A quick photo session before we were out the door.
Category: Fashion
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.
Gigi gets her Freedom
A few of the young people in our lives are as tattered and torn as old maps cracked and crumbling on the edges. Fortunately, Gigi was able to throw off a few of those ragged edges yesterday, as we helped he move out of her own, giving her much-needed freedom.
Since we got our 1982 Ford F100 back in service, it’s been quite useful the last couple weekends hauling off junk and moving Gigi. Does anyone recognize the useful feature on our truck in the last photo? They have have not been available on cars and trucks for many years.
VW Style
To celebrate Tristan wanting to get the red ’66 VW Beetle back on the road, Laurie wore her VW style sweater, scarf and beret!
Breakfast on the Run
As there is a lot of chance on the outcome of drive-by photos — my camera focused on the buildings instead of the cyclist eating a breakfast burrito while peddling into oncoming traffic on 2nd Street. He was a good rider — he held a straight line as he peddled along with no hands. He seemed to be an interesting character and fashion statement, as well, with his dreadlocks coiled up on top of his head, full beard, bandana around is neck tucked into a dark hoodie, messenger bag, dirty kakis, and cool shades.
Limp
Gardening didn’t get off to a very good start today — especially after the pick axe went limp on Laurie. Apparently it couldn’t get excited over a Viking wearing coordinated, sissy pink sweats and pink fuzzy slippers in the garden. When a sales person at Lowe’s asked me what I was looking for, I answered “Do you have Viagra for tools?” I took his blank stare as “No!” and left him puzzling over my question while I finished picking out paint for the catio floor.
Fashion Laur & Puzzle Cats
Since the dance room/photo studio is still full of stuff from our reorganizing, I had to get a shot of Laurie in her cute outfit of the day as she was literally ready to step out the door. The cats were all stacked up like a puzzle on me when I woke up, and the house was so cold that after some effort to extract myself, the cats stayed in place locked together. Even Mama Manx, who is always spring loaded, and normally jumps off the bed from my slightest movement, held firm on the edge of the bed waiting for the heat to come on.
Cat Help in the Catio
Work continues on the catio. We started preparing the old cement slab for resurfacing on Saturday, but then we discovered we needed to rent a high pressure sprayer to clean it before we put on the resurfacing cement, plus the temperatures are supposed to stay above 50º F for 8 hours after the new surface is applied. Since the temperature only got into the 40’s over the weekend we decided to prepare surfaces for painting.
The first photo is Laurie preparing to wire brush the French windows so I could paint them. In the second photo, she is telling Rosencrantz and Guildenstern what they could do to help. The third photo shows Guildenstern supervising Laurie. He had a lot to say about our work, so much so, that it wore him out and he had to take a break (fourth photo). The French windows and door had not been painted in 22 years. The ivy had grown up on them which marked and pulled off paint in various places, so I spent a good part of the day painting the windows and doors with a very good, “stain killer” primer. The last photo shows Laurie standing by the freshly primed windows.
As I have mentioned before, we live in a cold spot — the reason Laurie was dressed in layers of warm clothes to work on the catio. We went to a dinner party last night in Albuquerque. When we left the party at a little after 10:00 PM, the car showed the outside temperature was 47º F. When we got home 20 minutes later, the temperature at our house was 26º F. We live about 10 miles north and west as the crow flies, and about 700 feet lower than the part of Albuquerque we attended the dinner party, yet we were 21degrees colder.
Off Center & Not Even 