Our Thoughts

MOORE ON LIFE BY CINDY MOORE

Untouchables Untouchables

We’re in a new phase of living now. It’s called the “don’t touch era.”

No-no’s include: any door handles or knobs; elevator buttons; bank pens; touchscreens for ordering; credit card machine buttons; shopping cart handles…basically anything that involves the use of your fingers or hands should be avoided.

What this all means is that unless you bind your arms behind your back straightjacket style and can float outdoors a good ten feet above this vat-of-virus we call Earth, you should stay home and bingewatch Netflix while ordering through DoorDash for the remainder of your life.

Things are complicated. In the old days, circa February, a person greeted another with a charming little custom known as the “hand shake”. This quaint old tradition involved human contact. A person would extend their hand and interlock it with the hand of another person. While grasping one another they would then move the hands together in a coordinated up down movement.

Aww, our silly forefathers and their dangerous disease-spreading rituals. Today we are much wiser and sophisticated when greeting a person, such as when I recently met my friend for a social-distancing lunch.

Me waving from six feet away: “Hi Fiona. How’s it going?”

Fiona: “Sorry you must have me confused with someone else. I’m Wanda.”

“Oopsie, my mistake. From this distance all I can see above your mask is your eyes and they look like my neighbor’s. Oh, there’s Fiona.” (I recognized her because after the virus hit, she never got out of her pajamas.)

“Hi neighbor,” she said as we approached one another cautiously.

She extended her hand in a fist bump, but I already bent my arm to do an elbow nudge. She immediately pointed her elbow to follow suit, but in the meantime I have made a fist to bump her fist. We were thoroughly confused. I extended my hand to shake. She declined. We both knew that wasn’t right. Then she jutted out a hip in an attempt to bump butts, but in the confusion I lifted my hand to high five. She smiled and we smacked our hands together slapping flesh to flesh.

“Uh oh!” Fiona’s eyes grew wide as softballs. My jaw dropped in disbelief.

“Corona!” we shrieked out in unison then rummaged in our purses for hand sanitizer and squirted great gobs onto our palms and arms and tongues.

We decided to FaceTime each other from home over a cold tuna sandwich.

Cindy Moore is the mother of three superlative kids, servant of two self-indulgent felines and wife to one nifty husband. Her ficticious occupation? Archeological Humorist: someone who unearths absurdity and hilarity in strange and unusual places including public restrooms, the lint filter, and church meetings. Most recently, she excavated a find in her neighbor’s bird feeder.

ALWAYS AN ADVENTURE BY AVALANCHE

A brief respite

The wind had been blowing for days, with no relief even during the overnight hours. Awnings attached to houses were battered, with a few being taken down, either deliberately by their owners, or rudely twisted and flung to the ground by the relentless gusts. Lawn furniture was similarly put away, or put “out to pasture,” coming to rest wherever it happened to stop rolling, usually against a rock or tree or other immovable object.

Tree branches large and small were broken and scattered on the ground and roadways. Windows partly opened to keep the heat down were battered back and forth on their hinges, with the crank hardware loosening up. A fine coating of dust covered everything in the house, reappearing within a few hours of being wiped away. Conversations were held indoors, in cars, or at least on the lee side of buildings, as it took too much effort to either yell or keep repeating the last statement.

It wasn’t just the wind, but the heat was oppressive as well. Daytime temperatures were in the 90s, a rarity at this elevation. It was hard to believe we had been experiencing late season snow and having to cover up the garden plants with blankets just a couple weeks prior to the gusty maelstrom.

The dogs didn’t care for the blast-furnace conditions either, as they spent their days sleeping inside, instead of their favored locations in the yard.

More than one of our newer neighbors asked if the wind was normal for this area. No, this was not even close to normal. Living in a canyon just downwind of a very narrow section in the valley, and at the intersection with another valley leading down from the higher mountains, gusty winds – sometimes impressively strong - accompanying storms are fairly common, but the days-long endless blowing that we’d been experiencing has only been seen in the last couple of years.

One of our neighbors had managed a nearby motel in the early 1980s, and he recalled one summer when the temperature had hit 80 degrees around the 4th of July. No one could believe it, as temps in the high 70’s were then considered “hot.” Regardless of viewpoints as to how or why, there is no denying that weather patterns have changed dramatically, especially here in the mountains, over the last few decades.

The forecast called for a chance of showers with temperatures dropping after arrival of the front. The wind increased that day and we went to bed hoping that windows wouldn’t need to be replaced after the storm had passed. Sometime after midnight, the wind calmed down and the rain began. Sleep came easy, and we woke up to a soggy yard and clouds hanging low in the valley. Temperatures were in the low 40’s. Many of the neighbors were out that morning, having traded shorts and teeshirts for long pants and puffy jackets. A sense of relief was shared by all.

As the morning clouds began to lift, a light dusting of snow was visible on the surrounding mountains, all the way down to the treeline.

As wonderful as that day was, it was but a brief respite from the severe drought in progress. Of course, with the extreme (by mountain standards) heat and lack of rain, the fire danger is frequently in the critical stage. Walking through the woods is a crunchy experience, with tinder dry dead leaves and pine needles covering the forest floor. Our neighborhood was able to procure a power-pole-mounted fire alarm which, with luck, won’t need to be put into service.

We’re keeping our fingers crossed and doing rain dances to summon some moisture, which is seemingly all gathered in the lakes and streams of the Midwest. As I type this, it is 90 degrees, with 10 percent humidity and the winds are gusting to 30 mph; the forecast calls for even higher temperatures for the coming week. Our brief summer taste of snow is but a fond memory; we dream of more cool, wet relief soon.

Avalanche is a functional illiterate who left the St. Louis area three decades ago in search of adventure. He enjoys motorcycling and all things outdoors. He lives with his wife and dogs.