Looking for Reds

From West Texas, through New Mexico and Arizona, and into California, I did a photo scavenger hunt for reds.

A memorable assignment I was given in a photography class taught by Trish Simonite many years ago: shoot a whole roll of 35mm  film in which you focus on one particular color.  I chose blue.

Looking for blues made me more attentive to the varieties of blue.  I wrote about Trish's assignment earlier in this blog: the way that choosing one thing to look for makes me look at everything more closely.

Today my yoga teacher said, "What we do on the mat is practice for what we do off the mat."  Same with writing. Writing--like photography and painting--is an exercise in looking.

Happy Thanksgiving, All!

I love the sound of wind and rain, novelties to us Texans.  We sometimes wear jackets on Thanksgiving, but we just as often wear none.  This year promises to be a jacket-wearing day, and we'll be spending it in Helotes, not far from where Will and Day grew up. My small city yard is carpeted with brown pecan tree leaves.

Carlene wakes up and tells me her dream at the same moment I am telling her mine from the room next door.  She woke up laughing this morning, as she had attempted to do some fraud selling cars in the night.

Yesterday I read the first half of Janet Penley's book to her, Goodnight, Irene, and she loved it!  We are about to read the second half, then I'm going to yoga class.

We've watched all but one of series 2 of Call the Midwife to get ready for Season 3 in January--it's wonderful series.   We saw About Time at the Kate-Sandy-Linda triple play birthday party; and we've spent time with Will and Veronica and Elena.  Tomorrow Nathan comes home. When guests come to the Pritchett house, Elena looks out the window and says who it is, then "Hold me"--because she knows that whoever it is will want to hold her!

I am thankful for all my friends and family close and faraway--wishing you all a very Happy Thanksgiving!

Elena likes this car as much as the Mini….

We got the windows tinted today--with some tint that's supposed to block ultraviolet rays.

Elena liked the car, she told me so.  "Pretty!" she said.

But Elena's first love (materially speaking) is shoes.  Shiny boots, Mary Janes, walking shoes--she had quite a collection lined up at Ross Dress for Less this morning. 

Bras and Shoes

A few years ago, I said to a friend, "I hate wearing bras!"

"Maybe you're wearing the wrong size," she said.

For decades, I'd been wearing the same 34B bras and six-and-a-half-sized shoes.  It hadn't occurred to me that those sizes might have changed.  Instead of moving up to a  larger size (duh!)  I had graduated to those stretchy bras you pull over your head and leave red marks when you pull them back off.

"Thirty-eight double what???" I asked, with genuine shock, when the bra fitter announced a new number. No wonder I'd had such an aversion to bras. "Here, let me see that measuring tape!"

Alas, she was right.

I remembered that day at the lingerie store today because I visited a shoe store called Fleet Feet.  I'd just taken a walk with Freda and had grimaced all the way home. I've complained for years that walking shoes are pinchy.  My feet are claustrophobic and very unhappy in lace up shoes.  I thought everyone's were.

The nice man at Fleet Feet didn't x-ray my feet the way shoe store clerks did when I was ten,  but he measured them on a metal thing, toe to heel,  side to side. "You need an 8 1/2 in walking shoes," he said.  Who knew?  (Did you all know that and just forgot to tell me?)

When my feet entered those shoes, however, they felt something akin to euphoria. I think I may be right on the verge of becoming a walker!  (This is a good thing because I have to keep up with Carlene next week….)

Cotton socks are passé. The socks real walkers wear are $12 a pair (I bought a pair to check them out.) And if you need arch supports, you just slide them into the shoe, easy as pie.

If it's true of bras and shoes, maybe there are other ways I am trying to fit who I am now into who I used to be?

A first "I love you!"

Will just called to arrange to pick me up at Gunn Honda tomorrow at 8:30--and from there, I'll be going to Helotes to spend the day with Elena while he does house and yard chores.

I could hear Elena in the background asking, "Yenna?  Daddy!  Yenna?"

Then she got on the phone and told me what I'm sure was a very funny story--though I couldn't decipher all the words, only the giggles.

"I love you," I said.

"I yuv you," she said!

What a happy day!

I'm loving my new wheels--all four of them and the spare--AND the car atop the wheels.  No more midnight towing adventures to tell you about!

Carlene is coming on Friday for twelve good days, and we'll be spending the first part of Thanksgiving with Will and Veronica and family, then going to Kate's for dessert.

Day and Tom and family are arriving on December 26th, then I'm flying to Atlanta to spend a few days with family and friends there to bring in the New Year. Knowing me, I'll blog about that too.  I love blogging almost as much as driving.

I wish you all a very happy Thanksgiving!

I chose a Honda CRV--turquoise!

New car day is fun!

This car, this color--just exactly right for me!  When I took my things out of the Mini, there was the hint of a tear, I must admit--only because it holds so many happy memories and because it's the end of what Jerri calls my "Mini Fling."  It's always like that at the end of a fling, isn't it?  You know it's time to move on, but you take with you all the memories.

By the time, Mike had put my license plate cover on the CRV, however, the one Carlene bought for me in Ruidoso last year when we did our road trip, the hint of tears had passed and I installed angels on the bumpers for the new driver of the Mini and said farewell. 

The Honda is great, and the Gunn Honda dealership is the one I'll use if and when I ever trade.  The people are low-key and friendly and they offer free chair massages while you get service.  How good can it get?

It takes a village for some people (me) to buy a car.  A great big thank you to all of you who offered suggestions!  

Cars and Me

Cars used to be just cars, a way to get from one place to another.
By now, some of those just-cars have turned vintage, like me.

For the past decade, as close as I could to a vintage car was the retro-looking Mini Cooper, scoring off the charts on the Cuteness Factor. I didn't do a minute of research, I just interviewed every Mini driver I could find: "Do you like your car?" I asked.  "I love it!" they all said.

And so did I.  Three times.

The first Mini was like any first love, unforgettable and sweet.  Decorated with a border of flags, Mini #1 introduced me to people I'd never have met in a less-cute car.

"Sweet ride!" a teenager once said.
"What is that some kind of foreign car or what?" a man in Alabama once asked.
"I bet I could put your car in the back of my truck," teased a man at McDonalds.

Six years ago, stuck in a ditch in Pennsylvania, I heard two teenagers (who appeared out of nowhere) say, "Don't worry, Lady, we'll pick up your little car and get you going again."

One day, another customer at the Mini Center crashed into Little Mini #1's boot and….well, I was fickle enough to trade for a new one, the prettiest one ever, turquoise.

Kate says the turquoise one had a target on her.  Three different drivers collided into her while I was sitting still.  Each time, we patched her up and moved on.  But when I got the news that Elena was coming into the world, I worried about the car, the baby, and the target, and traded her in on a larger one, the white Countryman.

I have now decided (Gulp!)  to trade Big Minnie for a Newbie.  It's been a hard decision to leave the club of Mini drivers who wave at each other when we meet, but the time is right.

The Cuteness Factor is not one of  Consumer Reports' rating categories.  They talk about maneuverability, reliability, cost to maintain, and engine performance.

"Do you want to look under the hood?" salesmen ask.
"No," I say. "Why?  What for?  Let me see how the doors open, how quiet the ride is.  I'm interested in color, body design, safety, and comfort." I feel like I'm placing ads in a dating service.

My first car-of-my-own was a 1990 Acura Integra--turquoise. I loved that car!  But now--what with the cookie cutter mentality of car designers--I'd be hard pressed to tell the difference between an Acura and any other car.

A decade later, that adorable little Integra started having cooling problems. So in 1999, I bought a reliable and comfortable Camry, a sedan that was trouble free except for being dinged by several errant shopping carts.

I am now, for the first time, doing serious research--unlike former purchases that were totally love-driven.  I am learning to consider responsiveness, agility, and sensitivity--qualities some of us might have done well to consider when we once upon a time promised "til death to us part" with actual people.

I wonder: would any of us ever have married if we'd had the Internet to tally up the points of attractiveness of our potential partners--or ourselves?  Would any of us have picked a person for a friend whose likability score was only 60? At my age, I won't even talk about the depressing depreciation factor!

Angels on bumpers, angels angels everywhere

By Joy Hein

Yesterday, my birthday continued--with this beautiful angel by Joy!

Makes me want to write another book, so this can be the cover art!

Yesterday was a spontaneous party all day.  Joy brought crustless quiche and almond bread to go with my carrot soup.  Yummy day, yummy food!  Will brought Elena and she joined us for lunch and visiting with the "nice" (Elena said) dogs across the street who bark at her, bark at everybody.  Fortunately they are behind a fence, but she likes dogs, all dogs, and could probably stare down the meanest of them.

Sandy came and brought a smoothie and some delicious gluten-free bars, and I just had me a "cashew cookie" that's going to be my new Reese's replacement. 

And the Winner Is….

Just about anything we can think of is rated or starred or "Liked" on Facebook.  Anybody can laud or rip apart a book on Amazon with a few clicks on their keyboard. Polls measure and report every dip and rise of approval ratings.

The minute results are in on election night, we start strategizing about the four-years-from-now election.  If this guy wins the governor's race, it bodes well for his party down the road. If this one loses, his or her whole party is in mortal danger. The whole country is constantly in contest mode.

Sometimes I have this fantasy: Right in the middle of a political debate, the man on the left "likes" something said by the woman on the right--or vice versa.  "Hey, that's a good idea!" she says--to the stunned amazement of everyone on the stage and out there in TV Land. Surely, sometimes, even a crusty politician hears a phrase from the other side that he could like, just a little?  Enough to start a conversation?

Or what if the camera turned away from the mud-slinging and zoomed in on a big blue bear in the audience, a bear wearing an expression of Zen-like amusement at the whole thing, a joy so big, so infectious, so untouched by Super-Anythings, that in the wink of a flashbulb, the whole assembly would instantly know: we've found our winner.  I'm going to write in Big Blue Bear on my next ballot.

Where is Home?

Nathan and Elena

Will and Veronica dated in high school and for a while in college.  I still have the pictures of us all at their high school graduation in 1997.

Thirteen years later, when they found each other again, she was single again and so was Will.  When we met Nathan, her then-three-year-old son, we all fell in love with him, too.

When Will, Elena and I picked up Nathan from first grade yesterday, he told us proudly that he'd had a "green day."  A Green Day is a day when you get no bad marks for behavior, when you don't "mess around,"  and when you don't talk to your neighbors.  "And," he said, "I have about a hundred best friends."

It's hard to get a Green Day when you have a hundred best friends.

Nathan introduced me to the bus monitor: "This is Elena's best friend," he said. "And she's my….my step….my daddy's…I mean, my stepfather's…my Will's…mother."

When we got home, we played Run From the Monster.  The Monster--according to Nathan--has five heads, an eye in each head, and snakes for hair.  Elena was the farmer, Nathan was the helicopter pilot, and I was the rescue person.  (Nathan was in charge of casting.)

I didn't rescue anybody.  But if I ever run into the particular monster, I'll be heroic, I'm sure, and rescue the helicopter pilot and the farmer.

I meet memorable men everywhere I go!

The Journey West

Began in 1967, when I left home in Georgia and moved to San Antonio.  I was an eighteen-year-old bride and had no clue what Texas would be like; I pictured cowboys and hitching posts and saloons.

In the first two years, we lived on three tree-named streets: Magnolia, Mistletoe, and Huisache.  What I remember most about those years is going to college, learning to cook and walking to the phone booths to call home, collect.  We had no phone, no TV.

Because of a terrible crime spree in the city, we moved to Helotes: a small town on the outskirts of San Antonio.  We rented a stone house on a 64-acre piece of land, complete with a motorcycle track and a creek.   Both my children, Day and Will, were born when we lived in that house, and we could hear Willie Nelson singing (before he was famous) from our porch.  We'd traded all our wedding silver for a dog, Tony, a forever playful German Shepherd.

After 28 years of marriage, I divorced and moved back into San Antonio--to what was then a rent house, and is now--thanks to my parents--my permanent home. It's not far from those three tree-named streets.  Just today, I got a haircut a few houses from the house we lived in on Huisache--the house we left to avoid the crime spree of 1969.  Our friends across the alley were not as lucky.  When I walk or drive past those houses, I can almost see younger versions of ourselves through the windows.

The plan was to move back to Georgia.  The plan was to build a cabin in the mountains of North Georgia.  The plan was to be near family and friends.  But those things never happened.  Every time we left Georgia and headed west, I'd cry for miles.  Finally, one day, Carlene said, "You're not going to move back here; you might as well make Texas your home."

As I drive around this city, and as I meet with friends--as I did tonight, going with Kate to see Twelve Years a Slave after eating at Tip Tops--I encounter memories on almost every street.  The old Woodlawn Theater, we passed tonight, was where we went to see "art films" in the Sixties.  The Bijou--where Kate and I saw the movie--is in the mall that used to be called Wonderland (where I went on the day I learned I was pregnant, 1971, to buy a yellow musical elephant that played "You Are My Sunshine." It's also where we sold silver spoons to buy a dog.)

When you "might as well" make a place your home, when you shift your energy from an original dream to a new one, you absorb the new place into your cells, your memories.  You know your way around.  It talks to you.

The Two Grandmother Witches on Ogden Lane

This has been a fun week--with Halloween, a birthday party, a porch wine party at Jan's,  and an All Souls' Day Art Show.  And watching The Paradise on Masterpiece.  Here we are, Jan and I, trick or treating with all the other kids on our street. 

The witches' brew has renewed my energy and I'm ready to fly!