New Orleans

I am back from an all too brief trip to New Orleans. The weather was fab, even HOT!!! and of course the food really really good. The big biennial art show was interesting and some of it was quite delightful. Long story short, it was a great trip, I love New Orleans, and I will be going back there for sure.
One of the take home messages was TALK TO STRANGERS! No one passed on the street without greeting one another. At least a "good morning", and if you lingered even a second they would talk as long as you wanted. I found that to be really comforting somehow. I want to take that up as a habit, even in my own town. Here I am talking to a stranger...well actually it's a statue...

Here's Nancy talking to a stranger, well it's a statue too....

Now here's an actual stranger that we did talk to. His name is James May. He is a street musician and a pretty entertaining guy. He told us of his escape from the city, after Katrina, with his stuff in a boat. He left town in a truck with an "eccentric friend, his pit bull and pot bellied pig" wow. He sang us a song, "Do you know what it means, to miss New Orleans" oh yeah.

travel time

I'm getting ready to go on a trip to New Orleans. As is my custom, I'm asking everyone I know for suggested activities and advice. I've got a couple guide books too. So one thing I keep hearing over and over is that "New Orleans is a dangerous city, BE CAREFUL". One of the guide books had two paragraphs devoted to the safety tip of "avoid wearing beads!!" Now I personally think that may be taking things too far, being that I'm a fan of jewelry. Why, I think most events require beads of some sort. So in addition to reading up on the history and sights of New Orleans I thought I'd better brush up on my Robert Pelton Young while I'm at it.
I'm still very interested in people's suggestions. I'm not leaving til early Thurs morning, so if you've got ideas for me send on!!

Happy New Year!

I had the best New Year's day. It was sunny and warm and along with a few pals went to Santo Domingo Pueblo for a special lunch and to watch the ceremonial dances. First of all the red chile was either tied with the best I ever had, or maybe even the best. A bit of a bite to it but no too hot, creamy and over meat. The woman who made it made beans in case we didn't eat chile. Couple that with home made bread from the horno OMG the best ever. There weren't that many visitors there. So we were of about a dozen non-natives watching the dances. You can't take pictures so imagine this: There's a block of about 30 or 40 men surrounding the drummer. They are singing mostly what sounded so me like "ah way, ah way" and the beat of the drum is steady like boom boom boom boom and every now and again there's a pause just long enough to be like a long taking of a breath then again the boom boom boom. There are about 200 people dancing. They have bells around their ankles and shells tied to their clothes. The women have on black dresses and turquoise painted head dresses, they are carrying sprigs of evergreens. The men have rattles. so along with the drumming and singing there is the rhythmic pulsing of the bells, shells and the rattles are shaken every now and again. There was a man who held this banner that was probably on an 8 foot pole. the banner had a picture of corn on it, and was long and skinny, topped with a yellow doo dad and red feathers. He waved it around like a blessing on all of us. The dance was held in the plaza between the two kivas, and the sound echo'd off the adobe houses and reverberated inside of my body. I was so ready for this without knowing it before hand really. It was very moving and felt like just the thing to be doing on the first day of the new year. The dances went on all day. We didn't stay that long, but I feel it still ...

Here are some cattle. it has nothing to do with anything except a preview of the year of the ox

bumper sticker etiquette

On a recent trip to Colorado right after the election I was struck by the lack of bumper stickers. While driving through Colorado Springs, I expected to see McCain Palin big and bold every which where, but no, nothing. really nothing. Later in Boulder I was looking for the Obama stickers everywhere, no, just a few discrete and rather tiny ones at best. Come on people, where's your team spirit??? Here at least two per car, and yard signs in every yard!! We are all about hanging it all out. The sign in the above photo was up the day after the election and it remains to this day, which brings me to the question:

When does one remove the stickers, signs etc once winning the election? I know all too well what to do if you lose, but it's been a long time... I know one doesn't wear white shoes after labor day, same with the straw handbag. But what about the bumper stickers??

I'm thinking maybe after the inauguration? We are having our own inaugural ball here at least amongst my pals. So come on people now, lets show our team spirit! Get out the ball gowns and rhinestones and show your support!

snow day here at rancho de top mano

Since I'm the boss here, I've declared it a snow day. I did this after attempting to go to work this morning, sliding around school buses, sliding into curbs, narrowly missing death and destruction. So hanging around the house seemed like a better thing to do.
I know it doesn't look like a big deal, this bit of snow on the bench, so here's a sunny day comparison for ya.

For some reason this snowfall made the streets particularly slick. In typical fashion, all city and school officials completely ignored the prediction of this storm and so no snow removal/de-icing activities began until far past time to head out to work and the kids were bussed to school only to have to turn around a get home shortly after arriving when they decided to close the school anyway.(now there's a run on sentence for you)...There were wrecks everywhere. anyway, we're safe and sound.
Sparky hates this staying in business....

Here's the festive tree in the snow. Nice to see from inside the warm house.


since my old computer broke and I lost all my photos, (I know, I should have backed up...) and I'm trying to get used to the new puter and new versions of various software, I've been a blog dilettante. So to get back in the saddle, so to speak, I'm going to be careless with the edit. I'm going to post willy nilly. Bear with me. thank you.

3 dog weekend

I had my friend's dog "bob" for the weekend, which if you include "be" aka kramer I had 3 border collies... OMG what a circus. I decided to try and get a picture of the three of them sitting together on a bench. Cute idea... but more difficult than you might imagine to execute. First of all Sparky would NOT get on the bench if one or more of the others was up there first. OK fine.


Kramer being young would not sit still for anything, and was forever trying to get some action started with one or both of the others...


Finally I got one shot of the 3 of them, but of course the light wasn't the best and Kramer was on his way out but you can see a great weekend was had by all.

This is it!

I'm singing to the choir here, but if you didn't get to the early polls, get going, gidiup over there NOW!!
Tonight I'm going to an election party, we are all required to wear blue. I hope it's over early so I can finally get some rest!
Over and out, be careful out there, and again if you didn't already GO VOTE!!!