You Never Know, Sometimes.

Going almost stark-raving bonkers, since my happy Hippy Anarchist homebrew computer took a massive hit. The local mains supply is notably anarchic itself. 110 Volts, 220 Volts, whatever!
Blew up the power supply, fried the Mobo like a rasher of Bacon! It's in Compy Hospital now, awaiting multiple transplants.
I'm now, temporarily (I hope!) tapping away on the loaner laptop generously given to me by Patti, who is co-owner of aforementioned Hospital, until my trusty old friend can be brought back from the dead. Such is life.
So, where is the bright light shining, on the outskirts of "Bummerville", I hear you cry. Well, aren't you? Sorry! A touch of pre-varication on my part.
My Doctor had been nagging me about why I should have an assistance dog, for the longest time. I usually fobbed him off with one of my many excuses. "Too expensive to care for one properly.""Not enough room in the apartment." "I can't spend enough time with one to make them happy." "It would be a violation of my lease". He refuted that last one with: "I'll write up a prescription".
Little did I know, that my new best friend was puttering about, biding her time, until I gave up and said "Yes"
Rainbow, a Golden Retriever, Black Lab mix, has adopted me!
She's got me wrapped around her webby little paws and I can't do anything to stop it.
Not like I really want to stop it, though. I'm madly in love with this silly, beautiful, loving Pooch!
Now I'm off to get one of those "A Spoiled-Rotten Lab Lives Here" plaques to hang on the kitchen wall!

Scent Obsession

Further confirming my status as an Incense addict, some mobile phone cam shots of the paraphernalia associated with this unquenchable obsession. Burners!
I've left out more than a few, concentrating on the ones I thought were interesting enough to display on the blog.
The Feng Shui Elephant in photo 1. is not an incense burner. The Aladdin's lamp next to it, is.
The flute shown on the coffee table isn't a burner either. It's a potential musical instrument. In my hands, however, it is an instrument of torture! Hari Prasad Chaurasia, I'm not!

A view of the blacklight jungle

Yeah, you wish this was your bedroom. don'tchya? ;P

What the *#@%?

Can somebody tell me what in the unholy hell this T-shirt really says?

Abandoned Buildings of Northern New Mexico. Pt.1

Here we have the long since evacuated R&R Produce Company, located in West Maloney Avenue.
I've lived near the place for the past 15 or so years and it was closed then!
It's become less of a mystery in the past few months, since someone (probably from our local drunk community) decided to knock the front door down, resulting in the fine interior shots before your eyes.
The reference to the "Chili Ristras", is something confounding to non-New Mexicans. Ristras are wreaths made of Chilis, generally for the X'mas season. That would indicate that this Greengrocers closed down sometime in December of one year or another.
This shop must have had quite a variety of Fruits and Vegetables. The doors were probably shuttered when the owners came to the shocking realisation that nobody in town considers any plant matter aside from potatoes as a food source.

Monsoons? In May?

Just a few weeks ago, it was Snowing in Gallup.
Now, roughly four months ahead of schedule, the Monsoon season seems to have arrived.
Make no mistake about it. These aren't the "Monsoon-alikes" that California and a few other places get. The moisture streaming up from the Gulf Of Mexico, that combines with some of the flow off the Pacific results in the same sort of weather you would expect in Singapore, Mumbai,
Bangalore and Hong Kong.
No complaints, other than the rising humidity makes every old injury my body has dealt with come back at once. Painkillers and an umbrella, please.

The Talking Dog

We humans have an odd way of looking at the animal that we describe as "Man's best friend".
Most of us acknowledge that they understand rather large bits of the verbiage that we bombard them with. Conversely, so many people do not listen to what our canine companions are saying to us.
My usual walk to work includes moments with the many Dogs I've made friends with along the route.
This morning, the first stop was for a small Bull Terrier friend that lives just down the street. As per usual, the weather in town was crappy. Snow. It's early May for crying out loud and it's stinkin' snowing!
"Butch", as I call him (Nice name for a Pit Bull, I would reckon.) didn't just want a pat on the head, or a Dog Biscuit. He wanted a sympathetic ear as well. (wags would infer from this that "Butch" would have enjoyed biting an ear off, more than having one to listen to him.)
He gave me a sob story that I fully understood, with his vocalisations and physical actions. "I'm lonely, the weather is horrid, play with me, why go off walking down the street when you see that I need companionship."
I've learned the meaning of many Canine vocalisations, over long years of being a Dog fancier,
telling "Nice to see ya" barks from "Stay the heck away!" ones and interpreting the sighs, whines and moans.
Some company in Japan has a hand-held "Dog Translator" in their product range. It has a microphone and imbedded software that compares the vocalisations of your (or somebody else's) pooch to wave-form examples in it's memory bank.
Now, you can happily splash out hard earned cash, to find out what "Bowser" is saying, or just learn by listening on your own.
I had to trudge on with the snow blowing directly in my face, this morning, but not without insuring my four legged friend that I would return soon to share a moment.
I'm positive that he understood me, perfectly.