A small-town house call

Mama, I love my hat. I'll even keep it on till Papa comes home from feeding the turkeys so we can be like buckaroo buddies.

When he's asking for Papa, Lazarus puts his hand on his head and says "Dhat?" because Antonio always has some kind of hat on, usually his beat-up black Stetson. Laz still doesn't seem to have any words, but he's definitely working on expressing himself.

In other news... 'tis the season to keep kids out of doctors' offices and hospitals, if at all possible. I knew Lazarus or I would catch something when I went in for a pregnancy checkup on Wednesday -- Antonio and his uncle had to go to Albuquerque, so I had to bring Laz with me, and I really regretted it when we entered the waiting room full of sneezing, coughing kids and grownups. Especially since my usual five-minute wait stretched to almost an hour thanks to, well, all those sick people.

Sure enough, Lazarus had a mild fever all day yesterday, and it jumped to 103 overnight, so of course we were a bit worried this morning when he still had a high fever and was also lethargic. What to do on a Saturday, when the only apparent option is an emergency room 30 miles away? Call a friend in for a house call, of course. Antonio asked Christine (Jai's mama) to come check Laz out -- she happens to be a physician's assistant, which is just about as good as a doctor for most stuff -- and she came over with her black bag and wonderful bedside manner. And some Children's Motrin which, for the moment at least, seems to be giving Lazarus some relief. Christine said lots of stuff is going around, including RSV, a respiratory infection that sometimes turns dangerous quickly. He might have an ear infection, but it's too early to tell, so we'll just watch him.

A house call -- how cool is that? Thanks, good neighbor.

It's what's for dinner

Old Time Hunter's Venison Sausage Patties
from The Complete Venison Cookbook by Harold W. Webster, Jr.

2 Tbsp. salt
2 tsp. black pepper
3/4 tsp. mace
1/4 tsp. ground nutmeg
1/4 tsp. ground cloves
1/2 tsp. ground allspice
1/2 tsp. garlic powder
4 lbs. boneless venison, cut in 1-1/2" cubes
4 lbs. boneless pork butt or shoulder, cut in 1-1/2" cubes

Combine seasonings, sprinkle over meat in large bowl, and toss until well coated. Grind with a fine disc and shape into patties or stuff into sheep casings. Freeze in meal-size portions. [Notes: Double all seasonings for more intense flavor. Add bacon to meat mix if desired. Grind mixture twice for more consistent texture.]

Antonio and I made this sausage this afternoon, using the venison scraps left over from the deer he shot and butchered last weekend. It came out good. We also made a hot Italian sausage that also came out wonderful. We had to use purchased pork for both (it adds moisture and fat to the sausage, since venison is so lean), but in a few weeks we'll be using home-grown. Now that I've gotten past the "oh, it's so gory" stage (and realized we won't have to buy any meat all winter), I realize how much better it is to eat meat that I know is clean, healthy, and humanely raised. Venison in particular is much leaner than beef yet has as much or more protein per ounce, and of course it doesn't have all the hormones and pesticides and other chemicals that pervade today's commercial beef supply. And it actually isn't gamey if it's shot "quietly" (not chased and hunted down), properly field dressed and butchered, and well wrapped for freezing.

In case you were wondering.

A nice afternoon outing

Speaking of beautiful public lands worth saving for our children's children...

... we went for a drive yesterday afternoon and watched Ladron peak ("Thieves' Mountain") become golden red as the sun set over the rolling rangeland. Lazarus and I were both having a rough afternoon, and Lucy the dog seemed restless, so I got us all in the car...

... and took off on a dirt road headed north out of town, to nowhere in particular. The road actually does end up in Riley, a (near-) ghost town even further out in the middle of nowhere than we are, and I've heard it eventually winds its way to more major roads that lead back to civilization, but that's a long enough haul that I could drive for quite a while and not see a hint of that. I let Lucy out of the car and let her run for a while, and Lazarus pointed at the mountains and trees and intently explained (in his special banguage) how much they mean to him...

... and we all felt much better when we got home.

If you haven't yet done so, please let your senators know (see entry below for link) that you don't support the wretched energy bill they'll soon be voting on.

from the National Resources Defense Council:

Urgent: Tell your senators to reject the dangerous energy bill!

****UPDATE, 21 Nov.: WE SPOKE OUT, AND IT WORKED!!!! For now, at least, the Senate has rejected Bush's energy bill.****

After nearly three months of secret negotiations that shut out Democratic participation and public scrutiny, the Republican leaders of the energy conference committee released the final version of the energy bill this past Saturday. Despite the absence of Arctic Refuge drilling provisions, this is NOT an acceptable energy bill: it would hand billions of dollars to the polluting oil, gas, coal and nuclear industries while exempting them from environmental laws that protect drinking water, clean air and public lands.

Among the most damaging provisions in the final bill is a liability waiver for producers of the toxic gasoline additive MTBE. The waiver would shield producers from being held responsible for the cost of cleaning up drinking water contaminated with MTBE, even though the industry knew the chemical would pollute groundwater. The few positive parts of the bill, such as tax incentives for wind and solar power, are vastly overshadowed by policies that would undermine environmental protections, add billions to the national debt and do nothing to reduce our dependence on fossil fuels.

The electricity section of the bill would open all public lands, including national parks, to the construction of electricity transmission lines, while other provisions would establish oil and gas development as the dominant use of federal public lands at the expense of water quality, property rights of ranchers and farmers, wilderness, wildlife and cultural, historical and recreational values. The bill would even exempt the oil, gas and coal industries from key components of the Clean Water Act, Clean Air Act and Safe Drinking Water Act.

The House of Representatives approved the bill Tuesday afternoon, so our last remaining chance of stopping the bill is a filibuster in the Senate, where a vote is expected as early as Thursday.

What to do:
Send a message right now, urging your senators to vote to filibuster the energy bill.

I don't have much to add, except that if I start to see drilling and other development activities on the amazing wild lands that surround me now, I will lose my marbles and get friendly with monkey wrenches.

Senate democrats actually managed to stayed awake for their all-nighter

This good news kind of surprised me... which reveals how little faith I have lately in our democracy.

I hope senate democrats stay awake long enough to deal with the new energy bill that republicans (only, no dems allowed at this water fountain) have come up with. Among other things, the bill heaps generous tax breaks on energy companies (no surprise there; that trough just keeps getting bigger), shields makers of MTBE (a gasoline additive that is contaminating water supplies) from product liability lawsuits, and fails to mandate improvements in auto fuel economy.

The bill does not, however, advance "one of Bush's top energy goals": opening Alaska's Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to oil development. Republicans didn't want to risk having the whole bill scuttled over that issue... this time. No doubt it will come up again, but at least the people's message got through this time.

In other news, we had a cold, rainy week here, but surprisingly, once the clouds lifted, the mountains were still clear of snow. I guess the storm kind of got wrung out on its way through L.A.:



Sheesh. First firestorms, now torrential hailstorms, and on Monday Ah-nold takes over as governor. You know what's next... it IS California, after all. I can almost feel those tectonic plates shuddering from here.

Okay, I haven't taken any new pictures of Lazarus lately, but I'll get some when we venture out into the sunshine this afternoon and post them, just for Mom. Promise.

O patria mia

This is, by far, one of the best t-shirts I've seen in a long time:



Antonio picked it up in, yes, Winston, New Mexico, a small town even further out in the middle of nowhere than Magdalena. He went back out there this week for a second round of hunting (we have venison from the first round, so we'll be eating till the end of the year, at least), and I wish I'd told him to pick up a whole bunch for me to send to Tommy Ridge and his homeland crew for a nice holiday morale booster.

from the Freeway Blogger:

Still sleepwalking.

Senate approves $401.3 billion defense bill. The vote was 95 to 3. Opponents: Robert Byrd (D, W.Va.), Daniel Akaka (D, Hawaii), and James Jeffords (I-Vt.). Absent: presidential candidates John Kerry (D, Mass.) and John Edwards (D, N.C.).

In other words, not one democratic senator/presidential candidate voted against this bill. Lieberman and Gephardt voted for it, and the other two were too chickenshit to go on the record either way. Anyone care to speculate about causes for voter disenfranchisement? "Damn politicians -- they're all the same." I've heard that so many times, and now I'm starting to believe it. I'll still vote for anyone against Dubya in 2004, but I sure as hell hope it's not one of the senate idiots currently running around pretending to be presidential but afraid to show what the hell they really stand for.

Only one senator (now that Wellstone is gone) says anything worth listening to:

"We stand passively mute in the United States Senate, paralyzed by our own uncertainty, seemingly stunned by the sheer turmoil of events." Senator Byrd, railing against the Senate's near silence as they took one more step toward taking the nation to war against Iraq, spoke those words on the Senate floor on 12 February 2003.

"To contemplate war is to think about the most horrible of human experiences. On this February day, as this nation stands at the brink of battle, every American on some level must be contemplating the horrors of war....

"Yet this chamber is hauntingly silent. On what is possibly the eve of horrific infliction of death and destruction on the population of the nation of Iraq -- a population, I might add, of which over 50 percent is under age 15 -- this chamber is silent. On what is possibly only days before we send thousands of our own citizens to face unimagined horrors of chemical and biological warfare -- this chamber is silent. On the eve of what could possibly be a vicious terrorist attack in retaliation for our attack on Iraq, it is business as usual in the United States Senate.

"We are truly 'sleepwalking through history.'" ...

Then and now

Lazarus keeps changing -- I don't see it day to day, but going back over older photos of him, I realize that time passes by so quickly, even when I'm trying to pay close attention. I love this pair of pictures, taken 11 months apart, of Lazarus "reading" last December (just over six months old), and last weekend (nearly 18 months old):


His new favorite book is Where the Wild Things Are -- I've read it to him a few times, making the appropriate monster sounds (and making a few up as well), which he now imitates as he flips the pages. He seems able to handle paper-paged books now without shredding them, a good thing because he insists on turning the pages himself while we read.

Now that we're a bit settled in (and have had the same address for more than six months), I've started getting some great toy catalogs, with lots of sturdy bright wooden stuff rather than annoying noisy plastic stuff. So of course I'm getting toy fever. For the little guy, of course. Here's one I'd love to get him for Christmas... if I can wait that long. I love the pull-along toys, and Lazarus is just about walking, so of course it's a perfect match.

I've been wanting for a while now to start decorating the house for the holidays. We've decided to keep things really simple -- make or trade for presents rather than buying lots of useless stuff for people, and keep the celebrations here at home -- but I always have an urge to put up lots of lights and garlands and ornaments and all the other decorative stuff I've collected (and kept, but of course) over the years. Lights in particular make me happy. And even though the store isn't open, and won't be for months, I think I'll put up some lights and other stuff over there, too, just so it doesn't look like a depressing vacant storefront. Okay, and to give myself yet another space to play with.

Of course, before I am allowed to start decorating, I have two jobs to finish and more clutter to clear out of the house. Would be easy if I had any evergy, but I never seem to have gotten that second-trimester energy burst (though I'm not sick every day, either). So I guess I'll keep running on fumes till I get that third-trimester nesting energy, or whenever. I might just make it if Lazarus snaps out of this no-nap, late-to-bed-and-early-to-rise phase he's been in for the past two or so weeks... It is just a phase, right?

Check out the links sidebar

I updated my links (look over to the right... yep, there) today, changing "cool mama weblogs" to "cool weblogs" so I could include a few nonmamas, even some guys. Just a few. Cuz the mamas still rock my world.

I also pruned the "other links" section -- one site formerly dedicated to the theme of art and revolution now seems to be pushing Viagra, Vicodin, and the like. Might have been hijacked... probably by right-wing freeks dedicated to purging the online world of truth and freedom.

Among the new additions you should definitely check out is Scorecard.org -- "Get the facts on local pollution" -- which lets you search by zip code to get a fairly detailed environmental report for your area. This site pulls together an impressive collection of resources that identify, quantify, and compare contaminants to air, land, and water in US states and counties. Needless to say, my current location carries a much lower (though hardly close to zero) pollution burden than my previous one. No surprise there, but still pretty damn sobering.

Look, ma, no hands!

Lazarus has been practicing this a lot lately, and is really starting to get the hang of it:

Yay for me!

He'll be a "real" toddler any day now. He's still our little guy, though.

We drove down to Socorro today, almost 2000 feet lower than Magdalena, and it was sunny and quite mild, perfect walking-around weather. We stopped in at a bookstore (alas, one going out of business next week) and I picked up some great kids' books for Lazarus while he picked up the two ladies chatting at the counter. He's such a flirt, batting his long eyelashes and flashing his dimple-faced smile, and cheering up anyone within view.

Sorry to say I didn't get any Halloween pictures -- we had a good time at Christine's, with lots of cool people and good food (including roast lamb that was superb), but I felt like crap that day, and the photo session never happened. I think Christine got some pix, though. Laz went as a hunter, decked out in the fleece-lined camo flannel jacket and pants I made him, plus his papa's camo hat. No, hunters are not "cool" out there in the world, but people here (including Antonio this week, with Christine and Omar, and next week with his uncle, for deer) hunt for FOOD so the freezer won't go bare in mid-January (or mid-November, our current track). Anyway, Lazarus looked cute and got lots of admiration, especially from the hunter-guy crowd (some of whom are smart and cool, and don't actually have gun racks or confederate flags on their trucks). We would have gone on this week's hunting trip, his outfit and all, but he got a cold and a weird cough, so we're home playing it safe and keeping that king-sized bed toasty warm all by ourselves.

Oh, I just found another picture: Mama, isn't it lunchtime yet?