DENNIS WOOD

Kitten blues. Our main cat, "Mr. P." (a white Cornish Rex with blue eyes) is a delight in most ways, if a bit intense. (Others might write "over-active.") Inquisitive, "in your face" every moment, and by alternating stretches, a lover or a mishief hound. At this moment he's climbing into the very limited space above my computer CPU, where nothing should be... I extracted him, but half the wires came with him... Ah, the pangs of love...

Anyway, thinking another cat would keep him entertained (better than us, maybe), we set about adopting one. This time, we thought, we'd not do the expensive thoroughbred route, but be nice to the world and adopt a "rescue" cat. Wrong. Those folks are IMPOSSIBLE to deal with. After setting up everything, going through the hoops of making an application, sniffing out a range of 10 adolescent cats from the offerings on the web, we were told we were unsatisfactory, because of our being in an RV, "because a cat could run out the door." No protestations to the contrary made a bit of difference. That was only one of the 3 or 4 stories of our attempts, but suffice it to say, that for such an organization, they lose a lot of lives (that they could have saved?) because they refuse to cycle through the cats they DO own. We were completely turned off.

So, back to the market. Yesterday we picked up a much less expensive Cornish Rex, a yellow kitten with dense thick curled fur everywhere. She's a love bug, but Mr P. CANNOT (I think he truly CANNOT) leave her alone: he wants a playmate SO badly that he's in her space constantly. She finally has to retreat, so we have one overactive fellow and one shrinking violet, who may never see the light of day. Our interference options, thus far, have availed neither of them any relief.

More interest in the "Cast in Bronze" performance?

RENAISSANCE FAIR:

Those we went with said it was the largest campus, the largest crowd, the largest number of booths and theaters/performances they'd seen anywhere, and they'd gone to many fairs. (I have no comparison, alas.)

Anyway, a huge parking lot, lots of traffic, a milling horde to get in, and an enormous permanent "park" with really cool buildings, shops, displays, presentations, and lots of performances.

The best part, really, seemed to be the numbers of attendees who were dressed in authentic looking garb. Everybody genuinely looked like they were having fun.

Most people went for the slapstick "medieval" comedy, many loved the jousting with real horses and what might be taken to be "real" knights, if there are any of those.

But the highlght for me, unappreciated by many, was the small concert by the carillon player. Pat and I have made special trips across the country to listen to "bells" being played from famous tall towers, old churches, and I usually found them to be impressive but sometimes a bit out of tune.

This fellow brought his own carillon. That seems impossible, but look at the picture. It's a portable thing, if such a heavy device could possibly be called "portable." Nicer yet, it was really in tune. Best, however, was the fact that he was fulfilling a "lifelong" dream, he says, to play his bells in front of new audiences (a bit hard for a carillon---usually the audience has to come to you... But he wanted to play his bells with a music background. And play them he did. It was quite wonderful.

Any of you just have to hear it for yourself, I made several little "movies" of the man and his music. Ask.

Like all things else, I find that a web search turns up a trove of like-minded people regarding cemeteries and grave photographs. By no means the best pictures, this site is nevertheless filled with interesting shots from around the world. I was fairly astonished at the bad condition of some English cemeteries....

Cemetery Photographs

Curious? Bizarre? Well, I've had a lifelong fascination with graveyards/cemeteries. It doesn't feel morbid. I find them full of interesting facts, epitaths, stones, architecture and sculpture, and for the most part, quiet places of solitude. I love standing among all those folks who've come and gone, each convinced, no doubt, at some point in his/her life that what he was worrying about was IMPORTANT. Obviously, it wasn't all THAT important. Somehow I find that immensely reassuring. It seems to put things in their proper perspective.

Once in favor of cremation, now I lean toward cemeteries, because they are important to all of us...

One of my avocations is photographing every interesting gravesite I come across. Someday I'll organize these or put 'em into a Powerpoint or movie.

Here's a site for anybody who might share my fascination with how famous folks end up. Find-a-Grave. In light of the previous entry, I looked up Tom Mix. He ended up at the famous Forest Lawn cemetery in Glendale, California.

Driving "the back way" from Phoenix to Tucson is a fun trip in daylight: the terrain gradually elevates, and with it, the variety of cacti, vegetation and roughness increases. There's no doubt that it becomes fairly interesting Sonoran desert, the closer to the smaller town it gets.

Driving back, after dark gets a bit spooky, though. We encountered very little other traffic: we're talking 90+ miles of a single highway stretching off into the headlights. I wouldn't have been greatly surprised to see the whirling lights of a flying saucer.

But then there's the real history of this road. In an otherwise unheralded pulloff there resides a memorial to Tom Mix, that legendary cowboy of the silent movies. We couldn't figure just why it was there. So, investigating it on the web tonight, I came upon the following:

"Tom Mix is a growing enigma -- possessed of one of those golden names that nearly everyone recognizes, yet no one knows why.

Mix was a cowboy movie star; a big one. He appeared in over 300 Westerns. He lived the life of a bon-vivant; by the early 1920s this former Texas Ranger was earning the princely sum of $10,000 a week.

But when the talkies arrived, Tom's career fell as flat as a chuck wagon pancake. He ended up working in rodeos and circuses, then died in 1940 in a weird automobile accident, his head crushed by a suitcase that flew off the rear shelf of his single-seated roadster in the middle of the desert. (So, that spot is what we were seeing... "Tom's spirit left his body on this spot," so says the monument.)

Tom Mix should have been forgotten. Most of his movies — released on combustible nitrate film stock — have been lost. But those who remembered Tom Mix built Roadside tributes to him, and these stubbornly survive. Now the people who remembered Tom Mix are dying, too. Our advice: Visit Tom Mix shrines soon." Mmmm.

Who else died by auto accident?

Utterly fascinating reading, and some facts you're guaranteed not to have known.

One of the things that always mystifies me is how indefinable the "ambience" of a place often is. What makes one town have "it" and another not, or the difference between two cities. Sometimes it should be obvious, but I believe that the obvious differences are often not the ones which really ARE the differences you feel.

We left Phoenix---or at least the outskirts of it---this morning, and drove "the back way," down to Tucson. Now, among folks who complain about such things, Phoenix is a trap for bad air, traffic congestion, way too many people. Tucson is better, 'they say.'

Our experience is the opposite: we a stuck in a crawl nearly all the time in Tucson, almost never in Phoenix. The air doesn't seem clearer in Tucson.

But there is a very real, intangible difference. I wish I could fathom it more clearly, for it is fascinating. Tucson has the feel of a western town, still with an "edge" to it---houses built off in massed trees, cacti, and sometimes citrus trees, with gravel or dirt driveways. These are expensive houses, no doubt, but the populace seems to value the native flora and the irregular arrangement of houses on large plots. Or is it that this is essentially a "V" shaped valley, unlike the flat floor of Phoenix environs? Everywhere, it's sloped.

There is a 'finished' quality to much of Phoenix---or is it just the similarity between the greeness of home and the over-irrigated plush vegetation here? Somebody is going to have to kick in and assist me in teasing out the difference.

Anyway, we rejoined friends and took in one of our very favorite restaurants, anywhere. The Marisco Chihuahua---or authentic Mexican seafood restaurant. It's one of those places where I never get to sample the menu, 'cause I'm bound to order the same durned thing each time we go there. I just can't pass it up. It's a fillet of fish covered in some sort of green sauce. Even an experienced cook, our friend, couldn't begin to guess just what made it green, or how it was spiced. An inquiry of the waiter helped not at all. The music was Hispanic, and loud, the clientele all looked right at home in the Barrio, and, all told, it was just the kind of experience we've enjoyed over and over at this little watering hole.

You ever make it to Tucson, then don't miss this place. (Oh, great joy! The waiter said there were two of these restaurants in Phoenix, but he wasn't sure just where.... One of them "might" have the same name.... It'll be like finding the needle in the haystack, and even if we do, it's likely to be about as far away...)

I'm about thinking that the rest of Tucson doesn't do that much for me, though.

Gold Canyon sports a “Renaissance Festival” in February/March. It’s a spectacular thing to all accounts---Knights and their Ladies, jousts and tournaments. Each year it panders to the deep-seated romantic notions most of us hold. If you go you are invited to gnaw away on “Old English ‘fast food,’”---a broasted Turkey thigh.

Last night, however, I was reminded how “wandering minstrels” still are an art form, even right here in the campground. Many larger campgrounds have concerts of visiting talents, and we’ve taken them in at now two different parks.

The surprising fact is just how good these acts can be. I never fail to be amazed at the drive to perform that many gifted people have: they arrive with the minimum of props and stage support, do their act on strange platforms/stages, no special lights, minimal sound equipment, do their own costuming and handle their own concession sales. Not even for huge money.

Last night’s beautiful lady, Rebecca Dawn, sings and engages the audience through force of will and sheer talent, for nearly 2 hours. For a one-person act, this totally amazes me. I can hardly remember more than one verse of any song, and she remembers dozens, AND their proper order, with nary a glitch. What’s more, she sings while dancing, moving, walking through the audience, engaging them individually---and never breaks a sweat. She says “us women never sweat, we ‘glisten.’” Well, she hardly even “glistens.”

Probably none of you will ever see her, and that’s not the point. It’s really a celebration that “there’s a whole ‘nother world out there,” with real, but mostly unsung talents, folks who are willing and able to perform at truly professional levels, in less-than-optimal settings, and bring a whole lot of enjoyment to us “castle-dwellers.” Minstrels, indeed.

All types. That’s what you think when you sit at a reservations counter. There are some of the more pleasant folks in the world, but most of them didn’t show themselves yesterday. There was the couple who drove in, without a reservation, parked their big 5th wheel in the middle of the driveway blocking all other users, marched in, asking for a “pet spot” (we had only ONE remaining) which was either on a corner, or in between two other unused spots. We directed them to the one remaining spot, but they left in disgust. I wonder if it occurred to them that asking for a spot with a vacancy on either side should be charged as THREE sites?!!

Or the couple who sat and watched me laboriously enter all their demographic data into the computer, searching long and hard for an available spot, only to pronounce, at the end of my effort, “Oh, we didn’t WANT a spot, we were only asking about the cost…”

Or the one who, after all my best efforts to find a spot for them, said, “Oh, you’re being unfriendly. I think we’ll go elsewhere.”

Yeah! And take all like minded folks with you!

Here's the desert on a January day near here. Picture

Picture of us and kids.

Lovely Canyon Lake just north of here

Us humans need a little reassurance from time to time. It's so easily given, but so rarely. Each day can bring a myriad reminders that we are fallible, don't know enough, or make mistakes. But every once in awhile a good day comes along, thank heavens. Such was yesterday when I gazed at a room of 29 people all playing Jokers and Pegs at the Gold Canyon Campground. And all were playing on boards I'd built! Before we arrived here, NO one was playing Jokers and Pegs, and vritually none of the 29 had ever played it before.

One table was having loud arguments about how it should be played....but they were still having fun. :-)

After some use of my original blog for lots of computer links, I've decided it would be better to isolate the computer stuff from the "personal stuff" and to have TWO different blog spots.