It turns out that I'm not going to be a grand-daddy real soon because of some complications but I can say that this century plant in my front yard started flowering right as the SAVE THE LAGUNA MADRE effort started. It does have a certain "manly" looking, no?
Let me tell you that was just like giving birth, or like watching my wife do all the work and almost fainting in the process.
The initial meeting went very well, some hickies here and there but for organized mayhem it was a pretty good show. If you haven't tuned in lately, we're very upset and concerned about oil & gas activities in our neck of the woods.
The funny part is that many of us support local oil & gas development because of our reliance on imported hydrocarbons from overseas. Some of us worked for oil & gas companies for our bread and butter. As a consultant I've done work for Citgo, BP, Chem-Oil, OilTanking, Lubrizol, and many, many other majors. About the only ethical twinge I had was that Venezuela bought out most of Citgo and some folks just don't likePresidente Chavez.
But folks this is our "Yellowstone" except that instead of mountains and snowy passes we have a unique bay that is perhaps the last pristine area of the US in terms of wetlands, hyper-saline bays, and productivity (shrimp, fish, birds, etc.). I never forget when a representative of ASARCO, a messy smelter operation with the bad plant in El Paso, was accused of not having an environmental backbone. He went purple-veined livid. "I give Audubon and Sierra ten grand each every year. I spend a month in the summer building trails and fixing stuff because the park rangers don't have any money. I'm trying to get ASARCO through what is most likely a plant shutdown, involving several hundreds and hundreds of less fortunate workers who would be fired. How do you think I feel? What did YOU do for the environment today?"
Ouch.
Fortunately, we don't emit nothing nothing and have a much cleaner conscience. Ain't that Century plant a booger?
3 comments:
Sam,
That Century plant looks like a giant asparagus. Might be good steamed lightly with some lemon and butter...
Hey Mike,
That's gotta be the toughest asparagus you ever saw, with spikes all over it! You've seen them, the Century will top out and make pretty white flowers and then seed puppies and the mother plant will die into a stinking mass of rotten goo - thank goodness we have trash removal for that kind of stuff!
Lori tells me that in Mexico they have several ways of getting the sap out to make Pulque, Mescal, and Tequila - only the Blue Agave from the Tequila province can be called true tequila. Pulque, which is sorta like beer, she says tastes like shoe polish and shit. Oh well, later.
Sam,
When I was a young man and attending grad school in Mexico, I fell through the roof of a pulqueria...but that's a story for another time.
Post a Comment