Four Years

Posted on June 22, 2006 in Site News

Wow. Four years banging out a blog? That makes me ancient!

June 22, 2002

I’m asking around, trying to get people to contribute logs for this. I’ve been toying with the idea of setting up a daily diary site with contributions from friends for some time now. Today I got off my arse to do it. “What do you want me to write?” is the most common question. “What you feel like” is my reply. “What’s the theme?” “Slice of life.”

June 22, 2003

While we were away celebrating my aunt’s 95th birthday ten miles away, it rained here. Portola Hills sits atop a low hill stuffing the mouth of a canyon. Our microclimate brings short showers. The soil here is thin and will not allow a rain forest to fester. Instead we have cactus, prickly pears, which form thickets along the inhospitable ridgelines.

When we came back, the walks were wet and moisture spread from the low spots, looking like the unnatural paired hemispheres that you sometimes see presented as maps.

June 22, 2004

It was about ten to twenty yards south of the Sleepy Hollow entrance that I saw faint tracks in the dust on the left side of the road.

They weren’t very distinct. All I could tell for certain is that they belonged to one of the larger carnivores — maybe a coyote, maybe a large bobcat, or a young lion. They turned off onto an unofficial path that trail bikers sometimes use as a shortcut. I went my way, deeming the sighting too unimportant and too inconclusive to call the rangers about.

As I veered off Whiting Road to begin my ascent to Concourse Park, something crashed in the thicket of mulefat and live oaks at the north point of the intersection. I called “Hello” but no one answered. I picked up my pace, looking back at the copse until I passed the place where the Concourse Park Road meets the Sage Scrub.

June 22, 2005

Lassitude is what the venom of the cobra wreaks on you. If I were to be poisoned, it should be by a cobra bite. Survivors describe the experience as warmly pleasant, a yellow dream that you drift through. No wonder that the snake was associated with gods and kings or that white men paused as they saw Indian magicians charm them in the streets of Bombay. The poison of the rattlesnake, I understand, beats the interior of the body far more brutally and I won’t ask about the sea snake.

Yes, it’s been a week where snakes have entered my dazes and I wondered why I hadn’t written anything of consequence for months.

To my Wiccan friends, happy Solstice.