Moonstruck.

The moon over Laramie hangs like a huge white orb.

I can’t get enough of her.

Even at 7 a.m.

She hangs out in the western sky...

Refusing to give in to brother sun.

 I love when she does that. 

Leaving the nest.

I have to wonder.

Did mama chick have a hard time saying goodbye?

Every chick has to leave the coop some day. 

A spell on you.

Boy, she looks pissed.

Obviously, she’s not from around here. 

Snoalloween is the norm.

Even this jack-o-lantern knows the deal and yet... 

He's smiling!

I Spy.

3 pumpkins.

Do you?

These poor dudes turn to mush after a freeze.

I know.

I had to replace them—twice. 

Adaptation.

I’ve said it before.

I love Halloween


I have the product to show it.

Unfortunately, “Mariah” and her sibs love to play havoc around my front yard.

So I’ve had to adapt. 

This year, however, I managed to get lights on the Charlie Brown tree out front. 

They lasted twenty-four hours.

The wind and the snow rode in by 2 p.m. on November 1^st

Found one of these little guys...

clear across the street. 

Can’t complain though ‘cause the lights were up and flickering on Halloween—

and all the little ghouls loved it!   

Excuse me, but do I know you?

Doppelgängers.

They’re a trick of the mind.

I see them all over the place.

I find myself in mid-greeting, with hand half-raised, ready to hail someone I think I know only to I realize “I don’t,” that they merely resemble someone from back east—sort of. 

Then there’s that vertigo-esque feeling I get when talking to someone and for just a split second I think: “Hang on a sec—how do I know you? From here—from back east?”

Weird.

Really weird!

Stop in mid-sentence kind of weirdness.

It’s doing a number on my mind, leaving me feeling a bit, well... schizophrenic.

It’s hard to explain. 

Maybe my mind—my psyche—is fighting to hang on to my former life as we’ve entered our third year here in Wyoming.

Maybe it’s an adjustment, that everyone experiences, after living in a new place for a while.

It would make for some interesting research.

Research is on my mind, a lot, these days—but that’s another post.

So if I don’t say “hi” to you one of these days, don’t be offended.

It’s because I won’t have figured out if it’s really you, or merely your doppelganger!  

Unrequited Love.

We all know the heartache of unrequited love...

that lonely empty feeling.

Wanting to cuddle next to the person of one’s affections, only to find them unwilling, unfriendly and even hostile.

It’s painful.

I thought I was through with unrequited love.

Little boys grow up, however, and become teenagers who run hot and cold. 

Today is a “running cold” day. 

I remind myself this happens to parents the world over.

As with falling in love and bearing children, one feels like they’re the first and only person to ever experience such feelings and emotions.

So it is with unrequited love. 

The heartache is yours, and yours alone.

So I’ll just keep reminding myself that folks before me have lived through, and survived, the experience.

Who knows, perhaps even my parents…