Village of of Lights

Inspired by Salvador Dali, I stitched these photos together, attempting to create a little more interest in ordinary subjects. In the case of Village Pizza and the old Corrales post office, messing with the frames was in order.

I thought of doing the photos on a sudden impulse, turned into the bank drive through and circled around through the parking lot. A Corrales cop car was parked at the top of the lot, which made me wonder if he, she or they were going to think I looked suspicious and stop me. Whichever sex cop, or possible cop sex was in the car, they were either preoccupied or asleep, because they let me be — not normal for Corrales police.

I walked across Corrales Road twice, taking my life in my hands, and weathered a number of skateboarders who swarmed out of the park by the Library on their way to Village Pizza. The skateboard park is a quarter mile south of the Library park, so I was a little confused as to why so many skateboarders were coming out of the park. Perhaps they were practicing their night moves in the band shell.

Like Salvador Dali, some things will aways remain a mystery.

Poinsettias and Ghosts

Our "Christmas tree" this year is a row of poinsettias. We normally decorate a house plant or one of our indoor bonsais, but with all the health issues we've dealt with this fall, neither of us have much more energy than to put out poinsettias and enjoy our Christmas cactus that is blooming this year.

The kitties like how we've placed the poinsettias. They hide behind them and ambush one another, play with the foil and bat at the leaves. They probably don't remember the little birds and tiny ornaments we've put on our house plants in the past. Like normal cats, they kept the birds and ornaments everywhere but on the plants.

Apparently our ghosts are having coffee tonight. Laurie and Stretch started smelling coffee a little earlier, but there was no obvious source. Stretch is the one who acts like he sees ghosts, although we've heard them from time to time. Tonight Stretch started smelling the air very intensely, jumped up on the table, still smelling the air, then stared wide-eyed at the counter by the sink. He is still watching something move back and forth in front of the stove. I can't see anything by the stove, and since my finer sense of smell is still wiped out from the chemo, I can't smell the coffee that Laurie and Stretch are smelling. I took a photo of the area that Stretch is watching, but didn't see any ghosts on the photo.

All the kitties have taken notice of the ghosts at one time or another, but Stretch is definitely the most sensitive, as he often watches them milling around when there is no one else in the room be me and him. I just got a slight whiff of coffee as Stretched perked up even more while keeping is eyes on the visitors. I suppose the ghosts are celebrating the holiday season, enjoying the poinsettias, coffee and possible our company as well. At least that's the best and most fun explanation we have so far for the odd cat behaviors, noises and smells.

Puck and Diné play in the poinsettias as Stretch tries to sneak by

Another Sunset at 75 MPH

The clouds broke up quickly, producing two very different skies taken only 15 minutes apart last Thursday. The sunset from I-25 is overcast and ominous, while the sunset form the parking lot shows off colorful, wispy clouds that are much more reassuring. 

Last night, the sun yawned and stretched, as dusk put it to bed, producing a wonderful array of colorful patterns in the radial and spoke shaped clouds that fanned out across the sky. Like an apparition, the colored sky slipped away silently into darkness as the sun sank towards vespers, bringing on the night.

The Unexpected

I walked into the men's room at Walmart this morning, did a double take, then walked back out to see if I had gone into the lady's room. The door had a sign that read "MEN" and on to the side of the door was an international symbol of a man, so I went back in. The new decor in the men's room was like the Spanish Inquisition — I didn't expect it!

That was just the start of encountering the unexpected today. I often tell myself I should never be surprised at anything while driving through Corrales and in Albuquerque, but traffic was actually moving on the Interstates this morning until we got to the Louisiana exit on our way to the 8th Air Force Historical Society luncheon; then we stopped, crawled, stopped and crawled slowly through four light cycles before we got in the heavy traffic on Louisiana. I guess people still go to the mall.

The entertainment at the Luncheon was the Dazzle Dolls — a group of four women who sing big band era songs for the elderly. I'm not terribly fond of music from the 30's, and since I passed on the wine, I was a little bored. The head of the Air force ROTC at UNM procured the untouched bottle of red wine on our table. The folks at his table had already gone through two bottles, and they were enjoying the show. Instead of drinking wine, I produced several photos that were in the running for the photo of the day, but Walmart won out. The Dazzle Dolls did a couple of tunes I liked, and they were having so much fun singing that I really enjoyed watching them enjoy themselves.

We encountered more traffic jams in unexpected stretches of road on the way home, and rolled into our driveway around 3:00 PM. Laurie was finishing preparing a stew for her dad's birthday, when she discovered the package of butternut squash we had bought from Costco was bad. It was five and our company were expected at six, so I attempted to make a mad dash to Sunflower to get fresh butternut squash. The dash got thwarted, but I still got mad, because a pickup with a trailer pulled out in front of me shortly after I got on Corrales Road, and drove 20 MPH all the way through Corrales — I finally got around him about 300 yards before I had to turn into Sunflower. 

I got the fresh squash home at 5:30, we prepared it and got it into the stew. Apparently, I had finally filled our quota of unexpected things for the day — our guests arrived shortly after six, and we had a wonderful evening.

Christmas Cactus & Drive By's

Our Christmas cactus is blooming, sporting interesting pinkish-red flowers with white accents. It really helps add to the Christmas spirit, especially against the cold, stark light of the frosty, December mornings that pierce the sunroom's window as the sun rises.

I got a couple of interesting drive by shots tonight. One of these days I'm going to have to put together a book of Drive By's featuring the various photos taken from my car while driving. It's always fun to see what I get by chance and how well-focused the photos will be. My camera doesn't have much trouble focusing on objects out either side window even at 75+ MPH, but it has a really hard time focusing on anything through the windshield that's moving directly towards it. I guess it can't fix the focus quickly enough, and gets confused trying to deal with objects moving towards it, gives up and doesn't focus; however, it can quickly focus on objects moving laterally. When set to intelligent auto mode, the camera can detect it's moving at high speed when it sees objects zipping by, and can adjust appropriately, even at night.

A Crazy Russian Manx

Pepik is a crazy Russian Manx. The wild look in his eyes and his unkempt whiskers leave little doubt about his heritage on both counts. He has a tail, but there is always a gradation of the length of tails in Manx litters, so having a tail makes them no less Manx than their tailless and nubbed brothers and sisters. What's funny about Pepik is that he's Tristan's cat. And Tristan doesn't much like manxes. It all started when she was still in the womb. We had a Manx named Kid (pronounced keed) who used to sleep on Laurie's stomach. When she was pregnant with Tristan, Kid was trying to sleep on Laurie's stomach and Tristan kicked her. Kid swatted back only to get kicked again. She hopped off Laurie's stomach in disgust and never slept on it again. Tristan and Kid never really got along with each other for the rest Kid's life (the cat lived to be 18).

Tristan didn't know Pepik was a Manx when she acquired him; but slowly his behavior manifested tell-tale signs of manxness. One of the triggers that lead to her epiphany that he's a Manx was when she had to have him speutered† because he was cryptorchid which is typical for manxes.  For all the disgust Tristan has shown about ending up with a Manx, Laurie and I think it's hilarious. Providence or fate? I wonder what Lady Philosophy would have to say about it?

†spayed and neutered at the same time.

Kid, when we first got her

Spike, Kid's tailed sister, with a typical crazed manx look

Hanging Leaves at Sunrise (and the perils of shopping)

Shopping at Costco is fraught with danger. When Laurie comes along we take double the time and spend twice the money as when I go alone.  For instance, I would have only bought one set of 4 RED poinsettias, because I thought the PINK ones looked anemic. Then there's the assorted gift sacks and designer tags that would NOT have registered in my male reptile brain. Laurie might see them later in one of the Costco flyers we get in the mail and say something like "They had those cute sacks and tags and you didn't notice?"

Then there's loading cases, flats and boxes of goods into the carts, muscling the carts around the warehouse, loading it all into the car, then unloading it and carrying it all into the house. I felt like a pack animal as I made nine round trips between the car and the house, totaling a little over a quarter mile, to get everything inside. Then there's reorganizing the shelves, refrigerators and freezers to make room for everything.

Laurie has the eight pink poinsettias lined up in front of the mirror, four on each side of a large, red amaryllis. These might just be our Christmas decorations this year, as neither of us have much energy to put up lights or decorate a bonsai.

Continuing with winter leaves, the photo of the day caught my eye early this morning while I was getting ready to leave the house. The second photo was taken one cold morning when I was leaving the bosque after checking out life in the predawn light.