summer rain and mud hike
Posted by Zonie on July 18, 2026 at 04:25:17
I definitely don't recommend Banner Health. Not only did they cancel my surgery twice, but I had to file a dispute with my credit card company to get the surgery deposit back. I found another network and another electrophysiologist in my insurance plan. Dr. Behu plans to do the cardiac ablation on September 11th, so an Arab physician will be working on my heart on the 25th anniversary of the Great Martyrdom. That should be a good omen. Maybe I'll have better stamina for mud hikes after he's done.
I had applied to Chick-fil-a, but they rejected my application without even an interview. Maybe they thought that since I had 17 years experience cooking steel I was bound to overcook the chicken. I had a truly peculiar interview yesterday. The desk clerk had no idea who my interviewer was or how to get hold of him and he spent several minutes on the phone with someone almost as clueless as he, but eventually they found out how to contact him. He was 15 minutes late for the interview, but he lectured me about the need to show up for work on time every day.
I had applied for a position as maintenance assistant, so I dressed in workwear for the interview, including my usual mudding gear (except I had a newer and cleaner pair of work boots). He said it didn't matter, as there was a uniform and said that the shirt was similar to the beige shade of mine. I explained that my shirt had originally been white but that I got a lot of mud on it and it didn't all come out.
He asked about my career at ABS and then asked about some jobs I had never worked. It seemed someone else's resume had been attached to mine. He then explained that only a small part of my duties would be as maintenance assistant. He said mostly what I would be doing is escorting subcontractors, making sure they didn't wander off, even staying with them if they used the lavatory and making sure they didn't take any photographs. I think maybe they should hire subcontractors they trust a little more. It's also strange they would want someone who once got into a fight with a SWAT Team to be a security guard.
Today I awoke in the early hours, as if the rain gods had decided to end my sleep. I checked the network of automated rain gages, and my usual area of state trust land had received about two inches. Unfortunately my house got a lot less, so I'll still have to run the lawn sprinklers tomorrow. It was cloudy, but I figured the mud puddles would offer some protection from the heat if the sky cleared.
When I arrived it was warm and humid, but when I went into a nearby big mud puddle to soak myself completely, it was agreeably cool. The ground hadn't heated the rainwater much yet, nor had the sun. I then went to a smaller mud puddle to do a set of 20 puddle push-ups. Then I decided on a more northerly route than usual to Coyote Central, figuring just about any trail would have mud puddles after a deluge like that, and the trail I chose did have some good stomping puddles.
I noticed that there were dark clouds to the west and that it was raining there. In the winter I would have taken that as a sign rain was moving in, but the weather doesn't usually move from west to east in summer here. Still, after a time it started to rain. It was gentle and steady with big drops, very refreshing. It kept up for a couple hours as I wandered around playing in the puddles.
As the clouds were breaking up, I cleaned up at Coyote Central. The water hole looked bigger than it did even after the winter rains, and this was perplexing, because I couldn't tell where the deep spots were, but I found them eventually.
With the afternoon sun shining, I knew I had to leave. Being wet wasn't adequate protection, and the summer sunshine in central Arizona is not a benign force. On my way back I actually avoided mud puddles, because they were slowing me down and the heat was troubling me.
One doesn't ordinarily write of amorous matters here, but I did see a bit of a nature show. I saw the mating flight of winged ants, and I saw several pairs of dragonflies mating in flight. There were quite a lot of crawling ants, but I expect their holes had been flooded.