It's confirmed. Critical thinking is in its final death throes.

Posted by Kimberly at July 28, 2008 | Permalink | Comments (0)

OK. I don't find McCain exactly exciting, and he's not thrilling me as a conservative, because he's not conservative enough for me in some areas, frankly. But this Messiah stuff is too much for me to stomach. Where did this empty suit, this junior senator, this community organizer, this former protege of Rev. Wright's come from?

My country is filled with ninth-grade boys apparently. Thinking with their er ... other ... brains.

Will Media Report Concert Before Obama's Berlin Speech?

Obama snubbed the troops because no photo op allowed.

Posted by Kimberly at July 27, 2008 | Permalink | Comments (3)

I love this image The Dark Side of Horse with a wild, untidy mane by barnyardbabe.

The mane of my husband's arabian horse hangs well below her neck, and it's lustrous, inky black. I'm happy with the growth this year of Toby's unruly mane. The percheron's forelock has gotten quite long, almost covering the crescent on his forehead, and I think if the trend continues, he will have quite impressive locks. I've almost tamed it to lay all on one side, but it's been a constant project. I continue to be surprised at the luxurious mane of our quarterhorse mare. It grows like weeds, I swear, and will soon be as long as the arabian's. She nuzzles me when I comb it out. Caprichosa's mane is long too, and looks like snow after a good washing. Now, as for the appaloosa horse Teyla, what can I say? The appaloosa has a crazy shock of salt and pepper along the length of her neck, but her tail nearly reaches the ground. My other appaloosa mare had a little stub of a tail, nothing like this. With her Navajo brand on one shoulder, I suspect Teyla's ancestry includes some mustang. She is built like those small wild horses.

Since I don't show, I can let my horse's manes grow wild.

My grandma Jessie had shining silver hair down to her waist. I used to braid it for her when I was a girl. I am curious about women who cut off their hair when they reach a certain age, as if it's somehow more appropriate or sensible. I see them at the grocery store, shorn like sheep almost. This is a bit of a personal issue for me. I cut my hair off once in college on a whim, and cried for days after. My mother finally gave up on talking me into cutting mine off into what she refers to as a "classic bob" which somehow or other in her estimation would make my "look" more "complete". Maybe if I were still living on the east coast and wearing a blue, black or gray suit to work every day with uber sensible pumps, which hasn't been my life for decades. But then again I doubt it.

Now I'm really not dissing bobs or short hair, it's just not for me. If I could have looked like, say, Audrey Hepburn in her short haircut framing that angelic face, well, then, I would have kept the style I tried in college.

It may be the Sampson and Delilah thing. If I cut off my hair, even with its grays, then I lose my mythical power? Is it really my glory, like some Bible prophet wrote? And what is so dark and terrifying to some about long locks that they stipulate that it must be covered? Is it a form of envy?

I remember from some twenty years ago admiring a certain young man every single morning on the subway from Boston's Back Bay to the Financial District. He had cascades of honey brown hair down to his waist. And he wore it loose. No ponytail. I'm talking hair that most women would die for. Although there was nothing girly about this guy. Believe me, female hearts were pounding. And probably some male ones too. It was like being in the presence of a golden-maned lion in an impeccable Italian suit every morning on the Green Line.

I hope I'm not the only one who stared. Well, actually, I wasn't that rude. I suppose I peered furtively around the edges of the Boston Globe and never dared to breathe a word in his direction.

I love seeing in Santa Fe the grandmothers who don't look anything like grandmothers with their silver hair rippling down their back beneath the brim of a cowboy hat. The crows feet that wrinkle at the corners of their eyes when they smile.

I see that my horses' manes are almost in dredlocks this morning when I go down to feed, as it's been raining. All day yesterday. All last night. The whole week before. Thanks to our brief monsoon season and the hurricane down south. I will very much enjoy combing them out.

Posted by Kimberly at July 26, 2008 | Permalink | Comments (3)

White Horse Pilgrim talks about the Merits of an Untidy Landscape while his lovely wife Danielle takes these photos that make you feel like you're right there in the windswept Shire.

In a recent dream, I'm in some kind of senior citizen home. In an elegant dining room with linen, crystal, china and sunshine streaming through the windows.

One of the elderly residents, a meticulously groomed woman with white hair arranged just so and one of those swirly crystal pins affixed to the lapel of her timeless wool suit, asks me to arrange peacock feathers in a crystal vase.

I try my best. Really. I do.

But instead of an elegant arrangement of peacock feathers, the best I can come up with is a vase of wild grass. Weeds really. Red. Green. Gold. I stand back and look at my handiwork.

I like it, I'm thinking, admiring the Indian Paintbrush and Horse Grass. Purple Clover. Bachelor Buttons. Queen Anne's Lace.

The elderly woman furrows her brow in disappointment. She lectures me about the chasm, the absolute gulf, between what she asked for, what she expected, and what I managed to produce. And suddenly I feel ashamed at this vase of unruly, untidy weeds.

What was I thinking, she asks? Why couldn't I follow directions?

I wake up confused. But after a few days of thinking it over, I get what the vase of wild and wooly weeds represents. It is in fact quite beautiful, even though some can't see beyond the untidiness.

It's the symbol of a full life.

These days, after a lifetime of preening peacocks trying to hold me to this or that vision of who I should be, I revel in it.

Posted by Kimberly at July 26, 2008 | Permalink | Comments (0)

It's been a long, dry stretch

of just me and the heeler dogs,

who, in the absence of Jack Bauer and the kiddos, keep an extra careful eye on me.

All the time.

No matter what.

No matter when.

Relentless and without fail. Body guards to the end. Even when I feed the bees.

And don't you dare even think about trying to sneak up on me when I'm sitting on the riverbank with Lila Jane and Red Dawg on the job. No siree. Not if you value the seat of your pants.

Ever try to clean your house while being heeled by tenacious bob-tailed heeler dogs?

Posted by Kimberly at July 25, 2008 | Permalink | Comments (0)

The latest incarnation of Oedipus, the continued romance of Beauty and the Beast, stands this afternoon on the corner of 42nd Street and Fifth Avenue, waiting for the traffic light to change. The Hero with a Thousand Faces, Joseph Campbell.

Love it. Joseph Campbell is a hero of mine.

So, here's what I'm thinking ...

The latest incarnation of Epona, the continued romance of cowgirl and quarterhorse, leans on her manure shovel in a dusty barn in West Texas, waiting for the farrier to arrive. I Gallop On.

Anyone else want to chime in with a quote patterned after Campbell's? I'll publish them here and link back to your blog. Feel free to comment or send me email, if you like.

Posted by Kimberly at July 24, 2008 | Permalink | Comments (1)

Someday. Someday. Someday.

I shall have a red riding dress.

Posted by Kimberly at July 24, 2008 | Permalink | Comments (1)

Oh I'm a honey bear Yes I'm a honey bear Oh I'm a yummy, tummy, funny, lucky honey bear I'm a jelly bear Yes, I'm a honey bear Oh I'm a moving, grooving, jamming, singing honey bear. Oh Yeah (Hat tip: my eleven-year-old daughter and GUMMIBÄR)

With it being the official monsoon season here in northern New Mexico, that old advice about not feeding the bees when it's cloudy just isn't working.

So onward I go.

Despite my recent setback.

With a giant plastic container of sugar syrup in tow. And the smoker cranked up, baby.

With dark brooding clouds gathering above like in a Twilight Zone episode or a really scary B movie, I approached the hives, sans bee costume, because I apparently don't learn quick or possibly I have a taste for danger. Cracked open the top, ever so gently, to hear only contented humming inside.

And guess what was on top of the frames? Burr comb chock full of, literally oozing with, brand new honey that needed to be removed. Basic housekeeping stuff, you see. I flicked a couple of the little girls away--easy, easy, there, I was saying--with my bee brush, and used my hive tool to gently remove the comb, the ooey gooey contents of which I proceeded to enjoy, just like a GUMMIBÄR ... JELLY ... HONEY bear.

Ah the sweet taste of novice beekeeping ... success.

Posted by Kimberly at July 22, 2008 | Permalink | Comments (3)

This is just one of many many beautiful paintings by Erica Chappuis.

When the still sea conspires in armor
And her sullen and aborted
Currents breed tiny monsters
True sailing is dead

Awkward instant
And the first animal is jettisoned
Legs furiously pumping
Their stiff green gallop
And heads bob up
Poise
Delicate
Pause
Consent
In mute nostril agony
Carefully refined
And sealed over

The Doors (hat tip: Srange Days Song Notes)

They say the horses tossed overboard in the doldrums would swim for miles alongside of the ships, or in their wake, until they couldn't swim any more, and they drowned. The sailors were haunted by nightmares of the horses' panic-stricken whinnies and cries for the rest of the voyage.

And probably for a long time after that.

Once, when the bully I was married to a lifetime ago decided that it wasn't OK for me to spend the night somewhere safe and away from him and his fistfuls of wrath with what then were our one- and two-year-old children, just babies really, and his property certainly, and issued escalating and ugly threats one after the other in a hateful torrent over the telephone to the people who'd taken His Wife and His Kids in, people who never should have tossed me out, never, never, never in a million years--they told me I had to go. I had to go back to that house with that monster and take two innocents with me.

I was just going to have to talk to him.

Calm him down.

Stay the hell out of his way.

Hot salt tears glazed my eyes as they explained that there were the neighbors to think about, you see. I was mute at their out loud questioning about what if he came to the gated complex where they were lived and caused a row? What if they had to call the police? Foam green water rushed up around my ears in their beautifully decorated dining room. What if he broke the door down? The waves were breaking over me, nearly knocking the fine china from its display case. After all, he'd just threatened to kill them. I imagined the authentic oriental rug with its gold thread the color of Spanish treasure waterlogged and ruined. How would they ever face their neighbors again after that?

There were no panic stricken cries as I was jettisoned over.

Only the undertow.

Posted by Kimberly at July 22, 2008 | Permalink | Comments (3)

Then what I had thought was a ripple in the water turned out to be—no, not a shark with hectoring John Williams music pulsing from a boom box in its stomach. It was a tiny old man in a tiny black bathing suit. He was slowly, slowly completing a lap in the next lane. When, finally, he reached the side where I was resting and watching, he came up for air. He saw me, beamed, and said, “I’m ninety years old.” It was clearly a boast, not a lament, so I followed his script and said, “Well, isn’t that marvelous” and “You certainly don’t look it” and on in that vein. He beamed some more, I beamed, and briefly we both were happy—two nearly naked strangers sharing the first little dishonesties and self-deceptions of a beautiful day in Southern California.Mine Is Longer than Yours, The Last Boomer Game, by Michael Kinsley, The New Yorker, April 7, 2008.

I catch the aspen leaf bobbing down the Pecos River, past the muzzle of my horse who is drinking in deep gulps that shoot up the length of her throat like ice cold bullets. Woody veins stand in sharp relief against what's now rice paper flesh, but used to be gold quivering up above me, showering me with riches here on the bank. The aspen leaf in my hand is thin as the horse shoes I should have had the blacksmith change out before riding up to Lake Johnson, and now Caprichosa will be carrying me down the rocky mountain path with one foot bare.

At a family event this weekend--amidst the chatter of the grandchildren, the text messaging, a twentysomething nephew's claim about how no one's wearing watches anymore that has my husband studying the one on his wrist to peals of laughter, the talk of trips to be taken, of things to be done and conquered and dreamed, the wailing of the brand new great-grand baby spiraling at least an octave or two above the fiddle playing up there on stage in the midst of all of this cowboy and western cacophony, toe tapping, and hokey knee clapping we are subjected to each and every summer as part of the family get together--I feel the current sluicing beneath the picnic table benches we are bouncing the seats of our blue jeans up and down on in time to the steel guitar music. Along with the frisson, the thrill, the possibility that we all might get a good old-fashioned talking to for our rowdy behavior.

Just like we did last year.

Although the era of skinny willow switches as deadly as dressage whips wielded badly and going to your room without supper is over. Nowadays most folks can't control their children, and what is the world coming to, and do you think it's really a good idea to let an eleven-year-old have her own cell phone, and do you know just exactly who she is talking to? I mean. Do you? The world's a dangerous place, every single solitary corner, in spite of early bird suppers and senior citizen Tai Chi.

People are whooping and hollering as the cowboy band strikes up another set, including yodeling, and in the midst of the thundering and the rollicking, I catch a pair of gray eyes beneath unruly gray eyebrows. They snag on mine in the boiling white water, in what I know is mild disapproval, quelling my Wrangler bouncing, somewhat, until they recoil like an old frayed rope that will never reach across, no matter how far any of us would jump in to try and grab it or are confused by the shadows of that dakening canyon, filled with moldering leaves in pools as still as mirrors.

The river's way too fast.

Posted by Kimberly at July 21, 2008 | Permalink | Comments (0)

Where sailing ships had to jettison their precious cargo. Boating Encyclopedia.

The term horse latitudes supposedly originates from the days when Spanish sailing vessels transported horses to the West Indies. Ships would often become becalmed in mid-ocean in this latitude, thus severely prolonging the voyage; the resulting water shortages would make it necessary for crews to throw their horses overboard. Columbia Encyclopedia. (Read more at Answers.com)

I came across the Horse Latitudes in the research for my book. Occasionally I dream of big sailing ships. I remember seeing the first Black Beauty movie when I was a girl, and was terribly worried when the ship sank and Black Beauty and the boy had to swim to shore. I think I can put this idea to good use.

The idea of tossing horses overboard to drown just gives me the shivers. Now those were hard times. Tell that to some folks in my nanny state. But then again, Jack Bauer and I agree that we would have waded and swam right out of New Orleans if we'd have had to, as I suspect a lot of my fellow Northern New Mexicans would have. Just give me a grocery cart to push my kids in, that's what I say. We dug ourselves out of a raging blizzard not that long ago.

What's becoming of us?

Well, I won't go down that bunny hole right now or slip into the doldrums. Here's something nice to offset the creepy Horse Latitudes--

Anyone ever done anything like this? I would certainly love to.

Posted by Kimberly at July 18, 2008 | Permalink | Comments (3)

Poor Ohio Family Forced to Scrimp on Food. Gateway Pundit.

"NPR aired a sad piece on the Nunez family in Ohio who can no longer afford meat. It's a good thing they're a radio channel.

Gloria Nunez has never worked. She says that since her car broke down (imagine that?) her daughter can't look for a job either. And, they're scrimping on food."

Gateway Pundit is right. You just can't make this stuff up.

How long will it be before my hard earned money/my tax dollars are used to buy Segways for these clowns?

Posted by Kimberly at July 18, 2008 | Permalink | Comments (2)

I've been pretty smug about the fact that it's been a couple of months and not one bee sting. (For humans that is. The Carniolans nailed a tenacious heeler dog who stuck her nose right into the front door of the hive a while ago.) Until last night.

I've been told countless times, and I've read countless times, that bees and clouds don't mix. A cloudy day is a day when it's best to not open your hive and peek inside. It's best to leave your bees snug in their little home, undisturbed. It's really a good idea to not pull any frames when the thunder clouds are rolling in. Clouds make bees ... cranky.

But I did it anyway.

The Carniolan hive is the liveliest of the two. The Carniolans hang out on their front porch. A whole slew of them. All at once. They are busybodies. They remind me of the locals in Boston's Little Italy on a Friday evening when the restaurants are just opening up. Sitting in their folding plastic chairs on the sidewalks with the air redolent with garlic. Or like rednecks sitting in their plastic chairs in the garage to watch a rain storm because they don't have a front porch. Or, because those rednecks just like their garage and the view from that particular vantage point. If the Carniolans were your neighbors and not bees, they might be prone to having a garage band. And motorcycles. Carrrrrrniolan--I had a friend in gradeschool whose last name was Carnabucci--they sound like Mafia to me.

When I cracked open the inner hive cover, the Carniolans' buzzing stepped up a notch, which is not what they do on nice, sunny days. On nice sunny days, essentially, they ignore me, and life moves on at a gentle hum. Or, some of the more curious cling to the tops of the frames and peer at me from just inside.

So here I was trying to scrape--ever so carefully and every so gently while breathing slowly and methodically in an attempt to not give out any vibes that I was even remotely concerned about the thousands of winged, barbed beasties inside--some comb the bees had decided to build on top of the frames, instead of inside where it belongs. (Give a bee a little room, and she'll fill it up with honeycomb or propolis.) I didn't notice the single fuzzy (did you know that bees are actually kind of furry???) bee butt sticking up out of one of the soft wax cells as she diligently worked away. And when I scraped the comb off of the top of the frame, she became very unhappy with me. Before I knew what hit me, I'd been soundly stung on the middle finger of my left hand.

I didn't flinch or shout. Don't get me wrong, it hurt. It stung. But I felt more sad than anything to see her little stinger sticking out of my finger. Because that means she's dead, poor tiny, industrious, sweet creature. I pulled the barb out and from the corner of my eye saw something terrifying. Something like a hundred bees poised on top of the frame, shining eyes riveted on me, ready to ...

what?

attack?

Their buzzing had increased to a gentle roar.

Defend their home from this marauding she bear who didn't even have the good sense to wear her bee suit on a cloudy day?

The Carniolans' buzzing was now the growl of thousands of effervescent wings, like the whole hive was one living thing. I almost expected the hive box to take off right over the mesa.

Glad I had that smoker in my other hand. A few gentle puffs of smoke, and the Carniolans were just about as quickly all heads down, shiny bee butts up, working on the comb like it never happened.

I hope.

I hope they've forgotten by now how mad I made them. I hope they don't hold, you know, grudges. Enough indelicate incidents, and they just might. And I'll try to stick to sunny days, which in New Mexico, is a pretty easy thing to do.

Posted by Kimberly at July 17, 2008 | Permalink | Comments (2)

I'm going to DC with Jack Bauer here in a little while. We're considering going on a Segway tour of the mall. (And the rest of the time we're riding the Metro and bicycles.) Jack says Segways are all over the place there.

Have you seen these?

Heck, I thought I was taking control of my commute by riding Odie. And I would ride a horse, really, but my commute is over 70 miles round trip every day. You see the total impracticality of that.

They even make an adventure model. Yep. Adventure. Model. "The Segway x2 Adventure takes you off the beaten path and turns you on to the powerful thrill of nature. For both casual riders and experienced explorers, it’s your all-access pass to the great outdoors."

No. No. No. No.

No!

If my appaloosa horse Teyla and I see one of these up in the Pecos Mountains this summer, I might let her stomp it into the ground beneath her agate hooves, kind of like I expect she'd go after a bear or a boar. Or sick the heeler dogs on it. At which point I imagine I would be in a lot of trouble.

Jesus help us. Americans are fat enough already. And I just had a heck of a time squeezing my dieting self into a size of polytitanium mesh that I feel is still reasonably acceptable for a woman of my age.

But I do intend to go for a Segway joy ride. Just once, mind you.

Posted by Kimberly at July 16, 2008 | Permalink | Comments (5)

Today is Ride Your Motorcycle to Work day. But after a night of righteous thunderstorms and torrential rain, I chickened out this morning. Despite the fact that I ride completely armored in this stuff:

Yep. That's right. Polytitanium Mesh. And a full face helmet. Leather gloves. Motorcycle boots.

Kevlar underwear. (Not really. But almost... )

I'd rather be all cavalier like Shia Labeouf in the latest Indiana Jones flick. Now he was cool. I do have a leather jacket like Shia's, though, that I don't want to perspire all over in the summer (sorry, that's probably too much information), hence, the polytitanium mesh jacket and equally polytitanium britches. How the wind manages to whistle through all of that polytitanium is a mystery to me, but it is surprisingly cool. And the only place you can see the Harley Davidson logo on my leather jacket that is almost as cool as Shia's is on the little snaps. Well, the little snaps that are All Over the Jacket. Jack Bauer has accused me of being thoroughly branded after I brought that little fashion item home.

And it's not like I have anything to prove, I've been riding Odie to work for weeks now.

Tell you what I'd really like, and I wouldn't chicken out, not in a million years, bring on almost any kind of weather--

Ride Your Horse to Work Day.

Most of us aren't wearing polytitanium mesh for riding horses. (The closest I might come to wearing my FieldSheer suit is if my percheron horse Toby and I were going off to fight, say, a dragon. If I fell into a moat, I'd sink straight to the bottom.)

Well, at least not most of us.

Posted by Kimberly at July 16, 2008 | Permalink | Comments (0)

Caballo, mal pais, costa rica by kelco.

A dream.

Posted by Kimberly at July 11, 2008 | Permalink | Comments (2)

I love this photo of horse and woman riding in a tope by Rafael Dorantes.

We're having a rodeo in Pecos this weekend. I'll see you there.

Posted by Kimberly at July 11, 2008 | Permalink | Comments (0)

Hat tip to A New Life in Costa Rica.

I don't usually think about retirement. I try to live in the here and now. Because when push comes to shove, this moment is all I've got.

But every now and then I indulge myself. Particularly when I grow weary of the desert. We will be heading to Costa Rica, I suspect, in a little over a decade. If you'd have told me a few years ago that I'd be considering life as an expat, I'd have laughed. But there it is. Aren't things surprising?

I love their little horses. I love how green it is.

Think my percheron horse Toby will like it? Do I put him on a plane? Or a boat? How does that work?

OK, now I will rein myself back to the present, where I fully intend to live. But every now and then ...

Posted by Kimberly at July 11, 2008 | Permalink | Comments (1)

Reader Jackie from the very cool blog Shimoda's Dream tells me someone who makes quinceanera dresses in my area may be able to sew up a riding habit for me one of these days.

Although, with the price of gasoline spiraling upwards, I don't expect that there's one in my future any time soon. I'll be buying school shoes for kids and scratching along with everyone else trying to pay the horse hay bill.

Whoa. I would have enjoyed one of these when I was fifteen--

I admit, I had to look up the word "quinceanera". Here's the wikipedia definition. I think I've seen this here in Santa Fe, I just thought the young woman was going to a dance, not to church! The closest equivalents to the quinceañera in the English-speaking world are the sweet sixteen, Bar or Bat Mitzvah for Jewish children turning 13, cotillion, or, in more affluent communities, the debutante ball for those who turn 18.

Anyone out there have a debutante ball?

The closest I got was having a roommate in college who'd had a "coming out ball" (which from her description of the event, I believe is the same thing) in Cincinnati. Apparently, she was formerly introduced to society. I was invited to her home for Thanksgiving once, and it was all very civilized and lovely, with peacocks strolling on the lawn and a horseback ride through the autumn foliage in the afternoon. Her mother took us downtown for an afternoon of shopping and then lunch in a place where the ladies lunch in a department store. Are there still cute lunch places with linen, china and crystal in department stores? Certainly not here in Santa Fe, the city that has one single escalator. I recall high tea at Harrod's in London once when I was eighteen, but we were all students, all wearing blue jeans ...

I'll take this kind of girly right of passage any day over this.--

“The evening, which alternated between homemade Christian rituals and giddy dancing” – and which culminated, for at least one father and his daughters, with a dreamy walk in the night around a lake, “was a joyous public affirmation of the girls’ sexual abstinence until they wed,” said the Times article.

Ugh.

When I read about these Chastity Balls a few weeks ago in the NY Times, I had a very visceral and unpleasant reaction,(you may wish to take dramamine, or something stronger, before clicking), but I'm not going to write about that now, except to say that instead of a young woman making her "debut" to the world, this seems to me a form of abuse, where girls are nothing more than their father's property to be cloistered away until such time that they are passed along to a man in what appears to be a surprisingly medieval future. Pure tyranny, as Judith Warner observed recently. Too much big bad sun god stuff, for my taste, thank you very much.

Nope. My lips are sealed. I'm still in happy pink fluffy dress land, resplendent with white cake and sugar frosting, and perhaps, if you're lucky,

la luna.

Posted by Kimberly at July 7, 2008 | Permalink | Comments (4)

Somehow this is what most people mean when they say “individuality” - they mean the feeling of power that comes from being a consumer and being able to leverage money into choices of what kind of thing to buy based on who you want to fit in with and what idealized media-driven image of perfection you’re trying to artificially set your life according to.

I can't help but smile at the fellow driving along next to me on the Old Santa Fe Trail road in his brand spanking new Smart Car, complete with temporary tags. He shoots me a big smile back. I'm surprised there aren't any accidents with all of the gandering he's basking in on this rush hour morning.

Those little things are darned cute. And the drivers of them look so ... well ... smart.

Now don't get mad at me and send me ugly emails, but I feel rather indulgent towards the Smart Car folks. I have a soft spot for cones and geeks and the fellows with pocket protectors. They don't give me that righteous vibe I get from the Prius drivers, although I think Prius drivers are certainly smart because they're saving money on gas too, getting something like 50 MPG, if I'm correct, and who's not for that?

As for Saving The Environment by driving a Prius--which here in uber trendy, ultra liberal, tree- and bunny- (not to mention rodent-, yes, prairie dogs are rodents, out of which possibly hats could be made) hugging Santa Fe seems to be what the Prius vibe is all about-- well, I'm not sure about that.

I've pretty much gotten over the sale of my gas guzzling hog of an SUV. My beloved Tahoe that simply carried me down the road like a queen and was recently called a dinosaur by a salesman in a fluffy white shirt at the Toyota dealership as we were talking trade-in. And now I'm zipping around in my Honda Civic to the tune of 40+ MPG on the highway. Feeling positively ... zippy, she says through gritted teeth. But face it, I don't look nearly as brainy as my Smart Car and Prius counterparts. No one is grinning indulgently at me or my other Civic bretheren while I'm driving around. I doubt anyone's thinking I'm an individual whose particularly smart because of my choice of transportation.

No sireee.

The admittedly adorable Smart Car seats two, and looks more dangerous to me than my motorcycle (although maybe if I wore a full-faced helmet and some body armor I'd feel better about the Smart Car ...) and delivers 33 mpg in the city and 40 mpg on the highway, according to 2008 EPA standards. I don't know where I'd put my kids or that 55-pound bag of feed that actually fits into the trunk in my Civic.

As for the Prius, Jack Bauer is worried that the technology's not quite where it should be, and given that I put 100 miles a day on an automobile during the week, the battery will wear out and need to be replaced to the tune of whatever gasoline savings I would have accrued and then some. And I too am privy to the scuttlebutt -- that it's more environmentally detrimental to produce a Prius than a big hawg of a Hummer. Something to do with the nickel in the battery used to power the thing. According to some (I was surprised at the Google results), the environmental cost of producing that battery is pretty high.

I'm not disparaging hybrids, not by any means. When hybrid technology is where Jack Bauer and I are comfortable with it, then sign us up. Heck, we'll take two. (Although I don't think The Messiah--who as National Review Online Economics Editor Larry Kudlow writes is "opposed to drilling, opposed to nuclear, opposed to coal" and seems to think that we can solve our problems with wind and sails--has yet figured out that electricity has to be generated. He'll have us all pedaling to work soon. Maybe three or four of us piled up on one scooter while wearing government mandated safety gear.)

It's theater.

Of the righteous variety.

Illustration which accompanied the Wilamette Week's endorsement of Barack Obama. Without a doubt, the silliest political poster I have ever seen. See this website for more iconography. What's up with the white horse? Reminds me of our Andalusian horse Caprichosa. Is there an Andalusian/Atlantis connection going on here??? Oh, I get it. Barack's from the lost city!

We're not trying to disparage hybrids in response to environmentalists' demonization of SUVs. Consumers should be free to drive whatever they want. We're merely providing some little-known facts — and wondering just what other 'green' alternatives being pushed on the public are not so green after all.

For some real theater, check out this bad boy--55 MPG and truly righteous. Although, I must admit, I like riding a horse best.

Posted by Kimberly at July 3, 2008 | Permalink | Comments (2)

Theatre and performance, I think, lay bare the foundations of what our culture really consists of: people playing roles. The Great Guiding Myth™ of our times is that by acquiring more money, you can take on any role you want to, simply by buying the products associated with that role.

I walk into what I think is probably the only haute couture (not that I’m an expert on these things) shop in Santa Fe. Drawn through the doors by yards of ruby red fabric draped around a sidewalk mannequin just doing her job. And quite well, I must say.

The gown sported by the headless and armless lady has almost exactly the shape, the silhouette, I’ve been craving, especially that breathless crimson swath hanging from the small of the back and sweeping the pavement like waves.

Of desire.

(Oh my goodness, I’ve nearly forgotten myself.)

The exquisite garment is like the one from my wild waking dream that involves learning to ride my Percheron horse Tobias sidesaddle. (When thinking of sidesaddle riding, I am compelled to use the Big Boo’s proper name.) And from the vision--I often entertain during long, bureaucratic meetings of such significance that two score of us must be in attendance so any decision made cannot be traced back to any single cog--where I am driving the glistening black horse in a glistening black cart. Generally with the surf pounding around spinning wheels sparkling in the sunshine.

And I’m wearing something fabulous. I mean. Really. Fabulous.

The proprietor gives me a good once over, and I realize I’m not very impressive looking in my blue jeans and my boots and my tee shirt from Target. She makes her snap decision just as I open my mouth and ask her if she would ever take on the project of designing and sewing a riding habit. I’m a horsewoman, you see, and that red dress out there on the sidewalk is well ... nearly perfect. I run out of breathe when her level gaze lets me know she’s absolutely unimpressed with these credentials, and that’s just before here eyes drop to my shoes. When I moved to Boston, right out of college, and lived in a shabby and wondrous apartment in the Back Bay, only a couple of blocks away from the fashionable Newbury Street, I was told by friends that the shopkeepers there would quickly apprise my ability to buy by what they judged to be the value of my shoes.

My eyes follow hers to the Ariats that weren’t cheap, but have seen better days.

I’ll bet Ms. Haute Couture can’t sit sideways on a cantering horse. Let alone, stand up on one’s back for a good four to six strides and live to tell about it. In fact, she’s probably the clerk here, I console myself after having been more than sufficiently snubbed by what must undoubtedly be the hired help, although I forget to check out her shoes before leaving.

Big snob. I think.

When I do get myself that riding habit one of these days, and, oh yeah, with a hat to boot, with yards of foofy frothy light-as-air stuff to veil the face of the mysterious and provocative creature I surely will become with such an outfit (and Tobias to boot), I won’t be buying it from her.

Although I did ride my bicycle past her shop last week. And I admit, I coasted by, sneaking furtive, longing glances, in what seemed a suitable amount of reverence and awe for such an epic garnet gown.

Posted by Kimberly at July 2, 2008 | Permalink | Comments (3)