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The Verde Guardia Aliens have chosen to hangout closer to Booger. It ain't easy bein' green out here.

Guess what? I'm sick again. I'm starting to look at The Tin Can with hateful eyes. OK, maybe not starting to, but it's definitely intensifying. But I must be gentle when I cast my eyes upon TTC with such vitriol--without it I'd be homeless. Shoot, given all the beds I've slept in in the last month and a half you'd think...less highly of me, if you didn't know the current saga. And sure has made me consider exactly how I can properly state my living situation, questionable as it is. I make it up as I go along, and you know that about me.

A sinus infection, my version of a cold, hit me right as I was leaving school on Weds. The drive home seemed to make me iller every tire-grooved, gravelly, newly painted millimeter of it. I fell into bed with chills and my coat still on. I had to take two more days off. My students hate me for sure now. Oh well. It's probably their fault I'm sick anyway, so there....PPPPLLLLLBBBBBB! :)
OK, now for the good news: The block went flying up this week. So did door frames get cross-pieced together, most of the higher up window frames are in place now, and the electrical inspector never made it out, but the electrician said that the inspector called him and told the electrician to tell Rex the supervisor to go ahead and keep adding block, the inspector would sign off later. Ummmmmm...so we did. Screw 'em!


I was in a mild panic last week when I discovered the building permit had blown away. I found it, though. It didn't bother to go get stuck on a cactus or plastered to a rock in the arroyo, where we went searching for it, did it? No! I ended up finding it under the plywood board going from the garage floor into the kitchen. It pretty much was laughing it's fool ass off at me. Dumb, stupid effin' piece of paper.


I pretty sure many of you recognize Turning Points when they occur in your lives; y'all ARE an exceptionally bright bunch. I experienced one this week with the house. It's starting to take on the mass that has not been present since we started during the torridly hot days of August on this build. It's gonna happen after all, y'all! I know I've been bitchin' a lot lately, and being tedious with all the details of the delays, but, hey! For many of you I've listened with interest to all the joys of birthin' yer babies, now it's my time to get ya back;) The rest of you just get to suffer along and pay penance that may save you from a few days in Purgatory, 'k?
El Heffe and Margarita seem to have been keeping busy. Here's 25 cows from a herd of 200+ that roam out here. I think El Heffe (read the blog, folks. R-E-A-D the blog) just decided he'd show his cow buddies where he's been hangin' out. Frikkin' party of 50 it was. Which is a really neat segue into telling you about the teaser I left those among you who actually READ this blog at the end of my last posting: The Legend of Belen Meets ME!


It's true. The rancher out here who I've told y'all about, Weldon McKinley, is legend out here in B-Town (it's a student @ Belen High School thang. I absorb info. easily.) He runs open range cattle out here in Tierra Grande. He was out checking his water tanks one day, saw me, stopped his truck, turned it off and came over to have me introduce myself to him. Truly. It wasn't like a member of the royal family kind of attitude on Weldon's part, it was more one of a...smartass. My kinda guy. "Well hi there, young lady. Who are YOU?"
[I tell him EXACTLY who I am.]
Then he introduces himself, and actually used his real name. (He's known to present himself as someone else on occasion.)

We talk for about 20-25 minutes and he's in non-stop motion, moving from one pile of block to another, resting on the I-beams of the garage, the scaffolding, another pile of block, into the Powder Monkey Room; a lot like some of my students, actually. Good thing I don't get irked by these rubber-band-man types. I followed some. I lead some. Then he finally stepped on my foot. Seriously. I thought he was kicking up a rock near my foot, but he reached over in his beyond worn, cowshit covered boots and tapped my toe. I didn't know how I was going to stop the laughter that wanted to burst forth. It was kinda touching, actually. This crusty ol' cowboy, and I mean a REAL cowboy, was tapping my toe.

I shot my up eyes up to his and he was pleased with himself. Old rascal. Then he fed me a few lies. I countered with a few of my own. He mentioned water, I told him I owed him some (18 gallons x 3 times a week x 2 months to be exact.) He enjoyed that. Then he told me why he had only one lens in his eyeglasses. I told him I thought he was just the crazy grandpa who lived in the hay barn and had managed to get away from the evil nurse for a ride around in the truck. I wasn't sure if he heard that one, or chose not to hear it, but he finally laughed and told me he'd be keeping an eye out for me. I made the obvious crack about how it would be easy to tell given the state of his glasses. With that Weldon McKinley said, "Goodbye, young lady. I'm mighty glad to have met ya!" He got into his big-ass truck with his tiny white poodle in it and left.

I'm mighty glad to have met Weldon McKinley hisself, without any pretext. And on MY land;)


Manana. Maybe. Probably not, though. Next week for sure, though.