Halloween - Boise

Was invited to a party with a 'murder' theme.  I went as 'the swine flu'.  Here is my picture, taken by Ryanne. I got the bizarre 'suit' in the robe department at the St. Vincent's.  You stick your feet out through 'cuffs' on the bottom.  It was warm though, and that was my main criteria.

Amanda's house was nice and spooky.

And this is Amanda and her mom.  Amanda was the host of the party, and Tracy is kindly sharing her home with me. 

TWW - Nightmare

Nightmare

sweet becomes sour
in the nightmare hour
thoughts incubate
fear, worry, hate
dreams twist and curl
hopes billow and whirl
much creative vanity
converts to insanity
‘til deep in the dark
a spark lights the way
a return from sleep's madness
to dawn of new day

MYM October 26th

One of my favorite fall color pictures, taken when I was walking on the NW path alongside the Boise river.  This part of the path is paved, and closer to downtown.  It was a gorgeous day, and the air was so crisp and clear.  Now it has started to get colder, and they are even predicting snow one night this week, although I'm hoping they are wrong.

Boise - Wildlife

This cute little guy was playing between the path and the river... we had a stare down.  I won.  There are lots of squirrels here.  Today the car in front of me on 13th, on the way into Hyde Park, slammed on its brakes THREE times to avoid squirrels running across the street.  I slammed on my brakes three times to avoid running into the car in front of me!

Pretty mallard swimming in the Boise River all by himself.

Tracy's dog Mabel, a complete sweetheart, posed nicely.  All in focus but the tail.  That's Mabel, happy girl, can't stop the tail.

Boise - a river runs through it

This is a damn over the Boise River.  There is a man, standing on the rocks and fly-fishing, to the left-center of the photo.

This flock of seagulls seemed a long way from home.

Looking west down the Boise river.  I took these while walking the paths/trail system along the river.  It's a really nice system.  You have to give real points to Idaho for maintaining their citizens access to their riverfront. So many places let the waterfront become private property and hardly anyone can enjoy them.

Boise - Little Bits of Odd

These birdhouses decorate a dead tree in a 'stone' yard on State Street.  I think it is extremely cool, and it looks like the birds do too.

Well, I wasn't expecting a yard full of flamingoes, but that's what I saw in front of a nursery on State St. in Boise.  The blue and orange are not doubt Bronco's fans.   Apparently you can rent the flamingoes... Tracy tells me her kids had 47 of them set on her lawn for her 47th birthday! Now that's different...

This big, ugly guy was spotted outside Tracy's kitchen window at dusk.  We 'misted' the web so that it would show up in the pictures.  Didn't faze the spider one bit.  Can't tell what kind he is, I only hope he's not poisonous to humans, and that none of his relatives live in the house!

More Boise Color

It was so pretty driving around today.  The reds and golds are spectacular... then you have some maroons and greens mixed in.  Tomorrow I plan to drive around and take pictures all day... here's one from today.

Boise Color

I learned something about Boise the other day.... it's name comes from Les Bois, which means, 'The Trees'. 

Right now Boise trees are showing some amazing colors.  I went for a little ride today to see what I could find... this is my favorite, from a yard off Linder and Artesian.  I practically slammed on my brakes in the middle of the road when I saw these reds!  This weekend is supposed to be beautiful, so I plan to do some more exploring.

Joyce Sweeney Workshop #2

Monday I went to the workshop on 'voice', skill number two.  Two people and I 'read'.  I read chapter 2 of Lucky Tuesday after a 'literary' voice read from her short story, and a commercial voice read from his adult crime novel.  It was kind of embarassing, because the chapter book genre requires shorter sentences.  It sounds juvenile (which it is) compared to the other readers.  I sort of wanted to yell 'these aren't the best sentences I can write', it's the genre.  But it went over well anyway, so it wasn't too bad. 
I got my critique back on The Ghost of Old Man Watson - it has a plot problem that is not really defined, and some stilted dialogue at the beginning.  I'm not sure, I know Joyce hated th title, and may have been put off by that at the beginning, her comments were much more positive at the end... I rewrote for the small stuff, but haven't done a major rewrite - need more time and distance.
My in person critique group is finally meeting again tomorrow.  I won't see them again for months and months since I'm going to ID, which is okay.  I don't think they are regular enough to do me any good.  The good news is we finally have an online critique group coming together and hopefully that will be more often and regular. 
I'm thinking that while I'm in ID, I may take the Anastasia Suen class on non-fiction.  It would be a good way to pass the time...