******* Tuesday

In certain circles, there is a phenomenon known as "Suicide Tuesday." Suicide Tuesday has to do with Saturday night. You see, the joy of Saturday night can keep you going through Sunday and Monday...but when Tuesday hits, you realize that you are no longer "walking on slippery bowling balls" in one of the planet's most spectacular natural cathedrals. So you conveniently "forget" to write a blog post, hoping instead that your loyal readers will understand your irrational attachment to rocks and green things.

I still have things to say that I'm not saying, as our time potentially runs out, but the weather on this particular Suicide Tuesday helps me come closer than I have been able to in the recent past.

The time comes when the fodder is delivered from the Universe, and Selene and Yishay and Mr. Boldt post these photos on their facebook walls. (They ripped these photos off from local news sites.)

For sure the second photo is UNLV (pronounced "un-love").
I am grateful that I didn't have it anywhere near that bad. I don't understand this. I distinctly remember two resplendent days of constant rain that didn't leave the roads in this kind of shape. My theory is that the previous rain was inadequately absorbed into the desert pavement and the drainage systems suffered an unfortunate overload.

Bless James Wesley Rawles for putting an index in the back of his nonfiction book. Curse James Wesley Rawles for not including an entry on "floods" or "flooding" in said index. Curse the author of The Zombie Combat Manual for not including an index OR any info on flooding. Curse the Doomsday Dashboard (and the twitter feed that inspires it) for not even reflecting the remote possibility of flood.

So, tonight's glimpse into the earthly afterworld comes to us from author Erik Larson. He is describing the last days of Isaac Monroe Cline.

"He retired in 1935," Larson reports, "at the bureau's request, and opened a small art shop on Peter Street in New Orleans. He never remarried. He mourned the passing of slower days before cars and aircraft, but he filled his time to the maximum. He filled it with burnt umber and cerulean blue, linseed oil and turpentine, and the cold caress of ancient bronze."

Before I leave you with Isaac's own words, allow me to post a third image that came out of UNLV today.
Sure, it *may* be photoshopped. But still.

Now, reported speech from Isaac Cline:

"'Time lost can never be recovered,' he said, 'and this should be written in flaming letters everywhere.'"