I must confess I like snow Albuquerque-style. Which is to say
"Hey, did you see the snow?"
"No, I was in the bathroom."
If I have to have snow, that's the kind of snow I prefer. As in not much and not for long. Yes, it's lovely up there on the mountain, and it's even pretty to look at in the city so long as I'm indoors looking out at it. Walking in it, traveling in it, not so much. Annoying. Hellish, even. I prefer to set out across a parking lot relatively secure in the belief that I'll make it to the car without risking head trauma or a shattered elbow. The aesthetic pleasure is not worth my deductible. Once a few years ago I was trapped indoors for three days when a freak snow storm dumped on Portland. The city ground to a muffled halt and many businesses (including my employer) closed to wait for the thaw. All of our friends lived in the same apartment community, which was situated at the top of a fairly steep hill that made travel precarious, so our apartment became the hub of activity. These were very good friends, see, and I still considered eating them if the food ran out, less for the nutrients than for the quiet. The joy of snow is lost on me, is what I'm trying to convey.
I'm dreaming of a dry Xmas. Yeah, call me a grinch. Now watch. Our arrival here in Albuquerque will coincide with five or more years' worth of 2006-level snowfalls. To those snow-lovers among you: you're welcome.
In the "Is thems the thoughts of cows?" department of Continued Education, the missus and I have decided to learn Spanish, with the aid of a workbook I discovered at Goodwill. I say "have decided", present tense, because we purchased the book two weeks ago and have thus far only managed to identify a few household objects ("¿Que es eso?" "Eso es la lampara!"). Any qualitative progress at this point is nil. We always seem to find something else we'd rather do or must be done. It's disheartening to find at the age of fifty that I'm no better a student than I was in high school, but then again, having abused my hearing with Led Zeppelin on earphones turned up to eleven, smoking my brains out for thirty years, and here and there drinking way more than is good for me, it's really no mystery as to why my cognitive skills aren't quite as elastic as they once allegedly were. Still, it slightly galls me that, other than our eighteen years in the Northwest, I've spent most of my life in environments (Puerto Rico, Texas) where it would have been so easy to apply myself to learning Spanish and instead just frittered away the opportunities.
I suppose we're lucky to try to learn it here; from what I've been told, the style of Spanish spoken in Albuquerque is a style that's not afraid to take it's time. In contrast, one young volunteer I know at my workplace has intimated that Mexican Spanish is spoken at breakneck speed, leaving newly-educated speakers confused and wallowing. At any rate, I should actually just be content if I can learn to muddle my way to Spanglish, which to my understanding is a mutually-agreed-upon compromise, but that's not my goal. I really hope to speak it thoroughly and well enough to avoid barks of laughter. I think I have the accent down, anyway.
(What is quite interesting is that it's immediately apparent which words in English and Spanish share a common root -- "lampara"/"lamp", "pintura"/"picture" -- and which do not, like "reloj"/"clock", the word "clock" actually being derived from Celtic origins. Yes, this blog seeks to educate as well.)
Today we are going to the Verizon store to drop off the wife's cellphone charger and manual for the phone she donated yesterday. We'd gone there yesterday to have my old cellphone converted to her number since she hated hers and liked mine, which I in turn hated and had opted to replace (I'm so over the clamshell flip style, so I bought a snazzy new flat one. Pause for yawns.) After that, the missus wants to take a tour of the Nob Hill area. We like to drive (or better yet walk when the opportunity exists) different neighborhoods when we can, because we'd rather be residents of a city than just residents of one neighborhood in a city. I'm a bit hamstrung when it comes to navigation due to a malady I like to call directional dyslexia, so I'm very happy to be living where there's a conveniently looming mountain with which to orientate. Along with fluidez en español*, we also would like to have a good overall knowledge of Albuquerque, because who knows when we'll move next and where? I'd like to think that any area in this city is a potential home. Oh, yeah, about that...
...we'll most likely be moving AGAIN into another apartment on the ground floor soon after the first of the year, this time because SWMBO has decided she should get over her security anxieties for the sake of becoming weary and fed up with trudging up and down a flight of stairs bearing laundry and groceries. This is fine with me except
(A), the cats will have to be leashed when they venture out to the patio ("cats" and "leashed" are funny together in any sentence in ANY language, unless of course you're the one doing the leashing/unleashing, so laugh it up), and
(2), my bicycle will have to come indoors, I don't care if I have to take it's place chained up out on the patio. Which is quite likely, should I choose to wage that particular battle with my formidable spouse. As a former Portlander, I'm conditioned to believe that leaving my machine out of sight is an invitation to grief. No. Way.
The floor plan the missus wants happens to be the same as the one just vacated across the breezeway from us. Talk about a dead-easy move. But it's still upstairs. Dammit.
Time to become productive, lest I gather the disapproving gaze of my mate as she bustles about behind me in a house-keeping frenzy. L8trzville.
(* I cut and pasted that from a Spanish translation website. I'm lazy but honest.)
