Abe Observes
Abe Villarreal is the Dean of Student Success at Cochise College. He enjoys writing about people, pastimes, and the small things in life.
Moms are the best kind of marketers out there
- Category: Abe Observes Abe Observes
- Published: 21 January 2024 21 January 2024
By Abe Villarreal
One new thing about the new year is that I gave up coffee. I never thought I would write these words. Maybe I’ll have it again someday. I know I will, but for now, no coffee.
I started to experience a little bit of acid reflux, and I narrowed it down, through a process of elimination, to the coffee. Now that I’ve been coffee-free for over a week, the reflux is gone.
I’ve always been a coffee drinker and a tea drinker. Now, I’m more of a tea drinker. Green teas, chamomile, mint medleys, and more. Then, when I thought I couldn’t meet a tea I didn’t like – I found Dandelion Root.
At first sip, I felt like I had made a mistake. That in my cup of coffee, there were bitter roots from ancient plants. Unburied after hundreds of years and ground up into a tiny tea bag somehow making its way into modern day supermarkets.
I like the old McDonald's and other places of the past
- Category: Abe Observes Abe Observes
- Published: 08 January 2024 08 January 2024
By Abe Villarreal
In a coffee shop where I like to do my writing, a small group of people broke into a Spanish worship song. I didn't expect it but it was nice to hear. The group didn't look like a religious group. They didn't have big Bibles with them, and they weren't wearing crosses. They were just people.
This coffee shop is in Mexico, and as I peeked up from above my laptop screen, I noticed that the folks looked like a mixture of Americans and Mexicans. Maybe there were others, too. In between their singing, they shared short messages. I couldn't hear them too well and I wasn't sure what they were saying.
They weren't always singing in tune, and some didn't know the words to each hymn but they managed and, more importantly, knew that their flaws were what brought them together. These days, we let our flaws keep us apart.
Celebrating Christmas in the southwest is different
- Category: Abe Observes Abe Observes
- Published: 24 December 2023 24 December 2023
By Abe Villarreal
I like celebrating Christmas in the southwest because it's not the kind you see on TV and in the movies. No one is ever snowed in and there is no such thing as clearing the driveway. Most of us can't ever imagine experiencing a white Christmas. That's fine with me.
In the southwest, we have evening skies with all the colors of your favorite tree ornaments. You can't tell Christmas is coming from the weather, but you can feel it because the homes are a little cozier, a little fuller.
Finding new little things to focus on in the new year
- Category: Abe Observes Abe Observes
- Published: 10 December 2023 10 December 2023
By Abe Villarreal
In 2024, I hope we advance enough as a society to fix age-old problems affecting us all. Like the spit guards over salad bars. Those things never work for me.
I'm into health and wellness and all those things that make us feel like we are safeguarding each other, but spit guards are awkward. I can never reach the food in the back and those are the items I usually always want. The avocadoes are always back there.
The big things are what matter this holiday season.
- Category: Abe Observes Abe Observes
- Published: 23 November 2023 23 November 2023
By Abe Villarreal
A friend commented that the turkeys at the grocery store seemed smaller than last year. I told him that was impossible. An 18-pound turkey is an 18-pound turkey. Maybe the price tag was larger.
I think everything seems smaller than we remember when we were younger. Christmas trees and presents. They're smaller. Turkeys and green bean casseroles. Long dinner tables and centerpiece candles. Maybe the older we get, the smaller our eyes grow. The less magical things seem.
I hope not. Holidays are always part reality, part dream. We wait for them in anticipation. The decorations and the music. The recipes and the children running all over the house. And then, a day or two before the festivities comes the cooking and prepping. The shopping and the last-minute pick-ups.
Thanksgiving reminds us of the importance of place
- Category: Abe Observes Abe Observes
- Published: 19 November 2023 19 November 2023
By Abe Villarreal
During this time of the year, I think of the people I would like to sit with at the Thanksgiving dinner table. The people that are now gone but still have a place. More than anything we want in life is to have a place.
Each year, one of the brothers in the family volunteers to host Thanksgiving. It's a nice thing to do even if that brother and his family have to be the ones that end up doing all the set up and all the cleaning. They have a place for us, and that's what matters.
I live in a different town from the rest of my family so I don't get the blessing of hosting, and setting up, and cleaning. I get to show up with my side dish and eat. There is a place for me, no matter what brother's house is hosting the dinner.
A place where food trucks open and close every day
- Category: Abe Observes Abe Observes
- Published: 29 October 2023 29 October 2023
By Abe Villarreal
In the city of Agua Prieta, Sonora, Mexico, there is a food establishment that opens and closes every day. Not just opens and closes for the day, but opens for its first day of business, and closes for its last day.
It's hard to keep up with how many restaurants, to use a more formal term, pop up all around you in this city.
At the end of dirt roads, between big grocery stores, next to gas stations. Opening a new eating place can be done by anyone and almost anywhere, seemingly overnight.
A place with a name worth visiting
- Category: Abe Observes Abe Observes
- Published: 23 October 2023 23 October 2023
By Abe Villarreal
I’m lucky to have friends who bring me small souvenirs from their trips to faraway places. On the side of my metal office shelf cling several magnets that tell stories of adventures throughout the world.
I need more adventures throughout the world. I think we all do. Adventures to places we can’t pronounce. Like Tlaquepaque, a city in the state of Jalisco, Mexico. I haven’t been there, but I'd like to just based on the little magnet on the top shelf in the shape of an adobe plate with two colorful breads inside. It must be a good and delicious place to visit.
The word Tlaquepaque refers to a “place on knolls of clay land.” I like a place named after what it is known or what it does best. I read that there is glass blowing and other wonderful creations made there. Bread too. That’s my favorite part.