Cooling my webs: Taos, Albuquerque, Datil, and Elephant Butte (New Mexico)

Our mothers may have done crosswords puzzles to stave off dementia. I'll be switching between electronic devices, trying to remember which one holds that picture, the only one that could possibly convey my intention.  I got my first smartphone recently. It's the phone that is smart; the users are merely compliant.

After May in Big Bend, I spent a lovely week with my girlfriend in Taos. We fondled and feted four feisty felines, toured the area, almost got our fill of Chinese food, and I spent my birthday strolling through Arroyo Seco. Janice treated me to lunch at the Taos Cow.

The past two weeks allowed me to show off my rustic cabin in Datil. Although the North and Dog Head fires were being naughty, and a high-pressure inversion made the air rating "campfire" quality for a day or two, it was a success. We made some engineering breakthroughs, but it remains a cabin without running water. My father-in-law used to say, "The only way to improve a wheelbarrow is to put a rubber tire on it." He said that when he noticed me applying lipstick.

My friend Mike, confided his fear for me that I might be succumbing to inertia. It's true that I haven't been Prius-dwelling, even overnight, in several months. In a separate-but-related conversation, Janice suggested that I might benefit from fiddling with my serotonin levels. My thanks to both of them, because there are things I can't always see from in here.

Continental Divide. Separates the full-breakfast crowd from the toast-and-coffee people.

I've begun reevaluating Prius camping for hacks that will allow me to enjoy those comforts, while remembering that I'm safe and option-rich. Making my bed more comfortable, for example, or deciding that I will eat well and drink good coffee. I admit that there is some residual body-terror associated with my time spent living in my car, even though objectively, it was a time filled with wonder, self-discovery, and successful peeing through a funnel.


This month, June 2016, my beautiful son married a beautiful woman with two beautiful children; I believe that makes me a beautiful mother-in-law and a beautiful grandmother!