From Desert Hot Springs CA
to Phoenix AZ
After a long spell of nothing, I finally have regained my muse and will be writing again of our travels. First, however, let’s catch up.
After almost three year of hitting the road, we bought a house in Florida. Why? Because the price was right, the pool was there, and although we are still in love with this exploration that has become our life, we also began to feel the need for seed … and dirt and walls and rooms to go hide in. We were in our new little castle for exactly one and a half weeks, and then we got in the bus again and headed for San Francisco and Christmas with Jeff.
It was a lovely holiday with our beloved son, and from there we headed South to the desert, where we spent a wonderful couple of weeks with our friends Irwin and Randy, playing cards, eating too much and generally having fun. We did a little exploring too, including a tram to the top of the highest mountain in Palm Springs, and a drive to the tippity top of another peak, from which we could see the entire Coachella Valley which comprises Palm Springs, Palm Desert, Indian Wells, Rancho Mirage and more, undoubtedly the priciest desert in the world. And breathtaking as long as it isn’t raining and making foot-wide ruts in the roads. Which it does from time to time.
We took off from LA to Cabo San Lucas in the Baja of Mexico, that little finger of heaven that sits between the Sea of Cortez and the Pacific Ocean. There in Paradise, we spent four weeks of complete hedonism, soaking the sun into our old bones, regrouping with Joyce and Marty, Robin and Rodney, and yes, eating and drinking too much. It was colder than we’d experienced before, but when cold is 65 degrees, you put up with it and try not to complain too much. The highlight of the trip was a whale watching tour, something we do every year. We didn’t see a lot of whales--actually saw more from our patio overlooking the ocean—but we did get to watch a family of humpbacks, including the father, very unusual, and the new baby born the previous day. Amazing.
We landed back on US soil on Saturday, took a couple of days to hang with Irwin and Randy, do copious amounts of laundry, pick up Zeus at the dog sitter and check out the bus. Right now, we’re driving on the mostly boring Route 10, and expect to land in phoenix by nightfall, where John has promised to help me replace the entire selection of needlepoint threads I accidentally left by the pool the day I decided to indulge in Happy Hour, where the Margaritas were two-for-one. If drinking and driving are a no-no, then drinking and sewing should be too. Ach! All that beautiful silk thread, purchased with such care, and more beautiful colors you’ve never seen. Not to mention what they cost. I don’t want to think about that.
And here we come round to the reason I haven’t written in so long. Needlepoint! Blame it on that blast from the past, when we were young, and all the pillows on our couches were made by hand and whole shops opened in honor of the fad, with canvases that sold as high as hundreds of dollars. And let’s not even discuss Bargello, which came and went like the maxi, midi and minis that were popular at that time.
I got into needlepoint shortly after I convinced John that a needlepoint canvas was as much fun as, if not more than, hooking rugs. I was up to my ears in the damn rugs, as he was turning them out faster than I could find surfaces to lay them on. The man is certainly goal-oriented, that’s for sure.
So I got him into needlepoint, and he took it up with a fever, and then I went to a shop in South Hampton, as much to keep a worried eye on his expenditures for his craft as anything else, and ended up buying a small, exquisite painting of a seashell canvas for myself. And that’s when I stopped writing. I’d found a new, old, way to waste time creatively.
And I guess I’m a lot like Erma Bombeck, who confessed that she’d do anything to avoid writing, including polishing her paper clips. If you’ve ever cleaned the lint between the keys on your keyboard rather than, oh say, start a term paper, then you know the feeling.
But I have no thread anymore! I think God is reminding me of my true calling and letting me know that it’s only eight months until the next Writer’s Convention, where I promised myself I’d have my book finished and reading for the agents, editors and publishers I’ll hook up with to make me famous and rich.
Not that I have any pretensions or aspirations at this point in my life. Right. And where would Grandma Moses have been if she’d believed that.
Maybe I should tell John to skip that store in Phoenix.
B
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