Come to me…

Sweet precious weekend.

Glorious, tasty two days of freedom from the shackles that bind.

I need it.

Crave it.

And yet…here I am at work. I have more meetings yet to go today. Many more. One of them will be rather ugly.

So I’m still on an uphill trudge.

But other than the weekend, I have something to keep working toward. See, last night I had a conversation with my best good friend. If you can believe it (I can’t) we celebrate twenty years of friendship this year. Mind boggling.

She makes her residence in Las Cruces and graciously offered to throw a backyard “together” for The Good Man and me and a variety of our friends. It will be a chance to catch up with my New Mexico familia and I couldn’t be MORE excited to be there.

I mean, it’s not just seeing old friends, hugging my beautiful godkids, breathing clear desert air, seeing mountains in the distance, resting, not working, but also one big reason……

I’m running about a quart low on green chile.

Memories, dancing demons and lost fragments of thoughts

There’s a lot going on in my head. None of it related to work. But here I sit at my pressed wood cubicle shelf desk-like device absorbing EMF’s from my monitor…and pondering.

If I tip my head up a bit, I can look over the top of my monitor and see the actual outside.

Here it is:

That photo doesn’t tell the tale. There is an oppressive haze hanging over tree tops.

I say haze, it’s really smoke. The heavy winds have brought a taste of the fires up this way.

Taste, as in literally. If you go outside your eyes and nose sting and you get that campfire flavor in the back of your throat.

It was weird, when I arrived at work this morning, I opened my car door and took in the first inhale of this dirty air, you know what it reminded me of?

New Mexico.

Yeah. Odd huh? But for the people who live(d) there, you’ll be able to relate.

You know how when the first cold of fall sets in and people start using their fireplaces and wood burning stoves? The smell of burning cedar and piñon is distinctive. You can taste it. The cold crisp to the air and that smell permeates.

So odd, that the smell of burning forest made me homesick.

I’m reading “Curse of the Chupacabra” by Rudolfo Anaya right now. Last night as I was reading, the main character was back home in Santa Fe and talking about being outside and smelling that distinct wood smoke.

Must have been in my brain then, this morning.

Me and Rudolofo, same page today.

That’s the magic of a really good author. You and he are there together, touching across space and time in that moment you read the words. You find a common ground. Anaya is one of my favorite authors, so that synchronicity is cool.

Inspired by something really tough, a raging fire.

Memorial Weekend lies ahead. Memories. I know this weekend is about remembering military veterans, and I do.

Maybe it’s also about airing out old memories of all sorts. Spring cleaning for the closets of the soul.

Been thinking a lot about old things. Old hurts. Old scars.

The woo-woo minded among us would suggest that this is due to Mercury going retrograde on Monday.

I’d say it’s because I’m the kind of girl who likes to shake up her thoughts like specks in a snow globe just to see where they land.

The Good Man said I might be entering the water hazard known as “middle life crisis”.

Whatever.

Either way, I’m thoughtful.

Ah well, off to a holiday weekend. Three days off sounds like a little slice of heaven to me today.

To all, Happy Memorial Day. Enjoy the weekend, be safe and remember those you love!

Color me underwhelmed.

Subtitled: Gee, thanks Polly.

My favorite nemesis, Polly Summar writes one of those “and now this in obvious news” articles today in the ABQjournal.

Yes, It’s Warm Out There

Thanks, Pol! Couldn’t have worked that out for myself! What with, the, you know, skin I have and all.

To be fair, how much must it suck when your editor hands you the task of writing about how hot it is? In New Mexico.

Ah well, the non-natives need something to complain about.

Good work, Pol!

Oh, you knew it was gonna happen

Wednesday’s ABQjournal has a story that was, in my opinion, inevitable.

Suspects Held In Diesel, Gas Theft

Yup. Gas prices are so crazy. Recession is on. People have taken to stealing gas.

Are you surprised? Didn’t think so.

“Mark Hogan would park his box trailer over gas stations’ underground tanks, open a secret compartment and pump thousands of gallons of gas out of the ground.

Police say he then sold the fuel for $1.75 a gallon for unleaded and $2.50 for diesel.”

Hoo, a good deal!! Bet it sells like hotcakes, too.

Dude sold it mostly to his friends and used the money to fuel his meth habit.

Nice.

“The New Mexico Petroleum Marketers Association reported that 500,000 gallons of gas and diesel had been stolen from about 30 (Albuquerque) metro stations this year.”

And at $4 a gallon….I’m sure the $2M out of the coffers is but a blip on the petroleum screen…but I’m sure I know who will pay for this.

If you listen closely you can hear my wallet scream.

Remember back in the 70’s when people used to “pump and run”? That in response to gas shortages and high prices.

Oh well, these days you have to slide a card to get the pump to work anyway, so this is just the next “workaround”.

*sigh*

I’m feeling lucky!

Does anybody ever actually use this feature on Google?

Having nothing to blog about today, I was trolling about looking at odd news, top news, entertainment news, blah.

So then I started putting in random words and hitting “I’m feeling lucky,” which takes you right to the top hit for the search term.

You know what I found? Wikipedia is most often the top hit for whatever random general search term you can think up. This is, of course, unscientific.

When I did “feeling lucky” the search term “New Mexico” it took me to newmexico.org.

Search term of “Albuquerque” took me to www.cabq.gov.

Hmph. Boring.

Like this post.

Slow news day…………