Author: Amy Batchelor

Hairy

I love living in Colorado, but sometimes the weather is a bit more extreme than I like.  It’s snowing here.  The intrepid dishwasher repairman who just left my house used to live in Bettles, Alaska and learned some things about driving in the snow.  He told me that I-70 is closed between Vail and Georgetown, and the news says so, too.

When I tried to find the Colorado Department of Transportation website, I first tried http://www.cdot.com and found the Center for Development of Telematics, Telecom Technology Center of Government of India which is kind of interesting.

The CDOT road conditions website confirms the road closures.  And I wonder what happens to those people who are in their cars still sitting on the road?

And I’m glad my in-laws aren’t among them.  Stanley and Cecelia were here for a couple of days to see our new mountain house (a.k.a. their new summer house) and had a flight back to Dallas this afternoon.  They decided to leave this morning just after breakfast to miss the worst of the storm, and we’re all glad they did — although the trip wasn’t easy.

We got off to a good start when I backed their Hyundai rental car into the stone wall behind our garage and scratched the crap out of the right rear bumper.  Oops.  Maybe I should have told them the story about backing our car into a fire hydrant in Boston about 15 years ago and poking a hole in the right rear quarter panel before they asked me to get their car out to the main highway.  I drove their car without incident in a forward direction, and they drove my Range Rover Tank, and we traded cars at the highway.  I followed them into Dillon, where I turned and went into the grocery store since I was out already — but not before I saw them slide into the intersection on a red light, which made me a little nervous.  I spent maybe 45 minutes in the grocery store and when I came out it was basically zero visibility blizzard conditions.  I drove back to Keystone slowly and carefully.  I even turned on my flashers, which I’m not sure I’ve ever done before.  And I was definitely worried about Stanley and Cecelia.  I got home in time for Cecelia to call me and say that they were all okay, but had spun out and off the road about 3 miles short of the Eisenhower Tunnel.  A state patrolman helped them, and a tow truck came and towed them to the tunnel, but then they couldn’t get onto the road from the turnaround area where the tow truck had left them and had to get a push from a CDOT pickup.  By the time they called, the road conditions had improved for them and they made it safely to DIA, and then to DFW, where they called me again.  I hope our next time together is just as fun, but maybe a little less exciting on the travel front.

And the forecast for tomorrow is, of course, mostly sunny.

More Horses

This weekend  I got to do one of my favorite things, which is to watch horses run very fast in a big circle.  We went to the Breeders Cup which was held this year at Churchill Downs in Louisville, Kentucky, most famous for being the home of the Kentucky Derby.

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We went with some terrific friends.  Here we are in our fancy outfits.

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And here are the pretty horses, running.

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I’m not much of a bettor, but did put $20 on Bernardini to Show, so got back $12 on top of my $20 bet when he was beaten by Argentinian horse Invasor.  At the Belmont Stakes in June we had seen Jazil win — who is also owned by Shadwell Stable and trained by Kiaran McLaughlin. 

And the only sad part of the day was that a 3 year old filly, Pine Island, fell during the Breeder’s Cup Distaff, dislocated her left fetlock in a compound fracture and had to be euthanized. 

 

Brunch at the Oak Room

Our last, and perhaps most memorable meal in Louisville was Sunday Brunch at our hotel, the Seelbach Hilton.  I love a huge Sunday brunch with omelet stations and desserts before noon.  Brad and I were heading downstairs from our room and he said he thought he had something in his shoe, maybe a piece of paper or a bug.  We were running late to meet our friends, so I told him there wasn’t anything in his shoe, meaning there’s nothing in your shoe, you idiot.  We got to the elegant brunch room and joined our already seated friends.  Brad was still feeling this phantom piece of paper in his shoe, so he slipped it off and dumped out an enormous cockroach onto the floor.  Neither of us screamed, which was good.  I said big bug, big bug, big bug and put my napkin over it.  Brad excused himself either to go take a shower in bleach or put on socks made of depleted uranium.   He did return, and we all did enjoy a beautiful brunch, especially after the nice waiter scooped up the dead (?) bug and made it go far away.  At the end of our meal we signaled for the check, and the nice waiter said that our meal was complimentary because of the big bug, big bug, big bug.  (Maybe I’m paraphrasing slightly here.)  We happily took our free meal, even though the bug was imported from our hotel room upstairs and not a resident of the actual brunch room.  And our friends agreed that the next time we dine together we should bring a big plastic bug and see what happens.

610 Magnolia

While we were in Kentucky for the Breeders’ Cup horse races the first weekend of November, we had a couple of terrific meals.  On Friday night we ate at 610 Magnolia, which was lovely. 

Here are some photos of the place and a sample menu from their website.

Since we had all traveled to Louisville on Friday and had not gone to the races, we were literally the first people to show up at the restaurant, which was a little strange.  We had drinks standing at the bar and some fun appetizers before being seated at a table by the window. 

Bourbon seemed like the right thing to drink when in Kentucky, although I don’t know whether there is an analogous drink to the mint julep for the Kentucky Derby.  The food was fresh, and the portions weren’t overly large, which is a good thing for people like us who eat out so frequently. 

A couple of quibbles about the place:  Our waitress wasn’t especially knowledgeable about the menu.  She had to keep going to ask about things like which cheeses were on the artisanal cheese plate, which didn’t seem like a tricky question. The other thing was that there was a $1,000 cancellation fee.  I understand that the race weekend is a big revenue moment, but that seemed like a crazy cancellation policy.

And then the challenging part of the evening was that I hadn’t really thought through the travel logistics back to our hotel.  We ended up waiting over an hour for a taxi, which certainly put a damper on the celebratory feeling of the evening, and made me glad that I had arranged for all day transportation for the day of the races.

The next time I’m in Louisville, I’m definitely going back to 610 Magnolia..

Direct Democracy

I love to vote.  I especially love to get an absentee ballot so that I can take my time while voting.  Yesterday Brad and I sat at the dining room table and filled out our ballots, reading the blue booklet from the Legislative Council of the Colorado General Assembly and newspaper endorsements and editorials, and discussing the issues before completely filling in the boxes on our ballot forms.  The ballot was long this year, the 2nd longest in Colorado history, with 14 ballot measures; but I like that in a ballot.  One of the ballot items was an amendment that makes it much easier for citizen petitions to get onto ballots, which I voted for.  I’m optimistic that in our lifetime there might be a technological way to have an actual direct democracy instead of the representational democracy we have now.  It’s more work as a voter to have a long ballot with complicated initiatives on it, but I think I trust the general voting public more than I trust many of our elected representatives.  Ask me in a week, after the ballots are counted, whether I still feel that way..

Brad’s idea for direct democracy is that we should have a flat tax and each tax payer would get to allocate their taxes instead of having Appropriations.  I could allocate all of my taxes to public education and you could allocate all of yours to the Department of Defense.  Or whatever programs you support. I’m guessing that not many people would vote to put most of their taxes toward interest on the national debt, which as of September 21, 2006 was 8.5 trillion dollars.  In 2003, interest on the debt was 318 billion dollars.  See this fascinating chart showing ratio of debt to GDP change for each president which shows increases only during Republican presidential administrations since 1945.  Fascinating to compare data to party rhetoric..

I’m not an
especially sentimental person, but I’m always aware as I seal my ballot envelope that the right to vote is a right that
people have fought and died for, and continue to fight and die for; and I’m thankful I have this right.  I  also
always remember that women have had the right to vote for less than 100 years in this
country. 

The only thing I don’t like about my absentee ballot is that I don’t get one of those fun "I have voted.   Have you?" stickers..

Seeing for Myself

I’ve been home from New Orleans for a couple of days now, and have had some time to process what I saw there.  I went for a Women Donors Network conference called Revitalizing Democracy:  What We Can Learn from Katrina.  Part of turning forty and thinking about what I want to spend my energy on in the coming decade(s) is to be an advocate for organizations and ideas that I believe in and to stand up and speak out more.  So I’m doing that now.

I learned an incredible amount just by going and seeing for myself.  I had been partially informed before; but had no real idea of the magnitude
of the destruction, and more importantly, how very little has been
accomplished 15 months after Katrina. 

The first afternoon of the conference we took a bus tour of the still-devasted areas of the city.  I saw a public school that was still completely boarded up, without any remediation or renovation at all.  I saw a public library that still has books in the ceiling tile supports and such a strong smell of mold and decay that I could only stay inside for a few minutes.  We went to the locations of 3 levee breaches and I saw neighborhoods trying to come back to life, but with a long way to go.

The initial tour was pretty overwhelming.  I felt sad and bewildered and frustrated.  I kept, and keep, thinking that if a massive earthquake hit San Francisco all of the public schools and libraries would damn well be functioning a year after. 

Friday morning was a panel discussion moderated by Linda Usdin with Angela Glover Blackwell, Cecilia Muñoz,  Barbara Major, and Beverly Wright, all of whom spoke with such intelligence and  a fierce commitment and dedication to rebuilding the city that you can’t help but be energized by their voices. 

Friday afternoon I took another tour with a Housing focus guided by
some local grassroots non-profit people, one of whom turned out to be Amy Brown, who has been working with my friends and architects
Coleman Coker and Jonathan Tate to build affordable housing in the
Treme district.  Amy is an incredible woman, full
of passion for her work and her home.  It’s easy for me to connect with other Amy’s, especially left-handed ones — and I feel completely galvanized to support her in the serious work that she’s doing.  Thanks to Coleman and Jonathan for connecting us.

Before I went I had some concerns about being some kind of disaster voyeur,
so I didn’t bring a camera, which I now regret.  One of the women at
the conference said we were there to witness and bring back stories to
our own communities.  After I read Stranger in a Strange Land in high school I wanted to be a Fair Witness, which is maybe part of why I’m a writer.  And why I’m going to keep going back to keep seeing for myself.

And what can you do?

One of the local housing activists recommended that we contact our members of Congress and ask whether they’ve been to the Gulf Coast.  If not, why not?  If they have, what have they done?

I’m going to read the local paper, the Times-Picayune (and what’s a picayune, you might ask?) via RSS and keep learning about the complex political and economic realities and just continue to pay attention to what’s going on there.

And I’m going to work with Amy and Coleman and Jonathan to build more houses in the Treme, and ask people to join me.  There’s so much work to be done that it can feel overwhelming.  The way through that is to connect with people and take care of  just a small part of the world.  Building houses is a tangible, literally concrete way of making a difference to people in New Orleans.

Karma

You do what you can, but sometimes things just don’t work out.

It’s a very gusty, windy day here.  I opened the front door to let Kenai outside and a big cricket bug blew in.  He was having major failure to thrive and was struggling to right himself.  I said, "oh, shit, now I have to save you," and went and got the glass and the piece of paper necessary to do so.  I scooped him up, trying not to damage him further, went out and closed the door behind me so he wouldn’t just blow back in, and lifted the glass off.  The piece of paper started to blow away down the front stairs, Kenai chased it, being the golden retriever that he is — and stepped squarely on the bug, killing it. 

I did what I could.  This one is on Kenai’s karmic debt.