Camelot, North Carolina

Re: Huler, Scott, "NC Considers Making Sea Level Rise Illegal," Scientific American Blogs, May 30, 2012, accessed May 30, 2012, 9:00 p.m. CDT (http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/plugged-in/2012/05/30/nc-makes-sea-level-rise-illegal/).


                              CAMELOT

                  (Lyrics by Allen Jay Lerner)

          It's true! It's true! The crown has made it clear.
          The climate must be perfect all the year.

          A law was made a distant moon ago here:
          July and August cannot be too hot.
          And there's a legal limit to the snow here
          In Camelot.
          The winter is forbidden till December
          And exits March the second on the dot.
          By order, summer lingers through September
          In Camelot.

          Camelot! Camelot!
          I know it sounds a bit bizarre,
          But in Camelot, Camelot
          That's how conditions are.
          The rain may never fall till after sundown.
          By eight, the morning fog must disappear.
          In short, there's simply not
          A more congenial spot
          For happily-ever-aftering than here
          In Camelot.

          Camelot! Camelot!
          I know it gives a person pause,
          But in Camelot, Camelot
          Those are the legal laws.
          The snow may never slush upon the hillside.
          By nine p.m. the moonlight must appear.
          In short, there's simply not
          A more congenial spot
          For happily-ever-aftering than here
          In Camelot.

"Ooooh, Sticks!"

Some people like to take casual strolls in Milwaukee's lovely parks and along its waterways. Others go for a jog near Bradford Beach at the Lake Michigan shoreline. Civic-minded volunteers pick up trash and litter in public areas, working together toward the laudable goal of urban beautification.

My Beloved Spousal Unit and I pick up sticks.

Not just any sticks; dead sticks. Burnable sticks. Burnable-in-the-fireplace sticks. Burnable-so-that-even-a-former-Boy-Scout-who-never-made-Second-Class-can-start-a-fire-with-two-matches sticks.

Last winter was our first season as domestic fireplace operators. Our large firewood supply held out fine, but we ran out of sticks. They sell firewood by the face cord; who sells sticks? So, we fetch sticks.

The other day I voted in the Primaries. On my half-mile walk to the polling place, I saw an eight-foot fallen branch, an inch-and-a-half or so in diameter, the late mother-limb of several baby limbs of useful dimension, sitting at the side of the road; an obvious casualty of the prior evening's thunderstorms. A veritable treasure-trove of sticks -- for free! -- merely three blocks up from our place.

The calculations began: If I pass it by, walk the three remaining blocks to vote, and walk back, will the branch still be there? Should I haul the branch home first, and then restart my trek -- a gambit which might tempt this proud but lazy citizen to say the hell with voting? Or do I claim the branch, drag it to the polling station, leave it outside with the slogan-sign mules and pamphleteers -- they'll surely know better than to mess with a branch-wielding loony, won't they? -- and then drag it all the way back home? This is how the branch-addict thinks.

I'm not sure who was more thrilled: I, when I saw that my branch was still waiting for me on the way back, or my Beloved Spousal Unit, when she saw that I'd actually performed a useful act of hunting and gathering.

          When a poor man came in sight,
          Gath'ring winter fue-ue-el!

I asked a timber-owning friend, The Tin Woodsman of Upstate N.Y., whether my wonderful branch and its many sublime sub-limbs would air-dry in time to use in our fireplace this season. Taking pity, he provided remedial education: "Some species such as oak take more time to dry because of their grain (xylem cell) structure, beech is fairly fast drying, and maple is sort-of average." He further advised me, in a kind voice -- or would have, had he not been responding via email -- that my splendid prize, which I'd spent a highly inefficient 45 minutes dismembering and cutting to length with a dull pruning saw, "may not amount to much volume."

Hmmph, I thought. The Tin Woodsman may know his xylem and phloem, but I say he knows nada about sticks.

Today, the autumn wind is howling. Returning from errands, my Beloved Spousal Unit and I stepped out of the Silver Zloty in front of our home. Instantly, our eyes fell upon a cornucopia of future kindling on the street and sidewalk. "Ooooh, sticks!" said the two highly-educated professionals, in unison. We can hardly wait for the first ice storm of the season.

The General Election is a month-and-a-half away. In six weeks, I'll walk six blocks to vote for the candidate who promises us the most sticks.

Earth Day

Every person that you've ever known who is not, at this moment, either in outer space, flying, soaring, jumping, skipping, leaping, vaulting, performing a handspring, diving, falling, or dead is, at this moment, somewhere on the Earth.

Happy Earth Day.

Fescue Me

The NBC and ESPN announcers covering the U.S. Open golf tournament have become enamored of using the word "fescue" to mean "any kind of tall grass that swallows your chances".

There's apparently a lot of fescue at Bethpage. Watching the broadcast has been like the Antiques Roadshow drinking game episode of Frasier in which Frasier and his dad raise a glass every time someone says "veneer".

          The golfers must rescue
          Their balls from the fescue.

Miscue? Fescue!

Turns out, fescue includes over 300 species from the genus Festuca.

There's Red Fescue, Green Fescue, Blue Fescue, and Grey Fescue.

There's Northern Fescue, Western Fescue, Arizona Fescue, Idaho Fescue, California Fescue, and Coast Fescue. Fescue can be Rough, Bearded, Tufted, Rush-leaved, Various-leaved, or Viviparous.

There's Alpine Fescue, Arctic Fescue, and Atlas Fescue, not to mention Crinkleawn Fescue and Wood Fescue.

Don't forget Sheep's Fescue, Fine-leaved Sheep's Fescue, Fescue Tussock, Alpine Fescue Tussock, Chewing's Fescue, Alpine Chewing's Fescue, and East Alpine Violet Fescue.

          So, don't be crass
          If you land in the grass --
          The golf course will test you
          If you hit from the fescue!

"Peanuts! Get Yer Peanuts!"

My beloved spousal unit and I drove out for errands today in the Silver Zloty. Upon parking, we noticed a certain hot smell. Uh oh. "The car in front of us?" she said, hopefully. "Cracked exhaust system?" I thought, ruefully. "$800?" both of us thought, recalling the universal applicability of Wait's Laws.

Neither of us expected to see what I found upon opening the hood: three or four handfuls of peanuts in the shell sitting in two or three locations atop our hot car engine. Roasting.

We usually park near a row of trees, home to multitudinous birds, rabbits, and other fauna. Also nearby, our neighbor often scatters birdseed, bread crusts, and, we now know, peanuts. It seems the early squirrel gets the nut -- and also knows where to put it.

Coyote Waits

We've enjoyed our living situation since moving to Colorado, even while still in transition. We're lodging in a second-floor, west-facing studio room that opens to the outdoors, with magnificent views of the Front Range on the horizon. The snowcapped peaks behind the darker hues of the lower ridges provide a spectacular contrast. Wildlife is evident in the open field next door, which used to be a Par 3 golf course; from the yips of coyotes at night and the multitudinous rabbits upon which they munch, to a large Cooper's hawk that swoops and dives around, to huge squirrels, as big as small cats.

Walking around a nearby park two days ago, replete with geese (watch your step!), we saw our first coyote in person, a large one, being chased out of an adjacent yard by a territorial dog guarding its McMansion-sized house. It rested under a tree, barely taking notice of us as we walked away swiftly, looking over our shoulders.

All this within a mile of the Denver Tech Center, and walking distance to the RTD light rail. We may be in compact quarters in our temporary residence, but there are most definitely compensating factors.

A Different Look

"The thing about the Redskins' defense is, they give you a different look every time," said John Madden on the NFL game broadcast.

Not long afterward, I started to notice other things that give you a different look every time.

On Christmas morning, the Yule log in the fireplace gives a different look every time we stop smiling at each other long enough to catch a glimpse of it. (Never mind that it's a video loop on our TV screen.)

Seen from Bradford Beach in Milwaukee, Lake Michigan can look indescribably brilliant or exceedingly gray. The water can be a shocking deep blue or a muddy brown, placid or choppy, rippling or white-capped, roaring or calm. The shoreline can be a seagull's paradise or caked with ice, the beach a haven for sunbathers or a foreboding no-man's-land of storm fences. The sky over the horizon can be featureless or filled with cottony clouds, wispy cirrus clouds, or thunderstorms, sometimes minutes apart. Sometimes you can't even see the horizon.

Lake Michigan gives you a different look every time.

Here in Denver, it's the Front Range of the Rockies that gives you a different look, its alternately snowcapped and barren black and purple peaks changing both daily and with the seasons under spectacular violet, pink, red, yellow, and blaze-orange cloud formations that reach to the high sky.

In New York, it's the Hudson and East Rivers, flowing under commuter bridges to New York Harbor. In Boston, it's skulls being rowed on the Charles River; up by Dartmouth, it's the Connecticut River; near my Upstate New York hometown, it's the Mohawk River; all changing constantly, always the same. "All-ll this time/The river flowed", as Sting's song lyric puts it. The rivers give you a different look every time.

In Washington, D.C., lots of things give you a different look every time. The stately Potomac River; the reflections of the monuments off the Tidal Pool; the exhibits at the Smithsonian; the ballroom dancers at Glen Echo Park; the insane traffic patterns around Crystal City; the crystal lattice that forms from the branches and twigs in Rock Creek Park after an ice storm.

From January 20th forward, the White House will give us a different look, too. It's about time.

A Walk in the Park

It's a privilege for a weekend duffer like myself to play the Brown Deer Golf Course, a tree-lined county course that serves as home to the PGA Greater Milwaukee Open (or whatever it's called this year).

Once a season, I would stray from the municipal goat tracks that are more suitable to my well-hidden skills and treat myself to eighteen at Brown Deer. A final exam, as it were, that would almost assuredly result in my having to repeat the grade.

Not that that's a problem. My philosophy of playing golf is more Parks and Recreation than Competition. I love walking on a lawn that somebody else has mowed. Grouped by the starter in a foursome with three Brown Deer regulars, however, I became aware that my amateur-hour, isn't-this-a-nice-day approach wasn't shared by my low handicap partners.

One competitive business type, not even trying to relax on his day off, strode up to the tee box on a particularly picturesque hole. The scene: a beautiful, sunny day; lovely, lush shade trees; green grass; decorative flowerbeds; a challenging water hazard. Canada geese waddling across the fairway. A perfect natural setting in a gorgeous public park. Lucky-to-be-alive gorgeous.

Oblivious to it all, Pinhead executed a low, straight drive, scattering the geese. Pinhead's next words: "I don't know why they have those geese here. They don't add anything to the course."

Sometimes, there's nothing you can say. Factually, I'm pretty sure he was incorrect. In any case, I really hope he stepped in some ecology during his red-assed trek around the park.