GERTRUDE'S, CACTI AND MONARCHS

So alright, already.  I had a routine doctor's appointment today and after it, SWMBO and I headed for the Desert Botanical Garden in Papago Park in Phoenix.  First stop was Gertrude's, a first class restaurant which opened this year on the grounds of the park.  It's named after Gertrude Divine Webster who founded DBG back in 1939. The restaurant has been getting raves and even though we were just lunching we soon found out why.  

SWMBO had the Sonoran Dog, a bacon wrapped Schreiner's beef hot dog, topped with avocado, tepary beans, Cotija, and tomatillo relish on a poppy seed bun.  (In keeping with his locavore style, Chef Stephen Eldredge uses tepary beans, which have been grown in the Southwestern United States and Mexico by native people since pre-Columbian times.)

As for me, I was drawn to the "3 Napkin Smoked Sow".  It was smoked pork and Arizona Cheese Company jack accompanied by cilantro, pickled apple and pickled onion on a ciabatta bun.  A red chile jus was there for dipping and, as Emeril might say, "to kick it up a notch."

Both sandwiches were delicious but the triple fried potatoes with sea salt were the stars of the show.  Yum!

So, bellies full, it was on to walk some of it off.  The Desert Botanical Garden is a wonderland of cacti (or cactuses, if you must) and native plants.  It is mysterious and spectacular, no lie.

The ones just above are said to be endemic to Argentina and reminded me of nothing more than a nest of rattlesnakes, I'm sorry to say.  Fascinating, though.

Then it was on to a special exhibit that had brought us here today: the Mariposa Monarca butterfly exhibit.  Here's a short video I shot.

And to give you a better look, here's a photo of one of the Monarch butterflies.  They were brought over from California and will live the rest of their brief lives in this exhibit space.

The native monarchs winter in the state of Michoacan in Mexico and migrate north as far as Canada.

On our way out of the park today, I spotted one of my favorite cacti.

Looks soft and fluffy like a bunch of rolled socks but I wouldn't want to get too close to those prickly spines.

SWMBO spotted what she called a Pregnant Barrel Cactus.

See?  I'm not the only one in the family who makes oddball observations!

MINDLESSNESS

I'm sorry.  

I can't think of anything worthwhile to blog about these days.  

It's temporary.  

I hope.

So.

Be patient with me.

Or maybe just ignore me.

I'll be back.

Some day.

YES IT IS. FRIDAY AGAIN.

Poor doggie!

This next one is from cartoonist Gary Varvel of the Indianapolis Star.

Interesting comment on the week's news, eh?

You might take this next one as a similar comment, if you like.

And finally, turn up your sound for this next one.  It's pretty darn remarkable.  The crew on board the Bourbon Peridot off the coast of Equatorial Guinea in West Africa takes their turn at lip-synching "Africa" by Toto.

Have a great weekend, everyone.

CORRECTION TO AN EARLIER POST

Awhile back when writing about my o-o-o-l-d friend, Karl Kindberg, I made a couple of errors, he was prompt to inform me yesterday.  First of all, he has NOT had two hip replacements and one knee replacement.  He has had ONE hip replacement and TWO knee replacements.  Second of all, when he was a cast member on the Ozzie and Harriet Show his name was not "Biff", as I stated.  It was "Dink", he told me.  Now if those were the two choices, I think I'd let history believe it was Biff.  But that's his affair.

I don't think I made any other errors but I'm sure "da guys" will let me know if I did.

Let's see, what other trouble can I get into.  Oh, yeah.

By the way, the Houston Chronicle in an editorial today, apologized for endorsing Cruz for the Senate a year ago.

Meantime in the baseball playoffs the National League teams St. Louis and Los Angeles will return to St. Louis for the final one or two games. The Cardinals lead the best of seven series 3 games to 2.  They won both games one and two on their home field.

I hope the rest of your week is pleasant.

MORE GEEZERS

I know, I know, you're all tired of hearing about my o-l-d buddies from years back.  But listen here.  It's my blog and I'll put anything on it that I like.  So here's a picture of four old geezers taken just this afternoon.

All four are graduates of KPNX-TV in Phoenix.  They are, from left to right, the Legendary Lew Ruggiero, the Studly Steve Torbeck, King Karl Kindberg, and your not-so-humble-correspondent.

As has been noted elsewhere, only Lew had the good sense to wear long pants.  

The occasion was a gathering at Karl's house to encourage him, after his recent knee transplant surgery, not to take his own life . . . in spite of, now, two knee surgeries and one hip transplant.  Let's face it . . . the man is bionic!

But enough about them.  Take a look at my grandson and his wife, who are ON VACATION IN IRELAND!!!  (How do these kids get their money, anyway?)

Kayla, with her fair skin and that head of red hair, and Rusty, with that red beard, truly look like a couple of real Irish-folk.  Actually, I don't know if either one of them have a drop of Irish blood but they certainly won't have to beg for a free bottle of Guiness in Ye Olde Country.

And finally, just to set the Bug's mind at ease about rabbit pie . . . a photo of My Favorite Bunny, still hopping along that bunny trail.

That's all.  G'nite, folks.

MOVING RIGHT ALONG NOW

One morning in my back yard recently, there was a . . .

. . . bunny!

He may have been after this . . .

. . . but it was inside, safe on the dinner table.

So . . . a bit of InterWebs philosophy . . .

GREEK HERITAGE

Neither SWMBO nor I are of Greek ancestry, at least not that we know, but we can remember enjoying the annual Greek Festivals held in Phoenix in the past so today we traveled to the grounds of the Holy Trinity Greek Orthodox Cathedral for their 53rd annual Greater Phoenix fest.

There was lots of jewelry for sale.

There was Greek music and folk dancing, performed by a talented group of youngsters.

We took a tour of the Cathedral and heard an interesting talk about the religion.  We were invited but not pressured to attend a liturgical service.

Beautiful stained glass windows inside.

And, of course, there was Greek food for sale everywhere.

SWMBO had a Greek-spiced and grilled beef Gyro sandwich.  The beef was topped with tzatziki, tomato and onion.

And I feasted on a lamb shank (a treat I discovered years ago in a Detroit restaurant) which had been roasted with tomato, fresh garlic and Greek spices, and we shared a delicious bowl of Kalamata olives.

Of course we had to wash it down with some Greek beer and I had to start the day with a shot of Ouzo.  

All in all a fun time with a group of fun-loving people.  If you happen to be in Phoenix the festival continues Sunday from 11 a.m. to 8 p.m.

FRIDAY FUNNIES

These are all courtesy of the BRD.  But . . . the Interwebs rule!

First, those caring doves.

This is why I don't go to movie theatres.

I prefer my C-pap machine to this cure.

Yeah, we all remember those days, don't we?

I've seen different versions of this before.  I don't know if Willie ever said it.  But he could have.

And finally, while this isn't really my cat, I can sympathize.

HALLOWEEN 2

First of all, an apology to the weatherman.  After months of moaning and groaning by your correspondent about the exceedingly and continuously hot weather, you have acceded.  It's about 2 p.m. as I write this and the outside temperature is 71 degrees Fahrenheit.  Now that's just about perfect.  One day recently when I remarked on the mild temperature and said "I'd be happy with this year round," a neighbor said "Oh, no.  I said that to a mailman here a few years ago and he replied with horror 'Don't say that!  If it was like that EVERYONE would move here!'"  So I'll put up with 3 or 4 months of agonizingly high temperatures if the other 8 or 9 months can be somewhat like todays.

But to the business at hand.

I found a couple of other residents with wishes for trick-or-treat visitors, it seems.

Note the rows of skulls around the front door!

One person decorated his entire garage door.

I thought at first he had painted it but SWMBO and I decided it was a kind of decal that will be removed after the horror of Halloween.

Speaking of horror, the BRD had come for a visit and apparently had seen some of these "decorations".  She was properly terrified, it seems.

Either that or she was preparing for her next career.

As an opera singer.

PASSAGES

From time to time I write here about old friends.  Here's one of them.

That's Jess Cooper, way back in the 1960's when he was working for Senator Quentin Burdick in Washington, D.C.  Prior to that Jess had been my competition in Bismarck, North Dakota, a town with two t.v. stations. Jess was the anchorman and news director at one of them, I held the same positions at the other.  In spite of our nose-to-nose competiveness, off the job we became drinking buddies and great friends.  I hadn't seen Jess since sometime back in the 1980's when I stopped off in Bismarck on a lengthy trip.

Yesterday, I received an email from a mutual friend of both of us, the great Danny Bananas, of whom you've heard.  Jess had died.  He was 75 and his family found him in his back yard.  Jess had heart bypass surgery a couple of years ago but had seemed on the mend, according to Danny.  But then . .

He was a great guy and I'll miss him, even if it is only through rare emails and jokes.

Another friend of years is Karl Kindberg.  Here's a picture of the two of us with his lovely wife, Cathy.  This is a more recent picture but still probably 10 or 15 years old.

Karl was from Massachusetts but when he turned 18 or graduated from high school he announced he was going "out West" to become a cowboy.  He landed in Montana and satisfied that dream, then got into rodeo for a few years.  At some point he was a trapeze artist in a circus in Hawaii.  Later on he was in Hollywood, working on the Ozzie and Harriet show as both a character named Biff and as a double for David Nelson, the brother of Rick. (Someone once said "who knew David Nelson NEEDED a double.")  Somehow Karl found himself in Tucson and then Phoenix, working in television.  He and I shared a station for a number of years.  

Karl never really injured himself in his checkered past.  But now, at an "advanced age", he has had two hip replacements and the other day a knee replacement.  He's home from the hospital already and when I spoke to him on the phone this afternoon he was back to his rare form of humor.  He asked me if I'd heard of the Senior Senior Golf group.  I confessed I had not. He said they play three holes and the one who can remember the score is the winner!

And then there's my buddy Lew Ruggiero.  We had lunch today after not seeing each other for a long time so I got a CURRENT picture.

I don't really know how Lew got started in broadcasting but I know he was once a top disc jockey at a radio station in San Diego.  Somehow he came to our t.v. station, probably back in the late 1970's, as an assignment editor. And somehow he graduated from that to being a reporter.  (I have always had a great appreciation for street reporting, having done a lot of that in my prime, and think of anyone who has gone from the administrative side of the business back to the street as having "graduated.")

Lew was not just an ordinary reporter.  He was an exemplary reporter, tops in his field.  But, he told me today, when he was running out a contract and was 57 years old, he decided he had outlived the business and it was time to move on.  Lew had been taking classes at Arizona State University and (in his 50's!) he earned a Master's degree.  He thought he was going to teach but that didn't work out and instead he became a private investigator, working for another broadcast veteran.  He quit last June but still does occasional work for the same firm while he figures out what he wants to do when he grows up.

So.  Those are some of my friends.  I hope I haven't bored you with talking about them because, you see, I love them all.

SEEKING

It is customary in the desert, if one is unlucky enough to have a lawn, to "scalp" it in the fall.  That is to cut the grass down to the earth, leaving an ugly scar.  But then the ground is covered with winter rye grass seed and fertilizer and soaked with water.  I hadn't talked to our yard man enough and after a few days grew a bit startled at how much water was being consumed in this process.  It was pooling a couple of inches deep in some parts of the yard and attracting vast flocks of mourning doves, Gambel's quail, some unidentified birds and the occasional bunny or two.  The birds appeared to be eating all of the grass seed put there just a few days before.

Agustin had told me if the irrigation system was putting too much water on the ground that I should call him and he would come and adjust it.  Yesterday, I had had enough and turned off the system and called him.  He arrived this morning and adjusted the system to run for only two minutes at a time, rather than the six minutes it had been drenching the ground with until I turned it off.  But he cautioned that it must run every day for two weeks, then it can be turned back to every other day.  So it is done.

But meanwhile, late yesterday afternoon I came outside and saw this sight on my neighbor's roof.

Yes those are all the aforementioned mourning doves, just waiting for the water or more grass seed or something.  A funny sight.

But they weren't the only creatures seeking high places yesterday. After dinner last night as I came into the kitchen to clean up I spotted this high on top of our refrigerator.

That's Blackwell, our young boy cat.  He has an affinity for high places, for whatever reason.  But he apparently doesn't like being caught there and photographed.

I had barely taken the first photo when he was headed for the ground.  Good Blackwell.

Yes, folks, so goes life in the fast lane!

MONDAY FACEBOOK FUNNIES

Stuff I swiped from Facebook today:

Here a few things you should never say to a man with whom you are having any kind of serious relationship:

"I spent all the money.  All of it.  On Cher tickets."

"I was thinking of gaining 40 pounds.  I'm feeling anorexic."

And: "I told the two guys from the Vegas Sports Book that you are no longer interested in paying the Viggorish.  That was OK.  Right?"

(Thanks to Meggie, Tom and Catherine for finding them first)

HERE COMES HALLOWEEN

This house just a block away from where I live houses more than one child.  Perhaps even some adult children.  They are ready for the ghosts and ghouls to come visiting.

I can still remember a day when Halloween conjured up happy jack'o'lanterns like these.

But nowadays the images are more like these.

Apparently the modern theme is "the scarier the better."

Whatever your wont, Happy Halloween everyone.

JUST FLUTTERING ABOUT

This little ghostly butterfly, white with grey spots, is not nearly as large as he appears in the still photo.  He was getting his fill from the lantana in our front yard.