Istanbul was Constantinople

I have these things that fire my imagination. They don’t go away. Places, objects, characters. They bubble up through my subconscious when I least expect them, some of them returning to me after months or years. One of these places is The Intersection at U.S. 285 and TX FM 1776 (Check it out at street view). I wrote about it here over the summer and have mentioned it in passing before. 

I go through this intersection maybe a couple of times a year, on the way to or from visits with family. In my brain, it is MY intersection and it is in New Mexico, but it’s actually everyone’s intersection and it’s in Texas. North of Pecos. Apparently it’s only been a four-way stop for a few years, though I remember it always being a four-way. One of the ways in which the present clouds our memory of the past, I suppose. 

It’s an odd place. There seems to be nothing around there for miles and miles, and I always wonder why the busy highway traffic should stop there. But the big trucks are some indication that perhaps there is more activity beyond the rolling ridges at the horizon. In recent years the intersection has been built up with warning rumble strips and flashing lights. HEY STUPID! I KNOW YOU’RE DRIVING OVER EIGHTY MILES PER HOUR BUT IT’S TIME FOR YOU TO STOP. NOWNOWNOW!!! I’m pretty sure that’s what the signs say. The intersection has been the sight of numerous fatal accidents over the past few years.  

When we drove through the intersection at the end of June, I didn’t notice any unusual activity about the intersection. Just the dry dry dryness of the desert. On our return at the beginning of July, however, just a week later, the landscape around the stop signs had changed. Earth movers were there and they had been fulfilling their life’s prupose. We made guesses that some sort of bypass was being constructed. I tried very hard to remember what the roads had looked like before all of that red dirt had been overturned around them. Next time I see it — if I even notice it as we speed by — it won’t be the same beast anymore.

Related: From the Alpine Daily Planet*, “U.S. 285 overpass to be built over FM 1776”

*You know that’s the coolest name for a newspaper you’ve heard for a long time, right?  

Now, I love Pistachios

Before I tell you why I love pistachios now, I should tell you why I didn’t like them before, right?

I’m sure the best reason I did not like pistachios was because pistachio ice cream is green. The idea of green ice cream does not appeal to me. Yes that includes mint-chocolate chip. But I will make exceptions for lime sherbet because I never claimed to be consistent, and limes are awesome. I expect limes to be green. I do not expect nuts to be green. 

Until our recent foray into New Mexico I had not eaten pistachios since I was about four years old. My grandmother visited and brought pistachios and dates with her. She loved them. They were strange, exotic foods for me. Perhaps the dates were too much like cockroaches? Perhaps the pistachios were too little like peanuts? I didn’t like them. There’s no real accounting for my four-year-old taste though. I didn’t like beer and onions then either. In fact, my dad will tell you that the only food I ate for a very long time was peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. He was sure there was something wrong with me. My diet worried him. But I am living proof that it didn’t kill me. My steady breakfast of a Dr Pepper and a Twix bar in high school didn’t kill me either, but neither I nor any scientific entity will recommend that as a sound nutritional practice.

But I digress. I was talking about pistachios.

What was the cause of my recent reconsideration of this nut? Perhaps it was an encounter with the World’s Largest Pistachio near Tularosa, New Mexico? No, while that strangely vulval roadside attraction may have softened my attitude a bit, the credit really goes to my parents-in-law. They’re the ones who bought a bag of pistachios and left their innocent, partially-cracked, lightly-saltedness on the counter in the condo in Ruidoso, inviting anyone to share. 

One nut was meh. The tenth greenish, tannish, reddish nut though, probably caused a bit of an obsession. Perhaps my brain was softened by the relaxing and happy trip we were having. Surely that didn’t hurt. Perhaps it was just that the pistachios were Just. So. Good.

And it’s not just me. Partner had a similar turnaround in his pistachio-tude as well. We’ve had pistachios of three different origins since returning to Texas and find the New Mexico nuts far superior. Not just because of the fond memories they prompt of our lovely vacation, but because they were much more crisp than their farther-flung counterparts.

This is not, by the way, a paid endorsement for any pistachio grower or distributor, but if anyone wants to send me some of those Tularosa pistachios, I WILL happily eat them.

That's It, I'm Breaking UP With My Paintbrush

Tomorrow I will put away the hammer and break up with my paintbrush. Then I’m going to try to remember all the crazy, stupid, sublime shit I thought about writing while I was painting, so I can finally write it down. Painting and home repair and daily showering has been a blast, but I’m ready to go back to being the shoeless, semi-hermit writer who only bathes a couple of times a week.

In the meantime, apropos of nothing, here’s one of my favorite vacation pictures. 

Dani’s stained knee, with knitting and camera bagThis was taken somewhere along I-10W, between San Antonio, Texas and the great big batch of nowhere that reaches out from there. I was NOT driving, as evidenced by the shifter almost visible next to my leg. From left to right (after the shift indicator strip): blueberry yogurt stain, coffee drip, robot knitting, empty camera bag, robot-knitting pattern. On the return trip, I sported a coffee drip on my left boob. Sorry, no gratuitous boob shot of that one.

Signs and Portents, an anniversary

Fourteen years ago, Partner and I got married in a coffee shop in Las Cruces, New Mexico. I highly recommend family-owned coffee shops as fabulous places in general, but they also make great venues for impromptu nuptuals. This particular shop was called Sky’s the Limit Coffee & Bakery, and was run by Mark and Jennifer. Good people. The building was a converted gas station, I think, and the customer area was divided into a main room and an overflow area. The overflow room had a giant plate glass window facing Main Street. We gathered there with a few friends and family members and got married in front of that window.

The store was decorated with quilt-hangings and vaguely tribal-looking art, and painted in cheerful colors. While the pastor made introductory remarks, Partner and I stood in the kitchen, holding hands and laughing nervously. We were also admiring the kitchen equipment. You’ve got to love giant mixing bowls. My favorite part of the shop, besides the apricot coffee cake, lovingly made by Jennifer with apricots picked fresh from her tree, were the quirky signs and posters hanging here and there. I have snapshots of just a few of them, and whenever I see them, I always marvel at how well these work together as prophecies of marriage. 

A movie poster from Straight to Hell, “A story of blood, money, guns, coffee, & sexual tension”No marriage, no matter how congenial, is without a little hell, right? This poster was hanging on the side of a large stainless steel fridge, purchased at a discount because of the giant, claw-like scratch down that side. The poster didn’t quite cover the scratches, so they peeked out from under the poster like a demon was trying to escape from the fridge. 

Danger: Monkeys BiteThis sign was on a bit of wall between some cooling racks. I’m not sure if the monkeys were in the ovens or just hanging around the kitchen. Our Sonars didn’t come along for several years, but once they did, we started referring to them as monkeys pretty regularly. They don’t bite anymore. Much.

The Sky’s the Limit MenuI love this little time capsule of economics and coffee preferences. You know you want a Jolt Cola.

Yes, I highly recommend coffee shops for getting coffee and getting married. Bookstores would be good too. What do you say, babe? Next time let’s get married in a bookstore. I know just the one.

My Geography

I love the mountain forests. They are pretty, comfortable, a break from the flat expanses of our coast. But still somehow foreign. I’d dare to say alien, but we are too close to Roswell to use that metaphor without any irony.

When we drive down out of the mountains, an internal syncopation with the trees falls silent. The high desert unfolds around me, and I feel a new rhythm, pulsing in harmony with something inside me. I glance back at the mountains in the distance. Past the tumbleweeds and dry grass to the mesas and ridges and peaks. I look forward to the rolling desert. 

The green and blue I see in the distance are illusions. Those are shadow colors playing through the brittle brown valleys. Seussian yucca flowers dried upon their stalks dance along the edges of the road, bent like Kokopelli the trickster, blowing their pipes. A song to lead me home.