Headin' Back

My five month 'vacation' from Lawson's Landing has come to an end and today I find myself heading back for the summer to help with the vacationing crowd. I have my two macaws caged up in big carriers in the back of the Explorer. Sacks of bird seed and cat food is safely tucked behind them. In the back seat are the two cats, Spooky and Kickers, also tucked into their traveling cages. They meow plaintively for the first hour, then settle back hopelessly for the rest of the seventeen hour trip. Next to me on the front seat is my African Parrot, Sam in a smaller traveling cage. He's much the happier of all the five pets, whistling short bits of stage tunes or spicing up the silence with "Hello!" "How are ya?" When the going gets too long for him, or the traffic gets heavy, he senses my mood and begins a loud anxious barking. I think it's just to get me to yell back at him.

Bill is leading the pack in his Trooper. He will have the uncaged, squirmy puppy, Chuy riding with him. Chuy has his own sheepskin pad on the front seat that he should sleep on, but invariably feels more at peace, curling up in Bill's lap and resting his head on the arm rest.

So that's what we're doing today. I'm going to miss our little casa, maybe not these hundred and ten degree days so much, but the town and our house. It is finally feeling like home to me. I can walk along the street and folks will greet me with a wave and smile or a greeting and certain friends will toot their horn when they see us walking and they pass by in a car. That's what I like about the little town. For the most part, everyone has been real sweet and welcoming and I don't feel like a Newcomer so much.

No, I didn't get to do all the things I had planned to do this winter/spring. There's a pile of books left unread I haven't gotten to yet. The garden is only about a third finished and I've plans for more. The furniture I was going to refinish? Not a speck of it started! And there's lots more areas we didn't get to explore in the desert. But that's okay, because I'll be back in the fall and then I'm hoping to discover even more things about this fascinating little town that I am calling "Home"!

The Land Exchange Bill

Time marches on and debate still rages or at least continues on the controversial "Southeast Arizona Land Exchange and Conservation Act" otherwise known as S.1862. Currently, the bill is before the Energy and Natural Resources Committee in the Senate. It has until November or December of this year (end of the year recess) to pass or not. And according to the Washington D.C.'s watch on bills, S.1862 is currently 62% Against and 38% For.

I know that our Mayor of Superior is going to the Senate sometime this month or perhaps in June, whenever the bill comes up for a hearing in that committee. He is speaking FOR the passage of the bill, with reservations. The reservations are that there must be some provisions for environmental factors in the land exchange, so that Resolution Copper won't just be given the sacred Apache Leap area all free and clear with no oversight on how the best way to get the millions of gallons of heavy mineral water out of the mountain without polluting the water supply of northeast Pinal County.

There is still no dialogue between the Apache Nation and Resolution Copper, something that is required in the Land Exchange. The copper company says succinctly that the Native Americans refuse to talk with them. And that's right, because the Apache Nation says their heads of state will speak with the U.S. government's heads of state, not some international conglomerate company. So right there, is a major stumbling block, I would think. But you know elected officials: if it's something they want, they'll sail right through and ignore their own laws.

The fact of the Mine then still lays like a big boulder in the future of Superior's Main Street. You can't deal with it, without stumbling over it someway or another. The Yes People are right: yes, it would create some jobs; get Superior back on the track that it's been derailed on since 1982 when Magma Copper closed; and give the town the impetus to get moving again. The No People are right too: no, because if the environmental rules are not followed it will create a serious health catastrophe for all the people of Superior and right down to Florence with heavy metals polluting the waters; no, because our federal government gave a promise to the Apache Nation in 1956 that Apache Leap Mountain area would not be touched for development or industry; and no, because if the claims of such a rich strain of copper is found at Apache Leap then shouldn't it be used for U.S. gain rather than a foreign entity?

Man, these are Big Questions and Big Debates. I don't know that any of our elected officials are up to dealing with them fairly.

Dress Less

For the better part of my fifty-nine years, I have dressed in an unvarying uniform of sweatshirt/tee shirt and jeans. It served me well at fourteen and felt comfortable enough in the years as a young mother and by the time my forties and fifties came, why bother to change? So it has been rather a 'shock' to the old "Same ol' same ol'" to have the opportunity here in Arizona to wear shorts and tank tops and dare I say it... sundresses?

I have always had a soft spot for sundresses, mostly because living in Dillon Beach, one didn't have much call for them. But I'd buy one whenever one would take my fancy and if we were vacationing in Mexico or Hawaii or a warm weather Caribbean climate, then I'd trot one out and wear it. A sundress makes one feel airy and light and cool and almost like a child again. A sundress is just something I could never take on a daily basis. Until we moved to Superior, that is.

Shorts are fine. I've learned to show my legs and I must say I haven't been tanner in years. But donning a sundress and sandals for running uptown, well it just feels mannerly and grown up and the right thing to do. (Maybe it's my Southern roots emerging!)

When we closed up our house in Baja last year, I asked Bill to bring back a rust colored full skirted sundress I'd bought thirty years ago. It still fits and still looks good on me, so the other day before heading into town, I put it on. When my sister and I went into a newly opened dress shop in Casa Grande, the saleslady commented on my dress saying how pretty it was. I agreed and told her it was thirty years old and time to buy a new dress. I emerged with not one, but two dresses. They liked me both and didn't want to be stuck back on their hangers in the store. Suddenly, my closet was getting smaller.

A few days later, I put on another sundress, a little red coverup I'd bought in the sales brochure from Victoria Secret ten years ago (are my clothes all this old?) and wore to several different Caribbean resorts. Bill and I walked downtown to do some shopping. Our first shop was at a secondhand shop. The owner is a beautiful flamboyant lady who prides herself on wearing smart vintage clothing. That day she was wearing a handpainted (big purple orchids on a turquoise background) sleek shift from the Seventies that put my little red knit number to shame. The one I like on her is heavily adorned with long swingy fringe. But she looks real good in most everything she puts on, maybe it's her honey gold locks. Whatever. The vintage shop lady in her vintage clothes. She's definitely into dresses.

Then we progressed uptown to another shop. Here, two sisters in their fifties were also wearing some nice little cotton frocks. When the temperature was hitting the low Nineties, it was the way to stay cool. One of their customers came in wearing black stilettos and a black mini skirt with an off the shoulder tunic adorned with long black fringe. Goodness... this was fun! Most of the time at the beach, my customers dress much the same as me: sweatshirt and jeans! This warm weather dressing could get to be fun.

So I've got my eye peeled for some vintage sundresses. I'm sure they're here somewhere. It will just take some time to open up a trunk filled with the right clothes and then I will blend right in. And leave my sweatshirts and jeans packed away for the beach visits.

Queen of EBay

I have gotten myself heavily involved in selling my Something Fishy shirts on EBay this past week and have neglected my blog. Sorry... but this become addictive after a time. My first sale occurred the week after Easter while I was in Dillon Beach and though I continued 'selling' items the next month, I didn't have any sales.

The past two weeks, shirt sales took off. A Hawaiian guy in Kona liked the looks of my "Island Girls" shirt, a brightly colored red and blue and yellow creation with 1950's bathing beauties reclining in palm trees. I figured if I could sell Hawaiian shirts to genuine Hawaiians then I was off and running. So I started hammering away on the Island Girls shirts. And I found there were a lot of extra large and double extra large men on EBay looking for a way to stand out in a crowd!

I purposely kept the price low when I started out, selling them at about half the amount I normally would at the Landing. Bill said I was going to go broke slowly but I figured that was the best way to start. This past Monday, at the end of an auction on a 2XL shirt, I had my first bidding war going on. A man from California who badly wanted it for $20. was bid up to $36. before he 'won' it. The other dude emailed to ask if he could have a "Second Chance" at it, meaning, if I had a second shirt just like it, he would buy it at his highest bid, which was $35. I checked my stash of fabric. There was just enough of the Island Girls print to make a 2XL shirt. So Monday night I sent him a twenty four chance to buy the (still unmade) shirt for $35. and I danced gleefully around the living room telling Bill I was "Queen of EBay!"

Tuesday morning, I got the shirt cut out but didn't get to the actual sewing of it because I got busy with the purses I've been making and when the twenty-four hours was up on Tuesday evening, I was hurt to discover that the Second Chance Buyer was not interested in pursuing his chance at the Island Girls shirt after all. Since I had it cut out already, though not sewn, I posted another sale on EBay, adding that I was opening the bids at $25. but if someone wanted to, they could "Buy It Now!" for $35.

So Wednesday morning, I sat down and started sewing it up. There was a message on there first thing from a man in Texas asking how big the chest measurement was. I answered him and set to work. At one thirty, I took it off the machine and wrapped it up, and put it away. I went to the computer and fired it up and Lo and Behold! the man from Texas had weighed in thirty minutes before, struck the "Buy It Now!" button and paid by PayPal. He was ready for me it send it. I wrapped it up and delivered it to the post office before three o'clock.

Now... that's what I call Poppin'! And that's why, at least for a day, I felt like Queen of EBay.

Superior Business

Business on Main Street is getting weary and I am wondering if it is because of the Recession that is on us or if the fact of running a business in a modern day ghost town takes its toll after a few months. This morning, Bill and I spent poking around the few stores open in our fair city looking for a suitable Mother's Day gift for me. The stores on Highway 60 were open and we greeted a few friends we knew at one of the shops down there. Traffic was whizzing by on a warm May day and prospects for doing more business looking promising.

We headed uptown to check out the shops on Main Street. One gift shop had already put a notice on her door that today she'd be open at ten AM and she was having a "Going Out of Business" sale. She's had some real Hard Times this year in her family and hadn't been open since the first of March. So seeing her "Going Out of Business" sign wasn't surprising. Sad, though. At ten fifteen, she still wasn't open so we urged Chuy up Magma Street to check out a yard sale that was advertised. I met an extremely chatty four year old, named Julia, who tried to sell me her doll with cerise pink hair. "She smells of cotton candy!" the child commended. "Or you could buy this one..." (It was an identical match to the pink haired doll but had bright purple hair), "but she smells like bubble gum!" (Julia, you'll make a fine sales lady someday!) But no, I resisted and bought one of her grandma's old cookbooks instead.

The Going Out of Business shop still hadn't opened when we returned to Main Street so we walked downtown to another store that's only open on the week-ends. It's run by two convivial ladies and they were having a massive "Fifteen Percent Off Everything In The Store!" sale, so of course, I had to duck in and check things out. I picked out a couple of trays and a bright green wicker basket and talked to the ladies as they rang up my purchases. I told them about the demise of the shop down the street and said how sorry I was that she would be leaving. They tsked-tsked themselves, then one lowered her voice and said she expected that they too would be calling it quits when the torpid summer days set in. (Yeah, you hardly find any shops open in July and August in this neck of the woods. I guess folks just get too hot to shop and take off for the beach.) But instead of just closing for a few months, they'd be closing up and leaving. Being open on the week-ends was just not bringing in enough cash to pay the rent and meet their bills.

I am sorry to see them leave. It won't leave hardly anything open and won't provide even a casual shopper an excuse to come peruse Main Street. It shocks me to see how dreary business is done in this town. For instance, at the beginning of Main Street, is a fairly new (opened last year) restaurant/bar. It has a top of the line building and an adjoining garden patio area. When they were open one day in January, the owner told us excitedly of his plans to have Ladies Night on Thursdays, and each week-end during February and March he had some sort of entertainment planned to drum up business. He ennumerated so many plans I asked him if he had a website I might refer to. He said, yes, soon, it would be up and running. Well, since that long ago day in January, we've found him open only about half a dozen times. Most days, even week-ends, it's shut up tighter than a drum with only a "Closed" sign on the door, never any mention as to when he might possibly be open. Townspeople fume to each other about the strangeness of a brand new business being more closed than open and "What's with that?" There's a rumor that it might be for sale. But mostly, the "Closed" sign is what you see.

Last week, I took an afternoon business seminar given by the Central Arizona College in conjunction with the Small Business Administration. The goal is to create more businesses in Pinal County. The instructor told us to prepare a business plan for what we expect to do in this community. Here's my plan: I'm going to rent one of the dilapidated storefronts on Main Street. I'll gussy up the front of it with bright colored rainbow paint. Bill will sell framed prints from this Australian Outback artist he's fond of and who is trying to get a following in this country. I'll stock it with my Something Fishy Hawaiian print shirts I've been sewing and the patchwork and drawstring bags Gloria and I have been working on. We'll be open only once or twice a month. We'll send fliers out to the locals and take advertisements in the local papers on the week-ends when we will be open so folks will get excited and come out and see what we're offering. And you know what I'm going to call it? Superior's "Never Open" Shop! So when the few days a month when we are open, it will be a red letter day for Superior. What can be any different than the way things are done now?

Apache Leap Hike

Time is getting short before I head back to Dillon Beach for the summer season at the Landing. And we hadn't gotten to climb up Apache Leap yet. So yesterday, we took up our (still new) walking sticks and set out on a two and a half hour walk up towards Apache Leap. The first shot shows how far we actually got. No, we didn't get to the top of the mountain itself. The odd thing is that the mountain peak which looks so nearby here from town, is actually a far piece when you come to walk it.

We got on the old Raymert Mine Road that winds up toward the bottom of the craggy bluffs themselves and walked it for an hour and a half. The walk was rocky rubble in places and mostly straight up. At times, I'd have to stop and try and catch my breath. We thought we were in pretty good shape from our daily thirty and forty minutes walks, but a hike uphill for four or five times that long tends to let you know what kind of shape you're in! And it wasn't as though we finally ran out of road to walk on. No, it continued on up, towards the bluff's base. While we felt we could still go on, we weren't sure we'd have much energy for the rest of the day, so reluctantly we called it quits and came down.

Coming down was quicker, by far, but in some of the rubblier places I was glad to have that third leg of the walking stick and it caught my fall at least two times. We paused on several overlooks to get some good shots of the town and Queen Creek canyon below us. Resolution Copper Mine, the old mine north of town, showed up real good from that elevation. In that second picture there, we climbed a ridge of rock jutting up from a peak to get a view of Highway 60's Queen Creek bridge just north of Superior. I was surprised by how agile Chuy was, able to perch on rocky shards like a little mountain goat.

At the end of the walk, though, Chuy flung himself into the shade under the car and panted. I put my walking stick into the car and picked him up. He was covered with big stickery burrs from the plant he'd been lying in. Docilely, he allowed me to clean him up and he curled up in my lap for the ride home. We didn't get a lot more out of him the rest of the day and today we purposely didn't walk anywhere. We thought we'd give the puppy (and ourselves) a day of rest before we find somewhere new to explore.

Why Can't I See One Too?

My aunt saw one in her bedroom. A realtor saw one in a house she was selling. Last week, a friend told me about seeing one in a old hotel he was visiting in Bisbee. Gosh darn it, I'd like to see one too! What do I have to do?

I'm talking about ghosts. Spirits. Entities that aren't exactly of our realm but still have some connection to this life here. And the more folks I talk to this year, the more commonplace it seems to be to have seen one. There are shows on television about trying to prove or disprove the existance of ghosts. And didn't I have a ghostbuster visit me too this spring? Well, gee, being's as how interested I am in the supernatural and open to all of this, why haven't I seen one?

I'm certainly not a skeptic. Maybe I embrace the thought of spirits far more than most people. It's not as though I haven't communicated with them. In my meditations, I get messages from those that have died and pass the communications on to their loved ones. That part, to me, seems perfectly plausible and understandble and doesn't "cweep me out!" (Thanks, Sage, for that line). But the thought of actually getting to see one, to communicate on that level. Yeah. That "cweeps me out" a bit. Maybe that's why I haven't been privy to seeing one yet.

The one the realtor saw, she looked out a window in an old house she was selling and saw a man dressed in old time-y clothes sitting at the bottom of the garden with his hat on. She was a far piece from town, out in the country and was waiting for clients to show up and there was nobody around. But here sat a gentleman, who turned to her and nodded his head and raised his hand in a salute. At that moment, the client's car turned into the driveway and she watched the man vanish into the morning air. She felt he was the original owner of the house. And she figured he was there to make sure that whoever bought his home would be good to it. Truth to tell, she was rather blase about it. I was the one who got goosebumps over her story.

So okay, maybe if I were to have an 'encounter', I'd be blase about it too. I could hope. I might be just a touch too 'hyper' to be that cool with it. I'd probably be running around telling everyone I saw what just happened and blogging about it too, of course. So.... now I've opened myself up to the Universe with this request, haven't I? I'm ready for my Encounter. Let me see one and then I'll report to all of you. Hey, if nothing else, it will liven up the blog, won't it?

The Back of Beyond

Last Friday we took a trek up to some property we own outside of St. Johns, Arizona. It was the second time I've gone there and the third time Bill has visited. St. Johns is an active little farming community in the eastern corner of Arizona about forty miles west of New Mexico. It's fairly high, around sixty eight hundred feet and is officially in the White Mountains. The hills are sparsely covered with small junipers and grass is sketchy. Even the cactus are few and far between. While the temps have been in the low Nineties around Phoenix, it barely reached sixty degrees the day we visited and the wind blew. I guess the wind blows a lot up there.

It's a part of Arizona that you could call desolate, or at least remote. Depending on how poetic you want to be. The first time we visited was four years ago when we drove out with my parents trying to find these forty acres Bill had bought on EBay. We didn't have a real good plot of the land and thought we'd found the area, rather than the actual acreage itself. There are few fences and fewer houses. Here and there, someone has parked an RV. And there are a few windmills for pumping water. Basically, in the four years since I've seen it, nothing much had changed. It's wide open spaces and windy prairies come to mind. So it is far different than the colorful mountains we live in now or the frothy breakers of the Pacific we left behind. I don't know as though I'd like to make a steady diet of this 'remote' part of Arizona for long.

I did discover one thing unique about this place. It didn't hit me right away. We'd been there for half an hour before it registered. Bill parked in a sandy wash that might actually have been on our forty acres and immediately we began finding pretty red iron pyrite stones. There was also some unusual white rocks that looked like dead coral, which I guess it is. Evidently, eons ago, this area had been underwater too. We were basically walking around with our noses stuck to the ground when it came to me: the absence of sound. I mean that literally. There was SILENCE. No highway noise. No barking dogs. Not even buzzing insects. It was dead quiet. No, I take that back. Every once in a while, you could hear the distant call of a bird. But in the middle of the day when we got there, even they were strangely quiet. You don't find that very often anymore, do you? The complete absence of sound. A lot of folks anymore even wear their Ipods for exercise or running around and aren't even aware of the regular sounds around them. But to be hit with complete silence.... Hmmm, it's almost eerie.

Well, after a while, a National Guard jet flew over and the air was crowded with that sound for a bit. Then I heard a quail call out for its family. But for the most part, it was just the rocks and the trees and the sigh of the breeze through the junipers' branches. And it sounded pretty good to me.

We found a lot of rocks. A lot of rocks with some type of jasper in it, stuff we don't find in abundance here in Superior. Bill found another streambed on the drive back towards town and we spent another hour poking around. To our astonishment, we found some lovely chunks of flower agate that had tumbled down from the surrounding hills. So it was a good day. A long day. And Chuy was a dustball by the time we got home. You couldn't pat him but that a cloud of dust rose up from his caramel brown fur. So, Chuy got a bath that night and then slept like a log. (Or one of those rocks.) And since it was about four hours each way, Bill and I slept pretty good that night too.

But the silence.... It's hard to ignore how profound that was.