The Furious Spinner

Strange day.

Killer bees attacked a group of joggers in the park near us where we’ve been hiking nearly every day. Freakin’ killer bees. Two of the joggers had over 600 stings between them. 600 stings. I’d like to know who was counting.

They call them “Africanized” bees now instead of killer bees. Pray tell why? They are killer bees. Three people died in Arizona last year after they were attacked. But my question is why are they Africanized? As far as I can remember some whack job scientist who should have known better in South America was experimenting with bees and oops some of them got loose. (Have these scientists never watched a Saturday afternoon B science fiction movie? THEY ALWAYS GET LOOSE!)

So Mario and I were on our way out of town today to visit the old Tumacacori mission where I had gone with my friend Cooky when we lived in Tucson and I heard about these bees. I never worried about killer bees before but now they’re half a mile from where I’m staying? (Truth is, I have worried about them before. When I first heard about them years ago I worried. But then, I’m a worrier.)

We stopped at a visitor center to get a forest service pass, and they told us that “problem” mountain lions were running around Sabino Canyon, the other place we’ve been hiking. Are they really dangerous, I wondered? Apparently they’ve been exhibiting “aberrant” behaviors, such as stalking humans and talking on cell phones in movie theaters. Do you know what to do if you see a mountain lion? Don’t run. Hah! Really. Don’t run. It triggers their chase instinct. Don’t crouch or bend over. Never look away. What are you supposed to do if attacked? Try discussing the federal deficit with it. It’ll confuse the shit out of the lion.

And what to do to avoid being attacked by killer bees? Every single article I’ve read says you should avoid killer bees to avoid getting attacked. Oh really? Particularly their hives. But not a single article describes what those hives look like. This all sounds like it comes from the “duh” file.

I found all this rather funny as we drove out of Tucson and passed some lovely little strip mines, driving behind a vehicle that was spewing white toxins in the air as I was first having an asthma attack and then an allergy attack.

I don’t like missions, particularly, or churches, since I think missionary work is basically abhorrent, but the Catholic Church often built its churches on sites that were considered sacred by those they were trying to convert. When Cooky and I visited Tumacacori, I remembered hardly anyone else being around. I walked through the church and looked up at the blue sky and down at patches of grass and flowers at my feet. It had been a cool oasis away from the hot desert. It wasn’t like that today. Lots of people were around. The church had a roof. No flowers. Just dirt and dreariness. Maybe we had gone to a different church?

Mario and I decided to go a little further south, just before the Mexican border, to a lake in the Coronado National Forest where we hoped to do some birdwatching. We drove into the forest for a few miles, but nothing sparked our interest: the hills were dry and nearly bare. When we reached the lake, we learned it was a fake lake (dammed), so we decided to return to Tucson.

On the way back to the freeway, a roadrunner ran across the road in front of us. (What were they called before they were called roadrunner?) We stopped the car to watch it. This was only about the third roadrunner I had seen in real life. They’re big birds, with streaked brown feathers and a long tail that angles up so that the bird is shaped like a laid back “u.” It has a long beak and tufted hair on top of its head. Roadrunners can fly but they usually run—up to 15 mph. They eat snakes (as well as insects and other things), and they can jump into the air to catch low-flying birds or insects. The one we saw today moseyed away from us, looking here and looking there before it blended in completely with the landscape, and we went on our way. Some First Peoples consider roadrunners sacred because you can't tell whether they are coming or going from their tracks. In the scat and tracks book under scat for roadrunners it says "none ever found." Mario wondered if we would be hailed by the scientific community if we found some roadrunner scat. I said be all that you can be.

We were back home before dusk. Mario took a nap, and I walked the wash. On the way back, I heard the owl hoot. I also heard a very peculiar noise, as though some creature were in distress. I noticed the vet was in with the horses, but when I asked the caretaker about the noise, she said she had gone outside when she heard the sound and stood under the tree. She said the sound definitely came from the owl. Just as she told me this, the owl flew away to begin its nightly hunt.

After dark, Mario and I went to campus to hear a lecture by Lynn Margulis on the Gaia theory. Her talk was part of a series of lectures called “Astrobiology and the Sacred.” They had a large auditorium booked for such a distinguished scientist, but apparently the campus police had locked the hall, and we couldn’t get in, so they moved the lecture to a classroom in the observatory. En masse a hundred or so of us walked up from the underground building to the observatory, a stream of people going with the flow.

Margulis began her lecture with a quote from Emily Dickinson. She had Mario and I hooked from then on. I didn’t understand everything, but she says that evolution by increments (i.e. mutations) can’t be the only way life acquires new adaptations. She showed how some organisms take other organisms into their bodies and don’t destroy the other but instead incorporate some of their characteristics. It’s called symbiogenesis. She says that “new tissues, organs and even new species evolve primarily through the long-lasting intimacy of strangers.” For instance, a species of slug ingests an organism that is capable of photosynthesis; after that, the slug takes all its nutrition by photosynthesis. Fascinating stuff. What if we could do that? Wouldn’t that be revolutionary?

On the way back to the retreat, Mario and I remarked on how invigorating it is to learn new things. Isn’t it? The world seems different afterward. I thought about how I had wanted to study biology at one time. I still sometimes think about going back to school and studying a science. Maybe even go to Amherst, where Margulis and Emily both come from.

Mario and I drove down Speedway with the radio turned up. I rolled down the window and looked up at the stars as we went by chain store after chain store after chain store.

“Look, honey,” I said. “It’s new moon. You can see the stars.”

Labels: Arizona

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All photographs and written material copyright © 2003-2008 by Kim Antieau unless otherwise indicated. May not be used without permission.