A Little Bit of Background

My mother has been working on the really cool book project for the past several months, putting together a photographic history of the Espanola Valley. She has been unearthing all kinds of neat pictures. Among my favorites:

Popo (second from L)

Grandma

These are my paternal grandparents, circa 1945, I'm guessing. My grandmother worked at Espanola's only department store when she was in her 20s. Isn't she beautiful? She just turned 88. She still smiles the way she does in this picture, not broadly, but sweetly, her gaze now perpetually a bit unfocused, as she can't see very well now.

Looking at these photos, it's easy to see where my family get particular features. Both my father and my uncle, for instance, do not smile when they are photographed. Rather, they stare, much like Popo is doing in this photo. I can see how my aunts look like Grandma (and perhaps how I do, too, a little bit?).

It's a nice feeling, feeling connected to your past, to your predecessors' pasts, through a particular physical quality like a smile or a gaze. It gives me a sense of continuity, and through that, purpose.

"Collegiate a cappella in an alternate universe"

Slavs got this funny shout out on this blog. We're towards the bottom of the page. Pretty flattering, I think!

Home again

I was able to go home last weekend (thanks, frequent flyer miles!) to catch up on rest and sunshine--though not necessarily on warmth! Due to a string of days with sub-zero temps, the gas had gone out in the entire northern part of the state. NM Gas Co., owned by someone in Michigan, is saying that electrical outages in Texas are to blame, but I think they simply had not anticipated such cold temps, and had not bought enough gas from their suppliers. All this despite the fact that NM produces more natural gas than almost any other state--most of which goes elsewhere...

The good news is that my house has electric baseboard heat, which we never use, normally, but which we turned on high last weekend. We also have a lot of solar gain, at my house, and in NM in general--so I was not actually cold at any point over the weekend, and the days were a lot warmer than they had been. Hopefully this will get people in New Mexico thinking seriously about the importance of setting up a renewable energy infrastructure in the state--we have so much sunshine (and plenty of wind) that there's not excuse not to.

It was a lovely weekend regardless, with Nana's birthday on Monday. Enchiladas, beans, and carrot cake are a pretty ideal birthday meal, as far as I'm concerned.