Two Hour Delay

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I got a text message from UNM LoboAlerts Emergency Messaging at 5:00 am this morning alerting me that UNM-MAIN CAMPUS and UNM WEST were on a 2-hour delay due to weather conditions. I peered through condensation on the window, and it looked pretty white outside. After I got up I could see we had about an inch of snow. Rosencrantz went right out to play in the snow, but didn’t stay out long, as I found him looking in the window trying to get my attention a few minutes later. I made him earn his way back inside by making him wait until I got a good shot of him before opening the door. Rosencrantz shot back in past Guildenstern who had to survey the situation before he decided to go out an walk around in the snow.

We picked up Tristan on the Westside on our way into school, and not a flake of snow had fallen west of Coors Road. Tristan said she was quite confused by the LoboAlert, but when we got to UNM at 9:00am there was about 3 inches of snow on the cars and Johnson Field.  Staff who live on the Eastside closer to the mountains said they had about 4 inches of snow, and there was general mayhem on the roads as cars and trucks slid toward I-25.

 

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Scratch that Itch

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I was trying to get Stretch to pose for a photo, which he wasn’t in the mood for, so he scratched an itch in defiance. The light and clouds were dramatic on the way in to work this morning, as was the light on a bicycle locked to the grating at 3rd and Gold.

 

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Kat’s Cat

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Firefox was displaying typical cat-like behavior tonight when we dropped Tristan off on our way home this afternoon. In the first and last photos she was rolling around on the floor, making it difficult to get a clear photo, but we finally managed to get her to hold still for a few seconds. In the middle photo, she was at the top of the stairs challenging another cat. The incandescent light in the stairwell made her look orange, whereas she is yellow in the photos with the bright, fluorescent light streaming in from the kitchen .

 

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Comics Connoisseur

ComicsConniseur

 

Apparently Stretch is becoming a comics connoisseur from Laurie reading Tintin while we waterboard him (subcutaneous fluids for renal failure) every night, because when I went back out to the kitchen last night after he thought we had gone to bed, I found him reading the funnies that Laurie had left on her book holder. He was so engrossed that I was able to sneak a photo before he noticed me and slinked off, looking a little embarrassed.

When the Sandias turned pink at sunset, I decided to try a panorama through the bare cottonwoods. While I was photographing the mountains, a great blue heron landed on a cottonwood between the irrigation and clearwater ditches, affording me the opportunity to get a pretty clear photo of it. When I was going back inside, Puck had all his attention fixed on something. I couldn’t see what it was, but he was so concentrated that I snapped the photo of him. The shutter clicking interrupted his concentration, he glanced at me, then started looking around as if he was trying to find the object of his attention, scolded me with a few choice meows when he seemed not to see it again (I assume he was saying “nice going stupid ¡#%&^@$*! photographer”), then he jumped down off the railing and came inside with me. When I went out a little later, I was able to get a detailed shot of the moon in the clear, cold, winter sky.

 

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Lions and Tigers and Bears! Oh My!

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Laurie and I volunteered for Family Promise at Central United Methodist Church this afternoon. Family Promise is a ministry where various churches take turns hosting homeless families for a week at a time while the families are getting housing. Church members volunteer to help by bringing food, or staying and doing things with the families, or staying overnight or driving family members who don’t have cars to work and school. The local denominations participating in Family Promise include the mainline Protestant churches — United Methodist, Lutheran and Presbyterian — Catholic churches and Synagogues.

If you are asking “What’s with the lions, tigers and bears then if we helped with family promise this afternoon?”  We took the families to the zoo. Besides the obvious photo ops, we had a great time, the Albuquerque Zoo is in good shape, the animals are healthy and they seem to be as happy as they can be for being in a zoo.

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Black Cats on White

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We had to wash our down comforter, and we haven’t put the pink cover back on it, so the black cats have been really enjoying laying around on the clean comforter, napping hard to get it dirty again. Before we got the comforter dry, we had wooly, “cat magnet” blankets on the bed which Rosencrantz, Guildenstern and Diné enjoy lounging around on.

Tuesday morning the analog thermometer read -12 degrees F and our pipes were freezing up. Wednesday morning dropped below zero as well, but to look at it optimistically, it was only half as cold at -6 degrees F.  The weather widget is forecasting a low of only 18 for tonight — one can only hope — but it really means our low will be around 8 maybe lower since the temperatur is already down to 10.  The high for tomorrow is supposed to be 46, which may well happen — a heat wave.  I’m still waiting for global warming to kick in on our property, because it just does not seem to be happening for us.

Guildenstern and Rosencrantz On White

Guildenstern, Rosencrantz and Dine On White