A taste of tonight’s funky pre-dusk sky.

It was a good day for a Monday for the most part. I ate Blake’s burrito for breakfast, drank a raspberry mocha, drank 3 bottles of water at work, skipped lunch, and then ate some tacos for dinner tonight.

The tacos part was interesting because an hour before dinner, I had been in the dentist office- getting some enamel fixed on two teeth? No. I remembered the task for the appointment wrong. I had two fillings done, one put in a tooth on each side of my upper jaw, and with the local anesthesia, when I went to eat tacos for dinner, I only felt my lower jaw moving. I could not feel food stuck in the crevice between my upper gums and my top lip, and I could not feel my top lip. I did not taste blood when I was eating, so I did not dice the inside of my mouth up with sloppy chewing or taco shell piercings. I had some trouble drinking water though- I couldn’t feel my top lip to make a strong suction. I was grateful for straws.

Before dinner and after the dentist fun, I drove toward home, and the Sandias were red in the setting sunlight and topped with a smear of pink clouds, so I tried to drive to my chosen mesa place where I hoped I could capture the mountain its clouds in the wonderful light. But I didn’t make it. The glow on its west face faded by the time I was there.

So I went to dinner, and then the evening plan was to meet some people from a local photography group at the Botanical Gardens downtown to take pictures of the displays in the River of Lights exhibit. I drove to the Botanical Gardens a little before 7 PM, when we were supposed to meet, and I then realized I didn’t know who anyone was from the group, so I pulled my phone out to visit Meetup.com to try and contact someone from the group who said they were attending the event- and I realized I didn’t have a clue what my site password was, and I couldn’t log on to the site.

After 15 minutes of waiting and wandering the front courtyard looking for a photographer collective, and finding none, I entered and watered the River of Lights alone.

I still lack technical prowess. I took over 300 pictures this evening, but many of them were under- or over-saturated as I played with settings when the camera was in Manual or Aperture Priority mode, and for two-thirds of the evening, I felt frustrated. The park was also very busy despite the fact it was a Monday night, so it was hard to find subjects that did not have people walking between myself and them.

Bell Hall

Finally, about 30 minutes before the night’s event officially closed, I got the camera into a Manual Mode that seemed right for what I was shooting with the 18-55mm lens (f/5.6, 1600 ISO, and the shutter speed between 1/10 and 1/400, with 1/25 as my most-liked speed). I felt at least I learned a little something tonight, even if it took a few hours to fall into it. I’ll add these settings to an index card I will keep with the camera gear for when I am in a neon light atmosphere again shooting images.

I’m too tired tonight to go through the pics I did get, so I’ll lazily throw one up here, and we’ll call it a night. Here’s the pirate ship!

The pirates dropped a trunk of loot as they sped across the courtyard.

Oddly, after the anesthesia wore off of my upper teeth and gums, it is still the molars on back of my lower right jaw that hurt (still) tonight. I had these teeth worked on a few weeks ago by him, and they/it/something seems to not want to heal or stop barking at me yet.

I am evidently trying to make up for lost time after my mouth was essentially flawless for 45 years.

After stepping on a patch of these this morning, I thought I’d try a 10x macro shot of these two to display their magnificence. I need some focus work.