New art in town.

Well, not new new. But it has a new home. The Vladem Contemporary Art Museum  -- more precisely, the New Mexico Museum of Art Vladem Contemporary -- opened this weekend. The original facility is right off the historic plaza downtown, and while it often shows contemporary works, it turns out they have a lot more in storage that they haven't had room to put on display. So several years ago, the state agency that runs the museum bought an old warehouse in the Railyard and converted it to this new facility -- thereby annoying local folks who objected to the destruction of a mural that celebrated Santa Fe's multiple cultures. The mural has been recreated inside the museum, but some locals are still ticked that you have to go inside to see a scaled-down work of art that you used to be able to see from the street.

Anyway, I stopped by the members' preview open house on Friday.

The inaugural exhibition is called "Shadow and Light". I'm not a huge fan of contemporary art, and frankly some of the work I saw in the downstairs exhibit space was terrifying (take a look at these pants made of straight pins!). Although maybe I was just hungry. After a stop at the hors d'oeuvres tables, I found some stuff upstairs that I liked better.

This, for instance. It's called Cu:C and it's by Susan York. It was actually commissioned by the museum for this corner. It's made of two squares, one graphite and one copper, and the description on the wall encourages the viewer "to ponder whether they interrupt space or are integral to the building." 

Lynne Cantwell 2023

To be honest, it was fairly crowded in the gallery, and I kind of wondered whether I could fit inside the squares and take a break from the crowd. Probably would have gotten thrown out of the museum, though.

This one, by Emil Bisttram, is called The Archetype. Bisttram was a theosophist, according to the info on the wall next to this work. I loved the colors and the way the artist worked in the mystical symbols. 

Lynne Cantwell 2023

My absolute favorite piece in the show, though, is this one, by Yuyoi Kusama. It's stainless steel and urethane and it's called, appropriately enough, Pumpkin. 

Lynne Cantwell 2023

The card on the wall says, "Kusama's polka dots, while playful and humorous, force viewers to negotiate between the real and the surreal as they experience the work." This is how contemporary art goes off the rails for me. It's a polka-dotted pumpkin, for crying out loud. Can't I just enjoy a bit of whimsy?

I mean, if reality is what you're after, the rooftop terrace offers a great view of downtown Santa Fe. 

Lynne Cantwell 2023

The Vladem is in the Railyard, right next to the Rail Runner station (the commuter train that runs between Santa Fe and points slightly south of Albuquerque). If you're coming to Santa Fe anyway, or if you're a fan of contemporary art, it's worth checking out.

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These moments of artistic blogginess have been brought to you, as a public service, by Lynne Cantwell. (I mean, it's a pumpkin. Lighten up!)

A Santa Fe holiday.

On the theory that nobody wants to think too hard on this Christmas night, I offer you pretty pictures.

The local tourism folks tout Canyon Road as the place to go to buy art here in Santa Fe. There are galleries all over town, but they are pretty much wall-to-wall on Canyon Road. And every year, the merchants sponsor what they call a "farolito walk" on Christmas Eve. I'd never been, so last night I went. 

Lynne Cantwell 2022

Luminaria.
Lynne Cantwell 2022

Anatomy of a farolito.
Lynne Cantwell 2022

Here in northern New Mexico, a farolito is a paper bag in which is placed dirt (to anchor it) and a votive candle. Elsewhere in the Southwest, they're called luminarias. But here, a luminaria is a tiny bonfire like the one on the right. People light the bonfires to give folks viewing the farolitos a place to stop and warm up -- because, you see, this is no drive-by. The city blocks off Canyon Road for this event, so everyone has to walk along the road to see the farolitos. Some of the galleries are open, although not all, and folks also offer hot drinks for sale -- apple cider and hot chocolate -- along with some sweet treats. But the main attraction is the lights, not all of which are of the candle-in-a-paper-bag variety. 

Chile ristras get the light treatment.
Lynne Cantwell 2022

Lynne Cantwell 2022

Not to be outdone, the plaza -- a few blocks away -- is also all lit up for the season. And we are nothing if not ecumenical here.

Lynne Cantwell 2022

Lynne Cantwell 2022

Whatever your religious persuasion -- or not -- I hope you're having a great, relaxing weekend.

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These moments of bloggy illumination have been brought to you, as a public service, by Lynne Cantwell. Stay safe!

Two sad stories and an ongoing saga.

Mercury retrograde is over -- it ended early this morning Eastern Daylight Time -- but the chaos lingers on.

Sad story #1: Remember last week, when I told y'all I'd be able to stay on at my day job, working remotely, through the end of this year? Yeah, well, the happy dance we all did was premature. It turns out that Human Resources had a lot of problems with the idea of paying a staff member who wasn't living in a state where we had an office. "Red flags all over the place," was what I was told. A last-ditch effort late this week to salvage the plan fizzled. So my last day at the firm will be Friday, July 24th.

It's probably for the best. I had assumed we would be working from home for most of the rest of the calendar year. But no -- the firm's US offices are opening for Stage 1 of our carefully-thought-out five-stage reopening plan tomorrow. In Stage 1, everyone is expected to work remotely, but if there's an urgent business need, we may be called into the office. There are oodles of rules -- everybody needs to wear a mask, the number of people allowed in the office at one time is cut way back, the cafeteria is closed, and so on. But the bottom line is that the firm could conceivably require me to show up, in person, on short notice, and that would be impossible to do from Santa Fe.

So #EscapeVelocity is back on. More on that in a minute, but first...

Sad story #2: I've been entertaining my Facebook friends this week with the Story of This Chair.

Cute, right? Sometime this spring, I saw it on World Market's website. I wanted it; they wanted $500 for it (and still do); I regretfully turned away. But I used my Google-fu and discovered Target also had it, and for less. Then they ran a sale and an online coupon deal, which made the chair just $250. At that price, it was totally worth buying. So I ordered one. The delivery date was far in the future -- the first week of June -- but that was fine. I wasn't going to need it 'til I moved in July.

Sometime in late May, I began to get emails from Target, pushing back the delivery date. I received the final email on June 12th, saying the chair would arrive June 17th. Well, June 17th came but the chair didn't. So I called Target on the 20th. The customer service person said, "Have you spoken with our Higher-Level Team?" I said I didn't know they had one. So I got the phone number from her and called. This new customer service person gave me a Case Number and assured me I would receive an email shortly. Of course I didn't. So on the 29th, I called again. This time I mentioned that I was moving in July, and I needed the chair to be here by the 13th or I would have to cancel. That rep assured me my chair would arrive in plenty of time and to expect an email within 48 hours. You guessed it: no email.

On July 6th, I called again. This time I said I was pretty sure I was never going to get my chair and to just cancel the order. This nice rep said she would start two inquiries: one for the whereabouts of the chair and one for the cancellation. "Look for an email!" she said.

This time, I did get an email! My chair was to be delivered Thursday, July 9th! What we've surmised is the manufacturer printed the label on the 7th so it would get paid. Target charged my card for the chair on the 8th. And on the 9th...no chair.

On Friday the 10th, I called Target back to say the chair had never shipped. And the nice rep said his screen showed it had, in fact, shipped, and that FedEx would deliver it on Sunday, July 12th. Whoo hoo!

All day yesterday, I eagerly tracked this shipment -- from suburban Chicago, to the Pennsylvania Turnpike where the driver must have stopped for dinner, to Hagerstown, MD, very early this morning. By 6:30am today, the chair was on a FedEx truck, heading for my place!

You know what's coming, right? It's now 10:30pm, and I don't have my chair. FedEx has marked the delivery as Pending. Now, our leasing office is closed on Sundays, so it's possible the driver got here and couldn't get in the building. But why hasn't the status been updated to show the next delivery attempt? Which, honestly, needs to be tomorrow.

So I called FedEx customer service a little while ago. The nice rep has sent a message to the driver. Stay tuned.

Of course, the reason the chair needs to be here tomorrow is...

The Ongoing Saga: I'm moving, as you know. The container comes on Thursday. The movers are going to load it up for me and make sure it gets sent on its way to New Mexico. The chair isn't going to fit in the back of my car, so it has to go in the container. (So really my drop-dead date for the chair is Wednesday, but I wasn't going to tell Target that.)

As I said last week, I hit the road on the 27th. And as if this whole process hasn't been crazy enough, once I get to New Mexico, I get to self-quarantine for 14 days. Thanks, COVID-19. Good thing Santa Fe has Instacart, right?

So for the next three days, it'll be a little hairy around here while I'm packing my stuff -- and also while working on Tuesday and Wednesday, which I didn't originally expect to be doing. At least I was able to sell the IKEA wardrobe I've used as a closet since we moved here. It was a bear to put together, but it has been perfect for my needs for the past two-plus years. Today, a nice man came in, took it apart, paid me for it, and took it away. Things are looking up!

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These moments of hairy blogginess have been brought to you, as a public service, by Lynne Cantwell. Wash your hands! Wear a mask!

#EscapeVelocity update.

pxfuel.com

This post is going to be good news/bad news/good news, more or less.

As alert hearth/myth readers know, I have been counting down the days until I could retire from my day job and leave the Washington, DC, area. After a period of waffling, which I deemed "location research" so it didn't sound quite so bad, I decided at last to relocate to Santa Fe, New Mexico.

And after a further, mostly concurrent period of waffling, I settled on a date for my last day at work: Monday, July 6, 2020. Which is tomorrow.

The update, in short, is this: I'm still moving to Santa Fe, but tomorrow will not be my last day at work. And it's all thanks to COVID-19.

Like a whole lot of other companies, the law firm I work for sent everybody home with laptops in mid-March, as a test of whether our IT system could support the strain -- and then told us to stay there. We've been working from home ever since. This is a radical departure from the firm's historical stance on secretarial work. Our former manager once told me flat-out that legal secretaries would never be allowed to work from home. Well, that was then and this is now: Everything we do, with the exception of running errands, is done electronically. And a lot of the hands-on stuff -- for example, making sure catering is delivered for meetings -- isn't happening right now because our buildings are closed.

So as I said, we all went home. And then I went on my two-month sabbatical, as scheduled, on April 17th. When I "came back to work" on June 17th, we were still working remotely, but a whole bunch of stuff had changed. A new law -- the CARES (Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security) Act -- allows eligible employers to take a tax credit for keeping employees on their payroll. Our firm decided to take advantage of that. So most secretaries were switched to four-day-per-week work schedules. The few who were already working four days per week were moved to a three-days-per-week schedule. All of us got to keep our full-time pay and health care. (The changes do impact accrual of paid time off, but my PTO accrual was already whacked this year due to the sabbatical.)

Anyway, two things happened when I got back to work: 1) I was put on a three-day-per-week schedule for my last three weeks; and 2) the attorney I've worked for the longest persuaded me to stay on until the end of 2020 (not coincidentally, that's when the CARES Act provisions are set to end). I said I would do it if I could keep working remotely, even from New Mexico, and he said he didn't have a problem with that. It's a sweet setup for me: I get a part-time job at full-time pay, including benefits, and I can let my 401(k) recover for several more months. (Another plus is not having to get a part-time job to pay for Obamacare, as the job market is lousy for nearly everyone right now.)

There have been some nail-biting moments this past week, with more likely to come. While our Human Resources and Finance people have been figuring out how to do tax withholding for the resident of a state where we don't have an office, the "leaving the firm" machinery was still grinding away in the background. I received an email on Thursday from Payroll with a question about my final paycheck on 7/6. I told them I wasn't leaving. Then I forwarded the email to HR. A couple of hours later, I had a new tentative retirement date of 7/31. That gives the firm enough time (I hope!) to work out the rest of the tax withholding bugs so I can stay on 'til the end of the year.

Regardless, the movers will be here for my stuff on 7/16, and on the morning of 7/27 I am hopping in Eli and hitting the road for Santa Fe.

I say all this with some trepidation and a whole lot of gratitude. Nearly three million Americans have tested positive for this virus so far; as of today, 132,000 have died from it, and far more who have "recovered" continue to be sick; and millions have lost their jobs due to the economic shutdown. I realize how lucky I am to be able to keep my job and to retire on my own terms.

So that's the update: the Big Move West is still happening but retirement is delayed. And heads up that I probably won't be posting on Sunday, August 2nd.

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These moments of nail-biting blogginess have been brought to you, as a public service, by Lynne Cantwell.

Teeny-tiny house madness.

As alert hearth/myth readers know, I am planning to retire from the day job this year (in 168 days, according to the countdown app on my phone). And after much touring of parts of the American Southwest and much weighing of the pros and cons, I have decided to settle in Santa Fe, NM.

I don't think I've shared that here before. I know I've talked about my location scouting, particularly in this post from June 2018. The ending of that post threw some people off; I guess it sounded like I was going to put down roots in Back of Beyond, Colorado. Yeah, no. I have lived in cities for too long -- I need my amenities. Restaurants and grocery stores, movie theaters and museums, musical venues and yarn shops -- all of these things make for a well-rounded life for me, and all of them were hours from Back of Beyond, CO.

But Santa Fe has it all, plus history, intriguing architecture, and amazing sunsets. It's also a lot smaller than DC -- about 85,000 people, compared to about 160,000 in my current city. Comparing metropolitan areas, Albuquerque-Santa Fe has about 1.2 million people, while metro DC has 6 million or so. (This is not necessarily a drawback. Living cheek-by-jowl with 6 million other people can get stressful, especially when we all need to get to work at once.)

Alas, like nearly all cities of any size, there's really nowhere in Santa Fe to park a tiny house. So I am planning to rent an apartment to start with, and then maybe buy a condo. Or keep renting. I've been a renter for most of my adult life and it's worked out okay. (Your realtor will tell you that's nuts, but there are a number of advantages -- from yardwork-free weekends, to not having a plumber on speed dial, to moving without having to paint/repair/declutter/sell your old place first.)

But every now and then, I get those ol' kozmic tiny house blues again, mama. And I start to think that maybe I'll need a retreat. Someplace quiet, with a teeny-tiny house where I can hole up and write for a week or so. That would be the best of both worlds, y'know?

That's how I discovered the people who make the Escape Traveler series (the tiny houses I toured at a dealership in southwestern Virginia three years ago) have begun offering teeny-tiny houses that aren't on wheels. You can get just the shell, or you can kit it out fully with a kitchen and bath. They even have a solar setup for life off the grid. They start at $12,000. And they deliver.

I was pretty excited -- but then I did the math. A fully outfitted EscapeSpace would cost me $30,000. That seems a little steep for a 96-square-foot shed, even if it does come with solar power and indoor plumbing.

It's a crazy idea. But still I'm intrigued. I wonder if there's a cheaper way to do it...

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These moments of teeny-tiny-house blogginess have been brought to you, as a public service, by Lynne Cantwell.

Finding wonder.

I guess I hit a nerve last week with my post on forgiveness, although in the end I'm not sure whether it was my nerve or everyone else's. In any case, I'm going with a less fraught topic (I hope!) this week.

I turn 60 this coming week, which means I'm nearing the end of my second Saturn return. In astrology, your Saturn return is the year or years in which Saturn returns to the astrological sign it was in when you were born. It happens every 30 years, more or less. So most of us will get two Saturn returns in a lifetime, and some of us lucky humans will be graced with a third.

As I understand it, if you didn't solve some of the stuff you were supposed to work on during your first Saturn return, that stuff comes back to smack you upside the head and force you to deal with it during your second. Knowing that, I can see it's no accident that I wrote the Transcendence books this year.

Anyway, it occurred to me the other day that one thing that's been missing from my life lately is a sense of joy and wonder. Particularly when you've been doing the same thing for as long as I have, it's easy to fall into the habit of trudging from one workaday care to the next, without finding joy in any of it. So this week, I am in Santa Fe, New Mexico, on a sort of birthday-week retreat. And on the plane out here, I found myself wishing for a little wonder.

After I checked into the hotel yesterday, I strolled down to the central plaza, as one does when in Santa Fe, in search of dinner. What I found -- as you can see -- was wonder. So much wonder that I went back tonight. Enjoy.

All photos copyright Lynne Cantwell

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These moments of wonderful blogginess have been brought to you, as a public service, by Lynne Cantwell.