october whisperS

wow, hard to think that summer is over, but these nippley nights and brisk mornings, coupled with all the usual suspects of fall's demonstrations make it pretty hard to ignore.

settling in with a cup of yogi bedtime tea as my work week comes to a close. the dogs were alone pretty much all day today and keep watching me for some sort of cue that something exciting is about to happen. lesley is in crestone for a 10 day jaunt doing an Osho meditation workshop retreat thingy and i'm keeping things held together at home here. nice to get some alone time like this; even though i was in boulder/denver for a couple weeks last month, very little of it found me truly alone. a night camping at valley view was a wonderful end, though.

i was in minnesota last week for a quick 4 day surprise visit. logistical concerns forced me to confess my plans to my mom, which left only my dad not knowing of my return. it was nice--lots of TV, fattening food, and very little exercise, which is a way of saying it was a True American Experience. dad is bopping around like nobody's business and we even carved out a few hours of together time, which NEVER seems to happen anymore, to rent a pontoon boat and putter around the lake i grew up on. it became frustratingly difficult to see anything resembling land or nature from the water--all the lakeshore has been swallowed up by McMansions and exceedingly skinny houses resulting from the massive subdividing of properties over the past 15 years. oddly enough, my mom and i had some hang time the day before and spent it doing the exact same thing but by car. we peeked in our old house, saw the new downtown mound, drove past the high school and game farm road, etc. it was good to reconnect with the proverbial stomping grounds, even if there's less ground than there was and i tend to tread lighter these days.

i'm becoming fretless. i now own a shipman fretless bass and my old kramer now has a fretless fingerboard to go along with the amazing paint job i just had commissioned. it sounds kinda bad-ass and pretentious at the same time to say "I commissioned" it, but i did. all i told her was to absorb some max ernst and paul klee and see where things go. i'm tickled at the result and hope to have a pic to share soon.

even though i've only had one sip, this tea is lulling me to slumber. i think i'll succumb. the next three days will find me hiking a lot amongst the aspens, maybe even doing some camping...