June 10th, a glorious day to be celebrated.
The Good Man was born on this day.
Feliz Cumpleaños my beautiful Gemini love.
I can hardly wait to celebrate today (and every day) with you.
Special thanks to the parents of The Good Man for creating such a genuinely good man.
I’m a very lucky girl….
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.
On this sleepy Monday morning, I made my usual walk to the CalTrain station, The Good Man at my side.
As we strolled on the platform the northbound train rolled by. TGM commented how some trains seem to be quieter than others. We pondered why that would be.
Then I observed that sometimes on the train it is a smooth ride and sometimes it gets this side-to-side sway that is not only nausea inducing, it makes it read hard to read.
I wondered why that happens sometimes, but not always. Is it the track they use? Or do they take a corner too fast? Or what?
Without any good answers, I boarded the train.
Stalking up and down the aisles, I discovered there were no seats to be found. “Hmph. Busy day,” I mused to myself, then took up a standing position in the vestibule near the front of one of the cars (where the doors are).
There I stood with several of my fellow riders when the Conductor came along, checking tickets. I see this guy most mornings. He’s a hard case guy. I would guess he’s been on the train a lot of years and is nearing retirement. I can say this for the guy, he’s not willing to take any guff off of anyone.
Clearly, the overindulged Bay Area youth with their Blackberries, iPods and laptops impress him not at all. A meat and potatoes guy, he’s short and thick fingered with a boiler belly and his conductor’s cap worn firmly on his graying head.
So I stand there, riding the train, sleepily looking out on the passing world when the train picks up speed. Boy did the car start a rockin’ back and forth. And squeaking. A metal on metal sound.
I looked over at the conductor, he’s got a wide stance, both black-booted feet planted firmly on the ground. No need to hang on for this man. Me, I’m wrapped around the steel pole like a recalcitrant stripper, barely able to keep my balance.
The Conductor casually lifts his walkie-talkie to his mouth and says, “Can you bring this thing down about 10 miles? Car 4002 has side sway.”
The Engineer replies, “You got it” and noticeably the train slows. The rocking stops.
“Thanks,” I said to the Conductor, “That’s a much nicer ride.”
“Yeah, this car has real bad side sway,” he gruffs out in reply.
I nod, “thanks” I say again, then most of the people around me also give a “thanks”.
The Conductor continues, “This is only a four car train today, it’s going to be that way for a while.”
I nod, understanding now why I couldn’t find a seat.
“They took all the handicapped cars out, doing some retrofit I think. So since all those cars are out, any of the other cars are in service whether they need repair or not. This one needs to be fixed, but that won’t happen for a while,” he says, chuckling and shaking his head in a world weary way.
I nod understandingly, and give him that “what are you gonna do” shrug.
“It’s been a tough day, twice we’ve had doors get stuck,” he continues.
“Won’t open or won’t close?” I question.
“Oh, they open fine, but they get stuck back in the mechanism and we can’t get them shut.” He shakes his head again. I nod again.
“And the handicapped cars, those are where we store the lavatory supplies. We have one bathroom on the train and there’s no toilet paper. We have to use paper towels. But you can’t flush paper towels so we have to put a yellow (hazardous) bag in there. And the sink don’t work. People are washing their hands with bottled water.”
I make a mental note to myself to make sure I use the loo before boarding the train this afternoon…
And I think, “wow, his day kind of sucks.”
“Ah well, it’s only downhill from there,” he says and shrugs, then picks up the PA mike and announces our pending arrival to Palo Alto.
He nimbly jogs down the steps off the train and onto the platform where a whiny kid approaches him saying, “The validator machine doesn’t work!”
The Conductor sarcastically replies, “What, OUR machines? I can’t imagine…”
He signs the ticket for the kid, makes his routine inspection at the stop, climbs back on and gets back to business.
All in a days work.
First, read this brief article from the ABQjournal:
(edited for length)
“Someone stole a Santa Fe County Sheriff’s Department patrol car early Wednesday and apparently took it for a joy ride.
But the fun may not have stopped there for the bandit who took the patrol car from a county storage yard. Police are looking into the possibility the thief impersonated a sheriff’s deputy while using the stolen car to make traffic stops— while drunk.
The New Mexico State Police— which has taken over the investigation— is looking into a report the driver then used the car to make at least one traffic stop in Chimayó. A woman called State Police and told them that a man in a sheriff’s vehicle had stopped her and that he also seemed drunk.”
Ok so…questions and observations:
1) What size cajones does it take to steal a Sherffi’s car from the county lot? Or maybe not cajones, perhaps this is better measured in liters, or pints or….whatever measurement Mad Dog comes in.
2) Who hasn’t had, if even for a brief moment, the odd dream of making a stop in a patrol car. Blue and whites flashing. Sauntering up to the driver’s window, double knit beige polyester pants whiffing as you walk, mirrored aviator glasses in place. You utter something like, “Do you know how fast you were going?”
Someone was actually drunk enough to pull it off…and get away with it (so far).
3) How freaked out must the woman have been when she was stopped? WTF must THAT encounter have been like?
4) “(Santa Fe County sheriff’s Capt. Robert) Riggs said that in his 20 years as a cop, he hasn’t seen anything like this before.” You gotta work REAL hard to show a cop something he hasn’t seen before. Even in Santa Fe.
5) Is it wrong that I’m rooting, just a little, for the guy to not get caught? I know, I know, just because a crime is dadgum funny doesn’t make it any less a crime.
6) Once again, I’m ever so proud of where I come from. Go on Oh Fair New Mexico. Most other states take themselves WAY too seriously. We’ve still got the comedic edge. And that makes us special.
(Yes, yes, theft and drunken driving aren’t funny. But ya gotta admit, this guy had some flair.)
Just missing the ways of where I come from, for better and for worse.
Good news is I get to visit pretty soon.
Countin’ the days…
Every six weeks, I have to take the opportunity to have my grays covered by my stylist. And by grays, I don’t mean aliens. Or maybe I do. (Only my hairdresser knows my real hair color for sure!)
Once the color paste is on my head, I have to sit under the hairdryer to let it “cook”. This is about fifteen minutes of precious down time in my busy days. So while just sitting there, I take the opportunity to catch up on what they call these days, The Goss (as in, short for gossip).
My hairdresser works in a lovely, calming salon. Fun music plays and they have stacks of the most current gossip mags. Getting hairs done and riding a plane are my opportunities to catch up on People, OK! and US magazines. I also get a great chance to observe other women of the species in their element. Chemicals flying along with catty remarks.
And herewith, my observations:
1) In a section in US Magazine, stars gave their secrets to beauty. Penélope Cruz says her tip is to sleep more than nine hours a night. So when Penélope does it, it’s beauty enhancing. When I do it, I’m called “lazy”. Hmmph!
2) There is no woman, no matter how pretty she is, who doesn’t look ridiculously hag-ish when sitting there with color or bleach paste applied to her roots, plastic bag on her head and chemical fumes making her squint.
3) Angelina Jolie isn’t human. There was a picture in OK! Magazine of her walking out of some random building hand in hand with her Adonis-like boyfriend.
She is a few months away from delivering twins. Her face isn’t puffy. Her ankles are normal size. Her hair glistens. Her face is dewy fresh. No pregnancy mask, acne or wrinkles. Her tummy is sort of big, but no bigger than a woman with just one in there at late term. She isn’t pregnant from chin to ankles like many women loaded with twins look and feel.
I’m sure she’ll carry them both to term, deliver them naturally and easily and produce two more picture perfect children.
*sigh*
4) Having your head massaged when it’s being washed under warm water is a really nice thing. It makes you forget that your skin looks worse than that of a woman pregnant with twins.
5) Miley Cyrus is scandalous. Jennifer Anniston is “getting lucky”. American Idol is almost over. McDreamy thinks McSteamy has nice pecs. Ashley Simpson is probably pregnant. Tony Romo may or may not have broken up with Jessica Simpson. Ellen Degeneres is getting married. So is George Takei. The pregnant (and also not human) Jessica Alba just did. Katie Holms looks spooky. Jude Law snogged Kimberly Stewart at a club. And Kate Hudson may or may not be dating Lance Armstrong.
Phew.
All said and done, my nice little life looks pretty good. I have fresh hair, an amazing fiancée and the ability to go to the grocery in my crappy sweats without someone taking and publishing my photo.
Perspective. What a kick!