FROM SCOTTSDALE, ARIZONA

Snow, Sunset in Scottsdale

SCOTTSDALE, Feb 4, 2008 - One day after the Superbowl XLII, winter returned to the Phoenix area with a vengeance.  First it rained, and then it even snowed at higher elevations.

As I drove off to run some errands around 5PM this afternoon, you could see the peaks of the McDowell Mountains that line the eastern boundary of Scottsdale covered with snow.  My car thermometer was showing 44F at a time we usually register the daily highs.

As I was driving back from my errands, about an hour later, the sunset was spectacular. The McDowell Mountains were basking in red glow as the fluffy clouds and light snow enveloped the peaks, like cotton wool strewn around them.  The scene was downright ethereal.

As I was approaching my home at Grayhawk, the Day was fighting a losing battle with the Night.  The Day reluctantly yielded to the forces of darkness, then let out a shriek of light that lit up the western sky as the Day's final gesture of defiance.  "I shall return," echoed the sky.

And that's all she wrote on this frigid Monday, Feb 4...

Well, not quite all.  Shortly after I had posted the above pictures, I got some beautiful photos of the snow-capped McDowell Mountains that Ida took this afternoon from her house. So voila, here's one of them!

Sparkling Sedona

SCOTTSDALE, Feb 8, 2007 - When I posted the above photos on Monday about the snow in Scottsdale, a friend of mine from Sedona said she would manifest that the Thursday weather be beautiful for my drive up to meet with her.  And it was.  Sedona was simply sparkling, as you can see...

Entering Sedona in the direction of the Bell Rock.  The drive in from the I-17 was very slow as there is major construction (road widening) going on.  This will go on for the rest of 2008.  For those of you who can choose a different way into Sedona (from Cottonwood or Oak Creek Canyon, for example), I highly recommend it.

Speaking of Oak Creek Canyon, the hills above it still have snow on them, as you can see from the above photos taken from the Starbucks at the Hyatt Residences.

British Humor

SCOTTSDALE, Feb 8, 2007 - A friend of mine sent me some examples of British humor expressed through real life pictures.  Have a chuckle on him...

And that's all she wrote from this quick trip to Sedona and Britain (vicariously).

Mantelpiece: A New "Art Project"

SCOTTSDALE, Feb 9, 2007 - Some of you who have followed my four-dimensional art project (my Grayhawk home) since it was just a blank canvas back in October 2005, may recall that I have been contemplating various designs for a mantelpiece above my fireplace.  One interior decorator was even going to order one from India or Pakistan, as I recall.

Well, a recent incident gave a new impetus to that old idea.  In the process, it also illustrated how one can find a silver lining around most clouds.

When Ida and Stephanie came over to help with cooking the first part of the traditional Serbian Christmas meal on Jan 7, the weather was cold and rainy.  So I have the fireplace going the whole morning.  The next day, however, I noticed black smoke marks all the way up to the mantelpiece (which at the time was the same color as the wall - see the left photo taken in July 2006).  Evidently, I had forgotten to fully open the flu.  Par for course, I suppose, for a desert rat who rarely uses the fireplace.

Well, a few days ago, I had my handyman repaint the lower part of the wall.  Which inspired me to use the opportunity to finally do something about that mantelpiece.

Well, that turned into a two-day art project.  But it was worth it, I think.  Take a look...

I won't bore you with details, but you can see the work-in-progress yesterday after the first two coats of paint (left), and the finished product in the other three photos, taken this evening.

Was the two-day effort worth it?  Well, you be the judge...

Enjoy your weekend!

New Sculpture, My First Saturday Concert; My Rock Mosaic

SCOTTSDALE, Feb 24, 2007 - As you saw from my First Saturday Concert videos, my renovated piano is now back, and along with it, my joy of music.

Unexpectedly perhaps, along with the love of music returning to my life, there has been a resurgence of creative energies in the sphere of visual arts.  Besides the new mantelpiece, I have also painted a number of relatively trivial items outdoors.  Along with the new flowers, they made the yard look a little more beautiful.  And then you saw yesterday, for example, how I turned those German munitions pieces that my piano restorer had lifted from the piano frame into a new "work of art" - a sculpture that has a symbolic meaning (the two middle photos above).  Can you tell me what it means to you?

(Click here to see what it meant to me... as I created it.  Do you think it's weird, huh?  Too esoteric for you?).

What I have not shown you so far is that other sculpture on the right... that looks like a bunch of rocks in a vase with a yellow flower growing out of the.  There is a lot of symbolism in it that may not be obvious to most.  First, some of the rocks are kind of special to me.  Some of the bigger ones have come from the places where I have lived and loved in the last 15 years. 

There is a piece of "Manderly" there, my former home at the Villages at Camelback.  There is also a rock from the Bolt Hole in Western Australia [yes, I did bring back to Arizona a rock; a rug and a few pieces of jarrah and honey nuts from my property there after I had sold it - call me sentimental, if you wish].  There are also two small rocks each from Grayhawk, Paradise Drive, and the "prayer rocks" at McDowell Mountains.  Just like the two "kissing rocks" in my yard (left photo), one from Camelback and one from Grayhawk, have symbolized a fusion of my former and current life, so do all these rocks in the jar represent a refusion of all my life's experiences in the last 15 years, bound together by new pebbles.  Together, they represent a foundation for my new "joie de vivre," as epitomized by that beautiful yellow flower.

Finally, if you take a look at the photo taken in my office (right), you will notice four small rocks on my antique writing desk, just below that painting that I brought from Hong Kong this past Christmas.  They came from Djurdjevic Tara, the ancestral mountain of the Djurdjevic family in Montenegro, where they had settled after the Battle of Kosovo in 1389 (for more details, see Djurdjevic family history). 

So I guess you could say that I have been collecting rocks from all over the world for a very long time, most of the time unwittingly, without knowing why.  Maybe you can figure it out and tell me?  Could they represent the energy that fuels my spirit like a mosaic of all former lives and places where my soul has been? Or perhaps you think I am simply off my rocker?  :-)  It's okay if you do.  In which case, I am sorry I have wasted your time...

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