Author Archives: Patrick Lamb

Last week, we took our dog Chester to be groomed. Because he is half poodle, he grows hair, not fur, so he needs to be trimmed every two or three months to not become overly shaggy and matted. He also gets a bath from his groomer when he is trimmed. When he gets back, heContinue reading “Not a Tarheel but a Tarfoot…”

For my wife’s birthday, I purchased her a new purse. Now I understand that men buying personal things for spouses, such as purses, can lead a guy into a dangerous minefield. However, I was fairly confident on this acquisition, since it was basically the same purse she had received as a gift from her daughterContinue reading “The fishing vest conundrum…”

The first time I went with my family to visit Santa Fe in the late 1950s, we ate at a restaurant on the south side of town called Bobcat Bite. It was in a former trading post on the old Las Vegas Highway. According to legend, the restaurant was named for bobcats in the areaContinue reading “Bobcat bites…”

Twice last week, while our daughter and granddaughter were walking to school in their north Austin neighborhood, they spotted an armadillo right in the middle of the urban sprawl. We’ve seen possums and lots of squirrels in Austin before, but the only time I’ve spotted armadillos was in the Texas countryside. We thought this wasContinue reading “So many critters, so many stories…”

My second round of surgery to remove the remainder of a lodged kidney stone is complete and my recovery is much, much easier than the first round. I’m till a little sore and having a couple of other expected after effects, but I think that will clear up soon. I had lots of time toContinue reading “Landed safely…”

Yes, I’m still here. It’s just taking longer than I thought to recover from this surgery. And to make it worse, I have to go in for a second procedure later this week that I’m hoping won’t be as painful as the first one. And I promise not to bore you with all the detailsContinue reading “In a holding pattern…”

This summer, when I managed to bust six ribs and crack two more in a fall in the Gila, the follow-up exam revealed a large kidney stone that I needed to have removed before it further aggravated that organ. It was too large to pass naturally (I think it was the size of a smallContinue reading “Taking a break…”

Driving back from El Paso on Interstate 10 last week made me draw the following conclusions about how others perceive Las Cruces and New Mexico. “They smoke a lot of pot, they’re in a lot of legal trouble, the only eat Mexican food and they don’t know how to spell very well…” That’s the vibeContinue reading “Our roadside image…”

My wife, Margo, was walking our dog Chester last week when she came upon a Little League practice in a park near our home. There were two teams, one practicing shagging flies and the other working on batting. The one working on catching fly balls needed to hone their skills a bit, she observed. “TheyContinue reading “Thoughts on Little League…”

You’ve probably been reading a lot lately about Artificial Intelligence and the dangers that some scientists, politicians and others think it poses for the human race and the planet. My wife ran across something last week that adds some fuel to those concerns. It was on a website called travlers.com (you should be able toContinue reading “What do we look like ???”

You might recall that a good friend of mine was enraged several years ago when he read a New Mexico State Highway Department sign warning vehicles pulling “trailors” to reduce their speed along a section of Interstate 25 north of T or C. He fired off a letter to the authorities — maybe even theContinue reading “Signs of the times…”

Marijuana dispensaries. Last week, when I went to pick up a pizza, I discovered two more new cannabis dispensaries that I had not seen two weeks earlier. I went online and asked for “cannabis dispensaries near me” and found at least 30 of them in the immediate Las Cruces area. I don’t think the mapContinue reading “Soon to overtake Mexican food restaurants as the most prolific business Las Cruces …”

I just looked up online how many times the average human heart beats in a day. The number I got from two sources as 100,000. When you load all of those into a year, it totals around 35 million. Luckily for me, the faithful pig valve inserted into my heart five years ago on TuesdayContinue reading “Another 35 million oinks…”

In our neighborhood, especially during their two-month mating season in February and March, we’re always cautious about the presence of skunks when we let our dog Chester out in the back yard in the early morning or at night. Yes, he’s been spritzed once, but the second time he saw a skunk he backed offContinue reading “Keeping a closer eye on my back door…”