November 14, 2004
It was an amber alert. Everyone knew an attack was coming, they just didn't know when. Sleeper cells had activated on Saturday morning and made various probes at the defenses, trying to spot the weakest points.

The strike, code-named "Packrat Freedom" came off at three hundred hours today. A borrowed pair of kitchen tongs and four grocery bags (Bashas' and Albertson's) made up the special ops munitions, and the first Dadtallion, the point of the spear, so to speak, went in first, pouncing on the hood area of the '49 Ford like a weasel on a Weasels for Mayhem vacation. The team leader, began removing acres of dead cholla from around the wheel wells. Dog soldiers, led by Peaches and Buddy (way back, in reserve, if you call under a palo verde tree, reserve) took up positions beneath the car waiting for the trapped insurgents to appear.

Much swearing (those RPG cholla really hurt when they stick ya) yet 35 minutes and four bags full of cholla later, not one insurgent had appeared. So we called in the artillery. A garden hose from the back yard did the trick, softening up the defenses with well-aimed firepower, until the first, fat little rat leader scurried across the engine wall and Peaches grabbed him in a dog-like grip and took him out to Guantanimo (the driveway) to play with.

Earlier, a bird had flown into the studio and like the two dozen birds before him, he flew from hat to hat, leaving a little bird calling card on each and every lid. I finally went up to the loft and tried to shoo him downstairs and out the door, but he took a left turn and went into the bathroom. I was actually relieved because I figured in that small, contained space I could keep him away from the dogs, capture him and take him outside and grant him his freedom. I closed the door, had him cornered in the shower, but he scurried free, hit the window and before I could get to him and thus save his little life, he went to the bottom of the door and scurried under the crack, straight into Peaches' mouth.

But it wasn't all death and destruction out here on the Sonoran Desert. Kathy and I got up early and headed downtown to the Matador for huevos rancheros (free, they never charge us, but we left a $4 tip for the waitress and a $5 tip for the mariachis, plus $1 for parking) and a visit to the Phoenix Art Museum to catch the annual Cowboy Artist's show ($18 cash). Always inspiring, although much of that stuff is getting quite tired. My faves were painted by the usual suspects, Roy Anderson (an old neighbor), John Moyers (a very colorful wood carrying donkey) and a couple others.

Got home around one. Worked on Johnny-Behind-the-Deuce. May try another one, although I can't keep repainting this. Many other scenes to do.

"In the discipline of the human, the toil of doing the work precedes the delight of understanding the truth."
—Aurelius Augustinuss