Book Nook Cafe discussion

Not alot of sane buying here. People are posting photos on faceboo, of empty shelves in stores and lengthy discussions about who has toilet paper in stock and when.

madrano wrote: . If you all are seeing sane buying and no in-store masks, it seems we’ll be fine."

In NY, some stores like Trader Joe's have lines out the door. Some Targets also have empty shelves. It seems to depend on the neighborhood and who I talk to. Most are seeing shortages and long lines.

In my neighborhood a lot of people are wearing mask even though the news says it really is not helpful unless you are the one who is sick and are trying not to spread it. I think more people would be wearing them, but you simply can not buy any. The stores are all out. You can also forget about buying hand sanitizer, or rubbing alcohol, Clorox wipes etc. I saw many buying cold meds aspirin etc. in the drug store today. And of course paper products, tissues, toilet paper are scarce in some stores.

I was in a bank today and they had a person with a mask, gloves and sanitizer wiping the counters, pens etc after each use. In the local Rite Aid the workers all wore gloves.

Hopefully, the stores will be able to restock and things will calm down.

I follow this person on YouTube and she showed her grocery store today . I think she is in Colorado. Here is her Video of her local supermarket.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SJ_GU...

News changes by the minute with closings. Libraries, sporting events, some schools, museums, Broadway, on and on. Subway and commuter train traffic is way down in NYC.

The mayor and governor are saying this is not a two week blip. This may be 6 months or more.

Sorry ‘bout that, Julie. “Abundance of Caution” wins.

It’s been awhile since i posted here, so thought I’d write a bit about our stay in Las Cruces. As i write I’m sitting on the front porch of the casita we are renting. Casitas are guest houses some people here rent out. They arrested on the owner’s property and have a kitchenette, as well as rooms.

Ours is outside of town, somewhat. Facing me is a thicket of sagebrush, mesquite, and grasses. It’s 6AM and the wildlife is performing wakening routines—hoots, tweets and rustling. Every morning we see several roadrunners, including a family of same. It’s been a pleasure watching them walk and run. There are also rabbits and Gambel’s quails, with sweet black, curved head plume. I hear mourning doves but haven’t seen any.

Monday my husband returns to San Antonio to check up on the services that have begun to help his mother stay safe and healthy, now that she is out of rehab. My sister & i are going to Tulsa to house hunt there, just in case. House hunting here has been good but we had Tulsa in mind for awhile, so need to check that out.

Then Dan & i return to NM, Farmington this time, in the NW quadrant of the state. Our daughter will join us there for a week. We’ll be staying at another casita but one in a city neighborhood. She will be working several of those days via the internet. Other times she’ll join us visiting ancient tribal ruins and other sites.

It’s all been a pleasure, even the heat, which i most dreaded. I’m reading the first two Tony Hillerman mysteries to set the NM mood, beginning with The Blessing Way.

I have very fond memories of the Blue Moon Cafe in Tulsa! Their tortilla soup made me swoon sitting down; my dining parter had the Chicken Margarita (?) which he pronounced excellent.

Your casita sounds like a true vacation experience - I've never seen a road runner. I had not been to the southwest when I read Hillerman's Navajo stories, but he does such a great job that I felt I was there alongside Chee!

madrano wrote: "It’s been awhile since i posted here, so thought I’d write a bit about our stay in Las Cruces. As i write I’m sitting on the front porch of the casita we are renting. Casitas are guest houses some ..."

Sounds lovely madrano, visiting interesting places and seeing family as well. Hope you enjoy the Tony Hillerman books. He's a favorite of mine. 🙂

madrano wrote: They arrested on the owner’s property and have a kitchenette, as well as rooms...."

I read that sentence quickly and thought they arrested the landlord of the property ! LOL

LOL, Alias. I cannot think of what word i meant instead of arrested! Odd, that.

John, we will have to seek out that restaurant, as both sound good. I really like tortilla soup but feel my own recipe lacks something.

I appreciate the Hillerman encouragement.

Well, we got lucky. The owner of this property lives next door. This morning when we moved to the porch, thei family was watching the northern sky. They came over to tell us Unity22 was due to launch, so we hooked up to NASA website & watched. Ultimately, we saw the separation contrails. Later, at reentry we heard their double sonic boom. Neat.

This week we’ve been watching two road runners climbing a pine in the neighbors yard. We thought it was so cute. Today we learned those birds were raiding the tree for quail eggs! The scoundrels!

Scoundrels indeed! 🤨

madrano wrote: "Well, we got lucky. The owner of this property lives next door. This morning when we moved to the porch, thei family was watching the northern sky. They came over to tell us Unity22 was due to laun..."

That is very cool. One of my nieces lives in Florida near Cape Canaveral and she often sees the launches.

It sounds like there is quite the wild life where you are. Road Runners, quail etc. Very interesting.

Our last night featured a dust storm, followed by an electric storm, then a thunderstorm. We were without electricity for several hours. Wild ending to a good visit. Now my sister & i are in Tucumcari, NM. There is a strip of the historic Rte. 66 here with hotels renovated to look they did in the 50s and 60s. Fun.

50s and 60s....they should probably have phone booths. 😃

Tucumcari has the Linda Ronstadt song "Willin' " in my head now!

LOL, John. I was not aware of the song until yesterday when my sister played it as we entered the city!

Barbara, they should but i haven’t seen one. Our room has an old fashioned landline phone which had added push buttons over the old dial.

madrano wrote: Now my sister & i are in Tucumcari, NM. There is a strip of the historic Rte. 66 here with hotels renovated to look they did in the 50s and 60s. Fun."

There was an episode of the TV show An Idiot Abroad with comedian Ricky Gervais. He sends out a guy named Karl on odd adventures. In one episode he travels Route 66.

Here it is on YouTube.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NgwE_...

madrano wrote: "Our last night featured a dust storm, followed by an electric storm, then a thunderstorm. We were without electricity for several hours.

Wow ! Glad it turned out okay.

John wrote: "Tucumcari has the Linda Ronstadt song "Willin' " in my head now!"

I love this song. 😃

I’m bookmarking that link, saving it until i have more time, as it would be fun to compare observations. While other small towns on the route had a sign or two about 66, many did not, even if some of the buildings were still standing, decaying.

Tulsa has 65% humidity this morning at 77 degrees as i write. Muggy.

The trip to Tulsa with my sister was a pleasure, even if the weather was awful. We didn't get to the Blue Moon Cafe, sorry to say, John. I tried but we were outside of town more than in the city. It's a lovely, small city but the humidity slayed us. We actually returned to Dallas early.

Now we've ended our time back in Dallas and leave tomorrow to go back to New Mexico. Monday our daughter flies into Albuquerque to spend a week with us, primarily in Farmington, NM. She will be remote-working three days but the rest are strictly for us. Hurrah! I'm as excited about that as i am about seeing that unfamiliar part of the state.

We are unsure where we'll go after that, however. Playing it all by ear. I'll keep contact via my iPad while on the road. It's not nearly as easy as my desktop, but we gotta travel, right? :-)

No problem about Blue Moon! Always great hearing of your adventures!

Thanks...and right back at ya. I like learning where readers and when they travel & what books they take with them. I'm taking my Hoover bio, as well as Stacey Abrams's While Justice Sleeps, which just came in for me.

Safe travels, Deb !

Thanks, Alias Reader. Staying healthy will be the challenge.

We are spending this week in Flagstaff, Arizona, where the views are lovely and the temps in the low 80s. Oh, and the altitude is high, almost 7000’. Adjusting to that and the accompanying heavy breathing, we’ve been drinking even more water than usual and upping our potassium in the form of avocados and bananas, a fruit i don’t care for. Today we’ll see how that pays off.

We had no idea how huge the monsoon seasons are here and in New Mexico. Yesterday we stayed in due to predicted rain. It turns out the downtown area was flooded and roads closed. In Las Cruces, where we were last month mud up to 18” swamped roads and even the highway. I don’t know what to think of this.

Locals here must be okay with that, as there are not many homes for sale here. There is plenty of building going on,though. The area is lovely, so we understand the appeal.

Having experienced an Arizona flash flood once, I can believe it.

Did you go to Sedona? I've been curious as to your take if so.

madrano wrote: We had no idea how huge the monsoon seasons are here and in New Mexico. Yesterday we stayed in due to predicted rain. It turns out the downtown area was flooded and roads closed. In Las Cruces, where we were last month mud up to 18” swamped roads and even the highway. I don’t know what to think of this..."

Wow ! Good thing you decided to not venture out.

John, Sedona tomorrow. We drove through in the mid70s and loved the scenery but the businesses looked high end. I’ll keep you posted.

When we lived in Phoenix, we tried to stay off the roads because locals didn’t know how to drive in the rain. It was awful and that was without a flood.

We went to Walnut Canyon today. Visitors walk down 736 steps to view a series of cliff dwellings. It’s a 0.9 mile round trip and i was hoping to drop dead on the stairs up. I didn’t and actually survived.
Called the Island Trail it is deemed “strenuous” and i will not disagree. Seeing the dwellings and learning about life there in the 1100-1250s was worth it. And the canyon itself is striking. Aches anticipated tomorrow.

madrano wrote: "John, Sedona tomorrow. We drove through in the mid70s and loved the scenery but the businesses looked high end. I’ll keep you posted.

When we lived in Phoenix, we tried to stay off the roads becau..."

Wow ! This looks so interesting. Thanks for sharing.
https://www.nps.gov/waca/planyourvisi...

Alias, you can see why the effort was worthwhile. We learned quite a bit about the Sinagua (meaning “without water”)—their plantings, water storage and wild plants used.

Today we saw Montezuma’s castle ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Montezu...) it is a most complete cliff dwelling, 90’ above where visitors may look up to see it. Remarkable. This was followed by what is called Montezuma’s Well, the place Sinagua got the water they used and stored. BTW, Montezuma did not live there, nor was the dwelling a castle. Misnomers all.

From there we went to a somewhat new government acquisition, V Bar V Heritage site— https://maps.apple.com/place?address=...

This is the best petroglyph stones we’ve ever seen. It was privately owned, so vandals didn’t harm them. There are over 1,000 images, as well as part of a solar calendar indicating when to plant corn. We were in awe of what we saw & grateful to the ranger/docent who explained some of what we were seeing.

We drove home via Sedona, which is a gorgeous setting of brilliant red stone formations. It’s a victim of its own beauty, unfortunately. Today the town is a vacationer’s shopping, dining and drinking destination, all overpriced. While i understand the call of the valley for retirees, the effect seemed to tarnish the landscape.

John, was this what you meant when you mentioned Sedona? As i mentioned in my last post, we visited in ‘77, where there was much, much less commercialization. At that time the buildings were more about offering spiritual and physical retreats. What a contrast!

madrano wrote: "As i mentioned in my last post, we visited in ‘77, where there was much, much less commercialization. "

Sad to hear this. :(

I had suspected the area would be heavily developed by now. Thanks for the report from the ground!

You were on target, John. While nothing about the rock formations and shaded drive have changed, one must be cautious of shoppers mindlessly crossing streets when in the shopping districts.

I was in Arizona in grad school, for geology field camp. There's gorgeous scenery and lots of interesting geological formations. 😄

It’s landscape is remarkable, although i still prefer NM.

There appear to be few homes for sale. Today we drove around appealing neighborhoods and found a few but at a high price. One neighborhood with the priciest home we saw ($9,000,000) was surrounded by homes blocks long which had sand bags in front of each home! No way.

https://www.abc15.com/news/region-nor...

madrano wrote: One neighborhood with the priciest home we saw ($9,000,000) was surrounded by homes blocks long which had sand bags in front of each home! No way..."

Wow !

:-(

I wonder what a $9 million home looks like inside. 🙂

Me too! It backed right up to the mountain, so it may be more about the view.

We are back in Dallas now. Our family needed us here but we were also a bit tired of traveling in the car to visit sites. We don't have another trip planned until next year and that's to Europe, so who knows if that will happen (March 2)?

Meanwhile, as i unpacked, i looked at the books i purchased on the road. I'm pleased to announce that i "only" bought three, which must be some kind of record for me. They are the following:

Ladies of the Canyons: A League of Extraordinary Women and Their Adventures in the American Southwest--Lesley Poling-Kempes

Spinsters Abroad: Victorian Lady Explorers--Dea Birkett

Life in a Bucket of Soil--Virginia Silverstein and Alvin Silverstein.

The latter is because i was fascinated by the desert insects we were seeing. Then, reading about the "understory" in Suzanne Simard's Finding the Mother Tree: Discovering the Wisdom of the Forest, about forests, had me wondering about what was under what we were seeing in NM.

Great choices!

madrano wrote: "We are back in Dallas now. Our family needed us here but we were also a bit tired of traveling in the car to visit sites. We don't have another trip planned until next year and that's to Europe, so..."

Welcome home, Deb !

In a way, it's nice that your trip continues through the books you purchased.

Thanks, John. I'm pleased & eager to get to them.

Alias, that's a great way to look at the books. I appreciate that you planted that notion in my head!

Spinsters Abroad.....love that title. 🙂

madrano wrote: "Thanks, John. I'm pleased & eager to get to them.

Alias, that's a great way to look at the books. I appreciate that you planted that notion in my head!"

Thought of you yesterday at Trader Joe. Seeing my Nantucket Historical Society shirt the clerk raved profusely over In the Heart of the Sea: The Tragedy of the Whaleship Essex.

Oh, i really liked that book, too. For me it better fleshed out the whaling world than any novel i've read. Nathaniel Philbrick does that well, imo.

I'm tickled you thought of me at TJ's. While on the road, i was wondering why we don't shop there as often as we used to. Then we realized proximity was the issue. When we lived in Maryland, it was the closest store to our house. Not so now!

Barbara, i was tickled by that title, too. Although, i must say not all were as defined by dictionaries. A couple were widowed and one divorced. That stated, even my own great-grandmother denied she was divorced, so it may not have been readily known.

Still, the title tickles the fancy.

I wanted to apologize for my absence. Last week i underwent some surgery. My presumption was that i would quickly recover & resume my life but, as my surgeon warned me, my advanced age worked against me. Now, over a week later, i am "coming to myself" enough to post on our board again.

I'm doing well, no worries, but our winter holidays will be different, it seems. Don't you hate when that happens? Regardless, i still have my machine & can post. Slowly but surely i will read all the posts i missed & comment on some.

Enjoy December, Book Nook Friends!

deborah

madrano wrote: "I wanted to apologize for my absence. Last week i underwent some surgery. My presumption was that i would quickly recover & resume my life but, as my surgeon warned me, my advanced age worked again..."

Awesome news that although things didn't go as expected, they're going well! Please update as you can.

Glad to hear you're doing better now madrano. Best wishes for a speedy recovery. 🙂