Monday

I mailed our [fake, Democrat, primary] ballots from Gerlach,

turned around and headed north

across the Flat of Ducks to Surprise Valley, Eagleville and over Cedar Pass to Alturas where

after wandering gobsmacked through Big Savers on Main [where it seems the only Saver must be the proprietor as although the two storefronts are stuffed to the ceilings and through the block with, well, stuff of every description it’s all priced too aspirationally to represent any

possible sales or savings] I did our week’s grocery shopping and after deciding against

Thai lunch went in rain over the pass for gas and down the valley where a little after Eagleville a lost looking dog was wandering south on the highway…soon after a pickup towing a stock trailer came up from the other direction with three border collies eagerly leaning out of the bed

in search of seeking their lost workmate, hopefully, after which

I stopped at Duck Flat for half an avocado with salsa, then continued on 447

to the beginnings of the Buffs where a motorhome abandoned on its way to Burning Man sits lonely as winds howl through busted windows and Mormon Crickets stagger around it on

the pavement, which I followed home to a minimalist meal and another week of watercolors,

walks

and Tuesday night an indulgent dinner of news, Sicilian plans and book recommendations

with John and Rachel from the pottery down the road. The morning after, circumnavigating the lower pond counterclockwise, I visited Sand Hill with its benches of 35 year old dunnage

from the COMEF Shipyard in Chalon sur Saône, first repurposed as the centers of Linda’s “Some Models of the Universe”*, later as the Sand Hill seating before

going down around the pond.

After dinner went out and closed the gate left open for that FedEx jerk who never came…I

won’t do that for him again but the evening was nice, trains kept going by across the desert

and then came the Terminator. So to all a g’nite.

 

* “Some Models for/of the Universe” were built on the shipyard’s Valgrit** encrusted shore of the river Saône in the summer of 1991 during a La Vie des Formes residency. The wood centers were subsequently replaced with similarly sized rectangular glass prisms.

**Valgrit was the volcanic-like black sand they used for sandblasting.