Amanda in El Paso

At the dead end of one of the roads in the old country club neighborhood in West El Paso, near a pond fed by what he calls a "Texas Waterfall," amidst two happy formerly indoor cats, two wood ducks, two regular ducks, three sheep and one bat, dad and I have been sunning ourselves for the past few days.

(Those interested in a more detailed inventory of animals should know there are also frogs, leagues of songbirds, at least one small lizard, and a heron, although I can't speak personally to its existence, depending instead on Amanda's reports.)

Since arriving in El Paso Thursday evening, dad and I haven't stirred from Amanda's shack - or more specifically, the big, partially shaded deck in front of it, overlooking the aforementioned manmade pond where the aforementioned waterfowl paddle and the aforementioned cats patrol. Midmorning we have coffee and read, by late morning the sun has moved above the big tree directly in front of the deck and we have some sun, and at noon we collect Amanda and have lunch somewhere.

(So far we have had Mexican food thrice and ordinary food once; Amanda's workplace has a neighboring business called "Burro-Time," which is a hut-sized drive/walk-up establishment with a menu board where most of the prices have been whited out and only a few have been written back in with felt-tip marker. I had the barbacoa tacos, which were excellent, and Amanda appears to be developing a taste for chile relleno.)

In the afternoons I've tried to do a little research, but I've mostly read fiction, taken naps, and watched movies on the television dad procured in short order upon arriving and realizing this central shortcoming amongst the shack's other charms. Dinner has largely been prepared in the shack, which boasts all the amenities, if the sink is sometimes stubborn to drain.

(Humor aside, at least at this moment in El Paso's climate, the place Amanda rents is more than comfortable. It has chinks in its armor here and there which may make cooling it a challenge, but right now it's lovely almost all day to have the doors open and the cats strolling in and out.)

Amanda had yesterday entirely off, so we broke out of our routine and visited downtown El Paso for a tour of the city's free art museum, which has a temporary exhibit featuring work of Monet, Matisse, and some of the American impressionists as well. Afterward we had lunch at the race track, and dad guided us through the program into some successful horse-picking by the last few races.

(Amanda also chose one based on its likelihood of excelling as a hunter under saddle horse - I agree, it had a lovely trot - but we couldn't reproduce results based strictly on similarity to show horses.)

Sunday we spent the afternoon in Mesilla, New Mexico, which is a very small town with a historic downtown square, lots of adobe buildings, and a wonderful restaurant with a glass ceiling in the dining room and a colorful history of its own, judging by the high-ceilinged, ornate bar with its several chandeliers, and the approximate age of the brick floors, smoothed to a polish by years of happy diners' traffic. Some sort of costumed troop of actors were reenacting a historical event of some kind in the square, but due to our late arrival, a subpar speaker system, and the unfortunate timing of the reenactment's lunch break, we never quite figured out it was. We did hear the word "secession" thrown around, and later research reveals that in March of 1861, Mesilla purported to secede from the Union and call itself a separate territory ("Arizona").

(Those interested in this little piece of history are welcome to educate themselves from the same semi-reliable source of which I availed myself: http://www.lcsun-news.com/mylascruces/ci_17612661)

I've been reading a beautifully written historical novel set all over Europe, with wonderful complicated sentence structure and diction that still reads smoothly. Unfortunately, the effect of reading something like this is that my own writing becomes wordy and convoluted, in a sort of subconscious and desperate imitation, and for that I apologize. However, I know my audience, and for that reason, I blog anyway, knowing that delivery is in this case secondary to content. And my content is good, bringing as it does news of Amanda, our beloved veterinarian, who I visited at work today and happened to find behind the desk, holding a chart, wearing her lab coat, and no doubt solving medical mysteries. I was so proud I choked up.

(Dad and I head home early Thursday morning.)