CALIFORNIA
A Monterey County resident found a clever — and creative — way to respond to a rarely enforced regulation, The San Francisco Chronicle reported. Etienne Constable, who’d parked his boat in his driveway for four years without any complaints, was ordered to install a fence concealing it from public view or else face a $100 fine. Seaside’s municipal code says that oversized vehicles, including boats parked in driveways, must be accompanied by a fence. So, like any good law-abiding citizen, Constable erected a 6-foot-high fence — but added a mischievous twist: He commissioned his neighbor, artist Hanif Panni, to paint a trompe l’oeil image of his vessel — the aptly named Might as Well — on it. The optical illusion has since attracted, well, boatloads of attention, and photos went viral after Panni posted them on Instagram and YouTube. The dauntless boatman assured KSBW that he wasn’t really “a rule-breaker,” he just enjoys making “a political statement as necessary, as well as a humorous statement and a creative statement.”
NEW MEXICO
Bernalillo County Fire and Rescue plans to transition to electric hybrid fire trucks, making it possibly the first county in New Mexico to use the more environmentally friendly vehicles. The new fire truck — a Pierce Volterra — comes with a $2.1 million dollar price tag and runs on an electric battery, though it has a diesel engine that kicks in when the battery is low. Fire and Rescue spokesman William Harris told the Albuquerque Journal that approximately 90% of the calls that Bernalillo County Fire and Rescue receives are for emergency medical services, not fires. But running the water pump requires considerably more power than regular EMS calls do, and switching to electric trucks is expected to save significantly on diesel fuel — 20,370 gallons of diesel fuel during the battery’s 10-year life expectancy, a savings of around $76,000 at today’s prices. Gilbert, Arizona, and various fire stations in Oregon, Colorado and Texas have already made the move to electric hybrid fire trucks — something to ponder as we stagger our sweaty way into what already looks like another very long and hot summer.
UTAH
One very lucky cat used up at least a few of its nine lives following a series of unusual mishaps. Like many a curious kitty, Galena, a 6-year-old American shorthair, enjoys playing with and hiding in cardboard boxes. This time, however, she jumped into an oversized Amazon returns box that was about to be shipped from Utah to California, KSLTV.com reported. Carrie Clark and her husband, worried sick, searched for days for their MIA feline friend until, on April 17, Clark received a text notifying her that Galena’s microchip had been scanned that afternoon. The text was immediately followed by a call from a veterinarian in California. The overjoyed couple pieced together what had happened and immediately booked reservations to fly to California to be reunited with their beloved pet. An Amazon employee named Brandy, who found the cat at the California warehouse inside a returns box “filled with steel-toed work boots” (a la Puss in Boots?), took care of her and got her to the veterinarian. Galena spent six days inside the box without food or water, but aside from some mild dehydration and weight loss, she was fine.
OREGON
If you’re strolling on the beach, better watch where you’re stepping: You might stumble onto something unexpected — like, say, Himantolophus sagamius, the exceedingly strange-looking fish that some beachcombers encountered at Cannon Beach, the Oregonian/OregonLive reported. The elusive deep-sea anglerfish, or Pacific footballfish, resides in the Pacific at depths of 2,000 to 3,300 feet, and this is believed to be the first specimen ever discovered in Oregon. The Seaside Aquarium said only 31 others have been recorded around the world. Aside from some very sharp-looking teeth, the creature is distinguished by the “luminescent bulb attached to its forehead,” which it uses to attract potential dinners. According to the Seaside Aquarium, “Only females actively hunt as the males are actually more like parasites,” perhaps because the males are 10 times smaller than the females and have to, um, “fuse” to them to survive, eventually losing their own eyes and internal organs. In return for receiving all his nutrients from his hostess, the fishy guy supplies her with a “dependable source of sperm” — not exactly the stuff of a Lifetime romantic movie, but hey, you do you, Himantolophus. “Let us not to the marriage of two fish admit impediments,” as Shakespeare most emphatically did not say.
Tips of Western oddities are appreciated and often shared in this column. Write heard@hcn.org, or submit a letter to the editor.
This article appeared in the July 2024 print edition of the magazine with the headline “Heard around the West.”
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