Our roses are starting to bloom and the ladybug larvae are working on the aphids.
Lady Larva and a Rose
Category: Beauty
Urban Olympics Running Shoes
Urban Olympics
After a week of lectures on Medieval Mystics and Masters that kept us out late every night, I ended the week photographing the Urban Olympics put on by a downtown charter school. Various professional offices and other businesses put teams together to compete in silly events, such as mop javalin throwing, toilet plunger toss, a rely race that included a mad dash in high heels — tag the rider for the tricycle slalom — tag the backward skateboard racer — tag the office chair drag racer — and lastly, tag the tricyclist for the final speed run. There was waterboarding, a 100 yard dash, urban bowling with orange barrels and shopping carts, water fights, and other events. Cherry/See/Reames Architects, who shares office space with ARC, and one of our staff members participated in the event.
Logged-in & On-line
New Blooms
Austrian Copper, Lady Banks, a yellow iris and a tulip with ram’s horns are some of our most recent blooms. Austrian Copper and Lady Banks are our first roses to bloom. Lady banks is a tiny rose.
Easter Morning
I got a nice drive-by sky on the way to the Shrine of the Little Flower, St. Thérèse and the Infant Jesus Catholic Church for Easter service Easter Morning. While we were in France last summer we went to various Catholic Churches in Provence and Paris and really liked the French services. We went to a service at St. Thérèse in early March that Suzette sang in, and we liked the church. St. Thérèse was French, the church has stained glass from France, and Reverend Chavez lived and worked for many years in Europe, so there is a “French Connection” at St. Thérèse that we liked. The 10:00 am service was packed (standing room only), the sermon was fantastic and the music (guitar accompinament) was very good.
Reflections on Fashion Friday
A quick photo session before we were out the door.
Espresso Fino
Espresso Fino opened at 222 Gold Ave, SW in Downtown Albuquerque right next door to our office. Owned and operated by Greg with his lovely daughter Nina, and handsome son Pablo (not pictured), Espresso Fino offers fine espresso coffee using organic beans. The shop has a brand new Nouva Simonelli 4 group Aurelia II espresso maker that is as bright and shiny as a fine mirror. They also offer pastries from Le Café Miche (two doors down on the corner of 3rd and Gold), breakfast burritos, and they will soon offer goodies from the New Mexico Pie Company.
Greg is former furniture craftsman from Taos, New Mexico, who has operated two other coffee shops in Taos over the past six years. Now that Greg and his family are offering their espresso making skills on Gold Street, be sure to stop in and try out their coffee.
Infidel Lumberjack
Since we are having branches that have been piling up around the property for the past couple of years chipped, I finally got around to cutting down an old, diseased peach tree that we are not going to irrigate this season because of water restrictions. I was going to cut down the tree with a chainsaw, but the chain come off sawing on the first branch. Since it’s a real pain to put the chain back on the chainsaw, I got a bow saw and discovered I could saw through the branches very quickly, and had the tree cut down by hand in 30 minutes — not much longer than it would have taken me to put the chain back on the chainsaw once I gathered up all the tools and got the chain back on and adjusted properly. Whenever I cut down trees, I can’t help thinking about Monty Python’s “Lumberjack Song.”
Laurie put the finishing touches on the catio, including trying to clean the calcium carbonate from water seeping out of the swamp cooler over the years. She was really cute scraping on the glass. The last photo shows the finished catio. The large box leaning against the bonsai shelves has my darkroom sink in it.
Fashion Friday Leather & Leopard
Laurie in her biker style — Harley Davidson leather jacket, boots and leopard print sweater.
Off Center & Not Even 