Pondering the world

Lady Lobos basketball game vs. Air Force Academy

On Wednesday night we were able to attend a Lady Lobos vs. Air Force Academy basketball game at the UNM pit, courtesy of some friends who had extra tickets.

It was a close game the entire time, with the Lobos trailing by just a couple of points until the very last couple of minutes. They got a couple of lucky breaks and some good shots, which enabled them to win the game 62-59. Really, Air Force played a better game overall and should have won. Both teams had great players, each with one phenomenal shooter who scored consistently on the long shots.

Louie Lobo, the UNM mascot, was goofing around in the stands and came to sit with fans very near us for photo ops.  I managed to get a shot of him from behind. My one weakness in photography is big furry mascots and photo booths with goofy hats. However, I turned for a moment to watch the game and he was gone.

Earlier in the afternoon, we had talked about the last time we were in the Pit and determined it was in 1984 at my husband's graduation from UNM. Before that, we attended a Willie Nelson concert sometime around 1980, before our daughter was born. That was a really long time ago, and last year the Pit underwent a huge remodel. While the Pit itself is good, the outside of the building now looks very striking from the outside. It's all finished now and ready for the Native American Pow-wow at the end of April called "Gathering of Nations," the largest pow-wow in the country. 

Woodmen of the World--creative grave markers

On Friday I visited Fairview Cemetery to see if I could find a headstone for Judge William C. Hazeldine.  I figured if I could get the date he died, I could look up his obituary in the microfilm archives.  No such luck.  There's a "Hazeldine family plot" in the "Masonic" section of Fairview Cemetery, but their records show the only one buried there is Nellie Hazeldine, his daughter who died in 1902, and there is no marker on her grave.  Where is William Hazeldine?

While I was wandering around the "Masonic" section, I glanced over to another area and found a whole row of really interesting-looking headstones, some of which looked like logs or trees. This whole row turned out to be members of Woodmen of the World.

These are pretty amazing markers, considering that they date from the early 1900's, and they're in surprisingly good condition.

Who are Woodmen of the World, anyway?  Are they lumberjacks or lumber barons?  Or is this some society like the Masons or the Elks?

And what about their wives and families?   There are no family plots or anyone else in the whole row, just the men.

Or is Woodmen of the World a group that has a lot of money, and these fancy markers were installed later?

You've got to admit, they're unique.  Those Woodmen take care of their own.

monsoon returns to Albuquerque

Spring weather was unusual this year, so we began to be concerned about the summer monsoon.  Would it arrive?  Would we be the victims of another La Nina and get no rain at all?  Or would we sit here like we did in 2005 and watch it rain all around us but never here?

Not to worry--the rains have now arrived.  Last night we walked up the street to dinner and it started to rain.  By the time we were done, it was raining buckets, and the water was shooting out of the canales off the rooftops onto the sidewalks and street below.

When it rains here, it rains very hard and very fast.

(This is a picture of the Cristobal Armijo house, built sometime around 1880-86.  Originally, it was built in Queen Anne/Italianate styles with fan-shaped gingerbread around the posts under the portal.)

Amusing stories from Albuquerque history

My posting lately has been rather spotty.  After a long day's work, I've been going home and reading Albuquerque:  A Narrative History by Marc Simmons.  What an amazing book!  I'm deep into the time period when the people I'm researching lived, and their names crop up frequently.  So far I have four pages of notes just referencing them and the page numbers they're on so I can go back and capture those stories.

The trouble with reading after a long day's work is that I don't get very far before falling asleep, especially if I'm trying to pay attention as the paths of these people cross.  Sometimes the same page gets read several nights in a row.

I've written several posts on our innkeeping blog, "View from the Innside," taken from the pages of this book.  They are quite hilarious; this is definitely the case where stories from real life are more amusing than anything anyone could make up.

My favorites so far are "1880's justice in Albuquerque" and "an evening at the Albuquerque Opera House, 1883."  Click here to go over to the other blog. 

Weems International Artfest 2009

Do you want to see and perhaps purchase some great art and meet the artists?  The Weems International Artfest is the best place I know to see art of all kinds in one place.  Paintings, pottery, jewelry, hand-turned wooden bowls, sculpture, hand-woven shawls and hand-painted scarves, you name it--they've got it.  The booths are manned by the artists themselves, who are delighted to talk about their art, techniques and the artistic process.  It's a great place to buy great Christmas gifts for those special people in your life.

Janet Napolitano, United States Secretary of Homeland Security, is this year's honoree at the awards ceremony on Friday night, November 13th, at 7:00 p.m.  She'll be introduced by New Mexico's former long-time Senator Pete Domenici.  Past honorees include author Tony Hillerman, photographer Kim Jew, and New Mexico Symphony conductor Guillermo Figueroa.  Ms. Napolitano has been a great supporter of the Weems International Artfest.

You may even be the highest bidder on a great piece of art at the silent auction held during the Artfest.  There are twelve works in the auction this year, and the auction proceeds go to benefit three charities.

When:  Nov. 13-15:  Friday 10-9, Saturday 10-6, Sunday 10-5

Where:  at Expo New Mexico, Manuel Lujan Building, 300 San Pedro NE (near Central Avenue and Louisiana Blvd.)

Cost:  $5.00 admission ($4.00 for seniors 65+, free for children under 12), plus $4.00 parking

Personal story:  About four years ago, we were fortunate to have a very good friend give us tickets to the preview on Thursday night, which included a reception for the awards honorees.  I noticed Tony Hillerman looking at me from across the room several times.  I soon realized that I was dressed in red from head to toe, and black was definitely the color of the evening, so I stood out like a fully-decorated Christmas tree among the live trees in a U-Cut lot!

Church of Beethoven--sign me up as a member!

This morning I finally had the opportunity to attend the Church of Beethoven, which convenes every Sunday at 10:30 a.m. 

I was intrigued by their description posted on an Albuquerque calendar of events:  "weekly chamber music and spoken word performances by professional musicians and poets.  Concise and varied programs washed down with great espresso drinks." 

And the slogan on their website:  "church minus the religion."

It's in a former warehouse/industrial building on Fifth Street just south of I-40, and the space is now called The Kosmos.  I wasn't quite sure what to expect, but it's a nice performance space that has been cleaned and painted, with a small stage at one end and rows of folding chairs.  It's at the end of the building and the roof starts to slope down, so with the exposed beams and the shape, it reminds me of the "ark" type roof adopted by many Lutheran churches, including the past two of which we have been members.  They also have a translucent "stained glass" fabric over the windows, so it takes little imagination to envision it as a church.

The program was absolutely delightful and lasted for about an hour.  It began with an operatic performance of "A Hand of Bridge," Op. 35 composed by Samuel Barber is 1959.  The performers were Thomas Munro, Matt Amend, Nilam Brown and Essence Johnson of the UNM Opera Theatre, accompanied by Ivan Koska on piano.  I had never heard this piece before.  Four people are playing a hand of bridge, and the lyrics are the thoughts of each of the players as they sit at the table.  While Barber composed some fabulous "serious" music, it's nice to know he had such an interesting sense of humor.

That was followed by a reading by Anthony Hunt of selected American poems, so I heard "A Certain Slant of Light" by Emily Dickinson, Section 6 of "Song of Myself" by Walt Whitman, and a work of T.S. Eliot (I didn't catch the title).  It made me want to go read more works by those poets.  Isn't that the point of exposure to culture and art?

A celebration of silence lasted for two minutes, which seemed to be a nod to the "church" part of the program.

A delightful string quartet performed the Quartet No. 12 in F major, Op. 96 by Antonin Dvorak.  ("Hey--I know this piece!"  I know and appreciate fine classical music--I've just never been able to remember titles or composers.)  The four movements were "allegro ma non troppo" (quickly but not too much), "lento" (slowly), "molto vivace" (very lively), and "vivace ma non troppo (lively but not too much).  I looked those up in an online Italian-English dictionary.  It was performed by David Felberg and Roberta Arruda on violins, Ikoku Kanda on viola, and James Holland on cello.  It was as fine a performance as any chamber music concert I've ever attended.

There is one more thing that happened which added to my extreme delight in the morning.  Soon after the performance began, a black pug trotted out of the audience seating area and through a door into a back room.  Ah--the "job dog" as our family calls them.  He obviously belongs to someone who works there or operates the place and has the run of the building.  I didn't see him for a while.  Then, during the "lento" section of the Dvorak piece (remember, this is the "slow" and "solemn" movement), the pug came wandering through the audience between people's legs and under chairs, surreptitiously sampling any drinks or food from the dishes people had set on the floor.  He finished the last dregs of the espresso of the lady sitting next to me, then lapped up water from the glass of the woman in the row in front of me.  I was trying to be quiet, but I was laughing so hard my shoulders were shaking and my eyes were watering!

There was more entertainment involved and just about as much serenity as in any church service I've ever attended.  I could tell that a lot of the people attending (it was packed) were regulars, and, just like after a real church service, they lingered to talk and have coffee after the performance was over.

Sign me up as a member of the Church of Beethoven!

Where:  1715 Fifth Street NW, Albuquerque, New Mexico

When:  Sundays at 10:30 a.m.

Cost:  $15 per person

Extra:  frequent attender passes available, volunteers wanted, and a jar is designated for "offerings to the Kosmos."

The Grecian Festival in Albuquerque

While the first weekend in October may be the start of the Albuquerque International Balloon Fiesta, it's also the weekend of the Grecian Festival.  We were able to go for the first time on Saturday evening.

It's held at St. George Greek Orthodox Church at 308 High Street SE in Albuquerque.  I think we arrived at just the right time--between a busy afternoon and the evening rush.  The line to get in seemed fairly long (about 20 people at the time) but it moved quickly.

While standing in line, Steve noticed the shirts that some of the workers were wearing.  You can guess what the front says.  The back is obviously a reference to the movie My Big Fat Greek Wedding and says in Greek, "put some Windex on it."  If you haven't seen that movie, you should.  It's really fun and gives some insight into Greek Americans.

The first thing we did was look inside the church, which was open to the public.  What a beautiful place!  They had a number of incredible mosaics on the walls and a spectacular altar area.

The focal point of this festival is the food--holy cow!  I think they're doing it right.  You don't purchase the food directly but buy tickets, then they tell you how many tickets each item takes.  It's sort of like the state fair where you buy tickets for the rides, and the rides take different numbers of tickets.  All of the classic Greek foods were there--souvlaki, spanakopita, gyros, rice pilaf, those wonderful potato wedges with the Greek spices, Greek salad, and some others I've never heard of.  Drinks could be picked up at the exit of the food area, and the cashiers took the appropriate numbers of tickets for what you picked up.  It's a good system, since it keeps the food servers from having to handle the tickets or money.  The lines moved fairly quickly.  They were out of some of the food items at the time, and one server said people were coming in quicker than they could restock the big pans of food.  Good for them!  I'm happy that so many people came to their festival.

The church grounds are larger than I expected, and there were a lot more people than I anticipated, but everyone seemed to be having a good time.  As I said, this was all about the food, and they had plenty of tables and chairs everywhere.

In the parish hall were items for sale, like paintings, specialty Greek food items that you can't find in the grocery store, a raffle, and--best of all--the pastry items in the corner.  We bought extra tickets so we could take home a box of baklava.

At the rear of the church was the main tent, again filled with lots of tables and chairs, some stadium bleachers, and a very large dance floor and stage.  They mixed up the dancing, periodically having dancers in Greek costumes doing various demonstration dances, then calling "everybody dance!"  I was watching some of the fancy footwork, which they could do quite well but looked very complex to me.  Given enough ouzo, I might have attempted some dancing, but this was a non-alcoholic event.

Even our mayor, who is running for re-election, showed up to make an appearance.  I thought he might have scored more popularity points if he had gone out on the dance floor and at least attempted one of the line dances.

Before leaving, we had someone take our picture in the obligatory cut-out board.  During the Grecian Festival, everyone gets to be Greek!

Opa!

ready or not, here it comes!

The Albuquerque International Balloon Fiesta starts on Saturday, so our first group of guests comes in on Friday.  So much to do, so little time!

All year long, it seems so far off.  Then suddenly, it's next week!  It's tomorrow!  It's like Christmas that way.

Tomorrow we have rooms to clean to get ready for all the check-ins, put the traffic cones in our parking spaces, make scones and get ready for breakfast on Saturday at 4:45 a.m.  Print out the Balloon Fiesta information packets, answer lots of questions, check the weather forecast, put out the breakfast sign-up sheet.

The best reward is what's turned out to be an annual tradition--seeing everyone off to the Balloon Fiesta, then going to the Frontier Restaurant for a breakfast burrito and one of their famous cinnamon rolls.

pardon me, boy--is this the Albuquerque Trolley?

What could be finer on a late summer afternoon or evening than riding the ABQ Trolley around Albuquerque?  That's what most of the Albuquerque bed & breakfast owners did, along with a few guests and family members.

I'm sure you've known those perfect summer evenings when the temperature was just right, a gentle breeze was blowing, and everyone was having a wonderful time.  Diners were sitting outside some of the restaurants we passed ("let's give a shout out to the folks at Kelly's!")

Even innkeepers can learn some new things about their own city, and Mike and Jesse gave a superb tour of Albuquerque, taking us into some areas and streets not frequented by the average tourist.  Among the many great things we saw were the neon lights on Central Avenue (Route 66), some vintage cars that looked right at home, many historic buildings, the University of New Mexico, the two amazing houses on Girard Avenue built by world-famous Albuquerque architect Bart Prince, the new "old" castle built by Gertrude Zachary, the Railrunner trains in the rail yard lit by spotlights, the Barelas District...   too much to name here!

They also regaled us with some stories about their own experiences operating the ABQ Trolley, which has been running since May of this year.  The story I liked best was the wedding party that booked the Trolley as their ride all the way to the Audubon garden in Santa Fe for their wedding, complete with a mariachi band in the back seats!  What a hoot!

We even shouted the official UNM Lobo cheer:  after someone calls out "Everyone's a Lobo!" everyone shouts "woof, woof, woof" and howls "ah-ooooooooooooooo..." with appropriate hand gestures, of course.  That would be raising your hand in the air with fingers spread and curling the middle two fingers down with each "woof!"

Taking the ABQ Trolley tour of Albuquerque is a great way to get an idea of the many things to do and see in "Duke City."  It certainly lives up to their slogan:  "The best first thing to do in Albuquerque."

another historic Albuquerque building is gone

Several weeks ago we smelled smoke after 10:00 at night.  We threw on some clothes and went outside to make sure it wasn't our place or any of our neighbors' houses or our business. 

As we walked down Central Avenue with our neighbor, the sight was incredible.  Central was closed off, and fire trucks and ambulances were all around the intersection of 15th Street trying to put out the fire in an apartment building.  Smoke was billowing, ash was blowing, and flames were coming out the windows.  The fire trucks were using huge hoses and water cannons to get water into the building.  Fortunately for us, the wind shifted around and blew the smoke in another direction for the rest of the night and next day, but our townhouse smelled like smoke for a while.

It was the historic Castle Apartments building that burned, a lovely building with 20 apartments, surrounded by huge shady trees.  We used to live one street over and passed by it all the time.  It was the kind of place I thought I'd like to live in.

The next day we went over and talked to a neighbor up the street as we watched the water cannons continue to pour water on it and a waterfall streamed out the front door.  He said it was the kind of place that never had a vacancy--as soon as someone gave notice, they had someone waiting to move in.

Now it's just an empty shell.  I wonder if they'll be able to save any of the walls, all that's left.  It's bad enough to lose a great historic building to "urban renewal" or neglect, but to lose a well-kept landmark to a horrific fire that leaves 20 families without homes and destroys everything they own is just sad.