DATELINE: Santa Fe

Sunday Morning, November 15, 2015

by James Strauss

6:40 AM Santa Fe New Mexico.

Really early. At seven thousand feet, being old, not drinking, finding raucous nightlife to be raucous nightlife and having a television in my room not intended to be operated by anyone older than seven means I went to bed at around nine-thirty. Six o’clock rolls around and here I am, peeking out from under the covers and wondering how I kill three hours before the rest of the world wakes up and how careful I can be not to wake it up. Paris stuff bounces off the walls out from the one channel I can find without the hotel thing going to a menu I can’t get out of.
There was not enough fear transmitted into the hearts of man the other day so we needed another injection.

Television, that visual I.V. tube inserted into all of our daily lives and then held there with invisible epoxy, assures that a constant drip of terror motivating material gets metered in whenever one of the powerful wraiths controlling the real world thinks we patients are getting too calm and peaceful. The Eiffel Tower closes indefinitely. NFL games offer more security. At least putting two things like that together in the same paragraph makes me laugh out loud! Rare thinking humans won’t be able to enjoy the gorgeous culture offered by going up on the tower, meanwhile those other people, who think Eiffel is the French way of spelling Eye Full, will have to be checked closer every week to see if their necks are getting redder.

Sunday morning.
You have to smile on through it.
From my window…

6:40 Santa Fe, New Mexico.

Maybe it’s that a lot of smart people live here or maybe the very high altitude makes them all seem smarter than me. I guess it really is all about relativity. Yesterday, in my car going around the plaza (or the streets just out from it since they’ve blocked half of it off for cars), I got lost. Is it dumber to get lost in a place you can’t get lost or is it dumber to admit that you got lost under such circumstances? And there were people waiting for me demanding to know where I was on my cell phone which I could not use to check where I was because they were on it. And besides, how do you use mapquest when you’re driving and find anything?

And live?

I have navigation in the car but it would be tomorrow before I ever figured out how to get anywhere using it. So, I did the guy thing and drove around using hope as my guide while telling the people on the phone that I had to make a stop to go to the bathroom. An acceptable excuse at my age. So, I’m walking for coffee this morning.

Over to the 31 Flavors shop that’s been there from way back when I lived in Santa Fe. I will then walk around the plaza and, on foot, figure out why I was lost and how to avoid getting lost again in that same place today. I found myself only minutes after I was lost yesterday but, because I could not admit that, everyone thought I was merely rude and incontinent.

It’s better to be seen as rude and incontinent than stupid.

I think.

Your thoughts?

6:46 AM Santa Fe New Mexico.

Breakfast. Not mine.  I have coffee from the 31 Flavors (used to be) now called Haagen Dazs or whatever.  No, I’m talking about the poor guy dumpster diving I took a shot of, making sure he didn’t see me taking the picture or reveal his face.  He’s got it bad enough.  Making the rounds of the trash bins that are liberally set about the sidewalks across from the plaza.
You think you have it bad out there?

Powerless, are you?

Not much to do or eat or anybody to pay attention to you?

Well, try making this guy’s rounds in the morning and then wonder what the day ahead might be like for him.  I don’t know.  I’m bifurcated between feeling pretty bad for him and then pretty good for myself and I don’t like trying to mix those two things together.

Good morning from the plaza….

7:05 AM Santa Fe New Mexico.

It’s not that early anymore, at least not for those who were sleeping while I got coffee, because the bells of San Felipe, the church with the missing steeples at the top of San Francisco Street are ringing away non-stop. There will be no more sleeping in downtown Santa Fe hotels this  Sunday.

If you are not Catholic too bad, you at least get to notice Catholics.

Yesterday I went by this store near the plaza and just had to go in. Parts Unknown. You know, named after the Anthony Bourdain travel/food show. Well, according to the owners, it’s not named after him. That was after the manager of the store would not admit she’d ever heard of Bourdain. Please. Anyway, the owners are miffed because they had the name first and when he came to town a year ago he not only dissed the New Mexico food everyone’s so proud of but he didn’t visit their store his show is named after. Or something like that. Nice store, really, but I didn’t buy anything because I am such a secret admiring fan of Bourdain. I could have been him if I was just a bit smarter, taller, better looking, thinner, more erudite and didn’t have to give up drugs and alcohol so early on.

Just to name a few things.