The scrapbook/journal of a lover of poker and bluegills, reading, birds, and travel. Includes descriptions of life on a small lake in upstate NY, snowbird life in Homosassa florida, as well as other travels.
FOR POKER DETAILS CHECK SEPARATE BLOGS IN LIST OF LINKS OR CLICK ON MY PHOTO.
Thursday, November 12, 2009
Whew!!!
What a week!
It must have been an electonic household virus: My computer crashed. My phone was lost for a day. My pocket watch was lost.
Well, with free advice from the Geeks at Crossgates Best Buy Elizabeth figured out how to put the system back up and running. I lost everything I had saved on the computer, so that means I lost a few photographs that had not been backed up or put on the Blog. the fine thing about having most of my infortmation out there "in the cloud" is that very little is lost. Yahoo, hotmail. google, the blog all keep my stuff safe. Even the word processor I use when ever I have internet connection is Google, so those files are safe.
My biggest loss was the ARC photographic program. Unless I can get that back, I'll miss it.
Just fine not to have to buy a new computer. If you have a computer and have not created a restore disc when you did your set up, create one now so that a crash merely means figuring hout how to restore the Windows opertating system.
Meanwhile, things move along.
Elizabeth on the phone today to the bank:
"You know for over a week I have been asking if you have everything you need and now, today, you tell me the file lacks: one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight documents. I think you have a communications problem over there."
But by the end of the day we figured that she had located all the paperwork and faxed it over. So, bank, get your act in gear, will ya! Ya want to make money again, or what??
And by the way, this bank took no federal bailout money and has had no major fallout during this recessional dip.
The good news is that the dance to closure seems to have fewer landmines everyday.
We have a great real estate person. She is absolutely right on top and more with every detail and knows how tooil the wheels toward agreement. If you even need someone, let me know.
Well, I broke down and decided to buy a new suitcase. I'll miss my fine fish scene on the old bag, but it was just getting too worn out. This time I went upscale. I can't find the video where they showed me all the parts of this luggage, but it was really super. The piece after a couple hours of shopping cost me just $107 and will hold up longer than my last piece has done. The ballistic nylon should certainly help give me more years of service.
This, like my old one, is the largest allowed on airlines. 29" tote
Description:
Lightweight and easy to pack
Lightweight memory graphite copolymer frame which is the same material used in the construction of golf clubs and tennis rackets.
Main material is constructed of durable 1682 bullet proof ballistic nylon with EVA foam backing and stain guard coating.
Easy grip bottom foot handle with extra wide stabilizer feet for superior balance.
Trolley expands up to 2.5 inches for additional packing space if needed.Full lined, removable suiter, tie down straps, and zippered mesh pockets for organization.
Ergonomic recessed extra long locking trolley handle made of industrial grade aluminum with easy access push button to lock and release - "One hand operation".
Protected and recessed Velocity in-line skate wheels for an easy roll and long lasting service.
Add-a-bag clip with adjustable webbing strap allows additional bags to be carried effortlessly.
Guardian self repairing interlocking #10 nylon coil zippers on the main openings.
Corrosion guard die cast hardware, solid steel rivets and weather tight seams for tough durability.
We spend our last night here in Albuquerque again at Cara and Ab's although they are traveling and not available for visiting. We'll be flying out tomorrow in early afternoon. The weather is just wonderful today again, sunny and unseasonably warm.
Hotel Decoration in Sante Fe Holiday Inn Lobby.
At the hotel in Sante Fe we swam in the indoor/outdoor pools. I have never seen these. There is a well heated area in which to enter and exit and then simply by going underwater you can access either of the outdoor pools, swimming in the nicely heated water under the fine sunlight without the need to get out in the cool of the air. It was very comfortable and great fun even though it was small.
We went over to a coffee place called Tribes Coffee House where we had some breakfast. I had poached eggs on English muffin and some potatoes all sauced with green chili and cheese. It was yummy. Elizabeth had a burrito. There is quite a collection of art for sale here. I especially liked one photograph of an Adobe entrance with tall re hollyhocks waving about.
For lunch after out journey we went to an Italian place near here called Capo's and had eggplant and a spinach lasagna. It was very good and the place had a fine Italian upscale feel although the prices were reasonable.
In the evening we met Karl at the Standard Diner and had some really tasty food. I had some of the finest fried fish I ever tasted, Alaskan Cod with homemade rose potato chips. Elizabeth had a chowder and Karl had the famous Otis Burger, a hamburger with egg, beets, bacon, cheddar and seasonings. I had the most decadent milkshake I can reemember. It was called Chocolate Smores and had chunks of something very tasty and some marshmellows on top. It was a good meal and a good visit.
Later we walked down the closed Nob Hill a Retro chic section of Albuquerque. They were having a festival. Plenty of free music and interesting shops. Elizabeth and I danced a bit to some Buddy Holly and to the old classic Rock Around the Clock. Karl told some stories about his recent work and promised to send us his casino commercial in which he has become the face of a local casino and is sometimes recognized in town.
It was a good visit with Karl and a fine night out in the warm summer like air. Our last night before flying home.
Well, we finally had our soak in the natural hot springs of Ojo, Caliente.
"Located at the heart of the springs, the historic pump has been dispensing this unique water since the nineteenth century. Lithium is believed to relieve depression and aid digestion."
"A Native American legend tells that the giant rock in the iron pool guards the place where the ancient people of the mesa once received food and water during times of famine. The warm, iron-rich water bubbles up from the natural pebble floor, providing hot spots to discover in this mystical outdoor cliffside pool. Iron is considered to be beneficial to the blood and immune system."
"The rock walls in the enclosed Soda “steam” pool create a soft echo providing a sense of calm and relaxation. Water from the Soda Spring is said to have been used to relieve digestive problems."
"The arsenic water is believed to be beneficial for relief from arthritis, stomach ulcers and to heal a variety of skin conditions. Water from the iron and arsenic springs is blended in various pools throughout the property."
I was not so sure about soaking in an arsenic pool, but supposedly it won't hurt. The cooler arsenic pool with rocks on the bottom was my favorite. I liked rubbing my old feet on the rough surfaces. It was quiet and very relaxing. One pool was very hot, but the rest were very comfortable and we had a fine few hours just relaxing.
The views of desert hills are fun and the music was very relaxing.
Only once did one fellow get loud for a bit. He was an Asian fellow my age. "Well," he announced, " I've gotten my share of iron today." And those around him quietly shook their heads. "And pubic as well." he added. And someone bit and asked him what that was. He laughed and laughed, almost unable to talk, and help up his two fingers spread just a sixteen of and inch apart. "Tiny.....tiny.....ha ha ha.... tiny hairs people leave behind."
So he managed to annoy by being loud and gross out at the same time.
The coolest pool was a small swimming pool so we could even swim a bit.
Afterward we had a Mexican snack at a local place, came back to Sante Fe, took a good rest and then went to a barbecue spot for really good barbecue. It was called Whole Hog.
We like barbecue if it is not tomato based. This meat came out smoked and we could put one of six sauces on top. The chicken does not seem to pick up the flavors like the pork. Even brisket tends to disappoint me. I think I'll stick to pulled port or ribs. We had a combination plate here to get some tastes. The only thing missing was corn bread.
Back at the hotel we looked for a movie at the local movie place, but settled on the TV here which only half works. We hit the Mark Twain Awards show and saw most of the Cosby Awards and some of Billy Crystal. Cosby was great. I like Crystal in the movies, but I don't much get his humor.
Along the way in the day I went to JoAnn's Fabric Store and finally bought a little card stock corner rounder in hopes that it will make some of the blacked marked cards usable in our poker games. Of the two decks I got at the Taos Casino, one cut up fine, but the other had black running too much into the main part of a few of the cards. I think with other patterns I will at least be able to assemble a deck by putting together two decks. I think the ten dollar device will pay for itself, but I wish I could find a cutter that would take more off the corners.
Slow morning. Elizabeth is deciding just what to do with these days. Breakfast was multiseeded and cheesey bagel and coffee at Java Joe's where I saw a dark and pretty Mexican college aged girl writing longhand in a bound journal; the experience approached the anachronistic. Last night the television reviewed the effect of the book war being waged by the big sellers and reviewed the kindle revolution, speculating as to how long books might be around. While I do so much of my short bits of reading on line, and while for some reason it is easier on my eyes and I never require reading glasses, I am at the same time still delighting in books. I especially like reading with my sharpened dark graphite pencil in hand and marking where I wish. Somehow pencil, which could be erased, does not seem such a desecration of a book. Will I adjust to a kindle and highlighting? I don't have a knee jerk reactionary response to this technology, but I cannnot imagine not being drawn to books in bookstores, at flea markets, in cheap internet places. But then I am a fellow who is still collecting long playing records. Perhaps the whole thing will be like the revolution in the movie industry where one form of the experience feeds another, where sometimes we watch at home and other times we watch in the Spectrum Theater.
We went to downtown Sante Fe, a bit of ride but easy from here.
Detail of downtown building
The Taos Burrow
We toured the O'Keeffe museum and enjoyed the artwork as well as a photographic display that is up for just a month of so.
I was writing down a quote from one of the walls when a guard came up to me with a paper and pointed to one line. Oh, no, I thought, here we go again. He is showing me the rule that I can't take notes here. But he was showing me the quote in the list of all the quotes as it was xeroxed. He had seen me copying and wanted to save me some work. No rule on note taking here, just observant and helpful guards. The quotation was all about the danger of reading into her photographs and she expressed it so well. "Well, I made you take time to look at what I saw and when you took time to really notice my flower you hung all your associations with flowers on myh flower and you write about my flower as if I think and see what you think and see of the flower----and I don't. " One guard said that at one time photographs were allowed, but that some photographers had then decided to sell back the museum the rights to the photographs, so they had changed the rules.
A speaker gave some interesting bits of side material and helped with interpretation. One thing he pointed out was that the camera from 1830 on began to change the function of art from what was the realistic representation of reality to what was more abstract. The movie on O'Keefe showed how the sexual spin on her work, probably inspired by the intimate photographs, including nudes, done and displayed by her husband, pushed O'Keeffe for a while back to more realism where things painted were what they were. Reading sexual meanings into her work may be what she means in the quotation I liked. It certainly frustrated her.
Also covered was her experience in Lake George where she found everything much too green to be painted. We saw one work from that era and it was very dim, dark and boring. So any hope she might throw some useful light on perceiving Lake George is poorly supported.
She finds here home in the desert and it speaks to her in shapes and colors quite different from anything back East.
I ended liking the paintings more than I thought I would. A couple were very interesting. I like her independence and the idea that her art is a reflection of nature, but it is too independent for me. We saw one of the 25 adobe walls with door. The door in this one was reduced to a window. Just two shapes, like one of the first abstracts I saw years ago called Red on Black. I don't really get these very simplistic pieces. At the least the flowers have some interesting depths and swirls and often wonderful colors.
I liked Water Lily 1921. As I caught the dates of her work, I liked the earlier paintings more so perhaps I miss how her art was more prefected.
We ate lunch at Tia Sophia's on the advice of the museum guards. 210 SanFrancisco St. I had a great green chili stew. I have become very interested in green chilis and enjoyed them. Here I got an extra order and added the chilis to the stew to add heat and chili flavor. This pepper experience is less potent than Louisiana Hot Sauce, but the pepper flavor is really great. Elizabeth ate a mild burrito and the entire lunch was tasty and good value.
Elizabeth at Tia Sophia's
We then wandered the square and Elizabeth bought a fine new wedding ring. So we are again remarried in the West. This one has rainbow patterns on the outside and underneath are the tracks of a bear. Nice. Peter has been posting versions of the "Rainbow Connection" songs and Elizabeth has been hearing "Somewhere over the Rainbow" in many places on this trip including an instrumental by the guitarist at the Burger Place so reality had indeed patterned itself to reflect our subjective expreiences.
In the afternoon museum of art we saw some interesting pieces.
The auditorium had been designed to match the style from the Akima Pueblo. Here were the wooden beams and the supports, but they were all notched and the notches painted with different colors. Also over the beams the wood was set at angles rather than just layed perpendicular. Here were some unusual murals that have been here since 1917. It was an auditorium that reminded us of a church. One was called "The Renunciation of Santa Clara" there was a very sensual young woman being scorned by a group of people. Was she a nun who changed her mind? I can't figure it out or find any story.
In the courtyard
we saw Will Shuster murals on Indian life and myth. I liked the "voice of the Water" mural where Indians in drums celebrate a swimming native.
Inside I got very absorbed in Chi Bono by Gerald Cassidy, his 1911 portrait of a Pueblo man in a white wrap near an adobe wall. My mother was born that year.
In 1917 the museum had an open door policy and allowed any artist painting in New Mexico to show art at the museum without having it go through a committee of judges.
Ooutside in the courtyard was a great ceramic piece called Border Crossing from 1989 showing an Hispanic man carrying his woman on his shoulders. The artist Luis Jimenez called it Cruzando El Rio BRavo and wrote in this dedication: "Dedicadon a me Padre Cruzaron en 1922.
Afterwards we walked to the Cathedral and looked around there. It was colorful and interesting.
This was another St. Francis of Assisi church as most seem to be here in New Mexico
Although this was more male dominated than the one on the Pueblo, there was this Indian woman greeting those coming to church. She is not from the West, however, but a saint from the New York State Iroquori Indians: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kateri_Tekakwitha
Before sleep we watched two children's movies. One was mice and rats and a princess. The other was a story of a young girl who is saving her civilization in another world like ours but different in other ways as well. Souls walk as animals with the people for example.
We were turned away in the morning once again from the Pueblo, so we went out to see the Earthship houses that are built to safe water and energy and to be cheap to live in. The construction is basically used tires stacked and filled with pounded dirt, or old aluminum beer cans or glass bottles set in concrete. At the same time, these houses were very easy on the eyes. The visit to this site was very interesting. They build these all around the world.
After the visit there we went back to the Pueblo and this time we were able to enter. We had just a short window before the place was to be closed again, but it was enough for a tour by a very pretty Pueblo girl and time to poke around the area and into some of the shops.
I did not take photographs because they ask that if the photos are to be used for other than personal use, I would need special permission. I use mine for this blog and I am not sure how that computes. So I saved the five dollar fee for photography.
The proper name of the pueblo is ȉałopháymųp’ȍhə́othə̀olbo "at red willow canyon mouth" (or ȉałopháybo "at the red willows" for short)
The church was very interesting. They focus on the Virgin Mary, but they melt her with an Earth Mother role common in the Nature religion that was here before the Spanish forced Catholicism. She is featured in the chapel. She is the center icon and in the painted back wall one Mary on the left has the sun shinning from about waist high. The other has rays coming from her as well.
Also there is a casket like box that represents those who died to defend the rights of the Pueblo people to have their own religion. There are seasonal costumes, hidden kivas for worship, and ceremonies in the old ways held in the town square. Some are even open to the public. Ninety percent of the population is Catholic so there is a weekly service in the church.
The outside of the church was fascinating as it contained the only white I saw in the town. There were sections of white in the adobe fence, including the corners. The center section of the church that was the entrance was white as well, all the way to a white cross. Two other crosses were lower and to each side above brown adobe sections.
Inside the roof of the church looked like the roof of the one in Taos. All wood beams and on the ends distinctive decorative scrolling pieces.
The first church was constructed in 1619 but destroyed by cavalry in retaliation for some killing of white people by some of the Indians. The ruins of the church still exist and around them is an interesting cemetery. Again we were told that Pueblo Indians are buried in Native clothes and not in caskets and we could see the crosses that had faded stacked in a pile near the ruins of the church. Some gaves had grave stones. Most still had crosses. This cemetery is full and new gound was opened recently.
They were once 79 pueblos but now there are only 19 left. And the broader culture erodes the old time ways and values. If one parent is a Pueblo, then the child has the right to live on Pueblo land and to learn the language which is kept as a secret unwritten language passed down orally with stories and tradition from parents to children. No adoption is possible. This is a tough task because English does tend to dominate. The Taos Pueblo language called Tiwa dialect has remained unchanged according to our guide, but who knows what has been lost? I think there is more scholarship around than our guide would admit.
At this Pueblo there are 100.000 acres of sovereign territory, but most of it is sacred mountain land that will remain undeveloped. Blue Lake is included after being lost for a while.
The general look of the city is of various shapes of Pueblo houses with other houses or rooms off at angles. It is a fine and pleasant experience of interlocking angles. There are doors now, but in the past there were no doors or windows in part to discourage attackers, none on the first level and Indians used the ladders to go up to the roof and enter the house that way. The doors and windows are painted an assortment of colors: orange, red, pink, green, blue, dark brown and most are of old wood. We did see one very new door near the rear of one of the shops.
Outside the homes are large structures which one might take for primitive carports, but which are large drying racks for food to be preserved. Near each rack is an adobe oven or two, a large mound of adobe with one oven opening. A cedar fire is allowed to burn down to coals and then the coals are removed and the bread put in the hot ovens. Loaves bake in 15-20 minutes. Before the Spanish these were mostly corn, but then wheat was used. The walls of the adobe homes are repaired yearly with mud and straw. They are so thick that they insulate the living area. Most of the people live within three miles in more modern houses and just use these family owned adobe homes in certain seasons. I got the sense it was like having a lake cottage and that the more modern places were like our homes. 50-100 residents live in the Pueblo area we saw. Many of the homes were really stores for selling crafts and not set up for sleeping as far as I could tell. in the square had been erected a new San Geronimo pole that would be climbed as part of a ceremony and then taken down to be erected new next year. I did not get the details of the meaning of that ceremony.
The tribe is traditionally patriarchial,but over time rules have changes to allow women more rights to own property. Feminism it seems comes to all cultures.
MY OWN RESPONSE
Perhaps it is a continuation of what happened in the O'Keeffe visit, but what grabbed me most was sitting near the center plaza and seeing the interlocking shapes of the adobe houses, especially against the green rounded shapes of the mountains behind. I realized that my pleasure was similar to what I experience in a similar interlocking view of squared shapes as I lay in my bed at Burden Lake or the pleasure I got from the houses built into the cliffs of Cuenca, Spain. Connected in my thinking was the delight the author of my book on travel in Portugal took in one small town that had build and rebuilt houses over centuries in the natural granite of the area.
IN SANTE FE
We had lunch at the Five Star Burger and enjoyed it. We decided on the Holiday Inn in Sante Fe which is nicely positioned a few miles from downtown and less to the museum section outside downtown. The room is really luscious with good computer access and places to sit and relax as well as a fine king bed and two sinks outside the toliet area. I think we got a steal at $79. Internet prices to reserve before we left home were $95. Nice TV, refrigerator, coffee maker, all we need for comfort.
We skipped supper. We still had a good bit of the hamburgers to see us through. There is a pool, but we did not even try that tonight. TV and catching up on internet posting was plenty for tonight.
The ride up was easy enough. Another fine, sunny day. In Sante Fe we hit rush hour traffic, but it still was simple enough to find what we wanted.
Ojo Caliente got put on the back burner, but Elizabeth will probably go back there sometime during the week. I may skip it as I am no so much for hot springs.
We had another fine breakfast. More people were here this morning. The owner made quiche and it was delicious. We had fine mixed fruit again and there was plenty of conversation.
Once the owner joins the conversation, he dominates. But since he is full of pretty interesting information, we can tolerate it in short doses. He is a friendly fellow and everyone here is ready to help in any way.
We were up very early and time change added an hour to that earliness. I was awake at 3 and rested, so I needed my afternoon nap.
Here is a sense of our bed and breakfast room and surroundings:
Outside views. The sign, wall and one place to tie your horse
Bathroom
Tin Mirror Detail
Wall painting
Wall tile
In the morning we went to church today at St. Francis of Assisi, Ranchos De Taos and saw a bit of the service. It was strange as the priest was Irish and heavy with accent. We photographed the outside
Quite a bit has changed in the Catholic worship since I was a boy asking how my neighbors worshiped differently than I did.
In those days, these things along with the common answers about Latin services and fish on Friday, there were these:
Catholics speak to saints represented by statues, while we only speak directly to one of the three forms of God. The saints they speak to have been given that position by the rulers of the church. We believe all followers of Jesus are saints.
This priest told about the saints not given position officially by the church and specifically about praying years ago to his dead sister who had passed at about seven years of age and was mourned by the family and prayed to as well.
We would not have prayed to the dead, but the story did lend some democracy to the position of sainthood.
Catholics don't sing hymns. We do. Well, they may be slow to actually sing, but we did have “Just A Closer Walk With Thee” as part of our service, accompanied by guitar.
Catholics believe in the literal change of the bread and wine into the body and blood of Christ while we believe the change is meant to be metaphorical. The priest reminded us that this was still the case.
The greatest change of course is that we could watch the service from the back, participate to some degree, and not feel like an unwelcomed guest. We did not take Communion, but we did sing along with the hymns.
We visited a little shop with old things and I bought five cards, none of them with any reference to Taos. Three were Spanish, Don Quixote and Pancho, one was fish in San Francisco, and one was one of those horse paintings like I remember we had in the dining room on Goembel with men restraining these powerful work horses. My grandfather must have liked this with so much of horses in his heritage. Perhaps it reminded him of driving the firetrucks all those years.
**********************
Later, we visited the Kit Carson Museum which is a bit sparse but enough for me today. The video was good, but that might have been ordered through the history channel at home. We did see some interesting photographs and his original will. He lived a tough life. He was very accomplished, but the myth that built around him was greater than anything that he did. He was never rich. He made a huge impact on the direction that the country was to take, but I get the sense that for the most part he was just looking for work most of his life, for something to do, and he played the cards he was dealt.
Kit's three wives and children are interesting considering his life away from home. The last one was Spanish and her family was really angry that Kit was away for such long stretches. Family in their minds took precedence over other concerns. His wife, however, took his side and stayed loyal to him, enjoying him when she could.
His first wife died and was grieved. Of the two children one died in infancy and the other was placed with a sister and sent to Catholic School. It would be interesting to see what these children thought of their father. I suspect they may have felt deserted by him.
When he dies he leaves seven orphans with just a bit of funds to care for them. The house was to be sold for a thousand or rented. Given that it fell into almost total ruin after his death, it is hard to think that it provided much financial benefit to the children. Who cared for them?
The video featured a grandchild. No photographs of children appeared in the museum. What happened to them?
The story of one battle against enormous odds was quite interesting. Kit insisted when he and three other trappers were being attacked by Indians, that they slit the throats of their mules and use them as defensive cover. The blood smell of the mules kept the horses of the Indians at a distance where the men's guns could pick off their native attackers, but apparently the Indians weapons would not reach. Fourteen Indians died. Under cover of darkness Kit and his fellow trappers ran away and narrowly escaped with their hair.
Perhaps his photographic memory was able to guide him in his escape route even in the dark. At any rate it was quite a story.
Another was when he went to try to save a white woman named White who had been captured by Indians. In the last few minutes, when perhaps she sensed the arrival of rescuers, she tried to run away but was felled with an Indian arrow. She had been reading a book written about the adventures of Kit Carson which was devoid of much truth and steeped in the myth that was common in the writing about him of that time. He was disturbed by the fiction, disturbed that she read it and was hoping for a larger than life hero, and disturbed that with just minutes to her rescue she had been killed.
Elizabeth is curious about hearing that he was slump shoulders. Carrying that heavy rifle certainly did not help.
In the area here was an old and interesting house:
We ate at the Guadelahara Grill. This was very Mexican and the food was good. Elizabeth had a chicken dish and I had carnitas. I also drank a great horchata. Elizabeth tried a creative drink of clamato juice, beer, and lime. Unfortunately it tasted exactly as you might imagine clamato juice, beer and lime, so she was disappointed.
We had a cheap flan for dessert. I liked the place. It was very entertaining.
I am not sleeping well tonight and up in the middle of darkness again at three AM. It is disconcerting. I am hoping our ride to Sante Fe today will bring me perhaps to better nights of sleep. I am too early tired and then awake long before the next day. Tonight I cannot even amuse myself on the internet because we do not have a connection that holds. Fine, however to have the computer and just write in the word processor to be posted later.
Elizabeth too is restless, but she sleeps more than I do.
We had another fire in the adobe fireplace last night using the kindling I collected in town to get it going. The wood from the owner is laced with some fire starting chemical, but the logs don't seem to burn very well without some build up of coals underneath them and even then the fire requires a good bit of nursing. Perhaps the low oxygen level has some effect on how easy it is to maintain a fire. We did get it going and then it burned with pretty flames well into the night and entertained me when I had difficulty falling off to sleep.
This has been a good visit, but I am ready for some Sante Fe variety. I think we go next to a Holiday Inn where perhaps there is a pool and certainly the rooms will be more modern and standard. We lose interesting and funky but gain a certain level of convenience.
We could not have asked for better weather. It was like summer yesterday and I did not need any sort of jacket or shirt. The swings in temperature are huge. Some days I am not warm without being wrapped up in my winter coat. Others I can go out in shirt sleeves. The sun plays a huge difference in these shifts. I am so grateful not to have encountered snow on this journey other than as topping on decorative mountains or as a small and fresh diversion from the routine. I am certain that we will get some snow before we leave for Florida up at Burden Lake so we will not miss all the variety of the seasons, but just avoid the long, cold wait for spring.
Very odd was my choice of reading here in New Mexico. It would have been appropriate for me to read something relevant to this area or at least to the West in general. I have been immersed in reading travel in Portugal from a trout fisherman. I have just a couple pages yet to go, but have enjoyed both his reflections and his narrative. I am not certain how much I learned about Portugal, especially since this book was written decades ago and I suspect that every place mentioned has changed since then, just as the place in Spain have radically shifted from when I lived there. Still, I did get some sense of the food, the attitudes, and the romance of the place so if I get an opportunity to go looking for Old Portugal, I willknow what I am looking for. Both these trips West have forced me to reevaluate how much I want to go on radical travel in the future. I may not with taking on the expenses of another house have the funds for much far away travel, but more than that I just don't seem to find an easy comfort level and feel tired and restless much of the time. In Vegas, since everything happens at all times, it does not matter if I am up all day or all night, but in normal venues being awake at odd hours and then overtired at other times conflicts with plans to visit places. Also, I think it may make sense to do some travel in the van in and around our area, to places I have always loved but seem not to visit. The Fingerlakes come to mind, for example, as does French Canada. I like traveling in the van. I seem to do better on road trips than I used to do and not as well on planes. I also like having my own, perfectly insured vehicle, rather than a rental car. And I worry less about illness when I am closer to home. Still I do want some time in Segovia before I abandon long journeys. And Portugal looks inviting as well. I suppose both could be done in the same trip.
We were up for our fine breakfast this Saturday morning and met some of the other guests. There was a woman traveling with her dog and writing about dog friendly spots in the West. She also had set up some interesting travel publications for children including a passport with stickers given by the various places visited.
Breakfast was lots of fruit, French toast, a couple strips of bacon, a fine juice and very good coffee.
There was also a woman from Oklahoma who had live in Phoenix and not lives in Albuquerque as well as a couple from Arkansas.
The owner talked our ear off as is his habit. He knows quite a bit and is interesting but don't expect to add to the conversation if he is around.
We went up to the Taos Pueblo, but there has been a death of an elder and the whole place is closed to tourists perhaps for the length of our visit. Apparently this is not unusual. They do not feel obligation to entertain guests and want peace at times and to feel like a completely souverign nation.
We walked around the local casino and I took away some used playing cards but they are black marked.
So we drove out to the walk along the gorge and took some photos. It was very quiet and felt expansive. There was the gorge with its small river, the mountains, the plains of sagbrush. We just missed seeing some big horn sheep that ran through for the Arkansas couple who walked the trail before we did.
We shopped for some jewelry and Elizabeth bought some earrings but I did not find anything. There were rings of interest that did not fit me and one I like that did fit but was a hundred dollars because the stone came from a closed Anastasi dig so it was very rare. Well, what do I know? Even after our time in the Tourquoise museum I don't really know one tourquoise from another. But I know that I was ready to buy a ring for thirty dollars but not for a hundred.
From there we went to buy some liquor for the room and found a bottle of the Mexican brandy El Presidente which I think is very close to the Spanish we can't find. Guiness and a bottle of sangria filled out fridge.
We ate at a little place next to a pawn shop. The shop had very little of interest and much of it was overpriced. Twenty dollars for old records like the kind I pay twenty five cents for at thrift stores. Anything to try to create collective value where there is none.
This friendly and cute blond dressed for Halloween served us. Her arms were rich in tatoos. She explained the food and was very helpful. Much of the fare is organic including the grass fed beef. I ate a veggie enchilda and had a side of chorizo. We talked to a musician who was eating there and he was entertaining.
Back at the room I napped a bit and then we went for music at a place that had a fine acoustic guitar folk, country, blues and oldies singer named Alan Byrd. It was happy hour and we had good draft beer cheap. Elizabeth had Fat Tire and I had Darker beer. We ate some happy hour snacks of sweet potato fries and deep fried chilis with a dipping sauce. While we ate and listened to the guitarist Tim Aryn small groups of kids came in for Trick or Treat candy. On the way in to this spot the cute blond was just coming out and she waved to us. What a friendly place this is for the most part.
In the evening we just lay in bed and made a fire in the ceramic fireplace. I collected up some sticks from the road and that got the wood going. Elizabeth then moved it artfully so that it was very pretty and burned nicely until we were too tired to watch any longer. Tomorrow the landlord will give us more wood and perhaps in our travels we will find some more dry sticks to get it started. We don't get much wood from the landlord, just three logs a day.
I found I could get on the internet from the room tonight and so I've been writing and posting at least in draft version. Also I got to read my email. Nice to have the internet here. Elizabeth can sleep and I can write. And now I too can sleep.
At the office of the tour we were told to leave phones, cameras, etc in our cars, but nothing was said about paper and pen.
At the gates of the house, I was immediately told that I could not take notes on my bit of scrap paper, so I put my pen away without protest other than perhaps a look of disgust.
However, when on the shuttle bus ride back to the tour center, the guide again restricted my ability to write, I was tempted to simply went ahead with my writing.
“The tour is over, isn't it?” I protested.
“No. The owners consider the shuttle ride part of the tour.”
“Well, I don't know really what you could do to me except put me off the bus,” I said.
But I did comply and put my pen away.
She explained this was not her rule, she merely had to enforce it, which is the most cliched response of those who know they are doing something wrong and don't want to take responsibility, or who know they are saying something unpleasant, but who want us still to be friends.
I said nothing about this.
But then she told me that these same all knowing and all powerful folks had created a summary pamphlet, as if that might completely satisfy my need to take any notes.
That was too much for me.
“No pamphlet will include my own impressions which I am certain to quickly forget.” I explained.
And what I failed to say was,
“It is a good thing that this same committee did not oversee this house while O'keefe lived there or they'd have created a photograph of the adobe wall with the black door, reproduced in some beige pamphlet, and told her it was unnecessary to paint the wall and door 25 times or even once as they had recorded it all in a pamphlet with a fine photograph and that should be enough.
The pamphlet was helpful for some details, although clearly not properly edited. For example, under the title “Laundry” they mention two large freezers with no mention washing machines.
Ironically, on the tour we were to see places where the groundskeeper (name??) had written his name repeatedly. The most absurd is his name repeatedly written on the huge horns of the elk with the dates of his composition. I also believe they told us that he nailed his name into the well cover using nails to form the letters, but that part of his work had been removed. His name and date was in the cement of the garden terrace.
In the house there was a photograph of a lovely nearby Spanish woman who worked for O'Keefe, but I did not see one of the groundskeeper. All we have to remember him is his name and date scribble about the place.
Following us about on the tour was a taciturn woman dressed completely in black. Her long black coat with black flowing scarf, her black hat and her black sunglasses along with the fact that she said nothing but just hovered about at the end of the crowd of tourists, to be certain I guess that none of snuck out a scrap of paper and wrote down any secrets information.
I guess the woman in black was not there to monitor the writing of the groundskeeper back in the day. She looked eerie enough that I could imagine, had she not been briefly introduced to our tour group, that she was a dark spirit who materialized throughout the centuries. I suppose she did fit the season; it was time for Halloween.
I regret that Elizabeth's experience was negatively modified somewhat by my ajitation.
I felt bad about that. It wasn't after all my birthday trip.
It was to be the highlight of her trip, and she was first disconcerted to learn we were not going to the Ghost Ranch house as she had expected, and then to some extent I spoiled the pleasure of the tour we did take.
She was convinced I was angry and unhappy for the entire guided tour, but actually I was just less inclined to pay close attention to the words of the guide simply because I knew without my notepaper I would forget them. I was then more focused on seeing and remembering the bits of the house so that I would not forget either what I saw or my impressions and thoughts.
This is an issue in reporting ourselves in person, on a blog, on Facebook. Always in our lives there are things that delight us, things that annoy us, and ironies that really do both. They annoy us and in the irony of the annoyance we get a chuckle.
We are perhaps the only creatures who know how to laugh.
Well, what should we write?
And what should our writing do?
Andy Rooney makes an entire living simply reporting his mild and unimportant annoyances. He is an entertainer. Twain found critcal ironies in daily life so that the newspapers reported his quips. His novels are full of humor that is in part complaint. Jon Stewart has built an entire show on such kinds of complaint.
On the other hand, my fellow blogger Isaac, in his writing and in his real life is one of the most celebratory people I know. Even in death he finds things to celebrate joyfully. And he sees God as a source of this celebration. God may not control the weather, but God can inspire and strengthen our ability to enjoy rather than complain it.
My sister Gladys was another who generally reported her own bleak life in celebratory responses even to tragic events, especially in her letters. Her husband Paul, faces with frustration or disappointment in unexpected outcomes would say that it was “All part of the Great Adventure.”
Gladys may have been less sure of that, but she was, like Isaac, a perpetual optimist. On her deathbed in the last minute of her time with her son Chris she said as her last words to him, “Someday it will all come out right.”
In most of my blogging I celebrate life as well, but I am not certain that such a writing filter on reality is always a good thing. Browning's character Pippa in “Pippa Passes” coined the famous quote, “God's in his heaven; all's right with the world,” which in context is very ironic because Pippa is walking past scenes of discord and suffering and simply not seeing the trouble of it all.
When songbirds chirp at dawn, they are not, as we often suppose, celebrating the dawning of a new day, but militantly establishing their territory. Our repsonse to those birds is Pippa's to the word she sees.
The O'keeffe Spanish Colonial house.
The house was possibly built as early as 1760 and then expanded until 1860. It was in ruins when O'keeffe bought it.
The house is set up on a cliff overlooking a wide expanse of valley along the Chama river and then into mountains including a view of the gray cliffs of the White Place, and some section called the Blood of Christ.
Her studio looked out on these views. She lived her until she was quite old, suffering from macular degeneration and no longer painting. She lived to be 97. She had a bedroom off the studio and another bed in the studio for an overnight attendant in her old age. Here can be seen the cottonwood trees she painted often.
The road in front winds by the house, disappears, and a curve of it can be seen in the distance. GO liked the shape of that movement and painted it without the clutter of all the business. “The trees and the mesa beside it were unimportant for that painting – it was just the road.
Ironically, it is after the dirt road is moved and paved that she finds it most interesting. She played with here camera and then decided to paint in part inspired by an accidental photograph where the road seemed “ to stand up in the air.”
I don't know anything about art although I enjoy the museums and often a painting or piece of visual will grab my attention for years. But I don't have the technical information to distinquish the good from the bad. I have not answered the question that Julia Roberts is asking her class in the movie ??? when she makes them look for long periods and carefully at modern pieces like Jackson Pollock.
I am able to aesthetically respond to shape and color and often I know beauty when I see it. But much of what I see in modern displays of art seems some sort of sophisticated joke, like that cardboard in the Albuquerque museum ??
In the past I have tried to talk through some of that with art teachers. The conversation falls short of anything helpful except that technique is important, brushstroke and other such developed ???
Also, I know that I gravitate to the narrative of a piece of art and that makes good sense to me. I also easily find in paintings of people the value of recording the best of transient reality as well as developing some perceived interesting or beautiful aspect (focusing)???voc.
I have not had much of a response to G.O. As much as I might like to. Our friend Nancy who photographs flowers touches me more often than any okeege.
I did learn two things this week. First, there is value in her simplification of a scene, colors, shapes. A woman who waits years to buy and develop a house because she is obsesses with a the shape of a black door against an adobe wall which she is going to paint 25 times, wants desperately to explore a rather simplistic shape.
I also found that she loved rocks the way I do. In the rock collections and displays I did not find simplistic the simplistic but rather the sense of collage of shape and color and kind of rock. That is more like my own enjoyment when I walk a beach and collect bits of pebbles.
I'll have to take a look at how she painted the rocks and see if she took from the busy look of a rock pile simplified impressions and then created that vision on canvas. At least I can understand this even if it evades me as aesthetic experience.
There is, of course, a political aspect to her art and her followers as well. Her own frustration with her husband as well as some frustration with men in general both affected her life and art and acts too as an attraction for her followers. And her life and work is another example of a woman who made good in times when making good was tough. There is a good sense of that in the Julia Roberts movie as well, the limitations that society put on women before liberation in the sixties, even women sent to the best places to be educated.
On the tour we were taken through the various rooms of the house and the places explained to us. The guide brought reproductions of O'keefe art and explained some of the inspiration for her paintings as well as showing us some photographs of her. One photo was taken by Maria Chabat who is the same friend who donated the old iron Spanish chest to the museum in Albuquerque.
Spaces were varied from an open courtyard with the well and tall spears of cast sculptures to a room that was roofless except for a screen and finally to closed rooms.
OPEN COURTYARD AND WALL WITH DOOR
The open courtyard has cinched her need to live her because it contained the adobe wall with the black door.
“As I climbed and walked about in the ruin I found a patio with a very pretty well house and bucket to draw up water. It was a good-sized patio with a long wall and a door on one side. That wall with a door in it was something I had to haver. It took me ten years to get it – three more years to fix the house so I could live in it-- and after that the wall with a door was painted many times.”
I bought Burden Lake in large part because of the huge pine tree in front and when I would do water colors at Buden Lake with the kids (and when I someday do them again with Casey) I painted that tree and the lake many times as well. I have photographed it too but the photos since Randy's time were spoiled by the wire going to the tree. That is now gone. I remember my first visit to look over the house as a potential purchase. I remember looking out on that pine when a fish rose just to the left of it.
“Well, we'll have to buy this.” I said to Margot.
I was often to regret those words during the years of repairing and restoring and adding to that house. Margot chose the house and urged us to look at it long before I was ready to do house hunting. But she did not have the stamina to endure the years of poverty life there and to a large extent it contributed to the erosion of our relationship.
O'keefe was restricted in how much she could change the basic footprint of the house, but she could remodel it as she wanted and like me she wanted some picture windows and she had them in her work area. At Ghost Ranch she also has them in her work area set to see two views from the same corner, just as we do in the upstairs Burden Lake room.
So I understand her obsession. However, I thought the most interesting door was the one located near the gigantic set of elk horns mounted on the wall. This was made of slated wood with large gaps of light in between. It could open completely, being large enough to bring in small trucks, but built into the door was a smaller door that might be opened just to admit a person. It was interesting and more comlicated than the simple shapes of the wall and door she painted. The roof above had been done in 1861. So were I a painter, I would paint this door and this ceiling.
I am delighted with one other shape at Burden Lake, the intersected and interconnected shapes I see from where I lie in bed looking out of the bedroom and through many door frames.
However, if I had any artistic talent, I would not seek to simplify either of these favorite views, but would include the complexity around them The tree would not somehow become merely a circular tube of black against the blue of an indistinquishable lake and even my grandfather's old clock above the doorway would be in my painting.
The funniest pieces in the house for me were the tables made of plywood. While the table is called an “ingenious design” in the tour brochure, by common standards today plywood mounted on saw horses or hinged plywood on an angle may be functional, but is not beautiful. It could have been finished to become beautiful, but is wasn't and the plywood, while sturdy, was not anything like the veneered plywoods available today nor were the edges molded to hide the end views.
The guide explained that plywood was new at the time. However, for me these areas seemed more like what the workman might have left behind than planned tables.
Elizabeth's first husband Paul built some bookshelves of this material that I use in my garage where the “ingenious design” supports my colorful collection of old coffee cans holding odds and ends of hardware. I'll have to photograph it someday. I see now how it is art.
But I suppose in 1861 when some of the rooves were asembled that material too seemed functional rather than beautiful as well. Now it was incredibly wonderful and interesting way to make a ceiling. The ceiling supports are called vigas and the split cedar pieces or perhaps peeled willow are rajas or latillas. Above them would be a layer brush barrier, then canvas or burlap and finally dirt. Those quaint ladders that you see against the side of adobe walls were used as access to rooves that required much more maintenance than our modern materials. I could see in some of the rooms evidence of water leakage. Now a modern roof has been constructed over the older rooves to protect everything.
The kitchen was fun. It contained many modern appliances state of the art of the 40's: Crammer Stove, Kenmore mangle, electric yogurt makers and a huge freezer similar to the old one Randy left in our basement.
In a room where itinterant Indian traders might have traded, she dried herbs and used as cool storage. This is called the Indian room. Electricity came in 1948. She froze much of what she raised and canned or dryed much of the rest. She had plenty of fruit trees and a good sized terraced garden which was irrigated in a traditional manner that flooded it once a week. Things seem to grow well this way despite the wet/dry extreme cycles it created. In 1948 she also could buy a washing machine and dryer.
The embedded metal cabinets in these thick adobe walls were another functional and ugly design. But the rest of the kitchen was full of shelves and spaces and still held some of the old tins and such from when she lived there, so it did capture a kitchen moment in time.
There is a book room which had her extensive library.
Included in the collection of her reading were some signed first editions. Carl Sandburg's “Rootabaga Stories” included this note from him: She captures running phantoms and rides/night sky rockets.” I also noted that there was some D.H. Lawrence . She enjoyed Lady Chatterly as well and had some Sherwood Anderson among the volumes. Of course, we can't really know if some of these were aquired because of her husband's tastes.
The books are owned by the university of New Mexico and they decided to just leave them in her library as the dry air would preserve them there as well as anywhere. I suspect that a researcher might gain access to this area in order to research her reading.
For us, however, it was off limits. One German fellow was very interested in seeing this room, but it was closed to the public and even the door was left shut.
However, we did get to see a photograph of the library with a cow skull on a log that greets the entrance. This photograph is the one on the an out of print book which contains details of her library. One copy is in the office of the tour guide. In that office were plenty of books on O'keeffe, including large volumes which probably included a look at most of her 2164? works.
One area of rooms we could not enter because the floors were vulnerable, being mud. There was two sorts of mud work in this house. The women did the work using their hands and mud and it was more vulnerable than the work of the men who used some strengthening materials. O'Keeffe preferred the women's work.
I don't know if Elizabeth as well as being disconcerted by my own annoyances was disappointed in this visit or not. She had expected to see the ghost House and I think expected to see a bit more art in the house. There were two large paintings in the studio, but few other places.
Afterwards we went to the Ghost Ranch where O'keeffe lived for a time in a house before coming to the place we had toured. Although there were articles showing how wonderfully this house had been renovated, there are no tours available.
Instead we walked the grounds of the Ghost Ranch where the openness was in sharp contrast to our okeefe tour. Not only could we use our camera to collect images, but one little house was open for viewing. No black suited guard watched to see that we were respectful. We just walked in by ourselves and looked around and then shut the door when we left. This seems wonderfully liberating after being so restricted.
We tired before seeing all of this ranch. There was a wonderful mountain in the distance and we took a delightful walk, talking to some folks who were making apple cider. There were few people there.
We visited the small and comfortable library and talked to the librarian.
The Ranch had once been a place for cattle rustlers to keep their stolen cattle. They spread the rumor that it was full of ghosts and such to keep people away from the area. Eventually, the owners of the ranch donated it to the Presbyterians on the agreement that the grounds would remain open to the public.
note: I am having enormous trouble both adjusting the size of the print of this post and arranging the photographs. So I am just posting it as it is as I'm tired of fiddling around and finding it not working.
I come to report this visit after a few days and can feel how little my memory holds the experience
We did not eat at the Pueblo Museum because we had eaten at the Spanish Museum where we had a fine buffet of assorted New Mexican foods including a couple signature soups. I liked the food very much. Sopapillas with honey ended the meal. The honey had been cut so as to not crystalize.
The Pueblo Museum was arranged as if we were walking though an adobe house or courtyard and that gave a fine feel to the rooms.
I followed these threads through the Pueblo Museum
Pottery: It is amazing how in some ways the more things changed, the more they stayed the same. Pottery is an important thread from when it first started to emerge, about the 8th century, to modern times when the work shows more skill and variation, but the fundamental shape of a pot is the shape of a pot.
It seemed late to me for pottery to develop. These folks were behind the Europeans and others in developing such pieces. There were some here from 1100.
Some pottery was not pots of course. One that caught my eye was Owl Storyteller by Anita Cardelaria. Here was a large ceramic owl with tiny owls around the middle in little pockets. So the owl was here as was his audience. I imagine Marni Gillard would like this fellow. 1993.
Alabaster Sculptures
These were also a kind of art of the region and I very much liked the feel of them. There is one here in the Taos room where we are staying. There were many in the gift shop. In the museum one that caught my attention was called “Summer Thoughts” by VanPaquin. The facial figure was of an Indian and in the central area was a flower with tendrils.
Other stone work museum including some zuni pieces. The Zuni were just 150 miles West of Albuquerque.
Before and after Spanish Invasion.
It must be hard to arrange a museum of Pueblo Indians, point out the evils of the invasion of the Spanish and at the same time celebrate that Spanish history as well. This museum attempts to do that. In one section there are two rooms celebrating the Spanish including a room of iconic art.
Much of the religious differences have been blended. Our landlord in Taos said that a good bit of the tension here was about how the Indians were to be buried, either in coffins or draped in cloth and how long crosses were to be on the top of the graves.
Food before the Spanish was game, plants, corn, squash, beans, sunflowers, turkey, deer, elk, antelope, yucca fruit, cactus pinon nut, cota and mormor tea.
The Spanish added chili, wheat, rye, melon, fruit trees, cattle, pig, sheep, chickens.
In the evening we went to a Vegan health Indian restaurant where the food was yummy. they had a pecan pie with a wonderful whole grain crust and I liked as well as any of the richer less healthy versions. I at a fine soup and others had a lazana. I missed my order of Shepard's Pie but had plenty nonetheless. The waitress was a bit befuddled.
I took a solo walk this morning out along Central Street which is a section of the old Route 66. It was fine to be walking and looking around. I saw some youngsters heading off to school, one with a huge hoola hoop formed into some sort of dream maker. And I passed a good bit of Route 66 memorabilia. Mexican influence was everywhere. Here is a Mexican health food store.
The first thing we did together today was to exchange our car for an upgraded full sized car with electric door locks and a side mirror that held its position for merging onto the Superhighway. Alamo, in spite of the fact that Elizabeth insists this is pronounced Al Lame Oh, was very good to us, upgrading us for free and forgetting about the gas we had used.
The man at that Alamo lot suggested we get a convertible since this rainy snowy weather was just right for one. Here is one I had seen in the morning. Had Elizabeth seen one on the Alamo lot, we might have taken it, snow or no snow.
But I am happy we now have more leg room, some fancy X something of a radio, and electronic adjustments and locks. Yipppeeeee!
Cara and Ab's house is a bit of museum in part as well. Here are a couple of my favorites.
Ceramic shell like log grained art.
dining Room art note the juxtaposition of the wild with civilized dinner conversation
Living room
SPANISH CULTURAL CENTER
I could not take photos in this museum.
Here are some of the pieces I noticed:
First, here are some things that fit into the home but are also art:
Chocolatera by Camilla Trujullo This was basically a safe for Cacao beans which were very prized by wealthy Spanish. It was a huge pot shaped contained with a closed top. This local artist has taught at the Ghost Ranch as well.
Don't Fall Down by Damian Velasquez This would greatly contrast with that furniture that sweep up and away to the left that we saw yesterday. This was a chest of red drawers each one offset so that only half was used to support the half on top. It was called Don't Fall Down and can be seen in the photographs on his website.
El Aquanilde me Abuela by VermeLiLucero This was really delicate and beautiful. The artist had often seen his grandmother combing her long black hair at her dressing table and preparing for Mass so in honor of her he constructed a dressing table using tin work. It was wonderful!
Rose Garden by Eddie Domiquez Looking at this quickly we see bright colored ceramics formed into a tight garden of cactus and roses. However, each part of this piece was something for a table setting and there was a full setting for six people. Elizabeth thought this was very cool.
Moving to more simply artistic pieces:
I like Aimara by Juan JuliasAlom which featured the top third of a beautiful naked girl lying on her back and almost covered with grain. It was a photograph.
Grasshopper Man by Roberto Iabelo was a four foot long detailed Grasshopper with a stick pin through his torso and the head of a man. A similar piece was a black fly with a man's head called Man, Fly, Hope.
Shaman and his Allies by Mario el Castillo was a haunting melting blend of purples, blues, and a bit of red with just hints of creatures formed, the wolf being the easiest to recognize. We were caught by the color and the mood and the mystical sense of this painting. I thought it more evil than spiritual.
Walking Spikes by Ruben Trejowas a wall of old railroad spikes all assembled to represent the legs and feet of a person in various degrees of walking and in various positions. The spikes were also used to frame each stick like representation. I liked it. It was abstract but understandable.
Our favorite was a large, richly colored painting called Tinta Y Sangre by Pay Martin Nagta. On the left was the most sensual back of a Japanese woman with a tatoo that marked her as belonging to her husband, an intricate pattern of snakes and small designs. To the right was a nun, looking directly at us with writing paper and a pen. In the center a Samari warrior with raised sword acted to strike. Elizabeth said he was striking to eliminate these two stereotypes of women, but I read the information differently and had some trouble seeing the sword falling equally between them.
And finally the worst of the displays had some name that I have forgotten. It looked just like someone had unpackaged some large bit of art and left these cardboard boxes sitting in the middle of the floor. It was really ridiculous.
Ab and Cara have a fine house here in Albuquerque, centrally located to many interesting places to visit.
Here is a lovely flower in their yard with the last of last night's rain
This photo does not capture the size of this fountain. It is quite a ball of granite.
Here is the entrance to the pool area from the street. The pool area separated the house from the street and gives quite a good bit of privacy.
Here is our rental car from Alamo. Unfortunately, it is not electronic entry and windows and locks must be done manually. I did not notice this when we picked this car. I am sure it will annoy Elizabeth more as the trip goes on, but what can we do?
******************************************************************************* Today we visited the Albuquerque Museum of Art and History. I could not photograph anything in the museum, but did capture a bit of the flavor of the experience outside along the pathway.
Earth Goddess
Howling Wolf Statue
Pioneers in bronze
Here are some of the highlights of what we saw. Maria Chabot, a friend of Georgia O'Keeffe, donated a large chest of iron and leather, called a Cajun which her mother had purchased from a Spanish family who had used it since 1775. The lock hardware was large and wonderful as were the huge handles. I wondered how a family who had this in their history for all those years could sell it.
********* One collection was of miniatures which I thought would be like Susan's Johnson, but were simply small paintings. I liked them, but the number was overwhelming, given how many would fit on the wall. They were of all sorts of styles. Some were made to look like they came from the last century and aged.
I liked the simplicity of the focus, the background dark and meaningless allowed us to see the bird and the grapes. Elizabeth was not impressed.
Lee Stroncek had one called The Buck's Secret which featured a buck lying next to a stream in winter. Soft colors set the mood and I liked it very much. I do not see it in his gallery. He does many fishing and animal scenes and sells prints.
Suzanne Sbarge had an interesting painting called "Tornado" in which a woman with the head of a deer and a bird on her knee watched a tornado in the distance.
Larger paintings scattered about the museum that caught my attention were:
Laura Wacha's Crossing over was a bizarre depiction of coming to the gates of the afterlife. It is filled with demon like shapes partly human and partly animal and partly cartoon like monsters. The painting was incredibly active with all these assorted colorful beasts spread about the elevator entrance to the afterlife with AdesteFidelas written above the meter that showed the floors. Most funny and interesting was a fisherman creature holding a pole, the hook in the mouth of a mermaid who was in turn being eaten by some creature who held a book called Evolution for Idiots. The painting was disturbing and funny at the same time. On the website you can see the kinds of creatures she paints in other pieces. This piece is in a similar style and as delightful as the one I saw:
I very much liked Jane Abrams painting Indigo Pond because the textures blended together to give the feel of such a seen, the reflection of the trees in the water, the colors and shapes and the denseness of all of it.
Jennifer Nehrbass had the photo you see on the front page of the link to the museum of a woman leaning in the woods and placing flowers in a log. The women in her work are very sensual. Here are some examples.
Rudolf Cronau was a German whose art and writing commented on America. On display here at the museum were various versions of the old Albuquerque print shown here
including the sketch, the final work itself and an interesting old print of it in a German paper. The scene makes Albuquerque look like on of those towns in cowboy movies that are isolated and filled with Mexicans. I enjoyed seeing this sense of the place we drove through shortly afterwards.
Julianne Henry had a depiction of a room filled with 18 sharks. It was called Bit Me and seemed very funny.
Dan Griggs had a fine depiction called the Light Seeker focused on a young barefoot woman standing on a step stool so she could face and open her arms to the light coming in from a stained glass window. I liked it, but I can't seem to find anything about it on line.
Outside the art, in the halls were some artifacts I liked. At one point there was a bench shaped gracefully like a black cat with her head turned around to look over her back and gracefully tapered legs as well as a long graceful tail. There was not sign and it looked like we could sit on the cat. I should have asked. I'd love this stool in my house.
Also was a collection of old bottles from around the area and the most interesting to me was one with a picture of an old Western fellow on the label. It was called Kit Carson Straight Whiskey put out by Anchor Liquors. There is some mention of this in this article
There was a fine portrait of Toni Hillerman in a canoe with the handle of a paddle showing. It was rich in color and I liked it very much.
John Stuttman did a fine piece of woodworking called "the Swoon" It was a narrow display case that curved to the left and yet had level shelves for knickknacks and such complete with lighting. I loved the look of it, so unusual and still reflecting the absolute beauty of fine woods.
There is a Desert Fountain set up by Basia Irland. It is a flat wall and water drips from an overhead collection basin onto hands that seem to reach out from the wall itself. This only happens when it rains or snows. At other times, like a New Mexican arroyo, the fountain is dry.
Elizabeth and Cara off for a day together. I'm hanging out here at Cara and Ab's spacious and beautiful home getting rid of the last bit of my migraine and resting up. Yesterday we saw some fine animals at the nearby zoo.
We especially thrilled to young giraffesfrolicking about while waiting for their feeding.
Like Homosassa, this zoo is a sanctuary for wounded birds We also saw some really fine orange monkeys and an entire large cage of chattering lorikeets of all sorts of bright and interesting colors like the one in this photo:
We ate a fine Thai meal last night. I had a Tom Yum soup and some scallops. Their version was a bit different from what I find on line, but delicious and probably with just as much health benefit.
All the foods were good. Elizabeth had a curry chicken that was my favorite and a great won ton soup too. Odd for me is that none of these can be predicted. I am not much of a follower of wonton as the Chinese make it in the buffets, but this Thai version was wonderful, and the curry was not like any I have had elsewhere.
I had a tough flight. I did not sleep the night before nor much on the plane or while waiting for our second leg. We were 11 hours from home to destination. I wore a mask and that was uncomfortable, but I am worried about Swine flu and other nasty bits that often seem to come after sharing air with dozens of coughing people in the close confines of a plane. My first day here I felt it hard to rise to the adventure. I was exhausted and then a migraine took me out as well. Most of that dissipated with a good night's sleep here using my humidifier on the apnea machine for the first time. The rest went with a few cups of coffee this morning. I'm wired now, and have the day to let it wear off. Hopefully, by then I'll be adjusted to this higher altitude as we must go higher yet.
The weather looks good for our week. Snow is now in Taos, as Lucky Pete predicted, and more will come over the next couple days, but it will dissipate before we get there and the temps will rise to very comfortable places. I am glad because driving in snow was the only anxiety I had about this trip.
Peter reports that he has been hired at his new job after a good long while of interviewing and waiting. It is such a relief to have him back earning money and able to get health insurance.
Joe Stracuzzi died the day before we left and was buried quickly as is the Jewish custom with a life memorial planned sometime in December. I have been thinking about him often on this trip. Such a fine fellow and now gone.
I had not seen as much of him as I'd have liked in retirement. But then that is true of so many old friends. It is so fine for Elizabeth to have this time with her old college friend and her husband here in New Mexico. This is the way we envisioned retirement with time to meet with long term friends, but the way it has worked has been to isolate as so many, including us, travel and others just get busy with family and new adventures. It is hard even to schedule the retired person's simplest meetup, breakfast at some local diner.
Ate lunch at the new Shalimar in Delmar this noon with the book group followed with a fine discussion of Jhumpa Lahiri's Unaccustomed Earth. I enjoyed these short stories depicting relationship issues around Indian characters as they transitioned to the United States. Well written, with exquisite details that work to define a meaningful background to these stories of relationships between lovers, parents and children, Indian and white Americans the stories held our attention. We were glad to have picked this book. Explored were young and old struggling with both the differences in culture, custom, and expected role responsilities as well as personal struggles with alcohol, grief, and rejected love. Our talk was very lively and fun. It is a good group. Before the talk we ate at the buffet at the Shalimar and the food was very good. They had chicken tiki marsala, my favorite, as well as other tasty dishes and the coffee was good too and included in the buffet for no additional price. In the afternooon Elizabeth and I watched the last episodes of William and Mary. It was as entertaining as they all have been. I am sad there are no other episodes as there is plenty of the story left to be told. We'll have to follow up and see something else with Martin Clunes, perhaps "Men Behaving Badly."
Some popcorn and As Time Goes By filled out the evening. Tomorrow we pack.
We had another fine meal and talk with Ann Marie and Grace this morning. Elizabeth made omelet similar to Julia Childs and there were still scones left from Nova Scotia.
Grace is a former librarian so she is interested in all the books we have laying about. How rare these days to have a guest who wants to see what we are reading, wants to read bits of it, who reads some while we are sleeping. What I also find amusingly delightful is that almost all the books Grace was perusing were books I bought because I found them in the rental cottage in the Berkshires when we stayed with Harvey and Alice while i was doing the same king of shelf exploration..
This was when I was first having trouble with my recent apnea machine and was up in the night reading the book in the library of the rental cottage. When I got home I decided to buy my favorites and those are the books sitting here on the table partially read. It seems hard for me to believe I have quietly endured since July without a functioning apnea machine, one set at 4 when I needed 10. Too often I put off going back and complaining.
Well, Grace and Ann Marie are now making their final journey leg to Rochester. Their stories of Nova Scotia were full of fish and water and boats and Celtic music. They did not go out in any boats other than the car ferry as the water was too rough. Cape Breton Island was the most interesting and beautiful area of Nova Scotia from their perspective. Ann Marie recommended going in September if I wanted to go out on the water. Lots of fish to eat, scallops, lobster, all of it. And the people are very friendly to tourists. It is a place on our list, one we could visit by van.
In the afternoon we went to Gold's Apple Orchard and went apple picking.
Casey picked his first apple and loved eating it. He spit out the skin.
They had a rather cute pumpkin patch, but we stuck with apples for today.
Afterwards it was off to Everybody's Cafe for lunch. Casey was very rambunctious, but we had a tasty snack and some good visiting while he continued to chew an apple.
In the evening I tried fishing from the dock and it was fantastic except for there being no fish whatsoever. Also, the fine weather has brought out everyone to rake leaves and run mowers and talk loud. The fish won't come back when we get colder days, but people will stay inside and that will make it easier to hear the geese honking along high overhead.
I am a retired old guy playing poker, fishing, going out for breakfast whenever I can, and discussing Vegas with someone somewhere every day. I eat more vegetables and whole grain foods these days. Not much white stuff. I am addicted to buying books in cheap stores or online. I buy more than I read, but I read a bit everyday.
