While the Lava Cures, the Adobe's Come to Play

This is going to be a more upbeat installment than the last couple of entries. Mostly. The tedious details first: I’m sick AGAIN! My ‘doc’ is as sick of hearing my hacking and froggy voice as I am of not being able to sound anywhere close to human; so tired is she that she called in a 30 day treatment of antibiotics for me! Mind you, after being on the same antibiotic for 80% of the time betwixt the beginning of November and now kinda makes one stop and ponder the power of said med. It does me, at any rate.

I do get a smile playing across my lips when I notice how much my insurance pays on my meds vs. what I pay ($42 for me, $455 for them!) I’m definitely getting my money’s worth this year, which is good, since I pay over 50% of my insurance costs through payroll deductions. But, I’m on the mend.

This last iteration of the creepin’ cruds hit me while I was in Phoenix over the MLK holiday. Marie (aka: Mum) has been bed-ridden for about three weeks since a stint in hospital determined that she has congestive heart failure and a follow up visit to her doc confirmed that her kidneys are failing as well. She’s not long for this earth. The maternal family’s time tested ties with dementia have come to the fore for Marie, too.

It’s tough telling someone that they’re dying, but to have to do it multiple times a day for several days is a hell of a burden for the one retaining and retelling the information, no matter how acrimonious the relationship. And then there’s the complication of the con man that’s managed to get Marie to write him checks. My brother and sister-out-law run hourly patrols around the house to dissuade him from further activity. (I couldn’t dream up this story in a million years!)

That’s what it is, and this is the end of that.

THE HOUSE: Please don’t ask when it’s expected to be done. It will be done, it’s just that no one has any idea when. Rex and I have quit making predictions. It’ll be done when it’s done. Dang it, anyway!

But, here’s the latest from the build site: As soon as they become available, the block are laid. We’re working faster than they’ve been making them. This makes me grumbly. BUT! The double-sided kiva fireplace has been started and its walls are made of adobe brick, two massively tall (20’+) timbers have been erected to serve as anchors for trusses and roof. Rex is planning on cutting them down to size, but I asked him to leave them intact so I could use ‘em as my rooftop slingshot☺ We keep coming up with all sorts of scenarios as to how to use the slingshot to it’s fullest potential. It keeps us amused.

Some research by Rex has yielded a fireplace technique that will suck the smoke from the fireplace right up and out the flue, while also providing more heat inside AND the option to roast my own chilies, campfire-veggies-in-foil and who-knows-what-else right there in the kiva. That totally tickles me! This is going to be the kewlest house EVER!

Window frames are being adorned with lintels across the top, as is the tradition here in the southwest. The walls are going up as fast as limitations permit, so the garage walls, kitchen walls and small spare bedroom walls are all close to height. They’re working their way around the build so we don’t have to have the entire house surrounded by scaffolding. It’s a wonderful thang. The roof has been rescheduled to go on in mid-February. Norbert and Carolyn stopped by on their way to Old Mexico to see where we’re up to. Leslie, my mortgage broker, came to take pics and make a report to the bank, vs. the bank sending a dude in fake Italian loafers with tassels on ‘em to do the visual inspection and then charge me $100/visit. Scammin’ scum!

SCHOOL
My immediate principal came and told me that he has selected ME to go with him this summer for AP (Advanced Placement) certification! This is good on many levels, but mostly: It’s a good sign that they want me back for next year (!! Woo hoo!!) and that they may be considering giving me some AP classes to teach vs. many of the ‘hard to reach/teach’ kids (who I love, and am very effective with, but they are strenuous to keep up with/on top of.) This singular announcement from m’boss caused me greater ease of breathing like no combination of medications has been able to do for months.

Oh! I got a new Jeep! It’s purdy. I hate the color, and would NEVER have chosen it, but I made the dealer install a remote start to make up for the heat sucking this thing will do in the summer months. That’ll work for me. Comments made to me about what they think of it, after they tell how sweet a ride it must be (and they’re dead on there): “It looks like a Nazi staff vehicle” and “You look like a driver for some African military coup leader.” And while both are repugnant to me, I can’t argue with truths. It does make me wonder what others really do think of me. (Like I ever really worry about that.)



Now the CPRJeep (Chili Pepper Red, NOT Cardio Pulmonary Resuscitation—though that’s a good backup. And applicable) will go to a young man whom, when he was seven years old, I promised to sell it to. He’s now 17 and thrilled to bits to be getting the Jeep he fell in love with so long ago. (Isn’t that a great story?)

Critter tale o' da year: Neighbor Donna and I went into town to be among the English, as her husband Ed calls the Townies, and she was driving the CPRJeep back to The Tin Can while I followed in BB, the NEW Jeep (BB=Black Beast, or Big Beast) when we both saw something running across the road. Then a bigger something came right behind the first something. It was a jackrabbit running for its life from a beautifully colored coyote. If that bunny's feet hit the pavement thrice I'd be surprised. The coyote most certainly didn't touch the pavement but twice; they were haulin' ass!

Donna missed this next bit, but it just made me crack up: The bunny made a quick U-Turn and got hisself hid but good in the scrub brush between the highway and the barb wire fence and the coyote started jumping up like a little fox looking for it. This whole 10 seconds of life was one of the coolest moments I've had in an age. There's just something about seeing nature carry on despite all of our human trespass against them. I was rooting for both of those critters to win. I'm wondering if I could ever be right about that possibility?

Hasta muy mananas, Y’all!

(This Space Left Intentionally Blank)

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.

Nothing To Do With Nuthin'

HAPPY 2008 EVERYBODY!

Now that the holiday season has ground to a halt and brought each of us a new start here I am with the continuing saga that seems to have no end in sight.

The last posting left us waiting on the electrician to come put in the switch boxes and all that’s associated with that level of install. By the time I got back from Christmas in Colorado the work had been done. Mostly. Seems concrete and the boys aren’t fond of bitterly cold, windy, snowy weather here in NM. I can totally relate.


The usual delays that come from the holidayius interruptus could be predicted, so I won’t bemoan the additional two weeks the build is behind by; everyone needed a break. I spent until Dec. 21st @ La Mirada, administered an ‘easy’ final to my English students (so ‘easy’ that 75% of them got a “D” on it!), hopped a flight to Denver and stayed bundled up for a week while I watched champagne snow fall outside the nice warm house in Colorado. Shoveling snow was my lone activity in between naps and playing with Lego and Monster-dog. KJ and I did manage to make some cookies, a ham, visit friends and generally spread good will and money around. And my Colorado dentist fixed my tooth—something no dentist in my area of NM seemed to have time to get to (there’s more to this tale, but I’ll spare you).

Being indoors for those two weeks saw my health return and some info. from my friends Carolyn & Norbert convinced me that The Tin Can’s ruination of my health was probably due to so much cold air coming in and settling under my sleeping area. I had already invested in hundreds of dollars worth of insulation for the water line, windows and door. All that was left was to return to TTC and install it.

I never want for small projects to do these days.

So, KJ, Lego, Monster and I jumped in a rental car and drove down to NM. The morning we left it was 19 degrees below zero, with a wind chill of about -30. We couldn’t drive fast enough in my opinion. There hadn’t been a day I’d been in CO where the temp. was above freezing. Folks in warm climes think that the folks in cold climes are nuts to be running around in shorts when the temps. are in the high 30’s-40’s, but consider how much warmer 40 degrees is when you’ve been existing in sub-zero weather! It’s kinda like when I lived in AZ and had a down coat on when the temp. dipped below 70; from 110 degrees to 65 degrees the change is noticeable.

This has nothing to do with the house, does it?

Oh, but it does….



Four more days back @ La Mirada (I should get a kickback for the number of times I mention them, huh?) allowed my health to root itself and make day trips to TTC to do those pesky little insulation tasks. From insulated tape to heat tape to window sheeting to insulated blankets to filling propane tanks we were kept busy. Then there was the constant chasing down of the dogs to interrupt perfectly good work progress. Gotta love it all. So, there I was, getting all geared up for moving back into TTC and start checking everything out to make sure it’s a go and…there’s no water flowing from the well. It’s reasons like this that teachers get more days off at the holidays than the rest of the working world—shit happens and someone in business needs to be working so we teachers can go back to work without a worry in the world. HA!

A call to the well company got me spending some more money on some more heat tape and insulation for the well pipes. Two tie-downs, a tarp and the Mexican serape from the Jeep became the well tank’s new clothing. I’m thinking of putting a gargoyle head atop the tank just to give it some personality and a sense of worth. Some more clay got screened for the floor install that is expected to happen…sometime, but most certainly NOT manana, some more glass tiles got scraped clean of silicone from their previous existence as a wall in a Scottsdale, AZ beauty salon, the rest of the electrical work got done. Now, aside from the house looking like Stonehenge, it looks like Stonehenge with vines. BIG improvement!

And, the inspector didn’t show up today, as we had hoped, but Rex and the boys did and they used up the rest of the lava block that we had on hand and now one corner of the garage is taller than me!! Heck, I’ve even resorted to doing what I did months ago and that is: I’m parking my Jeep in the garage again! With partial walls up the Jeep looks like a Matchbox toy. Heh heh heh.


The Tin Can is now double heated and warm enough to keep this Arizona Desert Dawg cozy and cheerful. It’s almost like home. If I could I would purr.

Like any TV station news broadcast worth it’s ratings in feathers and scales, I will close with the critter section. This critter tale is one that has been a very long time in realizing for me.

A store in Estes Park, CO had, for several years, stuffed animal heads that I deeply desired. These are truly stuffed animal heads. I intended to finally buy one of these oversized parodies for the new house and was struck a wrenching blow when I saw that there was only the stuffed animal bear head left in the store. While I’m fond of bears, it was the Rocky Mountain Sheep head I had been coveting all these years. Being of a nature that is represented by a Ram, I made an inquiry. A clerk went to the storage area and found a Mountain Goat head and the RM Sheep’s head; they hadn’t been big sellers, and one was gently dirtied while the other head was barely damaged. I got both of them for 50% off!! They took up half of the car trunk. I was a giggling girly-girl the whole way home from Estes. (Yes, I’m over it now. Ummmm, no, I’m not, hee hee hee hee.)

As if that wasn’t kewl enuf they’re puppet heads to boot, so, of course, I’m trying to conceive of a way to rig them so that they can suddenly start talking and scare the beejeevers out of visitors! (Hartman—you up for helping me out with this prank?) I crack me up!

Manana: The Legend of Belen Meets ME!