On Acquiring Things

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What do wine glasses, walking stick, belt, hat, dress, walking sandals, miscellaneous plates and dishes, a nightstand and a chaise lounge all have in common? I acquired all of them (and more) since I’ve moved to Silver City. Moved here less than 30 days ago and commenced my more portable life. Some of this stuff was free, some very cheap from Habitat Re-store, and some, like the Keen sandals, not so cheap. As much as I attempt to curb the all too common trait of acquiring things, I still do it. And I can justify about every item…

When I moved, I left most of my stuff in storage and with friends. I rented a fully furnished apartment. I did have my car loaded when I drove here, and shipped two decent sized boxes. The first arrived fine, the second one looked like it had been thrown from a truck and tumbled down a steep hill. But the stuff inside survived.

As I drove to San Lorenzo for coffee Sunday morning with a friend, Paul, I talked about this crazy acquisition habit. He laughed and said that he has moved A LOT, and he has learned over the years to buy cheap/used/borrowed, and then give it all away when he’s ready to move on. But I did notice that Paul does keep a few beloved possessions. He loves tea, so when we all meet at different friends’ homes for Sunday coffee, he brings his own tea, teapot, and an ancient tea cozy with him. Some things you just can’t give up. I am still trying to figure out what those things are for me.

Postcript: I had a restless night last night with a few things on my mind I don’t know how to approach or resolve. And I am still sorting out the whole acquisition habit. I walked to Carmon’s house in the morning to water her plants while she’s gone for a few days, and these are the messages I saw in the few short blocks to her house. And I thought –my life is so rich with meaning and experience and lovely art, why can’t this be enough? How many material possessions do I really need?

Sitting at the curb by my home...

Escobar's message

And some days, there's a lot of fog...

Morning sun shadow trellis

Silver City: There Is No Accidental Tourism

My dear friend Colleen is coming to visit over Memorial Weekend during the Silver City Blues Festival. Yay! The closest big airport is Tucson (or El Paso if you are coming from the east). Either is a 3-hour drive from Silver City. As one of my new acquaintances who does marketing for the one of the Arts councils said to me ‘There is no accidental tourism. You are coming here for a reason.’ We are in the middle of nowhere. But it is one of the most beautiful ‘nowheres’ I have ever been. After checking out all the travel options, both Colleen and I thought it would be best for her to fly into the small Grant County airport, about 20 miles outside of Silver City.

On Saturday, when I was out exploring the area, I drove past the sign that showed the airport was about 7 miles up the road. Great! I would go and check it out. And this is what I found. I think the pictures speak for themselves. I sent pics to Colleen yesterday. Her response: “This is my kind of airport. No crowds!”  Ha Ha. And yes, the runways are fenced so the cattle don't wander in...

The Bustling Terminal

Ready for take-off!

Welcoming Committee

Do you think she'll get through TSA Security?

Revisiting Water

Water is power. Those who control the water will ultimately control everything. It goes beyond food and food distribution. Because if you don’t have water, forget about the food. I met a young man who moved his family here to live off the grid outside of town. Asher Gelbart. Green Energy Now. You can google him. He was an imaging scientist and optical engineer. Now he runs his small business supporting off the grid living. He gave me his pamphlet and I actually read it. Rainwater harvesting. Domestic solar hot water. Composting toilets. As I wrote in an earlier post, New Mexico is in a severe drought. When I drove to Fort Bayard Monday, I looked around me at the bone-dry, barren landscape. A giant million-acre tinderbox. A few hardy plants and trees scrapped along, with sparse leaves of new green. Many looked like they’ve shut down for the year already, conserving whatever life left deep down in the roots. I don’t know this for a fact. I am not a botanist, or a seasoned veteran of high desert drought conditions. This area usually gets monsoon-like rain in the summer. Last year, not so much. Maybe the landscape changes. I will wait to find out.

But I was struck Monday and yesterday by where I found big swaths of green. The cemetery at Fort Bayard. I said to myself ‘they are watering the dead.’ The Grant County courthouse in Silver City. A majestic structure. The lone golf course southwest of town. The homes of the wealthier residents. A well-tended school playground, fenced against interlopers. Why? Respect? A show of power? Defiance against the arid conditions? I don’t know. But – nature bats last. So we’ll see how this season goes. 

The Best Doors Are the Ones My Friends & Family Walk Through

Living in a small town overflowing with wonderful artists has its deep attraction. Doors, porches, windows, gates – so many bring a smile to my face. I’ll see a high stucco wall enclosing a garden or a courtyard, with a weathered door shut against the outside world and I wonder about what’s on the other side. I like the mystery. I like to imagine what going through that door, or gate or window would be like.

And yes, my friends and family, I am waiting for you to come and visit. Walk through my door.

Buffalo Soldiers & Fort Bayard

Buffalo Soldier Memorial

The reason I drove to Fort Bayard on Monday was to take pics of the statue commemorating the famous Buffalo Soldiers. These were African American men (and some women), most former slaves, who served in the military after the Civil War. The Native Americans were so impressed with their fighting skill, they honored them with the name buffalo soldiers, because their hair resembled that of the buffalo mane. This is a very simplistic explanation, but you get the idea. Of course, my only connection until I read more about this and visited the fort, was the Bob Marley song of the same name. I used to play a lot of Bob Marley when my daughter was learning to walk (which she did, just shy of nine months). I would hold her up and sing “Get up, stand up: stand up for your rights. Get up, stand up: don’t give up the fight.” I think that explains a lot about her personality…

But I digress. Buffalo Soldiers received medals of honor for their bravery. In a hugely ironic twist, so did Apache scouts working for the US military. Then, as one brochure notes, ‘they [the Apaches] were later deemed POW’s and forcibly shipped off to prisons in Florida.’  I have to ask – will we ever get it right?

Fort Bayard, once a well-tended and beautiful post, has become a beautiful ruin. It is mostly a ghost town. When I walked to the statue of the Buffalo Soldier in the middle of the ‘green,’ I saw the hoof prints of a herd of deer in the dirt and gravel. A glorious row of homes, formerly the Officer’s Quarters were abandoned, with the exception of one that housed a museum open a few days a week. The hospital was closed.  A new modern facility was opened in 2010 a mile away. The cemetery was tended. I ran into a young woman in Silver City right after my visit to the fort, and she told me her grandmother was just buried there with her grandfather. So they are still taking in the soldiers and spouses. 

Officer Quarters

I am not a cemetery person. But I drove through, and at a turnaround, a marker caught my eye. It seems that the soldiers that served (the males anyway) have their names engraved on the side facing west. If their wives are buried there, their names are engraved on the east. And I saw a few women soldiers with their names engraved only on the east, with the west side left blank. So when I saw the name and dates on the east facing side of a particular marker, I stopped and walked over to it and took a picture. Her (middle) name was Eileen, and her birth date was May 6^th – the same as mine. Eerie. 

The Portable Cat Universe

I had a meltdown when my cat Phoenix O’Riley was returned back to me a couple of weeks before my move. I had gotten the lease on the apartment in Silver City with the agreement that I would just have a dog with me. I didn’t know if they allowed cats. I knew how much Phoenix hated being in the car. I had carefully planned just how much to take in the car, and it didn’t include a crate, litter box and cat food. Thank goodness for two of my soul sisters, Melanie and Carmon. They talked me off the ledge. I don’t know why this change in my plans flipped so many switches for me. But it did. Phoenix (or Pheenie, as I usually call her) is a great cat. She’s nine. She’s an affectionate stone cold killer of rodents, lizards and occasional birds. She survived on her own in Eugene, Oregon for nearly 3 months, running away from her new home after the first disastrous attempt to adopt her out.

Of course, my new landlords said it would be fine to bring her along. And everything fit in the car. She even stopped meowing incessantly during the drive. As I mentioned in an earlier post, during my 3 ½ day drive to Silver City, I was reading Jill Kelly’s wonderful novel, The Color of Longing, and one of her characters, Jake, was on a long road trip with his cat. It made me smile. It made me feel that my trip with Pheenie would work out just fine. Like Indy, she too is along for the ride, and where ever it takes us.

“I’m here and I brought my body with me.” Alfred North Whitehead

Photo by Amor Aggari

Or, as a friend of my ex-husband’s once told him, “Where ever you go, there you are.” No matter how portable you make your life, you’ve still got your body to deal with. To feed it, and care for it, and make it last you a lifetime. Before I left Portland, I went to a really good orthopedic surgeon to get my sore, creaky knees checked out. They had been a bother for about, oh, two or three decades. But I couldn’t ignore their protests any longer. I told the excellent surgeon that I did not want surgery and that might be hard for him because (and yes, I did say this to him), when all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail.

He told me how to mitigate the damage. #1 – lose more weight. Ahhh, I had already lost 30 lbs over the past year, and planned to lose 10 more. “How much?” I asked, smiling and thinking I had it covered.  He said twenty pounds. Damn and double damn. Ten was reachable; twenty would be tough. I wiped the smug smile off my face. I knew he was right. All I have to do is lug a 20 lb. bag of dog food up a set of stairs and I know how my knees feel about that. #2 – go to a physical therapist and get some exercises that would strengthen the muscles and ligaments so my patellas would track properly.

So I dutifully went (once) to a physical therapist, and got a list of exercises. And then my most fabulous trainer in Portland, Lily-Rygh Glen, insisted that I actually do them! (Check Lily-Rygh out if you live in Portland. I’ve played sports and worked with a lot of trainers and coaches over 40+ years, and she is the best of them all. Her website is: flexiblefitnesspdx.com.)

When I packed the most precious things to take with me to Silver City, I included some important papers and notebooks. Well, as I was flipping through one of my notebooks yesterday, out dropped the list of exercises I am supposed to be doing. So Lily-Rygh, in your honor, I have posted them up in my fridge, and will keep them in mind…

I’m not being totally lazy. I’ve only driven my car a few times since I got in town. I walk everywhere on crazy cobbled, bricked, cemented and broken sidewalks. And as I told someone recently, they all seem to be going uphill. But it feels so good to walk. I am getting used to the nearly 6,000 feet elevation.  I am also doing some yoga, Qigong, and strength training classes. Carmon, who is much older than I am, is kicking my ass in all of them. And she is going to kick my ass some more if she reads the much older comment. But that’s what friends are for, right? Right?

The Things I Cannot Fix

Some days my heart gets broken about the things I cannot fix, or prevent or change. So I look for the things I can do, not matter how small or inconsequential in the grand scheme of things. It’s at least something. I volunteered Sunday afternoon to help clean up and re-paint the door trim at the old Silco Theater on Bullard, the main street of Silver City. A small thing.  And eventually the paint will fade and peel or be gone over with another color, but it still made me feel like I made something a little better and a littler brighter. And some days, that has to be good enough. 

Work in Progress

Done!

I Almost Bought a House

If you scroll down to the beginning of my posts, and perhaps even read the name of this blog, you will most likely get the correct impression that I am trying to have a very portable life. Reduce possessions. So what the hell was I thinking? Looking at a lovely old adobe house for sale in Silver’s historic district? Falling in love with it’s potential? Calling my financial advisor and asking how much it would screw up my carefully planned financial future if I bought this thing. He listened patiently and said he would get back to me with numbers. I texted my daughter, whose insights and opinions often belie her tender age of 24. Of course, I called Melanie, and she reminded me that I had been here only one week. I called Denise, another of my soul sisters, and she listened patiently. And Carmon was with me when I did a walk through with the real estate agent, mercifully tactful and holding off giving any opinion.

I think I wanted to buy the house, because it’s what I know. I know how to do that. I’ve owned homes since 1984. When I got divorced after 20+ years of marriage, all I wanted to do was be married again. Because it was what I knew. I didn’t know how to navigate otherwise, because I had never been on my own before. Luckily, after my divorce, I dated a bunch of lovely commit-a-phobic men. And a bunch of totally unsuitable other men, but that’s another story.

I thought about a lot of things that evening and into the night. I thought about the fact that my brother inherited the family home after our dad passed away last year. My parents totally planned the right thing. My brother is very happy with the house. I would have been miserable, and even more so if we had to share the property and make joint decisions, etc. Here’s how happy my brother was: When I visited him there after the property cleared probate and papers were signed, he hopped up from the chair he was sitting in and stood in front of the TV where the Detroit Red Wings were kicking somebody’s ass. And he said to me, “I have only two rules in my house. The first rule is that I make all the rules. The second rule is that there is no changing the first rule.”  We both laughed hysterically. He is a damn funny guy. But that is one of the things about owning a property. There’s a huge limit on what people can tell you what you can do in your own home, like having cats and dogs. At least, that’s the illusion I hold onto.

And I thought about dolphins and whales. Really, I did. There’s a part of me that thinks dolphins and whales are more evolved that humans. They have relinquished all their material fixations, returned to the oceans, and travel with a spiritual enlightenment that we can only hope for in one of our next iterations.

And I thought about my other small attempt at a portable life, when I traveled cross-country in my Jeep. I tried to write about that then, but it didn’t work for me. I have my brother partially to blame (ha ha) for that. When I stopped in Michigan on my journey, he asked me one evening how my writing was going. I said it was going okay. He paused for a moment, then, in a deadpan voice said,

“Chapter One: Saw a hitchhiker. Kept driving.

Chapter Two: Saw a dead deer. Kept driving.”

Then he walked out of the room. I told you he was goddamn funny.

But what stopped me cold and made me drop the whole idea of home ownership was this: The thought of owning again, having responsibility for a house, killed my desire to write. In just a few short hours, my compulsion to write, the joy I felt about writing again was wiped out. Gone. And it terrified me. I could not let that happen.

I waited till a decent time the next morning to call the real estate agent, and told her not to put any more effort into getting some answers to questions I posed. I wasn’t going to buy the house. I called my financial advisor and left him a similar message. I texted my daughter(who never responded to my text from the day before) and told her my sanity had been restored. Her response: “Hah figured I’d let u sleep on it lol.” Which is a good summation of what everyone else responded back to me.

One last thing about home ownership and material possessions  - This brings great joy and comfort to many. It gives a wonderful sense of belonging and grounding and security. I see that in my brother and my friends. I am happy for them. It also means I have place to store the crap I haven’t released yet. (Thank you Melanie…) These days, it has a polar opposite effect on me. I don’t know why. It doesn’t matter. It works for me.

(I am including a picture here that I received recently from Carmon. I am probably breaking some copyright law, but I am including it anyway. I hope it makes you smile.)

Did You Say Coffee?

Not only do I have an amazing apartment to live in, I am right next door to a darling little coffee shop, Three Dogs. It will never take the place of First Cup Coffeehouse in Portland, with it’s fabulous Stumptown coffee (and it’s even more fabulous crew), but the best compensating factor is this: When I get up in the morning and let the dog and cat out to my little patio garden, I am greeted with the heavenly aroma of freshly baked cinnamon rolls. It takes a lot of willpower to not scramble over the 6-foot fence that separates our space, or rush around the corner in through their front door and scarf one down. I wish I could send you a picture of that smell.

And speaking of coffee, I am hosting a bunch of people over for coffee at my place this coming Sunday (tomorrow). People I hardly know, but who are a part of my friend Carmon’s circle. They gather every Sunday at someone’s house and catch up with each other. It’s a fascinating group of people in this town. Intellectuals, artists, vagabonds, settlers. I attended the first of these Sunday coffees last week, and we sat high up the hill on Sixth St in the front yard of Ed’s apartment, looking east into the morning sun. And in this vast clear high desert air, you could see for miles and miles and miles. Anyway, this coming Sunday, I will quell my faint hostess jitters with the knowledge that I will hear many interesting stories. And you know I love stories.

The Walmart Bumper Sticker

I saw this bumper sticker on a car the other day – Walmart – Destroying Main Street One Small Town At A Time.  There is nothing I can say that hasn’t already been said, and said much better. Silver City has a Walmart. I refuse to shop there. Others have told me the impact on this town, and I can see it for myself. That’s why Carmon and I drove to Deming, fifty miles away, to shop for a damn bathmat for me. Don’t worry, we took Carm’s Prius, and we combined several errands in one trip, including a stop at the winery. But I have to ask, again, why it costs so much more to do the right thing.

This One is for Kenny, My Favorite Metal Man

I love it when art and craft combine. See that wine rack? I saw it for sale at the St. Clair winery just east of the town of Deming. So simple, but so cool.  I also love art with no utilitarian purpose whatsoever. Like the beam and rock sculpture I saw on my way to the Habitat Re-Store (where I got 4 wine glasses for a buck).

When I first moved to Portland, Oregon, I was surprised and delighted on a daily basis with the random art I encountered. I feel the same way about Silver City. What a gift.

Mona Lisa & Billy the Kid

I met Mona Lisa and Billy the Kid on the sidewalk the other day. Such a perfect a pair. Silver City is loaded with wonderful artists of every kind. Galleries abound. Street art is everywhere. But Silver City was once part of the Wild West. I think it still is. Billy the Kid grew up here. So what better representation than Mona and Billy for this amazing little high desert town?

The Portable Dog Universe

On Monday, I got the X-Rays for my dog Indy. They were mailed from my vet’s office in Portland. About a week before pulling up stakes and heading to Silver City, I got the bad news that Indy had what appeared to be a tumor on his lower left lung. He had been hacking and coughing that old man cough for a few weeks, and I could no longer wish it away. When the vet told me, I told him my train was already pulling out of the station, so to speak. He said that surgery would be required to determine whether the growth was cancerous, etc. But he also said that Indy seemed good enough to travel. He would mail me the X-Rays after I got settled in. I made the decision right then to take Indy along. Other than the hacking cough and huffing and puffing, he’s in pretty good shape for an old mutt. He traveled just fine. He’s a good car dog. He’s adapted well to our new home. I’ve got some dog Robitussin for when the cough gets bad at night.

I slapped the X-Rays up against the windows of my apartment overlooking the main street. I wanted to take a second look to see if I could see anything different than the vet or animal radiologist could see. What I saw instead was life through the filter of my beloved dog. It always comes in layers like that, doesn’t it?

I don’t know what I am going to do yet. I love this dog. When Indy had another surgery a month before we left Portland, I told them not to biopsy a growth that was removed from his leg. I didn’t want to know if it was cancerous, because I made the decision earlier that I would not go the route of further surgeries and chemo with him because it would only take a longer time to reach an inevitable outcome. He’s an old man, a starved down old dog rescued from the streets of New Orleans a year after he and so many other animals were forcibly abandoned after Hurricane Katrina hit. For the last seven years with me, Indy’s lived a very good life. Except, perhaps, the time the post-man peppered sprayed him when he got loose and chased him down the street.

So we will just take it a day at a time. Indy’s along for the ride. There are good vets in this town too. I’m sure I’ll be making their acquaintance eventually.

The Preciousness of Water

In a recent news article, ranking the state for the worst current drought conditions, New Mexico came in third, behind Nebraska and Kansas. The folks living in Silver City don’t need a news article to know this. They feel it and see it every day. I find it hugely ironic that I moved from the great drenched Pacific Northwest to a place where I save my dishpan water and cart it out to my little patio garden to water the few hardy plants that refuse to acquiesce.  I would love to wash the road dust and bug splatter off my car (really!) but will wait a bit longer to take it to the car wash up the road – until I can no longer see through the windshield, or tell the original paint color. This stuff takes a much lower priority in this town. I feel, well, almost virtuous.

Yesterday we had very high winds coming from the southwest, leading in a cold front. The forecasters hinted at the possibility of rain, and lo and behold, it did rain. When I got up this morning to let the cat and dog out, the patio chairs were wet. The ground was wet. I saw puddles. I looked up the to clouded sky and felt a cold mist on my face. Lovely. And I’m glad I haven’t washed my car yet.

And another note on water, or lack of it. I love my apartment. It’s filled with light and space and hardwood floors and has a patio garden. See the pics. Now I want you to take a careful look at the one of the bathtub. See the showerhead? It’s a showerhead that only Peter Dinklage would love. (Game of Thrones fans, you know what I mean.) It hits me just around the ribcage. And just be happy I didn’t take a picture of me standing in the shower. I have to kneel to wash my hair. Well, to wash everything. The water pressure is low, and the water dribbles out in spits and spurts. If I wanted to fill the tub for a bath, the water would be cold before I could sink in and soak. I guess I can’t have everything.

How It Started...

A few years ago, as I was leaving my house with a friend, and locking the door behind us, I laughed and said something like ‘that will really stop someone from getting in and taking something if they really want it bad enough.’ My friend looked at me and said ‘the way I really see it, if my wife and children are out of our house, it could burn to the ground and I wouldn’t look back.’ Aha. Right priority. To me anyway.

It’s taken me years to move more and more towards less ownership and possessions. Of being so responsible for it all.  I moved from San Diego to Portland in 2005. I got rid of a lot of stuff then. I drove cross-country a few years later in an old boxy maroon Jeep named Conan, seeing how it would feel to live in my moving portable universe. I learned a lot. I still stayed in hotels or with friends and family, but I learned about keeping my possessions to a minimum. Then last spring, in the midst of many life changes, I drove up to the front of my darling little cottage and didn’t see the lovely rhododendrons in bloom or how fresh the wind smelled blowing through the trees. I saw only the number of weeds that had to be pulled. And that the front porch deck needed to be re-stained. And a fence board repaired. That’s it, I thought. I’m selling the house. It was so clear. I was done with home ownership. I had owned homes since 1984. I was done with it.

The house sold by July, and I rented a 500 square foot ramshackle teardown cottage. My brother nicknamed it “The Palace.” It was cute. It was small. And it was a temporary stopover while I thought about my next move.

During the long wet winter in Portland that moved into to the long wet early spring, I decided to head to Silver City, New Mexico. Population: 10,280. Elevation: 5,895 feet. Town with the closest movie theater: Deming, NM - about 50 miles away. No Thai food restaurants. But sunny and temperate in a high desert way. And loaded with artists and intellectuals, along with a very good little university. It is also home to one of my dearest friends and soul sisters. I made a three-month apartment rental commitment to try it out, and put nearly everything I owned in storage. I mailed two boxes of stuff to my friend in Silver City, and loaded up my car with everything I didn’t want to live without – some clothes, some linens, favorite coffee mugs, spices, books and journals, and of course, the dog and the cat. And all their stuff. They had more than me. Really.

I didn’t expect to be traveling with a cat. And my few trial runs with her in the car around Portland were not exactly enjoyable, for her or me. I tried all kinds of natural calming remedies, and finally graduated to Valium that my vet prescribed. He did say that if it didn’t work on the cat, I should take it, and then I wouldn’t care so much about the cat’s agitation…

The hardest part about leaving Portland, the very hardest part, was moving away from one of my other dear friends and soul sisters, and from all the other wonderful friends I had made there in the 7+ years. I promised them all I would be back. I just didn’t know when and for how long, and where I would make my base home. It will reveal itself over time.

It took me 3 ½ days to drive from Portland to Silver City, about 1650 miles. I had an epiphany about 2 weeks before I left that I didn’t have to drive 600 miles a day. I could drive 400 to 480 miles a day and have a much better time of it. Based on other long road trips I taken over the last few years, I knew 600 miles was about my top end. But on those trips I had not taken along a dog, or a cat that never stopped meowing.

Here’s a recap of my trip edited from emails I sent to friends from the road.

Day 1:  “Well, it started it off so lovely. A fine cup of morning coffee with friends at First Cup before I hit the road.  In the first hundred miles with a bit too much in the car (even though I thought I'd planned it well), and Phoenix the cat crying most of the way, my tire pressure warning light went on... Damn! So I found a Les Schwab Tire Center in Eugene and pulled in. They checked and it's the same tire that went flat on New Year's Eve, then again 6 weeks ago. They assured me it was fine when I double-checked this past Wednesday. NOT. And you may all think it's Easter weekend, but it's really "Oh shit, I have to get my studded tires off my car before the April 1 deadline" holiday - so the Les Schwab was swamped. But the guys were great, and they got me out of there with a new tire in about 1½ hours. Not bad, all things considered. Fast-forward 200 miles. Phoenix has stopped her incessant crying, just occasionally giving a half-hearted meow. It was actually pretty relaxing and then….

Yes, you've got it! The tire pressure light goes on again about 25 miles north of Yreka, CA. I call the Les Schwab in Eugene and get the address for the Les Schwab in Yreka. I pull off the highway about 10 miles north of Yreka (middle of nowhere, but very scenic) to see if I've got a bad tire. Nothing discernible. So on I drive hoping to make it to town.

I pull into the Yreka Les Schwab, and lo and behold they are celebrating the same studded tire removal holiday! The darling young man does a quick check and confirms that it's the new tire that is perilously low on air. Shit and double shit. So they squeeze me into the crazy schedule, and figure out that the tire is fine, but the tire stem is leaking. Thank goodness that was all it was! About 40 minutes later I'm on my way. 130 miles to Red Bluff and my hotel. And I'm a bit tired by now.

I make it to Red Bluff and my little motel. What do you know? A Les Schwab Tire center is a half-mile down the road. Just in case.  :) I unload the animals, their food bin, Phoenix's litter box, my suitcase, back pack, animal blankets, food satchel and get settled in. The good news? Neither animal has peed, crapped or barfed in the car. How lucky can a woman get? Phoenix had been saving up, so to speak, and used her litter box right away. Score 1 point for her. So I leave her in the motel room, load Indy, my dog, back in the car, and drive (literally) across the street to a wonderful little family steak restaurant. (Indy cannot be left alone in a hotel room. He would panic and I don’t want to pay the bill for that mess!) The restaurant does a great job with steaks, has a nice salad bar, and serves a very decent merlot. Oh happy day! And they start breakfast at 7 a.m. The hostess swears their coffee is fantastic. I'll be back in the morning.

So that's the first day. We all survived. Even the damn cat. Next stop, Valencia, CA. I'll do my best to check in then. “

Day 2: “Today was pretty uneventful. It was the longest mileage day, but still very doable. So I am settled into my hotel room in Valencia, CA. Phoenix had a decently calm time of it, as did Indy. On to Tempe, AZ in the morning. I want to leave early and do most of the drive before noon, as it will be hot on the road.

P.S. Question: What’s worse than the huge highway-laden urban sprawl of Los Angeles? Answer: Nothing.”

Day 3: “Easter Sunday.  I am sitting poolside with Indy in Tempe, AZ, sipping on a Marguerita, having just finished a huge and very decent Cobb salad. Indy especially liked the turkey, avocado and hard cooked egg. Yes, he is spoiled. And he still can't be left alone in the hotel room. Phoenix is ok with it. And speaking of the Pheenster...

A few days before I left, darling Patricia gave me a little canary toy for Phoenix that chirped like a little chick. Peep, peep, peep when she was disturbed, tapped or shaken. And she gave me a small bag of catnip too, hoping this would help with the kitty jitters. Don't worry Melanie, I have your full bag of catnip as a backup. You know, the one you handed me in the coffee shop that looked like a giant baggie of weed... ;)

Anyway, I presented the canary peeper to Phoenix a few days before we left on our trip. She loved it! She threw it around the house with wild abandon. In fact, she was so excited and inspired by it, she went out and killed and ate another small bird. This I know because I had to clean up the feathers and one tiny bird leg that she failed to eat. After I walked on it in the bathroom, of course.

As I may have mentioned earlier, Phoenix started settling down on the trip about halfway thru the first day. She only meowed or yowled thereafter when we hit a particularly rough patch of freeway, or moved around a sharp curve, or when we stopped occasionally so Indy and I could pee and stretch our legs. Before we left I threw the little peeper chick in her crate, thinking she might like it. But she's basically ignored it. I am reminded however, on a regular basis, that the chick is still with us because it too chirps when we hit rough pavement, a curve or a bump. So I have a chorus from the crate. The canary and the cat. Odd bedfellows. Or rather, odd cratefellows. I become oblivious to bumps in the road, or tight curves. So I smile when I hear the peeps and meows from the back seat that bring me back to the present moment. It is actually a welcome sound.

Okay, enough. The temp has dropped from 87 to about 84 degrees now. The sun is starting to go down. Families are gathering up their kids and damp towels from the pool and heading back to their rooms. The breeze has picked up a bit. I think I'll sign off for the day, read a few pages of Jill Kelly's newly published book (The Color of Longing - it's excellent Jill!!! - everyone should read it!!) - and when the light gets too low, I'll head back to my room and get ready for the last day of travel. Silver City is 307 miles away. I will be on the road by 7:30, and hopefully be there between and 1 and 2 p.m. New Mexico is an hour ahead of the West coast.”

Day 4: “I made it. I’m here in Silver City. We all survived the road trip. And so begins the next adventure.”

Let's try this again!

Being a complete dweeb, I'm going to start this blog again. And this time I really mean it. So here we go. April 2013, Silver City, New Mexico. But first, I'll step back a bit and describe the journey here.