Santa Fe and Eating

I'm still in Santa Fe, though not for much longer: today, I head up to Taos. I'm wanting to go for a drive, and so drive I shall. There's a museum or two I want to see, and then I'll take a driving tour - the shortest one on the list of recommended driving tours - that will bring me back to Santa Fe.

Yesterday, I went to every museum within walking distance of the Governor's Plaza. At least, it seems that way. I went to the Institute for American Indian Art (IAIA), where they had a wonderful exhibit, as well as artwork in the museum shop that you can purchase. I found three paintings, all by the same artist, that I love. I do not, however, have the $1,200 it would require to buy all three. My goal is to save up some money and then hunt him down on the Internet, eventually. EVENTUALLY. Although no longer unemployed, I will be taking a drastic pay cut from what I made at my old job, so...

I also went to the Georgia O'Keefe Museum. I went once before about ten years ago with my parents and sister. At the time, I remember thinking how little I liked her paintings. Of course, my taste has matured since then, so I went back.

I still don't like her paintings.

I tried, and I can't force myself to like them. I apparently fail as an art-lover. The restaurant at the Georgia O'Keefe is excellent, however. They serve blue-corn pancakes with a side of venison sausage and fresh fruit dusted with cinnamon. Wonderful wonderful wonderful food.

I went to the New Mexico Museum of Art, too, which had the requisite O'Keefes, but also an amazing display of sculptural fine art baskets from the collection of some old rich folks who live in NM. The term basket is somewhat loosely defined, as some of the articles on display couldn't hold so much as a peanut. There was also a creepy security guard at the Museum of Art, who I would recommend avoiding.

Yesterday, I found myself feeling peckish after wandering through all the museums. At La Fonda, a big expensive hotel right off Santa Fe's main plaza, there is a small pastry shop that specializes in crepes. So, I guess technically, it's a creperie with a selection of pastries. Semantics.

Anyways, I ducked in, wanting something sweet and light. If you go, order the apricot crepe. Stewed apricots, wrapped in a light and delightfully chewy crepe with a side of real whipped cream. None of this Redi-Whip or Cool Whip nonsense for them. Oh no, it's real unsweetened whipped cream. It is perfectly acceptable to eat what might be left of it with a spoon after you've finished your crepe, by the way.

I ate dinner last night at Gabriel's, which is actually in Santa Cruz, about 20-30 minutes north of Santa Fe. If you ever get the chance to go to Gabriel's, be forewarned: they ask if you want guacamole. If you want guacamole, be prepared to shell out $12 for it. It's good, though, and is made to order at your table. I ordered it, and managed to consume about half of it (in other words, a whole avocado with tomato, onion, garlic, cilantro, and lime juice) in addition to the stewed pork I had for a main dish. It was all delicious, but if you're there by yourself and you sit at a table in the bar, you won't get very good service. Just a warning.

Bonus Weekend Blog!

I am sitting in my hotel room in cloudy, windy Santa Fe, NM.

"Why?" you may ask.

A question to which I respond, "Because I convinced my future employer that I needed another week to get some appointments out of the way before I started work."

I decided that one such appointment should take place in Santa Fe, since I will not receive time off for an appointment in Santa Fe for a while after working, and here I am.

My mom and dad are partially (mostly) bankrolling this southwestern expedition of mine as a sort of "Hallelujah, she's employed" gift. Also, I've been so incredibly stressed the past few months, looking for work, being relentlessly shot down, etc... that I haven't actually been relaxing. In Santa Fe, I hope to do just that.

I spent the past two hours walking around the plaza that fronts the Governor's Palace. The shops around the plaza are a great place to go to get fleeced by merchants who are trying to sell you art, not informing you that the $4,000 photographic print you're looking at is NOT one-of-a-kind, but is in fact reproduced and sold in multiple galleries for this artist around the country.

Hmmmm...

There is also a lot of turquoise jewelry to be found in Santa Fe, the colors of which tend to be chemically enhanced. This is a fact you will not find out - in all likelihood - unless you ask the merchant. The merchant will frown at you and then inform you that, no, the coral is not naturally that hue ("I thought it lacked natural variation") and that the veins in the turquoise have been darkened. And the turquoise has been dyed. Tsk tsk.

If you go to Santa Fe by yourself, and you happen to be a well dressed single white female with excellent posture, you will find that entirely unacceptable men will say "Hello" to you out of nowhere and that couples in their 60s will smile at you for no reason.

You will also decide that the zydeco musician outside the bar on the corner is cute and throw a buck in his hat. At the end of the next block you will realize you gave him a five and kick yourself for your inadvertent profligacy.

Tired, and with sinuses full of cottonwood tufts and a back aching from the airplane trip and the world's most uncomfortable car seats (curse you, Chevy HHR! Stupid rental car! Hey, that kind of rhymes...) you proceed back to your room at the lovely La Quinta Santa Fe to continue reading Gai-Jin and to write a bonus blog post...

(Public Domain image found at http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Santa_Fe_1846.jpg)

As of Monday, June 8, 2009

I will no longer be "unemployed."  I will not even be an independent contractor.  I will, in fact, be working full-time for a venerable architecture firm in the Dallas area.

I'm excited, as you can imagine, but still scared to death.  After all, I haven't had a job in 6 months, now, and I'll have to get used to getting up at 7 so I can be in the office by 9, sitting in a desk, reporting to someone else.

Bonus: I will be full-time with benefits.  No more COBRA health care rigmarole to deal with, thankfully.  I won't have to worry about filing my income taxes quarterly, as I would if I was a contractor (the discussion at my first interview revolved around this concept.  I did some mental calculations, though, and they'd have to pay me more, actually, if I was independent than they would if I came on as a salaried employee).

Downside: my pay will be significantly less than it was at my last place of employment.  As in 20% less than at my previous job.  It's better than the annual max. $10,xxx the government gives to those of us on unemployment, but...  I had hoped that I would be able to find an apartment in my old neighborhood or near there, but at my new low salary, there's no way I can afford to live there.

UNLESS...

I spoke to my dad Thursday afternoon, and he discussed with one of his business contacts my business idea (which was originally my dad's idea, but he gave it to me).  His BC told him that, if I'd set up the company and get it going, he could get me more business than I could shake a stick at.  So that's looking hopeful.  My one hope now for getting into a "place of my own" is the business.

If all goes well, it may allow me to move into a nicer place than I had before I lost my job and still save up money for that ever-elusive goal: graduate school.

(Creative Commons Licensed Image Courtesy of Wikimedia Commons user Aceplace.  The image can be found at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:HPIM1041_edited-1.jpg)

Fraught Nerves And New Shoes

I bought a pair of shoes to wear Thursday morning with my follow-up salary-negotiation outfit.  It was not a superfluous purchase, because the shoes they replaced are so worn that the shoe repair guy shook his head and made clucking noises and shrugged his shoulders when I asked him if he could fix them.

"No, no.  No fixing of them," he said in his heavy Russian accent.    So now I have a new pair of shoes with heels even higher than their predecessors, which is almost always a good thing.

Wednesday evening, I was supposed to discuss a business strategy with my sister.  I have the idea for a potentially profitable side-business, and I need some help setting it up.  The name is already registered, and all that jazz, but I also have:

1.  No defined business plan

2.  No list of potential clients

3.  No list of trade organizations representing those clients

4.  No clear idea of where to begin.

I do, however, have a ton of receipts from purchases I've made relative to the start up, so I'd better get this thing in gear so I can put them to use on my taxes.

My brilliant older sister - who, you will remember, is also an incredibly gourmet cook - was supposed to talk to me tonight about business strategy.  However, her gourmet life was seriously inconvenienced when her not-so-gourmet refrigerator/freezer died, leaving her with enormous amounts of ruined free range meats and organic vegetables.

Oy.

I spoke to her on the phone, and tried to cheer her up by pointing out that she can now get one of those spiffy refrigerators with French doors that she's been coveting.

This tactic did not work.

I then launched into what I had hoped would be a stirring rendition of Monty Python's "Always Look on the Bright Side of Life" (dee do, di do do do di do).  When my (not-so-stirring) performance failed at brightening her outlook, I gave up.

If Monty Python can't do it, nobody can.

(Creative Commons Licensed Image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons)

Drumroll, Please!

BRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR-CHING!

I HAVE A JOB.

Yes, folks, that's right: the firm with which I interviewed a couple of weeks ago called today and informed me that they'd like to hire me.  I go in to the office Thursday to discuss salary and the day I'll begin and all that mumbo-jumbo.

I've been doing internal cartwheels since about 5:00 when the younger interviewer (who still isn't exactly young) called to apologize for not calling me sooner and asked me to come in.  So Thursday morning at 10:00, I will be at their offices to talk about the aforementioned details.

Of course, now I want desperately to move back to my old neighborhood.  I've been indulging in apartment looking via Internet since just after I returned from a victory dinner at Patrizio's (almond-crusted trout, mmmmm).  Part of me says, "You'll have a job, you can tough it out for the next 14 months until you go to grad school."  Still, another part of me is screaming, "Run!  Run for your life!  And this time get an apartment with a washer-dryer hookup!"  I'm conflicted, and so am keeping my apartment search low-key and not calling apartment complexes (yet).

In true Ms. StrainedConsciousness fashion, I have figured out what I will wear to the "detail discussion" (almost: not 100% on the shoes) and will drop off some new work-ready pants at the tailor's tomorrow to have the pocket openings permanently sewn shut and the excess pocket material removed.  You know, to prevent unsightly pocket-lines.

Everyone does that, right?

Anybody Out There?

I'll go ahead and get it out of the way:  I haven't heard from my prospective employer, at time of publication .  As I'm publishing late Monday evening, and the prospective client to my prospective employer was supposed to sign the prospective contract Monday during office hours, I didn't entirely expect to hear word before Publication, but I had certainly hoped to hear of potential impending employment by this time.

In a familiar vein, I'm currently reading yet another weighty tome, in order to while away the evening hours, and I will duly blog a review of it when I am finished reading it.  (Hint:  It starts with an L- and ends with an -ittle Dorrit.)

I suppose I could review the movie Up, but all I can say without giving away the whole thing - which is one amazing surprise and revelation after the other - is that I laughed, I cried (copiously), I give it one thumb up, but only because in order to complete the total Siskel and Ebert imitation, I would be required to have an enormously fat person give the other thumb up.

So those of you who read are no doubt disappointed by the short entry, today/tomorrow.  I know, I know .  But never fear, I will try to come up with more for next time.

Unless, of course, you write in raptures about the wonderfully abbreviated format of today/tomorrow's entry.  Honestly, it won't make a difference.

Quasi Happy Hour @ Cowboy Chow

The Happy Hour coordinator was out of town Friday, and so there was no official Happy Hour, per se.  However, a couple of my intrepid adventuring friends and I made the trek to Deep Ellum to partake of the chow at Cowboy Chow.

GO TO COWBOY CHOW.

They bill themselves as a "wedding chapel and tacos" place, attested to by the extensive listing of tacos on the menu and the veiled and top-hatted buffalo heads on the wall.  For those of you who dislike mounted animal heads, take heart: they are obviously fake.  I want one.

In the spirit of the evening, I partook of the buffalo tacos (for those watching their waistlines, they're 500 calories for the whole meal) which were amazing.  Tacos are served with a side of beans, which are something of a cross between pinto beans and baked beans, and a bed of rice that catches the delicious juices that dribble out of the tacos and onto your hands.

Cowboy Chow specializes in braised meats, and to this end you will find all sorts of braised beef and pork (REAL cowboys don't eat chicken).  My compadres in comiendo both ordered the Dr. Pepper braised ribs (beef) and liked them, although they thought the ribs should be served with some form of Dr. Pepper reduction sauce.  Mashed potatoes have corn mashed in with them, so don't get all up in arms when you see "corn" on the menu, and it isn't served in a neat yellow pile next to the taters.

There are three grades of beer at Cowboy Chow: Texas and Mexican Beer, Good Yankee Beer, and Cheap Ass Beer.  Seeing as I'm unemployed, I drank a cheap ass Pabst Blue Ribbon, but for those with more - ahem - refined palates, you can order a Blue Moon or a Buffalo Butt (?).

A good reason to eat the low-cal tacos di bufala is the dessert offerings: homemade ice cream sandwiches, peanut butter brownie smores, or a warm-baked cookie (which should be ordered at the time you order your meal so they can bake the cookie for you).  The waiter informed us that the ice cream sandwiches are about the size of a hockey puck.

He lied.

They're bigger.

And before I forget, let's go back to the beginning, where you eat appetizers and such.  They have the most wonderful invention on the menu: fried green tomato lollipops, served with 3 cheese ranch dipping sauce.  They're $1 each.  They're heaven.  Get one.

So, as a recap for those of you with short memories: GO TO COWBOY CHOW AND CHOW DOWN.

You will not regret it.

(Creative Commons Licensed image courtesy of Flickr user tkksumers may be found at http://www.flickr.com/photos/tkksummers/3472731686/)