Road Trips

As soon as I bought the new Subaru, I wanted to take a hundred road trips. Sadly, I only had time for a few before I lost my #1 house sitter to college life, and I had to cram those few into her tightening schedule of placement tests, freshman orientation and (gasp!) house sitting for other friends.

The day after I brought the Crosstrek home, I drove good friend Harry to Claremont to visit some friends. A quick aside here: I almost bought a Jeep. Friends know I’d been planning for some time to get a Wrangler. In fact, The Grandson and I had discussed this way back in the days when he was still a teen and I was living in the mountains. In May, I test drove a dark gray 2014 Wrangler that was immaculate—but didn’t buy it. Because, in the end, I knew it would be difficult to get Harry up into it, as climbing is not currently his best skill. (He is, after all, 87.) So I passed on it. And I’m glad I did. He slipped into the Crosstrek easily when I picked him up, stretched out his very long legs, and smiled. “I like this car,” he said. That’s all I needed for validation.

The day after that, my sister and I headed up the hill to Oak Glen for some breakfast and early Christmas shopping. We drove off the beaten path a few times, just for fun, which is when we saw the guy at the top of this post. We loved that he was smiling, so we took his photo, then left him in peace.

A week later, the sis and I took another road trip, this one down to El Cajon to drop off her guitar for some repairs at the Taylor guitar factory. If you live in Southern California, and you love guitars, this is a great day trip. We took the 1:00 tour of the factory and were amazed to see just how much hands-on skill goes into making a good quality guitar.

If you do the trip, be sure to stop in Escondido and go to the Home Sweet Home Café for breakfast (or lunch). Oh my word… I wasn’t hungry again for the rest of the day, even though we took the long, beautiful way home through Julian, and we could smell the apple pies baking!

Then it was time for me to head to Utah, a trip I’ve been wanting to make since becoming a member of Best Friends Animal Society during the Hurricane Katrina disaster. Mom was living with me at the time, and as we watched the news, we both decided we should make donations which would help this amazing rescue and these people who jumped into boats, navigating through congested flood waters to literally pull stranded pitbulls and other pups off people’s roofs and porches to save their lives. (Bless them forever.) The sanctuary for Best Friends in Utah is huge and thriving, and they are committed to a world in which stray and abandoned animals are no longer euthanized. Visiting the sanctuary was a dream come true.

After Sugie’s death in May, I collected some items that volunteers at Best Friends had requested. I had filled the back of the Subaru with these things--kitty treats, outdoor portable play enclosures, a water fountain. When I arrived, I was quickly greeted and helped with unloading them, given paperwork to fill out if I wanted the tax deduction, and then booked for a tour of the sanctuary. All this from a very sweet volunteer named Allie. The tour is a driving tour; you’re loaded into a small van with a dozen or so other folks that you immediately bond with because, like you, they love animals, too, and then you’re driven around the entire facility, stopping at Dog Town, Cat World, and one or two other places. It was fun and informative, and we arrived back at the visitor’s center in time to take advantage of the Best Friend’s Mobile Café, which was serving a delicious vegan lunch of fresh fajitas, beans, rice, salad, chips, brownies and iced tea—for $5. Loved it.

On the tour, our guide had suggested that we return on our own to visit Angels Rest, the memorial park that is part of the sanctuary. I’d seen pictures of it in Best Friends Magazine—the hundreds of wind chimes hung from trees and posts continually blessing the last resting place of so many beloved pets. Our guide told us she believed it was “a sacred space,” and that visiting there was “a moving experience” that one can only appreciate by going there. I didn’t know if I could. I still miss little Sug every single day, and I knew that if I went, I would spend the time crying.

And that’s exactly what happened later in the afternoon when I ended up returning. Only… it became a healing experience. As I began to walk among the hundreds and hundreds of headstones, a slight breeze came up, gently rolling its way through all those wind chimes…. I thought I would only visit for a few minutes. I stayed for nearly an hour. There is something very validating in sharing the grief of others. I have lost so many dogs and cats in my life… and the pain never gets easier to bear. But when you see how many people have adored their pets in the same way, to the same depth, it is, indeed, a moving experience. That hour was the best part of my visit to the sanctuary.

I was home only for one day before I left again for my final road trip of the summer, heading up the coast to meet The Oldest Son in Morro Bay. We stayed in a sketchy hotel and laughed about it, walked on Montana de Oro State Beach, which we both love, took photos of otters and squirrels and breathtakingly beautiful coastline, and ate several amazing meals at various eateries. All of that in two days. I could have stayed a week. But he had work to get back to, and The Granddaughter/House Sitter was at home packing, getting ready to move into her dorm at Cal Poly.

This summer that began in great sadness gave way to some great times and great memories. Thanks for sharing them with me.

Life

Oh, gosh, hello!

I see I've been absent from the blog for a month! Wow, time really does seem to travel at the speed of the Parker Solar Probe.

A number of exciting and wonderful and touching things have happened in my life, and I want to share all of them with you so that you can share in the fun and good times, but it will take a few blog posts to do them justice, so look for me to be a bit more regular in posting once a week—at least for a while. I have quite a few writing projects to work on, and sometimes they get in the way of the blog—and since those projects earn dog food money and this one does not, you know where my time needs to be spent. But I'll try to squeeze it all in.

Speaking of buying dog food....

This girl came into our lives this week. Her name is June. Isn't she lovely? I will tell her story soon. Right now she is learning to live with a cat. ("Mom lady! Mom lady! What is that creature?!? What is that creature??")

And I bought a car. Finally. Good ol' Cloud (my 2003 Ford Ranger) is still with us, even with 181,000 miles on her. My insurance rep from Hartford asked, "Will you be keeping the Ranger on your policy?"

"Yes," I said, "as long as my dog still needs it."

After researching vehicles for months, I bought a Subaru Crosstrek. "Sky" has already been to San Diego, Utah, and the Central Coast. Love this car.

I made the trip to Utah to visit Best Friends AnimalSanctuary. Blog post to follow.

The second biggest change in my life (after June's arrival), would be The Granddaughter moving out. The college girl is now safely installed in her dorm at Cal Poly, Pomona, and has already been attending classes. I am so, so proud of this girl, and equally proud of Ellie, The Oldest Granddaughter, who is back at University of Alaska for another year, now a pre-med major.

And what is The Grandson up to, you ask? He had his first real job this summer, working on the lake in Lake Arrowhead. He was quickly promoted (as I knew he would be) and absolutely loved being outside to work with boats, boaters and lake-goers. He may or may not have saved some money. He does have a girlfriend, though, so....

On this beautiful Sunday morning, I took my two good dogs into the hills south of town and watched as June galloped up and down the trail, thrilled to be out in the fresh air. Sgt. Thomas Tibbs trotted faithfully along at my side. He is a sedate old man now, and more precious to me as each day goes by.

Thanks for reading this far! Catch me here again next Sunday! I promise!

Rock Fairy

Some weeks ago, someone in my senior community (now dubbed “the Rock Fairy”) began painting small, flat rocks with inspirational messages and leaving them, one by one, for residents to find. Folks have been taking photos of them, posting them on our community Facebook page, and speculating about who the mysterious person is. “Kind” and “lovely” are understatements for this type of behavior, don’t you think?

Dear Rock Fairy,

Thank you.

Okay, I confess that the little pink rock I found was clearly meant for someone else (since anyone who knows me knows that pink is really, really not my color). I wasn’t gifted with my rock. I didn’t walk out onto the front porch at dawn, stretch, yawn, and discover a small plastic bag containing a rock especially chosen for me. Like many other times in my life, I came into my fortune via a somewhat unconventional route. I found it in the street. Actually, it laid there for two days a few doors down from my house, looking like a piece of trash. I think it had been run over a couple of times. When I noticed it the second day while walking the dog, I only picked it up to throw it away (keeping my side of the street clean, as my sister-in-law would say, only I don’t think she means it literally when she says it).

But then I noticed the rock inside. So I pulled it out, washed the dirt off. Lo and behold, it was a Rock Fairy rock. With a message!

The thing is, even though the rock was clearly intended for someone else (as I’ve said), that message was for me. I don’t know if you dropped the rock while making your deliveries to other homes. (Rocks are heavy. How big is your wing span, anyway?) Or maybe you left it with great stealth and planning on someone’s lawn and the gardener, thinking it was trash, tossed it out into the street. (Oh shoot, who am I to blame the gardener? Maybe it was the homeowner.)

Anyway, the message was for me. Because it said, “Adventure is out there.”

This is what I needed to hear. I used to go find adventures all the time. Rocky Fairy, I could tell you stories all day long! I used to travel and take day trips and go to gatherings of like-minded people (which is challenging for an introvert, but back then, I could push myself out there).

But in the past couple of years, some stuff has happened in the world, in my life. It’s not important what it was. But… I have defaulted into safe mode, wherein, if I stay at home… with my books and my music and my dog and my cat and my garden, I am comforted. I am safe. Or… at least… I have the impression of being safe.

The difficulty there, as you can readily see (as I am convinced you are an incredibly insightful fairy), is that being safe doesn’t help me be stronger. It doesn’t help me overcome those feelings that caused me to shut down. And it certainly doesn’t lead to adventures. (Well, perhaps a few tiny ones, like rescuing a chicken from the side of the freeway. Different story altogether.)

Anyway, I started out to just say thank you. Adventure is indeed “out there,” and since I’d been contemplating (but quickly talking myself out of) getting “out there,” launching out on an adventure, I immediately determined that, while you meant this rock for someone else, in one sense, the rock—all by itself, miraculously—found the right person to deliver itself to.

So thank you for this rock and its message. Most importantly, thank you for your kindness, your willingness to put yourself out there, make an effort to make others smile or have a better day or cheer up or feel less isolated, less lonely. (In this park, there is a lot of loneliness. You have your work cut out for you there, Rock Fairy.) If everyone did one small thing such as this, reached out with one small gesture to others to say, “You’re not alone in the world. I care,” we would all be in a much better frame of mind, I think. We would all be in a much better frame of heart.

Love and hugs,

K

P.S. You might notice, if you happen to pass my house as you make your clandestine rounds, that there is a sign hung near the door. It’s rather large. You can’t miss it. Unless fairies don’t read English. It says “Fairies Welcomed.” Yep. I mean it.

Patriot

I AM A PATRIOT.

I was born on the Fourth of July. Truly. When I was a child, did I ever think those fireworks were for me? Never. Every year, I watched my dad carefully hang our flag in its post on the front porch, heard him tell the neighbors what a great country we live in, watched him place his hand lovingly over his heart at the VFW hall to say the Pledge of Allegiance or sing the National Anthem. I knew why we celebrated the Fourth.

I AM A PATRIOT.

Both of my parents enlisted in the army during WWII. My mother was one of the strongest women I have ever known. She survived the Great Depression, the divorce of her parents, a family split apart by public scandal, an abusive first husband, and all the oppression of women that was rampant before we burned our bras in the 1960's. She was always so proud of the fact that her country recognized her as capable of helping in the war effort. She worked in transportation, servicing vehicles by changing the oil and other formally testosterone-associated tasks, providing critical maintenance to personnel carriers, jeeps and other vehicles. She never liked to talk about her past--unless you got her talking about her years serving her country.

I AM A PATRIOT.

I have voted in every presidential election since 1972.

I AM A PATRIOT.

When we were kids, my brother played trumpet in a drum and bugle corp. Watching him march in parades, the drums beating, the music crisp and sharp, and oh my goodness, the stars and stripes being carried in front of all those young people in uniform, I wanted to be a part of it all. So I joined the color guard so I could march along with them.

I AM A PATRIOT.

As a child I had an epiphany, realizing all on my own that I had won the birth lottery by being born in this country, where "It's a free country!" was a slogan we used as kids to mouth off to people who told us to settle down or straighten up or be quiet. But it's true; I knew from a young age, from listening to my dad, that men and women had sacrificed a great deal so that we could live in freedom. My dad was the great-grandson of immigrants who, like many Irish, came from a land that could offer them nothing to a land that would offer them an opportunity to grow and thrive. My dad's family was just scraping by when he left for the war. When he returned, he became a cab driver, then a cop. Before he died at the age of 43, he studied law and passed the bar exam. He would have been an attorney in California. Talk about the land of opportunity....

I AM A PATRIOT.

I have sung the National Anthem at pep rallies, basketball games, and oh my goodness, at a minor league baseball game with 2,000 people in attendance--and that was one of the proudest, happiest moments of my life.

I AM A PATRIOT.

By liberal friends believe that I align with them, that I am wholly left leaning. My Republican friends believe that as well, though some acquaintances think I am as far to the right as they are. The truth is, I am somewhere in between. And what I love about this country is that I can have friends on both sides. I can engage in conversation with conservatives and progressives, but I'm not required to choose one side or align myself with one particular way of thinking.

Beyond that, I can have conversations with many, many other people who are not like me--Jews and Muslims and atheists and yes, even Baptists and Episcopalians and Mormons. And these people can be my friends, folks whom I love and embrace and cherish. Black folks and brown, Asian and Indian. We are all in this together, and none of us will get out alive. I am blessed each day in this fleeting life that this country--this big, magnificent, beautiful country--gives me the freedom to go where I please when I please with whom I please. To know that right now, if I chose to, I could marry a Black Muslim woman and all my friends--ALL MY FRIENDS--would joyously attend my wedding is something that makes me proud of my country every single day.

I AM A PATRIOT.

Do not dare to think that because you adhere to one particular ideology, you alone get to assume the role of "patriot" and others do not. I am a flag-waving, parade-marching, Star-Spangled-Banner-singing, whole-hearted lover of this country, no matter who is posturing in the role of leader.

This land is MY land.

(Bless you, Woody Guthrie.)

Summer

I rode my bike tonight. I went out at 8:10, thinking I'd just ride around the block as the evening breeze began to cool everything down, be gone maybe ten or fifteen minutes. But I stayed out until full dark, until the streetlights came on, and I smiled to think of the summer nights when I was kid, when we stayed out as long as we could, reluctant to return to the stuffy house and bedtime and trying to sleep in the stifling air with mosquitoes buzzing everywhere.

If we were on her good side, Mom would let us eat a giant bowl of ice cream before we went to bed.

This night, as I pedaled around the park, I recalled those nights long ago of riding my bike or skating or playing hide and seek with the neighbor kids and my brother and sister.

It was a night much like this one when my brother found Lucky. We were sitting on the front porch, doing not much of anything and loving the activity, and suddenly Kevin said, "Hey. What's that in the street?" He went to investigate, my sister and I tagging along behind. Curled in a ball in the middle of our street was a young black cat. He picked her up, cuddled her, then marched into the house to place her squarely in our mother's lap. Mom was sitting on the couch talking on the phone, and I still remember giggling as he handed her the cat and we fled outside. Remember, back then our phones were anchored to the wall. He called back to her something about keeping her safe, and when we went back outside he told us just to wait. We did.

A long time later Mom ended her conversation and we heard her call "Kevin" through the screen door, stretching out the syllables in a tone that was both ominous and amused. We shuffled warily back inside. The little cat was now curled in Mom's lap, purring away as our mother stroked her fur and glared at her second-born son.

"We don't need a cat," she told him.

"I know," he said, "but she's lucky."

And that became her name. She was the first black cat in our family. And she was extraordinarily patient with my brother, who at times told our dog to chase her just for the fun of it, and once he tried to make the tip of her tail white by dipping it in bleach. (He succeeded in reducing the black luster to a dull orange. Don't get the wrong idea; my brother wasn't a bad kid, just bored. In those days, we had to find things to do. The things we found weren't always good things.)

This was the memory that flooded back to me tonight as I pedaled my bike up and down the streets of my little community. I have always loved going out on a summer night to ride my bike. It is a calming, contemplative venture these days, but it does still immediately make me feel like a kid again. Hard to believe I'll be 64 in two weeks.

Driving

I may have mentioned in an earlier post (or if I didn't, and we're friends, you've heard me whine about it) that for the past five months I've been driving The Youngest Granddaughter, Reese, to school every day and picking her up in the afternoon, a total distance of 120 miles per day, most of it on the freeway--10, 210, 215. (Please note that I did not use the definite article to modify those freeway numbers--because I'm told that "only in California" do we say "the 10 freeway.")

What a pain! Except... I've had the pleasure of getting to know Reese on a deeper level. She's a "step" granddaughter (oh how I hate that term! "Step" what? Step away? Step down? Ugh!), so I haven't been afforded the same opportunities to hang out with and bond with her as I have with Ben and Ellie. For that reason, driving times have been special to me because they've given us time to talk about the important things in life, including gun control, the devastation of the current administration, bad teachers, good teachers, the behavior of boys in high school, and What was that on the side of the road?!?

In reference to the latter, there is a whole list of junk we saw on the side of the road. Couch cushions seem to be a popular castoff, as are ropes, chains, ladders and gardening tools. By far the one that most interested us was the chicken.

We were westbound on the--oops, I mean--210 one morning at about 6:15 when my eye caught movement on the center median. I blinked, focused, and yes, my eyes did not deceive me; there was a tall red rooster pacing back and forth in the dirt, his toes--wait--talons?--stopping just short of the emergency strip. He clearly wanted to cross the road (okay, I had to go there), but feared the traffic, so he just walked nervously back and forth. Of course, I processed all that in a matter of seconds. Then I said:

"Was that a chicken?" to a teenager who seemed to be dozing.

"It was!" she immediately responded. "How did a chicken get there?"

And for the rest of the drive to school, that's all we talked about. How he came to be on this raised section of freeway out on the middle divider. Logistically, it seemed impossible that he'd gotten there on his own, so we wondered if perhaps someone had grown tired of hearing him cock-a-doodle-doo before dawn and had brought him out presumably to his doom.

Then I dropped Reese off and we forgot about him.

Until we saw him in the exact same spot the next morning, still alive, still pacing.

"WHAT THE...????"

"OH MY GOD!"

I don't remember which of us said which, but we both exclaimed simultaneously. He was still there because he couldn't really go anywhere else, but how had he survived without getting hit? And by now the poor guy must be really hungry and thirsty, we thought. Had there been more room, I would have pulled in and tried to catch him, but that scenario seemed precarious at best. What if I frightened him into traffic and caused an accident?

But what to do?

I dropped Reese off, went home and called the California Highway Patrol.

"California Highway Patrol. How can I help you?"

"I'm sorry, this is your weird phone call for the day. There's a live rooster on the westbound 210 about a mile east of Waterman. He's been there for at least 24 hours without food or water."

Long pause.

"He's alive?"

"Yes ma'am."

"Well, I guess that chicken just needs to get across the road."

Yep, she went there, too, and then we were both just laughing but also expressing sympathy for the poor guy.

"Okay," she promised, "I'll call animal control and we'll get someone out there right away."

And then we had to wait 24 hours to learn the fate of Mr. Red Rooster. Driving to school the next morning, we were all eyes, intently staring out over the dashboard before we ever came in view of the spot where he'd been. Finally we came up on it, two sets of eyes searching frantically for any sight of him. All we saw were two orange cones. No rooster. No feathers. No blood (which would have been awful).

"Yayyyyy!!!" We both broke into cheers. Red had been saved!

I made a mental note to call Animal Services in San Bernardino as soon as I got home to ask if they had him. ("I'm sorry, this is your weird call for the day, but did you happen to impound a rooster off the freeway yesterday?") We wanted to know the rest of the story. Was Red okay? Would he be placed for adoption?

Alas, things got busy when I got home and I never did make that call. Perhaps it's for the best. In our minds, Red is safe, well fed and hydrated now, waiting for his forever home.

Last week Reese graduated high school. Our driving adventures--at least on the roads to school and back--have ended. She will head off to Cal Poly University in August to study Engineering. I hope she always looks back fondly on those hours we spent driving, talking, bonding, and making the world a safer place for at least one rooster.

Bobby

"My thanks to all of you, now it's on to Chicago and let's win there."

I still can't recall the words without tearing up.

On June 5th, 1968, I stayed up late to watch the primary election results. I was only 14--certainly not old enough to vote yet. But there were two strong influences in my life at the time--no, three--that motivated me to watch the news, to follow the campaign of the young and charismatic senator. The first was a passionate history teacher. The second was the Civil Rights Movement. And the third was the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. just two months before. The world, it seemed to my young eyes, was a cruel one. (Keep in mind, we were daily seeing images of the war and devastation in Vietnam.) I desperately needed hope. Bobby Kennedy represented that hope of change for me.

It was after midnight when he gave a brief speech in the ballroom of the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles, ending with those words I've quoted above. I remember being tired and thrilled as I got up to turn off the TV and go to bed. This man who ran on a platform of racial justice and social change might just have a chance, might really have a good chance, of becoming President. I went to bed happy.

I woke to the radio alarm at 5:00a.m. The newscaster's words invaded my sleep at first, so I thought I'd been having a nightmare. But no. As my brain came fully awake, the reality of the report sunk in--like a searing iron branding my heart: He'd been shot in the night. All the thoughts and prayers in the country could not save him; he died twenty-six hours after being shot.

Has it really been fifty years since that day? The older I get, the more I see how the events of those days directed my life.

My appreciation for journalism began that day when I retrieved a copy of the L.A. Times from our front porch and realized it was filled with far more information than I was getting on the radio about what happened. I pored over every story, trying to make sense of it all, hoping to find hope in the details. Sadly, there was none.

And I was angry. Or, I should say, angrier. The assassination of Dr. King had rocked my world pretty hard. But then, people thought (and some even whispered) it was only a matter of time. As a strong, brave Black man standing up to the White establishment of the time, he made himself a marked man, and he knew it. Still... I was already seething at the injustice and cowardice of shooting a man down in cold blood because he stands for fairness and equality.

Then Bobby... No one saw that coming. For a long time, I couldn't watch the news any more, didn't care what happened in the world. I was coming down with mononucleosis at the time, so I spent that summer sick in bed, depressed, isolated and absolutely despairing. I hated the world I'd been brought into.

There are times now when glimpses of that despair flash across my memory. We live today in equally perilous times. Occasionally, still, I need to turn away from the headlines and wander off into Nature to reflect, to appreciate, to heal.

What I know now is that stopping a single person--JFK, RFK, Dr. King--does not stop a movement. Progress goes forward in spite of tragedy. Others take up the sword and run headlong toward the battle. We should all be so brave as those men.