Casita Klatsch

Lions and Spiders and...Twiggers? Oh My!

In the desert you have always been able to see some odd things.  Plants that beguile you with their painful beauty,  shriek-inducing invertebrates, swine-like creatures so ugly they're cute (and so stinky they're nauseating)...the list goes on.

And then there are the humans.  Colorful is the kinder, diplomatic way to describe them.  Here in Tucson, a not-so-small desert city on the eastern edge of the Sonoran Desert, the multiplicity of type never ceases to amaze me.  Take a walk down 4th Avenue, where you will see a living collage of denims, dreadlocks, dandies and destitutes.

In the desert itself, the richness of diversity is certainly not limited to flora and fauna.  Once, while hiking in the smaller mountains west of the city, I had to step aside and allow a man on a bicycle to pass.  He was a portly man, somewhere in his 50s, perched high atop an equally aging, skinny-tired touring bike (!) and sporting nothing but the rubber band that held his graying hair in a long, sweaty ponytail.  I diverted my eyes as he passed, but I did sneak a peek as he rode off, both amused and horrified by the sight of his wrinkled buns flowing over the saddle of that poor bike.  Talk about muffin-top.

Anyway, I just read an article describing a new subtype of human that one could soon run across in the desert:  meth-heads who roam the desert, often in teams, digging up random areas and pilfering anything that may be of historical value.  Apparently, the effects of meth (hyperactivity, task-oriented behavior, sleeplessness) make the addicts the perfect workforce for this endeavor.  The dealers who lead these packs of "twiggers" take the loot and sell it on the black market.  And the payment to the looters themselves?  You guessed it, more meth. 

Homer is an archaeologist.  I wonder if his team will need new security measures to protect their dig sites.  Hmm.  Paul Blart II: Desert Cop. 

What's your sign?

Upon borrowing Homer's coche to meet some fellow UA music grads last night, I took advantage of the opportunity that having wheels gave me to snap some photos for a new Casita Klatsch category I've been meaning to start.  Tucson signs. 

Tucson has a lot of funky signs planted in front of businesses.  I hope to catch a good many of them on camera while I am here. 

Warning:  the following are fairly boring, but I do like the one for the $150 appliances.  I'll get more shots  (and better ones, hopefully) when I have use of Homer's car next week and can spend more time on the task.  Homer will be away for a while, and I'll be looking after Puff, Joey and Mama Cat while he's in DC visiting Jimbo, TJ, Aaron (I think) and another blogger, whose tail I'm whipping in Scrabulous at the mo'.

Pat's  on Grande

Praco's appliances

I especially like the arrow.  In fact, I covet it.

This is by no means old or funky, but I'm including it as a very sad, er, sign of the times in depressed socioeconomic areas.

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And, for Doug.  From the casita garden this morning.  I've been trying to get a shot of this bugger for days now.  S/he finally perched on an Arizona willow blossom.

Got Gas?

I'm sitting here at the laptop, watching the blustery winds of the recent cold-snap threaten to blow the beards off the penstemon.  We've gone from 104F to 60F in two days.  My pores don't know what hit them.  They're opening and closing like the blowhole of a demented whale. 

On NPR they are rehearsing the ubiquitous complaints over the current price of fuel in America.  The average cost per gallon is $3.83 now.  Here in Tucson, the prices are some of the cheapest in the nation.  Regardless, I'm glad I don't have a car.  Riding the bus for a dollar each way, regardless of the distance, seems a bargain...although it is SunTran and its gallery of colorful (and fragrant) riders.  [sidebar:  Why is it that in the U.S., outside of some major metro areas, buses seem to be designated for those who cannot afford cars?  Is it possible, just once, to ride the bus here without 1) the bus breaking down, 2) it running vastly off schedule, or 3) being accosted by someone either bumming a cigarette or asking for some spare change.  As if I have either.]

$3.83 a gallon.  Let me see.  In Australia, fuel is sold by the liter.  There are 3.79 liters per gallon.  That means fuel in America is $1.01 per liter.  When I left Sydney, it cost $1.47 per liter for standard unleaded. 

That's $5.57 a gallon.  Yes, $5.57.*  Stop the whinging.

*I don't care if they are Australian dollars.  It doesn't matter. Dollars are dollars when you live and work in the country in which the dollars are the currency.  And the U.S. dollar is nearly neck and neck with the Aussie dollar anyway.

Yes, let's please stop complaining and start doing something constructively to improve the scope of alternative transportation in the U.S.  And I'm talking about something more than the strategy UPS has implemented.

During the above rant, a few birds visited the gardens here at Casita Palomas.  At the risk of my husband calling me a twitcher, here are some more pictures, snapped through my front window.  A real twitcher would know the names of the birds. I can only guess.  Jimbo, if he reads this, could tell me.  He's the cutest twitcher around.

A thrush? cactus wren (thanks, Lisa)

The oh-so-difficult-to-photograph hummingbird

Hummingbird at rest

No idea