Moving Ever Onward!

"Smooth runs the water where the brook is deep." ~Shakespeare

Okay, I'm over it! I am over a misdirected relationship and over living in the desert.  Time to move on.  Will be traveling back to New England and staying for a month or two.  There is no escaping the desert until I can afford a permanent move and my housemates and I can figure out how to replace my economic place in the home we rent.  But a month or two is a month or two.

Sold my Yamaha motorcycle yesterday.  Kind of sad about that but it will be replaced eventually.  Am pretty sure that the replacement will be a Harley low-rider....just love it when my feet can touch the ground at a STOP.  The little Virago has gone to a rider who is making the transition from scooter to bike and her passing of hands will help finance the trip home.  No longer drive the MX5.  She has been sold several times over. That car was a great teacher. I'm no longer afraid of FAST or switch backs..in fact it's all a liberating joy.  Good Golly Ms Molly, a year ago I didn't even know what "turbo" meant! :) Driving a Baja now ~ its a Subaru and dependable.  It's a trucklet and that is helpful. But its real strength is in its ability to off-road. She's not a rock climber like some of the Jeeps and other 4x4s but still pretty stealth out there in the forest and in the desert.  I do love that.  Will be putting 1" spring risers in sometime soon and replacing the tires with ATs.  Funny because in NV off-roading is a sport ~ in New England it was a necessity.  I have become an unrepentant automotive geek.

I'm am sickened by the news of late.  So we won't go there too much.  The outback of Alaska sometimes is very appealing but will probably be satisfied with Northern NH...perhaps not to far from the Connecticut Lakes.  "Won't you be snowed in" some asked....god smite me with it! I've given up most the nightly news and rarely read the paper.  I'm weary to my bone marrow (as it is my bone marrow that is under attack from within that is no small price to pay) of police violence, the growing arms race between citizens and police, our government selling military arms to police and the suffering of humans in general.  Politicians...oh my word, what is there even to say that has not been said.   I will admit that I am still addicted to the New Yorker and the Atlantic ~ guilty pleasures.  Better than shooting up or snorting! 

I return to me original purpose and that is to enjoy photography and write about the "stuff" observed.  I would say it is good to be back in the saddle but I sold my saddle when I left Washington.  Okay, I still have my feet, so...it is good to be back on the path, wherever it leads!

Forest Fires at the End of Summer

"And where two raging fires meet together 

They do consume the thing that feeds their

fury"

~ Shakespeare

There are many forest fires blazing in the west.  But two are of particular concern: the American River fire and the Rim fire (near Yosemite).  The Yosemite fire is a week old and only  20% (and what does that mean anyway) contained.  We are about 200 miles from the intensity of this blazing fury.  But every day more smoke billows into the Washoe Valley and beyond.  

The haze, which on some days appears to be thick fog (were it not for the acrid smell of a mass of burning wood).  The pervasive and invasive smoke has reached past Reno and Sparks.  It has crawled down the canyon that is I-80 and sits heavily on my little town of Fernley (some 30 miles east of Sparks).    A TV newsman this morning told us the forest service  said the fire many not be out completely until this winter.  This morning a caller to the TV news said Carson City had ash falling like snow .  And today we had an earthquake ... 4.2 something.  Always good to be reminded that we are after all, only human.

Lightening strikes started the Rim fire. 'They' are running out of money (nothing new here) to fight fires.  Brave firefighters are out there doing their best (in rugged terrain, summer heat intensified by the heat thrown off by a conflagration) against a monstrous blaze.  Let's talk about cost just a little later, eh!   In the meantime, the rest of us must continue our lives as if it were easy to breath, that our eyes weren't stinging, and that smoke doesn't smell.

Ironically the Burning Man Festival started today.  

Fiddlin' Around...

" Oh this learning, what a thing it is!"

~ William Shakespeare

Life has picked up speed these last few months.  Good thing, because it makes it easier to ignore the long dark of winter.  No sun rise here until almost 8 AM.  The evenings have improved though as it is not dark until nearly 5:15 PM.   A renewed interest in learning something new has been spurred by a desire to look just past the darkness that is  this very long winter.  This January finds me studying the Celtic fiddle.  What a challenge it is but exciting when something other nerve killing scratching issues forth from my student violin.  My Grandfather's family was from Edinburgh, Scotland.  So part of this feels a nod to part of my genetic code and family history.  Decided to take the course offered for adult learners at a local college's evening division.  There are 11 of us who meet one night a week with a wonderful and talented instructor who happens to know how to work well with adult learners.  The age of the group span from 50 to 70.  I sit comfortably in the middle range.  We learn by ear rather than reading music.  One challenge at a time seems to be about right.  

"That knowledge is great riches, which is not plundered by kinsman, nor carried off by thieves nor decreased by giving"

~ Bhavabhuti

Attended a day long Photoshop Elements class this week-end.  Ah, just what the doctor ordered ~ finally I can make use of this program.  It has reignited my passion for photography.  The instructor was wonderful.   He managed to be so funny for the entire 8 hours of class time and still meet all the course objectives.  No one was left in the cyber-dust as he seemed to know exactly who was lagging and gave each person some individual tutoring as it was needed.  Of course it helps to have 10 in the class.  I can hear a collective sigh of the cyber village  teachers who have been trying to make just that point for years.

"To improve the golden moment of opportunity, and catch the good that is within out reach, is the great art of life."

~ Johnson

This past Autumn some friends asked if I would join them for an afternoon at the Opera.  The day has arrived!  How very exciting as I have not been to listen to live Opera since leaving Boston back in what...2000.  Today we will drive to Seattle for a matinee performance of the Barber of Seville.   What a joy this is.  Wrapping oneself in a celebration of site and sound is a delight. 


Back to a work-a-day life in the morning.  But for now I can continue to celebrate the week-end and pretend as though I had the luxury of being retired.  :-)