Good Times

Yesterday, my mom and I spent the day doing the funnest thing ever. At least, exactly tailored to what is fun for us.

My mom and Dave arrived late on Saturday. One of the perks of us being in Santa Fe is that we're now on their migration route between Tucson and Denver. They left this morning, heading north to Denver for the summer. Maybe for the last year. After this they might commit to Tucson full time.

We'll see.

But yesterday, my mom and I got to spend the day doing the Eldorado Studio Tour. It was a gorgeous day, so we drove the convertible with the top down. There were 117 artist displaying work in 83 studios, all around the community of Eldorado.

This provided fun for us on so many levels: we got to see the houses and the way people set up their studios. We looked at landscaping and entryways. We saw how people decorated their homes, how they dealt with their culverts (very important to me these days) and who had the best views. (I still think ours is one of the very best - we totally lucked into that.) We saw so many different kinds of art, talked to the artists and their spouses and met lots of fun and interesting people. I even met a spouse who's a writer and might be a new friend.

The guys would have hated every minute.

So it was serendipitous my mom came through this weekend and was able to spend the day with me. We were out for six hours. I bought some notecards from a couple of artists and a giclee page proof of Moonlight Madness by Julia Cairns - the pic above. It reminds me of some of the things I'm writing now. There's another painting by Daniel Huntsinger that really reminds me of Sterling in this very dark way. (That's not it, but it gives you a feel for his work.) I kind of want it and I kind of think it's too dark.

I'll probably go get it. I'm eying the spot on my office wall where it should be.

See how I am?

That's the best part: it's what my mom and I share.

Best day ever.

Thanks for All the Fish

I had this vague Idea that I would write a Thanksgiving post.

I mean, I didn't do the whole Facebook thing of daily posting what I was thankful for, because, hey I have a blog and would write all about that. In my own time.

Which turns out to be days later.

I did post that I was considering just reverting to childhood at my mother's house, which would consist of lying about reading and generally being a parasite.

The beauty of the adult version of this is, you get to drink beer, too!

So, yes, this is what happened to my Thanksgiving post. I was sitting in the sun on the patio, drinking beer that my wonderful Stepfather Dave stocked in his special Corona cooler, reading and being a parasite. Here is my list of thankfuls for that:

To my mom, for making sure I got to relax;
To Dave, for being a great host and for putting up with HER side of the family;
To David, my love, for being the kind of guy who loves to sit and read on the patio with me;
To the sun, for shining.

I wasn't a complete loser, but I came quite close. Somewhere around the Monday of Thanksgiving week, between emails and phone calls, it occurred to me that my mother hadn't even mentioned the dinner menu, much less asked me for input.

This is what's known in the business as a Bad Sign.

When I asked my mom about the plans for the holiday meal, she replied that Thanksgiving is a slam dunk, she and Hope had it handled. So, while I did make my cranberry/pear chutney on Thanksgiving Day, it was an afterthought. Here's me, in my desultory cooking, laptop at the ready. And no, my mother's kitchen is never that cluttered. That's my fault, too. Thus I am thankful:

To Hope, best stepsister anyone could ask for, for stepping up when I didn't;
To my mom, who never once bugged me about the dinner menu and who just wanted me to relax.

So, while I managed to make chutney, consult on the stuffing and set the table -- yes, I was totally 13 again -- I was worthless this Thanksgiving. Even for giving thanks.

In the end? Hands-down winner: I'm thankful for my mom. Who promises that I get to make it all up by hosting Christmas. And she won't do anything, especially not scrubbing my stove top in the middle of the night.

I love you Mom!

Dave Beck Living

When his wife of 35 years succumbed at last to cancer, Dave Beck began to purge their possessions.

Dave is now my mother's husband, my second stepfather. But before he met my mother, Dave had determined that he would be a lonely widower for the rest of his days. He began to eliminate. He decided it was foolish to have more than one cup, one plate, one bowl. No Martha Stewart enhancements for him; if Dave couldn't use it on a daily basis, off it went.

We've been living with just a few things this past week. My mom came up mid-week and packed up the remaining books and all of the kitchen. Except for those dishes we needed to live on for the week. We wash those few dishes frequently and it's just fine. They're our most favorite dishes and utensils, so it doesn't feel like a hardship.

In fact, it feels liberating.

I can see the sense in Dave Beck living. The simplicity. The aescetics of it.

Purging is a kind of catharsis. A release of all the power that objects hold. It can be saddening, to rid oneself of possessions, remembering how it came to you, what it meant. But in releasing it, you also liberate those things.

Perhaps then they float back again. Unencumbered.

Compliments of the Season

"If he doesn't cut my hair right this time," my mother says, "then next season, I'll find a new hairdresser."

"Next season?" I repeat, bemused.

"In the fall," she explains. "We can't say 'next year' because that's too confusing. It'll still be this year when we come back."

"I know," I say, "but it sounds so..."

"Odd?"

"Aristocratic."

"Well, we are!" she happily replies.

She loves this, that she winters in Tucson and summers in Denver. I remember the winters of my childhood and how she hated the snow. How she'd stand at the window staring at the snow blizzarding down and give a cry of incoherent rage. She especially hated this time of year, when the wet spring snows crush the daffodils under their weight. This has been her new husband, Dave's, greatest gift to her: the freedom to both live in the city of her birth and to escape the winter that comes with it.

Last year she and Dave came back to Denver too early, so they're hedging their bets and staying in Tucson until June 1. Some Tucson neighbors do it by the thermometer: on the first day over 100 in Tucson, they pack up for Michigan. On the first day it hits 32 there, they pack up for Arizona. Our own neighbors, the elderly couple across the street, used to drive their RV down to Arizona just after Christmas and return like robins in the spring. But she has Alzheimer's now, so they stopped going. David's folks are the same: no longer making the annual RV trek to Yuma because their health isn't good enough for the drive. And their pride is too great to let any of us take them down. Instead these snowbirds are grounded in their winter homes.

I think about these people, who spend the winter of their lives in the winter climes. I know it's hard on them. Two winters ago I sprained one ankle severely and the other mildly (falling down a flight of stairs in front of 200 people -- don't ask). I felt so fragile on the snow ice, so afraid of slipping, of the pain, of the danger of further infirmity. For the first time I really felt in the skin of someone less than robust health and it was a scary place to be. The winter is colder, too, every year, and I'm only in mid-life.

Some of it is money, sure. But a lot of it is flexibility, too -- the willingness to move away from family, away from the familiar and to make a new home somewhere else. Maybe it takes more than some people have. It may be easier to give in to the winter, to stand at the window and glare at the snow, than to fight and escape.

But then, there's always next season.

Horseplay

This morning, on our way out of the rec center, David and I passed one of the guys who works there. I commented that, typically, the guy didn't look at or acknowlege me, though I've seen him pretty much every day at the same time for a year now. David compared him to an old acquaintance of ours. "He's all about work being serious business," he said, "no horseplay."

Ooh, I thought, I want to blog about "horseplay" today. When I got home, I looked it up in my phrase & fable dictionary: nothing. My word & phrase origins dictionary goes right from "horse opera" to "horsepower." I went to one of my all-time favorite sites, The Word Detective, to search his archives -- a concession because I'd wanted to do my own research -- and even the witty, all-knowing, all-word-powerful (omnietympotent?) Evan Morris doesn't have it. I even resorted to Wikipedia (the same Evan Morris quips that Wikipedia's motto should be "it could be true"). Article not found. I even tried a general google search. All I get is the completely unhelpful suggestion that "horseplay" is a combination of "horse" and "play." Eureka! "Possibly from observing horses at play."

Shoot me now.

I mean, my question is: why horses?? Why isn't it kittenplay or bunnyplay? Okay, if we want the boisterous aspect, why not dogplay? The deer and antelope roam -- apparently no playing there. If we presume we have to stick with domestic animals, I can see why cows weren't picked. But goats? Goatplay involves all sorts of rowdy, sundress-eating types of activities. (Don't ask -- I was only five at the time.)

I can see David's point, that the "no horseplay" attitude makes for the serious worker. The kind who doesn't say good-morning. The rule-keepers. I wonder, too, about the pressure we all seem to be feeling. Like me, most everyone I know has the same amount of day-to-day money as they have ever had. Sure there are people getting laid off -- we hear about them on the news -- but I don't know any of them. My mom and her husband, Dave, say they now have 50% of what they had, but their monthly income from pensions remains the same.

The loss is more or less theoretical. We worry that we might lose our jobs, or that our 401Ks will dissolve, but it's theoretical pressure. It's not now. Napoleon Hill, when he worked for Eisenhower, observed that the most profound effect of The Great Depression, was that peoples' attitudes changed. The fear of loss made them think of themselves as poor, whether they'd lost already or not. The curse of the cerebral cortex is that we can worry about things that haven't happened. The blessing of the animal brain is that it is only for the now, the immediate experience.

Give me a little horseplay.

Good-bye Lucy

On Friday, my mom had her Himalayan cat put to sleep. This sort of event occurs regularly through our lives, marking the eras in 10, 15, or 20 year increments -- less if illness strikes. One beloved pet dies and we acquire another. For a family like ours, who keeps cats, we might have five or six primary cats through our own lives.

Lucy was 16 and it was her time.

My mom posted Lucy's obituary via email:

Dear Friends,

It is with sadness that I tell you that Lucy had to be put to sleep yesterday. She was apparently suffering from kidney failure which went undetected until it was too late to cure her.

She had a very full sixteen years and got to experience travels to many fun destinations including Dauphin Island, New Orleans, and Tucson. She probably logged more car miles than most other felines. She was a comforting companion to Leo during his illness and a highly adaptable friend to me. She will be missed.

Leo was my stepfather, who died a few years ago. Lucy loved Leo, the boyfriend who followed and my mom's new husband, Dave. She was always a man's cat, loving my mom's men as she loved them.

So Lucy's passing now marks the end of this 16 year increment. Now begins a time when my mom has no cats. This is new, too. Dave has said they can get another, which is lovely of him. But she wants a little time of driving back and forth without dragging a cat along. I can't help but think that the next cat will see my mom through the last increment of her life.

Or maybe there will be two more. I find myself adopting the leapfrogging cat method. Our two cats are 12 and 3. While this muddies the life increments, it's also an insurance policy against being completely bereft.

I'm big on ensuring I won't be completely bereft.

Bon Voyage

My mother is in Egypt now. At least, I believe she is. She was to arrive there while I was sleeping around 3:30 this morning. I'm trying to picture here there, but I've never been to Egypt and I have only vague ideas of what Cairo looks like, which seem to be largely drawn from Indiana Jones-type adventures -- I've got narrow streets, vendors with huge baskets, flapping awnings, dust and rogue camels. She doesn't fit on those streets in my mind. Instead I keep picturing her in a billowy white cotton outfit (though I know perfectly well she owns nothing of the kind and that no Western adventurer has worn that kind of thing since the British first began to unearth the tombs) under a blazing desert sun, backed by the sphinx and maybe a pyramid or two. No matter how I override with a more logical guess that she's probably catching up on sleep in a darkened hotel room, when I think of her, my mind supplies the sphinx/pyramid/billowing cotton outfit picture.

It's a funny thing, being out of touch. Normally I wouldn't have yet talked to her, early on a Sunday morning. In many ways, she's no more distant from me now than she was in Tucson yesterday. And yet, there she is, out in a desert I've never seen, my mind shrouding her in an outfit she never wears. I find myself missing her.

When she called from JFK before boarding the flight to Cairo, I asked, "so, do you have any plans for communication at all -- or is this goodbye for three weeks?" She paused, conferred with Dave, my stepfather, and replied with surprise that no, they hadn't thought of it. The surprise is because Dave, also a former Air Force guy, and so level-headed with it, usually thinks of everything. (I'm saying also, as in along with Sullenberger, our new hero.) They speculated about Internet cafes, phone cards that could be purchased, that the Egyptian hotels might have Internet themselves now. They said they'd figure something out. I said not to worry about it.

Just a few days ago, my mom was lamenting her hard drive crash that prevented her from being on Instant Messenger. She had to call me on the phone to make contact, which seemed onerous. We laughed, wondering what we did before we had email or the Internet at all. When our phones were tied to the wall at home.

Our lack of contact now is only an illusion. For the right price, I could call her. She'll find Internet access, most likely. And yet, in my heart, she's as distant as a Victorian Egyptologist, white parasol in hand, admiring the Great Sphinx under the sun.