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?

Pumpkin massacre

We got out today (always a miracle)! Christine invited Lazarus and me over to help her and Jai carve a pumpkin -- she and I did most of the work, but the little guys definitely did their part:

Jai loved scooping...


whereas Laz just wanted to get his hands on the pumpkin guts...


uh-oh, here comes mama...


Yes, that's Lazarus -- supposedly the calm one -- with pumpkin guts all over his pants. He was totally engrossed in the texture and kept picking up handsful of the stuff to examine more closely. He particularly liked the globs with lots of seeds clinging to the stringy goo. Jai just watched him, transfixed. They're gonna be a pair when they get older... Jai (the energetic, impulsive one) will lead them toward trouble, and then Laz (the steady, straight-ahead one) will get them both really deep into it.

No, not really. They're both angels and will always stay that way.

First frost

The inevitable happened on Saturday: a cold front blew through and swept summer away, and frost in the night put most gardens to rest for the winter. We've fired up the wood stove and are scoping out drafty windows and other heat leaks, and all the winter clothing is unpacked, washed, and ready to wear.

The Magdalena mountains, visible from most windows in our house, have given us a few weeks of subtle orange and yellow shading as aspens, oaks, and a few other deciduous species turn, and now will soon be covered with snow. My pitiful garden is just about gone -- only a few pepper plants (bearing half-green, half-red peppers I've been waiting for for months) and most of the lettuce made it through the frost, and once they're gone I can clear it all away, cover the soil with horse manure and pine needles, and dream about next year's bounty.

I still don't feel ready for winter. Seven years in southern California almost felt like a jail sentence except for those marvelous mild winters. I got a taste of winter last year in Denver, and another taste this weekend, and, well... I guess I'll adapt. But just as I was lamenting the descent of winter here, I heard about the southern California wildfires -- oh yeah, it's fire season there, and this year seems particularly awful. As I bring wood inside and light our first fires, they're battling 90+ degree temperatures and furnace-blast winds and, now, fire and smoke. I guess I'd rather have a nice docile fire inside my slightly chilly house than one right outside the window....

This picture amazed and appalled me:

Smoke almost entirely covers most of the LA basin (the middle of the three major smoke plumes), and I can only imagine how awful the air quality must be. And how scared people living anywhere near mountains and foothills must be.

Some after-dinner fun

We got great news the other day: the new baby looks fine (amnio results were normal), and it's a girl!!! So Lazarus will be a big brother sometime next March... and I'll be done being pregnant and can get on with my life! Babies are awesome, but being pregnant kinda sucks. Just had to say that. Before I got pregnant with this one, I was thinking, maybe three or four kids. Now -- uh-uh. It was enough being pregnant by itself; doing it with a toddler is just... not fun, for me or for him. I am starting to feel a lot better, finally, so it's not as hard as it was a month ago, but still.

I can't wait to meet our little Maggie! Magdalena, we'll call her... not sure on the middle name yet, and the first name might even change. We'll see.

I haven't taken pictures of Laz lately, but here are two oldies from about a year ago -- first time sitting up (though hardly first time blowing bubbles!), and first time eating. I still can't believe how much he's grown and changed. I don't see it day-to-day yet hardly recognize him in the old pictures.

No pictures today -- just suspicion...

Many, many condolences to my California friends who lost their state last week to "the gubernator" and the republican demagogues who engineered the whole recall charade. I have no doubt that this happened so that the energy barons who terrorized and robbed the state a few years back during the electricity "crisis" they engineered could get off the $9-billion hook Davis had them on. So the economic crisis continues, and California taxpayers will never see the money they were robbed of at, essentially, gunpoint.

I remember that "crisis" well -- pleas for citizens to turn off their Christmas lights, do fewer loads of laundry and at night, save save save, and I also remember the occasional chaos of blinking traffic lights at busy intersections duing the "rolling blackouts" that hit when available supplies ran low because the barons were keeping crucial generating plants offline for bogus reasons, so they could run up prices. I remember my electric bill doubling in one month. I remember thinking something was definitely UP if this was happening in the winter -- the barons were priming us for a big fat kill come the sultry summer months when demand would be even greater.

I remember this shit, and so I'm appalled but not surprised that the right wing engineered a way to oust the man who was trying his best (such as it was, I know) to reveal the truth and get the barons to pay reparations. I wouldn't be in the least surprised if the rumors floating around that the election itself was rigged (since the republicans have had plenty of practice by now) turned out to be true. One source (scroll down the page to bottom entry) suggests that Diebold voting machines used in certain Calif. counties were rigged to siphon votes from top candidates to low-ranked, no-chance-of-winning candidates, which would be a less obvious way of making sure the targeted candidates lose but the desired winner doesn't win by too noticeable a margin.

I've been trying to comfort myself by saying how glad I am we don't live in Calif. anymore, but that's bogus -- what happens there, or in any part of our "democracy" for that matter, happens to all of us. And whether we choose to remain blindfolded and blissfully ignorant or let the truth hit us raw in the brain, we lose a bit more of our voices and our rights and our freedoms every time this shit happens. How many times have I read of elections in other, "less civilized" nations being declared invalid (in name or just spirit) because of rampant irregularities? Some despot gets himself and his cronies elected because he has the power to make it so regardless of the will of the people he pretends to "govern." How backwards and unfortunate those poor people are.

That could never happen here.

Lazarus the outdoorsman (redux)

In between rainy days (!!!) we've had some amazing but typical New Mexico fall days. Lazarus loves being outside, especially now that he has real boots. Lucy loves the company, too.

Baby the second

We went up to Albuquerque for an ultrasound and amniocentesis yesterday, and here's what we saw:





And the gender is... undetermined. Babe was too squirmy for us to figure it out -- doc said chances are it's a girl because (during the half-millisecond the babe gave us any clear view at all) she didn't see any evidence to the contrary, but don't get out that pink yarn yet, mom. We'll find out for sure when the amnio results come back, late next week. All the other baby parts look to be in place, and the heart was beating well, so things look good so far.

Lazarus watched the ultrasound on screen, too, but I don't think he connected the grainy, liquid black-and-white image with a "baby." He does love patting my growing belly, though. Can't wait to see what he thinks of it in another few months.

Yeah, yeah, it's been a while...

I've been busy -- what can I say. So let's dispense with the rants and commentary and all that and just put the important stuff -- the baby pictures -- up, in chronological order.

Lazarus at the beach (Atlantic ocean, for the first time) in mid-September:

Good morning, sunshine!!!

Lazarus has been pulling himself up a lot lately, but I didn't have the camera handy till this morning. Yep, he's finally standing, with support, and even took a few cruising steps along the couch this morning. Only a matter of time.

Lucy the wandering dog came back this afternoon, much to my relief. I was napping and heard what I thought was rain outside, and there was Lucy slurping out of the bucket. I made sure she knew how happy I was to see her.... And I'll be sure to get Antonio to fix that gap in the fence. At least she can't go out and get herself knocked up -- I took care of that just in time, I guess.

Tomorrow is a big day -- it's my mom's birthday (HAPPY BIRFDAY GRAMMA!!! -- from Lazarus), and I have an ultrasound in the morning just to check things out and get an accurate due date. It'll be very cool to get a look at the new babe-in-progress... hearing the heartbeat yesterday helped me make a connection to this creature that, so far, has been rather abstract and gut-level physical (as in nausea and fatigue). I'll be sure to post the news... I hope they give me a picture, too. I can put it next to my belly, which Lazarus just loves to climb over and drum on, and help him make a connection, too.

Ain't nobody here but us chickens...

Our lil' chicken rancher finally has some chickens! They're still small, so he can hang out with them for a while longer, till the roosters get territorial and the hens get hen-pecky.







Here's looking at the turkey chicks, who are smaller and have to be kept separately so they don't get pecked:

Boy at Play

Bang the cup with the flyswatter handle, ooh yeah.... Okay, what else do we have here? Hmmmm... old stuff, old stuff, old stuff -- there it is!



My little truck. Stuff moves on it. That's cool.

Lazarus is a very rare male name.
Very few men in the US are named Lazarus.
Be proud of your unique name!
source namestatistics.com

Gideon is a very rare male name.
Very few men in the US are named Gideon.
Be proud of your unique name!
source namestatistics.com

Magdalena is the #703 most common female name.
0.015% of females in the US are named Magdalena.
Around 19125 US females are named Magdalena!
source namestatistics.com

Anne is the #85 most common female name.
0.228% of females in the US are named Anne.
Around 290700 US females are named Anne!
source namestatistics.com

Antonio is the #100 most common male name.
0.19% of men in the US are named Antonio.
Around 232750 US men are named Antonio!
source namestatistics.com

Boy in his element

On Sunday we went to a natural spring up in the San Mateo mountains (southwest of here) and had a wonderful day hiking, playing in the water, and wandering around. Lucydog had a blast -- she managed to use up just about all of her terrier-mix puppy energy. Lazarus had fun, too, hiking up with mama to the spring in his backpack carrier and then sitting and crawling around in the spring (which used to be a big pool-like bowl that got washed out a few weeks ago):


We got some rain there, so Laz had to hang out with Papa in the truck to warm up while William, Steve, Lucy and I hiked down the canyon, walking mostly in the stream. We were almost never able to do this in L.A., at least not without driving three hours in heavy traffic and still encountering lots of people, which meant we tried to get out into the wilderness once in a while but mostly gave up. Sunday was a rare treat, then, though it won't be so rare from now on.

I'm looking for apricot and peach recipes today. Antonio bought two bagsful from a roadside vendor and I want to put them to good use. So I might try Apricot Nut Bread (with whole wheat flour and minimal sugar) and Apricot Lentil Soup, and Peach Cobbler (reducing the sugar), muffins, and bread (low-sugar, whole-wheat flour).

Of course, the Apricot and Peach Fried Pies sound mighty tasty, too, but... I'll have to pass on those.

Waiting for Rain

It has been a long hot summer. That phrase sounds more dire than I feel, but weeks and weeks with little or no rain do tend to unnerve me. (So why the hell do I live in New Mexico?) It has been near 100 degrees most days for the past month or more, and the relief of the monsoons, due in early July, just never came. Like waiting for a check and eating beans and thinking, it won't be much longer, will it, and getting up the next morning and thinking, okay, what do we do with beans today.

The southwest is a dry place, but it gets blessed by rain every year just as the summer heat becomes almost unbearable. Most summers, that is. This year it's a month late, and counting, and the several-years-long drought just becomes more dire. I drove down to the Rio Grande around Socorro last week and found it to be bone-dry... no river there, and definitely not a big one. Irrigation does take it down in spots, but to see a completely dry riverbed there was a bit unnerving. But it did rain today. Not long, but enough to damp down rather than rile up all the dust here. I've managed to keep my vegetables alive -- in fact, I had the first real tomato today for lunch -- but I've given up on a flowery front yard. Most of our yard is dust, and will remain so until the drought breaks and I feel okay about watering more or I collect enough bark to cover it all up. I'm working hard on a positive, solution-finding attitude, and most days I do pretty well. I can live without pretty flowers if I have a view of the mountains and plenty of time with my son and myself.

We are running out of money, though. I haven't gotten nearly enough work lately to cover our bills, so I had to put our whole tax return towards those instead of toward store renovations. The money from selling our California house is just about gone, the money Antonio's dad gave us last year is totally gone, and I have no new work coming in till September or so, unless something shows up soon. I'm trying not to panic, like I always have about money, because things have worked out so well in the past 18 months -- since I got laid off at 5 months' pregnant -- that I need to keep the faith that they'll continue to do so.

We'll make this work, somehow. I'm cooking a lot more, both because I'm finally in my element and because it's healthier and cheaper than eating processed stuff or going out. I'm even going to make bread tomorrow, to save the $2 or so per loaf we've been paying, and once the chicks we just got start laying eggs, there's another piece of the self-sufficiency pie. My favorite TV guy, Christopher Lowell, loves to celebrate the innovation that arises from scarcity. "When you don't have lots of money to throw at a challenge, that's when you get really creative." He may be focusing on home decorating but he's really talking about letting the human spirit rise to the occasion rather than just accepting defeat. I believe that Antonio and I made the right decision to check out of the rat race for good and try to make it in a small town on income derived by working for ourselves rather than being cogs in someone else's gear wheels. We had the unbelievable privilege of having a big chip -- a house in a good market -- to cash in, and now that we've planted that stake it's time to really start believing in what we are doing, and believing that we can do it.