The Time Sink

No post; it's a local holiday today...

We're considering changing Shelley's birthday from mid-Summer until later in the year. It would be so nice to be able to plan something in cooler weather.

So tonight was "out to dinner for our anniversary because we cannot go tomorrow because of a kid thing that we can't cancel but only signed up for a few days back because it's a really cool thing for him to take part in"; and when we get in the place (kinda' sorta' maybe the highest end place in town that's only been open two months), which took a minute because they must have been working on a shoestring budget because they didn't bother to install automatic door openers and have to station a young lady at the door to open and close it for people, and to our booth, the young lady seating us, not to be confused with the really cool dude named Wayne who was our server, asked us if we would like to have black napkins rather than the stock white ones since we were wearing dark pants and that would keep any white lint from getting on them...

The poor media people: last night on the ten o'clock news they were trying to find a positive way to let people know their weather reporting system wasn't broken; it was showing 99 when they came on the air because it was 99F outside. <sigh>

Thursday night I joined up with a couple of people I'd never met and made up a new game called "Urgently Waiting" in the waiting room at the local Urgent Care. We 'moved forward' toward the goal of the "small waiting room inside" by having your chart processed without the receptionist having to call you up and for the 'cute kid' playing nicely. ...and you 'went back' by not being in the computer or when the 'not-so-cute-kid' cried (more squares when the parents didn't leave the room for the lobby.

Sean lost two squares by having to correct his answer to when he was last in, but Jenna jumped ahead on when it turned out the reason the receptionist didn't call her for an update because she'd paid her co-pay when she came in! ...and we all took a step back when the guy came in because he "almost passed out at work today so I though I should be checked out". Ya' think?!?

I have to say that it made for a nice diversion. I picked up position by having my won reading material and a water bottle. Jenna backed up one since she hadn't ordered a pizza to be delivered and she hadn't eaten since noon or so. ...and Sean did okay with his suggestions of what they needed to install in the waiting room (the best one: a soft drink machine that doubled as our co-pay deposit <g>!

Oh, my Dx: tendinitis big time; I developed some serious pain behind my right knee Thursday afternoon. I'd had some bothersome, but low-key pain there earlier in the week; but it spiked and drove me in. Rx with naproxen; decent relief so far.

Time passes and things change. ...or not. Saturday I took Daniel out into the rural to a paintball place so he could play for a few hours (hey, if you want to fry your brains out in paintball armor in 112 weather? Well? Just take water and Gatorade), and on the way back I decided to take the road less traveled: the old Highway 41 south of Fresno; I haven't been on it since the new "Highway" was built several years back just a half-mile to the East...

What they're now calling "Business 41" ran though the town of Easton and on south though raisin country toward the Kings County line. It was the only practical route to the coast, and as a two lane road had one heck of a reputation for slow traffic and horrendous accidents. It was also the main route we'd use on ambulance to reach several outlying communities and one particularly interesting lock-down facility.

My trip back towards home yesterday was prompted by my memory of the Washington Colony Cemetery being on the townward link from where I had dropped Daniel off. While I'll travel a bit to reach some of my favorite places to Cemetery Blog, thirty miles out in farmland in this heat wasn't going to happen all that often. As it turned out, I remembered correctly and I spent some time recording other's memories for "Places in Stone" (whenever I get those pages up).

What I also found on the old highway was a much different and much the same environment as when I was traveled it almost daily: the old lock-down facility is now locked down and yet wide open; it was abandoned several years back and sits with doors ajar behind a locked gate. The traffic that so frustrated many a vacationer when leaving or returning was simply gone, leaving an almost lonely country road. ...and yet a solitary farm pickup would still pull onto the road in front of me, slowly puttering up to his maximum speed of 50mph, totally unaware or uncaring of the speed of my overtaking vehicle as he did so. ...and a semi loaded with liquid cargo would turn from a side road across my lane to head southbound, reminding me of more than one call when that turn would be proven unsafe when a northbound vehicle plowed into the trailer. ...or on one occasion, into the cab.

The trees on the side of road between Easton and Fresno are dead or dying; either the heat, the drought or pests are taking them out one by one. Their replacements are signs reading "Pony Rides, Call Wild Bill at 559-----" and stacks of tires marking the end of the furrows.

Agriculture is still king though; for all the talk of farmers tearing out orchards and vineyards, I saw new plantings of both. Perhaps they're extending the new plantings of wine grapes into the central section.

Closer to town, as the rural blends back into metro and the low fields of lettuce and specialty crops replace the vines, things haven't changed in thirty years (or more). The ramshackle businesses are still there, just the signage showing the change of the used tire stores to open air markets. The men are still gathered under the same shade trees and tarps they used back when, and the fortified wine is still likely the same brand from the same corner store. The city still shows above a horizon defined by the same market that's been there since the fifties and the same bars from the same era, each with its own history to those of us who worked the streets.

...but the approach to the city is now defined by the signs that beckon us to bypass this history and to use the new highway to place us on the much nicer road to home. I'm thinking we're missing something by always taking the faster, newer, better route...

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"Any sufficiently advanced technology is
indistinguishable from magic."
Arthur C. Clarke, "Technology and the Future"

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