Winter Settling Moon II
Yesterday. Business meeting at the Wildflower Cafe in Evergreen again. The waitress gave us menus, but said, “You probably don’t need to look at them!” Felt good to be recognized.
The drive there and back along our road, variously Brook Forest Road, Black Mountain Drive and Shadow Mountain Drive holds so many beautiful spots: rocky outcroppings covered with snow, distant peaks with snow dusted conifers, homes built from stone and timber, meadows with frost sparkling shrubs. The Rockies here may not have much variation in fall foliage, aspens and hardly anything else, but they change their look with each change in weather. No drive into Evergreen has looked the same. (this house is along Brook Forest Road and sold for $745,000 in 2013)
Afterward I came up here to the loft and began assembling bookshelves. This is an exciting task for me since it moves my library closer to its Shadow Mountain configuration.
We’ve still got a lot to do, hence Settling Moon II, yet this is already home.
Later in the afternoon I headed out to Aurora for sheepshead with a Meetup group, folks I didn’t know: Bill, organizer of the meetup, Ryan, a dad with two young girls, Mark, with a young child and an older stepson living at home and Terry, Mark’s dad, a retired dairy farmer from Wittenberg, Wisconsin who lives in Denver during the winter, Wisconsin during the growing season.
Originally we were to play at Helga’s German Restaurant in Aurora, but it was full, so we moved to an IHOP nearby on Mississippi Avenue. We had to get used to each others’ conventions and playing style. That didn’t take long. The evening went until 9 pm, my current bed time, so I felt like a real Bohemian. Out late, drinking coffee, playing cards.
Fortuna did not smile on me. I had one hand I played alone and lost by one point and another that I buried, but could have had another play it alone hand. I was timid in my play, not usual for me, but new circumstances. Too, each of the others had played since childhood, taught in their families. Lots of good card sense around the table.
The evening though was a winner. I made some new acquaintances whom I liked, laughed often and enjoyed the solitary drive through Denver and back into the mountains. A sickle Settling Moon II had its horns upturned, bright behind clouds that at times made it look like a silvered boat afloat on an ocean of down. A good day.
