Thursday Thirteen: Random Happenstances. A little ranting and well balanced joys.

These are thirteen little Happenstances on my

* ~ * Road of Life Rant. ~ * ~

1. On local streams and their little beds...
We are lucky in California if any stream is still recognizable.  Mentone Creek was a truly beautiful little bubbling brook when I lived up near it.  Now I don't think it even is there anymore as a dam was proposed in 1978 and of course any big Army Ant project will eventually win out over huge objections.  Since Mill creek was dammed out of existence as a viable water way, Mentone probably just dried up.

Mill Creek came all the way down out of the San Bernardino Mountain massif, via Forest Home, and was a small tributary of the Santa Ana River system.
A lot of times, when contractors bulldoze an area, they bury natural water features like creeks but leave the stream bed intact.  The water keeps flowing but that flow dams up in places where there is an obstruction (boulder, ancient curve around something else, like an old flow or earthquake fault).

And, so, if you have done any Science Projects in grade school dealing with buried stream beds, you've guessed what happens next.  A'Voila, you get something called "Creep"!

And so the hillsides collapse!  These are probably all just waiting to collapse a large mass of mud into a house.  I think our house is in a development that was created by a scrape and fill, in a stream bed that drained what the Spanish settlers called, The "Alto".  It's still on some very old maps.  There is a long, long major stream, Alvarado Creek, that is now absolutely mangled.

2.  I couldn't find my Quadrangle maps (topos) from the USGS.  I had almost all of Southern and Central California Mountains, because, of course, there is nothing more important than deserts and mountains in California.  Well off shore shelves, but those are Charts.   I bought some of my maps in College, student rates made it easy!  And, I just kept collecting topographicals until the 1980, when the shop we bought them from that was near to our neighborhood quit carrying them.  All the topos are now on line, which is better than nothing, but there is just nothing like a physical, hands-on topo.  They are the most beautiful maps I've ever seen. (Mr. Z. went on a snipe hunt and found them for me.)  I Love that guy!

3.  We watched a documentary about Lance Armstrong, "Stop At Nothing", about how he, Armstrong, went all "Nazi/Stalinist" on his friends and fellow riders.  He nearly ruined their lives, and,actually, in some cases, did.  The documentary was about the horrible way that he did it, and all for nothing more than "filthy Lucre".  It's terrible when something that could have been a beautiful life story degrades into Criminal Intent.  He hurt so many people, including his own family.  Wouldn't most normal people think, at least, of the affect of their behavior coming down on their own little children?

4. Now, for something completely different.  If you like Cycling, then I have three very inspirational docs for you.  They erase the bad taste from watching the movie mentioned in #3.

a. My Italian Secret, the forgotten Heroes about an Italian champion cyclist that helped in the Italian underground's fight to save Jews in Italy before and during the Nazis sectioned the country.



b. Inspired to Ride  This is a wonderful story about the long ride from Astoria Oregon to Yorktown on the East Coast.



c. Personal Gold is about an amazing team of American women cyclists, and it's support personnel, (using no drugs but new and newsworthy State of the Art Data gathering to streamline training) as this underdog team prepare to race against other countries in the Olympics.  You will fall in love with these amazing ladies.
P.S, to Jenny, we share a body type, and I so admire you!  You Go Girl!


twitter feed at #PersonalGold #DataNotDrugs

5.  The Peace Cowl: I found a niggling little mistake , over two stitches. And, as I tried to tink back across them I lost track of one of them that proceeded to ladder back.  I'm still steaming over this rookie mistake.  If you aren't a knitter, I'm sorry, you won't find this remotely interesting so that's all I'll say about it.

6. Every time I hear this song by Blondie, I just have to dance...




7. It's the same with this one by Cindi Lauper...



8.  AND ANOTHER 180 DEGREE RIGHT TURN
There are two species of Orioles (Hooded and Bullock's)  and there is even a very stray Palm Warbler,  some Audubon's (this page goes to a place where the Ornithologist still present arguments over this little bird's taxonomy), many, many tiny Wilson's, and a few Nashville warblers as well as Chippies, White Crown sparrows, Allen's hummingbirds (the tiny Allen's seems to be still be migrating up from Mexico- at least the birds can get over "That Asinine Wall" if the land animals, like the Panthers and Road Runners and Big Horned Sheep, cannot.

Spring is here!  All the birds are taking baths again, which is lovely.  Since the bird bath was filled with leaves, I stumbled out, cleared a path of grasses and shamrocks, and cleaned out the ceramic shells that constitute our birdbath.  Then sweet, clear, and wonderful water is there for them once again.  The rain meant that we got out of practice checking to see if the birdbaths were full.  Because, they stayed full all winter!

We don't have a side yard full of weeds by accident.   We leave them for all the birds to snack on and eat seeds from.  I'm going to create my own wildlife garden sign, or maybe go for the "Cause", aka a certified sign from National Wildlife Federation.  Link goes to their site.  Please do "Stay tuned."

9.  I still think I just can't breathe so well.  Anyway, not right now.  I am pretty blue...

10. RANT! I'd just like to say that the  "Chosen", had already "found" the "Promised Land"  a LONG time ago.  The "chosen" i.e. American "Pilgims", didn't count.  Like the "Promised Land" so many eons ago, this land was already taken.  I'd love to bite someone on the leg every time I hear that stupid phrase.  Sorry if that insults the DAR or your ancestors.

11. I asked my hubby how he deals with depression, and he said, "It comes and goes".  Well, folks, some of you know this, up very close, too.  My heart goes out to all of you.  I understand what you are going through.

Shhhhhh! Now we'll have a  *((((((GROUP HUG))))))*  and sing "Kumbaya".  Pass it on...

From THIS Page

Try it, you'll like this Blogger for Change

12.  Speaking of getting away, I'd like to take a vacation with Mr. Z., Mr. Wolfie, our Desert Buds, my Quadrangle maps and a GPS, and go WAY WAY out into the Back of Beyond at Joshua Tree.  I want to count all the cute little Gopher Tortoises as they come out of their tunnels for the Spring.

13. It's time for dinner.  If someone else wasn't fixing it, I'd eat nothing but toast, fruit, and chocolate with an occasional cheese stick or hard-cooked egg. That's pretty much balanced, yes?

 Random Inquiry:  Does anyone know if a person can actually survive very long on Cliff Bars?