A 'stina day
Yesterday was more or less productive on the writing front. I found some old stuff that wasn't terrible, and started working on outlines on how to flush them out, move them forward, etc. I also read a bit, and the puppies and I took a loooooong walk to the center of town and back.. They're minor celebrities here, so we had to stop a few times to explain ourselves. Fortunately, we're used to it at this point. Fusilli is getting better on his leash, though he's still very excitable. Even though he's much taller than Celosa, everyone has picked up pretty quickly that he's a puppy.
We made salads last night and settled in for an evening of writing, closing the house down early because of a nearby skunk that I didn't want the puppies to get to know. It was actually a pleasant day though I couldn't really say we did anything.
Today, though. Sheesh.
We woke up early and played chase for quite some time. Yesterday, I could have sworn that Fusilli was the faster of the two, but I think that Celsoa has been letting him win. Today, though, she turned on the afterburner, and she put the distance between them that they had yesterday, in different order. She's also more cunning. She'll stop and make him go around the long way, or she'll turn where he'll miss. His cornering isn't as precise as hers is, either. At one point, they ran back inside from outside, and he ran chest first into the dining room table leg, bouncing off. I stopped him to make sure he was ok, but he complained that I was letting her get away.
They're great fun to have here.
At noon, I informed them that I had shit to do, and I gave them treats and told them to enjoy their afternoon without causing too much of a ruckus.
My first stop was the noon yoga class. I really love the energy in this studio, and I had the same instructor as on Monday. It was a challenging class, but I felt good doing it. This class was more full than the class on Monday, but it seemed like it was all levels and it certainly wasn't crowded. The guy in front of me was wearing a The Mountain tee shirt, which made me enormously happy. I was glad that I brought my new dragon/wolf shirt. I'll wear it to my next yoga class.
After yoga, I got in the car to make the voyage to Ojo Caliente. Ojo Caliente is a natural hot spring miles from anywhere, and someone brilliantly put a spa there in 1905, I think. There are two ways to Ojo Caliente from Taos. One is using the Rio Grande Gorge Bridge, which you may have seen in a few movies, most recently, Paul. The other is going through Pilar, climbing down into the Rio Grande Gorge, crossing a much smaller, lower bridge, and then climbing up again. One way is paved and relatively safe the entire way. The other has four narrow miles of unpaved, un-guardrailed, terrifying switchbacks that could have you plunging into the rocky gorge at any second. Guess which way I chose? Oh yes, and there was a nasty thundercloud behind me that was threatening to kill me by making the road slippery on top of treacherous. Any relaxing effects of the yoga class were mitigated the second I pulled onto the gravel part of the road. I'm not sure that I cleared 8 miles an hour that entire four miles. When I got to pavement again, I thanked the gods and Volkswagen, and I foolishly followed Google maps instead of my instincts. Google, five miles before the hot springs, had me turn down a dirt road that was literally falling apart. I stopped listening to Google when I came across an impassable mud puddle that was going to make my car stuck for years. I turned around, went back to the highway, traversed until I saw a sign, and five minutes later, I was pulling into the spa.
The spa feels like a spa. I mean, a spa in the olden days, when people were sent to spas to recover from tuberculosis or the like. It's based off of some mineral hot springs, and people travel from all over to soak in the waters. I'd forgotten to pack a bathing suit when I came, but I had a sports bra that more than did double duty, with a pair of short shorts, no one was the wiser. I had an hour before my treatments, so I chose to spend 15 minutes in each of the three mineral pools that were open. I started in soda, moved to iron, and finished at arsenic. The lithia spring wasn't open for some reason, and I wasn't particularly interested in the process of getting mud on and then off of me. I think that soda and iron were my favorites, but that may be because they were the least crowded and slightly warmer than arsenic. There were a fair number of people there today, but I didn't feel crowded. I very much relaxed in the pools.
At 3:20, I wandered over to the desk to wait for my massage and scrub, and a lovely woman named Marcela took over my body for the next hour and a half. She rubbed and she scrubbed and I could feel all sorts of tension just melting away from me. It was a perfect amount of time, and I was feeling just wonderful when she told me that she'd prepared a shower for me so I could get the rest of the rub material off of me. Lovely, lovely afternoon.
I drove back to Taos using the non-terrifying route, and feeling guilty about the amount of time they'd been left alone, I got the puppies some knuckle bones from the butcher at Cid's. They were overjoyed to see me, and they showed me that aside from a few crooked rugs, the house was in good shape. Celosa took her bone for immediate chewing, but Fusilli had trouble deciding what to do. He went outside with his, chewed for a few minutes, and then he buried it. Then he forgot where he buried it. Then he remembered. Then he brought it under the apple tree for chewing. Then to the deck. He was very much a little busy body about it. After an hour or so, I had to take the bones away from them, because I could see that fights were brewing.
And so we spent the evening writing and cooking and fighting over bones. I'll probably go to bed early-ish, as I'm still feeling relaxed (the half bottle of wine is helping me along that front too).
Graham seems to be having a great time in London, and I'm so glad for that. I miss him terribly, and I wish he were here, but I know that he's doing an awesome thing.
I'm going to have difficulty explaining to the pooches that we have to go home eventually.
We made salads last night and settled in for an evening of writing, closing the house down early because of a nearby skunk that I didn't want the puppies to get to know. It was actually a pleasant day though I couldn't really say we did anything.
Today, though. Sheesh.
We woke up early and played chase for quite some time. Yesterday, I could have sworn that Fusilli was the faster of the two, but I think that Celsoa has been letting him win. Today, though, she turned on the afterburner, and she put the distance between them that they had yesterday, in different order. She's also more cunning. She'll stop and make him go around the long way, or she'll turn where he'll miss. His cornering isn't as precise as hers is, either. At one point, they ran back inside from outside, and he ran chest first into the dining room table leg, bouncing off. I stopped him to make sure he was ok, but he complained that I was letting her get away.
They're great fun to have here.
At noon, I informed them that I had shit to do, and I gave them treats and told them to enjoy their afternoon without causing too much of a ruckus.
My first stop was the noon yoga class. I really love the energy in this studio, and I had the same instructor as on Monday. It was a challenging class, but I felt good doing it. This class was more full than the class on Monday, but it seemed like it was all levels and it certainly wasn't crowded. The guy in front of me was wearing a The Mountain tee shirt, which made me enormously happy. I was glad that I brought my new dragon/wolf shirt. I'll wear it to my next yoga class.
After yoga, I got in the car to make the voyage to Ojo Caliente. Ojo Caliente is a natural hot spring miles from anywhere, and someone brilliantly put a spa there in 1905, I think. There are two ways to Ojo Caliente from Taos. One is using the Rio Grande Gorge Bridge, which you may have seen in a few movies, most recently, Paul. The other is going through Pilar, climbing down into the Rio Grande Gorge, crossing a much smaller, lower bridge, and then climbing up again. One way is paved and relatively safe the entire way. The other has four narrow miles of unpaved, un-guardrailed, terrifying switchbacks that could have you plunging into the rocky gorge at any second. Guess which way I chose? Oh yes, and there was a nasty thundercloud behind me that was threatening to kill me by making the road slippery on top of treacherous. Any relaxing effects of the yoga class were mitigated the second I pulled onto the gravel part of the road. I'm not sure that I cleared 8 miles an hour that entire four miles. When I got to pavement again, I thanked the gods and Volkswagen, and I foolishly followed Google maps instead of my instincts. Google, five miles before the hot springs, had me turn down a dirt road that was literally falling apart. I stopped listening to Google when I came across an impassable mud puddle that was going to make my car stuck for years. I turned around, went back to the highway, traversed until I saw a sign, and five minutes later, I was pulling into the spa.
The spa feels like a spa. I mean, a spa in the olden days, when people were sent to spas to recover from tuberculosis or the like. It's based off of some mineral hot springs, and people travel from all over to soak in the waters. I'd forgotten to pack a bathing suit when I came, but I had a sports bra that more than did double duty, with a pair of short shorts, no one was the wiser. I had an hour before my treatments, so I chose to spend 15 minutes in each of the three mineral pools that were open. I started in soda, moved to iron, and finished at arsenic. The lithia spring wasn't open for some reason, and I wasn't particularly interested in the process of getting mud on and then off of me. I think that soda and iron were my favorites, but that may be because they were the least crowded and slightly warmer than arsenic. There were a fair number of people there today, but I didn't feel crowded. I very much relaxed in the pools.
At 3:20, I wandered over to the desk to wait for my massage and scrub, and a lovely woman named Marcela took over my body for the next hour and a half. She rubbed and she scrubbed and I could feel all sorts of tension just melting away from me. It was a perfect amount of time, and I was feeling just wonderful when she told me that she'd prepared a shower for me so I could get the rest of the rub material off of me. Lovely, lovely afternoon.
I drove back to Taos using the non-terrifying route, and feeling guilty about the amount of time they'd been left alone, I got the puppies some knuckle bones from the butcher at Cid's. They were overjoyed to see me, and they showed me that aside from a few crooked rugs, the house was in good shape. Celosa took her bone for immediate chewing, but Fusilli had trouble deciding what to do. He went outside with his, chewed for a few minutes, and then he buried it. Then he forgot where he buried it. Then he remembered. Then he brought it under the apple tree for chewing. Then to the deck. He was very much a little busy body about it. After an hour or so, I had to take the bones away from them, because I could see that fights were brewing.
And so we spent the evening writing and cooking and fighting over bones. I'll probably go to bed early-ish, as I'm still feeling relaxed (the half bottle of wine is helping me along that front too).
Graham seems to be having a great time in London, and I'm so glad for that. I miss him terribly, and I wish he were here, but I know that he's doing an awesome thing.
I'm going to have difficulty explaining to the pooches that we have to go home eventually.