Category: Las Cruces

Happy First Day of the New Year

I’ll start off the first post of 2008 with what I believe to be a profound quote from an unlikely philosopher.

“The first step in creating the life you desire is stating just what it is you hope to accomplish and be willing to fail miserably in the pursuit of it.”

Yeah. I like it. I posted my obligatory resolutions list and have been thinking on them muchly since. The twist (pardon the pun) that Monk puts on it helps me calm down (the part about failing). So ok.

Onward.

Congrats to the team of New Mexicans (Jim Baca’s wife Bobbi, included) for putting together a humdinger of a Rose Bowl Parade Float which won the Grand Marshal trophy for creative concept and design (as reported in the ABQJournal)! Go New Mexico! Kicking the pants outta that parade! I did a quick Google but couldn’t find a photo online. Hope to see it soon. It makes me proud to be a New Mexican!

Hats off to the Las Cruces pecan farmers who are finally in full swing harvesting this year’s crop (as reported in the Las Cruces Sun-News). This is an “on” year for the trees, so they are expecting some 71 million pounds in-shell to be harvested. This is a late harvest due to weather so they are out there hauling tookus to get ’em all in. Hats off to my many friends who are making their living right now. I did my part, ordering way too many chewy pecan pralines from Stahmann’s and eating them with an evil cackle. The pecans of New Mexico, second in volume to Georgia but number one in my heart.

And finally, the Iowa caucus is but a few days away and I’m dying to see how our intrepid Governor Bill Richardson fares in the fight. He’s working it, really working it hard and I’m curious to see how this all goes. It’s just the beginning but sets a tone….just what note remains to be seen.

If for nothing else, Oh Fair New Mexico is in the national spotlight. Salud!

Well, the holiday decorations came down today. The Cute Boy™ and I sadly packed up the tree and ornaments and our rockin’ train and put them away. The living room seems so…empty. *sigh*

Time marches on.

As a final farewall, a photo of the train in motion. I adore it.

Photo by Karen Fayeth.

Aggies oh Aggies!

Being a proud graduate of New Mexico State University means that where I live now, I am subject to blank looks when I respond to the “so, where did you go to school” question (it’s oddly a big deal out here).

Occasionally I get hacked on. And it also means, that still, some fifteen years since donning a cap and gown, I still feel rather bitter about the < expletive deleted > Lobos. As the chant from the Pan Am Center goes, “Luck the Fobos”

So today, while sitting in a boring ass meeting with hostile senior executives of the company that owns my ass, I had occasion to surf over to the ABQJournal. And I smiled.

Headline reads: “Aggies Dominate Inside, Give UNM Second Loss“.

See, three days ago, the women’s basketball team whomped up on the Fobos (thus breaking a string of twenty-two losses in a row) and then last night, the boys followed suit, issuing a 71-62 beating. Yeah, baby!

I know they get to do it again in a couple weeks (this time at The Pit(s) and that is always tough), but for now just let me gloat.

With little to be happy about (the Aggies are 4-6 so far this year) I’ll take this bit of joy.

It’s important to stop and give thanks for the nice things. Smell the roses, so to speak….drink a beer to my alma mater.

W00t!

Ok, back to work, but here’s the tune I’m humming as I walk to the next building for the next ridiculous meeting.

__________________________

Aggies, Oh Aggies
The hills send back the cry
We’re here to do or die
Aggies, Oh Aggies
We’ll win this game or know the reason why
And when we win this game
We’ll buy a keg of booze
And we’ll drink to the Aggies
Till we wobble in our shoes
A-G-G-I-E-S
Aggies, Aggies, go Aggies
Aggies, Oh Aggies
The hills send back the cry
We’re here to do or die
Aggies, Oh Aggies
We’ll win this game or know the reason why

The embodiment of one of my worst fears EVER

As a kid, we used to go camping a lot. I loved camping, still do. But as my family slept there in the Apache pop up trailer, I was always SCARED TO DEATH of bears. I mean, as a kid in New Mexico, you know bears are out there. You hear about them on the news, the hungry creature who wanders into civilization for some garbage can treats.

And then there’s waking up in the morning to find your campsite trashed….that a bear was THERE while you slept.

The Apache trailer at least offered a bit of safety. The big plastic box and where I slept was at least up off the ground.

Then there are the times I’ve slept in a tent. Now don’t get me wrong, I LOVE LOVE LOVE camping. But I always have those “what if” moments when in a tent.

Well, poor Bill Thorp of Las Cruces has now lived one of my top ten worst fears.

He was in his tent. He heard a rustling. He shut the tent flap and lay back down. Then he got bit. ON THE BUTT. Through the tent.

Brother man was having a nice campout and got chomped on the arse.

That ain’t right.

Sleeping in a tent with my face by a thin layer of fabric, I’ve ALWAYS had terror of being bit through the tent by a bear.

Not only this guy lived it, so did a teen near Raton. He felt a poking at the side of the tent and thinking it was one of his family members playing a joke, he slapped at it. The bear took this none too kindly and bit him on the arm.

Waa! Is this skeeve out Karen week!?? First spiny caterpillars and now this!?! I may not sleep right for *days*!

source

Where I come from

Last night I had a chance to attend a concert at a fave local venue. The show was Kenny Chesney and he played the outdoor Shoreline Amphitheater locally.

Kenny’s appearance, being a good country boy and all, meant I pulled on my fave pair of Fat Babies and hit the show to sing along with the crowd and Mr. Chesney. (you know him, he’s the guy that married Renee Zellweger for like, a minute….)

Being a good New Mexico girl, I’m a pretty good fan of country music. I’m always utterly surprised at how many fans there are out here in the Bay Area. Now, the friend I went with bummed a cigarette off a guy who had come over from Modesto. Ah, Modesto, good farm country, that makes sense. But there are a lot of “city folk” who love them some country music as much as anyone from the outskirts. And that always makes me a little happy. (and yes, I know today’s country acts are hardly country anymore…more like rock ‘n roll in a straw hat with a Bell Ranch crease)

I saw young kids that I *know* have been raised here in the Bay Area, raised among the people and the concrete and the hustle and bustle and they were singing along word for word to “Back Where I Come From”, Chesney’s ode to small town livin’.

I smiled. Because I knew these kids, though they loved the song, and sang with gusto, in a lot of ways, couldn’t possibly understand.

And it made me thankful, again, for the multi-millionth time about where *I* come from.

Oh, the simple pleasure of knowing a place where a grain elevator and a gas station/Snappy Mart are the only the only things in town (like here or here or here. Kids are homeschooled, folks live in wide open spaces where they run cattle or horses or corn or cotton or whatever comes from the land.

Or knowing how fun it is to dance a two-step on a hardwood floor with a boy you like. Or even a boy you don’t like but is a good dancer.

Or cramming the cab of a pickup with as many friends as will fit and riding to the river to have a little fun while the swirling water rushes by.

And knowing what it means to “live simple”.

Oh Fair New Mexico, how I miss you……

State Approved Yummies

This past weekend I had a hankering. I’m a bit depressed and no small amount of stressed out and I was in need of some comfort food. You know, the something like mom used to make.

I woke up Sunday morning with a strong hankering for Biscochitos. So I gazed over the recipe, decided on Crisco over traditional lard, looked in my liquor cabinet to see if had the requisite brandy (I didn’t) and set off to the grocer for all the goods. I already had anise seed so I was ahead of the game……

You have to understand, this was a rare bit of homemakering that I’m not used to. Neither is my long suffering, but very patient partner. But he knows he gets to enjoy the fruits of my nesting, so he’s all good.

I mixed and blended, whipped the eggs, poured the brandy (as a kid when I made them I always found a way to sample the brandy as it went in, just a small teaspoon full for me, and it always made me go “bleah! Why would anyone drink this?” As a grown up, just the smell made me “ew”, so no sampling this time…..)

Soon I had a stiff dough to work with and I cursed while rolling it out and cutting the individual cookies. As is tradition, I burned one batch (I *always* burn at least one batch while making ANY kind of cookie). But soon I’d turned out a pile of the sweet, but not too sweet, treats. I shared some with the neighbors. I ate my fill until I was sick, and then came the litmus test. My Brooklyn boyfriend gave them a nibble and declared them as addictive as I know them to be (he rocks, by the way).

So I was all up in my Biscochito bliss when I read this article in the Las Cruces Sun News.

The ice cream mix, pecans and Biscochitos, sounds divine. But what caught my eye is that I guess I somehow missed that in 1989 the New Mexico State Legislature made the Biscochito the “official state cookie”.

I *had* heard that the current plump Governor loves these same anise treats turned out by the chef at the Governor’s mansion. Wouldn’t that be great? To have someone turn out a batch of delicious just like that, whenever you want? Wow. I’d be a plump Governor too….

So not only did I make comfort food, I made NM State approved comfort food. Go me!

By the way, the recipe I use comes from the “Cocinas de New Mexico” cookbook put out by PNM. The recipe is online here. That “Cocinas de New Mexico” cookbook is a dandy if you don’t already have one. I have always used the quite old version my mom has but I will probably order one of my own.

Just….yum.

Artist Diana Bryer’s “Making Biscochitos”