albequerque, volume I

Ok. I really want to write about the wedding, because it was wonderful. But I need to give some updates/details first:
~I went to the computer store yesterday. My iphoto library is indeed lost. I could pay them $45 to do a disk rescue, but the chances of finding them are slim. Any input, apple friends?
~AJ called me just after I posted last night, and it was way less emo. I feel very fortunate.
~I am spending the week doing elementary school math in the mornings, and elementary PE and Health in the afternoons. Yes, I played tag today. Yes, I used pattern blocks and tanagrams. Yes I examined the “abstinance only” benchmarks for sexual education that our good friend George W initiated. Grad school is fun.
Okay. The wedding. On Thursday evening I flew to Denver. Friday morning my mom and I did a power shoe shop at Ross and DSW before meeting up with my dear dear friend Heather and her mom, Betsy. Heather had flown in from Massachusettes a few days before. I love her. After a quick moms and daughters visit, my mom went home, and Heather, Betsy and I grabbed some Bowie, Springsteen, Joni, and Leonard Coen, and hit the road for New Mexico. The drive was beautiful. Southern Colorado/Northern New Mexico may be my favorite landscape in America. The colors are so rich, and the mountains and mesas make an incredible frame for the sagey, earthy, high desert plains. Pueblo, Colorado: rad. Trinidad, Colorado (aka the sex change capitol of the world): rad. Raton, Las Vegas, and Santa Fe, New Mexico: rad. Albequerque: sorta weird. I’ll get to that later.

We stopped in Santa Fe for dinner. Our friend Joey met us for dinner at his favorite new Mexican restaurant. I had one enchilada and one tosdada, both with amazing red chile. One of the many great things about Northern New Mexican food is that they generally prepare both green and red chile vegetarian, and cook their beans without pork fat. For a lifetime vegetarian who loves Mexican food, this equals heaven.
After dinner we headed for Albequerque with happy bellies. All of the guests booked rooms at the Howard Johnson’s, which reminded me of my grandparents in a good way. We ran into some high school friends in the parking lot, and Heather and I went to their room for a few hours of nostalgia and catchup. Galen, Micah, Brion and Alli are really fun. I only get to see them at Christmas these days, so a night spent holed up and the HoJo’s felt fucking great. I made Galen tell the Funniest Story Ever (which I make him tell every time I see him even though I know it by heart) about the time he and Andre dumped a cooler full of soda over Eddie’s head. I almost peed my pants.
The next day we went to Target to buy wrapping paper and ended up trying on all kinds of cute clothes that I did not see at a recent visit to the Portland Target. I bought some awesome warm up pants. Then we met up with more friends at Frontier restaurant near UNM.

I cannot emphasize enough how wonderful this restaurant is. This is my burrito, filled with beans, cheese and green chili, smothered with red chili:

It was the best burrito I have ever eaten. In my life.
That’s about as far as I can get today. I’ll write more about the actual wedding tomorrow. Phew. I’m hungry now!