While I was out photographing the full moon, I noticed a lot of plasma in the air by the circle garden. I took a photo and got what looks like a ghost of a kitty or squirrel. This is the second ghost I’ve captured in a photo. The first one was at the Menger Hotel in San Antonio, TX in 2004.
I was out at midnight under the full moon — the silence was peaceful and the shadows cast by the moonlight were beautiful, yet somewhat sinister like a dragon or Scylla ready to rise up out of the serpentine shadows when your back is turned.
The ways of the world, and even more so, the ways of the Internet can be so very puzzling. I participate in market surveys that earn money for charities. The surveys are mostly about technology, automotive products and architecturally related merchandise like doors, windows, flooring, etc. I don’t know what the surveys will be about until I start them. Yesterday, after Stretch died, I received an alert that I had a new survey. The first question was “Do you own a pet?” I answered yes, and the rest of the survey was about if I would be interested in receiving text messages from my pet during the day, how much I’d pay for such a service and if I’d like to get continue to get messages from pet heaven after the pet died. Not only was it one of the weirdest things I’d ever heard of, it really creeped me out coming the day after Stretch died. I answered no to all questions and commented how weird it was when comments were allowed. I guess someone is thinking that people who don’t have time to spend with their pets would like the feeling of having a personal connection by getting text messages throughout the day from their neglected or even their dead pets. Trying to imagine why anyone would consider paying for such a silly service was like the kernel panic in the last photo.
The UNM Brazil Club had their first annual “Fatter Tuesday” A Carnival Extravaganza tonight. I was expecting more costumes, but, there were few. Two organizers were the best dressed for the event, and also the young woman in the last photo who painted her face. They had a band and percussion ensemble so the party was loud, festive, and the dance floor was crowded. The moon was stunning this evening. We had the pleasure of watching it rise on the way home.
I went out to get the moonrise this afternoon. The clouds covered the moon when it first came over the mountain, but then as it rose behind the clouds it afforded nice photo ops. The geese and cranes are still hanging around, and the crows were thick at times, which reminded me of the movie “The Birds.”
The moon had a really nice ring around it when we got home last night. The fast moving, thin cloud cover formed ripples and streaks under the influence of my 1/3 second exposure and 17mm lens at ƒ/4. You can still see a few stars twinkling behind the clouds and Jupiter next to the moon at about 1 o’clock.
Liz, who works at Patrician Designs, was a paper boy for Halloween. Getting a good photo of her clicking her heels was not an easy task, but we finally got a great jump and click — although she jumped so high, she about jumped out the frame — I was impressed. I managed to get a photo of an angel playing the piano, which is a pleasant addition to the ghostly images a got walking around downtown this evening. The three celebrants in the last photo had wonderful costumes, very well done, and appropriate for Halloween.
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.
We didn’t get home in time for me to get a photo of the full moon peaking over the mountains, so I got the moon through our bamboo, moonlit corn, and the Sandias with golden cottonwoods by moonlight.
Politics! Need I say more? I had to go to Costco before they closed tonight, so I missed the moonrise over the pink Sandias. The moon had risen and only the tail end of the pink was still splashed on the granite along the top of the mountains by the time I could get a shot of it. We have had two nights with lows of 20 degrees F, so most of the flowers we didn’t bring inside got frozen. The flowers in the third photo have been defiant so far, and are still blooming despite the cold nights. I got an old crow flying overhead and then notice a Cooper’s Hawk watching me photograph the crow.
Off Center & Not Even 