Category: where I come from

A Very Crispy Love

Inside of me there are dueling issues, and year by year it’s a balancing act to see which wins out.

On one end of this see-saw is the fact that I love the holidays. Yes, I actually do. From Halloween to Valentine’s Day I revel in every holiday with childlike glee. I often grumble (and will again this year, stay tuned to this blog) about the holidays when they are in full swing, but the truth is that when I’m into it I adore every holiday and all of its traditions.

“When I’m into it,” ah and there’s the trouble.

For the past several years I have been cranky as heck about the holidays because I was working so many hours I had no idea what week it was much less what season. In my last role, I was on so many calls across so many time zones and traveling so much I wasn’t even sure of my own name most days.

So when the holidays rolled around in the past, I was not ready. I wasn’t prepared because I hadn’t had time to plan out what I wanted to do, and I was mad that I had lost so many days at the hands of a dull corporate entity.

All of that just made me angry at the holidays for showing up when I couldn’t participate.

But things have changed a bit. I’m in this new job and while I am still busy, it isn’t quite as bad as it has been for me over the past several years. My new employer definitely takes note of the months and what is going on. In this job, we pause to reflect and it makes such a huge difference.

Also, now that I live in a university town I’m much more aware of the time of year, ranging from school’s out and it’s summer to Fall football games.

I have already warned my darling Good Man to watch out, I’m officially “into it” this year. Oh yes, there will be cookies, and decorations, and costumes and more. I will probably even decorate my cubicle at work this month. There are prizes for Halloween décor!

At first I was quite resistant to the coming of Autumn, but now I am reveling in it. That said, I still have not imbibed a pumpkin spice latte.

Yesterday morning I set out for work, smiling at the beauty of the Indian Summer sunrise here in the Bay Area.

I walked to my car that was parked out in front of my building and I saw something tucked into the door handle on the driver’s side.

At first (from a distance) I thought it was another ding-dang parking ticket. But no, that would have been tucked under my windshield wiper. Then I thought it was a note someone left because they’d bashed my car. No, turns out it wasn’t that either.

Then I let my mind wander and I remembered back to when I was in college at NMSU. For a little while I dated this rather dashing cowboy who happened to have something of a romantic streak and a poet’s heart.

Every now and then he’d leave a little love note on my car when I was in class. To be honest, I still have those notes somewhere in a box of mementos.

I grinned a little as I thought maybe I had a secret admirer. A furtive love.

It turns out that it’s true, I do have a special beau.

Yesterday I received the most lovely (yet crispy) mash note from endlessly romantic Nature.






Thank you beautiful Autumn for the reminder that I need to get outside a bit more and roll in the leaves and smile at the early setting sun.

All of these years I’ve just sort of ignored you as you passed me by, but not this year. Today I return your affection, my glorious orange and red and brown Fall.

I am your secret admirer too!






Image Copyright 2013, Karen Fayeth, and subject to the Creative Commons license in the right corner of this page. Taken with an iPhone5 and the Camera+ app.




The Irony Is Not Lost

These days I live in a fairly urban area and I also live near a major university, so this means driving around here proves to be quite a challenge.

I see a lot of people both young and old riding the roads on their bicycles or scooters and of course walking. There is even the occasional Segway. Though the most popular mode of transport by far seems to be bicycles.

Fundamentally, I don’t have an issue with people riding their bicycles. It’s exercise, it’s efficient, and it’s environmental. Plus it leaves more parking spots for me. Great!

The issue I do have, however, is some bicyclist’s complete and flagrant disregard for traffic laws. You know, running stop signs, not yielding to a yield sign, flowing with cars when they feel like and acting like pedestrians when they feel like.

My commute to and from work is pretty short, but can be frustrating as I traverse many busy streets with lots of crosswalks and stop signs and long lights. In addition to bicycles, I often have to tangle with students walking around with eyes glued to their smartphones darting out from between parked cars.

I really hate it most when I have the green light and as I start to roll a bicyclist runs the red light the other way and sails through the intersection with nary a care in the world.

The other day that big wheel of karma ticked about two and a half degrees to the right and I saw something so ironic it made me laugh and shake my head.

Ok, here’s the scenario:

I am driving up a busy two lane and mostly residential street. Traffic is moving, albeit at a fairly slow pace. I’d estimate I was doing something like 25mph.

I was hugging the yellow line because to my right were two guys decked out in stretchy shorts and tip-tap-clompy biking shoes riding on very fancy bicycles.

We were all cool. I saw them, they saw me. I made space and we traveled casually along, moving straight ahead on the road.

As we three came to an intersection some hipster chick on a pink bicycle with a plastic basket on the front does not slow for the stop sign on the cross street. She glides at full speed right into the intersection.

This causes the car coming the opposite way to screech to a halt. I slammed on my brakes too and the two bicycle guys next to me just kept going.

Because I guess bicyclists do that. When everyone around is braking, they just keep rolling because why not.

One of the guys finally saw Miss Hipster and locked up his very expensive racing bicycle brakes. The other wasn’t as quick on the brakes. As he came to a stop he ended up tapping her back wheel.

Hipster chick was totally oblivious. She wobbled a bit and just kept rolling on through.

Now dos Stretchy Pants are mad. They start shouting and screaming and arm waving at her about obeying stop signs and right of way and what the bleep was she doing.

So indignant these bicyclists got about obeying traffic laws. So, so righteous.

Hmm. Interesting.

Ironically so.








Image found here.




From My Green Blood To My Little Green Heart

It’s late September and to a New Mexican’s heart that means green chile! And lots of it. The smell of roasting peppers mixed with the wood smoke from piñon logs burning in fireplaces across the state means Autumn.

And it means heartache for a displaced New Mexican like me.

So imagine my delight to be strolling in my local Whole Foods grocery and see this:





While I was happy, this paltry display also made me very, very sad.

So, what, I am supposed to pick up a *handful* of green chile and take it home? Sure, I know how to roast my own, but c’mon here people.

I want to see big burlap bags and big burly men behind a got-dang flame thrower.

I mean, the flame thrower is part of the whole experience! In Fall one goes from the whooosh of the burner in a hot air balloon in the morning to the blast of a flamethrower outside a grocery store in the afternoon.

The abuse of propane in all forms is built into the DNA of a New Mexican.

That’s where I come from! These are my people!




Photo of the puny display of green chile is Copyright 2013, Karen Fayeth, and subject to the Creative Commons license in the right column of this page. Taken with an iPhone5, the Camera+ app, and sadness in my heart.




Aw Hell Nah

So there I was perusing my Facebook feed when one of my favorite pages to follow, ¡Orale! New Mexico posted this:




For reference: La Llorona

My first thought was “this HAS to be a joke! I must remand myself to the Google for confirmation!”

Turns out it is no joke, it’s a real park in Las Cruces.

Yes, La Llorona, a scary story told in my childhood. A Mexican fable intended to keep kids away from arroyos and rivers. My sadistic grade school teachers would shut off the lights in the classroom and whisper to us the story of the woman who had drowned her own child and wandered near waterways intent on stealing and drowning little kids.

Real educational stuff!

Mention La Llorona and Hispanic kids everywhere will shudder. Some will cross themselves. A few will weep.

What the hell Las Cruces? So you think it’s fun to scare the bat crap out of every child and most adults? Who are you Las Cruces? I don’t even know you anymore!

And for the record, I will NOT be visiting any park named for La Llorona. I won’t drink a La Llorona margarita. And no wailing woman milk.

Just. No. Especially this time of year. La Llorona likes the cold and damp of Autumn. Gah!

Oh Fair New Mexico, how I love and am confused by you so.





Image Copyright 2013, Joe Wigelsworth for ¡Orale! New Mexico. All rights reserved.




I Before L and E – The Grammar of Good Eats

I have the greatest best friend in the world. Knowing a ex-pat New Mexican like me is missing home more than ever in the Fall, she decided to poke the bruise. Because why not?

And being my best friend, she knew right where to hit for maximum impact. She got me right in the green chile.

Over this past weekend, she sent me a text with a photo taken near Las Cruces and the words “New Mexico misses you.”





So of course I damn near wept. I mean, my nostrils long for the scent of roasting green chile. And Zozobra just happened. And the State Fair is going on. And the Balloon Fiesta is coming up. It’s the best time of the year to be a New Mexican. And oh damn, why again did I move to California?

So I replied and waxed rhapsodic about the virtues of green chile. How I missed it. How maybe I could find some again this year at Whole Foods. How my local hippie grocery store carries dried red chile pods that are labeled as being from New Mexico.

I was lost in a land of happy thoughts and green chile dreams when my best friend who is teaches English at a local high school, said…

“Did you notice it was spelled c h l i e?”

Whaa?

Truth was, I hadn’t noticed. I was so busy trying to locate the green chile smell in my memory banks and bring it back to my nose. So I looked again. Sure enough.

Then I laughed. I considered making a crack about the sorry condition of public education in New Mexico, but that’s just hitting below the belt.

To be honest, the photo of a hastily hand painted sign made me miss New Mexico that much more.

Oh Fair New Mexico. How I love you you, your green chile and your bad spelling.

Love you so.




Photo courtesy and copyright 2013 my best friend in the world. Don’t steal it without asking!”