Category: New Mexico

A Different Kind of Summer Day

Sigh. It’s a beautiful August day outside.

The sun it out but it’s not too hot. A slight breeze dries the little bit of sweat that springs up from running around on the green grass. The pavement is warm on my sandaled feet.

I miss having summers off. Three months of ease and joy. I miss those lazy hot August days, like today, in the waning hours before school starts again. It seemed like summer would never end and Autumn was a forever away.

I miss dry Albuquerque days with powerful monsoon rainstorms in the late afternoon.

Splashing in sprinklers. Chasing lizards. Riding my bike.

Then dashing inside where the refrigerated air was like heaven on earth and sipping sun tea while watching Guiding Light with my mom and sister and often my grandmother too.

I think I had angst back then. I’m pretty sure I worried a lot. I at least got a little worked up over the latest machinations of Reva and Josh in that soap opera world.

But I had kid worries too. What would school be like? Why didn’t I have more friends? Why was my hair mousey brown and not blonde? When mom and dad talked about money problems did that mean something bad was going to happen?

I know I had a lot of angst back then, but in hindsight it seems so easy. So effortless.

What is that saying? “Youth is wasted on the young.” For me maybe not wasted but certainly not appreciated.

On this beautiful August day, I sit in my hard walled office with one glass wall and gaze out to the park across the street. Kids run and tumble and shout and scream and seem to be having a really effortlessly fun summer.

And I feel wistful.

I know kids today have their own worries and in a lot of ways it’s harder to be a kid today than it was way back when. But right now I am gazing out the window as I prepare for my next conference call where we’ll blah de blah for an hour about something that seems terribly important but really isn’t. Right now I sort of wish for a swimming pool, a soft serve ice cream cone and the time and desire to lay out on a beach towel and just soak up the sun.

For just a moment to have nothing to do and nowhere to be and nothing to worry about other than when to flip over so I don’t get sunburned.

That’s summer vacation to me.

Ah well. Back to the conference call. My boss is pinging my mobile phone and asking if I am attending.

I’m attending. In body only. The spirit is floating on a hot pink blow up mattress in the muddy waters of Ute Lake.


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This photo is not totally applicable to this post, but I went to my favorite royalty free stock photo site and put “summer” in the search box.

This was the first image that came up and it was too compelling to pass up. So there you have it.







Image by Teresa Howes and used royalty free from stock.xchng



There’s No Curiosity About It

To end the week, I bring you something that was posted on Facebook several days ago, but was so damn brilliant that I keep going back to it for a laugh.

I think you gotta be a New Mexican to really appreciate it. Mars ain’t got nuthin’ we haven’t already seen flying by at the family picnic.






To read more from the brilliant Mr. Sharp, check out his regular contributions to Desert Exposure under the pen name Henry Lightcap.



Screen shot used with permission and gratitude. Image from NASA.



I Hear You Calling

Oh, Atlanta/I hear you calling/
I’m coming back to you one fine day/
No need to worry/There ain’t no hurry/
cause I’m/On my way back to Georgia

— Atlanta, by Alison Krauss

Last month I typed into my Facebook status, “Holy crap. I’m actually in London” in the awe inspiring moments after I stepped off an airplane.

I considered typing something similar today.

I suppose “Holy crap I’m actually in Atlanta” holds a little less gravitas, but it’s no less sincere.

The holy crap comes to mind because it’s been a really long time since I was in beautiful Georgia.

Flying over the city I love to look out the window and I’m always amazed. Atlanta is so green. So many trees. So many old red brick buildings. Lovely!

I got a good adventure today, too. I picked up a rental car at the airport and got out on Highway 85 southbound. Today I drove across the left half of Georgia. It’s a jaunt that would take many, many hours in New Mexico, but turns out I only needed about 75 miles to get it done today.

The highway was wonderful. Smooth pavement, tall Georgia pines lining the route and well-tended velvety grass on both sides of the road.

I put my favorite Sirius station on the rental car radio and took a really nice drive.

It looked like this.





I love driving on easy open road. It’s very meditative. Some of my best thinking gets done on an uncrowded interstate.

And then after a little over an hour, I slipped over the border into Alabama and found my hotel.

This is the view from my hotel room. That is some big sky right there.




The population of this town is 7,897 and the folks here could not be any nicer. I took a drive around the town just to check it out and marveled at how pretty it is here in this little corner of Alabama.

Something so easy and so pretty about a warm summer night in the South.

And then I stopped off for a little dinner at a local institution.

Haven’t visited one of these in a while.





Feeling quite content, I’m back in my hotel and I’m smiling.

Atlanta may have been calling, but right now Alabama’s got my attention.

I was sort of worried about this trip, about the long drive and the weather and what this little town would be like.

It turns out I’m kind of having fun. On a work trip! Go figure.



That’s Still Me

Recently a long time reader of this blog added a comment to one of my posts about being in London.

It went something like this, “Awhile back you were whining because you don’t get paid to play golf. Would it help if we all let you know how much we envy you?”

I know when I’m being gigged between the ribs, and I didn’t take it bad. In fact I dug the comment because it not only made me smile but also think a bit.

There have been a couple other much less nice notes sent my way via email that implied that I’m bragging too much on my blog.

Here’s the thing, in my mind, I’m still this girl.




In cuts offs and a tshirt, leaning against a chicken coop in Logan, New Mexico. Brown from the New Mexico sun and days spent swimming in Ute Lake.

I can guarantee you the little girl in that photo never thought for a million years she’d ever leave New Mexico, much less visit Singapore, Costa Rica and London. Or attend a US Open Golf Tournament. Or meet the legendary Willie McCovey.

Ya gotta know, when I pipe up here and talk about what I’m doing, it’s because I’m still genuinely in shock and awe that I’m doing it.

This throwaway comment on Facebook about sums it up:




That was the most genuine and true sentiment I had in that moment. I was so in awe at the fulfillment of a dream that I was rendered mostly speechless. Not many words were needed to convey the truth of it all.

Maybe I do brag to much and I’m just too insecure to write it in a more humble way. But to be honest, I’m pretty freaking proud.

This past year has been nothing short of epic for me.

That the little girl at Ute Lake and this little girl in London ARE THE SAME GIRL boggles my tiny mind, still.




Of course, I’m also this girl. But then I’ve always been like that.




To sum it all up, if you think I’m bragging too much on my blog, you are probably right. I should warn you it ain’t a’gonna stop anytime soon, either.

And so that means it’s truly time to say:

Thanks for dropping by today, dear reader. For putting up with my random thoughts, disjointed posts and all around bad behavior. I owe you a deep debt of gratitude for reading my words.

I sure am having fun on this blog. It’s a party in 1,476 posts and 469,239 words!




Ute Lake photo from my family’s collection, Copyright Karen Fayeth. No use or reproduction without prior written consent. Taken with a Kodak Instamatic and no need for the flip-flash.

Photo from London’s Tower Bridge is Copyright 2012, Karen Fayeth, and subject to the Creative Commons license on the right column of this page. Taken with an iPhone 4s and the Camera+ app.


Friend, Grant Me Absolution

It was, on a Fall day in 1988 that I first crossed paths with the girl who would become my best friend in the whole wide world. Mother of my god kids. Forgiver of all my aberrant behaviors. Supporter of my dreams.

She is the best.

It’s now twenty-four years later and she’s still closer than family and knows me better than I know myself.

Several months ago, over iced tea on her back patio near Radium Springs, she invited The Good Man and me to come out to New Mexico for a summer camping trip. Now I adore camping and was totally on board. The Good Man and I were already talking about flying or driving and how long we should stay.

And then life does what it does. It got in the way.

When my best friend asked me to spend some time in Quemado, it was February and I had nothing on the calendar that would inhibit a vist.

Five months, lots of overtime hours, and three countries later, my outlook wasn’t as clear.

So I was a bit sad to have to tell my friend that no, I wasn’t going to be able to go camping. I had just got back from London and The Good Man was up to his eyeballs in alligators with work too.

And money is always a question mark.

Damn it all to hell…we just couldn’t swing it.

I was supposed to be out there charring marshmallows and hiking where there is no mobile signal over this past weekend.

*sigh*

When I was still in flux about going, I happened to get an email from a joint called The Uptown Theatre in Napa. This is where I saw Rosanne Cash and Hugh Laurie and it’s rapidly become one of my all time favorite venues for live music.

Seems this little ol’ band called The Mavericks have reunited and were doing a show at the Uptown. The same weekend I should have been going camping.

The Mavericks are more than a fantastically talented band, they are an integral part of my life and the life of my best friend and our friendship. Their album “Music For All Occasions” is a landmark in our world. We love this band. A lot. Their music sums up a lot of what the late 1980’s and early to mid 1990’s mean to both of us.

It’s a soundtrack to our most cherished memories.

So when I saw they were playing a show nearby, I hedged my bets. All along, I planned to go to New Mexico, but I bought the not very expensive tickets too. If I lost out on the tickets in favor of New Mexico, so much the better. If we couldn’t swing camping, then The Good Man and I would take in a show.

Eventually we had to make the tough choice to stay back in California while my dearest friend and family went out to the woods and enjoyed the best of New Mexico.

Which meant The Good Man and I went to Napa. Being Catholic raised, the guilt was overwhelming. Both my best friend and my best guy should have been with me that night. It felt wrong to be at a Maverick’s show without her. Like I was being both a bad friend and a bad person.

That said, I still enjoyed the hell out of the show. This band is amazing! I last saw them back in 1998 when I had just moved to the state of California and seeing them live was a tonic to my confused, tortured soul. My friend and I lamented back then that she wasn’t able to come out for that show.

And here I went and did it again.

Gah!

Every day I’m checking the band’s webpage to see if they have added any dates. If they come anywhere near New Mexico or Northern California again, we’re are going! No if’s, and’s, but’s or international demands from my Boss.

We’ll bring the godkids too. They need to know what we know.

Confession is good for the soul, right? I hope so. I called my best friend yesterday but her phone went right to voicemail. That means she’s still out there where email and Facebook and all the rest don’t really matter.

If I don’t catch her by phone maybe she’ll see this post and know that I went and saw our favorite band without her (again!), but I was thinking of her the whole time. And that’s the truth.

Plus, I’ve done way worse things over the course of our twenty-four years and she’s forgiven me. I think we’ll be all good.

Should I tell her that I had tickets in the second row? Hmm. Maybe not.

Should I tell her that I met and had a nice chat with Robert Reynolds after the show? No, I probably shouldn’t.

That might be pushing it a bit.

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A couple photos from the incredible show:




Lead singer, the amazing Raul Malo




Original members, reunited. Raul Malo (l), Paul Deakin (c), Robert Reynolds (r)



All images Copyright 2012, Karen Fayeth, and subject to the Creative Commons license in the right column of this page. Photos taken with an iPhone4s and the Camera+ App.