These are random musings of my life journey, the people, animals, places, and events which have woven, and continue to weave, a tapestry that is me. We all know there is no real destination, only the ongoing experiences which blend together, creating the trail. Each step gives a glimpse of what is to come, without allowing me to see the end result. It is exciting. I have a home base that is mine, that gives me a place to rest. This is it. This is where my heart is, no matter where I journey...................
I was doing my garden putzing, and the dogs were barking off and on, as they usually do. But every now and then, Max would do some serious ruffing, you know, the kind that says, "Stranger alert! Get out of here, intruder!!" He was barking at my truck which was parked right below the deck. I figured the neighbor's cat sitting in the bed or something of the sort.
When I came up from the garden, I looked in the truck, and there was no cat or bird or raccoon or chipmunk to be seen. Whatever.
Then I looked down at the truck as I walked in the house, and I got it. Max was barking at himself!! He saw his own reflection in the window of the truck! This was roughly what he saw ....
See? This was his view! Well, except he saw himself, not me and Lola.
And here I am, barking at myself!!
I am so frequently amused and entertained by these guys. But now Max and I have to take a nap. We are worn out from our protective barking!!
Last night was the birthday dinner with a bunch of friends. We met at a steak house, one that I've really enjoyed since moving here. Eight of us at one table was probably a challenge for other diners, but we had such a great time, that I honestly didn't give it a thought once we were seated. Zoë was the birthday celebrant, and I won't say how old she is! We are all happily mature women!
Gertrude, Jennifer, Lynne
This is such a fun bunch of women. Some of them I see just once a year or so when we do dinner for some event, a birthday, Christmas, Thanksgiving, etc. But any time we are together, a good time will be had!
Dorothy, Zoë, Carolyn
Carolyn was too close to my camera and flash. She is fair, but not that much. Oh, and she's not scared either! She was actually talking to the waitress.
Carolyn, Lyn
See, she's pretty normal looking!
Can you tell we were having a good time? :)
After dinner, we shared desserts. Zoë was given a complimentary dessert, a rich chocolate cake, and we bought three others, then shared them around the table. We had bread pudding with whiskey sauce, a creamy pistachio thingy, and a Jack Daniels/caramel sundae. They were all excellent!
Linda, Gert
Linda became very attached to the pistachio one.
Turning loose of your favorite dessert could be painful, obviously!!
We tied up a table for the waitress for more than two hours, but she didn't seem to care. We had excellent service throughout, and she was amply rewarded with an extremely generous tip.
Much laughter, much chatter, much good times!!
Gosh, it was a great evening!
As I was driving there before the dinner I had a little sad experience. A darling little kitten ran into the highway. It was just a few weeks old! No, I didn't hit it, nor did anyone else, but I was so scared for the poor thing. You know me .... I stopped right in the highway and went after it! It got off the highway, so I pulled my truck off to the shoulder and resumed trying to catch the baby. I called it and talked to it, but it kept moving away from me. Unfortunately, it ran into the woods, mewing loudly, so I'm hoping the mother found it. For a few minutes, I thought I was going to have a cat at my house, planned or not. Caroline, it looked a lot like Echo and Anna, black with a few white markings on the face and chest. :'( I really hope it is OK. As I drove home last night, I drove very slowly in that area and looked for it. At least I saw no carcass beside or on the road, so I have hope.
This morning feels like a lazy day for me. I might go out and putz about in the garden a little, but I don't plan on doing much that requires sweat. (I say that now, but when I get to the garden .....) I'm thinking I'll take a fairly easy day, and just relax. Next week is going to be a busy one. I'm going to be helping with the art tour, as I mentioned a few days ago, and I somehow have upped the busy-ness ratio. I learned last night that Lynne, who usually helps Zoë at these events, is going to be out of town, so I volunteered to help her on Saturday and Gert is going to help on Sunday. And on Sunday, Dorothy and I are going to make the trip around the tour ourselves. Thursday night is the reception, and I'll be greeting people, serving, whatever at that, and I'll be there early in the afternoon to help set up and figure out what's what. Oh, I guess I'd better fill up Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday quickly! What a horrible gaping hole that is!! LOL!
Gonna be busy today. I'm having lunch with some friends so we can plan some little trips. We began talking at the last potluck, and the idea just sorta popped. We talked about a number of places we would like to visit around the State and in nearby states. One friend is my neighbor who has a small RV that can sleep up to six, although we recognize that four is probably enough for any given time because sleeping six and having room for six when we are up and moving around are two very different things!
We are from our 50s to 70s. We are planning fairly short trips to places that are a pretty easy drives and will probably spend just 1-3 days at a site and return home. It was interesting when we talked before that we have so many common interests, places that we haven't visited or visited many years ago: Carlsbad Caverns, Chaco Canyon, Bandelier National Park, Mesa Verde (CO), The Four Corners area, Grand Canyon and Petrified Forest (AZ), The Gila Wilderness, etc.
Today we hope to get down to some more serious plans, actually settling on some locations and schedules established. I'm very excited! I think it will be a lot of fun!
This evening I'm going to a meeting with artist friends. It is the final planning meeting before a big event next week. There is an artists studio tour next weekend, and the kick-off event is a pre-tour glimpse at the local fine arts theater. Artists will display one or two items at the event, and the community can come to get a peek while having noshes and sips. I'm going to be helping with the noshes and sips, although I don't know exactly what I'll be doing. I'll probably be setting up tables with the food or something of the sort. I know that volunteers sometimes even pass trays of food in the crowd. I 'spect I'll find out tonight what I'll be doing. Well, if they are organized, and if not, I'll find out next week when I show up! Whatever!
Tomorrow will be a slower day, but I'm ending the day with a fun event, too. My friend Zoë is celebrating a birthday, and 7-8 of us are taking her out to dinner. I'm looking forward to it. It's basically the group I've had Thanksgiving and Christmas dinner with the past couple years, as well as a couple other birthdays through the year, and we always have lots of fun together. It will be a good time, for sure.
It looks like we will have rain again today. The clouds have overcast the sky in the last hour or so, and I think I heard a slight rumble a few minutes ago. Jaz is snoozing, so perhaps it was something else. The sun periodically peeks out so who knows. I hope it doesn't rain a lot. The Rio Ruidoso is already running too full. It is nowhere near me (in fact, no river is close to me), but it is a bad sign when the rivers begin to be that full. The forecast is for heavy rains, flash flooding expected, today and tomorrow. I'll probably stick to the house tomorrow except for the dinner.
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On a different note, and a big change of topic, I'm wondering where everyone is???? Caroline mentioned this recently, too. I'm having visitors, but usually few comments. Occasionally, I have a bunch of comments on a post that seems to touch people, but otherwise it seems very slow. I know with summer's end coming into view, we are all busy and preoccupied with stuffing things into these last days before we return to the school-year schedules. When I look at my trackers, I see that I'm still having quite a few people stopping by, but not many of you are leaving comments. I understand. There are lots of times when I read someone's blog and the topic doesn't grab me or inspire a witty comment. However, I enjoy hearing from you when you stop by, so occasionally would you leave me a note, even if it's just "Hi!"?? I admit to needing to have my ego stroked!
And that being said, I need to get my booty in gear and get a few things done and then get ready for the lunch. I'll be seein' ya!!
I really am!! I lost one of my babies for about 6-7 hours and didn't even know it!!
Apparently when I fed the birds and cleaned their water this morning, one of them got out. They always flip and flop around the cage in a dither when I stick my hands in the cage, and I thought nothing of it. After I finished, I sat down on the couch a few feet from them to have my coffee. I noticed they were all singing and chirping, and I thought they must be happy to have fresh water and food or they were hearing and calling to the birds outside. Off and on today, they have continued to do that, but I just didn't pay attention.
Then at about 3:00 I walked to the table to put finishing touches on a birthday card I made for a friend, and as I got close, I saw a wee little finch sitting on my "green" shopping bags, folded after a trip to the market yesterday. I got the net and walked back, expecting to have to chase him all over the house, but he stayed put as I slowly moved the net close the just gently laid it over him.
The other birds were beside themselves when I put him back in the cage! They all scooted up next to him on one of the perches and everyone chattered about his big adventure!
After all this, I remembered that Max had been hanging out around the table off and on all day. Several times he was under the table, others he was just sitting looking at it. I wondered what what his problem, and now I know!!
So the baby birdies are all back together and happy! I offer proof!!
I hadn't used it because there had been rain every day. Then this morning I realized that it didn't rain yesterday or last night, so I wheeled it to the back yard and plugged it it. It is so nice!
I'm not sure it has as strong a motor as the gas powered one, but it cuts just great, nevertheless. It took me a little longer than I anticipated to cut the yard, but that could have been because the grass was longer than usual, too.
At any rate, I'm thrilled to have a mower that I pull a lever (and it can be pulled with one finger!!!) and it starts right up! No more nearly dislocating my shoulder trying to get the thing started! And gawd-forbid I have to stop to move a rock or relocate the hose with the gas one, cause I have to start it again. This one is a cinch to use. I almost can't wait till I get to mow again!
It is getting ready to rain again. Big thunderclouds are covering most of the sky and they are rumbling loudly and regularly. The temperature had fallen about 5° in the last half hour, and the wind is up. It isn't really bad, but it is adding to the cool-down. Aaaaaand, there was just a huge crack of thunder!! I'm now typing around Jazi!! And the rain has started.
It's pouring, and we are under a flash flood warning for the next couple hours. I had planned to stay home today, and I'm glad I did. I got a few things done outside besides the mowing this morning when it was still cool and dry, now I can stay in and do nothing and not feel guilty! LOL! Not that I would, anyway.
I'm changing the dogs diets. I posted about it a while back. I got some advice from Deb about homemade dog food. I tried it, and they are crazy about it. I'm mixing some of it with some kibble for them, in part to ease their systems into the new food, and in part because I have 70 lbs. of quality kibble here!! The nice thing is that when I start preparing their breakfast or dinner, I have five sets of eyes watching me closely, and when I put the dishes on the dinner mats, they eat it, all of it, and right now! No more worrying whether everyone got their share and trying to meet their eating schedules. (Some want to eat 1X a day, others 2X, others "graze," some overeat, and others get left out, etc.) Feeding them takes place morning and evening, everyone gets the amount they need, and that's that! I'm loving it! I'm even thinking I'm seeing a bit of waistline on Sam and Lola, and Max might be able to bulk up a bit!
I need to go into Rui soon for several errands. Most importantly, I have three things that I need to drop off to be framed. One is a delightful painting I brought back from Jim's. It appears to be Mexican, and Connie, my daughter-in-law confirmed my thought when she was here, that it might be from Oaxaca where she is from. It is very folksy and bright colored, depicting a festival. I fell in love with it and told Jim he couldn't put it in the garage sale. I brought it back.
The other two are wonderful pencil sketches of churches/missions here in New Mexico. They were done by a friend, Newbern Taylor. I actually had three, but I gave one to Connie when they were here. She fell in love with one, and since Newbie isn't available for a while to do another for her, I gave her the one she liked best. I figure I can get a replacement or a different one when he has time.
To be honest, I don't like everything Newbie does. He tends to do a lot of things that border on psychedelic, and yes, he admits to having dropped his share of acid in the day! He's my age, and we were young adults in the day of hippies, and dear Newbie never outgrew that!
Actually he spent many years doing graphic art for some major wall Street giants, McDonalds, auto manufacturers, and even Kate and Ashely for their clothing lines. He has an amazing resumé. He's a fantastic artist, but there is a line of his that is just simply weird and the canvases are so busy that I don't care for them, despite being able to see his amazing talent in the ones I don't care to bring home. There isn't much he can't do in depicting anything you challenge him to do.
OK, the rain is past, or at least that round is, and Jaz has relaxed. I'm going to get up and do something constructive around the house. I know, I know, I said I was going to do nothing, but I don't do that well for long. I can get some useful things done around here, and while Jaz in in control, I think that's just what I'll do.
Wow, it's Monday! I think the greatest part of the rain is over, although it is still overcast and rain remains in the forecast. It's chilly! At 9:00 AM, the temp is just 59°! Inside my house is 65°, and it is just on the border of comfortable. It's too warm for a sweatshirt, but I'm a little uncomfortable without it. So I'm wearing sweatpants, a t-shirt, and the sweatshirt is over my shoulders and back. I'm tellin' ya, it doesn't seem like it is almost August! Brrr!
I'm really enjoying my coffee this morning. It's always just that much better when the air is cool, isn't it? I'm often on the deck with the coffee earlier than this, but I'm having it inside today. I'll be out later today, and I'll be glad it is nice and cool. But for the moment, I'm wallowing in the unusual chill!
I was planning to go to a art fair and street dance in Carrizozo on Saturday night, but the rain was falling in torrents at my house. Zozo is on the other side of the mountain, on the desert floor, so there was a chance that it wasn't raining like that there, but I decided to pass. First of all, I didn't want to get out in the downpour (I would have been drenched before I could get in the truck); it was not thundering, but I hesitated about Jazi and Joey being alone if it did; I didn't want to drive the 20 miles to find it was a rainout at the street fair. Linda and Pearl were there at 5:00 and said it wasn't raining, but I still elected to stay home. I talked with Pearl Sunday morning and learned it began raining later, although not as hard as here, but enough to end the fair and dance before the 9:00 scheduled time. I frankly enjoyed lying on the couch with my Kindle and the pups.
Again yesterday I was intending to go to an art show in Ruidoso, but I was just purely too lazy to go. It's OK. It was another good, drizzly, overcast day to just hang out with The Kids. I watched several movies and read all day long. It rained off and on, never very hard, so some of the time I sat on the deck and enjoyed the misty kind of weather and the hummingbirds at the feeders.
Friday my new lawn mower was delivered. I ordered an all electric after considering the gas-powered, electric ignition type. I decided that I might as well just do away with the gas part altogether, making it as easy as possible for myself. My grass patch is just around 800 square feet, so the machine isn't going to take a huge beating. Of course, I can't mow now! It is entirely too wet! It may be another week or more before the patch is dried out enough to mow. We'll see how it goes. I assembled it (there was very little assembly, only the handle and the grass catcher) and plugged it in on the deck. I LOVE that I merely pull a handle, even with just one finger, and it starts! Love it, love it, love it!!!
Alright, I guess I should do something constructive. I have no idea what, as it is too muddy to do something outside, and who wants to do housework??? But my choices are limited to I'm guessing a little self-discipline is in order. sighh. Being a grown-up isn't always fun. See y'all later!
Another WARNING! Bu..., er, bucket load of pictures ahead, but not as many as with the petroglyphs.
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It's all about weather. And we have had some weather here in the last few days!
After my kids (the real ones, Scott, Connie & Kylee) left here on Friday, I putzed around for a while, then I drove into Capitan for an event. The owner of the gallery where I used to work was receiving an award as the Citizen of the Year, and a reception was taking place.
As I drove from my house, I watched the sky and the storm clouds. It was all magnificent!
Here are some pictures of what I saw as I drove ....
I saw this little piece of a rainbow along the way.
The cloud shadows against the mountains were so interesting.
When I was near Capitan, I spotted a downpour on the northern horizon. Actually not on the horizon, as it was just a mile or two from me, but what a sight!
My thought was, "Think it'll rain?" LOL!!!
Don't look at the houses. They are blurry and will make you dizzy, even though you're sitting still. But look at the intensity of the rain! You can barely make out the mountains on each side of the photo.
The reception was nice. I got to visit with a lot of friends, some of whom I haven't had seen in a while. Much fun! There were some nice snacks, enough to serve as dinner. It was a good mix of sandwiches, fruit and vegetables.
The weather changed greatly while I was there. That downpour moved over Capitan and turned into an onslaught of water from the heavens! It rained so hard that you couldn't see my truck, which was parked right outside the window! You could see blue, not not the truck. It rained like that for nearly an hour, and then finally stopped when the streets were all full of water. Getting into my truck was a horrible challenge, as there was a puddle as wide as I could step right beside it.
As I drove home, the weather changes were evident. Everything was soaked. The dark thunderheads were lightening to grey, and the setting sun was behind them.
There were spots so brilliant with the sun shining on clouds, I could barely look at them.
And look at the blue shadow across the sky, cast by the sun behind the mountain. I've never seen this kind of effect before.
I stopped at one of my favorite photo spots to catch the windmill in the cloudy sunset.
This is my mountain, totally lost behind a heavy, heavy cloud. My house is actually just below the line. I had no difficulty getting home, and then it started raining again not long after I was home.
Saturday morning I drove to the post office to mail Scott's shaving bag. After they brushed their teeth, they failed to pick up the bag, so I shipped it to Albuquerque. As I made the short drive I noticed how green Nogal Peak is. Oh, my goodness, this is beautiful. The grassy parts (I think you can tell the difference between the tree bearing areas and the grassy ones) are often brown. It is approaching the elevation where nothing grows well, so unless there is a great deal of rain, it remains dusty brown. This year we are so full of rain that the whole mountain is cloaked in a beautiful green cover. This is my home. I love it.
WARNING! WARNING! WARNING!!! THERE IS A PICTURE OVERLOAD AHEAD!!!
Lot's of petroglyph pix, and you might not want to see them all. I understand that, so feel free to skim through at your desired pace. And don't forget you can click on the photos to see them large. Many of them are so detailed and amazing that seeing them full sized would be worth it. I found so many of them interesting that I had trouble narrowing it to THESE!!
Very important .... don't miss the rest of the story after the long line of pix.
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Thursday was a big day. We even got up early for this day!
We had breakfast and packed a lunch. Allan was planning to go with us, but called saying he was going to stay home. He has battled an eye infection off and on for quite a while, and it flared up. He wanted to just stay home and rest. So we left without him, driving about 45-50 miles from my house to Three Rivers Pertoglyph National Recreational Park. This was the final piece of my selected theme of petroglyphs for their visit here.
We arrived at the site around 10:00 and began the hike/walk up the hill. It is about a mile round trip, and most of it is more of a walk than a hike, but some parts take more energy than others. It was beautiful day, lightly overcast which kept it cooler for a while. When the sun came out, it became hotter than stink! But for the first half or so of our adventure, it was nice.
There are over 20,000 petroglyphs in this area. 20,000!!! These people had a lot to say, or too much time on their hands!
This is when we reached on of the high spots on the climb. Scott wore his Aussie hat, Connie borrowed one of mine, and Kylee declined wearing one. She later regretted it when the sun came out.
As you see we often got off the trails to look at petroglyphs on rocks away from easy range of the eye. We had to keep our eyes open for rattlesnakes, too. They are prevalent in this area. And no, we didn't see any.
The scenery was gorgeous. We could take in a set of petroglyphs and see the desert and mountains in the background, too. It was wonderful.
Even the rocks were gorgeous, most of them black on the outside (I presume from heat of the lava flows), and very colorful inside.
Scott was clamoring around on the rocks, finding some of those outlying designs.
And Kylee was beginning to be hot and uncomfortable by this time, so she took a seat on the rocks for a few minutes.
Here is a short little video of the vista, 34 seconds long. I took this not long before I turned around. What .... a.... view!!!! And Scott's comments crack me up. He didn't know I was shooting a video!
I became really hot shortly before we reached the end of the trail, so Kylee and I turned around and returned to the car. Scott and Connie continued on to one more marked spot and enjoyed a vista from the highest point of the climb. Sorry to have missed it, but I wasn't going to take that big of a risk.
At the car, Kylee and I stuffed ice chunks into our water bottles and added more water. I also rubbed ice around on my neck, chest and back. There was a nice breeze and we had shade in the picnic shelter, so we sat and visited, snacked on some chips (I was craving salt, so I'm sure I sweated it out) and drank our water. Oh, yeah, and we people watched. That's one of my favorite things to do!
When Scott and Connie returned less than 1/2 hour later, we had our lunch and relaxed for a while before starting home. We watched the rain over the mountains (my mountains, as well as the ones on the other side, AND to the north and south!), the lightning hitting the mountain tops, and I wondered how Jazi was doing at home. We drove home, and took cool showers to clean up and cool off. It was nice to get home, but the day was excellent.
Allan came over for dinner when we got home. Connie blessed us with molé!! She made salsa every night while here, too, an avocado salsa for most of us, and a very hot chili salsa for Scott. I don't know where that kid gets his taste for that, cause he can eat it hotter than you can imagine!
I always love it when my boys get together. They can just start talking as if they saw each other yesterday!
After dinner we sat at the table and visited while sipping on a Brazilian drink of red wine and Fanta orange. It's sorta like sangria, very light and refreshing. I would not have thought of mixing those, but it was gooood!
Then I caught pictures of ...... Kylee ....
Connie ....
and Allan ....
.... as they listened to Scott tell a story. I couldn't get a good picture of him because he didn't quit talking!!! Of course, if you know my son, this is no surprise. He's a chatterbox!
We stayed up way, way too late, of course, and had much fun catching up.
Friday we slept in a little. I didn't wake till nearly eight, and since everyone else was asleep, I just watched the morning news in bed, cuddling with the pups. We were all up by around 9:00 and climbed into the truck to go to Capitan. We visited Linda at her shop, then went to the gallery where I used to work so Connie could see the muerto de dios (day of the dead) exhibit. The gallery director keeps it year round, because she loves it. Allan met us there, and we drove into Rui for lunch. I wanted to take them to the best dessert place ever, Créme de la Cream, and we kept running out of time to go there, so we "started with dessert"!! Of course, after one of their desserts, lunch is over, anyway! They are SO rich and SO good!!
Connie had the dark chocolate layer cake. Yummmm.
Allan and Scott both had the crème brulée. Double yummm.
And no, I didn't have the crème brulée. I'll wait a moment while you re-read that and get your breath back. You OK now? Alright.
I had the Sierra Blanca Mousse cake. Why it has "cake" in the title, I don't know. It is a thick chocolate mold with chocolate mousse in the middle. Double, triple, quadruple yummmmmmmmm!
Lawdy mercy, it was to die for!!
What surprised us all, is that Kylee opted to pass on the dessert. Yes, this soon-to-be-14-year-old had nothing but a bite of her mom's cake and a glass of water!
Connie and Allen clowned around for the camera.
And Scott? When he saw the camera, he became quiet so I could have a closed-mouth picture! Isn't that a good son? Yep!
After lunch, a very long and chatty lunch, we returned to the house. Their car was packed and ready to go. They brushed teeth and rested just a short while as we talked. You know how it is .... you're still talking as the car drives away! They left around 3:00 or 3:30. They will be spending a few days now with Scott's dad and stepmom in Albuquerque, do some sight seeing up north near Scott's birthplace and my hometown, Farmington, and then fly home.
What a good visit we had. You know it is never long enough, but it was so nice to have them here. Now, it is rather nice to be home alone. I miss them. A lot. But I'm enjoying getting the house back to normal, and having a day of laundry and relaxation. I'm watching insipid movies on TV between blogging and loads of laundry.
I went out last night, and might again tonight, depending on weather. It has been raining off and on all day and is supposed to keep doing that for a couple days. Tomorrow I'm planning to go to the Ruidoso Art Show. I'll come back and give you some fill in on those things later, probably tomorrow. I think you've had enough for today. I know I have!! LOL!
