Loving Tucson

I've finally found an use for all the goddess faces I cast in mortar.  My goal was to find a place I could leave them so that they looked (eventually) like ancient relics oozing out of the ground.  Wasn't happy with any place I saw until I started hiking behind Dan's property.  I'm having so much fun in Dan's back yard.  There is an arroyo that weaves it's way behind all the properties here and while hiking along it I realized it was perfect.  There are enough big rocks laying around for me to mortar the faces to.  I've gotten five in so far and will put 13 of the girls in all together.  If it rains enough to flood that should help them look like they belong.

I thought they would stand out and be too easily seen but when I went back to photograph them it took me a while to find them.  Yahoo.  Below is where the creek goes under our road.  I walked through this drain plus there are two more, so it's pretty big.  I've learned that monsoon season is July and August and the arroyo fills up.

It's very wide and steep in some places, below.

The second batch of mortar was too wet - I was afraid it would dry out too quick.  I think the elements will clean it up a bit.  Going to have a big rain tomorrow, supposedly.

The beautiful part of Dan's back yard is the amazing assortment of cacti.

So many rocks.  I've started stacking them.  

Dan says that Sugar has yellow-green eyes - I say they're Caribbean blue.

I finally have a social life.  Dan had a movie night so I made my potato soup and a frittata for dinner with friends.  My writer's group has turned out to be very motivating.  I've gotten a lot of work done (finally) on my barter book.  I've decided make it into an E-book.  Below, Cristina, had a birthday party at Robyn's house.  At the end, a group of us played dominos.

My new friend Diana.  I saw her at the Vegan and the Psychic Meetup before Christmas.  Then I stood behind her in a Goodwill store and saw by what she was buying that she had to be an interior decorator.  The next day I went to another Psychic Meetup and she walked in and sat next to me.  Since then we've had a thrift store day (yet another person addicted to thrift stores), then she invited me over to dinner to meet her friend Vesta who has asked me to speak about my travel book in her shop, Artseeds, on Campbell next month.  This weekend we spent an afternoon at the Gem Show.  Below Diana in the foyer of her beautiful house.  She's also hooking me up with an artist friend who needs videos made.  We have so many things in common it's weird.  She is a very good painter.  That is one of her paintings next to her.

At the Gem Show.  I love the Gem Show.

Below, a big stone that looks like a squash.

Giant amethyst geods.

At the African encampment.

Some one made a cow skull out of crystals.

My favorite bead seller.  Great deals.

 Some of the small things I got at the Gem Show.  Lots of Moroccan stuff.

  Looking into my studio at dusk.

Still working on the painting - too busy doing other stuff.

I only went to one Rumba class - to bouncy for me - hard on the boobs.  So now I hike almost every day, sometimes with Dan.  Hiked miles on the first day of the Gem Show.

Practice flight on my drone.  It's so tiny it doesn't have to be registered, and has a video camera.  I'll upload my first video in my next post.  I needed a way to make photos and videos of my giant land art.  

This is what I'm paying for gas now. Thought I'd record this because I have a feeling it's going to go up up up soon.