-
New story published, Organ Pipe Cactus trip, blog recap, recap, and New Years memes (Weekend Coffee Share #20)
Happy New Year, friends! I hope everyone had wonderful winter holidays. And a big thanks to Natalie the Explorer intrepid hostess of the Weekend Coffee Share! Thanks, Natalie, for helping me connect to so many awesome bloggers like yourself. Writing News–my latest short story is published! My big writing news: My Christmas horror story, “Woe is Me, Poor Child, for Thee,” has been published in the annual Deathlehem holiday horror anthology. See the linked post for deets. SQUEE!
-
Quick updates (Weekend Coffee Share #13)
Just a few quick updates for the Weekend Coffee Share (hosted by Natalie the Explorer) this week, because I’m swamped today. I hope to get back to my usual debauchery next week. So why am I too busy for a lengthy chat this week? Because: I spent a chunk of yesterday catching up with friends on Zoom (yay! Not quite an in-person coffee share, but pretty dang great.) This morning I have a couple of writing-related webinars from Sisters in Crime, including a gathering for the class I mentioned in last week’s post. The other is on crime scene investigations. Fun! (yes, we writers have an odd definition of, “fun.”)…
-
The desert is in the details: Tucson Mountain Park (Weekend Coffee Share #11)
Good morning, and happy Saturday! Welcome to the Weekend Coffee Share, hosted by Natalie the Explorer. Today we’ll visit the rough, rugged, and prickly scenery of Tucson Mountain Park. I wish we could have coffee in person, maybe sit out on the patio (it’s cool–55F–and sunny this morning) and talk and share and laugh. Dang, I miss doing that. But, as with so many other activities in these plague times, virtual will have to do. So pull up a seat, and let’s share our weeks with each other. As I mentioned in last week’s post, husband and I drove to Flagstaff last weekend. We weren’t there long, just a night…
-
Pincushion cactus flower in Sabino Canyon outside Tucson, Arizona (#FOTD)
Sharing another photo from hubs’ and my attempt to hike in Sabino Canyon a week or so ago (see a few more pix from that aborted hike here). Note to self: do not hike at midday in Tucson in the summer. Sad that I have to leave myself notes about something that should be obvious to anyone with an IQ higher than a cactus, but here we are. Before we slogged back to the car to avoid heatstroke, we snapped a few pix of the local flora, including this adorable pincushion cactus. It’s just a phone pic, and taken in the bright midday sun (see aforementioned note to self), so…
-
Photos from Sabino Canyon Recreation Area (#FOTD)
Hubs and I visited Sabino Canyon for the first time yesterday. We only made it about a half mile on the trail before the heat sent us scurrying (OK, plodding) back to our air-conditioned car. I hear tell there’s a lake and running water further up the trail, but we’ll see that another time, when it isn’t in the 90s and monsoon-humid. Hot or not, it was lovely out in the desert. We’ve had tons of rain–the wettest July on record–so the desert is lush and green and smells of fresh rain and creosote. The cacti are plumped up, and we even saw tadpoles in a puddle along the trail.…
-
Bloom on an organ pipe cactus, Stenocereus thurberi (#FOTD)
Yes, I’m back with yet another cactus blossom for Cee’s Flower of the Day challenge. This one is on the organ pipe cactus in my front yard. Organ pipes are somewhat rare in Tucson. They’re native to an area southwest of here in the borderlands of Arizona (USA) and Sonora (Mexico). They even have their own national monument, named, fittingly enough, Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument. Tucson is supposed to be a little too cold for them, but apparently the one in my yard doesn’t read botanical texts or garden guides. It just grows happily in front of my house, making magnificent blooms like this one. Or this one: Learn…
-
#FOTD: Blooming prickly pear
Yes, it’s another bloomin’ cactus (with a bonus bee!) for Cee’s Flower of the Day challenge. I snapped this pic on my morning walk in the neighborhood last week. Most prickly pears aren’t much to look at most of the year–and then they bloom, and I understand why almost every yard in Tucson has at least one.
-
#FOTD: Blooming saguaros
If you’re a regular here in my little corner of the interwebs, you probably know I’ve become smitten with cacti and especially our enormous, whimsical, and occasionally ridiculous-looking saguaros (see this post and this other post for examples). Well, now my favorite form of desert flora is floriferous, or, to put it less pretentiously, the saguaros are blooming! When they bloom, they look even more whimsical/ridiculous. I think the blooms, especially the ones on the main part of the plant, make them look like characters on The Simpsons. See? Or maybe like they’re carrying multiple bridal bouquets. And maybe I’ve lost my mind. Want to see lots of pretty flowers?…
-
#FOTD: Budding cactus
Today’s entry for Cee’s flower of the day photo challenge is a simple snapshot, taken while I was on a lunchtime walk at work. It’ll win no prizes, but I couldn’t walk past this adorable blooming cactus without capturing it. Since moving to Tucson, I’ve become completely charmed by cacti. I’ve always been a lush cottage garden sort of person, but now that I’m surrounded by desert flora, I’m learning to appreciate the shapes and textures of these amazing plants. See the hint of rust and red in the spines? And the cheerful, whimsical shape of the plant and its pointy buds? I plead guilty to personifying plants, but this…
-
#CMMC: Up close and personal with a saguaro
The theme for Cee’s Midweek Madness Challenge (CMMC) this week is Closeup or Macro. I fell in love with macro photography years ago, when I first bought a decent point and shoot with a macro setting and started taking closeups of flowers. I still take closeups of flowers, but it’s fun to get in close with other subjects too. I’ve written on here before about noticing the details of life and of seeing life through a macro lens, and the older I get, the more value I see in those practices. I live in the Sonoran Desert, home of the saguaro cactus. They are everywhere down here–along the freeway, on…
Suspense | Horror | Romance
