{"id":8453,"date":"2011-12-12T18:04:38","date_gmt":"2011-12-13T01:04:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/?p=8453"},"modified":"2011-12-12T18:04:38","modified_gmt":"2011-12-13T01:04:38","slug":"a-quiet-monday-in-tucson","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/?p=8453","title":{"rendered":"A Quiet Monday in Tucson"},"content":{"rendered":"

It’s been overcast, rainy, and gloomy outside since I rolled out of bed this morning.\u00a0 The payoff came a few minutes ago with this, the first sunlight of the day … and just in time for sunset!<\/p>\n

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There's gold in them thar hills!<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

I’m told there’s snow higher up on the Santa Catalinas, but from where we live it’s still hidden in the clouds.<\/p>\n

In keeping with the weather, the girls and I spent the day indoors.\u00a0 I did some maintenance work on the blogs while the pups took alternating shifts on window patrol, looking out for roadrunners, coyotes, javelina, strange dogs, and the mortal enemies of all dachshunds, badgers.\u00a0 This is the first time they’ve shared the lookout pillow.\u00a0 I’m happy to say Schatzi, the alpha in all territorial and property disputes, had no objection.<\/p>\n

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Division of labor: Maxie (left) & Schatzi<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

We bailed out of our weekly downtown walk tonight just before the sun broke out, but it’s already clouded over again and most likely raining in the Old Presidio.\u00a0 We went for a good walk last night with our family hash, strolling through Tucson’s Winterhaven neighborhood, where each December homeowners put on a massive Xmas light show.\u00a0 We didn’t think to bring a real camera, and the photos I took with my cell phone are shit, but I posted a few at this link<\/a>.\u00a0 This was our first good look at Winterhaven since moving here in 1997; we were pleasantly surprised to see many of the homeowners letting their imaginations run free: in addition to the standard Xmas displays there were Jewish themes (one with a giant motorized dreidel), an Occupy Christmas house, a Harry Potter display, and my favorite, a front yard done up in an Angry Birds theme.\u00a0 Awesome.<\/p>\n

Yeah, you read that right: Xmas.\u00a0 It’s my small contribution to the War on Christmas.\u00a0 We had Xmas long before anyone ever heard of Flying Spaghetti Monstermas.\u00a0 Or Festivus.<\/p>\n

In keeping with the demands of Xmas, Polly and I strung outside lights yesterday.\u00a0 Nothing Winterhavenish; just a single strand of old-timey colored bulbs running along the eaves.\u00a0 I think this year we’ll buy a new artificial tree and take our old Martha Stewart Omniliving Holiday Tree to Goodwill.<\/p>\n

Not much political or culture war bloggage here lately.\u00a0 I’ve decided it’s pretty much a waste of time.\u00a0 You share my views or oppose them; either way expressing them makes not a whit of difference.\u00a0 That’s not to say if something hits me just right I won’t burst out with a rant or two … but lately the political news has been merely depressing, and popular culture?\u00a0 Shudder.\u00a0 I’m enjoying my volunteer work at the air museum, getting to know the new dog, riding my bicycle, reading and writing book reviews.\u00a0 You know, important things.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It’s been overcast, rainy, and gloomy outside since I rolled out of bed this morning.\u00a0 The payoff came a few minutes ago with this, the first sunlight of the day … and just in time for sunset! I’m told there’s snow higher up on the Santa Catalinas, but from where we live it’s still hidden […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[40,250,2],"tags":[458,459],"class_list":["post-8453","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-critters","category-culture-wars","category-personal","tag-winterhaven","tag-xmas"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8453","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=8453"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8453\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8463,"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8453\/revisions\/8463"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=8453"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=8453"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=8453"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}