look whooooo

A lovely warm sunny day today, and we took our lunch out on the deck.  Then ... both of us had something of a sense that we were being watched.  Then ... our friend turned her head, and we realized that we were probably interfering with her privacy, her squirrel-watching, her general sense of owning the space.  We crept back indoors.

Actually this Great Horned Owl is a regular visitor - recognizable because she has a tiny wobble at the first part of her hoot.  She likes the camouflage that the Live Oak provides, and usually has one or two friends or family with whom she does regular evening hooting.  Today, she sat there all afternoon, looking for all the world like a big feathery cat.

 

sardines

Sardines for lunch!  - with some fresh herbies from the garden.  I was so very happy when Alice came back with these at lunchtime: she'd gone (successfully) to buy salmon for dinner, but she knows that I love fresh sardines (I'm quite happy with tinned ones, too).  Gramsci thought that they smelled wonderful, but true to his principles, he backed off when he realised that they had eyes: for some reason, fish with eyes (even when in a can of cat food, which these certainly aren't) trouble him enormously.

 

a birthday dinner

A birthday dinner for Connie - a horribly delayed birthday dinner, by nearly a month, but the celebration was held ... Connie's blowing out the candle on a plate of cupcakes from Lark, flanked by Lydia, on the left, and Alice on the right - and on the wall of the corridor behind, in a little niche that's just the right size for it, is a portrait of Alice's mother as a young woman, presiding over it all.

mid-century ornament

This apartment block, not too far away from us, was built in 1949: it certainly looks like it.  In finding out that fact, I discovered that it was the location of a truly nasty rape and murder in 1957, of a nurse called Marjorie Hipperson: she was about to be married, and her body was discovered by her fiancé ... Eventually forensic evidence led to her killer, Darryl Kemp, who'd climbed in through a dicy screen, raped and strangled her - but this arrest and conviction wasn't until he'd kidnapped and raped a couple more women, in Griffith Park, and committed other murders.  The whole long story of his violent crimes - he had the death penalty commuted twice - made for unpleasant reading, and it certainly wasn't where I'd expected to end up after simply trying to locate the date of the building ...

 

driving home

It was a very beautiful evening - but how could it be anything else but, since in sunny Southern California, and everyone I encountered all day was so happy, given last night's results.

 

Blue wave!!

I took this photo on my way home to watch the results come in, and hoped that this was auspicious... Admittedly it's more of a green wave, or a turquoise wave, but it's a wave ...

...and the wave has proved real!  I've been watching all evening with a jaw dropped so far it may dislocate: these are wonderful, wonderful results.  Mind you, it would be good if MS Now could remember that New Mexico existed: the first Native American governor in Deb Haaland, and the return of Ben Ray Luján to the Senate, are things that one wants to add to throw into the cheering.  (I don't expect them to announce that Sarah Boses, a local nurse who lives in Galisteo, has been elected to the NM House, but that's good, too).  But Texas!  South Carolina!  So many victories!  And it looks very close between Bass and Raman for LA Mayor, so I'm hoping that the pundits are right when they say that they expect late votes to bend towards Raman.

I'm wondering what the brightest clothes are that I can muster for tomorrow morning's department meeting.  The November meeting (we have them on the first Wednesday of a month) can result in some somber sartorial choices.  I well remember the one in November 2016 when we all, spontaneously, wore all black.  But not tomorrow!

 

morning, noon, evening

A fairly sullen post-dawn, except in the distant sky: I wasn't especially pleased to be woken at 4 a.m. by howling, rattling winds and by driving rain, all of which knocked lots of golden leaves off the acacia trees.  

At Albuquerque Airport, the Illumination Tree was looking particularly luminous.  It might look like a Chihuly, but in fact it's by an artist called Jezebel, and just in case you were trying to figure it out, according to NM's public art works website, "The organic design combines the earthly life forms and the ethereal sky elements. Designed to embody the romantic merging of Earth and Sky, the artwork is a proper reflection of Jezebel's motto: Romance with nature. Romantically merging Earth (terrestrial life) and Sky (heavenly life). The brightly stained glass blends softly to reflect the colors of the Southwest."  

By the time I was back this evening (and it was a much easier day's travel than on the way out), the light was fading at this end, too.  All the same, I'm much too much of a morning person to want Daylight Savings Time made permanent.