BLOGAHOMA

Medicine Park Ice Storm January 31, 2010

The TV weathermen warned us, brutal, devastating, electric outages, it was coming be prepared!  And we stocked the cupboard and the refrigerator but did not get a back up generator or fill the propane. You must understand the disbelief. The day before in Medicine Park it reached 66º with sun. We were used to a couple of “brutal” winter days turning to sunny and mild in a few days. It came like it was preprogrammed. But then IT began Thursday morning, first the rain, wintry mix and finally sleet turning to unimaginable layers of ice covering every tree limb, every leaf, every blade of grass. Then by 8:45 AM the lights flickered sporadically until they flickered no more. Michael went down to get the last mail we were to receive before the Big Rock Rd. became impassible for the next 4 days.  He walked the dogs and talked to the neighbors who confirmed it was an all Medicine Park outage. The neighbors, Steve and Janelle invited us to stay with them for they had a wood burning stove in the living room. They invited us and our dogs, Doolin and Cordy to join them and their dogs, Pepper and Wiley. We were friends but not best friends.

We had our last meal at home while the temperature stayed over 60º inside. Michael made turkey burgers on the propane grill and we had cole slaw. We left while there was still day light. Layering ourselves in clothes and throwing together some basic food we walked up the icy road and deposited ourselves in their home. We carried our cellphones to keep contact with our children and with our neighbors. We would use Michael’s until his battery was gone and then we would use ours. The first night was one of the hardest. It was dark by 5:30 and time seemed to crawl. Every 15 minutes someone would ask the time. At 7:30 it felt as though it was 10:00. It was quiet save for the breaking and falling of limbs and trees and dark except for the blue flashes of transformers blew. But we started talking and before we knew it, it was midnight. There was a lot to say for our previous time together was relegated to 20 minute neighborly exchanges as we walked with the dogs.

The dogs may have known each other more closely since their dogs would come up and call on ours and they would romp in the yard for several minutes a day. With no computer or TV the dogs became our entertainment. They range in size from small and feisty to medium large and comical.  The next day we made our way back to our house to change clothes and add more layers. Michael was steady on his feet where I slipped and fell a couple of times. We grabbed up the beer, cheese and snacks and headed back up. A light snow helped by reducing the slickness of the ice and I didn’t fall again.

We kept in contact with our children, one in San Francisco the other in Tulsa. Kim commandeered my Facebook as me as she noted there were many questions as to what had happened to us and if we were alright.  Kim became command headquarters and asked that everyone keep her abreast of the latest news on the state of the roads and the power outages. Michael and Steve took turns grilling as we threw together makeshift but very good dinners. On the third day the ice had melted enough to allow the guys take a trip to the convenience store to pick more supplies (including beer), the conditions of the roads and check the devastation in town. They came back with a description of the damage they encountered.

By Sunday morning the roads were passable we called ahead to our friends in Norman who invited us to stay with them and their 5 cats. Our neighbors had told us we could leave our dogs with them since our destination friends had cats. Although foggy, the roads were clear most the way. As soon as we said hi and thanks we headed toward the shower. All the comforts of home and then some. We stocked up on cellphone car recharger, flashlights, and miscellaneous things we missed while packing in our 42º house. We discussed on how we could planned better next time for an emergency situation. We treated ourselves to coffee and free WI FI at Borders and picked up books and magazines.

We planned to come back to Medicine Park by Tuesday and made plans of either accepting the invitation to stay in a home with a propane fireplace but had no water or rejoin our friends who had a generator now it was just then we got the call (I should say calls) that informed us, in very excited terms, that the lights were on in Medicine Park, at least most of the town. Bidding farewell to our friends who had sheltered us during the ice storm we traveled back to our home and our dogs and what we hoped would be constant flow of electricity. All the time the song “You Don’t Have to Live Like a Refuge” kept playing inside my head.

This is my husband Michael and my sixth appearance at the Park Tavern Halloween party. And we are all about costumes and accessories. Last year was by far my best as Lizzie Borden waitress at the Damned Cafe so the objective wasn’t to top that but to have an unexpected but interactive costume without spending a bunch of money or time in preparation. Okay, at least the money part we are graphic artists afterall.

Maybe it was my addiction to all the election coverage but I had a dream about what our costume should be for the Park Tavern Halloween Party. The idea harkened back to the old 1940 movies about investigative reporters and photographer that were in all the vintage cop movies like Citizen Kane, Ace in the Hole and After Office Hours. Our costuming needs were not so expensive as previous years. They consisted of a couple old suits from Goodwill, Fedoras and novelty ties (Michael’s had cameras on his and I had fish on newspaper) off of Ebay, an oversized pencil from a Novelty shop and the Graphix Camera. The original cameras still command a hefty price so Michael made his own from styrofoam and a lot of ingenuity. He made it so that our digital camera could fit in it and yet no one could tell it wasn’t the real deal. He definitely pulled it off with comment such as “Can you still get the film developed?” and “That must cost you a pretty penny!”. Of course we needed names and press passes. I found a picture of an original one on Google images. Michael used it as reference and made our’s up. He became Flash Shutterbug, photojournalist and I was Walter Willtell, reporter (after the famous Walter Winchell) for the Medicine Creek Tattler.

Once at the party I went around doing some investigative inquiring while Michael snapped pictures for the Park Tavern website. All I can say that the costumes worked like a dream.

photo courtesy Vycke McEwen

We just got back from Taos where we stayed in an EARTHSHIP, one of those self-sustainable earth packed places. We walked away impressed wondering why more places and more builders aren’t incorporating the techniques since it has been functionally around since the 70’s. Being off the grid turned out to be very people friendly but it didn’t much cotton to hair dryers. To confess we tried it once for a half of head of hair. We watched the meter drop like crazy! Since then I have used mine sparingly at home, letting my hair air dry until I finish getting dressed and then blowing it dry. Surprisingly it works just as well for me. I say if you want to think GREEN stay in a earthship for a week, it makes you aware of your water, electricity and waste. It was comfortable and fun.

Fun consisted in building a fire in the wood-burner for a couple hours a night (that’s all it took to keep you toasty all night long) and playing board and card games. Kim served as our game  concierge. Since there is plenty of land around each earthship we bought a kite sending it soaring with picturesque mountains as a backdrop. Nothing like letting child out to play on a windy March day!

Not that we stayed the entire time in the earthship, all five of us full size adults ( I’m smarter than a fifth grader but maybe not as tall) compacted ourselves into Kim’s fuel saving Honda Accord an toured New Mexico. Nothing like family bonding. We all agreed our favorite day was our trip to Bandelier National Monument near Los Alamos where we walked among the some of the earliest earth homes built by the Pueblo people. Some of us climbed the ladders up into the cliff dwellings. As I have developed pesky vertigo I had to say no to the ladders but watched as the “kids” clambered up the 142 steps to the top kiva.

We had no problem picking where to eat. We all agreed that there would be NO fast food. We had several meals in our cozy little earthship. I liked our breakfast at Michael’s Kitchen in Taos, loved those German lemon pancakes. For elegance we all loved The Artichoke in Albuquerque. I believe Nifer tried out at least three different onion soups (I think she liked the soup from the French Café in Taos. Nifer and Colin fixed some amazing stuff including a salad that taste as good as it looked. Colin made some Rosemary potatoes delish! And Michael’s turkey burger with mushrooms and brie cannot be turned down.

We balanced our trip pretty well with parks, museums, sightseeing with everyone being quite flexible to other’s suggestion and choices. We stopped at the Museum at Los Alamos to learn about the beginning of the Atomic bomb and visited both the Georgia O’Keeffe Art Museum as well as the Fechin House and Taos Museum to get an idea about the artist enclave beginnings in New Mexico.

Now if you love the idea of staying in an Earthship let Tony know you heard it from us!

Click here to see a selection of pictures we took there.

Back from Ireland at least physically. We found Ireland enchanting. We avoided the cities, stayed in B&B’s, visited ruins, drank pints and listened to music in pubs, rambled the countryside and the in town alleyways and indulged in fresh from the land and sea cuisine. We met some charmed folks mostly Irish but a few delightful tourists as well. We photographed to capture the moments. I kept a journal of our trip. What I have included here is an expanded version of my scrawls. Clicking here to see pictures and/ or read the journal.

There is something that emanates from my brain giving me the propensity to collect. I am the member of the segment of society that we’ll call the sorters/ categorizers. Not compulsive or a heavy burden, I actually enjoy that part of me. My collections are not limited to the concrete. I collect names, people I have met, and all sorts of historic facts, design elements, natural phenomenon, lyrics to songs, quotations….yes anything I can sort and categorize.

If you count all the abstract stuff in with the concrete stuff I collect it could be quite the mess but since I try to avoid clutter I keep it organized. Let’s take a concrete example, buttons. I love them because there a zillion of them made of a marvelous array of materials. Very few of them are actually costly even when they date back centuries, ideal for collecting. Here is where the limitations are put into place. I have focused on ONLY wood carved buttons that will fit in a birdbath. The birdbath is used as a side table with a glass in place for a surface. Through the glass you can view the buttons. Far from being to restrictive, the allowance for variation is wide. The elements of diversity include size, shape, color, type of wood, age, design etc. Nonetheless I like to add a layer of surprise, discovery that will break the rules or boundries I have created within the collection. In the case of the buttons I have include a nonbutton, a Japanese wood carved fish to swim in the bath of buttons, a Chinese printing block for a prescription medicine and a (horrors!) a metal button of a bird. Well, it is a birdbath after all.

What benefit is a hundred or so buttons in a birdbath in bungalow living room? To me they are attractive, interesting and tactile. If little kids come to visit I let them pick them up and rearrange them within their confines. Something I would not allow them to do, with say, my vases. And, yes, they remember the buttons.