Al Past's Blog, page 8

The View from El Paso's Trans-Mountain Road

The Rio Grande flows south the length of New Mexico, along the Rocky Mountains to the east, finally passing through the Mesilla Valley before it reaches El Paso, Texas, where it becomes the border between the United States and Mexico as it flows on to the Gulf of Mexico, over 1,000 miles south. The nearest airport to Las Cruces is in El Paso, on the other side of those mountains. To get there, one can either drive through the pass ("El Paso") or take a more recent, spectacular shortcut throug...

MORE Mexican Dia de Muertos figurines!

We've pointed out elsewhere how it took Ana a while to appreciate the Mexicans' acceptance of death as a part of life, a view that on her planet might be considered inappropriate. Not everyone on Earth would agree, either. Yet the tiny figurines below clearly reveal that such an attitude is more affectionate than mocking. Thousands of these are made in Mexico. Many are for sale, and Ana loves them now. The examples below will give some indication.

First a professor, perhaps (note the owl, a sy...

Bhutanese architecture, similar to Thoman architecture, found by Ana in El Paso

As we know from Distant Cousin, Ana spent many years studying Earth from the moon. The quality of that study improved by several orders of magnitude following the advent of the internet, when it became possible for her to receive images, video clips, and movies from Earth. She was particularly astonished to discover the architecture of the tiny kingdom of Bhutan, half the size of Massachusetts, tucked away high in the Himalayas between India and China.
[image error] The larger Bhutanese buildings (see the p...

New Mexican food!

After having just shown some photos of Mesilla's most famous restaurant, La Posta, it seems the perfect time to show some photos of New Mexican-style food! No one could be surprised that someone from another planet, like Ana, would love it. Everyone loves it.

Here's a shrimp salad with strips (rajas) of fresh green chiles from Hatch, New Mexico. These chiles are NOT picante. They are barely sauteed, fresh, crunchy, and delicately tangy, and probably cannot be duplicated anywhere outside of the...

Ana's Favorite Restaurant: La Posta, in Mesilla, New Mexico

Even an extraterrestrial had no trouble realizing the unique qualities of La Posta restaurant in Mesilla, New Mexico. It's said that it is some 150 years old, when it began as a stagecoach stop.

Here are more photos. (RIght click into a new tab for details.)





When they were younger, the Méndez children loved the piranhas and the parrots (and the toucan, not pictured).







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Next post: let's sample the food!

What do Mesilla Valley neighborhoods look like?
More pictures of Mesilla, the plaza, church, and...

A look at some Mesilla Valley neighborhoods

Neighborhoods in the Mesilla Valley, however humble or upscale, tend to be homey, comfortable, and welcoming. Outsiders may not realize that it is against the law to build a home of any material which might burn--like wood. Wood has always been expensive in this area of few forests, and homes made of stone, adobe, brick, or concrete block tend to last...which means that when window frames or roofs become rickety, they are generally repaired rather than having the building demolished. (They al...

MORE of Ana's first sights on Earth: the Davis Mountains & Fort Bliss, Texas

Ana targeted her landing (in Distant Cousin) in the Davis Mountains close to the University of Texas McDonald Observatory. The picture below shows most of the Davis Mountains, looking south from an altitude of approximately 40,000 feet. (You may right click the photos and open in another tab for better detail.) The observatory domes are not visible in this photo, unfortunately, but they must be in the darker mountains along the far edge, where they give way to the lighter plains beyond. The t...

The humor in El Dia de los Muertos

We've mentioned elsewhere how Ana, from a different society and different planet, for Pete's sake, came to appreciate El Dia de los Muertos, the Mexican observance of All Souls' Day. After the terrible experiences her ancestors barely survived in their early days on Thomo, they inevitably came to value human life even more than we do, partly because they value it collectively as well as individually. That is, their survival as a people depended on working together. To be sure, they have...

"Refreshingly different," and a reader comment in Spanish

Reader comments and reviews continue!


About Distant Cousin:

"Refreshingly different," says one reader: "What a nice surprise 'Distant Cousin' was - quite unique. It has humor, moves along at a pleasant pace, and...I found myself smiling the entire time I was reading it. There is a subtle wisdom and numerous life philosophies throughout this book. To sum it up: good story - thoughtful, comfortable, and fun!"

Of Distant Cousin: Recirculation:

One reader writes: "There are many good things that ca...

Language games in a Mexican-American-Extraterrestrial family

It's normal for families to have at least a few special words just within the family. These might include names of family members garbled by a toddler and picked up and used by adults, like "bubba" for "brother," or a mispronounced name for a food they like, like "spaghetti" (which might be pronounced "pesketti").


The family of Matt and Ana Darcy Méndez is different only in degree. Not only do the parents speak four or five languages, and not only are they eager students of language (Matt maj...