The red-naped sapsucker rat-a-tat-tats away on the kiva chimney’s metal cap. If it isn’t the chimney, he (?) goes after the transformer on the telephone pole. How long do you suppose the bird will do this before realizing that no sap is coming out?

I could build this into a socio-political metaphor if I had the gumption, but I’ll let you do that. Suffice it to say that after unsubscribing from Obama’s email list over the FISA idiocy and then re-subscribing, I’m pretty much back to my own transcendental self. I’m delighted to see Obama doing so well, of course. It’s just that my own life and those most directly affected by its course are back on center stage, whatever that means.

I’m turning down relatively big money to build an online store for a Hindu ashram and temple, for example. That’s just not what this life is all about, at least for me. We’re walking every day again. I want to hike up in the high country and have to teach my lungs to grab more oxygen. I’m not worrying about my 86-year-old mother and her trailer park dreams. My next Mac will be one for video editing. I want a motorcycle (trail bike) for exploring the thousands of miles of forest roads more easily than in my pickup. We’re going to find another house. I’ll do everything I can to see more of my woman’s smiles and reflect them back. I have to stop eating (!) or be surgically reconstructed. More abdominal exercises! My best buddies are forming a crazy instrumental surfer band (Los Changos del Mar), and I’ll design the website. Things could be worse.

The weather in New Mexico is wonderful, now that the spring gale has subsided. The mornings are cool and crisp, and every afternoon the clouds build up and send a line of thundershowers marching across the plain to crash into the mountains. No, it is NOT “hot.” It’s almost never hot, not up here in the north. In fact, it already feels like early fall again — too soon!

Tomorrow we’ll go visit an old friend from Maryland who’s come to Santa Fe to take a workshop. Whatever will we talk about? Rat-a-tat-tat, ese. And on and on it goes.

UPDATE: For the record, our visit was delightful. See next post (above).