A Feast With Friends

The turn of events in Colorado Springs necessitated a spontaneous sojourn to Cortez Colorado to visit an artist friend from Leucadia California. Six years ago Fiona had moved to Cortez and built her own house near Ute Mountain. I love serendipity! Cortez really surprised me. The majestic landscape of the ancient Navajo and Ute people inspires a peace I have not known in a long time. A perfect and most welcome respite for my weary soul. The very breeze is healing. My old friend Fiona is thriving in this land and is an exceedingly gracious host. I'm meeting warm and delightfully vibrant people. I feel so blessed in this place.

Sweet Gary Fisher on loan from Kokopelli's Bike Shop

"Slow Food" from Fiona's garden

Hungry Pest

Road to Utah

Welcome Neighbor

Road to Cortez

Ute Mountain

Officially OFF THE GRID!

The Pelican has landed. Yup, it's true, I have found a new home, and my address is:

UN-GOOGLE-ABLE!

I can't tell you how much chuckling pleasure this little fact gives me. You can enter the address all you want and Google remains mute. The satellite map shows the area but not the road! Tee hee hee hee... I didn't think it was possible. It's high in the hills above Santa Barbara not someplace like... the Appalachians for heaven's sake! But I am reveling in the anonymity. It reminds me of the movie where Dudley Moore tells a friend: "I'm incommunicado." and the woman on the phone asks: "Where is that?" Dudley says: "Next to Cognito".

If you look closely you will see the road on the top of the ridge that is now my home training ground.

"Cognito" is at the top of a well worn epic hill climb. Santa Barbara cycling pals will easily guess where it is (expect summit brunch party soon). The house itself is rather cabin-like but contains all the modern conveniences. There is a pot bellied stove and fireplace to lessen dependence on the electric heaters for warmth. However, no cable, so satellite is necessary for TV, and radio reception depends on tricky antenna placement. God bless Blue Tooth!

One thing there is plenty of here: QUIET and lots of stars. We also have something called "sundowners", high gusting winds that come up as the sun sets. They routinely blow the plastic deck chairs over the railing where they fall to the ground two stories below. There are lots of welcome animal sounds day and night, nice neighbors with beautiful gardens, a babbling creek and swimming holes. Yeah, I said swimming holes! I'll be starting my own veggie garden too.

Once again, in more pictures than words:

The view from the top

Alarm clock

Pest control

If the phone cuts out I'm blaming this guy

In the gardens

Poppies at the roadside

On the Boulevard of Broken Dreams...

Maybe this is the Appalachians!
(actually a former director of the Botanical Gardens lives here, go figure.)

Top of the creek bed

Creek

"I have made fire! I... have made fire!
(Tom Hanks ain't got nothin' on me)

Those close to me know that this relocation (after 12 years in Del Mar) has been a long journey indeed. As a special bonus that is evidence that the Great Spirit is watching over me after all my new house mate is a partner in a local winery: "Help yourself to all the wine you can drink. Plenty of wine!"

It's going to be a cozy year.

2008

From all the water fowl on the marsh and the creatures on two wheels,

a PROSPEROUS and PEACEFUL NEW YEAR to all!

Don't dream it, BE it.

L'chaim!

SUBLIME

My neighbor's 12-year-old son made me a sandcastle menorah for Christmas. Apparently, there is a way of baking the sand in the oven with baking soda that turns it into clay. He had it all decorated with shells. It sounds funny, I know, but we lit the whole thing and with candlelight glowing on the sand it was really quite beautiful.

I can see the menorah candles burning down as I sit on the patio in a tank top and shorts, spread out on two deck chairs munching on maple bacon and drinking Green Machine. Breakfast part deux. On the patio side the other neighbor's child has obviously received a Billy Joel songbook of sheet music. An accomplished pianist, she is ripping through the highlights of the Turnstiles album, a personal favorite, such as Summer Highland Falls and Miami 2017. The kid is really GOOD!

Moreover it gives me a cozy feeling. These days when I say "I'm going home for the holidays" I mean my uncle's place on Manhattan's Upper West Side. He's a concert pianist. By the time a jet-lagged Southern Californian wakes up in New York it's damn near noon and my uncle has started practicing. He usually warms up with jazz standards and oldies from the fifties before launching into Franz Liszt. Closing my eyes I soak in the warmth of the sun and the melodic sound of live ivory. The clear winter sunlight is glinting off the blue water of the marsh and the dense eucalyptus and pines on Torrey Pines Hill look soft as green velvet.

Ahhh contentment. Peace. Is this not what Christmas Day is about? To be at peace with all and HAPPY with what simple pleasures are provided?

Life is GOOD today and I am LUCKY.

My cousins are playing tennis together in Brooklyn, it seems for now the sun is shining there too. Another friend informed me he had already ridden his bike a hundred miles today - in 4 hours! Stud. I know I should get out there too. It's criminal to waste this gorgeous day while my north-eastern brethren and sistren are shivering and riding trainers in their garages to stay in shape...

But, Dayanu! - 'It is enough' what I have right now.

'Thank you for sending the beautiful blue pigments. I cannot pay you because the Pope has not paid me. I am penniless, therefore I cannot be robbed."

-Michelangelo, from a letter to his brother Buonarroto.

Ok. I'll go for a walk to the beach.

There, Tim. I bloggeth therefore I am (self absorbed. tee hee hee).