Category: 2018

Happy Monday Morning!

I’m so grateful I don’t have to make the commute. My colleagues driving up from Albuquerque came in this morning with stories of 2 1/2 hour commutes, black ice, cars sliding off the freeway and one rolled car. I wish, wish, wish I could allow my Albuquerque employees to work at the Albuquerque office. There’s an Albuquerque office, but we still make them drive to Santa Fe! The most I can allow them to work at the Albuquerque office is 2 days a week, as per state policy. The other 3 days they have to make the commute to Santa Fe.

The tasks my team is responsible for could easily be done at home, but whatever. That’s certainly not an option that I’m able to authorize. But if I was making the decisions, there’s no way my team would be out driving this morning.

This is just a wee little bit of snow. But sometimes that’s the worst kind, when accompanied by black ice.

Laura and Alex hiked Half Dome yesterday. What I (luckily) didn’t know until she was home safe, was that it’s past the official season, and the cables are no longer strung up on their supports at hand-rail height.

Here’s a random article explaining it. https://www.outdoorproject.com/blog-news/climbing-half-dome-shoulder-season

Off season requires some climbing gear and experience. Laura says it’s actually safer that way, because you’re roped in, rather than just holding onto the cables. Either way, not something I could do. That second-to-last photo of theirs makes my hands sweat just looking at it.

Congrats Laura! Great climb!

Friday was a day of power and promise. You know those days when you’re on the top of your game and everything seems possible? When risks seem manageable and positive outcomes ensured. It’s always fun to do something a little risky – but not too risky – on those days.

There’s a Mexican restaurant we frequent when in Santa Fe. It’s not particularly good, but it has two distinct advantages. First, it’s within walking distance, just across Rodeo Road, next to the gas station. Secondly, they serve an enormous piece of carrot cake. John and I are quite fond of carrot cake, but even so, it takes both of us two days to eat one slice of their carrot cake.

If you’re wondering what Mexican food has to do with carrot cake, the answer is nothing. It’s just that Mexican food here is like American food in the rest of the country. It’s just normal food. And who doesn’t want carrot cake after dinner? It’s also quite common to get garlic bread with your Mexican food. Because, why? Because who doesn’t like garlic bread? The sopapillas though, those are for the tourists. (Not that the locals mind. We eat them too. You can’t really go wrong with fried dough served with honey, legitimized by being served at an actual restaurant rather than the fairgrounds.)

But I’m veering from my topic. Back to the local Mexican restaurant – the food is authentic – which doesn’t always mean particularly good. Imagine an average person from Mexico who can cook ok, but isn’t a chef. Just like me – if I were to go overseas and start an American restaurant, it would indeed be authentic – and reasonably good (not awful), but not exceptionally good.

I’ve always wanted to order menudo. It’s a type of chili stew made with tripe (beef stomach) and hominy, which is dried corn kernels soaked and cooked in lye. The process leaves the kernels approximately the size and texture of canned chickpeas (but much more yummy). We eat hominy all the time in New Mexico, as a staple for soups and stews. It annoys me that I can’t find it in organic form, because it’s such a basic food here, and I try to eat everything organic except when I’m at a restaurant.

Anyway, back to the menudo – I was not too concerned about eating tripe. I’m quite comfortable with organ meats, such as liver. But I had been warned that menudo is an acquired taste. I figured it couldn’t be as bad as the rotting fish that people in far northern Europe eat, or natto (fermented soybeans that look like beans covered in snot and smell revolting) that people in Japan eat.

The menudo arrived and John leaned back away from it. I said, “Hu, it sure smells like a cow.” That was a very generous statement. It actually smelled like a feedlot. It reeked of cow piss. Or maybe cow piss reeks of tripe? I took a little bite. Edible, but not yummy. Tripe, I discovered, is the consistency of a big lump of fat. But I was determined to try a few bites, to get used to it, to see if I could actually like it.

The menudo came with a side dish of chopped raw onion and a liberal spoonful of dried oregano. I dumped it all in and stirred. It certainly wasn’t going to make it any worse. It actually seemed to improve the dish, or maybe I was getting used to it. I managed my 4 bites and set it aside. We pushed it as far away from our noses as we could on the little table, and agreed to take it home for the dogs.

Of course we can’t give the dogs an entire bowl of chili stew and expect their digestive systems to survive the insult. But we do put about a half-teaspoon of watered-down people food on top of their dry kibble, which they greatly appreciate. They love to feel like they’re eating what we’re eating.

An entire bowl of chili would last the dogs a very long time. So the next day, Saturday, I got it out of the refrigerator and chopped it up into little bits and packaged it into small portions to freeze for the dogs in the coming weeks. I noticed it had congealed into a solid reddish mass in the fridge, indicating a high lard content. I knew the dogs would love this cow-stinking glob of chili-red fat.

Funny thing was, I couldn’t smell it at all. At all! After it reeked of feedlot the day before. It probably didn’t smell as strong after refrigeration, but it was actually because of my migraine cycles.

My migraine cycles affect my sense of smell – sometimes my sense of smell is very acute, and sometimes I lose the ability to smell entirely. I knew I was gearing up for a migraine. I had felt invincible on Friday, and then was unreasonably irritable and randomly bursting into tears on Saturday.

Actually the unexpected bout of tears wasn’t quite random. I’ve mentioned before that I have sensory integration issues. Just like smells are sometimes extremely penetrating and other times completely undetectable, sounds can also be very hard for me to deal with.

At the point on Saturday, when I suddenly burst into tears, all I was doing was sitting on the couch, resting. John came over to find out what was wrong, and I really didn’t know. I couldn’t figure it out. He turned off the sound on the TV in order to talk with me (the TV was, at that moment, playing ads during his football game), and I was instantly better. It was the ads causing the trouble, and I didn’t even realize it. I don’t mind the sound of the games, but sometimes I don’t do well with the ads.

We were having some scattered showers that afternoon, but clearly I needed some fresh air. John suggested a bike ride, but it seemed too hard to me, even though we have a wonderful paved trail that meanders along the arroyo and through the neighborhoods, far from traffic, and hardly ever even crosses a street. We had a lovely bike ride the day before, but I wasn’t up for it on Saturday.

I agreed to go for a walk instead. I put on my glasses and my rain hat with a brim, and pulled my rain jacket hood on top of that, so that everything was covered except my nose poking out. It was silly because it was barely sprinkling, but I felt safe wrapped up that way, shielded from the weather or anything out there that could assault me. John took my hand as we walked along the empty path in the light, intermittent rain.

The next day, Monday, was a holiday. I woke up feeling fine. I knew, from warning symptoms the previous day, that a migraine was heading my way. But so far, I felt great and I really wanted to go jogging. It was risky. Jogging can make a migraine worse. But if I refrained from jogging every time I thought a migraine might be coming, I’d never jog. It was a beautiful morning, with the sun shining between the developing clouds. We ran leisurely through the neighborhood. I love that trail.

I spent most of the morning writing (not this blog – another project I’ll tell you about another time). But by late morning, the migraine was upon me. I took round-one of meds and kept writing. By round-two of the meds, I was done writing, and tired, but doing ok. Still enjoying life. John made cookies and we talked about our weekend projects.

After John headed back to Placitas that evening, to get ready for the work week ahead, I rummaged in my fridge for something to eat. Not seeing anything appealing, I pulled open the freezer and noticed the little packages of chopped and frozen menudo, now marked, “for dogs.” It sort of sounded good to me. And I was curious. Would it reek like a feedlot like it did on Friday? Or smell of nothing at all, like it did on Saturday?

I got out a little package, about 1/4 cup worth, and stuck it in the microwave. I decided to use it as a dipping sauce for tortilla chips. I sniffed at it hesitantly. It smelled like chili and onion and oregano. Mmmm – maybe a little cow-ish. Definitely cow-ish. I dipped in a tortilla chip. It was delicious.

I realized at that first bite that the dogs weren’t going to get any of this. This was going to be my new go-to comfort food, when it was cold and dreary this winter. The next thing I knew, that little dish of menudo was empty, and my handful of corn tortillas was only half-gone. I tried to scrape the inside of my little round bowl with a large, triangular tortilla chip, and it wasn’t working. I briefly considered sticking that bowl right into my face and licking out the remaining bits of menudo, because after all, no one was home to see me. But I refrained. Didn’t someone once say we are our truest selves when alone?

So instead, I fixed up my other favorite comfort food – fresh artichokes boiled with garlic. Artichokes, a comfort food? They are nothing but a big thistle, nearly impossible to eat! Admittedly, the process is inelegant, scraping artichoke flesh from the leaves with you teeth, and leaving big piles of scraped leaves on your plate. But for me they are wonderful – an intricate and calming excuse to slowly eat mayonnaise. I will only eat Best Foods mayonnaise, which, as I first noticed when I was a little kid, says in fine print on the jars, “Known as Hellmann’s east of the Rockies.”

I don’t know how to post about my week.

My kids are both having health tests done for two different potential autoimmune issues. We’re assuming everything’s fine. But it’s hard to watch my own kids struggle with health issues at such a young age.

I always figured it would be me…and I do have migraines, which are not completely benign. The amount of damage migraines cause is not proportionate to the amount of pain, which, I suppose, is why people say they are harmless. But they’re not harmless. There is slow brain damage and other types of damage being done. On top of the significant lifestyle restrictions they cause me. But migraines are at least a known and familiar issue. They’re something my kids and I have always dealt with. Now we’re looking into unknowns.

Meanwhile at work there was so much political drama that I, my entire team, and my boss, all dusted off our resumes. We were all going to just get out of there. It turns out that my boss and I both completely misread the political climate, we both way over-reacted, and he and I managed to get my team all spun up for no reason. In fact, the entire department is probably all spun up now because, obviously, they’re all going to talk with each other.

This is probably what I’d consider my biggest mistake since starting there. Now I’ve got to somehow reassure my team, and hope they don’t all leave. The reason for the misunderstanding has to do with the significant differences between the culture within state government and industry.

Environmental scientists can basically work in four types of areas. You can work for the government (local, state, federal). You can work as an internal employee for industry companies who need to comply with environmental regulations (like Sandia), or you can work for consultants who help industry with their environmental obligations. Or you can work for an NGO (non-profit).

My boss, myself, and most of my team have prior experience with either industry or consulting (which are similar), and also several have a military background (which is even more hierarchical than industry). I don’t really have time to explain all the details right now, but the bottom line is, those of us who aren’t familiar with working for the government have been taking too seriously the types of memos and messages that routinely circulate within state government. Employees who are familiar with working at the state don’t worry about all the little micromanaging directives from above. But those of us coming out of industry and consulting (and the military) are taking those messages to indicate that we’re doing a poor job and our management is quite displeased, when that’s not the case at all. We have been over-reacting to messages that all the seasoned state employees are basically ignoring.

My other big mistake was not going to my upper management to clarify their intent. I come from a culture where you “don’t go over your boss’s head.” Turns out I’m the only manager that our new top boss doesn’t know very well, and she didn’t know why I wasn’t stopping by to chat. Uh…because you’re the big boss?

So going forward, I’m going to be building my relationship with my upper management, and attempting to reassure my team and my immediate boss, that everything is actually ok.

Meanwhile, Darren is buying a house! He went under contract yesterday. It’s a cute 2-story within biking distance from his office. It’s an older neighborhood, and they are tearing down the decrepit houses, splitting the big lots into two or three small, narrow lots, and putting up tall skinny brand-new houses right next to each other.  The garages are detached behind the house (access off an alley) and there is a private patio between the house and the detached garage. The living room is on the back side of the house, facing the patio.

John and I wouldn’t like being jammed tight like that next to the neighbors. But Darren doesn’t want the upkeep of a big yard, nor does he believe in “using potable water” for landscaping. He also has no interest in having to deal with little house projects. It’s a brand new house – don’t scratch the counter top! Oh my gosh, I’ve never lived in a new house and I’d just be afraid to touch anything.

He qualified for the loan by himself, although he plans to get two roommates to help with the cost of the mortgage. It’s a 3-bed, 3-bath, so enough room for two roommates, which will pay a lot of his mortgage. Apparently he would rather have roommates than fix-it projects. Which is exactly how I would be if I didn’t have John to do my fix-it projects for me (and be my roommate).

Speaking of fix-it projects, we had minor issues at two of the rentals this week (on top of everything else). One required a service call, and the other one John was able to fix. When you’ve got too many houses, there’s always something breaking or water leaking.

I better get to work. You-all have a good weekend.