The Light of My Life ...

Alice Carol Montemayor March 4, 2011 and life has changed forever ... hooray!

Thanks Grandpa ...

Maybe my Grandpa Roy is a much stronger presence in my everyday life now due to the discoveries made on Ancestry.com.

Maybe it's because I feel like I understand him better now that I'm getting older and have raised a couple of kids in a hard to hoe row and have a more seasoned perspective on life.

Maybe it's the luxury of time now that I'm longer a working mother burning her candle at both ends and can take time to reflect more on who I am and how I came to be the person I am.

Whatever it is, I find my Grandpa in more thoughts much more often these days.

This is why a few weeks ago I found myself relating a random story about Grandpa to a close friend about how Grandpa loved math and science so much that he bought books and made it a point to educate himself on those subjects. I told her how we lived with my Grandparents the year I was 3 and how my Grandpa took me under his wing right away and started teaching me math and science concepts even at that tender age. At night after dinner he and I would go out to the dark front lawn and do what he referred to as "study the stars". He pointed out the constellations to me, teaching me their names, their stories and even the names of the individual stars within the constellations. He did that until I could do it myself. It's because of Grandpa that 50 years later I can look up into the night sky during any season and name the constellations and the stars. And everytime I do, I think of him. Thanks Grandpa.

Relating that story brought back a memory of the "President Plate". The year I was 4 a local jewelry store offered a free John F. Kennedy Presidential Plate with every purchase. As chance would have it my Grandparents happened to buy something at that store and brought home one of those plate. My Grandpa treated it reverently as he showed it to me. A picture of JFK was in the center and it was surrounded by smaller pictures of all the presidents who came before him. Grandpa told me that if I memorized all the presidents in order of their administration that he would give me that plate. Neat! A week later that plate was mine. I can still rattle off the presidents all the way to Obama as easily as most people recite the alphabet. That little bit of knowledge helped make college history easier and has helped me dominate in Trivial Pursuit more than once, lol. I kept that plate for many years but somewhere along the path of my adult life I let it go. I've always regretted that and so a few weeks ago I went looking for one on Ebay ... and found it for $2.00! It finally arrived last night. When I opened the box and looked inside I was instantly flooded with childhood memories and emotions. As I hugged that plate to my chest I swear I could feel my Grandpa's presence ... and it was good.

My first grandchild is arriving in March. She's a girl named Alice and of course I'm over the moon excited to meet her. I'm even more excited to tell her about her Great Grandpa and pass the torch onto her.

Thanks for everything Grandpa.


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Beauty is such a relative thing ...

I’m a solitary creature and I jealously guard my free time. I prefer to spend it alone but can, on occasion, be coerced into spending it socializing with others … but not often … and not today … so again today I reveled in a lunch hour spent in the peace and quiet of my own good company. It’s a “good” lunch that gets thrust at me from a drive-thru window, but once in a while it’s worth dislodging my fanny from the driver’s seat to get out and get that “great” lunch, that little something that will just hit the spot. Today that little something was Subway’s 6” tuna and a lemonade. To steal a line from Campbell’s, “mmmm, mmmm, good”. What is about those shreds of fish (because who knows if there’s any real tuna in there at all) smashed into a paste with mayonnaise and bits of pickle that is so deliciously satisfying? My friends: me, myself and I, parked in our favorite clandestine hiding spot in a doctor’s office parking lot adjacent to an apartment complex. It’s so close to my work that if I let go a big tuna burp from it the people at work would smell it, lol. There’s a handful of wonderfully generous shade trees there … real trees, not Arizona’s typical Dr. Seuss trees and I parked under them with my tuna treat and got lost for an hour in a really good book. Somewhere in a nearby apartment someone was cooking something deliciously pungent, the sounds of a fussy toddler and the soothing cluck-cluck of its mom blew softly down from an upper floor and a grey tabby cruised by on the cinder block wall in front of me. Its fearless demeanor reminded me of my Motown and so earned him the last inch or so of my tuna sandwich and, in the delivery, netted me a little dose of sunshine.

I think it’s when you’re alone that the distinct beauty in ordinary things can be most profoundly felt.

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Happy Easter and Sandy Eggo

Happy Easter !

Easter itself went comparatively unobserved but there were Peeps for the boys and home made brunch for all at Kev n Dev's and that, combined with seemingly endless hours of Wii, made for a very satisfying holiday.

I spent last week nesting in a Sandy Eggo extended-stay by night and getting a cursory introduction to the new project in La Jolla by day. I was surprised to find that La Jolla was nothing like the sleepy little coastal village I thought it would be. Instead, the university has a population that rivals San Diego itself. High rises line wide boulevards thick with traffic and the crosswalks are choked with students. It's definitely much more of a city than the moniker of "village" would imply and it looks like it will be home for the next five or so years.

And creeeeak, another door opens ...


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Farewell WGAZ ...

I worked 3 of 4 blocks at WGAZ champs yesterday. EQ to GE to EQ again. Double panel, enormous venue (Phoenix Coliseum) and a loooong daaaay because it was a combined percussion and guard event organized by class. Meaning .... the SRA guards went on followed by the SRA drummers, etc. OMG!

I started at 11:18 (yes :18 believe it or not) and was finally saying goodbye to WGAZ and on my way at 8:30. There were 6 or so guards that made the day worthwhile but I think that's the hardest I've ever worked at being a judge. And it was ONLY 39 guards. I've done as many as 100 in a single weekend so why do the muscles that move my eyeballs feel as sore today as if I'd been lifting weights with them and why oh why does my voice sound full of dirt.

A grilled stuft burrito and 8 hours of sleep did not repair me. Oy! Coffee cup in hand and hoping for the best!

CCGC champs next weekend. I'm looking forward to seeing friends at the show and spending the rest of the weekend in Sac with both of my kids!


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The question of intelligence ...

The other day I ran into a poll on www.msnbc.com asking people which animal they think is the most intelligent. I read through the poll and the discussion thread that followed and, no big surprise, most everyone voted for humans. Funny that this poll had much the same result you'd expect in polling the best of anything else. Ask a Texan what the best state is and they're likely to tell you Texas. Ask a New Yorker where the best city is and they're likely to tell you it's New York City. Ask an American which country is the best and most of us will say it's the USA. Then is it any wonder that "we" put humans at the top of the intelligence list?

I read a little something in a book by Stephen Hawking about mankind thinking for centuries that the world was flat. He wondered how mankind could have ever believed the world was flat when evidence to the contrary was staring them right in the face every night as they watched the curved shadow of the earth cast itself on the moon. That sentence impacted me more than any other sentence I've ever read anywhere. It took me about a second to realize he was absolutely right and it instantly fascinated me making me start turning over everything else we think we know. What other evidence is staring us right in the face now that we just haven't recognized yet? Like to what level intelligence exists in those creatures we're so certain are less intelligent than us.

I think real intelligence probably includes leaving some room in our thought process for the possibility that just maybe what we think we know isn't so at all.


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Update ...

Lift off from the planet of
Arizona and the parallel universe
known as Phoenix will commence
on or about July 1.


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And so ...

Today in critique a band director accused me of using "jargon" in my taped commentary. Hmmmm. This is because one of my comments was that his group needed to "create variety using combinations of time, energy and space".

WTF?

Judgespeak?

Ok ... maybe I should have kept it simple and just said IT'S BORING!

Sheesh!


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Winter Update ...

Winterguard season is already half over!

Time flies when you’re having fun???

I was successful in my bid to judge for WGAZ this year with four assignments in that circuit (including champs). It’s a whole new world and the same old thing all in the same bag. Truth is it’s been a lot of fun that’s helped me hone my skills since WGAZ holds a full critique after every show. What a challenge!

It’s been really good being in four circuits this year. It’s afforded me the opportunity to see quite a few world guards in person which is unique for me as I usually have to attend a regional to be able to see more than the 1-2 local groups. Those up close and personal viewings have really been beneficial blended together with my “homework” on Fan Network.

I turned a corner this year as a judge and have finally developed my very own sensibility and it’s made everything so astonishing simple, stress free and really fun. I think a lot of my confidence is attributable to the considerable amount of reading I’ve done about design principles, visual art, performing art, theatre art, choreography and “human movement”. I know it’s broadened my observation skills and expanded my commentary. My reading on dance design has had the strongest impact on my judging and has been the most interesting to me. In the end it made me wish I was a lot younger and could do it all again, only better … and it’s reignited my fire for teaching.

The upcoming weekend is a show in AZ, then there’s Indy, then a weekend off (huzzah!) due to the Oak Grove show being cancelled, then WGAZ champs followed by CCGC champs. Then suddenly back-to-back Saturday mornings that begin with Starbucks at the airport in the company of my tiny red rolling suitcase will be gone forever. Whoosh and click as another door closes.

Next year in San Diego?


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After all, they're called Killer Whales ...

Can we incarcerate, or otherwise limit the movement of, intelligent beings without negative effects?

No.

We all know this to be true. Statistics tell us that boredom and lack of stimulation increases violence in prison inmates, madness in institutionalized psychopaths and aggression in dogs limited to their length of chain.

Why would we expect orcas to be any different?

Tilikum was captured from the wild and sentenced to a life spent in the equivalent of a tiny, windowless, featureless prison cell. He’s an unfortunate sacrifice to our own human shortcomings of not caring about that which we don’t understand and to our inability to learn when it’s not entertaining. He entertained us and we learned to care. Thanks to Tilikum, and too many animals like him, we shop for dolphin free tuna, protest the clubbing of baby seals and the shooting of polar bears from helicopters. Tilikum and other creatures in captivity are sacrificed so we can become educated enough to stop the slaughter.

Whether it’s orcas at SeaWorld, tigers in Las Vegas or Grizzly bears with movie star status, they’re animals and they’re occasionally going to remind us of that despite what we think we’ve trained them to do. When we lose sight of that, we lose our lives.

We’ll never know if Dawn Brancheau’s death was due to Tilikum being frustrated or bored or whether or not it was just a game he was playing with her that ran amok. What I think we can assume though is that Dawn Brancheau knew Tilikum was the largest captive orca in the world, knew the risks she was taking, knew the value of the work she was doing and counted it all as worthwhile. We dishonor her sacrifice, and Tilikum’s, with talk about putting him down or punishing him.

We are prey to orcas. In her black and white wet suit Dawn looks very much like a seal. I don’t know that I could be so strong as to work and play around Big Macs day after day without taking the occasional bite.

It’s an inevitable outcome that should not surprise the other Big Macs.


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Winterguard approacheth ...

I don't know how many winterguard seasons it's been now but I'm thinking this is number five ....


Boy, has that gone by fast!

I'm coming home to California for winterguard again this year and really putting my "doing it for the kids" philosophy to the test as I'll be spending nearly all my earnings just getting there and back. It's my choice. I choose to be involved. I have the following confirmed assignments for this winter season and I'm hoping to expand one or two of these weekend jaunts into an excursion to visit my kids and maybe squeak a Stubert visit in there too. Keeping good thoughts!

1/23 Homestead
2/6 Bakersfield
2/12 Fresno
2/20 Leigh
3/13 Independence
3/20 Oak Grove
3/27 Del Mar
4/3 Champs

I'm attempting to try branch out a bit this year by attending the evaluation show in the Phoenix area to see if they might give me an opportunity to do some local judging. It's a long shot that's worth a shot. We'll see.

I'm looking forward to the shows this year. I know it's tough to keep a program on the floor with the economy being what it is. I'm thinking a lack of funding might be problematic for many of the units and I'm hoping they can all make an appearance or two this year. The interesting thing about being broke is that it forces you to be creative ... honestly I'm anticipating some good might come out of that, necessity being the mother of invention and all. Maybe a return to stretching design skills and improving individual skills rather than relying on all the bells and whistles to get a concept across. Not that I don't enjoy the bells and whistles ... I truly do ... but I think a season of not being able to afford them may prove veddy intedesting!!


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Give the right of way to square brown sleighs ...

The "presents 'neath the tree" were whisked away today and loaded onto Santa's sleigh which officially launched this afternoon laden with 3 boxes, each box containing a special "Merry Little Christmas" bound for California or Texas. The kids have all been tipped off to watch out for Santa's sleigh, which this year will be a square brown truck bearing the letters U P S on the side (Rudolph is out of a commission with the swine flu and so Santa is making do). Santa's arrival is expected by day end on 12/23 ... fingers crossed.

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"Colorful" Christmas Memory ...

In 1962 I asked Santa for Chatty Cathy. She was “the” Christmas toy that year. Priced just under $20 at a time when our rent was $80, I knew Santa was my only hope. The TV commercial said that Chatty Cathy had a “chatty-ring” that you could pull and make her say “oneofeleven” different things. I didn’t realize what “oneofeleven” even meant back then but I was thrilled when Santa came through! Unfortunately the one he brought me just babbled gibberish when I pulled her string (and I think of that Chatty Cathy everytime someone tells me my judging tape is unintelligible).

A few days after Christmas my Grandma Roy took me and Chatty Cathy, now tucked back in her big box, to the Sears department store downtown, down the marble stairs and down, down into the cold basement Toy Department to exchange Chatty Cathy … and gasp … ALL of the Chatty Cathys were gone! My Grandma, seeing heartbreak on the horizon, exhibited the skills of a snake oil salesman and suavely talked me into holding a Chatty Baby just to “see”. I picked one from the display and held her. She was small like me and fit exactly in the crook of my arm. She looked like me with her dark hair and brown skin. Chatty Cathy with her freckles and Amazon frame sure didn’t. Plus Chatty Baby’s Chatty-Ring worked! The moment I pulled her string she said “I love you” and I fell for her (and thereby started a life long pattern I think). Fickle 5-year old that I was, I was instantly sold and ready to take her home that minute … but Grandma’s hand on my shoulder said no. What! I was indignant and put up a short 5-yr old fuss before realizing Grandma was not budging. Not this time. That was not the baby doll I was taking home. That was that. Then with the diligence of a 49er searching for gold, she dug through the display finally producing the “right” doll. It was a brunette with white skin. Ooooooooh. Well that Chatty Baby and I went home together and enjoyed a long and happy relationship (despite the holocaust-like haircut I would give her a few years later as a cover for a big lie) … the message was not lost on me though and I can’t help but wonder what Grandma would think today of my Chatty Freddie who says a lot more than “oneofeleven” different things even without a string.

Seriously though???

I think she’d have liked him.



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Good jeans and bad genes ...

In the 8th grade I was thrilled to finally fill out the jeans my Mom handed down to me from her 1960's diet pill body. I loved THOSE jeans. Size 5, lace up the back, huge bell bottoms that made me look a whole lot older and a whole lot hotter than I really was. Woot! Those jeans were good. The genes she's handing down to me lately? Not so good!

Last September the Blood Mobile made a scheduled stop where I work. I used to donate blood via the Blood Mobile where I worked back in the 90's. It's an easy thing to do and especially when it comes right to your front door. So I did what I always do when the blood mobile comes ... I signed up to donate blood.

I showed up at my assigned time and patiently waited for my turn while anxiously anticipating my donut reward and it's accompanying splash of oj. I handed the attendant my paperwork and she pricked my finger. The little dollop of blood sank and then floated just like it was supposed to. Hooray, I'm not anemic this time (that's stopped me from donating before so this was good news). Then she takes my blood pressure. She takes it again ... and then she takes it again before smiling at me sweetly and advising me that unfortunately I can't donate today because my blood pressure is too high. Hmmmmmmm. How high? 185/90. Holy Cow! I leave the blood mobile and find the first available phone to immediately find myself a primary care physician and make an appointment. Sure enough the blood mobile attendant was right. 189/95 was the reading at the doctor's office ... and life hasn't been the same since.

In the last three months I've gained a general physician and a cardiologist, had an echo cardiogram and a bubble test (another type of echocardiogram). Found out I'm hypertensive and have been put on two kinds of meds ... one to slow down my pulse (which was a whopping 109) and one to control my pressure. Both doctors have basically told me that I'm super lucky I didn't stroke out and find out about my hypertension while learning how to talk again. I'll tell you what, hypertension earns its reputation as "the silent killer" because I felt fine and had no idea there was a problem. Unfair too as I've never had much of a relationship with a salt shaker! Thank goodness I went to give blood because, in the long run, I've also found out that I have an "atrial septal bounce related to a foramen patent ovule" (basically a flap in my heart between the chambers that should stay closed but doesn't and causes a funny blip in my heart beat). I am my mother's daughter after all! Insert 4-letter word here. The upside is that I've lost about 12 pounds. The first 7 was a veritable ocean of water that made it's exit within the first 48 hours. Seriously!! Things have calmed down considerably now. I'm taking my meds and I can tell you how much sodium is in just about anything --- and geez, beware because everything contains copious amounts of sodium. I'm still learning how to make my choices and include the things I really want (omg I love cheese) without blowing my total daily number. I'm getting the hang of it pretty good now. I had another visit with the cardiologist the other day and it looks like the thing is nicely under control. Good news that! While I was there I asked him if the numbness I've been having in my feet lately might be a side effect of my new drug habit. Long pause from him and long story short ... probably not. He handed me a lab slip for a glucose test. Insert another 4-letter word here! Mom I love the "good skin" gene you gave me but if you were here right now I'd choke you myself for handing down this gene! I told the doctor that if I have to give up sugar as well as salt I'm simply going to slit my wrists in a warm bath tub. Deadpan - he said he couldn't condone that. Funny guy huh! I'm curious. What does one eat when one can't have salt or sugar? Here's sincerely hoping I don't have to find out or I may just have to give up eating entirely!!

Oh! What a world! What a world! <$1 to the wicked witch>


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It's Brrrrrrrr here ....

Even Jack needs a coat !!

Huzzah from Phoenix ...

It's been awhile since I've updated the blog. It's been a busy time that's brought a lot of permanent changes. The heat finally bested Chris and Lindsey and they made for California in early Setember. Jack is now a fat little bean of a dog at 12 pounds and his terrier blood shows in his bossiness. We adore him. Seven fairly grueling weeks of band season are over. I clocked enough air miles during the season to earm a free round trip ticket to anywhere Southwest flies ... nice! I'll donate that the first kiddo who can make it out here. I had a work day in Sacramento that allowed to spend some quality time with Kev 'n Dev and catch up on all that's happening in their part of the world. Fred and I flew to Ontario to spend Thanksgiving day with his fratneral side of the family and it was a good time. All in all it's been a whirlwind. It's astonishing how quickly Christmas rolled around. A big chunk of my time has been spent lately on ancestry.com ... it's changed my view of myself in ways that defy explanation. Some good and some bad. A lot of mysteries have been solved and there's far fewer mysteries than I'd really have thought there would be. It's a journey that's not over yet and a story for another day. In the meantime, a picture being worth a thousand words and all that, here's a fews pictures of the "last of the Phoenicians" -- me, Fred, Jack Tard and Ted -- at home.

Celebrating Labor Day ...

by NOT laboring

I spent all of Saturday in sloth-mode and enjoyed the cooler weather the monsoon brought by opening all the windows and letting the breeze blow through the house. It was the closest thing I've seen to Cali weather since I got here and it was a welcome relief.

On Sunday I spent the day with good friend Kanika and her kidlings playing at the pool, hanging out on the couch gossiping and catching up on the all the gab that is the gab. Good times!

Today I'm celebrating Labor Day by not laboring at all. This day made possible by the generations that came before me who worked 7 days a week, worked when they were still children, worked locked in sweat shops, worked in dangerous situations for less than they were worth and with absolutely no employee rights ... and, eventually, worked to make weekends and holidays, OSHA and overtime possible for sloths like me.

Kudos and thanks!

Once Upon a Time ...

... it was the first week of 1st grade. I was so excited to finally leave the kindergarten playground and be allowed on the grade 1 thru 3 playground. There were two slides there, one was tall at about 7’ (aka the “big slide”) and the other was small at 5’ (aka the “baby slide”). There was a set of rings to swing on and horizontal “monkey” bars to hang upside down on. With all this playground equipment, you’d think I wouldn’t find it necessary to make up my own game under the baby slide, right. Sooo wrong. By holding onto the slide supports, one in each hand, and dead-hanging, I would “walk” up the backside of the slide’s ladder until I eventually turned myself upside down where I would sort of flip and land on my feet. My friends and I did this for weeks on the baby slide til we got bored and moved the game to the big slide to give it a go. The trouble with the big slide was that where the supports met the ground they were way too far apart for our 6-year old arm span. Being a problem solver, I saw an easy fix. I shinnied up one of the supports just high enough to reach out and grab the other support, leaving myself suspended like Jesus Christ about 3’ off the ground. Then I walked up the backside of the ladder, turned myself upside down (leaving myself about 5’ in the air) and flipped landing on my feet as usual … then my bottom (because of the additional height). Even so, I was hailed a hero as everyone followed suit and joined the new game.

One random day, having just made it to the “flip” portion of the trick, one of my hands slipped and I lquickly earned that gravity is a bitch. My forehead connected with the galvanized metal rung at the very bottom of the slide’s ladder just as my chest thudded onto the tanbark causing me to emit the most unattractive UFFFFF sound as the impact pushed all the air from my lungs. The combination of blows made it mandatory that I lie there for a minute … and would have too but for the blood streaming into my eyes!?!?! Always calm in a crisis, even at six, I got up, pressed the heel of my right hand between my eyes to stem the blood flow as much as possible and sought out a yard duty teacher. I found freshly credentialed Miss Chechetti on the basketball courts and said to her “I think I hurt myself”. She took one look at me and went white as a snowstorm. Leaving all the other children alone on the playground to fend for themselves, she rushed me, yard duty whistle bouncing, to the nurse’s office. The nurse (yes, we had those then) was a seasoned vet who stuck a butterfly bandage on me, gave me a baby aspirin and called my mother. Fast forward to the pediatrician’s office. I have a small, deep, ragged cut right between the eyes where my head hit the metal rung. The doctor is telling me he’s going to give me a shot so it won’t hurt --- what kind of logic is that! By this time in my life I know shots hurt and so do stitches, but right then I was hurting so badly, I just didn’t care. I got the shot, I got the single stitch he used to pull the raggedy edges of my cut together and I got the blast of aerosol plastic over the whole thing that would not only hold it all together, but also allow me to get wet (and it tangled my eyebrows in knots for days) … and the very next day I got my first grade school picture taken.

6 pounds and 7 ounces not that long ago ...

Well it was 30 years ago because yesterday we celebrated Chris' 30th birthday!

Wow! I still don’t feel all that far past 30 myself. Oops! I guess the advantage to having kids in the first half of your twenties is that they sort of catch up to you along the way and eventually (and sure probably briefly) you find yourselves in a similar place in life. It’s interesting being your kid’s contemporary (same music, same movies, same sociability) and still being their parent. It’s all sort of analogous to us as pieces on a game board. Chris rolled the dice and landed on the slide labeled “grow up” and slid into the same space where I’d already landed after pulling the “get divorced, start over” and “get laid off, lose 2 turns” cards. For what it’s worth it seems that Kevin, at 27, has a slight lead on both of us, lol.

In adulthood, birthdays that end in zero are milestones that are a much bigger deal than all those in between. Recognizing that, last night there were presents and ice cream cake (yum!). One of the things I got for him was a little book entitled “Tomorrow”. It's a not-too-smarmy yet timely diddy for this stage of his life I think. Inside it I wrote him a short “mom note” (similar to the ones I used to write on his lunchbox napkins when he was a little) and the note was about having “hope”. Afterwards I got to thinking about hope and that brought to mind the myth about Pandora’s box and how she released hope from it not long after she’d unleashed all the other evil miseries that plague mankind and the world.

And then I thought, wait a minute ….

Isn’t hope a good thing?

Why was it in the same box containing all of man’s greatest torments?

I pondered this off an on all afternoon and couldn’t think of a reason. Finally, like Pandora, my curiosity got the best of me and I went looking for an answer on the internet and found the following.

“Zeus did not want man to throw his life away, no matter how much the other evils might torment him, but rather to go on letting himself be tormented anew. To that end, he gives man hope. In truth, it is the most evil of evils because it prolongs man's torment."

Ouch! Have I just wished a torment on my kid?

“False hopes”, “high hopes”, “hope springs eternal” …. hope may prolong our torment but where would we be without it? I guess it’s the ultimate necessary evil so to speak and so, yeah, I still wish it for Chris as he turns the page and begins a new decade sure to make itself into a new chapter.

I do feel like he and I have reached that part of the world map though where it simply says “Thar’ be sea monsters here”.

Thank goodness I was raised by pirates ... and so was he :-)


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AARP, AARP !!!

No, it’s not the sound of your neighbor’s barking dog. It’s the American Association for Retired Persons.

I’ve been receiving invitations to join AARP since I was 48. Last year at 51 I finally took the plunge, wrote my check for $12.50, sent it off and joined. In exchange for my $12.50, I now have the cutest little red and white AARP card to carry around in my wallet and occasionally flash to save money. I also own a small collection of AARP magazines that I keep in a small wicker basket next to my rocking chair in my bedroom (and yes, I know that makes me sound incredibly ancient). I worry if it’s a sign of old age that I actually intently read these magazines cover to cover because I find the articles relevant and genuinely entertaining!?!?!?

The downside of AARP is that it generates a fair amount of, what is to me, junk mail. The mail isn’t actually junk. In fact, it’s chockfull of incredibly worthwhile opportunities to save money buying ordinary goods and services that just aren’t terribly meaningful to me (like vacations, good driver insurance, death benefits, etc) because I’m either covered by my work benefits or can’t afford it.

Last week I received a plain white #10 envelope bearing my name and address in the center and “AARP/NYL” in the upper left-hand corner. Thinking it was yet another offer for an AARP Visa card, tornado insurance or a reduced price offer to go to Bermuda or some other thing I didn’t need, couldn’t have or couldn’t afford, I nearly threw it out. It was a close call. Had I not had my hands full and already been on a mission, I would have taken the time to drop it in the round file where all junk mail goes. But I didn’t and, as a result, it was still lounging on the dining room table when I got home from work on Friday night and took the time to open it and realize it wasn’t an advertisement at all! It was a 2-sentence letter.

“We’re trying to determine if you are a relative of John Roy. Please call our office between 8:00 am and 5:00 pm (east coast time) yadda, yadda, yadda”

Yadda, yadda, yadda because I didn’t need to read the rest. I internalized the topic sentence right away and, thinking there’s something wrong, I pick up the phone. Sure, its 4:30 pm west coast time but, you know me, I’m gonna’ try and, seriously, would you expect anything less? I’m surprised though when someone actually just answers the phone. I tell her about the letter, she looks me up, finds me and asks me if I’m a relative. “Yes, I’m his daughter” I say “and, in fact, he’s here in a box about ten feet from me right now” (I’ll never be the one to receive a prize for tact). She asks me if I can confirm his full name and date of birth and of course, I can. She then confirms my current address and tells me she’s sending me a “claim form”. Pause. Unexpected this. Suddenly a million questions churn through my brains. This is exactly when I make the connection between the “NYL” on the envelope the words “New York Life”. I’m stunned into a momentary silence. Reigning in my churning brain I reduce the million questions down to just one and say, “Does this mean there’s a benefit of some sort?” “Yes”. I now can’t hold my tongue and the obvious next question simply falls out of my brain directly onto it and I hear myself say “Do you know how much it’s for?” and she tells me that “can’t be determined until the claim is filed”.

Sure! It will probably amount to $4.17 but I could care less. I’m joyful because I feel like my Dad just reached out and hugged me from the other side. If you read the blog, you’ll know that a few years ago I’d thought he was trying to tell me something, trying to get me to pay attention to something, trying to point me somewhere and I was just too stupid to figure it out. NOW, I feel like his message has finally reached me and I’m inexplicably all warm and fuzzy about it!

Whatever it is, I’ll follow through. Thanks for the hug Dad!

Love you much and miss you more.


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Thought for the day ...

There's only a one-letter difference
between stalking and talking

Regrets? I've had a few ....

<$1 to Frank Sinatra>

Why didn't I think to microchip Judas?

Duh!

I was looking for him on Craiglist last Friday (something I've done obsessively several times a day since he went to his new family) and hoping I wouldn't find him there. The good news is that I didn't. The bad news is that I found the attached horror story and it damn near destroyed me. Less than two hours after I read this Jack was the proud owner of a new microchip. $25 dollars of reassurance planted subcutaneously between his shoulder blades. The only way Jack will ever need it is if he gets lost because I will never, never, never, never, EVER rehome or give up (and I've done more than my share) another animal. I'm cured forever. That's just one of the gifts Jubes gave to me.

PLEASE QUIT GIVING YOUR PITS AWAY FOR FREE--I MADE THAT MISTAKE AND I RECEIVED A CALL FROM THE ANIMAL SHELTER SIX MONTH AFTER I REHOMED HER-MY PIT HAD A MICROCHIP AND I AM NOW SO GLAD THAT SHE DID. WHEN I WENT TO GO AND PICK HER UP FROM THE SHELTER THEY TOLD ME THAT THEY FOUND HER RUNNING THE STREETS, SHE WAS COVERED IS DIRT AND MUD AND YOU COULD CLEARLY SEE SHE WAS USED FOR FIGHTING. I NEARLY DIED WHEN I SAW HER, SHE WAS SO BADLY BEATEN UP AND HAD HALF HER FACE MAULED OFF. THEY CROPPED HER EARS SO SHORT THAT YOU CANT SEE WHERE SHE EVEN HAD YEARS AND SHE WAS SO TIMID AND STAND OFFISH WHEN I APPROACHED HER. NOW MY DAUGHTER SLEEPS ON THE FLOOR WITH HER EVERY NIGHT BECAUSE SHE IS SCARED AND DOES NOT WANT TO BE ALONE. I WILL NEVER GIVE ANY ANIMAL TO ANYONE EVER AGAIN BECASE IT WILL BE HARD TO TRUST. I THOUGHT I GAVE HER TO A GOOD HOME, AND I WAS WRONG. TO THE ONES THAT HURT MY BABY KARMA IS A BAD THING! I AM NOW CARING FOR HER AND TO BE HONEST I DONT THINK SHE WILL EVER BE THE SAME AGAIN BUT I WILL LOVE HER AND HOPE THAT SHE COMES AROUND. IT HAS BEEN TWO WEEKS AND SHE IS FINALLY NOT AFRAID TO APPROACH THE FOOD DISH AND SHE IS ACTUALLY PUTTING ON SOME WEIGHT. WHO EVER HAD HER GOT TIRED OF HER, OR POSSIBLY SHE WAS NOT A GOOD FIGHTER ANY LONGER SO THEY DUMPED HER IN THE STREETS TO FEND FOR HERSELF.
IF YOU GIVE YOUR PIT AWAY FOR FREE PLEASE BE CAREFUL WHO THEY GO TO--YOU CANT TRUST EVERYONE!

I've gotta' mentally let Jubes go so he can become a happy memory and not a regret .... the not knowing is just so damned hard!

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Meet the Cheat ....

Jack .... He's a full-grown, 1 year old min pin/dachsund bundle of boy who weighs in at a whopping 8 pounds! So cute he'll give you diabetes on initial contact. I found him on Craigslist last Saturday afternoon. His guardian Jeff is being deployed to Iraq and needed a new forever home for Jack. That's where I came in.

I'd been scouring Craigslist for weeks specifically to make sure Judas didn't make an appearance there (it's a common practice for dogs to be taken in and then re-sold under the guise of re-homing). In the process I started opening up to the idea of a dog of my own. I happened to be sitting at the computer when Jack's ad came up. I made the call and an hour later I was Jack's new guardian.

Teddy was really into Jack for the first few hours. Now he just pretends he isn't there ... and vice versa to some degree. Jack still tries to make friends though. If I had to bet, I'd put my money on Jack eventually sucking Ted in just like he's done to the rest of us. Jack has charisma after all.

And his fabulous manners don't hurt either :)


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Jubes Departs ...

It’s been a month but this past weekend I finally shook the worst of a big weight that was on my heart. I feel like I cheated to get rid of it. The cheat has alleviated most of my sadness but hasn’t made a dent in my guilt … I’ll take that. And the cheat is a story for another day.

About a month before our move to Arizona Jubes (aka Sir Judas Bacon) started exhibiting some mild dog-on-dog aggression. It’s not a big deal really. It’s a common and fixable problem especially prevalent in male dogs as they mature. It’s fixable with additional socialization with other dogs, neutering and consistent leadership. It’s a phase of Jubes’ development we’ve been anticipating, studying up for and preparing to deal with since he was just a tiny, beige, comma in the bottom of a box.

It all came down to timing and, let’s just say, the timing was less than optimal. Jubes’ dog-on-dog aggression reached its apex the week we were moving. It seems the move intensified it … 15 hours in the back of an SUV, three different hotels, too many stops in too many unfamiliar places with too many strangers … or just too much new input and stimulation in too short a span of time … or too much he felt he needed to defend. I guess we’ll never really know. However, it came about, while we between houses, our playful and good-natured Jubes became impossible to walk in public without him acting like a slobbering menace every time he spotted another dog. Sigh. Problematic in a major way because what the public easily tolerates from a little dog, it has zero tolerance for from a bigger dog and gets down right indignant about from a bully breed. I get it. I used to be one of those people.


We did what we could. We muzzled him. We walked him late in the evenings or super early in the mornings. We walked him in the most unpopulated routes and places we could find and did our utmost not to have him come into contact with other dogs figuring that, once we were settled in the new place, things would calm down and we’d get to work on this challenge …. well, we never got the chance.

We’d only been in our new place two days when, out for an early morning walk with Chris, Jubes put on a snarling, frothing at the mouth exhibition for an older woman who out walking her Scottie through our complex. In an evil twist of fate, she turned out to be the corporate manager of our 360+ unit complex. It took only 180 seconds for her to turn to Chris and say “it would really be a shame if after only 2 days here you have to move out”.

Red Alert!

After much discussion, soul-searching and a large dose of reality delivered by their wallets, Chris and Linz decided they couldn’t move out right now so they put Jubes’ photos and info on Craigslist. Seriously, I figured Craigslist was a long shot so I was caught off guard when they were called right away by a family interested in taking Jubes. Long story short, Jubes has gone to a new forever family thanks to Craigslist. The kids feel they couldn’t ask for a better adoptive pack -- Mom, Dad, a school-age boy and girl, a big back yard and a 1-year old Australian Shepherd for a friend. They believe that as adoptive families go, this one is top drawer. I sure hope so. I love that stupid little dog. I’ve always been ready for him to move away with the kids but I was not prepared never to see him again. Of course, I’m relieved that the immediate landlord problem is solved and of course, I applaud Chris and Lindsey’s decision and I’m glad for them because it does solve the problems presented by Chris’ snap decision in the parking lot of Safeway last August. Like what they will do with Jubes while they’re both working full time and living in their own apartment with no yard. But their choice is a regret we’ll all carry. Oh well, if only our kids would learn from our mistakes and experiences and listen to our advice in the first place these heartwrenching choices would never have to be made ….. annnnyyyyyway.

Were it not for Jubes “close encounter of the landlady kind” I would have kept him if the kids couldn’t take him when they moved out. That was always my contingency plan. And, despite Jubes’ close encounter, I would have kept him and challenged the landlady if his only option was a pound. After all, Jubes was a pre-approved, rent-paying, tenant on the lease. It’s a battle I would have waged and likely won, but it didn’t come to that. Instead, Jubes has a new family who want and understand him and who know as much about his tricks and talents as the kids could jam into the 30 minute “interview” time they all had together. The only thing that makes this at all palatable for me is that the new family has the kids address and phone number and has agreed that, should things not work out with Jubes, he be returned to the kids. That agreement reasonably assures Jubes won’t go to a pound, end up in a dog-fighting pit, a research facility or a can of dog food. Even so, I worry. Although the kids miss Jubes they are ultra comfortable with their decision. I guess one day I’ll get there too. One day when there’s no shows like “Animal Cops” finding live pitbulls beaten nearly to death, hog-tied and stuffed into lidded garbage cans to die. No news reports of pit bulls tied to trees, doused with lighter fluid and set on fire. Someday?

I’m thankful for the time with Jubes. I guess he crossed my path as another “see I told you so” lesson in response to another of my “I would never ______ (fill in the blank)” statements. Jubes revealed to me abilities I never knew I had, but more importantly, he taught me a lot about how to live tolerance instead of just talking tolerance like so many other people do.

I’m infinitely grateful that another family saw in him what we see. That he’s a smart, loving little guy and a joy to have around. It’s my most sincere hope that Jubes live a long and happy life … I just wish I could be there to watch.

And I wish I lived in a world without ignorance. A world where thinking adults understood that people with foreign accents aren’t necessarily stupid, black people really can float and there’s no such thing as an aggressive breed.

Whoever coined the phrase “ignorance is bliss” was an idiot.

Ignorance has a painful price tag.

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County Mouse to City Mouse ...

That’s just how I feel.

We’ve arrived in Arizona … aka “The Valley of the Sun”!! Let’s be realistic folks and just call it “The Valley ON the Sun” cuz that’s far closer to the truth. Redding is plenty hot in the summer but at least the temperature drops somewhat in the evenings. Here the temperature never drops significantly enough to provide any real relief. My first day here it was 104 degrees at noon, it was still a whopping 94 at midnight and it was a muggy 76 degrees by 6am this morning. The air conditioners never get a break … the hum is constant in the house… like tinnitus except you have to pay for it! I’m very afraid of the coming utility bill!

At times I feel like I’ve migrated to a parallel universe where everything is deceptively the same but not quite right, in short it’s like being cast as a guest star in an episode of the Twilight Zone where you open the kitchen cupboards only to find that all the food is made of Plaster of Paris. After comparing notes the family has decided it’s because it’s not just another state, it’s another planet. So we’ve agreed to work at blending in to prevent the natives from recognizing us as the aliens we are and coming after us to dissect our brains, or worse … probe us!

Things I haven’t yet quite adjusted to on the new planet of Arizona:

It’s extraordinarily flat here with occasional outbreaks of what Arizonians call “mountains”. Ok I guess technically they’re mountains but from far away they look like nothing more than a painted backdrop from a Wiley E. Coyote cartoon and up close they look like gigantic piles of potting soil. They’re just …. weird.

I’m having trouble taking the state flag here seriously. It flaps in the breeze over the local McDonald’s looking like an enlarged version of something some rinky-dink Midwest colorguard might spin. Who knew I had so much respect for the golden bear?

Everyone here is devoted to NASCAR. I have no words for that except WTF.

The city streets seem extraordinarily wide and open with few to no lines painted in the intersections resulting in the sensation that the 8 lanes of traffic across from you at the signal really are ONCOMING TRAFFIC!

The traffic light layout is different. Of course I was the first car in the left turn only lane when I discovered this. Instead of a rectangular block of 3, it’s a square block of 5! Trust me I was honked at as if I was sporting a bumper sticker that read “Honk if you love NASCAR”. I’ve about got it figured out now. The light turns green and everyone goes and you yield. Then the light turns red for a bit. Don’t go. Then the arrow lights up green and you get to go unimpeded by oncoming traffic. This means you get two chances to go in every cycle. That’s got to ultimately be a bonus right? The confusion is more in the presentation than anything else I guess, even so, it will take me awhile to get used to the idea that I have the option to fling myself into oncoming traffic any time any light is green. Can someone give me a woohoo?

Swimming. I love the swimming part I just hate the bathing suit part. Unfortunately it’s simply too hot here to say no to owning, and then of course WEARING a bathing suit.

Changes I’ve happily accepted here on the planet of Arizona …

The really spectacular icemaker in the refrigerator

No helmet law for motorcyclists. Right! It doesn’t affect me directly, but being that I’m against motherhood laws on principle, I can’t help but to see this as a good thing.

Nine-foot ceilings

You can talk on your cell phone while you drive. Hooray! Perfect now that I’ve opted not to have a cell phone. God’s sense of humor working overtime there.

Front license plates are not required here. See above and reference God’s sense of humor.

Brand new carpeting

The view of the moon from my oversized kitchen window.

The nice Fry’s and Trader Joe’s close to home to supplement the Super Walmart right around the corner. It’s a regular shopping bonanza here.

The en suite bathroom.

The incredible number of restaurants in Biltmore and the Camelback Corridor

To sum it all up …

As of this morning, I have home 91.53% unpacked and so can reasonably get through the normal course of a day. Good news for my sanity that! Once unpacked, I found out that the apartment is considerably bigger than is required for the amount of stuff I own. An excellent problem to have! 1221 square feet is bigger than I thought – so much for any spatial skills I thought I had. The extra square footage, the extra garage, the extra 1.5 bathrooms, the high quality fitness room, the game room, the resort-style pool, the Jacuzzi, the sauna, the internet café and the tanning bed (yes, I said tanning bed) compensate nicely for the absence of a backyard. I’m sure the dogs would disagree but then they’re not paying the rent.

I'm starting to feel at home here already :-)

Leaving California ...

We departed Redding on Friday, June 19 at 4pm all souls accounted for and two hours ahead of schedule … 4 people, 2 dogs, good attitudes and 919 miles to go. We all happily waved goodbye to Redding.

We’d agreed ahead of time that it was best for the dogs if we stopped every two hours. Me being the anal-retentive person that I am, I had laid out our journey in detail on Map Quest weeks before and had copies for the whole crew to follow along. I find that everyone having a map practically eliminates the “how far til” and “are we there yet” and “when do we eat” syndromes. An old stand-by works. Our first scheduled stop was Dunnigan but the dogs were already squirming by the time we hit Willows so we opted to stop early in Williams where we stretched and watered the pups and then hit the local Denny’s,

We were five minutes down the road when we hit our first wall. The kids had a cold war in the backseat over who-knows-what and that didn’t dissipate until we hit the next stop.

Next stop Westley! A quick bit of gas, a McDonald’s potty break, a water spigot for the dogs and we were back on our way.

We hit our destination of the Super 8 in Kettleman City by 11pm. It had looked nice enough on the internet and the view as we pulled in seemed to confirm that but the reality on the inside was nothing like its billing. It was like a motel room out of a scary movie. We checked for peepholes, cameras and men dressed as their mothers a la Psycho before finally turning the air conditioner on full blast and hitting the sack. The temperature was 80+ when we bedded down and I’d say it was 90+ by the next morning. The air conditioner made a lot of noise but that’s all it did.

Next morning we had planned to sleep in until check out at 11am so that we’d be traveling through the hottest part of our journey that night. Arguably the hottest part of the journey turned out to be sleeping in that motel room. I woke up at 6am feeling like a hot dog rotating in one of those 7-11 cookers. Knowing it was insanely early I tried to be polite and keep quiet. I took the dogs for a walk and entertained myself as best I could but by 8:00 had started making noise sufficient to wake people up. We hit the local Carl’s Jr. for some breakfast burritos and were on the road by 10am.

Whew!


In no time at all we were on the grapevine. I have bad childhood memories of the grapevine and as a result I view a trip over it much like the early California settlers probably viewed a trip over the Sierra Nevadas but probably less optimistically. I’m always convinced we’ll end up stranded and cannibalizing each other. We stopped in Lebec, just before the climb, gassed up, bought drinks and snacks for us and hotdogs for the pups (maybe it was the motel room cookery that inspired that, I dunno’) and let the truck cool down before starting our ascent.

It wasn’t nearly as bad as I’d worried it would be. My sphincter factor ran high until we reached the apex and I believe I left half-moons shapes in the upholstery with my fingernails all for nothing because the temp gauge never even fluttered past its regular mid-point. We hit the flats without incident and soon enough we were in Pasadena driving through a pounding thunderstorm of biblical proportions and making our one and only u-turn of the entire trip.

An hour later we hit a wall …

We took the exit for our scheduled stop and Fred pulled into the first gas station we came to. We were three hours ahead of schedule and in the middle of the ghetto. The rain was gone and the temp was at least 100. We were supposed to eat dinner at this stop but it was only 2pm and no one was hungry yet. Now what? Here’s the truncated version of what happened next at the gas pump.

It’s ok, we’ll eat later let’s just get gas. No, let’s go, we still have half a tank. No, because it gets desolate after this stop. There’ll be plenty of places to stop. No there won’t. Yes there will. No there won’t. Yes there will. You don’t know what you’re talking about! No, you don’t know what you’re talking about! Well I looked it up on Map Quest did you!? Shut up!! No, you shut up!!! No, you shut up!!!! Well you’re walking back when we run out of gas in the middle of nowhere! No you’re walking back! No you are!! No you are!!! No you are!!!!

Kindergartners exhibit more wit than the two of us in an argument.

We got gas, the dogs peed and we didn’t talk to each other for the next two hours. Harrumph and fine!

Having screwed up our last scheduled stop by being three hours ahead of schedule we now had no plan. We drove through the hot nothingness for a while passing Palm Springs, Palm Desert, Indio and Banning as we watched the scenery get more and more desert-like. We finally took an exit (Blythe?) not too far from the border. We got lucky with that stop stop because it turned out to be a little oasis in the desert with a quickie mart, a gas station, a water spigot for the pups and, in the category of what the hell, a museum dedicated to General Patton. We watered the dogs and ourselves and hung out for about 20 minutes before driving past a bunch of the General’s WWII tanks and heading out to the freeway. Rejuvenated from our stop we were pleased to find ourselves in the Joshua Tree National Forest. You know that part of the world where it makes sense to start looking for the signs that say “world’s largest ball of string – next exit”. We looked hard but never saw a Joshua tree much more than 2’ tall.

Let me digress here for a moment and just say that “forest” is a serious misnomer for this particular stretch of country. Actually, a more appropriate name might be the Dr Seuss Tree National Forest for every bit of foliage reminded me of the illustrations in his many, many books. I wondered if any of what I was seeing had provided inspiration for the books.


So much for the “forest”.

The border came as an abrupt surprise. No real ballyhoo in advance. There was simply a road sign with an Arizona flag on it, then a fruit check station for those entering California --- apparently, Arizona doesn’t care what fruits you bring into their state because there was no stop for us --- and then a much bigger sign and a much bigger flag and, bingo, we were over the border. What it lacked in pageantry it made up for in emotion as we all got quiet saying goodbye to California … for now.

Goodbye Franchise Tax Board

Goodbye CHP

Goodbye Ahhhnold

Goodbye fruit police… lol.

Suddenly Arizona license plates and saguaro cactus surrounded us. We all marveled over how quickly and seamlessly that transition happened. Wow.

Not far after the border, we pulled off in the city of Quartzsite. The highway sign advertising a family restaurant is what drew us off the highway. Although it was still early, the restaurant was closed and so was everything else. Chris is seriously spooked by desert towns that appear to be deserted and I was having my own visions of the whole town closing their businesses for the day so they could load their pockets with stones and participate in the local lottery. Our appetites on hold we drove around and surveyed the little town unsuccessfully for restaurants. The movie “Silent Hill” came up in the conversation as we beat it back to the highway pronto. We rationalized that we weren’t scared. It was just that we were now only two hours away from our destination anyway and we could eat in Phoenix.

It was still light when we arrived on Saturday. We could see downtown Phoenix from miles and miles away. Evidence that Phoenix and its surrounding areas really are flat. We headed directly for the apartment. I was the only one who had seen it so it was mandatory that everyone have a first look and see what they’d signed up for.

It wasn’t exactly like the unit I’d walked through a few weeks ago. It seems that by opting for an end unit I lost the window seat in the master bedroom and an extra 2 or so feet of balcony. Oh well. I got brand-spanking new carpeting I wasn’t expecting and that made up for it.

We spent about an hour scoping the apartment and the various amenities in the complex and then headed for the Homewood Suites to settle in.

What a nice surprise! Our room was a gorgeous, fully decorated, fully equipped one-bedroom apartment with a complete kitchen. In this case reality outdid the internet. I breathed a huge sigh of relief. We’d arrived intact, on time and with no real scars or scares and all of tomorrow to rest and renew before the first Monday at work and the arrival of Stage 2 … the moving van.

Stay tuned …






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Making for Mecca ...

My leaving Redding has been on the agenda since I arrived but it really started looming large last January. Finally, after being told I was going, being told I might be let go, being told I was going etc, etc, etc … well, I'm going. But not to Santa Maria as originally planned. Nope. Now it's off to San Diego but with a 12 mos stint in Phoenix first. Yep, Phoenix. This California native is going to follow the work and give the desert lifestyle a try. So last week I made the journey to Mecca (Phoenix headquarters) once again. This time to attend the mid-year company meeting, to find a place to live and to set in motion the next chapter of life.

I left on a Thursday morning from Redding on one of those teeny, tiny, toy airplanes that I “love” so much, flew into SFO and arrived relatively unscathed. Whew. We left SFO on time headed for Phoenix on what I finally surmised must have been the female pilot’s maiden voyage because the plane pitched and yawed in every conceivable direction on it’s sea of air. Having had nothing but coffee all day, my body's response to all this was to get frighteningly close to giving me the chance to inventory my stomach contents, in detail, in a ridiculously tiny, navy-blue, airline-provided paper bag. A new first in my long list of firsts.

Just a thought … When a pilot is a female wouldn’t it more appropriate to spell it pilette?

I arrived in Phoenix at 3:08, stomach contents yet intact, jumped into a cab and buzzed uptown to a realtor’s office for the ten-cent tour of Phoenix and the chance to look at some places to live. We squeezed in four possibilities … I nearly rejected the first one almost before we got out of the car but politely held my tongue until we’d actually toured the place and THEN, willing to have the relator think I was a snob, I rejected it … the second and third places more than made up for the first place and the fourth place was closed. Sooooo … choosing was ultra simplified by the fact that I only had two choices. Even so, I needed to sleep on it and so I asked to be dropped off at the hotel where I ate (finally), soaked in the tub, watched bad TV and finally fell asleep really early. Rising the next morning and, for once, consciously choosing the practical over the most fun, I called the realtor and took a 3-level townhouse. We'll be giving "resort living" a spin. The next day I went to headquarters where I found my name already on the wall of my assigned space … wow … and spent a few hours at my new desk filling out the application and gathering all the assorted nonsense I needed to apply for the new townhouse, stuffed it all into an overnight envelope and deposited it with the receptionist before finally heading out for the company meeting. The company meeting was fantastic. Truly. Between 2pm and 5pm I absorbed enough inspiration to feel really positive about this choice to move to Phoenix and am looking forward to what the next year will bring.

That night I had dinner with Renebabe friend Kanika and her two kiddos. We hung out for a few hours at the Tempe Marketplace where we ate Mexican food and watched her kids play in the mall’s splash-fountain. It was incredibly hot. The kind of hot that makes your feet stick to the cement … or maybe that was because I spilled my entire strawberry smoothie under our feet. Ack! There was no greenery or shade in sight so watching the wee ones frolic in the water was our refreshing relief from the life-sucking heat and the food and the company were a great break for me from an otherwise stressful couple of days.

Saturday morning it was up and out to the airport … and a delay due to fog in SF that finally led to a total rework of my travel plan home courtesy of the airline's kiosk agent. Thank goodness for kiosk agents! I had to be re-routed from Phoenix thru Portland to get home …. and it took alllllllll daaaayyyyyy … let’s just say I don’t ever want to see 3 states in 5 hours again. The upside though is that the flight from Portland to Redding is incredibly beautiful with views of Crater Lake, Mt. Shasta and Lake Shasta that make you believe in God.

Stepping off the teeny, tiny plane and onto the griddle-hot tarmac in Redding, I realized it was incredibly hot here too … temperature gauges indicated it was actually hotter than Phoenix but for whatever reason the heat just isn’t as hot here as it is in Phoenix. Funny because the increased humidity should make it feel hotter?? Oh well. Maybe it’s the absence of so much cement …. or the absence of sticky strawberry fluids underfoot … or because a shorts-clad B was there waiting to whisk me home into the nice, cold, air conditioning …. Mmmmmmmm

Time to turn the page ...

In about two weeks our fearless foursome and the pups will be on our way to new digs in Phoenix.

Hard to believe but more than a year, 14 months to be exact, has passed since I first arrived in Redding. As I feverishly plan my departure and pull up roots bound for Phoenix, I can’t help but be sad for there are things about the North State that I will sorely miss ...

The smell – because it always smells like vacation here, like camping by the river, like sun-drenched vegetation in the wilderness and clean, cold water – and how this smell has the power to bring on a sudden rush of precious childhood memories and transport me back to long, lazy summer days spent lounging idly on my Grandma’s lawn swing in her 100+ degrees Yuba City backyard garden, sucking grape Nehi from a glass bottle I purchased at the corner store, studying the sowbugs and grasshoppers, burying my bare toes in the long, cool grass and the soft, peaceful ksssk, ksssk, ksssk, ksssk, swiiiiiish of the lawn sprinkler in the background.

My backyard – because it contained enough dirt, enough grass, enough leaves and enough critters to make me feel like I was a part of the permanent landscape and to constantly remind me of my connection to the earth

The weather –because from rain to snow to blistering heat you never know from one day to the next which of the four seasons mother nature truly has in store for you until you fling open your own front door each day and experience it first hand as it smacks you in the face.

The postcard moments – because everyday, from mountains, meadows and rivers, I could use my fingers to form a camera lense, point it in almost any direction and find at least a half-dozen “postcard” moments to be awed by and grateful for

Here's to hoping I'll find "postcard" moments in the desert too ... cuz here we go!



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Franklin Field, Philly, 1975

A perfect G.E. score ...

high drums ...

and second place in M&M = no threepeat

oh, and 4:00 to 4:05 ... heh ... I guess I did make it to the front side line in jr corps after all

A salute to funny hats ....

Ok, maybe it's me but it seems fundamentally WRONG to smile while wearing an aussie ... lol







DCI 2002 Opening Ceremonies

Mission Accomplished ...

We won !!!

If wishes were horses ...

... we'd all take a ride

It's my mother's wisdom and I heard it a lot as a child. It took me growing up to fully comprehend it's deeper meaning.

I guess as a child I must have had a lot of wishes and wants to have heard that so much from my mother ... but tonight I have only one wish and that's for tomorrow to go my way without fail.

It's close to midnight now so it's almost "tomorrow" but, hard as I try, I can't sleep. Too much anticipation and anxiety I guess. Reaching tomorrow has been a hard-fought, lonely, isolating, soul-wearying, horrific 14-month battle that has challenged everything I believed, experienced or was sure of in my heart. It's been akin to kicking a rock uphill everyday ... in bare feet. Tomorrow the rock should start rolling down the other side.

Tomorrow is only 8 minutes away now and,as highly anticipated as this day has been, I can't help but be scared to death of it ... I guess for now, I have 8 minutes to relax (if I can), to pray (in my fashion) and to call on my angels (just the holy ones please).

calling all angels
calling all angels
we're trying, we're hoping, we're hurting, we're loving
we're crying, we're calling, but we're not sure how this goes

I deserve a win.


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