Haiku Monday: JOY

Nose to wrist inhales

spring’s symphonic scent. My skin
blossoms, Eau de Joy.

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Fishy is hosting Haiku Monday this week, with a theme guaranteed
to put a spring in your step. Even though it's fall.
Pop on over and join the fun.

Hurricane Wednesday

Haiku Monday: GHOST

Lo, what spectral smudge
at midnight haunts my room? Phew!
‘tis only the dog.

For more haunting haiku, drop by here as Aunty's hosts this week.

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P.S. This week's Walking Dead summary comes to you courtesy S.B.:
"This show is like a motorcycle revving it's engine in the driveway, waiting to take off."

Fuel for Fire

Want. Want, want want, want want.

Yes, it's out of my price range, but if I start saving now . . . And you know what? Shhhhhhhh . . . it's a hybrid. I know, right?!? The Fisker Karma, the world's first hybrid high performance luxury sports car. Made by a private joint venture out of Anaheim, CA, and manufactured in Finland. Even better looking, in my humble opinion, than the Jaguar, which to me is the ne plus ultra of beautiful car design.

From the website:

Finally, sustainable design without compromise. Introducing the Fisker Karma, the first true electric luxury vehicle with extended range and the freedom to plug in or fill up. With the ability to toggle between the all-electric Stealth Mode or fuel assisted Sport Mode with the simple shift of the paddle, the Karma delivers high impact performance while maintaining a low impact on the environment. The Fisker Karma -- a bold expression of uncompromised responsible luxury.

Yeah, buddy. Well, except for that last statement. The copy was fine until "responsible luxury." That's just kind of dumb.

What say you? Yay or nay?

Dead Men Walking

No one loves a good zombie saga more than I do, but is it just me or did last night's season two premier of Walking Dead seem just a bit flogged? Those "intense moments of sociological sparring" in between zombie threat and gag-me-with-a-spoon gross-out that have so many critics applauding just had me yawning and wishing I wasn't on hiatus from alcohol.

And when I get bored, I start watching for holes in the plot. Any little thing will do, but last night I didn't have to look too closely.

1. I realize the merry band of survivors have to hit the road in search of a safer place to try and reconstruct some semblance of normalcy, but who on earth allowed Daryl to do it on a chopper the size of a small jet engine that sounds just like one, too? Seriously. If stealth is a concern, then someone should have ixnayed his zombie-brained choice from the get-go. And, besides, who on earth can keep their arms up for that long? A chopper is a conceit, not a long term method of transport.

2. Yeah, yeah, we're supposed to believe for one second that the little girl purposefully left the spot under the riverbank where Rick hid her. Thus, sending the merry band on a sidetracked quest to find her, leading to all kinds of the aforementioned tense sociological drama, i.e., should we continue looking for her or save our own asses, i.e.e., are the needs of the many more important than the needs of the few? And do we beat the tar out of the little tyke once we find her for causing us such trouble? As far as I'm concerned? There's no room for children in the zombie apocalypse. Maybe the producers think so too, by the looks of the ending.

3. When trying to figure out if said tyke is still alive, Rick and Shane bean the brains of a walker, then cut open his gut sack to see if he'd recently munched on eight year old girl flesh. Ridiculous! What on earth would they have found to distinguish her from anyone else? My Little Pony? Barbie? I wanted to bitch slap those two but hard.

4. And if I watch one more program in which any character starts in with the why-me-Lording to a battered statues of Jesus in a bombed out church, I'm going to hurl.

The good news is, the previews for the upcoming season look like we're finally going to get to the meat of something interesting: A convergence with other survivors, evidence that a centralized form of control still exists, Rick finding out about Shane and Lori's stepping out. Anything to take us from the hermetically sealed world of Survivor Zombie Style into a broader, truly sociological examination of the only thing that really matters in such a tale: how thin and fragile is that veil between so-called polite society, order, and justice, and total anarchy? And which works out best for the human race in the long run?

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Where's Haiku Monday? Over at Rafe's. Guaranteed to be zombie free.

Don't Shoot Me, I'm Just the Copy Editor

No, that's not me. But I did covet that hat and nearly talked her out of it. Then she emerged from her fog (alcohol? wacky weed? life?) and realized, "D'oh! I make these for a living, girl! BUY one from me!"

I dig the dress, too. She hand knit it herself and it fell all the way to the ground, ending in a spectacular fall of ruffles.

I also dug the party's venue: a resort high up in the hills above Santa Fe with the kind of million dollar views that make bazillionaire East Coasters leave their Manhattan spreads for bazillion-dollar dirt-built mansions off roads that the county resolutely refuses to plow come winter. It's kind of like Mulholland Drive or Lauren Canyon, only dustier.

The food, unfortunately, was uninspired. Lots of things like carpaccio wrapped around wasabi something-something and tuna tartar stuffed in mini cucumber cups and something-something hummus on radicchio, served by kohl-eyed and tattooed twenty-somethings who otherwise play in a band or really just want to write. But there was only one bartender. Eye candy bartender to be sure, but seriously there were hundreds of people at this shindig and only one of him. And once the sun went down, it got really cold outside and I was worried for him because he had a shaved head.

Me, I never drink at these things. Not only because of the drive, but because there's enough bullshit being spewed that I don't have to add to it. Besides, one of life's greatest pleasures is being stone cold sober while trying to figure out what, exactly, a drunk stranger in a deerskin jacket that looks like it was cribbed from Denis Hopper circa 1967 is trying to tell you. And not necessarily because they're slurring their words. There's nothing quite like alcohol to subvert logic and discretion and unlock the part of the brain where all a person's whack-on-crack impulses are toe-tapping themselves to be let loose upon the world.

Mine were reaching their hands through the bars with such desperation, I actually began to feel bad. And there wasn't even anything good to eat that I could shut them up with, so that was when I decided it was time to leave. I got lost on the way back down the mountain because I was talking to S.B. on the Bluetooth and not paying attention to the road, and then he made fun of me for insisting on doing things the old fashioned way, which was pull over, turn on the light, and look at the Google Map, instead of turning on the navigation system.

And then I spent the entire ride back home talking myself out of stopping at the McDonald's ten minutes from home for a Big Mac and some fries.

It's a wonder I ever leave the house.

For those of you clamoring for the view:

I took this one early on before the sun set completely.
No way iPhone can do it justice, but it gives you an idea of height and scope.

Haiku Monday: VELVET

Dressed for Chill:

Silken velvet's sheen

deftly cut and sewn cocoons.

Winter's lux armor.

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Chickory's hosting this week, so make sure to stop by,
even if you don't play. Velvet's a brilliant theme.

Slackers of the World Unite

The best editorial I've yet read on the so-called Wall Street protests starts off:

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men, women, and transgendered—and any other human who is able to elude the tyranny of work for a couple of weeks—are created equal. We gather to be free not of tyranny, but of responsibility and college tuitions. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that a government long established and a nation long prosperous be changed for light and transient causes. So let our demands* be submitted to a candid world.

I'd print the rest of it, but I actually have to get back to work. Because, you know, I have a job. One I earned. And if I do a crap job at it, I'll get fired. Because that's just the way things work in this world. Freedom or fairness; it's one or the other, but not both.

Anyway, go read the rest of it, here.

To Infinity and Beyond

RIP, dude.

Rancher's Rain

That's what we call the slow, steady, soak-deep-into-the-ground drizzle that New Mexico rarely gets but always so desperately needs. If these rains do come, they do so right about now—just in time to mess with the Balloon Fiesta, cool things down at night, and send the hummingbirds still lingering at my feeders into full-on migration mode. Adios, little birdies; see you guys next year . . .

The good thing about these rains? My garden loves it. One of my rose bushes will continue its fall flush until the end of the month and my petunias and snapdragons won't stop blooming until the first truly hard frost, which can arrive as late as December. And while it often snows in the fall, it doesn't last. We'll get one, two inches, the sun comes out the next day, and the temps warm to the high 60s, low 70s. It's not unusual to eat Thanksgiving, even Christmas, dinner outside.

Our heaviest snowfalls come in February, March, and April. One year, it dumped so much snow mid April, when I went around to the north side of the house to clear the satellite dish, I was buried in a roof avalanche. That was the year we decided to put snow blocks up on the roof. Small dogs and children regularly die from large falls of snow off a roof, and while we don't have either, we do have me. Imagine if S.B. had returned from a work trip to find me missing from the kitchen and Ivan outside, resolutely planted beside this hump of snow in the shape of a ding-a-ling in a snowsuit. Funny, but kind of not really.

Also kind of not really funny? Running with Maddie in the rain. Today, she and I are scheduled for a five-miler in the hills but while I have trail shoes and gaiters, she does not. She is short and has long fur and just got back from the groomers. Yeah. You ever try cleaning mud out of a Border Collie's fur? I just don't have that kind of time.

So anyway. Tell Moi: what are your falls like?

Haiku Monday: FOG

Midnight’s fevered squall
mists the desert dawn. Earth shrugs.
Dew’s long gone by noon.

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Curmudgeon was last week's winner,
so head on over there to gawk or post.