Category: Celebration

Conundrum

So, while drifting about the internets recently, I came across a blogger who dedicated an entire post to the fact that she *never* gives people gifts off their wedding/baby gift registry.

She said “never” and she meant it.

She said that she wanted to give people a gift that was “more thoughtful” (her words).

Uh. Ok, I may be weird, but not giving people something that they want and giving them instead something that YOU want…doesn’t seem very thoughtful to me.

It seems very…uh…well very selfish, actually.

I suppose my knickers may be laced a little too tight on this one, but having recently been through the whole experience of choosing items for a gift registry (a harder job that I’d expected it would be) I can recognize how much folks appreciate getting what they planned for and asked for.

Because, let’s be honest, all those super duper off-the-list “thoughtful” gifts people give? Well, they get returned at the earliest convenience. I’m certain of that.

Unless you get wedding gifts much like my best friend did. Hand made items. I swear to goodness they must have gotten like six different hand-hewn cheese cutters. They were all beautiful, hand crafted, beautiful wood, truly almost art objects.

But in the end, who needs that many cheese cutters? Unfortunately, the handmade cheese cutters don’t go back to Target so easily!

And we won’t even speak about the handpainted saw blade they also received. To be fair, it was really well done, again, truly an art object. But not really off the ol’ list.

The exception to this could be a side deal that you cut with the recipients. For example, my mom wanted to give us a really special wedding gift, and plates and cake pans weren’t lighting her up. So she checked in on this, and I appreciated her asking.

Together we figured out a really special, meaningful something that I cherish and always will.

Asking first, fine. Just dropping a hand bent roofing nail crafted surprise…well…may or may not be cool. At least not at a “big” event like a wedding or baby. Surprise birthday gift? Yes! White elephant holiday present? Sure!

There is a time and a place, you know?

Any bride and groom with good sense and class will be honestly grateful for any present you bring, but really, being thoughtful means giving up what YOU want, and considering what someone else wants instead.

Harder to do than it sounds, apparently.

(C’mon, any of ya’ll from the country have either given, received, or know someone who has received a soldered nail windmill. Am I right?)

Whoa, whoa the Fourth of July…whoa!

Man. Can’t believe we’re already into July. Of 2009. Wow.

Been a little quiet here on the blog-o-rama since I was out and about all weekend.

Big fun. Well worth it!

Sure, I thought I could never top last year’s holiday celebration, featuring the viewing of fireworks from a Cessna aeroplane.

But this year went ahead and topped it.

There were fireworks, but not like you think.

This year, The Good Man and I loaded up the car and went on a road trip.

Destination: LA

Reason? My amazing, world-class talented cousin wrote and produced a musical and chose this weekend for a family and friends weekend show.

Now, I had read an early version of the script, so I knew what to expect, but this show blew well past even my own expectations!

It was an amazing night, all around.

So there we were in West Hollywood…my cousin was wise and prescient enough to get us a limo (easy to corral a lot of family that way!).

We all got ourselves dolled up for the show and loaded up. Off we went, cruising the streets of Los Angeles.

So yeah, you know, on the Fourth, I got to emerge from a limo, in LA, on my way to this fabulous new show…

Cuz I roll like that.

Yes, I was able to keep my skirt down as I emerged. Yes, I was also wearing chones. I also roll like that.

No one needs to know that really, rather than “emerge” from the limo, my high heeled foot slipped off the step rail, thus whacking the side of my foot on the way down and causing me to actually tumble out of the limo.

But in my memory, when I retell the story, I emerged gracefully, like an elegant movie star from a bygone era.

It was just all around, an amazing weekend that went by way WAY too fast. I got to be with my cousin, one of my most favorite people in the whole world. I got to be with family, I got to see a killer show, I got to hit a couple Hollywood hot spots, and I got to have another amazing memory to make with my fabulous husband.

I can’t ask for anything better than all that!

And now, here we are at Monday.

This morning, there is a line for the auto-espresso maker.

The light of day in the real world is always a bit of a let down, now in’nit?

It’s all downhill from here

Happy Summer Solstice! Today, the longest day of the year.

Oh fine. The days start getting shorter. It gets colder. Winter is nigh.

Bah!

Oh, and Happy Father’s Day.

I’m not really cranky, honest!

This day in history

I remember that day. St. Paddy’s Day, 2007. Yes, a magical day by all accounts.

No leprechauns leaped. No green beer was guzzled. No four-leaf clovers were molested.

But I did have the luck of the Irish : wink :

It was on this date, two years ago, that Oh Fair New Mexico breathed its first blog post.

It was The Good Man who first suggested the theme for my blog. He went with the “write what you know” angle, and it worked. Ok, more often than not, this blog is my personal ramblings and not really NM related, but that’s ok too. I took the idea and ran with it, as they say.

I’d wanted to write a blog for the discipline of writing something every day. I wanted more than an extensive journal rat-a-tapped in Word and kept on my hard drive. I wanted a place to publicly air my thoughts and twisted ideas.

I remember in the beginning, I timidly sent Avelino Maestas an email asking for advice. His blog seemed so freaking cool, what with his gorgeous photographs interspersed with is his witty, smart writing. I had NO idea how to blog, and Avelino very kindly gave me some pointers and encouragement and then out of the nest I fell to test my own ideas.

So here I am at 532 blog posts later and I think my wings are getting a bit stronger.

My work as a writer has increased IMMENSELY because of the discipline of writing this blog every weekday. Some days I cramp up for ideas and then I force myself to write something anyway, even if it’s terrible. Some days, I have more ideas than I can put down in writing.

Often, my loving husband (who was but a boyfriend when this whole thing began) will say, “I can’t believe you blogged about that” (most recent example was about the toilets at a restaurant we visited).

Occasionally I have blogged about something that hits me on a very deep emotional level, and I know that maybe no one wants to hear me, but I have to say it anyway.

Once or twice I’ve even gotten political.

My most popular post thus far caught me off guard. I wrote it for me, the melancholy of a NM ex-pat longing for home at the holidays. But it evidently struck a chord with some of the folks back home, too.

So I continue on with my blog. It’s for me. It’s for you. It’s for New Mexico. Each year I go through the agony of missing where I come from and reconciling to where I live now. The ebb and flow of life.

For all the folks who give me a read now and then, thank you. I actually cannot properly express my gratitude. As someone trying very hard to make a go as a writer, any pair of eyes on anything I write is a genuine gift.

I realize that these sort of blogiversary posts are rather self-congratulatory. Heck, in the midst of all the rejection letters I get from publishers..if I don’t pat my ownself on the back, who else is gonna do it for me?

By the way…The Good Man has promised me a dinner at a really nice restaurant when I get 100 visitors in one day on this blog. The closest I’ve come is 88. So my goal in the third year of blogging is to finally collect on that dinner! I know ya’ll can help me with my cause!

Meanwhile, Oh Fair New Mexico, you still sing a song in my heart. You and me, we are one. Thanks for the inspiration and for my humble beginnings.

Cheers to the next 500 posts!

Photo by Karen Fayeth