It’s Beginning to Look a Lot Like

Halloween?

This week in the Gila, it snowed.  Yes, snowed.  Not a lot.  Only about 2 inches at the most.  But still.  It’s only October, people!  It doesn’t even snow this early in Michigan, usually.  And I still had field work to do!  Snow is not exactly conducive to identifying forbs (aka flowering plants) and determining canopy cover percent.  Digging the hole wasn’t too bad, once we got down to the soil part.  But the main problem?  It was coooold.  Very very cold.  Not just in the morning, either, but all day long.  A couple times the sun would make an appearance for about 2 seconds, and just when we were starting to get excited, it went away again.  Boo sun!  And it was very windy also.

This morning we had to clip a site.  Clipping a site basically means going out to where you dug your hole and throwing a metal hoop around.  All the plants that fall within the hoop are cut with garden clippers and put in a carrying container (in our case a Wal-Mart plastic shopping bag).  The cut up plants are later weighed to calculate biomass content, or some such thing (I’m not really sure how this is done or what it involves, since I have never been a part of this process).  In order to get an accurate(?) assessment we have to do this ten times.  It is oodles of fun.  It’s even more fun when there’s snow on the ground.  Don’t believe me?  You should try it sometime.

While we were clipping, Nori said, “What a ridiculous way to end the field season.”

And with that, I am done with field work.

Don't be sad, Gila. I'll be back next year.

Don’t Try This At Home

This past week at work was our annual field review.  Last year I went but I didn’t have to present anything for it so I spent the whole time wandering around being not much use to anyone.  But this year I presented my first site for review.  What happens is our main boss comes out and looks at the sites we have chosen to see if we did a good job or not.  This can be stressful!  I didn’t have to show anything until the last day so I was somewhat prepared for what to do by my boss and Nori, who went first.  They both did a really good job and I got some experience looking around at and describing sites I had never been to before.  And I saw some pretty neat stuff.

Plains of St Augustine

BEAUTIFUL eluviated horizons

At that point it hadn’t really sunk in yet that I would be the one doing the presenting very soon. By Thursday morning, I was shaking in my boots in anticipation for the events that were to come later that day, when I would be the one in the spotlight.

We started off the morning at Quemado Lake, where we met some people who usually work in an office all day.  It was the week of their leadership team meeting and they decided to go camping in the cold weather. (Believe it or not,  New Mexico does get cold this time of year)  Silly people.  Even we stayed at a hotel.  Anyway, we went up there because our bosses had to give a presentation telling them about what we do all day, because they have no idea.  Honestly, I have no idea what they do all day either, but oh well.

Then it was time to show my site.  I was nervous but I managed to explain things and answer questions with confidence (or at least what I thought was confidence).  On the site itself I had described some things that were not quite right but I just tried to explain my reasoning the best I could and admit when I knew I had done something wrong and correct my documentation where appropriate.

We were able to have some fun times as well.  It was a really great group of people, including all the usual suspects (the field soil scientists), the forest soil scientist and hydrologist (who are both awesome), the contract botanist from Arizona, and a couple student employees who came and went as time allowed.  I sat on the porch of the hotel drinking tequila and beer with my bosses and heard stories about serial killers, and pigs feet, and run-ins with the law, plus much more.  It’s great to hear from these people who have been in the business for so long because they have so much knowledge and experiences to share.

When we arrived back at the office on Friday afternoon and were taking out luggage to load back into our own vehicles, my boss told me I did a good job.  He said,  “I’ve seen some improvement, just keep trying to get better.”  I told him I was really trying and he said “I can tell.”  It was something I really needed to hear.

We also did some trundling.  This is amusing.  You should try it if you ever find yourself on a steep slope with many large boulders.  Exciting times in the woods of New Mexico.

Weekending in ABQ

Remember how I said October is an awesome month to be in Albuquerque?  Well, here’s a couple more reasons why…

This past Friday Matt and I took a road trip to a neighboring town, Moriarty, to go to the haunted barn and corn maze at McCall’s Pumpkin Patch.

This is not just any haunted house.  It is not like the other ones in town that are supposedly “the scariest haunted houses in the nation.”  Yeah, right.  They’re nothing compared to this.  This place is HANDS DOWN, the absolute coolest haunted house EVER.  There are flashing lights and spinning rooms and scary clowns and polka-dots and chickens and things that spray at you and dead body bags and formaldehyde and chainsaws.  And there is a CORN MAZE.  And it is HAUNTED.  What more could you possibly want?

It was a really great night.  The worst part was that we had to hurry a little bit through it because Matt had to get to work.  Another bad part was that I drove, which meant I was criticized the entire way there.  I wasn’t going fast enough.  I was going too fast.  I have no hand-eye coordination.  Etc. Etc.  This is why I don’t like driving with other people in the car.  Passenger seat drivers.  They make me tons more nervous than I would be if I were by myself.  Matt said that I could get a job at the haunted house as the haunted taxi driver.  People would be afraid, wondering if they would ever make it out alive.  Ha ha ha.

But anyway, other than that it was good.  A little more expensive than the other lame-o haunted houses in town, but totally worth it.

On Saturday, my class was canceled!  Yay!  Unfortunately, I had to drive all the way over there to find this out.  Boo!

I was supposed to go over to Matt’s house after class so I decided to let him sleep for a while and went over there when my class would normally be over.  He was a pain to wake up, as usual, but eventually he did.  We went in the backyard and played with the dogs for a while and then went out to eat at an Italian restaurant called Scarpas because he had a coupon for a free dessert with the purchase of two entrees.  The pizzas we had were delicious, but then, for dessert, the waiter brought this out…

Torta di Mele: caramelized apples and cinnamon ice cream topped with mocha-flavored shavings and whipped cream inside a fresh baked pastry covered in the most delicious caramel.  Yum!

After eating that, I was content for the rest of the night.

**Note: any time I put in pictures that are not taken by me, I link them to the website where they came from.  If you want to learn more, click on the pictures.  Ok, thanks.

Awesome Albuquerque October

If there’s only one month you can visit Albuquerque, it should be October.

And if you only go to one event in Albuquerque during October, it should be the balloon fiesta.

Not only has it been going on forever, but it’s also the largest hot-air-balloon festival in the world.  It happens one week in October, spanning two weekends, and today was the opening day.  Last year, I didn’t get to go because I was in Houston for most of it except the last day when I saw some fireworks.  So this year, I wanted to be right in the center of the action.  Last evening, Matt and I made the decision to buy tickets for this morning’s (Saturday) events.  He had to go to work so I was in charge of buying the tickets.  This was not easy.  Here’s the thing about balloon fiesta: it’s really really POPULAR.  People from all over the world come to this thing (actually, last year we met some people from England who make an effort to come as often as they can). And since a lot of people are like me and wait until the last minute to do anything, needless to say, the website was bogged down and as soon as I would try to buy the tickets, it would say the website was experiencing too much traffic and I should try back in a few minutes.  So I tried again in a few minutes.  And again.  And again.  In the end, I did get the tickets but the stupid website somehow managed to charge my credit card eight times.  This did not make me happy, and I’m foreseeing much time on the phone trying to get those charges removed.

I’d say that was probably my main complaint about the whole ordeal.  The number of people going to balloon fiesta is so large I think it’s a little hard for the organizers to handle.  The lines for the park & ride bus were also a little ridiculous. Once you get the actual event, though, it’s totally fine.  There’s a lot of people but there’s still enough room to move around and see everything you want.

We arrived at the park in the morning around 8 am, when the mass ascension was going on.  This is really cool to see.  The balloons go up in waves starting at about 7 am so when we got there a lot of balloons were already in the sky but there were still tons on the ground.  One of the coolest parts about the mass ascension is how close you can get to the balloons as they’re taking off.  Honestly you could probably stand right next to the basket if you wanted.  When a balloon is totally inflated and finally gets going, everyone around claps and cheers.  This is amusing.

One of the popular favorites is the Creamland cow.  We saw this one go up.  It’s really impressive and I totally commend the pilots for being able to fly this thing because it’s not like a normally shaped hot air balloon.  Also, it’s HUGE.

We spent a good part of the morning running around to the different balloons going up as I snapped some pictures.  The first thing we saw go up were the bees.  They’re super cute!  (and also synchronized perfectly)

I was very excited by all the different colors of balloons, especially the purple ones!

And overhead shots were pretty cool, too.

But my favorite part was just seeing lots and lots of balloons in the sky.

There are plenty of other things to do at balloon fiesta.  Obviously, there are tons of food vendors and lots of different arts & crafts, memorobilia items, etc.  for sale.  These are pricey but maybe worth it if you’re from out of town.  We didn’t really spend a lot of time there, though.  One thing we did do was watch the Air Force band play.  They’re actually pretty good.

There was also a guy doing a magic act and two police helicopters that landed and were being shown off.  (Matt was much more impressed with the latter)

Eventually, we found our way back to the bus line (ugh) and headed home.  Aside from the silly computer mishaps, it was a really great way to spend an October morning here in Albuquerque, New Mexico.

Tools, Tunes and Total Awesomeness

Last Wednesday Matt and I went to see a Tool Concert at the Santa Ana Star Casino in Bernalillo, NM.  It was really cool.  And many shenanigans occurred along the way.

I got off work early and we decided to take a short nap before heading to the concert, which was about half an hour drive away.  I’m a pretty light sleeper so I got up when the alarm went off and started getting ready but Matt is a pain in the butt to wake up (case in point: me spending Easter Sunday with his family while he slept in the other room).  Finally, when I was finished getting ready, I tried again.  This time, all I needed to do was tell him it was 7 pm and he was up in about 2 seconds.  Should have thought of that sooner.  Doors opened at 7:30 and we hadn’t eaten anything yet so we decided to grab something on the way.  The only 2 places on the way were Burger King and McDonald’s.  Since I have sworn off Burger King for life, we took the lesser of the two evils and went to McDonald’s.  They forgot to give me my fries (but still charged me for them) and gave us only one packet of barbecue sauce between the two of us.  Oh, and no napkins either.  I am never going back to that McDonald’s again.

We made it to the concert just in time and the line to get in was really short.  It would have taken me a lot shorter to get through the girl security line but some dumbass could not for the life of him figure out where the line to buy tickets was and he decided to ask the security lady, who had to show him about 3 times because he didn’t get it.  Finally he just gave up and left.  Thank goodness.  I was up next, so I walked up to the lady (who decided it was necessary to brush her hand across my, uh…cooter)  and then two guys started fighting so she stopped right in the middle of what she was doing and called security on her radio.  All because of some stupid boys fighting in the damn parking lot.  Man, boys are dumb.

I got in and the place was PACKED.  I could barely walk anywhere there were so many people, wandering around, buying $7 Bud Light (how silly).  We made a beeline for the stadium and found our seats, which were great.  (This is good because when we were buying our tickets the computer kept giving us crappy seats and we had to try for better ones a whole bunch of times.  Matt was getting really cranky)

The concert was really great.  They played a great mix of songs ranging from old to newer stuff.  In the past, people have said that Tool concerts are really boring because the band just stands there playing their instruments.  This is true.  They do just stand there and play their instruments, but that’s what they’re all about.  They don’t like to be showy and bounce around the stage like idiots.  They want their audience to experience their music, not them.  Plus there’s so much else going on that it doesn’t really matter what’s happening on stage.  They put up a display of video and artwork from their albums and music videos on huge monitor screens, and there was also a laser light show to go along with the pulse of the music and beat of the drum.  It was truly an audio-visual experience.

The one thing I thought was really cool was Maynard (lead singer and musical genius extraordinaire) took back stage to his guitar and bass player and stood in the back with the drummer.  He did do some funny little dances while he was back there but not too much.  Oh and at one point he left the stage and came back stripped down to his skivvies.  Definitely a little weird, but oh well, his music’s good.

Another thing that’s fun about concerts is people watching.  Since we were up in the bowl of the stadium, we could see what was going on down on the floor.  The mosh pit was hilarious.  It was just a circle of people randomly running around and skipping through it.  And someone else threw a whole bunch of sheets of paper into the air like confetti.

I wish I had pictures of all of this.  I didn’t bring my camera because I didn’t think it would be allowed in, but I saw a girl in front of me taking pictures and I was bummed.

But then I thought of the person standing next to me, smiling, having a good time, and so excited to be there with me.  And I thought, this person, holding my hand and giving me kisses, he really cares about me a lot.  And that made me happier than any concert ever could.

Getting Back to Basics

This week, I drew pictures at work.

Ok, I drew map lines on aerial photos.  It was actually a really good thing to do, though.  Sure I got frustrated and annoyed, and yeah, maybe I got distracted and stared out the window for a while, but it allowed me to take a step back, look at the bigger picture.

I spent some time doing the same with respect to my relationship this week as well.  Last week at this time, I was really really mad at Matt.  He was being a jerk, I was being a pissed off jerk, and when he left for work that evening we were still angry with each other.  After he left, I went to walk it off, and the peace and quiet did manage to calm me down a little bit.  When I got back I had 3 text messages on my phone, abounding with apologies and promises to do better.  Later he told me that he was worried when I didn’t respond right away, but he felt better when I explained that I was on a walk and didn’t take my phone with me.  Now, a week later, I’m not even sure I remember exactly what I was mad at him for in the first place.

It was really great to be able to spend more time with him this week, something I don’t normally get to do during field season.  But this week was special.  I made reservations to go to dinner on Tuesday at a nice Italian restaurant that I had bought some half price gift certificates for a while back (this was before Matt bought the ones to the French restaurant; Also, I was going to bring my camera but he wouldn’t let me).  That evening the monsoons kicked into high gear and it poured and poured.  Albuquerque has a fairly decent drainage system but the way the roads are set up is not very conducive to massive downpours, so it took Matt an hour just to get to my house.  When he got there, he was all wet, but I was happy because he was dressed nicely in a dark blue polo shirt and khaki pants.  I gave him a hug and his shirt was soft.  Wet, but soft.  I liked it.

He came in all excited because water was rushing down the arroyos (ABQ’s drainage system, as mentioned above) and he wanted to show me.  So we went outside (it had mostly stopped raining by this point; our monsoons are intense but short) and looked down at the water in the arroyos.  It was pretty full of sediment, and reminded me of the chocolate river in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.  We stood there and watched the water moving for a while.  The air smelled fresh and clean.

We went to dinner after that and it was a-maz-ing.  We both got the ribeye steak, thinking it would be just a little amount.  No.  It was a huge piece of meat, cooked perfectly, and oh so delicious.  It came with risotto and some of the yummiest asparagus I’ve ever had.  After dinner, we stood outside in the cool rain (it started again) and listened to the jazz band playing in the bar.  It was a really great night.

We got to spend Wednesday together too, to go to the Tool concert, which was also loads of fun, but I’ll save that part for later.

At a Loss for Words

I’d make a post today but I’ve got to get ready to go see these guys.

I admit, the video is a bit trippy.  But the music… oh so good.

The One Who Makes Me Smile

Monday, June 1 is the eight month anniversary of Matt’s and my first date.  This weekend, he decided to do something special for me.  I didn’t really think people celebrated eight months so much, but what do I know?  Maybe it’s important to him because that’s how long he was with his previous (lying, cheating, mooching) girlfriend, and he wants to celebrate this much better relationship with me.

He surprised me with gift certificates to a very fancy French restaurant downtown.  (The radio station here gives deals on gift certificates to different places around town every week; mostly it’s a two-for-one type deal, which is especially good for the nicer restaurants in town) Unfortunately, we didn’t make a reservation and the wait was about 45 minutes, which would have been fine if Matt didn’t have to leave for work by 8:30, and we didn’t want to be rushed.  So we decided to try to make reservations next week, and go to a different restaurant instead.

We ended up at this cute little Italian place called Vivace.  It was fabulous.  I got penne pasta with chicken and mushrooms in a marsala sauce.  A-maz-ing.  And we were seated right next to the guitar player, who was really good.  So we sat there, chatting about things, eating our awesome food, listening to great music, and admiring the beautiful paintings of Italy all around the room.  It was all just so sweet and romantic.

I can’t stop being happy when I’m around him.  Last Tuesday, before I went into the field, he sent me a text message asking if I had time to go to breakfast with him before work, and before I could even respond, he was at my door.  I just kept smiling and smiling that whole morning.  I couldn’t help it.

Is that love?  I don’t know.  I’ve never been in love with anyone.  I’ve definitely never said it to anyone.  Can you even be in love with someone after eight months?  Is that allowed?

The funny thing is, I think I’ve heard him say it to me before.  It happened so fast, though, that I wasn’t sure that it actually happened.  I remember thinking, did he just say what I thought he did? And by that time, the moment was gone.  (I’m a little slow sometimes) Maybe he got embarrassed or something because he hasn’t said it since then.  Hmm, oh well.  I guess we’ll just go with “like” for now.  As long as he keeps me smiling, that’s all that matters.

Holiday Weekend of a Single* Working Girl

*and by single I mean not married.  I essentially function as a single person, who happens to have a boyfriend.

This was a four day weekend for me.  I got back from my first week of field work and had enough hours to take Friday off, so I did.  But it wasn’t exactly all fun and games.

The reason I took Friday off in the first place was because of a doctor’s appointment.  In addition to getting a shot, a pap test, and having a lovely conversation with my male doctor about sex and birth control (extra fun), I also figured out how much I weigh.  I don’t own a scale so I haven’t actually weighed myself since Christmastime at my parents’ house.  So it’s been a while.  And let me tell you, it wasn’t pretty.  Kinda depressing, actually.  I hiked around a lot and did quite a bit of hard labor in the field last week, and plan to continue doing so for the rest of the summer.  Hopefully this will help.  Unfortunately, I do not think my pedometer is giving me an accurate measure of how much I am walking.  At the end of a day in the field, it was only calculating about 3000 steps per day.  This does not seem right, since I get about 1000 just waking up and walking around my apartment in the morning before I take a shower.  Odd.   Also, my office is being dumb and not letting me count the steps I took in Lincoln because I wasn’t there to report them.  Boo. I guess I will not be winning the competition at work, but I still may have a chance to win the competition against myself.  We shall see.

In addition the doctor’s appointment, I also had to switch the title for my car from my dad to me and get it registered in New Mexico.  NM has this awesome thing called MVD Express, so this would have been super easy if it weren’t for one minor detail: the emissions test.  Is this a common thing?  I never even heard of it until I moved to Vegas, and I didn’t register my car there so I never had to do it.  Here in New Mexico, I live in the only county where the emissions test is required to get a registration.

Anyway, I went to get the test and my car FAILED.  Why?  Because of the gas cap.  I had no idea that even counted as part of it.  I knew my gas cap was loose and I had gotten a new one but had never actually put it on, so I put it on and went to take the test again.  Still failed.  But the guy at the Jiffy Lube was super nice and helpful (much nicer than at the previous one near the MVD) and told me I could still get the car title, just not register it, and get the problems checked out at Autozone for free.  So I got the title and then headed over to check out the problems.  The guy over there told me that as long as my check engine light was on, I would always fail the test, even though I already fixed the problem.  They don’t tell you this so you have to keep coming back to take the test and pay more money (duh).  He showed me how to erase the problem codes and said to drive it around for a day to see if the light came back on.  It didn’t.  Hooray!

That was Friday and Saturday.  On Sunday I went clothes shopping (I needed some new field pants and had to buy –gasp– a size 12.  Oh the shame!), took a long walk, dropped off my recycling, picked up some stuff I needed at the store for packing my vacuum to send back (if you haven’t heard, electrolux is doing a recall on certain models of their vacuums due to exploding batteries or something like that, and mine is one of them.  lucky me!), and finally managed to squeeze in a little time with Matt.  We had seen each other for about an hour the previous evening before he had to go to work.  I tried to make dinner but was in a hurry, so it was a total mess.  Plus I was annoyed with him for being cranky and watching the basketball game on tv instead of listening to me when I was talking to him.  I was so upset I just started crying then and there and couldn’t stop.  This made him feel bad, so he took me to dinner on Sunday, and he got me ice cream too, even though we both know I don’t need it.

Today I was hoping to just relax and maybe take a look at my maps for this week, but that didn’t happen.  I needed clean clothes so I went down to the laundry room, poured in the soap and dirty clothes and realized I didn’t have enough money on my card (we went to the card system a little while ago, no more quarters).  So I went over to the lobby where there USED TO BE a machine to put money on the laundry cards, but it is NO LONGER THERE.  Where did it go?  I don’t know.  But I couldn’t do anything about it because the office was closed for the holiday.  What was I going to do?  I had a bunch of soapy unwashed clothes in the laundry room just sitting there and no way to get them clean.  I did the only thing I could think to do.  I called my mom for advice.  My sister answered the phone.  She relayed the message to the family (and friends who were also with them celebrating the holiday).  After laughing at me, they finally came to the consensus that this was not an emergency and I should therefore not call the apartment emergency number, and the only thing to do was to go to a laundromat.  I wasn’t really sure which, if any, would be open so I started calling around.  No one picked up, except for one place.  The conversation went as follows.

Lady on phone: Bueno?

Me: (Oh great, they speak Spanish. maybe they’re bilingual…) Are you open today?

Lady: No ingles

Me: (nope) Um ok, esta abierto hoy?

Lady: Si

Me: (yay I got it right) gracias

To make an even longer story short, I ended up not being able to find the place, and I did not really want to look around for it, because it was in the barrio, as the Mexicans say.  Fortunately, the laundromat near my house ended up being open, so I went to that one instead.  After that I got groceries, came home, folded laundry, made dinner, saw Matt for about an hour, and that was the end of the day.  So while many others were celebrating Memorial Day weekend with their friends and family, I was doing all that.

It would be nice to have another weekend to recover from this one.  I’m completely exhausted.

Happy Easter!

Hope you find some goodies in your basket!

Have a good day