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I need to put the alarm clock on my side of the bed..."wake me at seven" is interpreted as "wake me at just before eight." Just minutes before the dowser guy calls. I'm not at my best, first thing in the morning. Having to throw on clothes and chug a cup of coffee detracts from my waking experience. Thankfully, the meeting was going to be an hour later than agreed upon, so it was unnecessary to start the day snarling. Especially since he wasn't willing to walk up to the property, anyway. Granted, he's seventy-two, and it's a major ordeal for me to packmule all of the tools to where I have to be. Bottomline, I'm going to have to build a proper road before he'll come back. Which I was suspecting, all along. Nice try, though. Dammit. So, I channeled my inner hillbilly, again. Bib overalls, wife beater and chainsaw. However, I've never rolled in the hay with my family, I've got most of my natural teeth (augmented, expensively), listen to the Clash, and my taste in beer would have me beaten to a pulp. I love to pervert the stereotype As if sweating and cursing and being contused by branches and whipped by thorns wasn't enough, I decided to make good on the trip to Fan M0untain, regardless of the weather. As the sun was occulting, we wound our way past C'ville to the poorly marked road that would elevate us to the telescopes. Three miles of rocks and gravel, abyss to one side, eroding rock walls to the other. Switchbacks so steep and twisty that you'd swear you could kiss your own backside. Having to peer over the bonnet, dodging the bigger boulders to minimize the thud under the seat. I thought I'd have to use a crowbar to dislodge my ass from the cushion, when I switched the key off. At least they let me park in front of the big one. But then, it was like sitting on top of the world. Peeping through the thirty and the forty-inch at Jupiter and Saturn, painted in the color of dried bones, with unstrung pearl necklaces. Not some Lucas or Spielberg fantasy... all laid out in painful clarity. The sky streaked with stray meteorites. Nebulae. Star Clusters. Structures looming like architecture from Metropolis. I want me some of them big binoculars. I can't wait to see what the car looks like, in the morning. Like it's just done the Paris-Dakar, no doubt. I think I'll sleep in. |
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