I’ve heard javelinas will eat your jack-o-lanterns, but ours always melt in the heat, so I can neither confirm nor deny

To be honest, I don’t have a ton to report here today, not least because I’m still in the process of moving into a new year and new schedule, so all my thoughts are just projections, judgments that only go halfway. Last night I had a dream that I was on an alien starship, flying to meet a new civilization, and when we were nearly there I remembered I’d…I don’t know, left the stove on, so we had to turn the whole voyage around and zip back to Earth before we could continue.

That’s pretty much where my mind is at; trying to figure out if I’ve done the necessary mundane tasks to leap into the great beyond.

What else? Our tree is not diseased, as we feared it might be; this weekend Dave and I went on a hike, and on the way back saw a line of cars waiting to be allowed onto Mt. Lemmon so desert people could see the snow. According to an article I read, the police were only allowing new cars up when other cars left, due to a severely limited parking situation, which just seems like a nightmare. But everyone seemed perfectly happy. The traffic stretched on for more than a mile, and the sun was already getting low, but somehow the mood was jubilant. I hope those kids, those adults, saw what they wanted to see.

Personally, I saw a guy selling “snow sleds” (as his sign put it) on dry desert clay, surrounded by prickly pears and cholla, so I left satisfied by the wonders on offer.