I discovered, when John and I rented a house with a pool in Tucson in August (yes, I’m still talking about that trip, lol), I discovered that I no longer actually fit very well into my swimsuits that I had bought for our honeymoon a decade ago. 11 years ago actually. It’s that last year that made all the difference.
So I ordered new swimsuits on sale online. Swimsuits never really fit me very well (or most of us, for that matter). How many of us are built like models? So I bought them overly large in order to do my own tailoring (it’s much easier to take them in, in some places, than to take them out in other places).
For years I didn’t think I could wear red, because I was a redhead, and redheads don’t wear red, they wear green (and blue). But my hair never was very red, and the red has been fading with age, so now it’s sort of yellowish. Plus, I’m old now, and don’t care as much anymore. So I bought a red swimsuit.
I sat down with my sewing machine to take it in where it needed taken in, to better fit my non-model body, when I discovered I could not see the red thread up against the red fabric. So heck. This has been coming for awhile. I decided I finally needed to go down to the local drug store and buy cheaters.
I stood there, in front of the display, and looked close-up at my hand and my phone as I tried on many different strengths. But I couldn’t see through any of them. Not the +1.00 or the +1.50 or +2.25 or whatever. Not any of them.
Then an old guy came up behind me, so I stepped out of the way and told him to go ahead – none of them seemed to be working for me anyway. And he said, “Of course they aren’t working for you – you’re too young for cheaters.” And I’m thinking, thanks, old guy, but I can’t see my red thread up against my red swimsuit.
I said, “Thanks, but I’m having trouble seeing what I’m sewing.” And he turned toward me and said, “You don’t need cheaters, you need a magnifying glass.” He said “magnifying glass” slowly, with careful enunciation. Mag-ni-fy-ing-glass. Like I never heard of one.
I was thinking, aren’t cheaters magnifying? And I replied, “I tried a magnifying glass but I can’t hold it, and the fabric, and the needle and thread all at once. I need three arms.”
And he said, “You need a magnifying glass on an arm.” And he described how they make magnifying glasses on a stand, so you can work under them.
So I guess I’m finally of the age that I need to start listening to the wisdom of my elders. At least about some things related to getting older.
The first memory I have of liking Spanish guitar was in elementary school. Our teacher asked us all to bring a favorite record to school. It was probably some sort of cultural appreciation event. (Yeah. A record. What we now call “Vinyl”. I’m dating myself here.)
I doubt I even told my parents I was borrowing it. I probably just headed off to school with our Andrés Segovia record in my hand. I remember being mildly surprised at my teacher’s unexpected approval of my choice. At that point in my life, the likelihood of adult approval vs disapproval was completely mysterious to me.
This being the 1970’s, I could just as easily have brought Jimi Hendrix, Aretha Franklin, Janis Joplin, or Peter, Paul and Mary. But instead, I brought The Unique Art of Andrés Segovia (1969).
After that I moved on to Billy Joel and Gordon Lightfoot (LOL!), and I didn’t think much about Spanish guitar again until my early twenties, when I decided I wanted to learn how to play classic guitar with the goal of learning the Spanish tunes. My lessons only lasted for a couple of weeks until, for completely unrelated reasons, I found myself with a full-time job and a pending divorce. That was the end of my classic guitar lessons.
While my kids were growing up I occasionally played a Julian Bream CD, or a little Segovia. But in general, life was rough, I was young and fighting to survive, and I mostly listened to heavy metal, grunge and later, alternative.
When the kids were grown, I moved to New Mexico. I didn’t initially fully appreciate the culture here. I remember noticing approvingly that there appeared to be a fair amount of racial diversity and that the women drove pick-up trucks and seemed to be in charge.
I soon discovered there was a state-wide obsession with green chili. It took me awhile to even realize that the little tin cans of chilies that I used to buy in the Pacific Northwest were essentially mild (and canned) versions of the locally famous hot and slightly sour spice of the New Mexico Hatch green chili.
It took me longer to understand and develop a taste for the music. I never liked the traditional mariachi, nor did I like the slow crooning of the older Latin music.
But then I discovered that if I listened to the Spanish radio stations, I couldn’t understand the advertisements. And ads are much less annoying when they’re in a language that I can’t understand! Then I realized that I actually prefer Latin popular music over the English versions of American popular music. The Latin vibe adds depth, in my opinion.
Then one day when John and I were playing a YouTube compilation of Spanish guitar, we discovered Jesse Cook. Ironically, he is Canadian (and born in France). But nonetheless, he plays rumba flamenco. Or sometimes his music is called nuevo flamenco. And it’s awesome.
We recently got to go see him in concert at the KiMo theater.
The KiMo Theater is very interesting inside. It was built in 1927 using traditional Native American designs, which have been preserved.
The symbol that looks to us like a swastika actually had a positive connotation in several cultures around the world, including traditional Native American cultures. According to the internet, “To the Hopi it represented the wandering Hopi clans; to the Navajo it represented a whirling log ( tsil no’oli’ ), a sacred image representing a legend that was used in healing rituals.” The symbol is still sometimes woven into local authentic Navajo rugs and other art, but it has not been used very much since its tragic use in Germany in the 1930’s.
So that’s part of what I love about Albuquerque. A Canadian playing Spanish music in a Native American themed theater.
The music was excellent and the crowd was VERY enthusiastic. In fact, it seemed like Jesse wasn’t used to such an adoring crowd, because he seemed rather surprised and abashed.
At one point a guy yelled, “We love you, Jesse!!!” and the whole crowd took it up, and Jesse didn’t even seem to know what to do! Maybe he’s used to playing in cool jazz halls and he’s not used to being treated like a rock star. But his music really fits well in our local culture.
I hope the extremely welcoming reception he got here encourages him to come back again soon. COME BACK TO ALBUQUERQUE, JESSE! WE LOVE YOU BEST!
I know Halloween seems like a long time ago, but hey, I still have Halloween candy left over, so hahaha.
Anyway, I never got these pictures posted, so here they are now. They’re pictures my friends sent me of themselves and their children in costumes. They’re all so amazing!!
This little one wasn’t wearing her ruby slippers because she didn’t want to get them dirty.
More like slush in the rain. But Santa Fe got snow almost a month ago. So Albuquerque is at least an improvement.
Next stop – Tucson! Then bye-bye snow (hehehehe). Unless we win the lottery (which we don’t even play). In which case, next stop – San Diego!
The winter is going ok so far. I’ve got my light box on as we speak,
I’ve got a pie in the oven,
I’m exercising (or at least I was until I stopped to blog about the sort-of-snow, lol), I’ve got my gas fireplace all set to turn on the minute I’m done exercising, I’ve got my hot tub set at 104°…and I was in San Diego over the weekend.
This winter is going a lot better than last winter – although it’s only November. It’s February that scares me.
And the winner is…Tampa! I’m not even sure why Tampa is in my phone’s weather app. Maybe we were planning to go there sometime and never did?
Anyway, the reason I took the picture is – look how cold it was in Cypress! (Cypress is a suburb of Houston.) Since when is Houston as cold as Albuquerque in the winter? What’s going to happen to all those beautiful palm trees and other year-round greenery down there?
I’m thinking I don’t even have to narrate this post. These pictures speak for themselves.
I called this post “organizing the office”, but in reality, I’m still unpacking. STILL UNPACKING!!!
When Monica was here in September she helped me buy a few more pieces of furniture to store stuff. Here’s my new bookshelf.
And here’s the books!
Perfect fit, right? Just a touch of room on the bottom shelf for the few books we have stacked on the nightstands. Right? Wrong. I discovered three more boxes of books after I had filled the bookshelf! Now what?
So I moved all the travel books to a cabinet in the guest room. Yeah, those are ALL travel books. We are optimists.
While I was at it, I decided to put all the maps in the guest room too. Now when you’re staying at our house you can dream about everywhere else you’d rather be!
So here’s the deal with all the maps and travel books. In a marriage, each person usually has a moderating effect on the other – you can’t go off the deep end because your spouse is like, “Uh? Do you really need another map?” Except for the cases when you and your spouse have the same weaknesses. Then you’re just screwed.
I’m hesitant to confess we also own all these CD’s. Actually I think these are all mine and John’s are still in a box somewhere.
We’re old, what can I say? Old, and determined to be organized.
Don’t give me a hard time about how many Santana CD’s I have! I live in New Mexico, Ok? Santana is like a god here. Actually, I had all those CD’s before I even moved to New Mexico. It’s my brother’s fault. A lot of my music is my brother’s fault. Santana is the least of it 😉
Here’s the CD cabinet hiding behind a bougainvillea bush in John’s study. (Which he calls the dog room, because that’s where the doggie door is, and the dogs sleep there at night. But I keep telling him, it’s not the dog’s room!)
That bougainvillea only looks so great at the moment because we just pulled it inside for the winter. By the end of the winter it will be suffering. Bougainvillea don’t make very good house plants. John and I have a dream of living where the bougainvillea can grow naturally outside all year around.
Fun fact from a long time ago: we wanted bougainvillea for our backyard wedding, but suddenly in early August it quit blooming for some unknown reason, so we scrambled at the last minute, and added silk flowers to our potted bougainvillea so it would look like it was blooming.
Here are photos of the bougainvillea we bought for our wedding, when it still had flowers that summer:
Here’s our bougainvillea on either side of us on our wedding day, with silk flowers added because it was refusing to bloom in August:
Here’s my beautiful bridesmaids with fake bougainvillea flowers in the background. Their bouquets are real though, lol.
That was a total digression down memory lane. Now, many years later, it seems like all we do is deal with too much stuff…
Here is John at the storage unit this weekend. We’re taking a big load from the garage to the storage unit, and then we took another big load from the storage unit back to the house. It’s musical chairs with the stuff.
Unfortunately when I got up the next morning, I realized that I left a couple of Halloween decorations out of the bin that just went to storage. Now what? Do I get in the car and drive to the storage unit just to put a Dio de los Muertos mask in the right bin? Maybe I can incorporate that mask into my everyday decor. Year-round Dio de los Muertos.
Plus, I now realize that I want a piece of artwork that just went to storage.
Meanwhile, am I finally now done unpacking the office? No, unfortunately not. The books are unpacked, and I’ve got a file system started. But I still have lots of office supplies that are jumbled in various drawers, including some in boxes and bins still in the garage. It’s ongoing.
I went for a jog one morning this week, once it looked like it was maybe above freezing (it was only 26° at 8:00). When I was on my way back, I noticed at least 3 landscape trucks at various neighboring houses, all with gas leaf blowers. Some expensive neighborhoods in other states have banned gas leaf blowers, but not here.
Ours is an older (1970’s) neighborhood with mature trees, which is one of the reasons we bought the house. Trees are a rare commodity in the desert!
After I got home from my jog, I was surprised how obnoxious the neighboring gas leaf blowers really were. Really loud, and I could smell the exhaust all the way in my house. One of them seemed like it was right in my own front yard, right up near the front door!
Just then, the doorbell rang. I’m usually tempted to ignore the doorbell, but given that it really sounded like a leaf blower was being operated on my front porch, I thought I better check it out. So I grabbed my phone, just in case, and put the dogs in the spare bedroom and went to the front door.
Sure enough, an old guy was operating a gas leaf blower in my front yard. I went out to talk with him and instantly regretted my failure to put shoes on. It was still very cold out there.
“Hello,” I said. “Did I hire you?” (Kind of a dumb question, it was obvious to me that I didn’t hire him, but what does one say to a leaf blower guy in one’s front yard?) I figured he had the wrong address.
He was quite nice, and in broken English explained that my neighbor, Richard, had told him to do my front yard as well as his own.
“So Richard’s paying you?”
“Yah, yah.”
“Ok, that’s nice of him.”
“Just front. Just front, he say. Big tree. Look nice, yes. I do all work here for previous owners. I do that house…and that house…front, back, all the leaves.”
Ah, so this was the local yard guy. It’s not uncommon for groups of neighbors to share a yard guy. It’s a little bit like in Mexico, where you’re almost obliged to hire the local service providers (house cleaners, etc.). You move in and they show up at your door, informing you that they service your house. Always have and always will. And you are expected to hire them.
It wasn’t clear to me if I should pay him, (I mean, not really because I didn’t hire him, right?) but maybe I should tip or something?
I took his name (Manuel) and number, so we can hire him next time. The trees aren’t nearly done dumping their leaves yet.
I brought him a piece of pie. He seemed to appreciate it. I don’t know. I don’t think I’m naturally very good at these kinds of situations.
I guess I should also reach out to our neighbor, Richard, and thank him. I haven’t seen him since we knocked on his door to talk to him about our courtyard wall project. Our neighbors are very elderly (80’s I think), and they’re never out and about.
Poor Kai has a loose tooth which sticks out like a warthog.
At first we were worried about him, but he’s doing fine, so now we’re calling him warthog boy. Family can be cruel, lol.
It actually doesn’t hurt him unless he knocks it wrong. He plays with his toys and has no trouble eating. Kai has never had any trouble eating!
He even (somehow) continues to play rope tug-o-war with Kira. That’s probably how he loosened it to start with.
I couldn’t get a picture of them actually in the act of playing tug-o-war. It’s just a blur. Here’s Kai waving around the rope trying to entice Kira, who is sitting patiently because I had just appeared and she’s hoping that meant it was time for breakfast.
Kira’s like, “What? Why are you taking pictures of us? I’m being good. See, very good. I’m not even playing with my rope. Can we have breakfast now?”
At first we thought his loose tooth would fall out on it’s own soon, but it’s been a week and it hasn’t changed. Then we thought we could just take him to the vet to have it pulled, but apparently vets don’t just “pull” teeth. I talked to several vets and our only option is oral surgery, which is a huge process requiring full anesthesia.
Here’s the process (according to the internet).
We were like, “Uh, no thanks”. He’s quite old and anesthesia is dangerous for old dogs. And the tooth isn’t causing him any issues for now.
It seems like each year I live in a new place, so I never know how many trick-or-treaters to expect. We’re back in town this year, in a working-middle class neighborhood, so I expected a fair number of kids.
A few kids came – all very well-mannered. I presented each group of kids with a large bowl of chocolates (the good stuff!), but each child would only take one candy!
I soon realized I had way too much candy and started telling the kids to take two pieces. To my astonishment, one young girl even said, “No thank you, one is enough.” Uh, wow. Maybe we should be electing this generation of 8-year-olds to the presidency.
So of course you know where that candy is going. Yep, right onto my hips.
It’s such a big bag, it’s going to be around until Christmas! Next year I will remember not to buy my candy at Costco.
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