Their Poverty Is Relative

The first week of June, EK and I celebrated her upcoming graduation from vet school with a brief trip to Mexico. Despite living just north of the border for 30 years, I'd never really explored the country, never even been more than a few miles south of Tijuana, and what I'd seen there hadn't exactly piqued my interest in further trips.

But this time we discovered the real Mexico, from ancient Mayan ruins to perfect, unpeopled Caribbean beaches, from underground rivers to open ocean snorkeling among squid, sea turtles and silver schools of fish, from lines of leaf-cutter ants to jungle canopy families of spider and howler monkeys. Not to mention world-class margaritas, guacamole and street tacos. Or the dogs, everywhere dogs, flea-bitten but free and just as eager for affection as our pampered suburban pooches. What a magical shore for both of us to wash up upon after a stormy few months of exams and funerals.

But it was the people we met in the village of Tulum, 80 miles south of Cancun, who made our four days with them such a treat. Janet and Jack, childhood sweethearts reunited after 30 years, now owners and managers of the petite and charming Posada Luna del Sur, These two have mastered the fine art of hospitality. We left feeling we'd gained genuine new friends. And another one, Manuel Galinda, our winsome and fearless guide through watery caves and leafy trails. We found him so delightful we invited him to meet us again at dinner our last night before flying home.

Of all these Mexican memories, it was something Manuel said that most sticks with me. We were deep in the Yucatan jungle, having driven for miles through clouds of butterflies to arrive at the Punta Laguna reserve, home of the wild monkeys. Look, Manuel said and pointed toward a white-washed, thatch-roofed community store near the entrance. In the doorway, a beautiful Mayan baby lay face-down in the grit and germs of the concrete floor, fast asleep. She was a toddler, probably about 18 months old. There were no adults in sight; I could only guess she belonged to the storekeepers.

By the time we'd finished our tour of the reserve, seen the monkey families and canoed across the lagoon and back, the little Mayan girl had finished her nap. She was sitting now just beside the doorway, quietly watching a gaggle of other children wandering to and from the store. They were all a little ragged looking, barefoot and dusty, the older girls carrying the babies on slim young hips. Probably they lived in the humble palapa houses just across the road.

They grew up speaking Mayan, Manuel told us, learning Spanish as a second language when they went to school. "They have schools here then?" I asked. We were so far into the jungle, the few houses we'd seen so scattered, and the little store the only perceptible village center.

"Oh yes," Manuel said. "They go to school."

"But what then?" I asked. "Such extreme poverty. Do these children have any hope of further education, of bettering their situation?"

And Manuel, so kind, so patient, so familiar with gringo thinking, looked at me and smiled. "Their poverty is relative," he said.

I was stupid still. "What do you mean?"

"That little girl we saw," he said. "She was dirty, but her cheeks were full, yes? She was well-fed, healthy."

Suddenly, I got it. "So how arrogant of me, how condescending, to come here, to their home, and assume that because their lifestyle is so different from mine they would even want to change it."

Manuel smiled again, his eyes actually twinkling.

These days, back in the swirl of my oh-so-American life, I think often of our magical visit to Tulum, of my wise new friend Manuel, and of the beautiful Mayan baby, growing up in the midst of a great, green jungle, wild monkeys leaping through the trees above her as she sleeps.

Snake Update

O.K. This is getting just a little bit old. We're up to three rattlesnakes discovered uncomfortably close to the house so far this summer. The first, another rusty speckled specimen, had layered himself into one of the trenches dug by the landscape contractors putting in our new irrigation system. I fished him out with the snake stick and locked him into my trusty covered bucket, much to the amazement of the landscaping crew. When Bob got home, we moved him farther down the mountain.

The next one, a handsome little Pacific rattler, the fiestier, more potent kind, we found smack dab in the middle of the driveway when we pulled in Friday night from a Fourth of July dinner with friends. Bob almost stepped on it getting out of the car. So it was his turn to wrangle the thing into the bucket. The next morning we relocated him farther down the mountain, too, but he wasn't happy about it. Instead of immediately gliding off into the bushes as all the others have done, he coiled up and rattled at us. I suppose he wanted to make the point that he did not appreciate being held prisoner overnight in a bucket and then dumped out unceremoniously in a strange place.

Then yesterday afternoon, Lilo and I were checking the new plants on the east side of the house when I happened to spy a big gray speckled rattler piled up in a corner of the deck, right next to the house! I hurried Lilo in, garbed up in my snake boots and headed back out with the stick and bucket. It was a little nerve-wracking, being all alone. So for extra security, I called Bob at work and kept him on speaker phone while I went in for the capture.

This particular snake seemed just to be chillin'. He'd casually draped himself into place, his middle looping off the edge of the deck. As soon as he sensed the stick coming his way, he started moving, heading toward the ground by way of the big air conditioner compressor next to the deck. As a result, I could only grab him near the tail, which gave him the advantage of leverage. And either he was a lot heavier than he looked or a lot stronger than I'd imagined or, probably, both, because I could not pull this snake back up. I let go and was able to grab him more in the middle, but still I could not even budge him. I hated to give up, but I had no choice. This boy was anchored into place between the wall and the air conditioner. So I released my grip on the snake stick, and he slithered on down to the ground, taking shelter under the corner of the deck. Unlike me, he seemed totally unperturbed by the whole episode.

"Now what," I asked Bob.

"Well, you could just forget it," he suggested. "He'll leave eventually."

"But he's right here," I said. "I hate to think of him this close with the dogs running around."

"You could kill him," Bob said.

I looked at the snake, calmly waiting for me to leave so he could continue on about his snakey business. He wasn't out to hurt anyone, well, except for a few tasty mice who'd left their calling cards all around the air conditioner, no doubt luring this guy in to begin with.

"I don't think that's gonna be happening either," I decided.

About five minutes later the snake squeezed himself slowly under the air conditioner, showing a lot more intelligence than anyone at this point might have concluded I possessed, and when I went out to look for him an hour or so later he was gone. Let's hope he stays that way. In the meantime, Terra Nova remains on red alert for rattlers.

Chasing Lightning Bugs

On summer nights, our bodies young and lean, browned by the Southern sun,
my friends and I ran loose and barefoot
on the warm asphalt streets of our quiet little town.
Sometimes we chased the lightning bugs that came out of nowhere
to twinkle in the damp darkness.
One by one,
we plucked them from the air and stuffed them into Mason jars
until we had enough to fashion a sort of living lantern,
Then punched air holes in the lids,
and sometimes added a few drops of water or blades of grass,
just to make everyone more comfortable.
Still, the bugs swarmed up the sides of the jar,
flashing on and off, on and off,
searching for a portal to freedom.
They tended to clump up at the top,
making it tricky to add new bugs
without losing a few others in the process.
At bedtime, when our parents called us in,
we opened our jars
and watched our tiny captives climb out.
Most teetered a bit on the rim
before spreading wings and taking flight.
One by one,
they disappeared into the darkness for a moment or two,
then blinked their goodbyes,
now here,
now there,
now among the trees at the edge of the yard,
until at last we could not tell
which of the lights twinkling against the night were bugs
and which were stars.

August 1, 2007

One of Those (Dog) Days

You know it's gonna be a bad day when you're hit with three crises before you can even make it out of the bedroom. First it was a daughter calling to say she needed a document from me, like yesterday. Could I possibly Fed Ex it? Sure. I could do that. After a little more sleep. But no, here came another call, one of those recorded messages that try to sound friendly and natural, which of course only makes them more annoying. This one informed me that I needed to have my satellite dish swapped out for a new model asap or I'd lose my HD television programming. I didn't even try to find pen and paper in time to jot down the 800 number, rattled off only once, that I needed to call to set up an appointment. By now, I was more or less awake. Might as well get up.

It was while stumbling to the bathroom that I noticed a brown drop or two on the white, just-scrubbed-yesterday bathroom floor. Not a good sign. Further investigation confirmed my worst fear: a sizable brown puddle smack dab in the middle of the closet floor. Pretty much anywhere else in the house, this wouldn't have presented much of a problem. Because when Bob and I rebuilt Terra Nova, we purposely chose to install tile and wood floors throughout. There was a reason for that--and this was it. We compromised with wall-to-wall carpet in only two places: Bob's studio. And our bedroom closet. So I was looking at a bad situation here. Really bad. There was only one way to deal with it: break out R2D2.

R2D2 is a commercial grade steamer/wet vacuum that looks exactly like the personable little droid from Star Wars. I'd hoped it would make quick and chemical-free work of cleaning all that tile. But alas, R2D2 turned out to be a pain rather than a labor-saver. It bristled with bulky hoses and weird attachments, took forever to heat up, and then had to be disassembled and dumped, not a job for the faint of heart. Eventually, despite its pop culture cache, I'd tired of wrestling with R2 and relegated it to the garage. I'd even pretty well decided to divest it by way of Craig's List. At this particular moment, however, standing in my pajamas, contemplating the puddle in the middle of my closet carpet, I was glad I hadn't.

It would certainly help to have a little coffee before taking on this disaster, but I decided to hold out until afterward when I could better enjoy it. First things first, I needed to get all three Newfs downstairs and outside. Unfortunately, on our way to the door I detected a distinct whiff from the vicinity of the family room. Nooooooo!! I started checking. Tile floors first. Please, please, please. But no, of course not. Wood floors second. Not ideal, but doable. Again, no. The offense had occurred on the family room rug. And this time there were two puddles.

Clearly, this was the work of a master pooper, someone with near-surgical precision. How else can you explain three consecutive bull's-eyes on such a tiny bit of textiles? I already knew who was to blame for this triple catastrophe. Goofy Charter was easily in the clear. He simply does not possess the accuracy or premeditative skills necessary to pull off such a sophisticated stunt. Either Lilo or Terra, however, could easily have been the culprit. Except that only one of my three dogs is capable of shame. And Terra, my sweet princess girl, who usually dances downstairs in the mornings, today was not dancing at all, but slinking, casting occasional furtive glances in my direction as if to say, "Please don't kill me, and please don't cancel breakfast either." Poor girl. It's so hard to be perfect all the time, yet she suffers such guilt whenever she slips up.

With the dogs outside, I moved the family room furniture, extracted the rug and dragged it out to the deck where I slung it over a railing, hosed it down and left it to dry. Ikea, $150--what did I care? Then I went looking for Terra, who quickly divined my intent and had to be ordered into the dog wash for a thorough sudsing and cursory blow-dry. Next I rummaged through the garage until I'd unearthed R2D2, which I took apart and schlepped upstairs in three separate trips. One for the steam chamber. One for the dirty-water collection chamber. And one for the long and tangling hose.

I established a staging area in the bathroom where I reassembled R2 and steeled myself for the task ahead. It helped knowing that once the droid heated up, it would be only a few minutes more and my closet carpet would be back to normal, clean and stink-free! But then I encountered technical difficulties. I couldn't remove the cap on the steam chamber. It just spun around and around, the way it does when the machine is pressurized, the better to prevent unwary users from accidentally parboiling themselves. R2 wasn't even plugged in yet, so the cap should have unscrewed easily, allowing me to fill the chamber, press the "on" button and wait for steam to happen. I tried everything. Twisting clockwise. Twisting counter clockwise. Twisting while pushing. Twisting while pulling. Nothing worked. So much for an easy Superfund site cleanup. It seemed like a good time to retreat downstairs and have that coffee while I contemplated next steps.

Fortified by caffeine and a little breakfast, I tried again, again without success. So I appealed for help. On R2D2's home-planet website I found a customer service number and thus began my relationship with Analdo, who I've gotta say in all seriousness is one of the most helpful company reps I've ever dealt with. He not only expressed genuine interest in my problem, he dug out an actual R2D2 clone on his end to make sure we were in sync about all the relevant anatomical details. Two or three times he asked me to hold while he consulted his supervisors. Still unable to definitively diagnose R2's problem, he promised to call me back the next day with a solution, and he really did! I heart Analdo and his Jersey boy accent.

In my crude attempts to follow Analdo's suggestions, I employed a number of sophisticated tools, starting with pliers, then quickly devolving to an ice pick, a kitchen knife and a big rubber mallet. After all this I discovered that the defective cap was actually catching and turning momentarily every few spins, so simply by twirling it nonstop for 10 or 15 minutes I finally managed to remove it. But in the process I tilted the steam chamber a little too much and spilled the residual water. It spread across the floor in a mucky white cloud. Whoa. Perhaps I should have drained the clean water as well as the dirty water before sticking R2 away in the garage. I sopped up the mess with a dog towel, rinsed out the steam chamber in the bathtub and refocused on the main event in the closet.

I didn't want to chance refilling the machine and replacing the cap. Who knew if I'd ever get it off again? Better to wait for the new one Analdo was shipping me. So I called Bob for advice. "Well," he said, "the wet vac still works, right?" I didn't like where this was going, but I had to do something. So I ended up handcleaning the carpet (yes, I know) and using R2D2 to suction out as much moisture as possible. By the time I'd finished the job, I'd had to clean and disinfect the entire bathroom floor, R2D2, the sink, the bathtub, the dog towels, my clothes and, oh yes, me. I looked at the clock when I finally came out of the shower. It was 2:30 in the afternoon. And still I had to go to FedEx and call the satellite t.v. people before I could even think about getting any actual work done. Yeah. One of those days. I wonder. How much worse could it have been if I'd just stayed in bed?

Invasion of the Roadrunners

Finally after 3 years in the new Terra Nova, we’re having landscaping installed. It’s nearly finished now following a couple of weeks of trenching and pipe-laying and digging and planting, and it’s going to be wonderful. No more dirt tracked into the house multiple times a day by our herd of Newfs plus a lovely, tranquil ambiance just outside our windows, complete with the bubbling of fountains front and back.

Already, we’ve noticed an increase in the wildlife. Bees and hummingbirds are buzzing all around. Fluttering clouds of finches dart past on their way to and from the fountains. And Friday night when we first turned the new irrigation system on, we noticed a roadrunner investigating the front yard. Look at that, we said. How cool. We’ve always loved these sleek, swift birds, always trotting intently from one place to another, always seemingly on a mission. It’s not often you seem them, though. We consider it a treat. One day I was sitting at our dining room table, looking out the sliding doors onto the back patio, when a big, gorgeous male roadrunner calmly strutted by. And now this one out front.

Saturday morning I was out watering the new plants when I caught sight of something moving in the bushes down the slope. It was a pair of roadrunners, bowing and fluttering at each other. Later we saw three of them at the same time, leading us to believe we had a whole roadrunner family coming of age somewhere right around the house. The adult birds tend to be solitary, and we’ve never seen more than one at a time. But Saturday we saw them all day. Roadrunners atop nearly every boulder, trotting by nearly every window, some coming right up and peering in for 5, 10 minutes at a time, oblivious to our movements inside.

It was a crazy hot day, over a hundred in the shade, so I turned on a hose out back to create a puddle, which at least one of the birds found and sipped from gratefully until Lilo appeared from around the corner and ran it off. But even then the roadrunner seemed reluctant to leave. It hopped up on the patio table, then spread a wide set of wings, displaying surprisingly blue iridescent tail feathers, and half hopped, half flew off to the other side of the closest boulder, off no doubt to stalk another meal of bugs or lizards. Only one sighting yesterday, and it was a fair way off, sailing from a boulder to the ground where it disappeared into the brush. And today, so far, nada. But for one day, at least, it was coyote paradise around here.

Every Day Is A Blessing

For Stevie C. who asked me to speak at his homegoing celebration:

This is the day that the Lord has made. Let us rejoice and be glad in it. My brother Steven would want me to share that thought with you this morning. He would want me to remind you that despite our tears and sorrow, we have good reason to celebrate today.

We can celebrate because Steven is home. His long night of suffering is over. And our long night of watching him suffer is over. The body that failed him has died. But Steven himself is more alive than we. And we will see him again. This is the great hope that sustained our brother Steven. This is the great assurance we share as people of faith.

Some will dismiss our belief in things we cannot humanly perceive as quaint, naive, even delusional. But how then will they explain the courage, the perseverance, the unfailing sweetness of spirit that Steven displayed throughout a long and grueling illness he knew would ultimately take his life? What we have witnessed over this past year, in both Steven’s and Craig’s responses to inconceivable hardship, has been nothing short of supernatural. I asked Steven once how he did it, and he said, “In the middle of the storm, in the middle of the typhoon, you just close your eyes and say, thank you.”

We have a saying in our family: It matters how you finish. And what we mean by that is, it really doesn’t matter what you accomplish or accumulate in this life, how high you rise in society or business or government, none of that matters if you throw it all away in the end. And conversely, it doesn’t matter how many mistakes you make along the way if you learn and grow beyond them. Because in the end what matters isn’t what we’ve done, but who we’ve been. What matters is the content of our character.

When I think of Steven, I will think of a man no more perfect than any of us, but a man of character and commitment, an extraordinary father and a wonderful friend. I will think of a man of faith, who died as he lived, counting every day a blessing and every blessing a reason for thanksgiving. When I think of my brother Steven, I will think of a man who finished well.

How Dark the Sky Without His Sun to Light It

For my father’s funeral service:

Good morning and thank you for joining us today to honor my father, to celebrate his life here with us and to rejoice in his glorious new life. Thank you for being his friends and especially for loving and supporting him and Weyburn during these past few difficult years of illness. It’s good to be back at Holy Trinity. As most of you know and many of you remember, Karen and I grew up here. Life has taken us each in different directions since then, and when we come back to Hickory now, we find so much has changed. Someone else is living in the houses we lived in; they’ve knocked down our old elementary school and turned my old high school into a museum! But here at Holy Trinity we can still feel we’ve come home.

Our father felt at home here, too. And no wonder. He and our mother first joined this congregation when our family moved to Hickory in 1956, more than half a century ago. And I feel safe in saying that few, if any, have loved this body of Christ more or served it more enthusiastically. Did you know he even planted and tended many of the trees and shrubs you see on the grounds outside? It was a special gift of his. He had a way with living things; he understood the natural world as well as anyone I’ve ever known.

He practically grew up in the woods of upstate New York, taking every opportunity to hunt, fish and trap just outside the tiny village of Dolgeville, and in the great Adirondack forests nearby. He claimed he often terrorized his mother by standing on tiptoe in a second-floor window to see if the creek was high enough to ensure a good fishing day. Arthur William Millers was the youngest of eight children in a rollicking Lithuanian immigrant family—and the first to earn a college degree.

After wartime service in the Marine Corps, he cashed in his G.I. Bill benefits and enrolled at North Carolina State College (now NCSU), picking a major—forestry—that would take him back to the woods. In 1950, having acquired not only a degree, but a bride, my mother, Lucille Campbell, he found a job with the North Carolina Forest Service.

Daddy eventually transitioned to a desk job in municipal government, and contributed greatly to his chosen community of Hickory over a 27-year career with the City of Hickory. But he was always happiest out tromping through the woods, preferably with fly rod in hand.

I blame my father for my own love of nature, the reason I live in a California canyon populated by rabbits, rattlesnakes and mountain lions, a place vulnerable to catastrophic wildfires, and a place of spectacular natural beauty where I feel truly at home. It was my father, after all, who took Karen and me hiking and fishing all those Sunday afternoons at our grandparents’ farm down in Iredell County, and on summer Saturdays under leafy canopies alongside his favorite Blue Ridge trout streams.

If we managed to hook any keepers, Karen and I liked to watch Daddy clean our catch. He always took a moment to point out the various organs packed together so neatly inside our fish, glistening in healthy shades of pink, red and brown. Sometimes we’d find a golden sac of eggs wedged in there, too. The lesson was clear. Surely there was purpose behind such perfection. A creator behind such a well-drawn creation.

Everything in my father’s world was like that. Everything fit together, ran in cycles, conformed to a pre-ordained order. Tides rose and ebbed; seasons came and went and came again; trees grew in concentric circles that gave away their age and told what kind of weather they’d seen—a fat ring for a rainy year; a skinny ring for a dry one. Animals were born understanding their destiny and equipped to fulfill it. If everything went as planned, each species found its niche, creating a delicate balance. If not, nature had ways of restoring its own equilibrium.

What my father was really teaching us, I discovered much later, was how to live in harmony with nature rather than in defiance of it. Like him, I grew to sense the raw spirituality of the natural world, the primordial ties that bind us as homo sapiens to every other piece of the planetary puzzle. Like him, I came to understand that wonder leads to worship. And worship makes us whole.

The night before Bob and I got married, right here in this sanctuary, Hickory lay in the path of a lunar eclipse. Daddy and I sat side by side on the back steps of the red brick house where Karen and I had grown up and watched the earth’s shadow steal away the moon, hold it hostage for a while, then give it back. I don’t remember for certain now, more than three decades later, but I imagine my father slipped a sermon in there somewhere. Or maybe, by then, my last night of living in his home, he didn’t need to.

Seen or Unseen, Love Is All

For the past several months, I've been busy saying goodbye to two of the most important men in my life. On Jan. 9, my incredible father, Arthur W. Millers, slipped away from this life into the unseen reaches of eternity. And last weekend, March 8, my beloved friend and brother in Christ, Steven C. Collins, joined him there. The services that marked their journeys home could not have been more different--or more joyful. The common denominator here was faith. Faith that this life is only a tiny slice of all that is. Faith that despite all we see and experience to the contrary, beyond our human senses, we exist, now and forever, within a benevolent reality.

Deja Vu All Over Again

CAL FIRE Tanker 71, piloted by Lynne Magrew, drops a load of fire retardant on a burning hillside near Lyon's Canyon while fighting the Harris Fire in San Diego County. (Michael Robinson Chavez/Los Angeles Times) Oct. 26, 2007

What is it about October 26th? Four years ago today, our house burned, and Bob and I almost died escaping the Cedar Fire, supposedly the worst wildfire in California history. A year ago today, I was feeling bouyant about how far we'd come in three years, rebuilding our house and rebooting our lives. Then came news that a vicious new wildfire near Palm Springs had killed four (and eventually five) firefighters. So this year Bob and I decided to make Oct. 26th a good day. We'd planned a party for tonight. Just a few good friends for a backyard barbecue. Instead Bob was manning a booth at one of four local assistance centers for new fire victims, while Terra and I were visiting evacuees at a shelter, listening to heartbreaking stories that make our loss four years ago seem insignificant.

San Diego is once again reeling from a catastrophic, week-long fire seige. Multiple fires all across the county. Seven casualties despite an unprecedented half a million people evacuated. Up to 1,500 homes destroyed. Bob and I were among those displaced, forced to watch from afar as fire again threatened Terra Nova. But this time when the roads reopened, we were among the fortunate ones who had a home to come back to. Now all we can think of is those who are just beginning the long road to recovery. We want to help them, to prove by our recovery that life, even a better life, is possible after disaster. It's an uneven mission. One man I talked to yesterday, his name was Cesar, told me I was an angel sent by God. I will not forget him. But today an elderly man whose dog could not be rescued talked and cried and talked and cried some more, and there was nothing I could do for him but listen. I cannot forget him. Or his dog, Schotzi. I can only hope and pray that for them, as for us four years ago, there will be a bobcat leaping out of the smoke to show the way, that is to say, I hope they experience a miracle.

October 26, 2007. The more things change, the more things stay the same.

UPDATE: Schotzi survived the fire! A miracle indeed!

Global Gore

Only in America could anyone with a name like Al Gore make good. But boy has the Goracle reached the pinnacle. Since his ignominious defeat by Supreme Court decision after winning the popular vote in the 2000 presidential election, Al has amassed a fortune while working tirelessly to save the world. He's become a Hollywood celebrity, winning both an Emmy and an Oscar for his climate change documentary "An Inconvenient Truth." And now, Al Gore has received the Nobel Peace Prize.

It wasn't that long ago--the day after the 2004 election to be precise--that I interviewed a prominent climate change scientist who was pretty close to despairing over both the re-election of an anti-science, anti-environment administration and the overall lack of public attention being paid to the critical problem of global warming, the topic of his life's work. "What if you got Bill Clinton to spear-head a big media campaign?" I suggested. "He'd listen to you. Or how about Gore? He's already written a book about the environment."

Little did we know Gore was already on the case. It's hard to believe that in only three years, green's become the new black, and Al's become a media darling and Nobel Peace Prize winner for spreading the decidedly unappealing message of climate change. I say more power to him. Now if only some equally passionate and brilliant folks can come up with a few market-friendly ideas to help us turn the problem around. And I don't mean hybrid Harleys or reusable McDonald's wrappers. I mean something really innovative, something drastic, like an anti-doomsday machine. Because I don't think we can recycle enough cans or replace enough light bulbs to make a big enough difference in time. Polar bears are already drowning.

But at least we're figuring that out now. That's progress over where we were even three years ago. And this Nobel business will draw even more global attention to the issue. Good news, all in all. Which we really need after the last couple weeks of the ongoing White House crime saga. Really, what kind of person can justify plunging the nation into multi-generational debt to finance a lost war, then take a mere pittance by comparison from poor children in need of health care? What kind of person merely redefines terms to be able to claim this nation does not torture people, when Abu Ghraib and Gitmo and secret offshore CIA prisons so graphically argue otherwise? It boggles the mind; it grieves the spirit.

So for now, I'm going to be happy for Al and Tipper and feel optimistic, if just for a little while, that change is still possible, and in a good way.

What Happens in Vegas ...

... so far, isn't much to write home about. I'm ensconced in a posh room 20 stories up in the Mandalay Bay Hotel, with a floor to ceiling window view of the famous (or infamous?) Las Vegas Strip. It was lovely last night, in an artificial sort of way, watching darkness fall and the neon glow rise from here to the faux Eiffel Tower, eclipsing along the way the faux pyramid and sphinx and faux New York skyline. It's just not my kind of town, Vegas, but it was a free ride since Bob is attending a conference here. Sounded like a nice opportunity to veg out by a pool, do a little writing, take a nap, maybe even update my blog.

Enough with the Snakes Already!

This one was little, only about 14 inches long, and skinny, no bigger around than a magic marker, but a rattlesnake nevertheless, wound up in a perfect coil on the threshold of our front door, pretty much exactly where my foot usually lands first whenever I go out. Plus it was dark and the snake was dark and the threshold is dark. Even when Bob and I went around through the garage with the now-well-used snake stick and covered bucket, Bob couldn't see this Southern Pacific rattler until I pointed it out. Fortunately we've learned to look close for just this sort of thing now before we take a step outside the house. What next though? If this little viper had been any closer he would've been IN the house. And, sorry Steve Irwin, wherever you are, but that's just over the line.

Vick Schmick

I haven't blogged about the Michael Vick dog-fighting situation for a simple reason: it's entirely unspeakable. But I would like to pass along these pertiment comments by baseball Hall of Famer Hank Aaron, an accomplished man, a decent man, and a board member of Vick's now tenuous employer, the Atlanta Falcons.

“I’ve never seen someone who had so much ability and has fallen so far,” Aaron said. “It’s not what is going to happen as far as his football career is concerned. It’s just him as a man, as a human being, being able to get his life back.”

Well said. But still, Vick at least has a chance of getting his life back, which is more than can be said of the many dogs so brutally dispatched at his dog-fighting facility. For more information about the so-called "sport" of animal fighting, check out http://www.hsus.org/.

Finally!

First the New York Times and now the Washington Post are reporting that "embattled Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales has resigned from his post, ending a controversial cabinet tenure that included clashes with Congress over the firing of nine U.S. attorneys and the scope of efforts to spy on U.S. citizens.

"Gonzales' resignation marks the loss of another Bush loyalist at a time when his support in public opinion polls has been lagging. Though Bush had voiced continued support for Gonzales, a longtime ally from Texas, the attorney general's support in Congress had withered after a series of run-ins that prompted some lawmakers to allege he had committed perjury."

And then there's this August 30th capsulization of the Gonzales legacy from that excellent British mag, The Economist:

GOING, GOING, GONZALES

The resignation of George Bush's attorney-general leaves the administration in a
pretty ruinous state

BETTER late than never. On August 27th, with his reputation in ruins and the Justice Department in chaos, Alberto Gonzales finally resigned as attorney-general. The immediate cause of his departure was the firing of nine federal prosecutors. The bigger cause was that he embodied most of the things that Mr Bush's critics find intolerable about his presidency.

Mr Gonzales's departure produced predictable cheers from Democrats. More significant was the reaction of his fellow Republicans. Nobody except Mr Bush seemed to have a good word to say for America's first Hispanic attorney-general. For his part, Mr Gonzales said that he was glad to have lived the American dream (he was one of eight children of an itinerant immigrant labourer). He said that even his worst days at the Department of Justice were better than his father's best days.

The battle over Mr Gonzales was one of the most bitter of Mr Bush's second term, inflaming relations between Congress and the White House, eating up weeks of congressional time and leaving the Department of Justice a dysfunctional shell, with several of its top posts empty and the professional staff more demoralised than at any time since Watergate.

Why did the attorney-general prove such a lightning rod? Mr Gonzales is a polite and inoffensive man. He has moderate views on affirmative action and abortion. His various appearances before congressional committees resembled nothing so much as the clubbing of a baby seal. But "Fredo", as the president liked to call him, was at the centre of two of Mr Bush's most controversial policies.

The first was the politicisation of the federal government. Republicans have long complained that the federal government is stuffed full of dyed-in-the-wool lefties who habitually ignore or subvert Republican policies. The Bush administration did more than complain: it increased the number of political jobs by 12% across the government and boosted the number of political jobs that do not require legislative confirmation by 33%.

The danger of this is that the federal government will degenerate into an arm of the Republican Party. This danger is particularly acute with the Justice Department, whose first duty is to implement the law as impartially as possible. Mr Gonzales raised hackles from the first because he was so close to the White House. His decision to fire nine federal prosecutors in 2006 suggested that he might be trying to cajole others into pursuing Republican policies. And his shifting explanations for his decision--from his insistence that he fired them for incompetence to his later descent into amnesia--sealed his fate.

Mr Bush was also determined to give himself the maximum possible latitude in dealing with terrorists. As the president's legal counsel during his first term, Mr Gonzales gave the green light to the Guantanamo prison camp, secret CIA prison camps, the wiretapping of American citizens and the use of torture. He even described some of the Geneva Conventions as "quaint". Mr Gonzales was not the architect of those policies--that honour probably belongs to Dick Cheney and his then chief counsel, David Addington--but he gave them his imprimatur. And his faltering performance as attorney-general provided the left with a chance of revenge.

FAREWELL TO THE TEXAS RAJ

Mr Bush now has the task of finding a new attorney-general. Several names are already circulating in Washington: Michael Chertoff, the secretary of homeland security; Larry Thompson, a senior vice-president at PepsiCo; Ted Olson, a former solicitor-general; Orrin Hatch, a senator. But it is a measure of the difficulty of the decision that the White House did not produce a name immediately.

Mr Bush wants to preserve as much of his anti-terrorism machinery as possible--particularly a surveillance programme that needs to be reauthorised again in five months. He hates the idea of Congress deciding who should get a job in his administration. But his options are limited. Whoever he chooses will face tough confirmation hearings in a Democratic-controlled Congress that has already feasted on Mr Gonzales's flesh--and will then have barely a year to rebuild a dysfunctional department.

Mr Gonzales's departure marks the end of a strange era in Washington politics: the Texas Raj. Mr Bush rode into town in 2001 surrounded by people who had known each other for years in Austin, who were fiercely loyal to "43", and who had little liking for the customs of the Potomac. But now they have almost all gone, the victims of time (Dan Bartlett), excessive partisanship (Karl Rove, the president's chief adviser, who resigned two weeks ago) and incompetence (Harriet Miers and Mr Gonzales). The only remaining members of the original posse are Margaret Spellings, the secretary of education, and Mr Bush himself. The Bush White House is now largely run by Washington insiders such as Joshua Bolten, his chief of staff, and Ed Gillespie.

But might Mr Gonzales's departure also mark the beginning of a new era of good feeling and reconciliation? Some people certainly think so. The departure of Messrs Rove and Gonzales has removed two of the Democrats' top targets, the argument goes, and the ascendancy of Mr Bolten in the White House creates the possibility of at least some co-operation between White House and Congress. Both parties have an interest in getting the farm bill and the energy bill passed; the Democrats have a wider interest in not appearing to be obstructionist. Mr Bush now has an opportunity to revamp his reputation by adopting a more emollient style.

Yet there are endless problems with this rosy scenario. Mr Cheney remains entrenched in the vice-president's office, along with Mr Addington and other hard-liners. The Democrats are determined to get their revenge for six years of brutal treatment at the hands of the Republicans. They will undoubtedly use the confirmation of a new attorney-general to do as much harm to the Bush administration as possible. They may also continue to harass Mr Gonzales for possible perjury during his hearings. There is a strong likelihood that they will demand the appointment of a special prosecutor in exchange for confirming a new attorney-general. This will ensure months of painful and embarrassing legal inquiries.

Mr Bush also has precious little political capital left, even with his own side, and certainly not enough to relaunch his presidency. The Gonzales fiasco has dealt yet another serious blow to his reputation. Mr Bush ("the decider") prides himself on his ability to pick good men and then allow them to get on with things. But Mr Gonzales was a lightweight crony who was out of his depth. Mr Bush also prides himself on his loyalty to his subordinates. But this loyalty has persuaded him to back friends long after they have become liabilities. Messrs Gonzales and Rove and the rest of the Texas posse now have the luxury of spending their retirements in their home state. Mr Bush has no choice but to spend the next 17 months in Washington. He is not in for a pleasant time.

Dog Days of Summer

I'm celebrating the return of Internet service to Terra Nova tonight with a new blog entry! Yes, we are finally back online in a big way with our own T1, and I have a lot of Web surfing to catch up on after six frustrating weeks of catch as catch can Net availability via Starbucks hot spots and a borrowed Verizon card that worked only on Bob's computer, which meant early morning or after-five Net access only. It was a good thing all in all, kind of a Web diet, or probably more accurate, Web rehab. So here's a summary of where we're at as summer winds to a close.

For starters, we've ramped up to five canines in the house. Yes, five. In addition to our three Newfs--Terra, Charter and Lilo--EK is here for a couple of weeks with Shiloh, a sweet, wiggly yellow lab, and Rory, an impossibly cute Cavalier spaniel with a death wish. It only takes a second without direct supervision for Rory to find a new way to attempt suicide. He's three and a half now, with quite a track record.

From his first visit to Terra Nova at age 4 months when he immediately snorted up a handful of foxtails, necessitating a sleepover at the emergency room, to his latest adventure--breaking into the duffel containing his food and eating himself into a near comatose state--Rory never misses an opportunity to terrify his human caregivers. This time, without knowing what he'd gotten into (he left no evidence, having managed to locate a secret side entrance while leaving everything else zipped up tight) we all panicked, and Rory got to spend the day at the vet's on IV fluids to help his body process all that dry kibble. Last year's big adventure brought him nose to nose with a striking rattlesnake, and only Bob's totally selfless intervention scooped the little scamp out of harm's way a nanosecond ahead of certain death. Of course right now the Rorster is curled up sleeping on the couch, looking ever so angelic.

Speaking of rattlesnakes, we've certainly seen our share of them in the past few weeks. About 10 days after my exciting front-porch encounter, Bob ran across a similar-sized specimen elsewhere on the property. This one we transported farther away, which turned out to be a good decision since the photos we each took of our respective snakes revealed identical markings. We'd both captured the same snake! Even after that, I came across a suspiciously similar-looking fellow crossing our neighbor's dirt driveway. Could it be? Or are we just well populated with 3 foot rattlesnakes? Needless to say, we've learned to watch our step pretty carefully.

Of course, it wouldn't be summer in East San Diego County without a week or so of beastly heat. This year has been nicely temperate until this last week when we spent about four consecutive afternoons in triple-digits, grateful for our solar-powered air conditioning. Today was bearable again, but high temps always raise the spectre of wildfire, and it's been another year of drought, so everything that hasn't burned lately is crackling dry and itching to explode. All we need to ratchet the fire danger all the way up is a good stiff Santa Ana.

In the meantime, the Santa Barbara area is fielding the Zaca Fire, an immense blaze that's been burning for six weeks already. With containment still a ways off, the Zaca has hit 200,000 acres and is beginning to nudge the Cedar Fire's record as possibly the largest fire in California history at 276,000 acres. Thanks to an atmospheric inversion layer, we've even had smoke here the past couple of days. Fortunately, the Zaca Fire has so far kept largely to the Los Padres National Forest, and no homes or human lives have been lost. I would try to come up with a pithy clincher for this post but it's after 11, and time to sleep. Right after I take all the dogs out for one last airing.

Have a Look at This Little Beauty!

A few times in my life I've actually surprised myself by doing something I really wouldn't have suspected I could do. Having a baby, for example. Driving down a mountain through smoke and fire. Scuba diving with a shark. These were all things that other people did. Not me. Until I did them.

Today I added to that very short list after discovering this Terra Nova visitor right on the front porch, enjoying the wet spot where the fountain spray gathers. I actually picked it up with our snake stick and corraled it in a covered bucket until Bob got home. Then we walked way down the hill and released it. And really, it was a beautiful creature. What a shame most people just kill these guys. They were here first after all. We've intruded on their habitat. Plus, we really need them to keep the rodent population in balance. So this particular Crotalus mitchellii, aka Southwest Speckled Rattlesnake, is off hunting again tonight as usual, after an unusually eventful day. I'd like to think Steve Irwin would be pleased.

Stick a Fork in Mitt Romney; He's Done

Number of dog owners in the U.S.: 43 million

Number of dog owners in the U.S. likely to vote for a presidential candidate who once drove 12 hours with the family's Irish setter locked into a kennel atop the car, stopping only to hose the dog off when urine and diarrhea started dripping down the car windows, and then rationalizing that good ole Seamus LOVED riding on top the car, really he did: zip, zero, nada

Kessler Flats

Point to point, as the crow--or the sheriff’s helicopter--flies, it’s only about four miles from where the lost hunter, Sergio Martinez, lit his infamous signal fire to the cul de sac in Ramona’s San Diego Country Estates where the Cedar Fire took the first of more than 2,200 houses in late October, 2003. On the ground, however, it’s literally a long and winding road.

Bob and I set out last Sunday to retrace Sergio’s footprints and in the process we logged nearly 100 miles on the Suburban. We started by driving north up Wildcat Canyon to Ramona, where Hwy. 67 becomes Hwy. 78, and then on past farms, horse ranches and even a camel dairy as we wound into the Laguna mountains all the way to the outskirts of Julian. A mile shy of that quaint little mining village turned tourist mecca, we turned south again on Pine Hills Road.

In most Cedar Fire reports, the fire's point of origin is usually described as four miles south of Pine Hills. I'd never been there before, but it's easy to miss--a tiny community of homes, many decidedly upscale, and all loosely clustered around a dinner theater and a fire station. It was here at the Pine Hills station that some 350 firefighters waited while their bosses drove one dirt road after another, in the darkness, trying to find a way into the fire. They never did, of course, which is why the blaze was able to simmer along until the Santa Ana winds came up in full force at midnight and shot the fire like a cannon ball out of the mountains and eventually all the way into the city of San Diego 50 miles to the west.

Pine Hills Road leads almost immediately to Eagle Peak Road, which turns quickly from asphalt to gravel and dirt. Sure enough, four miles later we came to Kessler Flats, where Sergio pulled off and parked his truck early the morning of October 25, 2003. Then he and his hunting partner, Ron Adkins, headed off into the chaparral in search of deer.

We only found a couple of spots along Eagle Peak Road near Kessler Flats where you can pull off, and certainly no place big enough for a fire engine to park, much less turn around. Think about trying to squeeze in a fleet of trucks and engines, bulldozers and crew buses. And being sure they could all get turned around and make a hasty exit if the fire turned around and headed back in their direction, as wildfires have often been known to do.

In fact, it was in almost this exact location half a century ago when 11 firefighters were killed during an unexpected flash-over in a canyon during the Inaja Fire. We'd even stopped at the Inaja Memorial just before Pine Hills Road and read their names.

As the name implies, Kessler Flats is a broad, grassy break in the rolling hills and corrugated canyons that distinguish this part of San Diego County. It must have been beautiful a couple of months ago when everything was still green. It’s still striking now, a lake of golden grasses bending in the breeze, studded by islands of enormous oaks.

We’d made a point of coming more prepared than Sergio. He’d brought only a rifle and a single canteen. We brought two backpacks full of water, a sheaf of topographical maps and two GPS locaters. We armored ourselves with sunscreen, sunglasses, ball caps and snake boots. And Bob, still my favorite Marine, even strapped on a pistol, just in case some hungry mountain lion thought we looked tasty.

There’s no trail leading from Eagle Peak Road to the point where Sergio ended up after losing track of his hunting buddy and wandering lost and thirsty for nearly 8 hours that scorching hot October Saturday. The map actually shows a bit of trail, just a loop from one point to another on Eagle Peak Road. But on the ground we saw only a few tire tracks, and even they didn’t seem to lead anywhere. Certainly nowhere in the vicinity of the latitude and longitude we needed to find. So it was strictly a cross country hike, a real adventure pointing the GPS in front of us like a water wand.

We’d plugged in the coordinates from the sheriff’s report, which documented exactly where the helicopter had landed when it arrived to extract Sergio from the mess he’d made. And we knew also from the same report where he’d been found and where the fire had been burning. Plus, we’d had help in pinpointing the exact locations from sheriff’s deputy and chopper pilot Dave Weldon, who’d been the one flying that afternoon when he and his partner, Rocky Laws, rescued Martinez.

Past the spreading grassland of Kessler Flats, the terrain drops away down a fairly steep slope and then flattens out again for a bit until it runs into a leafy line of trees growing alongside a little creek. This time of year, it’s narrow enough to step over. Immediately on the other side, we had to scramble up a serious incline to find the tiny level spot where Weldon had perched the helicopter the day of the fire.

No one can know how far Sergio Martinez actually wandered that day trying to find either his buddy or his truck. He told Weldon and Laws he’d been all the way to the bottom of a rugged canyon that falls off precipitously immediately east of where he ended up. Standing out there where Sergio stood, it’s hard to imagine why he would do such a thing. It’s a long way down and ridiculously steep, much steeper than the terrain we’d covered.

I had to wonder why he would choose such a rugged path and think he could possibly be retracing his steps. It doesn’t make sense that he couldn’t have picked out a landmark or two to steer by. But then it’s difficult to imagine, now that the fire has cleared the terrain, what Sergio’s visibility would have been at that time. Judging by Weldon’s report and the remaining black skeletons of once-mature scrub oak, the brush around him towered up to 15 feet.

When they spotted him from the air, led in by the smoke, Sergio was sitting on a low jumble of rocks. Just downwind from him, edging uphill toward the top of a broad knoll, a patch of chaparral about 50 yards square, or roughly half a football field, was burning. And the wind was already blowing at 20 to 30 mph.

Sergio couldn’t have seen the Country Estates from his seat on the rocks. He would’ve been looking east toward Cuyamaca, Middle Peak and North Peak, the heart of the Lagunas where 400 year old conifers had towered over generations of San Diegans drawn to the cool green quiet of Rancho Cuyamaca State Park. A nearly sacred place, a natural cathedral, irreplaceable. Within the week it would be reduced to ash and firewood.

The Country Estates lay to the southwest. You have to walk uphill a little farther to the top of a gentle knoll rising behind Sergio's rock pile. And that day there was a fire in the way. But when we reached the top of the knoll we could see the estates clearly, even the water tank on Thornbush Road where CDF Battalion Chief Kelly Zombro and NFS Division Chief Hal Mortier were waiting and watching that Saturday night to see exactly what this little fire was going to do.

The four miles between Sergio and the two chiefs covers some of the roughest terrain in Southern California: the San Diego River drainage. The mountains are steep here, I’d say 60 to 70 degrees as a general rule, and in some places approaching vertical. The gorge itself is a slash cut deep into nearly barren earth. In the rainy season, 40 foot waterfalls cascade from one notch in the topography to the next below it. A couple of trails wind down to the river itself. One of these bleeds off the end of Eagle Peak Road, two miles of ruts and boulders hugging the side of the mountain like a string of lights on a Christmas tree. One false step and the world falls away. It’s a full two miles in, but getting back out is the part I’d worry about.

I'd often imagined what the terrain was like where Sergio wandered for so long and got so hopelessly lost. That's why I wanted to see it. Perhaps I should've expected it would be different than I'd thought it would be. But still I was surprised to find it much less wild, less intimidating than in my imagination, though definitely on the edge of rugged. A few things do become perfectly clear once you’re out there where Sergio ended his long day’s journey into exhaustion. First, you’re a long way out in the sticks and a healthy hike in from the nearest road. On the other hand, you can turn in a circle and see nearly everyplace the fire went from here, which makes you realize that nothing is really all that far away, not the Country Estates or Barona or Lakeside. Not Poway or Scripps Ranch or Tierrasanta or Miramar. Not Alpine or Crest or even the Lagunas. And certainly not Julian or Wynola, where Firefighter Steve Rucker died fighting the flames.

Fanning out in all directions as it did, running with the wind, first southwest and then due east, when the Santa Anas died and the onshore breezes returned, the Cedar Fire was equally well positioned from this remote spot in the Cleveland National Forest to hit any and all of those locales in a straight run.

It seemed so very far away when we first heard of it. Miles and miles. But distance, like time, is relative. And the journey that took us so long by car and on foot is nothing to a bird, a helicopter or a wildfire.

It's Over. Or Is It?

The Sopranos has faded into television history, not with a bang, as so many hoped, or a whimper, as so many feared. Instead creator David Chase, whose every episode was stitched together by carefully chosen music, completed his saga of America's favorite mobster with a Soprano family dinner at a wholesome, old-fashioned diner, set to the soundtrack of Journey's tune "Don't Stop Believin'" on the jukebox. After languishing suspiciously on every person in the place, the camera zooms in on Tony looking up--whether at his daughter Meadow, who's just arriving, or a mob assassin stepping out from the crowd, we'll never know for sure, because at that moment the screen goes blank. BLANK! And then the credits roll for the very last time.

So after all the speculation about what would happen to Tony in the end, Chase fooled us all by refusing to end much of anything. Except for top New York mafia man, Phil Leotardo, who did get popped, literally, which not so neatly put an end to the New York/New Jersey rumble that caused so much bloodshed last week. Instead of closure, Chase leaves us with an unmistakable message, via Journey. (Oh, Randy Jackson should be so proud tonight.)

Some will win, some will lose
Some were born to sing the blues
Oh, the movie never ends
It goes on and on and on and on

O.K. David, I get it. I'll admit; I was upset at first. Like everyone else, I expected, I wanted you to wrap things up with a neatly tied ribbon. But I defer to your creative genius. It really is better this way, believin' Tony's still out there somewhere, still doing this thing of his, still venting his mother issues to a therapist (any therapist), still buying his family's love with diamonds and BMWs, still holding it all together despite never knowing which stranger walking through which door will be the one to put a bullet through his brain. Ah, but we'll miss you, T. Salute.

Pomp and Circumstance

It's graduation time again, and again our family has reasons to be proud. My nephew Luke graduated from the University of Illinois with a degree in computer engineering (yes, he's very brainy!) and immediately afterward was commissioned as an ensign in the U.S. Navy. Anchors aweigh, Lucas! Closer to home, Charter finally earned kudos after five years of playing second fiddle to super-sister Terra. Last week, the big goofy guy graduated from therapy dog prep school! This means he's on his way to becoming credentialed by a national therapy organization and beginning therapy visits. Who knows what sort of therapy work Charter will most enjoy, but it was wonderful seeing him do well in this class. He far surpassed my insulting expectations, and best of all, he loved it. I'd never seen him so happy, as the photo above indicates. By the way, it would be nice if not all doggy caps and gowns were sized for shih tzus!