Water

I was planning to go to a council meeting, a public hearing about a fracking ordinance. I believe that fracking should be carefully regulated because it can impact groundwater. And we’re all on well water out here. So I moved a client to a different time specifically so I could attend.

But there was a car accident at the bottleneck to get across the river to Rio Rancho, a big suburb north and west of Albuquerque.  And it was rush hour. And the freeways were backed up both ways from people commuting down from Santa Fe and up from Albuquerque, all trying to go west across that river to Bernalillo and Rio Rancho. I come from the opposite direction, the hills of rural Placitas. And coming down that hill I could see the backup stretched out in all directions at the bottom of the hill.

And I thought, how am I going to deal with the upset and anger being expressed at a fracking hearing if I can’t even deal with the traffic getting there? So I turned around and went most of the way back home, to the little cafe on the corner within walking distance of my house.

They have an organic green bean dish that I always order. (It’s so hard to find organic food at restaurants). And I’m not sure if the oil is organic (probably not), but at least the beans are.

Ironically, I prefer not to drink the local water unless it’s been filtered, and the little cafe doesn’t offer bottled water. So I bought a bottle of club soda at the adjacent corner store, brought it to the cafe, and settled in to listen to live jazz and read the Alibi, which is a local Albuquerque free paper.

Hopefully all my neighbors went to the meeting to help save our water, water that I won’t even drink, because already this environment is too hard for my over-reactive, migraine-prone body.

Oooh, look at the ad I just spotted in the Alibi!

Ohhh and another!

These are both on Silver Avenue, which is where I lived when I rented part of a house when I first moved to Albuquerque in 2005, before buying my townhouse a couple months later. I remember walking to Annapurna.