A day at the dog park

Although it’s been officially spring for some time now, the weather has been playing its usual “let’s make his life a misery” prank by being beautiful, sunny and warm while I’m in the office, then turning cold and wet on the weekends. The weather Gods must have let their timing slip slightly this week however, because the weekend was both sunny and warm. Not only that, I wasn’t working, or out of town, or trapped doing household chores; this was too good to be true. So, I decided to treat the dogs with a visit to the dog park in Evergreen.

In case you’re unfamiliar with the concept, dog parks are becoming popular in locations where leash laws make it challenging to provide the exercise and socialization a dog needs. Many cities are setting aside areas, often as part of existing parks, where dog owners can let their furry friends blow off steam without having to worry about them chasing wildlife, running into traffic or falling foul of the dog catchers. Each one has its rules of course. There are usually limits on the number of dogs you can bring, the animals are expected to behave within acceptable social norms and of course, you’re supposed to pick up after your pup.

Our dogs can’t run free at home because we don’t have a fenced yard. Even if we did, our youngest, Sasha was given to the Humane Society after repeatedly leaping a six foot fence. She’s a husky mix with bags of energy so it’s a challenge providing her with enough exercise which means dog parks are ideal for her. Not only can she run until she drops, but she also gets to interact with other dogs; a feature I suspect was missing in her life before we adopted her. Wiley is our 10 year old, a little gray around the muzzle but in pretty good shape and she can still do a reasonable job of keeping up with the youngsters, even if she tires quicker than she once did. Cleo, our geriatric considers a slow stroll to the mailbox to be strenuous exercise these days, so she got to stay home and guard the armchair.

Our closest park is in Evergreen, a good 45 minutes in the car. Not really a problem as it’s a very pleasant drive, even with two over excited canines breathing hot fetid breath into your face. The books tell us not to allow dogs to lean out of the window due to the danger from airborne missiles such as bugs and the like, but under the circumstances, I'm happy to ignore this rule. The side windows were both open and my mirrors showed two happy dog faces grinning back at me.

Evergreen’s dog park is located not too far from the highway on a couple of acres of sloping ground. The slope has its advantages if your goal is the tiring out of a young husky in that by the time she’s raced up and down it a couple of hundred times, even Sasha starts to blow a little hard. Unfortunately, there have been times when I’ve cursed it. Usually when one or both of the dogs choose to take a dump somewhere near the bottom of the hill and I have to traipse all the way down in order to clean it up, then all the way back up to drop it in the trash. It’s amazing how much a dog can shift when they know it’s inconvenient for the poop patrol.

Many dogs like to chase sticks, tennis balls and Frisbees so there are usually a few gnarly looking ones lying around. Although our two Aussies used to love chasing tennis balls in their younger days, none of our dogs have ever shown any interest in sticks. It appears they like their prey to be moving and once a stick has landed, it’s of no more use to them. Fortunately, they do seem to enjoy chasing each other and this game alone can keep them occupied for longer than their muscles can last. It tires me out just watching them.

Since our last visit to the dog park I see they’ve made a fairly major structural change. One of which I heartily approve although Sasha was less enthusiastic. At the very bottom of the hill, there runs a small creek and it used to be just inside the fenced enclosure. Sasha, like many of the dogs used to enjoy wallowing in it, no matter the weather. Now this was all well and good, and I never wanted to spoil her fun, but there’s something particularly unpleasant about sharing a car with a wet, muddy dog. Not that my car is immaculately clean or anything, but there’s a certain pungency to the aroma of a sopping pooch that just takes some of the edge off driving, even amongst Colorado’s spectacular scenery.

So I was pleased to see that the lower boundary of the park has been reconfigured to place the creek outside the fence. You could literally see the wheels turning in her mind as she tried to figure out a way under, through, or around this obstacle. The mesh was too close for her to squeeze through, the builders had cleverly created an L shaped flap at ground level, making it impossible for her to squeeze under the wire and the posts were all sturdily set into their bases, so pushing the fence over wasn’t an option. After watching her for a few minutes, I suddenly realized it was only a matter of time before she figured out the obvious. Remember I said she’d been given up for adoption after repeatedly leaping a six foot fence? The one at the dog park is four feet max. Time to go home.

Back to the car we went and while the pair of them still dragged me up the path, by the time we were locked and loaded, fatigue was beginning to take effect. The drive home was much calmer without them bouncing around like Mexican jumping beans on acid and by the time we arrived home, they were both ready for a close inspection of the carpet. They say a tired dog is a well behaved dog, and true enough, that was one of the most peaceful evenings we’ve had in a long while.

Now, if only I could figure out a way to take them to the dog park every day.

The Radio Age

Growing up in Britain, I can’t say I grew up being a great fan of radio. It was usually on in the car or as background noise around the house but for my parents the channel of choice was BBC Radio 2. Middle-of-the-road standards, music for dead people. Top 20 pop music, was played on BBC Radio 1, in those days only available on the AM dial and with a signal so weak that living as I did surrounded by hills reaching the dizzying heights of 2,000 feet and more, it was rare we were able to tune in at all.

The real action took place on the pirate stations, Radio Luxembourg which did not, as most of us believed; come from the country of Luxembourg, but from somewhere in London and the pirate station Radio Caroline, which broadcast from a ship anchored in the North Sea. Or at least it did until a storm sank it sometime in the mid-seventies. Radio listening for me meant huddling under the blankets with a tiny transistor radio pressed to my ear trying to identify the tune being played.

By the time I left Britain in the early ‘90s, things had progressed considerably. BBC Radio 1 could now be found on the FM dial, with a much clearer signal and commercial stations were making inroads into markets outside the major cities. The problem was I’d long outgrown pop music by this time and for people under 50, there was little else to be had. True, the AM dial still had a large number of stations but with Britain being situated on the edge of Europe, the reception was a crazed mass of interference from multiple countries. It’s still a mystery how foreign radio stations located hundreds of miles away could deliver a clearer signal than the British ones on my doorstep.

So when I moved to the US, one of the many things I heartily embraced was the wealth of radio stations delivering crystal clear signals and every genre of music imaginable. Blues, classic rock, oldies, even country and western for the weirdoes; whatever your mood, you could find a station which would match it. Dear Wife was always puzzled by my enthusiasm as she didn’t think the radio was anything special but then I assumed, that was because she’d grown up in Los Angeles and had perhaps been somewhat spoilt. It wasn’t until my motor cycle died and I began commuting in a car and thus spent a lot more of my day listening to the radio that I began to see what she meant. Now, after more than ten years as a US resident, my opinion of radio has degenerated into what can only be called contempt.

The blame for this can be laid largely at the feet of two corporate entities; Clear Channel and Westwood One as well as the corrupt politicians who relaxed the laws limiting the number of stations one company could own in any given market. In the name of “freedom of choice for the consumer”, this pair have been allowed to gobble up some 80% of the radio stations in America which would be bad enough if it weren’t for the fact that they’re determined to turn the entire country in a homogenized desert of unimaginative blandness. There was a time when a road trip across America would reveal a wealth of musical styles and tastes as one traversed the country. No more. Now the radio dial has the same offering whether you’re in the Appalachians or Albuquerque; Wyoming or Washington DC.

Where the disc jockey was once the arbiter of taste; playing the music he or she wanted to hear, opinion polls tell today’s radio stations what to broadcast. The established, the predictable, the safe will always find a home on today’s radio, but young bands, new artists or anyone yet to fill their wall with gold records finds it almost impossible to gain a foothold. Yet the problem isn’t just that the stations keep their offerings to a limited number of artists, but that they play them endlessly, hour after hour, day after day.

Every city has at least one station, usually more, obsessed with work of Led Zeppelin and when cruising the dial it’s almost a certainty you’ll come across one of their songs within a few minutes. Like many other people I was very taken with the work of Norah Jones when she burst on the scene a few months ago. Now I’m in serious danger of becoming sick to death of her. At one point on my drive home last night, three of my six pre-programmed car radio stations were playing her music. The other three were on commercial.

Which leads me to my other complaint about today’s radio. I’m well aware that radio stations aren’t charities; they’re in the business to make money and that commercials are a necessary evil. Even so, since corporate radio became the norm, the amount of time spent on advertisements has increased to a ludicrous level. Most commercial breaks last six minutes or more while longer ones are not unheard of and many stations have no problem with returning to the air for a 30 second news or traffic update, then going straight back to commercials. Rush hour, or “drive time” periods are the worst, presumably because they know the audience is captive and between the commercials and the inane prattle of the presenters, many radio stations provide no more than two or three songs in any given hour.

And that’s another point right there. The term “disc jockey” disappeared along with vinyl and today’s music is played by “presenters” or “hosts”. Except somewhere along the line, the presenters became the focus of the show, not the music. Presumably because their market research says this is what the public wants, most stations now feel the need to entertain us with “wacky” morning shows, where two or sometimes three presenters will subject us to the most imbecilic drivel while occasionally…very occasionally, deigning to play some music. The pollsters have never asked my opinion, but as and when they do, my recommendation will be simple. Tell us a little about the artist, or the music, then shut the hell up and play it.

Why subject myself to this at all, you might be wondering, why not listen to tapes or CDs. Aye there’s the rub. I don’t have a CD player in my car, and the tape deck has a cassette jammed in it. So it’s radio or nothing. Sigh. I wonder if Radio Luxembourg is still on the air.

What's Cooking?

A couple of weeks ago, I wrote about how many restaurants in the Bailey area had failed to stay in business for more than a few months. Which leads to the question “Well, why don’t you cook for yourself, whiny-ass?” which of course, is a question with some merit. And the answer is, I do cook, although not as often as I’d like. The perpetual complaint of “not enough time in the day” rears its ugly head, but on occasion, such as this weekend when I had the house to myself without too many chores to do, I had a grand old time cooking for myself.

Dear Wife and I tend to have different tastes in home cooking as in; I like food with heat while she does not. Now I know what you’re thinking; she’s American while I’m British so therefore it should be the other way round, right? After all, as every American knows, British food is bland. The number of times I’ve had this pointed out to me by Americans (usually ones who’ve never been there) leads me to wonder if this is something taught in schools.

The fact is, that during my almost twelve years in this country, I’ve been constantly disappointed by the insipid fare served in most restaurants. Even menus boasting “hot and spicy” choices are invariably disappointing. True, there are authentic flavorful ethnic dishes to be found, but anything catering to an American audience tastes like so much baby food. Dear Wife, bless her heart, is unable to handle anything remotely resembling flavor so when I cook for us both, the dish has to cater to the lowest common denominator. In order for her to enjoy it, I rarely can.

So when I do get the opportunity to cook for myself alone, I tend to go hog-wild with hot spices, chilies and garlic. Friday night was vindaloo curry and if I say so myself, it was pretty darn good. It wasn’t the same kind of Chernobyl strength production I used to make for myself a decade or two back, but then I have to remember that not only am I unused to hot food these days, I’m also in my forties and there’s only so much my colon can handle. Placing the toilet paper in the fridge the night before is all well and good but experiencing the ol’ Ring of Fire has lost its appeal somewhat.

Once that was out of my system (in more ways than one), I was able to settle down and tackle some dishes which, while still tasty, weren’t likely to melt holes in my intestines. Someone recently gave me a beautiful Irish cookbook, full of photographs, history, folklore and mouthwatering recipes. I’d been anxious to try some of them so after investing a chunk of my paycheck in Safeway, I came home with a fridge full of ingredients and a spring in my step.

Cooking in the mountains comes with challenges flatlanders will never experience. Many cooking instructions will give advice beginning with “At high altitude (above 3,000 feet)”, with details of the changes required. Which is all well and good, but considering Denver sits at 5,275 feet, while we’re a giddy 3,500 feet higher still – over 1 ½ miles above sea level, just what adjustments are we supposed to make?

Experienced chefs swap notes on the importance of decreasing the quantities of baking powder, baking soda and sugar, while increasing the water, flour and cooking times. Even so, comparatively close neighbors can still have variances of a couple of thousand feet or more in their elevation so a certain amount of trial and error is invariably called for. Still, the recipes I’d chosen were straightforward enough and other than adding extra water and allowing for more cooking time, there wasn’t too much to worry about.

I’m very much a fan of the “stick everything in a pot, stir it and see what it tastes like” school of cookery. Subsequently, my repertoire tends towards the stews, curries and other sloppy type foods. I’m also a big fan of soup so my first effort was carrot soup, with a traditional Irish potato based dish called boxty. The carrot soup was straightforward enough and even allowed me to use up some home made turkey stock that’s been in the freezer for longer than I choose to calculate. It also called for orange juice, which was tasty enough but a little overpowering so I made a note in the book to use a little less next time.

The boxty was a bit more of a challenge, mainly due to the fact that I had no idea what it was supposed to look like. It’s made with a combination of mashed potato and grated potato with a few other bits and pieces for flavor. Planning ahead, I’d already done the grunt work and had the potatoes prepared and sitting in a zip lock bag in the fridge, which maybe kept them fresh, but didn’t stop them from turning an unappetizing brown color. Or maybe that was because I’d left the skins on. (Very nutritious don’t you know, and far easier than peeling).

Not only that, it was apparent I’d made far too much. What threw me further was that the recipe advised putting “2 or 3” large spoonfuls of the mixture in the frying pan. All well and good, but primitive that I am, I didn’t know if this was for one boxty or “2 or 3”. Naturally, I guessed wrong and made huge, slab like creations, which while tasting better than they looked, tended to settle rather heavily on the stomach. From the taste, I suspect they were supposed to be more like the 3-bite hash browns served at upscale restaurants such as McDonalds. I’ll know better next time.

The final production, for Sunday night required me to save a can from my precious stash of Guinness, which took a lot of willpower, let me tell you. However, once added to the stew it released a flavor, which can only be described as superlative. That one’s a keeper too.

So, four days of self sufficiency and I have to say, that’s the best I’ve eaten in a long time. The bad news is, Dear Wife will be home tonight and as of time of writing, I’ve no idea what I’m going to feed her for dinner. The products of my supermarket trip are all used up and the cupboards are bare. Mind you, I did see something green and furry at the back of the fridge – I wonder if I could find a recipe for that. I’ll get back to you.

Ticket to Ride

So last week I changed my job, rejoining old company for considerably more money than before, as well as an extra week’s vacation and a handful of other perks including an Eco-Pass for RTD-Denver, our local public transportation system. I’m a big fan of public transport, being a bit of a hippie on the side and one of the considerations when house hunting was whether or not I’d be able to commute by bus.

At 50 miles door to door, my commute is longer than most, but nonetheless, I was able to catch a bus from Pine Junction, about nine miles from my house, to Denver’s Civic Center, ten minutes on the free shuttle from my office. It was a long commute, a little under two hours from home to work, but I was able to read, work or relax while letting someone else do the driving. The only real issue was that the schedule didn’t allow me to stay in the office much after 5pm, not very practical in my line of work. That apart, I’m no great fan of driving, particularly in rush hour so I was more than happy to ride the bus whenever possible, particularly in the bad weather.

Then I took a job in the Denver Tech. Center; a desperate place, full of soulless office complexes, strip malls and gridlock. While it was technically possible to catch a bus there, the express portion ended some fifteen miles short of my office so the remainder of the journey had to be completed at a snail’s pace. This was no relaxing journey but a seemingly endless grind on top of an already long day. Driving was the only practical solution but that entailed sitting for between thirty minutes to an hour each day in nose to tail traffic. I’ve written previously about my sore left knee and the problems it suffered after working the clutch for that length of time. No fun.

So one of the many reasons I was excited to return to my office in the ex-gunpowder factory, was that once more, I’d have the option of commuting on the bus, or when it’s necessary for me to work late, by the light rail electric train. This latter option still requires me to drive some thirty miles, down the hill (and more of a strain, back up again), but has the advantage of avoiding the cost of downtown parking. I’m already making plans for the books I’m going to read, the tapes to which I’ll listen and the letters I’ll write; I’m also the proud owner of a spanking new laptop – I tell you, it’s a whole new world.

Of course, not every bus trip has been pleasant, far from it. There have been a few doozies, particularly in the bad weather. The first snowfall of last winter caught pretty much everybody off guard. Not just the commuters but the weather forecasters and the snow plow drivers too. I decided it was no weather for me to be commuting and smugly hopped on the bus. On balance, it was the right decision because I would have been stuck in the traffic just the same if I were driving myself, and the ride in that day took over three hours.

I’d neglected to bring a book which was a shame, although my fellow commuters were a chatty bunch. However, I had remembered to bring my coffee mug. In the early stages of the commute I was thrilled about this, being something of a coffee addict. It was only once we passed into hour three, with no end to the journey in sight and my bladder swelling to epic proportions did my joy begin to subside. Perhaps the cruelest blow was when we finally arrived at the Civic Center and gratefully poured towards the bathrooms that we discovered RTD had as usual, locked their bathrooms at 9:30am, when the regular rush hour was over. McDonalds did a brisk trade that morning.

Not wanting to get caught in the same kind of journey home, I left the office at 3pm, not too long after I’d arrived. Didn’t do me any good as the return trip took over 4 hours. To be fair, most of that was simply trying to get out of the city, which was experiencing gridlock on a biblical scale, but even once we finally made it onto the hill, our problems were far from over. It seems RTD too, were unprepared for the storm and had yet to outfit their buses with winter tires. So, we were slipping and sliding all over the road along with everyone else.

The windows had long since steamed up and frozen over although occasionally I would try to scrape a porthole to see if I could determine where we were. It was during one of these forays into the outside world I was treated to the curious sight of seeing a set of lights coming inexorably towards us. Now bear in mind, I was looking out of the side of the bus, not a direction in which you’d usually expect to see lights coming towards you, but to make the experience even more surreal, these were taillights, and they were attached to a snow plow. Was it sliding towards us, or were we sliding towards it? It turned out to be the former. The plow driver had lost control, done a 180 and was now sliding backwards down the hill, just as we were in the process of making a left turn in front of him. The commute was extended for another twenty minutes while insurance details were swapped.

That of course, was the exception and most days, the bus trip down 285 is a joy. Without having to concentrate on the road ahead, I’m able to take in the scenery and although I’ve said it before, I’ll say it again; this is a beautiful part of the world. Fragments of old 285, when it was little more than a mountain trail, tiny cemeteries, hidden streams and the wildlife, oh the wildlife are all exposed via the elevation of a bus seat. It tends to be too dark to view much during the winter naturally, but in spring and fall, we’re treated to sunrises and sunsets, in the full range of nature’s palette, pinks, and reds and of course, Denver Bronco’s orange.

I never will enjoy commuting but I love where I live and I love where I work, so it’s a necessary evil. And if I have to spend two hours a day just to get to and from work, there are worse ways to pass the time than riding a bus down 285.