Thanksgiving Greetings

Thanksgiving has just past and I was too full and too sleepy Thanksgiving evening to sit at the computer. I would have been typing with my forehead if I had tried! We hope that your Thanksgiving was full of turkey or ham, pie, mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes, good veggies, maybe a little good wine, and especially family and friends. If you’re not tired of my musings yet, here’s a 3-week status report.

Family and friends

We had Thanksgiving dinner with our friends Steph and her mom Skee at Skee’s house, along with their extended family. There were 15 of us. I showed off my pie-skills, contributing a homemade apple pie and pumpkin pie. Have to get used to cooking with different kinds of apples and squash -- yes, actually my “pumpkin” pie has always been made with squash. This year it was a butternut, since the types I’m familiar with back East aren’t found here. We ate too much. We were hugged often and well. Felt wonderful.

We were fortunate to have our first back-home visitors today. Our next-door neighbors from Comus Rd were visiting their son, his wife and their granddaughter, Rory, in Alamogordo for Thanksgiving – both are in the Air Force – and drove up to see us today. It was a long drive for them (almost 3 hours each way) for a plate of spaghetti and a tour of both our home and town, and we were so pleased to see them and show off a little; not the spaghetti, maybe, but the town. I hope we sent them home with the impression that we might have moved west, but it’s not entirely wild here. There’s a good cup of coffee in a nice coffee house, and they duly noted the restaurant advertising fine wines and microbrews. Todd figured that was all a decent town needed.

Habitat for Humanity

We did attend the dedication for the new house built by Habitat last weekend. We met a bunch of people who have been involved in Habitat activities here, whether building the house or working at the Habitat Re-Store or both. I enjoyed meeting and talking with folks, and learned that almost everyone is here from somewhere else. Some folks have been here 3 or 4 years, and some as many as 10, but I don’t think we met anyone, except the family for whom the house was built, who are locals.

Then, we met the couple for breakfast the next day who invited us to the dedication, Gerry and Sue. That was lots of fun, especially since they knew most everyone who came into the little restaurant. But then the restaurant was in the gallery district, across the street from Sue’s gallery and most of the people to whom Gerry and Sue introduced us were artists/gallery owners.

Nicky will start volunteering at the Re-Store on Wednesday and work their weekday hours, which are Wed, Thurs and Fri, 1-4 pm. I’m going to be really curious to see what that’s like for him.

Community stuff

Last night we attended the Christmas parade in town. Fun and different for us. The parade was to start at 7 pm. We got there at 6:45 (!) and still got a place to park about 1 1/2 blocks from the parade route (!!). They stopped all vehicle traffic down the main street through town which was the parade route at 6:30 so by the time we arrived, it seemed that the entire town population of 12,000 was sitting on the curb, on lawn chairs or leaning against the buildings down the several blocks that the parade would pass. At every cross street, there were pick up trucks with their tailgates facing the main street, with families having tail gate parties. Promptly at 7 pm all the street lights were turned off, as were the lights in most of the businesses along the street. The parade was made up of floats – think Macy’s on a very small-town scale, and with no balloons. The floats usually consisted of a pickup truck pulling a flat trailer. On the flat bed imagine a living room scene with couch and/or rocking chairs and some form of fireplace with stockings hung, and everything strung with lights and filled to capacity with family members from little to older. There were a couple of exceptions, but that pretty well describes the majority of the 17 or so floats; all the floats were sponsored by some local business. There were two marching drum corps – one from the high school, one from the University, a bicycle troupe, a tumbling troupe and the local dance studio. Of course, Santa Claus put in an appearance. The parade lasted about 20 minutes. Then everyone wandered down the street, loaded their chairs and coolers into their trucks and headed off. We were with Steph, her sister, and some other friends, and we all headed for the Twisted Vine, the local wine bar for a glass of New Mexico wine.

There are some very interesting people who have found and settled in Silver City. At the Twisted Vine, we met a man named John (I either didn’t catch or don’t remember his last name). John and his wife moved back from France in 2000 or 2001 and settled in Silver City. The French couple with whom they were close friends in France came as well and settled here. John worked, we gather, with Dr. Jarvik of the artificial heart. Our interlocutor was a man named Robin who is a friend of Steph’s. Robin is himself a very interesting character who seems to know almost everyone in town thanks to volunteering “at just about everything that needed a volunteer” as he put it. At thanksgiving dinner, he was giving us a brief history of the town’s diversity, both the good (very open and accepting) and the too-bad (different cultures, e.g., Hispanic and white don’t mix much, if at all, outside of work – there is still significant segregation and bias).

This Wednesday, we will go to the first of several Christmas performance or choral pageants. This one is free and is being held at the Fine Arts Theatre at the University.

Outdoor stuff

We went for a hike on Saturday for about 2 ½ hours on National Forest land called Burrow Mountains with a small group. We didn’t get up into the mountains proper, but chose to follow a trail up a river valley. It was a beautiful day with temps about 58 and sunny. We packed a lunch and water; I carried my binoculars and bird book, but didn’t get to put either of them to much use. I’m learning I’m going to have to categorize my walks – Birding means no dogs and no other people unless they are also birders; Taking Nutmeg means no birding and moving at sniff-pace; Hiking means no dogs and no binoculars because the focus is on moving. Coming back down the trail, I tried to make a small jump from one rock to another where we were crossing the stream bed, but slipped. I fell ass over teakettle, scaring everyone else but me. I think it happened to fast to get frightened. I do remember thinking as I went upside and down that I sure hoped I wouldn’t hit anything vital on the rocks. And I didn’t. I can’t imagine how, but I didn’t hit my head, my hip, my shoulder, my elbow or anything – well, I did scrape my ankle slightly on a rock. Today I’m a little stiff, but 3 advil took care of that. And here we were worried about my diabetes… Now, I’m christened and no more falls are necessary for breaking me in.

This afternoon after Todd and Suzanne left, we grabbed Nutmeg and headed up to another point at the edge of the National Forest. We didn’t walk far because we were losing the light, but it was enough to whet our appetites to come back and explore. Today’s trip took us 15 minutes to the trail head. Saturday took about ½ hour. No wonder Silver City made the National Geographic’s list of best places for hiking and birding. You step out your backdoor and you’re at a trail head into the forest.

Amazing factoid

I’ll close with this amazing little fact. We filled the tank in the Volvo the 2nd day we were here. That was 3 weeks ago. We have used a little more than ½ of that tank of gas. And the Volvo is the only car we have right now, having given Nicky’s away back in September. I used to use a tank a week to commute. Now I put all my commuting miles on my slippers rather than my car. We’re now wondering just how far we can make a tank of gas last.

Wishing you a wonderful December. Love, Sonnie and Nicky