Patiopup's personal compost heap

Awwwwwwwww.......youse does good.

I am liking Columbus quite a lot. About 75% of what I like most is centered on my neighborhood (which I found because of Setanta's excellent insider advice, almost nobody moves from out of state straight here, usually they go someplace else first and learn about it, or grew up here and come back -- if they ever left. A rather startling number of my friends here have known each other since high school).

But I like Columbus' artsy-freaky-weirdo side, the Doo Dah parade and Comfest and Pride (HUGE here), and Short North in general (North Market = awesome) and weird little old-timey pockets like Kelton House and the old deaf school topiary garden, and that my kid goes downtown for stuff like the Columbus Children's Theater classes and ballet classes, and the amazing Jamaican food at Ena's Carribbean kitchen (hole-in-the-wall with goat curry to die for), and general big-city perks.

All of that set against the bucolic neighborliness of where I live. Lots of trees, old houses, kids riding bikes everywhere, friendliness and helpfulness. Sozlet knows the names of pretty much every kid within two grades of her (adding up to a few hundred) and knows at least 50 kids well enough to hang out with them. Kids are free-range here in a way that seems to be unusual these days.

So, yeah, liking Columbus. (And another thank-you to Set, whom I can't thank enough.)


Meanwhile, excellent work on the doggie and kudos to the people who adopted her!

This makes me very happy for Columbus. Were I to breed, it might go top of the list for me.

May have to come visit some time, before I conclude that I'm done with the midwest...

It's a good place to breed.

Not sure how great it would be for non-breeders. The gays seem to like it but a lot of them are breeders too these days.

C'mon by though, see what you think. I'd recommend April through mid-November to get the optimum C-bus experience, though that stretch is riddled with pockets of extreme heat and humidity. Overall I'd say the weather is better than Madison, spring is earlier and fall is later but there's real snow and stuff in the wintertime.

So in school, in the little bit of time they spend teaching you to cut, they teach faith in instruments. Their techniques on the most common surgeries especially tell you that when you put a hemostat on a vessel, it will stay there, every time.

At the institution, with it's high quality instruments that are discarded when they show the slightest bit of wear, the odds are good enough that they don't bite them back. And they've got quite a safety net if the dice roll the wrong way.

But that's the house perspective. The dice are fair. Outside the instution, it behooves the surgeon to know how to recognize an instrument that might not do what it's supposed to, and to develop techniques that mitigate against what happens it it doesn't.

It's a very different mindset, one I think a lot of the institutional folks haven't had to adopt.

And man is it hot and humid here. We really should have a hot weather schedule -- siesta time.

Ah. Reality rears its ugly head again. SWAT!

Just reading that list of most of my favorite California cities and towns makes my soul ache for home, or at least a very long vacation in the Sierras, perhaps Angels Camp or Arnold.

During the 2008 Obama campaign, I got to spend a lot of time at the home of friends in Placerville where we did a lot of our brainstorming and planning. Placerville should be on your list too.

Angels Camp, huh? I grew up right up 49 in Sonora.

How can anyone move away from California? Once I got here (CA) I realized that this is it!

Some of us miss it highly.

Morning fog. You wake up to it, the world shrouded in white shadow. If you overdid it last night, you ease into morning, lapping at the shores of day. It's 20 to 30 degrees cooler than it was the day before, and now that star's heat settles as it comes to ground.

Very forgiving of the hangover.

Cat tires are quieter in the fog. Lights are softer. The earth is still asleep.

You feel the sun's heat before you see it.

This is not the sharp-shadowed reveille of clear dawn. This is the dream between music and shower, smoke, coffee.

The sun peeks orange over the hilltops. Up there you can look down on the town, its white walls and charcoal roofs glowing midst the madrones and manzanitas, the forested ravines and high meadows sitting still, shrouded, damp.

The redwood leaves close their pores, their slender curled bellies dusted with the color of the sky.

Rodents toil in the open fields, in their last few minutes before fog lifts and hawks wheel overhead.

Wonderful.

Have to edit...

Morning fog.

You wake up to it, the world shrouded in white shadow.

If you overdid it last night, ease into morning. Lap against the shores of day. It's cooler than it was the night before, and the sun's heat settles as it comes to ground.

Very forgiving of the hangover.

Car tires quiet in the fog. Light soft. The earth, still asleep.

You feel the heat of day before you see it.

This is not the sharply outlined reveille of clear dawn. This is the dream between music and shower, and smoke, and coffee.

The sun peeks orange over the hilltops. Look down on the town, white walls and charcoal roofs aglow amidst madrones and manzanitas. Forested ravines and carpeted meadows still shrouded, damp.

The redwood leaves close their pores, their slender curled bellies dusted with the color of the sky.

Rodents toil in open fields in the last few minutes before fog lifts and hawks wheel overhead.