Musical Sunday

I drove over to Sedona today to hear a group I had read about. ZAZU calls itself a gypsy jazz band, modeled after the likes of Django Reinhardt and Stephanie Grappeli and Le Jazz Hot in the good old days in Paris. With only two guitars and an upright bass, they recreate the sound beautifully.

The players are, from left to right, Larry Czarnecki, Steve Douglas and Ken Aurich. A great group.

But my big surprise of the day occurred on the road back to P.V. from Jerome. There's a large overlook down the canyon into the Verde Valley. Usually there are many cars there with tourists oohing and ahhing and taking photos. But today . . . there was something different.

That's right. A very accomplished drummer with his entire kit blasting out rhythm over the canyon. When he finished playing I said "that was great but where's the rest of the band?"

He responded, "Oh, they're always late. I'm always the first one to arrive and the last one to leave."

But then he grinned and said he just didn't have a gig this weekend and needed to get his jollies. As I left, he was beating out more sounds on his drums.

Facebook Follies

Oh, my god.

I have warned friends about this.

But now I have succumbed.

Facebook has taken over my life.

I finally got into it and now I have found multiple former friends, people I used to work with, some of them for a long time, some of them very briefly.

But now.

Thanks to Facebook.

They are my friends.

And I am finding that I am checking the page tens, hundreds, thousands of times a day.

What have I become?

Okay, gotta go.

Got to check Facebook.

Good-bye Mary

The Big C has claimed another one.

Mary Travers, the female singer with Peter, Paul and Mary, has died of cancer at the age of 72 in Danbury Hospital in Connecticut.

Topping it off

A next door neighbor had this Cottonwood tree in his front yard. It was probably 50 feet tall. Until this morning. Going out to the mailbox, I noticed tree cutters hard at work. I asked them if they were going to take it down but they said they had been asked by the owner to reduce its height.

A few hours later, the job was done.

I'm not sure why the owner wanted the tree cut back but probably he was worried about windstorms toppling the top portion onto his duplex.

Calling all nervous nellies!

From the north side of Prescott, looking south, a forest fire appears to be encroaching on the city. (Yavapai Regional Medical Center in lower left of photo.)

But it was a controlled burn, one of two today. The next view is from Juniper Lane, on the south side of the city.

The other burn today was on Mingus Mountain but it was so far away only a dim smudge of gray smoke could be seen in the sky.

These controlled burns are done every year but every time they're done a certain number of people don't get the message and are all but running down the streets, shrieking "the sky is falling, the sky is falling."

There is no danger, folks, everything is being strictly controlled.

We're Number 37!

I want a drink!

I had just filled the fountain and a couple of dishes with water.

But Smoke apparently didn't want to drink from the cat dish.

He wanted a drink from the fountain.

Meanwhile, watching from a distance was the long-missing Goldie. Haven't seen him for several weeks but there he was this morning. But he was keeping a safe distance and would not allow me to approach him.