Yesterday, Jeremy and I drove our first rescue transport, and I am absolutely hooked! We got involved when driveforlife was spotlighted a few weeks ago, and I've been waiting for an empty Madison run to come up. I thought it would be something fun for us to do on our one day off together, and a chance to use the Forester for the powers of good!


We drove Mercy, an English Setter, from Madison, WI to Rockford, IL for Above and Beyond English Setter Rescue. Mercy went from Zimmerman, MN to Haverton, PA to a permanent home, which she should reach some time today. She is tiny for an English Setter - I'm guessing some breeder decided she wasn't show material and abandoned her, and there's evidence that she's already had a litter, even though she's only 18 months.

I've been living a bit of a cloistered life lately, aside from my various vacations and trips. Here in Madison, I haven't been anywhere aside from home and the lab lately, and I think it' s desensitized me to people's behavior. I stepped out of the lab to get lunch with brdgt yesterday, and then again today to wander up State St. in search of a birthday gift for Jeremy, who turns 29 tomorrow. In my brief foray back into the outside world, I had a series of interactions with people that were enough to discourage my faith in humanity:

If one had asked me to predict the manner of my death, I would have imagined a quiet slipping-away by the lake with a copy of Darwin's letters in my lap and a huskie at my feat at the ripe old age of 92. I would not have predicted disembowlment due to bicyclic empalement. I am absolutely pro-bicycle, even though I grew up in a state where, due to the ubiquitous ups and downs, you had to be relatively hard-core to be into cycling. As a climate change researcher and ecologist, I appreciate Madison's bike-friendly atmosphere. I am starting to decide, hower, that while I am pro-bicycle, I am anti-cyclist.

I see the "share the road" bumper stickers and I can't help but wanting to reply, "share the RULES." As in, the Rules of the Road: specifically the really useful ones, like stopping at stop signs when there is a 3-way with crosswalks on all sides. Or the rule that says you shouldn't whiz past people on the sidewalk when there is a bike lane right next to you. Bikes should obey all the same traffic laws as cars, and so when I see cyclists switching back and forth between a pedestrian and a driver mentality depending on whatever is more convenient at the time, I start to get a bit testy. Especially when said cyclist comes close enough to brush my back with their elbow.

Perhaps it is the large portion sizes and dairy-meat-and-beer-heavy diets that slow peoples' reaction times, or maybe it's that sense of overwhelming space, but the work ethic of customer service employees here is seriously lacking. I went to the doctor's office, for example, and stood at the counter for five minutes waiting for the nurses and office assistants to finish discussing the best place to get  fishtank accessories before anyone took my clipboard and told me where to go. They made eye contact with me several times, and made it quite clear that I was there at their convenience, not mine. This scenario has been repeated elsewhere in stores and restaurants as well.

The Midwest is a wide, open space, with a vaulting blue sky and a high visibility all around. Add that to the fact that it's also America's Dairyland, and you get a nasty combination; namely, cow-like people who seem to think that there is enough space for everyone so they don't need to cultivate a sense of spatial awareness. When someone is standing behind me, I get a tense sense of urgency, a prickling need to get out of the way. I don't for the life of me understand how people here can just congregate in the middle of a sidewalk or in front of a door, or block the grocery aisles with their carts, or drive 50mph in the passing lane on the highway. Working in food service and taking the escalators in the London Underground have both taught me the hard way that you stay to the right. This applies to doors, sidewalks, stairs, highways, and hallways, but not politics. This is a common courtesy that is for the safety and well-being of everyone. Except, apparantly, in the state of Wisconsin.

As part of my renewed interest (and my New Year's resolution) to start taking and sharing more photos, I brought the digital camera out with me when Jeremy, Ethan and I went tromping around Aztalan yesterday. It's still not quite spring in Wisconsin, so everything is of course correspondingly brown, but with its own sort of beauty.

Aztalan is an archaological site in southern Wisconsin, located between Madison and Milwaukee. It's believed to be the northernmost hub of the Mississippean Indians, the mound and pyramid builders that were more populous down south. Some have interesting speculations on their origins, including links to the Aztec or Mayan cultures. The Aztalan settlement was a bit of an outpost, and the settlers, who lived here from about 600-1300 (depending on the source) were apparantly at war with surrounding tribes. Either they or their neighbors practiced cannibalism, and eventually the settlement was abandoned. The village, which at one time held a couple thousand individuals, was surrounded by a log stockade covered in wattle-and-daub. The only opening was on the river. They also constructed a series of watchtowers along the stockade, which have been partially reconstructed to aid in visualization. Very little is in fact known about them; why they came, why they left, where they went. This leaves quite a bit open to the imagination, of course. So, for your viewing pleasure, click below the cut for about a dozen pictures of Aztalan in March (at sunset). Captions below each photo.
( Read more... )