Here in this stretch of the Rio Grande Valley, anyway, we’re enjoying a mild winter. A pleasant surprise, inasmuch as most of the rest of the country, and I guess the Northern Hemisphere, is getting slammed by savage cold and snowfall for the second year [...]]]> No, seriously. The day is beautiful. It’s not about the band.

Here in this stretch of the Rio Grande Valley, anyway, we’re enjoying a mild winter. A pleasant surprise, inasmuch as most of the rest of the country, and I guess the Northern Hemisphere, is getting slammed by savage cold and snowfall for the second year in a row. At the same time we seem to also be enjoying, once again, record or near-so snowpack in the higher elevations, meaning upstream. Meaning we should have pretty good supply of water once spring melt begins.

It’s just about dead mid-winter. Of course, that’s here in the real world, where season change pretty reliably around the beginning of the appropriate month – March, in the case of the next one. Indeed it should start feeling and smelling like Spring in the latter half of February. Not that spring here is unmitigated joy, especially early on: it can still be cold and tends to be brutally windy.

I was moved to all this when sitting on the porch briefly around noon, having returned from breakfast with Joe at our favorite VI. I was soaking in some sunshine and communing with a friendly neighborhood cat, and I noticed a House Finch with a beautiful red head hanging out in one of the two currently bare elm trees out front. With him was a drabber greyish-brown bird that I’m supposing was Mrs. Finch. The bird books offer little help other than to confirm that female House Finches are indeed drab and nondescript.

I don’t know if House Finches actually go away for the winter; I suspect not. I still regard them as harbingers of spring, That’s usually when I first notice them. It may be because they’ve gotten their new plumage so you can tell them (the males at least) from all the other little drab birds, or it may be that I start being outdoors more often and longer.

Robins never really go away from around here, although I do see more of them in spring than over the winter when walking Emma. Years ago an expert in local birds who was giving a seminar at the RGNC said that the real sign of spring was when the vultures returned to Albuquerque. Make of that what you will.

On other fronts – I note with sadness that Number Six has finally left The Village for good.

The Danger Man site linked to in this article on “Patrick McGoohan and The Prisoner in France” (which is subtitled How TV’s most individualist character made a communitarian country swoon, and is worth a read itself) brought me something I’ve wanted for a long time. As a kid I hugely enjoyed McGoohan’s Danger Man, broadcast here as Secret Agent (and for fans of both series: The Prisoner’s Number Six was totally a retired John Drake from the first series, right? Right?) While I found the Johnny Rivers theme for the US version, “Secret Agent Man,” deeply okay, I loved the harpsichord music that was always played at the opening of each episode.

The Danger Man site offers free MP3 downloads of music from the show, including both “Secret Agent Man“ and the piece I really liked, which it turns out is called “High Wire“ (ignore that the site lists it as “Hire Wire.”) Listening to it – for the first time in 40-odd years – some odder than others, granted – *rimshot!* – I wonder if it’s really a harpsichord. But it sounds like a harpsichord, and I still enjoy it.

As an added bonus they offer Ron Grainer’s haunting and excellent theme to The Prisoner.

Much as I admire Captain Mal’s, “I aim to misbehave” from Serenity, nothing can match the thrill I used to feel hearing McGoohan’s defiant cry: “I am not a number! I am a free man!” Even if it was followed by the mocking laughter of the New Number 2. (Of whom the best was Leo McKern.)

Anyway, Patrick – be seeing you!

Finally, on the off chance you’re still interested, here’s another picture of that Airbus floating on the Hudson. Airbus and US Airways must hate people like me. Even though it appears neither company had much to do with the crash, which seems to’ve been caused by Canada geese. Or elite al-Qa’ida Suicide Geese Commandos, as Faux News undoubtedly has it.

I can haz vodka?

I love how the dog’s wearing the trademark striped VDV t-shirt [...]]]> First, for no better reason than that it tickles the hell out of me, from the eXiled comes this picture of a purse dog being carried by a former Russian paratrooper – the happiest-looking critter I’ve seen since this history-making cat:

I can haz vodka?

I love how the dog’s wearing the trademark striped VDV t-shirt as well as the beret.

Next, as I’ve said before, seasons in NM change pretty much the beginning of the month – in this case, Fall usually does so September 1st.  If not before.

It’s also usual for the advent of the coming season to become obvious about two weeks before the month change. It’s very sensory:  the length of the days, the quality of light, the feel and smell of the air.

The first harbinger of Autumn, though, is my birthday.  Which happened last Sunday; I had a very nice day, thank you very much. (And a party tomorrow – email me if you’re in Burque and want to come!)

It’s a bittersweet time of year for me. I love my birthday; always have. And I feel obligated to feel an attachment to Summer, even though it’s hot, if not so hot this year, and as if to compensate, humid this year. And even though it’s been a long time since I suffered through it first-hand, the end of summer always means the beginning of the psychological and emotional abuse of school slavery. I still feel sorry for the kids who’re getting their natural, indeed hormonal, love of learning ground out of them in order to turn them into unquestioning conscripts, consumers, and corporate cogs.

Still and all, Fall is my favorite season:  Summer without the heat; Spring without the winds; and charms of its own such as the leaves turning color, the air beginning to nip, the smell of piñon smoke in the evenings.

One of the greatest autumn delights for me is always the smell of roasting green chile (and also, well, fresh roasted green chile itself.) It pervades the city, at least the North Valley, for weeks.

This afternoon I went on a major supply-buying expedition. One of my stops was the Fruit Basket on North Fourth (I know two of them, the other being on Twelfth just north of Candelaria):  my go-to source for fine, mostly locally-grown produce. And I got a happy surprise in the form of the awning-covered kiosk set up in the parking lot, shading stacked burlap bags and black wire-mesh drums:  it means chile-roasting time is about to arrive!

Or so I thought. It turned out that it already had, although they seemed to have packed it up for the day by the time I got there. As I checked out I found waiting, cleverly by the cash register, plastic bags of fresh-roasted chiles. Which were still warm. Ooh, baby!

I bought one. You’d've done the same. If you love green chile, anyway.