Ladies of the Night

What better thing to do on the second night of a full moon, and the night before Halloween, than to go out and interview a couple calavera and a scary madonna?  I asked the lady in the hat what her perspective on life was from a dead person’s point-of-view. She confirmed the dead wife’s observation in Neil Gaiman’s “American Gods” that “…you’re not so prejudiced when you are dead…” and she confided in me that her general lack of prejudice made it easy to acquire the great hat she was wearing from some woman she scared half to death.

The MonSat Girl has been hanging out in front of the Tijuana Bar.  I commented that she must have been a big fan of spaghetti westerns with her sarape and all, but she said “No I was the one the characters in the spaghetti westerns were modeled after! I was the woman with no name who roamed the prairies and fought for justice!” I asked her if she was the original, then why did they have men like Franco Nero and Clint Eastwood play the part of the “man with no name’?  She said “Dah! Look at me! What am I now? A Skeleton? Well? Skeletons ain’t got no boobs!”

I found the scary Madonna more difficult to interview. Unlike the calavera, she was serious — an unhappy spirit stuck in a plaster statue that was toppled over in the sand where she could only look at the stars in the heavens above. I told it that I thought it seemed appropriate for a praying madonna to be laying on her back facing the heavens. She simply bared her teeth and said “Puleeese!” I got her point and moved on.

Hollyhocks Hanging In

Despite hard frost every night for the past two weeks, the hollyhocks have been hanging in and putting on new blooms. On the other hand, Wagner’s corn is making its last stand — the leaves are showing signs of frost bite.  The corn stalks will get plowed under in the next few weeks, which will make the cranes and geese happy to have a freshly plowed field to forage.

Sleepy Moon

On their way home from our birthday gathering last night, Laurie’s parents left me a message that the moon looked really good. I went outside to check it out, but I couldn’t see the moon because of the trees. I got up on the roof, but the moon was low so the trees still blocked it. So I ran back inside, got Laurie, and we drove up to the top of the road just before the sleepy moon slipped below another tree line. The birthday dinner was perfect, the cake was heavenly, and the moon added I nice surreal touch to the end of a great evening.

We dropped by Laurie’s brother’s new house on the way home from the weekly rehearsal for Handel’s Messiah, and a roadrunner was in the yard foraging for insects or whatever it could find to eat. I got a couple of orchids for my birthday that replaced the dried peonies that had hovered over my computer all summer and into the fall. They were making their last stand on the railing of the front porch before going into the compost.

Godess

I did a photo shoot for a handsome young couple’s engagement tonight on the river at the north end of Corrales. While I was waiting for the couple to arrive, another young couple skipping rocks on the river volunteered to pose for me so I could get my exposure and fill flash adjusted. On my way home, I stopped and got a photo of the fire on the Sandias at dusk.

Marlboro Man

Remember the Marlboro Man? He traded in his horse for a Harley. I got a couple of new flash units today, and was messing around with photographing the sliver moon and flashing the trees in front of it. The trees were about 75 feet from the camera so the flash barely lighted them, but it was enough. I think I got the last web of the season in the third photo.

Watermelon Mountain

The first photo shows why the Sandias are the Sandias. I had an interesting day. I accompanied a trio in two services and then played for the outdoor service at 1:00. I have just started playing again after not touching my guitar for over three years and I have not performed in public for almost 10 years.  Playing feels strange with numb finger tips, but I haven’t had to go through the pain on raw fingers until they build up calluses. My finger tips are a bit raw from practicing, I just don’t really feel them.

Susan came out for her annual “end of the San Ysidro Church Art Show” visit and trek to the bosque to photograph the Sandias. Although, this year we went out to photograph some of the abandoned adobe houses in Corrales, and then headed north to photograph the Sandias from a different point of view. We got photos of some cranes grazing, playing and fighting in a field along the way, and a hawk just happened to fly by. Just after the sun fell below the horizon, we drove up on the bank of the drainage ditch that runs along the southern edge of the River’s Edge subdivision in Rio Rancho and got the Sandias in their full pink. Another photographer set up his view camera next to us, and then Dennis Chamberlain, who Susan knows, came walking back to his car, tripod over his shoulder in the dusk. So we all talked photography until after dark. Dennis is a fantastic photographer. I recommend checking out his magnificent photos at http://www.dcphotoartistry.com/DC_Photo_Artistry/Welcome.html.