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Light a Candle for the Kids . . .

12/13/2011

I woke up with the power out – not really something to shout about . . .

But, if you’ve ever lived in a trailer, it is something to worry about. There’s no water to waste in the desert anyway, and the prospect of cold pipes exploding into icy floods under your house is not a pleasant one to contemplate.

So, when you wake up shivering and groggy with the power out, your first thought might not make that much sense.

You might light a candle (for the kids) in the pathetic hope that the feeble flames will somehow warm the underside of the trailer enough to keep the waterlines from freezing.

This is a pipe dream.

The pipes won’t explode, but you will be without water all day. You’ll be fine.

Be well. Stay warm!

– SAWK

(P.S. Also, be careful that you don’t trip on your snowboot laces in front of the cattleguard. You will come this close to smashing your face on an ice cold metal grate, your phone and keys will fly out of your pockets into deep snow, and you will crack the plastic rim on your camera lens – the most expensive thing you own – as you land on it on the ground . . . nothing a little superglue can’t fix!) . . . (We hope) . . .

Posted in New Mexico, SAWK Living Tags: cottonwoods, New Mexico, San Fidel, snow, trailer

And the Home Got Snowed In . . .

12/13/2011

A week ago Monday, we had a snow day accompanied by frigid temperatures that made even the dogs despair of going outside.

Escaping the trailer, I hiked up the loop in San Fidel in my snowboots, the anklet of berries (ghost beads) on my left foot digging painfully deep until my walking twisted them around into a place where I couldn’t feel them anymore.

Though it’s easy to love every season in New Mexico, I appreciate winter here more than anywhere else. The cold, dry air is ebullient and reviving, and when it snows, it is magical. There is nothing like the desert most of the time, but in the snow, the desert lies quiet, still, blanketed, and muffled . . . it is an altogether different thing – a sleeping beast, beautiful under a cozy cloud of white sleep, dormant for a time.

(Lava under fresh snow looks like crumbly, molten, chocolate cookies with a generous coating of confectioner’s sugar. Don’t be fooled, though; it will break your teeth, your face, and wear the soles of your boots down.)

The hooked knob above San Fidel – which you can see all the way from Albuquerque as you’re driving west – sometimes looks like a sleeping bear, Rip Van Winkle with fur and a snout, perpetually snoring dozily with his mouth hanging open. It is easy to imagine a giant, boulder-sized drip of drool sliding down his mouth and freezing in the cold temperatures. And – inevitably, I always get Sufjan Stevens’ “Sleeping Bear, Sault Ste. Marie“ stuck in my head when I see him.

Then it is quickly replaced by the Fleet Foxes, who have penned and composed some of the best Winter Music known to man.

I hope if you have a snow day, there’s a friendly porch waiting at the end of it where tea or cocoa materializes and you can let your boots dry near a woodstove until you walk the mile back to your trailer.

When today becomes tomorrow in 12 minutes’ time, we will have another snow day – necessitating a grateful thanks given to the four inches of powdery, white flakes burying everything under the sky.

Be well. – SAWK

Posted in New Mexico, SAWK Living Tags: New Mexico, San Fidel, snow, trailer

White on Red

12/9/2011

Last weekend (the first weekend in December . . . what the?), hot air balloons were supposed to take off from the canyons and crannies of Red Rock State Park out by Gallup. It was the elusive Red Rock Balloon Rally, only there were no balloons. The snowstorm that waited all week to dump finally dusted us on Friday night, making it dangerous for the balloons to take off the next morning.

We hiked instead.

The grey and cloudy and white and powdery covering over all the red rocks was lovely in a very quiet, cold way. It muffled everything and made the slickrock even slickrockier, and there were many a pause to pick out the least death-defying way across a slippery rock face or icy step.

The sun decided to poke out from under his blankets, ultimately deciding it was too chilly and damp to get out of bed, especially so early on a Saturday. He ducked his head back under the covers and went to sleep, muttering about there being no balloons anyway.

(This one’s for my dad, who has a thing for Toyota trucks, especially in their natural habitat.)

Be well.

– SAWK

Posted in New Mexico, SAWK Living Tags: New Mexico, snow

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Puppy Love

11/20/2011

There are many disgusting things to say about dogs.

They revel in bodily excretions, going so far as to eat their own #2 or making a second meal out of a meal they’ve just vomited. They often reek (I am convinced they are the only animal that actually smells worse immediately after bathing). They chew on your stuff and your person. They jump on your friends. They embarrass you with their bad behavior. They lick your kneecaps and elbows, resulting in an unpleasant, damp, and warm moistness that remains throughout your walk to work and first hour of sitting at a desk. They shed, leaving hair everywhere, even just after you’ve vacuumed, especially when you’re wearing black tights or dark pants that you need in order to look polished and professional.

I could go on like this forever, as I’m sure anyone who has puppies or their more advanced counterparts – toddlers – knows.

However, even when you are most annoyed with them, their great, abiding love for you and their unending adorableness will always, inevitably, kill your steely will and upend your desire to skin them and send the pictures to PETA. Especially when they know you need them.

It’s the cuteness. It can’t be overcome.

See examples below.

Boon, ever the watchdog, will compromise with the villains, coyotes, and murderers outside the bay windows to keep you safe. He will remain on alert while lying in the sun, scanning lazily for threats.

Annie, whose aggressive cuddling can sometimes be a hindrance, wants you to know that she loves you deeply and will always sleep in the crook of your knees, head on thigh, if you have the flu and have been vomiting for six hours.

She also wants you to know that she will NOT, however, ever allow Boon to cuddle, too.

“THESE KNEES ARE MINE AND MINE ALONE,” she says. “‘CUDDLE WITH ME.’ THAT IS MY COMMAND.”

If, however, Annie has been up all night with you, monitoring your progress and licking your pajamas while your head is in the puke receptacle, she will be too tired to prevent The Enemy from cuddling also. He loves you, too, but cuddles mostly out of jealousy.

“Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free from the fumes of influenza and throw up” . . . There is room for everyone on the Sick Couch of America.

And now, here are two pictures of my cottonwoods, just in case you weren’t sure it was a blustery, autumn day.

Be well. – SAWK

Posted in A Dog's Life, New Mexico, SAWK Living Tags: cottonwoods, dogs, friends, New Mexico, portrait, puppies, pups, San Fidel

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A Mighty Post, in Theme and in Length

11/19/2011

Did you ever pack a bunch of silver, chrome, and neon articles of clothing into a suitcase, then get in the car and drive 12 hours through the middle of a rocky desert only to descend upon a hot tub full of 100 people you have never met but are instantly friends with? – And then become astronauts and space cadets with this new posse, learn how to open a bottle of Champagne with a SWORD, and throw some serious punches while drinking punch made from the Champagne you opened with a sword? . . .

You haven’t? . . . Oh. Well, then, may I suggest it? – Because that’s what I did last weekend, and it was awesome!

On Thursday, Friday, and Saturday, I found myself at the Ace Hotel in Palm Springs, California, drinking cocktails pool-side and swapping stories and ideas with Andrea, Anna, Alice, Alicia, Alison, Amy, E. Annie and Brendan, Eden, Elizabeth, Erica, Heather, Heather, Heather and Jon, Jen and Chris, Jill, Jill, Kate, Keryn, Laura, Laura, Leslie, Maggie, Margit, Matt and Melissa, Meaghan, Megan, Nicole, Rebecca and Robbie, Shauna, Susan, Susan, Wendy, and about a hundred other people there for Camp Mighty. (Note to campers: if you are not on this list, or I didn’t link to your online persona, I don’t hate you, I just GAVE UP).

Maggie and Laura planned the whole thing around Maggie’s idea of a Life List, 100 things you want to accomplish in whatever sphere of your life you want to accomplish things in. Everyone made lists, we were divided into four teams to make the whole “sharing your intimate hopes and dreams with a bunch of strangers” part easier to deal with, and we spent the weekend listening to really inspiring speakers, filling our bellies with good food, wine, and other beverages, sitting in a steaming hot tub while cold rain tickled out-of-water heads and shoulders, discussing our lists and networking with each other to cross items off of them, and learning a bunch of random skills like making balloon animals or meditating (except not).

Everything was pretty damn great, and the weekend was full of trippy coincidences that make you look at your life and the lives of those around you to say, “Hey, maybe we really are all part of an overarching harmony or threads of the same woo-woo tapestry all woven together and built upon one another . . . Let’s go have a drink and talk about the Age of Aquarius or something . . .”

Anyway, it was a magnificent weekend that took something as abstract as a massive list of ideas and dreams you’d like to make a physical reality in your life, and give you some tools, some examples, and a really extensive community of like-minded nutballs to help you make them happen. And then you get to relax, hang out, and dress-up like Martians, pregnant aliens, astronauts, astronauts’ wives, and other space-agers while you drink Tang laced with Vodka and sticky, orange sugar, and dance until your whole body hurts.

Right on.

Speaker Brian Piotrowicz, whom OPRAH does favors for (yes, that Oprah), discussing intent and why we need it when doing all those pesky things like living a fulfilled life and producing iconic television talk shows.

Evany Thomas, blogger, barbershop-quartet supporter, and Facebook development gal, who is not only cute and hilarious, but – let’s face it – has been through some pretty traumatic experiences (The Cuddle Party Puppy Pile) and has come out of them relatively unscathed, stronger, and full of uncomfortable oxytocin.

Kenna, after we collectively called his mom to sing her “happy birthday” and she lovingly reminded him to take his vitamins, go to church, and find someone to make her grandbabies with, talking to Maggie about climbing Mount Kilimanjaro for Summit on the Summit to raise money for water, which everyone on the planet needs to survive or something? – Go figure.

As the only minor at Camp Mighty, Buster Benson‘s son was still mature enough to play it cool while everyone else opened Champagne with sabers and drank grown-up juice in the parking lot. (By the way, Niko – remember to remind your dad that TECHNICALLY I gave him the $8.97 Walmart Lightsaber from my space outfit so that YOU could play with it, not him.)

Woman of the Ace Hotel, whose name I think was Sarah and rocked very hard at things like making Champagne punch and constructing six-foot metallic rockets, seen here making said punch.

Sharing hair/hat-wear tips.

Halley’s Comet, uhhh . . . me, and Dr. Spaceman drinking Tang-Tini’s and partying like it’s 3099.

Thank you, Jake’s, for giving Camp Mighty’s Team 3 the equivalent of 15 cakes to take back to the hotel and split among ourselves, averaging about 0.68 cakes per person in an ode to The Biggest Cuts of Cake I Have Ever Seen.