You must be worried sick about where I’ve been. Wondering…have I been in a car accident? Have I been kidnapped and held for ransom? Have I thrown in my apron and abandoned the blog ship? Calm down, it’s nothing like that. So, just exactly where have I been? Well grab a glass of wine, have a seat, and let me tell you all about what’s going on – it’s A LOT.
First of all, I’m back in Dallas and have been for weeks now – since September 7th to be exact. I know it’s a really long time to be somewhere new without telling you. I had this really great post planned about how the only thing left in my refrigerator at the end of summer at the cabin were two bags of green beans.
See the green beans? They’re up there by the wine, above the box of left over pizza. I know it’s a bit of an exaggeration saying the only thing left in the refrigerator were green beans, but the other stuff bumping around in that near empty fridge, didn’t really constitute anything of substance. I mean how much can you do with Bubbies Pickles, orange juice, hummus, and yogurt? OK, you can do a lot with yogurt, but you know what I mean.
I also had tons of garlic left from the Taos Farmer’s Market, so I was going to whip up my garlic green beans for you just before heading back to Dallas. Obviously that never happened or you would be adding garlic green beans to your weekly round of sides to go along with dinners. I promise to make them for you soon!
Instead of making garlic green beans, photographing the process, and writing a gripping account of the whole experience, I spent the last week at the cabin, soaking up all of the things I love about the cabin and doing a bunch of other stuff like…Hiking to the top of our mountain.
And walking around and around the path in our front yard to admire all of the beautiful wild flowers my wife planted last summer.
And celebrating our best friend’s engagement and New Mexico’s legalizing of gay marriage.
And stacking two cords of wood.
Have you ever stacked two cords of wood? It’s A LOT of work!
And after all of that fun and manual labor, it was time to drive back to Texas and there was no time left to make garlic green beans. So, I know you can do the math and realize that something is still missing in this equation since that drive back to the prairie happened 23 days ago. I promise I have some good explanations for what I’ve been doing the last three weeks.
First of all, Rhonda and I made a huge, life-changing, world tilting on its axis kind of decision this summer. We’ve sold our house here in Dallas and are moving to the cabin – kind of. We still have to come back to Dallas every four weeks or so because, lets face it, money does make the world go round, and we aren’t quite ready for retirement yet. We have a booming business to run that is located here in this metropolis on the prairie so monthly business trips will ensue. But, when we aren’t in this urban oasis, we’ll spend our time in Taos and begin working on our very rough diamond of a victorian house in New Orleans. I cannot wait for that project to begin. Did I mention it’s a diamond in the very roughest sense of the word. I mean rough!
The first two weeks of being back home in Dallas, I began the agonizing chore of packing up our house, our garage, and the garage apartment.
This is not a task for the faint of heart – Rhonda has lived here for 12 years, and I joined her two years later. We’ve been in treasure hunting and gathering mode ever since. We can collect some junk now let me tell you! My dining room has turned into a thrift store ready for the gigantic estate sale I’m having in October. It frightens me to even walk in there. In fact, at this point, I can hardly even get in there to walk.
My living room has become a store house for things going to storage until the day we can move them to New Orleans.
Yep, you got it right, those are mummies in the corner. I told you we’re collectors of treasures. Thankfully we’ve already sold some larger furniture items (notice the absence of dining room and living room furniture), but we are a long way from gone from this house!
So, back to the math, if I’ve been home for three weeks and packed for two, then what in the world have I been doing with myself for the past week? Lady troubles! Yep, you read that right, I said lady troubles. What does that mean? That means I had to have lady surgery – you know the one, the Big H as I’ve dubbed the entire experience. It’s true, I wouldn’t make this stuff up. Look, here’s proof.
I’m surprised by how happy I look in this photo considering it was just prior to being wheeled off to surgery, and I was really anxious about the whole thing. I mean who wouldn’t be anxious about having some of their insides removed along with a fibroid tumor I named Loretta, which was the size of a small grapefruit? By the way, I think the anesthesiologist had already begun pumping my veins full of happy juice when this photo was taken.
Anyway, the surgery was smooth sailing and “textbook” according to my gynecologist. I won’t horrify you with a photo of the ugly, alien looking thing they took out of me, but I do have a photo thanks to my wife who asked my doctor to text it to her. I’m surprised she didn’t ask if we could take Loretta home in a specimen jar. Actually, I would’ve liked to add Loretta to my collection of weird possessions. For example, she could have been displayed somewhere near our two headed taxidermy cow and our newest addition a tiny mouse deer head.
I’m a week and a day into recovery and writing to you from my “Frida bed” – it’s the name my friend Chuck and I have given to the antique murphy bed in my den. When not being used as a bed, this hulking piece of furniture looks like an amour with a mirror on the front complete with victorian wood carving. Here it is the minute I spotted it at Canton’s East Texas First Monday Trade Days.
But instead of opening up to a cupboard for linens and old quilts it folds down into a double bed. It is absolute antique perfection! We’ve nicknamed it the “Frida bed” because I feel kind of like Frida Kahlo in this ornate bed in the middle of my den receiving visitors. It’s true – the only thing is the mirror is under me and out of sight rather than above me. See for yourself:
Rhonda even decorated the headboard with a garland of ivy and hyacinth vine from our garden. As I said, I’m writing to you from that bed right now and awaiting my evening guests who are joining me for happy hour at six. Who has happy hour while they’re recovering? Well, I do – look, I feel better, I just can’t ride in a car yet, and I’m supposed to lay in bed for another week. I thought, why not organize a party and have my friends over for some much needed drinks. That way I can have some fun and entertainment that doesn’t involve Wife Swap or Unsolved Mysteries. Think back to the movie about Frida – remember when her friends took her in her bed to that party? Same thing here, only my friends are coming to me, and I’m staying in the bed! Maybe I should have thought this through a little more and gotten flowers for my hair.
Anyway, it might be a few weeks before you actually get any recipes out of me since once this whole recovery fiasco is over I have to get back to the drudgery of packing, but I promise you’ll be hearing from me sometime soon. Whew, I sure am glad we’re all caught up now, and you can relax knowing I haven’t abandoned the blog wagon!
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I’ve been busy, and it hasn’t had anything to do with cooking. See that picture? That’s Rhonda and our dusty dogs – Ellie, Bella, and Leroy hiking in the high desert outside of town this week. The temperatures have been mild – in the 30’s & 4o’s during the day – and that bright New Mexico sun hangs high warming the afternoons pretty much daily. I have to get outside and be in that sunshine everyday or else – you know emotionality! This week, at the Dusty Dog, the sun has dipped down behind the mountain around 3:49 every afternoon, so my opportunity to commune with the sunshine is limited – not that I’m actually monitoring the situation that closely.
That’s the Rio Grande Gorge Bridge you see there in the distance as seen from the West Rim Trail. That snake of black under the bridge is the Rio Grande slicing through the deep canyon.
