Some Photos and Another Lily

This is Mr Kitty. His name was originally just Kitty. He was left behind when his owner moved so I took him food every day. He was scared of me...of all of us...at first. Finally he let me touch his head. Just a quick pat. After awhile he he stood for a couple of pets...mostly because he was really hungry. Now I can pet him without putting food in front of his face. The other morning we sat out with coffee and doughnuts and found out he likes to eat doughnuts. Sometimes he will come in the house too. He is still getting used to us and to our other cats. Tuffy will act friendly but our tabby Fluffy still growls and hisses at Mr Kitty. I took this when Mr Kitty followed me out when I took the cactus flower photos below.

The cactus bloomed again. This time there were so many flowers that some of the stalks broke and the flowers fell to the ground. I'm not sure why this happened. Still there are lots of new cactus coming up and I can see that eventually they will have to be thinned back.

Lilies

Was sitting out enjoying the late afternoon, watching the birds and humming birds, then saw the last of the sun shinning through the lilies. Most of the glow was gone by the time I grabbed my camera. Will be ready for this tomorrow. Still I got a couple of nice photos.

Hailey

Agapanthus

Called Lily of the Nile these flowers are not lilies and they come from South Africa. They are actually closer to the amarylis also from South Africa.

Hot Day Cool Water

Hailey enjoying the pool.

Fire Planes

A few weeks ago we had a fire in the hills near here. We could see flames from my place and then the sky was filled with a haze of smoke. After the scare we had a few years ago fires make me very nervous. The fire department was on it and so were the air tankers from Ramona. There was a helicopter too. We could see the fire retardant being dropped. It didn't take all that long to get the fire out. Later we saw on the news that the fire was caused by a motorhome being set on fire. The person in the motorhome ran and while suffering burns was saved. I sat out and took some photos. Wasn't my best day for that. Guess I was tense from the fire and didn't have my camera set right. I did get two photos of one of the planes that were not so bad.

The sky looks light grey from the smoke.

Cactus Blossoms

Cirque du Soleil

Hailey and Jackie and I went to see Totem a production of Cirque du Soleil at the Del Mar Fairgrounds. It was wonderful. Lovely costumes and fun performances. Jackie had been to Cirque du Soleil before but it was all new to Hailey and me. Our seats were at the side but we were in the first row. We had a great view of the show. I had seen one of their shows on TV but it is so much better live. One of the acts was a roller skate couple on a small round platform. They were both beautiful and great skaters. It reminded me of a skating couple that did much the same thing on the top of a platform on top of a moving car in a parade we went to when I was a child.

Totem is so worth seeing. There are no cameras allowed but you can see the web page here http://www.cirquedusoleil.com/en/shows/totem/default.aspx

I've been uploading my web pages and am pretty much done with all that I had before. I've been using the Coffee Cup editor and their ftp program. Works great.

My Old Web Page

For many years I had a webpage. A few months ago I took it  down thinking that I would find a new server and put it back. The hard drive where my old files are saved was missing for awhile. I found it shoved in a cupboard after some searching.

My new site for the most part it is the same as it was. I have my roses and some art work and photos. It isn't all there yet but it is getting there. My web address is dotcombs.net. I have another web address at dotcombs.org but that one will take awhile to do something with. Back when I started we didn't have the blogs and photo sites that we have now, so I used my pages to show off my photos.

A few years ago I took a class in web design learning Dreamweaver. It was interesting and a lot can be done now, but I'm still using the simple html that I started with. Somewhere I lost my Dreamweaver serial number and the original owners sold the program to another company. I downloaded it when I got it and so didn't have disks. So lost it when I changed computers. I do have it on a hard disk somewhere but no way to make it work. I learned the hard way to never just download an expensive program...send for the disks.

My Nook

I've been reading my way through Tony Hillerman's Leaphorn-Chee books on my Nook. I first read some of these back in the early 1980s though the first book in the series was published in 1970. This series is first great mystery fiction and second an insight into the Navajo of the southwest. The first books I read were borrowed and returned so over the years I didn't get the chance to re read them. So it was a treat to read them again. Almost as if for the first time. I'm getting old and my memory isn't always that good. Two of the later books I had in hardback from Costco...but they are packed away somewhere so now they too are downloaded onto my Nook. I didn't start at the beginning with the first book so the continuing story of Joe Leaphorn and Jim Chee was not chronological. I would suggest that anyone reading this series for the first time start at the beginning with the first book and then read them in squence.

There was a movie made of one of the books in 1991 that to me was disappointing. Then PBS filmed three of the books and this series was very well done.

A critic writing on the web had some hard criticism for some of the last of the books in this series. Re reading them I like them just fine. One book, "The Wailing Wind," was sad and a bit hard to re read. I think that is my only criticism of these wonderful books. Tony Hillerman wasn't an author that put out several books in a year. So there are just 18 in the series that covers a period of 26 years. The lives of Joe and Jim changed and grew and aged over these years. It is sad to think that the last in this series really is the last. Tony Hillerman died in 2008.