Revisiting New Mexico

I promised to put up pictures of my trip to New Mexico, and I've finally got a little bit of time to do it. The first photograph shows that all the conveniences of home are available in a little roomette on the train. I could plug in my computer and have a picture of Ace to look at. There wasn't Internet access, but I suspect that will happen someday. I found a really nice backpack for my 17" Mac and my Nikon, which also held the stuff I needed for overnight.

The room converted into upper and lower bunks, although I think the upper bunk would have been on the narrow side. During the day, the potential two occupants could sit across from each other and play cards, because there's a fold-away table between the seats. I didn't try to use the shower on the train because it was hard enough to use the sink with all the jostling. But I really enjoyed having a room of my own.

This is my friend Melinda's house, which sits on 10 acres outside of Santa Fe. It was designed by her husband, who now works in Las Vegas for some large architectural firm, and it is spectacular. I am especially jealous of the kitchen, which is enormous.













I photographed the house in the early morning, from outside of the guest house, called a casita. In the next photograph, you can see the guest house. I've had offices which were smaller, and the shower was huge.














The bathroom and closet of the casita were far bigger than any I have in my house and I loved the fire place in the sitting area. I was able to pick up the wireless Internet from the house, so I made a few of my posts from there after I said goodnight to Melinda and the pets in the main house. Fortunately for my allergies, the casita is a cat-free zone. This photo was taken late afternoon the day I arrived. Look at the beautiful, blue, western sky.














And here's the view looking out to the south and west from the living room of the house. I'd love to see it with the 11' Christmas tree Melinda had last year.

I've had concepts of dream houses in the past, but the cost of land and construction has pretty much put a dream house in the category of "Not in This Lifetime." Melinda has a lot of sweat equity in the house--they did a lot of the work, like laying floors and painting themselves--and I'm not sure I've got that kind of energy, either.














Here's Melinda with the handsome Vento, her Lusitano stallion. They make a lovely team in motion. He's a really sweet horse who likes being the center of attention and he's got great moves. Melinda's trainer showed her a "new gear" when I watched a lesson. At his first show--I think he was introduced at second level--the judge wrote "a bit of an over-achiever, isn't he" after he had a hard time coming to a halt and did a piaffe instead. She's going to go great places on him. I'm looking forward to watching his progress when they come out to L.A. for a couple of months this winter.















This is the train station in Lamy, where I arrived and departed. It was built in 1880, and the sign in the ladies' room reminded people that the pipes are also that old. There was some wonderful tile work inside, and I was quite taken with the cage surrounding the ticketing area, as shown in the next photograph. Lamy has about four buildings, including an old deconsecrated church that gets used for location-shots. There used to be a good restaurant, but I guess not any more. I met a photographer at a workshop in L.A. almost two years ago who had relocated her business from here to there. I wished I had contact information for her.















The Lamy station is the stop for Santa Fe, which is about 20 minutes away by car. My friend Lira thought it was where she transfered to a bus to go to Denver, but I'm not sure if she's correct about that. While I was waiting to board the train to come back to L.A., I had to wait for several organized groups of travellers to disembark for the buses into Santa Fe. There were also several groups who had priority in seating before I was assigned a seat coming home. I was far less impressed with the way I was treated on the return trip than on the east-bound route.















Here's the Southwest Chief as it arrives in Lamy on November 6. My request for a window seat was ignored and I was put on the aisle next to a college girl who was on her way to visit her sister in Ventura. She had a hard time sitting still and was up and down and in and out a lot. During the day, I could understand it. At night, when I was trying to sleep, she managed to trip over my legs several times, which made for a bad night's sleep for me.

Still, traveling by train is far more civilized than flying, and is a lot more relaxing than driving.

Proud of the USA and Los Angeles, Disappointed in California

I'm home again and mostly rested from the New Mexico adventure. If you are taking an overnight train ride, a roomette is the way to go. On the way home, I didn't have one. The young woman in the next seat kept hitting my legs as she climbed over me during the night and kicked me in the side two or three other times in her sleep. Then there were the people with headphones which did nothing to block the sound (they'll be deaf a lot earlier in life than I will) and the people who had to check e-mail every 15 minutes--the light is blinding when you are otherwise in the dark. Next time, it's either a sleeper or I'll have to fly.

The USA elected Barack Obama and Los Angeles soundly defeated Proposition 8. Unfortunately, the rest of the state (except for San Francisco, I'm pretty sure) didn't see this assault on equal protection for what it is. I just read the papers which have been filed to overturn the effects of 8 on the basis that it is a revision of the California State Constitution, not an amendment, and therefore illegal. It seems like a sound argument to me. Keith Olbermann did a special comment about this strange result last night. I'm surprised that he had such a hard time identifying anyone in his extended family who is gay. I came up with several without any effort. In terms of friends, I couldn't even begin to do a count. When you live and work among artists, you are in the most accepting of communities. I hope that Proposition 8 comes to a quick and deserving end.

Ace, for all who may be wondering, was glad to see me, although a bit stand-offish when I first showed up, as if to say "where the hell have you been?" He may have a "hot" nail from his visit from the farrier on Saturday. I noticed a bob during lessons yesterday and Gayle called to say it doesn't show at the walk or slow trot, but he's dead lame when he moves out. Left front hoof, of course. I've called Tim and I hope he can get out to see Ace before leaving for a trip home later this week. Poor Ace.

I haven't done more than load into Lightroom the 1000+ images I took in New Mexico. Most of them were of my friend Melinda riding Vento, the wonder stallion from Brazil, so there'll be heavy editing of the blurry images. Pixels are so much cheaper than film, so I don't skimp on the making images end of things. Melinda rode in an enclosed, indoor arena, so it was slow shutter speed, little depth of field, and high ISO. Not the best combination for great pictures, but I've probably got a few nice images in there. The pictures of her house are quite nice, though. Eventually, I'll put some up here.

We're having a brief bit of autumn out here. It was chilly last night and this morning, but 90 degree temperatures are promised for the end of the week.

Yes We Did

Training for the Out of State Attorneys was scheduled for 4 p.m. on Monday in Albuquerque. Melinda drove me into Santa Fe to pick up my car and then I followed her back to the house and over to her barn to see Vento, her handsome Lusitano stallion. I watched her lesson and took off for the 60 or 70 mile drive to the IBEW building for election protection training.

Despite the fact that I told the folks when I volunteered that I would be staying with a friend near Santa Fe and getting assurances that they would put me somewhere in that county, the envelope I received put me at a school in eastern Albuquerque. In order to get there by 6 a.m. on election day, I would either have to get a hotel room in Albuquerque or leave Melinda's by 4 a.m. I was not happy, but I eventually got someone to say there might be a chance to change assignments after the training was over.

There were 200-300 lawyers in the room. The largest contingencies were from Texas (where there was no chance of Barack Obama winning, so the lawyers went where they might do some good) and California (which was pretty much guaranteed to go for Barack), but there were also lawyers from Georgia, Illinois, Minnesota, Arizona, Oregon, and Canada. We were told that we should think of ourselves as firemen, and a good day would be one without a fire. We were given our instructions on what to look for and what to do and told to take masking tape and plain paper along with us to cover any t-shirts that couldn't be removed which might have material considered to be "electioneering" and could result in a voter being denied the right to vote.

As I was waiting to see if there was some lawyer who didn't show so I could switch assignments to one closer to my friends, another lawyer was explaining that she was sharing a vehicle with someone who was going to be at a location in Santa Fe and she couldn't get to her spot 35 miles north of Albuquerque. My assignment was five or six miles away from her colleagues, so we were able to switch. I still had to be up early, but not quite as early, and the distance was half of that for my original assignment.

I headed across the street to the Office Depot, where I ran into one of the other lawyers and we decided to share the supplies we were supposed to buy and split them. I suspect he might have needed them more than I did, but I doubt I'll ever find out for sure.

I called Melinda, who told me she had gone into Santa Fe to work at the Obama headquarters and we picked a rondezvous location so we could have dinner in town before going back to her place. We met up with our friend Parris at Tomasito's for good Mexican food which would have been even better if I could have had a margarita, but that wouldn't be a good idea when I had to drive and then get up early Tuesday morning. We got back to the house around 10 and I went to bed as soon as I could prepare things for the next morning.

The alarm went off much too soon and I managed to fall in the dark on my way down to the car. I've got a nice bruise on my shin. The drive to the San Filipe pueblo took about an hour, and as I said in my last post, I had a little trouble finding the exact location, but eventually it all worked out.

Everyone was incredibly friendly and in that I was fortunate. Late in the morning, I got a call from the war room to make sure I was all right because one of the lawyers in another location was threated with arrest for doing what she was legally there to do.

The only real problem of the day was that the vote scanner broke 5 minutes into the election day. I called the war room and about 90 minutes later someone came to fix it. People who voted in the interrim had their ballots sealed and they were scanned at the end of the day after the doors were locked.

My companion for the day was a resident of the pueblo named Deryl. I met a number of members of Deryl's family through the day: his mother, brother, niece and nephew, and aunt. Deryl's got a brother who's served two or three tours of duty in Iraq with the national guard. Deryl's a student at the University of New Mexico where he is majoring in political science and minoring in Indian studies. He used to work in management and burned out, so he's getting his degree and thinking about going to law school. This was his first time working for a campaign. He said that one of his instructors had gotten tickets for students to see Michelle Obama speak and he went and filled out one of the cards which asked for donations of time and money. He decided to volunteer as part of a class he was taking which appeared to be challenging Native American students to overcome the traditional apathy or indiference toward political involvement. Deryl was a non-lawyer volunteer for Voter Protection and he took his work quite seriously. He also took the time to call and text friends and family to make sure they were going to get to the polls to vote before the day was done.

I wound up calling the war room several times during the day. I had to check about the rules for convicted felons who had served their time and parole being able to vote and I called again when we found out that there was someone from the Department of Justice dropping by the polling place. It turned out there were several other Federal observers present inside as well, but I'm still not sure why. HQ was glad to get the information.

Voters came and went fairly steadily throughout the day. There were times of high traffic, but it never took anyone more than 10-15 minutes to get through the process. Food was provided to anyone who dropped by and the workers were kind enough to bring coffee and offer hot dogs to me. As a non-resident of the county, I was not eligible to be in the polling place itself. Unlike people doing electioneering who can't be any closer than 100' of the building, non-partisan voter protection people could be as close as 50'. It was a little difficult to get that close because of parking, but we were within 100' at all times.

Deryl and I spent a lot of time talking about law school. He had a lot of questions about the LSAT, the bar exam, and what it was like in law school. I recommended he read The Paper Chase and One-L. I learned about life on the reservation, which is about 17,500 acres and has a new school and a casino on the other side of I-25 from the main part of the village. It is a "conservative" tribe, meaning they are serious about following tradition and it seemed that almost everyone spoke the native language as well as English. It really helped to pass the day.

One of the other people I met was a young woman, who, like Deryl, was working on her first campaign. Barack Obama had impressed her, so she worked to get her people to register to vote, going door to door in the pueblo to talk to them. She told me that it was hard work, because so many people in the pueblo did not believe that voting didn't really have any effect on their lives or that it would do any good. It was not their way. It was especially not the way of the women who believed that it was the men's place to make these decisions. She believes that things are changing and it is important to make an effort to become involved to have a say in the direction the community will take. She told us that she had been talking to the "grandmas and grandpas" and pointed out that they needed to be concerned about the kind of lives their grand children would have. Then she said that she had gone to the grocery store where she got into a discussion with a clerk about voting and the clerk said that her grandmother had gotten a visit from someone who had so impressed the grandmother with their arguements for voting that the grandmother had announced that she was going to vote for the first time. The girl realized that she was the person who had convinced the grandmother to vote. I said to her "doesn't it make you feel really good to know you've made a difference like that?" and she positively glowed with pride.

Talking to these two young people and seeing the difference they were trying to make in their communities made the entire trip worthwhile. Barack Obama is having the same effect on them that Jack and Bobby Kennedy had on me.

The pueblo has about 1000 registered voters and by the end of the day almost 600 of them had come into vote. The people there were ecstatic. It was by far the largest voter turnout they had ever had for anything. It was clear to me from the beginning of the day that Barack Obama was the candidate of choice for most of the voters and the only electioneering I saw was for Obama. The Republican challengers were in the poll for only a small part of the day--they really didn't have much to do and, apparently, were no where near as prepared as the Democratic challenger was.

My friend Melinda, meanwhile, spent the entire day canvassing voters in Santa Fe. Parris joined her for the afternoon. Just as they were getting ready to head to Parris' place to watch the returns, panic errupted in Obama headquarters in Santa Fe because they thought they had under-performed in voting and there was this frantic thought that they needed to get more voters out to meet the 75% turnout they thought they needed to win the state. As it happened, many, many people had voted early and the results for New Mexico were called for Obama very soon after the polls closed at 7 p.m.

By the time I got to Parris' and George R.R. Martin's house around 8, virtually all of New England had been called for Obama. Then Pennsylvania was called. And then Ohio. As soon as Iowa was called, I called my sister and thanked her for keeping her Iowa registration and going to Iowa to vote. I watched my former home state of Virginia called for Obama, courtesy of that communistic Northern Virginia, not the real Virginia. At 9 p.m. our time, when the polls had closed everywhere, MSNBC called the election for Obama and we drank champaign to celebrate the coming of age of our country and the election of an articulate and smart President. My friend Karen, who spent the past week working on the election in Las Vegas (something like 1500 lawyers went to Nevada to be part of election protection there), called me to share the moment. It was just great, after the disappointments of 2000 and 2004.

We've spent the past 24 hours giggling and weeping. Melinda alternates between saying "we did it" and "I can't believe we did it." When we went shopping in Santa Fe today, people couldn't stop talking about what a great day yesterday was. Melinda kept pointing out that I had come out from L.A. to work on the election and people thanked me for what I consider to be a very small role in a very big effort. There is so much work to be done, so much damage to repair, but Barack Obama is an inspirational leader who has the potential to be this crisis' FDR. I have great hope and I am so glad that I took the time to be a part of one incredible day.

Day 2 in New Mexico

I'm tired, having driven to and from Albuquerque today for my training as an out of state attorney heading for the New Mexico polls.

Much to my chagrin, I was assigned a location in the eastern part of Albuquerque, about 90 miles from where I am staying. I told the folks in advance that I'd be staying near Santa Fe and I was told I'd be assigned there. No such luck. Fortunately, I was able to trade my assignment with another lawyer who was here with still another lawyer and the two of them were sharing a car. His assignment was about 8-10 miles away from the one I originally had whereas hers was half way to Santa Fe. That's easier for me to get to by 6 a.m., but I'll be up at 4 a.m. to pull that off. Hence, I am on my way to bed.

But not before reminding you all that every vote does count and the stakes are just to high to stand idly by. The country is in a big mess and it will take a lot of work by a lot of people to change things for the better. Go vote, and get someone else to the polls as well.

Arrival in the Land of Enchantment

I just noticed my computer is on California time.

I got to my destination in New Mexico right on time this afternoon. I'm stunned that the train was actually early getting into Albuquerque, so there was a long lay over for folks who wanted to go out and shop. I figured I'd be back down tomorrow for my training, so I gave it a pass and enjoyed a little more quiet time in my roomette. We got to Lamy where I discovered I had no cell service to call my friend to pick me up. Fortunately, the pay phone did work and Melinda came and got me a little while later.

The weather was gorgeous today. When we drove to Union Station last night, it was raining. In fact, it rained most of yesterday in L.A. There was a storm early Saturday morning, but the rain managed to stop and hold back so I could have my lesson on Ace. I was told that water came down in sheets in Chatsworth around 5:30 a.m. There was less rain in Woodland Hills until the afternoon, when poor Muffin was asleep outside and stayed laying out in the rain until Len went out and literally had to drag her inside. It was so sad. We bundled her up in a towel and an old bath robe to dry her off.

My train left L.A. at 6:45. I had dinner at 7:30 and was back in my roomette by about 8:45 and decided to go to sleep. It's very relaxing to sleep on the train, listening to the sound of the rails. At one point I woke up and looked out the window--the stars were so bright, I could see them without my glasses. I think we were near Flagstaff or Winslow. Lots of empty space with no streetlights to obscure the heavens.

We crossed over into New Mexico at breakfast time and I watched Gallup go by the window. I've stopped there to fill up my tank going west a couple of times. It's a lot more relaxing to let someone else do the driving.

Melinda and I went into Santa Fe for dinner. The restaurant was pretty empty. It's between summer tourist season and ski season, so things are quite quiet. I'm hoping to get to the Georgia O'Keefe Museum on Wednesday, which I've never had a chance to visit. And I'm planning to get to the Nambe outlet--I love Nambe serving pieces.

But tomorrow, I got to Albuquerque to get trained for my duties on Tuesday. Melinda's going to be at Obama HQs in Santa Fe on Tuesday and we are planning to gather to watch the returns after the polls close with some other friends. We're hoping for a celebration, not a wake.

Vote. It does count.

New Mexico in November?

I got e-mail from the Obama campaign yesterday asking me to be one of their lawyers on the ground in New Mexico for the election.  I've got a place to stay, and my friend Melinda has even offered me the use of her car as well as her guest room.  

I'm thinking about taking the train.  I like the idea of 18 hours of solitude.  Of course, the train is no longer a way to be out of contact.  Cell phones have changed all of that.  The train is cheaper than driving, but I haven't checked airfares yet.  It's a bit more than a two hour flight, which is obviously increased by the amount of time you've got to spend in security theatre.

The other thing I've got to do is make arrangements for an absentee ballot.  I've never done that before.

Len's a bit disappointed that I won't be home because he wanted to have an election return party.  I suggested he'd be just as happy if he went to someone else's party for the company.  Of course, we'd like different results than we saw the last time around.