What’s New Pussycat? May 31, 2008

Growing up – my dad would drive us all around New Mexico and southern Colorado. We never visited Carlsbad Caverns, or took a trip to Taos…We took a drive to Carslbad, a drive to Taos. The drive was the part of the excursion my mom and I loved the most. The drive was better than what we drove to. To this day I ask my husband to take me on drives. Where? It doesn’t matter, I just want to go for a drive.

Drives with mom and dad were better than the destination because there were frequent stops for doughnuts, hamburgers, or fancy drinks from bakery’s. We would stop at cool shops - I’d always get some sort of nicknack, we would stop at landmarks and listen to my dads long, partly interesting version of its history. The drives were the best. I would pack a bag with a book, seek-a-word, gameboy, MadLib, things I could entertain myself with in the backseat which I had all to myself since my brother didn’t have the patience for these drives. Everything about these drives annoyed him for some reason. To this day, we fight if we have to drive together.

I would sit quietly, yes, quietly in the back seat and enjoy the whole experience….watching my parents love each other – my mom would shell pistachios for my dad as he drove, or fill his palm with trail mix or pinon to munch on. I would watch my dad flip a u-turn and back track because mom decided she wanted to stop at that store afterall. I would sit in the back seat and think I was cool because we drove all the way to Santa Fe just to have breakfast at our favorite bakery La Fonda. I will cherish those drives with mom and dad, and am taken right back to the backseat of the car every time I hear Tom Jones, ” What’s new pussycat…Woah,Woah”

 

 

Andale! May 25, 2008

I think its because my watch hands move faster then yours…No, its because my day has less hours than yours…No, its because your world is stuck in slow motion…..

I could only have one place to go, one task to do and I race through it as if I was going to be standing on the highest podium singing our country’s national athem. I run through Walmart throwing things in my cart as if I was trying to beat a storm and get to low level shelter. I speed through HEB as if I was on Super Market Sweep about to win a years worth of free Spam. I’ve garage saled and frantically chased the “HUGE SALE!” signs as if flea market pros were going to take all the good stuff to resell (wait that really does happen!) I get home from these whirlwind outings astonished, “wow that didn’t take long at all.” Mind you sweat is beading on my forehead.

I move so quickly through stores sometimes that employees point and say, “Ms, the bathroom is in the back left corner.” My husband has pointed out that I look crazy swinging my arms, pumping them as if I was in the last 100 meters of a race walking competition…Am I the only one in a hurry?