Wednesday was warm again; snow subsiding into mud…I made an enjoyable run to La Veta,

recycled our glass…perfect day…and continued on into the ‘burg for

a last visit to the Safeway, the antique mall [no potbelly left unruined – as LAMPS ? Seriously ? – but some nicely beaten up Tonkas], collected a painting from MOF where Brendt’s impressive abstractions were awaiting installation, failed to find Linda’s pole at the ‘bib, forgot plastic

for wrapping paintings but made it home with a rare view of Pike’s Peak from 69 [not shown]

in time for a walk up the slippery slope of Mary Ann’s hill…a week from now we’ll be pulling into

Fallon, or somewhere near it, but that afternoon it was just us and Kiku in the snow.

The next morning Mary Ann called as we were stumbling out of bed with the disturbing

news that she’d been experiencing excruciating abdominal pains since one a.m.

and could we maybe take her to the Emergency Room in Walsenburg ?  While awaiting

the Diagnosis we picked up the plastic I’d forgotten a mere twenty hours before, then found

the diagnosis was a kidney stone, with complications, so while waiting on the staff

to administer medications we returned to town [the Emergency Room being actually some miles to the west on 160] for more Safeway, a return to the antique mall to kill time

[not enough for the stoned idjits at the pharmacy to fill Mary Ann’s prescription], were finally able to collect her still suffering self from the ER’s congenially competent clutches,

grab another cup of their coffee and get us all home, in my case

to begin a fourth-to-last day here at around three-thirty, in the studio for

a pleasant if abbreviated visit prior to late afternoon’s perambulation.

Friday saw a much-postponed but welcome morning out, trying to keep pace with Izel as he scrambled up Izzy’s impassable-to-most-vehicles driveway to investigate

indigenous hippie architectural remnants like the Leaning Tower of Doug,

the Rock House [rock not shown – it’s built around an immense interior boulder],

random detritus,

goat sheds,

“Trigger’s Friend” [above] and Keidel’s [below], furthest up and voted

Most Likely to Collapse [and constitute a bio-hazard when it does].

We made it down into an afternoon preceding a last bit of Entertainment, four for dinner discussing extensive expensive clutch repairs, felonious feline destructiveness and the Future

of Residency programs here in the Valley and Beyond [like my grandiose plans and insufficient infrastructure for Wall Spring, for instance.].   Another day followed, blearily

and then on StuporBowl Sunday the weakened began packing up

while the Patriumps won in what was said to be a singularly boring game.  Of course they did; in Times like These it wouldn’t do to have the Great Leader’s Favorites Not Prevail, right?

Right.