The Joke's On Me

I should have learned by now that any time you think you've got extra hours, the universe laughs.

As soon as I got everything in perfect showing condition yesterday, the toilet broke. I had an ant attack in the kitchen. The photgrapher came to take pictures. The realtor who said he was coming at noon never showed up, but another one came half an hour early.

Fortunatly, I had just finished fixing the toilet.

I was very proud that I fixed it all by myself. Most of the these things are never as hard as you think they're going to be. The hardest part is not panicking when you realize that you're going to have to think mechanically.

After weathering that crisis, I got up this morning and felt like I had lots of time today. How should I spend this windfall? Then I realized:

1. I had stuffed 5 loads of clean laundry in the dryer yesterday for want of a place to put it since I didn't have time to fold it.

2. The refrigerator was empty, empty, empty.

3. The pond/fountain had sprouted some kind of green algae in yesterday's heat.

4. The stack of checking account receipts that I had been stuffing in the check book exploded out of the drawer when I opened it to add more.

5. The flowers by the front door, that I had plunked into pots, still in their original containers, were half dead. Not an attractive welcome. If they were to live, they needed re-potted.

6. There is more, but the rest is in the Thousand Cuts category. You know, little things that are nothing by themselves, like cleaning the cat paw prints off the sliding door, but when added all together can bleed your time to death.

The worst of this is that it triggers my barely latent OCD. Obssesive. Compulsive. DisOrder.
And when that kicks in, there is no stopping. I find myself endlessly circling, trying to perfect the Universe, which keeps reverting to it's natural, chaotic state.

I still say I want to come back next life to a world that tends toward order, and it takes energy to create chaos. Sounds a lot more fun.

AND, all these efforts that suck time right down the drain are so, so petty in the scheme of things. What dumb stuff to spend your precious time dollars on.

But as far as Real Estate Dollars are concerned, I want my equity back! So therefore, I obsess.

I wonder what little surprise awaits today? I just hope I can fix it as easily as I did the toilet.

Sunday Evening, Coming Down

Ho hum. I think I've become an adrenalin junkie.

After the crazy last few months, the prospect of selling our house and moving back to northern California seems just like another project. I spent the last two weeks in the house scrubbing and rubbing. Now it's scrubbed clean and rubbed to a fancy, decorated shine. It looks better than it ever has, and I'm wondering why I never put this much effort in it when we lived here. Hmmm.

Now all I have to do is keep it perfect and wait for the offers to come rolling in. Since we are once again at the wrong end of the real estated see saw, that seems optomistic. I sure would like to repeat my best real estate trick of selling to the first looker. I know it's asking a lot to make it four times in a row, but maybe!

Now I'm all done with this stage and I can't really do anything else towards the move until we have a contract. No projects around the house, no starting anything around here that requires a commitment. No travel. It appears there is going to be a couple of weeks of downtime.

And it seems so wrong.

I guess I'll just make the most of it and try to do little or nothing for a few days. But what, she asks? It seems very weird not to have a booked up calendar or a big project that needs done right this minute.

This is a good problem to have. I'm sure I can come up with something.

I'll have to leave the house, though. I can't mess anything up. I just hope I don't find myself signing up for 3 Easy Skydiving Lessons or something.

Addiction to adrenalin is a dangerous thing.

They Shoot Eardrums, Don't They?

I think it's a conspiracy. Last weekend it was horseback riding, and last night it was a country western concert. I thought my people loved me, but they keep making me do this uh, stuff.

Darling Husband aquired 2 tickets to the Faith Hill/Tim McGraw concert in L.A., and never being one to turn down a party, we had to go. It was in one of those suites, where you have food and beverages, thank goodness, because I needed the drink.

After several commercials for McGraw's movie, played on big TV screens, the singers finally took the stag via trap doors in the floor that opened up with them rising up from underground.

The concert was on a round stage, with four "arms" at north, south, east and west. The floors were all lit up. Great lighting. Pop op swirls in bright blues, yellows and reds, red roses, and various other patterns and colors.

Faith Hill sang first to a tepid response. I think most people were there for him. The reviews in the paper said he was great, she wasn't. Wouldn't want to be there for the ride home with that husband and wife. Ouch.

While she was belting out her songs, a few I recognized from TV commercials, or Oprah, or somewhere, I kept thinking about all the smart aleck remarks I could make. Like how this pop stuff seemed so souless, despite the name of the tour (Soul2SoulII). Or forget about rock, I couldn't understand any single word she said, except something about how you should breathe. Or maybe that her attempts to act sexy had kind of a furtive, let's do the moves before the kids wake up and I need to drive them to soccer practice.

Anyway, I felt bad about being so snide, even in my own head. After all, somehow she was out there performing, leaving herself open to the critics' peanut gallery made up of people like me who let their fears stand in the way of producing anything themselves. Who was I to be so harsh? Let's all just live and let live, and try to enjoy a free ticket.

Then she closed her set with Janis Joplin's "Another Piece of My Heart".

That did it.

I could feel poor Janis spinning, and not with boggie woggie. Those two singers might both be Southern white girls, but that's where the resemblence ended.

Janis sang that song like her heart was breaking, like there was more pain in her world than she could stand, like it all just might be the undoing of her. Which, as we know, it was.

Faith sang it like she wasn't dying of heartbreak, but like she was collecting $ 10, 653. 42 after taxes for the performance. What a travesty.

We had to watch another commerical for the film, and then a commercial about the McGraw/Hill romance. Lots of pictures of them going about their daily life, riding horses, gazing soulfully, being playfully coy under a gauzy, soft focus lense. ugh.

Then Came Tim.

The women went crazy. This was clearly what they came for . Lots of cheering, clapping and wiggling in the seats. The DJ said "Here he is ladies, a realllllly gooood man!!!!!"

I think that's what the appeal is, the image of the strong, faithful, romantic Western family man.
Am I wrong, but weren't these two married to others when they met? I may have them confused with a dozen other celebrities, and if so, I apologize.

Anyway, up he came from the netherworld below stage. He and Faith did a duet enclosed in a gauze tent that was lit up all soft focus red, with red lights kind of pouring down the compass point arms of the stage.

It looked like a hospital tented blood bath, but maybe that was just my ears bleeding.

Tim got a little more enthusiasm when he started his solo set, but how would you know it was him? He had on a huge black cowboy hat and the de riguer (did this smart aleck spell that right?) chin whisker/mustache so it was hard to see his face.

When I asked Darling Husband what was up with the rubber cowboy hat, he informed me it was LEATHER. It sure looked like rubber, all black and shiny.

I wouldn't be able to pick the guy out of a police line up, but I would recognize his giant gold belt buckle anywhere. After all, it was bigger than his face.

I know, I know, some people hate the music I like and could rif all day long on how bad it is. Music is very subjective.

But gosh, if you can't understand the words, your ears ring for days, the ticket is overpriced and the crowd pushy, you ought to at least go home feeling up and full of jazz, not like I needed to warn Darling Husband to hide his guns when we got home.

That being said, I kind of like Loretta Lynn. So don't shoot me.

The Wild Life

I thought I'd seen something wild many times in my life but I really saw wild life in Yellowstone and the Grand Tetons.

We got up earlyand ate breakfast at the aptly named Moose Junction.

It was an outfitter's type of place, where they cooked up sourdough pancakes in an outdoor kitchen and you ate breakfast at picnic tables in the pines.

We were layered up because even on a sunny morning in August, it's cold. Later in the day the sun feels like a burning beam lasering through the thin air straight onto your skin. But in the morning, you can fog your breath.

We took a trail reported to lead to a beautiful lake view and not be too crowded with other hikers. We set off, back packs, picnic lunch and we hoped, enough water.

It was a beautiful 1.7 mile hike up to the lake, the view was the usual Grand Teton Spectacular. We were still feeling pretty fresh, so we decided to press on. There were rumors of waterfalls up ahead.

So we took off ever upward, through pines and more pines. The night before I had been laying in bed in my little cabin, the window open to the night air and stars.

"Wow, someone around sure has on a lot of perfume", I thought. "Or maybe someone's been cleaning today." I lay there for a few minutes, overwhelmed with scent and trying to decide if I should close my window, or if the perfume person would go away. The breeze shifted and I laughed when I realized that what I was smelling was millions of pine trees.

Today the pines were as potent as ever, the air thin and clear, the sun getting hotter the higher we climbed. Off came the layers and our handy zip leg pants turned into shorts.

The sound of rushing water up ahead drew us on, and sure enough, there was a little waterfall. We took a break on the banks of the creek, splashing our faces and dipping our feet into the clear, icy water. Then back to the trail.

As we came around a bend, dozens of orange and white butterflies were startled up out of the low lying brush. They swooped and swirled in front of us, a tiny winged cloud.

Our photographer moved ahead on the trial to get pictures, and we saw her suddenly freeze.

"Shh", she whispered back to us, her eyes big. "Look!" she said as she pointed into the brush just off the trail.

There he was, his head popping up a little above the brush; a baby moose! He was a big ol' baby! His head was rather large, and he had a long pointed face, his jaw kind of moving side to side as he munched down on daisies. Looked a little like a camel.

We were savvy enough to realize that if there was a baby, mom had to somewhere close by. We were betting she was bigger and might not want us coming too close to her baby.

We stood transfixed in the middle of the trail, baby contentedly chewing away, but no sign of mama. Baby didn't seem the least bit worried about us, but you know how kids are.

After a few minutes, we decided to tip toe by, hoping we wouldn't encounter enraged maternity, and as we passed down the trail, someone spotted the back end of Mama Moose pulled in under a bunch of low hanging trees. She never even turned around!

Although we would have liked to see her, we felt it best to just walk away quietly, leaving her to knitting.

Now this was wildlife viewing! The day before, when we had taken the river tour, I had seen a bald eagle for the first time. No wonder these birds have such a myth around them. They are beautiful, big and majestic looking.

There's lots of wild life in Yellowstone and the Tetons, but most of the time people are seeing it at the side of the road from their cars. They get out, take pictures, and generally stare at an animal that is just trying to eat grass or walk around or do whatever living they're doing.

It all seems a little like an open air zoo, and sometimes I felt very bad mannered to be staring with the rest of the gaping humans. Except for the swimming buffalo. I had to stare then.

We saw him as we were driving back to Jackson Hole. The afternoon was cloudy with some mist. The sun was still shining hot behind the curtain of rain clouds, so the light seemed to be falling with the mist. We slowed down to see all the buffalo at the side of a river and watched while one walked down the bank.

To our surprise, he stepped into the river and started swimming with the current, his big, brown head bobbing as he held it above the water, the mist and the light surrounding his suddenly light, bobbing body as he swam and was carried by the current to the opposite shore.

But seeing the moose right in his home, passing by on the trail and tipping the proverbial hat as we passed, made us seem more like fellow Earthlings.

Onward and upward though, higher and higher up the mountain.

After about an hour, we came to a level plateau that had a view of the lake far below. It looked like an illustration from a fairy tale. The lake shimmered blue in the sun, reflecting back the even bluer sky. The pine trees at the shoreline, looked like perfectly placed triangles, broad at the base and narrowing to a point just ready to be crowned with the rays of the sun that danced off the water.

At this sublime moment, a cell phone rang.

Down below, service had been adequate, but unreliable. I guess up on the top of the mountain the signals came through. Our hiker realized it was the message notice beeping at her, so she checked voice mail.

"I can't tell if my message said 'Have you seen the news' or 'Have you seen the moose'?" she said.

At the same time, another of our hikers recieved a text message, and we realized, before we could laugh, that the messages were about the news and what was happening out in the rest of the world.

So now we knew about the terrorist plot to blow up planes, confiscate our shampoo and make our hair look bad if we could keep our scalps.

This was not happy news, especially in that beautifully sublime place. For the rest of our hike, when we would pass someone on the trail, we heard them talking about getting phone messages from concerned love ones about the news.

It's so easy to feel angry at these people who have given their lives to death and fear and terror. Do they ever see the magnificence of this world, the one full of love and beauty?

The Earth in her oblivious glory tolerates each sucessive generation walking on her back, doing whatever we will do, for good or for ill. Since the days of the caveman we have walked in danger. Then it was the tiger, today the terrorist.

People have the choice to live their lives as part of the beauty of the world, or to bring fear and suffering to it's face.

I choose Beauty, and anger isn't beautiful.

And I hope none of the phone companies get wind of how great the reception is up on that mountain. I'm sure that news would not be good for the moose.

So You Want To Be A Cowgirl

In spite of the most recent attempts by some to turn the world into a roaring furnace from hell, I am home from Yellowstone safe and sound, minus some shampoo. My hair doesn't look so good, but I am great otherwise.

We had fun celebrating a significant birthday of two of our crew, spending a week in the Grand Tetons, hiking, touring the river, and riding horses.

The horse riding was certainly not my idea, but my girlfriend fancys herself a cowgirl, and she's stuck by me for 25 years. I was obliged. Besides, I figured if I could white water raft for the first time so successfully, (meaning I didn't die and I actually enjoyed it) I could certainly ride a horse for the first time, too.

I may have been wrong about this.

We got ready for this adventure the night before by making and decorating our own individual straw stetsons. These were thoughtfully provided by the birthday girl, along with various decorative flowers, beads and birds.

A bottle of wine, a hot glue gun and several blistered fingers later, we had the proper Western attire in which to ride horses. We really looked authentic. I'm only telling this because it will turn up in the pictures.

These hats will go down in history along with the cat eye rhinestone sunglasses that we wore everywhere on our last trip.

The next morning we got up early and drove for 45 minutes to the horse ranch, which turned out to be a big corral of dozens of horses, millions of pine trees and one smelly outhouse. The young Italian cowboy in chaps was the best thing for miles around.

The lady who took our money remarked on our straw cowgirl hats.
Another cowboy, an older man with a real hat, walked up leading one of our horses. The lady introduced us and pointed out our hats. Not that you could miss them.

"Look at the hats these ladies made! Aren't they just so cute?" she asked him.

He squinted a look over at Sandi, who had put her bird on the crown of the hat.

"A little birdie", he drawled as he cinched the saddle tighter on her horse.

It turned out that he was the Trail Boss.

"Line up ladies " he said, standing in front of a step that we would use for mounting the horses. He inspected us with a practiced eye.

"Okay, you there, " he said pointing to one of us. " You come here and ride on ol' Chico. Next, I think you should get over here on Half and Half", he said pointing to another. "And you, say hello to Jess."


That left me with a small horse called M&M. From the first minute she was led up to the step, she didn't look happy, kind of tossing her head and trying to look back at the coral. She was supposed to be a good horse for inexperienced riders, or so they said. I tried to tell them I was worse than inexperienced, if this were possible. I don't think they were listening.

The cute Italian held the lead rope while I got up in the saddle, trying to look more confident than I felt.

We took off, following Trail Boss. Within minutes, there was trouble.

The horses didn't seem to like their positions and began jockeying around to try to get the right pecking order.

My horse kept trying to get in front of another horse, and this didn't go over well. Chico and Half &Half tried to block her from moving up in line and suddenly I was in the middle of horses turning around and around in tight circles. Then my horse laid her ears back and began kicking. Our relationship was not going well.

Somehow, I managed to separate her from this cluster, but then she turned and started heading back to the corral. I did everything I was supposed to to turn her around, following all directions being yelled at me by the guide and girlfriends, but M&M just kept heading for the barn.

"Turn her around!" Trail Boss yelled.

"Pull on the reins!" Girlfriends yelled.

"It isn't working", I yelled.

I figured she knew way more about this deal than I did, and I wasn't about to try to exert my will on this big, breathing creature. So I just waved over my shoulder and let her go. I thought I would just calmly ride her, grateful she wasn't running, unitl we got back to the Italian muchacho and I would wait for a couple of hours while my friends enjoyed their rides. Maybe he and I could pass a pleasant two hours enjoying the scenery.

This was not to be. The trail boss came back and in thinly disguised disgust, took the lead rope and said he would just guide her for a while. She would be all right. She! What about me?

With lead rope firmly in hand, we set off down the trail again, me in the humiliating positon of being lead while he kept up a low, tuneless whistle, riding a mule named Sam.

My girlfriends were about to choke to death from trying not to laugh.

I got back a little of my pride when he explained that M&M didn't ususally go with this group of horses and she wanted to be with her ususal posse. She didn't like these other horse companions and that was why she was so fussy.

"Horses are very social animals", he said.

Well I knew that! I read Seabiscuit.

This whole concept of sitting on top of another being with a will and a brain, although small, was disconcerting. It didn't seem much different to me than approaching a stranger on the street, throwing my arms and a rope around them and wrestling with them down the sidewalk while they huffed and puffed and made a few attempts to get control of the situation.

It's almost intimate, without an introduction or a getting to know you period. I could feel her huge barrel ribs under my knees move in and out with each breath. When she started sneezing from all the dust Sam the Mule kicked up in front of her, I felt sorry for her. When it got hot, she got all sweaty. And let's don't even talk about a horse's sense of bathroom privacy. There isn't any.

I tried to relax and just go with the experience. After all, it was Wyoming in the Grand Tetons. We went along through the forest, then open meadows and across little streams, all under the bluest sky, the air so thick with the scent of pine it almost burned when you inhaled.
A Western fantasy come true.

Then we started going up and down hills.

The first incline we approached struck fear in my heart. It didn't matter that I was being led, or that the other girls seemed to be doing just fine. I had visions of this cranky horse deciding rope or no rope, she wasn't going. Then she would raise up like those sillohettes you see on every Western thing , front hooves pawing the air while someone is holding on for fear of permanent paralysis.

We went up the hill and down the hill. . We clambered our way to the top of a mountain , little rocks and pebbles falling down the side of the hill with almost every step. I never got used to it.

But at the top of the mountain, we were rewarded with breath taking views of the valley below. The vista stretched out for miles, full of blue sky, pine trees, and the Snake river shining in the sun, winding along like liquid mercury spilled on the valley floor.

We had a photo op, and then started down. Trail Boss told me he didn't need to lead M&M anymore. Now that we were headed home, she would agree with me about where we should go. To complete my humiliation, one of my friends asked me if I had enjoyed my pony ride.

The trail down the mountain was steep and narrow, barely wider than the horse's hooves. Every time a hoof slipped, or a equine head tossed, or a squeal from a girlfriend rent the air, I knew it was my last moment on earth.

I tried to put myself into the moment, thinking about what it must have been like to depend on animals for transportation and companionship. I never could forget that I was sitting on top of a powerful mass of muscles and I had no steering wheel. I could have walked the ten miles back to the barn far, far more easily than I could ride it. Even if it was bear country.

That was another thing I was sure was going to kill us all, a bear popping out of the trees and spooking the horses.

Then we came to the river crossing.

Up until this moment, my horse had followed along behind Sam the Mule like a dutiful wife keeping 3 paces behind. But the minute she stepped into the river, she started off in another direction, straight to the only pool of deep water around.

She started pawing one leg in a swimming like motion, splashing water and shaking her mane. The girls called out, "what is she doing?" while their horses forded the stream with no deviation from plan.

In one of the few moments of horsewomanship I showed that day, I guided M&M back to her spot behind the leader. Trail Boss told me that she had been preparing to swim, and at the next crossing, to pull back on the reins and keep her head up.

Surprisingly, those moments in the water were the only ones all day when I wasn't afraid. At least if I went down, I would be cushioned by water.

The rest of the ride was relatively calm. We crossed a few more creeks, that while picturesque, provided other potential swimming opportunites.

We saw no bears or rattlesnakes, just brush that whipped us in the face and stripped feet from stirrups.

We went back for dropped sunglasses and shirts, and I managed to make M&M stand still and not follow Sam the Mule back into those tight little twirling horse circles.

Soon we were almost back to the starting point of this adventure. As we came alongside the coral with all the other horses, M&M started trying to trot, whinying and tossing her head. It was all I could do to hold her back. She wasn't slowing down or following anyone anymore. Trail Boss tried to manuever Sam in front of her, and this rammed my knee right into an indelicate place. Sam didn't seem to notice.

M&M went right past where the other girls were pulling their horses up to a fence and headed straight for the step, circling it several times. Clearly she wanted me to get. off. her .back.now!

The Boss came up and grabbed her rope again, stopped her long enough for me to get down, and explained she was ready to get back to her companions.

On safe and solid ground, I felt like someone and put an I beam between my knees, and it was only the sight of one of the other girls walking up to me with both her knees bent like someone had right angled them with a speed square that restored my good humor.

Am I glad I did this? Yes and no. Yes because it's always good to face your fears. It's good to try something new. It's good to make a fool of yourself and stay humble. No because two hours of fear stresses your immune system and all your heart valves. No because it is just weird to sit on somebody you don't know, and pull their head around to make them do what you want.

But yes and yes and yes again because it's always good to show up for a friend.

Swimming With The Grandgirls

What a fun day! Is there anything in the world more sweet and wonderful than a grandchild?

Why is Playdough so much more fun now than ever before? No one ever liked my creations more than the two little blond girls at my house. My purple Playdough jewelry is beootiful, my neon green heart shaped "cookies" are the best, everything is wonderful, wonderful, until someone is crying like their heart will break, and tiny, tiny little tears roll down their cheeks.

Swimming is better than ever when your buddy wears water wings, and you both get dizzy from spinning each other around and around in the water. Laps are more exhilarting when you're pacing the new team member who is attempting the end to end pool lap for the first time, and all the time carrying the junior varsity rookie on your back, little arms clinging tightly around your neck.

Crossword puzzles are much more intriguing when late at night, a little helper is sitting in the chair next to you, all snuggled up and reading the word clues with you.

And just when you're full of sweetness, a tiny little thing comes in from an outing with Gramps, carrying a plastic bag as big as she is, filled with Haagen Daz bars for everyone.

Sweet beyond belief.