Beautiful Sights in Albuquerque

I am happy to report that we have been warmly embraced by the Albuquerque community and are actually getting a few invites. (News of our desperation travels like wildfire…) (We’re the current “pity case.”) New friends Andrea and Paul invited us out to dinner. Knowing our plight, and not wanting us to feel under-dressed, they took us to "Rudy's Bar-b-cue." You go up to the service window and order your meat by the 1/2 or full pound - brisket, pulled pork, ribs, sausages, etc. The window staff wraps it in waxed paper, you stop by the cooler to pick up your containers of sides, (perfunctory at best – this place is about the meat,) and then go to your picnic table of choice, (inside or out,) and eat your bar-b-cue off of the paper. (Paul is a thoracic surgeon and I’m thinking that maybe he brings people to Rudy’s to drum up business.) Clogged arteries notwithstanding, Rudy’s is definitely a repeat! (And we were definitely not under-dressed!)
Steve left this past Wednesday morning for a week in Atlanta for the NAIS Institute for New Heads. (That's going to be a relaxed bunch of people, don't you think?) (And Atlanta in July is going to make ABQ feel like Northern Canada.) Although I tried to convince him that he could go with jeans and a couple of shirts (along with our story) and probably be the coolest new head there, he (being the conventional guy that we know and love) felt compelled to go out and buy "Head of School/Teacher Clothes," (aka Car Salesman Clothes.) (The Preppy Teacher look is eerily familiar to the Car Salesman wardrobe, don't you think?)
Here he is the day before his departure sitting (literally) in his new parking space at Sandia Prep. (Oh, did I mention he has no car? Having inadvertently driven up onto a concrete parking space marker, when he put his car in reverse to back off of it, he left the front of his car on the concrete block.)
Wednesday, Thursday and Friday were exceedingly dull – mainly they consisted of my learning my way around ABQ in search of all the things we did not have. (This was supposed to be my “moving-in-and-getting-the-house-organized-week,” but I got depressed and felt sorry for myself instead.) But then on Friday afternoon, Bev Klein, President of Nor-Cal, (“An Agent of Allied Van Lines,”) called to tell me that my truck was going to be here tomorrow, (Saturday!) two days earlier than promised. (Not than originally promised, but revised promised.) I think my truck arriving “early” (only 12 days late, not 14,) has a lot in common with the airlines that have a “99% on-time or earlier arrival schedule” because they give themselves four hours to get from New York to West Palm Beach and then congratulate themselves when they get in “early!”
SO here it is! My truck! Isn’t it beautiful? And here are my boxes. Aren’t they beautiful? And here are my movers. They are DEFINITELY beautiful!