Category: Love

Top ten things I miss about Christmas in New Mexico

1) Annual shopping trip to Old Town. A mom and me tradition. Every year I’d get to pick out an ornament that was mine. I now have all those ornaments in a Thom McAnn shoebox that, yes, Sunday night I opened and hung them all on my tree. They are like a history of my life. I remember buying most of them and it gives me a good sense of continuity to have them on my tree.

2) Luminarias. I always made them at my house. My mom would drive me to an empty lot to dig up two buckets worth of dirt and I’d fold bags, place candles and light them. It was my job and I loved every second of it, every folded bag, every candle that caught the bag on fire. I miss them.

3) The Bugg House, which, sadly, is no more. My sister lived over on Prospect and we’d go for a Christmas Eve walk in the evening to take a look at the outstanding display of holiday spirit. When I would go to Winrock Mall to shop, I’d always swing by the Bugg house to take a look. I miss it.

4) Neighbors bringing a plate of fresh made tamales as your Christmas gift. When you get three generations of Hispanic women in a kitchen with some masa and some shredded pork, magic happens. Yum! I also miss that people would come to work with tamales in a cooler and sell them to coworkers. I was always good for a half dozen or more.

5) A ristra makes a good Christmas gift. I’ve given. I’ve received. I love ’em. They’d become a moldy mess here…and that makes me sad.

6) Biscochitos. My love for these is well documented.

7) Sixty-five degrees and warm on Christmas Day. I think one year there was actually snow on the ground for the 25th. But it was melted by the end of the day. Oh Fair New Mexico, how I love your weather.

8) Christmas Eve midnight Mass in Spanish with the overpowering scent of frankincense filling up the overly warm church. Pure torture for a small child, but oh how I’d belt out the carols… And when we came home we could pick one present and open it. Gah! The torture of picking just one!

9) New Mexico piñon, gappy, scrawny Christmas trees that cost $15 at the Flea Market and were cut from the top of a larger tree just that morning. Look, to my mind, it ain’t a tree unless you are using low hanging ornaments to fill the obvious gaps. These fluffy overly full trees just ain’t my bag. If you ain’t turning the ‘bad spot’ to the wall, you paid too much for your tree.

10) Green chile stew for Christmas Eve dinner and posole for New Year’s. My mouth waters. It’s weep worthy. I can taste the nice soft potatoes in the stew, the chicken broth flavored just right…ouch! And posole to bring you luck with red chile and hunks of pork. Yeah……

Which is not to say I don’t have happy holidays where I live now…but sometimes I feel melancholy. And that’s what the holidays are for, right?

Image via.

Little Green Apples

A friend and fellow blogger declared it “irrelevant blog title day“, so who am I to argue?

I have a lot I could complain about but have been listening to myself lately as I talk and I realize…I complain A LOT. About a lot. I was able to eek out a “I’m thankful” post for thanksgiving, but really, I gotta stop whinging about everything. Cuz that’s annoying. And when you annoy yourself, that’s bad.

I certainly *could*. I have a raging headache. Had to deliver a presentation to my management team that I was unprepared for and went up there and made it up as I went. Hell, my Director asked me a really good question and I made up the answer. Ssh, don’t tell her. But honestly, it went ok. The headache will subside. The busy week will end. My cat will still love me (in her not very loving way that cats have…see the “I’m mad at you” photo at the end) and I get to go home at the end of the day and hug The Cute Boy™ (who inspired my blog title. It’s from a Roger Miller song. Cuz he’s made that way).

Mainly, despite all the little kerfuffles life brings, things are good. I think I may have outgrown my job. Having a week away from it really brought that into focus. Despite fighting the good fight for my team in management meetings, I find I don’t really care that much, and it’s not a good sign.

I wanna be a full time writer when I grow up. I want to get paid for my words. And this job isn’t it. But so far my writing doesn’t pay and this corporate blah does. So I get up every morning and keep making it work. Because I’m made that way.

And despite finishing my 50,000 word writing project, it’s not done. And I find my “incentive” to write is dropping. Bah! Time to find a new way to inspire myself.

Basically, I’m just checking in to say I’m still here. It’s back to work and crazy days. And I’ll just continue to “make it work”.

I also realize I’ve wandered away from the original intent of this blog, to be about New Mexico. So it’s time to wander back. I’ve been reading the ABQjournal with amusement regarding the uproar over the alien ads, got a good giggle over the misspellings on the historic marker in Santa Fe and was skeeved out to read about the third confirmed hantavirus case this year (I’m telling you, people, don’t touch the fuzzy wild things. Just don’t).

Oh Fair New Mexico, good to know some things never change. God I love where I come from.

Photo by Karen Fayeth

Giving Thanks

Yep, I will join in with many of my fellow bloated-tum bloggers and give thanks for the bounty that was in my home yesterday. I have much to be thankful for. I actually try to get some gratitude in my day every day, but this feasting holiday is always a good time to go over the list again.

I had something of a rough upbringing and holidays were always a touchy topic. My dad didn’t see why my mom had to go through the bother and expense of buying up a bunch of presents and hassling with a tree and all of that. Birthdays were just another reason to spend too much money. But Thanksgiving, an eatin’ holiday, that was one my dad could get behind. Plus, his birthday was right around T’giving (and sometimes on the day) and he’d get an apple pie made just for him, so I guess that was a’okay in his book.

When I moved to California ten years ago, it was as much about getting away from the oppression as making a new start. I’m glad I did it, made my own life on my own terms. But that comes at a cost. For as much as my family makes me crazy, I love them. A lot. Probably more than they deserve. Anyhow, since I moved away, I rarely go back for the holidays, so that makes me a bit of an orphan this time of year. (Which, honestly, is probably better for all involved.)

So enter The Cute Boy™ into my life. This is good. I have a “date” on holidays. And what’s weirder, his parents live here. Close by. And even odder, he gets along with them. I mean, they have a healthy relationship. What the &^%$ is that!?!? Needless to say I both envy and admire the way he and his folks get along.

In the past several years for Thanksgiving I’ve gone to visit my sister who lives in Seattle. She’s the only family I’ll claim (and I’m the only one she claims). She has twin boys and they are adorable and a complete pain in the arse. But it’s been great. This year, The Cute Boy™ asked if we could spend Thanksgiving together since in the past years we’d gone separate directions for the holiday. At first, it pained me, a lot. I yearned to see my sister and brother-in-law (who I adore and is more family than my actual brother) and my twin nephews who light up my world. I was mad, pouty, pain in the ass about it until I “got over it” and got into having the holiday in my home. Hadn’t done that in a while.

So today, in my post feast hangover, I’m thankful that The Cute Boy™ is so wise. He was right. And look at me publicly acknowledging it! It was right for us to spend the holiday in this home we are making together.

Mother of The Cute Boy™ came over. We had big eats. We all cooked together in a companionable way. We ate together with big bites and laughter. It was easy. And comfortable. And no one yelled at anyone. And everyone had a nice time. And it was a holiday in which I felt (somewhat) part of “family”, and didn’t come out of “family” time with excruciatingly lowered self-esteem.

Even the feline had a nice time. She horked down a bunch of turkey and some wet food (a special treat for the holiday) and then sacked out on the couch like she was comatose, paws up.

And so today I’m thankful that family doesn’t always mean pain. It can mean peace.

I’m also thankful that when I spoke to my mom on Wednesday she was in good spirits. The holidays are tough for her since my dad passed, but her outlook is good. She planned to cook a small turkey and have my aunt and uncle over. My sister and her family are fine. My brother and his family as well. Everyone is fine.

I have a good life. I’m thankful for the blessings that are in it. Despite all my complaints and whinging about things (it’s just my way) I really am blessed.

And it’s just more proof that family isn’t what you are born with, it is what you make it. I have a rag tag bunch that I call family, but they are mine, and for each and every one, I give thanks.

It’s going away, isn’t it?

My friend. My companion. That comfort at the end of a long day’s work, driving home, watching the sun go down, laughing, cheering, listening. It’s leaving me again, just as the world turns cold. It always leaves me just when the sun starts setting sooner, when the chill rolls in, when the leaves turn. Just when I need it the most, it’s gone.

My old friend and joy, baseball, is leaving me again this weekend.

The San Francisco Giants played their last home game of 2007 last night, made all the more bittersweet as, after fifteen crazy years, it was the last game Barry Bonds will play in a Giants uniform.

It was year of agony and ecstasy.

Ecstasy: The San Jose Giants, the Minor League Single A affiliate, and a group of young ‘uns near and dear to my heart performed a miracle. Coming on strong in the first half and falling off hard in the second half, they still earned their way into the playoffs and prevailed. They are the 2007 California League Champions. They played an amazing post season and just brutalized Lake Elsinore in game 5, the deciding game. I get goose bumps just thinking about it. This was a hard working team of guys who learned how to win, and a tip of the cap to manager Lenn Sakata for taking yet another team to the post season.

Agony: Their big brothers to the North, however, didn’t fare so well. With three games left, they’ve lost 89 games and are a gut-turning 18.5 games out of first place.

This was the season that Bonds broke the all-time homerun record, walloping 756 over the walls and into the history books. But all the media glare, both positive and negative, had an impact on the other 24 guys on the roster. Starting pitching was ok (I won’t “go there” about the pitiful year Barry Zito had…I just…can’t…), the bullpen was ridiculous and hitting was lame. They went up there with sad and tired bats. And our star catcher bitched about it to the press.

It was not a glorious year. It’s the latest in all the depressing seasons we’ve endured after the joys (and pain) of the 2002 World Series.

Ownership says 2008 is a “rebuilding” year. That means some young kids, some no names, and no hope of a post season for at least a couple more years.

But even in the agony of this terrible season, it was there. Baseball was on the radio every night, 162 games a year. The bases were still 90 feet apart and it was still 60 feet, six inches from mound to plate. The Umps still missed calls, players were plunked, miracles were performed and for me, all was all right with the world.

I had a day yesterday for the record books, and as I drove home, looking into the setting sun, sad, mad, exhausted, apathetic, beat down, and depressed as hell, I reached out and touched the “power” button on my radio, and suddenly Jon Miller’s voice boomed out from my radio speakers, “a called strike one!” and I left behind my troubles. My sorrow. My bone wearying exhaustion and I listened to the game. Smiling at strikes, frowning at balls and batting my hand on the steering wheel when the boys in orange and black got a hit and cheering loudly in my car.

I don’t give a rip about any of the teams in the post-season, although I may watch a few games. It’s not the same when it isn’t your team fighting it out.

*sigh* Now what? My baseball friend becomes a hockey fan in the off-season. I like hockey, but not with that fever reserved for baseball.

Guess instead, it’s time to start thinking about what in the hell I’m going to write 50,000 words about for the annual NaNoWriMo.

Heh…three years ago I wrote a baseball book……

Freedom

That’s quite a word, isn’t it? Meanings can vary depending on what situation you are looking at. And it has more weight or less weight, as well, depending on how you’re looking at it.

When I read Jim Belshaw’s opinion piece“Writer Given Gift of Freedom yesterday in the ABQjournal, the word freedom was used in a way quite meaningful to me.

I’m both happy and raging ass jealous to read about a lady named Summer who gets to live my ultimate dream. My personal definition of freedom. Congratulations to Summer who is the winner of this year’s A Room of Her Own Foundation $50,000 Gift of Freedom award.

Until today I was unfamiliar with A Room of Her Own, but I’ve now fallen in love with them based on this snip from their mission statement on their webpage, “… bridging the often fatal gap between a woman’s economic reality and her artistic creation.”

Which seems to be based on the Virginia Woolf quote in the middle of the page, “A woman must have money and a room of her own if she is to write.”

Brings tears to my eyes, really.

But back to Summer. She lives in San Cristobal and believes she can make this $50,000 grant last her for two years, giving her a chance to take a break from her regular hardworking job and allowing her to write for a living.

From the article: “The obstacle of having to make a living while you’re trying to write a novel or finish your short stories is gone,” she said.

Damn. It’s truly my deepest and fondest dream. To no longer be bound by gray cubicled walls, incessant emails, and the political bureaucracy. To break the bounds and let being creative be “what I do for a living.”

I have a currently unfinished book that still swarms in my head. The characters live there, keeping residence until I finish telling their story, tenacious little buggars that they are. This is my fourth novel so I’m familiar with the drill. I will be haunted by the characters, without respite, until I type the words “The End”. With that they will finally give me peace.

Taking two years off, and having the funds to do so. Ah. Yes. A little slice of heaven in my book.

So lots of props to Summer. It can’t have been easy to win this grant. I’m sure competition was steep. It makes me smile to see a writer doing it, making it work, taking the time to let the Muse be the only boss she answers to.

$50,000 wouldn’t run two years where I live but I’d sure love to have a go at it. Maybe in 2009? I see they’ve posted the application….hmmmmmm…..

Pardon me, I’ve got some dreaming to do on a no-wanna-work Friday.