Things That Move...

Startled a buzzard the other day. I was taking my morning constitutional and had to detour across the street because this suburbanite was getting his pool pumped out at 8 a.m. and the pool pumpers had run a hose (we're talking 5-6 inch diameter flexible accordion hose here) from the backyard out to the street where they were recreating the original pool only 3 inches deep and a lot wider. As I moved along the shoreline, a dark shape jumped from the grass and launched itself in that long, slow, shallow awkward ascent typical of large birds, bombers and jumbo jets. It was a good hundred feet down the road before it was able to clear the roofline of a stucco ranch and disappear on the other side. Ungainly, with a long neck, so not a hawk despite the five foot wingspan. I'd seen vultures feeding on roadkill on previous trips (they'll step aside to let a car pass, but won't abandon their prize). I didn't see anything for it to feed on but I didn't exactly search the grass either.

Speaking of vultures, it's a little unnerving to be walking along, noting the occasional hawk/vulture float overhead and disappear, wonder where they disappear to, turn around and realize you're being followed by two dozen of the things. A couple days ago I looked straight up after losing track of a couple of them and found myself at the bottom of a swirling vortex of raptors/scavengers at least 500 feet high. Must have been thirty of them. Toto at the base of a bird tornado. Now I know how Tippi Hedren felt.

Speaking of big ungainly birds, I drove up to the mythical town of Cocoa Beach (geezer reference) to watch the last night-time launch of the space shuttle. Ever since the moon landings we have been slowly cutting back our goals, dreams and capabilities with regard to manned space flight to the point where we can barely get 200 miles above the surface of the planet with rickety technology we will now retire not having any replacement in hand. Needless to say, NASA did not disappoint: five minutes before blast-off they cancelled the launch leaving tens of thousands of us stranded on the beach out in the cold (literally). It succeeded as metaphor, if nothing else.

It took over five hours for traffic to clear out enough to drive home. I took back roads pretty much the whole way, around the north of Lake Okeechobee, a pleasant, flat drive through subtropical forest, farm fields and cattle pastures with occasional clumps of small identical standardized 1940s-era plastered-cinder-block ranch houses each with a broken front window, kitchen appliance in the front yard, and late model vehicle (SUV or truck) in the dirt driveway. Probably built for migrant labor originally, there'd be a half-dozen of them at one spot and then miles before the next bunch. Nothing that could be called a town for forty miles in any direction.

Speaking of the ragged edge of civilization, my eldest nephew called the other day. He's being sent to Iraq. To guard prisoners. Which is perfect military logic because not only is he in the Navy, he spent the first half of his career in Hawaii as a nuclear tech on a submarine and the second half in Charelston, SC teaching nuke tech. I say we send all of our people with nuclear skills and knowledge to Middle Eastern war zones. What could possibly go wrong? Anyway, he starts 90 days of either Army or Marine combat training next month and then Baghdad for nine months. The younger nephew is probably jealous. He's been to the Gulf a couple of times but never been off his ship (that I know of).

Food for Dreaming

So...what sort of psychotic whacko has dreams about containers full of uranium hexaflouride gas? It was maybe a ten gallon plastic container, poorly wrapped for shipment in brown paper and packing tape. It wasn't mine--don't know who it belonged to--but I knew it would never make it in one piece, so I tore the wrappings off, in the process accidentally pushing a button that released a dose of the radioactive gas which I inhaled although I tried not to. Accepting that I might have taken in enough to cause lung cancer at some future point I, and someone I could not see who was in protective clothing, spent a lot of time and energy without much success trying to construct a container made of wood and plastic, much larger and sturdier than the wrapping paper someone had tried to use before.

Then I woke up.

My clock radio goes off at 6 and runs til 8 but I woke to silence having overslept both the BBC World News and an hour of Morning Edtion, I think because I was tossing and worrying all night long. Mom had another day of zero energy. They don't happen often (this was the third since I've been down here) but when they do it seems like she's ready to just give up. Usually, she not only eats right but insists on doing the cooking. These last couple of days she's only been interested in soup.

Last time this happened, I fixed some home-made sausage & peppers with a side of penne and a salad. I asked if she'd like a glass of wine to go with that and she said "Oh, that would be very nice," so we split a flinty little shiraz. She then asked if she could have seconds (of the entree not the wine) and I said "Of course." She then totally surprized me by accepting an offer of ice cream for dessert ("Well, if I'd known there was mint chocolate chip...").

I am amazed how many calories it takes to keep an old lady functioning.

This morning, before my (late) walk, I asked if she was feeling better and she said "Yes," but without a lot of enthusiasm. After I got home however, she chopped walnuts, mashed a banana and made banana bread, so I'm hoping things are better now for a while.

I'm going to take a nap before I eat my banana bread. In the meantime, if any of you heard a report this morning (Friday 2/5) on NPR (BBC or Morning Edition) about uranium hexaflouride, please let me know. I really hope that was just subliminal suggestion from the radio and not my own brain doing that.