Our hearts skipped a collective beat last night. A woman who works for Athena’s breeder called last night to get an update because they moved offices and lost our puppy’s name. In the course of the conversation, the woman mentioned Tetley, Athena’s mom. Amy asked how she was doing and the woman paused a moment and said she’d died, “from a tumor or a gland or something.” She didn’t have much info on it.

We don’t know much about breeding dogs but we do know it’s big time bad news if your dog’s parent died from a cancerous tumor. So we started sweating heavily and I composed an email with shaking fingers asking the breeder what exactly happened and what the chances were that our puppy would inherit whatever it was that killed her mom. Tetley was only a few years old when she had Athena’s litter.

Luckily, the breeder wrote back almost immediately and said there was nothing to worry about, Tetley’s problem stemmed from a physical injury she’d received to her salivary gland in her neck and the injury caused an infection. They couldn’t remove the gland because of its delicate location and, eventually, poor Tetley died from complications related to it. It turns out the word “tumor” was nothing more than a very poor word choice and very nearly drove me to the depths of despair to think out little Athena might be facing a very grave disease. We breathed a collective sigh of relief nonetheless.

Non-pet owners think people like us are crazy, but we’re not. It’s strange how attached a person can become to an animal and vice-versa. Animals tend to be some of the nicest people I’ve ever met.

Here are links to pictures of our little (66 lb. little!)Athena, her dad Bo, and her dearly departed mother, Tetley, who, in the words of the breeder, was “was a lively and playful girl with a brilliant mind. She was beautiful beyond belief and it broke our hearts to lose her.” :(

We’re sad we never really got to meet her and thank her for the great little puppy who has been such a great addition to our family. Rest in peace, Tetley, and thank you.

The Pack’s Christmas Eve win at the Biqueens’ joint was sublime and will live long in the memory. It’s so much easier to look back at sweeping the ‘Queens this season with pride rather than remembering how tough these games were to watch. Both teams are pretty bad and will be swept aside in the playoffs in short order–but still, I’d rather gloat with two wins where Favre engineers game-winning drives while bubble-butt Culpepper sits on the sidelines and watches. Ha!

In less happy news, Christmas week robs of us of another iconic figure, that of Reggie White. While White’s contribution to my personal development pales in comparison to others who died this week in recent history (see below), I still remember the moment I heard Reggie had signed for the Packers. I was a freshman at UW-Madison; I remember it well because I (along with most of the country) didn’t fully believe a player of his calibre would come to G.B., and because the guy who told me the news died in a car accident during the summer break before sophomore year. One of those things that sticks in your head, I guess.

Remember Super Bowl XXXI? That was great. Remember that second play, Favre’s bomb to Rison? Yeah, that was great, too.

I received a 20GB iPod from my always generous inlaws and I was digging it right up to the point when it crapped out for no appartent reason. I was a bit worried that Apple products wouldn’t play nice with the PC and it’s been a challenge but I’d finally fiddled around enough that I was happily downloading from Real Player. I filled it halfway up (about 9 GB of music, a process that took several hours to transfer) when the unit magically reformatted itself and no longer viewed MP3’s as an acceptable format. Hmmmm. I reset the unit and armwrestled with it a bit more until I could again download music but I’ll never get that time back. Highly, highly annoying. I think I’m going to bring it back for a new unit just in case–I will go completely mental if it happens again, but of course I can’t resist the temptation to load it up before our trip to Chicago for New Year’s.

Finally, it hardly needs to be mentioned but damn, Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas is addicting in a number of areas. Hours melt away once you get started (especially once one starts gang warfare and begins taking over rival ‘hoods), but on top of that I feel like my personal diction has taken a nosedive and I’m listening to lots of gangsta’ rap. I’m downloading Ice Cube as we speak and I must have listened to “F— Wit Dre Day” a few hundred times.

Did I mention I got a Tec-9 for Christmas?

Yesterday was the darkest day of the year. Most people think that’s the winter solstice on Dec. 21st but they’re wrong; the darkest day is actually Dec. 22nd, the day Joe Strummer died two years ago.

No Clash reunions to daydream about, no new Strummer albums, no more great lyrics about everything under the sun. A brief sampling:

Garageland
I don’t wanna hear about what the rich are doing
I don’t wanna go to where the rich are going
They think they’re so clever, they think they’re so right
But the truth is only known by guttersnipes

Death or Glory
Every gimmick hungry yob digging gold from rock ‘n’ roll
Grabs the mike to tell us he’ll die before he’s sold
But i believe in this-and it’s been tested by research
That he who fucks nun will later join the church

Complete Control
They said we’d be artistically free
When we signed that bit of paper
They meant let’s make a lotsa mon-ee
An’ worry about it later

The Prisoner
your mother does the washing up
your old man digs the garden
you’re only free to dodge the cops
an’ bunk the train to stardom
…I don’t want to be the prisoner

The Clampdown
The voices in your head are calling
Stop wasting your time, there’s nothing coming
Only a fool would think someone could save you
The men at the factory are old and cunning
You don’t owe nothing, so boy get runnin’
It’s the best years of your life they want to steal

(sigh)

Oi,

Posted pictures from UHR 2000 at Death Valley National Park. Click here to check them out.

Captions and descriptions forthcoming.

The UHR set the bar for all other backpacking trips to come and is unanimously regarded as the finest UHR to date. Pictures can’t do this trip justice and words can hardly capture the experience of being out in the middle of the desert mountains, running low on water, having a friend suffering from heat stroke, and having lost the trail a few miles back because there was only a suggestion of a trail to begin with. This was indeed high adventure and it took a lot of backcountry know-how to get us back to the car safely and on time.

Working on UHR 2001 - Pecos Wilderness, New Mexico next.

Got back Sunday night around 10:45 from UHR 2004, our annual backpacking trip that celebrates its fifth year with this past adventure. This time around it was Red River Gorge in central Kentucky, a tiring 9.5 hour drive from Madison. But worth it.

Right off the bat I was a little skeptical. The campsite/trailhead was just off the highway and nestled among some very nice double-wide trailer homes. There were some hikes in Washington, particularly at Mount Rainier, that followed the road for a good long way before turning away into the woods only to meet up with the busy road again around the bend. I hoped this wouldn’t be the same. Not a very satisfying backcountry experience.

I didn’t have to worry. After getting off to our traditional late start (although in fairness we had to pack up in a light drizzle and cold) we headed out under partially sunny skies. The first section of the hike was on a paved path–again raising questions about the backcountry ruggedness. This path lasted for a little over a mile to the one natual rock bridge in that corner of the park. From that point on the pavement ended and the adventure began.

The narrow path twisted and wound and climbed and fell alongside the river. It was wet and slippery and studded with roots and rocks and made for slow going, especially when the shoulder-width trail plunged a hundred feet down to the river on one side. We didn’t make it very far the first day mostly because the sun started giving out at 4:30 pm but we found a great riverside camp and enjoyed a mild evening. I slept like a log until about 5:30. About thirty minutes later a light rain began and I fell back asleep.

Two hours later the rain continued to come down and a peek outside the tent revealed an overcast sky. So that morning was another chilly one, although our nifty tarp-rigging kept a good dry patch to cook, eat, and pack under. Folding a wet tent in the rain in the low 50’s is no one’s idea of a good time but we made the best of it. We got another late start (around 11:00) and hiked straight through until 4:30 again. The trail got rougher and the rain made us slow even more, but it sure was pretty. It looked like a Costa Rican rainforest and the day stayed in the high 50’s I would guess.

The temperature dropped quickly as the sun set and we were all wet and tired and starting to get cold, so we started looking for a good camp and, lo!, we found a great one. It was at the base of an enormous overhanging rock, almost like a wide cave mouth. It kept us out of the rain and after setting up camp, I whipped up a quick fire to keep away the chill while the others cooked dinner. The wood lasted a lot longer than I figured and we stayed up pretty late just as we did the night before, sipping Jameson and smoking cigars.

We vowed to make it an early departure the next morning and succeeded. It was cool and clear–no rain! We packed up and had a cold b’fast of granola bars and hit the trail by 8:00ish. We motored through the last few miles as we rose out of the gorge and up to the ridge line where chilly winds blasted us. Stopping for more than a few minutes wasn’t an option; the temps were only in the high 30’s. We made it back to the cars without incident, drove back to a rest stop, changed clothes, and went about our merry ways back to civilization…or at least out of Kentucky.

It’s hard to believe this is the fifth UHR. The others were:
2003 - Joshua Tree Nat’l Park, CA
2002 - Pecos Wilderness, NM
2001 - Death Valley Nat’l Park, CA
2000 - North Cascades Nat’l Park, WA

It’s motivated me to put some of the best pictures from these trips on my website. Planning for next year’s UHR already under way. Zion Nat’l Park in Utah is the early frontrunner. More information as it becomes available.

I finished “Laxdaela Saga” yesterday and it’s got to be one of my favorite sagas, although I tend to say that after every saga. Except “Saga of the Jomsvikings.” One or two good, bloody chapters there but a lot of preamble that doesn’t pay off.

I realize after browsing my last post that the plot of “Laxdaela Saga” isn’t clear. It’s basically this. A young man (Kjartan) and a young woman (Gudrun) are two of the finest, most promising Icelanders and are attracted to each other at a young age. Kjartan travels abroad to Norway with his best friend and foster brother, Bolli, who is second only to Kjartan in terms of greatness. Kjartan and Bolli meet the king of Norway and convert to Christianity at his behest but he keeps Kjartan as a friendly hostage, refusing to let him return home until Iceland embraces the new faith. Bolli returns and immediately begins wooing Gudrun, telling her that Kjartan has eyes for the king’s daughter (which he kind of has a summer romance with) and that he’s in no hurry to come back. Gudrun reluctantly gives in to Bolli’s pressure and marries him, believing that Kjartan stayed in Norway to be with this new woman. Iceland converts and Kjartan comes home only to find his best friend and his one true love married; both are incensed at each other, although Bolli is the one who deserves blame. Kjartan marries another Hrefna, a fine woman, but not Gudrun’s equal. The next several chapters are heartbreaking as Kjartan and Gudrun trade barbs with each other and with their own spouses and it becomes painfully clear that they still love each other deeply but cannot free themselves from their fate. Insults and affronts grow more serious until Bolli and a gang attack Kjartan, who fights bravely while his foster brother watches, not taking part in combat until it becomes clear that Bolli’s band can’t finish the job at hand, and they persuade him to join the fight by reasoning the only thing worse than killing Kjartan in a sneak attack is failing to kill Kjartan in a sneak attack. Bolli draws his weapon:

Then Kjartan said to Bolli, “It is an ignoble deed, kinsman, that you are about to do; but I would much rather accept death at your hands, cousin, than give you death at mine.”
And with that, Kjartan threw down his weapons and made no attempt to defend himself; he was only slightly wounded but very weak with exhaustion.
Bolli made no reply to Kjartan’s words but dealt him his death-blow all the same. Then Bolli caught him as he fell, and Kjartan died in Bolli’s lap. At once Bolli repented bitterly of what he had done.

Maybe you need to understand the tone of the sagas for this, or the Gudrun quote in the previous post, to have any emotional impact. Sagas are incredibly understated and this death scene is heart-wrenching when you consider that vikings fought until they could no longer stand as a matter of pride–Gisli of “Gisli’s Saga” is remembered most for holding his entrails in with one hand while dispatching several enemies with the other, a feat that single-handedly immortalized him in literature–and that death is normally dealt alongside verbal barbs and insults. So for Kjartan to throw his weapon down, almost as though this betrayal was worse than death, and for Bolli to wordlessly dispatch his best friend and catch him in his arms as he dies…well, that’s powerful stuff.
And so is everything surrounding Gudrun. In the post before I mentioned the scene where she asks to see Hrefna’s elaborate wedding headdress, the one she herself would have worn had she married Kjartan, and she says nothing. The author spends a paragraph describing the richness and beauty of the headdress that Kjartan receives from the Norwegian king and believes will be delivered to Gudrun, yet Gudrun looks at it in silence and then asks for it to be put away and then, as the author describes, goes and parties as though nothing is wrong. The same sort of scene unravels when she hears of Kjartan’s death–she makes a flippant remark but astute observers note how the color drained from her face, and even Bolli knows she regrets the act, too.
Which makes one of the final scenes so powerfully stirring. Gudrun has grown old and seen four husbands come and go–unsurprisingly, Bolli, Gudrun’s second hubby is murdered in revenge for Kjartan’s death–and becomes a nun. Her son Bolli (named after his father) comes to visit:

The Bolli said, “Will you tell me something, mother, that I am very curious to know? Which man did you love the most?”
Gudrun replied, “Thorkel was the wealthiest and the greatest chieftan, but no one was more accomplished than Bolli. Thord Ingunnarsson was the wisest of them and the greatest lawyer; of Thorvald I have nothing at all to say.”
The Bolli said, “I understand clearly what you are telling me about the qualities of your husbands; but you have not told me yet which man you loved the most. There’s no need to conceal it any longer now.”
“You are pressing me very hard, my son,” said Gudrun. “But if I must tell someone then I would rather it were you.”
Bolli begged her to do so.
Then Gudrun said, “I was worst to the one I loved the most.”
“I think,” said Bolli, “that the truth has now been told.” And he said she had done right to tell him what he had been so curious to know.

In chapter 78 in her last words of the saga before old age claims her, even then the proud Gudrun cannot find the strength to say she loved Kjartan more than the rest. This is as tender as we get in a saga and it damn well nearly brought tears to my eyes.
And what makes it even more tragic is that now it’s over and I have to read something else! While “Njal’s Saga” is commonly regarded as the superior saga, this one definitely tugged at the heartstings more and it will stay with me forever.