Sidetracked Charley

Emergence from Hibernation

2012-01-30T03:09:00.000-08:00

Standing alone against the night

I first noticed this behavior here in the mountains of New Mexico so I cannot speak for it occurring elsewhere or not. But here we all seem to go to ground right after Christmas. Almost as if the demands of that season put too many stressors on our social networks and manners. The only communication there is seems to be via social networks, hallow e-mails, and a phone message or two.

No lunch dates, no running into each other at the store, or in Santa Fe (oddly enough us mountain folk seem to meet up there a lot), or get together requests. A drive through Angel Fire to the post office reveals no friendly cars or known associates. Nor is the post office its normal meet and greet site.

Then suddenly, somewhere around the 25th of January heads pop up not unlike a ground hog checking on the weather. You see old friends at a Taos grocery store restocking on depleted supplies, get an invitation from a friend for a girly night pot luck, call a friend to go to Santa Fe with you, take a few chatty and long phone calls, load the dogs in the car for a walk in town on the public paths, stop in for a quick mocha and end up sitting with the old gang.

I don't believe this 30 day vanishing act is weather dependent. We live in snow country so we get out and about in all but the worst of storms. Besides this part of January is generally what we term the January Thaw. Days are in the 40's and nights just below freezing. The snow is subsiding and larger and larger parts of the earth are exposed. Mud becomes an issue.

Nor is it task related unless reading and watching re-runs are on your task list. I have read four ebooks this month, and pawed through my DVD collection for my favorites, rewatched old shows on streaming video. It is almost like a downtime for recharging the batteries, taking stock of just where you are energy wise. Winter is not over by a long shot. In fact some of the February and March storms can bring the most snow. But the nature of winter has changed on an almost primordial level. Deep within us we know we are heading toward spring. And we seem to all know it at the same time. It is as if we are celebrating that the coldest and darkest part of winter is behind us.

And it isn't just us humans. Bears are known to take a vacation from hibernation about now and check on the status of things. Visit a few old dumpsters. Flocks of our winter-over birds seem to be everywhere. Ground hog day is February 2nd and we know if there will be six more weeks of winter or not. Imbolc, which celebrates the return of light and warmth to the earth, is February 4th. There is some rhythm to life those of us who live close to the wilderness sense and respond to.

Us humans believe we are masters of time and place. We control our environment in cities and tall steel and glass buildings. Do those that live in such artificial worlds respond to the pulls of the earth like those of us living on the edges of the forest? As we come out of our caves, houses and cabins to sniff the air are we responding to some ancient shift in the axis of the earth?

Winning Coach

2012-01-22T13:52:00.000-08:00

Winning Coach a Symbol of Penn State

If I were the editor in chief

Heads would roll

A pedophile and an institution

Of higher learning

And dare we venture

lower moral values linked in bold type.

There once as a time

When being a sports star

Did not excuse

amoral behavior

We expected so much more

of our icons.

And we knew better

than praise their resumes

on national news.

We buried their shame

Oh, so quietly and rightly

In the back page obits below the fold.

J. Binford-Bell

January 2012

The exercise this week for Jingle Poetry at Gooseberry Gardens was to take a headline from the New York times and write. I did.

Denial is a God Given Survival Skill

2012-01-20T17:46:00.000-08:00

Red Sky in the Morning

I do want to pretend all will be well when things are going well. I believe that if I prepare for a rainy day that day will come. And my history seems to have proven me right by in large. So what is wrong with preparing for a sunny day?

If the pantry is full and there is a prudent reserve in the bank why won't it work just as well for a celebration as a rescue?

On some level I always seem to prepare for the worst but am totally surprised when it comes. I seldom, if ever, throw away a document or receipt I think I might need to prove my point. And I am a great person for following every critical conversation up with an e-mail or letter. So why don't I put them nicely in folders as I go along instead of having to scramble to get all my documentation lined up. Why do I want to whistle in the dark?

This morning finally totally sure that my tenant was not going gently into that other apartment complex in a far away city (even though her move was her idea) I lined up all those pieces of paper in the infamous file termed rental legal, printed out all relevant e-mails, and wrote out a timeline. When I worked as a contracts engineer for a construction firm all of this would have been done. Every piece of paper would be punched and inserted in reverse chronological order in the folder with those brackets on top. Lined pages stapled to the left side of the folder would have meticulous notes of significant events in the process of the contract.

I know how it is done. I would just rather assume it isn't going to be necessary.

I will even argue with that old sailor's saw of Red sky in morning, sailors take warning. Red sky at night sailor's delight. I reverse it to suit my mood. So this morning's red sky I say as a photographer's gift. Not the preamble to a spate of rough seas.

Mother always said I was a dreamer.

The Trouble with the New Year

2012-01-15T07:00:00.000-08:00

Rock Baby by J. Binford-Bell

The trouble with the new year is we are sold on idea that we get to start over. Things are going to be different once 2011 is over and the brand new year begins. And then the December bills hit. We discover that our new get in shape program seems to be plagued by the same issues we had with the old get in shape program. Taxes are not that far off and we are still broke from those we had to pay in the old year.

Warm weather seems forever in the future. So there will be other heating bills like the last 2011 bill that awaits our attention. One year I would like to have the money and time to prepay everything for January in December and launch the new year truly new.

At times I feel like the photograph above - an eroding rock being a base for lichen which has taken hundreds of years to get to that point but is new as opposed to the rock - their growth and erosion now totally linked forever together - till death do them part.

Trying to get on the stick and get a new renter soonest but then the state the apartment is in I don't want to show it until the one that gave notice has moved out. It is a hoarder's haven. Hardly room to walk. And daily I learn more from others about why it is my renter so suddenly up and left (hasn't been back in town since serving notice) and in spite of my well developed guilt complex (owed me money for 5 months and I was getting rude about it) doesn't look like it was my fault. May be reluctant show up in our small town again. Or give me a forwarding address.

I always begin with Anne Frank - that all people are basically good at heart; and in with end with my father - Anne Frank was wrong. I do believe that we are producing more narcissistic personality disorders these days. Would love to be able to talk to Dad about that. Meanwhile I am trying to cinch down the budget belt which binds this time of year in the best of times. Keeping the house a bit colder, picking and choosing my invites to lunch out, rethinking February expenditures over and over. Oh, and the balance of January.

While trying to rethink my policy on approval of tenants yet again. I was blessed with great renters the first 10 years of owning the duplex. And have been plagued with a run of three awful ones. I think I am in for a run of good luck. Please universe send me the perfect tenant and send them soon.

Will also take a part time job, art sales, art awards, art students, and pet sitting gigs. And any massive improvements in the economy. Getting tired of being cold and broke.

January!!!!

2012-01-09T09:10:00.000-08:00

Shadow photographer and dogs

I was having coffee with a friend recently and chatting about the cruelest months. There are more deaths in February of chronically ill patients. And more suicides. But I blame it on January. We're all tired from the holidays and let down. Taxes loom in the future. Spring is still months away.

And there seem to be more monkey wrenches in January. My monkey wrench was the renter giving notice on the 4th. I hate when renters move out. They always think they need all their deposit back. Some even want it the day they give notice. I look at them as if they are smoking something. I got spoiled when I first bought this duplex. First renters handed me money the day I moved in and stayed for almost nine years. Since then I have been through a couple renters from hell.

Then there are the todo's that accompany January. Exhibits and association dues, insurance, and those taxes I mentioned before. I always come out of December a bit behind on money. More so this year because renter was behind on rent. January is expensive. No way I can even consider looking to rent the apartment until March because of things that must be done.

Bed has been feeling so awesome the last nine days. I just want to snuggle deeper under the covers and wait until February to get up.

And So It Begins

2012-01-02T05:34:00.000-08:00

First Dawn of 2012

Been a while since I walked to the door of my studio with my camera to capture the dawn. Yesterday seemed an appropriate day to do so. First day of 2012 and the first dawn was definitely recordable. And this is the first Monday blog of the year.

Yesterday I cooked an elk roast, and butternut squash with curry and craisens. I took those two dishes with my English horseradish sauce to my neighbors. Janet rounded out the feast with baked potatoes and creamed spinach, pumpkin pie and coffee. A cooperative holiday meal has been a tradition between us for quite some time.

The week before the year 2011 ended I began another get in shape campaign. When I allow myself to stop and consider what works for me as opposed to all those media hyped plans I usually manage to make these campaigns work. Exercise. And keeping records of exercise.

So on the 26th of December I got out a spiral notebook and recorded my first day of exercise. Later in the week I added weight to my Chronicles. Almost immediately it goes up when I pay attention to it. Then it is locate the tape measure. This can always be a bit shaming because the measurements I remember are always those from my bulimic youth. I had an 18 inch waist. Anyone out there remember cinch belts and petticoats. I could cinch that waist to about 14.

This all seems silly in light of the fact that I don't really care what the scale or the tape says. It is what my jeans tell me that matter. I want them all to zip and fit more comfortably. And what my muscles say. If you don't use them you lose them. And at my age losing muscle results in bone breaks and joint replacements. I hate doctors. So all the hand weights and elastic bands were recovered from their resting places. The elliptical trainer oiled and adjusted. The Pilates ball inflated. Yoga mat washed off. And daily I have been rotating my exercise techniques and increasing the time spent. All noted neatly in my fitness journal. Already I feel better.

Soon as I am totally addicted to the endorphin's generated from exercise and I will allow myself one day off per week.

Other goals for 2012: More photography trips, more progress toward that poetry/art book I am planning, more painting, more sewing, more dinners with friends.

Once more with feeling

2011-12-31T07:51:00.000-08:00

Elk Dawn at Black Lake

I am a writer of journals and blogs, a maker of goals and affirmations, a believer that the future is a gift we have the opportunity to shape. So with the last day of 2011 before me I pulled out my journal and looked back to the same time last year. And then the year before.

I had begun 2010 with a lofty and extensive list of goals. I accomplished less than half. I was grateful I did that much but it did effect my list for 2011. That list is only 6 items: 1) Move beyond the events of 2010, 2) Be more positive in my outlook, 3) Set my own directions, 4) Set more adventurous directions in my art, 5) Look at doing poetry/art book, 6) Keep website more current.

I have failed miserably at number 6 which now adorns my todo list for 2012. And I will admit that it took me almost all of 2011 to get number 2 and 3 accomplished. And I can still be overwhelmed by grief from time to time. I am busy working on poems to fit various pieces of my works and have tracked down an on-line publishing option. I bought the latest version of Wordperfect office to assist in this goal. Dare I list Complete poetry/art book on the 2012 agenda?

I am most happy with my accomplishments on number 3 and 4. When I listed them in the short list for 2011 I had no idea what shape the achievement of them would take. So in that regard they were more affirmations than todo list items. Or even resolutions. I only knew that I was vaguely unhappy with the "eye candy" paintings I was turning out for shows and exhibits. I wanted to be more meaningful. And last year was filled with new departures on subjects for paintings. And surprisingly I found myself leaving a gallery that had long represented my work, and looking for new ways to exhibit my art. And I found myself deeply involved with photography. The year 2011 found me entering three exhibits with my photos and winning prizes in two. I also won a prize with one of my "dark" paintings.

I like the directions I have explored artistically because of those two affirmations and I want to continue to move along that path. I use the big artistic change as the reason I am behind on my website. I think it requires rethinking it entirely. (PS another computer crash did not help). No, I do not have the completed list for 2012 yet. This is the beginning of that process and I am somewhat behind if you go by dates on the calendar. Maybe I will just try harder on the 2011 list once more.

Magpie Tales 96 - The Real Thing

2011-12-29T03:09:00.000-08:00

Laughing Marilyn Monroe by Bert Stern

Pearls

Laugh lines

Laughter

Non-airbrushed flaws.

Blonde

by Clairol

Body

by Mother Nature.

No plastic

no Botox

no implants

The real thing.

Except maybe the laughter

J. Binford-Bell

December 2011

Christmas Day Photography

2011-12-26T06:02:00.000-08:00

Christmas Morning Elk

Every photographer knows what a gift it is to have a close friend, or in my case a sister, to go a photographing with. People that have not looked at the world through a view finder don't understand when we yell, "Stop. Pull over. No, back there." And other assorted exclamations of excitement. Nor do they see the necessity in going out at the crack of dawn in sub zero weather (-12 F on Christmas Day) to seek the elusive elk.

This year's Calf

Studying the Dawn

Or to catch that early morning light on the surrounding mountains and hills. Most people miss this entirely.

Dawn on Cat Scratch Mountain

Dawn on Wheeler Peak

My sister and I returned after the morning expedition to a Christmas Morning breakfast of eggs Benedict on homemade English Muffin bread. And then it was out for the afternoon off-road tradition begun last year. So Nikon and Cannon in hand and fur kids in back we set off to find unexplored territory and went through Cimarron Canyon and up Ponil Creek to a wildlife management area. Morning was elk and afternoon was turkeys.

The Girls

The Boys

Hopping the Creek

Lots of great pictures and lots of new memories. No doubt regular readers of this blog and Creative Journey will see more photographs from Christmas Day.

Debbie and I had our Christmas dinner on Christmas Eve: Ribeye roast with English horseradish sauce, sauteed golden cauliflower with garlic, and French Silk Pie for dessert. We had plenty of leftovers for Christmas day. Giving us ample time to download and cull through our digital captures. Important things.

Trust me I am not Suffering

2011-12-22T14:52:00.000-08:00

I live in the mountains of northern New Mexico not Siberia. Yes, we get snow. But the last totally paralyzing storm was 2006. We got 6 feet in three days. Things came to a stand still for about four days. And that was basically because all the snow clearing equipment in our area was pulled out for the plains. They got it worse just like they did on this storm.

A friend just posted a story about a couple heading to Angel Fire to ski who got buried in snow outside Springer. Springer, NM is in the plains where snow is compounded with blizzard force winds and total whiteouts. They obviously were under the misconception that their SUV would get them through the closed roads. They were wrong. I blame the commercials. Pay enough for your vehicle and/or tires and you are suppose to be able to make it through Noah's flood. Wrong.

Most of us that live in this rarefied atmosphere know when to stay home and hunker down and when we can make it through. I have lived in New Mexico, Colorado, and Kansas City, Missouri. The latter may have had the worst winter weather to drive through - or at least driving from Denver to Kansas City across the plains of Kansas - was the worst. That particular snow storm one Christmas was rather bad but I hung in between a couple tractor trailer rigs and made it.

And there was that year when the rain in Kentucky (I was living in North Carolina) suddenly at the Mississippi River changed to wet, heavy snow. Not a room in the Inn or any Inn in St Louis was available but the hotels were allowing travelers (again at Christmas) to hang out in lobbies until the roads opened up. The roads, btw, are closed more often not because of snow depth but wrecks or visibility issues. SUV's, snow tires, and OnStar are not helpful with any of that.

Smarts are your best weapon. Check road conditions before heading out. Have a full box of emergency gear in the car (btw it probably should be where you can reach it and that might not be the trunk), and don't be in a hurry. When in doubt stay put.

And the weather channel might not be your best source of information. Every state has a DOT hotline or website with more current information than weather.com. The last snow storm was not that big of an event here. And the current storm is a total fizzle.

And I would rather put up with the worst snow storms than hurricanes, tornadoes or even triple digit heat. I choose to live here because it has none of that and no fleas or ticks or centipedes. It has clean air, and no light pollution and wonderful silence broken only by the howl of a coyote or bugle of an elk.

Next to Last Monday of the Year

2011-12-19T07:57:00.000-08:00

I find it hard to believe the year is almost over. Been a relative good year. Especially in relationship to 2010. I suppose I should be thinking about a year in review blog but my focus at the moment is on the gathering storm.

Storm reports are fodder for us locals. We all have our opinions. The tourist center and the ski resort are currently picking up on the weather report with the greatest snow depth forecast - 12 inches. But then this storm was suppose to actively begin at midnight and when I looked out the window at 5 a.m. there was not a flake. As I write this (9 a.m.) there is only two to three inches. I think I am being really generous with the three. But the ravens are celebrating over the trees. They generally go into this party dance when they know they might have to roost for a while.

We all have our little signs we look for to bolster our opinion. I think maybe only about 6 to 8 inches at my house. It is wise to remember I live in the mountains. And weather and snow depth can vary drastically depending on which side of the hill you live. Velarde on the dry side of the mountain does not have snow yet. And Raton, out toward the Texas boarder is having a full out blizzard.

When potential tourists ask how much snow we are going to have at Christmas (frequently asked in July) it is difficult to keep a straight face. It is difficult to know how much snow we will get today let alone six days from now. Wiser people than me will have to come up with predictions 6 months ahead.

I do know it is suppose to be warmer and drier this year. And storms thus far have largely skirted to the south of us. That area of the state has been so very dry I do not begrudge them a single flake. Same with the east side. So while we welcome the snow pack to aid in reducing summer forest fires I won't do a snow dance to get it here instead of the Sandia's or Zuni's.

Wiser gods are in control of the weather and they do not ask my permission. May we all get what we need even if it isn't necessarily what we want.

Creative Journey: Talk of cold

2011-12-15T05:27:00.000-08:00

Creative Journey: Talk of cold

Monday Morning

2011-12-12T07:31:00.000-08:00

That time of year again. How quickly it seems to come around these days.

I love decorating trees. Love the smell of them (the fresh ones). It looked like I might not get my tree this year. For the longest time only one place in Angel Fire had trees for sale and they looked dyed and plastic, definitely were not freshly cut, and had no place to place decorations the branches were so jammed together. I considered a fake tree. Even went internet shopping for one.

Disenchanted with that possibility I thought of any variety of ways to make a tree substitute. I had done one in college which was stacked tumbleweeds sprayed white and adorned with Christmas lights which my room mate and I swore blinked to Tchaikowsky's 5th symphony. I have used potted Norfolk pines also. And for several years when space was limited due to mask making for Mardi Gras just hung ornaments from the ceiling. I was dreaming up a mobile tree to hang from the studio rafters when I returned to my search for the real thing.

And I got it. A fresh cut New Mexico pine that just smells like the great outdoors. Nice when you are closed off against the weather in a heated house. No doubt why the Norse began the tradition. Course they had their livestock also in the house and I just have the fur kids.

I do make some of my own decorations and every year I have tried to buy a new one or two or three. As a result I have a wide range of options for adornment and can rather pick and choose. I do like the flowers and bows I did last year. They add a Victorian Flair. As do some of the tin ones I have picked up.

One of my hand painted ornaments in behind this reindeer I got last year. And one of my collection of moose. Stay tuned to this blog for more featured ornaments in the weeks before retirement to the boxes again.

TW3 - Winter Arrived

2011-12-05T05:57:00.000-08:00

December snow by J. Binford-Bell

Winter arrived this week. All my bargaining did not work. Still with a forecast by NOAA of three massive storms we only got the second. And currently the third has been downgraded from 16" to as little as 8" additional. But it looks as if we are not going to escape the bitter cold. It is 6 F this morning as I write this and destined to only get to 10 F today. Plunging to -13 tonight. The good news is there is currently not a breath of wind. But it seemed like a good time to start a morning fire in the wood stove.

The first blast of winter weather always seems so rude. Yes, it is bound to come. And yes, we need the moisture. But I really would rather do it without gale force winds and sub zero temps. But I can deal with both easier than summers in the triple digits. I can always put on more clothing but there is just so much I am willing to take off in public. And New Mexico, is by in large, just pretend winter. It comes and goes. I found out what real winter was one year in Vail, Colorado. Thank you but no. Here, come Wednesday, we are back to sunshine and temps over freezing. December is the cruelest month here.

Good time to stay inside and paint in my studio. Or finally get around to updating my website. I need to add photography to that. Being snowed in is good muse time. Though yesterday during a break between storms I shoveled the driveway under blue skies and then tested out the snow tires on the new to me vehicle. The sun was melting off the 10 inches from the day before storm. Long range forecasts say it will be a dry and warm winter. This current week is just a fluke.

And I like the sound of a crackling fire in the morning. It goes so well with a hot cup of coffee.

Traditons

2011-11-27T04:01:00.000-08:00

I suppose it is natural to think of traditions during the holidays if only in the manner and style in which we prepare the meal and set the table. But a friend of mine here in blog land recently recalled an old man fishing that stood with his hat off in silence while a funeral convoy passed. I have not seen many funeral convoys or corteges of late. But then I live outside a small community that until recently did not even have a cemetery. But I do remember my Uncle Ray passing this bit of behavior to me on his lawn in Kansas City.

My father also always stood in silence with his hat off and over his heart when the United States flag passed by in a parade. It is in there will all the other passed down knowledge given to me by my elders. And I was of the generation that believed traditions like wedding ceremonies held back progress in society. Age has changed me. I now see so many of these stumbling blocks to progress as glue that holds a society together.

The fisherman that stood in silence with his hat off as the procession of cars passed was acknowledging his part in the human condition. One day he might be the body in the lead hearse. Will anyone stand for him? My ex-husband's wife did not even hold a memorial service for him so that the community he lived in for over twenty years could say goodbye. Such traditions or rituals are a step in the process of healing - of closing the open wound left by a member's passing. But a lot of smaller traditions are a way of cementing a society even if it is only opening a door for an elderly citizen. Or a woman with a baby in her arms. Or a young man on crutches.

Automatic doors or the hurried pace of the life we have set for ourselves seems to preclude these traditions taught to us by our parents. I might be part of the last generation that remembers these things. Have I passed them on to anyone younger. As anyone younger listened? Obviously not because we now think it is perfectly okay to bust down doors and run over the weak and frail and pepper spray others to get the best bargain on a big screen TV.

This time between Thanksgiving and Christmas is suppose to be on most church calendars a time of reflection on our own lives (not a make others wrong). What are you doing to tie yourself to other humans, to acknowledge your commonality and not your differences? What oil are you spreading on the wheels of society? Are you letting someone with less items and a screaming child go first in line? Are you parking further away in the big box store lot so someone who needs it can have access to the handicapped space? Are you opening the door for anyone that might have trouble doing it themselves.

What little traditions or common courtesies have you learned and buried in some recess of your mind? Time to revive them and share them openly. Time to make our society a kinder and gentler place to reside.

Shopping in Taos

2011-11-20T04:16:00.000-08:00

I was reminded this morning when I considered my topic and searched my brain for a lead photograph that when I originally began this blog I used old photos I had searched in Google for. This was one of the first ones I used. Fortunately blogspot keeps them all in Picassa albums so I was able to get it back for today's topic of shopping in Taos.

The wagons now have wheels but I don't know that the look of my fellow customers have changed much. Taos residents can be an odd lot. Especially at Walmart.

First stop yesterday was Albertson's. I had made a list of items I needed for my after Thanksgiving open studio event and I am more familiar with their layout of products than Smith's. And I was trying to avoid Walmart to be honest. I seldom, if ever, go into Walmart once the holiday season has kicked off. I am obviously not a good American consumer. Albertson's also has the bogo sales on things - buy one/get one. They had extra thick organic pork chops perfect for stuffing but I digress.

My goal was to get one or two things I was out of but all else for the green chili stew, biscochitos, cheese plate and hot spiced cider for the Friday and Saturday event. Ever notice how fast you can shop when it is your usual list but how slow things go when you have some unusual items on it? And so it was in the paper aisle yesterday trying to decide on paper bowls, plates, napkins, and hot drink cups. None of the numbers were what you would expect. Experienced shoppers know it is 10 hot dogs and 8 buns per pack. But quick what is the number of paper bowls in a package? With Hefty it is 10 or 25.

And how many might you use for an open (as in advertised to the public) event? That is highly problematic in Angel Fire and this time of year weather has a lot to do with it. I chose my menu because it would all freeze (green chili stew) or be eaten by me (cheese and rice crackers) or could be mixed in smaller batches (hot apple cider). I think I can cope with anything from one to 50 so I got fifty cocktail plates, bowls and drink cups. And an almost infinite amount of plastic spoons. Experience has shown that I use plastic spoons for everything from yogurt to go to mixing paint.

I think I am all set for the party. And the next couple of weeks of other stuff like canned dog food. My goal is to not have to drop into the local market for anything. With gas going down and their prices going up it almost becomes cheaper to drive over the mountain for more than three items. The one thing I could not find was sterno. Had planned to put the apple cider in the chaffing dish. So had to go to Walmart anyway (camping section in case you are looking for any) but they had only the little cans. Finally decided it was more economical to but a little crock pot (my big one will have the green chili stew in it). Used to have two but I think I was in a decluttering mode. Oh, well, the old one was in harvest colors (picked up at a garage sale?) and the new one is black to match the big one.

All my paper dinner wear (isn't that an interesting term they have picked up?) is in red. What does not get used for this event will be serviceable at Christmas and then at Valentine's. Small party like events are suppose to be the way to promote your art and studio these days. And what I spent on food and accessories was a great deal less than the standard booth fee at a fair. And that is without the gas and labor to get there.

Last year I was in the Rio Grande Holiday show watching people walk off their turkey dinners. This year I will be sitting in my warm studio probably painting Christmas decorations until someone shows up. Ambiance sounds better.

Summary of the Week that Was

2011-11-13T08:55:00.000-08:00

Mt. Wheeler with snow cap

Finally got back from vacation mentally. And moved out of idle into a gear that at least got something done. Biggest thing was getting the desk moved out of the studio. It gives me so much more room and the person that came and got it is really enjoying it. With it gone it makes it easier to rearrange things and prepare the studio for my Holiday opening, November 25 and 26.

Another boon to mentally returning from vacation is I got out the camera and snapped some more photos. Though honestly I was still thinking of fall when a snow capped Wheeler Peak revealed itself from under the clouds.

The weather was nicer than I though given the really cold nights we have been having - like the single digits. And so my walk up the lane to look in at a friend's cats invited lingering to get that just right photo.

Fir tree cones

And then some lingering over captured images on the computer and Corel Paintshop Pro 4x.

Seed Drill

Some Modifications

And I made some modifications in my life beyond the studio. Finally gave into buying a Kindle. Tired of struggling with reading in bed print that is too small or the light not just right or holding up a heavy hard cover book. I am having trouble waiting for it to arrive but I continue to work my way through The Private Patient by P.D. James with its tiny, tiny little print.

Time to put the peddle to the metal and get busy with the studio re-arrange for the Holiday opening I have planned. A return to unseasonably warm weather might be nice but currently it is gale force winds and more snow. Even the dogs don't want to go out.

Focus in

Meanwhile I need to tighten my focus on what needs to be done and do it. Guess I am still not totally back from vacation.

TW3 - Lost Time

2011-11-07T05:48:00.000-08:00

Not sure where the last week went. Yes, there were little things I got done but there were also huge blocks of wasted time. Almost as if once back from vacation physically my mind took its own vacation. Yes, I caught up with laundry and I got all the photos I took edited and organized. Still need to upload to FlickR. But the list of things I was going to jump right back into like sewing projects (though I have the area to do them established) and cleaning up the studio (the bags are unpacked and no longer in the middle of the floor) are not done. Every other day I have been doing 20 minutes of light weights but not moving beyond that.

I did join the Angel Fire Chamber of Commerce but I have not done a write up and e-mailed in in to the membership manager. It is the end of the first week of November and I have to get the peddle to the metal soon. No more watching streaming videos all day long. Or playing computer games past my bedtime.

Yesterday the local firewood supplier delivered a cord of firewood and I had to get out and stack it before today's scheduled snow. The physical exercise felt good. Today I have assigned limits to my computer time. I do have to do that CofC write up today. And I want to sew up the pj's I cut out so a streaming video or DVD while doing that. And I need to work on the todo list. I seem to have lost the before vacation one. And never made one afterwards. Too much freedom obviously goes to my head.

Are you a list maker? I have gotten so I cannot survive without one. Can you?

Making a Shopping List

2011-10-29T12:41:00.000-07:00

I do try to support local businesses but I no longer ski, have a complete stock of Angel Fire t-shirts, and cannot figure out the open/close schedule of our restaurants in off season. In spite of gas being 20 to 30 cents more per gallon than Taos I usually fill up on this side of the mountain unless I need to go to Taos for another reason.

Since the Taos branch of Artisan's art supply closed these trips had become less frequent. As a solo household I often just picked up food stuffs at the local store. The Valley Market was recently bought and remodeled by Lowe's, a Texas chain. The remodel enlarged the store but most of the new footage has been taken up by a much expanded liquor section which is arranged so it cannot be avoided. My favorite brand of ice cream is gone. Organic foods are relegated to one half aisle across from wines. Whole wheat flour cannot be found. Their bread is that white foamy stuff that when wadded up makes a great cleaner for paintings. And your ability to find organic milk is dependent on being there on stocking day. They said they were keeping on the neighbors that worked there but I think the last one just got forced out.

I have continued to try mainly because of my schedule before vacation but the items on the list I cannot find grow and finally I have a list long enough to justify the 50 mile round trip to Taos. I see that this will be a twice a month event and while there I will fill up on cheaper gas. If I pop in the local market it will be for the odd can of dog food, but even pet food sacrificed space for more liquor. One hopes they can make a profit on tourists because most of us locals are spurning the place, and they spent a lot on the remodel. I was one of the last "give them some time" people.

Well, back to that shopping list.

Made it at last

2011-10-25T03:55:00.000-07:00

Painted Desert

After I graduated from high school my father gave us the grand tour. Not the grand tour of a year in Europe which some of my later college friends enjoyed but two weeks with the family seeing the parks of the intermountain west. It was an ambitious list of must see's and early on two parks got cut: Painted Desert and Petrified Forest. The argument was we lived in a painted desert and that you could buy petrified wood everywhere. So for years both remained on my must see list if for no other reason that they got cut.

But there always seemed to be grander parks to see or more important places to go. But this vacation with my sister I at last made it to both. Let me say for the record that you can buy petrified wood everywhere. But the colors and scope of the painted desert, which continues into the petrified forest park, is not to be seen just anywhere. And for a photographer it should not be missed.

I really want to go back. Mostly because the light changes the colors so very much. It is one of those places, like the Grand Canyon, I can imagine setting up the tripod and waiting for the sun to rise or set.

My quilted purple mountain

And with the colors there are such interesting shapes and contours. It once was a primordial forest. The petrified wood huge towering trees that grew there. The two parks are joined because the painted desert continues into the once lush forest of the petrified trees.

Cascade of Petrified Trees

We took one of the walks to the bottom of the colored hills. The world above vanished. The trail marker at the top said to take time to listen to the silence. I felt as if I had been transported to a world before there was time or noise.

Maybe another planet.

Time Slipping Away

2011-10-12T06:05:00.000-07:00

This last year seems to have gone so fast. And the last two months like Mr. Toad's Wild Ride. I have changed so many things it is hard to find equilibrium it seems. And it isn't just me but the world around me as we race from fall to winter in New Mexico.

I normally post a weekly blog here on Mondays and just this morning (in the hours before dawn) realized it was Wednesday. Vacation with my sister begins tomorrow. We are off to photograph more of our beloved Colorado Plateau. This time the southern edge of it. Have cameras and laptops and will travel. Only this time we are doing it on day trips or overnight turn arounds. Works best with fur kids and changeable weather.

I need the vacation. But not because it is a change of pace. Pace has changed a lot all on its own. A bit of boredom would be nice. No computer crashes, no extreme allergic reactions with a pet, no more friends being diagnosed with terminal illnesses, etc. Same oh, same oh sounds very nice actually.

But I seem to have no control over time or what happens in that time. I just feel a bit old to go with the flow. And we are too close to winter to throw caution to the winds.

Spending time with my camera

2011-10-04T06:27:00.000-07:00

Storm clouds

I have been spending time with my Nikon D90 and my newest version of post processing software: Corel Paintshop Pro 4X Ultimate. So much time you would think I was enrolled in a post graduate level photography course. And in a way I am. I am using other photographers I know as my instructors and dissertation committee. I consider the things they post as assignments and take to the street or computer.

Terry Atkins Rowe has posted several very illuminating links on our D90 Ladies Club page on Facebook. And they have served as my text book. A recent one she posted was on achieving good black and white photographs. Frankly since I left my darkroom at college I have not been successful with B&W. And having my sister and friend, Terry, excel at it has been a bit intimidating.

My natural tendency is to quit the table when I don't like the game or lose a lot. But this is about me, my camera and my computer. It is an inner competition with self and not just about photography. So armed with camera I set out. The really great thing about the digital era is photography becomes a really cheap activity once you have the camera, lenses, and software (and ignore the I-really-want-this-list).

The above picture was really fantastic in color. I tried it in B&W because very active skies are suppose to be very good for B&W and a photograph I saw at a Taos art exhibit this weekend proved clouds could be just as stunning without color as with. The picture leaves just a hint of lilac in it and the one below with just a bit of blue.

Then there was the raven. I have finally managed to lure one close enough to get a picture but it was through thermo pane glass which was anything but clean. The grass it was standing on was anything but brilliant green and ravens are black. The composition of the photo was solid so why not. I am a believer you cannot save an awful photo regardless of what you do in the darkroom, dry or wet.

It is necessary for B&W I have read to have light from one direction. This picture was taken in the early morning and light was coming from the direction of the bird's tail and gave great definition on the feathers because of it.

Textures are also suppose to be a good thing for B&W so when I downloaded this picture of a ram at the Taos Wool Festival I was immediately drawn to the textures around the face and neck of this beast. This photo is good in color in its entirety but the sun coming from the butt of the sheep washed out all contrast on the rest of the picture. So I cropped down to the most interesting textures before taking out color. Totally B&W in this and the raven.

So in conclusion I have learned a lot. In part that those that do a lot of B&W post processing are quite likely considering that when they take the picture: Texture, active skies, strong light source from an oblique angle, etc. That in and of itself gives them a huge spring board for black and white photographs. It isn't just something you do with a bunch of pictures you took which failed in color. But the same things that make for a good black and white photograph also add to a good color photo.

Next lesson is to go out with camera and shoot specifically for black and white. Lesson after that is shoot for color pictures and find out if my black and white experience as improved the shots I get.

Driven

2011-09-28T04:08:00.000-07:00

Facebook Report Card

I don't do apps on Facebook so why I got sucked in with this one when I was tagged by a friend I haven't a clue. But once I had it posted on my page it immediately sucked me in. And it has not been a happy experience.

Report cards were a major thing when I was a kid. We had to excel. And let me say for the record that this card would have been a major event at our house. C's and D's were never tolerated. Regardless of the fact that in the end I have a B average.

Let me explain they have the friend number wrong. I have more friends (well, a few more) than that. But my grade school report cards often had a special note from the teacher that I did not play well with others. Not that I was mean or anything. I just found my classmates on the whole boring. I would rather sit in a corner of the playground and draw or write. Doing that in class because I found the teacher boring often also earned me the classic line, "Does not use time wisely." Since I am now an artist and have been a freelance writer I want all those comments resended.

The D in videos is definitely because of "Does not pay attention in class" and the "Does not play well with others." I was never one of those that chased fads or popular music or could name the artist and song or the movie and the actor. It is definitely hard to look something up on YouTube if you don't know those things. Oh, not that I don't use YouTube exhaustively but I look up things like how to stretch canvas or do a half double crochet stitch or fix the car. Maybe I will start posting those to my Facebook page to improve my video score.

As to the friend score: If you are reading this and on Facebook but not currently a friend go to my profile and invite me. I am a rather quiet (see remark about corner of playground) and low maintenance. I also have a fanpage which my father would say was under performing because I do not push like some of my friends. I would have flunked salesmanship and never been able to be an evangelist.

But what I choose to do I am good at.

That Was a Week!

2011-09-27T04:59:00.000-07:00

Aspens turning

First my sister found out she had won first place for one of her photographs in the 35th International show in Raton. So she made plans to drive up Friday morning after she got off work. Then the repaired computer at last arrived on Thursday. Its hard drive had been replaced so what was once suppose to be Charley VI and became Charley VII because Charley VI would not boot up should probably have been renamed Charley VIII because it has a totally new mind that I have been trying to set up. But I digress again.

Friday came too fast and we drove out to Raton to pick up my sister's award. Her first big award for her photography so she was soaring for sure. Then Saturday we once again went four wheeling with her Jeep Rubicon. The Aspens were turning. Where oh where did the year go?

And my weekend with my sister was all too fleeting. But she taught me to use the cloning tool on my photo editing program. How to successfully shoot macro pictures. And to microwave scrambled eggs.

Sisters are priceless.

s

TW3 - Time to Move On

2011-09-20T05:32:00.001-07:00

Moving does not mean packing up the household belongings and hitting the road. As a child with a father in the military, and then later in my youth working for a major construction management company I got to redo my life on a regular basis via United Van Lines. Home was just where my parents lived. And given their lives not anywhere I had lived often.

Now I have lived in the same house for almost 15 years and in the same geographic area for almost 23. I until recently would image moving house just to not have to be trapped. But I have at last discovered that movement can be a rather static thing. It can be just a shift in attitude. Or turning just a bit to be aware there is another path to follow. It can be not calling the same friends for lunch or belonging to the same board of directors.

It can be like the newly emerged butterfly just quietly pumping its wings full so it can fly - a movement so still as to be almost no movement at all at first. Then that leap of faith. Leaving that comfortable space.

I have done a lot of moving this summer. Changing people and goals if not place. And while a bit scary it feels good. And it seems that the universe has united behind my shift in direction. Or should I say directions. To a lot of my old friends it seems that I am going all ways at once; that I am leaving behind what they believe is important.

The biggest visible shift has been to photography. But, never fear, I am still painting. I just am not painting for fairs or the expectations of galleries. I am painting what I want to paint. And I am painting at a pace my muse can support. A lot of energies are going into the photography just now but that is understandable. It is new and exciting to me especially given my success with it thus far. To the outsider this seems all so sudden. But it was a change in some ways long coming.

In some ways I was pushed by the economy, the down turn in fairs, the death of the Astro Van that took me to those fairs, my stand against giclee prints of my paintings, and just plain got to move off this damn leaf I am on. If I hadn't moved I could have been gobbled by some frog.

But yes I am still here. I have not moved house as the Brits say. I am still blogging but the focus of my blogs may have shifted a bit. More poetry on Creative Journey. Less politics on Travels with Charley. A tad more introspection here. And I have left groups I began on Facebook as I consider new groups I might want to start.

Times they are a changing. Like the butterfly whose new wings are at last dry: Move or die.

In Praise of the Cloud

2011-09-12T05:11:00.000-07:00

After having put Fedex and HP down in a couple blogs I thought I ought to say something good about a company. After the external hard drive crashed last October and then the computer service tech I took it to erased the hard drive on my desktop I signed up for the Carbonite Cloud. It is an ethernet back up service that takes the worry out of backup.

I am an artist and I admit for losing complete track of time about backing up my computers. Or loading photos into my FlickR account. With the cloud I just have to be on line and anything new I post is backed up. And I can be on any device to access the cloud and pluck down information. I first used it when I had forgotten to download a file from my desktop to my laptop before taking off to a fair. Then again when the desktop failed yet again. I bought a new computer and upon receipt of it could immediately get the backupped data from the cloud and put it on the new one.

Now my desktop (still under warranty with HP) has failed and just before a couple exhibitions I want to enter or need to print photographs for. The 7-10 working days for repair is already past 6 and the computer is still in my living room because HP forgot to include the shipping label in the late arriving Fedex box. It won't even go to repair until tomorrow if Fedex delivers the label on time. Day 8. So I have been into the cloud more than once and no doubt will go there again.

Carbonite just reminded me that my backup on the desktop is a week late. I replied that Charley VII was broke again and received back a very nice e-mail from them offering a link for downloading the data from my sick computer when fixed and an 800 number to call if I had any problems with that.

I was amazed they had an e-mail that was not a noreply one like Fedex and HP. So right on Carbonite. I could not have made it through this year without you.

Fed up with Fedex and HP

2011-09-11T08:52:00.000-07:00

My HP computer broke again. Mother board this time. And of course it crashed on the first day of Labor Day weekend. It was under warranty and I have a laptop, but my desktop is where I do all my company business and all my photo editing. And, of course, I had a deadline on getting some photos printed for a show I was accepted in.

HP agreed that only 8 months old the computer was under warranty. They would send me a shipping box. It left their center on Tuesday with second day express shipping. It was schedule to be delivered by Fedex on Thursday.

That delivery date was critical because I could then box the offending computer and call for pickup on Friday. With any luck it would be in the repair center on the following Tuesday at the latest. I cancelled all appointments to not miss the Fedex delivery van. I rushed downstairs after making the bed just in time to see it pull out of my driveway.

No box on porch where most drivers leave packages, no box at my renter's apartment. She saw the Fedex very distinctive white truck drive away too with nobody getting out of it. Checked with my immediate neighbor to the west. He gets constant Fedex shipments of chemo drugs. No the driver had not left it there. I called Fedex Help line (now that is a misnomer) and they said the driver could not find my address.

I mentioned he was in my driveway. They asked if he had left an attempt to deliver tag. He had not. He did not get out of his truck because it was raining. Pony Tail Joe has quite a reputation in the Angel Fire area for non-delivery. As 29 comments to a community Facebook page attest. This is just a sampling:

We would have to start a new page to list all the complaints about Fed Ex deliveries in Angel Fire. My new skis were dropped at a local business that was closed the following 4 days. Home delivery was never attempted despite the tracking saying the package was delivered to my house.
does seem to be the norm here with Fedex. He recorded that he could not find my address even though he was in my driveway.
I wonder if it's the same driver that lied about (not) picking up our package at the Resort last week. Even though it's not a public drop-off, the Resort has been kind enough to allow us to take our overnight lab work to their Fed-Ex drop off for the last few years because it (was) the most reliable pickup spot in town. We left our box in the usual spot and Fed Ex hadn't picked it up in 3! days so we took it to the Chamber. When Jo at the Chamber mentioned it to him she said he rudely said, "that box hasn't been at the Resort" - liar!! They need to get Fabian back as a driver - he was great!
This guy needs fired. And I plan to collect all these experiences and put them in a blog and mail it to Fedex
If it was the younger kid then yes! I filed a complaint just last week! Er
I never saw him because he did not get out of his truck
He better show up with my new Mac tomorrow after I paid for overnight shipping fees
I used to accept packages for people at the old bookstore. One of the reasons I quit doing it was because I had sooooo many problems with Fedex. Never had a problem with UPS.Fedex delivered a package to me yesterday....I met him at the top of the pass. I asked him if he was the regular guy and he said no...he was probably mid-to late 40's, with a pony tail. Heavy-set guy. White econoline van with FEDEX on it. That's all I can tell you...didn't get his name.

The Fedex agent on the phone insisted my box would be delivered later Thursday evening and to call back in a half hour. I did and the computer record had deleted the bit about the driver could not find my house. Package was not in the truck on Thursday for delivery. They apologized for the inconvenience and promised it would be delivered on Friday - hardly second day air I was paying extra for.

It has not been nine days since my business computer crashed. I did finally get the box on Friday at 6:30 but only because I saw the Fedex truck parked in the middle of my county road ready to once again drive off. I understand from a friend that Fedex is now commercializing their service in rural areas. I can only say . . . . well, I try to keep my blogs clean. I have for sometime tried to avoid all FEDEX shippers when I shop on line. This recent experience with them (see previous blog about VAS too) as validated that decision.

I am definitely worried about my computer being picked up and delivered to HP in a timely manner now that I finally have the box. I would drive it to a repair center if I knew where that was but HP forgot to include a return pre-paid label. So add that I am also fed up with HP.

Just got off the phone with Pakistan and HP will be sending my return label by the same company that took three days for an 2 day express air. You guessed it. Fedex. This is a computer company that has not yet gotten that you can e-mail Fedex labels to be printed out by the customer.

VRS is an Oxymoron

2011-09-09T14:44:00.000-07:00

Ernestine

In the old days before technology ran wild you had a chance of talking to a real receptionist or a real operator. Note I did not say human. Ma Bell, the mega telephone company we insisted on breaking up, gave all their operators and service personnel a list of questions and responses from which they could not vary. One of Ernestine's lines on the old Laugh In comedy show was, "Is this the person to whom I am speaking?"

I was reminded of Lily Tomlin that made Ernestine famous yesterday in a series of telephone calls to HP and Fedex concerning the undelivered package to ship my broken computer back in. Both have a set list of questions and responses from which they are not allowed to vary regardless of how inappropriate the are.

"Your driver failed to deliver the chemo drug package this week and my husband has died."

" We are sorry for your inconvenience."

"The funeral is Wednesday."

" We apologize for any inconvenience this has caused."

AND both have Voice Recognition Software as do several other companies I can mention. I had several well chosen words to say about VRS last night. None of which I think the software recognized. But then it also did not recognize what is was designed to recognize. In short, Voice Recognition Software is an oxymoron. It does not recognize voices and it is more hardware than software.

VRS might work with your home security system because you get to program it to match your voice and is not filtered through two telephones and miles of, if you are lucky, fiber optic cable. But VRS as used by companies on service lines make absolutely no allowances for the device you are speaking from, your sex, your regional accent, or any speech impediments, static on the line, or a major lightning storm. Most VRS used on customer service sites are programmed for the male voice in the lower registers (name the last time a man placed his own service call?). Screaming at it when it fails for the fifth time to know the difference between J and K just raises your voice an octave and makes you harder to understand. It does not like repetitions unless it is asking for it, will not start over if you say, "whoops, I meant 5 not 9," does not get that Alpha, Beta, Charlie is ABC, . . . well this list could go on. And there is a lot of GIGO as with HP last night that wanted one zip code to match one telephone number when for my problem they had two of each. Any one remember set and subset theory?

Let me say that the first few times I had to repeat something, because what it read back to me was so far from correct, I was a bit amused. When it thought 2300 was 1350 I pressed zero (once operator now what passes for a human voice) and figured I would rather talk to Ernestine. Instead I got Pakistani who had only a fleeting acquaintance with English and Ernestine's canned script. Even reverting to my 6th grade vocabulary did not help. In the end I reverted to screaming which had the same effect on him as it did on the VRS.

"Sorry if this caused you any inconvenience. Is there anything else I can help you with?"

I declined to mention he had not helped me with anything to that point and hung up. Sometimes all you can do is hang up and see of you can find an e-mail address on the website to which you can send your queries. Or never use that company again! Bring back Ernestine.

I have fall fever

2011-09-08T10:31:00.000-07:00

It has been raining this week. The grass as greened up and every wild flower that didn't bloom this spring because of lack of rain has burst into bloom. My neighbor has put his horses back in the field behind me. I throw on a hoodie and sit on my studio stoop with my camera and coffee. Life is good.

And so is the light if you like taking pictures. What a rotten time to have my desktop computer with the Corel Paint Shop program down. So I have contented myself with cropping on my laptop.

Meanwhile the list of things to do before winter settles in grows. But I just cannot pull myself away from the photographic opportunities visible from my stoop.

Oh, well, maybe next week the weather and view will not be so nice.

September already???

2011-09-05T05:04:00.000-07:00

If this is September can scenes like the one be far behind?

Typing this from my laptop, Traveler. No, I am not traveling except in my mind. And once again my desktop is awaiting shipment back to the mothership of HP. I had cleaned my laptop of excess photos when Charley V failed and Charley VII was on order. That was end of November 2010. One thing would lead to another and I would not have my new desktop until almost the last day of that year. So when it failed yesterday I was well within my warranty time.

Tech support always creates chaos in my not that orderly desk area. Which led last night to found things and lost things - including my temper. But in the cool light f predawn I find myself wondering where the last year has gone, how many photos it is possible to put on a hard drive in less than nine months, and maybe it is time while the desktop is gone to rearrange the office area like I thought last December. And is there a way to organize my computer desk so when the tech guy says remove all the cables from the back it is easy to do?

I think I have asked that last question before. Nothing has changed? Well, the Carbonite Cloud backup was a changed. And so when the desktop failed with all my latest photos formatted to go to the printer, for an exhibition I was accepted in, my panic was not as great as last September when four years of photographs and documents vanished in the ether at the computer nerd's house. And when HP delivers my desktop back with a new motherboard I can restore all data (but not programs) from the cloud. Now to figure out while programs I directly downloaded and which I ordered the CD's for. And it is that question that moved me from Photoshop to Corel Paint Shop Pro, but I digress.

Sometimes I have to have change thrust upon me and that has to be the theme for the last 12 months. Astro Van failed and forced me to look at my commitment to fairs. The new desktop allowed me the space and speed to more actively pursue photography. Marc's death a year ago made me look at moving on or not in relationships. And now some eager classmates from high school are planning a reunion. Oh, what I don't remember (thankfully) from high school. And what I do remember might be best forgotten. Might be some interesting blogs in that including David Rhodes who I had a crush on but he had a crush on my best friend. Stupidly asked me for her phone number!

But once again I digress. I have the photos I need now downloaded from the cloud to my laptop. I can copy them to a jump drive or just e-mail them to the printer I use in Taos. Downloading them proved that the cloud works and if HP techs lose my data I can reload the fixed Charley VII upon its return to me in two weeks. I will have the printed and framed and into the show in Raton before that.

Life moves on regardless of what is lost: computers, cars, people. I just wish sometimes it would slow down a bit.

Oops, Lost in the Outback

2011-08-28T08:30:00.000-07:00

Self-portrait of Photographer

Last Sunday I left to go visit my sister in San Fidel, New Mexico. I had intended to do my TW3 blog Sunday evening but one thing led to another. Have cameras and will use them. Monday we were in Albuquerque and upon our return too the great cloud/storm photos featured on Creative Journey. Tuesday we went for a walk at the El Malpais National Monument. We chose the Lava Falls walk on the youngest of the lava flows in the area. Only 3000 years. It occurred to us that recent news of earth quakes in New Mexico and Colorado and upgrade of this "dormant" volcanic field to could be active without warning made this not the wisest of outings.

But, hell, what is life without some risk. One of the biggest risks on this walk was losing your balance on the uneven footing of the rough basalt and falling. I frankly began to look at the cacti as soft.

Reading of the hike brochure (after our return to the car) said that the following picture is smooth or pahoehoe lava. There were definitions of Hawaiian terms but no definition of smooth. They did mention that pahoehoe lava frequently has a ropy texture which seems to contradict my definition of smooth.

Pahoehoe lava

This slab of basalt looked smoother to me, but don't let that fool you. The surface could still cut you to ribbons if you fell on it and the cracks seem to have no bottoms at times. Not unlike life frankly.

Life grabs a toe hold

Unexpected color

So how amidst this landscape do you follow the path? Cairns. A mound of stones erected as a marker or memorial. It is wise to note you should never leave one cairn until you have spotted the next one. And they advise you to not erect your own cairns or add to or take away from the existing cairns. Making of cairns is the priority of the national monument staff and they have a bit of a sense of humor. Many were "idols" like the one below with two stone eyes and a twig nose.

I found myself wondering if the more elaborate cairns were in fact monuments to those hikers, who like my sister and myself, left our water in the car, or lost their way between cairns.

Cairn Lavaman

It is wise to note if you decide to undertake this adventure that the iron in the basalt makes cellphone reception virtually impossible. The "field" is not flat always flat so spotting the car park not easy. Nor is discerning where the next cairn is. There is one in the picture below.

Lava Falls

And sometimes there seems to be rather challenging territory to cross to the next cairn.

Heading to the next cairn - can you see it?

We really enjoyed out walk on the wild side. By the way the seemingly baby vegetation is at times hundreds of year old natural bonsai. No worries about visitors digging them up and taking them home.

TW3 Late

2011-08-16T05:53:00.000-07:00

The late season humming birds are in full flight. According to most bird books the vast majority of humming birds I feed on a regular basis are only flying through on a long migration. And some bird books maintain that New Mexico is not their major flyway but Arizona. I think that has been wrong for a decade but never more wrong than this year when the Arizona fires pushed them west.

Now, whether it is two species or twenty, is when they head south. I will be filling up my quart feeder at least once a day until almost as suddenly as they came they are gone.

The cliff swallows are gone. Again as suddenly as they came. They hatched out a brood and got them all flying and for about a week hung around on insect catching lessons or some such. I got to watch them with their just above the ground aerial antics and then silence. I remember my dad and his love for Purple Martins. They always arrived to set up house keeping in the elaborate Martin houses he built on my mother's birthday - March 29th. And they left the houses for the trees with the new crop about the 1st of August. On Dad's birthday, August 15th, they left every year but the year he died. I can remember them in the trees outside his ICU room for a week beyond that. Until the day he flew away with them.

People laugh at me when I declare a day in early to mid-August as the first day of fall, but the wind does change. And not merely direction but feel and smell. The birds must sense it too because it seems to be a signal to hit the road. Soon all the summer birds will be gone and I will be left with the "natives" which every year seem more varied. We even get Bald Eagles and Golden Eagles all year long now. Once most species of hawks were migratory but now I am as like to see a Red Tail in December as in June. Ravens and Magpies are always around. And I feed any number of little birds which yearly seems to grow in number - Pine Siskins, Juncos, Chickadees.

There has been a lot of talk this last week about how strange the weather has gotten globally. Those that have scoffed at global warming theories have been rather quiet. I really didn't need Al Gore or teams of scientists to tell me the times they are a changing. I saw it in the birds that stop by to say hi. And those that stay. And those that have moved in where once they were just occasional.

So as the list of things to do before snow flies grows I find myself spending more time with my transitory friends and camera. I guess in someways I am more the grasshopper than the ant.

Nightmares

2011-08-10T04:27:00.000-07:00

When I was a kid I called them nightmares. Today I relegate them to the realm of disturbing. They do not contain monsters borrowed from a late night show my parents told me not to watch but from a odd arrangement of reality. They dwell in the area of the possible from which there seems to be no escape.

Per Wiki: A nightmare is an unpleasant dream that can cause a strong negative emotional response from the mind, typically fear and/or horror, but also despair, anxiety and great sadness. The dream may contain situations of danger, discomfort, psychological or physical terror. Sufferers usually awaken in a state of distress and may be unable to return to sleep for a prolonged period of time.

These days I can no longer connect my disturbing dreams to bad food or bad movie or bad news. I more often see them as heralds of a bumpy road ahead or a signal that I have overlooked something important I need to attend to. I can describe them more by the terms despair, and anxiety and sadness than fear or horror. And with dawn and a cup of coffee I can begin to make sense sometimes of the images floating unbidden into my conscious world. Disjointed probably describes them the best.

I feel like a juggler of chain saws that is about to drop them all. And what I cannot remember from last night's dream sequence (oh, yes for me them come as a series) is more disturbing than what I do remember. And was last night just the latest in the series I do not remember but as a vague sense of unrest when I awake. Was this one remembered only because the alarm I accidentally set went off. Are all the questions in point of fact more disturbing than the dreams themselves.

I rode into the pre-dawn on a dark horse chased by images I cannot remember or totally forget.

Do you have nightmares? What form do they take? And how do you shake them off?

Acceptance

2011-08-06T13:57:00.000-07:00

And acceptance is the answer to all my problems today. When I am disturbed, it is because I find some person, place, thing or situation -- some fact of my life -- unacceptable to me, and I can find no serenity until I accept that person, place, thing or situation as being exactly the way it is supposed to be at this moment. The Big Book

Acceptance seems to be a strange subject as we are in the beginning of Mercury in Retrograde. But oddly enough last week had a lot of acceptance in it. And I once again saw the magic of it. Because until you accept things as they are you cannot even develop a game plan for dealing with it. You can waste a lot of energy denying a situation or trying to wish it away.

And you can miss a lot that is good by not letting go of what was. I was so into Astro Van withdrawal I really hadn't accepted the good of the Corolla. The price was right - I traded a painting for it. For a standard car it holds a lot of stuff especially with the fold down back seat. And it gets 39-40 mpg! When I proved that last through two tanks of gas I finally moved into it. But it persisted in my mind of being just a transition vehicle. But this trip to Albuquerque I accepted it would be in my life for at a year and so I went to an audio center for cars and bought a stereo/cd player for it. It only had a cassette player.

Course there I was in Albuquerque with a brand new cd player and no cd's so off to Wally world I went. Amazing how much better I can like a car with tunes!

Notice how everything new you get these days has a manual! My Alpine MP3/WMA/AAC CD Receiver has one several times bigger than my cellphone (basic and not smart). But then it also has a USB port like my computer. So now I am learning how to rip CD's in MP3 format to put on my computer and then on to a thumb drive for the car a go go, now named The Queen. The good news is when I get that done I will be one ahead for my future MP3 player. Already planning out mixing tunes in an album that has my top 50 or so favorites. My impatience would normally want it done now, but I am finding I am enjoying the journey.

That is the big plus in acceptance for me. If you are always wanting to be through or over that or on to the next thing you end up missing the journey and often options or forks or side trips you might have otherwise enjoyed. While ripping cd's this morning I cleaned the studio and rearranged a shelf unit in it. And enjoyed it! Me, the non-neat person.

So three days into Mercury in retrograde I am doing fine. Not accepting it does not make it go away. And there is another 20 days.

Do I get do overs?

2011-08-01T04:53:00.000-07:00

Door of Cimarron Jail

I stepped on this scale this morning and realized I had gained four pounds in the last week. How that happened I am not quite sure as I certainly did not enjoy myself that much. Nothing noteworthy stands out in my menu. But then I admit to not paying much attention.

This last week seemed mostly about taking photographs and then sitting on the computer downloading and reviewing them. And there were some noteworthy photos.

Inside Jail Cell

Where Antelope Play

And it is not like I have been totally inactive. Having camera, will travel does take some traveling. I drove to Raton and of course stopped in Cimarron. And then I walked with the fur kids and camera.


Barbed Wire

And did deep squats to get up close and personal with flowers and twigs.

Thistle blossom

And sometimes just wondered restlessly about the studio trying out various settings on my D90 to capture the flowers and plants drafted into posing as subjects.

Crown of Thorns buds

Cacti

And I poked my head outside to record the birds just outside my studio door. Though capturing those moments took sitting very still for long periods.

Humming bird at feeder

Cliff Swallow feeding young

Thunderstorm building

And when the rain chased me inside I went to the computer to download. Oh, and there was a dog I am pet sitting that needs walked three times a day. I am guessing I just stuffed my face without thinking. Dieting must take concentration I am unable to give it currently. I am trying to find five awesome photographs to enter into the International show August 15th and I am convinced I have not taken them yet. Are all artists so insecure?

TW3 - There are babies!

2011-07-25T10:40:00.000-07:00

Cliff Swallow Nests - Babies are the spotted faces

The first time in my adult life I moved east of the Mississippi it was to Washington, DC. A history buff especially of the period from 1860 to 1910 I toured every Civil War battle field I could and would look at the trees anxiously awaiting fall. As a westerner I was looking forward to all the oranges and reds of the eastern forests but I got hired by a US Senator running for re-election and suddenly one day in late October I noticed I was trodding on soaked brown leaves. I had totally missed fall!

You miss an awful lot when you are overly busy. When I announced I was not going to do any more art fairs one of my on line friends asked if that meant there were going to be more Cliff Swallow photographs posted. Yes!


Acrobatic parent bringing food to chicks in nest

I was in my twenties when I first missed fall in DC. I am no longer a spring chicken and there are not that many more falls and springs and summers I want to miss because of being too busy. Yesterday I sat on my studio porch with my Nikon D90 and the 70mm - 300mm lens and caught up with the progress of the Cliff Swallows. Amazing birds.

Two juvenile birds in nest behind parent launching into flight

And while there I decided to catch up on this year's humming birds too. Everyone else has been posting pictures of these amazing visitors but me it seems.

Seems I was always too busy to do more than feed them. And this year with the drought and very few flowers feeding them is something I was falling behind on until lately. These little creatures can go through a quart a day.

While this Rufus was sucking it up the feeder sent bubbles to the top not unlike those water coolers in offices. It can be rather funny.

Retirement? Rain? Refreshing the Spirit?

2011-07-22T04:19:00.000-07:00

And, Who are you? the caterpillar asked of Alice.

I have been focusing, or rather not focusing on that question this last couple of weeks. I am no longer President of Moreno Valley Arts Council nor a member of the board. I have resolved to quit fairs but I am still an artist. Yes? A working artist? And what if yes am I working at?

When young I saw a western movie about a town in the midst of drought. I lived at the time in the high desert southwest so absence of rain was a regular common thing. But even to my rather young mind it seemed that more than rain was missing from the residents of this fictional town. It was as if their spirits were also drying up.

If you got lost in that quick change of subject - or seemingly switch of track - go back to the title.

With the openness in my schedule I found myself staring at the skies for any sign of the hoped for but definitely late monsoons. I waited for rain as I waited for inspiration. The drought was in my soul as well as in the land around me. And at the same time I tried not to rush to fill the void.

In that space I worked from time to time on catching up with all the abandoned things my hectic schedule had left behind, and took time out to share some windshield time with a friend. And then began two paintings on revisited subjects. Artists revisit because they don't think they have it totally right. And it was two thoughts I wanted cleared out of the corners of my mind. Not unlike decluttering the laundry alcove.

And yesterday while painting it began to rain. And it rained almost all day. The paintings, which I had intended to be dark, are bright. Ideas of what to paint next seem to be milling around in the back of my head as I ponder which paintings to take to the Old Pass Gallery Member's show. And I am pondering a photographic project. Me and my camera and 30 days in my wilderness.

Being too busy for too long does create wastelands.

And poetry.

The key, I think, is to not rush to artificially fill the void. Wait for inspiration like we must wait for rain.

Oh, back to the caterpillar and Alice: We so often answer that question of Who We Are with what we do. Are we that?

TW3 - Failure to Communicate

2011-07-17T05:43:00.000-07:00

Wild sunflowers drenched in rain

As an accidental gardener I often wonder why it is that wildflowers you neglect, and weeds you try to destroy survive more than the flowers and plants you pay fortunes for and go to every effort to nurture. It is not the only paradox in the universe. It can be harder to start a fire than stem a random spark, or stop a malicious rumor with a single drop of the truth.

A week ago Sunday I resigned from my office of president of the board of a non-profit organization and from the board itself after ten years of active participation. I admit I took the easy way out. To have remained would have required some very difficult decisions and also created a maelstrom. To leave has just generated the wildest field of rumors believable. From my hideaway in Black Lake it has been interesting to watch; not unlike the blossoming of wildflowers and weeds in the parched earth beyond my sprinklers.

I used to care a lot about public opinion but I find, as I grow older, that people will believe what they want to believe and the truth generally matters not. Look at the verdict in the Casey Anthony trial for instance. Besides I have been rather busy reordering my life. I have always believed that spirit abhors a vacuum and the openness I have created by deciding not to do art fairs, or lead a non-profit organization will be filled with bigger and better things. Even if that is only a wildflower of brilliant but brief duration in the immediate future. The exercise is to live in the question and not rush for the answers.

It took a week but the paintings are rehung and yesterday I actually sat down and finished one I had begun. One that did not fit my "style" but was an interesting experiment in techniques. It is hard to play with art when everyone figures they know what to expect from you, and it is difficult to waste time exploring techniques when a show looms to prepare for. I spoke with a student this week about tithing to the muse. It is so easy to fall into the raging waters of I must produce - this painting must be perfect - and get carried away with achieving perfection or rescuing a "mistake." We do learn from our mistakes if we will allow ourselves to make them. So we must tithe by playing with our talent - being open to the possibilities.

During the course of that lesson I worked on a few little examples on scraps of canvas. One of them begs me to explore further in that direction. And I look at the others and wonder if I could work them into a collage. I have not done a collage of scraps of this and that for decades. Too busy with my "real life." I have come to realize this week that I was too busy to notice what was real.

As for the weeds and wildflowers growing beyond the sprinkler's reach - they are pretty and survivors. And the rumors? They have a life of their own, but those that matter will know them lies. Back to the studio today to play.

TW3 - Stampede!

2011-07-11T05:16:00.000-07:00

Did you watch Rawhide when you were young? It and Bonanza were must views in my family. We only had only one television, one telephone, and until I was in high school only one car. I think that made it more necessary that we communicate with each other especially when crowded into the living room or the car (no back seat DVD viewer), but I digress. This blog is about cattle and stampedes.

I have lived much of my life in and/or near ranch country. Even in my Rawhide watching days. I would look at the dumb, placid creatures seemingly unable to exert independent thought beyond the herd collective and try to understand the oh so frequent stampedes on that television show. My father and his ranch owning friends tried to assure me that cows were fickle and skittish animals and the least little thing could set them off especially when crowded together in a drive or a pen. I thought they were putting me on until I witnessed a small stampede due to Saint Elmo's fire.

People are not unlike cattle. We do herd well as long as the grass is good, but we are skittish and rather fickle. And pack us too close together in strange circumstances and we get that walleyed look and collectively run for the exits. The cowboys of old were given to talking and singing to the cattle especially on night herd or when heading into a narrow draw or across a river crossing or the wind up. It keeps them calm. You definitely never call them stupid cows in a certain tone of voice.

I believe one of the stupidest things leaders do with humans is try to herd them blindly without regard to what the herd wants (see previous TWC blogs about GWBush), and when something goes wrong immediately attempt to declare fault: "Him! Not me! I didn't do it." Generally said in that same tone of voice as "Stupid Cows."

Dad used to say I was a cat masquerading as a cow. And it is wise to remember that cats cannot be herded. I am always, despite looks to the contrary, totally aware when I am being managed (human herding) and will drift along if it is where I want to go all the time looking for an avenue of escape. Or a way to change the herd the way I want to go. Dad said I was rather good at leading from the rear, which is something generals do, but again I digress.

I have been rather focused on issues of transportation of late and moving along with the herd somewhat blindly but still filtering in bits and pieces of discord. This week the transportation issue was temporarily solved and I could give the collective my full attention. I realized rather suddenly I had gone way too far down this one draw. Note it is not easy to stop in the middle of herd movement. And it does tend to make other members of the herd a bit skittish. (See previous blogs on critical mass and angle of repose.) So I just signaled for a couple quick turns and hoped it would lead me to the off ramp. Everyone pretended to not hear me or smile that she-will-change-her-mind smile.

I think artists are like cats not cows. And we herd together into rooms and buildings to ply our wares but we are out of our element (the lonely studio of our design), and having to play nice with people we wouldn't share our sandbox with. It is a time for that night drover to pass by singing a gentle tune (See Sons of the Pioneers) or walk along and talk to us as sentient humans (See Startrek:TNG). Running to the cellphones and communicating with spindoctors, especially if things are not going well, really does not work (see first paragraph digression about communication).

I get bullheaded (Mother's term) in such situations. Every single claw comes out and I hold fast to my position like a cat not wanting to go to the vet, especially when someone as good as my mother at passive/aggressive management is trying to get me in that cat carrier while mumbling, "stupid cow" or "if you would just go gently" to the slaughter house.

Bottomline I am running straight for the exits. I will hold out in my sandbox until I find a herd going my direction. Maybe.

PS: I did put on those turn signals. Someone should have listened.

Trying to get back on track

2011-07-05T06:18:00.000-07:00

Some sidetracks are just more exhausting than others. And more dangerous. And definitely more difficult to return to the original track and schedule. Losing the Astro Van was one of those derailments that has had very far reaching ramifications to my life. Especially since it happened after a tooth extraction by an oral surgeon and spending $1300 for the head gasket that was going to solve my problems but didn't.

I was in such a financial hole I could not just zip out and plunk money down on another vehicle. And I was at a bit of a crossroads - or switching yard - on my career as an artist. If I was going to continue with fairs I needed one type of vehicle and if I wasn't I didn't. Fortunately friends were generous with loans of vehicles while I pondered just how to get back on track - and which track.

I like the above historic photograph of a derailment of the Chile Line narrow gauge at the infamous trestle. You can almost hear the workings of all the minds trying to figure out what next. I kept hoping for someone to tell me what to do. My ex-husband, Marc, who I lost last year was always good for that. I hated it when we were married but in the 10 years since my head injury I had become quite dependent on his advice especially with mechanical issues. If nothing else his advice set the direction I did not want to go.

This time my limits were set by the economy. I thought a 10 year old car was a good idea. It was almost three years younger than the one just lost. But nobody wants to loan money on that age of car. Especially to someone that had deliberately stayed out of the credit bog for six years. I quickly found out I could buy a new car easier than an old car. But I don't want a new car. I also don't want credit cards. But it seems that paying your mortgage and all your bills don't establish credit. Owing money on plastic does that. And obviously only that. Even having a car loan and a mortgage you pay does not give you a great credit score.

If I want choices about how I spend my money on a car I have to have credit cards. Which it is to be noted are not easy to get without other credit cards. I remember being at this point right after my first divorce. But back then you could count on having paid your electric and telephone bills to be significant in your credit rating except that regardless of whether I wrote the checks for payment all credit was in HIS name. I had to put down huge deposits before I could get a phone or apartment or buy a bed.

My father, who could have easily given me the money, chose instead to call up credit companies and threaten them with sexism suits or told me exactly what to say to them. How to hit and getting a lawyer, etc. Step by step I was reluctantly welcomed into the world of plastic which I discovered when you lose your job from a serious accident is a death trap.

And I had not paid attention to miles of new track being laid since the banks got bailed out. Interest rates are insane. Would you believe 19.5% for a ten year old car? And 14% for a $300 balance limit on a credit card plus $90 annual fee. I am going through sticker shock and I have yet to walk on to a car lot.

And there have been some major schisms. Take State Farm. I have my home, small business and auto policies with them and have been a customer for 40 years (except for two years with Allstate when State Farm would not let me switch to another agent when the one I had made sexual advances) and yet they would not consider an auto loan because of a zero credit rating. That was when I found making prompt payments to my mortgage company and all utilities did not count. My bank was rather shocked the mortgage didn't count.

I am now seeking rate quotes from AARP, Geico, Safeco, and several other insurance companies. If State Farm is not loyal to me why should I be loyal to them. And it looks like I may even save money by switching my loyalties.

I think I have made a stop gap deal on a vehicle that is not my dream but will allow me time to find out what is. And to obviously re-build my credit. One person told me an auto loan was the way to do that but obviously not. Any one with any advice out there?

The Also Ran

2011-07-03T05:58:00.000-07:00

Dad always said it was the difference of opinion that made horse racing possible. He was full of antidotes designed to inspire. And us kids had to be winners. You play the game to win or you play it not at all. I realized after the 10th Monopoly board was torn up by my father things had to change. My brother screamed it was not his fault. I was a bad loser. I countered that my brother was a hideous winner. He narrated his wins as if he was Howard Cosell. I withdrew from the family competitions unless badgered to play. My brother cheated, my dad was unbeatable, and I wanted to play a game that was not win or lose.

I used to love tennis but for everyone else it was a blood sport. Play with a date and there is no way you can win because if you win you never date again. When a boyfriend on a DC tennis court went ballistic when I returned his serve I walked off the court leaving my racket behind. I retired to crossword puzzles, and solitary creative activities. But it seems that even art is competitive. And there is enough competition drilled into my soul that I compete. I win prizes but not sales evidently. I resent being compared to other artists. It is like apples and oranges, but others will always keep score. And they will tell you what the score is. I am sick and tired of that. I am about to walk off the court again.

I paint not to sell though it is nice to sell; it buys materials and opens up space on the walls. But I paint what I am moved to paint. I paint in the colors I like to paint in and that express what I want to come out in the painting. I hate decorative art. I could never do 1000 daisies or 200 churches. I redo a subject because I don't feel I have it right yet. I do not think of my competition when I paint. It is all about the conversation between me and my muse.

Can I still have that conversation and not compete? Can you run the race when you get continually splattered with mud from the hooves of the retreating field?

The Missing Week

2011-07-02T04:42:00.000-07:00

I woke up yesterday to find the month of June was gone, and with it half of 2011. And today when I went to my dashboard to check on posts I found I had gone a week and posted nothing on Blogspot. And yet my mind has buzzed with ideas.

Mentally I have been composing a Travels with Charley Blog about fire restrictions in the parched mountains around me, but I am almost afraid to breathe or whisper a word about fire. Yesterday I was livid about visitors to the area ignoring all the restrictions put in place. Probably need to chill out before I write about that. And credit scoring may trump it.

And my usual TW3 weekly post here on Sidetracked Charley I kept delaying for another day so I could say something definitive. But it has been one of those weeks of just putting one foot in front of the other or standing in one spot hoping nobody notices you are afraid to move.

As for Creative Journey: That is stalled. I don't feel all that creative of late. I have avoided painting in favor of photographs. And if I cannot write prose how can I write poetry. Oh, well there is always next week.

Post Traumatic Stress Disorder and the Long Dry Summer

2011-06-20T04:27:00.000-07:00

Smoke Column from the Pacheco Fire

Before I moved from Questa, New Mexico and divorced my husband, who died this last year, I spent 22 days on the front lines of the Hondo Fire. Never did the wind change in any way that I was not instantly awake and alert. I or Marc got up every two hours for weeks to look at the mountain across the valley. The fire and the potential of fire dominated our lives.

There is something about the smell of smoke in the air that dominates it to this day. Clouds of a certain color make my hyper alert. Yesterday the Pacheco Fire in the Santa Fe National Forest sent up a column of smoke 30,000 feet into the atmosphere. I was instantly tharned.

Post traumatic stress disorder (also known as post-traumatic stress disorder or PTSD) is a severe anxiety disorder that can develop after exposure to any event that results in psychological trauma. This event may involve the threat of death to oneself or to someone else, or to one's own or someone else's physical, sexual, or psychological integrity,overwhelming the individual's ability to cope. As an effect of psychological trauma, PTSD is less frequent and more enduring than the more commonly seen acute stress response.

But I grabbed the camera. I had grabbed the camera 13 years ago too when I wanted the column of smoke get closer and closer and top the ridge on the other side of the valley. I know this column of smoke is more than just beyond the ridge. There are several mountain ridges between me and it. And it is going in a north eastern direction that takes it away from me. But I could not sleep soundly until the winds had died. And I woke several times through the night. Once when I heard rain on my metal roof.

I awoke this morning and checked the skies before I even fed the fur kids. And I made note that it had rained. Not much mind you but the humidity currently is up to 29%. It has been in the single digits for days. The wind at gale force levels. It is rising again this morning already.

It is that hyper alertness that is exhausting and puts me on edge. It is why mother wolves with cubs snarl at every approach to their dens.

Tomorrow is Summer Solstice and already I want this long dry summer to be over. Or let it rain. Lots of rain. Buckets of rain. Rain that ruins the 4th of July with its fireworks. Rain that clears the air of smoke and my mind of dread of yet another fire. I so feel the pain and anguish of everyone on the front line of a fire. I want rain for all of us.

Clouds Illusions I recall

2011-06-19T04:53:00.000-07:00


Lenticular Cloud

Not my picture. In fact not my cloud or my mountain though I find myself longing for both. But I used to have tons of pictures of lenticular or wedding cake clouds. Another loss to the computer nerd. And clouds we seem to have lost to current weather (or lack thereof). But I thought I saw some beginning lenticular's yesterday.

Lenticular clouds (Altocumulus lenticularis) are stationary lens-shaped clouds that form at high altitudes, normally aligned perpendicular to the wind direction. Lenticular clouds can be separated into altocumulus standing lenticularis (ACSL), stratocumulus standing lenticular (SCSL), and cirrocumulus standing lenticular (CCSL). Due to their shape, they are often mistaken for Unidentified Flying Objects (UFOs). Per Wiki

My pilot father was known to say that Lenticular's heralded a change in the weather. They often position themselves between wet and dry fronts. And here in the mountains of New Mexico we see them, this time of year, as a sign of the unset of the monsoon season. So yesterday when heading out to feed my friend's dogs I grabbed the camera. From her house you can see further south and I had hopes of possibly seeing the build up of a storm clouds.

I took several pictures of this cloud thinking it might herald a few drops of rain and then noticed the strange color. It was a cloud of smoke and not a cloud of rain. The news confirmed there is another fire south of us and just north of Santa Fe. This one worries me. It could head my direction and there is mostly just forest in between. But it is still a long way off.

But perhaps the dry forest right around me is of more concern. Dry winds continue. And the tourists are here with ATV's (blamed for beginning the Track Fire near Raton) and campfires (the source of the Wallow Fire). Thus far fire fighters (except for the Wallow fire) seem to be doing quite well. The Carlsbad fire is 90% contained, the Track Fire 50% contained, the Sipapu fire totally contained (they don't pronounce them out for a long time due to smoldering spars). But there are only 200 fire fighters in the entire state available currently. And I have to assume that some of those are being sent to the Pacheco fire believed at this time to be started by a hot exhaust from a vehicle off road.

Meanwhile I am looking for clouds. Wish I could remember exactly what they look like. I want to prove the weather forecasters wrong. Next ten days more of the same. I want my monsoons. The earth wants rain.

The Butterfly Effect?

2011-06-13T05:31:00.000-07:00

Lorenz Attractor

Thought I would talk a walk on the wild side this morning: Science's attempt to explain the unexplainable - Chaos Theory.

Chaos theory is a field of study in mathematics, with applications in several disciplines including physics, economics, biology, and philosophy. Chaos theory studies the behavior of dynamical systems that are highly sensitive to initial conditions; an effect which is popularly referred to as the butterfly effect. Small differences in initial conditions (such as those due to rounding errors in numerical computation) yield widely diverging outcomes for chaotic systems, rendering long-term prediction impossible in general. This happens even though these systems are deterministic, meaning that their future behavior is fully determined by their initial conditions, with no random elements involved. In other words, the deterministic nature of these systems does not make them predictable.This behavior is known as deterministic chaos, or simply chaos. Note: from Wikipedia.

In short, per a total lay man's approach, shit happens. If it does not turn out as you predict then it can be blamed on the butterfly effect:. The butterfly effect is the sensitive dependence on initial conditions; where a small change at one place in a nonlinear system can result in large differences to a later state. For example, the presence or absence of a butterfly flapping its wings could lead to creation or absence of a hurricane.

Which if you read the previous blog leads us back to clouds and weather. There has been a lot of strange weather of late. It could be that our meteorological science needs a paradigm shift. Or it could be just too many - or not enough butterflies. But is the lack of butterflies due to changing weather patterns? See Mobius Strip. Hmmmm, imagining the butterfly effect on a mobius strip. But I digress.

My subject, I think, was strange weather.

Super Cell forming

I did not take the above picture but I have seen many like them.

They form over our mountains when the atmospheric conditions are just right plus or minus that butterfly. The head out to the plains of the United States after us photographers are done with them and become rather less recognizable but more deadly.

Tuscaloosa tornado

All of which brings up my question of if the super cells form here why don't we get any rain? I do not want the tornadoes. The plains can keep them. But our forests are so dry it seems fires spring up just out of nowhere. And if a butterfly can effect the weather what about ash and smoke.

So Iowa and large sections of Louisiana are under water due to floods on the Missouri and Mississippi Rivers and we are burning up out here. Seems we went from winter to summer drought awfully darn fast. Does anyone think that either of those large smoke clouds looks like a butterfly? Maybe the bottom one? Top looks like a leaping rabbit to me.

Had my head in the clouds

2011-06-11T05:30:00.000-07:00

I love clouds. I could photograph them forever with their ever changing forms and colors. There is a wonderful segment in the movie Girl with the Pearl Earring about Vermeer where he asks her what color the clouds are and she first says white then looks again.

Clouds if you are a painter or a photographer are seldom white. But I also like clouds on a more scientific level ever since I first studied weather for a pilot's license. Pilots have to know what certain clouds could mean as regards safe flying or not. The last few weeks of tornadoes, wild fires, and volcanic eruptions have created a plethora of pictures of fantastic clouds and I have been collecting them in my computer files.

This week's focus has been on pyrocumulus clouds. Per Wiki:

A pyrocumulus, or literally fire cloud, is a dense cumuliform cloud associated with fire or volcanic activity. A pyrocumulus is similar dynamically in some ways to a firestorm, and the two phenomena may occur in conjunction with each other. However, one may occur without the other.

Puyehue Eruption in Chile

Puyohoe Volcano blowing

It is difficult to tell where the ash of the eruption ends and the clouds begin. The colors can be due to the ash in the clouds or as in the latter the glowing embers as well as the sun. the pyrocumulus clouds create their own weather complete with lightning as in the first photo. And with fires they create their own winds which don't help containment at all.

Pyrocumulus cloud created by fire

Wallow Fire pyrocumulus cloud

For more about clouds I recommend Phenomenon of Clouds. But no doubt I will also post more of my favorites here.

What a week!

2011-06-08T06:45:00.000-07:00

It is Wednesday and I have yet to do my weekly That Was The Week That Was Blog. Frankly it has taken me to now to begin to process the week. It definitely reminded me of roller coasters I have known and loved.

Friday, my birthday, was a high even though to get to Albuquerque I had to drive through the most awful layer of smoke from the Wallow Fire on the New Mexico/Arizona border. But I made it with my eyes burning and my throat raw. I set up my exhibition at High Desert Art and Frame and then went to my friend's house in the near by mountains to prepare for the reception that night. Fortunately the air there was a lot nicer. I was satisfied with my arrangement of paintings and photographs, liked the venue and the owner. My sister called to say she would not make it but other than that things went swimmingly in spite of the health alerts because of the smoke layer.

Albuquerque is known for its thermal inversions because of the shape of the valley it lies in so the smoke did not help. I spent the weekend living on allergy meds while doing a once over pass on the used car markets, attended a baby shower, and enjoyed time with my best friend. Coming home on Sunday the air was even worse. But my side of the mountain was clearer.

Monday morning, still in a fibro fog from exhaustion and battling the smoke, I got broadsided by my artists representative that had set up the show. She e-mailed at me demanding I pay her as agreed the $65 I owed her and upset I had not profusely thanked her on my fanpage. Number one I am never profuse and I had complimented the reception and she had commented glowingly. But number two was she had switched the amount, and the messaged agreement (shades of the contractor from hell). It was suppose to be $60 upon the first sale. Not $65 at the reception (btw she never mentioned it that night). I raised these points as what I remembered. And she said that she never said that.

I went back and found the thread in our Facebook messages and continued the thread pointing out the date she had said 60 upon first sale, but said if she needed the money I would just send her the $60 on Wednesday after I got my SS deposit. I just wanted to point out I had not renigged on our agreement as she accused. I rather thought that settled the matter. But she messaged me back in a very abusive manner and told me my paintings were too high priced for the market and would never sell, and that I was not sophisticated enough for the Albuquerque Market and should not try to sell my work in that city again. Then she got personal.

I had mentioned on my personal page in Facebook going to the spa with my friend, and buying a grapefruit knife and spoons. She went viral on her fan page about how unprofessional I was naming me specifically, (she was suppose to promote my work for the entire month of the exhibit but this was not what I thought that would look like) and on my personal page about how I had money for the spa and dinnerware but not to pay her. The spa was off a previously paid for punch card (before the tooth and the car repairs) and the "dinnerware" was less than $15 out of the twenty given to me by a friend as a birthday gift. She then e-mailed me and threatened to take me to court for the $65. Duh?

Thus far I thought my behavior was highly professional. I had not done anything on FB that anyone could see. I handled our dispute on messages and e-mails, and never refused to pay her just said I couldn't until Wednesday. But people began to mention what she had said about me on her fan page which I had not seen as yet. When I went there I was livid and reported the abuse to FB in my process of blocking her. FB asked for a specific example by clicking on it on her page but as I had blocked her I couldn't do that. What is FB thinking? They should ask for that information before they act on the block request!

Then Yahoo!Messenger decided to totally screw up my new computer. Even McAfee thinks their site for a new download of the program I have used for over two decades is dangerous. So I spent part of yesterday cleaning my hard drive up and deleting Yahoo Messenger. Maybe there is something in the air causing things and people to go viral.

The good news is that my squash seem to be doing quite well in their little jerry-rigged hot bed. And I am home where the air is relatively clean - certainly better than Houston on a good day. My fur kids still love me.

Paradigm shift -the end days of May

2011-05-31T05:10:00.000-07:00

Paradigm Shift by Skydancer

Was looking at my blog stats and noticing that ones where I deal with art or science seem to be the most popular. Mind you my readership is not huge on Sidetracked Charley. My followers on this blog are less than a third of my followers on Creative Journey. I can only assume that more people are interested in my poetry and art and opinions on such than they are on the follies in my life. And so it should be. I do not pretend to be a reality show.

But I digress. I was going to write about paradigm shift. One of my favorite scientific theories. Well, next to chaos theory. And I have become rather enamored of late with queuing theory, but those are other blogs for other days.

Paradigm shift (or revolutionary science) is the term used by Thomas Kuhn in his influential book The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (1962) to describe a change in the basic assumptions, or paradigms, within the ruling theory of science. Since the 1960s, the term has also been used in numerous non-scientific contexts to describe a profound change in a fundamental model or perception of events, even though Kuhn himself restricted the use of the term to the hard sciences.

I first ran across paradigm shift (I do love saying it - sort of rolls around your mouth) when studying the theory of aerodynamics. About the time the SST, now a thing of the past) made its first flight it was written that by the theory of aerodynamics it should not be able to fly. But then that was also true I discovered about the bumble bee. Ergo the theory of aerodynamics is a flawed theory (most theories are in some way or they would be laws) and when it was refined to the point of being able to encompass the SST and the bumble bee it might allow all sorts of other possibilities for flight. That would be a paradigm shift in the theory of aerodynamics.

But as fond as I am of shifting laws of flight I find I see paradigm shift on a social platform more needed. But alas many elements of society seem to be holding so tight to their theories that they are squeezing the life out of . . . . well, life. But Marilyn Ferguson in The Aquarian Conspiracy held that some rats in the maze would die of starvation before admitting the cheese had been moved. But then paradigm shifts really are not sudden though they appear to be because of the Ah Ha moment. There is often a plethora (don't you love that word) of evidence the cheese has moved before we pause and say, "By jove, we are looking in the wrong spot!" or some such.

This last week was my Ah Ha moment over a paradigm I had been taught. Mother raised me to believe I was basically unlovable and quite strange. I grew up believing (as my brother still does) that I was the insane one in the family. I was selfish, egotistical, the dumbest of her children, and crazy. I worked hard most of my life proving her right by gathering evidence that supported her theory of Jacqui while ignoring evidence to the contrary. But the preponderance of contradictory evidence finally tipped the scale this May (well, I might say crazy could be close as I believed her for so long).

I was always the ugly girl that my beautiful classmates took along to places (out of pity I assumed) so they could look more beautiful and empathetic. I overcame stuttering as an adolescent but still believe if I open my mouth in a group of strangers it is what I will hear. This list is almost endless so I won't bore you. Especially since I don't believe a lot of it any more. The scales have finally tipped.

The eve of becoming 66 seems a rather strange time to grow up. But I think I finally have. I have had a paradigm shift.

Lucky Charms

2011-05-27T11:05:00.000-07:00

I love Navajo silver work and am especially fond of feathers. I have pendants and earrings and a necklace of hand drafted feathers. But this story is about one particular feather pendant I bought in August of 2004. That was the year of my sister's and my first Thelma and Louise road trip to Utah. I had bought my Astro van of Vango fame the previous December. Debbie did not have her jeep yet. In fact she still lived in Texas and I picked her up at the airport and we headed to the canyons.

There are a lot of memories of that 12 days in the wilds including the new alternator for the van, a new camera for my sister, barely making it out of Cottonwood comb before the rains hit, and the case of the vanishing lug nuts. The lug nuts came as we were heading back to the airport through the Navajo Reservation. We had stopped for lunch in Page, Arizona and noticed a lot of hostile Utes wearing anti Glen Canyon Dam t-shirts. But we were in a good mood and nothing was going to ruin it for us. Or so we thought.

Twenty minutes outside of page the van began to shimmy. Debbie was driving and we elected to pull over at a scenic overlook where the Navajo's had set out tables of their jewelry to sell. Behind them was a 400 foot drop off. I climbed out of the car and looked at the front tires to see what might have been causing the vibration and noticed the right front tire was hanging at a weird angle and held on only by one lug nut and a bent lug bolt. This gathered the attention of everyone. One diminutive Navajo woman said, "Obviously spirit has something else in mind for you," as she looked at the long left hand downhill turn we would have attempted if we had not pulled off.

Needless to say there were cell phone calls to make and AAA to contact, airlines to reschedule. And a lot of waiting for the tow truck to show up so we shopped. And I bought this feather from the woman who had spoken to us. She said feathers were lucky. Back in Page at Big O tires we found out this had been happening all day. Evidently someone was removing lug nuts from cars with out-of-state-plates.

I wore the silver feather with a spine of white turquoise almost constantly until about 6 months ago when it lost a stone setting. Broke because of fixing the van which would not stay fixed I looked through my old jewelry to see which I was willing to sell to be melted down given silver prices. The lucky feather was in a box of pieces that needed repaired. I opted to repair my broken luck. And it now hangs again around my neck. I still don't know what spirit has in store for me unless it is painting and telling tales such as this.

I do know that sometimes what appears to be bad luck is actually good: Bad about the lug nuts but good that we stopped; bad about the alternator but good it happened in Moab and not the outback; Bad we didn't get to see the arches on the Cottonwood comb but good we were nut stuck for days in the mud the rain makes of the clay; etc. It is just hard at times to see the good until a distance has been obtained from the incident. Perspective is so important I thought that day sitting on the guard rail looking over the deep canyon beyond the turn we didn't take.

My Life in Headlines

2011-05-23T04:26:00.000-07:00

I have always blamed my mother for what I can headline thinking. My sister and I both have it but I cannot think of a single headline my mother actually uttered even given her past as Kansas City Star cub reporter in her youth. She was full of dire predictions based on our actions. Like say if I stuck out my tongue, "What if your face froze like that?" Headline in my head: Young Girl to Undergo Cutting Edge Surgical Procedure.

Or the time I threw sand into the obnoxious neighbor's face after he smashed my sand castle. Mother: Do You know what your actions could cause? Headline: Violent Neighborhood Feud Claims More Lives. I think I had just read something about the Hatfields and the McCoys that week.

Growing up only made matters worse especially surrounding any breaking of the rules. Like the time I signed out of the dorm (Yes, Virginia, in my day we watched carefully over the "virgins") to go to Juarez with friends. Mom thought I was spending the weekend with the Berry's, long time family friends. Mrs. Berry thought I had cancelled that due to a term paper. Headline: College Coed Arrested at Juarez Strip Club. And with this one was born the leads. You know that line that isn't quite as big as the headline but leads you into the story: Mother says she is considering suing UNM for lack of due diligence.

Working in Washington, DC and getting deeply involved with civil disobedience (hey, our founding fathers founded this) my nightmares would spawn a whole bevy of headlines some delivered by Chet Huntley on the Capital Steps: "Tonight we are covering the arrest of a Senate Aide suspected of bombing the US Capital." Followed by the Washington Post the next morning: Suspected Bomber Vanishes after Arrest by the FBI / Mother says she was always such a good girl. I woke up from this nightmare at 3 a.m. and called my mother. "Don't ever tell any reporter I was such a good girl. Understand?" Mother never spoke of this particular early morning wake up call.

These days with a more "normal" life and no mother to explain things, even mentally, to the headlines are more likely to be shared jokes between my sister and myself: Two Sisters Plunge off Thelma and Louise Overlook in Canyonlands / Tourists in the area say they wanted to test the viability of a sequel to the popular movie.

Headlines do relieve stress in my life. They allow me to vent without blowing up the neighborhood. I have been relatively headline free through recent events so I was a bit worried about myself. But I awoke this morning with my headline: Local Artist Kills Ex-Contractor and Local Mechanic / Swat team continues to monitor the situation at the Court House where the alleged murderer is holding a Judge hostage demanding fair treatment for the elderly.

While I was Googling an image for this week's blog I stumbled upon an article about getting more readers for your blog by using killer headlines. That one just might work. Have blogs been used as proof of insanity?

Temporarily Derailed

2011-05-18T05:55:00.000-07:00

The Denver and Rio Grande Western ran the Chili Line until 1941. There was a trestle on that narrow gauge line which ran between Espanola, NM and Alamosa, Colorado which was known for derailments. It had too steep a grade and too tight a curve. I feel lately like an engineer on a steam locomotive headed for that trestle.

I am currently derailed without a clue of how to get back on track. The Blizzard Lizard, my transportation for six years had gasped its last. And it has been a long, long time since I have sought a used car. And then my ex-husband was alive to help. I really feel his loss at the moment as much as I feel abandoned by transportation. I got a fortune cookie recently which had the fortune: You will receive a wheeled adventure. I hope that was not about getting back from outside Cimarron when the van broke down. I hope it is about a new (or new to me) car. I know I have to seek a replacement but at the moment I have not a clue what I want really. See previous blog about Skinner boxes.

Then I got this horoscope yesterday: If you are in a quandary right now, turn to someone who has years of experience in the area that's confusing you. This person's insightful intelligence surpasses his or her communication skills, so be patient and be prepared to ask a lot of clarifying questions. Help!

That is the downside of my life right now. On the plus side I have discovered I have tons of great friends above and beyond those that are willing to pray for me. I have friends reaching out and offering real assistance as in temporary transportation, ways to continue to be able to do the fair in June which I need to provide money for that new vehicle, and encouragement that I will surmount this too.

I had said when one of those friends was giving me a ride back from Cimarron that I didn't need another problem. And of course when I got home there was one. HUD wants to inspect my apartment I rent in May and not July when I expected it. So I have had to scrape the funds together to get the screens the winds blew off. Now I have to retype the lease and renewal letter as that was just a fraction of the documentation lost when the nerd wiped my computer after the hard drive crash. This needs to be done before car shopping.

And I need to visit NM Motor Vehicle office in Angel Fire and get whatever I need to pronounce the van dead and not in my possession anymore. Yesterday I suspended my insurance and will get a credit to be applied to new insurance for new vehicle when I find it.

Then I can think about car shopping. Where I live it has to be all-wheel or four wheel drive. To continue to do art shows logic says a van, but with rising gas prices I am considering a smallish SUV with towing capacity so I can rent a Uhaul trailer when a fair needs to be done. And so if this is a sign it is time to give up art fairs I will not be saddled to a gas guzzler. In the future, I would like to own a covered utility trailer that can serve also as storage for booth furniture.

But fortunately none of those things need to be decided right this minute. Which reminds me of the end of Gone with the Wind. I read the book and saw the movie several times. When Scarlet, after Rhett leaves, says she will think about it tomorrow in reference to getting him back I believed in the movie she would. But in reading the same lines in the book I had no hope. I'll think about it tomorrow is not avoidance for me but letting go because I haven't the time or the energy or the assistance I need just that moment to be rational about the solution.

And so, loyal readers, that is where I am just now. First things first and maybe by the time I wade through that the solution to my other problems will be miraculously revealed even if it is in a fortune cookie. Times have changed. I no longer expect a chorus of angels on high. Besides which even their messages were rather cryptic too.

TW3 - Life is a Skinner's Box

2011-05-16T04:32:00.000-07:00

B.F.Skinner invented the Skinner box which is an operant conditioning chamber. An operant conditioning chamber permits experimenters to study behavior conditioning (training) by teaching a subject animal to perform certain actions (like pressing a lever) in response to specific stimuli, like a light or sound signal. When the subject correctly performs the behavior, the chamber mechanism delivers food or another reward. In some cases, the mechanism delivers a punishment for incorrect or missing responses. With this apparatus, experimenters perform studies in conditioning and training through reward/punishment mechanisms.

I have decided that life is a malfunctioning Skinner box. When an operant conditioning chamber malfunctions and the reward and punishment are scrambled for a specific behavior the test subject just goes to a corner and shivers. I am there folks. I am trying to keep my eye on the prize as it were but I am unsure if I will get shocked if I dare reach for it.

I am desperately trying for a prudent reserve and a workable budget but shocks like oral surgery, washing my cellphone, a malfunctioning vehicle, and now a HUD inspection that demands I pay for apartment screens two months before they were a budget item seem like punishments for living a responsible and economic life.

The art season looms and an extra $500 bucks right now would be quickly spent on frame supplies, prints, etc. if the van was not already sitting in line first. Cannot make money if you cannot get there. Anyone want to buy a painting? After thinking through and developing 3-4 creative possible solutions for my problems I am now just sitting in the corner and staring out into space. I am clearly too old to barter my sexual favors on the street corner. Besides no street corners in my neighborhood. No van to get me to another neighborhood.

I never functioned well married (another operant conditioning chamber in my opinion) because it was too much like having bossy parents or being in grade school. But right now it would be nice to have someone to bounce my problems off and let them come up with a way out. My ex, Marc, used to serve that function (definitely worked better when I was not in his box) but, alas, he is not around anymore. And the tooth fairy has not made an appearance, or Cinderella's Fairy godmother. I keep hoping for a Hollywood musical ending just any time now.

Cue the chorus.

Off Season

2011-05-09T09:15:00.000-07:00

It is off season, and like the elk, I am rather enjoying it. Grass is still rather scarce as winter is just leaving, and money is rather tight for much the same reasons but the silence and peace in my mountain resort community are priceless. This is the New Mexico I grew up in and thought I had moved back to. I was rather shocked that it had been discovered.

I always joked that we allowed the building of US 66 and later Interstate 40 through the most boring parts of the state so people wouldn't stop. Now that I depend in part on tourism to bring art lovers to my studio I am rather split. But fortunately the tourists seem to go for the peak times ~ when the snow is the deepest and the weather is the warmest. This works for me because it leaves the off times for me to enjoy my state of wilderness.

If you are a bird watcher this is a great time of the year as the migrants make their way back to our neck of the woods. How wonderful it is to sit on your porch and see the bright blue Mountain Bluebird flitting over the meadow or the flocks of Red Wing Blackbirds re-establishing their presence in the wetlands around Coyote Creek. My Red Tail hawk is back to her perch on the power pole at the back of my property. From there she can get the prairie dogs in the neighbor's field and the voles and gophers in mine.

It is getting warm enough to begin planting the cold crops in my raised beds. And this year it has been dry enough that I have had to water bushes and trees beginning to leaf out. The pines always look like they might die each spring as they shed the old needles and begin to put out new growth. Since we had -42F nights this winter, extreme even for here, I have made the rounds daily checking on the pliability of limbs and any hit of buds or regeneration. Why oh, why do weeds weather better than those plants you tend so carefully?

Memorial Day weekend 10,000 Harley riders hit the Enchanted Circle and the Viet Nam Memorial here and destroy all the peace and quiet. The elk will head to the hills and all of us locals that don't have to go out won't. Fortunately for all the wild and tame life here the tourist season is generally lots more quiet and sedate than Memorial Day. And hopefully this year it will be more profitable for all concerned.

For now I and my forest neighbors are just enjoying the off season.

Waiting to Exhale

2011-05-08T05:36:00.000-07:00

Seems like just yesterday when I was waiting for it to be 2011 as if it was a magic charm that would make all things better. Now here it is the middle of May and I am still holding my breath waiting for the other shoe to fall.

Yesterday was one of those absolutely delightful spring days here in the mountains and I decided to dare to plant the cold crops in my two raised beds. The black plastic over them all winter had worked and they were weed free so with very little prep I got in the garlic, onions, radishes, carrots, spinach and four different types of leaf lettuce. I had lunch on the studio stoop between spurts of re-potting my squash seedlings which won't go out to the hot bed till June. And I worked on preparing the hot bed.

I know it isn't June yet but I am testing the water jugs. The theory is they get hot during the day and hold the heat at night. Before I put the bags of potting soil between them, and plant my precious squash seedlings and install the plastic cover I want to know if this will prevent them from freezing.

Seems I want to know a lot. I want to know if I will have another tooth that has to be pulled or if the van is truly fixed for a long while or if it will be a good art fair season or if the judge will die before rendering a verdict in my contractor from hell case. I seem stuck in the middle afraid to even finish the triptych I am working on - afraid the magic is gone.

A year ago my sister and her husband and I were in Moab exploring all the back country and national parks with our cameras. On Mother's day Debbie's daughter called to wish her step father a happy father's day because she had found the perfect song to send him and couldn't wait. It is one of those moments among many that seem to be frozen in time. Not a Kodak moment that you could take a picture of but still forever etched in your memory. It is a good thing Mary didn't wait because before May ended Alan would be gone.

Winter depression is over. I think the snows have pasted but then out of the blue another closes in. June is going to be a very busy month and a lot has to be done in the yard and the studio in preparation of it and July. Make hay while the sun shines. Yesterday was a great day full of positive energy so why did I wake at four a.m. with that feeling of impending doom? Why am I holding my breath?

Even when exercising! So I decided to get back to yoga and Tai Chi. Any exercise I don't have to count reps with. Kettle ball works if done freely. I am trying to not even time my workouts. No clock watching just movement till I am tired. No set routines because the goal they say now is to confuse your muscles. Dance. Even Sufi dance. Move. Keep on moving.

And breath. Just breath. Stop waiting for something to happen.

I Survived April

2011-05-02T04:22:00.000-07:00

Tuscaloosa Tornado

It is May the second and there is snow on the ground with more forecast for today. Current temperature here in the Sangre de Cristos is 19 F. But then I don't have to worry about super cells like the one that spawned the tornadoes throughout the south this month. My storm has been Mercury in Retrograde. Since Mercury is my ruling planet I am a firm believer in the evil retrograde can do. It began on March 30th and went direct on April 23rd.

April has been a horrid month. My van is still in the shop because my mechanic pulled his back. I am very grateful for the loan of an aging Corolla by my long time friend and neighbor. Without it I would have been wheeless since April 7th. April is not a good month to have to come up with an "extra" $1200 right after having come up with an "extra" $500 in March for the tooth extraction. Meanwhile the price of gas has been spiraling up and up. Years ago I gave up credit cards. And the contractor from hell forced me into giving up retirement savings. And the economy has forced me into despair I will ever have a prudent reserve any time soon. I have revived my youthful ability to play musical bills.

This morning I got current with all of April bills and have the money to bailout the van when the call comes but the next nine days will require being very thrifty as I found an insurance bill for my business that must be paid. If a tornado hits my house and studio or a forest fire levels the place I want my insurance to pay off. Rebuild? Might just take the money and run. Thoughts of the forest fire possibilities, however, make me very grateful for the snow in May. We didn't get enough in January.

I did survive April, however. And Mercury in Retrograde. And I have hopes for a great May and June. I have just one request of President Obama: Since you got Bin Laden can you now knock off the CEO's of Exxon and the other major gasoline suppliers?

Status Update - My Turn to Whine

2011-04-26T05:10:00.000-07:00

A friend, and frequent reader of this blog, informed me recently that my weekly chats have not given her the status on various issues in my life. I had not considered my life that interesting of late. But since another friend also mentioned that my status updates on Facebook have been non-existent or evasive I might try to remedy my omissions.

Blizzard Lizard: Also known as the VanGo or The Vehicle is still in the shop. My mechanic injured his back and was getting nothing done for a while. He called yesterday to deeply apologize. Fortunately I have had my neighbor's aging Corolla to toodle around in. The mechanic is giving her a free oil change for her kindness.

Finances: Still holding fast to the money needed to rescue the Blizzard Lizard when it is ready. The longer this takes the closer we come to more funds available. I am thinking of maintaining this strict economy through May so I can put some reserve funds back. A few pet sitting gigs and a small art sale helped make ends meet the last two weeks.

Lawsuit: No verdict yet. It has been in the hands of the judge for over a year now. Lead legal aid attorney is going on to bigger and better things. My second chair will be taking over any further action. The 8th judicial district had one not enough judges to begin with. One of the two judges got mired in controversy and has not sat the bench for over 6 months. My judge has health issues and is working only about half time. Finally action was taken and two retired judges pulled temporarily back to handle new cases and a new judge will be appointed to handle the bench in Taos. The longer this takes the more people involved could die.

Spring: Seems to be once again on hold. I have seedlings in the studio but there is snow outside again today. But the inclement weather of the last three days has yielded almost an inch of moisture in the form of rain and snow.

Art Season: Refused in the Ruidoso show which I will never apply for again because of their way of handling it. In this day of instant communication via email they chose a "all accepted artists will hear by" approach rather than communicate yea or nay to all applicants. But on the heels of that disappointment I got the opportunity for a month long showcase in a gallery in Albuquerque in June, and a showcase at the visitors center here in September.

In short it has not been the best of times or the worst of times. It has been rather more of the same with little resolution on any major fronts. Ergo I have found it difficult to be enthusiastic about status messages. Later.

TW3 - Easter

2011-04-24T18:54:00.000-07:00


Easter Morning

All day Saturday it had threatened to rain. Drizzle I remember Mother calling that sort of weather. It has always reminded me of the January I spent in Laguna Beach, California. Never did rain but you got wet just the same. But Easter morning looked as if it was going to clear. The sun came out between the clouds and the grass began to green up as you watched. Perfect day to be out with the camera.

Even the deer seemed to want to pose. Course they are almost tame around here. Rather used to people with cameras for sure.

Top of Wheeler Peak, however, stayed cloaked in the clouds and by mid day the rain had begun in a more or less serious manner. Then by evening it began to snow. Even the elk looked rather wet. They made me shiver just to look at them.

On the road home the snow turned serious and at one time it was even a white out but so wet that it melted as soon as it hit the ground.

I love spring in the mountains. You have to be ready for just about anything. Never leave home without a coat, hat and gloves, regardless of the weather at that time.

It has been such a dry winter with a very windy spring so every drop of moisture is welcome be it rain or snow. And today there was not a breathe of wind which was wonderful. I think the weather could have spoiled the village Easter Egg hunt however. But it was a great day for photographs. Say goodnight, Gracie.

They Lie to Us All the Time

2011-04-21T05:41:00.000-07:00

Hope Springs Eternal

A friend of mine and I were sharing memories of our youth which we were lucky enough to share in part. We were the flower children of the 60's. Sex, love and rock and roll. The good times: No STD's that could not be cured with Penicillin, all war news at least a week old and highly sanitized by the media, if you crashed at a pad with multiple friends it was from choice and not necessity, communes held the hope that we could grow what we needed and it wasn't poisoned, and to some degree we believed Cronkite told us the truth.

My late friend, lover and former husband, Marc, was fond of saying, "They lie to us all the time." That seemed so infinitely clear this week with the Japan nuclear disaster dropping off the radar while BP told us that the fish in the Gulf in Mexico and coastal bayous was now safe to eat. Even the bottom dwellers like oysters and crawlfish. I think I will just content myself with how much I loved to eat them once.

I am old enough to remember the contamination in our food because of above ground nuclear testing in Nevada - up wind from my childhood home in New Mexico, and the mercury poisoning in the Chesapeake bay due to the pollutants disposed of in the rivers that dumped in that fishery. Or what was happening to the eggs of raptors because of the DDT used on food so bugs would die. A lot was researched then about the build up of toxins along the food chain - us humans generally being the last. Fish and eggs, and even Mother's milk was put on the unsafe to consume list. I notice that there is no such list today. Should there be?

With all the radiation being dumped into the Japanese sea and current should be be wary of salmon and shrimp and scallops? What of rice? Tsunami's are not clean. The tides take away all the pollution on land and wash it all back up on the shores. I am putting more garden in this year. Lettuce really loves to absorb toxins in the soil. I am sure about my soil. Stocking up on salmon already frozen in the stores. Farm raised fish is beginning to look better and better. Lamb from the mountain ranges in the San Juan area.

I don't trust the current media to tell us the truth about anything beyond Charlie Sheen.

TW3 - Critical Mass

2011-04-17T05:02:00.000-07:00

Nuclear Reactor Test Facility

I admit I am on a bit of a science bent these days. I love science if I do not have to pass a final exam in it. I love the theories but hate all those Latin words. For decades I took the magazine Scientific American and so am probably armed with too much information and not enough real knowledge.

A critical mass is the smallest amount of fissile material needed for a sustained nuclear chain reaction in case you were wondering. But when I Googled critical mass this morning looking for an image and a definition I cam up with the international bicycle event, swarms of people during rush hour in Tokyo, and army ants dripping off a tree. And, of course, the mushroom cloud. All of which got me thinking of tipping points. A tipping point is the point at which an object is displaced from a state of stable equilibrium into a new equilibrium state qualitatively dissimilar from the first. All of which ties in with my blog on cascade failure and angle of repose.

But what prompted this particular dark look at the critical mass was Facebook's friend finder. A step beyond where I generally go in that social platform. I accepted a friend request this morning and wound up there. Normally it suggests four or five other people I just might know in part because I know the person I just accepted as a friend. That could be an erroneous assumption. In point of fact I accepted her because we share mutual friends. Facebook seems to be aware of this tendency and came up with what appeared to be a plethora of people I share mutual friends with. Which of course reminded me of six degrees of separation.

And there we are back at Critical Mass.

Out of perverse curiosity I began to scroll down through the row after row of people that I share at least 3 mutual friends with. Note: the list went beyond that point. I was shocked at the number of people on the list I knew and felt comfortable inviting to be friends. And the number of people I had known as children of friends who were now grown. And that I actually share mutual friends with some news icons. Which got me wondering at what point in time does everyone belong to Facebook? And everyone in Facebook is connected by at least 3 mutual friends with everyone else?

Fortunately it probably will not produce a toxic nuclear mushroom cloud like the nuclear reactors in Japan which are approaching critical mass. Japan led to earthquakes and the instability of the Pacific plate. How many earthquakes come before a major shift of relationship of the plates on the earth?

Maybe it is just that it is spring and spring brings with it expectations. The earth is waking up (back to those earthquakes) and all things seem possible (even those things which we would hope are impossible). Today is Palm Sunday and tonight is the full Pink Moon. I feel my winter depression lifting and sense a paradigm shift in what I believe is possible.

Sorry about the physics lesson.

TW3 - Angle of Repose

2011-04-10T09:06:00.000-07:00

Angle of Repose for Sand dune

My last blog here was about cascade failure. It is one of my favorite scientific theories. Others include Chaos Theory, Queuing theory, and paradigm shift. And the subject of this blog: Angle of Repose - in short you can only pile sand (or shit or any other substance) only so high. (Note: the precise angle of repose varies per substance and moisture content but more of that later.) I choose sand as my illustration here because as children this may be our first encounter with the laws of physics as we sit in our sandboxes with our pails and shovels.

I noted in a recent local news article that the Questa Moly Mine is putting off clean up of waste for 18 years. This is relevant to our topic because it has piled slag and dirt from its above and below ground mines to beyond the angle of repose. This is possible by misting the piles to solidify them. And it works for a while. Erosion by rain and wind can steepen that angle artificially beyond the natural angle of repose. Then you just add water and shake and landslide.

Clarksville, Arizona

A lot of mining areas are in geologically unstable areas. So an earthquake can provide the shake rattle and roll, and a good heavy downpour the water. It this happened at the Moly Mine it would dam the Red River and back it up into the town of Red River because the slag pile is right by the highway which runs beside the river.

The wetter a substance is lesser the angle of repose. Example shit as in produced in the recent congressional sessions about budget. But an interesting thing happened here in that the light shone on to the ever growing pile by the news media seemed to make it possible to only pile it higher. Where is a fire hose when you need one? I propose we move our nation's capital to the San Andres Fault in California for the shake factor in collapse.

My week? Well, a bit like the return to that sand box. I get my savings piled just so high and something makes it all collapse. In this instance car repairs. And I didn't even shake my piggy bank.

Cascade Failure

2011-04-06T06:25:00.000-07:00

I have been thinking a lot of cascade failure of late. A cascading failure is a failure in a system of interconnected parts in which the failure of a part can trigger the failure of successive parts. It is currently demonstrated in Japan with their desperate attempt to get the nuclear reactors under control. But I always think of that children's rhyme: For Want of a Nail

For want of a nail the shoe was lost.
For want of a shoe the horse was lost.
For want of a horse the rider was lost.
For want of a rider the battle was lost.
For want of a battle the kingdom was lost.
And all for the want of a horseshoe nail.

This winter when a firm in Texas decided to ship natural gas intended for New Mexico to Oklahoma where it could get more money we all faced a cascade failure of the electrical grid here because of the over usage of electric space heaters to avoid freezing in -43F temps.

Yes, all dire situations but yesterday I found myself thinking in terms of cascade failure due to a futon I did not want. I had it in my furnished apartment and the renter got some of her own furniture delivered. I frantically at 6:30 a.m last Friday had to find a home for twin beds and the a futon couch. I got lucky with the beds. Not so lucky with the futon and when the person who wanted to buy it did not show yesterday had to move it to my residence. God knows there was not room. So I played musical furniture. Not unlike the child's party game of musical chairs.

Cannot carry couch upstairs to spare room (which is full), refuse to clutter up studio, so living room is only option. But to make space for it something has got to leave that room. This time it was the stereo and stand. It never gets played in the living room so studio made sense and if I move the potted plant in one corner . . . . Well, you get the point. I am now not sure where to put the elliptical trainer which I do not use - or did not use in former location. It sits in studio to see if I will use it there while gazing out the windows.

Then there is the spinning wheel. Loathe to get rid of it because of fond memories but where to put it is a problem. Maybe it is time to sell it and the elliptical trainer and the futon. But the fur kids rather like the futon, and maybe I will like the elliptical trainer in a non-claustrophobic location. This thinking process helps me understand the nuclear power crisis in Japan. Did they think too long about trying to save what should not have been saved? Rather like watching a tsunami when you should be running for high ground.

TW3 - Thinking of Elkins, West Virginia

2011-04-03T09:13:00.000-07:00

I found myself thinking of Elkins, West Virginia this week. Elkins was just a sidetrack in my life but it is a recurring theme. For instance this blog is titled Sidetracked Charley probably due to Elkins. I was living and working in Washington, DC. Home was 604 A street NE and I worked in the New Senate Office Building (New SOB for short).

I was a mountain girl trying to work through the system for political change. Off hours I marched for peace (Vietnam war), saving the mini skirt (our right as women to chose our fashions) and the ERA (Equal Rights for Women which we never got). When I got sick of politics and homesick for mountains like Heidi I went to the Monongahela National Forest just outside Elkins, West Virgina.

The ability to climb a mountain and see for miles did a lot for my homesickness and urban claustrophobia but it rains a lot in the Blue Ridge Mountains of West Virginia. And even when it isn't raining the mists make you feel wet.

Instead of doing a lot of hiking we often did a lot of driving and taking in the scenery. We also took in the little folk art fairs. It was there I learned to spin from two sisters in their 70's and weave from their neighbors in the community center in Elkins.

I discovered all the crafts of the artisans on the Blue Ridge and the Firefox series of books on living skills that were vanishing.

I also discovered trains and old train stations of particular fascination. And near the Elkins railroad station I found about 300 abandoned rail cars on a clearing yard of the railroad in Elkins. It seems that a group was diverting cars from the main track and storing them in the little backwater. I was amazed at the number of rail cars that seemed grow with every visit. Then the Washington Post broke the story of the sidetracked rolling stock. Every since there has been a deep sense of mystery and intrigue about trains and stations for me. I even lived right by a main line in Grand Junction, Colorado for a time.

And here in New Mexico I am a frequent visitor to the narrow gauge trains that now run as tourist attractions. I have vowed to return this summer to the Cumbres and Toltec and take some pictures with my Nikon D90. The one below I took with my film camera.

One little mountain town in the Blue Ridge Mountains which I went to in an effort to cure my homesickness for the Rocky Mountains altered my life. To this day trains, country crafts, spinning, and old survival skills hold prime place in my heart.

TW3 - March is almost gone

2011-03-28T06:11:00.000-07:00

The taxes were filed electronically this year by the accountant who does my taxes yearly. It always strikes me about this time that I pay a lot to have my taxes done when I make so little money. How much simpler my financial life would be if I just took my Social Security check and ran. But I argue I cannot live on SS alone. Who can these days. Two years without a raise while prices they don't seem to track in the inflation index just keep going up and up and up.

I look at what I make on my rental vs what it costs to keep it rentable and I wonder why. I look at the cost of supplies for art which is not currently selling, not to mention fair fees gambling on an improved market by summer and again question the decisions I make. Last year it did come out on the plus side for both ventures, but it would have to be way more profitable to make the effort seem worth it.

But I try not to judge a book by its cover or a year by the first quarter. For an artist the first quarter is all outgo and no income unless like one of my artist friends and you have a stack of commissions. I don't. And then there is the now gone tooth. Like years depressions are always worse in the beginning. I think it is the denial factor. One more piece of chocolate and I will be up for the day! I remember thinking that in my wild and crazy youth and the next drink.

I am told this dismal beginning on 2011, the year I looked so forward to because it was not the loathed 2010, was because of Mars in Pisces and very soon now it will be moving into Aries or just has. And things will be a lot better. The joke in our family was just around the next bend or over the next hill. Mother was always sure we would never get there. Dad was oddly the eternal optimist on our destination of the needed gas station. And since he always had held together the damaged bomber until the home airport on friendly territory came into view I generally sided with him. However, Mother's extreme negativity (or fear) did penetrate. And especially where art is concerned.

She told me being an artist was stupid and so I avoided being one for decades - my redneck period. It was not until after her death I was able to dare to sell my creative output. I have not cut off an ear as she would point out continually as the end result of being creative, but I seem to be living up to her prediction of starving artist. I win awards while other artists get commissions. I get raves and others get sales. I need a seachange in my soul. I should exorcise my mother's voice. Let it be gone, except in the matter of fudge recipes, with the end of March!

End of the Line?

2011-03-26T07:02:00.000-07:00


Bridge to Nowhere?

Facebook has been full of glitches and viruses for several weeks. Today it took our rather successful and quite fun little photographic group, Picture Picks, and reduced the members from 131 to 12. It won't let us communicate with any of the 131 to let them know what is going on. Since we have a new event running we opened it for ease in posting whether Facebook thinks you are a member or not.

It has gotten me wondering why I am a member of Facebook. Seems the last couple weeks friends have left or been bounced off because of viruses and malware. Facebook continues to not vet any of its applications and oddly people seem to continue to play them and spread the disease.

And lately posts seem to be all about "repost this if you agree." I hated chain letters as a child, hated chain e-mails as an adult, and loath this repost thing that is going on. So the question is to stay or not stay. If FB would allow it I would keep my fanpage and delete my profile. FB is not even wanting to consistently post my linked blogs. But then why bother with that? Per the stats on Blogger nobody visits this one anyway. But then it was all about being a journal and it is still that.

Does Facebook realize with its glitches it is killing off a good thing? Yahoo didn't.

Been here but not done that

2011-03-25T05:11:00.000-07:00

First it was the toothache and then a general sort of malaise. It took a friend on another blog telling of her woes to let my soul know I have been depressed. Work awaits in the studio but it has not gotten beyond sketches on the canvases. The house is a mess even if I have tied the studio so I could mat and frame my photographs for an exhibit.

It isn't as if I have done nothing but everything I do seems to require such effort and seems so quickly to need redone. Like the kitchen. I wish when depressed I would not eat but I keep thinking there is something I can cook that will cheer me up. Actually the hamburger on flat bread was quite good last night while crying through the movie Secretariat. But the calendar says it is spring even if the weather doesn't quite. Summer fairs loom not all that far away and there are paintings to paint.

I need to get back to my exercise regime so ambitiously begun before the offending toothache that made movement painful. There are things also that could be done outside if the wind would stop. And the standard poodle is just half trimmed. So many things that could be done - or re-done like working through the mess on the computer desk and table again. And I pulled out all my matting supplies in the studio to do the photographs and have not put my toys all away. The camera sits ignored in spite of encouragement about my photography.

My excuses are all now gone. No calendar full of tasks to complete. No horrid toothache. The studio awaits. Now to find my motivation. I can remember in my amateur acting days turning to a director in the fourth row of seats and asking, "What is my motivation in this scene?" And he provided his answer. Or the answer he thought the author would have given. Now there is nobody to ask but myself, and I am having difficulty coming up with answers. If I were writing the play I would put in a new patron or two, several nice sales at the galleries I am in, a new gallery in Arizona or Utah, a dearth of work that must be replenished, spring wildflowers pushing through snowmelt ground, the awful spring winds stopping. But alas I have to work with the script I have been given and cannot thumb through to the next scene.

So difficult to find one's motivation in March!

Who thinks up these things?

2011-03-22T18:29:00.000-07:00

The smoke alarm in the studio (that is the white dot at the top) decided it needed a new battery today. It is per building codes within a foot of my peaked ceiling at 14 and a half feet. I have a great, but very heavy, ladder that will reach that distance and when painting the studio used it in its teepee form to get the upper reaches of the walls. But since finishing the studio I have moved in studio cabinets and made it a great deal more difficult to get to the offending alarm.

Don't you utterly hate that sound they make? My fur kids hated it even more and acted rather more than me and in fact acted as if there was a major thunderstorm going on. They clung to my feet while panting while I tried to figure out an attack that would work. The ladder does extend straight and would reach but it is very heavy and with my luck of late I saw broken lights or broken legs. So I went to get my neighbor to at least spot the ladder.

Us two old ladies managed to lift it into position but I am glad there was not a video camera around because it might have looked like a scene between Lucy and Ethel on I love Lucy. The battery got replaced. and quiet once again reigned among the fur kids. My question is why they cannot make smoke alarms with rechargeable batteries. This one is hard wired and so the electricity is there to do that.

I know why they must be placed high because that is where the smoke goes first. But here in the mountains people have great rooms that reach 20 and 30 feet at their peaks. There just seems like there has to be a better way. This battery lasted 3 years. I figure if I am still around when it needs replaced I might just shoot it.

TW3 - Hold on you're in for a bumpy ride

2011-03-21T05:57:00.000-07:00

I used to adore roller coasters. I was not that overly fond of amusement parks in general and spurned totally certain rides that I found not fun in the least, but I adored roller coasters. And one day with my sister rode the Orient Express over ten times. But I like my life more like its a Small, Small World at Disneyland. Okay, maybe not that calm. At the moment, however, a few rounds of safe and predictable would be quite nice.

I can generally see how unsettled my life is by my choices in entertainment. This week I have been re-watching A Touch of Frost and Cagney and Lacey via Netflix streaming video. I am re-reading a James Lee Burke book Pegasus Descending and playing Bejeweled Twist more than I generally allow. It has been a bumpy ride lately with the washed cell phone, the toothache and extraction, waiting for yea or nay from several shows applied for, and the ups and downs of spring weather to just mention a few things. The toothache had definitely disturbed my sleep and I found myself frequently waking up with feelings if impending doom.

Tooth at last gone I am sleeping better but find myself wanting to ride the merry-go-round for several hours instead of facing what life might hold: is there another tooth with a cavity ready to go ballistic, will the gaping hole from the now gone tooth heal correctly, will I be refused from the shows I really want, etc. I am known for long lists of this nature. Mother gave me the curse of headlines. Never once did I go against her recommendations without imagining the worst: Coed locked in Juarez Jail/ Mother insists she believed her daughter to be safe in the dorm. Or Protester arrested for Bombing Capital Building/Mother insists her daughter was always such a good girl.

All that said it is the first day of spring. Let us enjoy life and acknowledge that somehow or other it always works out if you don't live and an earthquake, tsunami or hurricane area. Or next to a nuclear power plant.

Through the glass darkly

2011-03-16T03:58:00.000-07:00

It was a strange day yesterday, the Ides of March. I could blame it on the tooth ache and infection it caused as well as sleep deficit, but it was somehow larger than that. I found myself awake in the predawn and reviewing the seemingly disconnected vignettes.

My dentist is in Questa where my now deceased ex-husband and I once lived. I called Dr. Jameson first but he could not see me till Thursday and my toothache did not make me a patient person. So I made an appointment with Dr. Brown in Red River. He takes Jameson's overflow and has come highly recommended by several friends that find him being 20 minutes closer a definite plus. I am not overfly fond of dentists but once I find one I can trust I am excessively loyal so I began the day with a sense of betrayal. Very fitting for the Ides of March.

The 40 minute drive over Bob Cat pass into Red River had a surreal aspect to it which could have been the unseasonable spring weather, returning to a town I used to know intimately, or just the effect of pain meds. Ever notice that when you have a toothache that is all the world seems to be about? Everything seems to be through the haze of pain and the fear it will get worse. My father told me once that people seldom die in the dental chair but I have never quite believed him. I am even sure on some elemental level that toothaches can be fatal. Ethnic memory hawking back to the days (pre dentist) when if you couldn't eat your died?

The dentist Brown wasn't who I thought he was. I had a memory of having been introduced to him before but memory was evidently faulty. But I seemed to vaguely remember his hygienist. She was once going to buy the land directly behind me. I found myself thinking of No Exit by Jean Paul Sartre, but then dental offices do that too me. Stress seems to recall CBT symptoms too. I found myself feeling rather like Alice through the Looking Glass. Overwhelmed with information about my appointment in Santa Fe, feeling betrayed by my regular dentist that he had not spotted the beginnings of this HUGE cavity, and trying to just get back into my car and headed home, I was ambushed by Sherry.

Sherry once asked me to let Marcus go because she wanted him. Don't you hate those conversations? She didn't even know him well enough to know he was on the verge of re-marrying wife number 1. Sherry runs a hair salon by the dental office, something I had forgotten until she popped out to tell me that wife 1/3 had sold the house in Questa. The house I had lived in when married to Marc. She delivered this news on Main Street in the middle of spring break in front of a building Marc and I had done the electrical on. I remember the tattered green awnings and Sherry's awful hair do. Why do stylists always overdo their own hair?

Then the dentist pops back out to inform me that of course I should go back to Jameson for further work. He and my ordinary dentist are the best of friends. I seem unable to speak as if toothache and loss of voice are married to each other. I clutch my referral information and the little envelope of x-rays showing the offending tooth and head vaguely toward my car which I had to park blocks away.

Franz Kafka springs to mind. Or a film noir movie. Which leaves me with the question of which dentist to see for followup after the tooth is pulled and I need a spacer. Part of me wants to divorce Questa like I divorced Marc. Which would mean leaving Dr. Jameson and seeing Dr. Brown. I find myself wondering what else Dr. Jameson missed. What other time bombs are ready to go off in my month. And this morning I woke up feeling I owned an apology to Dr. Brown for some reason.

I think I will leave all decisions until I no longer have a toothache, and my vision clears.

TW3 - Treading Water

2011-03-13T15:33:00.000-07:00

Japanese Tsunami

Some weeks just don't go as planned. I knew I was going to be busy with a couple pet sitting jobs but I imagined being able to get a lot done between runs and walks and feeds. I could blame it on energy level or that there was just not enough time to sit down and get involved with a drawing lt alone the beginning layouts of paint. But realistically my mind had not wanted to pet sit and paint.

And then came the earthquake. Followed by the tsunami. And of course keeping up with last minute developments on the potential nuclear melt down of three reactors damaged by the quake. Okay, I admit it but I am a natural disaster junkie. I find the workings of our earth awe inspiring and constantly educational. I don't merely read the reports but research everything about the storm or the quake or the eruption or the wave. I took geology in college but we have learned so very much since then. And the Internet seems to have it all.

The question is where do I go to take my exam? If I was to go back to college it would be to major in hydro engineering. As a kid I built dams in the gutters to subject rain water to complex paths. I learned early that what you do with water upstream effects how it behaves downstream. And what the earth does under the ocean effects what the mass of water above it does. Strange stuff water. Stranger still is the earth. Combine the two along a shifting shore and sooner or later disaster will happen.

I have to wonder why we build on our shores. And build, and rebuild and rebuild again knowing hurricanes love to wipe out our feeble efforts. Or once again it will rain and the Mississippi will rise and break down its levees. Or live within sight of Krakatoa knowing it will erupt again. Reminds me a bit of the ant hills I used to terrorize in my youth while wondering they did not move out of sight of my sandbox.

A definition of insanity I always liked was: doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results. I think at heart I am a cliff dweller. I want to study water from a lofty distance. I suppose tomorrow I need to get back to painting - watercolor painting. Watching what pigment in water does on a surface - changing the flow and direction of water still.

TW3 - Spring?

2011-03-06T04:47:00.000-08:00

It is early days in March and spring in the mountains is a fickle thing - here today and gone tomorrow but there are certain warning signs like the urge to sweep out the cave. I seem to be caught up in decluttering my spaces and putting some level of organization into my life. Being an artist with a very creative mind I cannot guarantee just how long this mood will last. But I am hoping until at least gardening season.

The Aspens are blooming. No photo. They are not pretty during this spring trend of theirs. They just make your eyes water, throat scratchy and nose runny if you are allergic to them which I am. Spring winds seem to cooperate with the spreading of their pollen. No haven is safe from them.

And it is Spring break - the last hurrah of winter tourist season. So while I have this desire to leave my cave all the strange people in town make me want to rush back into it very quickly. Some locals escape entirely which means I am busy with my pet sitting business at the moment. That is good for my economy as this is the month that fair fees have to be paid.

And new art work has to be planned for the up coming fair season. I have a triptych and three other works in the planning stage currently. Stretching canvas today and transferring sketches to the surfaces and then decluttering the studio before beginning any serious painting.

I am currently fighting off the desire to repot plants, clip and groom the dogs, and wash the jute rugs. The weather can turn so bad so fast in March. I don't need frozen rugs hanging over the fence or freezing dogs under foot, but a glance at the next ten days shows the temps climbing into the 50's F. Sunbathing anyone?

March! And the Mad March Hare.

2011-03-04T04:38:00.000-08:00

No, not a new amusement ride. This photo was taken after an earthquake in New Zealand in September. Sidetracked Charley has often featured photos of rails and bridges and trains. This one seemed very appropriate to have in by blog images file. I downloaded and forgot about it until today when I was searching for an image for my blog on March, the month. The lion and the lamb (in like one and out like the other) has been done.

There is something always so unsettling about March. You are thrilled it is no longer February which can be so depressing but March can be so unpredictable. It isn't quite spring but it is also no longer winter. And I get lured into believing the outdoors is going to be wonderful but then retreat inside because of the wind. Supposedly the wind creates positive ions which have a negative effect on mind and body. Yesterday I began looking for my proportion wheel so I could change sizes on some drawings and know what size stretcher bars I would need. I wanted to sketch. I ended up only looking for that darn 4" wide white plastic wheel.

In the process of searching the usual places I began throwing away paper from my in and out boxes (found a program from an art fair in 2008 and an application for a show from 2007. That sparked a flurry of spring decluttering focusing on the studio and my computer desk. There is now a huge black sack of passe paper in the middle of the living room. So the negative energy of positive ions can have a positive effect? I didn't find that darn wheel. But I found my favorite eraser. It is a vinyl free purple oval disk that does not make eraser dust. And the directions for making backup recovery disks for my new desktop computer. But I digress. What prompted this blog was March and March weather and my March mood. Why am I constantly reminded of the March Hare in Alice and Wonderland?

Today's weather will be typical March in my humble opinion. It will be rain and snow. But Beetlejuice shines in a clear predawn sky so obviously all this happens later today. Beginning tomorrow I have pet sitting gigs and restrictions on my free time to roam so I am going over the mountain today to get stretcher bars ergo that frantic search for the proportion wheel yesterday.

Speaking of unsettled has anyone noticed gas prices? They jumped 27 cents a gallon here in the valley while oil barrel prices remained relatively unchanged. Back to thinking about that March Hare in Alice. What is a March Hare? Besides the character in Alice. A March hare is a hare during its breeding season in March, noted for its wild and excitable behaviour. I rest my case.

Desk clutter - TW3

2011-02-27T06:37:00.000-08:00

Not my desk

I copied the above image off of Google. I was looking for images of cluttered computer work stations for this blog. This was posted on a blog about messy desks. If this is messy then mine is currently a disaster area. Mind you I am a creative mind and ergo not neat, but my computer desk and adjacent library table have reached new heights of not neat. It all began with the new computer.

CD's used for backup had to be unearthed, the laptop had to be in easy reach for transfer of files via jump drive, etc. And stacks of hard copies of documents I had unearthed to retype or scan into the new computer. I was in the midst of this task when the season to submit for fairs came. Now there are stacks of prospectuses and call for entries about with CD's containing art images shuffled from the regular back up copies. I really was making some head way when it occurred to me that my self imposed deadline for getting taxes to my preparer. Since my left brain hid after 2001 ski accident I dread this. I would almost rather be a plague victim.

Hopefully by the end of the day all the receipts for taxes will be in nice neat stacks and tabulated for total figures and those inserted in a spread sheet I managed to recover from lost files. Then all those stacks can go in folders I bought specifically to do this (I know somewhere there is a box of folders I have not used yet) and then put into file cabinet with the previous years tax records. Question? Since everyone wants us to go paperless how do we get the records we need for taxes? But I digress. The subject was mess.

In the last few years I have considered myself lucky if I shove all receipts into one basket, all bank records into another basket, folder's for shows in an in and out basked stack that seems to accommodate ins but never any outs. Then there is the stack of "suspense" items which I sort from the mail as needing immediate consideration. They are generally over or under my desk calendar. Currently that stack includes bills for the coming month and show entry forms with deadlines in the next two weeks. Oh, and items I found in that receipt basket that need filed someplace.

My file cabinets are about in the same state as my computer files - transition. There are really some folders that need to go into a file box and put up in storage. Now where was I storing those? Upstairs sewing room closet? How long do we have to keep tax records? Other than a controlled burn anyone have a workable option for the unorganized?

That Was The Week That Was - Once More

2011-02-20T05:08:00.000-08:00

President Abraham Lincoln

And what, pray tell (or is that prey tell?) does a long dead former president of the United States have to do with my week? Well, I watched the PBS documentary by Ken Burns on the Civil War on Netflix streaming video. I am not sure war should be viewed on high definition television even if there is only black and white stills of its horrors. And Hollywood thinks I would go see a movie about 9/11? What are they thinking?

I was thinking. This nine part series really got me thinking in so many directions. You think you know the history of something and then you read a book or see a documentary and know that you had only part of the truth. It was the bloodiest war America ever fought. 600,000 lives were lost. And the north was only partly invested in the activity.

So the civil war was my background music, as it were, last week. I was, as I have said on Facebook, a social butterfly. I seem to shun invitations and then they cluster around an event in the calendar and I get peopled out as it were. Meanwhile I was trying to work on my art business. Now is the time to apply for the summer fairs and exhibits. My mind meanwhile was crunching away on the ramifications of such a horrid war on our nation. We seem to have not learned the lesson of compromise even with ourselves.

Then a long standing friend from the old Yahoo!360 days posts on Facebook that she wants all to begin blogging more like we did in that bygone era. I never stopped. I just moved my platform. Several others did that. Facebook is great battlefield of the blog war. It allows us all to link our blogs and chat. But it isn't Y360.

Did you know that one of the reasons so very many were killed in the Civil War was because of the repeating rifle? I knew that. No stopping and loading musket balls and powder into old single shot long rifles. Toward the end of the war the north even had a 15 shot repeating rifle. And I heard that fact so often but Ken Burns put it in context. Yes, there were repeating rifles, but generals were still fighting a bayonet war stratagem: fire and rush the enemy. The ones that don't have to reload? The advantages of trenches was not even discovered till near the end. Whole forests were mowed down (and all soldiers in them) by the number of bullets fired. At one battle 7000 men fell in 7 minutes.

We're strange creatures us humans. We seem so inventive and open for new gadgets and technologies and yet we can doggedly hold on to the past and the ways our parents used to do things or how great it was in the day. Include your favorite decade. Marilyn Ferguson in her book The Aquarian Conspiracy writes about rats in a maze that will continue to follow the former route to the cheese even after it has been moved. Us humans add prayer and goosestepping and ritual to the same path hoping for a different result. Isn't that insane? Until some smart rat looks somewhere else and yells, "Hey, over here."

Well, Bee did rally some of the old timers to blog again regardless of their platform. And one of my former favorite bloggers even posted that he was looking forward to reading some interesting blogs. This interesting enough for you, Sir Mutt?

Just Chit Chat

2011-02-16T09:58:00.000-08:00

An artist living in the wilderness doesn't spend much time chatting over coffee. But since last Thursday I have been positively a social butterfly. My neighbor and I had coffee three days in a row and discussed the fall of Egypt's president and Ken Burn's PBS series on the Civil War.

I went to the spa and shopping in Taos with the same friend. And then to a community Valentine's dinner with another. This coming Friday is the opening reception for the MVAC Winter Invitational show. So yesterday and today I have just wanted to pull in my head and legs and turtle until at least Friday morning when I have to help hang the event.

Today I am dying my hair, and adding hanging hardware to two finished paintings. And I plan to watch that last episode on the Civil War. I have been saving it. It is a wonderful series and I have learned so much. Much of it horrible to contemplate. Why must we be so divided war is the only way to settle things? And that was in interesting part of that dinner on Monday. Great conversation until political opinions got mixed with too much wine for one. He called on Tuesday to apologize. I accepted but I am not sure how gracious I was.

I think we need to go back to good manners. But that probably makes me a reactionary stick in the mud. Maybe I spend too much time by myself. People have exhausted me this week. They seem to be such hard work anymore.

I Am Blaming It All On Hallmark

2011-02-14T04:21:00.000-08:00

Valentine's Day is a feast day in honor of the martyred Saint Valentine . . . er 14 saints named Valentine. Oh, and not a feast day since 1969. Not a saint either? Of the Saint Valentine whose feast is on February 14, nothing is known except his name and that he was buried at the Via Flaminia north of Rome on February 14. It is even uncertain whether the feast of that day celebrates only one saint or more saints of the same name. Rome? If he died in Rome how did he rid Ireland of snakes? And what does this have to do with love?

Off to Wiki: The first representation of Saint Valentine appeared in the Nuremberg Chronicle (1493); alongside the woodcut portrait of Valentine, the text states that he was a Roman priest martyred during the reign of Claudius II, known as Claudius Gothicus. He was arrested and imprisoned upon being caught marrying Christian couples and otherwise aiding Christians who were at the time being persecuted by Claudius in Rome. Helping Christians at this time was considered a crime.

Okay, that is a bit closer to love, but no closer to snakes. And how on earth did we get from here to red hearts on doilies? Actually Valentine's day has always been painful to me, as it was to Saint Valentine as records show he (or any of the 14) were stoned on that day. Note: July 6th on the Greek Orthodox calendar.

But I digress. I was the kid for which teachers made the rule that all classmates had to be given a Valentine. We would all count them and then brag for days who got the most. I never got the least but I got little enough that I truly felt for who got the least and generally gave all of mine to him or her so I could go home without these paper hearts as reminders of my lack of worth.

College got even worse. Dorm life was hell for days before as everyone fretted it their boyfriends would send them flowers and for days after as we had to endure the displays of roses or carnations in the rooms. Even proffered candies in the common room were mere opportunities for the gifted to show off. See what I got and you didn't. I won't even go into corporate cubicle life on February 14th. There should be a rule that flowers and cards have to be sent to the home and not the work place.

Eastern mercantile companies made Christmas the garish display it became. There were no Christmas cards before they got into the corporate profit margin. So I am going to blame Hallmark cards on all my years of broken hearts. And Russell Stover's chocolates in heart shaped boxes. And FTS florists. Too bad we cannot just stone them, put them on a liturgical calendar to be erased and move on.

Something Abandoned, something lost, something found

2011-02-10T06:11:00.000-08:00

I awoke yesterday to 18 inches of snow and a bright blue sky. And the stuck school bus at the top of the hill. School buses are a frequent sight on the highway running past my house. But they never, to my knowledge, venture down Osha road which this one would have had to be doing if it ran off the road into the ditch going up the road. How many vehicles there are stuck on this short steep road is a question all of us ask on such mornings after a snow storm. Originally their were five.

I was pondering whether my plowman could get down this road when the county show plow passed the studio heading down my dead end road. He live above me off Osha road and so I enjoy getting my road plowed first. Then he goes up Osha road to the highway and off to handle the first swipe on the county roads.

My sister had called earlier to check on the snow I got and we had begun discussing something that led to one of those "now just where is that" moments. I have these things I hide deliberately so a thief might not get them. And things I move to a better place than where they were. This was one of the latter. It was not in any of its usual spots. Worrisome. But there was the plowman to consider, as he got down past the abandoned school bus.

All morning while shoveling paths through the snow and bringing in firewood I walked backwards in my memory to where I had last seen the missing item. And when I took a short break for coffee would look there and there. In the process I found a cache of favorite jewelry I had hidden from myself it seems. Ultimately I found the item I had been seeking, only after having exhausted all the usual spots and sitting down in the easy chair to relax.

The school bus is still in the bar ditch at the top of the hill. I drove out past it and back. A bit iffy because of the ditch on the other side of the road, but doable. Pepe, the postman, who was missing on Monday (stuck in Ocate canyon I hear) showed up on Wednesday bringing my Netflix DVD's. Just another day in paradise.

The Last Week on a Personal Level

2011-02-07T05:29:00.000-08:00

It's Monday and we already have more snow even though the bigger storm is suppose to hit on Tuesday. After a warmer and drier than normal January I find myself arguing with the weather outside my windows - like anyone listens. All my neighbors have also been suffering from cabin fever. Rant and rave telephone calls are frequent. One of my neighbors claims to be making plans to move to Hawaii which she left six years ago because of island fever. She does this every winter. Another is so upset with the lack of immediate response, in the midst of a declared emergency, to her propane tank problem that she is planning to go totally solar. She doesn't want to hear what it will cost. A third friend is thrilled she is wintering in southern Arizona, but is worried she won't be able to get to her house upon her return in March.

I think I have just "caved." I have holed up in my warm house with a fire in the wood stove and worked on my new desktop computer, my new Corel Printshop Pro photo editing program, and my new store front on my Facebook fan page. And I have blogged about the emergency situation caused by the shut off of natural gas to the northern part of New Mexico. And kept up with my ethernet friends around the world. Australia has had a cyclone and a wild fire. And I have been grateful for my snug home, coffee, crosswords and the Internet. My sister and I had been planning a bit of a roadtrip because the weather had been so nice. Due to money we put it off. I think we would have been in Chaco when the storm of last week hit.

Oh, and I have shoveled snow (408 calories per hour) and carried firewood (weight training) and refined my emergency preparedness in case we lost power. Yesterday while others were watching the Superbowl I got back to my studio and worked on my large painting which today I hope to finish while beginning two others. Let's hope the power stays up and some utility mogul doesn't opt to sell electricity to a higher bidder.

What Are They Thinking???

2011-02-05T13:28:00.000-08:00

Clearly they were not thinking. Texas was not thinking when they shut down the compressors sending the natural gas here. Public Service of New Mexico was not thinking when they decided to sole source their natural gas. Our electrical coop was not thinking this ever would happen. Well, and frankly it hasn't. Weathermen have been scrambling to find a date when it got this cold for this long. But regardless of that answer it has been a big cluster fuck as the saying goes.

There is still no natural gas in a large section of New Mexico (all made worse because evidently it was ours first and piped to Texas to be refined) nor does anyone have a date beyond early next week. Everyone is avoiding the question of whether the compressors were softly shut down or "slammed down". But we do know the pipeline was not shut down to remain pressurized so they are talking days of flushing and re-pressurizing so I think the compressors were slammed down by a brown out. BTW you cannot find these at your local Lowe's supply if they are damaged.

But the local politicians have only made the matter worse. Everyone wants to jump in with their emergency statement to calm the public and direct us so the electrical grid does not collapse (the US has one of the oldest and least up to date ones in the developed world). It was over taxed before this nation wide cold snap and now the dependence on electric space heaters is not helping. I received the following by Internet:

Angel Fire Mayor Stuart Hamilton is asking all residents to be aware of an urgent situation involving an interruption of natural gas delivery to Northern New Mexico. The towns of Taos, Red River, and Questa are affected and have declared a state of emergency.

Although Angel Fire is not reliant on natural gas there is the risk of extreme strain to the electrical grid that will affect the area. We expect the risk will continue throughout the weekend and are asking all residents and visitors to be frugal with their use of electricity.

The following precautions need to be taken immediately to prevent a rolling electrical blackout.

Conserve energy to prevent further drain on the system, especially between 5pm-8pm.
Do not use computers, televisions or other non-essential items that require electricity.
Turn thermostats to 65 degrees or lower.
Stay off cell phones except for emergency situations.
Never use a range or oven as a supplemental heating source.
Do not rely on candles as a heat source.
Make sure smoke and CO detectors are in working order.
Conserve heart (sic) sources as much as possible.

We have no radio station on this side of the mountain. There are only two weekly papers. The internet is the only means of communication. Which probably explains why they keep sending these warnings via the internet and posting on websites. Duh?

There are a lot of people angry with out electric coop because they think they were not prepared for this emergency. Few people realize the interconnectedness of our electric power grid. It is like a huge railway shipping yard. One person puts one train on the wrong track and disaster can strike states away like when the entire northeast corridor went down because of ice storms in Canada.

We are all a little scared and politicians treating us like the demonstrators in Egypt are not helping. And those of you sitting snug and warm with lights and internet should be warned this can happen to you. The United states needs to spend serious money on its infrastructure. And robber barons should not be allowed to suck of profits from public utilities.

The News from Black Lake

2011-02-03T05:01:00.000-08:00

Front porch this week

At broadcast time it is a minus 30.3 outside and I have just proven that warm coffee tossed into the air will become a brown mist instantly. Such things are important to know. For me this morning it means I am not going outside until the sun comes up. The temperature is forecast to rise to a positive 21 degrees, which after being in the single digits or below for the last three days, will be positively balmy. And no the snow has not melted off, but the 15 inches we received has compacted and/or evaporated because of the cold to about 7 inches.

Chatting on line to friends in other parts of the country I have found a lot of misunderstandings about New Mexico. Even the national news was saying this huge storm went from Texas to Maine. We're the void to the west of Texas. And a whole group of people think New Mexico is desert. So I Googled up a satellite map this morning of my part of the state. There is an awful lot of errors. Google got the name of only one road correct. Well, maybe two.

View Larger Map

Notice that everything is green (currently under snow it is all white). The darker green is primarily Ponderosa pines and firs and spruce. Forest. I live at approximately 8580 feet above sea level in the Sangre de Cristo mountains.

View across road

I live on a county maintained improved dirt road just off a paved state road and only 5 miles from Angel Fire which is a ski resort town that is currently getting more famous for its golf course and the increasing number of artists with studios and galleries in the area. The reward for living here winters is that summers are fantastic with the temperatures in the low to mid 80's during the day and dropping to the 40's and 50's at night. No air conditioners. Also no fleas, ticks, and cockroaches ergo to polluting bug sprays.

So what happens in greater downtown Black Lake? Not much. Big news this week was the snow - long over due this winter - and whose pipes froze or didn't freeze with these unusually Arctic temperatures. Several chats on the phone about how behind the man with the plow was. But unlike our eastern countrymen (yes, we are part of the United States - one of the 50 since 1912 but then it was 48) we are amazingly prepared and wonderfully self-sufficient. So we don't make the news often. And we rather like that.

The week ahead for a change - Emergency preparedness

2011-01-30T06:50:00.000-08:00


Blizzard

It has been a good winter thus far - meaning not many storms and dumping very little snow. I have gotten to gloat over weather on the east coast. They seem so unprepared for it. But it hit me this morning as I was reading the Winter Storm Watch for the East Slope of the Sangre de Cristos this might just be serious

THE NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE IN ALBUQUERQUE HAS ISSUED A WINTER STORM WATCH... WHICH IS IN EFFECT FROM MONDAY MORNING THROUGH WEDNESDAY MORNING.

* SNOW ACCUMULATIONS... AS MUCH AS 15 TO 20 INCHES OF SNOW IS POSSIBLE IN THE HIGHER MOUNTAIN TERRAIN FROM THE CONTINENTAL DIVIDE TO THE CENTRAL MOUNTAIN CHAIN. LOWER AMOUNTS CAN BE EXPECTED ELSEWHERE.

* TIMING... WHILE THE HEAVIEST SNOW IS MOST LIKELY LATE MONDAY NIGHT INTO EARLY WEDNESDAY... SOME LIGHTER SNOW ACCUMULATION MAY WELL BEGIN DURING THE DAY MONDAY ACROSS WEST CENTRAL AND NORTHWEST NEW MEXICO

And am I prepared? Usually by this time of year buckling down for another storm is routine. Not so this year. The biggest snow this year has been 10 inches and no significant loss of power. For some reason this storm has bothered me since they began issuing advisories on a change in the weather. It is one of the reasons I changed my plans and ran to Taos yesterday to pick up fur kid food and art supplies.

This morning when NOAA weather service went from advisory to watch I decided I should get a bit more serious.

Firewood - check (need to move more into the house and on to the back porch)
Snowshoes - check (used to get to neighbors, wood shed or just play)
Containers of water - this needs done. Power goes out so does the well.
Batteries for emergency lights - check.
Emergency lights - make note to locate all of them.
Book light and books to read - find and centrally locate
Art supplies to entertain me - Check
Fur kid food - check
People food - check ( plenty in pantry and freezer)
Coffee - check (okay maybe that isn't seemingly that important)
Dumb phone (all phones requiring a cell tower or an electrical outlet won't work with no power)
Snow shovel - Check (on porch where it won't get buried in snow)
Serious shovels - put on back porch
Gas tank of van full - check
Emergency road kit in van - check
Guns and ammo and cleaning kit - locate all

You might laugh at some of these but in the year of the 6 foot New Year's snow my firewood was buried under a snow drift my snow shovel could not budge, my snow shoes were sealed by another drift in the garden shed, and my renter had left the snow shovel sticking in a snow pile by the road where the snow plow buried it.

All passes in and out of my valley were closed for four days and we had a town full of tourists while the local market's shelves were devoid of food due to no supply trucks getting in because of closed roods. Some of the tourists hung out at the bars closest to the passes so they could make a quick escape drunk or not. To this day I don't understand why they gave up their hotel rooms and condos. If they could not get out the next person on the reservation list could not get in. And once passes were open there was no fuel for the cars until the tankers arrived. It was ugly out there.

It is always wise to remember that the one thing weather forecasters get wrong is mountain weather. This winter they have had it more wrong than right. But while they generally over estimate how bad it will be the 6 foot in 2 days New Year's snow was suppose to be 15 -20 inches total accumulation. Shit happens so be prepared.

Oh, and BTW On-Star is absolutely no help with roads closed.

Self-Talk

2011-01-28T06:33:00.000-08:00

I sometimes do not listen to myself. I have this group of friends that think I give good advise and whether it is a telephone call, cornering me in the coffee shop, windshield time, or on line chat I often do not listen to myself. It has been a down year for me in so many ways and that does not seem to have changed the number of people seeking advice or calling me a beacon of hope and positive attitude it seems but it has made me feel more like an actor on the stage, an evangelist in a tent, a multiple personality. And definitely more alone.

The problem with being an artist is that we are too often our only source of company. That goes triple for January when it seems sometimes even the muse does not visit enough, and the voices in my head seem to all be feeding the fires of impending doom. But I was making a comment on a friend's blog about homeopathic medicine and testing to see if it is real when I stopped to re-read my comment.

My self-talk of late seems to run counter to what I truly believe and know. In short I have been selling myself a bill of goods I don't want to buy. I am not going to take all the blame because I am truly a believer in the cosmic consciousness and at the moment that well of thought is not real healthy. It has been a bad year for lots of people. But as I wrote in my political blog this morning, Hope is a strategy. And it needs to be one I more consciously take in my personal life beginning now.

Thoughts that need dashed:

I cannot lose weight
Exercise isn't working for me,
In this economy why spend money on the business
I am not a good artist
I cannot be financially secure
The contractor from hell will win
Doom is lurking around the corner

We can change the energy if we just focus on more positive futures and outcomes for our ventures. And the World.

More of the Skating Party

2011-01-26T05:21:00.000-08:00

Last week in response to the Magpie Tales prompt above I wrote a couple paragraphs as a lead into what may become a short story - maybe a novella. I do have difficulty writing short but that is my goal here. So in the coming weeks I will add to my beginning.

The Skating Party

Clarice Anna Hobbes found the photograph where it should not have been. Her mother, the family story went, had snapped the picture of that ill-fated skating party with her Kodak box camera when MaMa was but seven. The camera was a gift that Christmas day from her name sake in the center. By the end of the day her great Aunt Clarice would be dead, the camera and film confiscated by the police, and the skating party relegated to whispered memory at family reunions.

How did the sepia print, in an envelope with ten others, come to be taped under her late Uncle Jacob's dresser drawer?

The tape was yellowed and cracked, the wood under the envelope a totally different color ringed by the stain of the old Scotch tape. How long had it been there? Was the dresser always Jacob's? Clarice wondered. Jacob was nine years older than her mother. Sixteen the day of the skating party. A month later he turned seventeen and immediately joined the military. As far as, Clarice knew, he had not lived in this room since. Had not used this dresser until after his retirement. Not until after her grandparents and the other two women in the picture were dead.

In those days, her mother had told her, the film was enclosed in the camera and to be developed the camera had to be sent back to Kodak.

"You're lucky, Clarice," her mother said, showing her how to load the black and white roll of film into her 7th birthday present, a Brownie camera. "My first camera, at your age, had to be sent back to the factory so the film could be taken out and developed. They sent back the camera with new film and the developed pictures.

"They took it away that day. Only I never got my first pictures back."

"Why not?" She had asked, her attention more on staring through the view finder of her new gift.

"The police got them. Actually they got the camera too. Didn't get it returned to me until your Uncle Jacob's birthday. My second set of pictures was of his party and later in his uniform before he went away."

"I'm going to take pictures of my birthday party."

At newly seven she hadn't thought to ask why the police got her mother's first photos. Photos of Jacob's birthday party in the family album showed it to be a somber affair since it fell just a few weeks after Great Aunt Clarice Anna's funeral. Where is that album, Clarice the younger wondered, as she spread the ten photos from the envelope out on the floor around her. They were not what she would have thought.

To be continued

Lost Week??? Or just needed down time?

2011-01-24T04:48:00.000-08:00

This is the blog where I usually recap the week that has just passed. And usually I can come up with some clever little title that sums it all up. But this has been a rather odd week which eludes a handle. There has been the problem of the downstairs loo, and the snippy people on the social networks, and of course the continuing involvement in the new desktop computer (does take a while to get them like you want), and another week of no significant snow.

January is typically that time for artists when we do a lot of looking ahead to shows and exhibits, and I have four paintings begun I was thinking of using as entry images but I cannot seem to finish them. Return of phantom sounds and smells, and wakening with a sense of impending doom has warned me I am overly stressed. I think that is all hang over from 2010 and its issues but this seemed like a good week to just not make myself do anything beyond the necessary.

I have been playing with my new Corel Paintshop Pro photo editing program as the opening picture indicates. And I am working on writing a short story I begun with a paragraph on Magpie Tales last week. And I have been getting serious about home exercise routine. But I have also wasted time just playing Bejeweled Twist, and watching streaming Netflix videos on my telly. I have eaten entirely too many chocolates and erred toward comfort foods too much. But I have decided to give myself permission to be in this mood for a bit longer.

I think I seriously need some downtime. Now if the universe will just cooperate and not break anything more. BTW while typing this Firefox decided to not respond. Been doing that rather a lot lately. Course I am sure it is the computer. I have to get over this fear of turning anything on.

Head for the Round House, Nellie

2011-01-20T08:59:00.000-08:00

B&O Round House

They cannot corner you there, the saying goes. Dad was fond of this particular bit of Americana. I admit to not really understanding it much. In my youth, toward the end of the great age of rail, there were switching yards and two-headed diesel engines and so not much use for a turn table to reverse the direction of the engine. The steam engine with coal car went in one side, drove on to the turn table which rotated to put its load heading the right direction on the correct track or just back out the way it had come heading the other way. Confused?

It does, however, make a lot of sense that a round house, built for any purpose, would free you from being cornered so to speak. So figuratively if not literally I often head to the round house when I am feeling stalked. Life should have less corners and more round houses don't you think?

The contractor from hell tried to corner me this last three day weekend. While drinking in his favorite bar in Red River he began the rumor that he had won the lawsuit and my house was going to be sold out from under me. The news reached me through friends on the weekend of course when I could not call my legal representation or the court for verification. Too bad his building and accounting skills were not as good as his timing of rumors and stalking skills.

Needless to say I didn't sleep all that well, overate, and submerged myself in the fantasy of Netflix streaming videos. I don't paint well when bothered but I do sketch good so I did that, and read, and exercised. My version of the virtual roundhouse. Tuesday my attorney verified that he lies! But once again I have let this hateful excuse for a human being ruffle my feathers.

But it also occurred to me, while I was catching my breathe from running in circles, is that a lot of his behavior is stalking so the next time he drives his big truck down my dead end county road I am taking his license number and reporting him to the state police. The one thing to remember about round houses, in addition to you cannot be cornered, is that the person chasing you has no place to hide from the shot gun blast!

TW3 - Left Brain Mood

2011-01-16T06:46:00.000-08:00

I have been in a rather left brain mood this last week. That's good for everything that had to be done on the new computer. I had to wait and make sure it was going to work but I could not wait the 90 days that is the general fail period for electronics. And I had to wait for that left brain mood to strike. Only in my left brain can I sit in front of two computers and transfer files and not lose my place.

My goal was to take major photo files off my laptop and move them to the 1 terabyte desktop where I would organize them so they could be readily accessed. I still have to do this with some of my document files too but I did get poetry copied from my blogs up through August 2009. But I digress (clearly back in that right brain today). After moving over the major photo files I went through the lessor ones (in my haphazard scheme of things those are the ones still bearing the computer assigned file names) and moved over the photos of note to other folders I had created - best photos, contest possibles, website, etc. then deleted the home files. This process took me from 30% available hard drive space to 60% on the laptop.

I think it made not one wit of measurable difference on the terabyte hard drive. BTW I now have a cloud backup program for both computers. And a friend has told me their are companies whose sole purpose is to rescue data from "downed" hard drives. I need to do a major google search and come up with one to ship my downed external hard drive too and see if they can extract some of the last 3 years of my life off of it.

Other left brain tasks I completed: A new art vita, a new artist's statement, assessment and purchase of Corel Paintshop Photo Pro X3 Ultimate, dinner out with a couple friends (the right brain me is not very social). The list is longer that needs to be accomplished - taxes loom but I feel that I have gotten a good chunk begun. Now back to the studio and nurturing my abandoned right brain.

A Different Sort of Winter

2011-01-14T05:21:00.000-08:00

Ravens flying over Lake Coyote

Last winter about this time I was blogging about Lake Coyote - the huge ice damn downstream had backed up the Little Coyote stream creating a huge ice lake in my back yard. This winter the Little Coyote is still within its banks and covered with a relatively thin coat of ice.

Snow has actually been rare. So rare I got my camera out to record this 6 inch blanket in the last week. Yesterday the temperature was about 43F at my house and so much of this is gone like the 10 inch one we got in December. Today is going to be in the 40's again. In fact no significant weather for the next 10 days. It has thrown a spanner into my winter aerobics program of snow shoveling the driveway! And locals have already shifted from talking about the weather to worrying about the summer fire season in the forest.

My sister and I are even contemplating taking a few days off and taking to the road to visit Chaco or Canyon de Chelle or the Grand Canyon or Monument Valley - trips we usually consign to late spring. But the weather and the open roads seem just too nice to waste. And a dusting of snow on ancient Chaco ruins would be such a nice photographic opportunity. Pilots might term this a sucker hole. Lure you out with the promise of blue sky and then sock you in with the blizzard of the century. Or not.

Boxing Day 2010

It is just so difficult to settle into the ordinary winter activities when it looks so wonderful outside.

Time to Stop Spending!!!!

2011-01-12T06:06:00.000-08:00

First let me say the above picture has no relationship to the subject of this blog. It is in my Blogspot image library for Sidetracked Charley. I was scrolling through looking for an apt image and it dawned on me that all those blog images stored nicely before lost on my doomed computer are probably stored for me on the net!

So is my poetry. I began the process of going back through poetic posts on Creative Journey today (through July 2010) and copying them to Wordperfect files. Yesterday I began downloading from my 2007 backup CD's other writing files. And I rebuilt my art vita and artist's statement from paper copies I found.

And what, pray tell, I can here my reader's ask, does this have to do with the title of this post? Okay, most of you do not use the phrase pray tell. Blame it on my classics education. But again I digress. I have this tendency to award myself for doing onerous tasks. I blame it on my father who took me to the toy store (or for an ice cream - another blog no doubt) when I had to go to the doctor. In my youth this turned to forms of medicating my discomfort. I don't abuse beverages any more - well, except for coffee - oh, and those 5 hour Energy drinks from time to time.

And I like to think I have over spending and over eating moderated - all things in moderation, including moderation. But spurred by the necessary expenditures (car repairs, computer replacement, baseboard heaters, chimney sweep, camera tripod, cloud backup, software that was Windows 7 friendly) I have branched into a few unnecessary ones - computer monitor, new swimsuit for the spa (old one was getting thread bare), books from Borders (I am boycotting the local library), etc. Okay, not excessive by any means but the way things are going I need to save some money for the necessities that seem to spring up. Frankly the computer monitor was in the with-a-new-computer-do-I-want-to-risk-the-old-monitor-failing category of necessity.

I still have $100 of bonus and gift card to spend at the art store. Well, I have most of that set aside for the drafting chair. And I have my stash for emergencies rebuilding slowly. Still there is not much more I really require right now and art fair entry fees loom ahead. Time to rein in the spending and build back my prudent reserve the new computer tapped into. So my plan is to do those dreaded tasks (rebuilding and restoring computer files, taxes, and fair applications) a bit at a time. And award myself with a piece of Dove Dark Chocolate! One only! Did I mention my tendency to overeat my problems?

BTW - reason for photograph of La Sal mountains in Moab. It makes me remember one of the very happy moments of 2010.

TW3 - Streaming Video!

2011-01-10T04:23:00.000-08:00

In the muddle over computer issues I have not said much about my Vizio HDTV. Maybe that is because the moment I took my saved up money to purchase it the computer failed and I began to regret the money spent. I do not use credit cards so I save for what I want. I had wanted the flat screen TV for more than a year as I put away cash for the eventual purchase. Everything had gotten in the way - like car repairs.

With at last money in hand, product research completed, and friend along to keep me from going bonkers over the unconsidered options I got the flat screen of my dreams. Okay, due to prices I went 5" bigger (glad I did) and when my friend mentioned the HTML cable I also jumped in an got a new Samsung Blu Ray/DVD player capable of streaming Netflix video. That was a couple hundred I had not planned to spend. But it seemed to make sense until the computer failed.

The failure of the computer had far reaching ramifications - beyond budget. The whole fight with HP over the first faulty computer they shipped me consumed all my left brain so set up of the HDTV and player never went beyond being able to play DVD's. The budget crunch of robbing Peter to pay Paul and get a new computer made me regret the TV and also hedge on upgrading my Netflix account to Blu Ray. It definitely made me hate manuals, tech support centers, and fear that all electronics when touched would fail. Bottom line was I wanted my new entertainment center to hook itself up to the ethernet. I was tharned.

Saturday I finally got to a level of frustration with myself that I was going to do it or die trying. I had already proven to myself that the directions made no sense. They were originally written in Chinese no doubt and translated to English by a non-English techno nerd. I used to translate computer techno nerd speak to engineer and accountant language in my real world life. But they all spoke English. Well, there was some question about the engineers. I tossed the manual aside after connecting the ethernet cable. Schematics seldom need translation. Then I decided to work upstream as opposed to downstream (electrical troubleshooting technique). TV first, then player, at lastly computer.

Success! I will not go into the details but you definitely have to begin with the TV AND the TV remote even if the TV can be controlled by the player remote! I was at last able to watch Netflix streaming video on my new HDTV! This has far reaching ramifications (favorite word of the week). I can exercise while watching as opposed to being stuck in a computer chair. I don't panic when I have forgotten to mail back the last Netflix DVDs in a timely manner to get replacements before the weekend (I only get mail delivery 3 days a week in my rural area). And I am not regretting my 3 year ago decision to disconnect satellite TV.

Saturday evening I sat in my easy chair and watched streaming video on my HDTV and just kept saying spontaneously to the fur kids, "I love this TV."