twomonthswow

Whenever a large chunk of time transpires between posts, it causes me to think about some sort of hierarchy of importance in enumerating the missing details. with that in mind i'll hit some of the areas worth talking about and along the way inevitably discover littler details as well.

my dad is back home after 10 days at the UofM hospital. To provide a touch of background: last year around this time his eyes and eyelid starting going out of focus and drooping, respectively. He was later diagnosed with myasthenia gravis, which you could read about here if so inclined. Over the next few months his eyes got worse and it seemed it was spreading to his hands. What was supposed to be a routine doctor visit in May 08 to increase his then-new prednisone found him having trouble breathing, and the doctor sending him to the hospital pronto. A day later I flew back home to be around as best i could. Lots of feeling helpless and hand-holding, but that's about what you do when someone is laying there with tubes in every orifice and not being able to speak. Big thanks to all who offered support and good energy; his eyes are better than ever now and he's gradually able to use his hands again.

The minnesota visit came on the heels of some other pre-memorial day (read: no vacationers) vacation stuff: Valley View and Chaco Canyon. VV found me and my girls meeting up with dan in a different cabin than we normally inhabit. It was cold and snowed but was also lovely; hot springs being better when the air is colder, right? Got a cool crystal bowl sound healing and massage and one of our walks felt like hundreds of unseen eyes were watching us. We came across a couple old mining camps and saw aspen trees carved with dates back to 1934, along with freshly-scraped bark from elk horns which was REALLY high up the tree, making us a bit freaked at the size of the bucks.

We got back here and Dan went to volunteer at a trail clearing near el malpais and he and i later met at chaco canyon for a couple days of full-moon camping and oops-i-went-off-the-trail hiking. 'twas great, but only when we ventured past the proverbial trails and found things that were real, like caves with bones, pottery shard/sherds, fossils, stone tools, etc. Chaco has been ravaged pretty thoroughly over the decades and a lot of things have been rebuilt and re-done to look authentic. Imagine our surprise and dismay when our first quick venture/pueblo turned out to have a plastic drain hole in one of the "kivas!" Luckily we met up with Sher, an instant resonant new friend from Taos and she told us the good places to go. Proof positive that if you're 96.24% of the population, you'll stick with what's near and documented in easy-to-read signs and well-defined trails. the rest of us, well, as long as we walk with reverence and care, we're gonna find the good shit!

An invitation to open for the local prog-rock theme band Gnossurrus found my old power trio AlmatrosS performing for the first time in almost two years in early june. I can't say we'll be back anytime soon, but it was fun to play out and even make a couple bucks doing it. we played at evangelo's, a charming little poophole near the santa fe plaza and there are some youtube links from that night here, though the sound quality isn't so hot. Thanks trish!

Speaking of evangelo's, i've played there a few times these past couple months, also with the funk quartet funky monkey, which is to be taken about as seriously as you might think. the trick is we're all reading charts and it's quite fun and challenging as well. can't go wrong with a fun summer funk band, right?

Still teaching full-time four days a week with my couple hours in at candyman ordering books every monday morning. My students and i rocked a huge concert in late april with me on bass and my buddy matt on drums for 95% of the songs. added bonus was my parents being in attendance; nice to share my success with them and give them something to talk about, which seems to still be centered around my pal rocque's rendition of "panama" he sang with my student andy. (guess it was a bit loud and enthusiastic!)

Les and i watched the entire first season of the "dog whisperer" series on dvd, something we'd heard about for a long time but never experienced since we remain television-challenged. great and simple stuff, and almost instant results. further proof that most animal training is really about training the bipeds in the hizz-ouse. We're being challenged by the goal of avoiding tourists on the mountains, but are savvy enough to know where and when they won't go. The weather has been spectacular, though record-breakingly high the past couple weeks. And that solstice moon totally kicked our ass, but that's another story. Speaking of solstice, Al (the 'al' of 'almatross') had his yearly party out in la cienega and it was fun to hang by the bonfire, eat el parasol and jam with various lineups of folks.

God's Green Ghost may make another appearance this fall, especially considering some recent appreciation we're getting (which is as much as i can mysteriously allude to at this juncture). Hopefully another visitor will come and kick our ass. Sad that we're losing the great milton villarrubia on drums, but best of luck to him as he ventures east.

Been engaged in a new-but-still-amorphous round of visual art using espresso lately and hope to upload/update my photoreality one of these days on my site.

well, that sums up some things, anyway. may all grass gracefully stain your knees as you kneel in awe of all this planet has to offer!