Saturday, September 1

trompos! simon!

It's been awhile, hasn't it? I was without my computer for three weeks which made posting a wee bit difficult, plus I just don't know what to do with this space anymore. Maybe I just need to change the template so that things seem fresher around here.

Here in Santa Fe, Evo Gallery currently has an exhibition up by the video artist Manuel Angel Rios that is all about trompos. This past Thursday, Manuel brought some folks together to play trompos at the Plaza. Will and Garret were two of the players and I went down to take some pictures. And wow. I had never seen the game played before; it is super fast-paced and I really didn't know what was going on most of the time, only that it was the black tops vs. the white tops. Tops were flying, ropes were flying, arms and legs everywhere. Garret breaks down the rules in his post. And then yesterday, there was an article about the event on the front page of New Mexican and yours truly is in the photo on the front page, albeit standing in the background. I'm a star! Ha, ha. Kind of neat though. Click through all the pictures and maybe you can spot Will and Garret as well. Trompos!

As most of you already know, my tale about Simon has a happy ending. Thank goodness.
simon
Two Monday nights ago, he went out as usual...but then, not so usual, he did not come home. We were absolutely devastated. The cats are part of our family and without Simon, there was a giant empty hole in our lives. We checked with the animal shelter regularly, we posted fliers, we ran ads in the paper and we walked around looking for him day after day. It was hard to keep hope. Everyone has a story about how a cat disappeared for days, weeks, months and then returned. Hell, I had cats that would disappear for weeks when I was a kid. But still, Simon has never been gone for even 24 hours and this is Santa Fe. Mountain lions make visits to the Plaza! And then this past Tuesday night (well, Wednesday morning), I woke up at 1:00 AM because I heard a cat crying. It didn't sound like Rocky so I got up and checked the porch. It was Simon! Home at last! We were so thrilled and relieved. He was very, very hungry, but otherwise fine. He was also very, very tired and slept for about a day and an half straight. We have no idea where he was, what happened, nada. It's so frustrating. I wish that he could tell us about his adventures. He was gone for EIGHT DAYS. He is quite happy to be home so we kind of think that his disappearance was not completely intentional, but we'll never really know.

Tomorrow is my birthday. To celebrate, we're going on a hike. I think that's a good birthday activity. And that's really all I have planned.

A happy Labor Day weekend to you!