Columns

Don’t forget! Humans vs. Vampires begins Friday the 13th. Get your ribbons at Bonfire Coffee or Dandelion Market. You can still sign up after the official start, but your chances of winning decrease the more you delay. Start as a human with a yellow ribbon clearly displayed around your wrist. Vampires can’t tag you when you’re actively holding a copy of The Sopris Sun. If you put it down or stash it in your back pocket, one little tag and you’re one of them. Surrender your human ribbon to your sire, don the red one and begin seeking out your prey.

The ringing of a cell phone, that ubiquitous irritation, interrupts Thunder River Theatre Company’s funny new production almost from the get-go. But it’s not an audience transgression this time; it’s the play itself. Jean, played by TRTC newcomer Sonya Meyer, occupies a café with a lone stranger, and it’s his phone that’s ringing, ringing, ringing… Jean prompts him: “Your phone is ringing…
“Aren’t you going to answer… Answer the damn phone!”

The days are getting shorter. The colors are starting to change and in a few short months we will be back to a more limited selection of fruits and vegetables. But, for the moment my family is like the black bear about to go into hibernation. We are instinctively gorging ourselves on Olathe corn, heirloom tomatoes, cucumbers and loads of what us Latin folk call calabacitas, or squash.

As you can see, I’m a very serious person. But I am seriously excited to be the newest addition to The Sopris Sun staff — it’s time to get back to my roots (journalism).
And speaking of roots, that’s my real ploy in working here: planting some of my own in Carbondale.

Psst, wanna buy some coastal property?
Despite the news of Harvey and Irma, I was surprised to learn that the husbands of two of my friends do—in Florida no less! Perhaps I shouldn’t be surprised. The Yale Program on Climate Communication has found that nationally, while 69 percent of Americans think that global warming is real and dangerous, only 42 percent think it will harm them personally.

You may have heard there’s an additional polo field going in near the existing one at the Catherine Store intersection. What you might not know is that we’re losing a productive local farm in the process. Why should you care? In this time on the planet, with so much uncertainty about the future coming at us, we do know that we will need to eat. And we will need to grow MUCH more of our food locally as our global food supply is increasingly vulnerable to climate impacts.

Each time I make an appointment for a haircut I tell myself I will try something new; bangs perhaps, or a pixie cut. Although, I’ve never been what you would call pixieish. I come from a long line of large-boned, well-over-six-foot, whiskered highlanders named Horace who lived for 90 years. In fact, I’m not even sure what a ‘pixie’ is… sort of like an elf meets a bird-boned girl from the rainforest? Anyway, I think it sounds adorable!

In the few mind blowing minutes I stood in the dark shadow of the moon, gazing at the beautiful silvery threads of the corona, I was reassured our eclipse chase to The Cowboy State was worth the effort. Through all the packing and loading, through the eight hours in the car with our two boys, and even as we arrived to the crustiest, most dilapidated house ever to be listed on VRBO, I reflected back to the years my parents resolved to show us the heartbeat of America- the inter-workings of this new country we called home. Road tripping was how our family took the initial grand tour of the new land and with each trip we learned to appreciate different aspects our nation.

How amazing are the people of the Roaring Fork Valley! I write these words after a wonderful series of events in the past few weeks of live music, theater, and even a community dinner in the street. The creative process flows strong through our Valley. There was also a delightful offering of celestial origin, a rare alignment between sun, moon and earth.

90 minutes before totality: After days of planning and an eight-hour drive, you pull off the highway into a dirt parking lot by a bluff overlooking the river. You exchange pleasantries (and snacks) with the other groups parked near you, and unwrap your cardboard and plastic eclipse safety glasses. The sky above you is a sunbleached blue, clear of clouds, and you feel excitement mounting.