A Song For Russ

Here's a little blast from the past...

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Another Day

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Last night's blog whine about my inability to sleep actually helped me settle into six hours of slumber. While it wasn't the best night's sleep I'd ever enjoyed, it seemed a more substantial chunk of rest than I'd expected. Everything's relative.

Murphy and Telly have been playing in the dirt for the past two mornings, appearing at the back door covered with thick dark mud. A few weeks ago I found a five foot wading pool for Murphy at the politically incorrect Wal-Mart. I relaxed my boycott long enough to purchase the pool, squeeze it into the back of the van, and rush home to fill it for my big guy. Murphy loves his pool, but I'm learning that it needs to be emptied nightly. Otherwise, he splashes in the water early in the morning, rolls in the dirt, and then wrestles with Telly. The result? Two dogs caked with dry, hard mud. Murphy is easy to hose off, but Telly thinks water comes from the ninth circle of Hell. Removing mud from Telly--a wiggler and perpetual motion machine--is a job for only the fearless.

The back yard resembles a mine field these days. Telly is a digger. Yesterday Murphy chewed a hole in the water line running from the backyard spigot to the rooftop swamp cooler. Caught up in other distractions, I didn't realize water was spraying all over the backyard. Telly made an effort to remedy the situation by digging up the yard so the water could collect in a large hole rather than flood the back yard. By the time I went outside to check on them, Her Majesty was proudly lying in a deep muddy hole, covered from head to paw, panting and smiling. It took half an hour to clean the dogs and dry them off.

This morning was a repeat of yesterday. Life is too short to spend all this time hosing off the dogs. Did I mention the pointy seed pods that embed themselves in the dogs' fur? We've so much wild growth in the back, it will take a chain saw to weed the yard. Rototilling may be our only remaining option. My fantasy of desert living didn't include weeds that grow two inches a day.

Last August, Mayor Chavez declared a "War On Weeds." The City of Albuquerque's weed gestapo regularly hands out citations for weeds exceeding four inches in height. Worse yet, the city's website provides a form encouraging citizens to file complaints and turn in recalcitrant neighbors who refuse to weed. Evidently "weeds" and "litter" are synonymous in Duke City. Personally, I find them noxious, especially goatheads. Last week, Joseph Crumb, a regular columnist for the Albuquerque Tribune, penned the following lines:

There are three things friends and relatives never mention when they talk about what a wonderful place New Mexico is to live: the wind, the ants and the goatheads. Consider the goathead: Few weeds can rival its perniciousness. Some goathead seeds, aka "stickies," have spines measuring a half centimeter or more, powerful enough to puncture bicycle tires. (link added)

Murphy and Telly present their paws daily for goathead removal. I know what it feels like. I've removed the barbed thorns from my own feet as well.

It's time to face another night. Everyone else in the house is sleeping soundly while I sit alone on the sofa--wakeful, restless, pensive.

Another day. Just breathe...

I'm So Tired

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Sleep eludes me these days. Most nights I'm lucky to get three or four hours. The dogs, on the other hand, sleep about 18 hours a day. I generally don't disturb their rest, even though they rarely return the favor. After 20 years of sleeping only a few hours a night, I'm beginning to accept it as "normal."

My materal grandmother slept only a few hours a night. She often listened to New York talk radio in the wee hours, and then called relatives way before dawn to let them know what they were missing. I was just a teenager at the time. Thankfully there was no phone in my bedroom.

They say that most Americans are sleep deprived. One wonders if the high rate of insomnia is directly proportional to the popularity of Starbucks and other "high energy" beverages. I, for one, do not drink coffee. Caffeine renders me completely ungrounded, so much so that I'm apt to levitate after only one cup.

Other than feeling ragged and dopey most of the time, the worst part of chronic insomnia is not having anyone to call in the middle of the night when I'm wide awake, except friends eight time zones to the East, and that's a pretty expensive call even at 3AM. It's lonely being the only one awake in the night. Even the dogs are reluctant to join me in my early morning peregrinations. Grandma never let that stop her from reaching out by land line to disrupt a loved one's rapid eye movements.

Will I sleep tonight? Is tonight the night I finally get some deep, restorative rest? The prospect of breaking the sleepless cycle fills me with anticipation. I feel like a pre-teen on the first day of school. Or will tonight be like all other nights of counting sheep and listening to Murphy snore next to me? Over the years I've tried just about everything, including acupuncture, acupressure, visualizations, reading, not reading, journaling, singing, laughing, watching TV, not watching TV, homeopathics, sleeping pills, massage, meditation, new pillows, valerian root, hops, catnip, kava kava, skullcap, lemon balm, passion flower, warm baths, hot milk, cold beer, turkey sandwiches, brandy, new mattresses, warm fuzzy movies, magnets, a glass of wine, aromatherapy, psychotherapy, melatonin, tryptophane, stuffed animals, vigorous exercise, yoga, prayer and positive thinking. Maybe I just love life too much to waste all that time sleeping. The fact is, I just don't want to miss anything. I need to be awake to hear those things that go bump in the night.

My eyelids are heavy. It must be time to extinguish the light and give it another shot. Am I the only insomniac? Your turn.

Sheila Takes A Vacation

A few days ago, my best buddy from college flew to Albuquerque from Newark (and boy, were her arms tired), to spend a few days with her old pal from Long Island. We spent three days traipsing around New Mexico. First and foremost, Sheila was in awe of Albuquerque's five volcanoes located on the West Mesa, and hoped they wouldn't spontaneously erupt in honor of her first visit to New Mexico. I assured her the possibility was remote.


I was delighted to show Sheila the Petroglyphs on Friday, after a brief tour of the West Mesa. It was a beautiful day and the sky was a brilliant blue. Sheila opted for the less strenuous trail, using inappropriate footwear as an excuse to take the easy path. Next time she visits I will have a new pair of Nike cross-trainers waiting for her arrival. She insists she doesn't "hike," but I reminded her that "hiking" is actually "walking."





Friday morning we spent some time in the Rio Grande Nature Center, where we saw several roadrunners, hummingbirds, turtles, geese, a grebe, and widgeons. It was National River Clean-up Day, and the Rio Grande was full of inflatable boats occupied by happy volunteers cheerfully bagging debris. It looked like a good time, and for a good cause.


Later that day, after a restorative nap (one of many), we wandered around Albuquerque's Old Town, stopping for a bite to eat at a charming outdoor bistro in the shadow of chile ristras decorating a balcony overhead.




Today we drove to Santa Fe and enjoyed brunch at the Tesuque Village Market. With our bellies full, and in spite of threatening skies, we took off to explore the hills of Tesuque.





By early afternoon we were checking out the sights, sounds and smells of the Plaza in Santa Fe.





Our meanderings took us to Canyon Road, not far from the Plaza and home to many fine art galleries. Santa Fe is the second largest art market in the United States.






No Southwest vacation would be complete without a Margarita. (Photo enhanced to protect the guilty.)

Tomorrow my friend returns to New Jersey. And just when we were starting to have some fun...