I Will Find My Way

The Velcro on my Rand McNally road atlas had been rendered useless. Tan carpet fuzz from the back of the Jeep embedded itself irrevocably into the hook side of the mechanism.

The map was considered a "just in case" for getting lost, which happens often. The atlas was purchased well before there was something called a Google to provide maps on something called the internet.

That road atlas was aspirational. I bought it hoping that maybe I could travel a lot of those blue lined roads over the course of my life.

But suddenly the road atlas had meaning. It was more than a "just in case," it was an essential tool.

The page for New Mexico was well worn, but the page for California was starting to show the dirt and grease of eager fingers tracing a path over and over again. A reduced scale journey west to my new home.

The compass rose became my bouquet, a present from the universe, welcoming me to my new life.

At a holiday cocktail party, the map became obsolete. A friend and professional truck driver wrote directions on the back of an envelope. "This is the faster way to go, you'll shave several miles off the trip," he told me.

He'd personally traveled those roads. Roads that were visible to me only as lines on a page in my mind.

He was the first of many milestones on my journey.

The tattered envelope with scrawled black pen, "I-40 west to Barstow" wasn't anywhere near as magical as the pages produced by Rand McNally, but it was more useful, more functional. I clung to that envelope because my life really did depend upon it.

And then, finally, it was time.

May 1997, just a few days before Memorial Day, I climbed up behind the wheel of my Jeep while my best friend strapped into the passenger seat and took possession of both the envelope and the Rand McNally.

I-40 was a road I knew. Straight. West. No worries. Grants passed by quickly. Then before we knew it, there was Gallup.

Then the Arizona border.

My tires made a noise as they passed over, and I cried. I didn't just cross this border casually. It meant something. It was a new frontier.

The entire State of Arizona lay ahead. Since Arizona was familiar, it eased me in. We settled into the miles while listening to Tom Jones and George Strait. We listened to everything I had in that Jeep and then tried to find decent radio stations.

Six hours. That's how long it takes to traverse the State of Arizona.

Then my tires made another small sound and another border was crossed.

I was in California. I didn't cry this time. Simply renewed my resolve and kept driving.

That was thirteen years ago, but it could be yesterday for how fresh it remains in my mind.

May I never lose my resolve. May I never lose my desire. May I never lose my ability to read a good old fashioned road map.

All it takes is a map, a little guidance from someone who bothers to care, and a step in the right direction and you can find your way.

If only someone could draw a map to help me navigate the more difficult emotional roads in my life. Those are uncharted.

I am both mapmaker and traveler and the journey never ends.

But the compass rose is still just as beautiful.

Photograph by Karin Lindstrom and used royalty free from stock.xchng

This week's Theme Thursday is map.

Ow! *Slap*

And here we are at Friday, the end of another week.

An unusual week on my part, but happy to see Friday nonetheless.

Much to process from my day yesterday seeing old friends, burying a dear friend and reminiscing.

But for today, I'm here to talk about a feature of our Fair New Mexico that I really, really don't miss.

Mosquitos.

Now, where I live, I'm sure such creatures exist. It's just that I've not seen 'em.

I'm ok with not seeing them. Pinche insects.

I arrived Wednesday evening at my friend's home out in the boonies north of Las Cruces, and noticed water standing in all the pecan groves and cotton fields.

"I see everyone is irrigating," I mention.

Nope, they tell me. Rain. Three inches arrived the day before I did.

Which leaves standing water.

Perfect habitat for *slap* mosquitos.

I sat for maybe eight minutes outside at a table with a citronella candle on it. My arms. Fine. My ankles? Ten bites on the left, eight on the right.

Mosquitos in the house, too!

As I slept, I got zapped on the earlobe. The earlobe! The one place I forgot to apply repellent.

Gah!

And I won't mention a spot rather close to an unmentionable place where I was also ruthlessly attacked. Twice!

Hate 'em. Always hated them. Sure, I grew up with bug bites up and down my legs, and it was a fact of life. But living without them sure has been pretty durn nice.

I don't miss them. At all.

I'm not usually a fan of chemicals in the air, but even I cheered when the neighbors called the city to have the spraying truck come out. It helped, but didn't eliminate all the little buggars.

*scratch* This Benedryl lotion I'm using isn't helping one bit.

In other, happier, news I've been experimenting with night photography because the light noise at my friend's place is minimal. You can see the ding dang milky way out here!

If I get anything decent, I'll gladly share the results here.

As for now, onward to the weekend.

Let All Who Pass Here Know

So let's say you and the spouse are talking, and you say "Hey honey, why don't we gather up the kids and make a trip to that happenin' place, San Francisco, Californey."

Why, it's an end-of-summer vacation destination.

And so you book the airline and find a hotel and plan your visit.

On behalf of the Bay Area, there's a few things we'd like you to know.

1) First, thank you. We are happy to have you come and visit! Please, spend your hard earned dollars in our economy. We could use the help.

2) We have some of the best food anywhere. Please stay away from the chain restaurants and try a local place. You'll be glad you did.

3) Everyone appreciates how difficult it is to navigate our geographically limited city located at the end of a peninsula, so don't be a'feared to ask for directions. Most locals have been lost here a few times too.

4) No one calls it "Frisco." Maybe a few people call it "San Fran." You could probably get by with an "S.F." Refer to San Francisco as "The City" and you'll be doing just fine.

5) Bring your camera and don't be shy about taking snaps. It's hard to take a bad photo.

6) Oh, and lastly and most importantly, this is what the weather is like in August:

Just for reference, the exif data on this photograph reports it was taken at 12:08:14 pm on Sunday, August 8, 2010. In case you can't tell, that's part of the north tower of the Golden Gate Bridge.

I'm just sayin'.

Don't pack your shorts, tshirts and a pair of flip-flops for a trip to "sunny California." Pack pants, socks and a jacket. You'll be glad you did.

Also, know this...San Francisco is one of the most beautiful cities you'll ever know.

Come on out ya'll! Enjoy! We're happy to have ya!

Photos by Karen Fayeth taken from the Marin side of the bridge. Many, many tourists were endured in the making of these and many other photographs.

(What all this language below means is that I took and I own the photographs posted here. If you'd like to borrow them, you have to do me the favor of giving me credit for the photo and posting a link back to this page. That's all. Fair enough? I think so.)

Word and images in this blog post titled "Let All Who Pass Here Know" by Karen Fayeth is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License.

How Do I Choose?

Going to get a little high minded for a Friday. I was presented with another blog post suggestion and this one poses quite a challenge. The assignment? A blog post sharing my top ten favorite works of art.

This is not an easy task. It is hard to come up with ten. It is hard to keep it to just ten. How does one choose from among all the works that touch my soul? Do I go with popular stuff? Do I go with less mainstream stuff?

And then, how does one find photos on the web that even come close to showing the magic of the work?

With much fussing and hand wringing, I've arrived at my list of ten. I'm sure the moment I hit "publish" I'll change my mind.

All but one of these items I have seen in person, and they stand out to me as show-stoppers. Items of art that made me step back, sit down, or stare transfixed (or all three).

Here we go, in no particular order:

Starry Starry Night by Vincent Van Gogh

Van Gogh is, hands down, my favorite artist. I blame this on a high school English teacher who introduced me to his work.

The stabbing, slashing paint strokes appeal to me, and his pain on display, even in a pretty painting of flowers resonates with me. When I saw this painting in person at the MoMA in New York, I cried. Not just wept a little, I bawled. I'd been seeing The Good Man only six months at that point and yet he didn't think I was weird. That *is* a good man.

Tree of Life by Gustav Klimt

This was a new friend I made at New York's MoMA. After crying my eyes out over Van Gogh, I didn't imagine I'd be able to learn to love any other art works that day. I was wrong. I'm not generally a fan of Klimt, but this painting was so engaging, it couldn't be ignored. I go back and look at it pretty frequently while online. There is incredible detail in every square inch of this work.

Masked Ball at the Opera by Eduard Manet

I saw this at the National Gallery of Art in Washington DC back in the late 1990's. I've found no photograph since that does the painting any justice. When you see this work in person, it's painted in such a way that you feel like you are at the party. You can see the folds and wrinkles in the clothing of the other guests. You smile, you frown. They smile and frown back. You are there, in the room, at the party. It's fascinating.

I stared at this painting for about an hour and still had a hard time tearing my eyes away.

Mourner Costume by Henri Matisse

I'm actually not much of a fan of Matisse's work. His torn paper work for which he's so famous rates only a "meh" from me. When I saw the permanent Matisse exhibit at National Gallery of Art it was mostly his paper works, so I walked through pretty quickly. I was about to leave when my eyes fell on this garment.

It's torn paper style done with fabric. In this photo, it looks sort of dull and unimaginative. In person, it's enchanting. The memories of this work of art have stayed with me for years. One day I'd love to try my hand at a cloth work inspired by this:

Dizziness by Iman Maleki

This is the only one I haven't seen in person. I found it via the Art Gallery app on the iPhone and I'm utterly fascinated by this painting. It's my wallpaper on the phone and I can stare at it and see something new every time. I feel some sort of kinship with the man in the work and I'm not sure why.

Los Dos Fridas by Frida Kahlo

It was hard to choose from among the Frida paintings as I love them all. In order to choose, I thought back to the exhibit of her work I'd attended at the De Young in San Francisco. I thought about the one work I spent the most time with. It was this one.

La Pistola y El Corazon by George Yepes

There are actually two versions of this painting, one completed in 1989 and one in 2000. It is the 1989 version that is featured on the Los Lobos album of the same name. Sadly, that painting, owned by Sean Penn, burned in a house fire.

George Yepes created a new version of the painting, however, the 1989 version is my favorite. It's darker and more intense. The second seems, to me, like only a riff on the original.

Room on the Verge by Patssi Valdez

I saw this work at the Chicano Visions exhibit at the De Young in San Francisco. The whimsy, the darkness, the movement of this work just drew me in. I sat down on the floor (no chairs or benches) and stared at it.

My fellow gallery goers looked at me like I'd lost my mind. I didn't care. I wished I had five more eyes so I could to take in more of this painting all at once.

It's gorgeous.

Jean D'aire, Burgher of Calais by August Rodin

I have an intense love for Rodin's work and it all speaks to me of hard work and sadness and endurance. I discovered this particular work at the Cantor Center for Visual Arts on the Stanford Campus and it's the one that sticks with me.

It was as part of a photography class that I was introduced to the Rodin Sculpture Garden, and I tried and tried to photograph the very serious faced Burgher. I have one photo that is pretty good, but it is only of his face. This photo shows the entire statue. He is the very definition of pathos.

Rose and Driftwood by Ansel Adams

I saw this at an Ansel Adams exhibit at the Bellagio casino in Las Vegas. The Good Man was there on business for a trade show, so I entertained myself during the days while he worked. I'd seen a lot of Adams before I took in this show, but somehow this little work had escaped my notice. I walked by it the first time and did a cartoon head whip like "whaaaaa?"

I stood in front of it and stared and stared and got lost in the depth of the woodgrain. It's spectacular. It's a gorgeous simplicity that is so hard to accomplish.

Whew...walking through all of this has left me exhausted. In a good way.

Now I need a nap and a vodka drink, not necessarily in that order.

Soot of a Most Sorrowful Kind

Over the weekend, I read on "Only in New Mexico that there had been a fire on the highest trestle bridge of the Cumbres & Toltec Scenic Railroad.

A Google search netting me an article in the Denver Post with a photograph of the fire on the Lobato Trestle that is both beautiful and heartbreaking.

The sadness immediately hit me in the heart. The Cumbres & Toltec railroad, billed as "America's Highest & Longest Narrow Gauge Scenic Railroad," holds a special place in my heart.

In fact, I did a post about my memories of the Cumbres & Toltec back in 2007. Looking back to that post, I rather enjoyed reading what I wrote, and I was filled with melancholy at the idea that the railroad won't be running this summer due to the damage.

I believe that either New Mexico or Colorado, or both, will fix the bridge because the railroad is a big tourist draw. However, times are tough and money is tight. So who knows how long it might take before the Cumbres & Toltec is up and running again?

On his blog, Jim Baca was kind enough to post a couple family shots from his adventures on the Cumbres & Toltec.

Having recently semi-reorganized my rather vast pile of family photo albums, I did a dive into the memories and dug up a few photos of my own. There was a family trip back in August 1978, and I found a couple photos worth sharing.

As mentioned in my 2007 post, Captain Type A, also know as my dad, rousted us all early from our beds in the Apache pop up trailer we'd camped in the night before. I'm unclear why we were up so early, but it was, ostensibly, to go and catch the train.

Chama sits at 8,203 feet, so even on a nice day the mornings are rather chilly. Getting out of bed wasn't the easiest of tasks that day.

I recall my dad being pretty excited and the rest of the family being...well. Um. Fairly excited?

Look at this happy group! (I'm the shortest one in the front.)

Man, is that a spouse and three kids that are LOVING the head of the household right now?

And also...helllooooooo seventies! How much denim is in that photo?

This is the station where the journey begins on the Chama side. That little figure huddled off to the right sitting on the wagon under the Chama sign is me.

Cold. Cranky. Waiting.

But I suppose there was a payoff. Once the sun came out and it warmed up and the train actually got moving...well heck, look at that face!

I'm diggin' it!

I remember really having a lot of fun once we were actually on the train. The end point of the trip, Antonito, was a charming little tourist town. I thought it was big fun since I'm a longtime lover of souvenir and tchotchke shops!

We ended the day covered in soot and ash, tired but happy. It ended up being worth it, a fun family trip, even if the beginning was a little rough.

I'd like to think that the Cumbres & Toltec will get up and running again, because there are whole legions of children who haven't yet been tortured by their early rising father at an elevation of eight thousand feet.

Yup, there's an app for that

I love, love, love Lomography and the fun plastic cameras that create such individual photos.

One of my faves is the Action Sampler camera that comes with multiple shutters the fire off sequentially. I use it a lot.

It works best with motion, making what can best be described as a four frame movie (or more frames depending on which camera you have. They go up to 9 shutters).

So of *course* someone created an iPhone app that does the same thing, making the camera fire off shots one after the other then bringing them together in one photo. It's called QuadCamera.

Cool stuff!

Check out today's trip across the Golden Gate. iPhone held out the window as we passed under the south tower on a nice sunny day. (straight off the camera, no adjustments done)

Enjoy!!

We all have to remember in our own way

A tree stands in the median on I-25, north of Las Cruces, not quite to Radium Springs.

It's a scrubby little tree, maybe a mesquite or a juniper. You know, the kind of hardy tree you see out there in the New Mexico desert. Something tenacious.

This particular tree stands out because it's festooned with tinsel and garland.

It's been that way for several years. I've seen it, driven past it several times, actually.

The first time I saw it, the time of year wasn't much past Christmas, so I figured it was a leftover holiday decoration.

But when I saw it again a few years later, I realized it wasn't just leftover holiday decorations, but something more serious. I knew it was a roadside shrine often found in our fair New Mexico.

The roadside shrine is a memorial located where someone has lost their life out there on the roads. It's a pretty common sight in New Mexico.

It's a tradition I grew up with and so it's never occurred to me to question it. I find outside the borders of my homestate, it's questioned. A lot.

Questions of taste and decency, actually. Whether it's appropriate, or not, to put one's grief so garishly on display.

See, I think we in our American culture have really weird and uptight ideas about death and dying. Ok, it's probably because I grew up in the cultures of New Mexico that I feel that way.

But I've always really appreciated the Hispanic and Latino cultures celebrating and remembering their loved ones who have moved on. I appreciate the ability to show grief openly without remorse or embarrassment.

Dia de los Muertos offrendas and roadside shrines are simply the outward display of deeply held cultural beliefs. Beliefs such as that the dead have moved on to another world, but a world that is not so far away from our own.

A woman is comforted, perhaps, by knowing that her child, while not in her arms, is not that far away. While she remembers with a keening loss the child who was taken away, she can still bake bread and place sweets on an offrenda, and it helps her cope.

A mourning wife can drive to the spot where her husband met his end, and remember him. She refreshes the shiny bits of paper, and can feel her husband not so far away.

I think this is healthy, personally, and I don’t find it to be weird. I find it to be beautiful.

Those roadside shrines are called descansos. They aren't just tacky plastic crosses and brightly shining tinsel. For the family that constructed the shrine, they are an essential part of the grieving process.

The garlanded tree located in I-25 highway median is a descanso to honor the memory of a child.

The shrine in the photo at the end of this post honors two kids who rolled their ATV by the irrigation banks on the Bosque in Los Lunas.

When someone you truly love dies, the grief never goes away. It tends to ebb and flow, welling up sometimes, overwhelming. Other times, the volume is turned down and you can almost, but not quite, forget.

I think we all have to find our own way of grieving.

No one can say who is right or wrong.

Source: Las Cruces Sun News

Forty is the new seven

Sometimes in this crazy mixed up life, you find a friend that becomes such a good friend, they actually become family. And that is a beautiful gift, truly.

And then sometimes you have a blood relative who, over time, becomes one of your very best friends.

I'm referring to a cousin on my mom's side of the family. We met when I was seven and I think he was ten. We were simpatico from the start, sharing a similar outlook on the world.

Back then without the benefit of the internet, we were steadfast pen pals, writing pages and pages to each other about our thoughts, our dreams and of course our drama.

Over time, we graduated to email. Buckets and buckets of bits flying back and forth over the internet, keeping us connected, providing laughs, and that invaluable sort of knowledge that someone out there in the world understands.

He was there at my wedding. A year later, I was there when he staged the musical he'd written (both book and music) and produced.

We'd both helped each other get to our own day of celebration, and it was unthinkable to not be there for the other.

Anyhow, it’s a very cool friendship. Over the weekend, we got to spend some time as my cousin is paying a visit to the Bay Area.

We took off on Friday headed for the Monterey Bay Aquarium.

My mom was raised in Oregon, so once a year or so, she'd take us to visit family in Oregon, and that always included a trip to the Oregon coast.

My cousin and I bonded over years of trips to the beach, so going to the aquarium seemed utterly natural.

One of my favorite exhibits at the aquarium is the otters. I adore the otters and could stand at their tank for *hours*.

What I love is that around my cousin I can be totally ridiculous and immature. In fact, I can even revert to childhood.

So as we stood there watching an otter zip around the tank, every time the rambunctious otter swam right in front of the glass, just inches away from me, I'd utter a childlike "hi!"

Round and round. "Hi!" and "hi!"

And my cousin laughed every time.

I didn't even feel self-conscious.

Then we got to the huge tank in the Outer Bay exhibit. When I dropped to the floor on my knees (like all the other little kids) to watch the show, he plunked down next to me with a "wooooow" (it really is a spectacular sight).

We giggled at seahorses, we petted bat rays in the touching tank (the bat rays loved my cousin), and we wooowed at the giant jellies.

Man it was a great day!

Ah to be a kid again. There are only a few people in the world who can make that feel safe for me (The Good Man is one of them).

And that just might be the meaning of life.

(loved the seahorses!)

There's No Place Like Home, There's No Place Like Home

Man oh man, yesterday at gate B20 at McCarran airport, I was clanking my ruby slippers together so hard the sparkles fell off.

No worries, nothing a little love from a glue gun can't fix.

I love to travel, I always have. Ok, I'm not some big international world traveler, I'll admit. I'm mainly a domestic flight gal, but still, I manage to travel maybe three to four times a year, usually for fun to see friends and family.

The adventure is always worth the price of admission. Even going to somewhere I know well, it gives me a chance to break out of my routine, get out of my head, and be different.

The best road trips are when I feel like I'm a different person by the time I come back home...meaning, I've grown or learned more about myself along the way.

My recent travel was one of those sorts of trips. I won't share all the ins and outs and what-have-yous about the epiphany I had in front of a quarter slot machine at the Four Queens casino, but suffice to say, there was one...and it was good.

Sometimes getting out of my non-thinking monotonous routine and into "hey, where am I staying and where are my bags and where am I going to have something to eat?" is entirely exhausting.

And my god air travel wears me slick. Could people *be* any ruder when flying?

By the time we made our way to our happy little casa last night, I was beat. I mean, so tired, I was damn near catatonic.

But as Annie says in Bull Durham, "Total exhaustion can be spiritually fabulous."

So as tired as I was, as happy as I was to sink into my bed and let the sandman have his way with me, at 4:30 this morning, my eyes were open and the brain was rolling.

Ideas. Lots of them. Flowing like, well, coins from a slot machine after hitting double-double-double on the payline.

At first I fought it. Rolled over and begged for sleep to come back.

Then I thought...why? How often am I blessed with a fire hose blast from The Muse? Why pinch off the ideas? Hell no, let 'em flow.

So since 4:30 this morning, I've been cranking away at the iMac. I mean CRANKING the whole time. And damn if I didn't get a LOT accomplished (not the least of which was cropping and uploading my new profile photo...take a gander to the left and you'll find it.)

So now, some four hours later, my eyes are burning, I'm a little shaky, and I may need a nap today. But mostly, I'm happy.

While travel is fun, and for this old musty brain, might just be essential, at the end of the day, there really is no place like home.

A few views of old Vegas

So finally I'm back on a plane headed westward to San Francisco which means home and my cranky Feline (who has been wreaking havoc in my mom-in-law's home).

The trip to Vegas was a good one. The Good Man's business was conducted, we ate some great food and even took in a Penn & Teller show at the Rio.

But as with every trip I take to Vegas, I'm done. Yup. She wears me weary and it's time to get back to the place and get to where I can live normally without the ching-ching of a slot machine as my background music.

I did get a chance while visiting to take a look at the old Vegas that I remember (and sometimes yearn for).

While the Neon Museum's boneyard is closed for construction, they do have a few beautifully restored signs installed down on Fremont street that you can visit.

Here are a few photos I took on my trip. I haven't sorted out all 350 photos I shot, but these are a couple of my faves so far. (click image to see full size)

Vegas Vic, an icon of early Las Vegas history when he was the image often used by the Las Vegas Chamber of Commerce.

This comes from high atop the Nevada Hotel Sign.

The orginal lamp from the Aladdin Hotel and Casino. I remember this one well. It was like seeing an old friend.

And finally, the Hacienda horse and rider from the original Hacienda Hotel and Casino. I also remember this one. It's been beautifully redone!

There may be more to come as I sift through what I got.

For now, I'm ready to be home.

Oh, and as a final thought...how cool am I? I'm blogging from thirty thousand feet in the air. WiFi on airplanes, what a cool concept! (Go Virgin America!)

While you were toiling away...

...answering emails, suffering the slings and arrows and the whims of management, teaching kids, making deals, working hard, feeling stressed, wondering what it is all about....

This seagull was eating a starfish.

Just thought you'd want to know.

(click image to enlarge, you'll be glad you did. You'll be able to see that he's noshing with his eyes closed. Like this is a super tasty treat. You know how you close your eyes and mmmmm when something is especially tasty. Think of that when you look at this photo)

Image by Karen Fayeth

Geez! Well finally!

Yes, yes your intrepid blogger returned from her road trip and got immersed in catching up.

It's taken me a week to sort through the over 300 photos I took at the 38th Annual Albuquerque Balloon Fiesta.

But sort through I have, and if you click here you can see about 60 of them.

I've not done any retouching, Photoshopping, or editing of any kind. These are straight off the camera, complete with the smudge on my lens, visible in the upper right corner of many of the shots.

I'm a real pro at this! Yay. Thankfully in most shots the smudge can be easily edited out.

*sigh*

Here's a few to whet your appetite!! (click image for bigger size)

Musings from airport security

Do you ever wonder, as you stand in your socks or bare feet with your jacket off and your personal toiletries in a baggie, that the terrorists might just have won a little?

Also, matter how many times I fly through the El Paso airport (about twice a year) I am still unnerved by the intense scrutiny every person receives from Border Patrol.

They don't just look at you. They scan you like they know you got something and they damn sure are going to find it.

Gotta be tough work, I imagine, looking that close at every traveller....

Anyhow.

My New Mexico visit has been great!! Now I am ready to go home. I get to sleep in my own bed tonight!!! Yay!!

Morning!

A nice way to begin the day. Sloppy greetings from my goddog.

Sometimes, you know you must be an ok sort of person if a dog thinks you rock.

My god cat was less sure about the necessity of my existence this morning.

It's a gorgeous day in Southern New Mexico. I head back home tomorrow, happy from a great trip back to NM, and very happy to get back to The Good Man. I miss him so much it aches.

Second time's the charm

Woo hooo! Ok, today's Balloon Fiesta was *awesome*! So worth using that crowbar to get my butt out of bed this morning.

Special Shapes Rodeo, yeah baby!

This will be a quick post because I have to pack up all my schtuff and check out of the hotel. Today I'm headed out of the 'Burque and southbound to Las Cruces.

I can't wait to hug my two beautiful goddaughters! What a great way to wrap up my trip.

Note to NewMexiKen: The Albuquerque Box was not in effect today. No surprise, eh?

Here's just a couple photos for Sin Pantalones (I believe you said in comments on Ken's blog that these are a couple of your faves). I have to sort through the rest to see if there's anything good in there.

Enjoy!

(Click photo for full size image)

Squeaky Sphincter

Yeah, ok, I get uptight about stuff. I try, oh I try to "live and let live"...and in a lot of ways, I do.

One of my employees recently said she admired my, "Zenlike attitude about everything" which I took as a huge compliment.

Only, I'm not exactly Zenlike about *everything*. No, there are a few things that get my knickers in a bunch, falling squarely into Dr. Freud's line of studies.

Oh I'm anal, baby, but really only about certain things.

So, what's got my chones in a gather today?

Well, because I'm traveling on a plane, I made sure I went to the library and stocked up on good reading materials. Stuff to keep me engaged as the Sierra Nevadas, the desert floor of Arizona and, finally, the Sandias pass underfoot.

This is a fairly new book, copyrighted last year. It appears by the librarian's diligent date mark on the front page that it was put onto my local shelves about a year ago. A year. And I'll be damned if this thing isn't already dog-eared.

Of course, by dog-eared, I mean SOMEONE HAS FOLDED DOWN THE CORNERS OF THE PAGES TO MARK THEIR PLACE.

I believe there is a special level of hell for someone who folds the corners of a library book.

Look, if it is your book, you own it, bought and paid for, fine. Live and let live. C'est la vie. Vaya con Dios and go for it. Fold those pages with reckless abandon! Crack the binding and drop a forkful of lasagna on the denouement. Smudge the ink with your greasy thumbs and have yourself a careless ol' time.

But if it's a book that belongs to the local library, meaning people OTHER THAN YOU will be borrowing and reading it, do us all a favor, and try to keep it nice, ok?

Also, look, I'm sure that smoking and reading is a real pleasure. At heart, I don't really care if you smoke, when you smoke, how much you smoke. That's your deal. If you are reading your own book, blow the smoke deep into all the pages. It's your book, knock yourself out.

But it's really not all that fun to open a library book and get blasted with your odor. There is no airing those things out, you know.

And finally...if you have the temerity to MARK in a library book with a pencil or heaven freaking forbid, a ballpoint PEN, I will hold a deep and abiding grudge against you for life. It doesn't matter that I'll never know it was you who did it...I'll hold a grudge anyway.

I'm sure you'll be quite busy being the greeting committee in hell for all those page folders.

Now if you'll excuse me, I need to pull my pantalones out of my behind, smooth and straighten my clothes, and walk down to my gate. It appears my flight is boarding.

Don't EVEN get me started on people who use their roller bags to block my egress while in line to get on the plane. These "open seating" flights bring out the very worst in people........

Well isn't that peculiar?

So, in Albuquerque they gave me a rental car with Texas plates.

Let me get this straight...I am a New Mexican who lives in California driving a car with Texas plates?

There is a joke in there somewhere. I'll need another margarita to figure it out.

A real nice day to fly

Despite the LA haze, it is still a beautiful day fer flyin'!!

Woo! Thank you!

Hit 115 visitors yesterday, a new record for my little blog that could!

Thanks to all the eyeballs that (who?) dropped on by! Much appreciated!

Today I embark on a journey back to New Mexico. We'll see what sort of trouble I can get myself into!

And oh yes, there will be good eats. Of that there is NO doubt!

Fine, then don't drive across my state, buttheads!

The Ten Worst States To Drive Across

Is New Mexico listed?

*Of course* New Mexico is listed.