Peanuts!

Stacy's mom Bernice moved out here a few years after Stacy's father passed away. She's a great person, a ton of fun, full of great stories, doing all sorts of volunteer work and finding her place in Santa Fe — but was never a dog person. We didn't hold it against her when she wanted nothing to do with Cheyenne. Never had a dog, never saw the point, didn't quite get it.

After a weekend dogsitting for Stacy and Jim's (Jim's, really) dog Brenda Lee — an exemplary example of caninehood — last fall, she saw that she had a place for a dog in her life. The Santa Fe Animal Shelter has a Seniors for Seniors program, where adoption fees are waived for senior dogs and their people. Jim, who's a total dog person, has been taking Bernice to the shelter for a couple months, helping her look for the right dog.



Last week we got to meet Peanuts, a total sweetie. Ten years old, a little kisser, she's friendly, obedient, and she and Bernice have taken to each other without any problems. Supposedly has some Australian Shepherd in her, but clearly something else as well; smart, too, but not not the kind of smart that gets her in trouble.

-=-=-=-=-=-

Hung Tim's painting a while back on a gray, dreary, blah weekend. Monica also did a bunch of work on Stacy's site. I accomplished just about nothing.

Had some snow around this time last week ...



... and there's occasional storms blowing in here and there. But it's feeling like spring to me. No longer that winter harshness.

Aspen Vista in the Snow

A day off today, that meant dragging the dog off on a hike.

No, really, she wanted to go.

Sunny, but still a bit cold. Chose Aspen Vista because it's out-and-back, so we could turn around at any point. Plus, it's exposed and gets good sun. Turns out we were out for probably the best part of the day — it started out cloudy and ended that way; while we were out, so was the sun, but its occasional duck behind the clouds was welcome, too.

Used a sale coupon to pick up the new Massive Attack for the drive up. One listen, still not convinced. Sure, nothing will ever be Mezzanine, but the jury's very much out …

The drive up the mountain was uneventful, she was fidgety while I packed and shod up. Ready. To. Go. Now. NOW!



Snow was well packed, but still gave the quads a workout; in a bit of offroading, I fell in up to my knee, so there was that much snow at least — it's all so covered that it was tough to judge how much there is, though the basin's claiming an 87" base.

The conditions were actually pretty good, good enough that we continued on further than we'd gone before (by about ten minutes). We met one hiker on the way up (she was heading down) and, in answer to her question about where the trail ends, had to admit we'd never made it that far.

We did make it to the point we did last time. And with the Gorillapod; though with the polarized glasses, I couldn't see the screen; with the glasses off, the snowblindness did the same thing.



Pushed on a bit beyond; we were at about an hour and, though Cheyenne was still straining at the end of the leash, I thought she might've been tiring. I know I was.



On the way down, one snowboarder, two pairs of cross-country skiers, one hiker with two dogs on the way up; one skier with his dog on the way down. About 1:50 total when all was said and done.

After depositing the dog in her bed, a big falafel lunch at Cleopatra Café, where I met Danny to work on some comics.

Addendum

… to the post below.

In case you wondered what Cheyenne would look like after getting up on Sunday morning, having breakfast, sleeping in some more, and then going outside to eat snow in her pajamas:

Found

In the parking lot of Viet Taste in Albuquerque on Saturday.

why iz yoo laffing?

oh hai ebberyone, dis am cheyenne de hound heer.
what are deese fings? ah am knot so shure ah likes dem.


what? deese jimjams is to keep me warm at nite? oh, dat will be nice! you hoomans keep da bedroom cold!


do you fink dey makes mah butt look big?


no? oh, okay, ah go to bed now and dreem of chasin kittehs and buneez.


[Note: These photos were taken back in November, when Cheyenne first got her jammies. I thought I'd posted them already, but I hadn't. So here they are, at the request of my Mom. Happy Valentine's Day! —Monica]

Pulitzer Book Launch

Our friend James McGrath Morris, author and proprietor of Santa Fe Literary News, launched the book and book tour for his new biography of Joseph Pulitzer last night at Collected Works. It's is a pretty big deal, this 576-page book from Harper Collins is six years in the making and draws upon original source material that was unavailable to previous biographers (much of it excavated by Jamie).



He began with a reading from the prologue that sets the stage for the saga to come, and then presented anecdotes that didn't make it into the book — ones that gave some background on his process and others that gave a real feel for what was going on at the time. This was an era when newspapers mattered, when they had the power to mobilize a new immigrant population, to make and break politicians. This is the time of the battles with Hearst for the reading public, one that all students of journalism (including me, in a small way) look back on with amazement.

A glimpse of what Jamie's presentation was like at Santa Fe Radio Cafe and at Santa Fe Reporter. Or you can check him out on tour, if he can make it into DC.

In other news, been playing with a fun Java app (just download and launch) that creates a diagram of what your mouse is doing; this is the laptop over about the last 24 hours:

snow, mud, more snow

January 28 Thursday:
shoveling the driveway; Cheyenne in the backyard; dog walk; streetlight at night















January 29 Friday:
downtown snow; dinner with James at the Compound









January 30 Saturday:
cholla cactus with snow; dinner with Chris, Kevin, Katie, and Danny at the the new Second Street Brewery





January 31 Sunday:
Santa Fe animal shelter open house; dog park with lots and lots of mud; getting dried after a bath

















February 3 Wednesday:
mountain view; old Plymouth in the snow; walking getting walked by the dog