Sunset monsoon photos

...so many things swimming around in my head since the last posting,
but before words, pictures. (click on them for a larger image)

And to preface the photos, a few words:
This afternoon my wife and I decided to drive up the Catalina Highway--the local cliché holds true: 'thirty miles, thirty degrees cooler.' We had a late-afternoon picnic in the shade of pines at 9000 feet, almost chilly in the 67-degree air. (That's the coolest we've been since we arrived here in early July!)

On the way down, just before the highway heads off the foothills, we stopped at a scenic overlook, since it was just about sunset...
...and this is what we saw, pretty enough, clouds to the SW of Tucson, over the Tucson Mountains:

To the left of the saguaros in the above photo, you can see where the clouds are a bit thicker.
Just a few minutes after taking that picture, those clouds began to leak a tiny stream of rain:

...and it grew into a few more wispy strands of a distant shower:
...and then it really began to pour:
Now that is indeed an 'isolated, localized' rainstorm, eh?We stuck around to watch the sunset-storm panorama for about a half-hour.

When I turned around, I was treated to this pastel-moon-rise:

...ahh, the desert sky can be like a drug...

...not that I would know...

...and just as we pulled out to drive back down into town, we noticed the scene below. (The photo's blurry since I was trying to snap the shot from the driver's seat before the clouds moved.)

...hmmm...gives the feeling of being watched, no?

Clouds and mountains in Arizona--never dull.

...current afterthoughts...

After posting the monsoon-photos I just uploaded, (in the 'sunset monsoon photos' posting) anything else feels like a letdown...but here a few more everyday photos, accompanied by thoughts just as mundane..but hey--when you have moved to a new place, even the prosaic is new, so...that's what blogs are for...

I've gone from Rainier-vision in our living-room in WA to Catalina-vision as I look out the window from my desk (when I'm sitting there, which is rarely) at work:

About a 1/2-mile away from there is the Tucson botanical garden, where I met my wife one HOT afternoon this past week after work. Surprising, though, how after living here for several weeks, we now feel 'cool' in the shade even on a 100-degree afternoon...

All throughout Tucson, since we got here, we've noticed the 'Mexican red bird of paradise' plants in bloom. When we lived in Nicargua, we saw them too, but didn't know the name...

...also at the Botanical garden, there is an example of a 'cristate Saguaro,' a mutation that occurs in about 1 in 100,000 cacti! Botanists are not completely sure why this happens--it could be a lightning strike, an 'impact injury' when the cactus is young...This is only the second one we've seen in our outings in and around the city:

A couple of weeks ago, just before the start of the school-year, we drove out west of the city, to catch a sunset at Gates Pass:

Now with the school-year underway, mid-week sunset-viewing drives will be a rarity...

One little detail about my new workplace that makes me smile is the manner in which many students address me.
About half of the students in this school are Hispanic, and they very earnestly call me "MEES-ter."
Not "Profe" or "MEES-ter my-last-name;" just "MEES-ter." Slowly, though, they are coming around to using "Monsieur." Poco a poco...

The socioeconomic setting of this urban school is a world apart from the semi-rural/suburban district I just moved from, where 90 percent are 'pan blanco,' compared with here--about 50 percent 'tortilla.' Add in the refugee population, and there are a whopping FORTY-SEVEN languages spoken in the homes of the students! Challenges, of course, but never a dull moment...

On my way home, I pass a little Asian market--alas, not the weird-snack-food-and-cheap-produce-paradise of H-mart--but it has the essentials: all flavors of ramen and udon, dried squid strips, fresh California rolls (kimbop) on Thursdays and Fridays, etc. etc...
...and, to my Engrish-lover's delight, whimsically-labeled candy, such as this:


Feeling crunky? Eat some chocolate...

---

Since I am a language teacher, I enjoyed this cartoon:


Yes, we are all human, and gestures can get you far...but sometimes not far enough, eh?
Achtung...Cuidado...Attention...Jo-shim-hae!!

---

I'm enjoying my new work environment as far as the students go...
I am not enjoying my new work environment as far as the bureaucracy goes...
...because nothing seems to get very far fast enough in a large organization.
There is much talk in the education-world today of 'smaller learning communities'--yay! Yes, we need to not have our adolescents channeled through institutions so huge that they become 'anonymous.' So let's break up our large schools into smaller 'communities' where students are 'known' and things are relevant for them....
...BUT, at the same time, maybe we should be applying this principle to the bureaucracy of large districts, where too often people make decisions without being in touch with reality---and then they can hide in their maze of 'central district offices,' anonymous from those who live with the consequences of their ineptitude.
No--I'm not bitter, and in all seriousness, things haven't been that bad...but I DO sense the world of difference coming from a small district, where accountability has a face on it, to a large district where incompetence hides in cubicles.
And so, the following comic strips really 'spoke' to me this past week:


And I guess that's how I'll end this posting, as negative as it may seem...

The sun also rises...and the cacti will bloom again!

Thoughts on a 'humid' Tucson night.

When the humidity here in southern AZ climbs above 25%, people start complaining about how 'muggy' it is.
But back east--whether you're in Boston or Savannah, on an August midnight when it's still in the 80's and the humidity is above 80% as well--now THAT's ' humidity.' Oh, and the Pacific Coast of Nicaragua from May to November? Ay...Gimme Tucson anytime...

And so here we are, parrots asleep, ceiling fans humming.

July 2007 turned out to be one of the three wettest months ever recorded in Tucson--a whopping six inches of precipitation! A 'wet' desert indeed...The dry 'washes' have turned into 'rivers' worthy of the name...for a few days or weeks, at least, before they become sun-baked ditches again...
...and so things are greening, as the photo below of nearby Sabino canyon shows:
(and it's only a 15 minute drive from where we live!!)

(click on any of the photos for a larger view...it 'usually' works...)

Beauty and greenery recorded on a digital camera notwithstanding, the Sonoran desert can be harsh.

It's a new and bizarre thing for me to live in a place where the local newspaper regularly has articles about bodies found in the desert--death from exposure, already nearing 200 just since January 2007!--almost all of them undocumented immigrants, 'illegals,' 'economic refugees,' call them what you will--they are people who have died while crossing the desert, looking for better-paying jobs, looking to join their husbands or wives living and working in the 'land of opportunity.'

I think this recent cartoon (from the Tucson Weekly) captures the heartbreaking irony well:

Radically different from the 'foundation myths' of Ellis Island, no?

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The other day, to take a welcome break from the endless unpacking and errand-running that accompany getting settled in a new city, we drove south down I-19--perhaps the only Interstate highway in the nation that has kilometer-signage instead of mile-markers--to Tumacácori (more in a future blog) and Tubac.

Tubac bills itself as the place 'where art and history meet.' I have to gag a bit on that p.r. schmooz-ese.
But it is a historic place full of art galleries; there you have it. There we went.

We stopped in a rug gallery for a bit--looking to see Navajo and Hopi rugs, finding fabulous things from Oaxaca as well. We began talking with the gallery-employee, who quickly informed us that the gallery also carried many pieces from Iran, Afghanistan, etc...I 'joked' with her--"oh, all those -stan-countries in the 'Axis of Evil,' eh?"
She froze for a bit, not knowing if I was kidding. One should be careful these days...

At ease, she continued showing us things, even though she got the vibes that we are not currently in the market for heirloom-floor-coverings-from-despotic-lands. She didn't mind, she was very kind...We began talking about 'cross-pollination' of ideas and motifs in textiles throughout history and various cultures and religions, and how motifs change based on people's daily lives, etc. etc...and I mentioned I'd read an article about the 'war-rugs' that began appearing in Afghanistan during the Soviet-war back in the 1980's...

Well, lo and behold, she said, 'we have some of them!'
She went into the 'vault' (seriously, that's what it was) and pulled out some pieces for us to see, unfurling them on the floor at our feet. I felt like an anthropologist, walking on a flying carpet of historical documentation.
Yes, really, that's how it felt. ;-)

Here's one. At first it doesn't necessarily scream out 'war,' --you just see geometrical motifs, a 'link' motif on the outside edge representing prosperity, perhaps...but look closer, and you see that the 'tree-of-life' motifs on either side are divided by a red diagonal line full of a convoy of war vehicles; jeeps, hummers, etc...

(click on pictures for detail)

We were shown several more--including some from the post 9-11 era in which instead of the Soviets, the US and/or the UN are depicted--these I won't post for fear of being labeled a pro- or anti-war-propagandist, depending on one's view. (In hindsight, I do feel bad that I made the gallery-worker nervous by saying that the rugs came from the 'axis of evil countries'...) And with current legislative debate about governmental spying powers, well...

But here's another one: Again, a cursory glance might not make you think you're looking at a textile-testament of violence in wool, but in this rug, the tanks, grenades, helicopters, bombers, and missiles quickly assert themselves after a second viewing.

Crazy crazy world. Where are the flowers and antelope of yesteryear?

Then again, even a thousand years ago--in 'civiilized' Western Europe, we have the Bayeux tapestry recording the Norman Conquest. Wool or linen, Kalachnikovs or crossbows--the history we weave...

=====

Back to the atmosphere.

Last night, the local news replayed again and again video footage of a funnel-cloud sighted south of Tucson, in Sierra Vista, my erstwhile childhood 'hometown' of three years. Tornadoes are very very rare in Arizona. Gracias a Dios. (Ah, how the weather always makes the news...) A few weeks ago, right after we moved here and the monsoons first began, one afternoon, I saw this from our front yard--not a funnel cloud, but definitely not kite-flying weather:

And then, just a few days later, after grocery-shopping...cliché, cliché, yes, it screams, but to drive home and see the rainbow ending precisely over 'home,' with a weeks' worth of food...not bad:

The rainbow-motif continues in the blog, I guess, after last year's posting...

Utility bills, (shocking as they may be) are presently beginning to arrive at our rainbow's end...so--we truly are 'home' in Tucson, now...

==============

And living here now, we're getting to know the street names.

Spanish, Spanglish and 'Manglish' (My term for mangled spanglish) abound in the local toponymy. A local columnist recently wrote about it. (THIS is the link to the column--WORTH reading! It's banal title: "Some street names in Spanish are ridiculous")

Just the other day, we drove by "Calle Sin Nombre." Oh, to live where the streets have no name--you too (ahem) can do so...'Rancho sin vacas' is the name of a development--Oh yeah--I live north of the "Rillito River" (which means 'little river river') in that cow-less-ranch place...One neighborhood is full of virtue, since some of the streets are named "Calle sin pecado" (sin-less street) and "Calle sin envidia" (street without envy). And okay--we all know a San precedes a guy's name--as in SAN Diego, or SAN Francisco--and that Santa precedes a female name or noun, as in Santa Fe or Santa Anna. (So...why is it 'Santa' Claus in English, hmm...)But here in Tucson there is a 'confused' 'San Anna' street...and also a place that is Santa 'FEE'...Hmm...

Since 1987, however, the county has had a polcy requiring Spanish street names to be reviewed by a qualified Spanish-speaking interpreter--a bit of local linguistic idiosyncracy bureaucratized away...Gracias to los rubber stampedos...

Back on-line...Photos...

Tonight, we finally have a home-phone-line again...
...and along with that, access to the Internet. So no more balancing a laptop at a cafe table in a free wi-fi coffee-shop...'Free' gets expensive when you have to buy 4-dollar lattes...

The moving-company said it should be another five or six days before our things arrive.
(They definitely have themselves covered by giving themselves a 21-day window for delivery in the contract.)

We're so glad we brought a small box of kitchen-basics with us in the car: a pot, a pan, a can opener...so we can at least cook...
We're sleeping on an air mattress. We found a bistro-table-and-two-uncomfortable-chairs-meant-for-the-patio-not-as-indoor-furniture. So we can at least eat off the floor. Well, not literally 'off the floor.' You know what we mean.
That's it for furniture.

Tomorrow makes it a week already that we're here...
Yesterday and today we had our first true monsoon-storms in our part of the valley. After the thunderstorms, it's a good thirty degrees cooler!

So, for those of you who are curious, here are a few photos of where we live now.
No more views of Mt. Rainier. (hélas...)

(you can double-click on the photos for a larger view)

First, then--our little street, with an arrow pointing to our townhouse.
We're so thankful for covered parking--no need to get 2nd-degree burns from your sun-exposed steering wheel...And I love looking at palm trees...on 'our' street! Gambel quail and mourning doves run across the pavement almost every morning, along with the occasional jackrabbit...



...the POOL! with a view of the Santa Catalina montains beyond the palo verde trees! and almost no one else uses it! and it's right next door! (sorry for all the exclamation points, but come on--we can't help being excited!)


Here's our little front patio. We've had hummingbirds every morning--southern Arizona is one of the 'hummingbird capitals' of the birding-world, evidently...

And here are the beginnings of a 'garden'...a tomato plant, basil, a jalapeño, some mint, lavender, rosemary, geraniums, thyme, oregano...it's too hot right now for cilantro, but we almost have the makings for salsa...

And on the side, we have a lemon and an orange-tree--our neighbor said that our orange tree produces good fruit--just have to make sure to water it if you want juicy citrus--should be ready in September, and if the winter is not too cold, there's another crop in March!

...looking out our front door...

And lastly, I had to include our last photo taken from the balcony of our place in WA, the night before we moved--our last Rainier sunset, July 3rd, 2007...

...desert mountain sunsets to come...

48 hours.

We've been here for 48 hours now.
No phone at home yet, so we found a café with free wi-fi--a nice break from the endless errand-running--toilet paper, a tomato plant for our little yard (!), plates to eat on, etc. etc...

We've been surprised by how green Tucson is in mid-summer. The high today will only be 95--nice for us, since the week before we arrived, it was up to 110...

So...to re-cap the road-trip up to this past Tuesday when we got to Tucson...

Sunday morning, when I last wrote, we were just about to go to the Steinbeck museum in Salinas. Appropriately enough for farming/wine country, there was a little wine-tasting in the lobby. The museum reminded me of how much I loved reading Steinbeck as a high-school student, and how much I have yet to read...
But knowing how much Steinbeck cared about public issues, I wonder what he would be writing about today--instead of chronicling the odyssey of the Joad family in search of work in California, would he be writing of the Jiménez family in search of work north of the border?
Truly--'las uvas de la ira'...

From Salinas, a drive through seemingly endless fields and vineyards, southward, stopping for lunch in the small town of Soledad. In a strip-mall off Highway 101, we found a place serving a weekend-special of 'birria'--Mexican goat-stew! mmm-mmm. A few miles away, we stopped for a few minutes at the restored Soledad mission--one of the smaller missions set up in the 1780's, now surrounded by a rose-garden, olive grove, and parallel rows of lettuce leading to the vineyars on the hillsides beyond...

That night, we stayed in Solvang--the kitschy-but-not-too-tacky 'Danish' town at the head of the Santa Ynez valley wine-country. I wonder how many of these 'European' theme-towns exist in the States? Leavenworth, WA...Helen, GA...what else? The country road from Solvang back to the highway leads through an area called Los Olivos--very reminiscent in climate and landscape of the south of France...

Monday morning, then, we drove down the Santa Ynez valley, and then up and into fogs and clouds before descending into Santa Barbara and heading towards San Diego. After seemingly endless 12-lane interstates full of aggression in L.A. and Long Beach, we took a break at the San Juan Capistrano mission--it's built right in the middle of town, so it's surreal to be in a garden planted in the 1770's and look beyond the wall at a Starbucks sign. The mission is famous for its resident swallows that return to nest, almost on schedule, every year, from their migrations to Argentina...Also, it was the first place on the West Coast where the first grapes were planted, where metal was smelted--up until then California was literally still a Stone Age society...so much can change in just two centures...

Monday evening--dinner with old friends in San Diego (thank you thank you thank you, J. & M!) and a few hours of sleep before heading on the road at 4 a.m. Tuesday to cross the desert before it got too hot.

The mountains east of San Diego are a dreamscape of huge boulders piled by titan forces who knows when or how...Then you head to below sea-level at El Centro, where we breakfasted at a completely Spanish-speaking Denny's...Over through Yuma, and several border-patrol roadblocks on the freeway (strange to be driving on the 'freeway' and be stopped multiple times).

About a third of the way between Yuma and Tucson, on I-10, is a tourist-trap called Dateland, named, appropriately enough, for a grove of palms planted back in the 1920's. "World-famous date milkshakes" the signs proclaim for miles...Downright tasty! Totally worth the stop...
While we took a stretching break, sipping on the shake under the shade of the date-palms, we heard birds--and we realized that they're the same as the birds that woke us up like clockwork in Nicaragua! "Zanates" or "great-tailed grackles"...music of 'home' now...

Last night, we finally were able to take advantage of the pool and hot-tub adjacent to our townhome. Because it's a quiet private neighborhood, and the pool access is only for the residents of our small complex, we had the place to ourselves! To look up at the first twilight stars, with summer lightning flashing far to the northeast, beyond the Santa Catalina mountains, while alternately soaking in cool and hot--so so relaxing, and such a realization--we LIVE here now--not on vacation, not going to be on the road all day to sleep in another motel, our birds no longer have to be tucked in the backseat of the car all-day--we're home!

1902 miles from last Wednesday, here we are.

In Salinas. Travels with...

If Steinbeck were alive today, would he have kept a blog?

I wonder this as I enjoy unexpected wi-fi in our motel room in this hometown of one of America's greatest writers...Would he have written 'Travels with Charley' on a laptop, his dog in a corner of the motel room?

I type this with our two little parrots in the room with us; Paquito is on my wife's shoulder as she packs up, and he's even tweeting 'are we there yet?'--no kidding, really, he just tweeted that...And Tango is contentedly eating his pellets in his cat-carrier-cum-bird-trailer.

But really, we're not weird bird people.

'Travels with Paquito and Tango.'

Yesterday evening, we drove across the Golden Gate bridge. My other driving-across-suspension-bridge experiences have been the Lions' Gate bridge in Vancouver BC and the Tacoma Narrows bridge in Tacoma WA. They seem like toys compared to San Francisco's orange icon. Wow.

Cold. The 40-degree temperature difference between Mendocino county, where we'd last gotten out of the car--it was 95--and the foggy windy viewpoint just past the bridge on the northern tip of San Francisco, where it was a damp 55--it takes your breath away. In the 'giftu shoppu' (the gift shop really really had that written on its outside sign--as a help for Asian tourists?), I ran into a Thai exchange student who'd spent the year at the high school where I just finished teaching back in suburban Seattle! Small world...then again, the Golden Gate is one of those iconic American landmarks that most tourists want to see, foreign or 'native'...

Earlier yesterday morning, we drove through some of the giant redwoods--trees up to the height of a 30-story skyscraper! And yes, we couldn't resist paying a few bucks to do the ubiquitous tourist-task: driving through a redwood tree. You can't not do it...And then later, standing on the windswept bluffs looking back at the Golden Gate Bridge, realizing that those trees would reach halfway up those towers--sobering reminder of how big nature can be, no matter how big our engineering might get as well...

Two days ago, while driving through southern Oregon, we say a hay-na-do.
Well, that's the best we could come up with, that word, to describe a dust-devil, but not a DUST-devil, but rather a circulating column of air full of tossed up hay! Surreal, to be coasting down I-5 and see a pillar of cut grass spiralling upward, and then to drive through it...

Rural northern California lives up to its image--a combination of loggers, eco-anti-loggers, 'medicinal'-marijuana users and plain-ol' potheads, urbanites on weekend excursions, dairy farmers, lots of facial hair and white people with dread-locks, and cold-hardy palms mixed in with the conifers...mile upon mile of almost deserted beaches with relentless frigid surf.

We had breakfast in a café on the main square in Arcata--palm trees and dahlias on the Victorian square. The community bulletin board is full of yoga ads, and my favorite--'play dragon tai ch'i for children.' No, I am not making this up.

In Eureka we stopped at "Los Bagels" where the 'open' sign specified 'se habla inglés!'
Mexican-Jewish kitsch for sale inside, along with 'kwasants' and 'chocolate kwasants.' Snacking on such, we came across a table with a heterogenous group of tie-clad men and boys and ladies in dresses...Who could they be, eh?...Yep--on a coffee-and-grub-break...
Instant amigos...
Fun to chat with them...

So, time to sign off, put the birdies in the car. (It's been surprisingly easy to travel/move with them...)
And before heading down to Solvang and the Santa Ynez valley, we're going to go to the Steinbeck museum in downtown Salinas. The fog should burn off by late morning and it'll be a balmy 70...go just a few miles inland across the coastal range, and it'll be in the 100's...

That's all for today's weather report.

This was my first time using wi-fi.
Cool.

Itinerary of the move

A quick break from packing in order to print labels to stick on boxes...
While they're printing, then, a quick posting.

For those curious,
our itinerary:

Tomorrow, the 3rd of July
Movers come! It's a race against the clock tonight to have everything
wrapped, boxed, laundered, labeled...

Wed. July 4
After one last night in our apartment, sleeping on an air-mattress,
we'll clean up, put our parrots (Paquito has indeed begun saying
'are we there yet?'!) in their carriers and drive down a couple of hours
to say with my wife's sister and her husband in the Centralia area.

Thurs 5th
Centralia, WA to Eureka, CA--about 500 miles, around 9 hours driving...
stay in motel just north of Eureka, in Arcata

Friday 6th
Drive around Eureka, Redwoods National park etc...
one more Arcata motel evening...

Saturday 7th
Eureka to Salinas, about 375 miles, around 7 hours driving
stay in Salinas--Steinbeck country!
(If you've not yet read 'East of Eden'--find a copy and get to it this summer!! Incredible allegory
in the quintessential American setting of The Golden State at the turn of the last century...
I first read it in middle school--a bit over my head at the time, but has remained in my mind as definitely one
of the greatest American novels...)

Sunday 8th
Salinas to Solvang, about 200 miles, around 4 hours driving
stay in Solvang--a kitschy yet authentic Scandinavian town
just NW of Santa Barbara--founded by Danish immigrants fleeing
the intemperate Midwest in the early 20th century...reputed to have the best pastries
in California, along with the Nordic-architecture in a Mediterranean climate, at the head of the
Santa Ynez valley wine country...

Monday 9th
Solvang to San Diego, depending on LA traffic, around 4 hours
staying with amigos...sleep a few hours, then leave in the wee hours of the morning

Tuesday 10th
San Diego to Tucson, about 410 miles, around 6 hours
leave around 2 or 3 a.m., arrive around 8 or 9 a.m.?
The absurdly early departure is to get the drive done in the cool of the dark.
Yuma, AZ, about the half-way point between San Diego and Tucson,
is having 120 temperatures (!?) these days...

The 'monsoon' storms are supposed to start in southern Arizona next week, cooling Tucson down from around 110 to a chilly 95 or so...
...can't wait.

This will be my wife's first moving-road-trip.

When I was a kid, my parents moved from AZ to Georgia in a station-wagon and a pull-behind camper, stopping to see relatives on the way in the southern plains and in the upper midwest...
(We had also moved from Germany to AZ via plane--flying into Charleston, SC, but then that became a road-trip as well-- in my dad's little yellow VW bug across the south all the ay to Arizona, getting stuck in a blizzard in Odessa, TX...)

My move to Seattle 10 years ago was with suitcases on a plane--in the pre-9-11-days before strict weight limits...Our move to and back from Nicaragua was similarly via airline...So, this is something new...

Stuff is a burden.

Are we there yet?