Might as well not wear socks.
Might as well not wear socks.
Came across so much good stuff lately, including:
I came across one of my favorite pictures of Sara, Cooper’s best friend, here nuzzling another kind of neighbor.
Cabezon from home, Sept. 6, 2015.
If the light doesn’t wake me, the white paw will.
I don’t know whether to be more worried about hungry bears or presidential candidates.
“In several encounters last week, bears grabbed, tossed or absconded with the bear-proof food canisters, according to rangers at Yosemite National Park. Something like a robber stealing a safe, then taking it home to figure out how to get the goodies,” Tom Steinstra of the San Francisco Chronicle reported this morning.
This reminded me that I own two bear-proof containers and always have had trouble opening them myself. I find the one on the right particularly troublesome and have relegated it to my kitchen as a mouse-proof container for packaged pasta, lid always ajar.
This is in turn reminded me of the chills I felt yesterday when reading that New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie said, if elected, he would track foreign visitors the way FedEx tracks packages as a way to combat illegal immigration. 
Admittedly, I do not know the details of Cristie’s plan. I reacted largely to the FedEx headlines, which triggered scary thoughts of bar codes and tattoos. He probably means something more clerical and benign, but his idea initially seemed even harder to imagine than Donald Trump’s giant wall.
I’ve come to agree in an odd way with the pundits who give Trump credit for stepping up debate in the GOP presidential wilderness.
Now you’ve got candidates like Christie, hungry for attention as Trump continues to rake in all the poll goodies, apparently trying to take even bigger swats on issues like immigration than the roaring real estate guy. Just after I wrote this I saw that Scott Walker said that building a wall between the U.S. and Canada is an idea worth considering.
With sign like this on the campaign trail, I feel like climbing in a bear-proof container until picnic season is over.
The west thinks it’s putting on a show.
But the east isn’t taking it lying down.
A night away from full, but trying anyhow.
Not to be outdone, the west throws in a little lightning.
You know your day is off to a rough start when the sky looks like the horizon in Cormac McCarthy’s “The Road” and the Twitter dude who calls himself Zozobra announces he has hired you as his press secretary.
As I said in earlier responses on Twitter to @Old_Man_Gloom, water man @jfleck and others, the press secretary announcement by Zozobra is inoperative. RIP, Ron Nessen.
But it’s all so bad — more difficulty breathing and the spectacle of Zozobra trying to portray himself as an innocent victim — all make me think I will just go hide.
I may go north, pick something up on Old Santa Fe Trail, go past Fort Marcy Park, and stop somewhere along the way to Buffalo Thunder, hopefully under a starry sky on a cool mountain night, but I will not be in the company of Forrest Fenn.
I was all set to have a pleasant brunch and marvel at some more @tcboyle short stories, Cooper waiting faithfully for an eventual visit down the hill with his friend Sara, but the glooms keep coming.
We think Sara is going to be fine after her recent surgery, but sister Hope emailed to say an owl had just made off with all of her egg-producing brood except for a single chick. And between the Chinese economy, refugee crises unfolding on several continents, climate change devastation from California to Idaho and the latest Albuquerque Public Schools debacle, I’m not finding much cheer in the news.
Just look at this, will you. http://t.co/BMZuLncBTK
I know it’s good for the economy but I’m also feeling a little sorry for Santa Feans. Sometimes the charms of the City Different can be its curses, too: You just get through Indian Market, for instance, and then you’ve got gear up for the fiesta crowds, particularly on the night Zozobra gets his due.
Sometimes I flash on the Frederic Remington painting “Zebulon Pike Entering Santa Fe,” thinking Pike too looks just a little bit gloomy about his new surroundings.
Text messages from sister Hope tend to be special, kind of like a Charlie Russell postcard of the digital age.
In this case, it’s an iPhone text from the back of Jiggs and I think she was mostly worked up about the smoke from Washington wildfires clearing around her Montana home.
Actually, I’m fortunate to have a bunch of relatives who are great about keeping in touch, although I don’t think we’ll ever be able to convince sister Jane that email isn’t civilization’s end. Her hand-written letters, often accompanied by art, always are treasures, but a digital response is a lost cause unless brother-in-law Bill kindly intervenes.
If I could get hermetic brother Pat to put a little more blue in his streak — he just wrote me a very nice letter but it was the first of the year — I’d really be sitting pretty. But he’s probably too busy up there in Washington writing a novel that we’ll only learn about through good reviews.
Happy ninth, Nancy. You even sounded older — but not too old — on the phone this morning. This is the picture your mom sent me on the Fourth of July. I hope she will send me one of the party up there in Utah today. I hope brother Tom will enjoy the party, too. You are lucky to have such a good pal. School starts Monday, I hear. Best wishes for the fourth grade!
dreamranch 