We had a couple of days home as rains passed

over and through and a couple of trips to town with a weekend in between, the first

being Friday when we again weathered 69’s nonsensical construction delays on our way

to the dump [now under new management and much cleaned up but as a result the rattlesnakes had moved into the building], fuel out by the freeway, Safeway shopping

and a look at the Habib to see where Dean’s paintings* might be squeezed in as well

as an inspection of its ancient pear tree which, unlike last year, has produced an Abundance.

Real estate opportunities abound in the ‘burg these days, too, this below being one of the

classiers, but uninterested in such opportunities we retraced our steps to enjoy a weekend of

antlions and rain-wetted laundry before Monday was spent mainly waiting, first on the

construction and then on truckloads of art with Corey O’Brien and Scott Fleming who, when the time, 2:30 as opposed to noon, arrived with a load greatly exceeding anyone’s expectations**,

rose to the occasion with no lack of risky heroism. Fortunately Linda’d found out how late the truck was going to be soon after noon so we’d been able to forage for food at the Walsenburg

Mercantile before the eight 250 pound crates of Flemings were revealed. OK, truck one, eight crates…with still another on the way, also originally promised for noon, readjusted for 2:30…

but still north of Pueblo then. We watched as the Greyhounds came and went on Fourth until finally, more like 4:18, a nice kid in a van with 34 loose paintings, individually wrapped,

arrived enroute from Aspen, he said. Best guess is he’d been in Denver loading up around the promised time and only then down to us…

We weren’t out of there [and stopped at the roadwork] until nearly five, but even so eventually  connected with FedEx, with whom I’d been in phone contact since late morning, at CR620

for my case of wine, dropped Scott and his groceries [yeah during the downtimes we did manage some shoppings as well as that lunch] at Sibylla’s and made it home, beat, with ours by six.

Tuesday we got in a small walk and early lunch before quickly dropping Linda’s model of the domes** at Dean’s on our way to an afternoon of massages in Gardner that left both of us,

as per usual, flattened, Desireé’s treatments being always intense.

Under increasingly smoky skies the mountain mahogany was weaving its silvery wiles as we

finally had a day of nothing, nowhere to go except that it was the day the U.S. Congress, as a fellow rogue non-signatory to the World Court, invited an international war criminal into their midst to lie and be lauded with standing ovations for his own rogue nation’s genocidal actions.  Trumplicans and “Beautiful Christians”, impatient to implement a similar theocratic kleptocracy here by fair means [not likely] or foul, loved it, and applauded the lies at least as enthusiastically as they do their own Dear Leader’s. Barf. On a day befouled with such shamefulness even our air was becoming increasingly befouled by far ranging particulates as summer’s fires near

[not many] and far [very many, including the Stockade, quite close to Wall Spring], erased aspects in every direction.  Nonetheless the next evening we were off into the valley

for a potluck at our newest neighbor Nina’s powerful hilltop opposite Gardner Butte where we were delighted to find not only our nearest neighbor Maryann but Robert Spellman

and Joan Anderson from Mountain Water sheltering from the smoky haze next to one of Nina’s carefully aligned containers and eating pickled delicacies…to which L. contributed potato salad. With pickles of its own, albeit not homemade.

*Hundreds of Dean’s paintings were evacuated by David Eicholz from Libre to the David Richard Gallery in Santa Fe during the Spring Creek Fire and subsequently, albeit with minimal communication between artist and gallery, taken to New York where they were shown and promoted but without tangible results.  Luz then spent many frustrating years attempting to have the work returned to his father, this being hopefully the successful fruition.

**The drivers expected, despite Luz’ many direct admonitions, a forklift and a loading dock. None of us anticipated the weight of the things or that they would arrive stacked flat.  Well the drivers knew, but they expected a forklift and fuck whatever was inside…which, despite extensive labeling, we’re not entirely sure of, either.

***The Model, away since last Labor Day, was notably a part of the Omaha Exhibition.