June 4, 2007

• Enough Intensity

  I am never bored.  If I crave excitement, I can always read a book.  Even here in the peace and quiet of my subarctic suburban neighborhood, there is occasional gunfire, wildfire, and other forms of live-action excitement.  I don’t need such intense happenings to keep me from being bored, however.  I find amusement and diversion in watching tadpoles grow, and in taking note of the changing seasons.  In the past week, the violet-green swallows returned from their winter homes, and the gray jays came back from down south in Canada where they spend the winters.  That’s interesting, to me.

  Saturday, I hauled a carload of stuff into Wasilla and set my yard sale up next to Greyfox‘s Last Stand on the strip next to the highway at Felony Flats.  I haven’t had so much excitement in a single day for several years – at least since the rehab ranch discontinued the van to the NA meetings and eliminated my little volunteer position as driver.  A few miles from home, I passed the smoking remains of a building that had gone from being an auction barn to a video rental store (where I used to go with friends to work out with Jane Fonda), and then became a private residence.  Now, it’s just a foundation and a pile of ashes.

  I got to Felony Flats just as Greyfox was starting to set up his stand.  He finished before I did, but it’s something he does frequently and he has a system. Around 1 o’clock, I was mostly set up and had turned to pricing some china and glassware I’d packed at the last moment, when I noticed some of the dogs around there sniffing the air and looking toward the highway.  The owner of one of the dogs pointed out to me a fresh roadkill out there.  Over the course of the next few hours I saw the deceased dog get flatter and more scattered.

  

  I am not squeamish about blood or dead things.  I felt some relief for the dog’s sake that its head got flattened right at the start, so it didn’t drag itself into the ditch, and didn’t suffer.  It seemed a pity that nobody had cared enough about it to obey the borough-wide leash law and keep it safe, but the incident didn’t ruin my lunch.  I walked past the fresh corpse on my way to the other end of the strip for the charity barbecue presented by a local religious cult, and noted its somewhat flatter condition on my return walk with my food.

  I didn’t begin to feel distressed or anxious until a few hours later when a bald eagle swooped down toward the roadkill on the center line and was scared off by the heavy weekend traffic.  My feelings were a mix of excitement at being within telephoto distance of the eagle, and fervent hope that he wouldn’t end up becoming a feathered topping on the road pizza.

  Greyfox keeps a hand-held traffic sign, stop on one side, slow on the other, with a short handle and a bicycle handgrip, which he found in the dumpster there. He uses it to slow down cars that speed through the strip past his stand.  I grabbed it and slung my camera around my neck and walked to the roadside, determined to do what I could to assist the eagle.  It had flown to the opposite side of the highway and was perched on a pile of dirt and gravel.

  

  With traffic flowing fast and constant, and the eagle not putting himself in harm’s way, I stood by the road and took pictures until a man came from behind me with a shovel, planning to get the dead dog off the highway.  At the next break in traffic, he and his shovel and I and my sign advanced upon the roadway and the carrion pile was tossed into the ditch on the opposite side.

  Apparently, the advance of two tool-bearing primates startled the eagle, because when I next spotted him, he was high in a tree farther back from the road.  There he stayed until a noisy four-wheeler whined down the dirt path next to that ditch, throwing up a cloud of dust.  Then the eagle took to his wings and flew away to the southwest.

  

  That was the last of the excitement until it started raining and we had to cover all our merchandise through a brief shower.  After that, there was a brief flurry of sales, and nothing much happened until four teens converged on the carrion in the ditch, coming from three different directions.  The pair of girls was joined first by one boy, and then another.  Then they were joined by the animal control officer, who proceeded to double-bag the roadkill.

   

  Before she got out of there with her bag of dog, she was joined by a Wasilla Code Compliance Officer (the citizens’ tax dollars at work), who seemed as interested and unamused by the situation as the four teens seemed fascinated (mostly with each other) and amused.  He did not seem at all pleased when he noticed me taking pictures, either.

  

  Then it started to rain seriously.  Greyfox had his things put away long before I was packed up.  I was fumbling around under poly sheeting trying to keep my stuff dry as I packed it up.  That resulted in some broken glass.  Finally, I was done.  We drove down the strip to Greyfox’s cabin where he nuked some frozen lasagna and shared it with me while we watched the final episode of Carnivale.

  I stopped for gas on my way home.  While the tank was filling, I checked my oil.  It was okay, but my coolant was low, so I went inside for some water.  I came back out, watered the car, closed the hood, got in, started up, and pulled the hose loose from the gas pump.  As I got out to remove the hose and stow it on the island next to the pump, the guy who had pulled in behind me said, “Don’t you just hate when that happens?”

  I went into the convenience store to confess and face the consequences, but the clerks in there were extremely busy.  The clerk at the liquor store end of the building was standing outside the door smoking a cigarette, so I confessed to her.  Not knowing what to do, she had me follow her inside, where she watched me warily while she phoned someone in authority.  She muttered and nodded and hung up the phone, then told me it was okay.  Whew!  I guess, as Greyfox said when I phoned him later from home and told him the story, they have moron insurance.

  I am still tired from yesterday, twenty-some hours after arriving home. I did not even attempt to go back in today to try and sell my junk.  There will be more weekends this summer.  I just hope they are not that exciting.  I’m waiting for my tadpoles to turn into frogs.  That’s enough excitement for me.
  

  • 1:37 am
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