November 19, 2007

We are tucked in for our last night in our little Gila hideaway watching Vince Young try to pull off another comeback on Monday Night Football.. It’s fun watching Bob watch football. He gets so excited, especially when he cares about a player as most of Austin (probably Texas) cares about Vince Young. It’s also very odd for me, who doesn’t watch much TV, to watch all the ads for cars and phones, high on gimmicks and speed and humor I don’t get – until all of a sudden the ad is from UNICEF, talking about efforts to keep kids from all over the world from dying of AIDS. And then I notice that the football player and coaches in the ads are often making gentle fun of their own egos – for instance saying that reading the playbook to the kids always puts them to sleep – perfect bedtime story. I am aware one more time how much I am a twentieth century person in a new century and really don’t get the layers of too much of what’s going on.

Some things, like the beauty of a bald eagle flying over a mountain lake, haven’t changed a bit. Today we drove to Quemado Lake where, within three minutes of our arrival at the lake, Bob was greeted by both a bald eagle and a red tailed hawk. On this mild crystalline mountain afternoon we hiked around the little lake and up into the wilderness. From the overlook point above the wooded hills, we watched our eagle fish the lake, accompanied by a second bald eagle, a juvenile. It is so good for us to be out in the clean air, this time scented of pinon pine, to have unscheduled time to just be together and talk about trivial and important matters, relaxed.