New Mexico

I am feeling very New Mexican this week as I sit in my home-office smelling the pungent roasting of green chiles. At first, I thought this was left over from peeling green chiles last night. However, the smell of burnt chile skins is so strong and seems to be coming in from the window. It must be coming from Nelson's grocery a block away.

Some more New Mexico moments:

• I had to talk to an overly friendly customer service person in a far away state recently. She asked about the weather, I told her it might rain. She said "I hope your day isn't ruined by any raindrops." I was blown away... my day would be ruined by NOT getting any drops! When clouds come in, we always get our hopes up and then we can see it raining a mile away and it may not hit our house.
• I've spent this summer fighting with a yard where it is both impossible to grow anything and impossible to control the weeds. The most paradoxical fight has been against unwanted thirsty grass. We don't water it enough to have a nice lawn, but it invades the garden and rock areas. We'd like to put in drought-tolerant native grass, but the thirsty grass which looks pathetic will choke out the new grass.
• We've been eating a lot of stuff grown in the backyard, including purslane which grows like a weed. I have neighbors that get arugula as a weed.
• On Friday, when we wanted to get something to eat at 9pm, the only thing open in our neighborhood was a tacqueria where no English is spoken.