Tag: Santa Fe

Watermark

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We’ve passed a watermark in our lives: we’ve been in the Santa Fe house for one year now.

I know. Time seriously flies, right?

So today I’m officially retiring the “Big Move” and “Big Switch” labels. It seems right. That part of our lives is over now. We switched; we moved. We’re here now. One year ago on August 14, we pulled our U-Haul truck into this driveway, moved stuff out of the Jeep and into the front seat of the truck. David climbed in and he, Zip and I drove into town to close on the house, just a hair before the 4:30 courthouse cut-off. With house keys in hand, which we pretty much had to wrest out of our dim-witted realtor’s hand – it’s a long story – we returned to the house, having made only a quick stop for a frozen pizza and beer. We unpacked the bed and ate the pizza watching the sunset.

In commemoration, I took this photo. I spent the evening reading on the patio anyway. I’m so blessed to have this kind of view.

(Um, no – this is still the old point and shoot camera. I’m working on it, okay? I did have this idea that I’d take an anniversary family photo with the new camera on the tripod, but I had significant learning curve still to overcome and David was scruffy and studying and it was hot out and the the animals wouldn’t have liked it and, and, and…)

David and I spent a lot of the weekend talking about how our lives have changed in this last year. It’s good to have watermarks like this, to measure the high and low tides of our lives. By the end of this week, he will have completed the first of three years of schooling. Completed with flying colors, I should add.

It’s another watermark that I have the new camera. Moving here really got me going on photography. I’ve been throwing all my Santa Fe photos into a “Santa Fe” subfolder under “House” – which is an artifact of moving in. Most of them are named by date. Like a careless banking programmer, however, they’re labeled with month and day. Now that I’ve wrapped the year, I need to sort them into year groupings, to avoid duplication. Fortunately it appears I didn’t get it together (read: I spent all my time unpacking) to start taking pictures by date until 9_17.

Gives me a bit of breathing room.

Now we commence the second year, of school, of the new place. I know what to expect from the plants and the weather. We have a pattern to follow now, a high tide line.

That was just the first year of the rest of our lives.

Prince of a Man

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Today is David’s Birthday.

And with today, we complete the cycle that first brought us to Santa Fe. A year ago today, David turned 50 and we drove down to Santa Fe to commence our house hunt. A year from tomorrow will be the first time we saw this house. David turning 50 also marked the beginning of his early retirement, which freed him to return to school to start this second career.

Finally I can connect the cycle of how the garden looked this time last year (better than it does now, I think. alas).

In my family, birthdays are special, but I feel like David often gets a bit skunked on his. Sometimes we’ve done fun things, like the year we went to Las Vegas for a few days and saw three nights of Cirque du Soleil, and drank margaritas by the pool during the day. Or the year we drove around Wyoming during his birthday week and played tourist.

But last year I was scrambling for gifts because I’d been on non-stop travel. It should have been a special party for his 50th, like we did for his 40th. I’d hoped we’d go out to dinner on some great patio in Santa Fe, but it was pouring rain when we arrived and we just didn’t feel like going back out in it. We ended up ordering dining delivery from Maria’s Kitchen. We stayed in, drank the expensive tequila I’d gotten him and listened to the rain.

We both remember that evening with nostalgia, though there wasn’t much to it. Tonight we have reservations for the patio at Luminaria, which people say makes you feel like you’re in the Caribbean. He has class all day and an exam this afternoon. Hopefully we can do cocktails and presents on the patio before we go to dinner.

Another low-key birthday for David. But maybe that’s okay.

Next year, though, I’m thinking we should go back to Las Vegas for the weekend.

My Psycho Eye Doctor

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At last, you all get to hear the long, sad, sorry tale of my psycho eye doc.

No, really – she has major issues.

And me? I’m an angel. But I’m feeling a titch ranty on the subject, so: fair warning. Pretend we’re having martinis over lunch while I regale you with this story.

As we all sadly know, one of the most difficult aspects of moving to a new place is finding new service providers. I was due for my annual eye exam sometime around February, but I put it off because I just didn’t want to deal with finding a new eye doc, too. Then, sometime around the end of May, I lost a contact lens. Just one, but it forced the issue.

I asked around, got a recommendation, made an appointment – then discovered that doc wasn’t in my network. Canceled the appointment, checked my insurance network to find five eye docs in Santa Fe, all looking equally anonymous. I picked the only woman in the group, for the sake of solidarity and having no other criteria.

I have come to sorely regret that decision.

She works only on Wednesdays, Fridays and Saturdays. No, I don’t know why. I call to make an appointment and leave a voice mail. A woman calls me back saying “This is Dr. Psycho’s office. I understand you’d like to make an appointment.” Yes, please, I say, because I lost a contact lens.

“What kind of lenses do you wear – hard or soft?”

“Semi-soft, oxygen permeable lenses.”

Pause. “All lenses are oxygen permeable. Are they hard or soft?”

“Semi-soft,” I say.

Pause. “What brand are they?”

Brand? “I’ve never seen a brand associated with my lenses.”

“There’s not a name on the peel-pack?”

“I don’t know what a peel-pack is.”

“So you don’t know what brand they are or if they’re hard or soft.”

By this time, I’m thinking this is the dumbest, most passive-aggressive receptionist I’ve ever dealt with. “Look,” I say, “I started out wearing hard lenses, then eventually moved to oxygen-permeable semi-soft lenses.”

“Well, let’s just make you an appointment and we’ll see.”

At last! So we make an appointment for June 5. Please note this is nearly six weeks ago.

Ten minutes later, my phone rings. Dr. Psycho’s office again. She launches into this thing about how she really needs to know what kind of lenses I’m wearing now. Slowly it dawns on me that I’ve been talking to Dr. Psycho herself all this time.

(Yes – I’m slow on the uptake. Turns out she has no receptionist, no staff. Does everything herself in this little stark and empty office. But I digress.)

So, she concludes, what she really needs are the records from my previous eye doc. This is a simple solution so I agree. Done, request to my very efficient previous eye doc (how I miss him!) sent.

I go in on June 5. I really am trying to be open-minded. We got off on the wrong foot on the phone. Clearly our personalities don’t sync. All I want is a replacement lens, because I’m wearing one lens from 2009 and an older one from, say, 2007. When I tell her this is what I’m doing on the phone, she laughs and laughs and laughs. In kind of a creepy way.

(geez – we already blew through the first martini. time to order another round?)

She does my exam. At this point I should mention that I’ve been wearing glasses since I was nine and contact lenses since I was ten. I’ve been through a lot of eye exams. Which is better: this one? or this one? Sometimes the choice isn’t a clear one. This one might look darker but this one might look crisper. When I say there’s a minor difference or none, she becomes impatient and insists I choose. She dilates my eyes, saying she’ll use just a small amount because light-irised people like us don’t need much. She puts in so much, fluid is dripping down my cheek. I regret putting on eye makeup.

She promises me loaner lenses and talks me into trying soft lenses from, yes, a peel-pack. She teaches me how to put them in and is shocked that I can do it quickly. I’ve been putting in contact lenses for over 30 years, I remind her. She explains the process again and tells me how difficult it is.

I agree to try the soft lenses for a few days, since I’m open-minded like that. Even though I’m pretty sure every eye doc I’ve ever had says soft-lenses aren’t for me because of my astigmatism. That’s not so true Dr. Psycho says. She’s all focused on my age and thinks I’m resistant to getting bifocals. I haven’t needed them yet, I tell her. You might need reading glasses she says. Before I lost this lens, I could see perfectly, I say. Yes, but you’re getting to the age where you need reading glasses, she says.

I sigh.

I tell her that my previous eye doc set up my lenses so that the center is for near-reading and the edges are for distance and it’s worked great. She shakes her head at me. She says no, no they weren’t – she’s seen the chart. In fact, she’s quite convinced my previous lenses were a mistake.

But I could see really well. This does not matter. I might need to think about reading glasses.

I don’t like the soft lenses. Comfortable, sure, but I can’t see very well. She asks me to read with them on and I say I can’t see the text in my lap. She frowns at me like I’m lying. I remind her that she dilated my eyes, so I won’t be able to focus well until they get back to normal. She laughs and says, oh right! she forgot!! and forgive her, because it’s just been such a busy morning.

I know it’s too late to make this short, but I’ll try.

I don’t like the soft lenses, so I call in and she orders the “hard” lenses for me, reminding me of the additional expense. She’s all about expense and discounts. I received a 10% discount on my visit. I don’t know why. I just want to be able to see. I go back to wearing my 2009/2007 lenses, which is a bit disconcerting because my eyes don’t quite work together right, but at least I can pretty much see.

On June 16, I go in. She gives me the new lenses in a case on which she’s sharpie marked a big R & L for which lens is which, even though the case is embossed with the letters already. She makes a point of saying she’s sure those are in the correct order.

I cannot see. She runs me through the tests and I can’t see a thing. I’m nearly in tears. She’s impatient with me saying I can’t see. I ask her if she’s sure they’re in the right order, because it looks a lot like when I inadvertently switch them. She thinks I just need to adapt because those previous lenses were such a mistake. I say I can’t drive home like this, so no way. Fine, she’ll order me new lenses. I ask if she wants to examine me with the 2009 lens in, which she never has, and she says no and launches into this explanation of why they were such a mistake, showing me the chart, which I can’t read because, duh, I can’t see.

At this point, I begin to actively hate her.

I stick with it. Just get through this. Small problems compared to, say, working in an Apple factory in China.

I call my previous eye doc for a sanity check. Dr. Everett King in Laramie, Wyoming. A prince of a man and a fine doc, if you happen to be in that neighborhood. He looks at my chart, looks at her determination of my prescription and thinks she’s partly confused because my eyesight has improved considerably. Ironic, since one of the bad effects of the evil mistake lenses was to be to worsen my eyesight. But the lovely Dr. King offers to order me replacement lenses and ship them to me if I can’t get ones that work from her.

I feel like someone has handed me a bouquet of roses.

(Let’s order dessert, okay?)

On June 23, I go back in. She tells me this time the right lens is marked with a dot. Clearly so I can’t screw it up again. She tests me. The lenses are adequate. I can’t see quite as well at all vision lengths, but I can see well enough. I’m out of there.

She wants to schedule me for a follow-up in one week. I say no, that would be the 4th appointment and I’ve been there enough times. She insists and I give in. July 10 – farther out than she likes, but I have family coming July 4 weekend and I don’t want to take more work time for this. She calls on July 3, saying I missed my appointment. I say no, it’s for next week. She says no, she had me down for July 3. I apologize.

My family, who hear the call in the car, ask what’s up and I tell them my eye doc is psycho. Why are you going back, they ask?

Really good question.

(Don’t worry – this is almost over. I’ll pick up the tab.)

So I leave her a message saying thanks for everything, but I’m not coming back in. The lenses are fine. I don’t mention I’m never coming back again, but I’m sure it’s implied.

She leaves me a nearly rabid voice mail in return, telling me it’s imperative that I come in.

I ignore it. But I save it, just in case I need it for, oh, say, a restraining order.

She sends me a freaking CERTIFIED LETTER.

When I see who it’s from, I nearly refuse it. Then I figure, she wants it for her liability. Fine. I accept. We should be done now.

Hopefully.

I’ll let you all know if she contacts me again, at which point I’ll have to tell her to cease and desist.

So, let’s talk about you – what’s going on in your life??

Swarms and Sobriety

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Saturday night over the weekend turned out to be so gorgeous that we scrapped our plans to eat at the delicious-but-no-ambiance Mariscos la Playa and instead drove out to Rancho de Chimayo, to enjoy their lovely patio.

On the way back, they had all highway traffic funneled through a sobriety checkpoint.

My mom and Dave were horrified, because they’d asked my David to drive. We debated whether he should admit to the margarita with dinner. The cops didn’t ask, though.

They had cops of every brand on site, including the Tesuque reservation police. Cranes shone down bright spotlights on the stopped traffic in both directions. Our interrogators were downright cheerful, however. Clearly they’d been carefully trained. One cop on David asked to see his license, where we were coming from and oh, was dinner at Chimayo good? Meanwhile another cop talked to me in the passenger seat and my folks in back. She asked if we were having a fun and safe night, even as she shone the flashlight around our feet.

They sent us on with cheery goodbyes. It was kind of surreal.

When we got back to the house, the rains had brought out a swarm of beetles. We had to leap over them to enter the house. Turning off the porch light slowed their frantic activity, but all night we heard them, banging against the screens, like little zombie insects frantic to get in and eat our brainz…

In the morning they were gone. Though I still see one toddling along here and there. A lost remnant of the zombie beetle tribe.

I’ll break 90K on Sterling today and I’ll be done within the week. This also feels surreal.

I’m pleased to report that my crew has finally arrived at the Midsummer Festival. I’m oddly not enjoying this part so much, because things have gotten very bad. I know it’ll get better soon and there will be some triumph to mitigate the disaster, but right now it’s very bad for my heroine. And I feel quite close to her.

It’s also hard to believe we’ll wrap up our time together so soon. I’m tempted to drag it out, even. I know there will be revisions and polishing. Then, perhaps, the sequel. Or another story altogether. I woke up this morning wondering what I’d be writing next. It’s probably good that I’m thinking about it, but I also can’t quite envision it yet. Which is likely also a good sign.

And then I’ll send it to the agent who called it a stellar concept with a cheery goodbye and wait.

Just another step on the road.

Best Laid Plans

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In A Fish Called Wanda, Kevin Kline plays the unforgettable character of a thief who is both obsessive and stupid. He smells his own armpits for reassurance of his masculinity; he asks why a family names their daughter, Portia, after a car.

But my favorite line is when, vibrating with angst, he clenches his fists and yells out “Disappointed!”

Yes, after our bad start to Friday and the highly unusual rain storm Thursday night, my folks arrived to a gorgeous afternoon. We prepared everything for our elegant tailgate dinner at the Santa Fe Opera.

And ANOTHER torrential rainstorm came in.

We ended up picnicking indoors. Here you can see a break in the rain, but one cell after another came through, pounding us with unbelievable amounts of water.

We made it to the opera, which is largely covered now. But it continued to storm the whole night. Madame Butterfly sang of too much brightness and springtime, even as violent lightning cracked, thunder undercutting her arias, and blowing rain drenched her from the side. At one point a whirlwind took up the flower petals she’d scattered to welcome her husband’s return.

When we left, we had to wade through ankle-deep water in our fancy shoes to get to the car.

But it was still a fun night. Just disappointing not to get to enjoy the evening as planned. The next three evenings were clear, still and gorgeous.

So it goes.

The good news is, Teddy is doing better. The vet says it’s kidney disease, which is not surprising in the geriatric kitty. He wants to manage it with decreased protein, which I’m not convinced works for obligate carnivores like cats. We’ll see. Meanwhile we’re trying some alternative remedies and she’s feeling much more like her old self.

I didn’t write much over the weekend, but I did relax. Which was good for me.

Now I’m back to it. We’ll all settle back into our routine for the next few weeks. Less partying, more producing.

Let the rain fall as it will.

Straddling Fences

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This morning I moved the houseplants outside to start the hardening off process.

I noticed in my wisteria-love fest the other day that last year in Laramie I moved the plants out on May 28. (I explained hardening off there, too, if you’re wondering what it is.) So Santa Fe has only moved me up by 16 days. Of course, we’ve been gone and I didn’t want the house-sitter to have to nurse them. I might have done it sooner than this.

We’ll see what next year brings. By all accounts it’s been a cool Spring all up and down the Rocky Mountain states.

But it’s snowing in Denver and Laramie, so I have plenty of smug to fill my bowl of contentment.

I talked to Catherine Asaro yesterday on the phone, about Obsidian, which she graciously read for me. She’s really a wonderful gal and a terrific writer, so if you haven’t read her, you should seriously pick up a book or two of hers. And I’m not just saying that because she read my mss and said lovely things about it.

So, while it was great to hear her tell me what a wonderful writer I am and how good the book is, there’s no super-new news there. She thinks I’m not going to get an agent with it because it’s too outside the box. She says that’s what I get for forging a new path. Which sounds kind of cool and glamorous, except that it really means that it’s difficult to sell.

“It starts out as excellent, gritty urban fantasy,” she says, “then moves into also excellent fantasy. But from a feminine perspective, which is really different.”

One of the things I’ve learned? When all those publishing industry folks say they’re looking for something really fresh and original, they’re not, really. What they want is the same creature dressed up in a fresh, new outfit.

Not that I’m bitter.

Actually, I’m not feeling bitter at all. Catherine says pitch directly to editors because I’ll surely find one who wants this. So that’s what I’ll do. I’ll keep working on Sterling, too, which (as I think I’ve mentioned twenty times or so) should fit quite neatly into urban fantasy, with no genre-defying cross-overs.

That always seems to be my deal – I do stuff that nobody gets, then five years later it’s the thing. It would be nice to think I’m cutting-edge, but really that seems to be someone else most of the time. Suddenly my thing that no one got is all the rage or even old hat.

I could give you a bunch of examples, but they’re boring. I swear it’s true.

When Catherine said that forging a new path is difficult, I pictured myself in a blizzard, struggling through knee-deep snow. Too dramatic? That’s how it feels. Ice pellets of rejection stinging your face, energy seeping out of your muscles until you feel like you’re simply too tired to go on.

But what’s the alternative? The literary equivalent of lying down in the snow to die. It would feel nice, I hear, the cold changing to warmth as hypothermia sets in. Yielding to the overwhelming sleepiness as the falling snowflakes bury you. Erasing you.

Right.

Forging onward!

(Anyone got some Polar-tek?)

Home Again

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We returned to the antipode of the Caribbean – back to our high-altitude desert.

Last night I slept in my own bed and dreamed that I was sleeping in the aquamarine water over a coral reef. I lay on my back, cradled by the warm water, white spires of coral rising around me and fish sailing by in bright colors. Isabel was curled up under my right arm and Teddy slept up against my left hip. I woke up to hear coyotes howling in the thin desert air, with the kitties snuggled up against me.

It’s good to be home again.

Compare and Contrast

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Spring has really brought out the contrasts in the landscape here.

I suppose pretty much every place but designated wilderness areas are now a hopeless mix of the indigenous and the exotic, the civilized and the natural. Still, it amuses me to see the clusters of stately hybrid tulips glowing against the desert background of cholla and pinon.

We saw an ad the other day for Cholla Busters! They promised to come remove our cholla, never to trouble us again. David asked why someone would want to get rid of their cholla and I said, you know those people who mow the desert so the space around their house looks kind of like a lawn? Those people.

This morning on our jog I pointed one out to him – flat and open, not a cholla in sight. It creates an odd image, with the house as the only visual contrast. I’ll take my camera with me to snap a photo if you all want to see. The house is on our usual route, so it wouldn’t be any trouble.

Getting back to the morning run is paying off. No, I don’t like to exercise either. But I love those results! I enter my weight and body fat into a spreadsheet every morning (love my spreadsheets!) and I’m pleased to see the body fat is trending down. I’m now at pre-Christmas levels. I know some people argue you shouldn’t weigh every day or worry about the daily values. I chart my weekly averages, too, which does give a better perspective. I’m one of those people, though, that suffer from ignorance. In the years I didn’t weigh daily, I managed to gain 20 pounds. It was quite extraordinary, as if I’d gained it overnight.

That’s what I get for not paying attention.

So, it’s good for me to track the changes over time. The days when I get unhappy news, I’m very tempted not to enter those numbers. As if, if I don’t record that high weight, that obese category body fat percentage, it won’t really exist.

(If you’ve never measured your body fat, you’d be appalled at how easy it is to be in the “obese” category. And there’s nothing above it. You get Lean, Normal, Overfat and Obese. It can be quite daunting.)

But I make myself enter those high numbers so I can see how far I’ve come. Compared to those obnoxious highs, the lows start to look pretty exciting.

I suppose Spring brings out the contrasts in me, too.

Package Deal

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When we were house-shopping in Santa Fe last summer (which feels both forever ago and yesterday), our agent took us to a house on the other side of town.

It was a blatant attempt to upsell us. The asking price exceeded our upper limit by nearly $100K, though she assured us we could ask offer far less than that. Of course, she told us that same story on a couple of other houses, too, and when we did offer much less and they came back with indignant counters, our agent would sound all sad and act like we were crazy to think we could get it for that and the counter was actually an amazing deal.

I didn’t like her much.

Anyway, this house on the other side of town was fun to see. The selling agent met us there – which is also kind of a no-no – and really pushed us on the place. We had to have it, they said. A divorce sell, the house sat on a hillside facing the Sangre de Cristos. The view everyone in Santa Fe wants to have they told us. Never mind that the patio and hillside were so overgrown that you couldn’t actually see the mountains.

One room was a studio with 20-foot ceilings, which was neat, but not very useful if neither of us paints. With the odd shape, size and window-placement, it would have made a very unfriendly bedroom.

What with the stamped concrete, the high ceilings and open space, the house made for a dramatic showroom to entertain guests. It wasn’t much for living in. The real adobe walls (as opposed to the “Disney Adobe” of stucco frequently used) set off the massive and somewhat disturbing paintings that hung everywhere. Divorce paintings, perhaps.

The art, the selling agent told me, with a conspiratorial grin, could be negotiated into the purchase price.

And suddenly I realized who he thought I was.

Who buys the art with the house? Someone looking for their ready-made Santa Fe showplace. It’s like paying a designed to fill your bookshelves with attractive-looking spines, never mind the contents.

Art and books are usually personal things. You buy and keep them because you love them. You love them so much you want to have them right there within easy reach, or easy viewing, at every moment. Like all things, I suppose, at some point that becomes a business. How much will I pay someone to let me have it right nearby? The interesting thing is, it’s not the artist who wants to negotiate that price: it’s the middle man.

Right now, Penguin and Amazon are in a pissing match. As a result, Penguin’s new releases are not available on Kindle. Not just delayed, not for a different price. Just not at all. A couple of those releases are from authors I like to buy. I’d like to read those books. But the lion’s share of my reason for using the Kindle is to reduce the amount of space I devote to books. I want to have them, but I don’t want them on my already overtaxed shelves.

Which means, I won’t buy the hard copies.

The middle men want to make money from what we love. They will always offer us a deal, throw in a little something extra. The thing is, package deals always benefit the seller, rarely the buyer. Otherwise, the sellers wouldn’t love to do it so much.

All I can say is, I would never buy the art with the house.

Flourishing

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It’s amazing the results you can get, when you give something what it needs.

The trick is, figuring out what that is.

This little Madagascar Palm is our Exhibit A for flourishing in our new environment. The picture on the left is one I took this morning and the one on the right was from last summer. Yes, I did repot it into a much bigger planter (which was free with Bunny Bucks from Jackalope – woo hoo! love this town!), but the palm demanded repotting within a few weeks of our moving here, it was growing so large, so fast.

I should also mention that the picture on the right is pretty much how that palm looked for something like 15 years. I kid you not. In the early years of our relationship, when we had practically no money, David and I would take road trips for spring break. We’d head to the desert Southwest to get as warm as possible as quickly as possible. Often we’d end up somewhere in Nevada where the casinos provided very cheap lodging. (Harrah’s in Laughlin for $19 per night – ah, sweet nostalgia.)

We would also buy cactus.

It sounds funny now. I don’t know why we liked to buy cactus. Except that they were unusual plants that we didn’t see in Laramie. And they were inexpensive and fun. We bought quite a few over the years and most died. The Madagascar Palm hung on, but now I suspect it was kind of in stasis. The palm version of cryogenic freezing, in hopes of being awakened in a better future.

Several people made interesting comments on my last post, about changing the physicality of writing when you get stuck.

Keena said she does as Marin suggested, and actually does move to paper and writing out longhand. Marin mentioned a writer who always writes longhand because it slows him down, causing him to be more careful. This is a diametrically opposite approach to the “fast draft” or “shitty first draft” method that many writers like to use today.

I suppose the point is that sometimes you have to mix it up. Try new things and see how they work.

You never know what might make you really flourish.