Category: parenting

Oh…That’s Not A Good Sound

Last evening, I sat curled up in the corner of my comfy couch, sleeping feline nearby, laptop lid up, idly surfing about, catching up on the news of the day. The Good Man did something similar in the next room. Giants baseball on the radio, the sounds of Duane Kuiper calling the game.

From out of nowhere, the lights flickered, and then went out. The instant it went dark, a loud whining sound could be heard outside. The unmistakable sound of a power transformer under extreme strain. It went on for a long time. Stopped, then started again.

And I slipped back into memory. It was the early 1990’s. My folks were living in Carlsbad and I was home for a few weeks between summer school and the start of the regular school year at NMSU.

It was a beautiful, clear summer day. I decided to take a long walk and get some exercise in before my folks came home from work. I left the house about 3:30 in the afternoon and walked down long country roads. My folks were living on the outskirts of Carlsbad at that time (if you’re from there, it was out on Cherry Lane near the CARC farm).

The first half of the walk was great. It was a gorgeous New Mexico day. On my return trip, things started to get ominous. In August in the southeastern part of the state, storms come in fast and furious. Emphasis on furious. Carlsbad is at the tail end of tornado alley, but being at the tail end doesn’t mean the tornados are any less frequent.

As I walked a little faster, the sky turned deep black, and then green. The clouds started to boil. This was bad. Very, very bad.

The rain came quickly and the temperature dropped twenty degrees. The powerful winds whipped raindrops into my bare legs and arms. Then the hail started. Small icy bits at first, then growing larger.

My whole body shuddered when I heard the sirens I’d come to both fear and hate. Tornado sirens. That meant a tornado had been spotted and all we could do was wait.

I was still about a mile from home, on foot, and in the center of the storm.

I picked up the pace a lot more. I ran off and on, but as I’m not a runner, I had to slow down so I could catch my breath.

Already drenched, I groaned when the rain picked up intensity. Thunder shook the ground, the trees, the terrified girl by the side of the road.

Lightning cracked out of the sky and hit a power pole across the street and ahead a bit.

That’s when I heard that sound. A power transformer under strain.

The power transformer exploded, sending flames and sparks into the sky.

I dove headfirst into a now very soaked alfalfa field, remembering my early training on “get low when lightning is around,” and lay as flat as possible, hugging mother earth while lightning struck all around.

Soon the heart of the storm moved on and I could hear the thunder a couple miles away, counting “one Mississippi, two Mississippi” between lightning strikes and thunderclaps.

When it seemed I was safe, I leapt up and ran for my folk’s home as fast as I could. I got home safely. I called my mom (a no-no in the storm, but I needed my mommy!) and since we had no tornado shelter, she recommended that I stay to the center of the house and if a tornado was coming to get into the bathtub and hunker down.

“Get ready to leave the house!” The Good Man commanded sharply, snapping me from my reverie. I was back in Northern California and that transformer sound had stopped.

I jumped to action, running to get the cat carrier out of the closet and once The Feline was secure (she loves the cat carrier and walks right in with no complaint) I ran room to room and unplugged every device that was attached to a socket. The Good Man was on the phone with PG&E advising them of the situation.

We dashed outside to see what was going on and the neighbors were all outside too, talking over what they saw and heard. Soon the sirens of a fire engine came racing toward us and the firemen let us know a powerline was down two streets over but no explanation as to why the powerline came down on a quiet evening. PG&E were on their way and we should go back inside.

We lit candles and got out flashlights and settled back into the couch. Safe. On that summer day back when in Carlsbad, I was also safe. Tornados did touch down, but several miles away.

This past April when an earthquake came along and the house and ground shook, The Good Man, a longtime veteran of the Bay Area, commanded “Get in a doorway!” and I did.

I’m grateful to have a partner who is the epitome of grace under fire, and I’m grateful for my Mom’s wise support from two decades ago, too. Mostly, I’m just grateful when there is someone strong and wise to guide me through a crisis.

That makes me feel safe.




Image from Ring Electric’s blog.


Going Four for Four

Today, after I get home from work and grab a little snack, I will reach into my special cabinet and remove the 1970’s era KitchenAid mixer waiting there. The mixer will go on the counter next to my battle worn Cocinas de New Mexico cookbook.

It’s time to make biscochitos.

This is my fourth and final entry for my local county fair, which starts this weekend. I decided to enter my biscochitos in the “culinary arts” event under the “ethnic desserts – cookie” category.

I first learned how to make the New Mexico State Cookie on the very same avocado green mixer that I will use tonight. It’s been a part of my life as long as I can remember, churning out bread, tortillas, grinding meat and makes endless batches of cookies. My mom oversaw my first forays into baking, helping make sure I got the measurements right and followed the recipe to the letter.

Baking biscochitos is like a meditation. Mix the dough, an extra pinch of anise seed for luck, roll out the heavy dough on the counter, cut out circles and bake to golden perfection.

This process, these cookies and that green mixer are all a part of my DNA.

I have no idea what sort of competition my cookies will go up against, but I know this: win or lose, The Good Man and I will have a fresh batch of homemade bicochitos to get us through the day.

A little bit of New Mexico in the middle of a very busy work week. That’s a winner!




Note to El Viejo: I will make them both with and without cinnamon sugar on top and then decide which I think the judges would prefer. I tend to think I should go gringo style and turn in the sugared tops to try to curry the favor of the judges.



And Then There Was The Time…

So after having a confession yesterday about my snake flinging incident, commenter Andy D mentioned that if I’d slung the snake directly onto instead of simply near my mom, that likely I’d remember the conclusion of that story a lot differently.

Which reminded me of yet another story that took place at that family vacation house near Ute Lake.

My dad was an avid hunter and we always had guns in the house. Since my dad didn’t want us to be either scared or a little too curious about the guns, he made sure we all knew how to shoot each and every one.

On the small bit of property we owned in Cuba, New Mexico, there was a tree that had been felled by lightening. It was a huge tree, and it made a really good location for target practice. Whenever we’d go camping, my dad would bring along guns and each kid (and mom too) all had to take a turn. Dad supervised while we learned to load and shoot the gun.

I was shooting my dad’s deer rifles from a young age. All this is by way of saying that I grew up fairly comfortable around guns.

So ok.

My brother had himself a BB gun when he was a teenager, and when he went off to college, that BB gun was left at the Lake House. For a while, around age 12 or so, I adopted that BB gun as my own. It had seen better days, but it worked fine and there was a big box of BBs available for my “ping!” pleasure.

I liked to shoot the gun mainly for the sound of the BBs pinging off the side of something like the old metal sided chicken coop.

Not the most ambitious of kids, was I.

On the property was a telephone pole. For reasons I still don’t fully understand, that telephone pole was covered in a very thick layer of tar. When the baking heat of a New Mexico summer day would get going, that tar would soften into a gooey mess.

So in my eleven year old mind, I had the brilliant idea that if I shot BBs at the tar covered pole, they’d stick. Wouldn’t that be so cool?

I filled the BB gun full to the brim and got to work out back shooting at that pole from a fair distance. I wanted to make it sporting. Now, hitting a decently narrow pole from a good distance is tougher than you may think. Or at least it was for me. What I lacked in aim, I made up for with single minded focus.

Well, so there I was, pumping BB’s in the general direction of the telephone pole, and my mom, wearing shorts and a sleeveless shirt, was working out in the back yard pulling weeds.

You can see where this is headed, right?

Sure enough, it was only a matter of time before I pulled the trigger, my aim was a bit off the mark and I…

Yes, I did.

I shot my mom in the arm.

She was, as the saying goes, mad as a wet hen. Quickly enough, a big red welt began rising on her right arm.

Let me just tell you this: I was no longer allowed the use of that BB gun. I was done. For good.

Flinging a snake? I got off easy. Shooting my mom? My oh my. I was in quite a bit of trouble which included a “talking to” from my dad.

That’s never good.

And so in the course of two blog posts, I’ve created quite the Mother’s Day meme.


(I did not, in fact, shoot my eye out. I shot my mom. Whoops.)



Photo is a still from the movie, “A Christmas Story.”


Spring Goes *SPROING*

Wasn’t it just yesterday that it was cold, dreary and my little lakes and estuaries were empty of bird life? It was the quiet time. Trees brown, grass dead, flowers non-existent.

And then yesterday, as if out of no where…

Bing!




Bang!




Boom!



I’m sure to the geese parents it was a bit more complicated than big, bang, boom (ahem….) but to me it’s like these little goslings appeared overnight.

Today, they are cute and I “awwwww” at their little wing nubs.

Tomorrow they are full grown Canada geese standing in the middle of the road as I’m trying to get to work and I curse at them.

That there’s the real circle of life. From an awwww to a blue streak in two easy steps.

Happy Spring!



I Got To Thinking Today

My dad was an engineer by trade, and had a life long interest in the power of nuclear energy. He worked at Sandia Labs during the Cold War, and was quite familiar with the devastation that could be wrought in the path of nuclear power. He was also well aware of the power that could be harnessed from one small nuclear reaction.

As the Cold War ended and Sandia turned away from creating weapons, much of their immense talent base was put toward finding alternate sources of energy. My dad had a chance to study wind, solar, and yes, nuclear energy.

He used to rant endlessly about how he felt people were missing the boat on the use of nuclear power to create clean energy with, generally speaking, less damaging effects. He was a huge advocate for nuclear energy as a sustainable resource.

As a kid, I often thought my dad was a wackadoodle for these relentless, passionate lectures on this topic (and others).

It’s funny how time really does make fools of us all. Now that I’m pretty close to the age my dad was when we was raising me, I find that what was once wackadoodleism becomes, “hey, he might have actually had a point.”

Earlier today, I was going through the videos, photos and new coverage of the truly horrifying aftermath of the earthquake and Tsunami in Japan. I got to thinking about my old man when I saw this quote from a Japanese spokesman for the government:

“The nuclear plants have been shut down but the cooling process for the reactor is not going as planned.”

I thought to myself, “If they are able to keep that reactor from melting down, that is a huge boost to the argument that my pops made for decades.”

However, if that reactor does melt down, then all the anti-nuclear energy people will have a strong case study on their side.

I’m not sure which side of the nuclear energy debate I come down on. Honestly, I can argue both sides, and it’s a very sticky topic.

One thing I will say is that the existing nuclear plants in the U.S. are of such old technology that it’s truly frightening. The anti-nuclear power lobbies won’t allow these existing facilities to be upgraded. They want them closed, not improved.

So they stay open and get older and more outdated by the year.

And thus, the standoff rages on. That’s where my pops would start snorting, and steam would begin rolling out of his ears.

All of this is some scary news. I think that if Japan can contain and control their nuclear plants in the face of one of the worst natural disasters of recent history, then it highly recommends at least considering the latest available technology for maintaining nuclear facilities.

Maybe we don’t build any more, but we fix what we’ve got?

Oh, and while I was thinking about all of this, even discussing it with my mom via email, I glanced at the calendar.

My dad passed away six years ago last month. Perhaps worrying about the nuclear energy facilities in the midst of tragedy in Japan is an odd way to honor He Who Brought Me Forth. I suspect for him, it would do just fine.




Image is 1954 era Union Carbide ad, found several places on the web.