Category: memories

Old problem in a new location

You know…it’s been a while.

A good long while. Since back in the I-40 and I-25 days.

Many years past.

Yes, today I had a moment of cellular memory.

We had an especially windy day in the Bay Area.

Sure, people talk about it being windy here, but they don’t know from wind. They don’t know about that gap between the Sandias and Manzanos channeling the wind, giving it force, and knocking you down in the parking lot.

They don’t know about tumbleweeds the size of a small house bouncing joyfully across the road with a velocity relatively equal to an overloaded Mack Truck coming out of the Glorieta Pass, air brakes screaming.

No, they don’t know.

But today came close.

As I drove home down 280 in the howling wind, my hands and arms moved without me. Took up the familiar position of about a 27 and a half degree angle turn on the steering wheel.

Turning into the wind in order to keep the car between the white lines.

And then…that moment when going under the overpass and wooop, for half a second you get a wind break and steer, steer, steer to keep from broadsiding the person next to you then you are out of the wind break and steer, steer, steer to keep from sliding off in the other direction.

My hands and arms didn’t need my brain to tell them what to do. They knew.

Honed and skilled by the unforgiving winds of the New Mexico desert. They knew.

The answer my friend, is blowing in the wind. (aw man! I can’t believe I *went there*!)

Do you ever…?

So there you are, say, commuting to work, and you are in a mellow mood. Talk radio doesn’t sound good. Local stations mostly suck, and besides, your nerves don’t want to be jangled today.

So you, you know, put the local light rock station on your car radio.

There you are, driving and thinking and listening to easy listening music that dates back a few years. Ok, more than a few years. A few decades, really. And you know all the words. You remember when that song was top ten. You recall when you heard it coming through your all in one turntable/radio unit with the dial drift and the scratchy single speaker.

So there you are, listening. Then, say, maybe a schlocky 1970’s love song comes on. One you haven’t heard in a really long time. And so you think “wow…what ever happened to THIS embarrassing song…” but then you listen to it a bit more, and you hear the words. And you are touched.

You think, “Well, but for some totally seventies arrangements, this is a really beautiful song.”

So you’re driving along, hearing the words, and thinking of the one you love most. Say, your fantastic spouse…and you hear these syrupy love words and you think to yourself “yes! Yes that too! Oh! And that other sentiment is *totally* my sweetie.”

And then maybe you cry a little bit. Not sadness, but because you’ve just heard words that totally encapsulate how powerfully you feel for that person who agreed to share their life with you.

It gets you right in the chest, and you let some tears roll down your cheeks and smile because you know you are the luckiest person in the whole wide world because you somehow found this amazing person who sees past your flaws and loves you anyway.

And you feel humble and unworthy but powerfully fortunate, like you won the lottery and the World Series all in one.

So then the song ends, and is followed by some more recent bit of clanky 90’s attempt at music, and the tears dry up and you take your exit to get to work, and a knobsack in a green Honda cuts you off. And so you call Honda boy a name worse than knobsack and drive on and you sniffle and you laugh at yourself for being such a sappy old fool.

Then you get to work and go upstairs and lose yourself in email, but that humble and lottery winning feeling prevails. And you think about writing your fantastic spouse the love letter of the century, but you can’t quite make the words sound anything other than schlocky.

So you just dwell in that quiet, humble, post-cry space and tell people that your allergies are acting up when they ask what is wrong with you.

But it’s not the allergies…it’s that damn 1970’s song that got a hold of you…

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Does this ever happen to you? Or is this just me? (And perhaps some helpful female hormones)

Or should I just give up and get fitted for a leisure suit now?

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

Unity brought about by food

Upon starting my new job, it was perplexing to me how often they feed us at this place. I mean, I’m not complaining. But seriously, I get at least two meals a week provided, sometimes more.

Good food too, full meals, like chicken and potatoes, cheese tortellini with salad, lavish Mexican buffet, a full course Vietnamese meal, and more.

This was especially peculiar to me, since, at my former employer, I usually ate my lunch by myself at my desk. A friend and I would walk over to the cafeteria, get food, walk back and go our separate ways. Clean. Sterile. Boring.

Now that I’ve been at the new gig 90 days, and having just stuffed myself silly at the potluck to end all potlucks (yum), I realized that this habit of sharing meals together is a bit of brilliance.

Really, how more primal can you get than breaking bread with other people? It creates connections.

Earlier today, I looked around the room at all these people I’ve come to know. Over a plate of homemade food (that’s our pot luck rule, it must be actually homemade), I found an easy camaraderie.

I know that one lady’s young daughter loves red velvet cake, and when she heard another lady at work was making it for our potluck, begged her mom to bring some home.

I know that the lady who sits right next to me was raised in the Philippines, and her homemade lumpia is worth weeping over. (I had three)

I discovered that the guy on the next row who identifies himself as Asian actually has a Mexican mother, who was kind enough to make flan for our potluck. Really, really good flan, too.

The reason for our potluck was to “Share the Love” for Valentine’s Day. As we all ate and complimented each other and asked for recipes, yes, there was love, and connection and a diligence to work together and believe in each other and do our best to get through the obstacles.

All because we got out some paper plates and plastic forks and brought out food that represents a little of ourselves. We’re all taking in a bit of each other and blending into something that much better.

I think that kind of connection is rarely found at work, and has to be part of the reason why this group I work with and for manages to get along so damn well. That’s the kind of “corporate goodwill” you just can’t force.

By the way, the contribution that represented me was a kickin’ bowl of guacamole. I make *really* good guac and today I earned some new fans.

Bet you never knew that guacamole tastes really good on lumpia!

Bringing cultures and oddball coworkers together, one delicious meal at a time…

On this same topic, I am fortunate enough to be able to make a trip to Southern New Mexico this weekend. I’ll be with my best friend of twenty years, and when we settled the date for a visit, one of the first things she said was, “we have to plan the menu”.

Food, for us, is family, is bonding, is life, is earth, is the heart of who we are. Nourishing both body and soul.

I can hardly wait for her homemade rellenos. Right then, I just did a little jump and clicked my heels.

New Mexico, here I come!

My People

I am always filled with a not-so-quiet joy when I see the place from whence I came showcased on the big stage.

It somehow validates me.

Sure, having Big Bad Billy run for President surely upped New Mexico’s cool quotient and “put us on the map” in plenty of ways.

But my heart sang and my eyes wept last night watching an episode of “No Reservations” on the Travel Channel.

I love this show. Starring Anthony Bourdain, a career chef, New Jersey born, New York resident. This is a high class, high dollar guy who knows his food.

He was head chef at upscale Les Halles in New York for many years. He’s also a prolific writer and avid traveler. I’ve read a few of his books, many of his editorials and some blog posts. His writing is tight, snarky and well, just good.

I’ve watched his food/travel show since it was called something different for a season on the Food Network. I’ve also seen every episode of the long running series now on the Travel Channel.

I’ve been around the world with Tony. Watched him get pummeled by bulky bodybuilders in Finland, seen him travel the back roads of Viet Nam eating god knows what, watched him get bucked off a four wheeler in New Zealand, and am intimately familiar with his love for all pork products.

So last night’s episode (actually, it was last week’s, I missed it and caught a rerun), Anthony was given use of a BMW SUV, then set out on a road trip to the American Southwest.

Hoookay, Mr. Snappy Chef Boy, you are dancing on my terrain now.

I was pretty certain I’d see plenty of Arizona, lots of Texas, and none of my Fair New Mexico.

I was wrong.

In between stops in Indio, CA (god, why would *anyone* willingly stop there) and Waco, TX (home of one Mr. Ted Nugent), the No Reservations crew made a stop in Hatch.

Yes, Hatch, New Mexico, home of one of the finest food ingredients in the world.

Tony sat at a vinyl-topped table with the owners of The Pepper Pot, and talked with them about the troubles of chile farmers (mostly that there is lack of demand, so farmers are converting crops to more profitable items, like corn).

While they talked, the host was served both a red and a green enchilada.

And Mr. Bourdain, world traveler, renowned chef, he of highly calibrated taste buds turned to the camera and said, “That is the best enchilada I have ever eaten.”

Yes, yes it is. The best you’ll *ever* eat.

Take that to Manhattan, big man.

Because if it was the last day of my life, and I was told that I could choose one of two places for my last meal: a high end, high dollar establishment, or a crappy diner in New Mexico, there would be no contest.

Chicken enchiladas, green, with a fried egg and sour cream.

And I would go quietly into that great beyond with a big smile and a full belly.

Salute to my home state for getting a good review from a snarky host of a travel show!

To celebrate, I’ll have feet on the ground in just less than two weeks.

Because it’s time. And because my sweet New Mexico calls to me.

Mostly because my best friend said she’d make rellenos.

Green chile chicken enchiladas, here I come!