A San Francisco Evening

Who doesn't want to reek of garlic? Our first meal in San Francisco is always, if we can manage it, at The Stinking Rose ("we season our garlic with food") in North Beach. Their website tells us that the restaurant has become famous for celebrating the culinary euphoria of garlic and serving over 3,000 pounds of the pungent herb each month. Named after an historical term for "garlic," The Stinking Rose offers scrumptious, contemporary California-Italian cuisine prepared and adorned with garlic. 

We walked the mile and a half from our hotel, and were soon digging into bagna calda ("garlic soaking in a hot tub") and neon ravioli.

City Lights Books was just a few buildings away and we spent some time after the meal browsing the free-spirited selections in the famous bookstore founded back in 1953 by Lawrence Ferlinghetti and Peter Martin. On our very first date in 1980 (or so) Beez and I had discussed Ferlinghetti's poetry collection, A Coney Island of the Mind; Beez with his usual total recall and me figuratively trotting along, trying to keep up with his quick intellectual strides. Of course, Ferlinghetti's shop has always been special to us.

And speaking of trotting along, I did my best to keep up with daughter Dee and gym rat Beez on the (long) way through Chinatown back to the hotel. At the slightest hint of a hill I stopped to "take a photo" while resting up for the next block. It irritated me that all those hours on the treadmill over the past six months didn't seem to translate to real-world San Francisco walking, but as my son Ben pointed out it would have been a lot harder for me to walk all over the city B.G. (before gym). 

Street mural,
Chinatown, San Francisco

Although I was born in Maine, I lived in San Francisco from the age of 3 months until I was eleven. I had no idea that all sorts of forgotten foggy city memories were lodged deep in my brain. More about that next time.

Along the Road in California

Here are a few scenes from our recent road trip to California...

Date palms

Joshua trees

The best part of a hot driving day

This photo is special to me because it shows the turnoff to Marinwood, where I spent some of my childhood 

And you know where we're headed from here. Stay tuned...

Vertigo in San Francisco

A more daring photographer would have leaned out further, but I just couldn't manage to do so!

We just got back from a trip to California and I wanted to share this vertigo-inducing photo with you. It was taken from the 21st floor looking down to the third floor of the J.W. Marriott Union Square Hotel, where our daughter was staying. You can see a photo gallery of the hotel here.

We were just down the street in the far more modest but historical boutique hotel, the King George, which was built in 1914. You can see photos of the King George here.

Both place were centrally located and we never took our cars out while staying there. We walked (and walked, and walked!) to North Beach and Chinatown and all around the Financial District. When our destination was too far for walking, we took a cable car or a street car.

I will share more about our trip in upcoming posts.

Today's Adventure at 8000 Feet

By calling today's outing an adventure, I certainly don't mean to imply that anything particularly exciting happened when we went up to the Lincoln National Forest this morning. The exciting thing to me is that we continue to include some form of exercise in our daily routine.

Today's goal was to walk and bike in the thin air at 8000 feet up. After Beez set out on his bike, I followed on foot. This is little Weetzie, my excellent hiking companion. We headed up (why is it always up?) this logging road, keeping a careful eye out for lovely deer and fierce, protective, and combative mother bears. 

At one point, Weetzie made an unexpectedly loud snuffly noise which made my hair literally stand up all over my head. Once I had ascertained that no mother bears were charging, we decided to wander back down the road toward the car, my chair, and a book for some nice forest-y contemplation. 

Looking closely at the ground, we could see that there were tiny little wildflowers, which you will hardly be able to make out in these iPhone photos I took. In my defense, I have a very difficult time making out what I am taking a photo of when then sun is shining on the screen. But, oh dear, I do wish they would be in focus just for once.

Think of these as impressionist photos of flowers.

The mixed pine, aspen, and spruce (I think) forest was beautiful (except for where someone had thrown empty beer cans into the woods). Everything was so quiet, except for the birdsong, the whirring sound of iridescent green hummingbirds going about their business, and the wind sighing through the pines. 

The smell of the piney air was delicious.

I must give a plug to the beautiful Sacramento Ranger District Visitor Center. It was like a lodge inside, with a stone fireplace and lots of natural wood everywhere. The rangers were friendly and eager to introduce us to their forest home. And I must say, the restrooms were pretty amazing, with advanced technology toilets that could flush two ways, depending on need--a water-saving feature for this drought stricken part of the country.

We met some people from New Hampshire out in the parking lot and, as people will do, established that we knew someone in common within the first 25 words of our conversation. It was a pretty good example of our small world. 

On the drive back home, there was a turnout for gazing at this view of the Tularosa Basin, with the White Sands National Monument sparkling out there in the middle. 

Another Day on the Mountain

A clearer view than yesterday down to the Mesilla Valley

When I told you about how we hiked and biked on the mountain the other day, I pretty much gave you what my sister calls The Princess Bluebird version. Oh, yes, in a nod to reality I did mention panting and pesky flies, but I was going on and on about silence and solitude. What I didn't tell you was that after I got home from my uphill hike in the heat, I was violently ill. I don't know if it was the sun or something I ate, but it was very unpleasant, although I lost a pound (always good news). 

Destination: Organ Mountains, being declared a National Monument tomorrow!

Yesterday, we were back on the mountain, panting away on foot (me) and by bike (Beez). This time, however, we beat the heat by going earlier in the morning. The sky was also somewhat overcast, which helped keep things cooler. I found that my breathing was much easier, and the walk to the visitor center took less time and was more enjoyable. 

Hard to make out, but I had company on the road

I turned around to "admire the view" (catch my breath), just in time to see a small herd of deer crossing the road below me. I tend to keep an eye out for mountain lions and rattlesnakes, so these gentle fellow travelers were very welcome. 

Moving!

I've been going to the gym for the past five and a half months. If you knew me at all, you'd know that that statement should have a lot of exclamation points after it. The daily exercise has changed the way I feel about myself. I'm losing weight at a reasonable rate. I'm stronger and I have more stamina. My clothes are getting looser. I have more energy. I sleep better. I'm.... well, proud of myself! Yes, I am.

Along with the change in daily activity levels, I started following an eating plan that I got from my doctor. It contains lots of fresh fruits and vegetables, fish and poultry, and whole grains. Fats are limited to good ones; and the sugar is obtained naturally, from fruit. With small meals, plus a snack,  I find that I don't get that "need" for extra carbohydrates that used to plague me. 

If you look at the menu linked above, you will see that there aren't any fruit juices (too much of a sugar jolt), and there are a surprising (to me) amount of carbs. I guess the whole grains do the trick, keeping my body busy with digesting each meal. 

Because Beez is in training for a big bike ride from Telluride to Moab, he has been going to the gym, too, making it even easier for me to get there. Now, as his ride is getting closer, he is doing as much higher altitude biking as he can; and that gives me an opportunity to get out and do some hiking. 

And that's what we did this morning instead of going to the gym and exercising indoors. Here is my view as I hiked up (and up and up), looking back down toward Las Cruces and the floor of the Mesilla Valley along the Rio Grande, all in the hazy distance: 

My walk was all uphill at an altitude of about 5700 feet, all desert, all hot, and a challenge to me. Quite different from the treadmill at the gym! The payoff: Silence, solitude, a hot breeze, and birdsong all around. And yes, some pesky flies.

That dot way down there on the road is Beez (who started lower down than I did), battling the mountain, the heat, and the altitude. I think the next time we do this trip, we'll start out a little earlier, when the temperatures are a bit lower. It's too bad the gates don't open until 8AM.

And this was the view outside our destination, the visitor center at Dripping Springs. We want to do this hike/ride combination a lot, so that we can each measure our progress. The goal is to keep moving!

Eggs Become Art!

The eggs from our backyard flock look like this

My knitting friend Mary-Claire's artist neighbor, Florence, transformed them into this!
Wherever she could, Florence incorporated the rich natural egg colors into her designs.

Welsummer eggs are this beautiful rich, dark brown

The background color of this one is also the natural color of the egg

This is probably a Peckatina egg (see below)

Detail of previous egg

This one says "thank you" on the other side. It was for me for providing the eggs...



although Peckatina just reminded me to tell you who really does the egg production around here
(and that every single egg is a work of art)!

A Vintage-Style Easter Table

Beautiful Spring! It just perks me right up. I never thought I'd be blogging again here, and just look at the posts lately--full of color. Bright red chairs on the patio! Flowers blooming in the garden! Lots of exclamation points!

I didn't spend any time at all on this table for Easter--nary a chick or bunny or flower arrangement in sight but, as Auntie Bucksnort pointed out, the colors were rather nice. I wish you could see the blue border on that faux-vintage fashionably-wrinkled ordered-from-Amazon tablecloth.

I was just making a rather prosaic baked ham with some green beans and fresh tomatoes on the side, but then good friends arrived, bringing a vegetable antipasto mixture with fancy crackers, strong Canadian beer, polenta (in the photo next to the tomatoes), fresh mango chutney, and roasted red peppers. Suddenly, we had color and conversation and a feast!

Happy Spring to you all! I guess I'm a little late with that...

Spring in the Desert Garden

When we bought our little vintage adobe house in 2009, the yard was barren. There was a hot strip between the covered porch and the fence, and I was determined to fill it with color. 

It's been a learning experience for a gardener used to the abundant rainfall and loamy, rocky soil of New Hampshire. Here, we have almost no rain at all (maybe 8 inches total in a good year), blazing sun reflected off a south-facing wall, and hard clay soil. Some things work, like these flowering cacti. Some things do NOT work here, like the roses and irises I see blooming luxuriantly in other parts of town. 

Hollyhocks adore our yard and put on an amazing show every year. These older, short ones are just starting to bloom now. Our plants self seed, and I just move the seedlings around a little. My knitting friend, Diane, gave me a little packet of seeds from her plants up on the East Mesa part of town a few years ago, and the rest is history. I have sent my seeds, in turn, to gardening friends in Nevada, Northern California, and Washington state. 

I am hoping for great things from this scrawny-looking tangerine crossvine, just planted a couple of weeks ago. I would love to train it to drape from the porch roof. We'll see.

This brutal-looking plant is the kind of thing that really thrives here. It started from one cactus pad in 2010 and will soon be immense. I just hope we can control it, because you can't go near it to prune without heavy gloves and long-handled tools, and even then it will find a way to get you with its thorns (painful) and tiny glochids (stiff hairs, way more painful and very difficult to get out once they are embedded in your skin). Why do we put up with it? Well, it's here now, and is very beautiful in its way. It has many shades of purple and aqua in those pads, and it will be flowering soon, too. 

I should have taken these photos earlier in the morning. It would have been easier to see what I was doing and the photos might be in focus! The desert bird of paradise (known to us as The Bertie Memorial Tree) on the right and the Texas lilac out of sight just beyond it both provide some much-needed shade just three years after being planted. 

This was such a rookie gardener mistake--I thought that cacti would be slow-growing and planted these too close together. I like the sharp colors, though. 

These hollyhocks around the corner from the other, smaller ones may not look like much right now, but stand back! I'm expecting a wonderful show soon. The plants are at least 6 feet high and still growing taller ever day. They colonized themselves in a partly shady east-facing bed where nothing had grown before. There are some larkspurs down under there somewhere, which will add some more color to all the hollyhock pinks. 

There you have it, my April report for the garden. What's growing (or about to grow) in your garden? 

A Colorful Springtime Tea

My sister is coming over for tea tomorrow, so I thought I'd make a little relaxing area on our underutilized back patio. It's nice and shady--a perfect place to sit and chat. In true New Mexican fashion, I kept adding more colors and more flowers. I'm really pleased with the result. 

What you can't see in the photo is the lively spring wind we experience this time of year, so the tablecloth is pinned in place, that little hen on the blue table is well stuck down, and the chairs are about to take off unless someone sits in them quick. 

Now I'm going to put together my fountain that is made out of a copper bowl full of black river rocks and add that to complete the sensory experience. Then we'll have color and comfort and the sound of trickling water. The only thing that will be missing is something lively to look at.

Wait, this patio looks directly out at the chicken yard. That kind of view might be a little too bucolic for some, but we will enjoy our Chickie TV!

Too Much Family History

Bonnie and Clyde? No! Stewart and Eva, family friends in Maine

I know that you don't come to this blog to hear about my family history, although that's what I've been going on about lately. This is supposed to be a blog about a New Englander coming to New Mexico. However, I am deep into the search for clues to my family's past and for the next little while I will be toiling away on family trees, telling family stories, and posting about the process of searching for ancestors over on the Remember blog.

I cordially invite you to come along on my journey into the past. In the meantime, please check back here on The Zees Go West, because there will surely be posts here from time to time.

I hope that you all will have the happiest of holiday seasons--Merry! Happy! Joyous!

~Clair Z.

Organizing Family Memories

Safe at last

As I mentioned in the last post, I have a large collection of family history "stuff"--photos, files of information about families and individuals, written and email correspondence about our history and our stories--just lots and lots of stuff.

Determined to share what I have with my family, back in 2010 I started a family history blog called Remember. At first, I just pulled out photos at random and wrote about them. I liked the result, but I could see that I was going to have to change my approach so that the results were more cohesive and organized and that each family was clearly delineated.

There's that organized word again. I thought that I might begin by sorting and labeling photos, a job that soon had me feeling overwhelmed all over again. I could still see those boxes of files of papers out of the corner of my eye. I wanted to go through everything once and have something to show for my efforts.

After a lot of thought, I finally came up with an approach that works for me. I hope that it might be of help (or an inspiration) for someone out there who is trying to organize their own family history chaos. I'll put the materials needed in bold type.

1. Get some great big binders and label each with a family name.

2.  Sort everything--papers, correspondence, photos--by family group. and put the materials with, not in each binder. Don't fasten anything in yet, this is a rough sort.

3. Get some dividers (this is so much fun if you, like me, like to shop for office supplies). Label them for individuals within the family, and start inserting everything into the binder in the order that pleases you. Punch holes in copies only. Original documents (like birth certificates) go into individual heavyweight non-acid sheet protectors.

4. Large photos can also go into sheet protectors. I heaved a sigh of relief when this step was done, because I knew these irreplaceable photos were safe at last. They can be scanned without any further handling.

5. Smaller photos can go into a large envelope (for now) labeled with the family name. Seal the envelope, cut off one end so it will go into the binder sideways, then punch holes into the edge of the envelope, being careful not to harm any photos, so it can be filed in the binder with the appropriate family. You can place a paper clip on the open end to keep photos from sliding out. Of course, after this step you will find a nice book or website about archival handling of photos and follow the directions to store these small photos properly. For me, having them safely in an envelope was better than loose in a box. One step at a time. 

Envelope for temporary storage of small photos, sorted by family

Now that I could see what information I had for each family, I wanted to put up some family trees on the Remember blog--my mother's, my father's, my husband's mother's, and my husband's father's, and one for my son's ancestors, since he comes from my former marriage to a Dutchman. Then, when I blogged about each individual I could start with a family tree to locate that person in the family.

While looking around for family tree templates, I found the perfect way to display my information by using the website WikiTree. WikiTree allows me to enter and save information about each person, link families together on a family tree, and add to any of my records when I have more information. Better still, they have "tree widgets" for my blog which will reflect any changes I make to any of my records on WikiTree. I also like how WikiTree will let me set privacy levels, and even allow trusted family members (or distant relatives) to make changes and additions to my records, but only if I want them to do so.

So, that's how I got things organized. Next time, I'll tell you about a few surprises I came across while learning about our family's history. For now, take a look at the beginning of my father's family tree. He is the mystery man in the family, so I really get excited when I find out any little thing about his ancestors. 

 

embeddable family tree updated live from WikiTree