuesday evening. That meant no tv, no computer, no air conditioning, no light to counteract the dusk as the house fell into darkness. I took a walk around the neighborhood with my dogs, but when that was over I couldn't stand to sit in the dark, muggy house doing nothing. I got in the car and drove away - twice - until the power returned. Then tonight the power went off again, but fortunately only for a few minutes this time.

When the power was out, the loss of cable tv was a little annoying, but hardly disastrous. Ditto the Internet, and even electric light. But losing the air conditioning - now that was a disaster.

It should be no surprise that Tucson's population didn't really take off until the advent of home air conditioning. Temperatures this week have hovered around 106 or 107, according to the thermometer in my car. It's been humid as well. So we really need the a/c. Sure I drink lots of cold drinks this time of year, and yes, ice cream rides high on my list of self-indulgences and comfort foods. But a/c is the big must have. Here it is 4:26 AM, and I'm listening to the large room air conditioning unit blasting away in the den. I tried turning it off a little bit ago, but I didn't last long without it. At 4 in the morning!

John also has been running the a/c a lot this summer, and the dogs are clearly fans of it as well. Whenever I go to the part of the house with the bedrooms and the restrooms, the dogs hang out my the bedroom door, and run in if I open that door. Pepper in particular is especially anxious for us to retreat to the bedroom. They don't want to be in there alone, not unless the door is left open at least. But they are always trying to lead me in there, day and night.

Now, obviously, summer is not the best time of year to be living in Tucson. Once the monsoon rains really get going, it can be quite dramatic and fun. But to be honest, we weren't paying that much attention to summer when we decided to buy a house here. We were thinking of winter, and how we'd had enough of it. To the extent that we considered the problem of Tucson in the summer, we mostly thought, "That's okay. We can always turn on the air conditioning!"

So. What about you? Do you find relief in the flick of a switch, a tall glass of ice tea, or something else? Does it even get hot enough where you live to present an issue? Tell us about it in your blog, with a link back here, and a link to your blog entry in the comments below. Just be sure to get your entry in by Thursday evening, because I'm going to try again to get this increasingly tardy meme back on schedule. Meanwhile, there's last week's Assignment to wrap up:

For Weekend Assignment: #274: The Pursuit of Happiness, I asked, as you may have guessed, how you personally pursue happiness. Here are excerpts from the responses:

Georganna Hancock M.S. said in comments...

Long ago I gave up pursuing happiness, probably about the time that I discovered it was pursuing me and I only noticed it when I paused long enough for it to catch me. ;)

Julie said...

First I should define "Happiness." It's a very elusive concept. There are things that make me feel happy, such as reading a good book or hitting "the end" on a story I'm writing.

But what is "Happiness?" The thing that makes me lay back and go, "ahhhh," at the end of a long day? Having a client actually pay up for a change? (In this economy, that should be getting a client that has a chance of paying up.) A vacation? That would make me very happy, but it's not going to happen.

Florinda said in comments...

I may have to turn this assignment in late. We had some family upheaval over the weekend (my mother-in-law went into the hospital), and I may be playing catch-up for the next few days. Just didn't want you to think I was bailing on you! (By the way, none of that is conducive to my pursuit of happiness :-).)

Mike said...

A good comedy, either or TV or movie, can make me happy, too. Actually, sometimes I like to watch bad movies that crack me up in ways that they are not meant to be funny. I guess that is why I like Mystery Science Theater 3000 so much. Usually, when I'm watching one of these bad movies, I'll hop onto Twitter and make some jokes about it. I know most people don't get them, or even see them, but it makes me feel better just to make those lame jokes.

That's it for now! As always, I'm looking for suggestions for future Weekend Assignments, and also for more of you to participate in writing the entries. Come on - as good the our three stalwarts above are, we'd love to hear from YOU as well. Thanks!

My Round Robin entry will follow in a couple of hours. I need a nap first!

Karen

EMPS: Black Dog, Blue Bed; The Neighbors Are Powerless

This entry's title refers to two unrelated subjects, except for the color scheme. That comes from Carly's Ellipsis Monday Photo Shoot this week. She's asking to see black, or blue, or black and blue. I can handle that!

Black Dog and Red Dog on a black and blue bed.

My initial thought was to photograph the Black Dog, aka Pepper, on the turquoise concrete slab in our back yard. But it was raining, and Pepper declined to cooperate. So I pulled our slightly ragged blue comforter over the bed and urged her to pose for me there.

Normally, Pepper enjoys being on the bed, especially in the summer if the air conditioning is on. But the A/C was off, and Pepper was being her usual contrary self.

And of course the Red Dog, aka Cayenne, wanted to be on the bed, even if she didn't fit the color scheme. Still, we managed a few fun shots, even if they're not portrait quality!

That was Tuesday afternoon. Tuesday at 7 PM, as Keith Olbermann's second airing was starting on MSNBC, the power went out in the house. It soon became clear that it wasn't just one circuit breaker or just our house. We couldn't finish cooking dinner, because although we have a gas oven John was concerned about the pilot light. We could not watch tv or go online, could not even read for very long as dusk was approaching. So I took the dogs for a walk. It was that time of day anyhow.

The west side of Calle Mumble still had power, but the east side of the street did not. The east side of the street behind us, just across the alley, had no power; the west side of that street did. The power outage was at least two blocks long on each street.

I can't remember the last time I saw so many of my neighbors outside. I've certainly never spoken to so many of them in a single day. The lack of power inside on a hot, muggy evening had driven people into their front or back yards, into the street or into the alleyway. A woman at the south end of my block told me that her neighbor had called TEP (Tucson Electric Power) on her cell phone. TEP was under the impression that they had already "tripped" our power back on, and were disappointed to learn otherwise. A woman in the alleyway asked my opinion on whether the floppy-skinned puppy in her arms looked like it had pit bull in it, and also whether I'd seen her lost cat. My next door neighbor told me about the downturn in the tractor business, roof repairs and bathroom renovations, and that there were supposedly TEP trucks out at Calle Mumble near Golf Links.

Black and white police car in the blue of dusk.

A policeman was directing traffic in lieu of the traffic light at Wilmot and 29th Street, which was out. A woman with a cane gave Cayenne a good five minutes of scratching as we talked about dogs. Her neighbor, a few feet away, was explaining to other neighbors why the fire department won't allow a speed bump on our block. I forget which neighbor it was who reported that TEP referred to the problem on the phone as "a blown fuse." It hardly matters; I don't know the name of a single person on our street other than John. But I do know the names of a few of their dogs.

When we got back to the house, it was dark and muggy. John was trying to take a nap as he waited for the power to return. As far as I was concerned, it was too hot in the house to sleep, and a whole lot of no fun to sit in the dark doing nothing. So I headed to Safeway for groceries and fifteen minutes of air conditioned comfort.

TEP truck and work crew fixing power outage

On the way, I stopped to take a few pictures of the only TEP truck I saw. One guy was up in the cherry picker, reporting to colleagues below about what he was finding.

The "autocorrect" version of a slightly darker shot.

I took several shots from different distances with and without flash. The best results came when I pulled closer so my headlights illuminated the truck a little. The almost monochrome blue-and black version above is the result of an "autocorrect" with my PhotoStudio software.

On my way back from the store, I stopped the car to check in with another knot of chatting neighbors. One woman said that yet another neighbor had asked the work crew whether the power would be back on in time for her to watch a certain tv show at 9 PM. "Oh, sure," she was told. "But here it is, quarter of nine," the woman told me, "and no power."

That's when I decided to drive straight on to Barnes and Noble, which is open until 10, and see if they had the new Doctor Who Magazine. "Where will you read your magazine if the power's still off?" the woman asked. Um, in the car, possibly, or at B&N.

It was at this point that a mysterious, alarmingly large bug zoomed into view, freaking out the neighbors, especially the woman I was chatting with. I've been seeing this kind of bug for the past week or two. It looks like a cross between a mosquito and a dragonfly, except that it's almost as big as a Little Brown Bat. The woman jokingly threatened to flee into my car if it came near her. "I have a thing about bugs," she confessed.

I wished her luck and drove on to B&N, where they did indeed have the next issue of DWM. When I got back, the power was on. John said it came back around five minutes to nine, so my neighbor, whoever she is, got to see her show after all.

From Fireworks 2009

One last shot. How about blue fireworks in a black sky? This is one of the less "caulifloweresque" images from Saturday evening. For more on this, please see the entry below this one.

Carly asks about favorite colors, and how they affect our photography. Blue was my favorite color as a kid, and I gravitated to red and black as a young adult. These days I like pretty much all bright colors (plus black), with a special fondness for turquoise and similar shades. I don't think they affect my photography, specifically, unless the color is unusual for what it is. Years ago I photographed a thunderstorm from a second story window at First Magnus, and the sky color came out indigo. I still think of that particular photo as the "indigo sky" shot.

Karen

Cauliflower in the Sky

From Fireworks 2009

I meant to post my images of Independence Day 2009 within a day or so of the holiday itself, but a cursory inspection of my photos on Sunday turned up nothing but vague blurs, nothing worth posting at all. That's it, then, I thought. I'd failed to find a usable setting for fireworks shots on this particular camera.

Then on Tuesday night I was editing my photos for the EMPS entry that is to follow this one, and discovered that my bad fireworks shots were just the beginning of a much larger selection. On Saturday I had tried at least four different camera settings, not counting several failed attempts to set a one or two second delay to reduce camera shake and try to catch the fireworks after they burst instead of as they went up. It turned out that eventually I hit on something workable, especially if I braced myself against a handy tree. So here, several days late, is my 4th of July entry after all.

It was kind of an interesting evening for me. The dogs hadn't been out of the neighborhood in four or five days, so we headed over to Reid Park. The dog park there, Miko's Corner Playground, is about half a mile from Hi Corbett Field, where the Tucson Toros play. The ball club had fireworks scheduled for after the game that night, and by 8 PM Reid Park was beginning to fill up with people waiting to see the fireworks for free, just outside the ballpark proper. Some of these people had dogs, and Cayenne, Pepper and I did a fair amount of visiting during the gallivanting phase of our trip to the park. Other people - teens and young adults, one presumes - had brought fireworks of their own, firecrackers and perhaps cherry bombs, and at least two largish "fountain" type ground fireworks. I can't really tell you, based in the minimal research I just did, what everything I heard or saw is properly called. But all around me were little snap, crackle and pop-pop-pop reports from small groups of chattering young people, and all of it was illegal in Arizona, as are all consumer fireworks down to the most innocent sparkler. Nevertheless, fireworks aren't all that hard for Arizonans to get. They just need to drive east to Lordsburg, New Mexico or beyond, where fireworks stands are legal and easy to find.

Dogs, as I know very well, aren't fond of fireworks or other loud noises. Cayenne has a tendency to spend thunderstorms under my desk, and Pepper runs away from any sudden sound. But that night in the park, with my hanging on to their leashes, they handled the small explosions around us with only minor reactions. This is almost certainly because we managed to stay well away from such revels, so the noises were distant and not very loud. Even so, I was surprised and a little annoyed that so many people were openly flouting the law in Tucson's largest and most popular city park. Where were the cops while all this was going on? It wasn't until we were leaving that I realized what the answer must be. On the Fourth of July, there probably isn't a single neighborhood in all of Tucson that doesn't have at least a few people setting off illegal fireworks. Police can't be everywhere at once, all night long. I imagine they concentrate on cases where the fireworks are major explosives or injuries result. And of course they have all the usual law enforcement stuff to do as well, probably with extra drunk drivers as a holiday bonus.

Anyway, I wasn't about to wait around in Reid Park for another hour and a half for the Toros to win or lose their game, not with the dogs in tow and no possibility of watching the game itself. So we headed home. As I turned onto Wilmot, I saw fireworks up ahead to the south, and realized something I'd failed to notice in the 15 years or so that we've lived on Calle Mumble. The closest fireworks to our house, which for years I've been trying to photograph from our front yard or out in the street, with disappointing results, are set off at Davis-Monthan Air Force Base, just a few blocks away. This is also where the Blue Angels and other planes come from to emerge over our street during stunt shows. I should not have been surprised that the base also had professional fireworks shows.

That being the case, there was an obvious place to go to see and photograph the fireworks properly: the same Safeway/Subway parking lot from which I've photographed so many of my "Safeway Sunsets." I drove town there, and was startled to see a few dozen cars parked near the Subway, their passengers lined up in little groups along the wall next to Wilmot Road. Some had lawn chairs set up, and there were even a few tailgaters.

It didn't seem like a good idea to leave the dogs in the car during a fireworks show, even if the fireworks were half a mile away; so I brought them with me. Holding onto their leashes and adjusting camera settings in the dark while Cayenne tugged her desire to leave was a little tricky, but eventually I going something worth sharing, even if I didn't know it yet. They're not my best fireworks shots by any means. Several of them have shapes that remind me of cauliflowers, or maybe broccoli, but white or red or blow rather than green. Odd. But they'll do for this year.

Karen

Weekend Assignment: #274: The Pursuit of Happiness

"We hold these truths to be self-evident," Thomas Jefferson famously wrote, under the editorial kibitzing of John Adams and Ben Franklin, "that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness." Our Weekend Assignment, delayed until the anniversary of the ratification of those words by the Continental Congress, takes its cue from my old buddy Tom:

Weekend Assignment: #274: How do you personally pursue Happiness?
Extra Credit: How do you know when you've caught it?

This has got to be the shortest Weekend Assignment question I've ever posed, but it's not necessarily the simplest. The concept of happiness can be tricky to define, let alone recognize. It's a platonic ideal, frequently defined more by its absence - or its pursuit - than by the actual experience of it.

Yet we know it's real, at least in retrospect. Often we can look back on a moment and say, "Ah, I was so happy then," whether we recognized it at the time or not. Even the big, obviously joyous occasions - a wedding day, the birth of a child, the vacation of a lifetime - can be obscured by the stresses of the moment, or by just being too busy to fully appreciate that ah, yes, this is happiness, right now.

Still, we try for it, all day, every day. An accepted theory of human behavior is that every single thing we do is in pursuit of happiness, of trying to make ourselves feel better, selfishly or otherwise. I've always hated that idea, that the most altruistic act isn't really for the sake of the other person, but to make us feel good about ourselves.

So, to transition from the pontificating, which has been making me happy for several minutes now because the writing is going well, I now must consider what I do to try to be happy. There are lots of things I do, some of them contradictory. I write. I hang out with dogs. I goof off. I stop goofing off and accomplish something, thereby reducing the guilt quotient. I hang out with John. I read. I drive up the mountain. I watch my favorite tv shows. I go to church - which doesn't sound like a happiness-producing activity, especially if you're as uneasy with certain kinds of religious behavior and belief systems as I am. Yet againt the odds, St. Michael's does indeed make me happy, at least as much because of the people as because of the ritual and the meaning behind it.

It's been a stressful week for me. I discovered on Wednesday night that my unemployment claim ran out at the end of May, but the state website let me continue to put in claims anyway. It just didn't pay anything. There was a form in the mail that explained about an additional 7 weeks I qualified for, if I filled it out and turned it in - no later than two weeks ago. I learned of its existence on Wednesday night, and tracked it down in a pile of mail on Thursday afternoon, just in time to get it turned in at DES (Department of Economic Services) before they closed for the holiday weekend. The DES employee couldn't tell me whether it would still be accepted. And I just realized that I should have filed a claim anyway online this week, even if it's not being paid, and I think I've missed the deadline on it. If all this works, it should be paid retroactively, but only if I don't break the chain with a week of no reported claim.

It's kind of depressing, partly because I've screwed up, and partly because I shouldn't still need unemployment payments after all this time. My part time job is good and valuable, but not lucrative. Am I doing enough to find work, or letting my discouragement over the lack of response induce a debilitating lethargy where job hunting is concerned? And does it even matter, when most of the job listings either don't fit my skills and qualifications or are the same ones I've applied for at least once before? Clearly, though, lapsing into defeatism isn't going to lead to either employment or happiness. So I went through CareerBuilder and Monster and a few other sites this week, updating and upgrading, and compiled a master document of past job data: addresses and dates and supervisors' names and phone numbers. And for a moment, I was happy with what I'd accomplished - but I still have much more to do.

Often, though, it's not the head-on, work through your troubles approach that leads to short-term happiness, or at least pleasure. (There's a whole tangent I could pursue but won't: what is pleasure, if not a sort of degraded, shamefaced form of happiness?) We all face that annoying tension between short term gratification and long-term goals. Do I enjoy an ice cream cone now, or deny myself for the sake of a lower number on a bathroom scale?

Maybe we have to have both, the adult, disciplined pursuit of the things that we hope will made us happy in the long run, and the little pleasures that make us happy in the moment. Tonight I was going to start this entry right after John turned off Torchwood on DVD, but instead I spent most of the night reading a magazine about golden moments from each of the 200 Doctor Who stories to date. The many writers of this DWM Special describe particular scenes, and why they're brilliant, and the impact they had on their chid- or adult-selves. Their joy in the show, their love for it and happiness that it's still going strong after nearly 46 years, beams out from the pages, and produces an answering outpouring of emotion from me. So for a few hours, as I read about the "deadly jelly baby" scene and "everybody lives" and the disinfecting elevator, and I'm happy. Then I put the magazine away, and return to the problem of facing my own, imperfect life.

So. What about you? How to you pursue happiness, and do you notice when you find it? Tell us about it in your blog, with a link back here, and a link to your blog entry in the comments below. You can get all philosophical on us, as I just did, or maybe just describe a particular activity that does the trick for you. Heck, if stamp collecting make you happy, I want to know about it! Just be sure to get your entry in by Thursday evening, because I'm going to try to get this increasingly tardy meme back on schedule next week. Meanwhile, there's last week's Assignment to wrap up:

For Weekend Assignment #273: Music(ians) of Your Life, I asked for your reaction to the death of Michael Jackson, and whether there a particular musician whose work has particular meaning for you. Excepts from the responses follow.


Julie said...

Sure, I grew up listening to the Jackson 5. I even had a picture of young Michael Jackson on my wall when I was twelve. But my heart belonged to the Beatles. Even then, I listened to a lot of different music. I was probably the only kid my age who knew that swing music wasn't something made schmaltzy by Lawrence Welk. I was also a huge standup comedy fan and could listen to those records for hours. I still can. The other day I was reading an urban fantasy story that involved Noah, and all I could think of was Bill Cosby: "God? What's a cubit?"

Florinda named the Beatles and four other artists:

The Beatles: I was ten years old when I first became aware of them, and they'd been broken up for four years by then. Their sound shaped my musical preferences, and they're still the standard I use for evaluating the best pop/rock: melody, harmony, lyrics, and how it all works together. There's a song in their catalog to go with nearly every moment you can think of. They produced their share of clunkers (for my money, most of them inhabit the White Album), but in eight years of recording together, the classics-to-clunkers ratio is very much in the classics' favor.

Mike also names a number of bands, including...

The next stage came with music I actually bought myself. Mostly that was Styx and Kansas. I loved those two bands. They were a bit different in style than The Cars, but they had the right mix for me. Some good rocking music, but also some slower songs mixed with a little progressive rock; especially with Kansas.

I think Styx Paradise Theater album was the one I listened to the most. It was certainly one of their biggest albums and it hit at the perfect time for me. What I want to know, though, is why is not on iTunes? That is driving me crazy.

That's it for now! As always, I'm looking for suggestions for future Weekend Assignments, and also for more of you to participate in writing the entries. Come on - as good the our three stalwarts above are, we'd love to hear from YOU as well. Thanks!

Karen

Stay Tuned

"Not quite clear, is it? I can see by your face that you're not certain. You don't understand. And I knew you wouldn't! Never mind."' --the First Doctor

This is just a quick note that I haven't forgotten about the Part Two of my EMPS brochure, or the Weekend Assignment, or Feline and Furball with Feathers Friday, or the people I've yet to visit to see their Round Robin entries of last weekend. I've been distracted this week with upgrading and updating my job-hunting listings, and working a handful of hours, and watching First Doctor episodes of Doctor Who, and fielding a large influx of friend requests on Facebook, and looking for ways to walk the dogs in the heat, and watching coverage of the bizarre political soap operas of two Republican governors on tv.

But I will be playing catch-up this weekend, starting with the Weekend Assignment. For now, a hint: I will be asking you for your personal take on a phrase from a famous sentence related to this holiday weekend, the one that begins, "We hold these truths...."

More in a few hours, I promise!


Karen

EMPS: Come to Tucson - In the Summer!

For this week's Ellipsis Monday Photo Shoot #44:Travel Brochures, which I was too distracted to check out on Monday (more on this later), Carly wants photography suitable for a travel brochure, complete with a paragraph of promotional copy. I am sorely tempted to design a whole brochure as a PDF or something, but for tonight I will try for something a bit less ambitious.

We know what you're thinking. Tucson? In summer? Isn't it over 100 degrees there in the summer? Sure is! But with a few tips from this brochure you can work that to your advantage, and have a first class Arizona vacation at bargain prices. Read on....

Secrets of Summers in Tucson

"It's a dry heat..."

The cliche is true - up to a point. 110 degrees at 11% humidity is arguably more comfortable than 94 degrees at 90% humidity. But when the monsoon arrives - Arizona's rainy season - the "dry heat" gives way to amazing cloud formations and dramatic thunderstorms. The high temperature is less extreme, and when the storm hits, the air may cool by as much as twenty degrees in a few minutes.

Air conditioning is almost universally found in Tucson's many hotels and resorts, most of which feature deeply discounted summer rates. Or you can knock twenty to thirty degrees of the summer heat with a drive up Mount Lemmon Highway, to the sky islands of the Santa Catalina Mountains.

Next: Summer Delights!

Karen

Postscript: I was going to do a second entry to finish up, really I was, but it's been so miserably hot and humid all week the I couldn't keep the joke going. See, when the monsoon rain really gets going, it's going to be fun, watching the dramatic weather and feeling the temperature drop and photographing the flooding. But so far in this year's this monsoon, which just started, it haven;t rained much, and hasn't flooded at all. It's just hot and humid and miserable.

So what can I say to entice you to Tucson at such a time? Come to Tucson, and hang out at the malls? Go to the museums, because they all have an inside? The Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum does indeed have an inside component, with the fish tanks and snakes and a geology cave, but all the really good stuff is outside - the hummingbirds, the javalinas... but now that I think of it, there's an indoor observation area for the otters and the beaver and the bobcats. And they're open on Saturday nights, which it's cooler. The Toros baseball games are all at night, too. So, yeah. Come to Tucson, and see all the neat stuff. Then go away, and come back when the heat breaks. - KFB

Invisible Wildlife

I took the dogs up Mt. Lemmon Highway this evening, partly to try to find more wildlife to photograph, but mostly to avoid exercising poor, furry Pepper in 106 degree heat. We had a good time, but we didn't see any wildlife other than the flies both dogs were snapping at. Still, we knew there were larger critters in the area - or, at least, that there had been.

We started out from the house around 6:30 PM. "It's a mistake," John warned. "It will be dark by the time you get up there." I assured him that we were only going as far as Molino Basin, about five miles up, and that anyway, it doesn't get dark until 8 PM these days. The car thermometer said 106 degrees as we left the driveway. The dogs rode the whole way up in the front seat beside me, taking advantage of the car A/C.

Sunset over Thimble Peak

From Mount Lemmon Highway

The first stop for me on Mount Lemmon Highway, traditionally, is Babad Do'Ag Vista, the first real vista point and a major destination for watching and photographing sunsets. The sun was setting, but we didn't stop until Thimble Peak Vista. The dogs got out, briefly, but there was no place for them to walk, particularly, and no wildlife to be seen.

Bear Canyon greenery.

As it happened I did not stop at Molino Basin, because it had a self-serve fee station for use (picnicking or hiking or camping). I didn't want to pay, and I didn't want to cheat. In the end we stopped at Bear Wallow or whatever it's called, a picnic area at Bear Canyon. That was probably something to pay a fee for as well, but I rationalized that we weren't picnicking or camping or hiking, and we weren't there all that long, perhaps 20 minutes. It's at this point on the drive up the Catalinas when the pine forests begin, a major contrast to the desert floor below. The temperature, according to the car, was 85 degrees.
.

Alert for signs of wildlife, the dogs are on the hunt.

Well, I heard lots of birds in the tall trees, and a little distant scrabbling that could have been a ground squirrel, perhaps something a bit larger. But the only living creatures we saw were the flies the dogs were snapping at. Still, they had a good time sniffing all the interesting smells, and Cayenne insisted that the grass up there made mighty fine eatin'.

A very different wash (dry creek bed).

At the back of that particular picnic area, just before the steep hill, is a wash that looks very different from the ones in town. The rocks are pretty much the same, but it's not broken up with imported sand or slabs of concrete, or half-ruined with illegally dumped trash. The vegetation surrounding it is very different, of course, and you can't see far along it in either direction as it curves its way down the mountain.

Bear Canyon does in fact have the occasional bear sighting, but in 23 years of visits to the Catalinas I've yet to see one. Just as well, really. John would prefer that the dogs not encounter so much as a rock squirrel, in case it turns out to be rabid.

Babad Do'Ag, overlooking the city at dusk.

On the way down the mountain, we stopped at Babad Do'Ag anyway, to catch the end of sunset and the beginning of dusk. It was 8 PM as we left. The dogs did more energetic sniffing, and even I could smell that a wild animal had visited, namely a skunk. There are four species of skunks in Southern AZ, if I recall correctly, but I haven't seen one in years and years. And when I did, nothing bad happened. So there.

Karen