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Friday, June 16, 2023

Longmont, Colorado: The Perfectly Unaffordable Neighborhood

Pond on 9th Street, Longmont, Colorado. June 2023.
Pond on 9th Street, Longmont, Colorado. June 2023. Credit: Mzuriana.

 

I just discovered that Longmont's Prospect neighborhood was voted "coolest neighborhood" in the USA in 2002 by Dwell Magazine

A recent article, Who Can Afford America's Perfect Neighborhood? references Prospect's fame. 

I am put in mind of two communities where so many people work there, but can't afford to live in them: Boulder and Santa Fe. It's always seemed to me somehow just fucked up.

 

 

Note: The above photo is not in the Prospect Neighborhood.

Tuesday, June 13, 2023

Stuff: Still Releasing

 

Ice packs for cooler, June 2023. Credit: Mzuriana.
Ice packs for cooler, June 2023. Credit: Mzuriana.


Considering that all my stuff can fit into my car, I am chuckling to myself this month, as I finally let go of some odds and ends that I've been carrying around. There are no items so small that they can't get in one's way, eventually.

My three hard-sided ice packs

Jeez, I have schlepped these baby-blue blocks all over the damn place for years! And every blessed time I pull them out of my freezer to place in a cooler, I feel resentful and I have this exact thought: "Not only are these completely worthless to me once they are no longer cold, they continue to take up space after they're spent, and then I've got to carry them back, where I'll return them to the freezer where they will sit and do nothing some more.

The ice packs are now in the donation box here in my Longmont bedroom. 

The penultimate tipping point that foreshadowed their eviction: A while back I employed my new and wondrous strategy for keeping things cold in my coolers: glass jars that I fill with ice. When the ice melts, the water remains enclosed in the jar and I've got clean cold water I can drink, already in a vessel that I can drink from. But I can also use these jars to keep other liquids in, like soup. Or stuff I want to keep dry. They are multi-purpose. 

The final tipping point: Sister Murphy's freezer is already so full that I can barely squeeze in my frozen veggies, much less these prima donna ice packs. Consequently, they simply squat in my bedroom and do nothing.

Out you go! 

One-cup coffee bags from motel. Unknown vintage from past trip. Credit: Mzuriana.
One-cup coffee bags from motel. Unknown vintage from past trip. Credit: Mzuriana.

 

These three, individually wrapped, one-cup coffee packs from a motel

Who knows when I collected these coffee packs from a past road trip. The Lost Summer of 2021 maybe? No matter. What matters is that I don't need to collect this kind of shit anymore. Because:

  • I carry good instant coffee with me on any road trip, so all I need is water to make some good coffee. It doesn't even have to be hot water, sha.
  • I've even got some mediocre instant coffee in the single-cup sleeves.

This past Friday morning, I brewed all three baglets. 

Complete!  (As the Georgian police officer said at our supra in her Fiat. And, by the way, "fiat" comes from the Latin meaning: Let it be done!)


The pretty yet profligately wasteful swag, #1

I do love swag. I'm talking the freebies one gets from community fairs and the like that local organizations distribute to advertise their missions. 

I've put one new item in the donation box, with equal parts sadness and irritation. I loved everything about the item: 

  • The serene green exterior
  • The utility - we can always use a reusable cup, right?! 
  • How its size would let it so prettily in my car's cup holder. 

I mentally clapped my hands in childlike joy when I saw it on the tabletop of a community fair. "Are these free?" I asked. "Yes!" they said. "Oh!" I exclaimed in happy gladness, but in my head, the "oh" sounded like "ooooh!"

Reusable drink cup from Boulder County Board of Elections. May 2023. Credit: Mzuriana.
Reusable drink cup from Boulder County Board of Elections. May 2023. Credit: Mzuriana.

 

But later, upon my return to Murphy's, when I pulled the cup out of my sunflower-yellow knapsack (swag that I'd gotten in Las Cruces), to wash it before my first use, I saw this piece of paper inside: 

Washing instructions for cup. May 2023. Credit: Mzuriana.
Washing instructions for cup. May 2023. Credit: Mzuriana.

What. The. Fuck. 

I felt not only crestfallen, but pissed

I can only wash it by hand but I can put hot coffee in it, right? Right? Maybe? Maybe not? 

I can microwave it so that the contents might be super hot, right? Maybe? Maybe not? 

The moment the warning paper is gone from the cup, then no future user will have any clue that the cup can't be in the top rack of a dishwasher. Because there is NO WARNING on the cup itself. Furthermore: Many wheat straw products ARE dishwasher safe. 

Just not this one. 

To the Boulder County Elections Board: Fail

 

The pretty yet profligately wasteful swag, #2

In Mobile, I happily accepted this perky utilitarian pandemic-era hand wipes bauble: 

Wet wipes swag from community fair in Mobile, Alabama. 2022. Credit: Mzuriana.
Wet wipes swag from community fair in Mobile, Alabama. 2022. Credit: Mzuriana.

Today, I pitched the second of the two I received. The first one - the wipes dried out not long after I broke the seal on the container. This second one - the wipes are so tiny, they're almost useless for their purpose. And to be encased in such grand plastic - wasteful. 

Lesson learned for me: Think before I get carried away by cuteness. Is it really as useful as it looks? Do I already have enough of whatever it is? Do I already have an alternative form of the item that is less wasteful in its composition? In this case, specifically: I have an ample supply of hand sanitizer. Furthermore, I already have several receptacles for sanitizer that are refillable. This particular gewgaw did not add any value to me. 

Finally, I think I have outgrown hotel shampoos and soaps

While here in Longmont, I'm using up the small cache of motel shampoos, conditioners, and small soaps that I've collected (and schlepped around) in my travels in the past several years. 

Although diminutive, they still take up space. Besides, they are brands not of my choosing, but of the motel chain's choosing. 

 

Friday, June 9, 2023

Rootless Relocation: My Next Tourist-in-Residency

 

Arrow pointing the way. De Soto State Park, Alabama. March 2021. Credit: Mzuriana.
Arrow pointing the way. De Soto State Park, Alabama. March 2021. Credit: Mzuriana.

 

As with my July and August travelin' plans, I had no clue - until a lightning strike on Tuesday evening - about where (or even when!) I'd establish my next tourist-in-residency. 

It was a place that I had never - never! - considered before. I hadn't considered it because it never even floated ashore as a possibility.

And then in a single moment, it zapped me and it felt exactly right, for so many reasons:

  1. The city offers massive quantities (and diversity) of cultural activities, especially in music and dance.
  2. There is a large university campus (~ 25k undergrads).
  3. The university participates in the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute (OLLI), which I can join (as I did in El Paso).
  4. The city's population size is in my sweet spot of a little more than half a million.
  5. There is decent diversity of complexion, age, and income. 
  6. The city is super close to national and state parks and nature preserves.
  7. The airport receives direct flights from many of the locations where my family or friends live - so visits would be both easy and relatively affordable. 

I've been here once. Only for a night to meet up with a student visiting the US from Vietnam. 

Might I change my mind? Well, sure! But today, it feels very, very right.

I'm enthused.



Tuesday, June 6, 2023

After Longmont, Colorado: Where?

 

 

Lunch al fresco on the Jemez Scenic Road, New Mexico. August 2013. Credit: Mzuriana.
Lunch al fresco on the Jemez Scenic Road, New Mexico. August 2013. Credit: Mzuriana.

I laughed as I keyed in the title to this post. Oh, the consternation I experienced trying to work out the answer to this question! Where? Where?

I'm leaving Longmont at the end of this month. I know where I'll be in September, October, and November, but in July and August? I did not have a clue.

Oh, I had two big-picture plans, but neither of those big pictures had been nailed to the wall. So I scrounged for nails all day today. 


The two big plans were: 

  1. Volunteer for a month for a humanitarian organization.
  2. Camp for an entire month - the closest I have come to that is when I moved to Alamogordo, and I stayed at Oliver Lee State Park for ... I forget how long .... until I could find and move into an apartment there.

I put out a feeler to an organization along the border some weeks ago, but received no response. I stalked volunteer.gov in search of national park volunteer gigs that align with my time frames, to no avail, other than campground host, and God knows, I'd quickly become too grumpy for such a role. 

 

So, I:

  1. Abandoned my summer volunteer plan, deciding to wait til my next temporary residency* to do something volunteery;
  2. Broadened my definition of "camping for a month." Sure, it could mean camping in one spot for a month  - or it can mean camping for four consecutive weeks, but in more than one location; and
  3. Crawled into numerous deep rabbit holes and many iterations of Google Map itineraries, led by free-range thought fragments.  

 

Some of the rabbit holes:

  • Follow some themes to help me nail down route stops, such as bluegrass festivals, zydeco doings, powwows or inter-tribal gatherings? 
  • Explore territories I only passed through long ago, en route to Alaska, such as Montana, Wyoming, Idaho, or Utah? 
  • Make a first-time visit to Yellowstone Park? 
  • Revisit my bucket list of decades ago to see if there are items I can tick?

Deep into one of those rabbit holes, I remembered the Do List of state parks, et al, I created when I moved to Alamogordo, New Mexico. My goal was to visit every state park in New Mexico, plus the national lands within its borders. I went back and looked at that list. 

I finally emerged from the underground warrens to the light of day, with a plan. 

 

July: 

Camp for a week plus/minus at each of these three New Mexico state parks that I didn't get to 10 years ago: 

  • Bluewater Lake State Park
  • Heron Lake State Park
  • El Vado Lake State Park

 

August: 

  • Attend the 101st Intertribal Ceremonial in Gallup
  • Visit a TLG colleague who now lives in Green Valley, Arizona
  • Shoot out to Tijuana Valley Campground (and Pacific Ocean, International Park, Tijuana)
  • Visit a Tucson friend (and reacquaint myself with the weekly jazz at Brother John's)
  • Toward the end of the month, check out Nogales, both US and MX, or other border towns, as I leave the Southwest
  • Sweep up to Missouri to reconnect with family/friends and reorganize my stuff for my fall itinerary

 

*My next temporary residency. I had no clue about this until this evening, either. Until I started watching a show on Peacock Plus tonight, and it struck me! More later. But I'm thinking January will be the time to go there. I don't know; maybe December.

 

Friday, June 2, 2023

10 Years Ago: New Mexico's Secret Music Festival

Sadly, like the Lupus Chili Fest in Missouri (here, here, here, and here), the Bad Ass Mountain Music Festival in Cloudcroft, New Mexico, is no more. It looks like the last one was 2018. 

Glad I got to go to the one in 2013. 

The original post here


Sunday, June 16, 2013

New Mexico's Secret Music Festival

Bad Ass Mountain Music Festival June 2013, Cloudcroft, New Mexico. Credit: Mzuriana.
Bad Ass Mountain Music Festival June 2013, Cloudcroft, New Mexico. Credit: Mzuriana.


This music festival shouldn't be secret, or more accurately, it shouldn't be unknown. But it is, "it" being the Bad Ass Mountain Music Festival in Cloudcroft, New Mexico. (Elevation proudly proclaimed at 9000 feet.)

How can you combine great music with a beautiful outdoor venue, in (mostly) glorious weather - where you can camp for free  - and wear that tie-dye shirt again - and not have a kick ass, bad ass, popular event? Well, somehow, the word hasn't gotten out because not many people go.

If you can make your way to Cloudcroft in 2014, go to the festival.


Bad Ass Mountain Music Festival June 2013, Cloudcroft, New Mexico. Credit: Mzuriana.
Bad Ass Mountain Music Festival June 2013, Cloudcroft, New Mexico. Credit: Mzuriana.

There's music on Fridays and Saturdays during this event. Cost $25 for the whole shebang. I was there almost all of Saturday.


Above: Chuco Soul Project. 

Lots of bands, all winners. Music ranged from country, bluesy, jazzy, indie-rock, Americana, folk, so-called "taco billy," Latino, swing, and ballads. Most songs were original.




Above: Sorry About Your Sister

In theory, no alcohol permitted, but ... let's just say its consumption was discreet. No pets, either, though one attendee thought that didn't pertain to him.

Enjoy some of the music that I did

Todd and the Fox

Dusty Low

Zoltan Orkestar

The Memphis Strange

Chuco Soul Project

Bourbon Legend



Bad Ass Mountain Music Festival June 2013, Cloudcroft, New Mexico. Credit: Mzuriana.
Bad Ass Mountain Music Festival June 2013, Cloudcroft, New Mexico. Credit: Mzuriana.



 

 

 

 

 

 

 





















 

The mountain lap created a natural amphitheater. 

Watch out for the deer poop, though.

 A slideshow:

Bad Ass Mountain Music Festival 2013


#30



Thursday, June 1, 2023

2023 Word of the Year: FEAR: Face Everything and ... Rise

Alamogordo Balloon Invitational. New Mexico. September 2013. Credit: Mzuriana.
Alamogordo Balloon Invitational. New Mexico. September 2013. Credit: Mzuriana.

 

The usual 12-step Face-Everything acronym is Face Everything and Recover.

But there's an AA meeting in Kentucky that calls itself Face Everything and Rise, which I happened upon in my Google search for inspiration for this post.

I sure like the idea of rising: the weightlessness, the freedom, the letting go. The ability to detach, to get perspective from a higher view, to see the proverbial bigger picture.

Recovery, albeit the goal in the 12-step universe (although I prefer remission), is too big to embrace in one armful, so complex, so ... tied to the gravity of working those steps, laboring at the steps. Recovery is so ... weighty

Fear squats obesely on our spirit; it is the easier path to stay put, not venture out physically, emotionally, or spiritually. 

When I look at my own drug of choice, compulsive eating, from which I have been in remission for some years, the fear literally weighed me down with my extra poundage. I carried the equivalent of an extra woman everywhere I walked, sat, or reposed.

Just as I let go of the physical weight, I can strive each day to untie the ropes that keep me earthbound, so I can rise like a balloon and see the curve of the earth. 

 

The 2023 word of the year thus far

  1. January: FEAR: Looking Into the Abyss Without Falling In
  2. February: FEAR: Fuck Everything And Run
  3. March: FEAR: Forgetting Everything's All Right
  4. April: FEAR: Take More Risks
  5. May: FEAR: Feelings Expressed Allow Relief