Serving Clovis, Portales and the Surrounding Communities
Serving Clovis, Portales and the Surrounding Communities
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My sister learned to whistle at age 2. She was precocious in other ways as well. She knew how to read by the time she started kindergarten. She demonstrated a physical dexterity I never did. She was much more talented at the piano. But it was the whistling that really got to me. I was 6 when she started to whistle and I remember it clearly. She sat in her highchair at my grandparents’ house and started whistling her heart out. She could see, even at 2, that she was creating quite a sensation and so she continued, louder, d...
I spent the weekend in New York City. I hadn’t been to New York in quite a while. I was performing at a theater conference and so was traveling alone, without my husband, Peter. New York intimidates me — as all big cities do. I am not a nervous traveler, generally, but I keep my possessions close at hand and my eyes open — which is why I noticed the young man in the black athletic shirt on the subway. I was taking the subway for the first time in a long time and, so far, I was doing pretty well. OK, I did choke when I got t...
I want to start out by making it clear I have nothing against cowboys. One of the new developments in my life is that I recently got a manager, Bob, to book performances of my writing. I’ve never had a manager before, so I didn’t know what to expect. But Bob is a wonderful fellow. He says he thinks of the folks he represents as family — which is something a lot of people say, but I get the feeling Bob actually means it. So, I was eager to keep Bob happy. But then he suggested I perform with a cowboy. “Carrie, I know this is...
My husband Peter asked what I thought about the link he’d sent me as we prepared to head home from the holidays. “The funeral home?” I asked. “Yeah, that one.” “I thought it was a joke.” “No, it’s right on our way.” “We’re going to spend the night in a funeral home?” “It’s very inexpensive!” I suddenly felt like I was in the opening scene of every horror film I’d ever watched. Peter wanted us to spend the night in a historic funeral home on our way home. The funeral home had been converted into an Airbnb. It was both right...
I glanced up as the bells rang to herald new customers walking into the used clothing store. I was looking for a pair of warm dress pants. Visiting my parents in Minnesota, I had forgotten entirely about the possibility of extreme cold and the idea of going out that night in tights and a skirt seemed preposterous. Luckily, I found a like-new pair of black jeans with just a little sparkle on the pocket for a good price. I was wandering around the store with these jeans in my hand — just in case I saw something else that I m...
I went with my parents to get a Christmas tree. All the trees were wearing hangtags shaped like bells and all the bells had hand-lettered names on them. At first, I assumed these trees were spoken for and the names indicated the person who had reserved the tree. Then I realized that, no, the names were for the trees. This was a fancy place and, apparently, when you spend as much as this store was charging for a tree, the tree came complete with a name. Actually, for what they were charging, I’m surprised the trees didn’t com...
It is the tender cusp of Christmas. It is that time when emotions run close to the overfill point, when sentimentality and anger and depression and euphoria mix freely together, with not enough space between them to tell the difference from one moment to the next. I am visiting my parents — and of course this does not help. My parents are doing well (thank you for asking). They are in their 80s now, still living in their dream cabin in the woods and, although I know they are growing older, the signs are so incremental and t...
Our captain wasn’t worried. “People have been asking about the squeaking of the ship,” he reported, somewhere in the middle of the Atlantic, “but I must tell you, this is nothing to worry about.” He then proceeded to explain how a ship needed to give in heavy swells, just as an airplane had to flex during flight. “Otherwise,” he said cheerfully, “the ship would snap in two.” I’m not sure this was the reassurance worried passengers were looking for. My husband Peter and I are on the second week of our trip across the ocean. Th...
My husband Peter and I are returning from Spain by boat. The whole idea started when Peter read a book about the sinking of the Lusitania. “That sounds like fun,” Peter told me, as he read. “Death at sea?” I asked. “No, the part before that,” Peter clarified. Peter thought the idea of a cross-Atlantic ship sounded fun and romantic. He began investigating transatlantic trips and once Peter starts investigating a thing, it’s as good as done. Peter discovered that a number of cruise lines reposition their boats from the Medi...
I lost a feather the other day and I understand this does not qualify as news. But I want to say — for the record — that this was a really nice feather. I paid good money for it and pinned it to my favorite blue hat. I wore that hat out for a walk, one evening, when it was chilly. This was the last night that my husband, Peter, and I were in Frigiliana, a little town in the south of Spain. I walked to the top of the steep hill where, 400 years ago, a Moorish castle stood, guarding the town from invaders. The invaders eve...
My husband Peter likes the “edge season.” He told me this as we watched the moon rise over the mountains and felt a chill breeze rise with it. As far as I know, Peter invented this expression. He might have meant the “season’s end,” but I like the idea of the “season’s edge” better. Peter and I are staying in the south of Spain and, even here, the season is changing. Restaurants that have been open all summer and fall are finally giving their employees a few days off. Menus are changing, hours are shortening, outdoor tables...
My husband Peter and I are spending a month in Spain and we have left our worries behind. As a result, we have had to come up with new, temporary worries to occupy us until we get back home. Peter ran out of lotion and for several days used something he found in the house, which turned out to be soap. (“I wondered why it wasn’t soaking in,” Peter said.) He doesn’t like my lotion (“axle grease” Peter complains) so he ventured out to buy some more. He came home with some lotion in a metal tin and immediately began worrying if...
My husband Peter and I have settled into the little house we are calling home for a month in southern Spain. The house is old and quirky, but I’ve come to believe that all homes are quirky in their own way. Whenever I spend time in another person’s home, I realize there are a lot of different ways of doing things that would never have occurred to me. When I was young, my family would drive to visit my great-grandmother. She had a neighbor named Mrs. Johnson (I never learned her first name). Mrs. Johnson had a pug and whe...
First, I noticed the owl. “Peter! Did you see the owl?” Our last Airbnb in Spain had a ceramic owl. So, when I found a similar owl — in a similarly inconvenient location — I took it as a good omen. “What owl?” my husband, Peter, said. Then I found four more owls, bringing our tally up to five. “Five owls. Now I know this is going to be a good trip.” “Huh,” Peter agreed. (Sometimes Peter’s not as effusive as I am.) We are staying in Frigiliana, a small town in the south of Spain. The rent was suspiciously cheap, b...
My parents live in a cabin deep in the north woods. I know this sounds like the start of a fairytale. Sometimes it seems a bit like one. There are bear in the woods. Deer run in herds. The seasons are far more pronounced and extreme than those I am used to. After a day of glorious autumn sunshine on my bare arms, I woke in the middle of the night and saw, in the moonlight, that snow had covered the ground, turning the green grass white. “It won’t last,” my mother assured everyone within earshot. “There’s still a lot of nice f...
When my husband Peter and I met, we each had a dog. Peter had a collie named The Pretty Boy, (Yes, “The” was part of his name) and I had a pound puppy, part golden retriever, part border collie mix named Milo. The Pretty Boy died shortly before we were married, about five years ago, and Milo died just over a year ago. We talk about getting a new dog, of course, but all the good reasons not to have a dog prevail. Extended travel — actually travel of any kind — is enormously complicated with a dog. So, for a year now, Peter a...
Peter and I are packing for our annual trip again. My husband is retired and I write, so we are able to travel now. Getting married late in life, this might have posed some problems because Peter is exactly the opposite sort of traveler I used to be. “I’m packing two separate bags — one for Spain and one for on the way there,” Peter informs me. “This will mean some duplication, but it will simplify things when it’s time to fly.” Peter is obviously pleased with himself. I used to take pride in traveling light. I fit all my cl...
I realized that I might be a late bloomer — a little late, naturally. I love hearing about proteges: the 5-year-old drummer or the 16-year-old activist. I love hearing the 9-year-old who sings like an old soul and reading about the 14-year-old who just completed a master’s degree. I marvel at all these amazing accomplishments. I am impressed with the laser-like focus of these children and teenagers that enables them to change the world in awe-inspiring ways. I was never one of them. I showed no promise on any musical ins...
The message said: “The septic guy can’t find the cover. Call him.” I’ve been getting a lot of messages like this since I decided to put my century-old farmhouse up for sale. I haven’t lived in the farmhouse for years now — not since I moved out to go to graduate school and become a writer, met Peter, married Peter, and moved on with my life. The farmhouse was where I lived for many years with my first husband and then, for a while, after our divorce. The farmhouse is where I thought I’d grow old. I planted a lot of trees....
Peter was up before anyone else — as he often is. My husband gets up early in order to have enough time to brood before busybodies like me expect him to engage in cheerful conversation. But this morning we were staying at my parents’ cabin and there was a glitch in the plans. The coffee jar was empty. Obviously, a person can’t brood without coffee. Peter quietly opened one cupboard after another. No coffee. My parents are great planners so there was no chance they were out of coffee, but where they might be keeping it — tha...
I told my husband, Peter, that our marriage was like stew — and that’s a good thing. This is a second marriage for both of us. We were both married for a long time and then divorced for quite a while. We dated other people and realized how tricky the whole process of finding a new partner was, after habits had been set and preferences settled. When I met Peter, I was ready … I think. I had healed and spent time on my own and figured out who I was — single and over 50 and changed in many ways from the person I had been wh...
They say blessings come in disguise. If so, my blessings are poorly disguised. They show up wearing false noses and funny eyeglasses and are instantly recognizable unless I am being completely thick-headed — and it is astonishing how often I am. I had a really bad year a few years back when I lost my husband and my job and my home in rapid succession. All of this happened while I was living in Nigeria (which was not great to begin with). I realized immediately this was bad news. But I also figured out, pretty early on, t...
I was not popular in high school. Everyone says this. I now realize that no one — not even the most popular person in high school — self-identifies as popular. Lately I’ve been getting a lot of Facebook friend requests from people I scarcely knew in high school. I have a 40th class reunion coming up next year and I’ve been getting friend requests from people who, I am quite sure, would not have recognized me walking down the hall in high school. In their defense, I was part of a very large class and I think the divisio...
I spent the last couple of weeks visiting my parents. I’ve been lucky in the parent department. It’s fashionable to recall some pivotal incident that occurred when we were 8 and extrapolate how every difficulty experienced in our life since is a result. But I’ve never seen any truth to this in my own life. I was really happy when I was 8 — and I give my parents full credit. My life is different from my parents’ life. Still, they have always been supportive and have always at least pretended to be interested in whatever...
She wore it for one day in 1919 and it looked as if it were sewn with this in mind. My grandma’s wedding dress was more than a little worse for wear. It had been folded up in a small box and kept safe by my cousin, Jill. (How Jill ended up with it, I do not know.) I’m guessing the dress was sewn by a relative of my grandma’s, maybe a sister or one of her many cousins. There was no lining, no reinforcement of any seam. There were raw edges inside. Much of the dress was held together with snaps and there were places that must...
