Obamanos!

I meant to post that historic day but didn't have time. I spent most of it watching the inauguration events on my laptop. Not as fun as watching with a bunch of people. All my friends back in Winters, CA had a ball, a real ball with gowns and champagne at the Palms Playhouse. They had a big party here in Taos too but I had to work. Well, good luck to the man!

Dances, Dogs and Drudgery

Oh, what's new? I started a Scottish Country Dance class, very fun, and the teacher is from my home town of Pasadena, California, AND he wore a kilt, a true Scot I'm sure. And tomorrow evening I will go to a contra dance at the San Geronimo Lodge. Great exercise and the dancers are all fun people. Mostly these past few days I've been working at Mabels, going to Curves, and taking care of annoying loose ends. Like the stupid phone company who cut off my service cause I hadn't paid the bill they hadn't sent, no warning, and the DMV who says the info I input to change my address and registration doesn't match what they have on file for me, so now I have to call them (and I HATE voice mail, give me a live person please!). All those things you have to deal with when you move. If only they would go smoothly. Last but not least, I borrowed a dog from the local shelter and sat outside an area business in the hopes that he would get adopted. This I did with another volunteer who works every day to help these homeless dogs. We had no luck that day, not even a penny dropped into our donation jar. I will have to do a spot about our local shelter, Stray Hearts. Sometimes it is too depressing to think about all these unwanted animals but they need our help, so I will continue to walk dogs there, help with adoptions, and repeat my mantra: "Don't breed or buy while shelter dogs die." Amen.

Moon Madness

Well, here's a good neighbor. Grace just came over to get me outside and look at the full moon! Said it is the fullest it wll be in 30 years, whatever that means. Sure is beautiful.

I did check my new followers blog but of course she is from Indonesia and I can't read a word. Maybe this is time for all of us to learn Esperanto! Now I am off to see a short film festival. Be back shortly.

The Power of Story

So obviously I've discovered how to attach photos, though I may be doing it wrong. I have a lot of technical stuff to learn here. But what fun!! The winter is so pretty here and Taos is so different and interesting. I love seeing photos from other bloggers hometowns. And wow, I just noticed I have a "follower" from another country, that is so exciting. I'll have to check out her blog. My other two followers are friends so they just want to know what I'm up to, hey girls.

Everyone has a story and I find them all (well, most of them) interesting, inspiring and provocative, even the so-called boring daily stuff. Each person's life is so different from everyone elses. Maybe if everyone had a blog and told their story, we would all have a sense of connection and compassion.

The Famous St. Francis Church in Ranchos

Tibetan Monk working on Mandala at Mabel's

Pigeon Houses at Mabel's

The Mabel Dodge Luhan House

Cadbury, my Chocolate Angel

Snow Angel

M. Moose, our mascot

A White Christmas

view AS (after snow)

View from my casita BS (before snow)

Casita Bonita

me and friend Marilyn at Taos Balloon Festival

Ivar Irvig

Talking about creative juices, I am constantly amazed when I read other blogs. Everyone has their own story, their unique creativity and thoughts. I think everyone in the world should have a blog. Cause once you're gone, you're gone, along with all those stories and thoughts and lifetimes, unless you're already a famous author or artist or have a ton of grandkids to pass them on to. I just looked at a blog by a guy in Norway, Ivar Irvig, what a great name! I thought we had so much snow this past week, a couple feet (which is like 20 feet to someone from California) but his photos of the snow and cold in his country are fantastic. And he loves it, the snow. Now, if it wasn't for blogging, I'd never had heard of Ivar Irvig.

Oh Tannenbaum!

My creative juices aren't flowing so well today. I think I've been staying home too much since I've had some days off. But I needed to - finally - take down the Christmas tree. I hate to do that. I love having a tree in my house, especially one that smells so good. I couldn't find my tree stand so I had used my ash bucket filled with cat litter (cat litter is like duct tape, there are so many uses for it!). Only problem is I didn't use the cheap stuff. I had some of Lilly's regular litter in the closet and used that but it's the clumping kind, so when I added water to the tree, the litter became like cement! It held the tree really good. Just hope I can get it out of the bucket. Oh Tannenbaum! Maybe some people think it's schmaltzy but I think Christmas trees are magic. I never get tired of looking at them, and when I was young I used to sleep on the sofa just to watch the tree till I fell asleep. I love those little lights and the smell of pine. I really feel sorry for those misguided people who insist on fake trees, yuck! They hate the mess of cleaning up the needles I guess. Miss out on the magic.

So apart from the dismantling, I've been tidying up, as they say in England, taking naps when I feel like it, and reading my latest Elizabeth George "Careless in Red". She is my favorite mystery writer, and I just saw in the book jacket that she has moved to Washington State. Now that seems more conducive (sp?) to getting an English atmosphere for her stories than Huntington Beach, California, near where I used to live. I've only gone out into the world to get my mail and exercise at Curves. Then I spent an hour on the phone with my sister planning our much anticipated trip to England and Wales in March. Maybe tomorrow, if it doesn't snow again, I'll drive down to Santa Fe and window shop. Cheerio!

Happy New Year!

Happy New Year everybody, 2009, wow! I had a quiet one. Worked at Mabel's until 9pm, then picked up my date Cadbury and headed on over to Zeus's house, where I was sitting. I did make myself stay up till midnight and remarkably didn't hear any gunshots, just fireworks. Kissed the dogs and went to bed. The next day my friend Marilyn called and invited me over to lunch at another friend's house. Which was great because when she called I was just getting into my car and wondering what I'd do for lunch, didn't feel like cooking. Had a delicious meal there, but spent the rest of the day in bed cause I felt like I was coming down with something. Ugh. Got a lot of sleep and today (the 2nd) I feel fine. The sky is clear and sunny but they predict some more snow this weekend. So I did go and buy a bag of the cheapest cat litter to carry in my car. I actually saved a damsel in distress the other night. I was just arriving at Zeus's house when I saw a truck slide into a bit of a ditch, then couldn't get out. It was a young woman who said she even had 4-wheel drive but couldn't get out. I remembered that thing about gravel or even cat litter helping so I grabbed a bag of it and voila! she got out in seconds. We shouted out "girls rule" and she drove on all happy.