there are still floods in Pakistan – on NPR, I was listening to some poor, homeless, soul begging Allah for help and thought of the church sign, in the Simpsons after Katrina, God welcomes his victims – the right is still complaining about the so called mosque in lower Manhattan, Lindsay Lohan is still in jail,Fox is still saying Obama might be a Muslim, we are still bogged down in Afghanistan, and some jerkoff is trying to save money by risking the production of contaminated eggs.

Meanwhile, we are back from our our trip over the Sierras.

Or, maybe, just hanging out gabbing.

or practice rock vaulting

Whatever we are doing, we will be doing it in the Sierras for the next week.

Driving back from my trip to the east side of the Sierras, driving by Lake Tenaya, I saw two women rock climbers walking towards their climb.

After I took their picture and started to drive away, they turned and I saw them from the back, looking at their guide, and asked for another picture.

When I saw them with their ropes and hardware, their helmets; I was struck with how young and vulnerable* they seemed, graceful and delicate; and macho. I was reminded of several things at once: my daughter's soccer team calling themselves macha, Lynn Hill, and the whole new story of young, kick-ass women.

*when I commented to them on that, they took exception, saying that they were not vulnerable – but, of course, the opposite of vulnerable is invulnerable, impenetrable, untouchable and they seemed to be none of that – so I am going to stick with vulnerable.

I remember when our family first got a cloths dryer. I was only a child. I don't actually remember getting the dryer, but I do remember how soft the dryer- dried towels were. My sister and I loved them.

But my mother continued to sun-dry all our laundry when ever she could. She said that she preferred the way they smelled; that they smelled fresher. We have a air-drying rack in the bathroom – the drier sits where the tub will one day go, so I guess it should be called a showerroom – and Michele uses it to dry a variety of delicates. As an expeariment, I dried my towel on it.

THE towel dried stiff, but – using it – that stiff towel brought back a flood of comforting childhood memories. Not specific memories but very strong, generalized, memories of being young. I am sort of shocked at how much memory came from just rubbing the towel on my body.