Holy hair batman!

Today I finally got around to getting my hair cut. It's funny, but I always feel better about the world after a hair cut. It's like I start again all clean and shiny and all is good. Then, slowly, I get shaggier and shaggier and I get annoyed with the world. Given this logic, tomorrow should be a great day.

The funny thing with my haircut, though, is that Margie, my hair cutter, put more shit in my hair than I have ever had in it. Cumulutively. Seriously, she used about five dollops of gel throughout the cut. Not only that, but she put in a fist full of silk something or other -- it looked and smelled just like gel. And then sprayed the entire creation with a gallon and a half of hairspray. I hate hairspray. She sprayed so much that it got on my face, and my shirt, and all over the place. Then, as I was unsticking myself from the chair (hairspray is sticky), she threw on an extra dollop of gel for good measure. Have you ever heard of gel AFTER hairspray?

Suffice to say, I went straight to my car, drove home, and jumped into the shower, where I shampooed twice to get all of the crap out. It's actually a nice haircut now that it's not covered in a spaceage sheen.

The house, part one

So people keep asking for photos of the house, and I keep forgetting to put them up on the web. But today I remembered! So here are the pictures we have so far. Some turned out better than others. This first picture is the "family room". This space is open to the kitchen, separated by a long counter and area for a couple of stools. We spend most weekend mornings here; there's lots of early morning sun and the windows to the east keep the room fairly warm in the AM. There are reddish burgundy blinds in this room, and I planned to replace them within minutes of moving in. However, they're not nearly as bad as I thought and they match the couch quite nicely. Go figure.



This shot is the counter/bar that separates the family room from the kitchen, and the view into the kitchen. The cabinets are willow and are functional but not exactly pretty. Someday we'll replace them.



The kitchen has a huge window facing south that looks out over the ridge (just barely visible at the left side of the picture) and a smaller window visible from the sink that looks southwest. Nice city lights view from here. The window is actually in the stairway, but the kitchen is open on one side to the stairs so you can see through the window too. Not sure if it's obvious in the picture, but our countertops are teal green with a hot pink stripe at the front edge. Oh yeah baby. Welcome to the 80s.



The counters will be torn out or covered over at some point. After all the renovations in Madison, though, we're feeling lazy.

More house...

Our house is designed to take advantage of the hillside; the second floor rooms aren't actually over the first floor rooms, they're above and behind them. It is sort of like a stairway effect. The other interesting design feature is that all of the rooms on the first floor are open to one another. And they're all in a line. The family room is the furthest east, then the kitchen. The stairs are next, followed by the dining room, and furthest west is the living room. This picture is of the dining room; the half wall on the right separates the dining room from the living room (which is also three steps lower, so the half wall is almost a full wall on the living room side).



Here are the steps leading from the living room to the dining room and a view all the way down the hall past the stairs into the kitchen area (turn right past the wall that looks like it has a cut out), and at the end is the glass door in the family room leading to the east patio.



And finally... the living room. The fireplace takes up the entire corner of the room with nice tile and leaf detailing. This week I'm going to get a chimney sweep to come out and make sure it is usable. The glass door leads to the west patio, which is great in the evenings.

The upstairs

I haven't taken many pictures of the upstairs. In fact, I only have two pictures! I have somehow forgotten the guest room and the extra bedroom that Chris uses as his personal study-place. So, here is picture one. This is our bedroom, probably the least typical master bedroom that I have seen. The opening you can see on the left creates airflow between the first floor and second. In fact, you can stand in the bedroom and look directly down on the living room. From parts of the bedroom you can see the chimney (it's the pinky tile column through the opening on the left). The cats use the opening as a means to get down to a ledge above the fireplace that affords a great view of the entire downstairs.



The steps in the bedroom lead up to a raised area by the glass door to a large wooden deck. I have no idea why one section of the room needed to be higher than the other, but it makes a good spot for our cushy ottoman (we threw the couch out years ago but always loved the ottoman).

This next picture is the view from the second floor hallway down over the study (we're not quite sure what to call this room. It has built in cabinets and houses our computer and lots of books) into the dining room. The study isn't on the first floor or the second; it is six steps up from the first level and five down from the second. From the study (where I am right now), I can see out of the top half of the dining room windows. Lovely view of our across-the-stree neighbor's red tile roof and the ridge behind them.



You can also see the house construction in this picture. There are four steel I beams that run from the peak of the house down to the south wall. Then, four wooden beams span the entire house from east to west.

I am just not convinced...

So the lovely house we live in has baseboard heating. Hot water baseboard heat, I think it is technically called. I have never lived somewhere with this type of heat and I'm a bit suspicious. How can these little metal baseboards heat my entire house? They're arrayed around the outside of most rooms under windows, and there are four zones within the house, each controlled by it's own thermostat.



Last night the heat came on for the first time ever. Predicted low of 41, so I guess heat makes sense. We heard a lot of little popping noises (the metal exanding?) and finally figured out it was the baseboards. However, even after about an hour, the baseboards don't seem hot. They're marginally warm, but how exactly will that heat the house?

I went to bed shortly after so I have no idea if the house stayed warm all night. This morning it wasn't freezing cold in the house, but it wasn't warm either. Hmmmmm.... Like I said, I am just not convinced.

Thank you Mom

Yesterday I bought a morter and pestle as the second part of my Mom's housewarming/birthday gift to me. It is made of granite and weighs about 15 pounds. As soon as I got it home I ground up some corriander seed, cumin seed, fennel, cardamom pods, cinnamon and spearmint and made a very delicious tea.



The first present arrived about two weeks ago and has been happily residing in the alcove between our bathroom and closet. We think of you every time we sit down to put our shoes on or when we throw stuff on the bench. So thank you Mom!



We also store extra towels inside the bench... and Dragon likes to climb inside every time we open it. So it's fun for the whole family.

You know you have acclimated when...

1. A cloudy day is such a suprise that you want to discuss it with people

2. You start to recognize the individual lizards and hummingbirds that live in your yard

3. People stop you on the street and ask you for directions... and you can answer!

4. You reach for the green chili before the catsup

Home improvements, slowly taking place

The first home improvement project that we decided to tackle is the wine cellar. When we moved in, the room looked like this:



It is a small space off of the family room. The lower walls are granite; they stick up into the house. There aren't any upper walls, it's just open to the crawl space and plumbing, wiring and foundation. The two wooden wine racks block the views of most of the infrastructure, but not all. The plan is to pull those out and replace them with real walls and our own wine racks that we brought with us from Virginia. Until we have time to do demolition, though, we're using the room as our liquor cabinet:



(update)

We started demolition this weekend by tearing down the old wooden wine boxes. Then we framed for new upper walls. It was actually more difficult than I expected because there is no level surface upon which to rest the wall framing. The hillside just comes into the back of the lower wall, so it's all loose gravel and stone. Chris affixed the framing to the ceiling and then dug out the gravel to create a trench in which to place the framing. The back wall isn't going to support anything, so it doesn't have to be rock-solid, thank goodness.



Next on the list is sheeting the walls and then painting. After that, Chris is going to build support columns to hold up the wine racks and we'll tile the base where the wine racks will sit.

Somedays I really hate my job...

Today is one of them. Can I tell you all the things I hate about my job? Let me create a list:

1. Getting up in the dark
2. A boss who can not stand up for himself or our department
3. A vice president who makes decisions without asking for any facts
4. A contracting officer in bed with our vendor
5. A vendor that delights in making things hard for our customers
6. Wanting to make a difference and not being able to
7. Having to do stupid briefing sheets instead of being able to make simple decisions

This is certainly not a full list. But it's a start and makes me feel a bit better to write it all down.

I love the state fair

I have always loved big community events like county fairs. Even street festivals are fun to me. I grew up in a small town/suburb where the highlight of the year was a festival called Canal Days (yes, my town was on a canal). Every first weekend in June the center of the village would be transformed into a block party, complete with kiddie rides, funnel cakes, and vendors selling just about any arts and crafts thing you could imagine.

Now that I'm an adult, going to the state fair is just as exciting as it has always been. Chris and I went to the fair on Friday afternoon and spent HOURS wandering around. We shared a corn dog (my first ever, I think), saw the goats, watched a cattle auction, wandered through the demonstration area where men with head microphones were hawking squeegee mops guaranteed to keep your floors shiny and other people showed off nonstick pots that could never scratch. A short break to have some fry bread and we were off to the flower building and agriculture displays. Sadly, there was no dairy barn. A state fair without prize winning cheese is not nearly as good as one with, but hey, it's New Mexico. Not a big dairy state. All in all, it was a great time.

I didn't exactly drag Chris, but large crowds of people and kitchy displays aren't really his thing, so I know he went just to be nice to me. That probably made the day even more special.

When it rains... it pours

One of the most amazing things about living here is the rain. It's a desert, so I didn't expect much. And most days, that is what happens. No rain. Since we moved here we have had three totally overcast days where a big cloud blanket covered the sky and threatened rain at any minute. It rained in the evening on each of those days, for about 1/2 hour each. We haven't had any days where it rained or even drizzled from morning to night.

What we do get, though, are massive rainstorms complete with lightning, thunder and hail. It has hailed more times this summer than there have been overcast days. (how cool is that?!) Here's what it looks like when it rains in Albuquerque. First, a river runs down our street.



Then, a river runs down our patio steps. The patio river brings with it mud from up on the hillside, so after each big rain (there have been maybe four of them), we have to shovel out the mud that now covers our nice brick patio.

I am a karma kicker

Yesterday afternoon Chris and I went to the New Mexico State Fair. We didn't feel like paying seven dollars for parking, so we bypassed the parking lot and looked for free parking on the street nearby. We saw a spot almost immediately, wedged in between two very large pickup trucks along side a dead end street. On one side of the street was a surface parking lot, the other was an auto body shop and a few other car related industrial shops. As we pulled into the open space along the curb, I noticed a white sign saying that this section of the curb was reserved for the auto body shop only and that all other cars would be towed.

I pointed this out and suggested we park elsewhere because it would stink to be towed. A long discussion ensued... did you know that it is not possible for a business to reserve the curb? The curb is a public space and you can't block it off for private use. It would be like me putting a sign in front of our house telling people not to park there and towing anyone who did. That wouldn't go over well.

That said, neither of us really felt like tempting fate and having to argue legalities after we left the fair with an auto body shop who had already towed our car away. So we circled around and found another spot. As we were getting out of the car, Chris told me that parking in the second spot was just better karma. He explained that if I hadn't pointed out the 'no parking' sign, he would have parked there. He saw the sign and decided to ignore it, but since I brought it up, it would be bad karma to park there. I am apparently a karma kicker...

The view

I have raved about the view here before, but haven't though to post a picture. Ooooops. So here is the daytime shot. Come back tomorrow and I will have posted the same view at night.



In the foreground is the ridge just southwest of us. Then behind that are some tall buildings that are mostly located near Central Avenue (the old Route 66). In the distance the next set of buildings is downtown Albuquerque. Behind that is the west mesa, just miles and miles of high desert dust and scrubbrush.

I could stand at the window for hours watching the skyline change as the sun moves, the little tiny cars driving on the streets, the plants on the mountain swaying in the breeze, and the miniature planes taking off from the airport 10 miles away.

(update)

I took picture after picture, but I don't think the camera does justice to the city lights. Ah well. Some things you just have to see in person. All of you people out there in cyber-land who know me... come visit! Until then, here's the best I could do:

Desert landscaping...

Desert landscaping is much more colorful than I expected. This is, of course, due to the invention of the drip watering system. That and deep wells that drain our aquifers quickly. When we moved in two months ago, our landscaping contained many colorful bushes and flowers. Over the past two months, I have really enjoyed watching new plants start to bloom while the summer ones have faded. Here are the current flowers we have. First, a really lovely evergreen style bush with vibrant blue flowers. I have no idea what it is called, but it just started blooming the other day and I really like it.



This is a view of part of the east side yard. The red flowers have been blooming since the day we first saw the house in June. That's over three months ago. I should go check to make sure they're not plastic. That would be a good trick...



One of my personal favorite flowering plants is this tall pink one. Again, no idea what it is called. This is sort of a theme in my gardening knowledge. It's called no clue. I took a bunch of pictures last weekend and I plan to bring them to the Albuqurque Gardening Center in the near future. I was told that the master gardeners there will take pity on a garden idiot such as myself and tell me what my plants are and how to care for them. Wouldn't that be nice?



One of the only plants I can identify is rosemary, and we have a huge bush of it! I didn't even know rosemary grew like this. I think it stays green all winter, so we'll have plenty of rosemary to make stuffing at Thanksgiving, seasoning for pork chops, rosemary biscuits, and anything else I can find that includes rosemary. Now if only I had a basil bush, or dill tree.



These pink flowers just showed up a few days ago. The leaves are really thick and pliable, which makes me think this is some type of succulent, distantly related to the cactuses that grow all over the place in New Mexico. It doesn't smell, but it is quite pretty.



Stay tuned for more garden updates as the season progresses...

We have lizards too...

Not only are there snakes living nearby; there are lizards too. So far I am pretty sure that at least three lizards live in our yard. I have named them West Side Andy (he lives on the patio to the west of our house... and I once went to a concert of a local musician in Madison called West Side Andy, so the name seemed to fit), The Lizard (this guy was the first we saw, he's out just about every day sunning himself on the stucco walls of the east side patio), and The Little Lizard (self explantory, right?). Here's a picture of West Side Andy half in the shadow of a tree and half in the sun. He's about four inches long.



West Side Andy is the dumbest of the three lizards, in my opinion. He seems to think that if he freezes, you can't see him. While this might work when he's lying on a twig in dappled shade, it's not so convincing as he's sunning himself on our tan stucco patio or the red brick patio floor. But we pretend because I don't want to hurt his feelings.

The snake who lives in my yard

The other night Chris and I were about to make dinner. The only ingredient we were sure of was homemade green chili sauce (it is so good we put it on everything). We were standing around in the kitchen just chatting when Chris grabbed the binoculars and ran to the window. I followed, hoping to see a bear up on the mountain, or maybe a bobcat in a neighbor's yard.

Instead, there was a very large snake slithering out of our front yard and across the street. And by very large, I mean perhaps five or six feet long. We tore ourselves away from the window long enough to grab our handy guide to the Sandia Mountains. According to the book, the snake was a cross between a western rattlesnake and a bull snake. His coloring looked like a rattlesnake, but he had no rattle. Hence, the cross.



But, of course, there are no mixed rattlesnake/bullsnakes out there. Our guy was probably a regular bull snake. You can't tell from the picture but his diameter around the middle was over six inches. This snake was huge. We watched him snake his way across the street -- he moved in a very cool S fashion, sideways and forward with all the curves in his body staying curved. When he reached the other side, he raised his head and sniffed (do snakes sniff?) at the overhanging bush, then snaked his way over the curb and into the bushes.

Ahhhhh... wildlife. I am a big fan, but I would prefer to be a fan from afar to snakes. Perhaps this big snake could stay on his side of the street and I will remain on mine?

Ahhhh... the sunsets!

In what can only be described as odd, we now have sunset views from our house. When we moved in during July, the sun set behind our neighbor's house to the west. But now the sun sets just to the left of their house. Theoretically, I understand that the tilting of the earth on the axis causes the sun to move on the horizon. But actually seeing the sun set in a different place is weird. Especially when it means we now have gorgeous sunset views from most of the rooms in our house. I wonder how long before the sun slips back to the west and the sunset is obstructed? It's about 10 weeks after the summer solstice now, so perhaps we'll see the sun until 10 weeks before the summer solstice next year. Hmmm... who knows?





The mountains to the east of us are called the Sandia Mountains. Sandia means 'watermelon'. The name came from Spanish explorers who saw the color the mountains turned at sunset. And here for your viewing pleasure... is the view from my yard of the very watermelon colored mountain up the street.



This is my personal favorite picture. I love standing at the kitchen sink looking out the window at the sunset. Last night it was framed perfectly.

The weather has changed

It is no longer summer here. We're definately into fall. Given that I have never experienced the end of summer and beginning of autumn in New Mexico, I'm not 100% sure that summer is fully gone, but these last few days seem to be a clear indication that the air conditioning is no longer needed.

Temperatures have been in the 50s at night and the 60s and low 70s during the day. For a few days we had really overcast skies but today is bright and sunny. On Saturday, Chris and I took advantage of the cloudiness and spent the morning weeding. We filled up an entire garbage can with weeds and assorted plants that didn't seem to be in the right place. And that was just for one side of the yard. Next weekend we'll tackle the east side; which, fortunately, doesn't seem to have as many weeds. It does, however, have this groundcover stuff over about 1/3 of the yard that I would like to pull out. We're in the desert after all, so who needs packasandra-like bright green groundcover all over the place? Colored stones and cactus seem much more appropriate to me.

The ground cover is incredibly quick growing and has taken over most of the side yard and two sets of steps. Little tendrils crop up virtually overnight and snake their ways down the side of retaining walls, across stairs, through flower beds, etc. The plan is to cut back all of the new growth next weekend and maybe pull the stuff out entirely over the winter. I'll post some pictures of the project as it happens.

This house was designed by cats

The cats were a bit spooked when we moved into the new house. They had gotten used to our apartment, and before that, the little house in Madison. But now they're settled in. And I think this house was designed by cats. There are multiple perches high up that the cats can use to watch the action or stay away from it, whatever the need. Dragon immediately took to the soffit over the kitchen counters.



And Monster spends a considerable amount of time up above the fireplace watching the world go by.





Yes, he did look annoyed that I woke him up.