Postcards From the Edge

When Jim's college roommate, Dave, was in Colorado two weeks ago, he wanted to take the cog railway from Manitou Springs to the summit of Pike's Peak. Snobbish Colorado transplants that we've become, we thought it sounded a titch touristy (God forbid!), but we try to oblige visiting friends and family.

It proved to be the a wise decision: The road to Pike's Peak has no guardrails. Zip, zero, nada. (Note to my brother: No wonder Mom was livid when you and Mike D. swiped the car and drove up Pike's Peak during the debate tournament trip.) It was much easier to enjoy the scenery when none of us had to concentrate on driving, or, in my case, praying that Jim wouldn't launch the car over the edge. (After 18 months on mountain roads, he's become off-handed about switchbacks.)

Curiously, our alma mater was well represented on top of the world. Dave wore a Michigan baseball cap; I had on a UM sweatshirt. Two of the three people in the seats facing us on the train--seats that are reserved, by the way, so it wasn't our Wolverine regalia that caused them to sit with us--were Michigan grads; we chatted about the football team and swapped stories of running the Dexter-Ann Arbor race. And, rather wonderfully, at the summit, there was a little Wolverine theater of the absurd playing out as a guy in a UM t-shirt and cap showed the sights to his pal in a gorilla suit.

Pictures: http://picasaweb.google.com/Katharine.Gillette/PikeSPeak. Wolverine and gorilla shots courtesy of Dave.

Fire on the mountain

It's hard to convey to our friends and family in Great Lakes states (water, water everywhere) how the possibility of forest fires weighs on the minds of Westerners. The current level of fire risk is posted on roads and trailheads all over the mountains; we pay more attention to it than to the terrorism threat level.

In the 17 months we've lived in Colorado, the state hasn't had anything like the California fires near Jill's house earlier this summer. So we felt uneasy yesterday when we saw a fire burning near the wooded area we had planned to hike through late in the day. Open space being plentiful here, we opted to hike on a mesa farther from the fire, but we could still see the smoke across the plains.

Oddly, the fire didn't seem to bother the herd of cattle and the colony of prairie dogs—including a fellow so relaxed he was stretched across the opening to his burrow, just watching the humans and cows parade by—sharing the open space with us.

We found out later in the evening that the animals' nonchalance was justified: the fire was a "controlled burn" designed to prevent an inferno like that in California. The news made us feel less guilty for enjoying the fire-enhanced evening sky, which looked ready to open up to a choir of the heavenly host.

books. dogs. life is good.

During the years of our black and white feline sisters, Thelma and Louise, I owned a T-shirt and a tote bag with this Edward Gorey image:

Above the image were the words, "books. cats." Below the image, "life is good."

Despite continuing unemployment and assorted other stresses, today's T-shirt would be similar, but with a canine focus. Books, mostly from the Jefferson County Library, continue to make me happy. In the past few weeks, I've had a particularly splendid run of "good reads," as we used to call them at NPL: The Little Book by Edward Selden, a novel of time travel with remarkable twists, and In the Woods and The Image, psychological mysteries by Irish author Tana French. (Thanks to my sister-in-law Wendy for introducing me to Ms. French's work.)

Although there are no longer cats in our lives, we still have our just-turned-13-years-old Hana here at home. And, on the days when I am at the animal shelter, a constantly changing cast of dogs reminds me that grace and a sense of humor are possible even in the grimmest of situations. Below is Tiger Lily, my current favorite, whose ear-to-ear doggie grin is completely contagious. The shelter calls her a Staffordshire Bull Terrier (aka pit bull) mix, but because of her ears and her diminutive size (relative to most of our pits), I tell her that she's just a big-boned French Bulldog.

Photo: © 2009 TMAC

Question of the day

If you knew that, after leaving your job to move to Europe for 14 months, you wouldn't find employment when you returned, would you still get on that plane for Brussels?

View through a September downpour

Golden Gate Canyon State Park, 9.6.09

Aye Chihuahua

There must be something about our neighborhood that makes dogs want to climb out second-story windows onto the roof. (A better view of the mountains, perhaps?) Last year it was Miss Lily, the basset hound across the street, this week it was the chihuahua several houses down.

We grew a cat!

When the hail storm damaged or killed many of our potted annuals earlier this summer, we couldn't really afford to replace them. Some, like the snapdragons, managed to partially recover. Others, like the three fuchsia plants I put out to attract hummingbirds, did not. I pulled them up and left the pots empty.

So I was quite pleased when I glanced out the kitchen window Sunday morning and discovered a huge ginger cat lounging in one of the empty planters.