Saturday, November 22, 2008

Who You Soak with


There are numerous natural hot springs in this part of Colorado. A couple of days ago we thought we'd go to the naked hot springs in Ridgway, but when we got there it had just been drained and only refilled up to two feet, which just wasn't enough coverage!

So we went to the Ouray Natural Hot Springs Pool, a pay to swim public pool with giant hot springs outside as well. Bathing suits required. There were at least twenty people there, more women than men. You can't help but hear their conversations. A lonely holistic doctor would be in heaven there: score! Everyone was talking about surgery and health problems, everyone but us. One woman told her friend she'd thrown I Ching that morning and it told her to come to the hot springs! Wow, when did you last hear about I Ching?

Later in that same soak this woman managed to have her legs sticking straight up out of the water while she was sitting on the ledge still talking to her friend about health problems. Meanwhile she was a human pretzel.

With the canyon mountains surrounding the pool so abruptly, it felt like we were at a sanitarium in Switzerland, or a scene from Thomas Mann's "Magic Mountain", a book I could never get through.

There was one other person, a really scary guy, who appeared and disappeared in the water. He was huge, with stubbly blonde hair on a small head, tiny eyes. He didn't seem to have a keeper watching him, but he'd go underwater swimming, (and the temp is 100) and then blast suddenly out of the water making a growling sound and spitting. Misplaced human Orca.

Been getting some charming goofus emails from unknowns lately. One, from man dylan thomas starshine, said "you are my ideal prom date." Another, more poetic, "I've always been a fan of your style and the way your animations look like living lava lamps..."

Have a jolly Saturday!

7 comments:

Namowal (Jennifer Bourne) said...

Living lava lamps? That's a good one!
I've never been to any hot springs. Sound fun with the exception of the fat frog man. There's a rule of nature that says each public body of hot water, be it hotel spa or hot springs, must have at least one creepy slob to freak out everyone else.
I've heard of the I Ching before, but not recently!

Linda Davick said...

This is a wonderful character, wonderful colors.
(And funny story.)
Come on, tell us one little health problem. That's all we want, just one.

My I-Ching story: 12 years ago (?) I heard a guy on NPR talking about an interactive I-Ching DVD. I think it cost a fortune, but I was dying to try it because I had lots of questions. And interactive DVD's were new to me. I mail-ordered it, and when it came I asked it some pointed questions. But instead of saying: "Kill that person," or "Go ahead and move across the country," it would say: "Let it be. Sit with it. Do not take action," over and over. So I finally threw it in the trash.

Those are great emails! But maybe you should make sure starshine sees this so he can know what you're really like at the prom:
http://funonmars.blogspot.com/2007/05/prom-night-1967.html
(How do you make a link not look like a link in comments?)

Anonymous said...

I love this drawing! I love Linda's I Ching story!! Speaking of seeking answers: I thought it might be time to try counseling again after a long hiatus. I poured my heart out for an hour and was told to visualize doing what I want to do. I poured my heart out for three hours about career stuff and was told to get grounded, get on Link ed In, read WhatColo rIsYourPara chute, and notice where people are spending money. I might just open a kiosk in the front yard and dispense my own wisdom: Advice: 5 cents.

Anonymous said...

What a fun blog!
Being in a hot spring and talking I Ching. Sounds like HEAVEN!

Namowal (Jennifer Bourne) said...

By the way, I like your dog too. Is his name Argus (from the creek myth character that had eyes all over his body?)

Sally said...

The thing about the health talk was that everyone was complaining, no other subjects. It made me wonder if there was a "healing waters" subtitle to the place. Nothing wrong about complaining, just odd when everyone's on the same subject.

Linda, your I Ching story is hysterical.

To put a link in blogger comments, you just put the html tags: a href="where you want to go" followed by the /a tag, but if I put the full tag symbols in this comment you won't see them.

Adele, welcome to the nut house.

Stray g, do you know anyone who's gotten work through linkdin? Sounds as if you got a counselor with a bum parachute.

Anonymous said...

I like "Welcome to the Nut House" as a name for a blog; probably already taken. If anyone got work from Linkdin, nobody told me about it. I'll bet Linda could make a mean "Magic 8 Ball." Gosh, I just googled that and there's a Magic 8 Ball site that answers your questions:
http://web.ics.purdue.edu/~ssanty/cgi-bin/eightball.cgi