Sidetracked Charley

On the brink of climate change migration? Should where you want to move to have the right to say no? Trump would say HE has the right to say no to any people fleeing where they live because it is no longer livable. Taking international borders out of the equation does one state get to say no to people from a drowning coastal area? Or a northern state with cool summers say no to those from Phoenix. Moving requires a commitment to where you are moving. But currently there is a seasonal migration going on. They love Phoenix in the winter but Colorado in the summer. But that means double the houses and double the infrastructure for only one climate migrant. And it reduces the support for the infrastructure in the area vacated by the "Snowbirds" flying south and north. We talk about a housing crisis but some people require twice the housing. Should communities be able to modify zoning laws to say you cannot leave your house empty for 6 months less 1 day? Rates a...

I love old cars and trucks. And not just to photograph. I love them to drive too. I hate all that computer crap new cars have. I like to make my own determination of whether I need to put more air in a tire. And if you live in a rural area as I do the new modern cars require going to the big city dealership to get even a simple oil change. I currently have an old pickup and its backup and even older Corolla. Two vehicles is good with no public transportation around. Sadly the pickup now has a serious transmission issue and I once again face the repair or replace question. There are defenders for both sides. And Google has tons of information. One of the most worrying was the normal mileage for replacement of a transmission. Big Blue is right in the not so sweet spot. Pickups get rode hard and put away wet in my part of the country so it has done better than expected but not as good as I would have wished. I never stop at one Google search so I looked up the expected mileage on ...

I am grateful I have a warm and secure home even when it assailed by violent snow storms. And when I first purchased it more than twenty years ago I was also grateful it had an attached apartment I could rent to those who could not afford a home of their own. My first tenants stayed for nine years when they could at last buy their own home. My most recent tenant moved out a few months ago into her own home. Between those two successful rentals have been a whole list of less than admirable ones including one who was entertaining underage kids in illegal ways. With the exception of my studio addition the majority of my expendable income, which every years seems to be less, has been spent on repairs and improvements on the rental apartment. It is empty at this moment because of work which needs to be done but which I cannot find workers to do. I am doing what I can, as an older woman alone, can do, but some jobs require two or special knowledge beyond YouTube. I even refinanced my hom...

Blizzard Or Post Traumatic Storm Distress.  I began skiing in 1970. I taught it for a dozen years, and attended exams and required workshops always seemingly timed with major storms. I have lived in Denver and Vail, and here in the mountains of north New Mexico for thirty years, 23 in Black Lake. In short I am no stranger to snow. I have been snowed into Winter park for three days, driven over most of Colorado passes in snow storms without four wheel drive. Stuck in Casper, Wyoming over Halloween in a five day blizzard. Had to spend the night in the lobby of the St. James Hotel in Cimarron, and a Holiday Inn in St. Louis because of surprise snowstorms. No rooms at the Inns. But the snow storm which bothers me is the one when I was home. It began December 29, 2006 and continued into the new year dumping feet of snow from Albuquerque north. It closed all five ways in or out of my valley. The Massive Blizzard , the worst some locals said in 70 years, is still talked about. It...

The title is the closing line of my last blog. And I confess I did not believe it was going to be this much later. Things just got in the way. That is excuse one. Excuse two is that nothing moved quite as fast as I thought it would. But I suppose that is better than faster than what you hoped. A friend urged me a few months ago to go for a refinance of my house.  It came at a time when I was considering other changes in my path, no let's call it what is was, my rut. I was getting along with my rut.until a couple houses in the neighborhood sold and I realized I was not taking advantage of my assets.  So, nothing ventured; nothing gained. There are things I want to do like turn the apartment into and AirB&B, add a shower to my half bath downstairs, stain the outside of my house, and take a vacation to Maine with my sister next August. So I took my friend's advice, and it lowered my payments and gave me some of my equity out to be able to do all of that. But it took s...

Transition A lot going on in my life since my last entry on this blog.  It is difficult when you are in the middle of a swamp to obtain the prospective to get yourself to solid ground. Especially if the solid ground is controlled by others or nature: things beyond your control. One of those things in the midst of the swamp was losing my flip phone. The pockets on women's jeans and even the small flip phone did not fit together. This was not the first time I lost my emergency connection to the world but it was significant to the point I did not want to buy another cell phone to again lose. How much time had I wasted on looking for that black thing which once found I had to go looking for glasses to read the messages on it. And to make matters worse it happened when I was frustrated with my server not having a working-well-enough website. So cutting to the chase my sister bought me a smart phone and put me on her service. I always argued I was not smart enough for a smart ph...

Some decades ago I applied for a job working on an island. A small island.  One with only a couple miles of road. No car needed.  The company provided golf carts. And evidently boats for diving trips just off shore. I had just gotten my open water diving certification and it seemed ideal. Then someone raised the specter of island fever. I had been snowed in most of a winter in a Colorado ski resort and certainly understood cabin fever but don't we all want to be stranded on an island? Besides I would have thirty days twice a year to go back to the mainland USA. And in a moment of stark awareness I realized I would probably spend every single minute of those 60 days driving. Driving has been my way of escape since I was 16. No destination necessary. Just hop in the car and drive. I may have even fallen in love with photography because a camera in the passenger seat gave me an excuse to just drive.  But it doesn't take an island or a snow storm to close you into fe...

Yes, this photograph was taken in Utah. I could live in Utah. Looks like a nice little fixer upper with room for expansion. And Trump seems to be in favor of selling parts of our public lands off. Alaska, my sister and I agreed this morning, has entirely too much winter but climate change could alter that. The perma frost is melting. But it brings up why people choose to live in Alaska with all that winter. It has wonderful scenery and you can raise huge cabbages in just 45 days of "summer." And a traffic jam is a moose on your major route to work. I visited Alaska with a USO tour in August in some year in the 1970's. Could have been '76? Admittedly it was hard to get me out of the parka the government provided, but locals said you adapted. So why Alaska? Or Utah? The people. Or the lack of people. And the people that are there are different than you find in big cities. And both have better tourists. What is a better tourist? One that doesn't tell you how ...

Life is very complex at this time. Winter is approaching. Decisions are hanging waiting on the result of actions taken this summer like seeds planted for a garden. These are the things I focus on when I attempt to divorce myself from those things over which I have no control. Things like the orange monster in the White Castle on the swamp. As elections ramp up I more and more feel I have no choice. Or certainly that my choice does not matter. We are no longer a representative republic. First there was 2000 and hanging chads and the Supreme Court doing what it constitutionally should not have done. It was a rip off and oddly I felt grateful we did not riot. But we should have rioted. We were cheated. Where would be now on climate change if Gore had been allowed to be president? At least the Democrats should have screamed but they didn't. The DNC didn't help with the Hillary debacle over Bernie. Another rip off. But by then we had been through 9/11 and the election of ...

Mystic Passage with new frame Fall is my time to do the major clean and reorganization of the house. I don't really do a spring cleaning. I am too busy getting the garden begun. And after a long winter I generally do not want to spend another minute inside. Fall means winter cannot be far away and so the house must be livable. And then there is the studio tour the end of September. The result is I find myself appraising my house and studio on several levels and deciding what needs to be done before the snow flies. And this year I am also doing an upgrade of the rental unit while also deciding whether I want to rent it or not. I have the laminate flooring to replace the well used carpet and that only seems to make me want to not spend that money there while doing nothing major on my list of wants for where I live. Rental units are not as beneficial to the finances as they were before the new tax bill. And I do resent the money spent to make up for renters. And in addition t...

Pink Hollyhock Our strange winter resulted in the death of the poppy bed. And BoBear and Boca cooperated in totally overturning the Hollyhock bed. In their defense I think voles had taken up residence. So this season has been about restarting established beds. The poppy bed I fell back to Icelandic poppies which bloom the first year. I know better than to try for roses which seem to do better in green houses. And I bit the bullet and bought several two year old hollyhocks to plant in that bed. One double ruffle black hollyhock survived the scourge and a friend bought me four blacks she found in Taos. Two of them were planted in the devastated poppy bed. I also had seeds left from my previous bed, and while I probably won't see the results of those for a couple years, it felt like I was on my way to re-establishing the bed under my studio windows. Sunflower seeds also planted but like much of everything in this year without a summer they seem slow. The old red orie...

Too much going on. And I can get a little crazy when there is to much I need to do. But not to worry, I will not declare myself The Chosen One . I will just lose track of  computer glasses. Again. And lose some sleep. More sleep. Waking up after just three or four and falling into the trap of hamster wheel thinking.  In the wee hours before dawn I remember a trick that used to work to make the hamster go back to sleep -- paper and pen beside the bed. Course I had to get up and go downstairs and find a pen and paper, so I could write down the worries keeping me up. Then in the morning I could look at my midnight scribbles and decide which to take up after coffee. Course that just seems to make me busier. So triage. In my days of working for corporate America these were skills I was well schooled in. I must confess to a re-learning curve here at the moment. I cannot seem to get past finding my computer glasses. They should be at my desktop or my laptop. Or sinc...

Mother knew that from the day I was born. I clearly did not want to be here and my early years did little to change that attitude. I have become better at reining in the inner brat. More accepting of life on earth. And generally all goes well until I don't feel good. I have no patience with being sick. I do not suffer limitations joyfully. I am always in negotiations. I have always been production oriented. I came from a highly competitive family and I could compete by producing drawings and paintings and making sandcastles. I couldn't beat my brother at games because he cheated so I decided not to play. When forced to stay home because I was sick I was angry. I became quite creative at what I could do from forced bed rest or when Mother mandated a nap. I never napped. But mother never ceded that battleground. Friday when I began to feel sick I refused to give up. I had things to do and a schedule I had set for myself and damn I was going to do it. But as the day wore o...

I do not have a clock beside my bed. Retired from a corporate life I do not have to be up and going at any certain time. But even then I so hated the sound of the alarm I would set a time inside my head to be awake. That time was ten minutes before the alarm was set to go off. And most days I made that. These days in retirement or self-employment (is there a difference) I do not need to rise at any give time but I play this game of guessing what time it is when something wakes me up. These days it can be needing to pee - yet again. Or my shoulder aching because I slept on it wrong. Or a dream I cannot remember. What keeps me awake are random thoughts I do not seem to be able to consign to the slot of tomorrow. But if left unattended they can become hamster wheel thinking. They spring from something unsettled in the course of a day or days. Lately those thoughts in the dark have been about my camera. There was this lens which seemed to have self-destructed for no reason. And the...

Ghost Elk The title comes from a Kermit the Frog song about being different, being green. Today in political speak it means being an environmentalist and believing in not using single use plastics among other things. In a way maybe Kermit is a lot like an environmentalist these days. It isn't easy being green. But I have felt like a frog in a shrinking pond much of my life so I should be used to it by not. And if it is me alone, I am comfortable in my own green skin, except for those brief glimpses of myself when I am shocked at what I see. My sister, also a photographer, does not like the image above. She is bothered by the fact so little of it is in focus. Frankly, that is what I love about it. Of 90 photographs I took on a day's adventure out of my safe valley It is among my two favorites. One of eight I chose to pay to have printed on canvas. My printer is also an artist and a friend. She liked it too. We both saw past its lack of technical photographic merits, or la...

There is something about the road to Raton and back which makes me understand pilgrimages to Mecca. Though maybe on another level. It is not about Mecca. It is about the journey there, and back. I have written so many blogs here about the Revealed Truth that I have lost count so have decided to go to date notations. The road out yesterday was with a friend I love to have conversations with. And not because she agrees with me on all things. We are both centralists forced to make decisions between two parties we don't agree with. We see things differently some even when we are the only two in the cab of the truck sharing windshield time.  Most of the mountain west would be centralists if not forced to make choices in elections. I cannot be a conservative because I believe in a woman's right to choose. And I cannot be a liberal because I will absolutely not give up my right to arm myself. We believe in our land and the independence to keep it pristine. But as all settlers to a...

It occurred to me as I was trying to make myself watch the Democratic debate that I loathe them all. How in hell can they sit there an argue petty shit when by the time the election rolls around Trump will have declared himself dictator of a rapidly dying planet with polluted air and water and melting ice caps. Fuck them. This is worse than Nero Fiddling while Rome Burned. And that is factoring in that Nero had fires set to get the real estate cheap. Just exactly what Trump is doing for Putin and Moscow Mitch. If the Democrats do not begin Impeachment before the primaries I am not voting in the Democratic primary. I live in a closed primary state but I can change that in ten minutes on the computer. I could vote Republican if Trump is primaried. I sort of like that idea frankly. I realized I have been pissed off with the DNC since they ditched Bernie for the Witch of Arkansas. And the fact that they are constantly asking me for money has not helped. I have no money in part be...

I provide a doggie vacay service at my home, and lately I have encountered barrier frustration and aggression at the gate. Dogs develop frustration when something holds them back from interacting with a certain stimuli in the environment like the dog on the other side of the gate. Or a leash, a fence, a tether, a baby gate, being in a car. . . really any type of barrier or restraint. The frustration shows itself in a whole range of "inappropriate" behavior. Surely this is not just a thing with are canine friends. Other animals in cages like at zoos? Or humans in cages like at our southern border? Or prisons? I googled. And if you are to look at the results you would assume it is just dogs. And just real and solid barriers like gates. Not willing to let it go because I could see equivalent human responses if not what they were perceiving as a barrier. Maybe in humans it is called something else like cabin fever? Living in the mountains I am aware of cabin fever which...

The last couple of days seem to be all about words. Reminding my yet again one needs to choose your words wisely. In a community post about an electrical outage I used fast instead of quick. Not the same thing. And as regards Pence's visit to the detention centers, his words, I use the words concentration camps. And that he had no sympathy - feelings of pity or sorrow, when he in fact had no empathy - the ability to understand and share the feelings of another. At the risk of sounding like a grammar Nazi words do matter. Take for instance the matter of Big Blue, the GMC pickup not starting. You get taken a lot seriously by a mechanic if you use the right words. The truck won't start is actually a symptom not the problem. It takes a key, the ignition, a battery, a starter, and a starter cable to start the GMC. It has a new battery and the starter is just a couple years old. But I have been having a starter cable issue or more specifically the connection of the starter cabl...

This whole Trumpian age of Evangelicalism has put an entirely new perspective on the New Testament of the Bible for me. And I see Christians totally differently. If true believers can be so easily deceived and mislead to the point of abandoning their basic Christian tenets, the ten commandments, and the very evidence before their eyes how are we to believe anything written by Matthew, Mark, Luke or John?  It is now easy to see how Mary got away with that whole virgin birth hoax. As to the he has risen story? Well, I have always had questions about that one. But as Judas sings in Jesus Christ Superstar it was in the era before mass communication. There was no Google to check sources then or in the age when Mormon's met with their white salamander, or Jones was urging his followers to drink the poisoned KoolAid. But Vice President Pence standing before an overcrowded cage of humans who have not bathed for 40 days and nights and declaring they are being treated...

I have one of those minds which seems to remember everything but where I put my keys or reading glasses. I can chimp back through visual images and recall exactly who I was with and what the joke was just before or after the shot was taken. Or remember word for word the song playing on the car stereo as I pulled over to capture that particular column of clouds. It's a gift or a curse. This morning driving south to feed two kitties there was a dead dog beside the highway. And images of the family dogs through the years clicked through my brain like a slide show. Then I identified this particular dog. I called her Ghost. A neighbor owned her and mistreated her. And another neighbor and I would feed her because she often looked close to starving. Not that he wouldn't or didn't feed her but that she was afraid to go near enough to him to be fed. One of the first things I did for Ghost was remove a choke chain from around her neck. It was way too tight and too small and ...

As the family saga goes it was all about a small pox vaccination. My mother thought the resultant scars were ugly so appealed to the family doctor to put mine on the underside of my arm. I was a lot less than a year old at the time Mother was scheduled to be flying with me on a military plane to join Dad in Rome. Eager to get away from all the relatives she planned well ahead for the vaccination so it I got sick it would not delay her departure. Two weeks later I had not shown any sign the vaccination hat taken. The site looked like an insect bite and Mother carried a certificate from the doctor that I had indeed been given all shots necessary for international travel. Sometime mid Atlantic I became seriously ill. And by the time we touched down in Rome, at the civil and not military airport I was running a fever of 104 and covered with welts, and very dehydrated. I had what custom officials believed was a full blown case of Small Pox. Which was confirmed by not having the stand...

My digital indoor/outdoor thermometer says it is 41 F outside predawn. The low overnight was 36 F.  An old fashioned thermometer in the greenhouse says it is 33 F. It is June 9th.  It is very difficult to depend on the survival of my food source for the summer.  I began the challenge of gardening at 8250 feet altitude because I did not like iceberg lettuce and that was all the local store carried. I persist in gardening because of e coli and other persistent problems in food sources. In the United States you could once count on safe food. I grew up certain about water sources and safe food. If you went to Mexico or Cozumel you should not drink the water but here regardless of where you were in the country you could drink the water. Then there is Flint, Michigan. And soon a lot of other places because Trump repealed the clean water act. And clean air. In the mountain west we only had to worry about where the US stored its nuclear waste. Too much of it is in New Mex...

How can the god of the New Testament of the Bible allow mass shootings of innocent people in a municipal building in Virginia or a high school in Florida or a concert in Las Vegas? The list of his errors in judgment is long. Remember the Oh, God movies where the little girl asks if he was so smart why did he make the seed of the avocado so large? Or Judas's closing number in Jesus Christ Superstar, "Why did you choose such a backward age or such a strange place?" Oddly I get the floods, and the swarms of tornadoes. And accidents happen. All are subject to the natural order. But why lying pastors just after your money? Why  Christians Sessions or Pence or Graham or Trump? Why does evil triumph over good again and again and again? I just want to know. Frankly, in this day an age I see more evidence of a Zoroastrian God.  Maybe that is why those true believers  fight so hard to not die and go to their reward. Or punishment. Like why if Trump is innocent does he fig...

Growing up in Albuquerque I came to expect roses for my birthday as Mother's rose garden was usually in full bloom. I loved a yellow one in particular. This year in the high country I will be lucky if it doesn't snow. Still the lettuce in my green house is good. The hollyhocks bit the dust and the poppies are not coming back up. The winter was just too cold and wet. But the sunflower seeds are planted and if BoBear does not get through my security measures and dig up the flower beds there will be something blooming this summer - later this summer. There always seems to be changes around my birthday. This year it is an empty rental unit. But the tenant is leaving me a queen sized bed, a white leather couch, and a small kitchen table. The beginnings of a guest house for visiting friends, or if the world continues along the same bath, fleeing friends. With Dog Gone Park providing income I think I can do without the rent. I have before. And if art sales pick up I can do imp...

There was a television show of the same era as the original Twilight Zone I used to watch. The basic theme was an event in each episode which changed drastically the direction of the characters and the plot. I became obsessed with defining those events in my past. I had some big ones. There was my mother's breast cancer, the art teacher coming after me with mat knife and then inviting me into he storage room for me to apologize, and being struck by a skier while teaching. But not all turning points in our life are so clearly defined. Sometimes we continue on our planned route without realizing we must have taken a turn because this is not where we thought we would be. As my sister would say in our off road adventures, "Not lost but just unsure of how to get back to where we started." To which I would ask, "Is that what we want to do? Go back?" It rarely was. We sort of enjoyed going beyond the limits of the GPS. Note: in the mountain west that is easier ...

During the days of the Black Death women survived to a greater percentage then men. Theories abound as to why. I hod with the men never do as they are told theory. They just didn't drink the herbal tea their witch wives told them they should. The end result was more surviving wives ended up in control of property the Catholic church wanted. And so was born the Spanish Inquisition, which in truth was everywhere in Europe and not just Spain. The church in all its evil maleness came up with a plan to get the property and put women firmly back where they belonged: under the control of their male masters. They promptly declared all surviving females of the black death as witches and offered to remove the satanic demon from their bodies with a bit of torture they would have to pay for. Well, the old priests quite enjoyed the torture part so they made it worse and worse and worse to the point a women could be found innocent of witchcraft and possession only by dying w...

And I am so depressed. I had such plans for spring and summer. I hit the ground running till the 18" of snow on May 9th. For the next few days it seemed to be one road block after another. Gutters were suppose to go up today. Handyman broke his truck. And to further impact my schedule I volunteered to have the June 10th garden club meeting at my garden. Too bad they may need to go into the house too. I should relax and just take it all one chore at a time but I get overwhelmed at the enormity of the task before me and sit like a rabbit in Watership Down totally tharned out in the middle of highway. In part I just feel so far behind. Enter the Garden Journal I keep. I thumbed back to last year and I am really about two weeks ahead as far as edibles in the hoop house. But I made no notes regarding poppies or hollyhocks. None of the former and only a couple of the latter have poked their leaves above the soil. And this coming weekend was when I went to the nursery in La Cue...