A letter from Americana

[Worldslaziestbusker]

Could you hand me the half inch spanner?
Matt, could you hand me the half inch spanner, please?

Huh? Oh, sorry. (hands spanner) I was lost in a moment there.

What's that?

Well, I'm helping my brother in law change out the water pump in his Jeep Wrangler. The toddler, in her gingham dress, is banging on the screen door, wanting to join her brother and her cousin, who are playing on the sidewalk with the kids from up the street, under instruction to go no further than the fire hydrant. A squirrel just ran up that oak tree across the road, and someone is mowing their lawn. Only a bald eagle could make this any more American.

Yeah. Can we finish up? I have to get these tools back to the props department and call the wrap before the extras start calling for overtime.


LMAO
This is one of the many reasons I love my brother in law.

[riddlemethis]

Sounds Leave it to Beaver style idyllic WLB! I hope you guys are having a lovely time. Pls send pics of babbee in gingham dress!

[Logic please]

Hehe, y'all have a great time.

I hope this becomes a serialised record of happenings as they, well... happen.

[Mjt]

WLB in America!
Amerika ist wunderbar!!
Have a wonderful time, and keep us updated

[Worldslaziestbusker]

Originally Posted by Logic please

I hope this becomes a serialised record of happenings as they, well... happen.

It's not a very intense travel experience, as we are here primarily to introduce my daughter to her extended family. We are getting out and about to visit museums and art galleries etc, but it is at a fairly leisurely pace and days spent slobbing about the house are a welcome change to the frenetic, goal focused travel that has characterised my peregrinations, all work related, in the six years since my last holiday.
Thus, there is not a lot of scope for profundity in the minutiae of our meanderings, unless a potentially interesting church visit makes the transition from the offing to the quayside, but I will blogivate those observations and moments that stand out in my mind.

To that end, I have been bending the ears of the "Cognitive Dissonance" team since the snake handler death in May, and just fired this to them in an email:

In my sister in law's back yard, I saw a flash of movement by my mother in law's foot. "Snake," yells I, with the short hand thinking of generations of paranoia behind my words, safe in the knowledge that a type 1 error (false positive) would be infinitely preferable to a type 2 (false negative). I grabbed the shoulders of my four year old son, preparing to hoist him onto my own and to leg it into the middle distance, leaving my mother in law to fend for herself*, when I remembered where I was. Michigan has a rattle snake that is venomous, but it is rare and largely confined to the Upper Peninsula. Fighting the flight response, I bent down and looked close, though remaining clear of my best guess at potential striking range - a garter snake. We stood and watched it glide across the grass and disappear under a rock, a rare opportunity to watch a live snake at close quarters without personal risk.
Hooray for wussy American snakes.

* I get along very well with my mother in law, but had she trod so close to one of the dangerous Australian snakes she would have been bitten in short order and required hospitalisation. Leaving her behind, while a shoddy look, would have been entirely ethical triage in my mind, and not a nod to 1960s comedy routines based entirely on disfunctional familial relationships.

[Worldslaziestbusker]

The heat is up in the nineties, and the gray chalk probably has an albedo in that range, too, making me squint endlessly against the glare as much as against the dust. With the amphitheatre of rock seemingly focusing the sun's power against my puny physiology, perspiration is a waste of precious bodily fluids. The dust sticks to it and insulates against further attempts at homeostasis.
I look to my tool kit and something is missing. The toddler has the ganky toothbrush lodged firmly between muddy, smiling lips. Palaeontology is hell.

We've been fossil fossicking in Ohio. Brachiopods, trilobits and stalked crinoids, who should have taken out restraining orders. Lack of rain stopped play but a good time was had by all.

[AUSloth]

Cheers WLB, i've been looking for someone's holiday to piggy back on now that Annie, Wolty and 2D are finished the cavalcade of beer. Keep up the postings any pics of the fossils? I dipped out on a long weekend to the Winton fossil fields due to nasty virus thingies recently so I am pining for the ancient.

[Worldslaziestbusker]

While my fascination for squirrels and chipmunks perplexes my hosts and their friends, who view the animals with either indifference or antagonism, even the oldest and most jaded mid-westerner acknowledges that fireflies are delightful. I will miss their silent dancing accompaniment to my evening walks when I head south.

Star gazing has been more active than passive for me in recent times as I teach my son about stars and planets, but the strong hold the passive register of southern skies has on my mind was brought home when I spotted what I thought were the pointers. That the southern cross was not where I needed it to be gave me an unpleasant bump. It was only moments before I realised why my navigation sub-routines had led me to a false expectation, but for those moments the northern hemisphere star field filled me with unease.

I love thunderstorms and the mid-west is a good place to see some spectacular light shows. The storm clouds form in the late afternoon and the storms have staying power. No great wind squalls, as I am accustomed to, but heavy rain and near constant pealing thunder.

The fourth of July fireworks were spectacular. Young children and the late sunset at this latitude this close to solstice meant we couldn't attend any of the many public displays on offer, but the suburbs were alight with the store bought pyrotechnics and some of the ordnance was of impressive calibre.







PS: I was abducted and given a probin' coffee by aliens, but as their craft bore no lights, I didn't think it warranted inclusion in the body of this post.

[Sieveboy]

Any crop circles and have you zerged a creationist museum?

[Worldslaziestbusker]

Pics of fossils when I get home.

The only crop circles I've seen are the ones I've been making, and these are nothing compared to Croc's circle work, which I am told can be seen from space, bro.

Croc circles?