So Maybe 5-Year-Olds Aren't So Smart After All

Yesterday I wore capri pants to school. While I was sitting criss-cross applesauce with my little group of 5-year-olds, one of the girls gave a dramatic gasp, pointed to my calves, and said, "Miss Wicked, what's wrong with your leg?!" I looked down, expecting to see blood trickling down or maybe a space alien bursting through, but just saw my regular ol' leg. I asked her what was wrong, and she said, "Your leg--it's so...WHITE!" So I got all sniffy about it and made everyone stick their leg out so we could compare, and I'll admit to you right now that I gloated just a tiny bit when I saw that her leg was whiter than mine..

Is It Wrong to Lie When It's Funny to Me?

I have convinced a friend to go to pole dancing class with me by telling her that we're going to sample cakes for a friend's wedding.

Doop de Doop

...aaaaaand it's Saturday.  Me, I worked today at the rehab hospital and I'm just happy to say that none of my male patients exposed themselves to me.  Not that it happens often, mind you.  But once is enough.

p.s. I should point out that they don't mean to expose themselves to me.  It's a part and parcel thing, goes along with the brain injuries and whatnot.

Ahem.

Well, yes, it has been a while. Since last August, to be specific. Lots has happened since then, including the fact that I now live in a house full of boys and go to the grocery store twice a week. Also, I play computer games, which is a huge, soul-sucking waste of time, but DANGIT, THEY GOT ME HOOKED!! It's like crack, I'm tellin' ya. Anyhoo. We can talk LOTR vs. King's Bounty some other time.

There was also The Wedding and The Honeymoon, in which I became officially marrit and much better-traveled. In the interest of weaseling my way back into the blogging world, I thought I might highlight, with numerous pictures and very little text, these two events. Let us begin.

For starters, it's important that you understand just what a family of whackjobs I have entered into. Yes, they are mine own. Here are the guys on the Day Of Marriage, AKA "Wedding #1." They're trying out their gangsta poses, which took some time to perfect. Let's go through the evolution:

Here they are discussing proper technique.  Apparently, at a certain point with children, the parent stops being the teacher and becomes the teachee.  You can witness that here:   



Dad gets it!  Nice work, Max.  And Elder Son brings his own style into the mix, while Younger thinks to himself, The likelihood of these pictures ending up on the internet is very high.  I think I'll err on the side of coolness.

The younger joins in, just as the elder drops his pose.  Max, of course, just goes deeper into his role.  Gentlemen, this is much like synchronized swimming.  Coordination gets you a higher score.



Yes, they're getting into the spirit of things now!  Except Elder Son, who hasn't moved.  Perhaps he's thinking about dinner.  Personally, I think they're starting to take on a certain je ne sais quoi.  I see "frame-worthy" written all over this one:

I can't explain this one.  It's as if they forgot themselves:

And now let's move into the meat of things.  The bride enters:

And the minister, too!  We have all the ingredients for a wedding now.  This particular minister hadn't done a wedding in 30 years, but he was available on two days' notice and happened to be a very good friend of Max's.  He read from The Velveteen Rabbit at the wedding, which turned him into a very good friend of mine.  We got married in a beautiful old mansion-turned-restaurant, which was also available on two days' notice.  The staff helped us move two tables and voila!  Everything was ready. Behind el ministero is a big, beautiful bay window, which you can't see, but trust me, it's there.

I think this is the part where Max started quoting from The Princess Bride.  If you've seen the movie, you know what part I'm talking about.  Ad libbing  makes weddings more fun!  Is Younger Son texting over there on the left??  No, no, just getting the ring ready.

Well, badda bing, badda bang, we were married just like that.  All we said was, "I do," and we were hitched.  Crazy.  The seven of us then went upstairs to the lounge and had a little snacky poo and a drinky poo while we waited for the restaurant to be ready for dinner-serving, then we went downstairs and had a fantastic meal together.  It was the perfect wedding. 

Oh, and you thought I'd just end there, did you?  Nyerp.  It's honeymoon time!  We, of course, took Younger and Elder Sons along with us to the fabulous Greece, where much fun awaited us.  It all began in the airport, where Max began a long obsession with cell phones.  Here he is trying to get our international phones activated:

The rest of us were enjoying a delicious airport breakfast.  We flew Lufthansa most of the way, and I applaud them mightily for their wonderful service and fascinating snack crackers:

Who is she?  Why was she in a snack bag?  Her husband was in there, too, along with the moon and the stars.  They were delicious.  The crew never stopped taking care of us and all the electronics worked perfectly, such as the headphones and individual video screens.  I cannot say the same for our flight back, on which we flew a non-Lufthansa airline, but I will name no names.

Here's underage Younger Son, having his first legal drink!

Here we are in Athens, where we had to wait FIVE HOURS to get on our island-hopper flight.  That's a really long time when you've already been traveling, like, forever.  The guys are trying their first Greek coffee, which stunned them.  Or maybe it was the really bad ouzo that they drank just prior to the coffee that gave them these expressions.  It's hard to tell.

This is my all-time favorite photo.  It's just so doggone sweet.  We were still...waiting...for the flight that would take us to Santorini.  Not that I'm complaining, mind you.  We were in Greece.  I'm not sure that boy took off those sunglasses during the whole trip.

At some point everybody just gave up and did this. Not me, though mind you.  My job was to worry about missing our flight, and I take these thing seriously.  Why is it that men can sleep anywhere?!

At last!  Aloft!  These are just two of the many, many little islands we flew over on our way to ours.  The sea was every bit as blue as better pictures than these show.  It was elegant, it was beautiful, it just called to be swam in.  Pity it was so cold.

This is the descent onto Santorini.  Max and I stayed near Oia, which is the quieter and better-for-old-fart-couples part of the island.  The boys stayed in Fira, which was the action-packed party area.  Relatively speaking, anyway.  This picture shows neither of those areas. 

We were happily exhausted by the time we got there, but that didn't stop Max from immediately touching base, checking in, updating and figuring things out.  He'd never admit it, but he's an Organizer.  Also, he looks pretty comfortable on that couch, eh?  We did manage to go out to dinner, but that was the end of the adventures for the day.  Zzzzzzzz.......

So that's it--Day One.  Over the course of the trip I took about a thousand pictures, every one of which I will share with you.  Don't panic!!  Just kidding!  But I will share some, cause they're perty.   Opa!

Testing, uno, dos, tres, kick left, kick right!

Hello, Little Children! Hello!! Little Children?? Come Back! It's Miss Wicked!!

Tonight I bid adieu to summer and bonjour to the little children (well, technically I'm bidding bonjour to an all-day training tomorrow, but that's a much less dramatic statement).

The good news is that I shall be back at the elementary school this year, the Home of Stories, where I will be with students closer to my own age.

BWAAAA HA HA!!! I crack myself up. You see why I fit in so well there. If you think that last joke was juvenile, you should see my reaction to fart humor. Anyway, see you soon...with stories!!

Simple Peace

In my opinion, there is nothing so pleasant as a cemetery. These hallowed grounds have such a special feel to them--in these places, there is nothing due, nothing to rush off to, and no one asking you questions. You'll never find someone trying to sell you a hot dog or a timeshare there. Cemeteries are a hassle-free zone. In them, you can just be. They are simple peace.

New Mexico has such an interesting array of them. There's a small one located just at the on-ramp to the freeway to I-25 as you leave the airport. It's small and untended with lots of cement, and I do sometimes wonder how those souls there feel about their location. I'd prefer a more pastoral place, myself, but then again, I suppose the venue itself is more for the living than the dead. After all, I intend to be steadily employed in my next life as a cuddler of kittens and rescuer of squirrels, and will have no time for sitting about by my headstone plucking at flowers.

I love to stop at cemeteries and wander around, saying hello to those who reside there and marveling over things such as their names, their life spans, their military service, the children they have buried near them. I feel it's a moment of recognition between us, as if the veil gets lifted for just a moment so that we can give a single nod to each other. I see you, I say, and I think they say the same right back.

This is all brought to mind by the fact that I'm sitting a stone's throw from the Kit Carson Cemetery in Taos. I happened to have some meandering time, and what better place to go when you're feeling a little poopy la la and need some perspective? (Also, and very importantly, I have found the free parking in Taos.)

I suppose it's obvious to say Kit Carson is buried there. Kit was a fighting man who had his own share of controversy, as any decent man of the wild west does. It's a little hard to figure out which one is his grave--there are several with his name on it, who I suppose are his descendants. I had to look up his dates of birth and death to ferret out the right one, which is here:

Kit gets all the attention, of course, but nestled next to him is his wife, Josephine. I think she's worth a mention. One wonders just who she was, and how she lived her life married to this man. The best part about cemeteries is that one can make up stories to suit one's purposes, so I've decided to characterize her as a saucy woman who didn't take anything lying down, no sir. She gave as good as she got, and when the rebellion came, she was out front fighting with the men. Probably with a baby under each arm.

But keep in mind I made that up.

And speaking of temperament, take a look at this lady:

Benigna. Do you think she lived into that name as a delicate and sweet woman who never uttered a word that was not soaked in kindness, or did she spend her life railing against it? I'd like to have known her. Honestly, that's a heck of a name to saddle a gal with, unless you're trying to give her the element of surprise in a bar fight.

One of my favorites at the Kit Carson Cemetery was a fella who just unabashedly put it all out there:

"I am at rest for an eternity near my idol Kit Carson." Way to go, John McCurdy. Just say it like you feel it.

Another favorite:

Unknown to end. Unknown to end. Oh, what greater way to whet the curiosity of the idle observer? Was this truly a stranger buried here, unknown to anyone but himself or herself to the end? Or perhaps it was someone who chose to live a life of taciturnity, and this was his or her spouse's way of getting even for all those long, silent nights? It truly does beg wondering, doesn't it? Interestingly, he or she was buried near Kit Carson. Very near. Closer even than John McCurdy. The plot thickens.

Keeping with the theme of mystery, I found this marker tucked back by the fence:

Clearly it's a headstone of sorts, but for who? And when? It was near a marker for Mister Solomon Grubb, who had no issues with declaring himself:

At historical grave sites, you get to learn things. I found this marker, and while the type is too small to be read here, allow me to summarize:

Antonio joined the seminary following the death of his wife and child. He became a major religious leader and was famous for "obtaining the abolition of tithes." Srsly. He also established the first co-ed school in New Mexico and published textbooks and one of the first newspapers in New Mexico. It may not surprise you to know he had a few religious differences with the Bishop, and was ultimately defrocked and excommunicated from the Church. Rome better pay attention because I guess this is what happens when you let married men wear the collar. They go all modern and change things.

Another famous name in this neck of the woods, aside from Kit Carson, is Mabel Dodge Luhan. She was a philanthropist and entertainer to the stars, but check out her grave marker:

One word: understated. I love the candle and the flowers--somebody's still looking after Mabel.

There were families buried there with beautiful names: Soledad DesGeorges, her husband Esteban DesGeorges, and their DesGeorges children. Aloys Liebert came to Taos in the 19th century, dying there in 1905. His descendant, Alois Liebert III, illustrates to us how subtle spelling changes take hold and create a slightly altered lineage. Severino Martinez. Ney C. Galaway. And another favorite:

Yes, Hipolita. The head had come off the animal that was topping the marker, but do you think it was--dare I say it?--a hippopotamus? I hope she had that sense of humor. At all times we must laugh, even in repose.

Thank you for joining me in my journey beyond. The earliest date of birth I saw was 1820, and the latest death was in the 1970s. These folks may be long gone, but certainly not forgotten. At least not by me.