centre of the universe - the dreaming

I happened to glance out the window this morning as I woke.
Clouds, like tufts of soap bubbles, dotted the mountainside.
Even mountains get bedhead, I thought.
To the east, clouds embrace everything above the blue tin roofs at the ranch
just visible through the spruce across the river.
I could believe there was nothing behind them, nothing inside that ephemeral touch.
I could believe this was a valley in Scotland
(even though I've never been in a valley in Scotland)
but that's dangerous.
I hear out in these parts, they giggle at you if you let your brogue show.

Labels: mountains, poems, summer, vacation

His Nibs and his "Sinister", as he calls her, took me 'gophing' (The Nipper for two years referred to golfers as 'gophers', which quite confused many people for a bit) yesterday. I rather enjoy gophing. But here's the thing - I don't give a fiddler's fart whether there are people behind me - if they're faster than me they can skip ahead of me (they call this "playing through", don't you know). I don't much care what you're supposed to wear or not wear. I don't really care about all that 'gentlemenly' business.

So this means I get to save rather a lot of money by *not* playing on courses where these things matter.

His Nibs can be somewhat ...insistent... that, even on little par-three courses where, according to the really good gophers around here, that kind of stuff doesn't matter, we follow The Rules. Rules, I say, rules are suggestions, really. People don't *actually* care if you wear sandals on this course. People don't *actually* care if your Sinister and I share a set of clubs. Besides, knowing the way your Sinister gophs, she'll probably hit anyone from the staff with a ball, so we have nothing to worry about.

"Be nice," His Nibs says.

"No, she's right," his Sinister says. "Last time I was here, I think I just about hit someone on every hole."

"And you hit every tree on the course!" I say helpfully to His Nibs.

His Nibs sighs *meaningfully* and begins some crazy stretching thing.

But here's the deal - it's terribly fun. When it doesn't matter, it's terribly fun. His Nibs said, "should we keep score?"

And I said, "the only person who's going to be bothered by the score you keep is you, so it's probably a Bad Idea for your own enjoyment of the morning."

We don't keep score. Fun should not include arithmetic and figurin'.

Here, I have to say to Sean-by-the-Sea, "You told me so. And you were right."

Gophing. Huh. Who knew?

Labels: gophers, mountains, summer, vacation

For mountains to fall on my head. Smoky, misty mountains with a hatred and a vengeance for prairie folk. Stupid mountains.

But it's *really nice* here. Like, there's *sun* and it's more than 22 degrees, and there's no wind, and and and and no frost, and stuff is *growing* because it's *hot*...so...well...I'm conflicted. It's *summer* here. I suspect what it is is this - I suspect it's some kind of lure the mountains are using to lull us in to the nest of the Mountain's evil.

Then, when we least expect it, after we're all lethargic and flooby from eating all of Gramma's awesome food and drinking rum and lying out in the sun all day, **BOOM**!! the mountains are on your head.

And there's no *helmet* you can wear to save your delicate, delicate brain from a MOUNTAIN FALLING ON YOUR HEAD. I mean, sure, you can survive a direct plummet from a tree, but you can't just walk away from a direct hit from a mountain. It's just not possible. Ask those folks in Pompeii.

Okay, yes, technically, Pompeii was a volcano, not a mountain, but the end result was that a mountain fell on their heads after it 'sploded out of a volcano. Thankfully, there aren't a *whole* lot of active volcanoes in the Rockies. That I know about.

More DECEPTION! More LURING! There ought to be a law.

Labels: mountains, vacation