Arizona

Saturday Summerhaven Escape from the Heat

August 22, 2015 by Nancy Hill 2 Comments

Our household started the day a bit later than we had intended, but it turned out to be a delightful day despite only getting to half the events we had hoped to attend. The first one started at 9-ish, as in the a.m., at 9,000 feet. A mountain brunch. Actually Summerhaven, the mountain town where we were meeting friends for a birthday brunch, is only 8,200 ft. in elevation. But still that is quite a bit higher than Tucson at 2,650 ft. And we got there quite a bit later than 9-ish, but we were not the last to arrive.

The scenery on the way up was stunning, as always.

A view of Tucson from the Catalina Highway as we begin the trip up.

Buddy, as seen in the side mirror, is very happy to be on the road to cooler climes.

A view of Hitchcock Rock at Windy Point as we pass by.

And more great rock formations on the way up. I am not sure what the common name for the duck-billed rock is, but we always called this Nixon Rock.

First view along the drive of the area that burned the Summer of 2003. The fire was called the Aspen Fire. About half of Summerhaven burned in that fire.

Another view of the new growth with the still standing trunks of trees lost to the fire – closer to Summerhaven.

Then we arrived in Summerhaven and the Cabin.

celebrating with the birthday girl and friends on a porch of a cabin in Summerhaven.

And we had a wonderful time celebrating with the birthday girl and friends.

Plant. Unidentified, but delicate and beautiful, by the cabin.

Small lap dogs had a wonderful time.

As did big dogs too.

For old time sake we stopped at the turn off to the road we took many, many summers to where our daughter went to Girl Scout Camp, Saguaro Girl Scout Council, along Organization Ridge Road. Many memories.

Then on the way down the mountain, for old time sake we stopped at the turn off to the road we took many, many summers in a row, long ago, to where our daughter went to Girl Scout Camp, Saguaro Girl Scout Council, along Organization Ridge Road. Many memories.

Rain to the North of the Catalinas across the San Pedro Valley

Or maybe it is looking out over Tortalita. Hate to admit it but I’m not sure.

This is such an absolutely complex and varied ecological area. For info to beef up your geological perspective, I recommend this publication. It has a bunch of information you can use to identify geological formations at some of the well designed pull off Scenic Vistas along the way. (We were reminiscing today about how the Catalina Highway to the top of Mount Lemmon has changed from road to real highway.)

The mountains around here are called Sky Islands. To find out about the biology and biota of these islands with sea of desert all around check out the Sky Island Alliance. And if you want to find out more about connecting the islands so wildlife can migrate (No border fences!) check out the info about wildlife corridor design.

Now back to the travelogue.

Vistas that I once could not view for more than a second or two… because the heights freaked me out so much… but that I can now experience outside of the car!

One of my favorite pics of the day. View is of Thimble Peak in the distance. You can view Thimble Peak from the other side if you take the tram up Sabino Canyon.

The ability to experience such diverse climate, flora, and fauna in a drive up the mountain range that borders northern Tucson and takes only an hour is one of the fortunes given to you with residence in Tucson.

When I was married in the Summer of 1989 on the top of Mount Lemmon, the highest peak in the Santa Catalina Mountains, the record high temperatures in the Tucson Basin were above the 110°F mark. It was in the 80s in Lemmon Meadow where we held the ceremony and camp-o-rama reception.

So long ago, geesh, I still drank Budweiser… why I was holding a Bud when we had a keg of Harp and vat of chilled Moet Chandon I still do not know.

Me on my wedding day, so long ago. Near the top of Mount Lemmon, in Lemmon Meadow.

Hubby and daughter posing in Lemmon Meadow with our two dear furry friends who are no longer with us, 18 years or so after Hubby and I were married there.

Mount Lemmon, by the way, was named for Sara Lemmon a botanist in the late 1800s who was the first white women to climb the peak and describe and gather botanical samples from the unique biology of the range.

So anyway, I was jumping in and out of the truck to get pics of this or that and when I came back to the truck after getting the image of Thimble Peak, I felt like the guy in the Simon and Garfunkel song, “Cecilia.”

Someone had taken my place.

But soon we were back to the land of Saguaros.

Saguaros are trees and this is a Saguaro forest.

By the time we got back home and were to clean up and attend another birthday party… it was ready to storm and we were exhausted. The evening was spent watching Marlene Dietrich in Witness for the Prosecution and then in Shanghai Express on TCM.

I’m sad that we did not make it to another friend’s birthday bash for her hubby’s 30th 39th birthday, but one of the rewards of being old enough to know better is knowing what your limits are before you have reached or exceeded them.

So that is what we did today. Sometimes I absolutely love my experiential fortunes!

I’ve Missed You

April 19, 2015 by Nancy Hill Leave a Comment

I miss this blog! I miss my readers. I miss my topics.

In case you don’t know, I am working on a new site called the Women’s Legacy Project. It is more focused on a certain topic and a certain demographic than this free-for-all that is my life and my quest for a fair trade cuppa.

New endeavors always present a liminally-enriched and -challenged experience (and yes liminally is a slightly invented word.) Liminal is transitional – neither one or the other and sort of an eerie feeling and state of being between. The Wikipedia entry (at least in the version I called up today) is a pretty good coverage of the concept.

I am going to have to double up on the writing to be able to do that project, which is needed and a very good thing, and still have my sanity keeping writing and commentary here.

I have to run. Off to visit my Aunt Maralee who is age 89, and the last person genetically standing in the generation above me, and my cousin Linda who lives with her and takes care of her.

Spent the night with John at the Clarendon

A breakfast scramble thingy at the Clarendon. Yum! Spinach, mushroom, eggs, cheese. Ask for the spicy tomatillo salsa – it is great on this dish.

I just wanted to pop in and say, “Hi!” before I check out of the Clarendon Hotel and Spa (that I will write about here or on my Hill Research Site) where I stayed for the Press Publish Conference I attended yesterday.

Where Does Beautiful, Poignant Autumn Begin?

September 2, 2014 by Nancy Hill 22 Comments

We are still in second summer here in Tucson. Unfortunately that doesn’t mean I live in a fantasy land, a Shire where there are second breakfasts and such, though that would be nice. The reality of Autumn expectations rarely match up to the calendar or cultural expectations for what the harvest season should be. Seasons and seasonal observations vary greatly with place as well as with stage of life.

School Year Starts in the Summer

Students are back in school and have been for a while here in Arizona. Tucson Unified School District started classes on July 31st. Amphitheater School District started on August 7th. From what I can tell from perusing articles from news sources as well as a small statistically biased sampling of school calendars in both the eastern and western United States, most schools start during the month of August. The more wealthy the population, the later the school for an area starts, it seems. The start of school, Labor Day, and the fall are linked for most of us in the U.S., but why? Any real linkage that might have once existed has disappeared over the last few decades.

Seasons

There are many kinds of seasons including calendrical, cultural, and climatological. Solstice and equinox were up until recently my default criteria for talking about seasons, but now I tend to view the seasons as centering on these celestial linked dates and beginning and ending at times that our culture no longer recognizes but which are clearly evident in more traditional, folk, or ancient ways of knowing such as the Northern European one shown here:

Public domain image of the “Wheel of the Year” from Wikipedia.

We celebrate the reprieve that autumn brings here in Tucson in the way that spring is celebrated in more northern climes.

Individual Views of Seasons

I often write about fall. Poetry tends to capture most of my autumnal musings about the evocative nature of lengthened, softened slant of light that October brings but I also blog about the season with some regularity.

In the early years of my life fall was the time of harvest, the hunter’s moon, seasonal depression, the start of the time of year when Mom had time to focus on me (which often was not a good thing,) birthdays of close friends, lovers and elders. The stark, almost bleak sense of stasis or dormancy, of waiting colored the months of October and November. These months seemed something like a pencil retouched photograph from the late 1800s, all shades of black and gray with soft touches of unreal color.

But these last many years, since moving to Tucson, Fall has become Autumn. Autumn in Tucson is a time of wonder: perfect days to play hooky and warm oneself on a granite rock ledge in Sabina Canyon as hints of coming coolness whisper in the breeze, preparation for late and winter gardens, evenings spent outdoors on patios with sunsets, friends and perfect weather. Preparation for the All Souls Procession alters the angle of perspective of the season in that unique way only Tucson can.

You can support the All Souls Procession in Tucson by preordering the 2015 Calendar.

We come out as a community to express and acknowledge, mourn, celebrate, commemorate, inspire and be inspired by transition, all that has come before, personal loss, personal growth and our connectedness to the land and blending of culture that the Goddess of this place has provided as a home to those of us fortunate enough to be allowed to live some bit of our lives here in the shadow of mountains where the rivers used to flow.

Fall was once a depressing time for me, but the perspective and rituals that celebrate the place and perspective here in southern Arizona have changed that. Beautiful and poignant, that is autumn in Tucson.

HOW, Exactly, Arizona Elections Are Being Stolen

November 16, 2012 by Nancy Hill Leave a Comment

Crappola. I want to be a regular old empty nest blogger and non-political writer, but I am cursed with awareness of events and the power that single voices can have. So instead of writing about Pinterest posts that serve as #ff or Follow Friends or Follow Fridays or Friend Feed or whatever the heck it stands for, I am writing about the theft of elections in Arizona and how they are being accomplished in at least one county, Pima County. Pima County, the county in which I happen to reside, is supposed to be a bastion of liberal sense in a sea of Christian/Mormon and Wingnut Libertarian Wack-a-doodlery.

I've posted this clip with a simple introductory sentence on Twitter, Facebook, and Google+ to attempt to get the word out for the original Election Integrity folks, Audit AZ, not to be confused with Rovian election “integrity” folks who usurped the phrase and applied it to their thugs who were challenging voters throughout the U.S., possibly as a decoy to distract from the real way provisional ballots were planned to be created.

Rove and his smarmy cadre of Machevelian actors steal from the best. The old confuse a cat routine of distraction coupled with boredom works. It is a variation of the desensitization experienced when someone cries wolf so often that real information is lost. No one pays attention to Arizona because of the Right wing wacko reputation of the state. What better place to test out manipulation and theft tactics than a place no one takes seriously anyway? This reputation exists in spite of the huge Latino and First Peoples populations, the fact that Raul Grijalva, the Congressional Progressive Caucus leader, and massive bipartisan cooperative recall efforts, such as the one that recently removed the, now former, President of the Arizona Senate, Russell Pearce. A rather large progressive community in Arizona is far less credible than it should be by the caricature that has taken hold in the mind of most people in the U.S.

I wrote a Master's Thesis in Anthropology about cultural incorporation of the elements most threatening to the status quo by the larger “governing” cultural system so as to maintain its primacy. I believe that some of the left's most effective protests against the Rovian machinations of the Bush II's administration were absorbed, probably consciously, but possibly unconsciously, by the Kochian Right that continued the Bush assault on democracy after the Bush administration. I see potential for the early borrowing and reframing of progressives memes that the Right shaped into the Tea Party that began in the likes of progressive and cooperative street theater such as that done by CODEpink and Yellow Cake groups.

I witnessed early Tea Party-esque protest memes put together at a Convergence Center for the Phoenix Presidential Debate 2004. This was when I was helping put together an Arizona presense for CODEPINK in 2004 was the model for the Right Wing's Tea Party theme. We progressive to downright leftist groups (all the way from early players in what was becoming the Progressive Democrats of America, to environmental groups, Nadar supporters, anarchists of several stripes, and the general dissatisfied voice of youth) chanted, “We're Joe Six Pack and we've come to take our Country back,” while a “let them eat cake” Cake Street Puppet danced by the dangerous fretful and antsy hooves of Phoenix P.D. cavalry, when we were caught between the Darth Vader armor clad and shield weilding Phoenix Arizona Storm Troopers and the aforementioned calvary.

Many folks here in Arizona have been attempting to out the massive manipulation of elections as well as the testing of public sentiment manipulations and desensitization tactics for years. I understand that no one wants to believe this. It is extremely disturbing. But it is happening, and once again I have to say, “I'm reserving my right to tell you, 'I told you so!' when, down the line, this becomes widely known and accepted.”

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What All This Means, Provisionally, In Arizona

November 9, 2012 by Nancy Hill 4 Comments

Did my early ballot get counted? I have no way of knowing!

: With the rest of the U.S. showing more Democratic swing than the “polls” captured, why would AZ swing opposite to the same demo tilt that polls showed here too? Oh, over half a million provisional and early votes were not counted. Hmmm…. I smell tampering.

I watched the last days before the U.S. election via CNN International from outside the country. I then anxiously monitored election returns via Twitter feeds in airport boarding areas. The mere opportunity to have these vantage points for this process signals that I am a fortunate person in this life and the world.

Hubby and I spent more money than we have to send my hubby to a conference and for me to get to visit one of the places in the world that inspired the educational and career paths of my life. I, however, know this experience is not one that bestows or signifies the quality or value of my life. I am no better or worse a person than a woman who may never get to travel beyond her community or outside the borders of her state. Status, opportunity, achievement, and the “worth” of individuals are either distinct attributes or non-existent constructs.

The status quo in the U.S.A. is eroding. The ideas and ideals behind our constitution are growing. The American status quo does not embody our constitutional values. The change we are seeing does embody the essence of what has always made America great: an expansively democratic governance. This is not the same as expansive government. Yes, we are a representative democracy guided by an inclusive constitution at the highest levels. But there are eddies of absurdity that are pulling elements of our society into total dysfunction.

So what have we learned thus far and what do we do with it?

The simplistic assessment that “Pot, Gay Marriage,and Science are the Winners in this Election” has some truth in it. Liberty requires the pursuit of happiness. If individuals are not free to control their bodies, their most personal behaviors, and trust the science that guides collective policy, if something stops them from having time to dream, create, and problem solve, then our great nation will die an inelegant death through ignorant actions.

As an Arizona resident who is quite disappointed, but not surprised by, the reporting of Republican wins in the political races in my state with over a half a million uncounted early and provisional ballots, I expect my state to get what it deserves from allowing the essential democratic process to be violated consistently over the last many elections. If all this stands, there will be infrastructural spending in the next four years, but Jeff “no earmarks” Flake will see that Arizona does not get our fair share of public works money, just like Kyl did, and McCain will be right there with him. “Earmarks” that benefit constituents will be lost, but corporate kickbacks will be alive and well. The small government wackos will funnel questionably allocated funds into private prison systems, the contemporary tool of enslavement, rather than education. Propaganda works best with an uneducated populace. When they are imprisoned it works even better.

Allowing idiots to manipulate democracy in a state to the point where Neo-Nazis have been allowed to patrol the border, religious minorities have gerrymandered our political districts, state governance districts do not reflect the population of the state, has handicapped the ability of our institutions of higher education to attract the best students. What brilliant minority or foreign student would want to attend university in a state with AZ SB 1070. This in turn handicaps commerce when it attempts to draw upon a skilled, innovative, and renewable population of scientists, business innovators, and elastic well-educated labor networks that can respond to change.

I am not a conspiracy theorist, nor a leftist malcontent. I am an anthropologist who understands cultural systems, population trends, and trajectories. What has been going on in Arizona for a while now is dangerous and impacts democracy in all of America.

The Arizona example, along with Ohio and Florida, shows what assaults on democracy look like in the contemporary United States elections. Links to some of the Arizona Problems follow:

Could voting irregularities sway the election? This mentions Flake’s robo-calls to Democrats telling them the wrong polling place.
Arizona: More Than 600,000 Ballots Remain Uncounted Over half a million uncounted votes show a significant problem beyond individual irregularities.
Count Every Vote in Arizona Petition. We have to petition to have our votes count? Apparently so.

More than anger, I am feeling nauseous, disheartened and a profound need to do something. I think this is how revolutions start. Anger is a short term irrational act. I am tired of giving up my time, energy and income to fight the right wing attempts, thus far rather successful ones, to violate the the will of the people as shown by the manipulation of elections by all levels and branches of government. I have already spent the better portion of five years of my life acting for change against wars waged due to the lies of selected rather than elected administrations, if I have to go out in the streets again, I am stepping it up this time. I am a matriot and the U.S. ideal of democracy and representative governance means the world to me.

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Saturday Summerhaven Escape from the Heat

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I’ve Missed You

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