This is real life in Colorado. (found on Flickr)

All the Basic Books of Scientology have been revised to their original state: pure L Ron Hubbard with no editorial alterations. My summer project is to read them all by October and this is going to take some focus on my part.

It's been a summer for reading. I found Neil Gaiman and B Kingsolver's "Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: A Year of Food Life" and Sweetie keeps placing his copy of "East of Eden" in my hands (it looks promising). Good thing we cut back on our cable service.

Jeez..I just realized I have to read Harry Potter, too......

Between books and dogs, nothing much else is gonna get done.

When I was growing up, friends and neighbors always brought us bags of tomatoes or corn or green beans or crowder peas. We would spent hours helping Mama peel or shuck or shell to stock up the freezer for winter. The fava beans from Cure Farm reminded me of her. We ended up with a double order since we traded those for our head lettuce. I took them out on the back porch to shell them in Mama's honor.
Yellow squash was another delicacy of hers, boiled with onions and smothered with butter. This dish is a variation on that theme: sauteed with a little basil.

My dogs have taken to herding me from time to time. We all go walking - those two, Sugar, and myself, everyday but occasionally I don't want to. After they've done their initial psychic-understanding "we-are-going-for-a-walk" dance, they start hedging me in in such a way that makes it difficult to walk unless I move the way they want me to go. That is toward the door.

It's very flattering.

I haven't noticed sunsets being any more spectacular than they normally are, but the morning sun comes in through an unusual yellow haze. Lots of wildfires going on in the west.

Interesting article from July '07 "Scientific American"

"To get a red sky, you need aerosols, explains A. R. Ravishankara, director of chemical sciences at the NOAA Earth System Research Laboratory in Boulder, Colo. Aerosols are solid or liquid particles suspended in the air that originate from both natural processes and human activity.

Natural aerosols come from forest fires, mineral dust kicked up by sandstorms, sea spray and volcanic eruptions, among other things. Volcanoes, which have produced some of the most spectacular sunsets in history, can inject sulfuric acid droplets into the stratosphere, the layer of the atmosphere between 10 to 35 miles in altitude. These droplets can be swept across the globe, painting brilliant crimson twilights wherever they go. Following the 1883 eruption of Indonesia’s Krakatoa, brilliant sunsets appeared around the world, one of which is said to have inspired Norwegian artist Edvard Munch’s painting, The Scream."

Much of downtown Boulder has been replaced in recent years by new construction in the form of red brick buildings. Now we have a "financial district" where we once had a motley collection of older buildings and businesses. None of this has really bothered me but today, when I read that Lolita's Market may be replaced by a newer 'energy efficient' building, a little "aarrgh" welled up in my throat.

The building that is Lolita's dates back 130 years and has been a downtown market since 1979. The developers promise to keep the history alive with a photo essay to show everybody what once was there. Will that satisfy the basic need that people have for some sense of continuity? I don't think it will.

Last night we headed out for a walk with the dogs at the gloaming and noticed some wretched looking low clouds coming down from the north. Sugar paid them no mind since they were so far away so we did our loop and headed home at our leisure. A block out, I heard something that sounded like a pack of dogs trotting after us, their toenails scraping the pavement. Looking back, I only saw big huge raindrops heading south toward us like an invisible wall!

We made it back to the porch before it really started coming down and then enjoyed a good hour's worth of scary lightning with lots of thunder claps and ragged clouds, not to mention a great soaking rain.

"You just had to show reality who was boss, that was all."
Spider in Anansi Boys

Hm. I just read a flash flood warning for Boulder County and was disappointed to read further and find out that it was mainly Jefferson County. I don't want any flood here but some regular rain would be very nice. This year Boulder started charging us for the amount of water we use and while we've been waaaayyy below their projections for us, I have a feeling that watering this month will put us over the top.

We have an atypical yard with some buffalo grass, some grass from the old K-Mart (which was where the Safeway is now) but mainly the field grass that was there when we built a long while ago. From a distance it looks sort of lawn-ish, but it's not a barefoot kind of place. I did dig the cacti out and moved them to a dry place where they are blooming big & yellow for the first time ever. I have chicory and yarrow and some rabbit ears throughout the front yard which would be a meadow if someone had not reported us to the city for an unmowed yard.

It took a while, but now the neighbors express their appreciation for the 'country' feel to the yard as they walk by the compost by the front fence. The least I can do it try to keep it green.

Last night we went bowling. In the living room. With Sweetie's new Wii. FUN!

Last weekend I watched "Dreamgirls" via Comcast On Demand and thought it was pretty entertaining and that was about it but I had the thing available for 24 hours and the rest of the fam watched it some. Little did I know that I wouldn't be able to get "And I am Telling You" and "Steppin' to the Bad Side" out of my head for the next 4 days. I youtubed 'Jennifer Hudson' to listen to it again and found Brendan. Now if you like Jennifer Hudson, Dreamgirls, and/or Cute Baby videos YOU HAVE TO WATCH THIS! And if you go so far as to click on the link, please watch the whole thing. This baby is remarkable with his phrasing of the song and the way he has remembered the tune and the gist of the words (even though he doesn't understand a lot of them).

I got a bunch of dought tolerant plants from the Conservation Resource Center and now I have to find places in the yard to put them. When I ordered them I envisioned lots of blank spots in the garden but now that they are here, everything is in full growth and I see that I don't have as much room as I thought. I've been pulling tall grasses from the garden all week and the compost heap is overflowing. Leaving for a month at the start of the growing season isn't such a good idea.
We got our first take from the Cure Farm subscription this week: turnips and greens, beets, braising mix and salad. Their produce is just superb. I never get enough tomatoes or cukes so I planted some in the back yard. The deer don't get back there very much since we fenced it for the dogs so I'm hoping for a good harvest.

I'm home for good, for a while, for now.

Since I haven't been really attached to a job for a year +, I forget why it is that I need to come back to Boulder to live. Today, I'm remembering why. Who else would keep the grasses from taking over the yard, make sure that sticky viney weed doesn't take over the roses, prune the dead branches from the old plum tree, find the birds' watering dish in the bushes and fill it with water, plant those drought-resistant plants along the front walk, find the milk delivery on the front porch instead of the back, fill the fountains and set up the solar sprays, notice the pee spots made by the neighbor boy dog and clean them, get all the lint out of the laundry room, egg the boys on toward painting the house, and all the other mighty and powerful things I do?

And more important, who would provide a lap for Hansel's chin to rest on and who would clean off Roxie's eye boogers and rub their special secret places that only we know about?

Yesterday I spent some time engrossed in the offerings at Jon's. There is a whole aisle of foods from countries that I can't figure out. I know there is the usual Mexican and Asian group. There's also Russian and Mid-Eastern and some others. This isn't considered a gourmet aisle, either - they appear to be staples in local diets. The store is filled with non-English speaking families picking up daily vegetables like a marketplace. Yesterday, I noticed frozen cactus leaves and guava paste. It's really run down looking - not your suburban bleached grocery - but I realized yesterday that there are always lines when I go there. The store must be a real money-maker for the chain.

The air is pretty soupy. I hope I'm breathing in June Gloom and not smog.

If you can get through Boulder winters, the Springs are great. It's not that they are so harsh (except maybe this year), it's that they get so bleak - dry, brown, silent except for a handful of birds that overwinter. But now the grass is growing so fast that it's hard to keep up with the mowing and the first flowers have survived the recent cold snap so I think we are really on our way.

I hear it's snowing in Boulder but it's definitely not in Orange Beach, AL. We've had 80º weather and a little foggy mornings but glorious afternoons. The pictures don't do it justice - the colors are all shades of deep blues and greens. Dophins and pelicans and warm sea breezes. And Jimmy Buffet's sister's place (Lulu's) and Sea 'n Suds and all those purple red bud trees all along the highway, chasing Spring along the way ( and losing it on the way back), and wild turkeys in So Illinois. Oh, and gorgeous, huge azaleas and dogwoods (flowers I haven't seen for decades).

Finally the business is coming back to life after a long, quiet winter. In November, we purposely chose to take a lot of time off, fairly shutting it down except for the few dribbles that came in that could be handled by the remaining crew. Then the snow started and didn't stop for months which froze that down to a trickle. I wondered if the business would come back to life at all but now I see it has.

There is nothing like having your own small business. We are lucky to be able to make a decent living and still have time to live and enjoy our lives - but you do have to create the thing over and over and over again. "Hustle" is the word.

Whoa - it was winterwinterwinter and now I'm seeing little crocuses (croci?) everywhere. The last snow just melted last week and I still have to get some of the Christmas stuff out of the yard. Suddenly all the projects that went on hold at the beginning of winter are evident everywhere and I don't have my excuses anymore. We have to finish the gutters and pruning the big elm and cut up all the branches, get the leaves into the compost heap really, jumpstart the house painting and start looking at what we are going to do with the back yard so we can easily snow shovel when another winter like this one comes.

It's really quiet in this town after a month in LA. I miss the sirens and helicopters.

Back when she was a wee lass

Damn!

I woke up early to see the sunrise on the Hollywood Hills and noticed the tiny bit of fog on the window. This is a long-sleeved shirt day in East Hollywood. Still, birds sing and fly around so I'm sure it will warm up by the time I leave for Union Station to take the train home. The problem is: it's snowing again at home! Holy Moly! Is this ever going to end? Ok, I have nothing to complain about after 30 days of beautiful blue skies, abundant floral and some fauna around (remember the dead skunk on my arrival?), a trip to the Blue Pacific, and days filled with lots of interesting people from around the world. My bucket has been filled so I can probably weather the next 30 or so days till Spring arrives in Colorado.

What a gorgeous day! The sky is really blue and it'll be in the 70's later on. In fact, it's been pretty clear most of the days I've been here. I'm going to head to Los Feliz and over to Hillhurst to Yuca's Hut for lunch. Not sure if I'll be productive today or just blow it off looking for local treasures.

So glad to be out of the cold and the blowing snow advisories of home.

It's been a little slow getting started so I've been walking around the neighborhood. I found a beautiful little street, Dracena Ct., between Franklin and Finley. That's where the 6' tall blooming poinsettia bush stood.

Today I went see "Pan's Labyrinth" at the Vista Theater. It was a good escape but I wouldn't have gone to see it if I had known more about it. BUT! the theater itself is worth the visit.

After I got into town (an hour early on Amtrak), I asked Victor if I could ride with him to his next pick-up. He was happy to have the company so we went out Ventura Hwy to the San Fernando Valley and cut south at some point. I saw the Getty Museum and now have an understanding of what an outing that will be. Went into a Ralph's for the first time, very much like spiffy King Sooper's at home. On the way back, we dropped some people off in Pasadena and I saw something called 'Bungalow Row", a street that is cared about and preserved by the owners. We saw a cool bridge going into Pasadena that I'll have to investigate and we went by a park near the Rose Bowl which gave me the strongest deja vu I've had in a long time.

Ok, this is all fine, but this is funny to me:

We cut through Atwater Village and ended up on Franklin Avenue over the Shakespeare Bridge (I've wanted to see that for some time) and right after the bridge, we passed a dead skunk in the road. And this is all funny because I've learned about this area from reading "Franklin Avenue" and "Atwater Village Newbie" and the now defunct "Skunks of Los Feliz", blogs. You had to be there in my head - yes, the skunk wasn't on Los Feliz but so what.

And another funny thing is that the other passengers in the car going out and coming back were from Boulder. Small world, indeed.

He Kicked Him...

A little boy explains what he saw while watching a movie with his mom.

I was so looking forward to the opening of Twenty-Ninth Street but now that it's here, I only really use it for a handy cut-through from 30th to 28th Street. Riding by today, I noticed that our new movie theater walls are going up and that is good new since the marquee for the one on Arapahoe is gone.

The one place I have been to (twice now) is Pei Wei, both times just for the minced chicken wrapped in iceberg lettuce which is pretty tasty. Today we sat at the bar and watched the cooks slamming the food through the line. Lots of big flames and steam impressed me and took my mind off all this friggin' cold and snow.

From the local newspaper: "While Sunday brought only about 3 inches of snow to downtown Boulder, the storm marked the fifth week in a row that Boulder County and the Front Range have received measurable snowfall. Since the blizzard on Dec. 20-21, 63 inches of snow have fallen on Boulder, according to the National Weather Service."

And the Saints didn't win yesterday, but they did a great job of getting so far.

I have this son who is turning 22 tomorrow and with that, he is on the road to 30. This is the first year that I've not had the feeling, "If he's that old, I must be getting old." There's a disconnect. Yes, I know I made his body and raised him but he's over there and I'm over here now; from momandson to mom and son. I value his friendship and attention.

Oh, I forgot to crab about Flat Iron Subaru. I took our Outback in for a winterizing tuneup and ended up paying $1500 for all this necessary crap. Yes, brakes need fixing and the timing belt does shred after 105,000 miles, but you know, I could have used some better customer service. We took it in at 10am, found out at noon that the timing belt would need replacing ($400), called at 3:30 to find out that it would be ready at 5:45. At 5:30, I found out we needed the brakes and pump replaced and they hadn't done diddly squat. The service manager did give me a loaner after I ramped up into low level hysteria. All I'm saying is, when the bill is $1200 over what I expected and the work isn't even started by the time I come to pick it up, don't get defensive, ok? Since then, we found out that Pete Dinstuhl does Subaru so that's where we'll go next time.

The two main routes out of town to the south are closed because of ground blizzards with up to 100 mph gusts These chinooks are supposed to continue all day long.

Sweetie and a friend were going to hike up to the Arestua Hut, five miles in from the trailhead, in knee deep snow with two dogs but decided to wait till tomorrow. One good thing about having grown children is the vicarious pleasure in hearing about adventures without having to trudge up the mountain myself.

At least it's beautiful. This was taken in between blizzards. There are 2' tall bushes next to that little fence.