Now we pause for a word~

I flew out  to meet Gin and Max on Sunday (not my usual choice—the Sunday part—but it was afternoon, after we’d all made it to church), and so faced having to fill up a long afternoon with restful and spiritual thoughts.  So we drove to the Albuquerque  temple where we sat in the grass (the last grass I was to see for three days), trying to be restful and peaceful while Max made every effort to recover from the three days of endless airline flights and driving and house hunting they’d already done.

On Monday morning, we were here.

Each day, Native American artisans draw for places along this esplanade (is that the right word?) outside the Governor’s Palace in the Plaza at Santa Fe.  They put down blankets and lay out their wares, some of which are beautiful and terribly tempting.  Some of our favorite treasures have come  from this market over the years.

She SO almost sold me a $135 silver and bead bracelet.  But I kept thinking of all the food we’d have to give up—

This store is a brick and mortar establishment that lives along one of the other three sides of the Plaza.  It carries everything from original Native American artists’ things to Chinese knock-offs priced for kids’ souvenir hunting. I’ve bought a couple of nice fetishes from this place (small stone carvings originally meant to represent the animals of the sacred directions – like the mole, who is beneath, or the eagle which is above).

On this visit, I also found wonderful folk wood carvings of deer and horses, simple and pure of line and looking very  like somebody just threw a bucket of ice water in their faces.  If you squint hard—just behind the woman’s right elbow (HER right) and just under the lamp, you can see the deer I really wanted.  He was a little big for my carry-on bag, so I ended up buying a smaller bay horse with a carefully combed wool mane and tail, and that same wonderfully astonished look.

Cruising the Plaza stores.

This pained look is entirely because I am taking her picture.

Here is one of the presents (read: bribes) I brought for Max.  It’s a collapsable travel cup I got in Arlington at the Container Store.  My mom gave me one when I was pretty young, a red one that I was fascinated with always (so where is it now, I wonder?).  And the thing was a hit with Max: he turned it into a million things, most of which made it totally unfit for using as an actually drinking cup.  He even slept with it.  SCORE ONE FOR GRAM!!

Max auditioned at least three schools—and never got to actually try out the equipment at any of them.  So, I mean, what was the point?  This is one of the El Dorado public playgrounds, and when we got there, you can bet he tried out EVERYTHING.

If you look just behind him, you can see one of the houses typical of this area—very traditional SouthWest.

This is the first house we looked at Monday (Gin’s fourth house, I think).  It was small, but sat on over an acre of what New Mexico-ans evidently like to call “country.”  (The rest of us call it scrubby desert and immediately put up fences to keep out coyotes.) Both the house and its owner were quintessential Sante Fe – the house for its architecture and funky, artsy interior, the owner for her mellow niceness and interestingly eclectic, organic world experience.

The kitchen; very cool things hanging from hooks over the counter.

Shannon and Tasha.  The front patio.  Tasha is a twelve year old long haired German Shepherd mix (mixed with what, I wonder?)  There is a wire-walled pen behind the house where Tasha can sit outside and swear at the coyotes who sit on the other side of the wire and taunt her.  But her best thing is playing ball fetch through the sage and juniper.

This was Max’s favorite house.  For two reasons:

This mighty treehouse.

And Tasha.  Max didn’t even notice how round and gentle the light in the house was, tumbling in from outside and mellowed by brick and adobe.

This was the second house we looked at.  Same theme, different verse.  This one had a small back patio/rock garden, surrounded by a nice, thick, four and a half foot adobe wall.  Coyotes may sit on the other side of it, but they cannot taunt you so easily.  The dog door, which leads out to an unfenced patio, is blocked off.  Wonder why.

Oddly, this house has been lived in by a family of two dentists (and children).  Not that this is a total coincidence, considering that there is only one dentist in Gin’s family.  An MBA does not license you to pull teeth, only to keep track of how many are pulled.  And interestingly, the wife, Ashley, is a dentist who married a business school grad from Utah – and the bizzy husband turned dentist afterwards. Converted, I guess you could say.   Laws (she said, using an archaic exclamation), the diversity of lives.  I wonder if Ginna will eventually convert?

And the very nice, open kitchen/dining areas.  I LOVED the living areas of this house – light, airy and with all those logs striping the ceiling.  I’m not fond of hard flooring of any kind, but this brick somehow seemed kinda warm.

And one last shot: Max, checking out one last school.

I think he liked it.