Meet Spooky Puff

So named because he’s easily spooked. He’s almost fully grown now, and a full member of the Blue Porch Kitty Committee.

Spooky is second from left. Third from left is mother Clarice. At farthest left is Ginger Slim, the one surviving kitten of a duo of kittens from last year.

A Siamese cat was among the originals who “came with the house” when we closed on it in July 2016. I used to call her “Clarence” after Clarence the Cross-Eyed Lion from the old 1960s Daktari TV series. Then, after nearly two years, she gave birth to kittens, and Clarence became Clarice.

In a sad parallel to this time last year, one of two kittens from a litter fell ill and died one weekend in June from who knows what. The one left I called Ghost Puff for a while, because this tiny thing would “ghost out” (disappear) whenever a human appeared. Recently, I’ve taken to calling her/him “Spooky,” because I’m weird like that.

Settling on a pronoun, he’s apparently grown a bit.

Smack in the middle, smacking his chops after finding the chicken bone I threw into the yard.

Although he’s getting a little braver every day—he no longer bolts off the porch when I come out, but hides beneath the table—it’s clear he will have little to nothing to do with humans. He used to run when I came to the window. Spooky will stick around a bit now, but only so long as I stay on the other side of the picture window.

I really like the colors and composition in these last two.

This is the best photo I have of Spooky’s littermate, Dusty. We’ve been almost supernaturally fortunate in regards to the health of our animals, but it still hurts to lose one. Dusty was a gorgeous, fluffy little thing and we have no idea what made her so sick she had to lean against the side of the house to walk so she wouldn’t fall over. I leave this here in her memory.

All photographs Copyright © 2018 by Lawrence Roy Aiken. All rights reserved. Kibble for kitties gratefully accepted at this link.

Gratitude with Attitude: Thoughts as I Approach Yet Another Birthday I Have No Right To

WARNING: Three a.m. thoughts at all the wrong hours.

In my ruminations over life and mortality in the wake of the death of my brother Steven in November 2017 and the discovery of my cancer the following April, I was reminded how very lucky I am to have been born in the latter half of the 20th century. Otherwise I would have died a most painful death at age 22. 

It’s been over 30 years since then, but I remember it vividly. Appendicitis hurts. I can only imagine what the later peritonitis would have been like had I not been put under anesthesia and had the offending organ cut out. Lucky me, I was born into a family with health insurance in late 20th century U.S.A. Not everyone gets that. 

Thanks to Western medical technology ca. 1984, this child of the South Carolina Midlands lived to see sunrise from the summit of Mt. Fuji in 1997, and this sunset through Colorado wildfire haze last month.

Naturally, I didn’t appreciate it at all back then. As young man in my early 20s, my life wasn’t shaping up the way I’d have liked—or, more precisely, the way I thought I’d have liked it, according to everyone else. While (it seemed, anyway) everyone else was whooping it up, making money and having fun in Ronald Reagan’s 1980s, I was struggling to find work with an English degree I soon became reluctant to admit I’d had, as such degrees drew open derision from the even the handymen who worked for the smug little things in power ties and shoulder pads. (It’s even worse, now.)

As I’ve joked with my grown children, they’re here today because I failed at alcoholism and suicide, just like everything else. I met their mother just before I turned 29, and Operation Drink Myself To Death went sideways. For one, I lived past 30.

Having failed at talking their mother out of having children, my life truly began. I even got to relive childhood a bit through the children I was there to raise, and make up for my lost time there. Being a responsible father turned out to be the best therapy I could ask for. Not everyone gets that, either. Given our Endless Youth/Eternal Playtime cultural conditioning of the last 50 years, most people can’t even wrap their heads around the concept. 

To think I might have died at age 22 and never experienced what’s best in a man’s life.

You’d be appalled at what people already think of as normal.

I know people who did all the right things, got all the right jobs, drew all the right money, lived in all the right neighborhoods...and they resent the hell out of me because I’ve managed to stay married to the same woman all this time. You’d think I did it just to spite them.

I got lucky. Trust me, I know. None of this had to happen.

Then again, as we used to say down South, I met my luck halfway, so don’t expect me to feel too guilty about it. We all put in our hours here. Besides, when I think of the neener-neener attitude towards people like me working per hour instead of salary back in those glorious ‘80s, how I was made to feel like a failure because I wasn’t already married by age 25...an old saying attributed to Sun Tzu and his Art of War comes to mind:

If you wait by the river long enough, the bodies of your enemies will float by. And, boy, do they. The mental image I have is that scene from Steven Spielberg’s The War of the Worlds, but it doesn’t have to be that macabre. The bodies might stand for the fads, the fashions, the booms and busts that went with the decades...as well as the divorces, the foreclosures, the men frozen out of the professional market (the great untold story of the last Great Recession was all the once fat-salaried veterans of industries finding themselves permanent wage-slaves after Decades of Dedicated Service®), etc.

All right, so there’s no getting around the macabre part. I realize the following sentiment can’t help but sound like so much hypersweet hey-look-an-ironically-happy-ending rhetorical cotton candy, but for as much as some of these people I knew back in the day rode my nerves, I honestly don’t enjoy their suffering as much as I’d thought I might. A little, sure. Not as much I was counting on, though.

After all, it could just as easily have been me.

Here’s a heady Long Island iced tea of a metaphorical cocktail for you. I watch the bodies of my enemies float by, and it feels like someone just walked across my grave. Again and again.

Death peers out from the latticework. Think I’m being cute? You didn’t see that poor robin it took down last week, or hear its piteous chirps as it was batted around the yard. I probably prolonged its suffering in my attempt at intervention, because by the time I got outside it was clear the robin’s wings were too injured for flight. It was not getting away. All I could do was turn and go back inside and let Ginger Slim and the other cats finish what they started.

I realize I haven’t even touched on the many untimely deaths I knew before I was even 25 years old. The couple in high school who lingered too long at the park after everyone else had left and got murdered by a gang of proto-meth heads. The guy I used to ride with who took the curve too fast in his powder-blue 1967 Mustang. This older guy I knew, when 32 was super-old to me, who was diagnosed with pneumonia. His heart gave out in the course of having the fluid removed from his lungs.

I could go on. I’m sure you have even more compelling stories. 

Ah, to die in one’s sleep. Not everyone gets that, either. Indeed, I suspect it’s less common than we think.

This year, I dealt with cancer, and the inevitability of one day finally sickening and dying. I “beat” the Big C this time, but only because I was diagnosed early, and I got the offending organ cut out before the disease spread.

There will be a next time. We’re wearing down here. Next week I complete my 57th year of existence. I get fussed at on Facebook for talking about getting old, but I embrace the concept as well as the reality. Two of my favorite ex-girlfriends turned 60 this year and I’m not far behind them. Sixty is old. That’s all there is to it. You’re not “middle-aged” anymore.

I hope to live so long, myself.

You know the tagline by now.

I used to say autumn was my favorite season. Now I say, “the next one.” I’m happy for the privilege.

I got the second and third images from strangers on Facebook. The remaining photographs are Copyright © 2018 by Lawrence Roy Aiken. All rights reserved. Like what you see? Buy me a wholesome beverage via PayPal.

Best of Summer’s End 2018, Part 2: The Monte Vista Potato Festival

The difference two years makes in a small farming town in Colorado’s central San Luis Valley.

It was another age altogether when my wife and I, fleeing the depredations of Colorado Springs, took possession of Big Pink on the near east side of Monte Vista in July 2016. I remember my first walks about town in the evenings, noting all the empty houses and storefronts, wondering if someone would ever get around to fixing the clock/temperature sign outside of Sunflower Bank on the corner of Adams St. and First Ave., the blown bulbs of which were flashing alien hieroglyphics to all who passed by.

Fortunately, that much got fixed in time for that year’s Potato Festival, which at the time was not much more than a food truck from Denver and some stuff going on under the main pavilion at Chapman Park. It got much bigger in 2017. It was even bigger this year. These photos are from the last couple of hours, and the remaining booths and people seemed to be doing quite well for themselves even as the day wound down.

I enjoyed looking at these fine specimens of transportation engineering on the way in.

The way these tractors were lined up made for a nice shot.

I was impressed by the pull of this standard-size yard tractor, as it was towing quite a few of those barrels, each with a small child inside.

From a small gathering on a square of grass to nearly the entire park taken up by vendors and exhibitors and food trucks, that’s how much the Festival has grown. We were happy just to get out into the last of the summer sun, sample boutique potato chips, and soak up the vibe of so many people having a good time on a fine Saturday afternoon.

One of the main things that impressed me about this year’s Potato Festival were the numerous activities for the children.

Human hamster balls. Yep. It’s a big park; they could do anything here.

Lots of vendors vending stuff, thangs.

This wasn’t the only vendor selling home-raised honey, but he had the most unique...mobile booth.

Oh, to have the funds and dedicated shelf space to buy every jar I see of this whenever I come across it. Fun fact: honey doesn’t spoil. Ever. Keep a lid on it, and it will never go bad. You could ferment it for mead and drink like a real Viking. I prefer to pour it over big heapin’ tablespoons of raw peanut butter, the kind you have to stir the oil into. Kings of old never ate this good.

I thought of my now-grown daughter, and how she would have reacted to the “Invite a pony to your party!” sign as a nine-year-old girl, and tried not to choke up. Again, it was so good to see so many activities for the children.

As we walked out we saw a man and a woman in a cart deliver sacks of potatoes to the vendors as thank-you for participating. We had come just as the festival in the park was coming to a close, but it looked as if it might have gone an hour longer. This is so much better than many other things I’ve attended in which everything goes dead after lunch.

I had to take more photos of the trucks and equipment on the way out. I was surprised by my visceral reaction to the sight of these, feeling that thrill of wonder a five-year-old boy might for these magnificent machines.

I’ve photographed this beauty before in the Ski-Hi Stampede Rodeo parade. It was nice to be able to walk around and see how much work went into preserving this rolling work of art.

Sometimes I wonder if I didn’t miss a calling somewhere. I’ve always regretted never learning how to work on cars aside from changing the oil and gapping spark plugs. I think what I might have really gotten into was paint and body work, being able to bring old beasts back to life, and mod others out into fun custom designs. 

For now, I can only be grateful others do. 

I got this photo just as they were backing this classic beauty out. The driver and passenger waved at me after I got the shot. Which reminds me of something else that was a lot different from 2016, namely, that the vibe was a lot friendlier among vendors and the public alike. People seemed actually happy to be here. Imagine!

My wife and I left in good spirits, and not just for a happy Potato Festival, but for a small town that’s come a long way with the improving economy. A lot of the empty storefronts are re-opening for business, for one thing—which, when you think about it, is the main thing. The Main Street thing, where the economic rubber meets the road.

This means more traffic, of course. By the way, the bank sign at right works just fine, thank you. I happened to snap this in between flashes.

Two years later it’s another age entirely, and a far better one than what we started out with. Civic decay is not irreversible. Sometimes things do get better. What marvelously counter-intuitive concepts! Who knew?

Photographs Copyright © 2018 by Lawrence Roy Aiken. All rights reserved.

Best of Summer’s End 2018, Part 1: Around and About

...in the central San Luis Valley of Colorado.

I was out of action for most of the summer, making this the third summer in a row in Monte Vista in which I had to say “maybe next year” to throwing myself into things like the Ski Hi Stampede Rodeo, the San Luis Valley Fair, and the concert and motocross bike show sponsored by the Potato Festival. At least I did make it out to get some new photos.

We’ll start in a light-purple mood. Purple alpine asters representing for the purple alpine aster-colored house on the corner:

Now, for a study in gilded yellows, greens and browns, with dashes of pale blue through the gray strata overhead.

I saw this and immediately thought of Paul McCartney’s first solo album cover. The cherries were out in force this season. This is from the walkway in front of Monte Vista’s City Hall and Police Department.

I used to fancy myself the urbane sort who would be happier living in the city with all the Cool Smart People. Fortunately, I turned out smarter than that. Looking across U.S. 160 from the part to the pasture, I saw a cowboy at work roping a stray calf. It certainly beats hanging out in a mall parking lot watching thugs break into cars.

I'd like to take the hardtop off of the Jeep and ride out to one  of these places one fine autumn day just to say I did. I'm not as high on the idea of riding around for the sake of it like I used to be, though.

There are no sunsets like those of late summer. None. Submitted as evidence:

All photographs Copyright © 2018 by Lawrence Roy Aiken. All rights reserved. Like what you see? Buy me a tasty and wholesome beverage via PayPal!