Author: Elaine

Vandals

Horses have the same reaction to a clean white T-shirt as a vandal does to a freshly painted wall. This is why I have a lot of T-shirts.

Sunrise

Sunrise while waiting for train
I was out before dawn on an errand earlier this week, and was stopped at the bluffs by a passing train as I returned home. Fortunately, I had my camera.

Bubonicon

My trip to Albuquerque with Jack on the occasion of Bubonicon was marred by a head cold. I felt a suspicious scratchiness in my throat Thursday night, and had full bore symptoms by Friday morning. However, I had a relatively pleasant time despite the cold, though I did run out of steam by late afternoon each day.

The function space in the new hotel seemed to allow for a bigger dealer’s room as well as a larger art show. The con suite was up one level from the other rooms, and due to the way the elevators worked, it was hard to go between the con suite and the other functions. Tables, both for serving and sitting, filled the con suite room, and I found it a little too cramped. However, in total, the hotel was much nicer than the one last year. The air conditioning worked a lot better as well, which is important in New Mexico.

I enjoyed my visits to rubber stamp stores “The China Phoenix” and “The Stamper’s Pad.” However, I ran out of oomph before I got to the fabulous paper store on Nob Hill. I know I am feeling puny when I can’t find the energy to visit a good paper store.

In what has become a tradition of sorts, we listed to an audiobook by Ngaio Marsh on the trip: “Spinsters in Jeopardy.” Marsh has the facility of keeping us listening while simultaneously we critique the various reasons why we don’t think much of her plotting. In this book, there were just too many coincidences: I am willing to suspend disbelief, but not to the extent Marsh required. However, the setting was gorgeous, and there were a lot of comic bits. Most importantly, it lasted all the way to Albuquerque, and most of the way back.

Rio Grande Nature Center

Rio Grand Nature Center
Sunday morning I drove to the Rio Grande Nature Center. Even there, it is hard to forget that you are in the middle of a desert.

While I took this photo, some Canada geese flew in and out making a tremendous racket. Later, I saw a roadrunner. One of the watchers, a birder, lent me her field glasses so I could get a better look. I find them entrancing, probably due to an overexposure of Saturday morning cartoons as a child. Back then, I rooted for the bird, though now I have a sneaking sympathy for poor old Wile E. Coyote.

La Placita


Saturday, Jack and I had lunch at La Placita restaurant in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Have you ever wondered at the odd spelling? Evidently, the “r” which should go after “albu” got lost in the 19th century.

Inkslingers anniversary party

Stamped items
The first meeting of the stamp club to which I belong was held in August 2000. Each August, instead of our monthly meeting, we get together at a restaurant to celebrate the birthday of the club. Last night, we met at Giuseppe’s Old Depot Restaurant. We draw names and give a gift bag to the name we draw. The gift is supposed to be a handstamped item that is not a card, as well as no more than fifteen dollar worth of items. Each person, after the gift is opened, tries to guess who makes it. I made the Rollabind journal in the photo above. Other items included some framed art, an altered book, and a tic tac toe board.

Copper.net

Fortified with milk and cookies, I spent some time this afternoon setting up my mother’s Internet access. We are trying Copper.net, a low cost Internet provider. This provider has a three month trial period of $1/month, with a monthly fee of $10 after that. Unlike many of the low cost providers, there is no yearly contract required, nor do they push advertising. So far I am pleased: I didn’t have any trouble getting her PC to connect to the service, and when I left her email and web surfing were both working. Before I left, she walked through booting her PC and logging on to the Internet.

I used the TheOpenCD to load Mozilla on her machine to use for email and web surfing. This is the second copy I’ve burned and distributed, and I appreciate not having to download Mozilla over dialup connections.

Horse show

Horse show
Yesterday got off to a rocky start for me when I realized that it was 6:58 and although I had planned to leave the house at 7:10, I hadn’t yet dressed nor eaten breakfast, nor had I fed the horses or dogs. I somehow managed to get to the barn by 7:32 anyway, two minutes after I was supposed to be there. Since I had agreed to drive my truck and horse trailer, my presence was important. My trainer was taking the same two horses ridden by the same two students that had shown so successfully in July.

The turnout for this show was much smaller, but the overall quality of the competition was higher. In our private barn lingo, there were some “nice horses” there, ie expensive horses from barns with good trainers. Although Danny (in photo) and Indy are cute grade horses, they are not expensive. I happen to think I have a very good trainer, but our barn is small and rarely goes to shows, so we aren’t particularly well known.

Unfortunately, once again we had to give the kids and their parents the “you know, you don’t always place in every class” talk to try to manage expectations for future show. Actually, Indy did not place in one of his classes: he tried to duck out of the in gate during one of his rounds, presumably getting eliminated for bad manners. This was a different judge from last time, and she liked Danny and Indy too. I kept staring at our little grade horses, then at the big fancy Thoroughbreds and Warmbloods, and shaking my head.

Of course, there were also plenty of other non-fancy horses. I particularly lost my heart to one old Appaloosa, who had a swarm of three small riders. One rode him while the other two little girls would attempt to lead him simultaneously in opposite directions. He would occasionally roll his eye as if to say, “See what I have to put up with? Aren’t I a good horse?” I think he placed in most of his classes as well.