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hooblie
climber
from out where the anecdotes roam
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Feb 10, 2018 - 08:20am PT
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mouse from merced
Trad climber
The finger of fate, my friends, is fickle.
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Topic Author's Reply - Feb 10, 2018 - 08:58am PT
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It's like a lid of high pressure has been sealed over the Central Valley.
I can't believe I haven't been asphyxiated yet after a lifetime of exposure to this garbage.Internal combustion is gonna be my undoing, I'm virtually certain.
Yesterday evening, following a pleasant contretemps with Ms. Laurie after our date (romance thriller--Fifty Shades Freed) at a newly-opened coffee bar in the old Starbucks shop, we walked back to the Tioga.
I had to go very slowly and needed to stop frequently as we went, admiring the reddish glow on the clouds along Main St. This redness in the west is caused by pollution in the atmosphere, of course.
I have never felt so old/young in all my life. She's a wonderful gal but my old carcass has not much time, I'm afraid. At least that's how I felt last night.
No pix of the sky since it was not timed right and I was pretty much exhausted and needed to rest--legs were swelling by then so I had to lie down a bit.
I gave her a postcard from Oahu of a beach where she said she'd been snorkeling amid a throng of Japanese tourists years back. On the back I put a warning that romance scams led the way in internet-related crimes and would she be my Valentine?
The flick was good for a three-star rating out of four. She thought more of it than I did. Sound track was really appealing and the way BDSM was presented was eye-opening, to say the least.
Take your lady, sez I. (cough, wheeze)
Wakened by the trimming crew today, speaking of trim and internal combustion.[Click to View YouTube Video]
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reallyy big star
Social climber
some, place
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Feb 10, 2018 - 11:03am PT
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mouse after a week of tree trimming and chipper-stuffing,
the only remedy that'll cure my ears is opera.
if you were awakened by chain saws,
may i suggest, the elixir of love.
it's a bit of a commitment, but in the end,
you'll be cured.
[Click to View YouTube Video]
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mouse from merced
Trad climber
The finger of fate, my friends, is fickle.
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Topic Author's Reply - Feb 10, 2018 - 01:57pm PT
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Honoring Chuck's remarks and zBrown's link:
The cliched "More stoopid questions bit."
"What DAY?""Huh, what?"
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mouse from merced
Trad climber
The finger of fate, my friends, is fickle.
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Topic Author's Reply - Feb 10, 2018 - 02:00pm PT
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Very low chances of precipitation despite the mares tails.
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mouse from merced
Trad climber
The finger of fate, my friends, is fickle.
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Topic Author's Reply - Feb 10, 2018 - 02:36pm PT
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Very entertaining 2-act there, mate. Thanks.
I used to listen to classical music constantly for about ten years or so. I listened to Friday Night at the Opera and to the Met's Saturday broadcasts, too.
The Encyclopedia of the Opera (Ewen) was a necessary purchase. I don't recall listening to anything by Donizetti before today, but those classical times are long in the past by some fifteen years, I estimate.
The current book I'm into is The Lost Prince (shown in photo). It involves dreams and their power over our lives. Two major historical characters are Freud and Jung.
The major character, Eleanor, was in Vienna in 1897. While there she encountered the Viennese cafe society and the intellectual and artistic and musical elite of the time. She met and fell in love with a man named Truman, a visitor from San Francisco who began life in the late 20th century, only to find himself in fin de siecle Vienna. He dies there, unable to return to his own time. But before he does, he has a journal he produced which he gives to Eleanor with instructions to use it wisely, for it predicts the future.
Eleanor returns to Boston, marries, and has a family, the youngest boy being the father of the late Truman. Her boy is not the son of Frank, her Boston banker husband, but of one of the Viennese coffee house gang, Arnauld Esterhazy, who is enticed to move to Boston by her based on what is in her journal. It is revealed that she is not the daughter of the clergyman who gave her her surname. Her real father is William James, the famous Bostonian psychologist.
The cyclical nature of the story unfolds and it turns out that the ideas promoted by Jung are based on Eleanor's journal, in turn given to her by her grandson. Now if this isn't confusing, tell me what is, please.
Ancillary characters include Gustave Mahler and his wife Alma, a one-time flame of Esterhazy. It would take a master to weave a libretto for this tale, but it could be done, certainly.
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hooblie
climber
from out where the anecdotes roam
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Feb 10, 2018 - 06:08pm PT
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zBrown
Ice climber
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Feb 10, 2018 - 08:16pm PT
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Don't need a weatherman to know
Witchaway the wind blows
Do you need a calculator to tell you what your download speed is?
You get what you pay for
Or
Do you?
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throwpie
Trad climber
Berkeley
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Feb 10, 2018 - 09:10pm PT
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Hey Mouse. Tell us the story about you, Skeet, and Swan Slab.
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mouse from merced
Trad climber
The finger of fate, my friends, is fickle.
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Topic Author's Reply - Feb 10, 2018 - 11:22pm PT
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Tea With My Honey
Sticky and messy is the way of my honey.
It doesn’t have to be that way.
I like my tea sweetened with honey;
but when my honey won’t cooperate,
clinging to the teaspoon,
a sweet sludge that won’t budge,
some always ending on the counter,
I’ve found that warming the spoon
in the steeping tea makes a difference.
You leave the teaspoon in a short time
and then it goes into the honey jar,
past the constricted narrow neck,
and into the treasure of the bees:
Lo! Out it comes and pours with ease,
problem dissolved.
Your honey responds well to warmth,
just like the woman in your life.
--MFM
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mouse from merced
Trad climber
The finger of fate, my friends, is fickle.
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Topic Author's Reply - Feb 11, 2018 - 12:03am PT
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"The Warm-up Story"
the Rev told me a story about bouldering in Camp 4 in 1971.
Skeeter was there, Jeff, and Ron Cagle, not sure who else, he didn't say.
As Skeet goes to tackle a problem, he hands Jeff his block of chalk, who then hands it to Ron Cagle.
Skeeter jumps off the rock, asks Ron for the block of chalk, then sees a bite taken out of it.
"What the hell, Ron, this isn't edible."
"Yeah, well it tastes terrible, too."
Young Skeeter was basically a boulderer, with little or no experience on an actual climb, though I did not know this.
We decided to go up Lenna's Lieback, a newly-gardened and expanded version of a route originally done but not written up by Schmitz and Fredrichs.
Earlier, during the last autumn, Millis in slings had cleaned the bottom part of P1. He and I then had climbed it free using some new-fangled nuts, but some iron, too, for pro--I can't recall if Stoppers had come on the market yet, but that's not germane. They do work really well for pro, however.
P2 goes left, through some strange territory to a crack which takes you to the top of Swan. Most folks only do P1 and lower now.
Skeeter had no swami belt. This should have clued me in on his lack of experience, but I was not that experienced myself at choosing partners, so I gave him mine and led off on P1 using a bowline-on-a-coil, three wraps.
I also led the next part, but for some reason, maybe wanting to reduce drag, I belayed at the bottom of the crack out on the face. This is about a long way off the deck, a figure between 70-100 feet, I guess.
There was room to effect a good enough stance, so I belayed there. He came over and I handed him the rack. He led it pretty well, it's fairly easy.
When he was up there at the bay tree at the top, I heard him banging in some pin and thought, "Why is he not happy slinging that old bay tree?"
The slack in the rope got taken up, he yelled something, (I thought it might have been "Off belay!") and I cleaned my anchors, thinking it's all good.
I yelled "Climping!" Then I made one move upwards and before I could set my fingers or hand into the crack above me, one of my feet came off and I found myself twisting to the left, where the figure of Jesus stood in the air watching me. I found myself rocketing down the 75-80° slab, trailing down from tears in my Sierra Parka, watching the ground approach at speed.
The rope "boings" and brings me up short, maybe 15-20' off the deck, level with the limbs of an oak growing there to the left of the start of the climb. I had to reach out and drag myself over to the tree using its limbs.
Once there I could untie and climb down the tree to the ground. It was tough, because I'd broken an ankle bone. There had been some vague communication with Skeeter as I did all this self-rescue, but can't really remember what was said.
I hobbled over to my van, parked in the Lodge lot next to Northside Drive and went to Lewis Hospital for x-rays and a cast and crutches. This was in February of 1971. I spent the next six weeks crutching about in snowy weather.
What Skeeter had done, as he later revealed, was to drive the iron, haul up on the slack, but wasn't tied in to the tree or to the pin he'd driven. He held the force of my fall by wrapping his arms around the bay tree and felt a massive tug on his swami when the rope came short.
the Rev always point out to me, "It's a wonder we both are still alive, Mousie."
And he's right, of course, because THE REV NEVER LIES!
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feralfae
Boulder climber
in the midst of a metaphysical mystery
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Feb 11, 2018 - 07:00am PT
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Good Morning Mouse and all Flames friends,
Oh, it is cold here this morning! And it's only going up to about 10F today, although right now it is -2F outside my house.
Honey tea sounds lovely. Especially honey in Tulsi tea. Oh, and being sweet certainly does work with women, and also with men.
It is cold here. Did I say that already? I let the fire die out last night, mostly because I was too tired to get up and stoke the stove after I crawled under my two down comforters. I never turn on the heat in my room, but I usually keep the rest of the house comfortable. But I forgot, and fell asleep, and the fires went out, and now I have turned up the regular heat, and the house should be warm again by noon, I hope.
Mouse, I do hope you are feeling better, walking better, able to do a lot more things, and that your health is improving daily. And that you are warm.
It's still cold here.
I think I will take off my shoes and socks and crawl under two blankets and curl up on the couch and read until the house gets warmer.
It is cold here.
I should go work out and then I would be warmer, but it is Sunday, so I am going to put on more layers and maybe a cap.
It it cold here.
Maybe I'll go to Alaska, because it is warmer there.
It is cold here.
Ah, the temperature in the living room is up 4 degrees since I turned on the heat.
I think I'll go to services, and by the time I get home, the house will be warm again.
Not so much nattering as shivering at present.
It is cold here.
:)
ff
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zBrown
Ice climber
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Feb 11, 2018 - 07:09am PT
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muy caliente
one misstep so's she gonna have to settle for 9 outa 10
can she appeal?
You tell me
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hooblie
climber
from out where the anecdotes roam
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Feb 11, 2018 - 08:07am PT
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mouse from merced
Trad climber
The finger of fate, my friends, is fickle.
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Topic Author's Reply - Feb 11, 2018 - 08:15am PT
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Wish I could say I was healthier, but cannot, dear feralfae.
The other day I couldn't keep up with Laurie coming home from the theater...I needed to stop every half-block to recover my breath.
That is just how it goes with COPD...there is no predicting day-to-day how much phlegm one will produce to block exhalation of CO2 from the lungs.
The putrid air in the Central Valley helps not at all.
I'm comfortable enough sitting here reading and typing this morning, having taken my meds and toked on the inhalers.
It is not THAT cold here, but 38° is cold enough, thank you very much!
I intend to go visit the Cinema Cafe before they get very busy...yesterday at ten their place was jumpin', lots folks at the tables outside.
I want to go take some pics of the old El Capitan Hotel, also...I hadn't walked down that way in a week and the place is being gutted for the big renovation. On our walk back from the movie, I saw that all of the shopfronts on ground level are boarded up and it looked like a chute had been set up to dump debris out of a window.
The new owner/developer will likely finish that project and then begin on the old Mainzer Theater building, which houses the Cinema Cafe.
THAT certainly will be a sad day for me and I do not look forward to it.
I've done my exercising, mild as it is, and should go out to the store for provisions. Yesterday I received the very last check in the mail from my friends Dawn and Vern up in North Fork in payment for the car they took off my hands. My monthly income will go down by that much, so my visits to the Cafe will not be so frequent, or I will have to settle for side orders and a Cocola.
I am due to receive some funds from Liz's pension fund with Sutter Health that was never paid out, too, but that won't be for at least another month.
Providence will provide, however.
Enjoy your meeting and thanks for keeping us warm and "posty" by comparison!
A bientôt!
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mouse from merced
Trad climber
The finger of fate, my friends, is fickle.
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Topic Author's Reply - Feb 11, 2018 - 09:30pm PT
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Good news!
Peanut butter reacts like honey
when heated water is applied to a spoon.
It slides right off with very little
left sticking to the utensil.
I'm sure a knife would work,
just not as well:
it would likely slide off before
you could place it on the bread.
It does not improve the taste of tea, however.
Peanut soup is the next logical step.
Float a spoonful of honey on the PB jar lid;
or pile up crumbled saltines,
or Club or Ritz crackers,
or those bite-size Cheeze-its
and watch them float around in PB soup
very, very slowly.
If you've got good reefer,
try this at home:
place a couple of heated spoonfuls
of PB on the lid of the jar,
place the jar on your tea
while it steeps, and dip your finger
in it to create funny faces.
Then watch the faces morph
before your swollen, red eyes.
Your kids will appreciate this touch
for lunch and you will, too,
I almost guarantee it!
Well, I took a short nap and had a short dream.
Sport Dream with Alex
I found myself alone on the Big Stone, quite high up there,
above EC Spire but below Sous le Toit ledge.
Maybe I was on Sous le Toit, in fact.
[I say "in fact" even though this was a dream and not real.]
The ledge was going to be a bivvy spot,
but I could not get comfortable.
For one thing, I was free soloing (I had no rope so I must have been),
and it was not a great spot to bivvy. This ledge I occupied was
porcelain-smooth: it turned out to be the tank lid of a commode,
as a matter of another dream-fact.
It covered a real commode tank, too, so water was not a problem,
but there was no toilet seat and no bowl.
Like always on a big wall, you just peed off into space,
provided the wind is blowing the right way, of course.
This is the voice of experience talking.
There was a very small ledge on my left as I faced outwards.
On this shelf of a ledge was a microwave oven.
All of this must have been installed by Peter Haan and myself
years ago when we concocted a waste disposal system for the Captain.
It was supposed to be plumbed so the waste was disposed of
in a system that all came together in several mains:
West Main, Shield Main, South Main, and the Zodiac.
This was on the Shield Main, and apparently there was
a lack of funding to finish the project.
I tried to get comfortable, but as I said, I could not.
Being on a rope has its advantages and a sound sleep is one.
So I tossed and turned (very, very carefully)
and dared not take off my boots. The boots were a remainder
of a stock which I used to haul around when I repped for
The Bird, back in the day, but the boots didn't catch on,
and no one made anything off of them. JB was no JB2,
and they didn't "catch fire" like JB2's footwear.
I had a lot of this sort of thing happen back in the day,
and a bitter ex-wife, to boot. She was a real hard-ass.
I mean it. She worked out and her glutes were sculpted,
but there was no meat, nawmean?
Bit of drift, there, and it was a short dream.
I was feeling all crabby after a while and I worked up a snit.
The damned microwave went first. I kicked the thing
and it dropped very quickly, gravity being in effect,
even in this dream. It sped downwards and hit the alcove
at the base of EC Spire and became projectile shrapnel,
flying outwards and landing in the talus forest.
It did no damage to the party that was in the alcove.
They all yelled up at me, "Next time yell rock, dumbass!"
That is the clean version. In real unreality, it was worse by far.
I said something under my breath in a loud voice
(which also does not bear repeating here),
and muttering at the top of my lungs I dropped the tank lid,
aiming for the gang of aid climbers below me.
It hit just beyond them and like the microwave it became
part of the talus pile far below.
Amazingly, a solo free climber popped up just after this
and climbed swiftly through those turds and up the chimney,
and kept coming at an incredible pace.
He surged up the cracks like melting solder in reverse.
It was Super-Alex, in the flesh. He arrived at the tank
and I told him to help himself to some water.
He smiled and said, "Sure, I'm pretty thirsty."
We spoke at length about composure when free-soloing
and I showed him my set of Dolt finger-hooks,
two for each hand, genuine heirlooms,
with very thin links of sterling silver chain
attached to a wrist loop to keep them tethered.
He readily agreed that my having no thumb was
a good excuse for using them. He was kind and understanding.
By that time, the tank water had some effect on him,
as it had on me, only instead of becoming a nasty drunk,
he became more of a genial one and this had the effect
on me of calming me down and sharing my woes.
Well, next thing I knew, I was in a car, heading somewhere
in the dark, dozing and feeling the warmth of a car heater
that was perfectly adjusted to keep me in that state.
Alex was crashed out in the front seat while
another person (we'll call him Nameless Bob, how's that?),
who never introduced himself the whole time,
drove placidly through the night, heading south according
to the compass on the dash. This was an older model sedan,
and the dash-mounted compass kept swinging around to the south,
in case you were wondering. There was also a hip-swaying
hula-hula girl on the dash, keeping time with the curves.
We drove on into the night, I eventually dozed,
and when I awoke felt no hangover. We were passing through
the outskirts of what appeared to be a small town,
reminiscent of the town of Watsonville, but it soon became
a more urban cityscape much like Ventura, only larger but
with fewer steep hills. I asked of the kindly, smiling driver,
"What are we doing in Lemon Cove?" He said, jovially,
"Why, Mouse, we are here to make lemonade. You've had enough
lemons in your life, it's time you put them to some good use."
I said, "Where are you going to get that much sugar?"
He said, half-joking, "I have some very refined friends
who have a lot of pull in the wholesale grocery business."
We pulled into the driveway of a split-level duplex,
woke Alex up, who immediately said, "It's time to play!"
And we all trooped in the door, which was wide open,
and there were people there, turned out in North Face t-shirts,
white flat hats, and 5.11 Tactical shorts.
They were involved in a game that I'd heard of but never witnessed
where you have to walk ten steps with a quarter clenched between
your butt cheeks while simultaneously balancing a coffee table book
(in this case, Yosemite In the Fifties with a capper
of Yosemite In the Sixties). It was a great party,
but by the time that I had to get up and try the challenge,
I needed to pee and woke up.
Dam it! Just when I was gonna make my reputation by being the first
to accomplish this feat, too!
--MFM
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mouse from merced
Trad climber
The finger of fate, my friends, is fickle.
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Topic Author's Reply - Feb 11, 2018 - 10:44pm PT
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PS: I'm kinda glad that's over with.
Now I can get some more Shuteye With Justin.
This should be good!
"...we are such stuffe
As dreames are made on: and our little life
Is rounded with a sleepe..."
--The Tempest, act IV, scene 1
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