Our first dahlia bloomed. Laurie started several dahlias from bulbs in March, and while they are all growing, they are taking a long time to bloom. We have several rose bushes putting out a lot of nice blooms right now. Of the roses I put in the blog tonight, I only know Bella Roma — the rest are unmarked or new roses, and I’m too tired from too many very long days to get out the garden map and look them up.

I got deported during lunch today. I left the office at 11:00 am and got back to the office at 12:30 pm. Pretty good for going in for surgery. As told Doctor told me after the twenty minutes it took her to deaden the area around the port, cut me open, pull out the catheter and port, then sew up the incision: “It’s sure a lot easier to take a port out than it is to put one in!” We chatted about life the universe and everything while she removed the port. Her nurse stood by doing little else but watching; I should have given her my camera and had her photograph the procedure, but I didn’t think about it until after the surgery. Laurie thinks the photo of my port is gross, so I’m sure she would have strongly objected to photos of the actual deportation.

In the photo above, the port, which was implanted in my chest for two years, is the white plastic device with the two membranes and the catheter attached. The catheter was in an artery at the base of my neck at the end of my collarbone. After the Doctor pulled out the catheter, she applied pressure above my collarbone for a minute or so while the hole in the artery closed. After she got the catheter out, then she pulled out the port and sewed up the the inch and a half long incision.

The other items in the photo are the remains of the worn out port ID card I’ve had in my wallet for two years. I was required, by law, to carry the card to let emergency and airport security people know that I had a port.  I haven’t flown since the port was installed, but I could imagine that TSA staff would have considered my port to be a bomb even after showing them the card. The needle with yellow “wings” is similar to what the nurses used to access the port. The port came with two “free” needles, which I’ve had sitting on a shelf for the past two years, since I never needed to access the port myself.

The green grasshopper was hanging out on a rose, and the balloon flew over just after sunrise the other morning.

 

When I walked out of the office at dusk this evening, the reflections in the puddle from the afternoon thunderstorm were quite colorful. I don’t know an ascii code off the top of my head to make an upside down N, so I had to use a normal N in “Ne We I”. Sometimes you have to sacrifice the purity of a title when faced with limited time and a various technical issues.

 

I’m guessing that this Model T is a 1920. The driver was waiting to pull out onto Corrales Road as I drove out of the post office parking lot this morning. I tried to make my photo look like what a photograph taken in the 1920’s might have looked like, but the road signs and glimpse of the wheel of another car waiting on the other side of the Model T give away the real time and place.

 

A model Praying Mantis modeled for me this morning. She was very playful and really struck the poses. I was at the office most of the day trying to get databases and web apps cleaned up, updated and consistent for a Wednesday deadline. We compiled data from so many different sources for this project that most of the data turned out to have radically different structures; therefore, finding common fields and pulling the disparate data together for analysis and reporting has been quite challenging.

 

 

 

I walked out of the office at 9:15 pm tonight to find police cars parked in the middle of 3rd Street, just south of Gold, and officers shaking down various vehicles that had been routed off Central onto Gold. I assume they were simply ticketing the orange car, but the custom chopper had been impounded, as the guy on it worked for a towing companying — he pushed the chopper over to a tow truck and loaded it on the bed. I walked down to Central where the street vendors were hanging out waiting for the crowds. 9:15 was too early for downtown to really be hopping, so I headed back to the car.  A saw woman was crossing the street with two little dogs as I headed to the car. I assumed she was simply out walking the dogs as I don’t believe they allow dogs in bars in Albuquerque.

 

 

 

 

The rain was a soft sprinkle when Bruce and I walked out the back door of the office at 7:30 pm. A few steps into our trek to our cars, the rain intensified, so by the time we made the 3/4 block walk to where we parked, I was wet. I had to walk an extra 40 feet to get to my car tonight because when I came back from the dentist at 12:30 this afternoon my regular parking place was taken, and the only parking space that was available faced The Box.  I have no idea what The Box is and I have no interest in finding out.

We got home really late again tonight, so I ate dinner with this Daddy Longlegs while I prepared photos. This Harvester spun its web next to my computer and had caught one of the flying ants that’s been pestering us. I would like to see the spiders catching and eating many more of those pesky little sugar ants.

Laurie rode into UNM with me this morning, therefore, the cats had to stay inside. Puck complained at me all morning about not getting to go out, and not long before we walked out the door, he was laying on the window sill contemplating a vase. I don’t know what he was thinking, but I’m happy to report the vase is unbroken and in the same place as when we left this morning.

I’ve been getting home so late every night this week that I hadn’t been able to get by PetsMart before they closed to get cat food. I scraped out the last few kernels of food from the cat food storage bin this morning, and managed to fill their bowl about 2/3 of what I normally fill it. Fortunately, I got off early enough tonight to pick up Laurie, and drop by PetsMart before they closed. When we got home, the cats’ food bowl was completely empty. We would have had really unhappy cats if I had come home without food after they had to stay inside all day (they go outside into the catio, but that’s still constraining their freedom, so they are still “inside” as far as they’re concerned). When I came out of PetsMart tonight, the parking lot clouds were quite nice.

 

Today’s title is quite literal.

I threw out my back first thing this morning picking up Stretch from under the table to waterboard him. I hobbled around most of the day and was showing a bit of improvement  by early afternoon when a truck driver called to tell me he was in the alley with a delivery for me. The delivery was a new 60″ x 25″ x 2″ solid maple top for the outdoor kitchen. Since it weighs 63 pounds, it was delivered by freight. So much for my back getting better between wrestling the top off the truck and into the office (you have to pay a lot extra for the driver to get it any further then the end of the trailer), then into the car, and then into the house. At least Laurie helped me get it into the house. The top is beautiful. Basically a giant butcher block.  I replaced some open shelves with an oak cabinet in the outdoor kitchen a couple of weeks ago. The maple top is replacing a short piece of an old elevator door I had on the shelves. The elevator door is a nice, solid brushed stainless surface, but it is nether wide enough nor long enough to cover the cabinet and the refrigerator. The maple top will also go better with the oak cabinet.

The carne adovada is wonderful, but I think I’m going to add a little more red chile. Since I doubled the carne, I was curious to see if the chile marinade would be enough spice and liquid, but I believe it’s not quite enough by itself.

 

 

I left the office late tonight — one of the consequences of taking Thursday off last week to make a long, and productive weekend at home. When I got to my car, I noticed one of the only other cars left in the parking lot was a booted Mustang. Everyone else but me and the owner of the Mustang had the  good sense to go home at a reasonable hour (good thing I pay for a parking permit).

While getting back into the car at the post office, I noticed the sad state of the handicap parking spot next to me — I could really relate to it with all my sore joints, sinuses that make my teeth and ears to hurt, and my overall stiffness that makes it hard for me to move. With all the work I’ve been doing on the property, the thunderstorms moving through, and getting back on my bike after months of not riding, I feel wet, run over and broken like that poor handicap symbol.

I just finished cooking 30 pounds of carne adovada stew. I did several things differently for this batch: 1) I doubled the amount of carne adovada from 5 to 10 pounds; 2) I cut the amount of potatoes in half; 3) instead of cooking the potatoes with the frijoles, I pan fried them with onions and garlic until they were golden brown and slightly scorched around the edges, and 4) I only used the chile the carne adovada was marinaded in for the chile sauce and chile flavor. By not adding extra red chile, the stew came out moist but not soupy. The final result is wonderful from my initial taste test, so it should be fabulous, and “to die for” tomorrow after the flavors age and blend together over night.