An old chum of mine passed by one of my resting places along the bike path today. I saw him on the far side of the river, just a glimpse among the leaves, but sight enough that I couldn't mistake the wide shoulders and upright bearing. I was sitting on the slick, machine-cut face of a basaltic boulder, nibbling at a handful of grapes. Twice, I called out. My friend's sleek black head turned, and I'm sure his dark eyes saw me carefully place a grape on the surface of the rock, our secret sign that he should join me. He, however, stood stock still, as if the slightest movement would confirm my discovery of him. I slid my hand into my pack to retrieve the remainder of my snack; then, silently, I laid a few broken pretzels beside the lonely grape.

We kept our rigid perches for five minutes, maybe more, and then, seeing that he intended to come no closer, I leaned to pick up my bike helmet. When I looked up again, he was gone. I put the helmet on and mounted the bike, and as I did so, an elderly gentleman came up from the apartments nearby. As I struck the pedal downward, I greeted him with "G'morning!" although it was pushing mid-afternoon.

"G'morning," he answered back, and at that point, I was already too distant to make a response. Checking back in my helmet's mirror, I saw him step to the rock, pick up the grape and pretzels, but then I looked away, not wishing to see my offering discarded into the grass.

Do good intentions count? It's been a long time since I last gave the local crows their tithe, so I hoped to redeem myself in some part with this small gesture.

My friends won't have been fooled for a minute by this narrative. They all know I'm "a little wacked" on crows. My "crow board" is a subject of some dispute in the neighbourhood, Dennis not caring to have his dogs partake of fish scraps when they come trespassing into the yard, and my mother simply not understanding how I can go about the labour and expense of preparing macaroni-and-cheese dinners for my black-feathered companions. Trust me, the rewards are not something you could easily forget.

Three times (my website only cites two), I have been given a gift in exchange for the food I provide. I suspect these may have come from the family of ravens who have discovered my largesse, but raven or crow, the species is corvid, and they have an aptitude for humour which is unmistakable. The first time I was paid for dinner, I received a bare bone, either ham or t-bone, and therefore not something which could have come from my table. Chances are, it was purloined from Clyde, who also feeds our "black chickens." The second time stunned me with its thoughtfulness. The item placed on the board to replace the meal of chicken skin was a perfectly ripe and totally undamaged cherry, apparently picked and carried by its stem.

The third occasion required sincere effort, and I cannot say whether it was a team project or something done by a solitary member of the clan. I do not recall what I'd put out for their enjoyment that morning, but by evening, in its place, I found a substantial pile (six or seven) rocks, matched for size and arranged in a pyramid. The incongruity of the gesture was that the rocks were virtually identical, and resembled no gravel, either road or river-worn, found nearby.

Sande pokes fun at my communion with crows, and once when we were fishing, after I had carried on a long, unintelligible (to me) conversation with one in a tree above me, he suggested I shut up by saying, "Your throat is going to get sore."

I cease cawing, and said, "Okay, be that way. No fish for you."

The next two hours' fishing was fruitless. Neither of our rods even bobbed. My partner in conversation gave up trying to evoke a response from me and moved further down the lake to ponder what had caused my sudden silence. Eventually, he decided to try to draw me out again. Lighting in the same tree behind me, he uttered a protracted series of caws. It would have been rude not to answer, so I voiced several syllables in the corvid tongue. The echo of the "words" had not died away when my line jerked and I reeled in a fat rainbow. "Toldja so," I said to Sande, who scowled at me darkly for enlisting outside aid.

A grape and a few broken pretzels may not seem like much to put in the parson's basket, but I tried. Caw!

Mother Nature left her pantry door ajar and clever Clyde sneaked in while she wasn't looking to effect a very productive raid. I have to admit the thought had crossed my mind, but I had dismissed it as premature, a waste of time, a project slated to yield too little or nothing for the effort required, so while I dawdled like the grasshopper of fable, Clyde crept ant-like to the picnic in the woods and brought back a produce bag filled with chanterelles.

"You bought 'em," I accused, when he handed me a share. This excellent mushroom waits for the chilly, damp days of October to peek above the detritus of fir needles on the forest floor. The hunter dresses in wool long johns and rainwear to scout their hiding places, and generally wears a splash of garish orange, red or pink to prevent a mistake of identity which could end in a head mounted on someone's cabin wall. It is only during the gun-totin', good-old-boys months that chanterelles appear, never August. Surely Clyde had found them at a store.

My neighbour trusts me not to scalp his best territories, and has often confided where the big fish lie or the blueberries ripen earliest and sweetest, so I waited patiently for the punchline which I knew would follow his reply, "Nope. Got 'em not too far from here." He let me dangle at the end of curiosity's rope for the space of a moment, until finally, my raised eyebrow got the better of him and brought the full confession. "Up by headquarters," he said.

I covered my wince, deliberating whether or not I should mention the recent changes to the regulations covering that particular body of land. Clyde and I have nipped a few fish beyond the legal limit on occasion, as many of the local hunter-gatherers do, to supplement incomes that don't allow for frequent consumption of store-bought protein. He rattled on about the rain and cooler temperatures as a scene involving federal agents played out in my imagination, Clyde being driven, hand-cuffed, at the fore. If only out of gratitude for the bag of ill-gotten gain in my hand, I owed him fair warning. "Um...did you know you can't take anything out of the Park?" I said, "Nothing, not even blueberries? You're supposed to eat it while you're there."

"It's for personal use," he objected. "That's for pickers."

"Nope," I told him, "not for a couple of years now. You can only pick what you're going to consume on premises. I don't know if they'd stick to that right to the letter as far as headquarters property is concerned, but it's law inside Park boundaries. If they wanted to be stinky about it, they could nail you. Better always keep your eye out for a handy stump to hide behind."

Clyde made a joking movement toward the bag of mushrooms sitting on the step. I put my foot on it. "Huh-uh," I said. "I'm having poached chanterelles for dinner."

With a little salt and pepper, I'm all for peasant revolt.

Comeuppance or bad karma coming back to bite me in the bum? One way or the other, cosmic retribution has circled 'round for the many years I was unsympathetic to my ex-husband, a man who suffered horribly with autumn allergies. Even now as I sneeze and snuffle on the periphery of a full-blown attack, my agonies are mild when compared to those he endured. My nose waters, my sinuses ache, pouches swell beneath my eyes and my entire face feels as if it has been thrust into a sack filled with cat hair. Every muscle, every joint, every fiber of my body is rising in complaint against histamines.

Until you've lived it, you can't fully appreciate the sublime humour in pairing a forest ranger with an allergy to Douglas fir. With a bandanna handkerchief knotted bracelet-style around my wrist for easy access, my duties were often exercised among visitors who no doubt took me for a demented semaphorist, signalling them over as I approached to inspect their permits like a backwoods extension of Highway Patrol. The diamond glistening at the tip of my nose may have been mistaken for sweat or for a dewdrop if the day was cool and foggy when, in fact, its condensation nucleus was no more than a tiny, spiky grain of pollen from any of ten thousand nearby trees.

The latest spate (for no other word more aptly fits the definition of my travail) issues from a few days' showers which stirred molds and dust from their period of stagnation. My awareness of it began with a sneeze which I chose to ignore. Soon, I was aaaah-chooing on the hour, half and quarter like a Black Forest clock's cuckoo, and snuffling the minutes between to keep the timed drip from precipitating into my lap.

My sinuses filled with congested torment and I began to rub at my eyes, still not conscious of the changes occurring in my body as anything significantly in deviation from the norm. "It's the humidity," I told myself. After a dry summer, the conclusion was logically drawn. I brushed the cat, certain that her shedding was responsible for the tickling on my cheeks. The aches followed, and I was convinced I was coming down with a cold or the flu. Is it that I think I can deny my frailties that it took so long for me to complete the equation?

As I sit here, hands pressed against my pained face, I think of Bruce, with Kleenex stuffed up each nostril and a bottle of antihistamine in either hand, railing against the tide. It's kinda late now, but I'd like to say, "I feel sorry for you, you poor, poor thing."

Yesterday was wrong-footed. After a sleep disturbed by the antics of a rambunctious cat, I was wakened early by my mother, who had conceived the idea that the toilet would not flush and had worked herself up into a Richter-scaled panic attack over the proposition. I rose groggily, fumbled my way to the bathroom and depressed the lever. With a whoosh, the night's accumulated paper circled briefly and disappeared beyond the bend. After living 27 years in a house with non-functioning plumbing, a growing senility sometimes prevents my mom from placing too much belief in pipeware, although it had not come up before dawn previously.

I could have been amused, but it was rather apparent that my mother was in some physical distress. She claimed to have had another "bad spell" of violent trembling, palpitations and nausea during the small hours of the morning, so after some discussion, it was decided that I would take her to the doctor and forfeit my own appointment if necessary. Caring for the elderly is a job in which the unexpected must always be expected. The prospectus for the day now changed radically. The proposed bike ride was unavoidably shelved, and a sneaking hunch popped up at the back of my brain to suggest that the panic attack might have been spawned by the idea of spending the day at home alone.

The visit to the clinic proved nearly pointless. My mom refused an EKG, and seemed only to be interested in telling doctor that her daughter was unduly concerned for her health. Despite the knowing glances he flicked my way, nothing else could be done if we are to comply with her advance directive. In other words, she'd had a nice ride and a little chat on Medicare's tab, and nothing more. As for me, my cholesterol numbers reflected the benefits of exercise, an item sorely lacking on the present menu.

Our next stop was the natural foods co-op, and I made the mistake of inviting my mother into the wonderland of gleaming produce, racked cheeses and pungent spice. She roamed among the aisles with the curiosity of an explorer in a new-found land while I dawdled over my fare of figs, oatmeal and rice cakes, and when I went to retrieve her, she needed to be steered by the elbow to the exit. Of all the delights, she only selected a jar of black cherry juice in an hour's perusal of the very small shop. I could believe she would not have enjoyed a trip to the zoo any more than her wanderings among the shelves.

By the time we returned home, I was too worn to take an hour's ride between house and Post Office, even if time had been permitting. I sunk into the chair, dozing with the cat on my lap until dinnertime. I dreamt, and muttered in Spanish in my sleep, then waked feeling no more rested than before.

The phone rang as we were dining on leftover pancit, Sande on the distant end, his signal scattered amongst the hills. I caught, "...home in half an hour or so?" which birthed a vision of a trophy fish I'd missed seeing hooked. The half hour waned and faded without his appearance at the door, so finally, I called his home.

Well, it could have been worse if the prize had lived up to my mental image of a shining steelhead, his "dream fish," taken in my absence. Nevertheless, a seventeen inch trout is bad enough when it comes to adding insult to injury, and you won't be able to walk down the same side of the street as that man for a good many days to come without feeling the golden glow.

Some day, when I've had enough sleep and feel on top of the world, I'll look back on days like these and remember them with humour. You've got to admit, flushophobia is worth a laugh, even when the sun's not up.

A hypothesis: the length of time a cat will occupy a lap is directly proportional to the inconvenience it can cause. Empirical studies are showing the supposition to be valid over the long term, e.g. the distance of various types of handcraft from the host increase the weight of the symbiotic body, consumption of a double grande decaf non-fat mocha prolongs the occupation logarithmically over ingestion of 6 ounces of plain water, and an appointment will extend tenure indefinitely. In addition, the human's thwarted desire for caloric input seems to indicate a telepathic trigger capable of inducing a profound somnolescent state in the reposing feline, including deep relaxation of the long muscles accompanied by nervous twitching in the furthest extremities.

A corollary: the temperature of the feline body rises at a higher rate than both the ambient air temperature and the host's tolerance for warmth. Further field observations include marked spikes when a blanket, electric or ordinary, is applied.

At nearly two years old, Skunk has discovered the lap. It was forced upon her through objections of teeth (the toenails being absent) and great struggle, and it was only when I discovered that she liked being brushed under her ears and chin that real progress began to be made. In the space of three days, her attitude toward my ministrations became benign.

Her overall mental development has been marked by sudden spurts of more mature behaviour, as if in her sleep, certain cells of her brain abruptly activated, comparable to a child learning to read a primer on their first attempt. Her comprehension of right, wrong, and I-can-get-away-with-this are astonishingly well-defined, and her defiances of the rules are done with a stealth which speaks of high intelligence. I think that Man has gone too far in his denial of "human" critter behaviour under the label of anthropomorphism because clearly, there is a logic to be observed in many of the things our furry and feathered friends do.

Although I don't believe Skunk has risen to this level yet, I have known cats and birds to feign sleep in order to keep their human perch stationary. Do they know we take pleasure in their company, and play upon our sympathies? I asked myself that after an hour of holding my water, waiting for an eye to open so my conscience could vindicate itself if I set her on the floor. It would seem that I am being trained in the art of remaining motionless for and by the cat coiled on my tummy. Cat knows the value of reward.

Today, I am enervated. If you are like most people, the vision which jumps into your mind is of your author bicycling up a trail at high speed or leaping stream-washed boulders in hot pursuit of the fat trout at the end of her line, but you couldn't be more wrong. Take a look at me sitting limp in my chair. I am sapped, tapped, bone-weary, exhausted, tired, shagged, fagged and fatigued, because that, dear reader, is what 'enervated' truly means.

All right, I am not actually enervated today. I simply wanted to make my point. Misuse of this particular word is as widespread as supposedly educated folks who say 'snuck' for 'sneaked.' There ain't no 'snuck,' Chuck. It's not a word.

I am a great fan of Harry Potter, but not of J. K. Rowling, because she perpetuates the erroneous definition of enervation with a magical spell. "Ennervate!" one of her protagonists cries (undoubtedly Hermione Granger), and restores another Hogwarts student to their previously active state. Perhaps Ms. Rowling wishes to exert poetic license with her creative spelling, as if the additional 'n' might be responsible for effecting a counter-curse, but I think not. I think Ms. Rowling labours under a ponderous burden of common misconception. (Never fear. I sent a vituperative letter to her editor, pointing out his responsibility in letting the error slip by. I suppose I had nothing better to do with my spare time on that occasion. Perhaps it was raining, as it is today, and I was frustrated at not being out-of-doors.)

A few basic prepositions in Latin go a long way when determining the meaning of an English word. 'E,' for example, denotes 'out' or 'out of,' in the sense of 'without,' therefore, 'e-nervate' is 'without nerve' or 'without vitality.' Let's see...'e-viscerate' would serve nicely to pink your memory. Remember this image: when I eviscerate a fish, I am certainly not re-stuffing it!

As for the other major offender, 'snuck,' I suppose there's no hope. Its use has become so prevalent that even well-educated people lapse. Is it so hard to pronounce 'sneaked' that sheer enervation overwhelms our tongues and lips?

The price we pay for living among the lofty evergreens and gabbling, fish-filled streams of the Pacific Northwest is that we sometimes have to turn our furnaces on in August. Yes, following a streak of ninety degree days that felt like it would never end, the daytime highs have dipped to the low sixties, and as the rain tumbles down from the vast well of the atmosphere, I nudge the thermostat up to the flannel shirt mark. Layering is de rigueur in these latter days when the slightest ray of sun can spike the mercury, and as quickly as the outer covering can be tossed off, it can be drawn on again at a downward plunge.

The cat knows it's fireplace weather, and will sit glaring balefully at the blank glass screen until someone acknowledges her discomfort with a flick of the remote. You'd have had to laugh yesterday evening when, from a state resembling an overheated marshmallow before the giddy flames, she sought the cool kitchen linoleum to finish her pre-bedtime nap.

I am fond of the grey days, despite wanting to be out and about. I love the freshening of summer's dusty colours beneath a varnish of rain. The scent of a newly damp road, whether paved or gravel, is one I've known and enjoyed since childhood, a vivid olfactory memory unmistakable in its character, slightly redolent of rubber tires and automotive fluids in an altogether perversely pleasant way. Rain is welcome, rain is good, and despite objections from out-of-state immigrants, it can be borne with good cheer.

Autumn has sprung upon summer unexpectedly this year, and whether the creature has been destroyed or deftly skittered into hiding cannot be told for weeks to come. September may find its nose peeking around the corner timidly, or it may risk a final, bold assault upon its human prey before the cooler months devour it in their turn. For now, my hand, uncertain of the weather's temper, will hover close to thermostat or flannel as closely as the cat sits, guardian of the fire.

Apart from being sealed inside a 55-gallon drum with two hundred assorted spiders, I fear nothing so much as making a fool of myself, so today, when I made an appearance in front of a stranger with my little Spanish dictionary in hand, my courage was screwed so tightly to the sticking point that its threads had stripped. I knocked on Esther's door with no idea what command of English this recent immigrant might have, since all our written communications have been in her native tongue, and I was bowled over when she greeted her unexpected caller by name and invited me, "Come in! Come in!"

I am decidedly ill at ease around other human beings, especially those unknown to me. Although I had exchanged a few quick words with her at the end of a day's fishing, the suggestion that we meet and assist each other's language studies had been her husband's. I was longing for a companion with whom I could speak Spanish in my faltering manner, someone who would correct me gently and perhaps not blush when I used a verb with a secondary and unintended colloquial meaning. The thought of assisting her with English struck my fancy like a gong.

I entered the small apartment and was immediately assailed by la hija, not quite two. As my hostess reproached her child for being too rambunctious, I listened to the mother's quick-fire sentences and caught not a single word. Having learned my bit of Spanish from a carefully enunciating computer program, I was unprepared for the real world of elided vowels and glossed syllables, although when Esther returned her attention to me, her words were English.

Her accent is heavy and her command of verbs uncertain, yet she speaks the language far more fluently than I believe she knows. I praised her for it, and she in turn praised my ability with written Spanish without realizing that I was groping for some small sentence I could vocalize with any degree of confidence. I wasn't doing very well. The words had fled into the recesses of my brain as surely as trout seek concealment in the weeds.

Typically, when I am nervous, I wax pedantic, and had to slap myself up-side the head a few times as the conversation continued. I think Esther saw my dilemma, and tried to put me at my ease. Finally, after exploring the territory of English for twenty minutes or so, she suggested, "Now you talk in Spanish."

I was rescued by la hija, rummaging in the closet for some crayons to eat.

My hostess addressed me with a question, only part of which fell within my vocabulary. "No comprendo," I apologized. She repeated it carefully, and I understood her to be asking what I'd had for breakfast. She was doing an excellent job of trying to draw me out. I groped for words, "Harina de avena y...pasas." I don't use leche or azúcar, and was hoping that my peculiar eating habits wouldn't become an issue. The harina stuck on my pronunciation, which I had given a broader vowel, making it sound like 'arena,' sand. Hominy grits aside, that wasn't what I ate.

We got past that rough patch, and once again, I was saved by la hija, who dived behind the couch and down to its furthest end, and then returned on all fours. "Es un oso en una cueva," I announced, on familiar territory with animals and their habits. Esther laughed, corrected my 'es' to 'está,' and conversation resumed in English. Once a bear, always a bear, but a bear in a cave may not stay in the cave.

For a couple of hours, we chatted back and forth, largely in English. We read aloud from a Spanish Readers' Digest containing an article on moths and butterflies and an English "Snow White," either translating as we went, or practicing pronunciation. I was very amused at Esther's elongated rendition of the word 'dwarf,' but after we had broken it down into 'dw' and 'orf,' she was able to manage it quite well.

I emerged from the session sodden with sweat, for such is the toll human contact takes upon me, but as I said in yesterday's posting, the proper attitude will make this venture possible in the end. I am highly motivated to learn to speak Spanish fluently, and if I make a friend in the process, or help someone gain a greater command of English, so much the better. For all my nervousness and unease, this was a highly productive day. We hardly used the dictionary at all.

"You are the person you believe yourself to be," I wrote a cousin, illustrating how attitude shapes our lives.

The actual subject matter was bifocals and adjusting to them from single-vision lenses. I had suggested that my relative look toward the process as one of attaining the convenience of not having to switch from one pair of glasses to another instead of a skill to be conquered only with great effort. It is our nature to seek reward and avoid unpleasantness, but we must learn to use the tendency to our advantage, and that's where attitude comes into play.

If, for example, the secretary of your club has just surprised you by saying that this is your week to provide cookies for the meeting and your kitchen is presently a mess, you may view the scenario in two ways, as a) a terrible burden imposed upon you without fair warning, or b) an occasion to provide a special treat for friends with the added benefit of inspiration to get a distasteful task over and done with. If you focus on being put upon, of course you'll be miserable, whereas every stroke of the mop done with the thought of impressing the club's president with your Lemon Crisps and perhaps securing a candidacy for next year's show chairman will seem light as a breeze. Attitude, attitude, it's all in your attitude.

Great things are possible for people who truly believe in themselves, and those who believe they are failures are doomed before they begin. I see extremes of it in those around me. In the news, we hear of blind adventurers climbing mountains, paraplegics winning slaloms and such, people who surpass what would rightly be called their physical limitations. Call it "drive" or call it "attitude," it makes the person an achiever.

While most of us will never face challenges such as these, we have our own mountains to climb. No one is suggesting that we tackle Everest first off and re-make our entire personality. Better we start on the lowland trails and build up the muscles we need to convince ourselves we're capable of exploits on a larger scale. Start by revising the defeatist attitude on some small thing like bifocals, and create an outlook for the project overall where gain outweighs the pain. Refuse to let competing negative influences sidetrack you from the goal ("my eyes get tired," "it's easier to just go get my other glasses"). Distract yourself with something (a trick I used when climbing was to subdue physical pain with the mental activity of multiplying several-digit figures in my head). The next time you look around, you'll be closer to the finish line, and that's incentive on its own.

Yep, if somebody tells me I've got an attitude, I'll say, "Damn right," but I had to cultivate it. I'm proud to say it's taken me to a lot of summits, physical and psychological, and today, I am ready to spring the next hurdle. I know that to falter is to stumble, so faltering is not an option. I am what I believe in, so up I go, over and beyond.

Thunder spoke in the night, and the pale suddenness of lightning illustrated deformed shadows against the textured walls of the bedroom. The clatter of raindrops on shingles was followed by tinny pecking in the gutter, as if a flock of chickens was feeding along the eaves. I lay listening to the surge and fall of the shower's intensity, the rain barely audible over the meandering, angry thunder. It was a good sound, a fresh sound, and I could hardly begrudge it waking me.

August's ego suffered a mortal blow from the storm's cursing, and she has crept into her den to sulk. The weather has turned, if the forecast can be believed, for rain is in the offing (and the awning, naturally) for the remainder of the newborn week. One and three-quarters inches fell here last night, and the thirsty earth gulped dry every puddle of it by dawn.

The return of rain drives western Washingtonians a little mad, and last night, to wit, it came down in torrents (maybe even Bakersfield). Now that I've gotten that out of my system, let me say it was as welcome as heaven's own manna or a day in spring. Yet I am both jubilant and despondent with its coming, caught in ambivalence's dewy web between the onset of the year's cleansing season and the lessening of outdoor activities. I shall damn or praise the rain alternately, as it complies with or contends with my schedule, and occasionally, I will defy it and be soaked in the name of recreation.

You can always spot the Californians. They're the ones with the umbrellas. No true and self-respecting native to this State owns one. We place our faith in Gore-tex, and failing that, hip waders. Jokes aside, wet-side Washingtonians are proud of their lead-grey skies and traffic-slowing downpours, and wouldn't trade for all the apples in Wenatchee. For good or ill, rain is as necessary to our lives as breathing, eating and contributing the government's mandatory tithe. Its benefits come with a cost, but a fair price it is for our glorious summer days.

This evening's air is spotted with fine, infant precipitation. The cloud deck is sagging heavily among the trees and hills. We may, in all senses of the phrase, look forward to rain by morning.

Twice a year, fishing comes to a standstill locally, and we are in the barren of August presently. The shallows available to bank anglers have warmed to pleasant bathwater temperatures and, if not clotted with algae, they are lifeless to the naked eye. No rise dimples the surface unless bluegill, bass or perch can be stirred to suck a fallen insect from the thin, gluey scum which lies like oil on the surface. The firm-bodied trout have gone to the depths, torpid, and they are not inclined to take snacks, let alone a hearty meal.

The fishermen are in denial, downcast (excuse the pun). They want fish, therefore, fish should come. Their lines trail limply into the distance, burdened with a laundry of lost hope, pinned here and there with a tag of decomposing weed. Their attitude is as dull as the water: oh well, at least we're fishing.

Sande has swallowed the lure of steelhead, despite the predictable outcome for two less-than-knowledgeable anglers playing a game of wit and skill where luck is no one's friend. The steelhead river is fast and deep, generally the domain of drift boats, and I am too short to wade into reach of the productive current, Sande too cautious and conscious of his age. I would sit out this dance, but for my faithful sidekick's ambition to hook the grandfather of all trout. He dreams of steelhead like I dream of sturgeon, and as vainly, without a watercraft.

Around the corner of the season, there are salmon with fresh rain in their gills and monikers that detract from their edibility: chum, dog, humpy, pink. They're smokehouse fare, but tasty given proper treatment. Close on their silver heels are the glamour fish: chinook and coho. At either table, I can play a good hand. For the bank fisherman, this is high sport, and peaked for me last year when I wrestled a 40" fairly hooked king for 45 minutes before getting it to land. Now that's a fish fight!

For now, however, we have the slow month of August to endure. It's not so long that I begin to see a fantasy of fins as my eyes wink shut at bedtime, nor will my patience be stretched too thin before September washes summer from the rivers and invites her prodigals upstream. The big fish are coming, sure as Christmas, and I'm for conserving my strength right now.

I got back on the horse. Twenty-two miles was my score for the day, and I would have gone on longer, but for another appointment. Not a twinge of pain. I'll be back to forty next week, barring weather, and the road bike should be repaired in time for the following week's ride.

Recently, vandals have been smashing windows in vehicles parked at two of the trailheads, so today, I drove a few extra miles and pulled in at the city park. The trail runs conveniently beside it, the only difficulty being in choosing which direction to go. I chose uphill (a relative term, since at any point, the trail's easy grade is three percent or less). Paving the last few miles of the upper section is slated for September, so I veered onto highway shortly before reaching dirt.

At trail's end, I lounged for a bit in a shady picnic spot beside a creek and considered how my body was performing. I had planned to ride ten to fifteen miles, no further. I felt good, every muscle cell anxious for activity.

Coming back, I had the option of taking the highway again, or sticking to county roads which climb several hills. That, I decided, would be the true test of my injured hip. If I could get up the nastiest stretch, I'd pronounce myself healed. All right, county roads, then! And off I went.

Several smaller rises lay between Nasty and the resumption of Flatland. None of these gave me the slightest trouble. In fact, my legs felt stronger than the day of the accident, showing that I'd gained more than I'd lost. Even Nasty fell behind me with relative ease. I found myself using a higher gear, even on the mountain bike.

I zipped back to town, careful to slow down for pedestrians and other cyclists regardless of their size, pedalled past the car without a thought of stopping. I wheeled on down to the McMillin trailhead against the wind, took a turn in its parking area, and rode back happily to my starting point with the breeze at my back. Yep, everything was back in working order, and if I hadn't had an important afternoon engagement, I might have pushed another ten miles or so.

The road bike is still waiting for its new frame, and I'm waiting for the call. You can't keep a good (wo)man down.

Prior to my cycling accident, I had never used acupressure for anything more serious than a headache. On the face of it, the principle is simple to understand. One applies firm pressure in a pre-determined direction to a specific nerve cluster ("tender point") to stimulate blood or "energy" (chi) flow to a certain portion of the body, giving the healing process a bit of a push from behind, so to speak. With respect to muscular problems, the same might be accomplished with hot or cold packs, however, acupressure may also address other internal disorders just as effectively. There are a number of theories as to why it works, ranging from the patient's susceptibility to suggestion to artificially increasing the body's production of endorphins. Whatever the mechanism, the practice brought me relief from pain and, I believe, a quicker healing. I'm ready for another ride, and it hasn't been quite a week.

My primary area of concern involved the right hip. Although I had landed on my left side, my spine twisted in the fall, possibly aggravating an old climbing injury (see 14 August 2004). For the first few days following the bike crash, I was finding it painful, if not impossible, to bear weight on my right leg first thing in the morning. I referred to an acupressure manual, hoping to find some way to alleviate or reduce the spike of pain generated in the hip joint each time my foot touched the floor. I was surprised to discover that after a few minutes' use of pressure points and one simple exercise, I was able to walk the rest of the day without a twinge. However, I concluded that the acupressure was merely masking the pain rather than contributing to healing, a supposition that I now feel needs to be revised. After four daily treatments, I was able to walk without pain and ceased administration of the technique.

In addition to the hip treatment, I simultaneously treated a wrenched neck and shoulder, difficult to effect on one's own person, since the force required against the pressure point often creates its own tension in muscles on the opposing side. I elected to concentrate on one side only. Not only did I receive relief from the immediate pain of my injuries, the acupressure was also effective against an existing condition of bursitis! To my amazement, the swelling in the shoulder joint diminished into normalcy, and the knotted trapezius muscles relaxed fully. This was an unexpected benefit, and one most welcome.

I find, too, that my bruises are disappearing faster than anticipated. I bruise easily and deeply, and have a history of remaining discoloured for weeks from something as simple as resting my foot on the opposite knee. I can credit nothing other than the acupressure for this change, no change of diet, no poultice, no medication.

If you had told me I would see this much improvement in this short a time from simple pressure against nerves, I would have scoffed and dismissed you as a faddist. Today I will say, "Don't knock it 'til you've tried it."

Suggested reading: "Acupressure Techniques," by Julian Kenyon, M.D., Healing Arts Press, Rochester, Vermont. This is largely a manual of pressure points, not an instruction book. Nevertheless, I would recommend it even to novices.

My garden was carefully planned in shades of blue and purple this year, but something's gone amiss. Laughingly, I'll blame Park Seed Co., with whom I've done years of business. In a rare mis-pick, they sent me a five-pack of cosmos varieties instead of pennyroyal (an insect repellent meant for the herb plot) and, typically of Park, they told me to keep the seeds when informed of their mistake. Thrilled, I sowed several dozen Jiffy Pellets with this windfall, and am now reaping the reward in a garden vividly orange, despite statice and asters making weak, cool-spectrum incursions here and there.

It's a lovely garden, but it's a far cry from blue.

When the seed catalogues arrive, I first run through them for an overview. A few things will catch my eye as must-haves or maybes, and from this compass, I take my bearings. If the mental projection tends toward a hue, the next time I review the catalogue, I begin to form an outline with its major points delineated in a predominating colour. At this milepost, height and growth habit can narrow the list of choices, and the candidates are recorded on a scratch pad for further reference.

Now a rough draft of the garden is drawn up with the perennials clearly marked. It is here that I frequently err in my estimation of required space. An X does not properly represent the sprawl of a delphinium, and the rectangle allotted chives and onions is invariably not to scale. The camellia has been forgotten, and allowance for the border of gazanias overlooked. My chart becomes a geography of tiny cantons, striving to squeeze the greatest population in the smallest area. Nevertheless, I have learned my tendencies in estimation, and am able to weed the hypothetical garden by half. I am left with a dozen or so species at my disposal, and a realistic approach says that six is probably one too many. I crop the list again, and settle for seven. The order goes to Park in the following mail.

Depending on the dollar value of your order, Park sends bonus varieties specific to your climactic zone. You will notice that I did not consider whether they would fit well in my horticultural scheme. When the order arrives, I discover marigolds, petunias, nasturtiums or some other type of homeless kitten straggling in behind.

Come spring, three seed flats (each holding 72 Jiffy Pellets) again restrict my over-enthusiastic nature. I know from experience that this is the capacity of the plot of land. I review: "twelve gazanias, twenty-four helichrysum, eighteen rudbeckias...no, better make that a dozen..." until the pots are full. My diagram is clear, my mathematics perfect, my intentions good to weed out all but one seedling in each pot.

Was it Bobby Burns who said, "The best laid schemes o' mice an' men gang aft agley?" I have again neglected to consider all those free zinnias which are to be directly sown into the ground after danger of frost has passed.

Yesterday's mail included an extensive, massive and very dry genealogy, labouriously compiled over many years and at great expense by an aunt by marriage who's gone a little wonky on the subject. In my experience with genealogies and those who research them, two principle observations may be stated: 1) the people who devote themselves to exhuming the paper bones of ancestors are all a little wonky, and 2) life boils down to a few bare dates in the end.

I feel certain that my great-great-grandmother had stories about her own grandparents that she passed down to her offspring, just as my mother heard the story of Lloyd who was savaged by a grizzly and told the tale of his amazing survival to me; yet nothing is left of my distant maternal relative's anecdotes to be recorded on paper now, and her vibrant oral histories exist only as diminished sound waves faintly rippling the gauzy air.

"When Memory lives, Spirit endures," I wrote in a condolence. "No spirit may be said to have passed from this Earth as long as its memory remains with those it has touched; thus any Being which has ever been loved exists in some part within those who still care for it." My great-great-grandmother has died "forever dead," as the forest pygmies say.

The sum of this woman's mark upon the world is contracted into a few lines stating date of birth, date of marriage, children born to her, and date of death. That, four generations later, is her value: a mote in the eye of the flea on the tail of an unconcerned Universe, and devoid of any stain of personality. Tell me instead that her laugh was musical or harsh, that she smelled of violets or roses, or that her hands were rough and work-hardened, or whether she caressed the son who would carry the family name with pale, soft fingers. I read her statistics and find her cold as government archives, grey as concrete, and I do not see a person in my mind. I am grieved by the absoluteness of her departure from the world, grieved more for her than for my lack of her acquaintance.

So it is that we shall all be reduced to the minimum of our contribution: that we walked the Earth for so many days. It begs a question which may only be answered with ambivalence: What is the purpose of life? The response: Does it matter? If I should act in benefit of my fellow man, will your recollections of me preserve my essential spirit longer than if I made war against him? If I amass a fortune or if I live the life of the ascetic, what of my true person passes into a future genealogy? My physical self, scattered to atoms and particles, will continue reborn in tree, water and stone far beyond the days allotted memory of a human, in a natural document, pedigreed and alive.

The pruners and pickers arrived this morning, bent on a good day's work. They began with the Whatzit Tree, the unidentifiable weeping ornamental, and soon had it looking like a bonsai version of a trimmed willow, its long, trailing branches pared to a uniform distance from the ground. The handsome boss cast an eye over the work, and was obviously not satisfied. He wove his three-tined fork through the crown of the tree, and pulled several vertical twigs down so they could be cropped off short.

They passed the dogwood by, its lower trunk smooth of any offshoots, and the next time I looked out, the younger fellow was making a botched job of the red Japanese maple. Once again, the boss intervened and nudged his protege aside to attempt improvements. The apprentice started on the contorted filbert as his superior began mowing the lawn, and here I felt it necessary to intrude. I did not want Harry Lauder's Walking Stick pared down, not even slightly.

I approached the workers cautiously, and then addressing the younger from a distance which surprised him, I suggested that his talents might serve better among my neighbor's trees than on my precious hazel. He looked up, as if to say with a glare, "Who are you telling how to do the job?"

The spike wandered casually away from the garden, joined forces with the three-prong buck, and the two leapt the wooden fence for their next appointment with Clyde's apples. The girls showed up to tidy the tender ground browse, an old doe with her daughter, and a spotted fawn for each.

A little later, the phone rang. Clyde said without preamble, "Dennis has got a big plum picker in that yellow plum tree."

"Yeah, they were over here, the whole famn damily," I replied. "Which one is it? The three-prong?"

He chuckled like he'd caught somebody playing a prank. I could hear his smile when he led me on, up and out of my chair. "No, I mean a really big plum picker." I peered out the window toward Dennis'. Sure enough, there was a bull elk, a long-tined spike, and he had nibbled the yellow Christmas ornaments in scientific order from the bottom to head height, and was straining to reach the higher ones. He'd already cleared the purple Italians lower down the line.

Clyde laughed again. "He's been at it a couple of days," he said. "Found something on my trail t'other day and I couldn't figure out what it was. He eats the pits, too." I got the picture without the further elaboration which followed. "He's pretty loose. Been eatin' plums for about a week."

The young bull obviously enjoyed them. Even Dennis' Doberman barking at his heels failed to send him too far from the tree. After a couple of sallies, the dog retreated to his doghouse, deflated of any pretention to his value as the property's guardian.

Neither Clyde, Dennis or I would dream of potting a little venison from this local herd. So we lose some trees, a crop of fruit here and there, so what? There's plenty, even if you have to go up a ladder after it. If our four-footed neighbours have fallen on hard times, it's only decent to share.

Conclusion: guppies are not a beginner's fish. After I cleaned the aquariums at the first of the month, one of the two adult males rapidly sickened and died, whether from the shock of being caught and removed to a smaller bowl for the cleaning process or from the amount of debris raised by the siphon, I can't guess. The symptoms were that of dropsy, which has been responsible for several guppy losses. I am now left with one adult male and, remarkably, the two babies.

An empty chamber in either of the two aquariums, both of which have a separator screen dividing them into two equal parts, offends my sense of feng shui. A week ago, despite hot weather, I brought home Haze, a light blue male betta, to replace Mr. Fish. I seem to be able to keep bettas successfully, but considering that they live in truly rank waters in their native habitat, this is no credit to me. One simply feeds them daily, adds more water as the level subsides due to evaporation, and cleans them monthly, replacing approximately a third of the water volume.

I enjoy bettas for their colors and their flowing fins, but despite suggestions that they can be housed in very small containers, I can't bring myself to range them along the top of a bookcase, one after another, in tiny bowls. Loomis and Haze share a five-gallon tank. Each side has artificial plants (silk or plastic) as well as a gravelled floor, and the whole is filtered, something entirely unnecessary for bettas if you are willing to make frequent replacement of a portion of the water. In other words, my two bettas have living conditions better than many of their relatives, and my conscience is salved for their restriction to captivity.

At first, Haze cowered before Loomis' angry territorial display. Loomis is red, older and larger, and looks like the devil himself when he raises his fins and flares his gills at an interloper. Poor Haze fled to the furthest corner of his tank and hid behind silk shrubbery, reluctant to come out even to eat. Within a few days, he'd grown braver, and although he kept a close eye on the crimson demon on the other side of the partition, he'd take pelletized food fairly close to its top edge. Then he seemed to realize that Loomis was nothing more than a posturing bully, impotent, and this emboldened Haze to get quite close and stare his rival in the eye. Loomis charged the divider, set on mayhem. Haze backed away, still facing his furious tank mate, and I fancy he might have been amused when Loomis' nose came hard against the plastic.

The younger Haze still understands the pecking order. To date, he has not raised gill or fin in challenge to Loomis, although when I showed him a mirror, he made a showy threat against the image of himself. He's got it in him, has Haze. In their aggressive way, they're keeping each other company and entertained.

As attrition takes its toll of guppies, their vacancies will be filled with other bettas. After all, I kept Mr. Fish alive well past his normal life expectancy. I might as well stick with the job I know I can do well.

Today, the bruises show and the aches are all too apparent. From just below the ears to the ankle joints, I am in a world of hurt.

The worst of it lies in the sacrum, a portion of my anatomy which has seen its share of woe. Many years ago (and I should be reminded how many, lest I forget my age), I led a climb on Mt. St. Helens through a minefield of crevasses on a glacier which no longer exists. It was challenging, if only to find a route through the maze, and I was rather exhilarated when we reached the summit. We descended by a different route, only to find ourselves in unstable corn snow and hidden water ice, but despite falls by every member of the party, we arrived at the top of Dog's Head without injuries. Here we unroped and, feeling macho, I took the burden of 150' of wet kernmantle onto the top of my pack.

As we came down the face of the Dog (a slope which was eminently well-suited for glissades when snow-covered), I decided to cheat and hasten the descent with a standing skoom in the loose pumice. I lost control when I hit a patch of concealed ice and went flying through space for twenty feet or so, to land on my fundament on a pointy rock. I promptly lost consciousness, and my climbing partners hastened to my aid.

To cut a long, unpleasant story short, I walked off the mountain slowly several hours later under my own steam, and it wasn't until the following day that I admitted I might need medical treatment. Under x-ray, it was revealed that I had fractured the sacrum as well as crushing the uppermost vertebra in my coccyx. Can't exactly put a cast on that, now, can you?

I was working as a forest ranger at the time and never missed a day's work. I was put on light duty, and stumped around the parking lot with a cane, making "visitor contacts." One evening, I stubbed my toe on a root beside the cabin's outhouse and lost all feeling in my legs. It came back a few hours later, but it was probably the worst scare of my life. For this reason, I am a bit concerned when an injury involves the sacral regions.

Crawling around on the floor with the cat today, I am aware of damage which yesterday was not apparent. I am not alarmed, merely anxious. If it has not improved by Friday when I have an appointment for another reason, I'll request an x-ray.

Of course, I could always hop on the mountain bike and go for a ride to see if I can loosen it up. Some people got no brains a-tall.

I've never had a Friday the Thirteenth before.

I t-boned a very small bicyclist while moving at a good clip along the Foothills Trail. It grieves me to report that there was a fatality: my pretty new bicycle, folded and mutilated beyond all hope of redemption.

After making a quick summary of my appendages to see if there was any excruciating pain radiating from them, I rolled my body closer to my victim who sat clutching his small leg and rocking to and fro. He was conscious and sitting erect. That was something good to be said. His dad rushed to my side, surprisingly more concerned for me than for his child. I put my hand on the boy's arm, "Hey, son, are you okay? Is your leg hurt?" The boy was no more than five years old, bravely holding back the tears that struggled to come.

"It hu-urts!" he said. I could see blood coming from a small wound, just a drop or two.

From behind me, the father asked a second time, "Ma'am, are you all right?"

I looked at my knees and shins. They were so covered in dirt, I couldn't tell. I dusted them off and was truly surprised to find no abrasions under all the grit, not a mark, but my left arm was beginning to ache. I'd landed on it, apparently, and slid for several feet along the pavement. Yeah, it was barked pretty good. As far as I could tell, that was the only damage. "Yeah, I'm fine. I'm more worried about your boy. Can you move your leg, guy?"

Mom and the other two kids had reversed course now, and she stood beside the young man I'd crashed into. Dad had seen the accident, realized that there had been no way to avoid the impact. I had come past the first four members of the family with a cheerful, "Passing left!" to warn them into their own lane. The youngest boy trailed behind the group, weaving up my side of the trail and not watching for traffic. He spotted me as I whizzed past his parents and siblings, tried to jink the wrong way and then apparently recalled what his dad had told him: stay right. He spun his little bike around and darted in front of me with very poor timing. I caught him broadside, and I was doing about 15 MPH. He fell toward me when I struck him. My bike went left and I went right and forward.

"Are you sure you're all right, ma'am?" Dad was genuinely in a tizzy about the little old lady, but at least he'd crouched by the youngster's side. I got the boy to move his foot, relieving my greatest fear that the leg was broken. I was pretty sure I'd hit him square on it. I assured the poor father that I was fine, fine, except for being dinged up a little, and he then turned his attention to the boy.

With mom's help, they got him standing, but the poor kid was afraid to put weight on the leg. My worries were soon dispelled when he managed to limp a few feet. The leg was okay.

Now dad had gone to check my bike. "I think your tire's gone flat, ma'am." He paused, and then I heard, "Oh, my God. Look at this."

The tire was flat, no doubts there, but that wasn't a tenth of the problem. The lower bar of the frame had buckled, crumpled like a dirty Kleenex, and the weld securing the upper bar to the fork assembly had snapped clean.

The boy's father offered to give me a lift back to my car, and rode off on his own bike, carrying my wounded conveyance in one hand. I walked the mile or so to his vehicle and waited while the rest of his family reconsolidated as a group. Mother and the kids stayed behind, and dad, still concerned about my well-being, transported me back to McMillin, several miles away. During the drive, I found out that my victim had just gotten his arm out of a cast from his last romp...two pins through his elbow, that time.

Second time out on my bike, and what do I do? I bust it, and not just a half job, either. I hadn't even sent the warranty card in yet, but I drove straight to the shop ("A," as you may recall) to see what, if anything, could be done. My salesman, Paul, was there, and his jaw fell audibly when I walked through the door with the fatality under my wing. He remarked that it looked like I'd ridden straight into a brick wall at 40 MPH.

I was prepared for the worst: to have to buy a new frame and fork assembly. Paul got the manufacturer on the phone and explained the situation. I chewed my fingernails for fifteen minutes while he was referred to this person or that department, but when he finally came back, he said, "Good news or bad news?"

Always one to eat my peas first, I said, "Oh, gimme the bad news."

So reliable are these bikes that there has never been a warranty claim on the 2004 model frame. As a consequence, the manufacturer had not kept back any replacements. No hope there. However (and this is the good news), they stand by their products. They will be sending a replacement 2005 frame (an upgrade, lighter weight and different fork design) as soon as they are released later on this month!

Let's say Friday the Thirteenth is a 50/50 proposition. I'm getting a better grade bike which I wouldn't have had if I hadn't hit the kid. Not that I'm going to go out and run down any more toddlers on two-wheelers. My arm is too sore.

A light Forest Service green truck pulled into the driveway, familiar, with a strip of unsightly brown mossy-oak breakup camo decal defacing twelve inches of its lower portion front to rear. Clyde got out and took a few steps toward the house before noticing me sitting in the big chair in the window, cat on lap, whereupon he about-faced to retrieve a large and obviously heavy box from the pickup's bed. A glimpse of dark green caught my eye as I stood up to go to the door, alerting me (not that it did much good) to incoming zucchini. It's that time of the year again.

Clyde is a thoughtful person. Knowing my mother's appetite for this particular vegetable, he put in a few extra plants in the spring to bring his total of lavishly productive vines to seventeen (I believe that was the number): enough zucchini to feed you, me, and Napoleon's army, marching on its assembled stomachs into the brutal Russian winter, with still enough left over for the pigs and parrots. Whatever was the man thinking?

If mankind truly wants to find an unlimited source of energy, its scientists should devote their efforts to developing zucchini power. Imagine, if you will, fields of this prolific plant, each bearing a dozen or more fruits capable of growing to immense proportions given only abundant water and a dollop of manure from time to time, stretching far as the eye can see. On the periphery, massive silos tower like skyscrapers, with long, wide conveyor belts leading to their summits, chug-chug, carrying zucchini after zucchini to the brink of the abyss. Deep in the bowels of each silo, fermentation is taking place under force of weight and nothing more, generating both heat and gases: power, there to harness in copious supply. The by-products of the process could easily be recycled: the water separated from the marketable alcohols and reclaimed, the few solids (and they would be few, as anyone who has cooked zucchini can attest) spread upon other agricultural land.

The demand for power would create new frontiers for agri-business on the wide scale, but even the family farmer could sufficiently fuel a generator to provide a year's electricity for his home. Excesses could be sold to the power grid, ensuring pocket change to be put aside for a lean year, although frankly, I know of no historically lean time for the enthusiastic zucchini. The home gardener could supplement himself as well.

We are in a critical period in man's expansion, and our resources are rapidly diminishing. The time has come to explore new solutions, however bizarre. Let's put aside our efforts to harness wind and sun, and discard our dependence on petroleum once and for all. Let's turn our will to the easiest, cheapest and most dependable thing around: zucchini. One thing is certain. It'll never run out.

I've instituted a new policy when I receive unsolicited seed or bulb catalogues in the mail, and that is to check the company's record with the Better Business Bureau. Several bad experiences have taught me that no matter how glossy or extensive advertising may be, it can't be used as a measure of reliability or quality. The sad and sorry fact is that many purported purveyors of fall bulbs sell a sub-standard product or have "guarantees" that either will not be unhonoured or require extreme contortions to fulfill the purchaser's obligation. Who thinks to keep the shipping label from exterior of the mailing carton? One would have thought that retaining the interior packing slip (identical) and purchase order would have been sufficient.

Those "wish books" are sure fun to get, though. I look through them, each and every one, before making an on-line run to the BBB files. The rating of a dealer will determine whether the catalogue remains on the end table or is consigned to the recycling bin without further ado.

This year, a new form of muscari (grape hyacinth) is being widely featured. I first saw it as an offering from a company which has dealt me woe in the past, so I laid the page open beside my chair until another publication arrived from a reputable distributor. Several other catalogues came before a trustworthy one, and at least three were from the same parent company operating under different names. This I learned from the BBB's records. Finally, "feather hyacinths" appeared under several business names I trust, so I will not have to do without.

It is comforting to discover that the place you never heard of has been in operation since 1908, and that it has had but one complaint in 36 months, resolved with minor intervention. Sometimes, the BBB files will tell you the nature of the purchaser's dissatisfaction: customer service, product quality, failure to honour a guarantee. You may find a phone number for a contact not shown in any printed matter, or other means of attaining personal assistance with a problem. You may research a company's history by its name, telephone number or web address; you may also check up on purported charities to see if they are valid.

Call me paranoid if you will. Although Latin is a dead language, it sends a message through the years which all of us might do well to heed: Caveat emptor. It means, "Let the buyer beware." A minute may save you both dollars and headaches. Be wise. Check the Better Business Bureau before you buy.

My commitment to the sport of bicycling is growing. At some point, I have gotten it in my craw that, despite age and infirmity, I will do a "century" ride even if both hell and high water should happen to arrive. Although a mountain bike such as the one I have been riding could be considered adequate for the job, the same could be said of using a baseball bat to kill a fly. It seemed to me that it could better be done with finesse, style and certainly with less heavy equipment, so to that end, today I went shopping for a road-style bicycle.

We now enter the realm of semantics. "Shopping" is not meant to imply that I raced from store to store, putting brand up against brand for advantages and drawbacks, nor that I telephoned every cyclery in the book before planning a route with waypoints at each shop. No, I went shopping with a sizeable chunk of cash in my metaphorical pocket and a forceful intention in my soul, and I headed straight for the dealer who last week had promised to have a suitable bike brought from another of his stores for me to try.

Let us refer to this dealer as "B," "A" being the shop which normally attracts my custom. I had already alerted "A" to the potential for a sale, although I'd been a bit more stingy when discussing dollars. The manager of "A" had said he'd keep his eye out for a used machine, thereby giving me the opportunity for a higher quality bike at a lower price.

I entered "B' and announced my purpose: to see the bike James had promised to order in. The clerk apologized immediately. It had not been transferred. For some reason I can't recall, we walked over to the display area, and there, before my eyes, was the bike with a large "sold" tag on the handlebars, plain as day. My gesture toward it brought a feeble excuse which didn't set well with me. The clerk vowed he'd have another in "by Friday." Again, I left my name and number, but I was not pleased with the service. At the car, I decided "B" will not see me again.

"A" is further from home. I headed there next to see what they might have in the same price range. Their resident fisherman went directly to a low-end bike which would fit my tiny stature, but I didn't care for some of its features. I asked what was next up the line.

He pulled out a trim silver and blue wheel that coincidentally matched my helmet. I admit to being a woman who likes ensembles, often citing that I have seven pairs of boots to go with my seven fishing poles, but this smacked of serendipity. I stretched my legs over the bar to get its measure, then asked the young man to lower the seat an inch and a half so I could take it for a test ride. That done, I mounted it in the parking lot and took a quick turn amongst the buildings.

At first, I was puzzled by the shifting levers. Bicycle technology has come a long way since I rode a stem-shifting Motobecane, and the old wiggle-'til-you-find-it shifters are long gone in favour of positive action levers which click handily into place. I swung past the clerk and took a quick lesson in the mechanics, and then weaving through the lot, decided this was the bike for me. The price was the same as the one at "B."

There were a few options I wanted to add, and my nice young man had them all installed within 45 minutes. We chatted about salmon and stonefly nymphs while he worked on the bike, and only when it was ready to go out the door did he ask for payment. He gave me discounts on several accessories, and of course, wanted to be sure I knew free tune-ups and routine maintenance were included for a year.

I took the bike out for a 13-mile spin, on a day too hot for man or beast. Even so, my average speed came up 1.2 mph. I fancy I cut a fine figure in powder blue and silver and, with my helmet on, one indistinguishable from the 25-year olds beside me. Look out, century! Here she comes! And no credit to a shop I'll just call "B."

I am nearly prostrate from the heat, the difference being that today I was outdoors instead of holed up in my cool, dark sanctuary. I am no troglodyte, to prefer my cave to open air, and I mightily resent weather that forces me into its refuge. It is only under the demand of survival that I close the curtains and shut the windows tight against the ravening swell of temperature, so what madness drove me into the sneering sun on this windless, cloying day? Certainly no fool would go abroad on a bicycle to burn each calorie like a Pres-to-log. No, it must have been some other, more virulent compulsion.

The stark concrete bridge (on which you could have fried an egg) might have been the surface of Venus for its lack of life. No hope there, but Sande had to check. The logging road which cuts inland and then back to cross a pleasantly shady fly-fishing stream was blocked at its entrance and clearly marked, "Closed - extreme fire danger," so that was off the list as well. Two choices down: one his, one mine. At just gone ten ayem, my petals were already beginning to wither. I sat on the seat of the truck and slumped against the door as Sande pulled away.

We bounced a few miles in potholes to an untried spot on the north bank of the river. Here, too, the terrain was open and the sun severe. Bare basaltic outcrops radiated fronts of heat convections against my legs as we explored them, casting no shadows in the formulations in my head. Sande, the Washington-born Californian, said, "You want to give it a try?" (Damn his cheerful tone!)

Me: "Nope."
Sande: "Why not? Don't you think there are any fish here?"
Me: "Nope."
Sande: "They've gotta be in there. You really don't think there are any fish?"
Me: "Nope."
Sande: "What makes you think there aren't any fish in there?"
Me (with the strength finally mustered to utter more than a syllable): "No shade."

I popped the truck door open with the last of my energy and fell inward onto the seat. Sande gave the scene several minutes' careful consideration before saying, "You're telling me you want a shady spot, right?"

Me (feebly): "Yup."

The next place we landed was no better, but the promise, hint, or clue of a salmon can be a powerful stimulus for anyone whose faith has not completely fled. Sande was still singing in the choir, but I'd long since turned atheist. We parked the truck in shade, blessed shade, and I dutifully off-loaded pole and gear and trudged a hundred yards to the unoccupied dock. Merrily, Sande jounced along behind.

I fell into a heap on the wooden boards, and baited and cast from a sitting position. I was liquified in every muscle, arms like Jell-o. My orange casting bubble had no more than hit the water when I changed position so that I could capitalize on the shade cast by one piling, a dark streak not as wide as my 100-pound frame and not as long. I laid down flat, propped my rod on my knees with a loop of line around an index finger, and with my free hand, tugged my Aussie slouch hat down to cover my face. No sense making more of a job out of it than it deserved.

Fifteen minutes later, I'd had it. I staggered unsteadily to my feet and aimed myself in the general direction of the truck. A hundred yards, and it must have taken me another fifteen minutes to cover it. At last in wide shade, I threw pack and pole into the bed of the truck and flopped on the cool, prickly grass. Fish, Sande...I didn't care, but a bit later (not too long), my buddy missed me. Fishless, he raised me from the nearly-dead and piloted his charge into the cab with a hug. Then it was on to another river which dealt out shade and fish like a miser, but by this point, I had grown to appreciate even a beggar's share.

Twenty-five years ago, you might have seen my mother on the footpaths around Mt. Rainier or passing among the Olympic peaks, grey-haired and hardly taller than the light blue pack mounted on her back. Her pace was slower than mine as I raced ahead youthfully, but I too resembled nothing so much as a mammoth knapsack with spindly legs if you happened to be following behind. The pair of us often hiked together, in a friendship of the trail that transcended our estrangement as mother and daughter. I was glad of her companionship and she of mine.

One August evening found us a bit too far from our designated campsite, so we heeled off the route at a convenient spot where a ranger would be less likely to come calling after dusk, and pitched our little two-man tent on a sandy patch between some trees with a glacier view. For all its setting, the place was less than ideal, the only water coming from a small tarn which had some type of minute red bugs swimming in it, but we'd weathered worse without ill effect, so simply filtered the living debris through a folded handkerchief (a procedure I would strongly advise against, these days).

As the sun set, we nursed mugs of hot chocolate in the growing alpine chill, admiring the scene spread out below us, a tableau which soon became animated with lights dancing on the glacier. Climbers!

They seemed to be a fairly large party, and widely spread, which puzzled me. Myself a climber, I knew the routes above that particular field of ice to be dangerous and best attempted only in the early season, yet here was an assault force split into at least three rope teams, and one could assume each team to be composed of at least three people. They were quite distant from us, a mile or more across the nearest glacier and on another. All we could see was the glint and wink of their headlamps as they scanned the ice at their feet for crevasses.

Their progress was interminably slow. Our discussion turned to the possibility of an accident, that they should seem to stay in one place for so long. It was unlikely that they'd be making a base camp at that hour, wasting the night chill which is the climber's aid. Our fascination was so intent that we didn't notice what was going on above us. We watched for hours until the dancing lights died, entertaining speculations all the while.

The mystery contained in the moonless night of 11-12 August was solved quite promptly when we returned home a few days later. Our "climbers" were the annual Perseid meteor shower reflected on the glacial ice!

I'm going to miss the boat race again this year. Sande is out of town, and although he's told me I can help myself to his television, I don't feel right about taking the spare key out of its hiding place and letting myself in. Besides, spectator sports are at their best when the excitement can be shared.

When I was a kid, the boat race (then the Gold Cup) was a family event, even after my dad died. It was one of the few things I shared with my mother in the few years I remained at home, and although I seldom watched the early heats unless my favourite driver was in them, I never missed the final two. It was then you were most likely to see a spectacular accident, the time when men pushed their machines and themselves to their limits and, like all kids and many adults, I fed on the thrill with the avid hunger of a vampire. More viewers thronged to the beaches or perched before their televisions in anticipation of a backward flip by one of the flashy hydroplanes than to see the Cup awarded at the race's end.

In those days, the unlimiteds weren't canopied. It was far easier to identify with the driver you could see through the camera's eye as he was thrown from side to side, bounced and jounced unmercifully while pounding through whitecaps which today would close the course. Windshields offered little protection if a boat was cut off by another's roostertail, and the driver, momentarily blinded, often flew strictly on a path dictated by Newton's laws of motion, bee-line straight and off the course to be disqualified.

The boats had names of romance in those days, too: Slo-Mo-Shun, Wahoo. Miss Thriftway and the Budweiser issued in a commercial era which began a slow subtraction from the character of the race. Soon, the distinctive paint jobs were hidden beneath a patchwork of backers' logos, and the lake looked more like a billboard than a sporting field.

If tomorrow's race lacks some of the risks and colour of the Gold Cup, it still has a certain vague appeal. I'll be sorry to miss it, commercialism and all, but unlike the competitions of the good old days, I probably won't give it another thought 'til next year, nor even check to see who won.

Less than half a dozen goldfinches accompany a tally of grosbeaks to the feeders now, allowing the Steller's jays to hold forth in greater numbers. I love these mocking, brilliantly coloured and raucous visitors with their shoebutton eyes and mohawk hairdos. They're corvids, kin to crow and raven, and therefore part of my spiritual family tree. We're much alike: playful but industrious, sportive, show-offs (I admit my faults), keen and quick, possessed of a misunderstood, odd sense of humour, and prone to flee at the merest glimpse of a stranger or unexpected movement. In a way, we are outcast and recluse from the world around us, and neither they nor I gives a hopping hoot.

The jay is opportunist and survivor, sticking out the worst of winter weather wherever food comes easiest to find and not a picky eater, although sunflower seed takes precedence over millet or milo or other small, dry grain. He pecks at table scraps with enthusiasm, vying with crows for prepared pastas such as macaroni and cheese, willing to squabble over canned corn.

Steller's jays are reticent compared with their close relatives, grey and blue. Although we do not have true bluejays here, I have lived around them and know that they are the most brazen of the lot. When I lived on the Eastern Seaboard, they took particular glee in tormenting my old tomcat, Pete, either by sitting in the tree directly outside his radiator window perch and screeching while he tried to sleep, or dive-bombing him as he exited the house. Poor Pete would scan the sky before he crossed the threshold, only to be hit in the back of the head by beak and feet as quickly as he reached the top step of the porch.

The greys are the sweetest things, however, with tiny, plaintive voices and a friendliness unmatched. In the high alpine country, they'll perch on your head or hands, begging for a tidbit from your lunch or breakfast, or stealing it with the air of a child whose finger couldn't resist a swipe of frosting from their own birthday cake. They don't come often to the lowlands (my residence is 'lowland' on their maps), though occasionally a single pair may set up housekeeping in the forest nearby home.

Yes, autumn and winter will give the feeders over to the Steller's and a complement of juncoes, wrens and towhees on the side. Kith, kin and companions, the cousins are coming to dinner, and they know I'll serve a feast. Opportunists or no, their company and conversations are welcome at my board. We understand each other.

"You got a swivel?" If I had lost my last one to a "rock fish," Sande would delve into his tackle box and after a bit of hectic rummaging, produce a replacement. The magic of it never ceased to amaze me. My first few hunting trips were enough to demonstrate my wanting knowledge of its environment, for in Sande's tackle box was more camouflage than on your average field of war.

Take something the size of a 3/16 oz. Rooster Tail in the pattern known as "clown," bright fluorescent yellow with large orange spots. It is close to three inches long, feathered in a bushy, radiating manner, and it bears a shiny spinner blade above a lethal treble hook of a size to give Moby Dick a sore lip. You shouldn't be able to miss it, but this lure is lost in the welter of empty packaging, unopened blister packs, plastic bags of sinkers, tangled in leader refuse and the tails of other loosed snells. I am defeated before I begin searching for it, and a salmon has just gone east with my only one in its mouth. With a quick dip into the proper latitude, Sande brings a spare to the light and puts it in my hand.

My yell of, "Top tray, first row down, third hole from the left," tells you of my organization because I'm directing him to 1/2 oz. split shot via the Express. Man, you'd tour spots that weren't even on the program when he suggests, "They're in there someplace. I got some last week." Sande's kit is a world within a world, and a place of strange surprises. The item in the Wal-Mart bag may be 3/4 oz. slip sinkers instead.

In our companionship, no man's tackle box is his own, and in fact, we've both forgotten who paid for what. I tend to hog the circle hooks, since I know where to buy them, but seldom have a treble larger than #18. Sande does. We trade, equally or not, and neither of us cares.

Sande's old green box has been a source of much consternation on my part as I impale myself on stray baitholders while searching for a stopper bead, so last Christmas, I bought him a larger model, one which I hoped would at least spread the litter further apart. With it, I gave my promise to help him organize, and today, eight months later, it came to pass in an offhand sort of way.

When I arrived at Sande's, his first words were, "When I show you what you don't want to see, you might want to turn around and go back home." Clueless, I tagged along behind, and into the dining room. There, on the polished hardwood floor, lay every piece of fishing gear he's owned in sixty years except his rods, bagged and boxed and sacked and stacked, old upon new and vice versa, with the new, empty tackle box squarely on the end of the granite dining table. His patient, tidy wife of 64 years sat in her recliner, deliberately not seeing the nightmare of grimy disarray.

There were bags of broken reels, sacks of dried-up Power Bait, countless economy spools of monofilament line in various weights. Piled against the hutch were a pack, a knapsack, a large cardboard box, several bags of recent purchases, all waiting on my expertise as organizer. His canvas creel of Power Bait stood next to its predecessor, an ancient bag with rotten straps and bottom, reeking of fish caught fifty years ago. "We used to line it with grass, put the fish in and dunk it in the river," he told me.

I remarked blandly, "I can tell."

Well, after sorting through mushed Power Eggs and shrimp-oil sodden Handi-wipes, there was one large box untouched when the day was done. In it, I could see the salmon lures we'll need this winter. Time to cross that bridge when we come to it, I think. For now, the newest reel is lined and the one it replaces has been stashed in a bag to cannibalize. Sande has a tackle box Martha Stewart would envy, categorized by use and size, with empty spots to energize the proper feng shui for fishiness. At least, those few compartments were empty when I left. What will I find when next I open the magical box? Havoc or handy supplies? A month will tell the tale.

It has been a trying day. Forgive me, all, for delving up this bit of nonsense from my files. It is out of season, certainly, but herewith I give you the sad tale of

The Dread Foo

You might have wondered (briefly) why you only see Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer in the movies and on TV. Well, I'll tell you, but don't let it go beyond your ears, because it's a highly coveted secret.

I have it on good authority (Interpol contacts) that up in the far North lives a creature called the Foo. The Dread Foo, to be more precise. This varmint is a winged beast of immense proportions and gruesome mien, and stays dormant from January through Hallowe'en. However, on November first, it rouses from its beauty sleep, eats prodigiously of whatever it can find and then, some time before Christmas, it makes a single, bee-line flight across the North Pole.

Now as with swallows, sparrows and seagulls, it's not a good idea to be in the Foo's flight path after it's had a meal. Worse luck, the Foo's droppings have a unique characteristic: if you happen to be unfortunate enough to be caught by the fall, the substance sets up a reaction in the body chemistry causing instantaneous dependency on the constituents. Therefore, you must not bathe, wipe, scrape, or in any other manner remove the residue from your skin. To do so could very well create Fatal Withdrawal Syndrome (FWD) and you would die. Dead. Got that?

Rudolph was out in the pasture with Dasher and Dancer, Prancer, Vixen, Comet, Cupid, Donner and Blitzen when the Foo flew over, but it was only Rudolph (poor, dear Rudolph) who was directly beneath the Dread Foo's route. He was caught. Not to put too fine a point on it, he was crapped on, but royal! I mean, he didn't just get a little bit on him. He got thoroughly drenched. And it was awful!

Stink? Oh, man, did it stink! Burn? Like battery acid! His hair fell out in clumps, and his antlers turned soft and drooped like boiled spaghetti. He was a mess, and to make matters even tougher, the other reindeer avoided him like the plague. Can you blame them? They sure weren't going to let him join in any reindeer games, not with that stuff all over him! And he was stuck with it. He knew he couldn't wipe it off, not ever.

He suffered like that for a couple of weeks, but the final blow came on Christmas Eve. Santa refused to let him lead the team. He'd been looking forward to that all year. It was his Big Event, you know what I mean? So Rudolph went out to the pond, cracked the ice with his hoof, and in he jumped. He washed all that nasty, nasty stuff off himself and started back for the barn to plead with Santa again. He didn't get very far before he went all weak in the knees and woozy, and then...he just laid down and died. Rudolph died. Right there. That's why you don't see him making personal appearances. And all because he hadn't heeded the warning: If the Foo s**ts, wear it.

Fooled again! Count the times I've drawn encouragement from brightly sunny skies and pleasant morning temperatures and headed out of here intent on some good-weather activity, just to enter Flatland through a cloud deck and to find it damp and grey, and you'd think I'd have learned that they and I are worlds apart, climatologically speaking. So it was yesterday, and I had the bicycle all keyed up for a 35-mile ride. Without Lycra leggings or a jacket to throw on over my lightweight cotton shirt, it promised to be a bit on the chilly side, so I killed a couple of hours shopping while I waited for it to burn off.

Between my house and the nearest population center having more than a hundred residents is only a matter of fifteen miles and a mere five hundred feet in elevation, but I'm parked at the base of the biggest "weather magnet" in the state, and it's said that a mountain the size of Rainier makes its own weather. One would think that phrase pertained to gathering storms like a hen clustering her chicks when, in fact, its effect is frequently quite the opposite. The Presence towering above our sheltered valley has been known to dump the wet dog from his lap unceremoniously and onto the lowland floor, leaving the court of local residents blissfully high and dry.

Too often, I sail out in shorts and sandals, only to wish I had a sweater to wrap around my shoulders between car and grocery store. Three miles from home, the fog is thick as cold pea soup and congeals in muddy dapples on the windshield. I've left eighty behind me, and now I turn on the heater as the goosebumps rise on my bare arms. Fooled again!

I can't prove what I suspect: that I have been duped as a Flatlander in the days when I lived on a prairie south and west of here, an area near sea level known for its uncharacteristic lack of precipitation in western Washington. Of a morning, I'd peer out between the raindrops streaking the east kitchen window and say, "No, I'm not going hiking today. Mountain's all socked in," and then I'd break out a jigsaw puzzle and dream of alpine meadows beneath a radiant sun while I pored over its pieces.

My ride was abbreviated by the early drizzle, shortened up by two hours spent dithering among shelves and merchandise, time I spent thinking of my foolish reliance on the misleading truths passing before my eyes. A poor juror I would make in the trial of Weather, deflected as I am by false evidence and half-told tales, but I will not again be caught out by her perjuries. Cagily, I bought and stashed a thrift-shop jacket in the car.

I believe I've mentioned FreeCell solitaire before, so now comes the time to explain its play and fascination.

The game is simple, and may be played without a computer, although with the version that accompanies Windows, it's far easier to learn the rules because the program will tell you when you're trying to make an illegal move. There is, however, a widely acknowledged error in the program which allows you to move fewer cards from one column to another when one column is left open, but that only adds to the challenge of playing to a successful conclusion.

The tableau is laid out, all cards face up, in a spread eight cards wide. The first four vertical columns will each contain seven cards, and the last four will contain six. Above the tableau are eight empty spaces. The four on the left are referred to as "free cells" and the four on the right as "home cells." To quote the rules of play directly from the program:

"You can move cards according to the following rules.
-A card from the bottom of a column can move to a free cell.
-A card from a free cell, or a card from the bottom of a column, can move to a home cell. Moves to a home cell must be made in order of lowest to highest, same suit." (In other words, you play an ace into the home cell and build on it. ed.)
"-Aces can move to an empty home cell.
-A card from a free cell, or from the bottom of a column, can move to the bottom of another column. Moves made to a column must be made in order of highest to lowest, alternating suit colors." (In other words, you rank your columns in opposite colours with the highest ranked card in the highest position in the column. ed.)

The Windows program does not explain an additional rule since it is built into it, and that is that you may only move the number of cards equivalent to the number of free cells plus one, plus the number of open columns, e.g., if four free cells are open, you may only move five cards or less. According to the program (and this is where the disparity lies), an open column counts as one space. Some authorities count a column as three.

The object of the game is to stack all cards in the home cells, ace to king.

The intriguing factor in this game is that nearly all possible combinations can be won. Many people believe that all can, but in fact that is not true. Included in the Windows program is one that cannot, and its number is my secret. I will only say that to date, In numerical order, I have played the first 5555 games (an elegant number, don't you think?), and the solution to only one continues to elude me, #1941. The logic of play has become almost instinctual. My daily ritual of five games often extends to ten or twenty, so addictive is the exercise. (More detailed information about FreeCell can be found here.)

Every now and then, I go and beat my head against #1941's wall for an hour or two. I've solved some "toughies," so I refuse to cheat by referring to the FreeCell fact sheet which shows the order of play necessary to accomplish the job. It'll happen. Some day, I'll see something I haven't seen before, and the cards will fall into place before me. On that day, you'll hear me yell.

August's air is fusty and stale, blued with smoke blown south from Canadian wildfires, and heavy in the breath. It fades the sweet green of the mountainsides, dims the fresh blue of the sky with its dusty brush, and withers energies from the earth with its hot and acrid breeze.

It teases with cruel insincerity, dropping a shower here and there, and takes perverse pleasure in our discomfort when, petulantly, it cranks up the heat. Its mood is seldom congenial for longer than it takes to praise its behaviour, and its infrequent gifts are soon selfishly retracted with a tantrum following. It plays its sport meanly, and disregards the rules. No other month is so disrespectful, impolite and altogether rude. Like any brat, snotty August draws my patience thin, and I'd be pleased to apply a hairbrush to its annual behind.

To be fair, it had a bad example in its sibling, the teenage July. As that young lady grew older, her delinquencies increased. She robbed June's coolness, painted sweaty graffiti on every surface the state, drove recklessly through town and country. Captured in a final, wanton display of criminal activity, she found herself incarcerated until the following year.

It is hard to believe that from a parent spring so well-mannered, these troublemakers came to work their mischief. Ah, but I will be glad when they mature into September.