Sidetracked Charley

Blue moons are either the second full moon in a calendar month or, as Farmer's Almanac defines it, an extra full moon in a season. Historically this extra full moon was called a betrayer moo n because it could set off the timing of Lent and ergo Easter. And it betrays the naming of the twelve moons because suddenly there is this extra one but my calendar for 2009 calls this the Full Long Nights Moon . And the next full moon - Sun Has Not Strength to Thaw Moon - will be January 30th. There is no heavy astrological significance of a blue or betrayer moon other than the usual "lunacy" that occurs around a full moon. My sister, who is a nurse, is not fond of full moons because of the havoc they create in emergency wards. There has been some recent research which says this long held belief is myth but ask any police officer or hospital employee. To add a full moon, blue or otherwise, to New Year's Eve does not bode well. Can you imagine what a full Moon will do to alr...

I guess you could say this was a wonderful Christmas for me. First spending the day with friends and playing in her jewelry studio and then yesterday, Boxing Day, an unexpected invitation to go to Taos and see the new Sherlock Holmes movie. I am a long time fan of Sherlock Holmes. I even have read the collections of stories put out. And the BBC has done a very "faithful" job of putting them to film. Nor can one fault the acting. But less face it girls, Robert Downey Jr. and Jude Law are a lot better to look at for nearly three hours. And I love Robert Downey Jr. and Judd Law. So naturally I just had to see it though to be entirely frank I had my reservations. I generally am not fond of re-do's of movies or shows I was already fond of. But even if it didn't measure up I would get to look at Downey and Law for three hours. How can you go wrong? And as it turned out I loved it. Apologies to Sir Conan Doyle but I never quite understood why Watson put up with Holm...

I was talking with a friend yesterday about the winter solstice. She quoted the ABC weatherman at the local channel saying that the day before had been the last day of autumn and the 21st the transition to winter. That would make today the first full day of winter. Something in me just rejected all that. Think back to your weather on the 20th if you live in the northern hemisphere. Did it seem at all like autumn to you? I told her I really believed that winter solstice was more like the middle of winter. Or at least approaching that point rapidly. With freezes in September slowing plant growth and snows coming in October I find it really hard to believe fall continues to December 20th. So I did what I usually do when challenging information I have received - I Googled. And wound up on Wiki as per usual. While it seems it is a cultural difference as to what solstice is called there is much historical basis for Midwinter over first day of winter. The Celts believed winter began No...

There is a short story featuring Sherlock Holmes titled "Silver Blaze" which has become known for the dog that didn't bark in the night. Gregory ( Scotland Yard detective): "Is there any other point to which you would wish to draw my attention?" Holmes: "To the curious incident of the dog in the night-time." Gregory: "The dog did nothing in the night-time." Holmes: "That was the curious incident." This scene was the inspiration for the title of the 2003 book   The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time by Mark Haddon .) All which is beside the point because my dogs did bark in the night-time last night. Well, very early this morning. If you are an owner of a canine fur kid you do know they have different barks (well, unless it is one of those foofoo tiny things that are merely pretenders to the throne of dog) for different occasions. And living in the country as I do I have discerned the difference between their bark ...

No, not ten more shopping days til Christmas. Ten more waiting days until after Christmas sales. A trip to Santa Fe last year after Christmas netted me some great bargains on holiday ornaments, etc. This year I am going to try to score myself an LCD TV screen and/or a new DeWalt battery powered drill. Pre-holiday prices are looking good but early reports are that sales are down some 50% from last year and we know how bad a Christmas shopping season that was. Besides I am entirely too busy to do anything before Christmas. And my sister is working through Christmas anyway. And because of the wonderful planning of the state and when I bought my van a few years ago practically everything is due in December from van insurance and registration to property taxes and insurance. Who thought that up in state government? The good news is all of that is paid. The bad news is it doesn't feel a lot like Christmas. Even the long range forecast is looking dismal for a white Christmas and I l...

I used to be a Franklin-Covey Day Planner person. A subscriber to 7 Basic Habits for Highly Effective People. I carried the day planner into my life after corporate America. Every year about this time I would be buying the yearly fillers for my book. And on particularly nice years a new binder that said success. Then I tried Palm Pilot. And calendars on line. I came to the conclusion I am a paper person. I have to write (not key) things down. So in 2008 due to finances I went with the engagement calendar instead of the Day Planner. The fact that I chose the Old Farmer's Almanac Engagement Calendar says a great deal about my life these days. It lays flat on my computer desk - generally right in front of the screen - and it includes all sorts of little wives' tales trivia, tips and quotes, as well as the phases of the moon. It allows two inches for each day for notes. I clearly no longer have a life style that requires two pages for each day. Nor does it need to be broken do...

Shades of Little House on the Prairie First let me say I was rather disappointed to discover that Little House on the Prairie was written about the Dakotas. I always thought it was Kansas. But the fact I had been marooned with my parents in a blizzard in Kansas while going home to Kansas City, Missouri for Christmas may have tainted my memory. Second let me mention that I am not a snow hater. I just love it more when it falls straight to the ground and stays there until it melts. I prefer it when it melts within a couple of days. Third, this is not our first snow of the "winter season." We even had a rather serious 7 inches early on. This does seem, however, to be the first one the weather prognosticators have gotten right. Damn! I have been spending my physic energy to turn it south. That part of the state is having a drought of some length and they would really love this. I even tried to get it to Phoenix. They want to steal all the water out of the Colorado River so...

First let me say this is not a picture of me, my cat or my swood burning stove. I do have a huge old iron wood burning stove. And mornings are likely to find me stoking up the remaining embers to take the chill off the room. And it is also highly likely that my cats will be close. So will the dogs. On chilly mornings and evenings the whole fur kid population and me are likely to be close to my formed iron stove. Last winter's electric bill for heating my modest home, coupled with the increased attention to global warming has made me look long and hard at our habits in winter. Why, for instance, do people want to warm their entire house to hotter than then cool it off to in the summer? And central heat is so wasteful. I remember when my father installed central heat in our house on Bellamah Avenue. There were no longer those radiators we could stand in front of to get dressed on chilly mornings. And there was this constant breeze blowing through vents. My current abode has base...

I was sure that December was the coldest month. It is the darkest because of the Winter Solstice falling this year on the morning of December 21st. But when I went to Google and confirm my facts before posting I found the following information: January is the coldest month... Because water retains heat. Between 70 percent and 75 percent of the Earth's surface is covered in oceans, rivers, and lakes. (There's even more water vaporized in the air or stored in the ground.) During seasons of longer days and more sunlight, these geographical features are able to store up and retain heat over long periods of time, before emitting it as the days get shorter. A body of water is far more effective as a space heater than, say, a big field of rocks: The water holds on to five times as much heat per gram . Since I have lived in the mountains of northern New Mexico my feelings run counter to this information. In my memory we often get about ten days every January where night temperature...

It is quite difficult to stay on track through guests, holiday events, and all the cooking and shopping that entails. And as I discovered yesterday after the last house guest had departed it is near impossible to get immediately back on track even when the guest in question cleans up after herself expertly. And helps you with things like unloading the van from the fair. I had set the goal of re-hanging all my paintings sitting in boxes in the studio and getting most of the decorating done on the fresh cut tree. I got two paintings hung and most of the decorations on before collapsing before the television and wasting the afternoon watching DVD's and making trips to the kitchen for left-overs to munch on. I could blame the fatigue on fibro which probably had something to do with it. But basically it was a rebellion over a week of "have-to-do's." I really did not want to do anything regardless of energy level. So I enjoyed doing nothing much yesterday, but that st...

I had to go to Taos yesterday for an appointment with my legal aid attorneys and one of my witnesses in my defense against the contractor-from-hell. My witness is giving a deposition this afternoon. Needless to say I was not looking forward to the whole ordeal and so taking a tip from my father, who always combined our doctor visits with trips to toy stores, I decided to treat myself to working out at the gym and then a visit to my favorite kitchen store: Monet's Kitchen. My excuse was that I needed a harp and a mandolin. No, not musical instruments. A harp is a more intelligent hand potato peeler and a mandolin slices and juliennes. According to the chef that instructed us at the Taos School of Cooking last week both are indispensable in the kitchen. Monet's Kitchen is in the little Bent Street area of Taos with all the cute stores. It is were Moby Dicken's Book Store is. And my favorite yarn shop. I needed some #6 double pointed needles for a knitting project. So ...

I know how to cook. I learned from my mother who was a very respectable basic cook firmly rooted in the dishes she knew her family would eat and who every once in a while dared to inject something new. She taught me what a pinch was, and taste before you season, how to read a recipe book, and substitutions. College taught me books. I have always maintained school is not about memorization (teach for the test) but on learning how to continue to learn; ergo books. So graduating from my mother's kitchen I sought out cookbooks she didn't own; had no need to own. And I helped my friends in the kitchen when invited for dinner. Then there was eating out and guessing the ingredients and coming home and trying to duplicate that recipe. At a time between "serious jobs" I even worked as an apprentice chef in a small French/Italian restaurant with a great repetition. I was hired on the basis of my French Onion Soup. I make a devine French Onion Soup. But I don't cook wi...

Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal . Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation, so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battle-field of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this. But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate...we can not consecrate...we can not hallow this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have...

Unnamed Arch in the Maze area of Canyonlands, Utah Life becomes just so much keeping on keeping on unless you have a dream to move toward. Long range goals and dreams that are rather nebulous because of their distance from your point in time are, of course, necessary but they too often fade from our focus. And short term plans like the fair I have at the end of the month are about the same as making payments on all your bills; more of just putting one foot in front of another. It is the middle range dream that is the most fun. My sister and I have engaged in the infamous Thelma and Louise Road trip three times before and found we had almost as much fun researching, plotting, planning, and equipping as we did finally setting out. We had not ventured out on a grand road trip since our 2006 adventure on Lake Powell. The minute we got into cell phone range after eight days in a technological black hole she received the call from Alan, her husband in Texas, that he had a job interview...

Happy Halloween everyone. I bought a pumpkin a few days ago and my intent was to carve it on All Hallows Eve - yesterday. But that did not get done. I was cleaning up the studio before making a mess again with the pumpkin and got sidetracked into preparing two platforms for two new paintings. I got out of Dodge over last weekend and came back to cold and extremely cold temperatures. It has been nice to be in the livingroom of my house not far from the woodstove. Yesterday the sun came out which warms the studio due to its passive solar design and ultimately the rest of my house. So it was comfortable to work in the studio. And the view was not reminding me of just how cold it was outside. How cold was it? Well, yesterday morning when I walked the fur kids the recorded temperature was 13F but there was a bitter wind which went right through my old winter coat. That is toast. I figured I might have to buy a new one and was debating Sierra Trading on line or the local thrift store w...

Firewood half stacked My father used to tell tales of the blizzards of his childhood in Kansas City. Like all young children I rolled my eyes sure this was a lot like the fish that got away which continued to grow upon every telling. As an adult living in the intermountain west and spending 20 years of that time as a ski instructor I have been trapped by avalanches and snowed into mountain resorts and snow blinded on the trail heading to the lodge. But all those were transient events compared to the Blizzard of '06/'07 and the winter that followed. It started snowing I believe on the 29th of December. I went out and gathered up firewood from the unstacked pile just delivered. It had been a mild winter to that point and I was sure the wood I had would suffice but had gotten extra at the last minute. Snow storms in New Mexico seldom hang around but this one did. It was still snowing on New Year's Day. By then we had 6 feet of what skiers call Champagne powder if the wind...

We are currently enjoying some fantastic Indian Summer weather. So while I would love to be in the studio painting today I need to stop ignoring the snow fencing that needs restretched. And as tomorrow is Sunday I need to get to the hardware store today and lay in supplies for fencing and for framing of the pictures I have finished. And as Halloween is just around the corner I need to pick up a pumpkin and then decide if I am going to carve one. I also want to make a new birdfeeding station for the winter - one that is visible from my studio windows. Actually considering placing it right under the studio window in front. Yes, within cat range but what isn't. So these last nice days before winter settles in are divided between chores that must be done and those that would be nice to do. I should be totally focusing on the must get dones but my inner brat wants to do what it wants to do. Frankly I would like to go visiting a local ghost town or two. Yesterday, while visiting a h...

The opening photo may lead you to believe this post really belongs in my Creative Journey blog but what I am discussing today is not the technique illustrated above but that I forgot about it. It went missing from my mind. One of my artistic transitions was from pen and ink with one color to water coloring in full color. And when I made that move it was because of a book on Chinese watercolor that told of how they often laid out the tones and line first with India Ink and then applied color on top. This of course requires waterproof inks and one day working on a particularly ambitious painting I discovered that not all India inks are waterproof. I am not sure why I threw out the baby with the bathwater on this technique but I quickly went to applying ink on top of a watercolor instead of the other way around. Today most of my work still utilizes inks that are largely applied with calligraphy pens or lining brushes, but after wards as a finishing touch. Yesterday when working on the pai...

As a child I was overly fond of stories with lessons or morals. My reading matter included Greek and Roman myths, the Tales of Uncle Remus (African/American folk tales compiled by Joel Chandler Harris) and the fables of Aesop. Of my favorites of Aesop fables was The Fox and the Grapes vied with The Ant and the Grasshopper for first place. I was seldom, when left alone, without one of these classic tales running through my head. I put my adults into various roles among my favorite moral tales. Dad was almost always Brer Rabbit. I quite frankly saw my mother as the ant and my father as the grasshopper. This parallel was clearly evident when we lived in the farm north of Kansas City which is probably now the main runway of the airport there. I frankly confess I always thought of myself as a grasshopper. Until recently that is. I have noticed the hideous snows of the last few years (and the touted pandemic) has made me into more of a grasshopper than I at times find comfortable. Or was a...

I had Halloween dreams last night. Grave yards and haunted houses and masquerade parties. It is what I have termed a "seeker's" dream. It does not matter if it is an airport or a multi-storied house I am seeking something throughout the twisted course of the dream. We are told by sleep researchers that dreams can last no more than a minute or two and yet this one seemed to go on all night. As as kid I used to tell my mother I dreamed in Soap Operas, because it seemed that each new dream was an additional episode of an on-going story where the same cast of characters came and went not unlike As the World Turns . I also obviously reuse stage sets. I have a memory of my parents helping my paternal grandmother move out of the huge house in the Prospect area of Kansas City. It was a mansion to my way of thinking with a huge entry area that opened up to the ceiling three floors above us. The room where we stood was ringed with a staircase and balustrade. Grandmother, dressed in...

The above poster was a blast from the past. I had forgotten that we once called rummage sales White Elephant Sales. I remember as a child being very disappointed there were no white elephants to buy. I wanted one badly. Now, of course, we call them yard or garage sales, though like the white elephants, there are no yards or garages for sale. I am having a garage sale and I don't even have a garage. I and my neighbor, when working up ads for this event, debated various words and decided garage sale, whether you had one or not, gave people a better understanding of what was going on. Frankly, I am confused. It has been a confusing ten days preparing for this. Going through the closets and cabinets and pulling out stuff. Each unearth item seems to raise some old memory to the surface which is why I think the "Been there/done that" title I attached to the event really fit. But dredging up the white elephants seemed unsettling for more than just me. The canine fur kids are hav...

My neighbor invited me out to brunch yesterday so we could discuss a few last minute things about the upcoming Been there/done that sale this weekend. Estimated elapsed time (door to door) we figured would be two hours even if we ran a few errands at same time. Actual elapsed time was five hours. Breakfast was delightful and then off to community center to post a flier about the sale. Then Jan needed mouse traps. It is a hideous rodent year and she has no cats. I have offered to loan her one or two of mine for a couple hours but she is allergic. At the hardware store they were having a killer sale on wild birdseed. Yes, it will soon be that time of year. While loading the birdseed into the trunk I noticed her rear tire was almost flat. Easily remedied we thought. We drove immediately to our friendly local mechanic who also happens to be one of only two people in town that can fix a flat. He was off on a test drive the sign in the window said but would return ASAP. A half hour later we ...

The economy has derailed a lot of plans. We chatted about several examples just last night at the monthly gallery reception. It is always good to have a plan. And an alternate plan. And an escape route or evacuation strategy. Never burn those bridges behind you because you don't know when you might want to cross back over them in hasty retreat. My plan had been to furnish my rental unit so it could be a vacation rental instead of a long term one. Art sales have been down and stuff at the fall garage sales up so that is not quite accomplished. To generate some income I figured I might rent it furnished over the winter to seasonal employees of the neighboring resort. Then it looked like my sister and her husband might rent it. Then last week I was stopped at the grocery store by a long term sometimes friend asking if I was looking to rent it out long term. Told her frankly I was rather soured on that but would think about it. I thought. E-mailed her the particulars on rent, etc. Maki...

Yesterday I was working away at a couple of the items on my Before-the-snow-flies list. Admittedly last night we did get a trace of snow but realistically we have to the end of October to get these things done. And without thinking I have already gotten a few done like neatening the woodshed for the new cords to be delivered in October, stocking up on canned and dry goods, and replacement of the flaps on the through the wall fur kid door. But the list is always longer than the days to accomplish it. But it was a blog I follow, KathyintheOzarks , that reminded me obliquely of the truly important list: Snowed in. As an artist what to do when snowed in is hardly a problem. There are always more paintings to paint. But as a Gemini I like variety. And there are those things I put off this summer because the weather was too nice - the indoors tasks like painting walls, and organizing the sewing room, and finishing the resurfacing of the walls in my bedroom. And the I would certainly like to ...

I was a reluctant participant in Facebook. I actually opened my profile there more than a year before I did anything with it. It was the final gasp of Y!360 that more or less pushed me into looking for alternate social networks. It's a jungle out there. And Profiles, the Y!360 replacement, was not keeping its promise to be better. Blogger was being better; in fact best for blogging. But it just didn't give that sense of close connection 360 had with quick comments. Tried Twitter. I don't like to reduce my life to 140 characters. And frankly the people that began following me (even months after I stopped tweeting) scare me. One of my first forays into Facebook resulted in a major malware infection. (Near as my computer nerd can figure it came through the download of Javascript used to upload images.) Facebook does not vet all its cute little applications so for months I followed the 5 second rule. Check in for action, check out, touch nothing. Now I am on Facebook more and m...

I was practicing the theory of washing hands to avoid illness. Frankly I was feeling very obsessive compulsive with my pocket full of anti-bacteria wipes. And a bit high. The major ingredient is after all alcohol in those things. I thrashed them and decided to use soap in the lavatories. I must admit this cramps my style just a bit. Not everywhere you are in contact with people has public restrooms. I changed to moist towelettes for diaper changing. They don't come in tidy and convenient packages so I had zip lock bags in my pockets. Now I have a cold and very red and raw hands. And I have made all my friends feel like Typhoid Mary. Seems I am not alone. I was listening to NPR this morning about the flu and religious practices. Everything from Holy water to shalom has been condemned. Never mind sitting (or kneeling) close to your fellow worshipers in a pew or on a prayer rug. I am reminded of the time I gave up all food from the sea because of the mercury level. Then all vegetable...

Everyone raves about Amazon.com but I have had nothing but grief from that site. Even my good experiences seem to be peppered with headache. I always have to reset my password even though my computer remembers it. And they always split my orders even when I click that little box that tells them not to so I can save on shipping charges. Last time when I ordered a DVD that they had to back order they kept billing my account even though they said they wouldn't until they shipped. We argued on that over the telephone three times. Then when I got the DVD it was flawed and would not play. I will never go through the return process gauntlet again! Or the calls to get them to take the charge off my account after I returned it. But all I figured I just wanted four books. Total cost of books $33 and change. I will be paying $54 because of the multiples of shipping charges at $3.99 a time. I went looking for the Contact Us option on their website. They hide that. My sister finally found it fo...

A year ago this summer when the contractor from hell showed he was not going to go away I fell back on old beliefs and created a voodoo doll of him. Every time I would get another missive from his lawyer I would stick in another pin. And finally I took him out of my studio which was the source of our dispute and nailed him literally to an old railroad tie which was once the corner post to the old fence on my property. I told him (through the doll) I would release him from his bondage when he released me. And all winter he suffered through the snows quietly. Spring I heard from his lawyer again and the voodoo doll got more nails. This summer I heard he was ill. But not so ill it seems that he was willing to drop the law suit. He and his lawyer are going ahead with their suit to foreclose on my house for the disputed debt (a fraction of what my house and property are worth but far more than I feel justified in paying him or can afford). My attention in this last week has been drawn again...

Every spring the cattle arrive. Brought in large cattle trailers behind semi-tractors they get dropped off at lower gates of properties owned by ranchers and National Forest leases. They roam up the mountain grazing as they go until they reach the high meadows to spend the summer. One of the first signs of fall are the same cattle moving down the mountain to their pick up points. Yesterday as my sister, her husband and I drove the national forest roads along the mountain ridge cows, this year's calves, and fattening steers like the one above were on the road or beside it working their way down. Early frosts had touched the forest flower and turned once green leaves to orange and gold; their color replacing the wildflowers of just a couple weeks ago. And in the trees vines were suddenly visible with their fall dress of red and orange. We wound our way to the top of the mountain to meadows where just recently cattle and elk had grazed to find them empty and the tall grass turned to g...

At one time I worked in contracts for a major construction firm - at the time one of the five biggest in the nation. Every contractor we hired had to sign a contract that exceeded 100 pages at a minimum. General Conditions (that section which generally says it is our football and our field and we get it our way) ran 64 pages all by itself. The most important think I learned dealing with contracts was that the last piece of paper was the right piece of paper. So every dispute with a contractor required a letter beginning with the per-our-conversation-of epistle. Whatever a contractor claimed we had to counter with our version and within a few days. Our hope was that they would not counter what we claimed. That made us right, because to not refute our last letter made that letter law. I try to follow that bit of wisdom in my personal life. But when you are dealing with issues you are personally involved in it can become a bit more difficult. Still I write letters. All the time I write le...

Wish my pantry looked like this. What I have is a small closet just off the kitchen that I added shelves in for the storage of stuff. Once that stuff related to the making of masks. Part of getting out of the mask business and back into painting and building the studio was having that closet back to store necessities like light bulbs and batteries, and paper towels, and more and more canned and boxed goods. Three winters ago we had six feet of snow in two days. The entire county was paralyzed and snowplows were used for opening up major arteries which had been closed down for three days. You have to go through a canyon or over a mountain pass to get here. And the gas tankers, food wholesalers, and tourists were either not getting out or not getting in. The tourists not getting out meant the filling stations and grocery store were soon empty. Locals, who work in the tourist trade, were not getting out of their houses because the snowplows were too busy. So thanks to the three week suppl...