Thursday, July 24, 2008
The photo below is a closeup of Butterfly Weed. Unfortunately, at the time I shot these, they didn't have any butterflies on them.
Saturday, June 14, 2008
Other animals have always fascinated Abner, and since we moved here, he has had a number of interesting encounters. This week, though, brought about some new experiences for him and me.
To begin with, the Cicadas have arrived. I have learned, in the last couple weeks, that these winged insects, some of which appear, based upon size, to have been built by Cessna, live in the ground for years on end in a larval state, encased in translucent tan shells. Once every 17 years they dig their way out of their nests, awkwardly shed their shells, and begin the short flight up into trees nearby. Their initial experiments with movement seem to be pretty ungainly and very slow. It is amazing that the birds don’t just devour them wholesale during this short time above ground, but they must have some natural defense, because there appear to be millions of them. They are highly localized though. Regie and I were walking the dogs a couple weeks ago about two blocks from her house when we came upon a shrub and tree that were beginning to be visited by hundreds or perhaps thousands of these behemoths. We saw some just struggling out of the ground. . .others that were in the middle of shedding the shell, and still others experimenting with flight. It was amazing. The dogs didn’t pay any attention.
Last week though, they started to sing, or chant, or do whatever the hell it is they do in unison that makes so much noise. It is an amazing thing to hear. It is a sound like no other with which I am familiar, and it really got Abner’s attention. We went for a walk at Biltmore and parked the car by the Bass Pond. Crossing the bridge over the dam, we heard an eerie high-pitched whining sound that had no rhythm or breaks in it. It almost sounded like some kind of machine operating at high rpms. As we crossed over the bridge, there were three Biltmore landscape employees who were watching a pair of Canada geese teaching their new gosling how to paddle around the pond and probably how to catch and eat his food. I stopped and asked what the sound was since I had never heard anything like it. Cicadas, they said.
As we progressed further on our walk, we found ourselves walking up the hill toward the Deer Park Trail that follows a ridge above the Bass Pond and the Azalea Garden. Initially, as we left the Bass Pond, the sound got quieter and more distant, but then as we approached the gate in the deer fence, it got much louder. Eventually we were under a tree in which the Cicadas had chosen to swarm and sing. It was so loud and so weird that Abner was looking all over the place for what could possibly be the source of the bizarre noise. The bugs were quite thick in the area immediately beneath the tree of choice and while most were invisibly up in the branches and leaves, probably a hundred or so stragglers were hovering around, landing and taking off, below. One landed on Abner’s back and one very cleverly landed on the gusseted pocket of my cargo shorts in the perfect position for me to photograph him head on. The results will accompany this post.
The amazing thing is that as soon as we started toward the house and away from the tree in which they had located, the noise of the Cicadas began to diminish and by the time we went through the gate into the ramble just below the bowling green, we could no longer hear them at all. Strange critters. I am not sure what their purpose is. It seems like they spend only a couple of weeks above ground once every 17 years and during that time, do little besides making the loud whirring sound.
A couple of nights ago, Abner had an up close and personal encounter with an entirely different kind of animal, but one that doesn’t happen all that often. We were out for our evening stroll around downtown and had gone a little early so it was still pretty light. We walked down Lexington a few blocks and then turned up Hiawassee. This route takes us past the loading docks and backsides of the Asheville Civic Center where, unbeknownst to me, the Ringling Brothers Barnum and Bailey Circus was finishing up their visit here. There were enormous vans parked hither and yon loading up all kinds of apparatus, but before we got up to the corner that would bring us to Haywood Street, we encountered a large van with its side doors open. Inside was an elephant that was just lazing about waiting for something to happen. I guess as elephants go, this wasn’t a particularly gigantic one, but when we walked by, and Abner was sniffing about the floor level of the elephant’s van, the big guy moved his trunk right over to the side and blew a big load of straw and dust that was on the floor of his space, out the opening and right into our faces. Abner was completely flabbergasted. He wanted to stay and investigate and started doing play bows toward this big beast, but I decided that it probably wasn’t the best idea to hang out there. I have read enough stories about seemingly tame circus elephants rampaging through villages and stomping the inhabitants to death that I decided it was time to move on.
Amy called the other night to tell me that she and Matt were headed downtown with Bear for an evening stroll and wondered if we could join them. It was less than a half hour after I had returned from a walk with Abner, so I invited them up for a cold beverage instead. When they got here, somewhat dehydrated from their walk, everyone had a drink. We then sat down to do some long range planning for a trip they want to take to California next year. By the time we were done with that and a few glasses of wine, it was late enough and mild enough that Abner and I joined them for a short walk around one of our loops as Amy, Matt and Bear headed home. When we were about a block and a half from my place, having just crossed Lexington on College, some strange guy came running up to us (actually just in front of us) and from a little reed basket he was carrying, he began to spread rose petals on the sidewalk in front of us. It was one of those very odd Asheville moments during which you remember the bumper sticker that one sees from time to time here that reads “Keep Asheville Weird”.
Today Abner and I went out early to get a decent walk in before the heat became overwhelming. I believe the lyrics to an old song are “We’re havin’ a heat wave. . .a tropical heat wave” and so on. Well, we’re havin one. Today is the third straight day to top 90 and there is no end in sight. The forecasters are saying that it should exceed 90 for at least two more days and then it may drop into the high 80s. Consequently, I drove to Biltmore this morning thinking that we would do an hour and a half and get back before things were too hot. I pulled onto the estate grounds at about 9:05 only to find myself in a long line of cars waiting to get in. It took almost 20 minutes just to get to the guard shack where Abner got his treat and I was waved through because they have scanned my card so many times that the ink is almost worn off. We headed to the Bass Pond post haste and from there, walked up the hill north of the pone to get to the Deerpark trail and eventually up to the house. On a hot day like today, this is the preferred direction since the greatest sun exposure is on the ridge leading up to the house. Once you are inside the deer fence, it gets pretty shady again, but there is a lot of exposure from above the pond to that point. As it happens, there is a row of trees leading up to the gate through which we must pass in order to continue to the house, and in this row, there is one particular maple (I think) that appears to be a very popular spot for the cicadas. They are hovering and dive-bombing all over the place and the sound of thousands of them making their whirring noise is almost deafening. We have walked this way twice before since the cicadas started, so I was prepared for the noise of the multitude of them. What I wasn’t prepared for was one.
As we approached the tree, apparently one had landed either on my back or on the strap from which Abner’s canteen hangs around my neck, but in either case, it was very close to my ears. All of a sudden, I heard a bizarre loud noise that almost sounded like it was coming from inside my skull. I was either having a cerebral hemorrhage or else a single cicada had decided to begin its chant directly behind my ear. Let me tell you, there is a considerable difference in the sound of a single one vs. thousands whirring simultaneously. When they all chant together it comes across as a single high-pitched note. When a single one lets loose, it has all kinds of high and low tones in its execution and is particularly impressive when the point of origin is inches from your ear.
I batted around a bit and I guess I knocked it off because I was only treated to one sound. Abner looked at me as if I had made the noise and he wanted to know what it meant. . .either that or the look could have been construed as wonderment at my suddenly sounding like a Martian. We both survived the jolt but I am glad it didn’t happen around a lot of people. My flailing to dislodge a bug the size of a Cessna could have been pretty amusing to onlookers.
I am beginning to appreciate the love/hate relationship between towns with a tourism based economy and tourists. I have read plenty of statistics about the number of visitors Asheville gets in a year and have known for years that the tourists outnumber the locals by 50 to 1, but that is all just a statistic unless you live where the tourists throng. The concentrations seem to be around Biltmore and Biltmore Village, and downtown. Over the years I have learned how to deal with hundreds of people coming up to me at the estate with questions about Abner, and who we are. . .whether or not we live on the estate, whether I am Mr. Cecil or just some hired dog walker, and so on. When the prediction from the security people at Biltmore is for more than 4,000 people on any given day, I know to avoid the house, if not the estate altogether. I have also learned my way around the property well enough that I know places I can walk without encountering anyone, even on a busy day.
Downtown is different. I have been here for 3 months now and the change has been dramatic. When we moved in it was mid March and the town was comparatively quiet. Slowly as the weather warmed up and trees and flowers began to bloom, more people began arriving, but the increasing impact on Abner and me was gradual. Well, by the end of May, there was nothing subtle about it. Most nights, if the weather is at all decent, downtown can be a pretty jumping place. I have no choice but to walk Abner. He needs to get out both for exercise and stimulation, and to pee and poo. I have gotten almost to the point on the evening walks where I am dreading them. There really are no quiet corners of downtown in which to walk him. We live right smack in the middle of things, so even just to get to a more fringe part of the central business district, I have to cross through some very heavily visited areas. Now that school is out, the sidewalks in these areas are clogged with people. Most are very nice although sometimes it does get a little tiresome answering the same questions about Abner 3 or 4 times in a single block. I have gotten to the point where I can no longer even force a smile when I hear another crack about whether or not I have a saddle for him, or that they didn’t know you were allowed to walk a polar bear in Asheville. I have also noticed a huge upswing in the number of smokers. Many are very nice about my not letting them pet Abner due to the smell that rubbing their hands on his coat will leave. Some are a little stunned that that habit is objectionable enough to someone that they wouldn’t let them close to their dog, but most handle it just fine.
On Wednesday though, we had a pretty unpleasant experience. A young man was walking up Biltmore Avenue with two attractive young women. I am terrible with ages but I would guess that they were all early to mid-20s. All three had lit cigarettes in hand and the stench was perceivable long before they got close. When they did get close, one of the women asked if she could pet Abner. My standard response is that “I’d prefer that you don’t” and then I think them for asking first. Well, the guy with these two got pretty bent out of shape about it. “Well thank you asshole” he muttered back to me as we passed each other on the sidewalk. I probably should have let it go. He probably was drunk or one of those people who just walks around life angry, but it really pissed me off. So I turned around and walked back to them and explained to them that I don’t let smokers pet him because of the smell of burned tobacco that is left on his coat and ends up in my apartment if I do. At that point, he starts waving his cigarette around and tells me that he isn’t a smoker. . .that he is only going to smoke the cigarette down to a point about an 1-1/4 inches from the filter. . . like that makes him a non-smoker when it comes to the odor. The two women were already starting to walk away and it was clear that this guy was angry that he and his friends had been rejected, so I gave up and started back down Biltmore Avenue with Abner. Once we were about 75 or 80 feet away I heard him bellow some unintelligible remark, and that was the last of it. I chose an alternate route home.
I hadn’t anticipated the smoking issue becoming so big but I guess there still are a hell of a lot of smokers around and since they aren’t allowed to smoke in most indoor settings, once on the sidewalks and streets, it is incessant. There is very little litter in downtown Asheville if you don’t count the cigarette butts, but they are like a plague. I cannot imagine what goes through the head of a smoker that they think it is OK to just fling these butts everywhere when they are finished, but that is what most of them do. The planter beds, sidewalks, gutters, cross walks and streets of downtown are positively filled with the detritus of these people’s habits. Some of the worst areas are the spots just outside the doors of popular spots like the Z Lounge and Barley’s Taproom. Customers and employees congregate in small areas near entrances and smoke and chat before going back inside to finish whatever they had been doing. Consequently the areas just outside are not only tobacco zone gauntlets that I feel like Abner and I are running when we try to get through as quickly as possible, but even when no one is there, the hundreds of butts that are left stink and look gross. Americans, as a rule, learned to stop littering years ago. I cannot understand why cigarettes are exempted.
The weather here has been very hot for a couple weeks now. We broke a record by having 7 straight days of 90+-degree weather here but that really doesn’t tell it all. Even on the days that aren’t in the 90s, it has not been comfortable. Normals for this time of year should be in the mid to high 70s and even when we aren’t in the 90s we have yet to have a 70something day in June. If this is what late spring is going to be like, I cannot imagine what August has in store. Of course, I won’t be here to deal with it, but I feel for the folks who will. Asheville is supposed to be a respite from the heat that people suffer in other parts of the south.
The plan for our road trip is emerging now. It looks like we will hit the road on the morning of July 25th. It is my understanding that Bele Chere starts later that day so it isn’t a good time to be downtown. The building in which I live is actually in the part of downtown that is closed to vehicular traffic so I am not certain how we are supposed to get in the night before I leave, or out that morning. With more and more people living downtown, this is going to become a bigger problem every year. Furthermore, there is a prohibition on pets and the festival. I am avoiding dealing with it this year by getting out early, but in general, I don’t know what downtown residents with dogs are supposed to do for three days. Not being a fan of crowds, this festival has never drawn my interest in the past but it also never really impacted me when I lived in Kenilworth. Leaving town for Bele Chere weekend may end up being an annual event for me.
My brother’s eldest daughter Amanda, and her boyfriend Tom were here for a brief visit starting late in May. Tom has a close friend from undergraduate days who lives here with his girlfriend and Amanda and he came to visit them, but I was sort of the side act. Having not seen Amanda in many years, it was a real treat even having that brief time with her and Tom. We did pretty standard Asheville stuff although the visit did include a trip to my property in N. Asheville. Who knows if I will ever get to build on the land, but at least if I do, Amanda will be able to visualize where it is when I bore all of you with stories of the project. We had a nice dinner at Rezaz together before they headed off to the Westville Pub to reconnect with their friends. Short visit but a sweet one. When your nieces and nephews are in their mid and late 20s, spending time with aunts and uncles isn’t necessarily that high on the with list, so I was happy to get a half day.
So now Abner and I have settled into our early summer pattern of early and late walks to avoid the hot sunny parts of the day, and pretty quiet times the rest of the day. We see less of our dog walking friends and I find myself missing seeing the regulars who work at Biltmore and the Arboretum, but that’s just the way it is. Even though we are still almost 7 weeks away from leaving on our trip, I am in the countdown mode. My sister Jan and her husband are coming for a visit the weekend before Abner and I leave, but aside from that, I have almost nothing planned for the time between now and departure.
One funny thing that is happening in the condo merits comment I think. I park on the upper level of the parking garage and much of the south and east facing walls are open above a parapet. We are plagued with birds that fly into the garage and perch on the myriad of exposed pipes of every shape and size that are suspended from the slab above. The homeowners’ association executive committee is allegedly looking into ways of dealing with this plague that has resulted in more bird shit on my car than if I were parking outside under a tree. Meanwhile, though, there initial attempt at keeping the birds out was to purchase a couple ceramic owls that perch on the tops of the parapet walls. They obviously have accomplished absolutely nothing other than to possibly amuse the birds that are making the garage their home. Yesterday though, when I came back from an errand, I was tempted to get out my camera. There was a pigeon sitting on the parapet about 18 inches from one of the owls. They looked like a couple old friends sharing a little chat on a park bench. The fake owls certainly don’t do much to discourage the real birds. I guess the only real question now is whether or not they are actually attracting them.
I guess that’s it for this month. There’s always more to come.
To begin with, the Cicadas have arrived. I have learned, in the last couple weeks, that these winged insects, some of which appear, based upon size, to have been built by Cessna, live in the ground for years on end in a larval state, encased in translucent tan shells. Once every 17 years they dig their way out of their nests, awkwardly shed their shells, and begin the short flight up into trees nearby. Their initial experiments with movement seem to be pretty ungainly and very slow. It is amazing that the birds don’t just devour them wholesale during this short time above ground, but they must have some natural defense, because there appear to be millions of them. They are highly localized though. Regie and I were walking the dogs a couple weeks ago about two blocks from her house when we came upon a shrub and tree that were beginning to be visited by hundreds or perhaps thousands of these behemoths. We saw some just struggling out of the ground. . .others that were in the middle of shedding the shell, and still others experimenting with flight. It was amazing. The dogs didn’t pay any attention.
Last week though, they started to sing, or chant, or do whatever the hell it is they do in unison that makes so much noise. It is an amazing thing to hear. It is a sound like no other with which I am familiar, and it really got Abner’s attention. We went for a walk at Biltmore and parked the car by the Bass Pond. Crossing the bridge over the dam, we heard an eerie high-pitched whining sound that had no rhythm or breaks in it. It almost sounded like some kind of machine operating at high rpms. As we crossed over the bridge, there were three Biltmore landscape employees who were watching a pair of Canada geese teaching their new gosling how to paddle around the pond and probably how to catch and eat his food. I stopped and asked what the sound was since I had never heard anything like it. Cicadas, they said.
As we progressed further on our walk, we found ourselves walking up the hill toward the Deer Park Trail that follows a ridge above the Bass Pond and the Azalea Garden. Initially, as we left the Bass Pond, the sound got quieter and more distant, but then as we approached the gate in the deer fence, it got much louder. Eventually we were under a tree in which the Cicadas had chosen to swarm and sing. It was so loud and so weird that Abner was looking all over the place for what could possibly be the source of the bizarre noise. The bugs were quite thick in the area immediately beneath the tree of choice and while most were invisibly up in the branches and leaves, probably a hundred or so stragglers were hovering around, landing and taking off, below. One landed on Abner’s back and one very cleverly landed on the gusseted pocket of my cargo shorts in the perfect position for me to photograph him head on. The results will accompany this post.
The amazing thing is that as soon as we started toward the house and away from the tree in which they had located, the noise of the Cicadas began to diminish and by the time we went through the gate into the ramble just below the bowling green, we could no longer hear them at all. Strange critters. I am not sure what their purpose is. It seems like they spend only a couple of weeks above ground once every 17 years and during that time, do little besides making the loud whirring sound.
A couple of nights ago, Abner had an up close and personal encounter with an entirely different kind of animal, but one that doesn’t happen all that often. We were out for our evening stroll around downtown and had gone a little early so it was still pretty light. We walked down Lexington a few blocks and then turned up Hiawassee. This route takes us past the loading docks and backsides of the Asheville Civic Center where, unbeknownst to me, the Ringling Brothers Barnum and Bailey Circus was finishing up their visit here. There were enormous vans parked hither and yon loading up all kinds of apparatus, but before we got up to the corner that would bring us to Haywood Street, we encountered a large van with its side doors open. Inside was an elephant that was just lazing about waiting for something to happen. I guess as elephants go, this wasn’t a particularly gigantic one, but when we walked by, and Abner was sniffing about the floor level of the elephant’s van, the big guy moved his trunk right over to the side and blew a big load of straw and dust that was on the floor of his space, out the opening and right into our faces. Abner was completely flabbergasted. He wanted to stay and investigate and started doing play bows toward this big beast, but I decided that it probably wasn’t the best idea to hang out there. I have read enough stories about seemingly tame circus elephants rampaging through villages and stomping the inhabitants to death that I decided it was time to move on.
Amy called the other night to tell me that she and Matt were headed downtown with Bear for an evening stroll and wondered if we could join them. It was less than a half hour after I had returned from a walk with Abner, so I invited them up for a cold beverage instead. When they got here, somewhat dehydrated from their walk, everyone had a drink. We then sat down to do some long range planning for a trip they want to take to California next year. By the time we were done with that and a few glasses of wine, it was late enough and mild enough that Abner and I joined them for a short walk around one of our loops as Amy, Matt and Bear headed home. When we were about a block and a half from my place, having just crossed Lexington on College, some strange guy came running up to us (actually just in front of us) and from a little reed basket he was carrying, he began to spread rose petals on the sidewalk in front of us. It was one of those very odd Asheville moments during which you remember the bumper sticker that one sees from time to time here that reads “Keep Asheville Weird”.
Today Abner and I went out early to get a decent walk in before the heat became overwhelming. I believe the lyrics to an old song are “We’re havin’ a heat wave. . .a tropical heat wave” and so on. Well, we’re havin one. Today is the third straight day to top 90 and there is no end in sight. The forecasters are saying that it should exceed 90 for at least two more days and then it may drop into the high 80s. Consequently, I drove to Biltmore this morning thinking that we would do an hour and a half and get back before things were too hot. I pulled onto the estate grounds at about 9:05 only to find myself in a long line of cars waiting to get in. It took almost 20 minutes just to get to the guard shack where Abner got his treat and I was waved through because they have scanned my card so many times that the ink is almost worn off. We headed to the Bass Pond post haste and from there, walked up the hill north of the pone to get to the Deerpark trail and eventually up to the house. On a hot day like today, this is the preferred direction since the greatest sun exposure is on the ridge leading up to the house. Once you are inside the deer fence, it gets pretty shady again, but there is a lot of exposure from above the pond to that point. As it happens, there is a row of trees leading up to the gate through which we must pass in order to continue to the house, and in this row, there is one particular maple (I think) that appears to be a very popular spot for the cicadas. They are hovering and dive-bombing all over the place and the sound of thousands of them making their whirring noise is almost deafening. We have walked this way twice before since the cicadas started, so I was prepared for the noise of the multitude of them. What I wasn’t prepared for was one.
As we approached the tree, apparently one had landed either on my back or on the strap from which Abner’s canteen hangs around my neck, but in either case, it was very close to my ears. All of a sudden, I heard a bizarre loud noise that almost sounded like it was coming from inside my skull. I was either having a cerebral hemorrhage or else a single cicada had decided to begin its chant directly behind my ear. Let me tell you, there is a considerable difference in the sound of a single one vs. thousands whirring simultaneously. When they all chant together it comes across as a single high-pitched note. When a single one lets loose, it has all kinds of high and low tones in its execution and is particularly impressive when the point of origin is inches from your ear.
I batted around a bit and I guess I knocked it off because I was only treated to one sound. Abner looked at me as if I had made the noise and he wanted to know what it meant. . .either that or the look could have been construed as wonderment at my suddenly sounding like a Martian. We both survived the jolt but I am glad it didn’t happen around a lot of people. My flailing to dislodge a bug the size of a Cessna could have been pretty amusing to onlookers.
I am beginning to appreciate the love/hate relationship between towns with a tourism based economy and tourists. I have read plenty of statistics about the number of visitors Asheville gets in a year and have known for years that the tourists outnumber the locals by 50 to 1, but that is all just a statistic unless you live where the tourists throng. The concentrations seem to be around Biltmore and Biltmore Village, and downtown. Over the years I have learned how to deal with hundreds of people coming up to me at the estate with questions about Abner, and who we are. . .whether or not we live on the estate, whether I am Mr. Cecil or just some hired dog walker, and so on. When the prediction from the security people at Biltmore is for more than 4,000 people on any given day, I know to avoid the house, if not the estate altogether. I have also learned my way around the property well enough that I know places I can walk without encountering anyone, even on a busy day.
Downtown is different. I have been here for 3 months now and the change has been dramatic. When we moved in it was mid March and the town was comparatively quiet. Slowly as the weather warmed up and trees and flowers began to bloom, more people began arriving, but the increasing impact on Abner and me was gradual. Well, by the end of May, there was nothing subtle about it. Most nights, if the weather is at all decent, downtown can be a pretty jumping place. I have no choice but to walk Abner. He needs to get out both for exercise and stimulation, and to pee and poo. I have gotten almost to the point on the evening walks where I am dreading them. There really are no quiet corners of downtown in which to walk him. We live right smack in the middle of things, so even just to get to a more fringe part of the central business district, I have to cross through some very heavily visited areas. Now that school is out, the sidewalks in these areas are clogged with people. Most are very nice although sometimes it does get a little tiresome answering the same questions about Abner 3 or 4 times in a single block. I have gotten to the point where I can no longer even force a smile when I hear another crack about whether or not I have a saddle for him, or that they didn’t know you were allowed to walk a polar bear in Asheville. I have also noticed a huge upswing in the number of smokers. Many are very nice about my not letting them pet Abner due to the smell that rubbing their hands on his coat will leave. Some are a little stunned that that habit is objectionable enough to someone that they wouldn’t let them close to their dog, but most handle it just fine.
On Wednesday though, we had a pretty unpleasant experience. A young man was walking up Biltmore Avenue with two attractive young women. I am terrible with ages but I would guess that they were all early to mid-20s. All three had lit cigarettes in hand and the stench was perceivable long before they got close. When they did get close, one of the women asked if she could pet Abner. My standard response is that “I’d prefer that you don’t” and then I think them for asking first. Well, the guy with these two got pretty bent out of shape about it. “Well thank you asshole” he muttered back to me as we passed each other on the sidewalk. I probably should have let it go. He probably was drunk or one of those people who just walks around life angry, but it really pissed me off. So I turned around and walked back to them and explained to them that I don’t let smokers pet him because of the smell of burned tobacco that is left on his coat and ends up in my apartment if I do. At that point, he starts waving his cigarette around and tells me that he isn’t a smoker. . .that he is only going to smoke the cigarette down to a point about an 1-1/4 inches from the filter. . . like that makes him a non-smoker when it comes to the odor. The two women were already starting to walk away and it was clear that this guy was angry that he and his friends had been rejected, so I gave up and started back down Biltmore Avenue with Abner. Once we were about 75 or 80 feet away I heard him bellow some unintelligible remark, and that was the last of it. I chose an alternate route home.
I hadn’t anticipated the smoking issue becoming so big but I guess there still are a hell of a lot of smokers around and since they aren’t allowed to smoke in most indoor settings, once on the sidewalks and streets, it is incessant. There is very little litter in downtown Asheville if you don’t count the cigarette butts, but they are like a plague. I cannot imagine what goes through the head of a smoker that they think it is OK to just fling these butts everywhere when they are finished, but that is what most of them do. The planter beds, sidewalks, gutters, cross walks and streets of downtown are positively filled with the detritus of these people’s habits. Some of the worst areas are the spots just outside the doors of popular spots like the Z Lounge and Barley’s Taproom. Customers and employees congregate in small areas near entrances and smoke and chat before going back inside to finish whatever they had been doing. Consequently the areas just outside are not only tobacco zone gauntlets that I feel like Abner and I are running when we try to get through as quickly as possible, but even when no one is there, the hundreds of butts that are left stink and look gross. Americans, as a rule, learned to stop littering years ago. I cannot understand why cigarettes are exempted.
The weather here has been very hot for a couple weeks now. We broke a record by having 7 straight days of 90+-degree weather here but that really doesn’t tell it all. Even on the days that aren’t in the 90s, it has not been comfortable. Normals for this time of year should be in the mid to high 70s and even when we aren’t in the 90s we have yet to have a 70something day in June. If this is what late spring is going to be like, I cannot imagine what August has in store. Of course, I won’t be here to deal with it, but I feel for the folks who will. Asheville is supposed to be a respite from the heat that people suffer in other parts of the south.
The plan for our road trip is emerging now. It looks like we will hit the road on the morning of July 25th. It is my understanding that Bele Chere starts later that day so it isn’t a good time to be downtown. The building in which I live is actually in the part of downtown that is closed to vehicular traffic so I am not certain how we are supposed to get in the night before I leave, or out that morning. With more and more people living downtown, this is going to become a bigger problem every year. Furthermore, there is a prohibition on pets and the festival. I am avoiding dealing with it this year by getting out early, but in general, I don’t know what downtown residents with dogs are supposed to do for three days. Not being a fan of crowds, this festival has never drawn my interest in the past but it also never really impacted me when I lived in Kenilworth. Leaving town for Bele Chere weekend may end up being an annual event for me.
My brother’s eldest daughter Amanda, and her boyfriend Tom were here for a brief visit starting late in May. Tom has a close friend from undergraduate days who lives here with his girlfriend and Amanda and he came to visit them, but I was sort of the side act. Having not seen Amanda in many years, it was a real treat even having that brief time with her and Tom. We did pretty standard Asheville stuff although the visit did include a trip to my property in N. Asheville. Who knows if I will ever get to build on the land, but at least if I do, Amanda will be able to visualize where it is when I bore all of you with stories of the project. We had a nice dinner at Rezaz together before they headed off to the Westville Pub to reconnect with their friends. Short visit but a sweet one. When your nieces and nephews are in their mid and late 20s, spending time with aunts and uncles isn’t necessarily that high on the with list, so I was happy to get a half day.
So now Abner and I have settled into our early summer pattern of early and late walks to avoid the hot sunny parts of the day, and pretty quiet times the rest of the day. We see less of our dog walking friends and I find myself missing seeing the regulars who work at Biltmore and the Arboretum, but that’s just the way it is. Even though we are still almost 7 weeks away from leaving on our trip, I am in the countdown mode. My sister Jan and her husband are coming for a visit the weekend before Abner and I leave, but aside from that, I have almost nothing planned for the time between now and departure.
One funny thing that is happening in the condo merits comment I think. I park on the upper level of the parking garage and much of the south and east facing walls are open above a parapet. We are plagued with birds that fly into the garage and perch on the myriad of exposed pipes of every shape and size that are suspended from the slab above. The homeowners’ association executive committee is allegedly looking into ways of dealing with this plague that has resulted in more bird shit on my car than if I were parking outside under a tree. Meanwhile, though, there initial attempt at keeping the birds out was to purchase a couple ceramic owls that perch on the tops of the parapet walls. They obviously have accomplished absolutely nothing other than to possibly amuse the birds that are making the garage their home. Yesterday though, when I came back from an errand, I was tempted to get out my camera. There was a pigeon sitting on the parapet about 18 inches from one of the owls. They looked like a couple old friends sharing a little chat on a park bench. The fake owls certainly don’t do much to discourage the real birds. I guess the only real question now is whether or not they are actually attracting them.
I guess that’s it for this month. There’s always more to come.
Sunday, May 18, 2008
It is a beautiful night in Asheville. I ate dinner on the balcony tonight because the weather is very mild and when the sun drops below the mountains to the west of us, the colors on a slightly cloudy night become purply and orange. It was just too good to eat indoors. Abner joined me and just hung out on the deck, wandering inside from time to time to graze on his food bowl, but he is now comfortably lying on the deck with a view out one of the slots in the parapet so he can see what is going on below. He is working on a steak bone and seems pretty content.
April came and went in a blur of visitors. I wrote about my visit with Jim Cardin in the previous posting, but only 8 days after Jim’s departure, my friend Kathy Treaster arrived from Sacramento. Kathy and I have been friends for such a long time that she doesn’t like me to announce it, so I won’t. Suffice it to say, we are well into our 4th decade. You might think that after all those years, we would have run out of things to talk about, but that certainly wasn’t the case during this visit.
She arrived fairly late on a Wednesday night so Abner and I made our standard trek to the airport to pick her up. The employees at the airport seem to have all gotten pretty accustomed to seeing Abner there when I pick people up. Some of them know him by name now. The poor bored TSA person who sits at the spot where people exit the concourse out into the non-secured waiting area in particular seems to enjoy Abner’s visits. I get the impression that this isn’t the most exciting position for a TSA employee so a big white fluffy dog every now and then is something different on which to focus attention. Otherwise the only thing the person sitting there seems to have to do is make eye contact with anyone who approaches, and thus discourage entering the concourse without having gone through security.
Kathy’s first night here resulted in a catch up gabfest that kept me up until about 1:00 in the morning. I believe this is a record for the three plus years I have lived here. We talk on the phone from time to time, but it turned out that there was quite a lot we hadn’t covered.
During her visit, we did all the requisite tourist things here. Kathy even got to go see the Basilica of St. Lawrence (which I sometimes forget to offer to visitors) and experienced Malaprop's, a wonderful locally owned downtown bookstore that is dog friendly. It is getting to the point where so many of these places encourage people walking with dogs to come in that some of them are now posting signs in the window that they are a dog friendly store. I am finding it to be more the rule than the exception. Asheville is one very dog-friendly town.
Over the course of her visit, we ate in many of my favorite local restaurants (including two visits to Fig so she could experience what may be the world’s best macaroni and cheese). One of the bigger sources of our entertainment though, came from an unexpected source.
Because she was staying for almost two weeks and we had decided that she would take a mid-visit break and stay at a local B and B, after 5 nights with me, she headed over to a place she had found through an Internet search through the multitudes of Asheville Inns and Bed and Breakfast establishments. Checking in was pretty much standard up to a point. Because Kathy’s visit was entirely during the week and the place was largely empty, they had decided to upgrade her to their largest suite without making her pay for it. This was a generous move on their part but it turned out to afford a few surprises.
It seems that the suite and two others in the same building had been built a few years back to expand the capabilities of the very large main facility. This seems to be pretty common here. . .I think the industry does well. In any case, Kathy found herself checking into an upstairs suite of 3 principal rooms as well as a room-sized shower/steam room. I don’t know the exact size of this place, but it had to be over 1,000 square feet. . .impressive in itself. What really caught us off guard though was the high-tech nature of the place. We had intended to check her in and then head off on an adventure that day, but the orientation required to learn how to operate the many electronic gadgets took quite a bit of time.
The instructions in the operation of the spa, remote controlled blinds, the single serve coffee machine and no doubt other pieces of techie equipment that outlasted my interest were delivered by a housekeeper who seemed particularly well informed about the various options for the use of the spa. Many of them appeared to have somewhat salacious potential that was implied in the instructions. To me, the spa looked more like a medieval torture device. I have never seen so many openings in something intended to hold water. In addition, it had a number of unexplained but vaguely threatening metal bumps on the bottom. This woman was so vivid in her descriptions of what you could do with this thing (including several minutes devoted to the multiple colors of underwater lights depending upon the desired mood) that it left both of us with an image of her cavorting with abandon in this enormous spa room when no guest was staying there. Needless to say, Kathy never attempted to use the tub.
The second phase of instruction came from the owner himself. He came up to give Kathy lessons in the use of the shower and steam room (way too many choices again) as well as the remote control for the fireplace, the many many lighting schemes (or themes I guess) available at the touch of a button, and finally the unbelievably complex widescreen TV with satellite service. Not only did it take a hell of a long time to get through all this stuff, but it was simply too technical for someone who is only staying for 2-4 nights. People put this kind of crap in their houses all the time, but usually not all of it, and they usually stay there long enough that then learn to use it. This bordered on the absurd. Kathy digested relatively little of the instruction session and in the end, had to experiment with everything to try to get things to work the way she wanted. I think she made progress with the TV although she had trouble finding a comfortable spot to watch given the scale of the absurdly oversized furniture. The spa never got touched and her one attempt at using the steam bath resulted in the smoke alarm going off. She also had a bit of a meltdown with the remote controlled blinds, which seemed to get stuck in a continuous cycle of opening and closing until she found a button to stop them.
The lights were also a challenge. With all the complex programs for a variety of moods, or themes, or scenes or whatever the hell they called them, there was no lighting that worked for reading in bed. For that, she had to turn on a lamp on a nightstand that was improperly placed and directed most of it’s light downward forcing her to aim her book toward the lamp.
As an architect, what I learned from this (not that it will ever matter since I am no longer designing spaces for people) is that you really need to convince your client to provide for the real requirements of the people who occupy these rooms and not to build our your own high-tech sex fantasy. Even for people who check in looking forward to a weekend of unbridled lust, the chances are that the time it would take them to learn how to make all these devices actually work would spoil the mood.
I think Kathy got some entertainment value out of the excesses of the place but in the end, preferred coffee at City Bakery or my condo and I suspect, found reading in bed easier here than at the B and B. Live and learn.
So now we are back to our normal life, whatever that is. I am starting to get annoyed about something I have noticed downtown. People smoke and they are, for the most part, pretty inconsiderate. First of all, a lot of smokers dangle burning cigarettes all over the place making it difficult for someone who doesn’t want the smell either on them or their dog to get by on the sidewalks. I have never been a smoker, so I don’t know what techniques are available but the relatively narrow sidewalks of Asheville are clogged with clusters of smokers. The next bone I have to pick with this sub-group of society here is what they do with the leftovers. The block of Patton Avenue immediately to the West of us is mostly two parking lots with a landscaped strip along the sidewalk. Abner and I walk this stretch at least once a day. This has given me plenty of time to notice that the bark chipped planter beds that host the shrubs that will someday more effectively screen the parking lots from the street and pedestrians are little more than giant ashtrays. There are, at any given time, literally hundreds of cigarette butts lying in the bark. As a dog walker, I am required by law and good manners to always have bags with me to pick up Abner’s poo. I cannot imagine an argument against the same requirement for smokers. Years ago it became unacceptable to litter in the US. Why is cigarette litter any different?
Last night, as Abner and I were doing our final rounds downtown for the evening prior to calling it a night, we were walking down Walnut Street from Haywood toward Lexington, which is, for those of you unfamiliar with downtown Asheville, a pretty decent incline. Going down in my usual walking shoes is no big deal, and really, going up isn’t either. After all, I have been spending a good deal of my waking hours since arriving here almost 3 – ½ years ago walking up and down hills. From time to time we will encounter someone, usually a visitor to Asheville, struggling with gravity to make his or her way up. You can always spot them. They pause to catch their breath. They walk slower than you might expect. Some feign interest in one of the astoundingly mundane concrete bunker-like parking garages that are on both sides of the street for a block in the middle of this section.
Well, on this particular walk, on the opposite side of the street, we spotted a very attractive, very tall drag queen in a pair of silver platform heels in which it would have been a challenge to totter along on level ground. Trudging up the street, on the sidewalk on the opposite side from us, and at a very healthy pace, I might add, this lovely creature was quite a sight. To top it off, he called across the street to inquire about Abner without either breaking stride or gasping for breath. I was impressed.
Today I made lunch for Latrella, my personal banker. The bank is barely a block away now so walking over to make deposits is something I do on our walks. Many of the employees keep dog treats close at hand for Abner and other visiting dogs and he knows where each and every one of them is. Occasionally, I drop in on Latrella for advice about something financial or to ask her to solve a problem that has arisen in the course of my banking, and so, over the years, she and I have become quite friendly. Anyway, now that I am across the street, so to speak, it seemed like it would be easy for her to truck over here for lunch. And so, we made a date. On a nice day, a panini and some side salads and chips, a bottle of Boeger’s superb 1996 Cabernet Franc, and a cookie seemed to hit this spot. We sat out on my deck and lunched and chatted for an hour and a half. Abner strolled out from time to time to see what we were up to and to look out through the slots in the parapet just to make sure Lexington Avenue was free of predators. This is exactly the kind of thing that makes living in this place seem so civilized.
Asheville has an event called Asheville After 5:00 that, prior to this week I must admit to never having attended. No more. The location of this monthly music and other-things-fest has been set up this year at the bottom of Lexington Avenue right before it passes under the freeway and becomes Broadway. This tendency of Asheville streets to change names seemingly with no reason is confusing everywhere, but nowhere as much as the naming of Broadway. If you approach Asheville in US 25 from the South it is called Hendersonville Road. Once you pass through Biltmore Village and head up toward downtown it becomes Biltmore Avenue. As soon as you cross Pack Square it becomes Broadway, for about 4 blocks until it passes underneath the freeway and becomes Merrimon Avenue. All these name changes are confusing enough but to make matters worse, the morphing of Lexington into Broadway happens about a block West of where the other Broadway becomes Merrimon. Try explaining that to a tourist who is undone by the lack of a grid here.
In any case, AA5 is essentially at the end of the street on which Abner and I live. We had been walking at Biltmore on Friday afternoon and returned downtown at about 5:45. I had forgotten about this event and, in any case, didn’t realize that it would result in the closing of the last block of Lexington and a shocking traffic jam pretty much everywhere else. I tried to drive to Greenlife Grocery for some items I needed for a dinner I was planning for Saturday night (gnocchi a la gorgonzola with pancetta and peas for those of you who are interested) but realized quickly that there was horrible traffic on any of the optional routes. So I drove back to the condo, parked the car and grabbed a cloth bag and dog leash and headed down the hill on foot to Greenlife. It really is only about a 6 block walk so this wasn’t really much of a hardship and I should probably do it more often, but what I hadn’t counted on was the mob at AA5. Once we got to the block that was closed to traffic it turned into almost solid bodies all the way to the stage, which was tucked almost right under the freeway. When I had originally heard that this was the location of a musical even I thought it odd since the freeway is so loud. I foolishly thought that the noise of the freeway would get in the way of people’s enjoyment of the music. Silly me. Bear in mind, this wasn’t exactly chamber music. I don’t know who any of the bands were but they sounded great and freeway noise wasn’t the slightest bit of an issue. I suspect some of the occupants of the cars passing above the stage might have wondered what had happened to the music they were listening to in their radios. They probably also noticed their fillings vibrating out of their teeth.
We managed to thread our way through the crowd and made it to the store, but it wasn’t easy. I think next time I may just head down the street and enjoy the music with the rest of the crowd rather than try multi-tasking again. Of course, I could probably hear it almost as well from my balcony 4 blocks away.
We finally met Bill Cecil Jr on one of our walks at Biltmore. We were just crossing the creek on the Deerpark Trail when he pulled over in his car and greeted us. We talked about Pyrenees (the estate has one that works in the Equestrian Center Barns and used to have another with their sheep) with which he was quite familiar. He was as gracious a host as all of his employees are. I am always astounded by the sense of stewardship exhibited by everyone involved in the operation of Biltmore. It is clear that this attitude starts at the top (Bill's father) and is pervasive throughout the place. I wish I could express to all of these people how much respect I have for what they do.
Abner’s popularity is causing me to change the way I handle some of our encounters. The move downtown and frequent downtown walks have precipitated a lot more contact with other people. In the past, we really only had to deal with crowds at Biltmore on a busy day, but now we are seeing so many people downtown that sometimes it gets a little overwhelming. One change is that I now ask everyone who asks to pet him if they are smokers. The smell of tobacco is so strong on the hands of smokers that when I got home from some of our walks, Abner ended up smelling like an ashtray. So the new rule is that if someone is a smoker, they don’t get their hands on Abner.
The other slight modification is with people who ask if Abner bites. A surprising number of people think they are simply entitled to pet him and wouldn’t dream of asking if it is OK but they often ask, instead, if he bites. I used to just say no, but now I have changed my response to “not usually”. It is amazing how many people give him a broad berth after that remark. It still is true, but seems to weed out a large group of potential petters.
Possibly as a rebalancing of our world, I have decided to volunteer with Abner in a pet therapy program. About a month ago a woman stopped her car by us on one of our early morning walks and mentioned that she had seen us many times and felt that we would be a good team for a pet therapy program for which she volunteers. She gave me the literature and a business card and asked me to check them out.
About a week ago, we went to a house in North Asheville where the president of the organization and her husband live with all their dogs (three that I counted but there could be more). We spent about 10 minutes with this fellow talking about what the requirements are for doing this kind of volunteer visiting and he checked Abner our cursorily to give me a read on whether or not we might be suitable. Abner checked out fine. . . .fortunately I wasn’t being tested yet. The process is that we have to take an online study course and then go through a series of tests that this fellow runs for the Asheville area. If we pass, we are then qualified as a therapy team and can start doing hospital visits and other types of pet therapy programs. I think we are going to try for it. So many people, particularly kids, are so drawn to Abner and react so positively to him, that I think this would be a benefit for the people we might visit and would probably be gratifying for us as well. I’ll report on how it goes in a later post. We are planning a fairly long trip to California this summer so I might wait to start this program until we return in the early fall.
It is time for Abner’s evening walk so I need to finally finish this and get it posted. Until next month. . .
April came and went in a blur of visitors. I wrote about my visit with Jim Cardin in the previous posting, but only 8 days after Jim’s departure, my friend Kathy Treaster arrived from Sacramento. Kathy and I have been friends for such a long time that she doesn’t like me to announce it, so I won’t. Suffice it to say, we are well into our 4th decade. You might think that after all those years, we would have run out of things to talk about, but that certainly wasn’t the case during this visit.
She arrived fairly late on a Wednesday night so Abner and I made our standard trek to the airport to pick her up. The employees at the airport seem to have all gotten pretty accustomed to seeing Abner there when I pick people up. Some of them know him by name now. The poor bored TSA person who sits at the spot where people exit the concourse out into the non-secured waiting area in particular seems to enjoy Abner’s visits. I get the impression that this isn’t the most exciting position for a TSA employee so a big white fluffy dog every now and then is something different on which to focus attention. Otherwise the only thing the person sitting there seems to have to do is make eye contact with anyone who approaches, and thus discourage entering the concourse without having gone through security.
Kathy’s first night here resulted in a catch up gabfest that kept me up until about 1:00 in the morning. I believe this is a record for the three plus years I have lived here. We talk on the phone from time to time, but it turned out that there was quite a lot we hadn’t covered.
During her visit, we did all the requisite tourist things here. Kathy even got to go see the Basilica of St. Lawrence (which I sometimes forget to offer to visitors) and experienced Malaprop's, a wonderful locally owned downtown bookstore that is dog friendly. It is getting to the point where so many of these places encourage people walking with dogs to come in that some of them are now posting signs in the window that they are a dog friendly store. I am finding it to be more the rule than the exception. Asheville is one very dog-friendly town.
Over the course of her visit, we ate in many of my favorite local restaurants (including two visits to Fig so she could experience what may be the world’s best macaroni and cheese). One of the bigger sources of our entertainment though, came from an unexpected source.
Because she was staying for almost two weeks and we had decided that she would take a mid-visit break and stay at a local B and B, after 5 nights with me, she headed over to a place she had found through an Internet search through the multitudes of Asheville Inns and Bed and Breakfast establishments. Checking in was pretty much standard up to a point. Because Kathy’s visit was entirely during the week and the place was largely empty, they had decided to upgrade her to their largest suite without making her pay for it. This was a generous move on their part but it turned out to afford a few surprises.
It seems that the suite and two others in the same building had been built a few years back to expand the capabilities of the very large main facility. This seems to be pretty common here. . .I think the industry does well. In any case, Kathy found herself checking into an upstairs suite of 3 principal rooms as well as a room-sized shower/steam room. I don’t know the exact size of this place, but it had to be over 1,000 square feet. . .impressive in itself. What really caught us off guard though was the high-tech nature of the place. We had intended to check her in and then head off on an adventure that day, but the orientation required to learn how to operate the many electronic gadgets took quite a bit of time.
The instructions in the operation of the spa, remote controlled blinds, the single serve coffee machine and no doubt other pieces of techie equipment that outlasted my interest were delivered by a housekeeper who seemed particularly well informed about the various options for the use of the spa. Many of them appeared to have somewhat salacious potential that was implied in the instructions. To me, the spa looked more like a medieval torture device. I have never seen so many openings in something intended to hold water. In addition, it had a number of unexplained but vaguely threatening metal bumps on the bottom. This woman was so vivid in her descriptions of what you could do with this thing (including several minutes devoted to the multiple colors of underwater lights depending upon the desired mood) that it left both of us with an image of her cavorting with abandon in this enormous spa room when no guest was staying there. Needless to say, Kathy never attempted to use the tub.
The second phase of instruction came from the owner himself. He came up to give Kathy lessons in the use of the shower and steam room (way too many choices again) as well as the remote control for the fireplace, the many many lighting schemes (or themes I guess) available at the touch of a button, and finally the unbelievably complex widescreen TV with satellite service. Not only did it take a hell of a long time to get through all this stuff, but it was simply too technical for someone who is only staying for 2-4 nights. People put this kind of crap in their houses all the time, but usually not all of it, and they usually stay there long enough that then learn to use it. This bordered on the absurd. Kathy digested relatively little of the instruction session and in the end, had to experiment with everything to try to get things to work the way she wanted. I think she made progress with the TV although she had trouble finding a comfortable spot to watch given the scale of the absurdly oversized furniture. The spa never got touched and her one attempt at using the steam bath resulted in the smoke alarm going off. She also had a bit of a meltdown with the remote controlled blinds, which seemed to get stuck in a continuous cycle of opening and closing until she found a button to stop them.
The lights were also a challenge. With all the complex programs for a variety of moods, or themes, or scenes or whatever the hell they called them, there was no lighting that worked for reading in bed. For that, she had to turn on a lamp on a nightstand that was improperly placed and directed most of it’s light downward forcing her to aim her book toward the lamp.
As an architect, what I learned from this (not that it will ever matter since I am no longer designing spaces for people) is that you really need to convince your client to provide for the real requirements of the people who occupy these rooms and not to build our your own high-tech sex fantasy. Even for people who check in looking forward to a weekend of unbridled lust, the chances are that the time it would take them to learn how to make all these devices actually work would spoil the mood.
I think Kathy got some entertainment value out of the excesses of the place but in the end, preferred coffee at City Bakery or my condo and I suspect, found reading in bed easier here than at the B and B. Live and learn.
So now we are back to our normal life, whatever that is. I am starting to get annoyed about something I have noticed downtown. People smoke and they are, for the most part, pretty inconsiderate. First of all, a lot of smokers dangle burning cigarettes all over the place making it difficult for someone who doesn’t want the smell either on them or their dog to get by on the sidewalks. I have never been a smoker, so I don’t know what techniques are available but the relatively narrow sidewalks of Asheville are clogged with clusters of smokers. The next bone I have to pick with this sub-group of society here is what they do with the leftovers. The block of Patton Avenue immediately to the West of us is mostly two parking lots with a landscaped strip along the sidewalk. Abner and I walk this stretch at least once a day. This has given me plenty of time to notice that the bark chipped planter beds that host the shrubs that will someday more effectively screen the parking lots from the street and pedestrians are little more than giant ashtrays. There are, at any given time, literally hundreds of cigarette butts lying in the bark. As a dog walker, I am required by law and good manners to always have bags with me to pick up Abner’s poo. I cannot imagine an argument against the same requirement for smokers. Years ago it became unacceptable to litter in the US. Why is cigarette litter any different?
Last night, as Abner and I were doing our final rounds downtown for the evening prior to calling it a night, we were walking down Walnut Street from Haywood toward Lexington, which is, for those of you unfamiliar with downtown Asheville, a pretty decent incline. Going down in my usual walking shoes is no big deal, and really, going up isn’t either. After all, I have been spending a good deal of my waking hours since arriving here almost 3 – ½ years ago walking up and down hills. From time to time we will encounter someone, usually a visitor to Asheville, struggling with gravity to make his or her way up. You can always spot them. They pause to catch their breath. They walk slower than you might expect. Some feign interest in one of the astoundingly mundane concrete bunker-like parking garages that are on both sides of the street for a block in the middle of this section.
Well, on this particular walk, on the opposite side of the street, we spotted a very attractive, very tall drag queen in a pair of silver platform heels in which it would have been a challenge to totter along on level ground. Trudging up the street, on the sidewalk on the opposite side from us, and at a very healthy pace, I might add, this lovely creature was quite a sight. To top it off, he called across the street to inquire about Abner without either breaking stride or gasping for breath. I was impressed.
Today I made lunch for Latrella, my personal banker. The bank is barely a block away now so walking over to make deposits is something I do on our walks. Many of the employees keep dog treats close at hand for Abner and other visiting dogs and he knows where each and every one of them is. Occasionally, I drop in on Latrella for advice about something financial or to ask her to solve a problem that has arisen in the course of my banking, and so, over the years, she and I have become quite friendly. Anyway, now that I am across the street, so to speak, it seemed like it would be easy for her to truck over here for lunch. And so, we made a date. On a nice day, a panini and some side salads and chips, a bottle of Boeger’s superb 1996 Cabernet Franc, and a cookie seemed to hit this spot. We sat out on my deck and lunched and chatted for an hour and a half. Abner strolled out from time to time to see what we were up to and to look out through the slots in the parapet just to make sure Lexington Avenue was free of predators. This is exactly the kind of thing that makes living in this place seem so civilized.
Asheville has an event called Asheville After 5:00 that, prior to this week I must admit to never having attended. No more. The location of this monthly music and other-things-fest has been set up this year at the bottom of Lexington Avenue right before it passes under the freeway and becomes Broadway. This tendency of Asheville streets to change names seemingly with no reason is confusing everywhere, but nowhere as much as the naming of Broadway. If you approach Asheville in US 25 from the South it is called Hendersonville Road. Once you pass through Biltmore Village and head up toward downtown it becomes Biltmore Avenue. As soon as you cross Pack Square it becomes Broadway, for about 4 blocks until it passes underneath the freeway and becomes Merrimon Avenue. All these name changes are confusing enough but to make matters worse, the morphing of Lexington into Broadway happens about a block West of where the other Broadway becomes Merrimon. Try explaining that to a tourist who is undone by the lack of a grid here.
In any case, AA5 is essentially at the end of the street on which Abner and I live. We had been walking at Biltmore on Friday afternoon and returned downtown at about 5:45. I had forgotten about this event and, in any case, didn’t realize that it would result in the closing of the last block of Lexington and a shocking traffic jam pretty much everywhere else. I tried to drive to Greenlife Grocery for some items I needed for a dinner I was planning for Saturday night (gnocchi a la gorgonzola with pancetta and peas for those of you who are interested) but realized quickly that there was horrible traffic on any of the optional routes. So I drove back to the condo, parked the car and grabbed a cloth bag and dog leash and headed down the hill on foot to Greenlife. It really is only about a 6 block walk so this wasn’t really much of a hardship and I should probably do it more often, but what I hadn’t counted on was the mob at AA5. Once we got to the block that was closed to traffic it turned into almost solid bodies all the way to the stage, which was tucked almost right under the freeway. When I had originally heard that this was the location of a musical even I thought it odd since the freeway is so loud. I foolishly thought that the noise of the freeway would get in the way of people’s enjoyment of the music. Silly me. Bear in mind, this wasn’t exactly chamber music. I don’t know who any of the bands were but they sounded great and freeway noise wasn’t the slightest bit of an issue. I suspect some of the occupants of the cars passing above the stage might have wondered what had happened to the music they were listening to in their radios. They probably also noticed their fillings vibrating out of their teeth.
We managed to thread our way through the crowd and made it to the store, but it wasn’t easy. I think next time I may just head down the street and enjoy the music with the rest of the crowd rather than try multi-tasking again. Of course, I could probably hear it almost as well from my balcony 4 blocks away.
We finally met Bill Cecil Jr on one of our walks at Biltmore. We were just crossing the creek on the Deerpark Trail when he pulled over in his car and greeted us. We talked about Pyrenees (the estate has one that works in the Equestrian Center Barns and used to have another with their sheep) with which he was quite familiar. He was as gracious a host as all of his employees are. I am always astounded by the sense of stewardship exhibited by everyone involved in the operation of Biltmore. It is clear that this attitude starts at the top (Bill's father) and is pervasive throughout the place. I wish I could express to all of these people how much respect I have for what they do.
Abner’s popularity is causing me to change the way I handle some of our encounters. The move downtown and frequent downtown walks have precipitated a lot more contact with other people. In the past, we really only had to deal with crowds at Biltmore on a busy day, but now we are seeing so many people downtown that sometimes it gets a little overwhelming. One change is that I now ask everyone who asks to pet him if they are smokers. The smell of tobacco is so strong on the hands of smokers that when I got home from some of our walks, Abner ended up smelling like an ashtray. So the new rule is that if someone is a smoker, they don’t get their hands on Abner.
The other slight modification is with people who ask if Abner bites. A surprising number of people think they are simply entitled to pet him and wouldn’t dream of asking if it is OK but they often ask, instead, if he bites. I used to just say no, but now I have changed my response to “not usually”. It is amazing how many people give him a broad berth after that remark. It still is true, but seems to weed out a large group of potential petters.
Possibly as a rebalancing of our world, I have decided to volunteer with Abner in a pet therapy program. About a month ago a woman stopped her car by us on one of our early morning walks and mentioned that she had seen us many times and felt that we would be a good team for a pet therapy program for which she volunteers. She gave me the literature and a business card and asked me to check them out.
About a week ago, we went to a house in North Asheville where the president of the organization and her husband live with all their dogs (three that I counted but there could be more). We spent about 10 minutes with this fellow talking about what the requirements are for doing this kind of volunteer visiting and he checked Abner our cursorily to give me a read on whether or not we might be suitable. Abner checked out fine. . . .fortunately I wasn’t being tested yet. The process is that we have to take an online study course and then go through a series of tests that this fellow runs for the Asheville area. If we pass, we are then qualified as a therapy team and can start doing hospital visits and other types of pet therapy programs. I think we are going to try for it. So many people, particularly kids, are so drawn to Abner and react so positively to him, that I think this would be a benefit for the people we might visit and would probably be gratifying for us as well. I’ll report on how it goes in a later post. We are planning a fairly long trip to California this summer so I might wait to start this program until we return in the early fall.
It is time for Abner’s evening walk so I need to finally finish this and get it posted. Until next month. . .
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