Oh, mama, can we keep her???

Antonio found a great present for Lazarus -- she needed a home and Laz needed a buddy, so here she is:

Happy first birthday, Lazarus!!!!

Several months before I became pregnant with Lazarus, I had the first in a long series of dreams in which I found hidden spare rooms in our house. In most of the dreams, I felt satisfied with the house as it was but then experienced a strange, almost fearful exultation when I discovered a whole new addition, or attic, or guesthouse that I just hadn't noticed before. In some cases the rooms were in need of some repair, but only because of benign neglect over time, and I could see the great possibilities the new space afforded us.

This dream recurred many times, often several nights in a row, well into my pregnancy. Now I think I know what they meant. Having Lazarus has, in a way, opened up an entirely new "chamber" of my heart, one I had no idea could possibly exist. I've loved and been loved in my life, but never like this. Call it instinctual, hormonal, just another mother gushing over her babe, whatever you want, I still think it's amazing. Thank you, Lazarus, for bringing this to me, and happy birthday.

Adjusting (again), and remembering things past

Okay, I'm not so mad at the world anymore. I'm feeling more at home here in Magdalena -- my mom helped me clear all the boxes out of the back room so we have a comfortable living space (and so Antonio can watch movies at 2 a.m. back there without waking me up and pissing me off), and I've gotten some garden space planted, and I finally have my satellite Internet so I can browse the Web at leisure instead of over long-distance dial-up at 7 cents a minute. Word to the wise: when you move out to the middle of nowhere, you can still get (fairly) high-speed Internet, but it might take a while because the provider knows you have no other options.

It helps that I'm getting outside more. In Denver I was practically a hermit, both because it was winter (real winter, which I kind of forgot how to deal with and hadn't missed at all the seven years I was in California) and because I was too depressed to do much of anything. I had a pretty basic routine there: get up with Lazarus, make coffee, drink two big cups with Coffeemate fat-free hazelnut creamer and eat a bowl of cereal, surf the Web and answer email while Laz watched Sesame Street, go downstairs and give Laz his breakfast and greet grampa, watch the second half of JAG and then The Practice with him, and finally look at the clock and think, well, if I don't get a shower before 1:00 I might as well not bother. I had work now and then, and I had errands to run now and then, and once in a while I'd just take Laz out for a drive, but I had to make a real effort to get out of the house instead of retreating back upstairs with Lazarus after lunch. I kept making plans to take Lazarus to the zoo, to museums, to parks, but I just couldn't manage to follow through.

I still have to make an effort to get out of the house -- I always have -- but now it's my home again, and I have plenty here to keep me happy. This evening I planted most of my veggie seedlings, and watered the tiny flower seedlings just starting to come up in front. Lazarus has been sick the past few days, which makes me sad because I miss my sunny little buddy, but I'm hoping he'll be better soon... by his birthday, maybe, which is Tuesday. My little guy is almost a year old -- one year ago today I was lying on the bed wondering how many more weeks I could stand being huge and achey and immobile and fog-brained and throwing up every damn morning. Two days later, I held this creature in my arms:



This has been, far and away, the best year of my life. So far.

Rant (no pictures)

This was published today. Not May 1, 1953 but May 1, 2003. Today, in the great U.S. of A., and it's not a nostalgic look back at our storied history but a current events news report. A taste:

"...Juniors are in charge of planning the prom each year and last year they decided to have just one dance — the first integrated prom in 31 years in the rural Georgia county 150 miles south of Atlanta.

"Until then, parents and students organized separate proms for whites and blacks after school officials stopped sponsoring dances, in part because they wanted to avoid problems arising from interracial dating.

"This year, a small number of white juniors decided they wanted a separate prom...."

Holy crap. I shouldn't be reading this stuff (I snagged the link from jhames, who snagged it from some other enlightened soul) -- I'm mad enough at the world as it is.

Rubber ducky (/fish/frog/turtle), you're the one, you make tubby time so much fun...

First, let me apologize for not updating my weblog. See, I don't have high-speed Internet out here in the sticks, and instead of signing up for YET another ISP and email address I'm just hanging with my AT&T service... which means I have to dial long-distance into Albuquerque every time I want to connect. Absurd and highly impractical, I know, but I thought I'd have the satellite Internet service by now. Of course, I haven't yet received the check from my last gig, which was going to cover it, so everything works out in a way. Except that I'm Net-deprived, and my mom is Lazarus-deprived... guess I'll make that phone call today.

Speaking of Lazarus, here he is in all his bathing glory:


fish heads, fish heads, roly poly fish heads...

... eat 'em up -- BLECCHHHHH


what's this stuff and why can't I grab it and jam it in my mouth to chomp on it?


the amazing frog boy:


I'll put up more pix later; I took some over the weekend during our trip to Denver -- we took the scenic route, which was by far the best part of the trip, and Lazarus was, as always, a pleasant roadtrip companion. Denver looks a lot better now in the spring than it did when I arrived late last November, when it was grey and cold and the trees were bare. I remember driving in from Grand Junction (where Laz and I stayed for a week or so after leaving California), and thinking Oh shit, what the hell did I do??? I pulled the car up to the back of the house from the alley and had to sit there and cry for a few minutes. The place just looked cold, grey, grubby and completely foreign, my gardens and comfort far behind me. Spring definitely spruces the town up, but I'm still happy to have left Denver for the not-quite-as-green expanse of southwestern New Mexico. Driving back down here yesterday, I felt increasingly happy the closer we got to home, and when I emerged from the Glorieta Pass and saw the Magdalena Mountains way in the distance, my heart leapt. And coming up the hill towards those mountains, night upon us, I thrilled to see the stars all around me, Orion straight ahead as if beckoning me home.

And home I am, puttering around and winding my way through towers of boxes and trying to figure out where to put anything, let alone everything. It's a good thing we have a store so we can start unloading all this stuff... The seeds I planted a few weeks ago have sprouted, and now my windowsills are filled with leggy green plants straining towards the sun. I think I can plant them now, but I'll wait to see if we get any more frost over the next few nights before putting them out.

I'm da king of bongo, baby

Lazarus joined in on the drum circle tonight, and it was pretty amazing to watch this little guy figure out that when he hits the drum, it makes a cool noise just like Papa's does.

Here's my Saturday Six (borrowed and modified from the divine a.):

1. How many houses/apartments have you lived in throughout your life?

twenty-two -- no, I'm not kidding. I lived in my childhood home from age 3 months to 17 years, and it's been move move move ever since -- more than half my life now. I'm restless, the landlord jacks up the rent, my neighbors get noisy, I get restless again.... And my cat Georgia has been with me for the last 15 moves, poor faithful kitty. But I think we're home now. She already has several choice window seats (old adobe houses have nice deep window sills).

2. where did you stay the longest? the shortest?

-longest: childhood home, for 17 years
-shortest: with a temporary host family in Brussels, Belgium, for two weeks while the AFS coordinator hooked me up with another host family (the first one was nuts)

3. Which was your favorite and why?

1) childhood home -- small house at the edge of the woods with huge trees all around filled with birds and chattering squirrels, beautiful yard that my mom landscaped, hundreds of daffodils every spring, loft looking out on the woods that mom and dad built, funky small hippie-ish town, total freedom to run and bike and be a kid.
2) Whittier house -- because it was ours and once we renovated it, it was beautiful and sunny. I loved creating the gardens out of nothing, and I could hear the birds in the morning as I awoke. But it had a bad stress vibe that took about six months to dissipate.
3) present home -- we just got here, so it isn't "ours" yet, but I'm excited to start gardening again, painting and tiling and putting up curtains, feeding the birds, ...
this one may well move to #2 soon, especially since it has a very good feeling to it already. Dunno about it ever replacing #1, though -- that's a tough act to follow.

4. Do you find moving house more exciting or stressful? Why?

stressful because I've done it way too often, and not always because I wanted to but because I had to -- money, bad neighbors, lease up, etc. I hope I've made my last move for a long while -- more than two and a half years, at least. I do enjoy unpacking and setting up house, though, so once all the stress is over, at least I get a bit of a treat. Putting up curtains -- no, window treatments -- is definitely my favorite settling-in activity, along with watching the cat nose around and figure out the sunny spots for each part of the day.

5. What's more important, location or price?

they kind of go together, but if I have to choose: location, but not for the usual reasons. I'd rather live out here in the middle of a beautiful nowhere in a house that needs TLC than in the middle of the action in a swanky city neighborhood or tony suburb, because that's who I am (i.e. weird). I want freedom, not material luxury. Not that I could afford the latter anyway, so go with the flow, right? :-D

6. What features does your dream house have (pool, spa bath, big yard, etc.)?

-very quiet location, with a wide variety of birds around
-lots of sunlight coming through big windows with amazing views of hills and valleys
-a quiet, spacious, bright room away from the main house where I can relax, create, be on my own
-a sauna and an outdoor whirlpool
-a gravel path directly from the my bedroom deck to the stable

oh my bags are packed, I'm ready to go...

One. More. Day. Antonio left this morning in the U-Haul and should have clear weather and roads for the long drive. I worry a bit about that Raton Pass (crossing from Colorado to New Mexico), but I think the storm has moved east, and the pass will certainly be clear and dry by the time I hit it tomorrow afternoon.

I finished my big job yesterday afternoon -- more or less on time (sent last chapter after biz hours, but I think I was close enough), and ready to get back to other pursuits. Like, now, packing up clothes and fabric and baby stuff... It's nice to have a day off after a week of hard work, though, even if I can't just loaf in front of the TV all day... not that I'd want to. Urrgghh. Dubya is apparently "frustrated" with the media because they're starting to question the battle plan and progress. This war, he insists, will last "however long it takes." Vietnam took, what, a decade or so? Of course, Johnson and Nixon and their respective crews were a bunch of tutu-wearing wusses compared to Dubya and his posse, who apparently have taken steps to ensure the true horror and bloodshed of this war doesn't sully our privileged living rooms the way Vietnam coverage did. Keep it clean, keep those cameras pointed up at the big pretty bombs bursting in air, keep those correspondents excited about all our techno-power and the inevitability of a sanitary victory.

Okay, no TV for me today -- just packing. Lazarus is currently taking a break from everything, even grabbing at the cat (this is getting humorous because Georgia is starting to shed with the warmer weather, and Laz looks puzzled when he ends up with a handful of cat hair and no cat):



Oh, I updated my page, finally -- got up some links to more cool mama weblogs (these women rock, they really do) and other important stuff. I have to admit that I hesitated when publishing the new template because these are some radical links, and I'm nervous about getting on some CIA/FBI/NSA Watch List or something since I so recklessly and disrespectfully question our government's antics. All the more reason to hit that "Publish" button, right?

Almost time to go...

I've been searching for a reason
to either fight or fly
Either way, patriot or treason,
it's gonna be one long hard ride
-Melissa Etheridge

We've loaded up a 17-foot U-Haul with most of our possessions, and Antonio will drive it to Magdalena tonight or tomorrow morning. I'll take Lazarus and Georgia (the cat) Saturday in my car, along with my computer and sewing machine. And I'll be taking enough diapers, baby food, and cat food and litter to last us a good long while 'cuz I might not be coming back any time soon, or at all.


Are we at least taking the TV, mama? I don't wanna miss Sesame Street.

Another rant (I have so much material these days...)

Well said, Beastie Boys: http://www.beastieboys.com/song_lyrics.html (thanks to May mama buddy cosmicmama for the link). A sample:

"They're layin' on the syrup thick
We ain't waffles we ain't havin' it"

Conjures up images of Dubya and Asscraft and Rummyface sitting around a table poised over platesful of flat beige citizens, ready to stab in with their forks. But while we get syrup, others get bombs: The US admits it bombed a residential area of Baghdad, but insists, ‘‘Any casualty that occurs, any death that occurs, is a direct result of Saddam Hussein's policies." Oh. I thought bombs killed people. Guess I'm too simple to understand Dubyalogic.

Meanwhile, here at "home" (but not for much longer, thank God), family dramas are sprouting up all around us like tulips in May. Who laid down all this fertilizer??? I'm just going to keep my head down and focus on my work (big job; on schedule for once) and my various other projects. Like making more patchwork fabric for the Arden Baby summer overalls line -- so far I just have two:

This, too, is someone's child

Baghdad, 19 Dec. 2002:



(from http://www.nationalphilistine.com/baghdad/index2.html)

I don't know what else to say, so I hope this fellow blogger doesn't mind me linking directly to his amazingly eloquent view of current events. A taste: "Watch a country being bombed into dust over your morning coffee and afternoon snacks.... Think nothing of what has taken place except another necessary step to protect our elitism. Feel better knowing that blood has been shed for no other reason that to flex a national muscle. Kill, cleanse, repeat."

What I'm doing right now: working (well, not), listening to Laz clank his bells and blocks together, and half-watching Sesame Street with him. Right now, kids are talking about their favorite toys -- a bunny, a dinosaur, a doll... Hey, kids, let's ask Dubya and his pals what their favorite toys are!

Dubya: My favorite toy is my brother's ballot box set because it makes lots of noise and I can take all the paper out of it and rip it into shreds!

Asscraft: Um, my favorite toy is, um, the Bill of Rights. I like tearing things up, too. It's fun to throw the itty bitty pieces up in the air and watch them fall.

OverTheRidge: I like playing with my dad's duct tape, but I like my posterboard best because it has lots of pretty colors on it and people get scared when I point to the red and orange sections.

Rummyface: I have so many toys I don't know which one is my favorite... well, maybe my G.I. Joe action figures, cuz they have big feet and can stomp all over those sissy dolls my dumb sister plays with. I also like my toy gun, except it won't shoot real bullets.

Dang it. No more TV for me today.

Springtime for Dubya in the oil fields

Lazarus was 10 months old yesterday; I took him to see his grampa Chuck at the hospital, who isn't feeling so well but was really, really happy to see his lil' buddy. Today is the first day of spring, and all that snow is indeed melting, slowly. And we leave for Magdalena in a week (just to visit... probably), which gives my heart a thrill every time I think about it.

I'm hanging on to this mundane stuff because the antics of Dubya and his gang are really getting me down today. I've tried in the past few days to be a good citizen and inform myself by watching the news, but I just can't stomach the live views of Baghdad getting bombed or the hostile, arrogant news conferences with Don Rummyface or John Asscraft or Tom Over-the-Ridge. These people have some frickin' nerve to talk about evil empires and rogues and reckless disregard for the people's will. Rumsfeld said, in a speech on 4 March to current and former members of Congress, that "reasonable people, given the same set of facts, tend to find their way to reasonably similar conclusions." Unless he's suggesting that he and the Dubya Gang aren't reasonable people, he has dismissed all the dissenting people and nations of the world as "unreasonable" and, therefore, not worth considering.

I do want to make one thing clear: I hate this war and feel betrayed by the hooligans staging it, but I support and pray for the US and other troops who got sent into the middle of this conflict. God be with them, and peace also.

Yes, it was a really really big snow

The big snow has moved on, and Denver is very quiet tonight. Unlike in many places, people here seemed genuinely thrilled to see all this snow -- not only does it help with the drought, but it's just so cool to get time off from work or school to play in it or just watch it keep piling up and bury everything in sight. Thirty inches of heavy wet snow did a pretty good job of burying my car:



We bundled Lazarus up and took him out onto the sidewalk that Antonio and Bob managed to keep clear all day and night, and he just stared. It's all white and fluffy, mama -- what the heck happened out here? And where's your car? Here he is on a frosty throne:



So, yeah, this turned out to be a Really Big Storm. By the time all that snow melts, I should be packed and ready to move down to Magdalena. And not a moment too soon, given this unpleasant but not unexpected turn of events.

Okay, so maybe this will be a big snow after all...

Here's my car, around 5:30 this afternoon:



It's been snowing since about 10:00 last night, heavy and wet and mostly sideways, from the northeast. This evening on the news I heard that this storm "is just getting started" and that Denver metro could get 35 to 50 inches of snow by Thursday morning.

I'll consider it a Really Big Storm when it buries my car altogether and obscures that California license place I never bothered to change over. I figure that'll happen sometime tomorrow morning -- wager, anyone? I'll say 5:15 a.m. Whoever guesses closest gets a spring weekend stay at the A&A B&B in lovely Magdalena, New Mexico.

It just occurred to me that the last Really Big Storm I lived through was ten years ago this month -- maybe even this week -- and that a few months later I packed up and moved to New Mexico. I love signs from above, or coincidences, or however you want to interpret such parallels. My interpretation: it's time to go.

In his letter to George W. on the eve of this insane war against Iraq, Michael Moore wrote:

"Of the 535 members of Congress, only ONE (Sen. Johnson of South Dakota) has an enlisted son or daughter in the armed forces! If you really want to stand up for America, please send your twin daughters over to Kuwait right now and let them don their chemical warfare suits. And let's see every member of Congress with a child of military age also sacrifice their kids for this war effort. What's that you say? You don't THINK so? Well, hey, guess what -- we don't think so either!"

Dubya said last night that the only sure thing about war is sacrifice. Who's sacrificing here? Not him, not his hawk flock.

First, the good stuff: Lazarus celebrating Mardi Gras in style--



Now the other stuff: some strange parallels cropped up today, and we're quite possibly in for a wild week. At least one tornado hit east of Denver this afternoon, around the same time George W. Bush told the nation and the world that Saddam had 48 hours to leave Iraq or face attack "at a time of our choosing." In the next 48 hours, Denver will probably get between one and four feet of snow, and Dubya will probably launch war against Iraq. I'm glad we just went food shopping and that I have plenty of projects to keep me busy while we're socked in, because I don't think I'll want to be watching the news much this week.

Let me close with some good words:

"One country can win a war but it takes more than one country to win peace." --French Foreign Minister Dominique de Villepin, 3/17/2003

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;

I knew deep in my heart, through these past few difficult months, that this was all happening for a good reason. To give up my beloved home, leave our friends, come to a place I don't know and live in a house that isn't home -- it was all so hard and yet I knew I had to do it. Like Kevin Costner's character in Field of Dreams -- I gotta do this even though I don't know why the hell I'm doing it.

Then took the other, just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,
And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.

Now, much sooner than I expected, comes the payoff (there had to be a payoff, right?): Antonio and I visited Magdalena, New Mexico, last week, just to get away, and decided it was time to move there. To seal the deal, we bought a run-down old store in "downtown" Magdalena. Yes, we've officially gone off the deep end and are checking out of the rat race for good, moving to a dusty small town in the middle of nowhere. Lazarus has already charmed half the town so we had to promise to take him back soon... That house back in California that I've been missing so much these last months? It gave us either the windfall we needed to finally do what we want or enough rope to hang ourselves. Perhaps both. But we get to go back to New Mexico, finally, and we're finally doing what we've talked about for years and never had the courage OR the chance to do.

Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.
I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I--
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.
--Robert Frost

We have a LOT of work to do on our little store (starting with a new roof, then plumbing, then heating...), but I'm more excited than I've been in a long time... I know because I'm watching those HGTV home renovation/decorating shows again and conjuring all sorts of mischief. We do have a "tenant" who owns all the stuff in the shop (mostly books, some antiques and artifacts, and some nice local arts); if he decides to stay, we'll probably split the store roughly 50-50 and add a coffeeshop/thrift store/crafts store. A few community-building ideas we have include kids' arts-and-crafts days once or twice a month, weekly story hours, and book clubs for older kids. Since we own it outright (doesn't take much of an outlay in Magdalena), we can take time to learn what the community wants and needs instead of worrying about making a big profit right away -- just enough to renovate, pay the utilities and taxes, and feed ourselves.

So you wanna see? Okay, first the front exterior, facing south on 1st St./Rt. 60 --



Here's the left side (from the front), facing west:



and here's the right side, facing east and telling a story of the building's construction (an older woman built it herself years ago; she started here on the east side, where you can see she hadn't yet mastered bricklaying, but by the time she got around the back and then to the front she had gotten the hang of it):



Here's a small front room display, and a view from a back room looking toward the front:



For this we sold our beautiful house???? Damn straight. I can't frickin' wait, and I can't believe how lucky we are.

Oh, and we'll be living in William's lovely little house on Spruce St., where the view from the kitchen window goes something like this:

It's a quiet day in the neighborhood...

ooh yeah, I'm bad.

Lazarus and I finally made it outside today, after four (five?) days of being housebound. It was a beautiful 55-ish degree day, perfectly clear and bright, and even though he and I are both still coughing, I knew better than to squander this opportunity to get some air and light. Laz and I just went over to 32nd Avenue and walked around for a bit; I got a monstrous burrito, walked and window-shopped (and did some market research for my soon-to-be-born biz), and stopped for a decaf mocha before heading home. Lots of moms and dads and babes were out, it seemed -- I wanted to rush at them and beg for friendship, but I learned back in 4th grade that that move doesn't yield the hoped-for results.

We need to get out more.

First, the good stuff: Lazarus is doing much better after a week or so with a cold and ear/throat infection and then a sudden, scary allergic reaction to amoxicillin. His beautiful baby face, bright red and splotchy yesterday, is back to just rosy and healthy today. And he's happy again, too:



Now for some bad stuff: Justice Dept. Drafts Sweeping Expansion of Anti-Terrorism Act. Although the DoJ has denied its existence, "Patriot II" will, according to the Center for Public Integrity, "give the government broad, sweeping new powers to increase domestic intelligence-gathering, surveillance and law enforcement prerogatives, and simultaneously decrease judicial review and public access to information." Some people think this is entirely appropriate. Terrorism and the axis of evil and all. No, we the people don't need access to infomation -- "Let them have duct tape!" cries King George II.

It has come to this -- Code Orange Alert and duct tape. Years from now, how will I explain to Lazarus the state of things during his first year of life? It seems like the grim opener to one of those early, un-Disney-fied fairy tales that scared the crap out of kids but also gave them a glimpse of true evil as well as life happily ever after. Heroes and heroines of yore, however, had more compelling advisors than Don Rumsfeld and John Ashcroft, and certainly more effective implements than duct tape to ward off evil and slay dragons.

It's snowing here on the Front Range, and I can actually be glad both because Denver needs it so desperately and (on a more selfish note) we had some really nice days since I got back last week. We keep getting funky little power flickers, though... reminds me of the good ol' days of rolling blackouts back in California, '00-'01, when Enron and friends decided it would be great sport (and money) to manipulate power supplies. So we poor schmucks, chastened to not be so profligate, had to turn off Christmas lights and wait till nighttime to do laundry and inch our hazardous way through darkened traffic lights, and Ken Lay's money-meter spinned faster than ever.

ANYhoo, just before the snow came today, we spent the day with Keri's sister and family out in the beautiful rolling hills. Laz (who at this moment refuses to nap and is trying to cajole me into playing who-can-blow-the-messiest-spit-bubbles with him) got to watch two beautiful horses gallop around a ring, and the sight amused him mightily:



Then he got his first taste of the cowboy's way:

Oh, ma, I want one of these... So do I, lil' guy. Soon, baby, soon, somehow.