I’m sitting in the cool mountain air of New Mexico this morning. It’s a most pleasing thing to do. The mountains themselves rise up into that air right out our door. Later this morning we might go take a walk along the Rio Grande Gorge.

My late wife was in a blended family, brothers and sisters with her mother’s new family. Brothers and sisters with her father’s new family. There were no halves about it. They were simply her brother’s and sisters. Like a mother hen, as the oldest, she gathered them into her arms. I’m with one of those families, her father’s, this weekend in Taos. We came from different directions for a music festival, but the result is the same, we’re together for a bit.

Lifespans. The word came to me this morning as I watched the big garden spider tend its web on the corner of the back porch. It has about a year to do its business. Catch food. Find a mate. Lay eggs. Then I watched a mosquito fly by. It has two weeks to two months to pack in its living. The little black cat that called our place home got about ten years before feline cancer brought its life to an end yesterday. I’ve had 80 so far, while my late wife only got 70.

Drove into Houston last Friday with a long-time friend to watch our college team play ball on Saturday. Our crew of season ticket-holders used to number ten. Now it’s two and we only buy tickets when we need them. The game was played on a fine fall day in Texas with lots of sun and highs in the nineties. Our team won after a delay brought on by lightning. There was rain too. Just enough to make the humidity spike.

It feels as though everything these days requires a subscription. We no longer buy things. We pay for access. I think if they could figure out how to do that with clothes and groceries they would. You can get in for free to the necessities section of the grocery with in-app purchases. Pay a monthly fee for access to the larger selection store. Buy the premium service and you can get the best cuts of meat. It’s probably a model under construction somewhere. Or maybe it’s Costco and Sam’s.

Fell into the data center rabbit hole after my recent drive through Bosque County. I was enjoying the scenery when a big sign for data center careers caught my eye. I thought, one must be nearby. And sure enough there it was. So, I took a picture and went looking to see what was up. I discovered the site is being built by a company named CyrusOne which is owned by Kohlberg Kravis Roberts (KKR) and Global Infrastructure Partners (GIP), a wholly owned subsidiary of Blackrock. Ultimately the site, a hyperscale data center, will cover nearly 17 acres.

Sometimes you have to take the long way round. Yesterday, I did just that. I was returning from Dallas, heading home. It was early. The roads were clear. GPS had me on I35. But I stopped just outside Waco at the Hill Country safety rest area and reconsidered. What was the rush? So, just up the road I turned right on a country road and headed west, making my way to Highway 281 and home.

We had a taste of rain last night. I could hear it fall. I even went outside to listen. That’s a nice thing about porches. You can stand outside in the rain. It’s especially nice when the rain is gentle, tapping on the tin roof, bringing up all the earthy smells, and washing dust off the leaves. More rain is promised today. Of course, there’s no one to hold to the promise. It’s more like a systemic probability.

The second part of my two part effort at self-healing takes place today. I started with the mind. Now, it’s the body’s turn. I’m seeing a physical therapist to if I can get what’s left of my body back into some sort of working shape. This comes to me courtesy of a friend who read my recent post about balance issues. He put me in touch with his daughter (a physical therapist), who gave me local references.

Started on a journey yesterday. Personal. Met with a counselor. Every once in a while, I just need someone to talk to. A way to hand off the baggage or maybe get some help. Friends are good, but friends usually have their own problems and shuffling mine onto their shoulders is sometimes an ask too far. So, I opted for professional help after finding myself mired in a miasma of inaction.

It’s a cool summer morning in the hill country. The cats are fed, and I’m giving the trees a quick drink. We’re in a heat wave and the ground is fast losing water. Plants and grasses are drying up, almost everything is brown. I don’t know when we’re expected to turn the corner, but I hope it’s sooner rather than later. Although, two years of big spring rains have left the lakes full and the rivers running. So, all is not lost.

Yesterday evening I sat outside looking at the moon. Unlike the sun, it’s easy on the eyes. There’s no burning demand for your undivided attention. It’s just quietly cool, hanging there in the night, bathed in the leftover light of earth’s bright star. I’m a big fan of the moon. It rings a lot of bells deep inside me.

Almost everyone I know is using AI because, truth be told, it’s fun. Suddenly, if you’re a fan of Star Trek: Next Generation, we’ve all got a computer version of Data, a sentient android, or Tony Stark’s Jarvis. It’s comfortable and fun because, as the conversations progress, it’s easy to feel as though a human, who knows a lot, is talking back to you. And if you’re looking for a term for that feeling, it’s anthropomorphize. It’s important to remember, however, that it’s only software and it’s far from flawless. But, that being said, I think it’s here to stay.

Yesterday I went digging around in the archives of the Houston Chronicle, and there was my work from fifty-six years ago. The writings of a young man who knew nothing, but felt that he knew everything, or at least everything worth knowing. I was an older college student at least six years behind my contemporaries from high school who had graduated college well before I became serious about university life.

Frank Beard, the drummer for ZZ Top, passed away. And as often happens with memorials like this, it will be more about me than him because I only knew him personally for the briefest of moments in the early 70s. We were all young men when I interviewed Frank and his bandmates for a profile in the Houston Chronicle’s Zest Magazine. They were one album into their career.

There are times in my gardens when I just let the plants do what the plants want to do, and this includes those plants we might call weeds. For instance, in the front yard by the big oaks, I’ve let the bindweed bind, and it’s traveled up into some low hanging branches on one of the big oaks. I actually think it looks good, which is a nice excuse for not pulling it down.

When I was at Seminole Canyon State Park recently I saw an exhibit that featured the local people hunting. They were chasing a rabbit, barefoot, across the arid land that surrounds the park. Given the number of prickly plants in the park, I wouldn’t run through it with boots on and wearing long pants. But there they were, chasing dinner, barefoot.

One of these days I might spend some time cataloging the spiders who call my place home. I saw a new one this morning on the screen door. One I’d never seen before, a crab spider, of the genus Xysticus. According to the Wikipedia page about them, they’re ambush hunters, which means no webs to grab me in the dark. I have no idea what he thought he might find on the screen, but I’m guessing he was going somewhere else and merely stopped to rest.

Power washed the porches yesterday. That was a loud, noisy mess. But now everything looks spic and span. The next step is to get on a ladder and clean off the remnants of the old swallow nests. Of course I’m not supposed to do ladders. So, maybe I should try the high-pressure nozzle on the washer. Or maybe I can use a brush on an extension. Or maybe doing nothing is a good option. I like having choices.

I’m obsessed with knick-knacks these days. I’m at a stage in my life where I’m taking stock, so it’s one of the things I’m counting. We have lots of them. Little things that sit on shelves, counters, tabletops and dressers. Ornamentals. Dust catchers. Mementos. Whatever you want to call them we have them. Sometimes they even masquerade as collectibles, a thing of value.