2007 NM Tues and Wed Jan 29-30

Update:
Couple of things I forgot to tell you about. Albuquerque must have a large homeless population and one park by the river was full – looked like a convention. I am assuming it is due to this that this store has implemented this security device. We saw a clamp-like device on one of the wheels, but aren’t sure how it would work. And isn’t it funny how they address “Shoppers,” when you know they really mean “Street People.”

They have another interesting thing here in NM, I told you about a couple of trips ago, but I don’t think I had a picture. They want to be sure you approve of their restrooms – look at this sign. You get to push the button next to the “YES” or “NO” and register your opinion.

Let’s see…
Monday afternoon, I roamed around and found a fabulous bead shop – actually the biggest one I have ever seen! I talked a good while to one of the workers there – she was from Alabama! I ended up only getting one little string of pale green beads – there were so many and I knew I wanted to visit the paper store, so I was spending conservatively.

The paper store – actually an art supply store, had a nice selection of hand made paper. They had a very good way to display the kinds of paper they had for sale. They cut a 12” square of ache kind of paper and had they all displayed where you could feel them and really look at them. Then they would get the whole sheets for you. I got about 10 sheets – some beautiful lacy tissues from Japan, a gorgeous green and purple sheet from India. Fun!

That pretty much took the afternoon, not forgetting the daily stop at Walmart, of course! Today was picking up a bar of real soap (the hotel’s soap seems to be made of self-destructing soap like substance. As soon as you start to use it, it breaks in half, you pick up a half and try and use it, it breaks in half, etc, until you have a handful of crumbs! And this is within five minutes of opening a new bar! I have never seen anything like it. So, I bought a bar of real soap.)

Keith and his cousin Roger had a great day of skiing. He got his new boots and a boot dryer – a wonderful thing to have so your boots are warm and dry the next morning. We had dinner at a wonderful pizza place that puts sesame seeds on the handmade crust. Yummo! They have a ton of gourmet toppings to select, such as gorgonzola cheese, toasted walnuts, smoke salmon, artichoke hearts…lots of good stuff. I was feeling a little blurky, so we got a plain mushroom, but it was great.

Tuesday
While Keith was out getting breakfast this morning, he ran into Gil Gallegos, the hotel guy I talked with the day before, and Gil gave him two CD’s and a little package of magnets. One cd was of sunset pics Gil had taken around Taos and the other was various scenery – lots of gorgeous fall pictures with the aspens like scatted gold streams among the evergreens. The magnets were pictures of painting his niece has done. All Native American themes and very nice. He had stayed up til midnight the night before making the cds, he told Keith! I was so touched!

He and I had another great chat this morning, about all sorts of stuff. My new bud!

I ventured around exploring the outskirts of the town – it looks like snow tomorrow, so I want to be sure I get to do my driving today! Here is a little grouping of Oz houses.

The dome really makes sense in a snowy part of the country – I would imagine snow just falls off the roof and you have no worries. The adobe houses here all seem to have flat roofs and the girl at the bead store says they have to replace the roof every ten years.

I went downtown after the drive, stopped in to see Ruby, who was presiding over the bookstore with her usual grace and charm.
Next stop was a new paper and misc. stuff store where I found fun stuff for Mom as kitty sitting presents! Across the way was a glorious fabric store and I was very glad I wasn’t into fabric! They had things arranged by color – my favorite organization method.



After this I was a bit hungry, so I stopped by the Bent Street Café, named after a governor named Bent. I had a salad plate with baba ganoush, crudités, pita triangles and hummus. Yum.

I headed home after this and read until the guys got home. We went to dinner at a New Mexican restaurant. Good enchiladas, with lots of shopped romaine lettuce, the obligatory refried beans, and Posole, which is a spicy hominy dish! I had never seen it before on a menu and none of us knew what it was, but it was good. They also served a side dish of fresh sopapillas – as bread, not as dessert. I was too full to eat more than a bite of it though.

After dinner we went back to howl in front of American Idol, and cursed the TV schedule once again. I don’t know what the deal is here, but we don’t have a local paper, so we depend on the web for TV listings. We haven’t ever been big TV watchers, but 24, American Idol and House have captured our attention. Well, on Monday night at home, 24 comes on at 9pm which is 7pm here. So, I looked it up on the web – the cable in the hotel is on Comcast and the schedule is on the web. It listed 24 as being on at 10pm. I double checked that the program on at that time corresponded to the listing and felt confidant I knew what was what. Au contraire! We turned to the proper channel at 10 to see The Simpsons starting! Grrr! I went back to the web to see if I misread Comcast’s schedule, nope, it showed 24 at 10. Then I went to the local station’s listings and there it was, at 9pm, just like at home! Grr! I checked in with Mom and she gave me the rundown and said I didn’t miss much. Lileks agrees – he said, “Bottom line: an episode that managed to be everything the previous 120 weren’t.” i.e., boring, I assume.

So, Tuesday night I checked the local station schedule and it said AI at 8 and House at 9. Turned on TV after we got home from dinner at 7:30 and AI was half over! Grrr! Ah well – got the whole episode of House anyway. AI gives me a major laugh several times each show – people who are just so clueless as to their complete lack of talent! It was interesting, at the auditions in NYC, the people they told “no” to were very argumentative, in Birmingham, Alabama, they thanked the judges! Southern politeness!

Wednesday

Today the guys went out a little early so they could take a detour to see the Rio Grande Gorge Bridge – a very beautiful bridge and gorge. Roger hadn’t seen it and thinks he will head home tomorrow instead of staying until Saturday. Beverly’s (his wife) mom is on her last days and had gotten dramatically worse over the past couple of days. They discovered she had stage 4 lung cancer, lymphatic cancer, and a brain tumor in early December, 2006. She had radiation for the brain tumor, but the others are basically untreatable as they are so advanced. Bev called Hospice and they came out yesterday and started helping. Bev says her breathing has really changed over the last 2 days and it sounds to us like it is very near the end. Bev is an only child and lost her dad years ago, so she feels all alone in dealing with this. She insisted Roger come on this trip as he could be home in one day if he needed to be.

Today I think I will hit the museums. There are about 5 of them here, I don’t know how many I will get, we’ll see. Of course I have a couple more shops to check out also – well there are probably a hundred little shops here, but I have to be selective! Not being much interested in clothing does help reduce the stores I need to visit. Too bad you aren’t here Mom, you’d have a ball!

It snowed a few inches last night, but I imagine the main roads will be clear – I am not venturing off them, for sure! If Roger does go home early, Keith and I may head off to other parts of NM to explore! We’ll see!