Moonshine and Peppermint

Quiet morning, here in the gorge at WhitesCreek Global Headquarters.

After a week of lying sorry, I crawled down to the weight rack in the basement and grunted through my shoulders routine. It is something old kayers must do in order to be old kayakers and not ex-kayakers. Suffering in soft complaint from my over rested arms, I got to breathing hard, too fast, but kept going. Once everything woke up it was a little easier and I finished with a clearer head than I've had in days.

Somehow, I feel like a weakling when I have to take a pill to get better from some bug, wishing instead that I was simply strong enough, constitutionwise, to beat it without chemical assist. The world breeds better bugs these days, so I guess I have to accept it. Looking at the bill from my drug connection at Rite-Aid, I wonder how much better the tiny little $25 bottle of cough syrup is than the stuff that used to live in my Gramma Ada's refrigerator in the mason jar.

Both of my Grandmothers would swear they were teetotalers, using alcohol for medicinal purposes only. The incredible number of physical ailments they developed that required such pharma was amazing at times. I don't know if moonshine whiskey and peppermint candies is actually medically indicated for a cough, but I sure didn't mind having one as bad after Ada shoveled one of those giant spoons full of her "special sauce" down my adolescent gullet. Looking back, I wonder if I ever faked a cough at Gramma's house?

It is unusual for the air to be so still here in the gorge. Normally we have a breeze or a wind due to the physics of living in a giant ditch. The prevailing winter winds cut exactly downstream, and I located our house just behind a projecting prominence after camping out for months at varying sites around the hillside, but today the wind comes from a different direction and is completely shielded by the entire Cumberland Plateau. We have a storm coming.

Typical for a winter storm in the south, we have no idea what the precipitation will be. The Weather Channel shows East Tennessee as a collage of pink and green and white, signifying that the professionals don't have a clue and are covering all bases. The eagles are wandering around more than usual, having already been out to the lake to feed and come back. They probably know more than the weather professionals but they aren't telling. I don't know if snow helps or hurts their dining, but the background of the snow covered mountain sure does set them off visually when they fly by.


All I need is to convince my wife that she really really needs me to have that 400mm lense, so I can take a decent eagle photo. So far, no luck.

Cheers,

Steve



From the Whitescreek Department of Itolduso:

"We now have no choice but to make the best we can of the disaster we have created in Iraq," Kennedy in a speech to the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies. "The current course is only making the crisis worse."

And Under the sub headline: Democrat Grows Testicles!

The United States should start to withdraw militarily and politically from Iraq and aim to pull out all troops as early as possible next year, Sen. Edward Kennedy said on Thursday.

What?...and leave all that oil? We could have done that a long time ago...Well, Duh!