Silver City, New Mexico

Today I was walking to the store and a yellow leaf fell down in my path. Oh, I thought - Fall is coming. 

!!! No, Winter is almost here! Our citizens have been driving through yellow and brown leaves for weeks. Yet the weeping willows are still green. I saw people walking around this afternoon in shorts and t-shirts. Not me, but I am definitely wearing what I consider Fall - not Winter - clothing.

The Post Office had more people working at the counters than I have seen since I moved here, and they took care of the line of customers with dispatch. The Post Office has still got to be one of the best deals in the country. Today I mailed two packages which are supposed to arrive at their destinations in three days, and I believe they will.

I have not sent out a single card yet. It is still early and I am waiting for a miserable day to sit around drinking hot chocolate and writing holiday greetings. 

This is Southern New Mexico. That day may never come.

Silver City, New Mexico

Last night I went to the Jingle Mingle at WNMU. I could not find Graham Gym! Evidently there are more than one old gums on campus. Luckily I asked directions of a lovely young woman who was participating in the ugly sweater contest and she offered to walk me there! How sweet was that.

I waxed nostalgic. As soon as I stepped outside, my wish came true! Not only did I get to roast a marshmallow, the folks had the makings for s’mores! I had not had one of those for decades.

The mariachis were not due to perform for an hour or two, so I did not stick around for them. There were other musicians, though, which might have been heard best outside. Inside there was a mighty clamor of voices, most of them children’s.

Reading by the University President of The Night Before Christmas, ugly sweater contest, popcorn and cookie snacks! A good time was had by all.

(The highlighting above unintentional. Getting it to go away without redoing the whole paragraph is one of the many technological tricks I have not mastered.)

Silver City, New Mexico

This is a great town for volunteering. There are all kinds of worthy causes. When I tell them I volunteer at the museum, they say, which one? Well, obviously, I have to get around more!

The Friends of the Library have wonderful book sales and two shelves and a cart at the library. Some shelves are dollar shelves and some are full of free books. The free books have been on the dollar shelves for three weeks without selling, so if you want to gamble you can hope they will not sell. Or - what the hell - buy what you want. They are only a dollar!

Silver City, New Mexico

An acquaintance told me there is an old saying around here that the more woodpeckers around, the more likely it is to be a hard winter.

Well, there are many cats in my neighborhood - I would not even presume to number them. For the most part only the common finches and sparrows visit the yard I can see from my windows. There are ravens around, usually high overhead, and probably a few birds I never see or quick transients like the warblers.

Yesterday, though, there was a woodpecker on one of the pathetic little trees struggling for survival. First time in almost 2 1/2 years that I have seen a woodpecker on the property!

Maybe it will be a hard winter. Fortunately, though, I have a wonderful gas heater that is designed to look like a wood stove with a visible flame. With my chair plunked right in front of it I can imagine I have a fireplace. It should be very cosy - especially on a gloomy cloudy day like today.

Silver City, New Mexico

Alas, the Movie Fair Game which was supposed to be screened on campus Wednesday was postponed until a later date not specified.

On the other hand, the movie club last night followed the theme for the month - antiheroes - by showing Amadeus. What an awesome movie! I first saw it forty years ago and did not remember much - partly because I did not believe it, I think.

This morning I was able (unlike forty years ago) to research Salieri online and still do not believe he caused the death of Mozart. I was able to learn much more about Salieri though, and think that even the charge of musical mediocrity was very unfair. He was not mediocre, but highly inventive and successful. His renewed fame as a result of his unflattering portrayal in the movie, though, has given him renewed fame and exposure to the public. His work is being performed more since 1984.

There is no such thing as bad publicity? His new fame would tend to confirm that idea.

Silver City, New Mexico

This past week has mostly been gorgeous here, cloudy and chilly though it is today.

Walking home from a workout at the great University gym, I got some auditory Fall gifts. In addition to the wonderful crunch of brown and gold leaves, I walked through drifts of green mulberry leaves that made a racket! I have never experienced that before in the Fall, I believe.

Another surprise is that those beautiful rose-shaped cones produced by the diodar cedars, when separated into petals, have a delightful pop when tromped on. They sound like an explosive echo of the much launder and sharper little firecrackers that kids love to set off around the Fourth of July.

Since then we have had a thunderstorm so the auditory pleasures of yesterday morning might be muffled. It has not frozen for a week or so and a lot of visual pleasures remain, including fabulously colorful young trees on the Western New Mexico University campus and along College   Street.

This morning the Silver City Museum is being visited by thirty-odd young people from Aldo Leopoldo School. They walked about a mile to get here, I am guessing. Too bad it is such a gloomy day - but even that is special and exotic in Silver City, New Mexico!

Silver City, New Mexico

I met one of the Day of the Dead singers, Anjelica, outside the Museum after her performance. Such a lovely person! Her voice is strong and it seemed to me she was good at relating to the audience. Maybe it is fear of COVID, but I tend not to hang around the more crowded venues at social functions; I did not stay with her audience, but listened from around the corner.

This past week the nights have been cold - hard for the homeless. When a woman expressed the concern for them that I also feel, someone responded that it was their choice. Well, in some cases it is, but not all. There are some people who cannot for the life of them hold down a job try as they might. Quite frankly, I think many employers offer such terrible conditions that fewer and fewer people are able or willing to meet them. We all want to be able to have some self-respect in our lives as well as food and shelter.

That was hard enough to come by when I was working, and it seems to me to be even more difficult now. These periods with extreme income disparities make for more poverty and misery for more people.

In fact, I think the most heartless thing Jesus is reported as saying was that the poor are always with you. Sure, we all want to keep ourselves happy as possible, but I am afraid the very rich use those words of Jesus in an abhorrently self-serving way.

Spare the poor a crumb from the table!

(You do realize I am talking to myself as well.)

Silver City,  New Mexico

I’m here at the Museum for the Day of the Dead festival. A lot of folks are dressed fit to kill (heh heh) and at four there will be a bone sculpting demonstration. One of the artists was telling folks a little about the art, which they do freehand. They use the femur of cattle, which have to be boiled clean and dried out. These look a lot like ivory sculpture - sparkling white and very intricately done.

Before the demo, though, is the Halloween parade. Appropriately enough, it is being held late in the afternoon to help usher in the night. Too bad it is not literally Halloween.

Meanwhile there is plenty of time to get your face painted and buy a flowered headdress to complement your skeletal face. Or, like me, to just gaze at those who have made the choice to ornament themselves. I admire their energy and the exotic effect!

Silver City, New Mexico

If any of you readers plan to see Silver City, a good place to park is the parking lot at the Visitors Center on Hudson near Broadway. I have almost never seen it even close to full, except maybe during the big Gila bike race. A walk of a block or so gets you to Bullard Street, and on the way you can see the Big Ditch (aka San Vicente Creek) which used to be Main Street. Its depth is mind-blowing.

While you are here in town, stop by at the museum!

Silver City, New Mexico

Silver City Museum hopping today with dozens of people from Eastern Star touring. I came in with the crowd at 9:00 o’clock this morning. Often on Fridays it is completely dead for the first hour. You never know what to expect here.

Sunday afternoon there will be a big Day of the Dead celebration here with music, so if you are around, join the celebration! It looks as if the weather will be ideal for an outdoor party.

Silver City, New Mexico

Is it supposed to be in better taste to decorate your home in a way that does not display objects that have meaning to you? I propose that that is impossible. Even if you choose furnishings and objects that are not evidently personal your choices are imbued with your personality and outlook on life.

Maybe that is why so many women want control of what they surround themselves with, and so many men do not. They can disclaim any personal affinity with their own homes.

I used to feel that men were crowded out of their own homes and felt sorry for them. Now I wonder about the whole partnership dynamic. Maybe the traditional pattern does suit both sexes very well.

Silver City, New Mexico

Lately I have learned that there is a private company here that will pick up recycling since the city does so no longer. Trash 2 Treasure will pick up recycling for $20 per month. That sounds like more to me than to the person who told me about it - but what price virtue? Maybe I can get some of the other folks in the building to go in with me to get the service.

The weather has been glorious lately. In a few days the temperatures will get cooler and some people are predicting a cold winter. The average snowfall here is supposed to be much higher than I have experienced in the two winters I have been here, so I will try not to let El Niño catch me by surprise.

Silver City, New Mexico

I have learned a few new things about Silver City recently. A few days ago I was walking out Cooper Street to the South, went to the end where if you cross Highway 90 it becomes another named road - Ridge, if I am not mistaken. At that point I turned back toward home.

On the way out I had seen a doe in the Open, so I kept an eye out for more on the way back. I was excited to see a buck and a doe - so excited that I lingered a while to observe them eyeing me. While I stood there I felt a sharp pain in my foot and looked down to see what at first looked like a red and black fuzzy spider latched on to my foot through my sock! above my shoe and below my ankle. I brushed it off, but it would not let go! I tried again - same result, so I picked up a strip of hard plastic and finally brushed it off. It looked like a big fuzzy ant with a bright red abdomen.

A fuzzy ant?? Never heard of such a thing. I could definitely feel the irritation even at bedtime - compounded by my irritation that I had no calamine lotion - but the sensation did not keep me from sleeping. I forgot about it, except for the strange little critter defending his hill and his deer!

Two or three mornings later when I arose I felt some serious itching on my foot. I would not even swear it was the same ankle, but it is still red, swollen and itchy for another two days!

I told one of my daughters about it, and she said maybe it was a velvet ant. A velvet ant?? I have lived in New Mexico for thirty years and never heard of them. She said she had just heard of them in the last few days herself.

I read about them. The text described their sting as excruciatingly painful. I did not experience it that way. Furthermore it seemed to me as if it had taken a big bite of my flesh and did not want to let go. I never had so much trouble getting an insect off me. At least it was not a spider - somehow that seems scarier.

Hairy ants do exist, it seems. Who knew?

Silver City, New Mexico

The combined arts festivals last weekend were fabulous. The weather was ideal and the shows wonderful. Since I had not planned ahead enough I did not get to enjoy everything in quite the way I had last year. I am going to try to persuade some family to Silver City for these festivals next year because that weekend is my favorite.

Having said that, I must hasten to say I have not yet attended the SW Word Festival, which will be here next weekend Friday 27 through Sunday 29. So many events are scheduled that anyone who attends will be forced to make choices about which ones to attend. Aspiring writers especially will find these discussion groups and lectures very helpful, I am sure. I will try to attend at least one or two events and get back to you about anything awesome.

Meanwhile the weather is awesome and the prospect of Saturday’s annular eclipse intriguing. The view from Albuquerque is supposed to be ideal. We might not be at an ideal point in the viewing trajectory, but it will be next to ideal, I think. I am bringing a couple of cheap WalMart viewing glasses to work to share with people who want to view it. If they had more I would have bought more, but two should be enough to share with quite a few people working and visiting at the museum. The eclipse will be visible at about 10:20.

Anybody heard any fun prophecies about what will happen during the eclipse? 

Silver City, New Mexico

Wow! Has it really been so long since I wrote? Beyond belief. I do not know if my schedule has been out of control or whether I am just having too much fun.

If you like to travel in the Fall consider coming here for our arts, fiber arts, and printmaking festivals. Too late I heard about an Oktoberfest held in front of the Toad - sounds as if it was fabulous. Maybe they will do it again next year.

The other day I learned about a UTube video called Downtown Silver City: Everythings waiting for you. Look it up and watch it. I know at least one family who decided to move here after watching the video - and maybe you will too!

The weather is almost ideal, and though we do not have the spectacular falls of the lands of predominantly deciduous trees, Autumn is glorious.

Alas, negative things happen here, as everywhere. I am at the Visitor Center now, and someone  started a fire behind the cabin that is supposed to be like the one Billy the Kid stayed in with his mom. Luckily it was noticed almost immediately and put out before it was damaged too badly. This happened within the last few minutes!