Big hand to the garden spider at the east end of the south porch. She has three egg sacks up. The third went up last night. I have no idea where the mates are coming from, but they obviously know she’s there. And she picked a pretty good spot for the sacks. They’re sheltered from the north wind, up out of the weather, and I’m not such a clean freak, that they’ll have to come down. They’ll empty in the spring. So, all in good time.

Got sloppy this morning. I need to tighten up my routine. I’ve been up ninety minutes and I’m just now sitting down to write. In my defense, I had to chase a raccoon away from the cat’s breakfast dishes. That was out of the ordinary. Usually, they come at night. Maybe the rain is changing their habits. Of course, I also piddled around with the crossword puzzles, took my meds, fixed my coffee, and wandered outside for a bit. So, it might just be a sign of my rewired brain brought on by too many short form videos.

My wounds from a visit to my dermatologist are healing nicely. Most were simply freezes. One was an actual cut. She dug for a sample. It came back benign, an age spot or seborrheic keratosis which Siri transcribed as “February caratosis (sic)”. Either way all is good and my skin is busy regrowing; I’ll go back in a year to make sure it’s till behaving itself.

The air is unsettled this morning. Pacific moisture, the remnants of Hurricane Polo, is paying a visit. There’s also a slow-moving cold front dropping temperatures and playing footsie with the tropical moisture. We’re in for a fun few days of wet cool weather. That’s fine by me. I have nowhere to go, and I want to dig, so the rain will make it easier. I could have soaked the ground with a hose, but I thought I’d wait for the rain. Lazy?

It took some effort, but I broke away from doomscrolling and picked up a book yesterday. I’d already made a start but stopped for some reason. Now I’m back and in the story. But my concentration has weakened, and the phone always beckons. I may have to start deleting apps, although that feels a tad extreme. After all, I’m an adult with a brain, so I should be able to self-direct.

This is closer to the old days. An early morning start, when the day is dark and nothing revealed. There’s a cool breeze and I can make out the garden spider hanging in its web. The little wren is safe in its nook in the porch post. Mama cat is fed, and the new tomcat ran off when a sound spooked it. Patience will win the day, of course, but that’s a story only time will tell.

I used to get up every morning, make my coffee, then sit down and write. These days, I make my coffee, then sit down and do puzzles. I like the NYT Mini and Midi crossword puzzle, Wordle, and Spelling Bee. Sometimes, I’ll even go sit and play my guitar. Then will come a point, as I’m doing now, where I sit down to write. And it will feel late, which it is. In the old days, I’d be done by now.

When I moved from the Gulf Coast to the Hill Country of Texas, I was greatly relieved to be rid of the threat of hurricanes and tropical storms. Now I find myself yearning for them because it’s one of the ways we get the big rains that fill creeks, rivers, lakes, and aquifers. I say this because it looks as though one might be heading our way coming out of Mexico of all places. Hurricane Polo.

Yesterday afternoon, as I was walking through the front room, I said, “I feel like a cup of coffee.” Then quick as a wink, I said, “But I look like a normal human being.” Then I laughed. Because some people might dispute the idea that I look like a normal human being, but mostly I laughed because I liked my own joke. And in your own house, it’s okay to laugh at your own jokes and the idea that you’re a cup of coffee. Although, truth be told, I laugh at them anywhere.

There was a roadrunner in my driveway as I arrived home yesterday. I took it as a good sign for no other reason than I like roadrunners, and I consider having one visit my home to be a good thing. It’s right up there with the foxes who come at night. And the tiny wren who sleeps in a nook on a cedar pole on my back porch. They’re little things and I’m accommodating them.

As anyone who reads this blog knows, I talk about what I’m doing and how I feel. On two occasions that sharing has proven beneficial. The first instance happened when I shared initial steps toward a possible surgery to repair my abdominal aortic aneurysm. A friend recommended a surgeon. That surgeon found I didn’t need the surgery at that time. So, I ended up with a more accomplished surgeon at a later date.

It rained last night, and now the morning air has a cool wet feel to it. More is promised today. I watched yesterday’s thunderstorms on radar. They were sparse, but I was pleased to see some of them lingering over the local river valleys, promising more water for the lakes downstream. Perhaps this is the start of the wet weather pattern promised by the super El Ninõ.

I always enjoy true love stories containing the phrase, he or she was married at the time. It’s mostly Hollywood star stories where I see this, but I suspect it’s more common than I think. And I’m not real sure I care. It just seems funny in an odd way and proves that love is a tricky devil. Because I’m fairly certain the relationship that proceeded the current true love story started out as a true love story as well. So, I’m not sure if the first relationship went wrong or the second one just felt like a better deal.

Yesterday was bulky trash day and I had a touch of bulky trash. So, out it went. I still have a lingering brush pile, but the thing about brush piles is that they decay. So, over time my brush pile will eventually become organic matter. It’s not the tidiest way to keep a yard but I don’t really consider my little plot of ground to be a yard in the traditional sense. Although, I have decided to buy a small mulcher to help keep the brush pile from growing.

It’s late in life to find my way west, but that’s what I’ve done. In the last six years, I’ve spent more time in West Texas, New Mexico, and Colorado than in the previous 74 years combined. I wonder sometimes how I missed it, but there’s no point spending too much time pondering why. It was just a thing that happened, in much the same way that I missed a lot of musicians I’ve come to enjoy late in life. Our paths just never crossed when I was young.

As expected, and as I knew would probably happen, my paradigm has shifted. My advanced age no longer seems a constraint, rather it feels more like a reward. I have navigated the perils of youth and the vicissitudes of life to stand with the other aged beings, the sequoias, the whales. Ancient creatures, each of our own species, living to the fullest according to our design.

As we drove out of Alamosa yesterday morning, leaving the San Luis Valley and heading toward Rotan then home, the clouds were hanging low on the mountains, snagged in passing by the tall peaks. It seemed the mountains were picking the cloud’s pockets for snow, or rain, if that’s all they had. In either case, I hope they made out and got what they needed.

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.