Spunk with Spunk, Spunk, Spunk and Spunk

Najar trying to stare down the camera

Patti called last night on her way home to tell me the Sandias were pink and the moon was rising between the mountains and the clouds. Since I was still at the office, I knew the only place I could see the Sandias was from the top of the parking structure where I am banned for life. I thought "the hell with it" and Bruce and I ran over to the parking structure, hoofed it up the 10 flights of stairs to the 5th level, and out to the east edge of the parking structure. The moon had been swallowed by the clouds and the pink had faded away, but turning to the south, the sky was a brilliant mixture of yellows, oranges and tinted grays.

Tonight, Laurie texted me that the moon looked like it was starting to show through the clouds. When I walked out to my car, the heavy clouds were clearing and the super moon was rising between the Sunshine Building and the Data Center, peeking through a misty layer of thin clouds.

There was a really nice fire rainbow on my way to work this morning. These colorful clouds probably fall into the category of a circumbhorizontal arc, in which the rainbow colors are formed by refraction of the sunlight off of disc-shaped ice crystals in the clouds.

It's hard to disturb Rosencrantz when he's having a good catnap.

Never ask a twisted photographer like me if he thinks the celery is too limp to cook with the stew meat — he will probably make a photo project out of it —which is exactly what I did by putting the limp celery on the cats, all of whom happened to be napping, to see how they would react.  

Rosencrantz was the first victim of my "Limp Celery on Napping Cats" (original title) photo project, and, as expected, he didn't react at all.  

Lola was next, and she was a whole different story. As it turned out Lola loves limp celery, which made for a new title. Almost immediately after I laid the limp celery on her, she grabbed the end, pulled it under her chin and stared at me. When I tried to take in from her, she put both a hind and front paws on it and gave my hand a rather aggressive look. Once she saw that I wasn't going to take the limp celery from her, she held the top with her hind paws while she groomed herself before pulling the limp celery up to her chin and hugging it with her front paws.  She napped while hugging the limp celery for over an hour before she changed position, which allowed me to recover the stalk of limp celery from her. 

Spunk was the next victim, and he reacted with his usual excess of personality. Sasha just looked at the limp celery, knocked it off and went back to napping. Najar's reaction was much like Rosencrantz's, and Diné thought I was being silly to bother her under the bed with that stupid piece of limp celery.

"Sweet dreams are made of this"

Spunk: "I'm done! Please get this thing off of me you stupid paparazzo!"

Sasha: "What are you up to now? Can't a kitty get her beauty sleep around here?"

Naja was wide-eyed but didn't move.

Diné: "This ain't St. Louis under here Mr. Paparazzo!"

I stepped onto a gnarly path to nowhere — like being swallowed by the valley of death, its briars and brambles cut and sliced and tore my shadow as we passed through the narrow walls where barbed branches grabbed my clothes with their spiky claws, and scratched at my skin as I hurried along trying not to lose sight of my shadow. 

A chilled wind bit the skin on my face, while the sun felt like the fires from hell licking at my back. The path cleared from time to time only to be swallowed up again. I could see my shadow stretched out a little longer with each clearing before it got chopped up again in the undergrowth.

I tripped and stumbled on roots and branches growing into the path, which seemed to narrow into a dark tunnel with each twist and turn. Then, as quickly as we were covered in shadowy gloom, light burst forth as the trail opened up, and I found myself standing on the edge of the river. 

I stood still and looked at the water, trying to focus, feeling free for the moment from the oppressive overgrowth, and my unrelenting shadow — had the path finely come to an end? After my eyes adjusted to the light, I looked up to see the moon rising over the mountains.

After watching to moon rise for some time, I slowly turned to the right to see the sun behind cattails towering over me. I turned slowly to my left and there was my shadow, waiting, looking like a straw man, on a gnarly path that ran along side the river and disappeared to nowhere, somewhere over the horizon.

Spunk reading about the Mazda 787B rotary engine race car that won at Le Mans in 1991. Spunk learned that Mazda remains the only Japanese auto maker to have won the 24 hour race. The 787B's engine has 4 rotors (654cc each) for a total displacement of 2.6 liters. My Mazda RX-8's engine has 2 rotors at 1.3 liters.

Sasha: "What? You woke me up to tell me about some Roto Rooter 'has been' race car?"

Najar: "Japanese? Isn't that like what's on the book thingie in front of me? How many rotors does that scooter on the cup have?"

Najar and Sasha: "Do we look like we really care?"

Lola: "Wow! Like that's really surprising a car with such a small engine could win at La Mans."

Diné: "I could care less about CCs, liters, cubic inches, '1066 and All That'. What do you think? Do I look like a glamorous kitty model?"

Rosencrantz: "I say, I say there. You bothering me with that pesky camera there boy!" 

Photo by D1

Who could blame them. Neither one had any control over their situations. Adopting simple names of D1 and D2, both have always worked in imaging, and were brought together by their current boss only six months ago. In this digital age, one is bought and sold and traded from one company to another, taken up by one boss and handed off to another as quickly as what’s trending finds new directions. Fate may have played a role in bringing D1 and D2 together, but as they were seen as good opportunities by their current boss, they have ended up together because of trends that have come and gone. 

D1 has been working for the current man for almost a year now. Prior to his current job, D1 had worked in fashion, architecture, sports and product imaging. Since he is older, he had been replaced more than once by younger workers, so he became available to his current boss who uses him mostly for nature photography, but he gets to do a lot of special events and various random assignments, as well.  

D2 had worked in architecture, fashion and the portrait industry. Younger than D1, D2 has an impressive set of features that makes her very attractive. D1 is no slouch on what he has to offer, and is himself quite attractive, and produces great work, but being older, D1 has more narrow views and he doesn’t do video; whereas, the younger D2 has a much broader perspective, and she does video.

As it happened, soon after D2 joined the team, not only were D1 and D2 rarely separated from each other, both working on nature gigs, special events and and various random gigs, their boss started making them share the same camera bag. Since they were spending a lot of time in the sack together, digital nature took its course, and they produced a little one named Rebel. Rebel has all the fine attributes of D1 and D2 in a small package. He has already been adopted, and is producing fine work for his boss.

Photo by D2

D1, Rebel and D2 posing with a whiny Cubs Fan