Today was another remarkable gift of high energy and lower-than-usual pain in my feet and legs!  Hooray!

Luci and I went to Trader Joe's AND Central Market and got ingredients for a corn and black bean salad that is my all-time favorite! I've had this recipe for years but it makes enough for an army, so I hadn't made it in a long time.   I'm currently recovering from all that chopping and standing, but I'm also wolfing down a bowlful of it. 

Here's the recipe if you want a delicious and refreshing salad for these summer days.

Southwest Salad

2 cups dried black beans

2 cups corn

2-3 medium sized cloves of garlic, freshly minced

A heaping 1.2 cup of finely minced red  pepper

1 medium sized red onion minced

1 t. Salt

1/2 cup olive oil (plus 1-2 T for the tortillas)

1/2 cup fresh lime juice

2-3  t. whole cumin seeds roasted in cast iron pan

1/2 cup minced cilantro

1/2 cup minced parsley

1 t. Crushed red pepper 

Finely ground black pepper

3-4 corn tortillas. 

1. Soak the beans overnight. Or at least 4 hours. Drain. Place in a kettle of fresh water. Bring JUST to a boil, then cover and turn heat way down.
2. Cook at a very slow simmer with no agitation in the water until the beans are tender, about 1 1/4 or 1 and a half hours. When cooked drain and rinse thoroughly in cold water. Then drain again.
3. IN a large bowl combine beans, cooked corn, minced garlic, red onion, bell pepper, salt, and olive oil and lime juice.
4. Roast the cumin seeds and stir, then put them in the salad—along with cilantro, parsley, crushed red pepper and black pepper.  Mix gently.
5. Lightly brush both sides of each tortilla and cut into strips about 1.4 inch wide and 1 1/2 inches long. Toast them lightly in a pan or a 350 oven. Scatter over the salad when you serve it.  

*******

Also signed up for another session of Lyn Belisle's class on making reliquaries.  Another fabulous multi-hour class for under $30--I'm watching it tonight and collecting relics and pictures to incorporate.  Lyn is an extraordinarily skilled and generous teacher. 

Lyn's classes

*******

Day wants a James Avery charm bracelet for her birthday.  While I was choosing charms for her, I decided I want one too--and my mama is giving me some birthday money to choose charm!  I'm going with mostly hearts and flowers, but I also want a red pick up truck to remind me of my daddy's.  

It occurred to me that charm bracelets, too, are reliquaries, a collection of charms that reflect our interests!

******

Finally capped off a good day with my refrigerator filled with healthy fruits and vegetables arranged in tidy glass containers.  This may be normal for most of you; for me, it's a very happy novelty.  While eating my salad, Nellie and I had a wonderful conversation about art and Lyn's classes, which we are both taking. We decided that if we keep making things we can avoid being fearful about the state of the country. 

It is so deliciously satisfying to have Nellie as a friend.  We share so many similarities it's kind of eerie!  1. We both went to Michael's and Trader Joes today and 2. We both stay up way past midnight every night.!We were just a smidge older than Elena when we met--and we're way better friends today than we were back then!  When we were teenagers we were fifty-piece jigsaw puzzles, now we're thousand pieces each. 

I'm walking around singing Mares-Eat-Oats and Does-Eat Dotes--and Luci thinks I might have misplaced my brain! 

The Gospel According To Nellie and Linda; Make things every day and stay away from fear! 

Love is in the Air

 

This is what I woke up to--Marcus and Lucia flying to Spain to Meet The Parents!  

Marcus interviewed outstanding VCU athletes for his podcast and one of his interviewees was this adorable girl from Spain, a star basketball player.  The rest is--as we say--history!

As you can tell, they are both smitten.  Day sent Luci a picture of flowers and she wrote back, "Beautiful, but not as beautiful as your son." 

My family has been all over the map this summer.  Day and Tom went to Copenhagen (Tom travels a lot internationally for work, but this was the first time Day accompanied him), then they took Marcus and Jackson and Deanna to Ireland (Lucia was in Spain and couldn't go) for two weeks.  In Donegal, Tom found so many of his ancestors on the McDonald side and they were warmly greeted by everyone.  They loved Ireland (and Irish storytellers and musicians) so much they want to go back and spend the summer next year. 

Will's family of four went to Costa Rica for a week, then came back and rented a house in Durango for a month--a week of which I got to join them.  They are totally in love with Colorado and Durango in particular. As of a week ago, Will and Bonnie and Elena live there!  Yesterday I got a virtual tour of the house they are renting for the year--they like it so much that they'll consider buying it after their San Antonio house sells.  

I drove to Colorado, had an amazing week, then flew back.  Next up is a trip to Georgia later this month to celebrate Carlene's 101st birthday!  

Soon thereafter, a trip to Virginia is due--There's a girl there I want to meet! 

 After a lengthy absence, "my" birds are back!  They are not mine, of course--they belong to themselves and the air--but they give such color and joy to my back yard.  Finches, cardinals and doves mostly.  

Today I will fill two hummingbird feeders.  Joy gave me her recipe, said she keeps her filled year-round.  Their feeders need to be carefully cleaned every two or three days. "Hummers are delicate and fierce," she wrote.  

I've spent this week helping Elena pack up her room.  They will be moving tomorrow!  

I'm pausing here because I can't yet quite give words to my range of feelings on that subject--except to say I am thrilled for them and I will miss their closeness so much, geographical and otherwise.  

What do YOU brake for?

A friend sent me this poem this morning, from a Bella Grace magazine.  It inspired me and thought it might inspire you to think of things you brake for!

I spent the morning with Jett, a computer science major at UT, who lives on my block  He fixed my computer so that I can now post pictures, so I'm going to give it a try.  The error had something to do with cookies.

I spent yesterday at the Pritchett house and will go again later today for dinner.  Then probably again tomorrow--as they are actually moving to Colorado on Thursday.

A reminder: Joy's show is still up at Mockingbird Handprints--just in case you missed the opening and would like to see her work on display.  It's a beautiful show!

Day and her family are enjoying their trip to Ireland, and Will and his family are selling and giving away things (and returning to me some furniture I gave them) so that they can travel light to their new home in Durango.  

Yesterday Elena was feeling a little sad.  "I need to play the guitar, then I'll feel better," she said.  So she and her dad sat down and played and sang for a while and she was right--it perked her right up.

She loves music and plans to take classes at a music school she's found in Durango.  

Here are a couple of photos from the week I spent there with them;

One of her rodeo events in Durango this summer

Jan and I have another thing in common: Kate and her boys are moving on the same day the Pritchetts are moving.  Her husband Lee has already begun his new job in Albuquerque and Kate and the boys will finally get to join him--they were waiting for Sebastien to graduate high school.  

SO Jan and I are lucky to have each other as we see the last of our families move away from San Antonio.  So far, I've only gotten teary once--watching my girl play my daddy's guitar and remembering so many happy memories of these almost fifteen years of her life!  I'm going to miss them like crazy--but I'm also thrilled that they are following their dream to relocate to Colorado, their happy place. 

This week,  the Universe gave me a bounty of good things.  

1. With the help of the Scooter Lady Cayce in Tennessee, I finally got my pretty blue Voyager to start up. I was riding back and forth in my small kitchen and called Carlene.  "I wanted you to be the first person I'd call on my scooter,"  I said.  She is guaranteed to, invariably, share in whatever I'm excited about, commending me for making such a wise decision.   When we tell each other something we're happy about or proud of, we sometimes say, "I just wanted someone to saw A-WOOO!"  

2. After way too long, I finally go to visit with Chris, my delightful friend who lives in Kerrville.  We each took a few things for "show and tell"--she some beautiful collages built around dream fragments, me with five blank handmade books. I drove home inspired and hoping for some longer visits after we both do our August trips. 

3. Last night I took my first scoot, Luci leashed beside me, Carma and Jan behind us.   Jan was so excited about my wheels you'd have thought it was a Porsche. "It's Luci who. needs training, not you," she said.  Luci's accustomed to stopping to pee and sniff and negotiate different turns than I had in mind.  I need to train her to walk beside me and announce when she's about to stop. 

4. I went to Williams Sonoma and met my (I hope) forever pet sitter, Jules. When she saw Luci, she squatted with the ease young women have, all the way to the floor in high heels, to pet and converse with Luci.  When she asked if I ever needed someone to keep Luci, I took her number, and canceled the Rover sitter for August.  Her other job, besides WS, is in the Frost Bank Building a stone's throw from my house, and it's pet friendly. She'll stay in my house and take Luci to work with her where she'll get to commune with other small dogs. 

5. Lorraine recommended a novel and I stayed up very late reading it.  Excellent writing, engaging story.  Midway, I almost quit because I found the main male character wimpy and I dislike wimpy men.  We talked about it as I shopped for fruits in Whole Foods, then I went home and read it all the way to the end and was glad I'd stayed with it.   Leaving is by Roxanne Robinson. 

6. When my favorite Mexican restaurant, Adalantes, closed a couple of years ago--after 40 plus years, I missed it, especially their Santa Fe tacos which are really quesadillas. I ordered that dish almost every time.  I was lucky--the menu was online!  I'd struck gold. It's a mix of zucchini, green onions, corn, poblano peppers, and Monterray Jack cheese grilled between two large whole wheat tortillas.

7. Central Market has been under renovation for at least a year, with a year to go.  But I went there to get my ingredients this morning, it was so much fun to see what they've done with it.   Just being there can instantly make me happy.

8. Before Central Market and after Walgreens, I popped into The Green Door thrift store.  Just bought one thing--a beautiful art book called Alphonse Mucha, Masterworks.  From cover to cover, it's luscious. 

In the future, I'm going to try to cool my jets few days before writing about a new idea.  

Writing mirrors myself back to myself in ways that are often embarrassing and just as often illuminating. For example;

My last posts on plastic, now deleted, reveal to myself how easily I get seduced into a new idea and run to my secular pulpit with it.  

With so many troubling issues in the world, it's easy to latch on to the latest way to save--myself, the planet, my beloved children and grands--and then run with it.  I am easily seduced. Easily frightened for the next generation.  That's kind of sweet and endearing.  It's also kind of humiliating to realize how little a woman of my age can actually do. 

Not that it's not worthy of  concern--it is.  I did make a few simple changes that will be healthy for me personally.  Like returning to brewing tea instead of buying it in plastic jugs.  And ditching my peeling Teflon frying pan and buying one not coated in petrochemical stuff I can't even pronounce. 

But as for the 101 things I can do, the ones I read about, I'm just not going to live long enough to do all of them, that's a fact.  If I were a young mother with little bitty children, that would be a way different story. 

Once upon a time, I figured my grandchildren would cherish my advice and wisdom.  I would inculcate in them a desire to read many books.  I would steer them away from smart phones and social media and anything else I might find harmful.  

As time wore on, I realized how little power I had, how little younger people coveted a piece of my wisdom.  I'd had my chance as a parent; my turn was over. 

Wild Cards

 Rachel Martin and David Sedaris

If you're an NPR aficionado, you've probably heard this show called Wild Card, a hybrid of game and interview. 

Rachel Martin uses her Wild Card deck of cards, holds up three, and lets the interviewee pick one--which is the question he or she answer.  Or not.  Or asks the host to answer instead.  The cards are just prompts, the answers can go all over the map. 

The link above will take you to her conversation with David Sedaris. a self-deprecating opinionated writer and humorist whose stories are mined from his personal life.  

I found this house at the laundromat.

I stumbled upon a little black and white photograph last night, looking for pictures for a house-shaped book I'd made.

It was taken in 1969 or '70: me leaning over a stone ledge in the yard, my so very young husband below, his mama sitting on the ledge.  We two on the ledge are looking with interest at something he is showing us.  Behind us is the rock cabin, the house I found at the laundromat.

When we first moved to Helotes, we rented a concrete block house behind the Baptist Church.  The Bandera Highway was a two-lane road then.  A stone's throw from the church and our rent house was Flores Country Store where a young Willie Nelson sang on Saturday nights.  Next to that was the General Store where we bought groceries, "put it on my tab."

Since we didn't have a washer in the concrete house, I drove about a mile to the laundromat, always asking people if they knew of anything to rent.  

One day the manager, a woman named Charlotte, said, "My uncle has a little house he's wanting to rent, but it's very remote, a little hard to get to."  

It was a tiny stone house, the one in the picture, atop a hill.  To get there, you had to drive a long and extremely bumpy driveway, Beckmann Hill.  We could even hear Willie singing from our porch on Saturday nights.  

At the base of the hill was an open field we made into a motorcycle track.  My young husband got himself a 250 Bultaco, and for me, a 250 Montessa. 

So many memories are evoked in that photo.  We lived there for 11 years, first with just Tony, then Tony and baby Day.  Friends came out on weekends and we took long walks and cooked, tended babies and listened to loud Janis Joplin and Ray Charles and Otis Redding. By the time Mr. Beckmann sold the whole 65 acres, and we moved a mile down Scenic Loop, we had Baby Will.  

From the first day to the last, we paid $125 a month for that little patch of Texas Hill Country. 

Where the River Took Us

I'm listening to the podcast "Where the River Took Us" by Aaron Parsley of The Texas Monthly. 

He and his family were camping out just across the river from two of the camps last July.  He tells the wrenching story of their house being taken by the flood, and miraculously all of them survived except this sister's baby Clay. 

The podcast is about what happens on the day of the tragic flood and the aftermath.  At this point in the podcast, episode 4, he befriends a father whose grief leads him to being an activist for change in laws and technologies that prevent tragedies like last year's happening again.

MORE Tuition?

Carlene saved me and my kids and my friends a lot of grief and remorse by telling us early on that "everything is tuition."

That adage has an appendage: I ought to always be learning stuff.  I'm a learning junkie, always have been, but only on topics I care about.  I do not wish to learn trigonometry or make-up skills or how to strengthen my core or sports.  NPR is always on in my car because it's my best source of learning things besides You Tube and online classes.  

I learn every day more about how to interpret Luci's language.  Downward dog pose means "I'm tired of sitting around; I want to walk or go see somebody I like."

She has a very expressive set of eyes.  Jan came over to walk her one afternoon when I was unable to walk, and Luci gave her the side eye and went under the covers and curled up close to me.   Her preferences are obvious. She couldn't have said more clearly, "I  only like to walk with this lady."  But bless Jan, she overrode Luci's preferences and dragged her along. 

When we do walk, she tries to negotiate an extra block at every corner.  She plants her little tiny feet on the pavement, refusing to go in the direction I've chosen (back home mostly) and she holds that pose with fierce determination.  I usually give in.  She knows I'm a softie.

I spent hours last week researching scooters.  Consumer Reports recommended a Glashow, but when you clicked their link, it took you to Parseec.  I learned that two products can have--inexplicably--two different names that don't even rhyme.

The one I really wanted was too new to be reviewed on Consumer Reports: Scootngo Voyager baby blue could be purchased from the company or from Amazon and Walmart. But the warranty wasn't good unless you bought it from the company.  I called the company numerous times and left messages on their answering machines. I emailed them even more.  But no one ever answered. (Parseec/Glashow did answer at least but by Indian men I couldn't understand who answered my questions by reading verbatim from the website.)

I learned this: ask Google what stores sell or rent them--and that's how. I met Cayce who ran a store in Pigeon Forge. She has an American Southern accent and we understood each other perfectly.  One thing I'd learned in my research she reinforced by saying,   "A warranty is worth nothing if no one answers the phone." 

 In this age of QR codes and apps and portals and AI, life lessons come at us from all directions.  

After hearing of my recent betrayal by Orlando, Elena said, "You're too nice to everybody, Yenna.  You shouldn't trust so many people."  (I had an idea she'd heard that from her parents.)

"You're probably right.  I'm learning how to be more skeptical," I said.  "But when I was your age,  a person's word meant something.  If you said you were going to do something, you were going to do it.  It was this way with everyone." 

Sometimes we pay tuition for un-learning things. 

Art Show Saturday

 My friends and I are hardly seeing each other lately.  It's too hot to walk out the front door--much less walk all the way to the sauna of a car and drive to each other's houses very often. I mostly see Jan when we walk the dogs after the final heat wave has dissipated.

Today I ordered my scooter.  You'd think it was a motorcycle, I'm so excited.  It took two trips to the bank to make it all happen due to a summer SNAFU with my credit card people rolling their eyes because I was buying an item from a sports shop in Pigeon Forge, Tennessee.  But after two trips there, the sweet banker Jose finally convinced them it was a legit order.  It's a light blue Scootngo scooter that folds up like a suitcase at the airport, so I have high hopes of taking it with me to Virginia and Colorado and anywhere else I might be invited to go after the heat is replaced by cool fall air.

Before meeting Cayce, the saleswoman, in Pigeon Forge, I talked to a few men in India about other brands, and finally got to buy the one that had been my first choice all along. 

Tomorrow, however, I have an outing.  Joy is having an art show at Mockingbird Handprints, 3 to 5, tomorrow, speaking to us all at 4 o'clock.  It will be fun.  I hope all my San Antonio friends will show up to see the opening day event of her show, Celebrating Nature!  It will be up through August 22nd. 

A Tumble In A Very Fine Place

Three weeks ago, I was walking outside my room in an Albuquerque hotel, when suddenly my face met the concrete walkway.

My glasses landed a few feet away.  Luci ran over and licked my head and bleeding nose, looking worried.

I thought of that horrible TV commercial: "I fell and I can't get up!" It was early and no other hotel guests were outside yet, and I'd left my phone in the room. 

I crawled a couple of feet and pulled myself up on my neighbor's patio chair.  

I didn't want to tell anyone, not even Will--who was with Bonnie and Elena in the house they'd rented for a month in Durango, three hours north of Albuquerque.

So I called Jan--to ask her if she'd look in my house for a back up pair of glasses.  

Right after most accidents, the pain isn't as bad as it will be the next day. but the shock of splatting against concrete for no obvious reason is paramount. 

What I was about to get a reminder of is the incredible kindness of strangers. 

I called the front desk of the hotel. 

Within minutes, my room was filled with staffers, one carrying breakfast from the restaurant down the hall, another bringing brining ice for my  boo boos, another to "get my statement." 

Jeanette said, "If you want to go to the hospital, I'll take care of Luci., I'll take her home with me when my shift is over"  The manager said he wanted to have medics check me out, then he'd take me downtown to order some new glasses. (which we didn't do because Jan found some back ups and mailed them express to Will's place) 

Two adorable medics appeared and checked me out, and after they ruled out concussion, they stayed for a while to chat.  I felt okay, just shaken up. 

The manager wanted to speak to him, to tell him the medics had said I was in good shape, but didn't want me driving for a day or two.  They'd comp the rest of the nights, as many as I needed, then I could drive on to Durango.

But Will--like my daddy would have done--said, "We're on our way to get her."

As I waited on a big comfy bed, Jeannette came every hour to take Luci for a walk, and the other staff members stopped in to bring me snacks and drinks and more ice.

I was so impressed with the care they provided that I wrote a letter to the editor of the Albuquerque paper which they published the next weekend.

We had a wonderful time in Durango.  All was well.  

I just felt a tiny bit deflated by the fall.  It had dinged my confidence, and I dreaded the long hot dry desert drive back home.   

Will said one of my favorite things anybody can say: "We want you to stay as long as you like." 

He took us to the Durango Hot Springs and asked me what I wanted to drink.  "Pina Colada," I said.  'With alcohol in it?" he asked, grinning.  "You bet!" I said--and I settled into the hot water with the most delicious Pina Colada and the company of Will and Bonnie and their new friends--while Elena played with her new fan club of the younger children of those friends.  

After a week, I decided it was time to hit the road, to give them some time to explore the area more, do a long back packing hike, and follow up on some dinner and party invitations they were getting.

Will suggested I fly from the Durango airport, with a layover in Denver, and let him bring my car back when they come.  I could use their Four Runner and avoid that long hot drive through the desert--which is what we did.  

They arrive back in Texas late tonight and tomorrow I'll trade the Four Runner for my little red car that fits Luci and me a lot better.  

"With freedom and justice for all"

At rodeos, during the pledge of allegiance to the flag, I stand up politely but don't put my hand on my chest and don't say the words--I'm waiting until we get our sense back, what little we, collectively, had. That phrase sticks in my throat (figuratively speaking) because it's not true.  It's what we call an "aspirational phrase"--one we keep aspiring to turn into a fact.

Anyway, I never read aloud or recite words in a group, creeds, statements of belief ,or whatever.  I prefer to say my own words, in my own time, without a script.  

While nobody has freedom all the time, what we can do is find freedom for ourselves--whatever makes us happy, if only for a day or two at a time.  Julia Cameron of The Artist's Way, famously prescribed "artist dates" for one--two or three hours doing anything that fills your tank back up when it gets empty.  (I would add with no cell phone in sight)

I've made the 4th of July a weekend of freedom--from the phone, from texts, from any interruptions to my wallowing in the bed and watching funny and sometimes  senseless videos.   Also one poignant but cheesy movie, like "A Dog's Purpose" on Netflix, wherein a dog dies and gets reincarnated as another dog and so on, always remembering his former lives.

I've subsisted on a diet of cheese toast and grapes--except for this delicious gingery carrot soup Jan brought me on Friday night. 

While organizing my gel print supplies and going through all the old tubes to see which ones are juicy enough to keep, the standup comic Leanne Morgan is making me laugh out loud. 

I've canceled all my upcoming appointments--which gives me three more days in July to continue this artist date thing. 

I've been drinking Arizona green tea on crushed ice I got at McDonalds this morning.

Tried not to feel guilty if I don't return a call or respond to a text until next week sometime. 

Because I don't want to be terrified out of my mind or depressed, I'm not watching any news.

Back in my twenties, I had a book called BE HERE NOW by Ram Dass, published in 1971 the year my first baby was born.  It was about letting go of the ego and cultural shoulds in order to live a more mindful life.  It went against the grain of most of my beliefs at the time, so I kept it in a secret place so nobody would ask if I'd turned Buddhist. 

It didn't change my life right away, but the title of the book stayed with me all these years like an aspirational phrase: Be.  Here.  Now.  I keep forgetting it and falling back on the rules of polite behavior, but then I get as stressed as I do when I watch the news.  One good mutually satisfying conversation a day instead of six all in one day gives me space to enjoy that one conversation without reminding myself of the five other calls I need to get to. A beloved teacher of mine used to say, "Love is being fully present with another person"--and how can anybody be fully present six times in a row? 

The movie, "A Dog's Purpose," borrowed that phrase without attribution--as the dog's purpose was (spoiler alert) to Be.  Here.  Now.  Not to worry, not to fear, not to wallow in mistakes of the past, not to anticipate the sky falling--again. 

All the while, my little tiny dog is Being Here Now, wallowing in the bed with me, doing nothing.  She doesn't know what we'll be doing later today or tomorrow or next year.  She doesn't care.  All she knows is that whenever I do something, or go somewhere, she wants to do it, too.   Grocery store, thrift shop, the outside washer and dryer, the post office, or the Amazon take back line at Whole Foods.  All she has to hear is "Wanna go.....?" and she's off to find a toy to squeak to answer YES YES YES!

Luci doesn't feel guilty about anything.  She lowers her ears and hides under the cover if Jan offers her a walk--because she only wants to walk with me.  She doesn't worry about hurting anyone's feeling--she just lives her quiet preferences without apology.

That's how I want to be when I finish growing up. 

That's the kind of freedom we learn from our dogs and cats and children, but have to remind ourselves and each other over and over to capture while we can.  

When I told Day that I'm shopping for a scooter, she said, "That's terrific!  I want you to have the biggest life you can have for as long as you can."

Amen! 

July 3

 On the way home from the bank, with a detour at my usual turn in, I took the road that takes me past the green house across from the elementary school.  It's not a pale green, or sage, or pastel, or lime; it's full on Green Green, Baby!  

Doors, windows and trim are turquoise and yellow.  Potted plants in vivid multi-colored pots, the whole thing like an illustration in a child's book, perfect in its placement across the street from the school. 

It makes me happy to drive past it, and one day I'm going to be riding my scooter and stop and go up and ring the doorbell and ask if I can look around and have a chat with the people bold enough to create such a fun house in an architecturally conservative neighborhood of traditionally pretty houses and mansions. 

But first, I have to get my scooter.  I've been researching all week.  I've called a couple of companies to get the low-down on their products.  

None of the scooters on Amazon have warranties.  How much can one spend on a warranty-free machine without feeling you might as well throw four or five hundred dollar bills down the nearest drain?

The ones with warranties, like the ones on Amazon, are also made in China--but the owner of ScootnGo tells me that a comparable scooter, if made in America, would cost five times as much.  "My partner and I go to China as often as you go to your kitchen," he said.  "We oversee all operations."

My college students who drove cars patched together with duct tape (or that's how I pictured them)  used to call their cars "POS" cars.  I had to ask what POS meant back then--and one of them told me, 'Piece of Shit." 

You cobble enough to buy one from a seedy-looking used car place and hope for the best for as long as you can squeeze life out of it.  If it dies, it dies--you can say you had three good months.

So as I look at the models of scooters, I keep wondering, "Is this the real deal or a POS?"

Some of them fold up like suitcases and are light enough to roll to the door of the aircraft when you travel.  You take the 5 pound lithium battery out and put it in your back pack, and voila, when you arrive, you have yourself a scooter guaranteed to go five miles an hour. The overall weight of the machine is about 40 pounds. 

Others have traditional batteries, but could be good starter scooters if you only drive in your neighborhood and can lift 1 100- pound scooter into your truck or car.

The airline approved models have cruise control, voice control, bells and whistles galore.  

Some have handlebar baskets and rear baskets, with optional wagons that can be attached to the rear--for groceries and/or your dog if said dog gets tired of walking.

My research is so thorough that when I look on Facebook Marketplace, I can recognize the brands--but the used ones cost as much and more than the new ones. 

So this is my summer challenge: to find a scooter that meets all mine and Luci's needs-- hopefully in green and yellow and turquoise.  

July 2026

Each trip seems to take longer and longer to settle in all the way afterwards. I've been home now as long as I was gone on my Colorado trip and am still busy getting the things done that didn't get done while I was gone--thanks to broken promises from the man who stayed here to do them. 

Our agreement was that he'd have full use of the casita while I was gone in exchange for feeding my birds every day, watering and trimming plants, and hauling off all the dead brush he'd cut.  A week before I left I'd have recommended him to anyone. He's big, he's strong, he's capable of doing just about anything. But, well, he didn't hang the moon after all. 

According to the contents of my trash can which wasn't emptied for the entire 10 days I was gone, a lot of beer was consumed.  

My plan was to get the casita in shape for future at-home care should I need it.  In order to stay in my house long into the foreseeable future, I'd have a comfortable space to rent or swap to someone able to provide the kind of care I might need.

His promise was that when I got back I'd feel like one of those people on HGTV shows who comes home to a picture perfect house and yard and I'd say Oh!  My!  Gosh! over and over like they do on TV.

The 30 or 40 daily birds had not been fed and had looked for other places to eat. The brush was stacked in two piles exactly as I'd left them.  

It's awful to be disappointed in someone, especially when the work agreement has meshed with what felt like a friendship.  Bonnie and Will continue to urge me to stop being friends with everyone who comes to work--but it's kind of not my nature to separate the two.  

Anyway, I'm home now and catching up with friends on the phone and gearing up for a 101st birthday trip to Georgia in late summer.  This weekend my goal is to get back to some book-making and go shopping for a mobility scooter for scooting upon as Luci walks.  

HOME AGAIN!

 I just returned from one of the most relaxing and enjoyable vacations ever!

Durango, Colorado is the Happy Place of the Pritchetts, and now I get a big chunk of their Why.

Elena's rodeo, the Durango Hot Springs, nearby Mencas, downtown shopping, visiting Summit Church, meeting their friends, driving around looking for houses for sale, taking the dogs to Molas Lake and having dinner in Silverton, celebrating Will's Father's Day, and watching the wheels in Elena's mind turning until she finally decided that she's up for a move--it was a perfect week!

Molas Lake--between Durango and Silverton--is a place we've loved since Will was five years old and Day, twelve.  Will and Bonnie and the kids have fallen in love with it, too--there's something magical about it for us all.  They go there about twice a year--skiing in winter, fishing and hiking and horseback riding in the summer.  

Now, all they have to do is sell a house--and I'm hoping that won't take long. 

Not that I want them to move--it's going to be a big stretch for me--but more than anything I want them to be as happy year round as they are in Colorado!

So stay tuned.....

From Durango,Colorado

 I've been too busy playing the last few days to find time to write!  I drove first to Lubbock to spend a night with Nathan in his first house of his own!  He bought it with the idea of renting out rooms to students as roommates, then to future students!  He and his girlfriend, Chloe, and I had a nice visit touring the campus (by car), eating out, and their catching me up on where they are now--at 18 and 19!

Now I'm here in a beautiful house in Durango with Elena, Bonnie and Will--living the life!  Elena boards Yancey at a nearby barn--and she did an amazing ride in the barrel race event at the Durango Rodeo Tuesday night.  I absolutely loved sitting in the stands and experiencing a Colorado version of rodeo.  The people here are so friendly that two families of their friends came to watch Elena ride, too!

Yesterday we drove to Mancos (about half an hour's drive from here) where peace just falls down on you from all directions!  We had a leisurely lunch in an ancient building that has been all manner of businesses over the last century and is now a uniquely adorable bakery and restaurant.  We walked around an art gallery shop on Main Street and then drove through the area where Bonnie has "found her people" through women's retreats and now a yoga teacher training program of six weekends.  

Last night we enjoyed three hours at the Durango Hot Springs--along with some of their new friends, a family who moved here from San Antonio and opened a bicycle shop in downtown Durango.

I love the downtown area of Durango--and we're going to mosey around there today!

Then tomorrow we're going to Molas Lake and Silverton where we met Steve and Linda Kot and their children almost 40 years ago.  

Somehow I still don't know how to get pictures to post, but for now, just wanted to say a few words about this spot of earth Will and Bonnie call Paradise and none of us is ready to leave!  

Reading Alice and Jerry

       Some of us grew up on Alice and Jerry (I did); others on Dick and Jane. 

       The book I chose as a starter for my altered book is Day In And Day Out, featuring Mother, Father, Alice, Jerry.and a little dog named Jim.

        What a trip reading these stories!  I'm remembering, as one of the A-Team readers, feeling so excited to recognize letters that made words, and words that made stories. I also recall the B-Team readers who struggled painfully to decipher words. 

        I remember "going to the city" trips--on a train!  We didn't have trains or cities in my world. 

        I took it for granted that all our characters were white, living in nuclear families, people like me. What a shock it would have been in 1956 to see a child of color, or a "broken" family.  

        Reading this now with very old eyes, I'm wondering how these simple narratives shaped us, what we wanted, and what we should act like as girls. See for yourself: 

      Just then the man saw a box.  

He looked in the box.

      "Oh, Alice!" he said.

"Come here!  Come here!"

      Alice looked in the box, too.

      "A red coat!" she said.

"Here is my red coat."

        Then Alice laughed and laughed. 

In another of these chapter, Alice expresses a wish to go shopping in the city:

      Alice did not look happy.

      "I want to go," she said.

"I like to go to the city.

      "What!  What!" said Father.

"Is this Alice?

I like Alice.

But you do not look like Alice.

Alice is pretty.

You do not look pretty." 

Alice wants practical things, like a red coat.  At the toy store, Jerry wants it all: 

      "Oh, Father," said Jerry.

"I want the ball.

I want the boat.

I want the train." 

 I was walking around Goodwill on Friday looking for old books while Luci was at the groomer's.  I wanted to try a project in which you take the book block out of its cover and turn it into a traveler's journal .

I ran into a woman I've talked to several times in the past--,mostly at neighborhood garage sales.  An attractive older woman, she lives alone, makes and sells art cards.  Her beautiful colorful wardrobe--now I know--is made of creative  spins on thrifted clothes, scarves and jewelry.  

We talked in the book department, again in linens. She gave no indication ofever having  met me, but she was very friendly and chatty.  She told me about her business, what stores stock her cards, and that her mama always told her that taking a walk was a surefire way to ward off the blues.  

When her mother needed a pick-me-up, she walked through upscale clothing stores.  While she "couldn't afford a thing," she loved looking at beautiful clothes and jewelry.  The fashionable daughter, now almost 85, does the thrift store version of her mother's exercise routine.

In a less busy life, she'd probably be someone I'd choose to be friends with.  But I barely have time to see the friends I already have. 

She asked me where I live, and I told her. "We're practically neighbors!" she said.

Yes, I said, we should visit sometime.  The words were already out of my mouth, but I wanted to take them back.  It was my version of adults in my children ending store conversations with "Come see us sometime!" Not an outright invitation, but a vague hint of extending the conversation into the future. 

Her words, while unexpected,  were more honest.  "No, I'm a recluse," she said.  She said it in a way that was in line with her friendliness, not at all a rebuff. 

I loved her quick honesty! I'm going to take that page from her and use it in the future!

Sometimes one conversation in Goodwill is all you really need.