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Saturdays Can Go from Ecstasy to Agony

cabezon profile Instead of hiking somewhere splendiferous this weekend, I cleaned my house and now it’s already dusty and jumbled up again. In the middle of this marathon house cleaning, I felt called upon to get the pick-up started. Lifting the hood, I discovered the most complex and huge pack rat nest imaginable, complete with all the accompanying goodies—prickly pear and cholla cactus, tons of nesting material, dog poop (a real delicacy apparently) and rat scat. Screaming around about this, Dick felt called upon to give up his afternoon nap, which could hardly have been working out very positively anyway given my presence and that of noisy machinery. He put on his work gloves and began to tackle nest removal which involved throwing or violently shaking the cactus bits stuck in his gloves off his gloves and on to the ground whereby a medium sized piece of cholla lodged itself firmly in my big toe. Dick angrily declared my toe shouldn’t have been where it was—attached to my foot rather near his foot actually. Well, it was downhill from there, and from now on if I’m going to have bloody toes, it will be for a different reason. Clearly cleaning is dangerous.

Now the Saturday before was quite different story. Pat and I decided we were going to climb Cabezon, and we mostly did. We survived eight tenths of the assault, a near vertical scrabble over loose rock followed by vertical rock faces about 15 minutes from the top. That’s where we called a halt to our endeavor. I have to admit to pure, simple and extreme fright. I figured I could get UP maybe, with help, but that I’d end up in a catatonic state clinging to the rock face, eyes closed, tears streaming down my cheeks and never get down until my hands would give up hanging on and I’d crash (I’ve had experience with myself in this situation before, and thankfully am still here to remember it.). So Pat, who was also none too sure she wanted to brave such things, and I carefully emerged from our safety crevice, dared to look down just long enough to get our feet under us and ski/slide over the loose rock squatting over our shoes or sliding on our butts. Once all the way down we joined our husbands for a picnic overlooking the beautiful Rio Puerco. Oh my, was that a wondrous aesthetic experience. We walked among the very orange salt cedar and in the salty river bed. We started home as the tip top of Cabezon turned a lovely purple rose in the dying sun. I’m awfully spoiled to have such beauty in my life and then grump around when I’m called upon to be responsible. I’m domestic. I love my old adobe. I like cleaning house—I really do. I just hurt, that’s all, and I felt grumpy about it.

Lucy Noyes is co-founder of La Puerta Real Estate outside Albuquerque, New Mexico and has a million stories in her head, just waiting to get out.

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