Category: New Mexico

I doubt your bumper sticker, sir.

Last evening, while out running errands, I found myself at a stoplight behind a shiny new black Cadillac Escalade EXT (the one that’s sorta kinda a pickup, but not really).

It was a nice ride, tricked out with big fat shiny chrome custom wheels, all the expensive add ons, and a sticker on the back window that said “Cowboy Up.”

Oh really? Cowboy up? Is that your philosophy on life? Are you sure, Mr. Driving a Luxury Vehicle in the Suburbs, that you are, in fact, ready to cowboy up?

Are you prepared to lose a thumb as you throw a loop around the head of a recalcitrant steer, dally up around the saddle horn and whoops, get a digit caught in the turn?

Are you ready to try to throw a calf while you currently nurse a broken rib, courtesy of the back forty of the calf that came down the chute just before?

Are you all set to trim a budding horn from a young cow only to hit the artery, thus shooting blood straight into your eye with force and velocity? And are you further ready to then take a hot branding iron and sear that bloody mess, leaving the smell and taste of burning flesh and blood lingering in the air?

Are you man enough to sink your arm up to the shoulder inside the back of a birthing cow to assist that mama with a backwards facing baby, and when that same mama cow prolapses her uterus out onto the ground, are you ready to shove that bloody mess back inside and stitch her up? (if you don’t know what I mean, I suggest you do a search on Confessions of a Pioneer Woman, she even posted photos of this horrifying event)

And are you ready to be bitten, kicked and thrown off a horse all in one day? Are you ready the haul hay? Are you ready to pray for rain and curse the wind? Are you ready to turn your hands to hamburger from stringing barbwire? Are you ready to face birth and death and life and manure and blood and saliva and the unpredictability of the life of a cowboy?

Are ya?

Cause you know what? I betcha you aren’t, actually, ready to Cowboy Up.

I might know a thing or two about it, and even I’m not really ready to Cowboy Up.

Not even in the suburbs.

Oh Dear!

I believe we have a rogue deer in my part of the world.

How, might you ask, would I know that?

Because, I am a woman of New Mexico, daughter of a hunter and champion poo identifier.

That, my friends, is a healthy, well-fed ruminant.

So normally this wouldn’t bother me, but this little deposit, made Saturday evening, is located less than a foot from my home.

True, I live pretty much in the suburbs, but it’s not THAT suburban. We do have some open land a couple miles away from us, but it’s pretty tight housing and people where I’m at.

Here in California, we are SO anti the mountain lion, one gets spotted at a fair distance and the *freak* out happens. Quickly it’s captured and relocated or killed.

See, if we hadn’t killed all the mountain lions, those stick-legged animals wouldn’t be leaving their leavings in my front yard!

That’s the circle of life, people!

I’d be more than happy to help Bambi the Yard Visitor make his or her way onto my dinner plate, but noooo, California can’t have *that*.

Bambi is cute and doesn’t have sharp paws, so he gets to stick around, ruining fences, gardens and causing havoc but the feline meat eaters get ostracized.

*sigh*

(Note to my readers: oh yes I DID just post a poo photo on my blog! If the award winning Pioneer Woman can do it, well, so can I!)

: twitch, twitch :

You know what it’s like, careening down a country road.

Driving faster than your headlights, as your driving instructor (Mr. McGinnis if you are an Albuquerque kid) might say.

And you see those two little glistening black eyes under two long ears, nose twitching by the side of the road.

That goddamn jackrabbit is making a decision. Here comes two tons of steel traveling just north of 90 mph.

Do I leap or do I stay still?

Stay still and stay safe. You know this side of the road, you don’t get to see anything new, no challenges.

Leap fast enough and you make it to the other side, a whole new world awaits. Fresh experiences, more room to grow.

Leap not quite fast enough and you are a hood ornament.

What do you do?

Don’t ask me, I’m just another conejo by the side of the road blinking into the approaching highbeams.

This morning I met a man outside of my manager’s office. He’s from the company that just bought my employer. He’s the counterpart to my boss. Odds are good he’ll be my next boss.

Later I walked down to the area where all the high level managers sit. My boss and four other directors are jam packed into a senior director’s office. A sudden impromptu meeting.

What the *hell* is going on?

Do I still have a job?

: twitch, twitch :

The funny thing about family is…

…that even if they make you mad, or you don’t see them for a while, or you don’t even know some of them, they are still yours. And they tell you a little about yourself.

I had the chance to take my still freshly minted husband to visit with the folks from my dad’s side of the family tree.

Unfortunately, my dad passed before The Good Man got the chance to meet him. TGM has heard all of my stories and I thought it was important for him to hear the stories that others had to tell.

I think you can learn to know a person by their stories.

This trip was also a lesson for me in asking for what you want.

I asked my aunts and uncles, surviving siblings of my father, to be willing to tell us stories about my dad.

They were only too happy to respond. And oh did they deliver.

The first day of my visit, my wish was not just fulfilled, my expectations were far exceeded.

Two aunts and two uncles, siblings of my dad, along with an aunt and an uncle by marriage, my mom, my husband and I all met for lunch.

Our orders were barely placed when the story telling began. Oh does my family love to tell a good story. My grandparents were real characters, like something out of fiction, and there is quite a bit of fodder there for stories.

I haven’t laughed that hard in a very, very long time. In fact, had I not been laughing, I probably would have cried my eyes out for all the gratitude I felt.

In two hours of lunch, I got a pretty deep glimpse into my dad’s life growing up. I didn’t know my dad’s side of the family that well since we were in New Mexico and they were in Indiana. Since my dad’s passing, I’ve been developing relationships with these folks and feel sad on the years I missed, but happy for the love and friendship and family bond I am earning as an adult.

I know a little bit more about my dad now. I know a little bit more about me, too.

And maybe the timing on this visit couldn’t have been more perfect now that I face the next decade of my crazy, mixed up, perfect life.

The funny thing about my family is…we may be a little strange, but the roots of our raisin’ run deep.

I wouldn’t have us any other way.

*sigh*

Oh Fair New Mexico…you may serve some of the finest food in the world, but damnit, you have no taste.

I can’t even be surprised. I want to be, but I’m not.

(btw, if you don’t know Las Cruces, Telshor and Lohman is a really prime location)

From the Las Cruces Sun News:

Olive Garden? Really?