….where the late November setting sun turns the sandstone mesas into glowing vermillion cliffs (wait til you see this!) and the first dusting of snow brings every wind-etched stone, every pinon, every cedar, into impossible clarity (wait til you see this!) and the night sky is so full of stars of such piercing light (wait til you see this!), the air so thin and cold it hurts….and so heightens all your senses at the same time, that you want to cry out. (Wait, wait, wait!) But it’s all too solemn and too joyful and too full of wonder. You’ll sigh and shiver and won’t want to be torn away and every new day and every new sunset will compel you to ‘come see’. Sigh.

The perfect denouement to the gleeful orgy of Christmas. Or maybe it’s more LIKE Christmas. To me, anyway. Wow. Do I miss the high desert. I’m glad you guys love it, too.

When you’re lying in bed around the third week of November, set your clock for sometime around 3am–oh, nevermind, Wee B. will get you up!–and look out at the Leonid meteor shower. There’s nowhere on earth to see such a thing as in the rarified air of the high desert. Well, maybe Mt. Everest….

while reading more of nytimes, i realized that no media coverage is without a bent, so the nyt has one as well, of course. i just prefer the fact that all the opinion stuff is generally concentrated in the ‘opinion’ column, which provides some pretty seething reviews of recent political events, democrat and republican.

you’re completely right about the tabloid headlines of fox and cnn. i admit, it takes more patience to scroll through the various pages of the times, but i’d rather not read any more about sketchy coffee places or revel in scandal-this scandal-that every time i’m looking for political coverage or what’s going on in the world.

how funny about the similar books and ‘the office’! my friend is going to loan us her british ‘office’ collection (the original), so it’ll be fun to compare the differing senses of humor.

Crispix!