Roswell – Jill Domschot

Weekly Adventures in Roswell

I talk about my accordion adventures in this YouTube video: Adventures With the Accordion. If you want to learn about the accordions I’ve acquired over the years and hear the distinct sound each one has, you’ll want to listen to the video. I discuss how I came to purchase a piano accordion from Facebook Marketplace last week, even though I was only scrolling on Marketplace in search of the perfect classic truck. This is a regular habit of mine. Someday, I will have the classic truck of my dreams. Instead, I found an accordion and purchased it on a whim.

The part I wanted to focus on here is where I purchased it from. The seller on Facebook told me it was at the “music shop.” What did he mean? Roswell has a music store at the mall, but they do not sell vintage accordions. Rather, they sell standard new instruments like keyboards and guitars, along with equipment pertaining to playing and amplifying instruments. It turns out there’s a music store right next to Chero’s Boots.

Chero’s Boots in the old Payless building

It’s a consignment music store, and I believe the Facebook seller traded or outright purchased a different accordion from the shop and left the one I purchased there on consignment. But before you get excited about the possibility of finding an accordion for yourself, the shop, Neo Music Exchange, doesn’t regularly deal in accordions. It’s a rock music store with numerous guitars. It was still an adventure worth having, as I drove out there on my lunchbreak and had to drive really fast (going the exact speed limit, of course) to get back to work on time and in the process exchanged money for a heavy suitcase filled with musical delights. Adventures often involve going without the comforts of our usual tasty foods and cozy naps, which is what I normally enjoy on my lunch hour. Just as Bilbo had to leave his Hobbit hole and tankard of ale to fight a dragon, so I had to leave my cheeseburger and the dark shadowy reading room at the church to procure an old accordion that sounds like an organ.

My Three Accordions resembling Papa Bear, Mama Bear, and Baby Bear

On another day, I might have also popped in next door to gaze at the beautifully tooled boots I can’t afford. Have you been to Chero’s Boots? I have a couple of times. Once, to admire the goods, and another time to purchase tickets to see Los Huracanes at the fairgrounds.

For my weekend adventure, I went to the movie in the park that was put on by Main Street Roswell but operated by Roswell Night Skies. It was the first movie in the Park of the year — the official summer lineup will start the first Friday in June at Cielo Grande Park. Last summer, we played movies in Russ DeKay Soccer Complex, but the city no longer operates there and, therefore, we can’t get a permit to use it this year. Instead, NMMI (which owns the property) will now use it as their own soccer complex. Or whatever. I don’t know what their plans are.

Usually, it’s hot by May in Roswell. This last weekend was an exception. The movie in the park was as cold as the one we helped with during the Christmas Fair on Main Street. I had put on a jacket for the event and ended up running home for my coat, and I was still cold. While it only dipped to about 40 degrees that night and did not freeze, the temperature in the park was colder than the rest of town. This was owing to the heavy rain that saturated the earth and grass combined with the cold breeze. Nobody needs or wants a swamp cooler when temperatures are below sixty. The crowd was relatively small, about seventy-five people, but they stuck it out on their blankets, many wearing shorts and t-shirts.

My weekend adventures ended with Mass this morning. The songs were fun to sing today, and my priest gave a very important announcement: he will be leaving us to go to Illinois and have his own adventure at a Catholic parish and school. I will miss him, and it’s difficult not to cry. Actually, I have already cried. He is my boss and my spiritual mentor, and what if his replacement is lazy, passive-aggressive, or doesn’t want to have full-time staff? Priests are, after all, human beings with their own foibles and opinions. I guess that is an adventure not yet seen. This is why faith in God is paramount. I know God is with me and will take care of me, even as far as his kindnesses such as providing the means to purchase accordions and good health that allows me to be participate in nonprofits.

Oh, speaking of, another mini adventure was the Mass and Altar & Rosary Society meeting on Saturday morning. Yes, these are the types of adventures I have. Don’t judge my boring life. Anyway, I was voted in as secretary for the society. It is what it is. I will happily take the meeting notes starting in July.

May we all have adventures in the coming week. Blessings from Roswell!

At Long Last

When our sacristan and music director was hired on at the church, we promised him the church had a slow season. As time went on, he asked us with desperation filling his eyes, “When???!!!” The truth is, the Catholic church has something for every season, and constants such as baptisms, funerals, and the occasional wedding. There are youth groups and VBS programs and just when you think you’re going to get a break, the new religious education year starts once again.

But still, I’m breathing a big sigh at the moment (while doing my weekly laundry at the relaxing laundromat) because we just made it through the Confirmation Mass, which officially ends much of the stress for everyone in the office — not 100%, as we still have a couple more religious education classes, with an end-of-year Mass, and then will come May crownings. Crowning the Mary statues are happy events because they involve flowers, many pretty, colorful flowers.

Because I was a part-time catechist last year for the adult religious education program, I was invited to the catechist dinner last night. It was peaceful, the relief of the priest evident. We had this dinner at a nearby restaurant, Los Cerritos. Los Cerritos might be the first restaurant I went to in Roswell…unless you count visiting here when my now twenty-two-year-old daughter was a baby. Back then, we went to a local place called Farley’s, and I have zero recollection of the food eaten. Maybe pizza. These were the days before we’d discovered the kids had allergies to wheat — not gluten intolerance or celiac, but actual allergies in the old-fashioned sense. For example, I accidentally ingested a wheat host at the Confirmation Mass the other night and had an instant asthma attack and developed hives on my knees of all the places. It was ridiculous. I was only there to sing, and my priest had prepared a low-gluten host for me. But instead of my priest, the bishop was suddenly in front of me holding out a host– and what was I to do?

Anyway, that diversion aside, Los Cerritos was the first restaurant I experienced of Roswell in the more recent past ten or eleven years instead of twenty-plus. I know what to eat there that doesn’t bother me, and I order it every time, the camarones a la diabla. If you don’t like spicy food, I don’t recommend this dish, especially at this restaurant. I’m addicted to the thrill of endorphins produced by the heat. I also like that it’s served with rice and a simple salad.

Don’t take me wrong; life has a way of throwing multiple stressors your way just when you think you can relax with a cold drink and spicy shrimp. I already know of some of these that are coming my way. Others are unknown, and for good reason. Humans might want to give up if they knew what was headed their way. In fact, Roswell has had a series of deadly car accidents lately. When I was driving to the laundromat, I passed an accident involving a motorcycle that was crushed. That can’t be good. One accident in the past few months was caused by the sheer recklessness of someone I know, and he injured numerous people, killing one. Talk about stress.

God protect us when we drive or consider being aggressive or reckless on the road.

Another diversion aside, this is the post in which I encourage you not to take breaks for granted. Rest and relax when you can because you can’t look forward to a nebulous future that doesn’t exist, in which you will finally be caught up and can enjoy the joyous riot of flowers surrounding Mary. You have to take that moment now. There are no guarantees on life. In fact, evwn though I like to believe I will publish my next book soon, the Amazon empire could come crumbling down, leaving self-publishers lacking a good way to publish and get their works out there without spending even more money than they’ve already spent.

Peace out. Currently, I’m enjoying one of my favorite songs by one of my favorite singers: Concédeme by El Coyote. By the way, I’m pretty sure all my playlists on Spotify are public and accessible if you’re interested: My liked songs. Spotify called my list Banda as a default (which I did not change), but it is equal parts Norteño.

Roswell in the Rain

It’s been cloudy all day, and everyone seems to be in a hostile mood. That’s what happens when New Mexicans are starved of the sun. They also use it as an excuse to skip work or school if that’s an option. Let’s be honest: I call this a Roswell journal, but I have lost the plot on what is going on around town. I got nothing.

Actually, I do: the Community Little Theater is running Jeeves in Bloom on the ~~11th~~, ~~12th~~,* 17th, 18th and 19th of April at 7:30 PM. I will probably go. Not only do I love theater, but I love Wodehouse’s comedy. He is one of my comic inspirations. Just wait until my next book if you want to experience all the bizarre hijinx my characters will become involved in. Meanwhile, read Jeeves and Wooster stories. I’m not really aligning myself with the master comedy author. Yes, I am, because I’m full of contradictions today. Yes. No. Okay, whatever. I’m hostile because it’s cloudy and I’m tired, and even being at the laundromat isn’t fixing my mood.

*Yes, I started this post at around 2 PM yesterday but had evening plans and was not able to finish it…until late Sunday evening. That is, I simply chopped the unfinished last two paragraphs of the post and decided to leave it here. Finis.

Misadventures With AI

I hate to admit I’ve used AI to do anything when there are authors who are using AI to write entire books. I can guarantee you I have way too much ego to do that. By that, I mean that I value my own writing voice too much to sanitize it with a whitewashed tone. I will also continue hiring a real artist to create my book covers, my friend Clorinda Fresquez-Tria. I also will continue to hire an editor who has a human brain and can make sense or not make sense of writing that comes from a real human mind. In the future, I plan to hire real voice actors to narrate my books for audio. Right now, I can’t afford it. Someday, I will be able to and until that time, I refuse to cut corners and create AI audiobooks. I hate AI vocal timbers. The closer they come to real human voices, the worse they are. You know what I’m talking about, I’m sure, because companies are using AI voices for their ads on YouTube videos and they are as annoying as heck.

However, AI is really great at scanning my own human-written 120,000 work novel and summarizing it. You can read the blurb it came up with here. Last week, I was equally inspired to use AI to create my characters. This is where my misadventures with AI came in.

As I created images, the AI program learned to develop blocks that wouldn’t allow me to ask for certain parameters. For example, I was allowed initially to specify ethnicities such as “Polish priest” or “Mexican delivery driver.” I even got away with asking AI to make my Mexican character look more indigenous Mexican rather than Spanish. Oh, boy. Then, it gave me a speech about not using ethnic stereotypes in images when I asked it to create the Irish secretary. It was the word “Irish” it didn’t like. Okay. It suggested, instead, that I use descriptors like “red hair and freckles.” Correct me if I’m wrong, but isn’t that an Irish stereotype? Once that block appeared, I couldn’t get away with using any ethnic descriptors and had to get really cagey with how I was asking it to create people: “maintenance man from the Southwest” or “electrical engineer at a norteño party in the Southwest.”

When I wanted my electrical engineer to be in his backyard holding his child to denote that he works from home and has children, it eventually developed a block that wouldn’t allow me to request an adult and a child in an image together, even though I was asking only for innocent images. It told me I could have a picture of a child alone in a yard or an adult alone in a yard, but not both together. Naturally, I asked it if it thought it was better for a child to be left unsupervised in a yard, and it told me it could not make moral statements about leaving children alone, only that it couldn’t get around the block that didn’t allow it to create an image of an adult with a child in the same image.

The next block I came across was regarding age. It had made my nineteen-year-old character look about thirty, so I asked it to make him a few years younger. My character suddenly became ten. I asked it to make him look nineteen again, and it developed a block that claimed that it couldn’t assume traits or features based on age, despite that there is actual science behind age progression. Sigh. AI is a hassle, but it became a weird obsession for me last week. See what you think of how I did getting around the blocks and describing my characters.

Hector
Arora
Kevin
Lorenzo
Wilford
Paco Doble
Stephen
Fr. Bartek
Detective Grazia
Hector’s Silverado

Walking Tours at the Cemetery & Other Fun During Lent

Like it or not, my job involves death because I’m a church secretary. It has been a challenge for me to experience the passing of people I’ve grown to love or to comfort the bereaved by helping them plan funerals. If that weren’t difficult enough, I also sell burial niches to the living. There is nothing like selling burial plots to remind you of your own mortality. Not that I’ve purchased one for myself. But many people around my age are proactive about this because they are good to their children. I suppose I should be good to my children, too.

The other day when I sold several burial niches to a parishioner, we got to talking in a roundabout way about historical figures buried at the local South Park Cemetery. It turns out, she informed me, that South Park Cemetery offers historical walking tours. They are self-guided, but they have a map that will take you to the oldest marked graves. This is the land of the Lincoln County War. Who knows whose grave you might find? Friends or relatives of Billy the Kid or Pat Garrett?

I haven’t made this walking tour, but I’m considering it for a Saturday morning, maybe after the busyness of Lent and Holy Week have passed. Every day I tell myself I’m going to experience something new and exciting. Does a tromp through a cemetery count? According to the City of Roswell Community Calendar, this walking tour can be made from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. and takes two hours to complete. Well, who knew? Of course, you might end up alone because from what I know — and, no, I don’t spend much time at the cemetery, but I speak with the funeral homes frequently enough — they close the gates early, especially on Saturdays. No friendly burials around if you stay too late, in other words.

Speaking of doing new and exciting activities, I tried to go to the Los Rieleros concert the other night. I bought a ticket from the only vendor available, Ticketón. About the time my priest was admonishing me for going to a concert on a Friday night during Lent, this company sent me threatening messages that I was suspected of fraud, and they would pull my ticket from my phone if I didn’t send them images of my driver’s license and credit card through…email. I looked it up; this is a legitimate company, and I’m not the only one they’ve falsely accused of fraud with threatening texts. It was bizarre. I argued with them, but they were having none of it. Eventually, I gave up and gave in and decided not to go to the concert during Lent. There’s a longer story to that, but I’m not going to tell it. I thought about filing a complaint with the Better Business Bureau because no company should be operating this way, but I’m honestly too busy and am experiencing a fatalistic attitude towards Los Rieleros. I’ve missed every concert they’ve had in Roswell since I moved here, and I moved here listening to one of their albums on repeat — you know, the kind of CD that gets stuck in the CD player in your car, or used to when CDs were still things you played.

WHAT AM I DOING WITH MY LIFE??? I went to the Ramón Ayala concert at the end of January, and it was good. He’s eighty and still pulls out his accordion and plays on stage for enthused crowds. I love him, but I’ve seen him live before. Oh, well. What else is new to do? The more you do, the more you do the same. Or something profound like that.

And so, maybe someday I will make it to Los Rieleros or go for a walking tour in the cemetery.

Roswell Night Skies: a New Local Nonprofit for FREE Community Fun

Roswell Night Skies is the brainchild of local resident Mark Salas. Resident is a mundane word to describe Mark, who is also a local musician, band teacher, photographer, marketer, etc. He’s also a kind man who cares about people and his lifelong community here in Roswell. I interviewed him a couple of years ago for my vlog, if you want to know more about him.

A year ago, this nonprofit opened its doors. Since then, the small crew of board members and volunteers managed to bring TEN free summer movies to the Russ DeKay Park, complete with food trucks. This feat was managed through fundraisers and hitting the pavement to find sponsors. Movies are not free to stream to audiences, even by nonprofits. The equipment also cost a fair chunk of change.

For the Christmas season, they worked with Main Street Roswell to bring a Christmas film to the Christmas Market. They also brought their very own fun Christmas Lights Competition, using the entry fee to help offset the cost of prizes. At the same time, this competition also required more fundraising and sponsorships.

Full disclosure, I’m on the board of this nonprofit, and I performed a fraction of the work compared to Mark. But it’s still exhausting, and yet very rewarding to work through the difficulties with equipment, location, etc. and accomplish a free gift to a town we all love.

This is why they (we) are now running a 3-2-1 raffle that has high potential winnings with a first prize of $2000. We are trying to get a jump on our summer movie costs. You can support this effort by buying a ticket here for $50: https://roswellnightskies.org/.

My Book Cover!

This cover was done by my friend Clorinda Fresquez-Tria, who is a Roswell native (although she moved across the country a few years ago). Still, this book will be a Roswell effort; I’ve even asked a local editor to be my proofreader. The above image was inspired by the belltower at Assumption Catholic Church. Bells have a theme in the story, and the belltower specifically will be in the next book. I hope you like the cover as much as I do. You’ll, of course, notice the dragonfly. Please visit her website, which I linked to. I love her artwork!

I’m waiting for my latest video to upload to post the link….