andie 1, mountain 0.

Hola! Happy Sunday to everyone out there in internet-land. I don’t know about you, cozy Sunday night readers, but andiepants had an excellent weekend. It was the kind of weekend that feels really productive and also rejuvenates you at the same time. I have to admit, though, that more than once during this two-day mini vacation, I did feel like Frank the Tank as he was describing his weekend plans to his new college friends in the movie Old School. You remember the scene, I’m sure. But if not, let me remind you. It went a little something like this:

20 yr old college kid: “so frank, what are you doing this weekend?”

Frank the Tank: “well actually I gotta nice little weekend planned, gonna do some projects around the house, might go to home depot, I don’t know… I’m not sure  if we’ll have enough time..” [not the actual words, but you get the idea].

20 yr old college kid: …. No words…. Just gaping in horror at the thought that this is what he might become in 20 years.

That was mike and I this weekend. We kicked ass like never before on our personal “to do” lists (tangent coming up… who’s surprised? No one. By the way.. don’t you just love to do lists? I can’t get enough of them. I’m waiting for the day where I look down and see item #1 on my current to do list is “make to do list”…. Check. That will be when I recognize that I have a problem. Sometimes I think I love to do lists so much only because of the satisfaction I get from crossing off the items. Its like I’m personally insulting whatever it is I had to get done. Ha, take that, laundry!! I’ll show you whose boss, car insurance bill!! Your ass has been paid.. )

Back to the point, for those of you who are unaware, we are lucky enough to have a giant empty apartment here in the lovely southwest. I mean, yes, we have all the necessities.. bed, a couch, some stools for the island in the kitchen, etc.. but we need some ancillary furniture. You understand, a desk, a second couch, some bookshelves, blah blah blah. so every morning as andiepants had been driving to work, I had been hearing this advertisement stating that Furniture Mart was going out of business and that everything was on sale. Well, hot damn. Isn’t that convenient. Howie and I paid Furniture Mart a visit on Friday afternoon after work, expecting to find great things for us inside. Unfortunately, what we found inside was an overzealous toothless salesman who wouldn’t leave me alone long enough to actually look at anything. I spent the majority of the time I was in the store hiding behind large pieces of furniture so that he would stop badgering me. Ah! I hate that. Overzealous sales people. Leave me alone! Another thing that deeply bothered me was that none of the items had current prices on them. They just had the original sticker price with a giant X through it. Mr. No Teeth would catch me furtively glancing at a piece (I didn’t want to seem too interested in anything, and make him pounce on me again), saunter over, whip out a little calculator, punch in some numbers and declare “well, I could do this for you for [insert dollar amount here]”, like he was doing me some type of big personal favor. Thanks, Dentures. What is that about? Where did that number come from? And this got me thinking, I wonder what would make that number fluctuate. Think about it. Do you think this establishment is so organized that they have a structured equation by which he figures the price, or do you think he just types in some numbers (maybe spells “boobless” on the calculator… you remember doing that, I know you do. I did that all the time in math class. Still funny) just to seem like he’s doing something. Would the price have gone down if I flirted with him? I tried, but the vomit was rising too high in my throat, and if continued, I was worried I would have to consult a bathroom first. Conversely, would it have been a higher price if I were a dude? Questions of the universe.

I cant’ believe I wrote so long about Furniture Mart. Moving on. Suffice to say, I did not purchase anything there and only got out of Toothy McToothersons grasp by using that dreaded line “I have to check with my fiancé to see if I can buy anything.” The conservative men out here seem to respond well to that, as everyone out here knows women can’t do anything on their own. We made another attempt to furnish our new home on Saturday morning and were successful. We ended up purchasing some lovely items from a store right in Zozo by a woman that reminded us so much of Chop’s mother. She had thousands of random items packed in a warehouse, some in pristine condition, some in miserable disrepair. She would inevitably choose one of these sad souls, display it to us and declare “oh its no big deal, I can fix that, I have tools in the back, I can fix it right now, I used to do all the furniture repair all by myself in this whole place, you want to see some of my work, look at this desk, I put the legs back on..” all of this in a rambling, slightly manic rampage without taking a breath. Hey, it was better than No Teeth, so we ended up buying several pieces from her, but not before being introduced to her current boyfriend, her ex husband and being invited to her boyfriends birthday party next month. I found it particularly humorous that she made sure we understood that we had to keep the invitation and show it at the door in order to be admitted to the gathering. Is this really necessary? In a town with a population of approximately 1500 people, you’re concerned that you’re going to get outsiders coming to your party? Like people will just be driving down this obscure desert highway with its two Mexican food restaurants and three gas stations within 100 miles and think “oh wait, we should stop, I bet theres a party we can crash somewhere around here.” I’m just saying, there’s probably no reason to be strict about the invitations. Even still, I did have a minor cow when Mike threw it out today “NO! how are we going to get into Chaz’s party!?!?!”

At any rate, we spent the rest of our Saturday finding homes for our new pieces and rearranging things in the apartment. We are slowly but surely making it a lovely little home for the andie/cagg family. Then, we spent some time sanding and painting the guest fence. For all of you who are unaware, Mike and I built a fence… in our house. Come on, people. Only in new mexico. We needed a dividing wall for our guest room so that our visitors wouldn’t be creeped out by mike staring at them, so we built a six and a half foot fence to separate the guest bedroom. It is fully constructed, and had its inaugural usage when Chops and Melissa came to visit, but we haven’t yet decorated it. So we spent the evening sanding our fence, andiepants in her attempt to avoid slivers sanded her section of the fence in Mike’s mittens, ruining them in the process… whoops… who knew you couldn’t sand in mittens? At least I looked cute. After this, we painted each section a different color to correspond to our rainbow colored stairs. Happy stairs and happy fence. Seems to be a theme here in andie and cagg-land. We fell asleep to the skillful narration of David Attenborough as he led us through Blue Planet’s “Tidal” episode (if you are unaware of how much I love D. Attenborough, please refer to previous posts). 

Happy Fence!

Today brought an absolutely lovely day weather-wise. Oh, readers, I have to make mention of how much I am enjoying the climate here. Yes, we are reminded that it is the middle of November by our crisp mornings, which have been falling below freezing for the past few days. But in the afternoon, the desert sun takes the stage and catapults the temperature to about 65. woo hoo! We decided to capitalize on this beautiful Sunday and take a little stroll up a 10,000 foot mountain. Now, I must regress for just a minute, as I chronicle to you, oh sympathetic readers, how I was sorely misled.

On Friday evening, a new friend of ours stopped by to visit and while here, mentioned that he might want to go hiking this weekend. He had just been working out in the field for the majority of the week, and was feeling pretty tired, so he remarked that he would like to do something nice and easy and suggested hiking one of the peaks in our area, Nogal. He stated that it was only a 2 mi loop to the peak and that it might be a nice little afternoon excursion. This information sank into the andie-brain with a little plop. Hmm… 2 miles… I can do that… famous last words.

Fast forward to this afternoon. I suggest, hey mike why don’t we go do Nogal? It’s a beautiful day, we could use some exercise, etc etc. I couldn’t even get the sentence out of my mouth before Mike was strapping on his boots. He just heard the word “hiking” and became excited. The joy that crosses his face when he knows he is going hiking is incomparable to anything I’ve ever seen. It’s beautiful. He delightedly gets his hiking clothes on and starts filling up camelbacks and loading clif bars into our pack. I can just hear his thoughts rumbling around in mike-brain.. “hiking! She wants to go hiking! We better get going before she changes her mind! Hiking! Forest, hiking, mountains, hiking, etc etc etc.. “

Anyway, Happy Mike and I loaded up in Howie and took off up the mountain. We were lucky enough to have access to a road that got us fairly close to the summit. That’s the good news. The bad news is that this “road” and I use that term loosely, had me praying for my life with every turn. This dirt road was filled with huge rocks and holes large enough to swallow a tire or two. There were sharp switchbacks leading up the mountain, sandwiching Howie between a rocky mountain face and death. Oy. I spent the majority of the ride with my eyes clenched shut, repeating “I will not die on this mountain. I will not die on this mountain.” And this was before the hike even began.

We started off on a gentle incline, picking our way through a little forest carpeted with newly deceased leaves. The air was crisp, the sun was shining and my little hiking boots were moving andiepants swiftly toward her goal. And so it went, for about a quarter mile, until the trail abruptly went up. There’s no other way to describe it. It wasn’t “steep”, it wasn’t “difficult”, it was “up”. Crap. I didn’t sign up for “up”, but I decided to strap on my brave-pants on and continue. Soon “up” became even more difficult, if you can fathom it, and I found myself hauling andiepants up a mountain face using her hands and feet, gripping tree limbs and boulders to pull myself up to the next clearing. Ah! I thought this was an easy little day hike! Liar! Just to make things a bit more interesting, the trail was laden with evil little prickerbushythingies that kept stabbing me in the leg and gnarled tree limbs that we had to bob and weave around, like evander holyfield after a six pack. 

andiepants with Nogal in the background

a close up of our friend, Nogal.

I considered quitting… a few times.. .my legs were knotted up, my lungs were screaming and my heart felt like it was about to thump right out of the andiechest. But for some reason, I was determined that I was not going to let this damn mountain beat me. And I didn’t. it took me forever, but andiepants managed to haul her ass up 10,000 foot Nogal. And was rewarded by an amazing view. As I spun slowly in a circle, on top of the world, and took in the beauty around me, I had a thought. It felt like this experience paralleled real life in some ways. Some sections of the hike were manageable, relatively flat, or gently sloping, the trail leading us in the right direction at an easy, inviting pace. Parts of the hike were miserable, having to climb vertically up boulders, being stabbed in the leg by evil plants, and having to dodge old, angry trees. A few times I was terrified, convinced I was going to launch myself off of this mountain, or break my ankle, or have a heart attack and die…. Oh hypochrondriac andiepants. But as I pulled myself over that last crest and realized that everywhere I looked was down, that even though it was steep, and hard, and my legs hurt, and I had this toe cramp that bothered me the whole way, I did it. I didn’t let the damn mountain beat me and it was worth it. I guess what I got out of this afternoon is that life isn’t always going to be easy. Sometimes it will stick you in the leg and poke tiny holes in your favorite yoga pants with its little prickerbushythingies. But, as I discovered this afternoon, if you bust your ass and make a commitment to do something, no matter how hard it seems, it’ll get done. And it will be worth it. 

i made it!

Hey everyone, take a minute and pause from posting negative comments on facebook, worrying about all that crap you have to worry about, and check out my sweet little nephew. If this babys face doesn’t make you forget about all of the superfluous crap that’s going wrong in your life, that I’m fairly certain theres no hope for you. 

Be thankful and be happy!

Andie.