East Texas Thursday Night

Hutto, Texas, is the first town on Highway 79.  The downtown is beautiful, but nearly deserted.  We love old towns like Hutto! (The town mascot is a hippo--and you see them all over town.)

We stopped in for a glass of tea at the Texas Cafe and had the hands-down most delicious slice of apple pie either of us has ever had.   We're wishing now we'd bought a whole pie.

Then we stopped at a vintage shop in Taylor--where I bought a poster for writing group and a vintage yard stick for my yard stick collection, out of which I'm planning to make something.

One of the saleswomen gave us a present from a customer who had just left--Isabel from the newspaper.  Mike had struck up a conversation with her and she bought us a cookie and had it gift-wrapped.

A few miles down the road, I said, "I wish I had bought two more yardsticks," and Mike turned around and went back and bought them for me!

We had boiled crawfish for dinner and Mike's fingers are tired from peeling the pound--but oh, my Gosh, they were delicious!

Both of us are exhausted from our month-long construction project, so we've stopped at a motel here in Jewett, Texas--a place Mike stayed in November and liked.

Tomorrow will be a long day on the road--and today has been wonderful!

Kate Mulgrew interview

http://thedianerehmshow.org/shows/2015-04-27/kate-mulgrew-born-with-teeth

So far, I've only heard a portion of this interview, but it was fascinating, and I want to hear the whole program and read her memoir.

Kate Mulgrew is the actress who played Red in Orange is the New Black.

It takes a village

Refurbishing a little garage apartment takes a village.

Thanks to Edward, the painter; Elver, the electrician; and Mike--the end is in sight. I can hardly wait to get back from my multiple trips to Lowe's to listen to their man-banter.  Until today, I thought conversations among men might be competitive, maybe even show-offy.

Edward does everything but electricity--due to seeing his cousin electrocuted once on a job site.  "I saw him die right before my eyes," he says.

"That's why you don't ever see any old, bad electricians!" Mike says--which makes Electrician Elver laugh.

When Edward sees the bright green-apple paint I've chosen for the kitchen, he asks, "Are you sure you're not tripping back on the Sixties?"  Then he tells Mike, "I know Linda--she likes bright colors.  I've been painting for her for years."

They tease each other and joke around all day.  When Edward sees Mike's collection of CDs. they talk about soul music.  Edward literally re-enacts (like a one-man show) the times he went to Black Baptist Churches when he was a boy.  "I was the only Mexican kid there.  Everybody asks, 'Whose kid is that?' and they treat me like a king.  I mean fried chicken, macaroni and cheese, pee-can pie, cherry pie, you name it.  When I hear that music I try not to cry, but I have goosebumps all over my arms."

We tell him about Greater Hope Church in Georgia and the music we love there.  Mike tells him that he's met B.B. King, Jerry Lee Lewis, and Elvis

Edward is about to cry just thinking about being the only "Mexican Catholic" in a little Black Baptist Church on the East Side.

They talk about wrestling, music, what it was like being young.  They talk about their parents, especially their fathers.  Every once in a while, Edward or Mike will just start dancing to the music playing on the Bose.  Edward and I talk about our friend Julianne who died suddenly in October, and how we miss her.

At the end of his wiring job, after working two days with Mike, the Columbian electrician said to Mike, "I love you, my friend" and they hug each other.

Maybe men's conversations are not as different from women's as I'd originally thought.  They part hugging and thanking each other for good work.  They aren't afraid to show tears or say, "I love you, my friend."

Tracks

The installation of electrical things slowed us down today, so we have another day of work tomorrow. We decided tonight to watch a movie Freda recommended, saying "It makes WILD look like a walk in the park."  True.

The book, Wild, I loved; the movie, not so much.
Tracks was a much better movie--the true story of a woman who hiked 2000 miles across Australia with camels and black lab.

The best thing about writing a blog is

The emails from those of you who are reading it--recommending related books on dreams, finding that you, too, (Lea) are reading old journals, getting links to other blogs, hearing ways my journey intersects with yours.  Kate wrote, "Morning...just read your 1992 blog post...are you sure you weren't living my life?
💖 love you,  Kate "

Nellie and Betty want a picture of the bed, and I plan to post one tonight or tomorrow when it's finished.  Today is a frenetic day, getting everything finished for our departure, tomorrow hopefully.

This blog is such a random thing--like the way my mind works, part email to friends, part journal, part scrapbook to look back on in the future.  This has been my only journal since I began blogging what was intended to be a month-long travel journal of my solo trip to California to celebrate my 65th birthday.  I love hearing from my friends in California: Roné (my jewelry-making friend); Dr. Linda J (who worked on my aching road-legs and made them better); and Bonnie--who writes about her success running the Air BnB in which I spent four days in Santa Rosa.

For those of you interested in dreams, Linda Kot recommended this book: The Dreams of Women - Exploring and Interpreting Women's Dreams by Lucy Goodison.

For those of you interested in expanding your writing life, getting published, or blogging, Diana recommended this site: http://thewritelife.com/?utm_source=The+Write+Life&utm_campaign=8167a0c743-Dedicated_bloggingjobs4_12_2015&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_ae07a22b59-8167a0c743-106464409&mc_cid=8167a0c743&mc_eid=48599f3d1c

Thank you all for traveling along the bumpy road with me!

La Casita Report

The electrician, Elver, is coming today to wire for lights in the bed roof that Mike is installing this morning.  Mike is also installing a new air conditioner.  (My writing groups and I will enjoy the quiet and efficiency of a new cooler--as the old one was neither)  Yesterday, we put the refrigerator back together and I filled it with drinks; hung the mule on the front of the bed; created and installed a mailbox; went to Lowe's for the umpteenth time.

I will be painting some old chairs, running errands, and washing clothes for our trip--which begins tomorrow or Wednesday, depending on how long it takes to finish up here and pack the truck for lift-off.

We also have to find a box for Bones--as he is traveling to Brown Mule Farm to join Kitty, Mo Jo, and Copper.

Originally, we had planned to do some sight-seeing along the way, but due to being behind schedule on these projects, we'll be driving straight to Georgia on the Interstate this time, arriving at Carlene's most likely on Thursday night.

A dream: April 26, 1992

I found this dream recorded in my journal:

I was with two friends.  They were inside buying a ticket.  I was outside on the pavement, wearing denim shorts, a gray T-shirt, a red silky belt.  There was a group of teenagers standing in a cluster listening to good music, good beat.  I started dancing with great joy, abandon.  I didn't care how I looked, didn't care if anyone was looking. 

We were on a roadway of some sort.  I was lost in the dance, alone.  I noticed then that there were three women on a bench.  One was black.  She stood up, smiling and told me I looked lovely dancing.

I became conscious then, briefly, of myself--thinking I must look ridiculous in shorts, legs too fat.  Then I began to feel very happy.  I ran down the center of the road, still dancing, feeling light and buoyant.  

When I stopped, a little black girl was sprinting down the same road.  She was barely old enough to walk, yet she was running unbelievably fast.  She froze, suspended over the yellow line.  I asked the woman, "Your daughter?"

"Yes, she's an Olympic runner."

I looked at the little girl and said, "You move as fast as light.  I'm going to call you Light Beam.  Sun Bream."

She stayed there in suspended animation.  Everyone was happy.  "Hug your mother every day," I told her.

Reading this dream, I think of the way Jungian analysis treats characters in a dream: everyone represents some aspect of yourself.  The old woman and the little girl might represent old and young aspects of my psyche in 1992.

Black suggests a soulfulness that I've always sensed in people of color.  Some older version of me, the most soulful self, seemed to be telling the self-conscious "fat" young woman that she had a certain beauty when she moved--and maybe that her younger self could run way faster than she knew?

Finding an old journal

While I was moving around books in the casita, a 1992 journal fell into my lap.  On the cover, it said "Winnie the Pooh Journal"--on top of each page was a quotation from Winnie and friends.

As Mike was inside the house showering, I sat down and read it, cover to cover, struck by how many things I'd reported I no longer remember.  But it evoked a sense of that year, much of which I do remember.  It was a difficult, sad, weepy year.  It made me sad to read it, as I heard the voice of the younger woman who used to be me.  It was the year of my 25th wedding anniversary, un-celebrated.   It was a roller coaster year and I was plagued with physical aches and pains, emotional fog, and an overriding sense of loneliness.

As Mike and I drove to get our morning coke and donut, I told him about what I'd read--that, at 135 pounds or so, I wrote almost every day about how fat and unattractive I was.  My dreams hinted at secrets I wasn't ready to see in my waking hours.

Mike said, "Every girl should be encouraged to keep a journal.  It helps to know where you are going when you take a look at where you've been."

Mike has always preferred the friendship of women, and many have told them the secrets of their pasts. He sees a pattern in the lives of women who came of age in the sixties and seventies.  "When they get older, they do everything they can to break out of their cages," he said.

Women, he believes, are more programmed than men are--to be pleasers of other people, to put themselves last, and to keep secrets, often secrets about abuse in their childhood homes or marriages. While we girls were preparing ourselves for marriage, young men were more free to be who they were.  I don't know  many men, so I'm taking his word for it for now.

He was scandalized when I told him that a high school counselor once told me, "You should go to college just long enough to get your MRS degree."  Good grades, a high IQ--those he admitted I had. But the real goal was matrimony.

New Pop-Ups

Both my children and their families have just bought new pop up campers.  Their plan is to meet in the summers and camp together, going first to Colorado this summer.

This week-end Will and his family are doing a first-run in theirs in Texas.  When they were children, we had a smaller version of this pop up and took a ten-week trip all over the country (26 states).  That's where we met our good friends, the Kots, as they were camping right beside us at Molas Lake near Silverton, Colorado.

One night, Will's puppy got out of our camper through the mesh and made his way to the Kot's pop up and that sealed the friendship!

These pictures came through today in text messages:

Text from Veronica:
"She's so in love!  I know the feeling!" 

Veronica and Nathan

Will, Nathan and Elena fishing in a Texas river

Over a thousand dogs and only two hands with which to pet them

The annual Fiesta Pooch Parade starts at the end of my street--so we walked down to meet a few dogs.  Mike, who loves dogs as much as Linda Kot and Elena Pritchett do, had to pet as many in possible in thirty minutes, his self-allotted time frame.

Many of the dogs are dressed up in Fiesta attire; some are naked.  Mike kept looking for the "ugliest dog" (as he likes ugly dogs best) but he's never met a dog he doesn't like. 

A pit bull named Tank

A blue-eyed Australian Shepherd

A terrier mix

Mike making new friends

The Prize-winning float for this year's parade
by the Humane Society

I snagged this photo from their website

Another kind of kindergarten

This has been an educational week for me as construction assistant.  I love learning new things--especially when the teacher is patient and encouraging, as Mike is.

I definitely have what the Buddhists call "Beginner's Mind" as I wield a heavy battery-operated screw driver, learn to start the hole by holding on to the smooth top part of the screw (after you moisten it with saliva!) and then pushing down hard on the top of the drill as it spins the screw into the wood.

We painted the refrigerator in a tinted yellow appliance enamel--two coats which took two days each to dry due to the humidity.  Then Mike clear-coated it with spray.  I watched as he passed the spray over the entire surface in lines all going in one direction, then the other.  Left to my own devices, I would have made random swirls.

I now know how soffits, facia boards, and jack trusses are made.   Could I make one?  Not on your life! but knowing the difference and seeing how the parts fit together makes me feel smart.

There's a Zen saying: "The way you do anything is the way you do everything."  In all things, I am random, Mike is systematic.  I start one thing and wander off to do another; he stays doggedly on the one thing until it's finished.

He knows what all good teachers know: Praise goes a lot further than criticism if you want your students to learn. "Perfect, Babe!" he says every time I try a new thing, even if it's not.

I watched as he lifted the heavy jack truss to the top of the bed and wall he'd just finished yesterday--which will hide the winch and chain he installed at the top.  I couldn't imagine one man lifting such an incredibly heavy piece alone without its crashing down on top of both our heads, but he did it.  (I proposed wandering down the street and finding a strong man to help him, but he declined my offer.) Today he will finish the by cutting old tin to cover it, installing eye ball lights, and building the soffit.

As an educator, my comfort zone is language.  I savor the different effects a writer can achieve by building different kinds of sentences.  Yet I've always looked at built things as a novice does, not understanding the structures that make them work.  Whether I could single-handedly build a simple bird house or not, I will--after this three-week course in construction--be an avid appreciator of all that goes into making beautiful things out of wood and metal.

Best Kindergarten in Japan

http://www.ted.com/talks/takaharu_tezuka_the_best_kindergarten_you_ve_ever_seen?utm_campaign=ios-share&utm_medium=social&source=email&utm_source=email

The Love of a Foster Mommy

As I mentioned earlier, my cousin's daughter Missy is fostering this tiny little girl--hoping to adopt her.  She's named Beth--after her grandmother, my cousin, and they live in Columbus, Georgia.

She has weekly visits with her birth mother--the one who is addicted to crack and abandoned her at birth.

These, I think, are classic photographs that capture the love and hope for a child born to someone else:

This little girl, like all little girls, needs a home where she's wanted and adored.  If she has to go back to her birth mother, I'd like to believe that she always remembers these days with Missy and Beth.

Both Missy and Beth have sold their loft apartments and Beth has bought a cute little cottage with a yard for grandchildren.

Rain and Shipley's Donuts

Today, I painted the interior doors red while waiting for the yellow refrigerator to dry.  The rain yesterday and the humidity today slowed the drying process, but it's looking good.

Mike completed the installation of the winch that will pull the bed up and lower it, and he's putting an old tin roof over the bed tomorrow, along with finishing up the barn-wood wall above the bed.  We love to sit out there and listen to music while the wheels turn in his head, figuring out what to do next, and how.

Alas, we've discovered that Shipley donuts are delicious--and we've made a couple of runs to get donuts.  Elena eats all the chocolate off the tops and throws the rest away.

As for Bones, Elena says, "She is so beautiful!"  Bones is old and skinny and shy--but to Elena, all animals are equally amazing, even bugs.

She found a huge hairy spider on the floor and watched as Mike took him outside to find his family.

Marcus

My grandson, who turns ten on May 17th, was one of only three white boys from his school on the field trip to Jamestown.  They went to study the history of Jamestown and English settlers there.  He was the only one, according to Day, who had a brown man on his tee-shirt.

Onward with the guest bed

Every creative endeavor is fraught with unexpected turns--some fortunate, others baffling.  But Mike is irrepressible in his optimism!

When we got the barn wood on the outside, the bed was too heavy for me to lift and lower.  The pistons were not strong enough to pull that much weight.  So today, we went to Harbor Freight and got a winch and he's installing it today.

My style and his are so different.  When things go wrong, I want to quit and take a nap; he's determined to fix it.  After building numerous houses and barns and cars, he knows tools and materials and fixes inside out--and his solution is actually much better than the original design.

Painting A Bird House

The new San Antonio Children's Museum, designed by Lake Flato architects, is looking great!  I, along with all children-at-heart, look forward to its upcoming opening.

But in the meanwhile, we always have Lowe's--a veritable museum for three-year-olds:

They have screws, really big screws!  And little letters made of metal, especially Ss and Os.  And racks of colors on little cards from which you can choose your favorite colors.  And rolling red baskets with which you can push your treasures around.  And "tractors" you can pretend-drive.

Mike made Elena and Nathan elaborate bird houses yesterday--which necessitated a run to Lowe's for eye bolts, brushes, and wire cutters.  There were so many things to see and name that it took us over an hour.  Checking out, our Hispanic grandmother cashier conversed with Elena in Spanish and told us about several other treasures we could get next time.

Back home from Lowe's you get to watch as a grownup saws and hammers.  You get to splatter paint on the front porch for the birdies "who will love it!"  

"Hear those birdies?  They are saying, 'I want to go into that house right now!' but we are saying 'You have to wait until the paint dries.'"

While you are painting, you say, "This is the most fun day ever!"

The bed is almost done!

All of you (one of two at a time) are invited to come try it out.  Finally, I have a guest space and I'm really excited about it!

The interior is red, so that when you fold the bed down, it's all red.  When folded against the wall, it's warm barn wood from a hundred-year-old Georgia farmhouse.  The man who built the original house was a broom-maker.

Over the top, Mike is building a little roof with old barn tin that was originally painted red, so that the red shows through.  It's been a major project and it looks exactly like we'd hoped it would.  I'll post pictures when it's completed.

I put the first coat of bright sunflower yellow on the refrigerator today, and the second coat goes on tomorrow.  It may be a little tricky to paint with Elena here all day, but I'll give her a few boards to paint while I finish up.

When we get these projects completed and the air conditioner installed, I'll be leaving with Mike to spend a few days in Georgia, then will return on May 6th.

The Fiesta Arts and Crafts Fair

The one Fiesta event I always look forward to is the Southwest Crafts Fair.  Mike and I needed a break from working on Sunday, so we meandered around looking at pretty things for a couple of hours.

It's always inspiring to talk to artists.  My friend Roné Prinz was there from L.A. with her unique silver jewelry--houses and birds and 'industrial Zen" pieces.  She uses metals and her fanciful imagination to craft beautiful earrings, necklaces, and bracelets.

Jill Mayberg was back in her corner booth in the chapel--the painter whose colorful dogs, roosters, and hearts I love.  I bought three of her prints a few Fiestas ago; they make me happy.

Anthony, from Morro Beach, Rone's friend,  makes large hearts and wall-sculptures out of license plates, enameled in bright colors.  "I like to give old things new life," he said.

When everything comes together just right...

I have spent today observing a builder at work on a complicated project it takes three instruction books to build.

First you have to cut a whole bunch of boards, then paint them and assemble them.  Everything has to be done to precision and every move is outside my skill set.  I'm learning a lot watching Mike saw, square, drill, screw, and hammer boards.

We have tonight a completed bed all but the outer boards which will give the bed a rustic look.   Just got back from our fifteenth trip to Lowe's, this time to buy a stud finder.  On the way back,we shared a delicious burger and milk shake at E-Zs.

"Man, we're lucky!" Mike says, every time a piece fits precisely as planned.  "We did it just right."

I like the use of the word, We.  All I do is hand him screws and tools, hold boards, and paint.

Someone asked me recently, "Can't you just buy a bed?"  But in Mike's culture--and mine--making things is part of the pleasure of having things.  He and his dad built cars; Carlene made every garment  I ever wore, birth to bride.

I remember my parents making and altering things to fit certain spaces, upholstering furniture, and painting rooms.  We never hired people to do what we could do ourselves.

Building a bed, installing an air conditioner, and painting an old refrigerator yellow--this is our Fiesta event for the week.

Bones, Blues, Bed

When the neighbors across the street moved away, a lonely gray cat remained behind.  For weeks she sat in the driveway waiting for her people to return, and they never did.  Mike has taken her on.

She looks like a skeleton, but each day she's getting a little fatter and friendlier--thanks to Mike's food and attention.  Last night she let him hold her.  She's skittish, but warming to him. We call her Bones.

"Have you ever met an animal you don't like?" I asked him--because I don't love all animals equally.  "No!" he said, without missing a beat.

What if they are mean?  Or mangey?  What if they stink?  Those are the animals that need love most, he says.

We spent the whole day today working on a bed that will fold up into the wall of the casita--a place for guests that can be out of view during writing groups.  It turned out to be a more complex project than we'd planned, one that will take several days, but it's going to be beautiful: painted red inside and covered with old barn wood on the outside.

The back yard behind the casita is filled with big saws he brought from Georgia and a mattress he's giving me,  curious Bones and a stack of Blues CDs.  Mike hit pay dirt yesterday when I took a load of books to Half Price and he found some terrific CDs, our favorite being a compilation from Chess Records in Chicago: from Bo Diddley to Etta James to Gene Ammons on the sax--and 47 other artists.

"These don't sound like blues," I said--as we danced in the back yard between coats of red paint.

"They are happy blues," he said.

The yard is rocking with rhythm and blues, the weather is beautiful, and Fiesta is on its way!

Telling the Truth

“What would happen if one woman told the truth about her life?
The world would split open.”


― Muriel Rukeyser


This question and Rukeyser's answer have always intrigued me, like a Zen koan that plays in my mind underneath the surface chatter.

I know women who tell the truth, seek the truth, and revise the "truth" when it changes. Leading writing groups and being friends with women who keep it real teach me new things about truth-telling every day.

I had an epiphany in a group this weekend:  As a child, I was always the instigator of those awful "truth sessions" at camp that battered our self esteem and left us all feeling bruised.  We were too immature to tell the truth about our own lives; truth was mostly brutal criticism about each other.  I was curious and wanted to plunge beneath the surfaces of who we were--though our skill in doing that was lacking.

All these years later, I still remember the sting of being told that I was flat-chested and wore my socks wrong-side out and "had two left feet" dancing.  I can't remember the "truths" I told that might have stung them just as much.  We were simply attempting to fit ourselves and each other into the only molds we knew.

Now those "truths" are no longer relevant. I'm not flat-chested, I rarely wear socks, and with the right partner, I can dance passably well.

As I've grown older, I've realized that truth-telling is about having the courage to say my truth and risk splitting a little patch of the world wide open, if only for a minute or two.

Telling the truth is not about consensus.  Sadly, I often lack the courage to tell the harder truths--if it means hurting someone else or rupturing a friendship.  Maybe it's because--as we talked about in writing group--women, more than men, have been conditioned to please other people at all cost.  That cost can be high.

We all feel a liberating rush when we find the courage to step outside the lines we've been conditioned to stay inside, when we don't say what "they" want to hear, but what we believe at that moment to be our unvarnished truth.

When a woman has the courage to speak her truth, the world cracks open for those fortunate enough to hear it--even if that world is the size of an egg or a stone.

Approval is overrated.  Agreement is easy--just figure out what "they" want to hear and say that, keep the world as it is.  Tell the truth and you risk the temporary discomfort of living  in a split-wide-open world.

Southern accents

In an article about Kevin Spacey's "Southern" accent in House of Cards, several linguists analyzed the features of Southern speech and found Spacey's character's accent inauthentic.

After reading it, I gave Mike a Southern-accent authenticity quiz and he scored 100.  There are, however, many variations within any Southern state.

In general, Southerners, like Mike and me, pronounce "pen" and "pin" the same way.  We say "tawk" instead of "talk."  We leave off Rs and Gs at the end of many words that end with R and G, even though we hear Rs and Gs in our heads. Accent has to do, the linguists say, with the position of the tongue in the mouth when babies imitate the speech of the people who teach us to tawk.

In a college speech class, I once took a test in which we were to write the "correct pronunciation" of 100 common English words.  I missed "ON" and "PEN"--pronouncing ON with a long O, instead of AAN, and PEN as PIN.

Yesterday  I bought a package of multi-colored folders.  "Mighty pretty!" Mike said--an expression I hadn't heard since my daddy used to say,"You look mighty pretty, Sugar."

Southern cooks used to urge their guests and children to keep eating.  "You need to eat more, Honey," they'd say.  "Here, take some more macaroni, some more gravy, another piece of pie."

When my grandmother, Mimi, had had enough, she would say, "I've had a gracious plenty."  And when she reached for the ticket to pay for a meal, she'd say,  "It would be my pleasure."  She never said "breast" or "leg" (too crude and immodest) when referring to a piece of fried chicken.  "I'll have dark meat," she'd say--or "Drumstick."  She never had to go to the bathroom for any reason other than "powdering my nose."

Years ago, I bristled when people told me I spoke "just like Rosalyn Carter," the First Lady.  At the time, I didn't want my roots to show.

Now, though, I like Southern accents.  When Mike says "bidness" for "business," I like it.  When he calls me "Dahlin" (even though that's what he calls all girls and women), I just love it.

Baby Beth and the Boston Terrier

In Columbus, Georgia, where my cousin Missy has been waiting for a foster child, a young woman abandoned this little girl in the hospital right after birth.  Missy named her Beth--after Grandmother Beth.

We're hoping they get to adopt her--as my Aunt Dot is already calling Beth her great-grandchild and they've all fallen in love with her.

So has one of the three Boston Terriers, quite obviously, as he has taken up post beside her crib.

Mike and Animals

Mike has never met a dog he doesn't love.  It can't be ugly, vicious, or neurotic enough to quell his affection.

"I love those two dogs," he said recently--after meeting two new ones.  One was old, deaf and blind; the other "whacked"--meaning dog-nuts, I think.

Lots of dogs and cats are not lovable in the usual ways: affectionate, pedigree-pretty and well-behaved.  But a few people--like Mike, like Linda in Cape Cod, like my late-friend Gary, don't prefer the pretty ones over the ugly ones.  In fact, I think Mike prefers downright ugly dogs most of the time.

He loves San Antonio, but he teasingly calls Alamo Heights "Animal Heights."

"You have to get a permit for a garage sale?"  "The police come by and measure the distance between construction cones?"  He's not accustomed to dogs on leashes and seeing their owners pick up their droppings in plastic bags.

At Brown Mule Farm, his place, neither dogs or people have rules.  They go where they please and they poop where and whenever they please.  It was the same with me when I lived in Helotes--which is actually why I don't have a city dog.  I tried it once with a terrier I named Cooper.

My Cooper, eight years ago, was intended to be my traveling companion--but he failed puppy kindergarten and I failed the plastic bag test and he hated car interiors with a doggy passion, probably due to an unfortunate early visit to a drive-through car wash which terrified him.

Mike is outside now, trying to befriend a stray cat.  If it works, this A.H. cat may wind up at Brown Mule Farm with Mike's menagerie, free and full and happy.

Easter 2015

Yesterday, Mike and I went to a party at Elena's Aunt Brenda's house--delicious lamb and all the side dishes and a tableful and yard-full of happy kids and grown ups and in-betweens.

Sisters on the Fly

On my first trip to the Smokey Mountains with Mike, he discovered about twenty women at the park, all camping in individual, decorated campers--and he rode his Harley back to take me to meet them.

Sisters on the Fly is an organization of women who meet in designated spots (you can check out their website) to camp together and explore different areas of the continent.

Each camper is painted and decorated inside and out.

Soon, Mike and I will be taking a trip in his camper--back to the Smokies!

Time Lapse

Today, Jan and I walked across the street to take one last look at Allen's house (the oldest house in Alamo Heights) before it is demolished.  Two years after Allen's death, the weeds are thigh-high. Rat traps cover the Saltillo tile floors, and the house looks pathetic and lifeless, as abandoned houses do.

Before gathering a few stones for Jan's yard before the wreckers come, I watched Jan's daughter and grandson working in the yard, building a stone walkway, planting flowers.  Later, I heard two little brothers making screeching boy sounds, perking up our formerly childless block.  At that moment, I thought: I wish I had a time-lapse video of the comings and goings on this block for the past two decades!

When I drove up to this house for the first time, 18 years ago, Allen came over to greet me.  He looked like Colonel Sanders of Kentucky Fried Chicken, and he  beamed as he welcomed me to the neighborhood I've called home ever since.  Every Friday night, he took me out to dinner and a movie, easing me into the solo life I'd just embarked on after divorce.

If there had been a booby prize for the ugliest house in Alamo Heights, this house might have won it. Flat-roofed, all concrete, no grass in sight--it was not vaguely attractive. It had a peeling brown deck on the front, cracks everywhere, and the interior looked like it had been painted by stoned teenagers.

The orange formica in the kitchen was buckling; the carpets smelled like bottled cherries.  (Apparently, the previous tenant had owned about twenty cats, and the cherry deodorizer was intended to mask those feline presences.)  I signed the lease for a year and hauled in my daughter's left-behind mattress and slept happily on the floor of a room in which the paint from the walls and the ceilings blurred together raggedly.  I loved it!

Like the house, I was ragged and frumpy and sad.  We needed each other, this house and I.

A couple of years later, the house became, officially, mine--thanks to the generosity of my parents! My feet barely touched the ground after they called to tell me they'd bought it "for a Christmas present." I had long dreamed of owning a little house, and I'd have chosen this funky little house over anybody's mansion.   I didn't want a beautiful house; I wanted a house with possibilities.

All these years, a board at a time, slowly, slowly, I've turned it into the house it is today--stuccoed, painted pale pink.  Last night as I watched Jan's and my grandchildren playing together, running from her house to mine, I thought: this is exactly where I want to be.

I always think of Gene, Jan's late-husband,  when the blooms come out on the pomegranate tree in my yard, as they are doing this week. Two years before Gene died, he and Jan came over one Sunday morning and planted the two-foot shrub it was. Gene and I greeted each other every morning as he was watering his yard and I was getting in my car for my morning coke run.  "Hi, Lin!" he'd say--he the only person who ever called me that.  I miss his presence on our street.

Where Allen's house now stands, two new larger houses are about to be built.  Like many of the smaller houses in the "cottage district," it will soon be gone, along with all the leafy trees in the yard. This is progress, this is life.  But hovering over it all are the echoes of those who are no longer here.

Before my time, there were two little old ladies on the street who walked to each other's houses to visit.  Neighbors who've been here a long time remember how they walked, carrying their handbags, and how they spent their days together, playing bridge, drinking wine, and giving each other home permanents.

If I had that time-lapse video, I'd pause it and take a closer look at those two little old ladies. I like to imagine what it was like, before computers, before cell phones, before Spandex-clad runners and leashed dogs, when the women of Ogden Lane took the time to just sit together and talk about whatever women talked about in those days.

Jan and I don't do perms, but we've decided to dub ourselves the Little Old Ladies of Ogden Lane.

Nathan, Makken, and Sebastien
making a Lego dinosaur

Nathan and Elena in my front yard,
pushing a vintage stroller

Nathan in the driveway, pondering

Nathan pushing his sister in the stroller

Elena trying on her Easter dress, a gift from Aunt Joy,
and her necklace, an Easter gift from Mike