Recalibrating

I caught a bit of sun on this one, but I love the happy look on Granddaughter Aerro's face.

We spent the weekend with family, celebrating David's birthday and Tobiah's a bit late. It's fun to do these things, to see everyone, but I ate lots of food I don't normally eat, got no writing done and got all out of my routine.

I know - I'm cantankerous.

I think this is why so many people dislike Mondays though. It's much easier to stay with a routine than to start it up again. My folks are retired and they don't notice the days of the week so much, except for planning events. Sometimes I think that's the best way, just to let the flow of time be even. When I'm home for the weekend, though I sleep a bit later, it's not by a huge amount - maybe an hour - and my exercise and writing schedule is pretty much the same. Then Monday isn't so much of a shock.

This morning, though...

So I'm gearing up. Lots to do this week. I'm almost done revising The Body Gift. I've been strengthening the hero and it's working. I found myself mooning over him the other day, which is lovely, because he's been very difficult to get to know. I'm 70% done, with 15 chapters to do over the next 7 days. Totally doable, right?

(There is the small matter of adding an entirely new scene where my characters end up in this very particular image I have in my head, but I don't really know how they get there or what happens. The story magic will fill that in, right?)

Then I send it off to my (potential) agent who is enthusiastically (I like to think) waiting for it.

Okay, off I go to catch a wave. Wish me luck!

Birth and Death

Today is David's birthday.

This has become a dual anniversary for us, because it was two years ago today that we arrived in Santa Fe, in a pouring rain storm, to start house-hunting here. Amazing to us that it's already two years. And now just one more until he's done with school.

We always say it, but time flies on by.

The days rush past, with all our little ups and downs, until something reminds us that this isn't a given. On Tuesday, one of my college friends died. I've long had his blog on my blogroll there on the sidebar. The title is now ironic: I'm Not Dead Yet. He'd been battling pancreatic cancer with courage, humor and determination for several years. He hoped to beat the truly terrible odds of this devastating cancer, and did for quite a long time. Eventually his body gave out. He turned 45 in March; I'll turn 45 next month. I'm still here and he isn't.

Life - and death - are strange that way.

A few days ago, the young woman my cousin is engaged to posted to Facebook that her grandfather has cancer and we should pray for him because cancer is caused by sin. She's a Southern Lutheran and he's now a Lutheran minister. I wanted to comment that my cat died of cancer and I'm pretty sure she wasn't sinful, but I refrained. There's no arguing with that kind of belief system.

I think we'd all like to know why. Why one person gets pancreatic cancer young and another does not. Why some live to be very old and others don't live to see their children grow up.

The one thing I do know is, I'm glad to be alive. I'm happy to be celebrating another year with my friend, partner and lover. I hope never to take this for granted.

Happy birthday, my dear!

Pin Head

So, last night I received cosmetic acupuncture.

David is taking the class this semester, as part of his Doctor of Oriental Medicine degree. It's an elective, though. As far as the school is concerned. The way it went was this: David was vacillating on taking it, since it's a Thursday evening class after a full day of classes. I said if he loved me, he'd take the class.

Fortunately the man loves me.

He might also have been swayed by my argument that he could make potloads of money giving people surgery-free facelifts and breast enhancing treatments that can increase you by AN ENTIRE CUP SIZE. That's what they say.

I know, right?

So, I went in to the class last night to be a test-subject. David is the only guy taking the class - and he says the other guys are missing out on this opportunity. First, he put a few needles in my wrists and ankles, and one just below my belly-button, to bring up that cool and dewy yin energy.

Then he put needles in my face. They sting a bit, but are mostly tingly. Besides, the body needles had already made me sleepy and relaxed. If you look closely, he put tiny little hair-thin needles in the lines on my forehead. Those are laugh lines, by the way. I don't want to hear any of you saying different.

You can also see how my face is flushed and looking kind of shiny. Amazingly, the treatment did bring a dewy freshness to my skin. And this morning, my skin looks smoother, with the fine lines much less noticeable.

I also slept really well last night - a blessing since I'd a stressful week.

Two enthusiastic thumbs up!

Back Off, Man!

This is one of my long-time friends back in Wyoming. We worked at the Wyoming Game and Fish Laboratory together, along with David. She's still there and I'm betting she'll be Director someday.

That era formed a big chunk of my life. Physiology, wildlife, the community of academic and applied scientists. Like all groups formed around a field of study, we had our jargon, our in-jokes. We once went around a party of Zoology & Physiology types and asked each person there this question: if you saw a dead animal by the side of the road, what would you do with it?

Yeah, see - a lot of you out there are kind of squinting at the screen now and saying, "um, do with it?"

The only people at the party who did not say "take it home and put it in the freezer" were spouses. For years I had any number of dead animals in my freezers, both at home and in various lab spaces. People sometimes asked me if they could put frozen dead animals in the Physiology lab chest freezers, because we always had extra space.

What? They might come in useful.

I still have a bobcat skull that I spent months cleaning.

At any rate, I thought of this the other day when the HVAC guy came. Don't ask - just cross your fingers that our heat-exchanger isn't cracked. He looked at the tag from the gas service showing the very high CO values they'd picked up when we called them and asked me if the gas company had explained what those high values meant. I scrambled for a way to respond and fell back on "We're both scientists, so..." HVAC guy nodded.

It's something I want to say sometimes, like when the dental hygienist is explaining in painstaking detail about gum health - and sometimes getting it wrong - that I'm a physiologist and I already understand about epidermal layers. It makes me wish for a t-shirt like my friend's bumper sticker, back in Wyoming:

BACK OFF, MAN! I'M A SCIENTIST

This classic line, of course, brought to you by Dr. Peter Venkman of the Ghostbusters. Which should tell you right there that it was being used to justify somewhat un-scientific activities.

Still, it's a great line and an even better attitude.

Maybe I'll get a tattoo...

Blue Coyote

I had this dream, you see.

I was inside the house and David stepped out onto our patio, with his hands outspread. He was warding off the coyotes, I realized. There they were, streaking through the draw just below us. Only they were blue. Blue like jays.

The coyotes have become an odd subconscious symbol for me. I love to see them, in all their wild and beautiful glory. I'm also afraid of them. Not for myself, but for the cats. One day - the day of this photo, actually - one had a fresh-caught bunny dangling from its mouth. The coyote happily tossed the dead rabbit about. And I pictured Isabel in its place.

I can't deny Isabel and Teddy the joy that going out into the sun gives them. And yet I fret about them being unsafe. It's the eternal push/pull of suffocating what we love by keeping it safe.

And yes, I know I've written about this before. I said it's become a major symbol for me.

The blue coyotes, though - they were different. Both more fantastic and more dangerous. How David could hold them off, I don't know. I'm just grateful he could.

Perhaps that's my valentine today, to David, the man who keeps us safe from the Blue Coyotes.

(Thanks to the amazing and fabulous Tawna Fenske for saving my whiny behind and helping with with this pic. All hail Queen Tawna!)

Platinum (!) Anniversary

Apparently it used to be the anniversary for gifts of China, but that's passé. We're platinum now, baby! Ironic that silver and gold come later, but you can hit platinum at 20 years.

There's a moral in that somewhere.

At any rate: today is our 20th Anniversary!

(cue screaming crowds)

In honor of this special milestone, I thought I'd share the title essay with you from my book, Wyoming Trucks, True Love and the Weather Channel. It's about our first date, the one that took place 20 years ago today.

I wrote this some time ago and a lot has changed since then. Still, it's a fun read.


Wyoming Trucks, True Love, and the Weather Channel


David warned me about the truck when he called for our first date. “I’ll have to pick you up in the race-beast, you know,” and he hesitated. I wondered what response he expected from me as I sifted through his deep, slow telephone voice for clues. Unaccustomed to being phoned up and asked to the movies in the first place, I felt on very uncertain ground reassuring him that the (“race-beast” did he say?) would be fine. The implication seemed clear that I knew about his car well enough to make an informed decision about riding in it and that any refined female might have reservations on the subject. The previous summer David had played on our co-ed softball team, “The Science Nerds,” and so I supposed that I had seen him come and go on wheels, but I hadn’t tucked away the sort of mental image he seemed to expect. I did suspect him of womanizing ways, a new divorcé out preying on tender young grad students, and so in my mind the race-beast took the shape of a sleek and sexy sports car, screaming seduction in every line and curve. Well, he had warned me and I would be ready.

Maybe not entirely ready for a brown ‘79 Ford pickup. Opening the front door to David, freshly shaven and handsome in his button-fly Levi’s and leather bomber jacket, I smiled, said hello and craned to look over his shoulder for the sports car I was to be wooed in. In the chill post-Super-Bowl party evening, the truck idled with the quiet and grace of an irritated water buffalo--ah, now I understood the “beast” part. David must have seen me eyeing the putative racing vehicle as he escorted me out to my sporadically choking and roaring chariot. Or he anticipated my reaction. “I did warn you,” he grinned down at me.

That grin proved to be my eventual undoing. My friends refer to David as “that man with the intense blue eyes and gorgeous smile.” Behind my back, I believe they discuss him as the reason I’ve never left Wyoming. He’s certainly the reason I now find myself occasionally navigating the race-beast around town.

In my early days in Wyoming, someone told me that there are more trucks registered in Wyoming than there are people living here. Taking into account that dozens of people around don’t own pickups, this implies that some people own dozens of trucks. Granted we do have the smallest population in the Union — as of the 1990 census we beat even Alaska — so we’re not talking millions of trucks. You do have to factor in the ranch concept — lots of ranches with many trucks. But it’s still an awful lot of trucks. When I called the Albany County Library to check this out, the reference librarian gently suggested that my pet statistic might be a popular myth. And she is correct. There were only 175,000 trucks registered as of July 1, 1996, which leaves 300,000 of us truckless.

* * *

“I would never move to Wyoming!” my college roommate yelled out her proclamation as she sat on the ratty couch in our St. Louis apartment, watching a tourism commercial for the state.
“And why would that be, Rachel?” I called back from my desk. I knew she had no personal experience farther west of the Mississippi than the city outskirts and she knew that I was considering graduate work in Wyoming. More than considering — I had pretty much decided upon it.

“Because once you move to Wyoming, you’re stuck. You never get out.” After ten years and a Master’s Degree, I have yet to escape.

* * *

David is not a cowboy, as many of my East Coast friends refer to him; actually he’s a fish pathologist. But his truck means as much to him as any trusty steed. The first vehicle he bought himself, the only real material good he salvaged from his divorce (except his traps and his stereo), this eyesore remains a source of pride and affection. He claims the annual elk hunt would be impossible without it — although he now uses my ‘82 Honda, Flash, to scout through the Snowies, as it consumes much less gas. Certain the truck becomes indispensable when the winter blizzards snow us in sufficiently David always happily turns the hubs in for four-wheel drive and barrels through the drifted streets, cackling manfully. He enjoys acting the part of the macho womanizer ever since I foolishly confessed my first-date thoughts. No one would guess the man fills his spare time reading Taoist philosophy and physics texts when he hollers out, “This shur is a fahn truck, w-man!”

Without the truck, our border collie, Cayenne, wouldn’t have her primary obsession. Riding in the pickup supersedes all other temptations for her, even food. She waits, almost patiently, by the front door, carefully not looking at the truck, unable to stand the anticipation. When the “OK” command releases her, she barrels at top speed, a black and white weasel shape burning through the two cottonwoods, arcing to the right (I won’t let David park the truck directly in front of the house we share) and flying in a single leap over the side, ready for the slower humans necessary to make it go. A dog in a truck — sometimes a gun too, but always bullets or empty shells rolling around — links a man to his heritage. It’s what his dad had up in Cody. Oh, and your girlfriend riding in the middle, so you can pat her on the thigh as you shift gears. That part is kind of nice.

* * *

For the true Wyomingite trucks (and other lesser autos) are an extension of the individual. David can recognize anybody by their vehicle. “Joe’s down at the Ranger again,” he’ll inform me. When I ask how he knows, he looks at me funny and replies, “Well, I saw his truck.” And woe to me if I happen to drive past the Red Buttes Environmental Station without noting who’s working. After all, it’s only a quarter-mile from the highway, and you can see the small dirt parking lot plain as day. As we drive down the street, David waves to passing cars. “Who was that?” I ask, spending more time looking back than forward. He always knows.

I think that I must not look at cars and trucks the way David does. I grew up in Denver, a place Wyoming people dread to motor through, and I know city traffic. In fact, I pride myself on being an excellent driver. My mother taught me, and she’s an excellent driver, too. We like to drive fast, decisively and efficiently. I have contempt for the hesitant motorist and no patience with the oblivious. Instead of looking at cars, I see spaces. Opportunities. I watch the gaps open and close, widen and lengthen. The people in the objects around me become less relevant than their speed and vector. I think this ability to focus is part of what makes me alert and confident behind the wheel. And it’s important to me to feel that way. At least, up until recently.

* * *

There’s an old saying that in our strengths lay the seeds of our downfall. Always reliable and with a spotless motor vehicles record, in high school I worked for a law firm as a runner. Zipping around the city in my little ‘76 hatchback — Folly, the Accord that preceded Flash — I could go to any address in the metropolitan area, usually by the fastest route. When I drove from college in St. Louis to New York for a wedding, my friend said not to worry about the city traffic because I would fit right in. This may not have been a compliment. I have navigated Chicago, Atlanta, LA, San Francisco, Boston. Black ice for 50 miles through northern Colorado couldn’t keep me back; and I’ve driven over Vail and Rabbit Ears Passes through blinding snowstorms. But I can’t drive that damned truck.

Occasionally I have no choice. Between us, we have three vehicles. But Flash’s battery died of neglect last winter and I put off buying another, afraid that a more severe problem would emerge. And the new Accord, Allan, that David and I bought together from the Allens who could no longer afford him, has to take David down to Greeley for class on Mondays. His truck guzzles too much for distances, and doesn’t handle all those curves fast enough through icy Telephone Canyon.

So one stormy evening last March, I had to drive the monster. Even though it was brutally cold out, I would have walked to workshop and wouldn’t have minded walking back through the snow at 10 pm. One of the things I like best about my town is that I can walk anywhere, even by myself, and at night, too. But I had errands to run; I grabbed the rented videos, my notebooks and critiqued stories, shouldered my purse and strode purposefully out to the beast.

* * *

A certain amount of bravado seems to help. Like a horse, this sort of truck senses fear. Carefully inserting the worn key in the eye-level door lock, I slowly turned it against the cold metal. David has warned me that the slightly twisted key could break off in the lock, especially in the -20 weather. Closing my eyes, I sent a brief supplication to the truck spirits, who I knew were awaiting the smallest error. It worked; the key emerged with only slight protest. After wrenching the door ajar, I tried to keep it propped open with my shoulder while levering my things up, pushing them as far as my arms could reach, to clear enough space to climb in. Usually the door closes over me, hopefully not too hard, and holds me up against the frame as I scrabble about. Fortunately I was wearing my black wool slacks, so I didn’t have to hike my skirts up to my crotch to make that first big step up. But as I stretched my right foot up to hip height, grabbing the steering wheel like the monkey bars at my grade school, I could feel the seam split down the back of my pants. Fine. My leather duster is long, I would just wear it for the next three hours.

If I sit on the very edge of the seat and stretch my left leg fully, I can just get the clutch down far enough to shift. The seat, of course, doesn’t come forward. No worries about seat-belts; they don’t work either. I gently revved the engine, tenderly attending to its every snort and growl. Apparently I tend to “wrap it up” too much, and so I have to work to balance letting the idle die or bringing the drive shaft through the floor. David assured me that this is not only possible, but very likely if I don’t lose my attachment to driving a working machine like it was a Honda. Perching forward, my chin practically on the steering wheel, I realized I looked like a little old lady. “There goes Ma Kettle, out for her Sunday drive,” my mother would exclaim impatiently as she passed the Impala hovering in the left lane. She never liked driving to my grandmother’s retirement community, because the traffic would slow so measurably as we approached, with “Little grey heads everywhere!” I felt for those little heads now, as I slowed for the stop sign half a block ahead because the brakes are so soft.

Shall I reveal the further banal details? How the gutter below the video return box sloped with ice, so I could maneuver my peevish tank only within two feet — too far to reach through the window, too close to open the door fully enough to get out. How the engine died as I crossed Third Street, forcing oncoming cars to wait as I nursed the brute back to life. That truck brought me to tears as I wobbled and hesitated down the icy street, and for the first time in my life I felt like a fragile female.
I broke my nails to the quick scratching a mugger in St. Louis and never thought to be afraid. I’ve traveled alone through a blizzard in eastern Colorado when they closed the interstate around us, stopping only to help a gal who had pulled over, too afraid to continue. I followed her into Limon and got us both hotel rooms. I am strong, capable and confident, but that unnameable truck brought me to my knees.

* * *

On my knees, the perspective is different. The small defeats in life take on greater proportions. Little choices, brief moments reverberate with endless sound and color. Feeling helpless and defeated, especially in, let’s face it, an exceedingly ridiculous situation, can be very useful to the efficiently arrogant. I find it interesting that it’s not necessarily the challenges we choose that teach the lasting lessons.

Living in Wyoming was never my intent. As a “greenie” — a local term for Coloradans with their green license plates — I had never given the state a specific thought. In fact, it seems that very few people give Wyoming a specific thought. I amuse and irritate myself now and then by watching the weather channel to see if the forecasters ever say the word “Wyoming.” I don’t have abundant free time for this dubious activity, but I have never once heard it. They say Great Plains, the Rockies, Denver, the Northern Plains. I’m sure I’ve heard the Dakotas discussed, Montana mentioned in passing and always ski reports in Colorado. I have heard Jackson Hole bandied about and sometimes Big Piney or Pinedale wins the national overnight cold spot award; but I remain unconvinced that anyone knows those places are in Wyoming.

It’s odd, and sometimes difficult, to live in a place that does not appear on the cultural map. Our department head once called Chicago to reserve Cubbies tickets for his upcoming visit. When giving his mailing address, the operator asked, “Now, Wyoming — Is that in the United States?” He replied that the sale to Canada had not yet been finalized.

We love to tell each other these stories. We share a mixture of delight at remaining undiscovered and righteous anger at the negligence of our countrymen. I have come to think a lot like a Wyomingite. I relish the difficulties of living here; I savor the beauty that strikes my heart and weakens my legs. I don’t like Senator Al Simpson, but I take a perverse pride in his obdurate methods. I work with people like him. If nothing else, they seem more alive, more rooted in the earth and daily living somehow, than the folk of other places. Some of us fight for the wilderness, some for improving our woeful economy through the energy industry, but to live here is to develop a deep love for the sere land and the challenges it poses, even when the challenges take the form of intractable trucks.

David became the immediate reason for me to stay and it seemed like a small choice at the time. A matter of a few months and a fling. But I’ve come to know this man as I’ve come to know Wyoming over a decade of my life. Yes, and the truck, too. And now I find that I like who I am here. A place that has brought me to my knees in both despair and wonder must have something to teach me. I am profoundly happy here. Growing, too.

I don’t drive the truck unless I have to. But I can do it. Mostly I enjoy insulting it whenever possible, while David sings its praises. When I argue that it is not a “woman-getting machine,” as he fondly calls it, David smiles equably and murmurs, “It got you, didn’t it?”

High Drama

Overheard from the Crazy Gym Lady: "That wasn't sugar. It was honey. Honey isn't sugar."

This morning, the Jeep was completely frosted over. A heavy fog had settled in overnight - indeed a wind-driven fog bank was still whipping by overhead, foaming and turbulent like those old paintings of horses boiling out of the surf - and froze onto every surface in a thick coat.

David turned on the defroster, to the second-highest setting, then got out to scrape off the windshield. Once he was out of the car, I turned the defroster up to its highest setting. He won't do this. Something prevents him from using the "high" setting on anything. Even boiling water in the tea-kettle, he'll put it on just a notch down from high. Or, much more aggravating, he'll put it on somewhere around the low side of medium.

Not particularly wanting to wait half an hour for the water to heat, I'll sneak into the kitchen and turn it up to High.

"Why is the tea kettle on High?" he'll ask.

"So the water will boil," I tell him in my soul-of-patience voice.

"It's already boiling."

"No - it's just hot. I want my water hotter than that."

"You just like to superheat everything," he tells me.

He tells me that a lot. I like to put the take-out pizza in the oven to keep warm while we eat the initial slices. Yes - "superheating." I bring pasta water to a rolling boil. I like baths hot, not tepid.

Oh yes, it's a problem sometimes. I'm impatient, so I nearly always start a skillet or pan on my favorite setting, start the oil, maybe the garlic, and dial down from there. Sometimes I might, um, get distracted, too. I really do try not to let this happen often. The getting distracted part. I'm still quite fond of High.

That's the intensity in me. The drama. I like things bold and decisive. Dithering drives me up the wall. While David rarely dithers, he's for the careful approach. He likes to ease into something, take it slowly. Wait and see.

We're fire and water. It actually works for us.

Though I'm forever turning the dials up, he's there turning them down. He hesitates to take action, but I've already bought the tickets. When I'm running too hot, he tells me to settle down.

Are we attracted opposites? I think it's more the balance.

Honey isn't sugar. Except it is.

Aerro Nicole

Aerro Nicole De La Fuente, daughter of my stepdaughter, Lauren, was born yesterday.

She's actually my second grandchild, as her brother, Tobiah, turned two this summer. Their dad, Damion, has gorgeous eyes, too, so I expect both kids will be heartbreakers.

It's funny how many people don't know I have stepchildren. I look young for my age anyway, due to good genes, a long-term skin care program and a happy life. But I also acquired my stepchildren young. I was twenty-four when I met David twenty years ago. At that time Lauren was six and her brother, Mike, was eight.

So they could have been mine biologically, too, if I'd gotten started early. One of Lauren's best friends had a baby at sixteen, so she'll be on my same track.

It seemed David and I were always out of step with the other parents. Most of them were older than we were - or maybe they just seemed older. I was still in grad school. David had gone to college late and was in the early years of a new career. Neither of us had any money. We lived in a tiny apartment, with a grocery budget of $50/week, and Mike and Lauren stayed with us every other weekend, all summer and visited once a week for dinner. Our friends always forgot we needed to either bring Mike and Lauren along or find a sitter when they threw impromptu parties on kid-weekends. None of our friends had children. And the parents of the kids' friends seemed so much more fixed in life than we were.

By the time Mike and Lauren were older, that was when our friends started having kids. Many of my cohort, my high-school and college friends now have children who are around ten years old. Lauren had her first baby at twenty-four. The same age I became a stepmother, I pointed out to her. She seemed young for it, but then, so was I.

Am I young to be a grandmother? I suppose so. But I'm hearing people say 60 is the new 40, which means that 40 must be the new 20. By that measure, I acquired stepchildren when I was in grade school.

Age is a rapidly changing concept these days. People may not be living a lot longer, but they're certainly more youthful for it. Here we are, twenty years later and David is back in school, training for a second career - or perhaps third, depending on how you look at it. Mike is back in David's home town, doing the things David did in his twenties, before he went to college. Lauren has a son who is two years older than her new daughter, who was born the same weight as Lauren was.

It all cycles around. David and I are looking forward to spending time with Tobiah and Aerro (named for the snowboarder in last winter's Olympics, if you were wondering. And Nicole is Lauren's middle name) as they grow up. We have more room and more money now.

And we're still young. Doesn't get any better than that.

Welcome to the world, Aerro. We love you.

Prince of a Man

Today is David's Birthday.

And with today, we complete the cycle that first brought us to Santa Fe. A year ago today, David turned 50 and we drove down to Santa Fe to commence our house hunt. A year from tomorrow will be the first time we saw this house. David turning 50 also marked the beginning of his early retirement, which freed him to return to school to start this second career.

Finally I can connect the cycle of how the garden looked this time last year (better than it does now, I think. alas).

In my family, birthdays are special, but I feel like David often gets a bit skunked on his. Sometimes we've done fun things, like the year we went to Las Vegas for a few days and saw three nights of Cirque du Soleil, and drank margaritas by the pool during the day. Or the year we drove around Wyoming during his birthday week and played tourist.

But last year I was scrambling for gifts because I'd been on non-stop travel. It should have been a special party for his 50th, like we did for his 40th. I'd hoped we'd go out to dinner on some great patio in Santa Fe, but it was pouring rain when we arrived and we just didn't feel like going back out in it. We ended up ordering dining delivery from Maria's Kitchen. We stayed in, drank the expensive tequila I'd gotten him and listened to the rain.

We both remember that evening with nostalgia, though there wasn't much to it. Tonight we have reservations for the patio at Luminaria, which people say makes you feel like you're in the Caribbean. He has class all day and an exam this afternoon. Hopefully we can do cocktails and presents on the patio before we go to dinner.

Another low-key birthday for David. But maybe that's okay.

Next year, though, I'm thinking we should go back to Las Vegas for the weekend.

Ice Cream Castles in the Air

I thought this one looked like a giant white jellyfish in a sea of blue.

Actually, it looked quite a bit more like a jellyfish before I went inside to grab the camera. By then, it had started to drift and alter, as clouds do. They never stay the same for long.

Despite the fixed nature of my spreadsheets, my progress towards my goals change, too.

It turns out my lowly wordcount of Thursday was a harbinger. I'm learning that my not feeling well first manifests in low creativity. Which shouldn't be surprising at all. I did get 1,126 words on Friday, so I was all pleased by that. But then Saturday I just couldn't muster to write at all. Or do much else. And yesterday I woke up full-blown sick. Sinus headache from hell that was so awful it made me sick to my stomach.

For those of you who don't know, David is going to school to become a doctor of Traditional Chinese Medicine. This has side benefits for me. I laid in my own bed while he treated me, which felt loving and soothing. He says my Wei Chi, which is a military term and is like an army that surrounds your body, trapped a Cold Wind Invasion (also a military term). So my immune system stopped the invading pathogen, but it was trapped on the outer edges.

He used moxa on me, which blessedly dispersed the headache and I proceeded to sleep most of the rest of the day.

Today is for finishing up work projects, packing an preparing for vacation. Our house sitter comes tonight, so there's cleaning yet to do.

Sterling will have to wait yet another day. But I hope to put time in on it over the vacation. Right now I'm four days behind my goal finish date. I might be able to recover that. I might not. I also have a bunch of edits to work in from my critique partner, KAK, and you know how she is. I might be doing a lot of reworking, which is never a clean movement forward. It nevertheless counts as important work on the novel - a back and forthing difficult to capture on a spreadsheet.

So my goals might be mutating a bit, rearranging themselves when I have my back turned.

Just like all things.

A Lot of Effort for Some Boxes

So, I've never been that much of a recycler.

Or rather, David never has been and so I easily fell out of the habit once we were living together. He became quickly annoyed at the accumulating sacks of newspapers, cans and bottles. Granted, recycling was a pain in Laramie. For a long time you could only take recyclables to a certain place during certain hours of weekday afternoons. Even when they finally set up bins, those were usually full.

David liked to grump that he saw the recycle place hauling truckloads out to the landfill all the time. He particularly liked to tease our more avid recycling friends about it. They would frown, uncertain if he was making it up or not.

At any rate, like many things, it was easier not to and so I stopped.

Now, I work for an environmental consulting firm and the company is big on green policies. Which I suppose is only good and right. We have to purchase 100% recycled paper for our printers, should we be so wasteful as to print something out in the first place. We have to recycle our used paper, etc. And we have to take these pledges.

Well, we don't have to, but we're exhorted to. And if you know anything about me at all, I'm just not the kind of gal you force into making pledges.

But every year there's this big campaign where, in order to support the efforts of a major client, we have to go on the internet and pledge to replace our lightbulbs with the energy-savings ones. My boss, Laurie, who is fortunately also my friend, is probably shaking her head reading this, because she's heard me go on about the lightbulbs. At length. Maybe with the teensiest bit of ranting.

Suffice to say: I do not like them.

I do not like them in my house. I do not like them with a mouse. I do not like them because they make everything look green: eggs, ham, art and people.

Laurie doesn't get me on this. The aesthetic doesn't bother her. But this is also the woman who reuses corners of paper and the back of Post-It notes. She's literally taken balled-up used sticky notes out of my trash, smoothed them out and used them for notes. Yes, we've discussed her issues, too.

So, a few years ago, I caved, I did the pledge, and bought my two ugly-making lightbulbs. Laurie archly asked me if I actually installed them. I replied that I did: in the basement laundry room. (Laundry rooms are supposed to have icky awful lighting - it's practically a law.) She conceded that was good enough. Then the next year rolls around and we have to pledge again, what with more bulbs. I started to run out of icky places to put the bulbs.

This year's drive wound up yesterday. Only now they have this whole list of things you can do to be more green. Laurie commented that it's getting harder to show movement each year. Which is true - I actually already do everything on that list except the freaking lightbulbs. The ones I left behind in the old house when we moved. To help the new people be green, I told Laurie.

She suggested I put their names on the pledge.

I turn off unused lights and appliances. I keep thermostats low and turned down during low-use times. Growing up in the Western drought of the 70s, I'm a habitual water-saver. One friend gets irritated that I turn the water on and off when I do dishes. "Why don't you just let it keep running?" she asks. Because I can't.

And now we have curbside recycling, so we do that, too! Amusingly, I even mentioned this once before on the blog. Back in August David and I were going back and forth on recyclables that don't fit in the bin. Which brings us to yesterday.

Remember how I bought all that nifty new patio furniture? Well, it came in great big boxes. Heavy-duty cardboard ones. Our recycle pick-up comes every two weeks, so two weeks ago, I set two giant boxes filled with smaller scraps of cardboard next to the bin for pick up.

Shockingly the Waste Management guys did not take them.

(If you watch Breaking Bad, you can see our New Mexico Waste Management trucks. Kind of thrilling, no? Yeah, I didn't think so. But it's funny to us.)

We had a rainy day last week and David told me I should put those boxes out in the rain so they'd soften up and he could tromp them down and put them in the garbage bin. Our recycle bin gets really full at the end of two weeks. I said, no, I was going to break the boxes down and set them out for recycle again this week. "A lot of effort for some boxes," he says and I said I didn't mind.

So I spent a bunch of time cutting up and breaking down the boxes, bundling them into neat stacks, tied up with rope. With carry handles even. And we set them next to the very full recycle bin for pick up yesterday. The Waste Management guy arrives, sits for easily five minutes on his radio (I can spy on this from my office window). He backs the truck up like he's leaving, then he pulls forward again, gets out, contemptuously kicks aside my careful bundles of cardboard and lets the automatic truck arm empty the bin. And drives away.

David says, "That's why I wanted you to put that stuff in the rain so I could have tromped it down and put it in the garbage."

I should insert here that today is David's second-to-last day of finals and he's hitting full grumpitude saturation at this point. I'm not calling him on it because, well, I'm understanding and loving like that. So, I don't say anything to this.

I call Waste Management, very nice girl tells me that, yeah, in Santa Fe they'll take only what's in the bin. I ask if I'm supposed to cut these boxes into tiny pieces and dole them into the recycle bin over the course of months and she responds brightly that that's a great idea.

I tell her not so much.

So she tells me that I can drop the stuff off at the county. Coincidentally, the place is right by where I have a salon appointment that day anyway. I put the top down on the Jag, pull to the end of the driveway and load the cardboard into the back. David helps, grumbling that it's an awful lot of effort for some boxes at which point I, maybe not quite so lovingly, tell him that I don't mind, I'll do it myself and to go back in the house to study. He says, "Okay, I won't say another word." And I, very lovingly, do not say "Hallelujah!"

It goes downhill from there. The place the chirpy Waste Management girl sends me too is the lovely county office with no recycling facilities in evidence. I end up talking to the County Manager, who's a terrific gal and says "I do not know what is wrong with those people at Waste Management!" She draws me a map to the transfer station, by the landfill, by the dog park, all places I haven't been to yet.

So, yes, I drive out to the landfill in my Jag convertible, packed to the rim with cardboard pieces. The woman at the gate takes one look at me, says "let me guess" and waves me through. I find the big bin o'cardboard, where a very earthy/crunchy young man is emptying his vehicle of rectangles like mine. We stand in the sun and companionably toss cardboard into the bin.

And yes, I felt pleased with myself.

True to his promise, David didn't say another word about it, so I don't have to 'fess up to the further complications, which would have truly driven him over the wall. I'll have to think up another reason for why I now know where the landfill and the dog park are.

The pledge checklist doesn't include a category for "went to a lot of effort for some boxes," but I'm feeling like a good kitty-cat this Earth Day.

The best part? I didn't have to buy any of those stinking lightbulbs!

Wuv. Twue Wuv

David and I have been talking about the nature of love, lately.

I think I've mentioned it, in reference to other conversations. But this, of course, is the WEEKEND OF LOVE, what with Valentine's Day and all. The mentions of it have become truly relentless.

Two of the gals David goes to school with asked him what he's doing for me for Valentine's. Another took him aside to ask what she should get for her guy that he would like. It's funny: at 50, David is everyone's father figure. He gave her good advice though. He suggested some things I'd done for him that he liked and she was pleased.

I told David, though, that I don't really want anything for Valentine's this year. It just seems silly. (Plus, I hadn't been thinking about getting him anything!) David said he'd tried to explain that to the gals who asked, that doing something for each other on a particular day seems kind of false after so many years together. Whereas last week I was feeling sad and friendless (woe is me) and had a little crying jag at bedtime. And he was sweet to me and comforted me. That meant the world. More than flowers and candy on the designated day.

It occurs to me that Valentine's Day meant much more to me when I didn't have a special someone. I recall the agonies in school, wondering if I would get a carnation from someone besides my best friend. I'd watch the cheerleaders walk around with their buckets of tributes and wonder when someone would love me. Later, in college and grad school, when I was more often single than not, I would be fine with what I was doing, until Valentine's Day rolled around to remind me that I was alone.

Otherwise I never felt alone.

Now that I have David, who is so central to my life, I don't find that Valentine's Day validates anything. In some ways, it's just for show. Send me flowers so I can prove to the world that I'm loved.

The funny thing is, when you love and are truly loved in return? You don't have to demonstrate it to anyone.

Perky

I don't believe in writer's block so much.

But there are certainly days when the words flow and days when they don't so much. I don't really understand why.

Some mornings I wake up knowing what I'll write in the blog -- down to particular words and phrases. Other days, like today, my brain doesn't seem to have much in the way of thoughts, much less words. Sometimes, like today, I'll plug in the camera and see if I took a picture I forgot about, which is often the case. This was sunrise on Wednesday. A subtle rose and gold one, full of promise. Of course, that day the promise turned out to be full-on meetings, so I never did get to sit and write. What was on the camera got lost in the busyness of the day.

Which was okay. Consulting is a feast or famine gig and the beginning of the year tends to be lean. More work is always better. As it is, people in the company are sniffing around the corners of the hallways (this is completely metaphorical since many of us, like me, work from home), searching out crumbs of work. The fear level is higher this year, with the backdrop of financial uncertainty. (I would make an extreme promise to scream the next time I see or hear the phrase "in this economy," but since I know it's likely to be in the next hour, I must be Zen. See my serene smile?)

Cynthia Eden, a fine writer and a really lovely friend, says she's sneaking out of town this weekend, in the hopes that a change of scenery will perk her up. She lives in Florida, so I imagine her heading to the beach, which sounds really wonderful.

I suspect we all need perking up this time of year. Whether it's the low light or, for those of us in winter, being stuck indoors a lot, January is just a long and unperky month.

It seems inescapable that our moods cycle. I think often of people who are chronically ill and how their caretakers will always refer to "good days" and "bad days." David, who likes to find a reason for everything, says that something must affect people to make some days good and others bad. Okay, maybe. But whether it's biorhythms or the chemistry of what you ate last night or the barometric pressure or whether you produced enough endorphins from running or whatever, it remains that we all have good days and bad days. Those of us lucky enough to be healthy just experience this as feeling up or kind of blue.

We just don't get to be perky every day. Not without chemical assistance.

The challenge is to salvage what you can from the non-perky days. Take the time to rest. Forge ahead anyway. Do like Cynthia and find a change of scenery.

The perky is out there. Even in this economy.

Hungry for those Good Things, Baby

Yesterday was our anniversary -- 19 years now.

And yes, I'd planned this blog post for yesterday, but I had an early meeting in downtown Santa Fe that expanded ever outwards and kept me there until 4:30.

So, January 27 for us, which was Superbowl Sunday back in 1991. It's hard for me to see how nearly twenty years have gone by, how it's possible that the 90s aren't recent years.

I'm very lucky to have found him and spent these years together.

The night before last, we watched Ghosts of Girlfriends Past. I love that David doesn't complain about watching movies like that with me. Of course, anything with some comedy and lots of pretty women is generally good for him.

I recall a few years back, David went hunting with a divorced bachelor friend. They were up in the mountains for a week, doing the guy thing and came back all scruffy and pleased with themselves. We saw on the patio in the warm Autumn sunshine and they told me about the week. The friend said that he was amazed that I didn't pitch a fit about David taking off for a week like his ex-wife would have. And how, when he'd mentioned it to David, he'd said "I do what I want to." I expressed surprise that anyone would think I'd try to stop David from doing something he enjoyed. (Besides, a week to myself to write? Sign me up!) Then David asked me what I wanted to do that night and I said "Oh! Wimbledon is at the movie theater -- Paul Bettany! I want to see that." David said okay and the friend starting laughing, slapping his knee. "Oh yeah!" he says, "you do what you want, all right."

And, I thought, you just don't get it.

After Ghosts of Girlfriends Past was over, we sat and sipped some brandy and talked about love. This is another thing I love about David. We talked about the theme in the movie -- and this is a Spoiler Alert, if it's possible to spoil a plot as pat as that one -- that somehow the childhood love is purer and more meant to be than any other. Which I just don't buy. I don't like it in romance novels, the instant mate bond/fated love kind of thing. I much prefer when strangers come together, have to learn each other, have to learn to accommodate each other and earn the love.

David told me that Osho, one of his current favorites, says that the sensation of falling in love, of the irresistible passion, the Meant for Each Other, instant mate bond kind of thing is all unconscious. That people should aspire to upward love, which is about conscious choice.

When people ask me our "secret," our special formula for our happy relationship, this is what I want to explain to them. It's about being happy doing what makes the other person happy. It's about making conscious choices to be together and enjoy each other.

It's about upward love.

Real Passion

It's been retro week on Facebook.

What, you didn't know??

We were to replace our profile pics with ones from when we were younger. My problem is, I haven't scanned in any of my old photos and the ones I used to have out are boxed up. Not from moving laziness, but on purpose. We like the clean walls of this house. And, with the way the views fill the rooms, it doesn't look right to have too much stuff inside competing.

So I was judicious in what I've hung up and put out. Those old family pics from when I was a kid? Eh. In the archives.

But one of my sorority sisters has been clever enough to scan in some of our old photos and sent me some.

So now I'm cruising on nostalgia. That guy in the photo was my Great Passion. Fantastic lover, stand-up comic and alcoholic. He broke my heart twice. I have a long-standing rule of never getting back together with someone after the break-up. I firmly believe that whatever caused you to break up in the first place will still be there. He's the only one I violated the rule for and, guess what?

I suppose sometimes you have to test your own rules, to verify the truth of them.

He's since fallen off the face of the earth. I sometimes wonder if he's self-destructed. There's another one I wonder about sometimes. Another passionate and dysfunctional relationship. Must be a theme.

I remember when a counselor told my mother "we seldom marry our great passions." Which I think is true. The men who give us the roller-coaster ride of passion are not usually the men who are good for the day-in/day-out routine of grocery shopping and alarm-setting.

While I know romance novels are about the fantasy, this aspect sometimes bothers me. When the relationship is SO turbulent, romantic and passionate, I sometimes get hung up on whether the happily-ever-after will stick. For me, I really need to believe in the reality of the story, to really enjoy the fantasy.

Funny -- when I started this post, I didn't intend to converge with Allison's post today, though I did read it while writing this, and while chatting with her on IM. Interesting how the mind works that way. Of course, she also had to point out that she was in 6th grade when this photo was taken. Which just means she was a snot-nosed brat when I was a sophisticated young woman.

That's the other thing I've learned from nostalgia: it's easy to look back and think how young and pretty I was then. Something I didn't know. I didn't think I was, at all. It's another way to bend what's real, our perceptions of ourselves. Now I just try to appreciate how I look, since I know I'll look back later and wonder why I worried that I was too fat or too pimply or what have you.

Maybe part of the trick is embracing reality for what it offers. David cooks dinner most nights and is a lover to me in a way only someone you've been with for almost twenty years can be. When I have early meetings, he brews Earl Grey for me and puts in in my favorite thermos.

It might not make for the stuff of novels, but it is truly romantic.

True Love

"Well, Sundance, at least we have enough ammo to hold off the Bolivian Army."

This is what I was planning to say to David when I came back into the house after organizing the garage. I had the words all picked out, amused myself terribly as I worked, but then I couldn't quite tease him about it.

Contrary to some opinion, I do hold my tongue now and then.

However, I did tell David that I thought he was the worst packer on the face of the Earth. This is after I suggested throwing his old suitcase into the BB/BS donation pile for tomorrow morning, and he said there was stuff in it and I said, no, I checked and PUT AWAY the collection of BULLETS, CARTRIDGES, NAILS and SCREWS.

I kid you not. The suitcase was full of this stuff.

He says, "I had no choice about that."

Which makes me laugh, because he totally means it. He means that, faced with drawers of random hardware condiments and ammunition, on a short timeline -- and, oh my god, our timeline was short -- that throwing a chunk of it into his broken old suitcase would seem inevitable.

In a month, we'll have been together for 19 years. So, this is all stuff I know about him. One of my first published essays was called "Bullets," and was about dating a man who had shotgun cartridges rolling around in his truck.

Of course, even though he doesn't hunt anymore, we have plenty of ammo.

Which I packed away, in my organized fashion, into the plastic bin labelled "hunting supplies." If/when he asks me where it all is, I can tell him. Because, you know, he will ask. Though I must grant that he remembered which broken suitcase he'd stowed it in. And I'm pretty sure that was late on the last Thursday, just before we closed the truck and left the house forever. Right after I asked him if he'd packed the stuff in his drawers in the basement. An ingenuous question on my part, because I knew perfectly well he hadn't.

Which is why he had no choice and why I shouldn't be surprised to find it.

All I can say is, if we move to Bolivia?

We're taking nothing and starting fresh.

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!

Photographic Evidence

We knew we had a packrat here from the first day.

Well, second day, really. Since our actual first day involved the drive from hell, parking the U-Haul in the driveway, going to the closing from hell, cooking a frozen pizza and unloading enough of the U-Haul to find our bed and then crashing in it.

So, it was really the second day that David rounded the corner to see a pack rat cheerfully trotting up the U-Haul ramp to see what goodies we might have for him. The sight of David threw him into a frenzy, of course, and he bolted for the nearby desert shrubbery.

But we didn't give it much thought.


Until David notifed the garbage pen was filling up with dead chunks of cholla.

"I thought the woman was trying to booby trap me with cactus!" he says to me.

"What?" (And, yes, this is really how he talks to me.)

"In the garbage. I wondered what you were doing, sticking all that dead cholla in there for me to trip over."

"I haven't been putting any cholla in there!"

"I know that now -- it's the pack rat."


Now, we won't say anything about David assuming that I would just randomly pile cactus pieces around the garbage cans. Or that he, probably grumpily cursing my name, which he now has to make up to me with all kinds of sweetness to balance the relationship karma again, bagged up all the cholla so I didn't get a good picture of the incipient nest. David figured it out the next day, when there were a couple of new, carefully placed pieces of dead cholla, as seen here. Apparently David decided that even I, in my random garbage pen activities, wouldn't do this kind of thing.

So he put the new wildlife camera in the garbage pen. It's one of those infrared cameras, that's motion sensitive. David's been hopeful of snapping the coyotes, bobcats or screen-surveying mountain lions, but so far all he's caught are birds and our own domestic wildlife, like the top pic of Isabel.

I did helpfully put up my purple lizard beanie-doll in front of the camera when he went to the store, since David was so disappointed not to have any good animal pics yet. The photo was hysterical, but he deleted it. He assures me that his deleting it is not an editorial comment and that he does still think I'm funny after all these years. He even offered to redo the photo, so I could post it here, but I thought the spontaneity would be lacking and you'd all notice it was staged.

Alas.

Anyway, as you can see, he got a photo of the rat. Several in fact. Here's a close-up.

Not a real pack rat, after all. In one of the pics, which is quite blurry, so I won't bother putting it here, you can see an incriminating chunk of dead cholla in his mouth.

I am vindicated.

But contemplating filling the garbage pen with purple lizard beanie dolls...

Lions and Arbors and Boxes.

Saturday morning, writing under the grape arbor.



David is sitting with me reading Osho. Teddy is laying on the cool flagstone, Zipper beside her. Isabel, the ever independent, is out front hoping the baby quail show up again. They appeared yesterday for the first time, bobbling along behind the older quail, like fluffy bit of popcorn on toothpicks. Isabel was electrified by the sight.

No baby quail snacks in her future, however.

The quail are smart enough to know when she's out there, and she can only go out in bright light. I keep dreaming at night that she's caught outside. David, too, has been waking to the coyote howls and getting up to make sure she's still inside. In the same way the animals have been unsettled, he's been nervous in this new environment. Uncertain how to best protect us all. Isabel is always sitting in a window, watching the night.

"Would a coyote try to get Isabel through the screen?" I wondered.

"That's why I have the rifle, two sticks and my pistol under the bed," David said.

I had previously commented on the unprecedented number of weapons under our bed here.

"To beat the coyotes off Isabel?"

"More if a mountain lion comes through the screen."

"I think if someone in Eldorado had a mountain lion come through their screen, we would have heard the story," I told him.

"Fine, make fun," he answered. "But if a mountain lion DOES come through the screen, I'll be ready. "

I know he'll settle down as he gets into the groove. I must constantly remind myself that David has never moved to a totally new place. The biggest move he's made before this was from Buffalo, Wyoming to Laramie, Wyoming.

We have recycling pick-up here, which we ain't never done had afore back in ol' Wyo. We signed up for it, for an additional $4.87/month, which seems like a great deal to me. They gave us a green can for recyclables, that's slightly smaller than the one for garbage. They pick up on a different day for that one, and only every two weeks. David fretted about remembering the dates until I put them in my Outlook calendar with a day-before reminder.

Last Wednesday was our first pick-up. Since he's got time until classes start, he spent several hours Tuesday breaking down moving boxes, since they recycle cardboard. But there was too much to fit in the can.

"Just stack up the extra next to the can," I offered. "Worst they can do is not take it."

But he didn't like that idea. He took Zip out and drove around the neighborhood to see how the other neighbors did it.

"I wonder if tomorrow is the right day," he said when he returned.

"It is," I answered without looking up from my laptop.

"Only three other neighbors have green cans out."

"Maybe not everyone has the same pick-up day. Maybe not everyone pays the extra to recycle."

"Well, none of them had extra stuff next to their cans."

At least he was satisfied that enough people put theirs out the night before that he was okay there. The next morning when we went running, I pointed out another green can, about three blocks away.

"I counted that one," he told me.

"Jeez -- how far did you go?"

"A ways. I wanted to get a good survey of how everyone was doing it."

"Why do you even care how the neighbors do it?" I asked.

"I just want to make sure to be doing things the right way."

"I'm going to have to write about this in my blog, you know," I told him.

"I know -- I don't care."

And he doesn't. One of the things I love best about David is he doesn't mind me writing about him. This is an incredibly valuable trait in someone who shares their life with a writer, especially an essayist.

That, and that he'll protect me from the mountain lion coming through the screen.

The Longest Day

Yesterday was a kind of harmonic convergence of events. Summer solstice, Father's Day and our grandson's first birthday.


Here's Tobiah, with his paternal grandfather, Miguel.

Normally Tobiah is quite a bit more jovial than this, but my step-daughter, Lauren, reported that he'd been cranky that day. Not everyone loves a party.

I got to stop by for a few minutes, on the drive to Santa Fe, to drop off some presents from David and me. I asked Lauren if the year had gone fast for her, too. She said it had flown by. She even looked a little dizzy, thinking about it.

A year ago, David and I were in Victoria, when Lauren's boyfriend, Damion called us in the early morning to say Tobiah had been born. We lay there watching the morning light over the Japanese gardens at Laurel Point Inn and the Inner Harbor beyond. We'd visited acupuncture schools the day before and David had clicked with the one in Victoria. Our world had shifted, in several profound ways. Now David thought about teaching Tobiah to fish in the lovely, gentle seascape of Vancouver Island.

I admire what Lauren has accomplished. She has a challenging career and a new baby. She and Damion are learning to build their lives together. Juggling all the families can't be easy. But Lauren cheerfully makes room for everyone who wants to be part of Tobiah's life. It takes an openness of heart for that, along with a stern resolve.

So Happy Father's Day to the fathers: Damion, Miguel, David. Happy First Day of Summer to us all -- may we have some now, for all of us who've had such a cold and rainy June. Hopefully the light of the longest day shone with radiance for you.

And Happy First Birthday, little Mowgli-baby!