My birthday cake. Costco didn’t have any cakes with Happy Birthday!
This is a display along Corrales Road. I’m happy I got it early. The skeleton disappeared after the high winds last week.
All the cats got to try on the bat wings. Loki in photos 12 and 13 was the best batwing model. Glenda (3rd photo) and Gwendolyn (last photo) were pretty good, also. Black cats know they look good in bat wings. Spunk, on the other hand, told me exactly what he thought about wearing bat wings after I took them off him (7th photo).
My friend Ron, who was born four days after me in the same hospital, we grew up together, and there is not I time that we can remember not knowing each other, sent me a photo of my horoscope as part of his wishing me a happy birthday. He commented that 41 days was an odd number of days to be extraordinarily lucky. Forty-one is truly an odd number, and prime, as it is only divisible by 1 and 41, and I told him it was odd because it was between Biblical and the answer to life, the universe, and everything. The horoscope is very positive. Another interesting aspect of the horoscope is that the first four of my lucky numbers add up to be my age, and the fifth number is Biblical.
I ended up doing a lot of errands on the way home from work, and a lot of different chores after I got home this afternoon. The weather was clouds moving through, being pushed by high winds and the temperature had dropped significantly from yesterday. Well after sundown, facing wind and cold, I walked out to the river and got photos of the cranes in the darkness, the wild clouds, and the colors lingering in the dusk.
Miss Mousie (House Mouse, Mus musculus) in our grill in her nest of pink insulation after I had removed her nest and five tiny mouselettes so I could use the grill. She and her mouselettes were lucky the insulation kept the third burner from lighting before I saw her nest of insulation and turned off the other two burners.
Little Miss Mousie faced the flames of hell Under cover of an accommodating grill The third burner it didn’t light Covered in insulation she stole in the night Mouselettes were lucky they were not well done As I gathered them up one by one
I moved them to a waiting pan With pink insulation she had on hand I put them in a safe place well hidden While I grilled the thighs of a Costco chicken Cleaned the grill shut off the gas With the mouselettes tucked deep in the grass
I put things in order, went in for the night I fed the cats, I turned out the lights When morning came I wasn’t thrilled To find that Little Miss Mousie was back in the grill.
Silver: “You saved mouselettes instead of grilling them for me? What kind of low life, pathetic, paparazzo, loser of a cat herder are you, anyway?”
Me: “I’m not going to murder innocent little mouselettes who you wouldn’t eat, anyway! Besides, Shey’s Dudes would never forgive me.”
Silver: “Well I think I’m insultated you morbid, mouselette mothering Monothelite!”
Me: “Do you mean ‘Philistine’? I’ve never heard of insulting anyone by calling him a ‘Monothelite’ other than by you completing an alliteration!
Silver: “Are you saying I’m ‘alliterate’? Now I’m doubly instultated! You profligate, pink, pasty skinned prelate of Peromyscus!”
Me: “OK! You’re not ‘alliterate’! BTW, while on the subject of morbid mothering, Silver, the last rather large mouse you carried in the house from the catio like it was a wee little kitten is still hanging out under the stove in the kitchen.”
Splash and Dash are when pilots land their balloons in the Rio Grande and then take off again. The river is low enough right now that the gondolas can sit on the bottom of the river since there are only a few inches of water in most places. When the river is running higher, they truly “splash and dash”, or they risk getting carried away by the current if they linger in a higher, fast-flowing current. In 2015 one balloonist hit the water like a Kamikaze. You can see the post at https://photos.tandlphotos.com/blog/2015/10/splash-down. Today the pilots mostly sat their gondolas in the swallows for a few minutes before taking off again. Several balloons splashed in more than one location. The 5-minute video below shows balloons floating in for their splashes and dashes.
Early balloon at dawn.
The green dragon is popular. Here he is from three sides.
The stork balloon belongs to the doctor who delivered Tristan. She was born during the balloon fiesta. Poor Dr. Komadina was going to have to miss the balloon event that morning, but there was a freak snowstorm the night before leaving a foot of snow on the ground the morning Tristan was born. The balloon event was canceled that morning.
Off Center & Not Even 