Pondering the world

Bottger Mansion of Old Town Bed & Breakfast

We own the historic Bottger Mansion of Old Town bed & breakfast in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Come stay with us--we have a great location and the best breakfast in Albuquerque! Click here to visit our website. Visit our B&B blog, "View from the Innside," for great recipes, Albuquerque events, history, restaurants, things to do, and much more.

Disclaimer: This is my personal blog, full of experiences and observations, craft projects, foodiness and frustrations. Depending on the day, it most definitely does not represent our business. Fair warning: observations and opinions different than yours may be present.

it wasn't the Red Chair I wanted

At our national conference in January, I heard there was going to be a "red chair" at the show, and I got very excited. We had just recently started watching the Graham Norton Show on BBC America, and the "red chair" is always part of the show.

The Red Chair at the innkeeping conference was something entirely different. It started as a red chair purchased by an innkeeper at a flea market, and one of her guests photographed it on the beach. The photo is beautiful, and it got picked up all over the internet. Soon the Red Chair was traveling to inns in other locations and is photographed everywhere. It shows the beautiful places in our country and begs you to "imagine yourself here." There is a blog dedicated to the Red Chair Travels, and you can find out where the Red Chair is now.

Still, it wasn't the "red chair" I had been expecting. I can only imagine what the entertainment part of the evening would have been like had it been the other "red chair."

 

 

true about travel in general

I was reading a copy of The Specialty Coffee Chronicle when we were waiting to get a part for our big coffee brewer and I came across this quote by Craig Holt:

We are lucky that we get to visit so many wonderful places. We should make the most of that opportunity by learning what we can about the history, the culture, and the natural environments where we will be working."

-- Craig Holt, "Don't Wave Your Stink Fist" in The Specialty Coffee Chronicle

It applies to anyone traveling anywhere--just replace that last word "working" with "traveling." 

This first article on respecting culture in other places appears to be the first installment of three. Craig's writing is informal and irreverently truthful. It kind of reminds me of Shawn Spencer in the TV series Psych. The title, "Don't Wave Your Stink Fist," may seem strange unless you've traveled in or know of places where the left hand is used when using the bathroom and for absolutely nothing else. Don't wave hello with it. 

Here's another great quote:

"When you are traveling the world as a coffee professional, you can make the most of the opportunity by learning a bit about the culture, respecting their way of doing things, and remaining flexible. Go into the experience open to the differences between your hometown and the place you are visiting."

If you're interested in the second installment about staying in good health when you travel, it's called "Guatemala Head Bleed: Some More Tips on Being a Coffee Traveler."

Remember I said his writing is irreverently truthful.

passengers on a disabled cruise ship should remember the homeless

The nightmare voyage of the disabled Carnival cruise ship made me think about conditions that the homeless suffer. All it takes is loss of power for us to see the issues up close and personal.

How close are you to being homeless? Many Americans are just one or two paychecks away, if that. Lose a job, fall behind on rent or your mortgage, lose your home. What does that mean? You live out of your car, if you still have one? Where can you use a bathroom? Showers and a laundry are no longer available, so you start to smell and people shy away. You can only keep what fits in your car, so your wardrobe choices get pretty slim. Potential employers don't want to talk to you--you don't look or smell like someone they'd have working for them. Where do you park your car where you don't get chased off for living in it? When you run out of gas money, the car stays where it ran out of gas or it gets towed. Then you're on the hunt for a place to sleep out of the rain, heat or cold, and you only own what you can carry. Others prey on you for the little you have.

The difference between real homelessness and the miserable 3000+ passengers is that they had the eyes of the world on their situation and a crew of over a thousand people taking care of them. Their troubles were over as soon as they stepped ashore after four days.

The homeless will be with us always, but even when we are unable to help them all, we can feel some empathy and realize that, for most of us, the fall from our level to theirs is just not that far.

clean out the stuff--or someone else will have to do it

We've moved a lot over the years. I use the opportunity to clean out things, but we always end up running out of time and just throwing stuff in boxes to get it from one place to the next. Or it's stuff that we think we want to keep but won't have room for it in our new location. That happens when you move from a 2000 square foot house with oversized 2-car garage... to an apartment with no garage...  to an even smaller space with no garage and no storage space at all.  Some of those boxes have been moved several times without being opened. Eventually, those will come back to haunt you.

Recently, several things occurred which made it necessary to clean out both our storage building on-site and a storage unit that we rented. I actually started going through those boxes. You know when you open a  box and say, "why do we even still have this?" I hate when that happens, and it happens all too often.

This time I got more hard-nosed about it. There are hobbies I have parts and supplies for, and I'm just not interested in them anymore. There are items that I kept because someone gave them to me, souvenirs and mementos from trips we took, and possessions from what our lives used to be. Several truckloads of things have been taken to an indoor flea market for resale or Goodwill or ReStore (Habitat for Humanity store with hardware parts and pieces). I've also given away several boxes of miscellaneous fabrics and crafts supplies and have more to go. It's liberating to free yourself from "stuff," and I'm glad that others who can use it are happy to have it.

A few years ago, an elderly friend of mine realized that some of his friends had died and left their possessions in a mess, and their children had to sort everything out and figure out what to do with it. He said he's going to start cleaning everything out, because he doesn't want that to happen to his son.

The older I get, the smaller I live. If I get to the end and have only memories, some photos and a few clothes and books, I'll be fine with that. The best legacy I can leave my daughter is that I lived well and left her with no baggage.

the Las Vegas challenge--finding the "good" stuff

Las Vegas is filled with all of the things I don't do--smoking, drinking, gambling, and so much more--and it's easy to take a dim view of the whole place. Within a couple of hours of arrival, I was already overwhelmed and overstimulated by the noise, flashing lights and activity. And this is January.

I set out to find the good things in Las Vegas that don't involve any of the above.

The Bellagio never disappoints me. Not only is their lobby ceiling adorned by a spectacular glass flower ceiling by Dale Chihuly, the interior garden courtyard is splendidly decorated for Chinese New Year. I also wandered around a corner and found an enticing bakery with a chocolate waterfall. What's not to love about that?

Cirque du Soleil is an amazing company, and I've been to some of their performances, so I sought out the sculptures of Richard McDonald, who has done a whole series based on the Cirque performers. The sculptures themselves are great, but instead of being in one location, the works are placed in areas around four different casinos, with no map of where they are. I spent 45 minutes walking around Crystals in the Aria trying to find them, and cut my mission short after finding only three sculptures.

The Shops at Miracle Mile promote their music + fountain show, which I found to be small and uninspiring, especially after having seen the gorgeous--and huge--fountain performance in front of the Bellagio. I may have been the only person there who arrived intending to see the fountain show. It appears that everyone else just happened to be there at the moment.

I finished the day by going to the Da Vinci exhibit at the Venetian. I'm not sure what I expected, and I hadn't read anything about it before attending. They had very few pieces of anything from Da Vinci himself except for three small journals with his thoughts and drawings. Fully a fourth of the entire exhibit was devoted to the scientific analysis of the Mona Lisa, a scientist having photographed the piece in 2007 with specialized cameras and making new discoveries about it. Da Vinci himself died still owning the Mona Lisa and he considered it unfinished. The examination of it reveals that he kept tweaking it the entire time he had it. I've heard that about writers as well--they are never satisfied with their previous work and often decline to re-read their own writing, since they will want to continue editing.

The one thing I didn't get to see was the wildlife habitat at the Flamingo, 15 acres of sanctuary. I'll keep that on my list for next time.

Reggie

Reggie just passed away. For years, he and his wife have owned the Hanging Tree Gallery here in Old Town Albuquerque. Like a few other people, Reggie had his gruff side, but once he got to know you, he'd do anything for you.

A few years back, I was in charge of entertainment at an annual event during the holidays. Anyone who has worked in historic areas knows that power supply can be dicey sometimes and, in spite of my having told a performer there would be no power source at their location, they showed up expecting to just plug in. I was frantic--that end of the street would essentially be "dark."

I spied an outlet on the outside of Reggie's gallery and, fortunately, he came around the corner.

"Reggie, I'm desperate! Can the performers plug into your outdoor outlet?"

"Why, sure, missy! You just go ahead and help yourself." My relief was immense--Reggie had generously saved the day.

"Reggie, I think I love you!"

My somewhat flippant reply of thanks had an unexpected reaction--a duck of the head, a growing blush on his cheeks and a shy smile.

From that moment, our relationship changed a little. His smiles and greetings were quicker, and I sensed a hint of fondness in his gaze, a warmer connection.

My admiration and respect for Reggie grew that day. I'd like to think he felt the same about me.

 

What's your Mary Poppins "measurement?"

If you've seen the 1964 film version of "Mary Poppins," you'll remember the scene where Mary Poppins measures the children.  Michael is "extremely stubborn and suspicious" ("I am NOT!") and Jane is "inclined to giggle and to leave messes."

How many of us know ourselves so well that we could characterize our own personalities in just two descriptive words or phrases? Would they be very complimentary or, if we are completely honest with ourselves, would they reveal a less positive self-evaluation? Is that a bad thing, to know the less admirable aspects of oneself? Are they really negative at all, or have we just been trained to view certain words as negative?

I asked this question of a friend, whose first response was, "wow.... that's deep. Who ever asks that kind of question?" After some reflection, he described himself as a "disappointed idealist." There was one other descriptive word, which I have momentarily forgotten. The exercise led to a more prolonged discussion of why we chose those particular self-descriptive terms. In a 30-minute conversation, I came to understand far more about him than in the entire preceding eight years of our acquaintance.

The words I came up with for myself are "introspective and sceptical." Ironically, it took some introspection to reveal those phrases, since I almost never take things at face value.

How would you describe yourself?

I'm guessing that no one is going to say they are "practically perfect in every way."

a long-sleeved Hawaiian shirt--the ultimate oxymoron?

Lately I've taken to wearing short-sleeved Hawaiian shirts. They meet all of my requirements: short sleeves, a pocket, and a collar that lies flat. 

The nighttime temperature here has been down to 8 degrees and I thought about putting on a long-sleeved shirt.  Since Hawaiian shirts are standard attire in places where the normal temperature, even at night, is above 70 degrees, all the ones I've seen have short sleeves. I thought a long-sleeved Hawaiian shirt might be an oxymoron. 

It turns out there ARE long-sleeved Hawaiian shirts. There's even a 1940's vintage long-sleeved Hawaiian shirt for sale on eBay for only $1530.00.  Something about these shirts looks kind of like pajamas.

When I go outside, I'll just put on a jacket or sweater, just like Mom always said. 

Party like there's no tomorrow!

Oh, wait... supposely there isn't. That whole Mayan calendar thing, you know.  

If you believe in it, you can do things you would never otherwise do, because at that point "tomorrow never comes." However, you would have to live with regrets and maybe make some apologies when the sun comes up brightly on Saturday morning.

When I made an appointment for a haircut for today, I told my hairdresser I didn't know why I was bothering since the world is going to end. He laughed and said, "yeah, but you'll look great when it happens!"

I don't know how December 21st came to be the official end-of-the-world date, but my sister is a little annoyed. It's her birthday and she keeps getting teased about the world ending on her birthday (including from me).

Finally, thanks to whoever it was on Facebook who forwarded today's end-of-the-world agenda. I didn't realize I was going to have such a busy day:

END OF THE WORLD SCHEDULE 12/21/2012

06:30 - Opening ceremony of the End of Times
07:00 - Meteorite shower
08:30 - First tsunami
10:00 – Welcome UFOs
10:30 – Flashmob Gangman Style with the aliens
11:30 – World Goverments Destruction Phase I, dictators' gladiator-style fight to death
12: 00 – Eclipse and alignment of all the planets and moons

12:00 – 14:00 – Lunch, alien and humans network event; bring your cards

14:15 – Magnetic Pole Shift
15:00 – Earth warming... and barbeque
16:30 – Boring earthlings annihilation
17:00 – Bathroom break, with or without a partner
18:00 – Earth revolution against amorphous aliens

19:00 – Pisco sour, tequila, keg stand, beer pong mixer and wet t-shirt contest

20:00 – Tunnel opening from Taj Mahal to Machu Picchu

21:00 – Sushi... we have nothing to cook with

22:00 – Secret Santa 
23:00 – Speed dating for any living organisms
23:15 - Closing Party Gavanna, MU VIP LIST
23:50 – END OF THE WORLD and last chance to join the Save the World Movement

 

 

"Oh, look! It's a chicken!"

In Key West on a trip with friends, we learned about the chickens. Years ago, Cubans migrated to the key and brought their fighting roosters with them. Eventually, cockfighting was outlawed and the roosters were set free. About the same time, other people moved off the key and left behind their domestic chickens, creating... lots more chickens. Someone at sometime got Key West designated as a bird sanctuary, so the cross-breeding chickens are not only protected, they have freedom to roam anywhere, and there are stiff fines for doing anything to them.

On our first full afternoon in Key West, we hopped on our bikes and set out to explore the town. Down by the historic seaport, our friend suddenly became distracted and nearly ran into a tour bus parked on the other side of the narrow road. Even others walking by said, "Did you see that? She almost hit that bus!" Her explanation was that she saw a rooster sitting on the counter.

Today we visited the Cuban Coffee Queen and discovered it's a fake rooster.

I'm not sure if this is a sign that my friend is easily distracted or that the rooster looks amazingly real.

P.S. The Cuban coffee is also amazing.