Rubber ducky (/fish/frog/turtle), you're the one, you make tubby time so much fun...

First, let me apologize for not updating my weblog. See, I don't have high-speed Internet out here in the sticks, and instead of signing up for YET another ISP and email address I'm just hanging with my AT&T service... which means I have to dial long-distance into Albuquerque every time I want to connect. Absurd and highly impractical, I know, but I thought I'd have the satellite Internet service by now. Of course, I haven't yet received the check from my last gig, which was going to cover it, so everything works out in a way. Except that I'm Net-deprived, and my mom is Lazarus-deprived... guess I'll make that phone call today.

Speaking of Lazarus, here he is in all his bathing glory:


fish heads, fish heads, roly poly fish heads...

... eat 'em up -- BLECCHHHHH


what's this stuff and why can't I grab it and jam it in my mouth to chomp on it?


the amazing frog boy:


I'll put up more pix later; I took some over the weekend during our trip to Denver -- we took the scenic route, which was by far the best part of the trip, and Lazarus was, as always, a pleasant roadtrip companion. Denver looks a lot better now in the spring than it did when I arrived late last November, when it was grey and cold and the trees were bare. I remember driving in from Grand Junction (where Laz and I stayed for a week or so after leaving California), and thinking Oh shit, what the hell did I do??? I pulled the car up to the back of the house from the alley and had to sit there and cry for a few minutes. The place just looked cold, grey, grubby and completely foreign, my gardens and comfort far behind me. Spring definitely spruces the town up, but I'm still happy to have left Denver for the not-quite-as-green expanse of southwestern New Mexico. Driving back down here yesterday, I felt increasingly happy the closer we got to home, and when I emerged from the Glorieta Pass and saw the Magdalena Mountains way in the distance, my heart leapt. And coming up the hill towards those mountains, night upon us, I thrilled to see the stars all around me, Orion straight ahead as if beckoning me home.

And home I am, puttering around and winding my way through towers of boxes and trying to figure out where to put anything, let alone everything. It's a good thing we have a store so we can start unloading all this stuff... The seeds I planted a few weeks ago have sprouted, and now my windowsills are filled with leggy green plants straining towards the sun. I think I can plant them now, but I'll wait to see if we get any more frost over the next few nights before putting them out.