Pausa de hidratación

The other morning I was walking around the former corporate HQ park campus (for the past three years a construction site for 82 four-story townhouses on five acres). I came across this guy, on the wrong side of a fence around one of the ponds.

He might eventually have found his way back to the water, but I decided to help him. Having had experience with Testudines from my time in grad school at William & Mary, when I regularly rescued them from the middle of major highways (and earned the epithet “[Bas Bleu], Redeemer of Reptiles”), I was prepared for him to pee on me. I made sure I was standing well behind him and holding him at full arms’ length.

He in fact let loose a gusher—must have been holding it in for a while—but it missed me. And he had unobstructed passage to the pond to fill up again.

 

©2026 Bas Bleu

 

Talk to the paw

A couple of times a month, I take a morning walk with my yoga instructor and her dog, Sasha. She’s got some nice wooded paths in her part of Herndon and we typically clock between a mile and one-and-a-half miles. Everyone’s happy at the end.

But yesterday, Sasha did not approve of one of the turns we didn’t make on our way home. Here he is, silently voicing his disapproval and ignoring us.

Fortunately, it was in one of the shaded areas, and eventually we moved on.

 

©2026 Bas Bleu

 

Those wonderful folks who brought us the guillotine

Since today is Bastille Day, la fête nationale, I’m expressing my undying love, appreciation and gratitude to France.

As with the United States (or, TBH, anywhere), there’s plenty that you could crab about the country, but its history, wit, diversity, language, flair and geographic beauty vastly outnumber the flaws. It fills my soul in places where I didn’t even know there were gaps.

I’ve never been disappointed taking a trip to France. From my first one—straight out of college, with no credit cards, riding a bicycle from Paris to Santiago de Compostela and staying in youth hostels, abandoned houses and highway rest stops—to the most recent involving comfortable hotel beds and some very nice meals—each one has enriched my perception of the world.

I love the sense of history in France. Yeah, the French are subject to selective amnesia as much as the next nation, but coming from Southern California, chills ran down my spine the first time I stood at the edge of the medieval boundaries of Poitiers, looking across the plain in the twilight below and just faintly hearing the echoes of the Moorish armies that encamped there in 732, before Charles Martel drove them back toward the Pyrenees.

You don’t get that sort of thing on La Cienega Boulevard. Not usually, anyway. And certainly not without chemical enhancers involved.

Moreover—nobody knows how to throw a revolution like the French. Nobody.

Here is the range of France—the Arc de Triomphe:

(The real thing, commemorating real events that evoke deep passion in the people.)

And a road sign in Calvados (zoom in):

Vive la révolution!

 

 ©2026 Bas Bleu

Gratitude Monday: Safe from the storm

After a week of seeing the damage last Sunday’s microburst caused in my neighborhood of The People’s Republic, I’m deeply grateful to have escaped without a scratch, to either person or property.

They’re still clearing away fallen trees (although not at the old house surrounded by my cluster).

And I imagine dealing with insurance companies is just adding more pain to the initial wounds.

I recognize that it’s pure luck that has spared me—there are two very large, old trees in my back yard; either of them could have fallen or been split. But I am grateful that they didn’t.

I’m also grateful that I had the windscreen with the leaky seal replaced on my car several weeks ago. Before the multiple storms we’ve been having.

No swamp in the passenger footwell.

 

 

©2026 Bas Bleu