This is Me Now

In 2010 I started blogging and the first thing I wrote was an "about me" page, a tongue in cheek bio, but all true. A lot has happened in over 10 years, so it's time to update things. 

Here you go:

About Me

I am a transplanted New Mexican, often seen roasting green chiles over a gas stove burner. I have been known to mispronounce Abiquiu. I once negotiated $100 off a vintage turquoise watch that was worth $30. I can roll my r’s credibly when saying arriba, and I know what the tilde in mañana is for.

Occasionally, I attend the opera and have commiserated with Faust. I have seen the sun set fire to my neighbor's roofline during a Santa Fe sunset. 

A dust storm at sunset

My car has plowed through floodwaters rushing over washboard dirt roads on the way to Chaco, and I watched an effigy of old man Zozobra burn the Friday before Labor Day, with my gloomy thoughts written on a paper scrap inside him.

Wearing only summer sneakers and a vest, I once watched it sleet sideways from the south rim of the Grand Canyon in May. I am the webmaster of an obscure blog about relocating at an advanced age from New England to the Land of Enchantment. 

When I'm bored, I take the High Road to Taos, but return on the Low Road. I enjoy peaches grown on the western slopes of the Rockies and transported to Santa Fe daily in summer. From my home, driving east, I have seen the rosy skies that give the Sangre de Cristos their name: Blood of Christ.

Sangre de Cristo mountains

I am an adventurer, a traveler and a homebody. I have seen the painted desert and stood on a petrified log. I have smelled the smoke of a forest fire wafting into my kitchen. I dislike history, yet I am fascinated / repelled by Francisco Coronado. 

I have been known to drive four hours one way for a slice of pie at Pie Town. One summer I waded in the Rio Grande.

My mastery of irrigation techniques amazes my peers. I know the botanical names for desert willow and rabbitbrush and even fernbush, which is unpronounceable in Latin, just try. I own and monitor three rain gauges. I have skied powder snow at 11,000 feet on Thanksgiving weekend, but not well. I know what a farolito is.

Farolitos

I can pronounce viga with a soft b. While riding the train from Albuquerque I once watched a fiery sunset ignite a pueblo town orange and purple. I know where George R. R. Martin lives. I plan failed gardens, and I can make traditional biscochitos with anise for Christmas, but I leave out the cinnamon.

I have been to Ruidoso in a downpour and I have been to Truth or Consequences without incident. I have trod where the ancients trod at Bandelier and Mesa Verde and way up on the cliff at Acoma.

One year I saw a solar eclipse on my birthday from the veranda of a compound in the hills high over the city. I have browsed Canyon Road art galleries and shopped Indian Market vendors and bought beaded deerskin baby moccasins from a Pueblo leatherworker for a baby granddaughter I did not even know of then.

For a future granddaughter

I am a transplanted New Mexican.