First javelina sighting...and so far, no more muffin tops...

Week número uno of the new school-year has come and gone.

(Finished it with une bonne bière irlandaise: yep, a Guinness, draft, at "The Firkin & Friar" down the road...)

So far I've been pretty good about keeping my Buenos Diases and Bonjours straight;

we'll see how long that lasts as my foray into multi-language teaching continues...

A few evenings ago, we had our first javelina sighting at our new place--literally right outside our front door! Our next-door neighbor spotted them and called us, and we looked out our respective doors at the critters snorting and foraging in the sycamore leaves by the fountain...

I had just enough time to grab the camera and manage this blur, before the javelinas ran off:

The biggest of the lot must have stood thigh-high...
So, as our friends next door have said, when we arrive home at night, and we get out of our car,

we should be, not afraid, but 'aware, just be aware.'

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

So, how many years ago was it that 'muffin-top' entered colloquial American English?

(here's a definition:

...generally pejorative slang term used to describe the phenomenon of overhanging flesh when it spills over the waistline of pants or skirt in a manner that resembles the top of a muffin spilling over its paper casing. This generally occurs when an obese or overweight person wears low-rise, hip-hugger pants, or midriff-baring tops that are too small. However, this phenomenon can be seen even on a slim person if his or her pants or shorts are poorly fitted.--courtesy of http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muffin_top)

At any rate, thankfully, high-school fashion this year, at least in Tucson, is not really including or encouraging that regrettable phenomenon. It's nice to not have to enforce that aspect of school-dress-code...Moving on...

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

Basil--looks like we're not going to have it here...
The local birds and lizards and squirrels and bunnies leave the verbena, lavender and rosemary alone;

Thai and Italian basil, though, are their preferred snack-leaves.
After two months of living in our new place, then, we realize our patio-herbs will be limited...

But the cactus-flowers abound. August is peak time for fishhook-barrel-cactus blooms. This is our third summer here, but we still find them spectacular, these flame-bursts in the midst of pineapple-esque fruits:

...and up close, almost otherworldly...a 'land anemone'...(?)

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

...I finally looked up the word "firkin:"

Pronunciation: \ˈfər-kən\
Function: noun
Etymology: Middle English, ultimately from Middle Dutch veerdel fourth, from veer four; akin to Old English fēower
Date: 14th century
1 : a small wooden vessel or cask 2 : any of various British units of capacity usually equal to 1⁄4 barrel --http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/firkin

Now I know.

end of summer...diaspora map...

Tomorrow: back to work--staff meetings and classroom prep before the students return next Monday.
Adios, verano...

I've 'sold' some of my photos the past couple of days(!)--to a local bookshop,
a coffee shop, and a furniture/decor gallery. Well, I've not yet been paid,
but I showed my portfolio, and the business owners picked out which ones
they want me to return with; one store is going to sell them on consignment,
while another will actually pay me on delivery...
nothing big, but it might help pay for gas, eh?
(So, do I have to get a business license or something? I mean, just for a few bucks?
hmm...technical questions that demand answers...)

This morning's online newspaper reading led to some hyperlink-jumping, resulting in this find:



(map courtesy of the Joong-Ang Ilbo-linked blog: http://www.discoveringkorea.com/)

...me and maps...
so, this one shows the Korean 'diaspora'...
color-coded--cool, eh?
Who knew that Brazil had so many Koreans?
I mean, China and the US--duh--but South America? Germany?
I like that the map is in shades of red: the color of kimchi and so much of la cuisine coréenne...

The notion of diaspora--close to my heart...
a couple of factoids:
Did you know
--that there are more descendents of Irish immigrants
living in the US than there are Irish people living in Ireland?
--the number of Franco-Americans (Americans of French-Canadian
descent) is larger than the population of Québec?
--one percent of the population of Costa Rica is Chinese?

All over the place...

...fishing in the Sunday morning paper...

Ahh, the Sunday morning paper...leisurely coffee, birds singing outside...
and in the "Vamos" (weekly Sunday travel) section, the editors decided to publish various 'fishing' photos sent in by readers...and one of them was this one:

I took it a couple of years ago, in San Diego...
I thought of it as more of a 'sunset' photo
with a scenically incidental inclusion of an angler
being circled by some seagulls...

So, fun to be 'published' again...

Saw my third rattlesnake-in-the-wild the other morning, going for my morning run.
It was stretched-out, pole-straight and sluggish across the trail...
A cottontail rabbit hopped by, oblivious...
and finally after the serpent inched its way back into creosote underbrush,
I continued on my way, giving it wide berth...

My mother was here visiting--left a few days ago...seriously considering becoming a Tucsonan herself...perhaps in a year or two...while she was here, I finally (re)learned how to make some Korean dishes...interesting to look at Tucson again through the eyes of a potential resident (and through the lens of real-estate)...and gustatorily nostalgic to reconnect with foods of childhood...

Subtle? No, but...

A couple of weeks left in the school-year-summer...

So, before the back-to-work madness, a few cartoons gleaned from the paper recently:

First--'the benefits of social interaction:'

Not a complete justification for home-schooling, but hey...

(...and did I mention I'm grateful to have a job!?)

And then, this morning's Tucson paper printed a cartoon

from Augusta, GA

Sad. So sad. Skool...

And finally:

I think I'll post this one by the pencil sharpener in my classroom.

Yes, kids still use those archaic things--not everyone has 'graduated' to mechanical pencils and pens.

Over the years I've collected and laminated quite a few cartoons, and it's always interesting to see the kids who 'get' them while sharpening their pencils--an informal way to 'assess' students...

This week--a temporary 'turning off' of Tucson's monsoon faucet--dry skies, 106 degrees today...

Afternoon thunderstorms should return by the weekend...

For our friends up in Seattle--hang in there--these unusual 90-degree-days you're having up there will be but a distant memory in a few weeks...(a reminder of why a/c is a necessity for those of us who live in warmer, southern latitudes...)

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

Another shot of our resident hawk, perching on the fountain outside our front door...

...a month later; back from 'back east,' back to a new home...

We've been back home for a week-and-a-half now, after spending a couple of weeks visiting friends and family in GA and the Carolinas...

And this is what greeted us on our first day back in Tucson:

...one of the 'resident hawks' at our new place, perched in a mesquite tree, staring in at us through our living room window...

...and then a couple of days later--the same guy (we think) cooling his talons in the fountain across from our front door. Moving while simultaneously planning and packing for a cross-country trip--not 'fun,' exactly, but it's been fun to come home to a new place. After a week-and-a-half back, we finally feel like we 'live' in our new place--all the boxes are put away, and we even have the guest room set up...

==================
So...the trip back east, starting with an out-the-airplane-window-photo--an aerial view of part of The Willcox playa, with the startlingly geometrical irrigated farm-fields nearby--about two hours east of Tucson:

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

...Augusta, GA:

(the right camera angle can make a ho-hum city look attractive, eh?)

It's the town where I finished elementary school and stayed through college, before moving out to Seattle...my parents had a house there, so when my father retired from the military, we ended up living here. (My father, having spent his New England childhood chopping wood and shoveling snow, swore he'd never live through severe winters again...)

Not a bad place--just not somewhere I felt 'at home;' we had no relatives there, and the 'boy, you ain't from here' vibe was something that was always just under the otherwise friendly-surface. When we moved there from southern Arizona, I missed the wide open spaces--I often thought, 'where's the sky?' So many trees, those hazy summer days, no far horizons, no mountains...no visible Milky Way at night...I knew that when I grew up, I'd head back out West...

The local press is always quick to point out that 'the metro area, center of the vibrant C.S.R.A. ("central Savannah River area"--prosaic regional moniker, no?) on the South Carolina border, is the second-largest city in Georgia.' Yes, true...but that's like comparing a salmon to a whale, the whale being Atlanta, THE city of the 'New South.'

No comparison, really.

Historic, with some beautiful architecture, but not quaintly preserved like Savannah or Charleston, Augusta is 'always on the cusp,' as a local freelance writer friend of mine said to me over lunch. Such potential...just never the collective wherewithal to progress as a great city...That being said, there are worse places. What keeps Augusta from being unbearably provincial (snob snob!) is the fact that it has a Medical university, a state university, and the nearby military base to keep just enough 'outside blood' (boy, you ain't from here, are you?) flowing into its piney woods...

It is pleasant enough, with some charming historic architecture, like the Victorian Cotton Exchange:

In its heydey, Augusta was the second-busiest inland cotton-trading port in the world, second only to Memphis, Tennessee...local farms would transport cotton (and other goods) here, from where it would go to sea and abroad via Savannah, down the river...

...and the forested residential neighborhoods are lovely; I guess living elsewhere for 12 years has given me a more appreciative eye...I used to drive by the above house every day when I was in college--not a huge place, nor particularly historic, this early 20th-century neo-Greek-revival house, but perfectly set into its landscape; I've wanted to snap a photo of it for years, and I finally did...

Over the past decade, the swampy forest just across from downtown, on the SC side, has been developed into riverfront luxury homes--private boat access, with a golf course on the other side...The New South's real estate version of paradise:

Up on "The Hill," the local state university is on the grounds of the Augusta Arsenal, which is the site of the first Confederate take-over of the Civil War. ('The south will rise again!'--The past is not dead in The South; locals only half-jokingly refer to the Civil War, not as 'the Civil War,' but as 'The War of Northern Agression'...) Not as famous as the events at Fort Sumter, in Charleston, where the first shots were fired--what happened here is that the local military officials resigned from the Union, and promptly claimed The Arsenal as Confederate property--a peaceful affair...

The Arsenal was located on 'the Hill,' relocated from the more swampy downtown area, plagued throughout the early 19th century with malaria...After the Civil War, the area became a fashionable neighborhood, 2 or 3 degrees 'cooler' than the riverside downtown neighborhoods, and not subject to the occasional river-flood...

Several miles north of the city, where the river ceases to be navigable due to rapids (the 'fall line'), is this dam that diverts water into The Augusta Canal:

It's the prettiest outdoors-area in the region...Dug in the 1840's by immigrant Irish labor, and then enlarged after the Civil War by immigrant Chinese labor, (oh yes, cosmopolitan Augusta...) the Canal was built to transform Augusta into an industrial city...for a while it was known as the 'Lowell of the South,' full of textile mills like up in Massachusetts...During the Civil War, Augusta was the only industrial center in all of the Confederacy, the sole source of gunpowder for the Southern forces...And the natural power of falling water was the source of it all...

The trail that runs between the canal and the river is a perfect spot for running and biking, and the canal itself has become popular with canoeists and kayakers...The microclimate is the northern limit of the habitat for alligators and Spanish moss...my favorite spot in Augusta...

=============================
We spent one day in Atlanta, visiting

the Georgia Aquarium, the self-proclaimed 'world's largest aquarium'...incredibly crowded, but well worth the three-hour drive from Augusta; sort of an inland downtown SeaWorld without orcas...

(ooh, manta rays...)

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

Before flying back to Arizona, we went up to the mountains around Asheville, NC--what a cool place! In all the years I lived down South, I'd never made it up here...Surprisingly 'hip,' this small mountain city--'the Paris of the South,' or 'the San Francisco of the East,' as it likes to call itself, and the pedestrian-friendly downtown, with sidewalk-cafés and bohemian atmosphere, is definitely a change from other Southern towns...

On the outskirts of the city is the celebrated Biltmore estate, the 1895 'château' of the Vanderbilt family:

The grounds were landscaped by Frederick Law Olmstead (of NY's Central Park fame)...when the Vanderbilts acquired the land, much of it had been logged; today it seems like virgin forest and meadow again, with endless views of the Blue Ridge and Great Smoky Mountains...
For generations of schoolchildren in the SE, the Biltmore has been the first 'castle' that they could visit...the French Renaissance-inspired house is full of imported European furnishings--more richly furnished than many castles in Europe...it boasts medieval Flemish tapestries, and even an entire ceiling from a Venetian palazzo...But no interior photos are allowed, so here are just a few views of the gardens:

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

...and so, readjusting to Tucson, after two weeks in the lush, humid SE...

A few days ago, 'our' resident hawk showed up with a friend (sibling? mate?) to perch on the fountain out front:

Back home.

...oh yeah--AND, so a few days ago, I FINALLY got THE phone-call from the Tucson school district: I DO have my teaching position back after all, even with the budget crisis. Ay. The past three months of job-uncertainty finally come to an end...and now, with a month left before the first day of the new school-year, time to get ready and catch up on the studying/preparing that I had put off, waiting to know for sure if I would be teaching...homework!

Prepositions

==========
ON
Summer is 'on,' and normally, June in Tucson is like being in an oven.
But the oven, surprisingly, hasn't been turned 'on' yet--
amazingly pleasant so far, this month;
truly chilly this morning, even, as I went for my jog...

==========
UP.
--the title of a new Pixar computer-animated film;
GO SEE IT!

Here's a review of the film, from the San Francisco Chronicle.
And here's the critic's opening sentence, which I wish I'd come up with:
There are scenes in "Up" of such beauty, economy and poetic wisdom that they belong in any anthology of great movie moments...
Seriously. Not an exaggeration. So...Go!
(...and it's really cool in 3-D!!!)

==========
THROUGH

...as in, 'how much can people go through?'
Tucson's small but tight and growing African refugee community was hit hard last week...a horrible accident: an overcrowded van rolling over on the freeway. One family we know--resettled refugees from Congo, with eight (!) children--was involved.

So, last Wednesday, a van-load of Africans--all either Burundian or Congolese, resettled here due to the ongoing violence in Central and East Africa (Remember "Hotel Rwanda?")--had gone to the town of Wilcox--about two hours away, in a farming region, to apply for jobs picking vegetables and sorting them in a greenhouse complex...The wife, oldest son and oldest daughter of our Congolese friend had gone. On the return trip in the afternoon, evidently a tire blew out in the van, and the van rolled over several times on I-10...there were 17 people in the van. (and who knows if there were seatbelts...) Five died at the scene; the rest were airlifted back to southern AZ's only level-1 trauma hospital all the way back in Tucson...

The oldest daughter was so severly injured, it seems she may have been brain-dead on arrival...but the hospital didn't formally declare her dead until Thursday afternoon. The mother had severe internal injuries and a multiply-fratured pelvis, but looks as if she will survive with no brain-injury. The oldest son is also severe-but-stable...hopefully his brain-injury/injuries won't be serious, but we're not sure yet. The father has been, understandably, overwhelmed...he's had health-problems of his own, for years probably...it's been over five years since they initially fled their region of eastern Congo due to war...and of course, there are the other SIX children at home, ranging in age from 16 down to 2 1/2.

As you can imagine, all those who know people in this community are busy. What complicates the issue, too, is that the families face multiple levels of language complication--most don't know English yet, some are fluent in French, but for many, due to years of living in refugee camps in Tanzania, Swahili is their 'better'2nd-language.

For example, in the family we know, the mother speaks no French; the father speaks basic French, the oldest daughter--who just died--spoke some as well, and the oldest son, severly injured, spoke pretty good French as well...The younger children speak either only Swahili, or are just beginning to learn English; they've only been here since December... The Burundian refugees know some Swahili, but for many of them, they are only truly conversant in Kirundi.

Imagine finding interpreters for those languages in southern Arizona.

And the father of the Congolese family has asked me to give the memorial/funeral discourse for his daughter, one of the six who've died...(I'm not sure yet how I'll get through that myself...that's tomorrow evening.)

==========
...du coq à l'âne:

ABOUT
...a link to a column in the Washington Post from a few weeks ago.
re: freedom; minority rights; religion & politics...
...Thought-provoking.

==========

OVER
...as in 'all over the place.'
Boxes. All over the place, right now, as our moving-day is a week-and-a-day away.
So much left to do.
Absurdly, though, we've already decorated the fridge in the new place
with magnets to make it 'homey.'
Priorities, eh?

Applause (?) / Panoramas

In last month's Actualité, (a Newsweek-type magazine from Québec that I've subscribed to off and on over the years), this cartoon caught my eye:

...self-congratulatory tree-planting, (look! it's green!), a metaphor...

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

Now that it's summer, I've had a bit of time to try out some more photo-editting features...

Back in June 2001, my wife and I were able to visit the French Mediterranean island of Corsica.

Here's a 'stitched-together' panorama of a couple of photos--a 'land's-end' view of the Pointe de la Parata promontory, several miles west of the capital city Ajaccio.

(You're never allowed to forget, while in the scenically-situated-yet-somewhat-decrepit-city, that here is the birthplace of emperor Napoléon I.)

...and from June of fifteen years ago, another stitched-together panorama of a view that can, alas, no longer be had: looking from the rooftop observation deck of the World Trade Center in New York, east over the East River and the Brooklyn Bridge over Brooklyn Heights:

...and from the same now-inexistent platform, which stood 1300 feet above Lower Manhattan, looking north toward mid-town Manhattan and the Empire State building, which is, once again, the tallest structure in New York City:

(At the bottom center, you can see Washington Square Arch, the heart of the NYU neighborhood, and Fifth Avenue leading from it up to the right of the Empire State Building.)

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

...neither here nor there,

while running some errands this morning, I heard an interview on the radio with the author of an article that appeared in the NY Times a couple of weeks ago.

He's a motorcycle-repair-shop-guy-with-a-Ph.D.

Here's the article: "The Case for Working With Your Hands."

A bit long, but well worth it...

As a teacher, I feel like his voice needs to be heard more clearly,

especially in school counseling offices...

...our upcoming move to the "javelina house," as a friend of ours (E.) put it, is less than three weeks away; time to start packing!

My wife and I were realizing that this will be our tenth address.

(The process of getting ready to move to, moving to, then moving back from Nicaragua involved several addresses in just a couple-year period.)

And really (no, really) we don't even like moving...