continued along with the usual

until

Thursday when, despite the closure of I-25 just above Pueblo due to a coal train falling on it, we reached, by slightly detouring, Toyota in time to minister to the Taco’s “service req’d” light,

in the process witnessing the latest, largest* and ugliest iteration of the TRD Tundra to date

while waiting to get on with our [inexplicably exhausting] rounds…which took us, in addition to a last relleno/pork and avocado burrito lunch at Los Girasoles, to the post office, Safeway,

80twenty wines, Target, the Vitamin Cottage [dog food for way less than Petsmart’s ripoffs!], Gagliano’s to stock up on that Pueblo green chile sausage for the long winter ahead and

home to the hills, the dogs and

the fading fallish colors which due to continuing warmish temperatures

never lit up fully…but were beautiful nonetheless.

Sunday morning at the steps I ran into Bill and Muriel inspecting the ridge waterline and then

that evening we were all together at Sibylla’s for a sort of woke wake with food, libations and remembrances of Izzy [the late writer and paranormal researcher AKA David Perkins]

from his fellow outlaw business partners, musical collaborators and beloveds, a befittingly mixed bag of memories although words from Dean,

our sole resident nonagenarian, were much missed.

On the other hand Jim [fellow singer/songwriter, below] told of a last visit in Santa Fe wherein he sang Iz one of his own songs and Leon’s tales of the businesses’ busts and booms [booms discreetly mostly unmentioned] through the years were moving to hear as well as others’ airing

of the good, the bad, the ugly [well, never ugly – Iz was a handsome guy] and just having everyone there around Sibylla’s table was really fine. It’s still hard to realize that his light on the ridge has gone out after all these years…and that he won’t be up there sometime soon on one

of his visits from Santa Fe, doing his best to save Libre, which he considered his duty to do, and did**.  The evening certainly spoke to the significance of long years of shared lives, shifting alliances and mortalities; a long eventful night it was, and yet home by 8:30.

The next day, another week begun,

the Inklings and I went around behind Dean’s and a little up

Dry Creek to find most of the fall leaves already fallen…

Seasons’ change…and time slips away; no light on the ridge anymore

and low light down here making long afternoon

shadows…

 

*actually it’s only 6″ longer and 2″ taller than previous iterations but somehow manages to give a much grosser impression.

**Iz spent countless hours conferring with numerous members to accomplish changes in the by-laws that ultimately enabled the community to move forward with more clarity and the addition of newer younger members; seems to be working so far.