chiricahua

here's a few photos from our hiking/camping trip this weekend in southeastern arizona. it was amazing.

view of the chiricahuas:


joe and joe, near the end of the hike:


cactus flowers:


we (8 of us) got there after dark friday night and set up camp. woke up around 6am saturday morning in order to have time to make breakfast & coffee and break down camp before 8am. went to the chiricahua national monument visitor's center to catch the free shuttle up to the top of the mountains. from there we took a nice leisurely 7.3 mile hike all day down through the monument and ended up back at the visitors center. the rock formations were crazy! then we took a gravel mountain road through the park which took two hours even though it was only 19 miles long. we picked out a nice, isolated forest campground for the second night and made a big meal and a nice fire. next day was relaxed, hiking around the forest and playing in the creek. overall a beautiful weekend...it felt really good to get out of town and take advantage of the southwest.

check out my flickr page for lots more photos.

past week

things have been hectic but i got a much-needed day off today, so here's an update:

joe's surprise birthday potluck went really well. i had told him that i would make dinner and we would go out afterwards, but our friends and i coordinated a mass entrance at about 7:30 for dinner and drinks at our house. i made fig and olive tampanade, orange ginger tofu, strawberry poppyseed salad and garlic mashed potatoes. friends brought over sushi, pasta salad, fruit, stuffed mushrooms, chips, cake, bread, wine and beer. the neighbors performed a song about joe, and we eventually went up to the mountains to enjoy the full moon. i think joe was really happy about how it all turned out.



on thursday, joe and i worked this big picnic in the park for my americorps program. all the kids in our afterschool program were invited, along with all their families, to celebrate the end of the school year. there were hundreds of elementary kids running around, and joe and i had the most intense face painting session he's ever done. it was nonstop (free) facepainting for hours. that was crazy.

friday night was the opening for the museum show that joe's in. it was great. i'm going to leave him to blog about that one.

this weekend was big for me, because we had an americorps event that i coordinated, with the help of some of my coworkers. basically i had been busting my ass the past few weeks getting together everything for this neighborhood beautification project. our budget for the project was nearly zero, but we were able to secure donations for everything: we worked with the city of las cruces codes enforcement, habitat for humanity, a local community center called 'the dream center', etc. what we did was go into this low-income neighborhood and completely repainted a house, put in a bunch of landscaping and seeded and fertilized the lawn. all the paint, tools, most of the landscaping materials, 100 flowers, etc. were all donated. we even got 25 pizzas, bottled water, soda, and medeterranean food donated to feed the volunteers both days. we had 45 volunteers between americorps members, their friends, local kids from the shelter and the group homes and even walmart sent over some employees to help. it was awesome, and i'm really pleased with how everything came together. the couple that lived there are very happy too. so that was both saturday and sunday, all day long, plus lots of overtime the past few weeks for me, hence my day off today. i'd like to post a photo of it, but i'm not sure if that's kosher or what...especially because some of the kids we had helping out aren't supposed to be publicly linked to the shelter/group home etc.

saturday night we hung out with our friends ilana and joe, who are moving back to DC for the summer after finals this week. that was bittersweet, since they won't be back in cruces until after our americorps contracts are up, so we may not see them again.

so, yah. it's been fun. a big thank you to anna for sending me a letter from france, and to chelsea for sending a package from guatemala. nothing beats getting things in the mail. i've got some packages to send out myself, hopefully today.

see ya

HAPPY BIRTHDAY JOE!

yay birthday fun time. just before we started dating, i think when i was turning 17, joe sang the beatles birthday song for me. he doesn't even remember it...but i do, since i had a huge crush on him. i still do. love ya babes!

so this is about the best youtube has to offer for that song:

messing around

hey all, i'm fooling around with my blog template, and somehow on this computer at work the format is all wrong. on my mac at home the posts are up near the top. what does it look like to you ? is this post way below all my links ?

shoe don't castle gatsby

i know i haven't written anything in the past two weeks. i've been waiting for something exciting to happen. it hasn't. so i didn't. write. in. the. blog. let me try to scrape something together.

well, first of all, i got some really sweet shoes. i ordered them from zappos because, truth be told, i had combed the LC for months for flats and came up empty handed every time. i had reached a period of shoe desperation, so i splurged. the beauty of zappos is the free overnight shipping; last night at about 12:30 in bed i realized that, oh yah they're probably here already, and sure enough they were sitting right on our (never used) front doorstep. yeeess!

FOOT SHOT.


we saw grindhouse on friday night. that was a trip. a gory, gory trip. super fun 3 hours of laughing and cringing at the same time. not for the faint of heart. it was two films, back to back, with fake previews in the middle. i thought rodriguez's film was more true to the vision, and it was much more fun to watch. although tarentino's half paid off big time at the end, there were some long lulls in the first 3/4. and i particularly liked the fake preview called 'DON'T!'

speaking of sick things, i read 'the castle in the forest' by norman mailer. mailer posits some disgusting theories about hitler's youth, i.e. that he is the product of generations of incest, that he literally gave his brother the kiss of death, etc. all told through the eyes of a devil. i just used joe's favorite word, posits.
anyway, with all that grime, and it was a really grimey novel, there is some really beautiful prose. heavy, heavy freudian overtones. it was a joy to read, although the content makes the reader feel dirty. not like trashy-romance-novel-dirty, either.

now i'm reading joseph campbell's 'the hero with a thousand faces', and 'the great gatsby', which i don't know why i hadn't gotten around to that one before. of course i love gatsby...who doesn't? i am (was) reading it with one of my high school students in his english class. but about that...

...i actually just found out yesterday that i would be pulled from my site, onate high school, today. i'm going to be working at our main office, planning for our summer camp and other misc. community projects we have lined up. so today was pretty weird, last day at the high school. i'll still be doing the after school elementary program until school gets out in may, and then in the summer i'll be with kids all day again. the change of pace, for now, though, is welcome. and unexpected. i usually try not to mention my job in this blog (have you noticed?), and i don't really want to go into too much detail.

what else? still volunteering at the museum on the weekends, actually volunteered for joe and myself to do some face painting this saturday, and don't think he's too pleased about that.

in all honesty, i've reached a boredom plateau with cruces. it is magnified by post-spring break syndrome. i'm getting restless. however, i do have a MN trip lined up end of may: may 25-june 3. so that's something.

i don't know. i'm in a crappy mood so should probably cut it off here.

san diego

just finished dumping a bunch of photos from the california trip. i'll leave the trip report to joe's blog.

JOE, ANDY, DWYER and TIFFANY WENT SURFING:


1920s ARI:


ME and DWIFFANY:


it was super fun.

spring break, phase 1 complete

after a few days of pure leisure, we drove up last wednesday to ABQ to pick up alex from the airport followed by an immediate drive back to old el paso to pick up ben. went home to cruces for a late dinner and a drink at el patio, which was short-lived because we had missed the jazz band.

woke up the next morning and went on a hike in soledad canyon, in the organ mountains. there was a threat of rain which never materialized, and in fact the skies opened up mid-hike. did a bit of rock scrambling and the boys had lots of fun throwing rocks.



decided to forego a trip to white sands in favor of camping that night at faywood hotsprings. didn't realize that we were driving straight into a severe weather warning in effect until 430am, got there at dark with some dark clouds looming overhead. despite this, we quickly set up camp and hopped into the springs. we lucked out because it only sprinkled a bit, and we spent several hours soaking and drinking in a couple different tubs. unfortunately, we didn't get any photos of that place, due to the darkness.

we woke up early-ish the next day and headed over to city of rocks to play around on the boulders. again, the guys were bouncing off the rocks and burning off some boyish steam. we did stop for a catnap:



we came back to cruces that night and headed out to chope's in la mesa for some sloppy mexican. then we went for a pitcher at high desert and brought home a growler. we watched eddie murphy's delirious, also a boyish activity.

next morning, we were lazy and joe cooked breakfast. the guys checked out the farmer's market, coas bookstore and then joe's studio. went to andele's for more mexican and stopped by old mesilla. then we hit the road for albuquerque, and got to the hotel just as the sun was setting. stayed downtown and went to the nob hill neighborhood for pizza and home-brewed beer. a local tipped us off to a pub called 'two fools' just down the street. after a few drinks we returned to the hotel. had to get up at 6am the next morning to drop alex off at the airport and then head to el paso to get ben to the airport by noon. had an interesting conversation with ben about religion on the ride home. got back to cruces and slept a lot, and watched 'in the mood for love' (very good, by the way).

overall we had a great time...thanks to ben and alex for making the trek down here. looking forward to phase 2: san diego, which begins wednesday night.

we have spent the first few days of spring break both prepping for guests and lazing around. saturday was yardwork all day, in the 85-degree heat. pulling weeds, raking, etc. felt good at the time, now 2 days later i'm still sore with blisters on my fingers. also, joe had an epic battle with the bush of death:



anyway, the yard looks much better, and now we have to try to nurse the grass back to life. not an easy task in the desert. the warm weather also brings a whole host of fun new insects, including this cuddly little fella:



contrary to their hideous appearance, these guys tend to keep to themselves, occasionally wanderning into the bathtub or landing on their backs in attempts to go down the steps. this is their cry for help, which calls for removal via overturned glass and piece of paper.

joe also had a black widow crawling on his arm the other day, which led to a complete freakout by both of us. somehow the spider, still alive, was lost in the shuffle. she is lurking somewhere in our living room, ready to strike us dead at anytime. well, not quite dead, just really sick. consquently, i had a dream last night that i was bit by a black widow/scorpion hybrid.

also last night, at about 1am, we heard some hooting from inside our house so we grabbed the binocs and went to investigate. we found an owl at the tippy top of this 100ft evergreen spire across the street from our house. so we spent a good 20 minutes watching wise old owly. his placement up there really got me.

more updates to come this week of ben and alex adventures.

radium

had a relaxing weekend...went on a retreat with my americorps program to a resort up in radium springs, about 20 minutes from cruces. this is the same place we brought jesse and katie over thanksgiving to soak one night in the hot springs. it was nice to finally see it in the light. it isn't open to the public due to fire truck access issues (have to get there via dirt road under a little railroad bridge). people who stay there or use the springs all have connections to the owners. they let us stay for free (super nice guys).




here's the resort and bathhouse as seen from the gazebo (visible on top of the hill in the photo above):


we basically just relaxed and stayed in the tub all night...i had a marathon soaking for probably 4-5 hours. next day we had massages. that place is amazing! plus, i was able to make up mad hours for work, which will hopefully tide me over for the couple days i'm taking off for san diego in a few weeks.


speaking of which, andy has announced this year's theme party: a twenties-style speakeasy! i'm really looking forward to getting a costume together...i've even tried this vintage store here in cruces twice this week, but it was closed both times. that is SO las cruces; no one is ever open. oh well, sometime i'll get inside.

we've also got to start planning for spring break, which is only a week's worth of work away. thank god. ben has been back and forth about making it out or not, depending upon his work schedule. but alex will be here for sure. hopefully we'll do some camping, and check out some areas we haven't been yet. we shall see.

nothing much else going on this weekend. we went to a potluck last night and joe made some hominy (sp?) chili for that, then we went to a party. today was lazy. i've been reading about hinduism.

that's about it. another week gone by, another photo set up on flickr. jesse and katie, you guys should check out the photos...don't think we got any the first time we went.

alameda district

on sunday, thought we'd take a cruise through the neighborhood and take some photos for those of you who only see cruces via blogosphere. here's a small sampling, and of course there's a set up on flickr. all photos taken within a couple block radius from our house.

mural wolf


mode of transport


springtime


we just bought tickets for san diego, going out there the end of march. yay!