Category: wayback machine

Uh oh.

Guess what I got up to this weekend?

I let the hellidays come up and grab me.

I indulged in a long time family tradition…using old and new implements.

I emailed my mom and got the family “secret” sugar cookie recipe. And I made ’em. Oh yes, I made ’em. Had to buy my own set of cutters, and they aren’t as good as the decades old ones my mom is still clinging to.

But she did finally give up her old Kitchenaid mixer.

I’ve been baking treats out of that thing since I was probably 6 or 7. My mom made tortillas every Saturday (after Mass) in that same mixer. It looks a little worse for the wear, and is, for god’s sake, 1970’s avocado green, but it still works like a charm. I love how a new generation of young women have discovered what I knew all along. A Kitchenaid mixer makes short work of any baking project. It’s amazing.

And in keeping with tradition, I managed to burn one batch. The first one. Crispy. But I covered them in frosting anyway and will look the other direction when someone grabs one of the “well done” cookies. Hee.

Oh and father of The Cute Boy™ gave us his old train set, thus fulfilling one of my long time wishes, to have a train around my tree.

It’s all good. This is the first time in a long time that I’m happy at the holidays. I think I owe most of that to the loving holiday excitement of The Cute Boy™.

It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas!!

Now, I just have to endure five more hellish days of work to get my two glorious weeks OFF.

I can make it. With a belly full of cookies and a head full of carols, oh yes, I will make it…………….

Point and Counter Point

I was caught a little off guard at the overwhelming response to my “Top ten things I miss about Christmas in New Mexico” post from a couple days back. I’ve been thinking about it a lot, how cool it is that my experiences are familiar to others.

So since it’s been a *really* long week at work, I’m not sleeping well, acid reflux is at an all time high, and I’m physically and mentally exhausted….oh and cuz it’s Friday, I decided to come up with my top ten things I DON’T miss about Christmas in New Mexico….tongue FIRMLY planted in cheek, of course.

< humor = "on" >

1) “OH MY GOD, SNOW IS FALLING FROM THE SKY, IT’S THE END OF THE WORLD!! I WILL DRIVE TOO FAST, RICCOCHET OFF OF PARKED CARS AND FORGET TO BRAKE SLOWLY, THUS SLIDING THROUGH INTERSECTIONS!” Yeah…my sister was a claims adjuster for a large insurance company for many years. Oh the stories she would tell after an Albuquerque snowstorm. You know, it snows at least once every year…why the freak out, folks?

2) The endless hearings of Feliz Navidad. In every store. On the street. In restaurants. I know I waxed rhapsodic about it a few days ago, but as with every year, after a few listens, I’m over it.

3) Nelson Martinez Mariachi Christmas. : shudder :

4) Another Kokopelli Christmas ornament. I am not one to look in askance at a gift from anyone, but damn, people! Christmas ornaments are a great gift, but change it up sometimes! How about a hummingbird? Or a fetish bear? I’m a southwest girl, sure, but the ol’ Kokopelli isn’t my fave guy. Plus, isn’t he a fertility bringer? Do I *really* need that?

5) Could it *be* any more difficult to park at Coronado Center at the holidays? Geez! (Ok, from what I hear, no one shops there anymore….but back in the day…it sucked)

6) Rasquache by the river. After I was into adulthood, my parents retired and moved to Los Chavez. They lived right near the river on the Bosque. It was kind of country out there and I loved it. But a lot of their rural neighbors would get their kids dirt bikes, ATV’s or new shotguns for Christmas…and of course they’d all run up and down the ditch roads trying out their new toys all day long. It was like a freaking war zone out there. It wasn’t *quite* country enough for all of that…

7) When there is not enough damn snow to ski on. Bah! Isn’t that was all that time off from work is for?!?!?! Can’t ski on dirt, people!

8) Kelly Liquor store is open on Christmas morning. Oh no, wait, that’s a good thing. Nevermind.

9) The not well organized Xmas display in my neighbor’s yard that stays up (and lit) until August. I am no electrician, but I’m pretty sure too many stacked up strings of lights in one feeble extension cord isn’t safe. Plus, does one yard really need a full size Santa with all three reindeer, a full on nativity scene with a plastic baby Jesus, and the sun faded flamingos? I mean REALLY!

10) That one funky hominy kernel in my bowl of posole that, despite resting in the pot all day with all his little corn kernel friends refuses to cook like a good hominy should. I mean, cooking down with pork and red chile is an honor, but nooo, you gotta stay like a rock and bust my back filling when I chomp down on you. Whatever! Just bring me good luck in the New Year and we’ll call it even.

You know, this list was a LOT harder to write than the last one. Guess that’s cuz Christmas in New Mexico rocks.

Enjoy, ya’ll, and have a happy weekend!

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.

I hope I’m this sprightly at age 70

The Cute Boy™ and I have been talking a lot lately about the subject of aging. Not that either of us are all that old, but both of us are old enough to start pondering our own mortality. Cold weather brings creaky joints that didn’t used to creak. “My back hurts” replaces “I’m so hungover” in my vernacular. I suppose this doesn’t get better as the years pass by. (and, have you noticed, the years are passing more quickly than ever?)

So with aching knees and cold hands wrapped around a coffee mug, I read an article in the Albuquerque Tribune (now with a buyer!) about Merle Haggard. Now, I’m a longtime fan of Merle. You know how some musicians comprise part of the soundtrack of your life? That’s Merle to me. “Silver Wings” brings up a *very* specific memory (and if my best friend in the whole wide world is reading this, she knows exactly which memory I’m talkin’ about). “My Favorite Memory” is another fave…and one of the few songs I learned to play on acoustic guitar. Merle doesn’t play deep or complicated guitar chords. He doesn’t need to. His lyrics can, with an economy of words, cut right to the heart. He is indeed a poet, as the Trib article points out.

So how do I tie all this together? My aching joints and Merle?

Well, at age 70, Merle is making a new album. It’s a bit of a departure for him. He’s doing a disc of bluegrass music, all original songs, which I think is amazing. He’s got a voice made for country, and now hardened by time, I imagine bluegrass will suit him well.

After decades in the business, he’s still got The Muse running in his veins. At an age where he’s made enough music and money to retire, he can’t. The words still flow.

“I guess the reason for writing songs is to make money,” Haggard said, “but then you go back and say, `I’d like to write a song that will be remembered forever.’ That’s more interesting to me than the checks, even.”

It’s a rare bit of integrity in the music market. And memorable songs are what Haggard has done.

This line kills me…it’s so right on, at least to my way of thinking:

“I like to write something that you can photograph. If there’s no picture there, what’s your album cover or your CD cover going to be? In most cases, you’ll find it’s just a picture of the artist, because they don’t have a picture, and it’s kind of sad.”

I may not be a musician, but I’m a writer, a lover of words, and I work real hard at putting words together in such a way that someone who reads them can see a picture. Merle not only creates these pictures, but lasting images that stay in the mind. That, my friends, is pure talent.

“…You can’t have any emotional songs anymore; they won’t play them. Someone might look up from their computer, and they don’t want that. It might disturb somebody. And it all sounds like water to me. . . .”

And at age 70, he’s rasty as ever. Love it. He’s even planning a tour to support this new album…having just come off a tour.

I can only hope/pray/dream/beg that I’m as full of The Muse, the energy and the drive at age 70.

Shusshing the demons

I have made it no secret here on these pages that there have been tumultuous times in my life recently. Work. Personal. Mental. Emotional. Physical. You name it, I’m tweaked out on it.

I’ve been sort of at a white knuckle, nail biting, not sleeping place lately which kicks off lots of crazy internal demons. Old stuff, way back machine stuff.

But I refuse to let the demons win, so I’m fighting the valiant fight to put da monstas back in da cage.

In the past, I’ve fought all of this alone. I’m sort of used to doing this myself. I’ve not had much in the way of supportive partners in my life, to be honest.

Until now. The Cute Boy™ is here. And he’s a good man.

Yesterday he told me he had a surprise. I was too tired, weak and demoralized to fight very hard. “Okay,” I said and went along for the ride.

The Cute Boy™ had a good surprise up his sleeve.

See, I’ve studied a lot of “woo woo” stuff in my life, from one extreme to the other with varying degrees of success. Several years ago I took a Learning Annex class on walking a labyrinth. It’s a form of walking meditation that I really liked.

When I can get my monkey mind to meditate, it usually helps. A lot. I’ve been talking at starting meditation again for a long while but not doing anything about it.

So The Cute Boy™, either tired of me flapping my lips at meditation and not really doing it, or because he’s worried about my freaked out ass, took me up to San Francisco yesterday to Grace Cathedral. They have not one but two labyrinths there, one inside and one outside.

Walking in I was unsure if I was in the right mental state to do this thing. Walking out two and a half hours later after three walks and much thoughts, I realized some good thinking had been done.

I slept better last night. My sister called this morning. She’s worried about me. She said, quite surprised, “wow, you sound MUCH better”.

Those crazy ancients might really have been on to something….

And it’s confirmed…The Cute Boy™ is a keeper.

(this is the Native American “man in the maze”, which is also a labrynth)