Sidetracked Charley

Connected I confess. I will be 70 this summer. And one of the greatest things happened to me 13 years ago Christmas eve. I was involved in a ski accident which compressed three discs in my neck and knocked me into my right brain - literally. Witnesses to the accident said I was hit hard enough by a speeding skier to fly into the air and land on my head. The resultant closed brain trauma CBT or shaken baby head injury turned off my left brain control and let my right brain run completely free. It is why I paint, why I photo edit in such wild colors, and why I do not use manuals to learn technological devices. Hell, I confess, I cannot read manuals any more. Once when I was a technical writer I wrote them. I translated accountants to computer programmers and computer programmers to management. Boy, that wasn't easy. Since the head injury I have adapted to digital cameras, digital post processing programs, laptops, tablets, and my latest, the ipod. And all without cracking a ...

Or so goes the ancient Chinese curse. And if true I have been cursed the last couple of weeks because they have definitely been interesting. Frankly, while I will deny it, I think it is good to be knocked off balance a bit from time to time. The key is to not be standing on the edge of a precipice when that happens. But perhaps I was flying too high or, even worse, too low. Definitely enjoying the moment with a nice commission for a new painting, finally getting something done on better medicare coverage, good set of pet clients lined up for December and January, and most annoyances out of town. Before the plane flames out there are usually a few coughs and sputters. And there were. The priority envelope for insurance went lost; quick recovery with faxes. Note: it is now week three and the envelope is still lost .  Took the Corolla in for front struts figuring half of the quote for both. Wrong. Of course. But oddly I had the money. Just do not get to spend it on a new stereo ...

It's Complicated A dog killed a cat. More complicated Her dog killed my cat. My close friend's dog killed my beloved cat in my house. Even more complicated, a friendship which had its issues  before her dog killed my cat. She lied about the dog before she left him in my care  in my house Where brutally this morning he killed my cat. The case of murder is more complicated, Judge, than just the facts There is betrayal, lies, evasion the killer still in my care. Who is at fault The dog I have known for ten the owner I have known for forty the cat being too trusting or me for trusting them all. It's complicated I am less one cat less a trusted friend but still must care for the dog that killed my cat. Rest in Peace, Scrappy. j. binford-bell December 18, 2014

Eagle Nest Lodge Blindly we move toward 2015, poised on the edge of another economic cliff, and being shoved over by a greedy tea party members.  I say blindly because corporate capitalistic America gets us involved in a feeding frenzy of materialism at this time of year when we should be paying attention to the thieves in DC. But being as I am unconcerned with materialism (well, there is a new laptop I am looking at), I was lured by a spring like day so I set forth with camera to record my neighborhood. Yes, escapism, but one can stand just so much of Scrooge (or Scrooges as in GOP Congress), besides I voted and it did no good, but my conscious is clear. So cameras in Big Blue I motored to the thrift store in Eagle Nest, New Mexico and arrived too early for the favorite to be open but just in time for a great series of photos with awesome lighting. There are three major landmarks which I have photographed as a marker of my time this side of the mountain: Eagle Nest Lodge, Ea...

Cattails in the Snow I live in Black Lake, New Mexico. It is five miles south of Angel Fire, 2 1/2 hours from Santa Fe, 45 minutes from Taos, and two hours from our county seat of Raton. And, most importantly at the moment, a 40 minute drive from my post office of record. Ocate Post Office is on the other side of the mountain, and in another county. It has no grocery store, no court house, no feed store, no WalMart, and no UPS store. In short the only reason to go to Ocate is to go to the post office. When I first moved here,14 years ago, we had no mail service. Most of us of Twix, Tween and Beyond Black Lake rented a box at the Angel Fire Post Office. It did not come free because our post office of record (your US government at its best) was in Ocate. The Angel Fire Post Office then was not a government run post office but contract, and fees for boxes got expensive. After some lobby efforts we managed to get rural route delivery three days a week: Monday, Wednesday, and Friday....

Frozen Falls Number one pet peeve! Asking me what I am going to do for Thanksgiving (number two would be Christmas). Nobody ever wants to know the answer. It is just a way to lead into a discussion of their grand plans. So I guess we are on number three: Calling from Florida so express your sorrow (always sounds more like gloating) that it is snowing again where I live. BTW I like the snow. And I am allergic to Florida. My ideal vacation is Utah in May or September. And you will note I do not call you in the middle of a hurricane and gloat. Number four: This may be down on the list but it is huge. Yelling to someone else when on the telephone with me. We used to put our hands over the mouth piece if we were going to cuss out the dog while on a phone conversation. We always knew what was said but we still had ear drums. Worse is whispering on the call to me because someone else is in the room on your end. Only excuse for this is "the place is being robbed, please call the ...

Country Lane with Snow Living in the mountains I always watch the weather sites. I say sites because nobody ever gets it right so I monitor three or more and draw my own conclusions. For weeks now it has been sliding snowflakes . This is that weather forecast where a slight chance for snow  drifts across the week always beginning tomorrow but never quite showing up. Friday they dared drop the slight and go with chance for snow - up to 1" over night.  Pardon me NOAA but living in the mountains of New Mexico let me say one inch is not snow. It is flurries . We did get the one inch, perhaps a bit more so I paid a bit more attention to the forecast for Saturday day. Three to five which we didn't get but overnight Saturday into Sunday the prediction went up to five or eight. Yeah, we'll see, I thought as I checked outside before heading to bed Saturday night with just a hint of a flake here and there in the dark skies. The Corolla Entombed  Sometime in the middle...

I am past due on the usually weekly blog here on Sidetracked. I am behind on a lot of things. I spent the fall working for others to get their houses and property up to snuff. Helped my budget but got me way behind on everything at my house. The polar event that plunged my area down to 7 degrees at least a month early work me up. I quickly rounded up straw and covered my beloved hollyhocks of this summer. And got the supplies to "winterize" the apartment. Did the actual draining of water lines a day after the first bone chilling temps saying thank you's about escaping any frozen pipes. Scheduled in the oil change for the truck though because everyone else was doing the same thing, it does not get done until next week. I sill have a long list of stuff I need to do, inside and out, but the weather was horrid and so I did the inside things first. Number one has been setting up my photography site at Fine Arts America . Been meaning to do that for several months. No ...

Stop Already This goes out to the Democratic National Committee and all Democratic candidates who felt they had the right to abuse my email addresses and my telephones just because I am a registered Democrat. I read you messages and replied to some. I even listened to a few of the robo calls in hopes a human would come on and we could dialog. Now you get to listen to me. I plan to change my party registration before the 2016 election cycle begins tomorrow. Green party sounds good. Independent sounds better. I know you wanted money. Because of the economy I did not have it to give. And until the repeal or an amendment to nullify Citizens United SCOTUS decision I do not intend to donate money again. I stand fully behind any effort to reform our campaign system. In fact I demand it NOW. Giving you money just seems to encourage this democracy for sale concept. Besides it is ridiculous to pay a politician to merely run for office. Let's be realistic representatives will have to b...

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. Abraham Lincoln - The Gettysburg Address I say this every election. Nobody cares. But I feel compelled to say it again because the DNC has taken possession of my inbox on two email accounts. And in spite of promises they have made in the last couple of days I doubt I will get them back for my use because the 2016 presidential race will formally kick off. BTW when does any politician actually govern instead of run for office?  Election laws have to change. And not the way they recently were changed by Citizens United and the SCOTUS. We as a nation began this dubious experiment when it took two years o...

Cap Stones The Pope just said he believes in evolution and the big bang. Who would have thought such things would happen in my life time. And yet I am surrounded by people I personally know who believe the earth to be only 6000 years old. The cap stones in the opening photograph are older than that. And once they were on top of pillars of sandstone - the heads of goblins. And before that they were the top layer under a huge inland sea. All that we see is slip sliding away. It is true of people too. Friends come and go talking of Michelangelo. I once told a friend, who was upset I was moving on, that it would not matter if I was staying because friendships come and go even if you live next door. She didn't get it. In fact she chose to never speak to me again. Instead she became fast friends with another friend I left behind at the same time. And that ended. Neither of us know what became of her. The shared friend currently lives next door. She is moving soon. But our friend...

Dream Home? I love living where I live. I love living alone. I am a true introvert and really have few close friends. Most of them live someplace else. And that is mostly fine. I used to consider having an attached rental unit a chance for both financial and safety stability. Now I consider it and renters a liability. Renters have become plagues in recent years. But winter is approaching and since the dreaded New Year storm of 2006/2007 I am a bit tharned about winter. Only about five occupied houses on my "block" and one of those is going to be empty all winter. She is a long term friend and I am totally pissed at her about it when I am not celebrating getting her neediness out of my field of vision. She says I am not a nice person which is why I have so few friends. She does not see that as a choice or her fault I am not nice to her currently. (note: Translation of not nice - I am not doing what she wants.) So yesterday I drove to Las Vegas, New Mexico and fell in ...

I do not take long vacations. Partly because of finances. And partly because I am rather a home body. Besides there is enough in my backyard to keep be interested. The trek this fall was from here to Farmington to Pagosa Springs, down to Chama and over Cumbres Pass. This blog is about just below Pagosa Springs. We were late for aspens but those we found were wonderful in their contrast to the trees already absent their leaves, and the dark skies of fall weather. The pickup allowed us to get up forest roads with ease and into areas not photographed by the average tourist. Just south of Chromo we took Buckles Road into the National Forest in search of Buckles Lake which we never got to. Another day perhaps. It was only a seven plus mile trip but photographers can take a long time to make that distance if the scenery is good. And it was. Then you could also stand in the same spot and watch the clouds travel and highlight different spots on the mountain. All the photos ...

I have an old friend who insists we are old, and that I ought to act my age. It is time she claims to move to a retirement home in Florida and begin to die. I say Florida just makes you want to die. "Your life is precarious," she said to me over coffee yesterday. "You need to take it easier. You are too old to go hiking by yourself, or camping in remote areas, or climb ladders." My mother, a firm believer in taking it easier, died at 67. And her older brother mowed lawns with a push mower until 87. But all life is precarious as the recent Ebola epidemic here in the states is proving. And if it was not a pandemic it could be volcanic eruption. There have been swarms of earthquakes around Mammoth Mountain just up wind from us. I married and divorced a man eight years younger than me. He died three years ago. We do not come with expiration dates though nobody has avoided the final exit yet. I see no advantage to living each day so that I do not hurt myself. In ...

I love taking pictures of reflections in mirrors and ponds and glass. Believe it or not regardless of the close concentration and focus one very often winds up with a picture you did not realize you were taking. I think that is true with those quick snaps we take of friendships, and marriages, jobs too. We put all our focus on the obvious, in the photo above it was the wonderful job I did trimming out a very difficult door through a foot of wall sandwich not cut straight. The photo I got was a duo of me and my cat. And when it comes to friendships and marriages and jobs we keep our eye on the positive. Keep your eye on the prize: Friends for over 30 year, married for almost 50, working for the corporation for ten. And then something happens; often something silly and seemingly unimportant and we see the image beyond the surface. September was the third anniversary of my ex-husband's death. We were friends, co-workers and lovers for 23 years. At first I just missed our talks b...

The Gorge Filled with Smoke There are times my singularity stands out so starkly even I gasp at its meaning. Yesterday, standing at the top of the horseshoe cresting the Taos Volcanic plateau was one of those times. It had been creeping up on me all day during my drive down to Albuquerque to pick up a friend. Even my manner of friendship is unique. I have friends in rotation more or less and seldom more. Friends for me do not come in groups, cliches, bunches, collectives, or even covens. They are more often than not artists and as much loners as I am. I make few demands on them and do not accept many demands on me from them. One of the bigger demands is "stop the car." In my wild and crazy drinking days that had one meaning but now as a photographer it is infinitely more serious. My photographer friends totally understand this and are therefore preferred in the rotation, others are definitely befuddled. Yesterday as my non-photographer friend and I emerged from the E...

It is that time again. Time to move in the plants that were moved out this spring and try to find them space for the winter after a summer of new growth. This is usually a multi-stepped process. First the move in to any space reasonably out of the way. And then everything which lives all year in the studio gets moved around to make room. If you are looking for a well taken care of house plant now is the time to approach me, because not only did the indoor/outdoor group grow but the totally indoor group did too. In fact this was an epic year for some of my euphorbias - repotting and separating out babies from mother plants. And then there is the rosemary plant. I have a friend who grew hers outside all year around up here. Never quite worked for me so the last attempt at raising rosemary became and indoor/outdoor. That was three years ago. It is getting bigger. And every year about this time I wonder if it is big enough to be an outside plant. I seem not willing to risk it because...

Buffalo on the Vermejo Park Ranch The herd which was close to the highway was about 47 to 50 in number and included several of this year's calves. Needless to say we were going for the up close and personal photographs. Aunts and Calf And there really was no end of opportunities. The grass was long and lush and the bison all had their heads down. The calves were curious and edged closer to the fence and the adults almost unconsciously covered them. The entire herd comprise of adult females takes care of the calves. It was very interesting to watch. The Gang of three We got so engrossed in the herd by the fence we did not notice at first another herd moving into the area in the distance. Herd Two in the distance Herd Three coming through the pass Off with the long lens and on with the wide angle. I walked back to the car to get my second camera already set up with the wide angle. Jessica Duke and Equipment Management Jessica's High Country Photog...

Chamisa Blooming There is something about the open plains and a totally straight line of highway for mile after mile which frees the mind to think. On this trip back from Trinidad I was thinking of so many other trips across the plains in the last few years and the difference rain can make. I want to use the word lush but so many in the east will not understand that used in this context. The grass, already beginning to go gold because of night temperatures looked so thick and so long in spots you almost felt it would be difficult to walk through. And indeed a lot of the locals were not walking. One of this herd of buffalo got up when I walked (waded) to the fence line. The grass was up to my knees and almost up to their bellies. They definitely looked well fed. Buffalo on the Vermejo Park Ranch Even the post rut Pronghorn Antelope were too stuffed to move much. A rather nervous animal in the best of times this one even allowed me to get out of my truck to get a better a...

Communication was easy once. Besides what was there to talk about? You walked up to another person and either threw down your club or threw it at their head. But as times went by it got a bit more complicated. "Honey, I told you to fix the stairs." "Yep," "So you going to do it?" "Not inclined to." And so with the introduction of the mother-in-law was born the third party negotiator. I did not say necessarily independent. Everyone has a dog in the hunt. King Arthur introduced the concept of the shape of the table. Have you ever followed one of those openings to peace or truce negotiations? Weeks can be spent on the shape of the table. You could argue they are not fighting during that time if the third party made a truce part of the prelude to the shape of the table. There are not that many shapes. Could we just universally decide on round and go from there? Which brings us to language. Sometimes this is why the war began. And th...