Not yet

There's a period in Arizona we affectionately call "the Monsoon". Natives and newcomers associate it with the coming of rain after months of drought. I drove through what was nearly a downpour yesterday. There was more falling today and the skies were very threatening.

But I heard a fellow from the National Weather Service saying this was not the monsoon. It might get wet in Northern Arizona for a couple of days but it was a couple of months too early for the monsoon.

Incidentally, "monsoon" really has nothing to do with moisture, though rain usually accompanies it. A monsoon season just means that the prevailing winds have shifted direction.

Name and date, please

You know how people love to make marks in wet cement? That urge apparently doesn't go away as one becomes older. When we built the duplex where we now live, SWMBO left her sign and the date. It's still there.

Friday Foolishness

An interesting combination!

Spring flowers

The BRD and SWMBO picked up some flowering plants at the store yesterday. Tomorrow they'll be planted.

Springtime!

(With temperatures pushing 90 degrees, it feels more like Summertime!)

Balancing rocks

There seems to be a lot of these things around here.

This one, though, appears to have been placed there. It's in a Prescott residential area and I think the developer "placed" it there.

Still . . . it's impressive. Especially, probably, to the guy whose house is directly below it!

More Weird Art

You've all read my writings about the BRD (Beautiful Rich Daughter). Here's a picture taken today of her and her beau.

But about her taste in art. Here are some photos of her back yard. As you can see, she's fond of "gazing balls". But if you look at the lower part of the first photo, you'll also see some bowling balls. She started buying them at yard sales a few years ago. Some she half-buried in her yard and told people they were growing there. Now, they just lie on the surface.

Meantime, one of her twin dogs just watches with curiosity.

Mayer Daze

Took a drive down the road to Mayer today where the locals are celebrating Mayer Daze (Days). I got there just in time for a typical small-town parade. Lots of military . . .

The Pony Express riders . . .

A small motorized cart pulling a wagon with rider . . .

Motorcycles . . .

Lots of horses, including this Clydesdale . . .

A local bagpiper . . .

Pretty girls on horses . . .

Representatives of the Sheriff's office (who look like they've had a few too many doughnuts) . . .

Some miniature donkeys . . .

With all these equines, there have to be pooper-scoopers . . .

A shoot-out near the bank . . .

Some wild women of the west . . .

And more motorized vehicles . . .

After the parade, a stroll around town found a beautiful turkey . . .

A llama . . .

And a chance to get a close-up look at that Clydesdale's hooves.

All in all, a pleasant day in Mayer.

Surf's down!

Watson Lake.

The Granite Dells.

Blue sky and a very calm day. Not even a ripple on the water.

Of course, if this boulder rolled down into the water, there might be some waves, for a time.

I often wonder about the perched boulders around these parts. How did they get there? What keeps them from toppling? I guess weight and gravity answer the last question but I'm still wondering about the first one.

As always, the photos are bigger if you click on them.

A visit

We had a good visit this week from our friends, Tom and Lana, from California. I've known them for nearly 40 years, since Tom and I worked together at a radio station in Indianapolis. That period lasted less than three years but it formed a friendship that has lasted all these years.

While showing them around our area, I got a chance to snap a few pictures. Here are a couple I took on the courthouse square in Prescott of the statue dedicated to the memory of "Bucky" O'Neill. Taking the photos from different sides of the statue shows the different effects one can achieve.

The next one shows one of the most photographed sites in Arizona . . right up there with the Grand Canyon. It's a distant view of the mountains at Red Rock Crossing, which turns up in many western movies of the past.

Happy Birthday, Pete!

Folk singer Pete Seeger will be 90 years old tomorrow. And he's still singing, playing his banjo and speaking out as an activist.

I had the great good fortune to see him and Arlo Guthrie together in concert in Phoenix many years ago. He (they) were great!

Pete is one of my heroes.

Happy Birthday, Pete, and I hope you have many more.

My Sweet Love

I think I've posted these pictures before. Fairly recently. But tonight, Jazz was back in my lap, enjoying the warmth, and I thought I should write about her.

She is my love slut.

Nearly any time I sit down in the chair in my den she is soon in my lap. Especially if I have the Mexican blanket across my legs. It's getting too warm now for the blanket but still she comes.

She is my lover.

She looks at me with her large green eyes, wondering . . . what is he thinking?

Does he love me as I do him?

I wonder, too. What does a cat think? Does it think like we, as humans, do? Does it SEE, as we .. like humans..do. I have heard not. I wonder, as she lies upside down, staring at me, what she sees.

I wonder . . . does she love me as I think she does?

SWMBO brought her home from the animal pound a few years ago. She said Jazz was not pretty, not near as pretty as the other cats. But she seemed so grateful for her attention that she couldn't resist her.

I have always defended Jazz. I think she is beautiful. Perhaps she has heard me and appreciates my love for her. She has seemed to me for these few years to have responded with love for me.

My sweet Jazz.

My love.

A lazy day

I have been neglecting my blog of late. Sorry.

Today it's sunny, calm and near 80 degrees here. A perfect day to loaf around by a lake.

This is Willow Lake, one of several lakes in our immediate area.

There's even a fishing dock.

So where is everybody?

I saw only one woman heading out from shore in a kayak. If I had a kayak I'd be out on the water too.

Big. Bigger. Biggest!

Roberts Marketplace, out here in Prescott Valley, finally got a flag up their brand new flagpole in front of their brand new store recently.

As I gazed at it with wonder, I couldn't help thinking - - is it

a. Advertising . . a banner designed to lure folks in to the store and gas station,

b. A sign of the patriotic fervor of the store owner,

or

c. A stick it in your eye display that says "Mine's bigger than yours!"

Life is curious

I talked on the telephone to my brother last night. It was because of my birthday. We talked for over an hour. It was a good conversation. But we are so different. He is a conservative, I am a liberal. He has become religious, at least church going, I am an atheist. But we still had a good conversation. Strange, how things happen.

YeGods, another birthday!

Truth be told, I have commemorated yet another year on this soil. I won't say which year it was but suffice it to say that the numbers are mounting. Nevertheless, I feel much the same as I have felt for years, nay decades. I know the years are growing and the supposed physical complaints are increasing but most of the time I don't notice them.

SWMBO and I have just returned from a wonderful Italian repast at a local dining establishment, provided in part by the generosity of a friend who supplied me with a gift card. We both dined on something called Lasagna Rollatini in a sauce . . . mine with Italian sausage, hers with chicken breast. And at my insistence, we topped off the meal with more than enough Zeppoli . . . which SWMBO describes as fried dough. Coated in sugar with a chocolate dipping sauce on the side, I found it quite salutory. My companion complained throughout (while devouring one or two of them!) A too pricey bottle of Kendall Jackson wine completed the feast. And now we're safe home to begin the search for yet another year of survival. So it goes.
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I snapped a photo in our neighborhood the other day of a resident Roadrunner. He was a fair distance away so when the picture was cropped and blown up, he becomes a bit hazy. But for those of you who have never seen one of these strange creatures, here he is.

The BRD loves weird art!

I was over at the BRD's house today to feed her cats while she's away. SWMBO had been there yesterday and asked me if I'd seen the new birdhouses in the backyard. I hadn't until today but here they are.

Now I ask you, would any self-respecting bird deign to enter such a strange contraption as either of those? Although there are entry holes toward the bottom of each of these Gaudi-inspired structures, I hesitate to think a bird would trust either one of them.

But it's just the latest in a constant menagerie of rather strange objets d'art that fill and overflow her home.

This is, after all, the home of the infamous Blue Monkey.

And there's this rather dopey but lovable looking dog . . one of two.

I have ceased to put rhyme or reason to any of it but just enjoy each new item as it arrives on the scene. Actually, it's kind of nice having a step-daughter with such a whimsical sense of art.

Thought you might like to see how I spent my last week of idleness while my computer, (the dirty b--t-rd), was in the repair shop.


I read a lot, as SWMBO was delighted to show.

You will perhaps notice that I appear to be wearing two pairs of glasses. SWMBO was even more delighted to photograph that oddity.

You see, I recently had cataract surgery on my right eye. While we're waiting (and waiting) for the follow-up doctor appointment and new vision prescription, one eye works great, the other one sucks. So I am wearing my reading glasses, topped with a pair of simple magnifiers from the drug store. The combination allowed me to actually make out the words on the page.

Let me tell you, there is truth in all those bromides about "old age ain't for sissies", et al.

Well, let me tell you, there is nothing in such times of woe as the love of a good . . . . . . cat! My pal, Jazz, who cannot allow me to be seated without seeing (there's that damned word again) advantage of a warm lap. I like to say she loves me. But warmth and comfort may be the true meaning of her closeness.

But it doesn't matter to me. At my advanced age, I'll take what I can get.