It Was A Quiet Week in

Silver City. No, really! No pictures, even. After weekends of Blues Festival, Rodeo, trip to Tucson, this was a quiet week. Allowing me to collect a few small observations to tag in my memory. Downtown Silver City on Saturday, after a meditation service, we did what people enjoy doing in small towns…

• We went into Dianne’s for freshly-baked bread – whole wheat molasses flaxseed, in this instance. I usually get either the cinnamon raisin or cranberry walnut for breakfast toast, but this week the cinnamon raisin didn’t come out well and the cranberry walnut doesn’t come out at all until Sunday. Nick got a slice of house pizza – 1 ½ inches thick, bready “crust,” piled with vegetables – at 10:30 am.
  
• We walked down to Javalina for coffee, but decided against sitting in the sun in the Adirondack chairs on the sidewalk in favor of walking back up to the Farmer’s Market before they closed.
  
• Nick stopped back up at the car for something, while I went on to the market. This market doesn’t have fruits and vegetables – not yet, anyway – but there was a couple from Hatch, NM. Hatch is the self-proclaimed Chile Capital of the World. Rightly so, and a wonderful little town; we drove through there down from Albuquerque coming to Silver a couple of years ago. Do you have any idea how many types of chile peppers there are?
  
• I bought ground MILD red chile pepper and a bag of dried green chile peppers. You need to know that the state motto is: “Red or Green?” Added those to my container of hot red chile (ground) given me by Skee and my locally-grown ground Chipotle purchased at the hippie store (the Food Coop). I hope to learn to cook appropriately with these colors-flavors-heats. Am already experimenting a little with hot chile and chipotle on grilled chicken wings. Pretty good! Better than, well maybe not, but differently-good than my famous grilled wings back in MD. Now curious about whether there’s such a thing as Southwestern Spaghetti Sauce.
  
• Also bought, from the same Hatch couple, a bag of paper-shell pecans. Pecans is one (bad English, I know, but logical in this case) of the big cash crops of NM. These are smaller than the pecans, also paper-shell, grown by my grandfather and sent in large boxes to my mom when I was growing up. I think I bought them in-shell as much in recollection as anything. Funny, though, that I always just hated having to shell them as a kid; never could get those nuts out in whole halves.
  
• Nick joined me, and as we walked down the row of vendors, we were greeted by an acquaintance we met at several WILL courses (Western Institute of Lifelong Learning). As I’ve observed before, there is a core of people that attend different courses through WILL, and you see them time and again. But it was nice to be hailed by a new friend. We chatted for some little time, and then went along our way.
  
• We went into a “mall” of antique and collectible vendors that we’ve not visited before, and wandered around a bit. Neither Nick nor I are inveterate shoppers, but we do like to peruse, occasionally, the unusual and unexpected. And we found a coffee table that Nick liked a lot and I liked ok; it was hand-carved in Mexico, appeared to have some age, made of oak, I think, and was interesting in its details. It was priced reasonably, and since we can always use an occasional table here or in a new house, we bought it.
  
• Heading back to our car, to go ‘round and pick up the table, we were hailed again by a couple we’ve met and of whom we have become fond. Fortuitously so. Saturday happened to be Nick’s birthday AND the birthday of another friend mutual to us and the couple just encountered. We had planned to get the birthday babies together later at Isaac’s and had left messages for this couple to join us. And here they were, with a ready answer and a free evening.
  
• After a little time at home to walk and feed Nutmeg, blow the dust off things a bit – a lick-and-a-promise, as my mother used to say -- and position the new table, we went back down to town and settled into Isaac’s front window seating. Eventually, all six of us were there, and the toasts (beer or soda) were raised in health, birthday cards were passed, and wishes well-wished. Because I had been carrying around my bag of green AND red chiles, our friends took advantage to give Nick a recipe book of New Mexico cooking.
  
  I have to tell you that, on the heels of Saturday, I feel as though we are becoming part of a community. Feels good.
  
  And the icing? I had to deal with some computer problems today, so took the day off. I chose today in part because I was invited by another new friend (but connected to the co-birthday-celebrant) to lunch “with the girls” so that I could begin to meet and extend my connections in the community. What a pleasure to sit and be part of a circle of companionship.
  
  Wishing you fair Saturdays and warm friendships, ss