Independently wealthy

Between dances at the noisy Roxy bar last week John, a neighbor of mine, leaned over and asked, "Are you independently wealthy?" I thought for just a second. I have a great family, good health, and enough money to do what I want without being piggy. "Yes. I am, I said."

Margaret's sticker is in California. Enough said.It cost me almost $500.00 US. At least it was just money. I was an idiot. The bitch went to the bank while I waited for her in her office. There's a red flag.

I've been in Mexico 6 months, mas o menos. I came with the intention of learning the language and culture. I can only claim to have completed a small section of a Mexico for dummies course, but I like it here.

There is a looseness about Latin life that suits me. They close the streets, sometimes several days or even a couple of weeks at a time for parties. Strangers smile & speak to me for no particular reason other than to connect I think.

Acceptance beats out perfection: comfort-pretension. That goes for their sexuality too; non of that puritan, bull shit, stifling, don't-touch-yourself-down-there stuff. If my ass hadn't slipped down to behind my thighs somewhere I would be wearing skinny spiked heels to thrust it a few inches higher myself. I am now a Birkenstock woman.

I love that I can buy one egg. Of if I smoked, 1 cigarette, or 3 slices of Oscar Meyer lunch meat. And a small slice of cheese that is called cheddar but it's clearly not. The same with Parmesan. Mexicans could care less that the EU courts say only Italy can call Parmesan cheese, Parmesan. Fuck Them. Mexican Parmesan comes from Uruguay. I wouldn't mess with them about what they name their cheese either.

I'm still a scavenger. Not that I dig through the bastura. Isn't that word better than garbage? Bastura. But, like yesterday when I saw this nice reed basket...it's seems a shame to pass up something perfectly lovely or useful just because someone else didn't like it. Think about it. The luckiest of us will never outlive our usefulness or beauty and hopefully we'll be used over and over til we wear out. And, I nabbed a cool, wooden box for a night stand.

It seems everyone dances here. Dance-bailar: salsa, tango, and maybe the it's the Mexican two-step I see the abulitas doing in the park to the spunky sounds of the official city 12 piece orchestra playing in the gazebo. The kids start young. Friday evening as my friends and I sat around a table on the sand watching the sunset, a little girl, maybe 6, danced on the pier. Moved by the Brazilian blues quartet playing in the open air restaurant near by, she dipped & twirled. It was only when she partnered with the lamp post that we glimpsed an even wider range of possible dancing options to choose from.

And sing-cantar. Drunk or sober, good or bad, anywhere, anytime, Mexican people lift their voices in song, especially the men. Arias, boleros, mariachi, or cantos de amour: a capella, or accompanied. It's a wonderful thing.

And besos-kisses. Kissing is done passionately as it should be. We're not talking pecks on the cheek here. In the park, on the malecon, or waiting for traffic to move, night or day, couples both young and old submit to emotion & lust without shame or fear of reprisal. It makes me want to grab some old dude and throw him to the concrete, I swear.

Was Mark Twain Mexican?
"Dance like nobody's watching; love like you've never been hurt. Sing like nobody's listening; live like it's heaven on earth.

Mexican neighbors are are solid like their houses with backbones of re bar. Built to last. They are hard working survivors: of tropical weather, 500 years of oppression by the Spanish, and rampant gringo infestation.

I don't profess to understand the violent elements of this society: bullfighting or the bloody pitting of gallos or dogs against one another. Yesterday two hombres carried off two unsuspecting, handsome gallos from my neighbor's yard. One man stroked his lovingly as he walked up the hill. The executioner giving you a neck massage before he whacks your head off. In this case, throws you into the pit for combat.

Urban women here have gained Independence pretty much like the rest of us in the western world but rural indigenous women are fighting an up hill battle for any rights at all. But, they are fighting. I read about Eufrosina Cruz, a 27 year old Zapotec woman who recently ran for mayor of her village in the mountains of Oaxaca. The male elders tore up all of the ballots cast in her favor. I tried to reach her through the paper, The News, to send her money but even that failed. Maybe the traditional Indian form of government, usos y costumbres (uses and customs) that got legal status 6 years ago, I suspect to shut them up, are in cahoots with the local media. Nothing would surprise me. I don't care what anybody says, every country is corrupt.

What I haven't heard here in paradise, except from a neighbor who is a retired Canadian, is whining. It just isn't done. Get off your ass and do what you have to do. No quejandose.

My friend Linda visited for a couple of days. I introduced her to Yelapa, an old coastal village that finally got electricity 4 or 5 years ago. You get there by panga, a 16 or 19 foot boat. On the way over two Humpback whales swam along side us for a couple of minutes. We were thrilled.

If you go there, wade across the river, hook a left at the wide dirt path, and look for Passionflower Gardens on the right. It's my friend, April's place. Oh, my goodness, she can cook. But, that's not all. She can read your tarot &and make you laugh. How cool is that.

"Do you know there's a road that goes down to Mexico and all the way to
Panama? And maybe all the way to the bottom of South America where the
Indians are seven feet tall and eat cocaine on the mountainside? Yes? You
and I, Sal, we'd dig the whole world with a car like this because, man, the
road must eventually lead to the whole world. Ain't nowhere else it can
go-right?" -Jack Kerouac

Paz en tierra.-ruby

Birds, the beach, and an occasional surprise.

It's super Tuesday and the first time I haven't voted since 1961. Do I feel guilty? Only if Obama loses by one vote.

Good things come to those who wait? Maybe. Mostly it sucks. Waiting in lines for stuff: the bank, grocery store, a toilet. And the good ones: the birth of your child, Christmas morning when you were a child, your birthday before you were 30...

Yesterday I watched brown pelicans circle above the surf, fishing. When they see lunch they plunge head first straight into the water. The first time I saw these magnificient birds was 34 years ago. I was on a summer road trip in Mazie, our burgandy and cream VW bus, with my three kids and two teenagers. We were staying at a friend's beach house on Santa Maria Island off the west coast of Flordia on the Gulf Of Mexico.

Besides playing in the warm, phosphorus water that turned our bodies a magical silver, my favorite place was the pier. A hubbub of fishing activity, brown pelicans circled overhead ever viligant for an easy meal. They were as guileless as Hansel and Gretel-never suspecting some of the fish they sought were already caught. What? Fish close to the surface just sliding along?

So the magnificant birds plunged, swallowing both the fish and the line.Predictably they were then dragged on to the pier where the pelican was held down by several people who extracted the fish. Usually the pelican flew away a few minutes later-confused by what had just happened. I don't know if any of them learned their lesson or if they thought the experience was a one time thing. Someone told me that pelicans eventually go blind from the force of the water on their eyes. That is a bum deal.

The Bald Eagles on Homer Split in Alaska are about as bad. On a tip from a fellow drinker at the local American Legion hall in Stuart, I watched several eagles hover above the Homer pier waiting for salmon parts-mostly fins and heads to be tossed to them or into the water where they could just scoop them up. I was disappointed because I thought our national bird was classier than that but feeding yourself & a couple of chicks is not easy regardless of status.

My new Spanish tutor dumped me. I admitted to not being the best student ever but told her that I thought my enthusiasm would overcome my lack of disclipline. She wanted me to write Enero & Agosto 10 times & wasn't satisfied with my answer when she asked me what people do in other countries when they can't speak the language? I casually mentioned that I married my algebra tutor back in the old days, that he obviously hadn't been so picky when it came to academics.

I want to be like Sophie. When a perfectly coiffed standard poodle strutted by her on the beach this morning she didn't even raise her head. She is absolutly comfortable in her own aging skin.

Sitting on a beach chair in the sun I counted how many men I saw adjusting their balls in an hour. 11. I noticed that adjusting and spitting are highly public functions here. My mother would be appalled. Rest her soul.

Last week my Mexican doorbell rangout. Standing outside was handsome Ivan Gustavo. As you might imagine, I was thrilled. " Ivan, I called out over the railing, good things do come to those who wait! Here I am waiting for my car and a good looking, hunk-o- man appears! Lucky me." Driving isn't everything.

Humor is reason gone mad. -Groucho Marx

Paz en tierra. -Ruby

Esperando

Esperando: waiting, hoping, expecting

Yo estoy esperando. I am waiting. Yo espero. I have hope. I am waiting and hoping and expecting - for a letter from customs.

Last week sophie and I went to the post office to see if it was there, maybe forgotten on a shelf somewhere. Really we went because I feel I have to DO something besides wait.As we walked I practiced my spanish on her. " Yo estoy esparando para una carta de aduana en Mexico. Sabe usted esta aqui?" close enough. I am waiting for a letter from customs. Do you know if it is here? The postal clerk looked. It was not.

My problem is that Margaret, my mini cooper, has been in quarantine since Dec 17.

It happened like this. I was driving my Dutch friend, Sasha, and I to the cinema. She said,"Vers yur ticker fur yur kar?" I said, "What sticker?" "Da oun dat ya ned ta driv en Mexico?" "I don't know. Noone gave me one." "Ohh, I thk dats bad.I thk dey cud tak yur kar avey frevr widoud da ticker."

That is bad.

Sasha was right. They could. For forever. So, I paid 350 US bucks to a woman to write up the proper paper work which will result in permission, in the form of a letter that allows me to drive back to the border legally, to get the sticker. I will have 5 days to do this.I don'tknow if those 5 days are from the day the letter is mailed or the day I get it. She said I could expect the letter to arrive in a month-mas o menos. That was December 17th so it's already mas. And getting more mas.

I'm not good at esperando. Most Norte Americanos aren't.We expect quick service. When it doesn't happen we get bitchy.Quick is not the Mexican way. I am struggling to adjust. On Friday my neighborhood post man was coming out of the building as I was going in. We spoke in spanglish. He asked me to tell him what it was I was looking for. He promised to watch for my letter. He got my phone number and said he would call when it came in. Yo espero.

As soon as the letter comes I will leave Sophie here and drive north for a turnaround trip for a fucking sticker. To southern California it takes three days. Amazing. What century is this?

A few blocks from me a faded sign reads: Maria Calendaria Authentica. Who knew Marie Calendar was Mexican?

My new favorite food is alote or esquite: corn in a cup. They boil corn kernels in big vats then spoon the hot corn into plastic cups: a little mayo, queso, lime, & some hot sauce.yum. And homemade ice cream: vanilla, coco, or another one I forget,and long skewers of grilled shrimp or fish fillets squirted liberally with lime, and fresh fruit and cucumber sticks, on the street! I love the street food.

In addition to the kid who bangs on the pan behind my departmento, and the gallos and barking dogs and very loud even for me music, there is someone tonight playing the tuba. I kid you not. It's been going on for over an hour, BOM bom BOM bom. bom bom Bom, bom.. It's not bad tuba playing. Just different. I never lived next to a tuba player before.

My neighbors are eating the pigeons. I've watched several pigeons come and go from various cages on the wall of the house behind me. It wasn't until I saw a woman stroking one and then put it back into a small cage that I got suspicious. When I observed them throw out corn meal to fatten them up I was certain.

My suitor from Guadalajara called me last saturday night. It was the 3rd or 4th time he's called and I've missed them all. Sunday I decided to call him back. I went to Lianna's so she could interpret for me if I needed her to. With the speaker phone on I asked " Es esta reyes? I asked. He said, "No." It's incorrecto or something to that effect. Wrong number. Wrong number? He hung up. I think he panicked. I'd used the redial so it couldn't have been the wrong number. The lying bastard. I called back. A woman answered. She said she was his wife. Lianna did most of the talking." She asked what did we want? Who were we?" Lianna said, Nada. Nada. and hung up. I wanted to call back and say, " I am a woman he calls, a woman he met in a bar." are you really his wife?

What is up with that? Why would a carousing man give a woman his phone number where his wife lives-which he did, and why would he call this woman on a phone that is apparently a home phone? Color me perplexed.I will never understand men.

Our cold spell is abating. If anyone has the notion to visit the weather is perfect. The bay is dotted with white sails. You can have my undivided attention porque yo estoy esparando.

paz en tierra,
ruby

"You were born with wings. Why prefer to crawl through life?" -rumi









fgt

Camp Aldama

Camp Aldama is arriba on Calle Aldama above the Pacific and the malecon. The street stops-but doesn't end when it runs into the concrete wall that keeps the dirt of the hill from collapsing. At that point Aldama Privata continues up the hill by the way of steps that I'm sure go all the way to heaven and Emilio Caranzza begins where Aldama ends by making a sharp right and going south to Gringo Gulch.



From my west window Camp Aldama has a lovely view of the ocean, roof tops, the sky, and into the neighbors windows if you care to look. From the roof the view is spectacular. Out the back the view is east into the hills and of the houses stacked on top of each other. the amazing thing is they have all been built by hand. Burros, prodded by a huffing and puffing man with a small stick or rope that switches their butts when they falter, haul the sand and bricks up the steep hill to be made into concrete and walls by the amazing Mexican builders.



Directly behind me, one story higher, I had an exhibitionist for a few weeks. After some procrastination I got my long lens ready to take his picture-but he hasn't appeared lately. The neighbors are loud. One man sings the same notes as the gallo crows. It's not as pleasant a sound coming from a man. Dogs bark, chickens cluck and crow, & children scream. The Mexican doorbell is standing in the street yelling or whistling. All household essentials are sold through the streets: water, propane, honey, flowers..I am sure there are other goods I am not aware of. Reyna owns the launderia where I have my clothes washed.





My dpartmente is a one bedroom with a bath that has a shower with enough warm water for a quick washing. That is the only place there is hot water. My shit is mostly too large for the toilet so the plunger is indispensable. there is no TV, no oven and glacial ice has overtaken the small fridge. But, the bed is comfortable & the space conducive to work & reflection plus the requisite siesta I have gotten used to.



Puerto Vallarta is not necessarily old Mexico. It is populated with many gringos from Canada and the States both as permanent residents and tourists. Several very large cruise ships arrive and depart every day. because of the large influx of English speaking folks it is taking me much longer than I imagined to learn Spanish.





There have been several issues of note that I will post in the next few days: Margaret did not have the appropriate paper work so is in quarantine. I visited Guadalajara and some of Michoacan over Christmas with my friend Susan and my friend Xochili invited me to Mexico City to spend Three Kings Day with her family last week. The humpback whales are here for birthing and fucking. I have seen them from my window once so far. Mexican men apparently have no concept of seduction-at least the ones I meet. This very evening I sat beside one in the main parque to listen to the orchestra play favorite Mexican songs that most people knew the words to.



Before I learned his name he asked me if he and I could walk to my house. I said no. He said porque? I said I didn't even know his name. He shrugged. Perhaps I have it all wrong. Maybe names aren't important. At my friend's house, her dad grabbed my crotch at each opportunity and wanted to take me to a hotel or just to bed me in his house. No. I said.. Porque? he asked. I am not comfortable. I said. I hardly know you. He shrugged.



I guess I'm a picky Norte American bitch. At least with my diminished libido I don't care much. There is a man-Reyes, that I met in Guadalajara. He strikes me fancy but when he calls he is apparently either drunk or can't think of something to say in English or simple Spanish. it will be a minor miracle if we ever see each other again.



My book is coming along as much as possible considering my limited disclipline and organizational skills. I have met an angel named Yolanda. She runs a wonderful place for disabled kids, Pasito de Luz. I plan to spend time there raising money and holding the children.



I love sitting on the beach with my friends having a drink, listening to music while watching the sunset and walking along the malecon the weekends when the clowns are performing in the entertainment pit, and the food: corn in a cup with mayo and hot sauce, aqua fresca, made in a big gourd with nuts and fruits for a buck! The people smile at us -sophi and me. Especially the kids love the big dog. I say, no muerte alot so they aren't afraid. That seems to be enough.

The folks in the picture are: Lianna, yo y Sophi having drinks in the Rio Cuale before dinner, an old woman in Michoacan taken by Susan, GI Joe in a lancha de coco, the upside down dog barks thru the quadrafoil (sp?), Quimixto beach I think, and the pier in Pv where we watch the sunset and get the panja for Yelapa and Huichol ninas.


Enough now. hasta luego. rubi

Buddha at Falling Apple Ranchita

Summer vacation has ended.

My 3 day outing to the Kern River Valley with Cooper and her friend Robyn, both 13 was mostly sweet.

I enjoy spending time with my friend Sherry who put us up in her lovely home over looking Lake Isabella. She and I passed the 3 day road trip test last Nov when we drove across country to Nashville then me on to SC to see my grand daughter, Ireland, born which I missed by 5 hours.

By the time I dropped her off at The Farm we could have gotten married but alas, we are both glaringly hetero. During our trip we found out that BOTH our given names at birth were Cheryl Ann, we are both Leo & Sheep according to the Chinese calendar if you believe the place mats where the pork is glazed neon red. (maybe more on that trip later)

Cooper and her friend Robyn were good kids except for having that irritating sense of entitlement that comes from parents and grandparents who indulge them excessively; an attitude that I find hard to tolerate. Robyn actually complained to Cooper because she had to help carry the food cooler and my chair-after I had bought them new tubes and driven them there, bought the rafting tickets- blah blah.

But we had fun. They tubed through the jutting rocks down the river, paddled with gusto in the grade 2 & 3 rapids when the guide said paddle and Rose, Sherry's lovely daughter and her b-friend, Brandon, took them to a rock that was so high they looked like miniature people from the bottom but still they courageously jumped into the river (Cooper always 1st of course) and had a blast.

The following week Cooper and I headed to Vegas. It's pure delight to view this cuidad de avaricia (one of the 7 deadly sins but I prefer slothfulness) through the eyes of wonder that a child has rather than my own wearied & jaded vision. I did feel pangs of jealousy when she said that she and her friend planned to come back and that "they were going to ride all of the rides." I asked, "Why won't you ride them with me?" With a look that stated my question was stupid, she said, "It's different. You're my grandmother." Ahhh. It's my money and generous countenance she appreciates.

We sat with a Chinese family to see Dirk Arthur's Extreme magic. The magic was fine, even good but the use of gorgeous rare tigers in Las Vegas makes me nauseous. Men have such egos.

We even viewed Siegfreid & Roys garden zoo with the lion and tiger retirees from their show. They were all napping because retirees can do that at their leisure.

In the small building where garden zoo there is a large cardboard cutout of the two men in their heyday. Roy is wearing sexy black leather pants and a white shirt with the buttons open to his nipples and is straddling a large gorgeous white tiger. I asked the docent how Roy was doing and where the tiger that mauled him was. She said, "It's here somewhere, but I've never seen it." I'm thinking buried.

Go see LOVE. The choreography, costumes, acrobatics, and of course the Beatles sound track makes for a truly feel good, spellbinding evening.

The next day we had lunch at the Top Of The World-isn't that just like Las Vegas to compare their five star restaurant with the arctic. I had the 2 martini lunch. 2 martinis and a bowl of lobster bisque. Cooper had a virgin pina colada, a chicken Cesar salad & a sculpted chocolate replica of the Stratosphere.

Instead of going to the Grand Canyon we went to the Fashion Mall. The thinking here is that the GC will be there and doesn't change much but fashions go and come with such rapidity you need to be quick. It was interesting. I cashed out my Christmas Club $ that had reached a big 80.00 and gave it to her- I will be long gone come Christmas. She spent most of it at Wet Seal, a clothing store that specializes in teen garb-cute, short, revealing, stuff that did not give my matronly body even the illusion of perky.

In Macy's matron department I tried on an orange cotton, wrap around dress. Cooper looked at me. "Yur kidding. Right?" I bought it.

I wore a simple black linen shift with slits on the sides to LOVE. She said it wasn't very hip. Which poses the questions. How long exactly do we need to be hip? The dress breathes, covers body imperfections that don't exist in her world, and in my life inevitable vino tinto stains. But I've decided to shorten it. It will be hipper. And the legs are good; the ankles still shapely.

We toured the Hoover Dam. Enough said.

She is home and I've decided this was my last summer as hostess of teenagers. But, Cooper wants to go to England. That I can do. Another year. After I've recovered.

Viajo porque debo.

"When I was very young and the urge to be someplace was on me, I was assured by mature people that maturity would cure this itch. When years described me as mature, the remedy prescribed was middle age. In middle age I was assured that greater age would calm my fever and now that I am fifty-eight perhaps senility will do the job. Nothing has worked. . . In other words, I don't improve, in further words, once a bum always a bum. I fear the disease is incurable."
- John Steinbeck

My first trip alone was in 1958. I was 15. I flew from my small town of less than 250 people in the mountains of Pennsylvania to Montgomery, Alabama to visit my cousin, Larry and his wife. The plane landed in Atlanta. Because of mechanical problems it stayed there. After several hours of boredom & hard seats in the airport I decided to take a bus.

I was one of the last to board the packed Greyhound bus from the depot in downtown Atlanta. I scrunched down the narrow aisle past ruddy white faces sitting in all the available seats to the back of the bus where there was an empty one. I asked the black man in the seat next to it if the seat was taken. He shook his head no. As I settled in, a white man in the middle of the bus stood up and yelled at me. "What are you doing sitting with the niggers?" he screamed. I remember his red, mad face hovering above the backs of heads and the silence. People knew he was trouble. I grew up in an Irish bar so I wasn't afraid of much plus my mother had married a man whose face got red when he was angry-which was often.

"You want me to take your seat and you can stand?" I asked him. Faced with the option of standing or standing up for what he believed, he backed down muttering something about fucking Yankees. I asked the man next to me if he wanted me to move. "No, Ma'am. It's fine where you are." I felt embarrassed and ashamed, like I had caused his outrage somehow.

Segregation had been glossed over in my small mountain school. Our emphasis was on learning the dates of events not digging for reasons. Or maybe I just didn't learn it. But on the bus I learned that my school was short on truth; that they had glossed over the substantial facts and gave us the Cliff notes; that there was more to it than the red face yelling at me & that being close up and personal was the best way to find out the real truth.
In Montgomery the closest movie house to my cousins was for colored folks. I didn't realize it until I tried to buy a ticket and was told I was in the wrong place. My movie house was blocks away. The lady let me stay. I sat in the back.

In a few weeks I will be 64. My life has been motored by a series of impulses. The first significant one occurred a year after my trip to the
South. In the spacious back seat of my mom's 1959 two toned salmon V8 Dodge with the push button transmission, I exchanged my virginity for Kirk, a child who was quadriplegic the 43 years of his life. Each day's decisions were mostly fueled by the amount on energy I woke up with or the needs of my children: not vision, planning or specific goals.

I was 12 when my Grandpa died. The event taught me that I had no control; that life would do what it wanted with me. As stuff came and went: husbands, money, even the children, I learned to tuck and roll to keep us safe.

I landed here in Tehachapi because one night after working the pledge line at KPFK I met Sandy, a free style, mountain muse. She promised to send me a post card inviting me to Mountain Festival-a weekend of music in the Tehachapi mountains two hours NE of Venice Beach where I lived-and where developers had summarily kicked me and my daughter and grand daughter (Alice & Cooper) out of two residences. Stung by their ruthlessness, when the post card came I was ready.

I was enchanted by the music, the people at the festival. Cindy Latham greeted me with a smile & wide open trust. Pat Seamount offered me a piece of pie from a pumpkin she had grown and baked herself. It was clearly not Venice.

A few months later I bought Falling Apple Ranchita. It was not love at first site. She was a homely little 1965 tract house. But, she had everything on my list-just not the way I imagined: privacy, a view of the Sierra Nevada mountains, a towering, bountiful, Golden Delicious Apple tree in the fenced back yard, and a fireplace I dubbed Darth Vader for its imposing darkness and ominous hood.

I gave her an extreme makeover. Her garden, Dave Boulden says, "has more bugs than Guam." It's lush, intimate and aromatic. A Nicaraguan hammock hangs under the apple tree. Buddha meditates above the small fountain that creatures wild and tame use. My first concord grapes bloomed this year- two pods of them. Magnificent cannas imported from Venice and Hermosa Beach by me & my friend Linda command your attention.

I love my friends here. It is home as much as anywhere has ever been. But, Kirk is gone. He flew away with the full moon a couple of years ago. I rocked him into the next world then we celebrated his life with a two day Irish wake after which Annette Kirby, Sophie & I headed the procession carrying his spent body to the crematorium in her VW Vanagon; his sisters & their families followed behind. Kirk is no longer spastic; he is free. He has freed me.

Now it is time to move on. Last winter was too cold-I was too alone. My fingers grew stiff as I wrote my memoir, as I laughed & cried my way through my life, gnawing on old, buried bones, reliving both the good & the ugly.

One afternoon as I cruised the web looking for Spanish immersion classes it occurred to me I should immerse myself by moving to Mexico. I told my daughters, and my friend Cameron. Before I could list it, Cameron had bought Falling Apple Ranchita. It was swift. Like my life. Like death if we're lucky. No time for mulling. Pack up your shit, don't worry about the potholes and head south. Once a bum, always a bum.

Cooper, my 13 year old grand daughter was here to write her intials in the fresh concrete when I moved in. She is appropriately here as I get ready to move. We went white water rafting last week and are going to the Grand Canyon & Las Vegas in a few days to see LOVE. That she even knows the Beatles songs is lovely don't you think. She is 13. I am 64. We are on different pages but both learning, both exploring. A toast to us all.

May the road rise to meet you May the wind be always at your back May the sun shine warm upon your face, the rains fall softly upon your fields and until we meet again May God hold you in the palm of your hand.