Cacophony

Saturday night was a beautiful night for a walk around town.  We'd made our way uphill to the old section of Pinal to deliver some spicy soup to friends.  There was a fresh slice of quarter moon riding in the sky, the night was warm in the upper eighties, the air almost tangible it had so much body to it, as the rich dusk slid in behind a hasty red sunset.  As we left our friend's home, the dusk had settled to a black velvet, feeling like summer in the desert night.  If you could import that kind of evening to Dillon Beach, you'd have yourself some Tourist Trade, I was thinking!

But as we finished our good-nights at our friend's big wooden gate, the soft desert night was sliced through by strident noise.  At first, I thought it was a teenager's car, windows open, streaming his music through the quiet streets.  No, this didn't move.  It stayed, spraying its message around the neighborhood. 

"What's going on?" I asked Bill.

Our friends just shrugged as if to say, "Gee!  He's at it again," telling us good-night again and shutting their door.  The noise had been obliterated behind their eighteen inch thick adobe walls.  We'd heard nothing while we'd been in their home.

"Jesus, save these sinners!" an old man's shrill voice boomed from a hand held electronic megaphone.  "Jesus.  Jesus.  Jesus."

"A revival?" I asked Bill, struck by the thought on what should be a soft moon velvet night.  The old man's voice cut the velvet darkness to shreds as he sing songed his so-called praise to Jesus and damned the sinners.  "Is that legal?"

"I dunno!  He seems to be doing it."

We glanced across the street to where a family group had been gathered on their patio playing with their grandchildren  when we'd entered our friends' home.  The patio was empty.  You couldn't hear yourself think with that noise going on in the next street.

"He's clearing the streets," I muttered.  We turned and headed down towards Main Street, as the old man's voice gained volume, then stumbled a time or two as he apparently gasped for breath.  He sounded like maybe he might have COPD and was having trouble maintaining his monologue.  I imagined he was a retired miner, intent on spreading the word of God, albeit his methods, while his lungs steadily decreased after decades of working the mines.

But even as his voice stumbled a time or two, it didn't deter his speechmaking.  As we moved up the street, you couldn't hear all his words, but you could tell he was still screeching out the word of God.  I'm sorry to repeat myself, but I just can not believe that this could be legal!  Yes, we've got freedom of speech and yes, we've got freedom of religion, but what kind of freedom are they taking away from me when I'd just as soon enjoy a quiet warm evening....quietly!

We walked the rest of the way up Main Street and turned on Magma to make our way down to the Dari-Queen on Highway 60.  Shouldn't a summer night's walk be finished up with a soft serve ice cream?  Darned right!  But even there, as we sat outside and licked our cones, you could hear the old man's strident demands.  Now, it sounded like he'd moved his act to the South side of town and was probably pissing off the residents on the other side of town.  Nothing like getting everybody Hot and Bothered on a warm night.

Today, I put a call in to the Town Manager, asking if such a thing is legal, or should I have reported it to the cops.  I know the police have better things to do than shush people up, but you know what?  He was intruding on my liberties and I don't think I want a Bible Thumper intruding on my warm fall nights walks!   

Thanks!  I feel better getting this one off my chest!  HA!

Three Little Kittens

Daddy found a nest of newly hatched kittens under the tackle shed in the boat yard. Their eyes were open and they were six weeks old or so. They weren't 'tamed' yet, but their curiosity was getting the better of them and when they heard people approach, they would duck their little black and white faces out from under the shed floor. He asked the boys if they wanted to see some kittens.

"Yes, yes, yes!" they fired in unison. Nine year old Charlie, seven year old Sage and their four year old cousin, Ronnie.

"Well, then, these are still wild cats. So you have to be extremely quiet so you don't scare them," Daddy reminded them.

"We will!" Charlie

"Okay, Let's go!" Sage

"You betcha!" Ronnie

They were jumping with excitement to see the find.

He led them through the back door of the boathouse and across the street into the boatyard, where he paused and bent down. In a low voice, he reminded them, "You have to be extremely quiet not to frighten them. So be quiet and and sit down where I show you."

They nodded excitedly, not saying anything but their excitement was making it hard for them to stop moving.

Daddy led them farther into the boatyard and motioned them to sit down in some tall weeds surrounding the tackle shed. Carefully, each little boy settled on his haunches, ducking their heads to peer under the shed. No cats were visible. Nothing moved.

Heads bobbed up to Daddy, speechless but pleading with him to make the elusive kittens appear. Daddy squatted down among the boys and whispered, "Well, now, all you have to do is to make kitten noises and they'll come out."

Silence for just a moment. Each little boy began mewing and squealing in a kittenish fashion. They paused, then started again.

One by one, three tiny heads poked out from under the shed. Black and white kittens with spikey white whiskers to examine this strange new breed of 'kittens'. The boys were entranced with what they'd produced as each species got to study the other.

Me? I'm standing at the boatyard gate completely enthralled with my son and his kids. What a special moment. Of course, I'd forgotten the video camera.

Crabby Old Lady

For the past month, I have been suffering from a series of misfortunes regarding my sewing machine(s). Just before I left Arizona, Bill asked if I wouldn't be happier taking my Pfaff with me. I love my Pfaff. I sew fast with my Pfaff. I don't have to think about anything when I'm sewing with the Pfaff. Perhaps I've come to be rely too much on my Pfaff. I didn't want to be one of those stodgy old ladies who can't adapt to something new. No, I told him, I'd use the Singer I had at Dillon Beach. I left the Pfaff behind in Superior. I could spend the summer with a different machine. I was still young enough to be adaptable, wasn't I?

Less than three weeks after working with the Singer, it developed a noticeable problem. The presser foot was limp and wouldn't stay up without one hand holding it up. It made sewing a definite Challenge. Each day became harder to even sew a seam, unless I was able to grow another hand just to hold the presser foot up. Thinking it would be easier to get it fixed, I took it into Santa Rosa to the sewing machine fix-it shop. (Thank goodness, in this age of buy-something-new-instead-of-get-it-fixed, there are still sewing machine fix-it shops around.) However, the fix-it man told me it would cost more to fix the ailing Singer than it cost new and he didn't think the fix-it job would hold up. I'd need a new one in no time.

Defeated, I returned home and made a call to my daughter-in-law, also a sewer. She loaned me an old machine that turned out to be my forty-one year old Montgomery Wards machine, I had given to her soon after she was married. It brought tears to my eyes to see the old machine. However, it could only crank out laborious four-part buttonholes, not the fast one step ones of the Pfaff and the Singer. I asked friends and neighbors if I could borrow their machines, so I could use them for the buttonholes. I collected three machines and returned all three.. none could make one step buttonholes. I missed my Pfaff. I was missing it more every day.

As each day unfolded, and a new sewing woe filled my repertorie, I'd relate the newest sad story to Bill. One day, he'd heard enough. "I'm packing up your Pfaff and sending it to you," he announced.

It sounded like a good idea. But.... "But insure it, won't you?" I reminded him. They weren't making my model 7530 any longer but the used ones on eBay were going for a thousand dollars or more.

"I'll insure it for a thousand dollars," Bill said, "and if it doesn't get there, you can buy another one."

When my daughter-in-law heard what he was doing, she worried, "But what if they drop it? Then you'll still have a machine, but a broken one!"

"You worry too much," I told her, trying not to imagine the worst.

Six days later, they delivered it. It was boxed well. There were no unusual rattles in the box. I uncrated it on my day off and set it up. I'd made six shirts by then and they all needed buttonholes. I set to work buttonholing. The machine worked fine. It was flawless. Shipping from Arizona hadn't hurt it a bit. I was on a real High that morning as I buttonholed three shirts. After I'd been sewing for two hours, Chuy announced he had to go outside, so I turned the machine off and took him outside.

I saw Willy and Tad and stopped by to tell them how great the machine was running and then added, "You'll have to tell your wife that she worried for nothing. The machine is running like a top!" Then I ran home to finish up the last three shirts. Suddenly... The Big Nada... the machine wouldn't switch into the buttohole mode. It wouldn't stitch in the normal stitching mode. All it would do was a plodding basting stitch. Nothing else. What in the world was wrong with it? Here I had bad-mouthed my daughter-in-law's worry and now it seemed to have come back to bite me in the butt. The machine was toast. It would not work right. It was time to return to the Fix-It man.

Two days later, I took it in and dropped it off. When I described the problem, the Fix-It Man said it sounded like the circuit board. A major problem. He said they would look at it and call me before they did any repairs. I went back out to the car, sans Pfaff, and burst into tears. My beloved Pfaff.... left to the repair man. Could they save her life? Or would she too have to succomb to the Can't-Fix-It-Pile?

I kept stolidly sewing on the forty-one year old machine and even managed to make some four step buttonholes with it, mainly because I had five shirts to sew for my daughters-in-law and grandsons to wear in the Fourth of July parade. I wasn't proud of the bottonholes and instead of making all four in five minutes, it took about fifteen minutes each, BUT... they were buttonholes. At this point, I was beginning to appreciate ANY sewing machine.

Five days later, the Fix-It Man called and said the bad news was a four hundred and fifty dollar circuit board, plus labor, and it wouldn't be ready for three weeks. What could I do? I agreed. I tried not to think about broken down sewing machines and the pile of unsewn shirts I had cut out and not been able to get sewn. It was taking so long to sew a shirt with the forty-one year old machine. I couldn't zip through one in an hour and a half like I could with the Pfaff. It was taking me the better part of two days to get one finished. What should have been recreation was feeling like WORK! I was not a happy sewer.

A week later, the Fix-It Man called and said the Pfaff was ready. The circuit board was in a warehouse on the West Coast rather than on the East Coast, so it was ready. Along with a six hundred repair bill. I snipped the thread on my Montgomery Ward machine and ran to Santa Rosa to get the Pfaff.

All the way home, I held my breath. Was the Pfaff really fixed? Could I get back to the effortless sewing I used to enjoy? Would the Pfaff go P-ffut again after a few hours of sewing? Well, Yes, and Yes and No, it didn't. Yesterday afternoon, I sewed two and a half shirts. This morning I sewed two more. The sewing is almost effortless. The machine is sewing like a champ.

And me? Guess I won't have to be a Crabby Old Lady any more. And I can actually have something to talk about besides my ailing sewing machine and my huge repair bill. But at this rate, I'll have to sell twenty shirts to pay for the repair bill!

Home Improvements

I am not skilled in home improvements. For forty-one years, I've been married to the best handyman, skilled mechanic, do-it-yourselfer anyone could ever ask for. It's due to Bill's skills that I've never honed any of my own. And maybe it took the luxury of retirement and all that spare time to try my hand. But two months ago, when I took up a paintbrush and started painting the master bedroom of the new house in AZ, it got to be fun. And it was getting intriguing when I began painting the walls of the Great Room in three color stripes. So it was starting to become 'natural' when I returned to the beach this summer and decided to do something about the thirty-seven year old wood paneled walls in the mobile home.

In the Seventies, we were "downtown brown", I'm sure. I felt we were fairly fashionable in 1972 when we moved in. And being a busy mother and working woman, I never found the time to try turning the walls anything other than the brown paneling with Seventies harvest yellow fixtures in them. But now... ah yes, now that I've found this new unused until now skill of painting and re-decorating, well, now the urge is upon me to turn my brown walls into anything but brown walls.

And because I'm a Gemini and we seek Instant Gratification, I decided to start on the smallest bathroom in the house, so that I wouldn't have to wait weeks for the room to be done. The first step after removing all the hardware was to primer the walls and the ceiling a nice matte white. But after the first thick coating of Kilz was spread upon all the surfaces, you could still see layers of brown paneling peeking through the paint. So Willy took a look at it and advised it needed a second coat of primer. I sighed. Apparently, this small bathroom was growing larger each day. It wasn't going to be done in a few days, or even a week. It took me ten days to get all the coats of primer put down on it.

In the meantime, I'd visited Home Depot and settled upon a pretty pale lime green for the walls. It was called "Spirit Whisper" and I think I picked it as much for its color as its name. Someday, when I get really famous, it would be fun to write names for paint. I found a very pale cousin of it in the same hue, only infinitesimally faint called "Green Shimmer" for the ceiling. So one evening while I was waiting for the inspiration to get the second coat of primer on the still dark walls, I gilded the ceiling with the "Green Shimmer". It moved me to continue onwards. My bathroom that I'd been accustomed to for the past thirty seven years appeared to belong to somebody else. It was growing bigger under its nice light coloring.

Over the course of the next ten days, the walls bloomed with the bright "Spirit Whisper" of green coloring. I'd found a pretty cantaloupe-y color called "Delicious Melon" that turned to be much paler than whatever was promised on the paint chip for the trim and the cupboards. Apparently, my cantaloupe was less ripe than the one on the paint chip, but I stuck with it and turned the mirror and door trims and the cupboard doors a pale melon color. The molding trim in the corners and on the floor were harder to paint. I had to locate one of the little boys' paintbrushes and paint tiny strokes on the molding so I didn't ruin the "Spirit Whisper" of the walls. Man... interior decorating was time consuming. I found my nightly sewing not happening and my shirt inventory dwindling while I labored each evening with my new found hobby. I was bordering on the obsessive - I had to finish my bathroom.

Finally, after three weeks, the walls were finished. The cupboards were painted and the doors rehung. (Yes, I'd learned to screw too.) The fixtures were either replaced or rehung. The bathroom was complete. That is-- er -- not exactly. The thirty-seven year old linoleum still glared back from the floor, a blatant harvest yellow pattern in a very Seventies pattern. It didn't exactly "flow" with the room. Pam advised me to check out some very inexpensive peel 'n'stick tiles at Lowe's. For a dollar a square foot (hey, I only had to buy twenty square feet for this tiny room), I got some vinyl tile that looked just like the Italian porcelain tile we'd laid in the AZ kitchen two years ago. It was a pretty cream marble color with a trace of pinkish-melon running through it.

I bought it and brought it home, determined on Tuesday to finish the project. Upon closer inspection, the first thing that needed to be done was to remove all the floor molding. Oh dear! All that time consuming work with the tiny paintbrush on my hands and knees kneeling behind the toilet, painting that melon color... done for! The molding when I finally got it up was in three or more pieces, so into the trash it went. Then I spent an hour giving the old floor a good onceover with sandpaper. Then (I am not proud of this part!) I spent, I kid you not!, the next two and a half hours on my hands and knees sticking tiles, measuring them, cutting them none too expertly with scissors and sticking them down in that tiny bathroom. Cutting around the toilet was not fun and far from perfect. It's a good thing I am NOT a perfectionist or I'd probably want it ripped up and re-done. But I know who would have to rip it up and Re-Do it and I'm not wanting to do that, thank you, so the less than perfect job will have to stand for now.

All that remains is to procure some new molding, measure it, cut it, paint it and nail it down. I'm not good at cutting, but then I wasn't good at measuring or painting or screwing either, was I? And it's getting done. So the next question is, what room shall I start on next?

Chuy the Performer

Charlie's Fourth grade had a Pet Day this week. Each child could bring his pet to school for a ten to fifteen minute time to greet the children and show their pet off. Charlie's cat, who is a grouchy thirteen year old, was less than thrilled to visit a classroom of students so he asked if Chuy could be his pet for the day. I was positive Chuy would appeal to the kids. He did. At first, Charlie had to rein him in, the puppy was so eager to dash into the crowd of kids and lick each and every one of them. So Charlie had his hands full trying to pull Chuy back and still tell his class a bit about Chuy and his breed. Then he took the bag of treats and shook it over his head and asked if anyone wanted to see tricks. There were unaminous shouts of agreement. First Chuy sat and shook paws, then Charlie took a small cup of butter out of his bag and immediately Chuy was up on his hind legs, walking across the room for the smell of butter, oblivious to the fact that he was on two legs and not four. He looked good. One little boy cried out, "He's the Best Trained Dog In The World!" The children cheered. The teacher voiced his approval. Grandma was proud. Chuy went on to do some "Up and Around"s and another big walk for the kids, now more interested in his treats than the many children cheering him on. Charlie finished up taking Chuy in the crowd so the kids could pet Chuy, then we had to go. A little girl appeared with her gray kitten, not more than eight weeks old and suddenly all the attention for the performing dog was centered on "Awwwww!" the cute little kitten.

I took Chuy and his bag of treats and bid Charlie and his class good-bye. Chuy left, but you could tell what he was thinking, "Dumb cat!"

How Do You Explain This?

Ninety-nine blogs ago, I started this Blog with the intent to show Life's Coincidents and what they might mean in our lives. I haven't always had coincidents to write about and have had to make do with the mundane, most of the time. But this is my 100th blog and I've got one of the darnedest, most unexplainable coincidents that's ever happened to me. Maybe one of you-all will have an explanation for it. If you do, by all means, let me hear it. I'm open to it.

Two days ago, I packed up the car and took the animals with me for our Summer Trek back to California. I had the Explorer stuffed with the two kitties in their carriers in the back seat, Sam Bird, the African Gray parrot in his carrier on the floor in the back seat, the trunk was stuffed with four boxes of shirts and fabric waiting to be made into shirts for SOMETHING FISHY and Chuy, the puppy, was snuggled into my lap for the better part of the trip. (Thank goodness he's not bigger than eighteen pounds or he wouldn't have fit behind the wheel!) We left Mr. Bill back in AZ to care for the houses.

I spent the night in Mojave, at a pet friendly motel, after ten hours on the road. Chuy was less than thrilled to share the bed with the cats so spent part of his night on the floor and Spooky the cat, who never shows herself to strangers, spent the better part of her night sitting in the window staring at the lit swimming pool, imagining she was in a Cat Version of Las Vegas, perhaps.

We started out the next morning at six thirty, getting up over the Tehachapis before the wind got very hard. I was trying to stop every hour and a half to two hours so Chuy and I could stretch our legs and he could pee (ditto for me). But there were places in both Arizona and California that the rest stops were closed, so sometimes our rest stops stretched to two hours or more. Well, that's the way it worked yesterday morning. Buttonwillow's rest stop was closed for repairs so we had to drive nearly two and a half hours before we could find a rest stop at Coalinga.

Now, while Chuy is finding the proper spot to expend his pee (believe me, this dog can be a connoisseur of Best Pee Spots!) I'm going to digress for a minute to fill you-all in on some background. One of our best friends in this whole world, named Tom, lives down the road in Apache Junction. Tom was one of our best Harley riding buddies in California and when we bought the house in Superior we convinced him to relocate there for his retirement too and he's been real happy with the riding and the climate down there. But this past year, for reasons not always explainable, we haven't seen too much of Tom. We've only had a couple of rides with him and we probably haven't seen him more than three times since Christmas. We had gotten together a couple of weeks ago to show him the new house and I mentioned that I'd be going back to the beach on the 19th. A week later, he said he was planning a ride to California but hadn't said when. And then, well, nothing. We got busy and that was that.

So now here I am in this rest stop in Coalinga. Chuy finally found a bush worthy to relieve himself in and I'd gone to stand in line at the Ladies. The rest stop was beginning to take more time than I wanted to spend, but since it was doubtful I'd find another rest stop open in the next hour, I decided to claim my place in line. When I finished, I spied a vending machine and spent a few minutes prying quarters out of my pocket to buy a Dr. Pepper.

With the cold soda in hand, I heard a motorcycle roll into the parking lot and I turned to look. I hadn't seen any bikes at all that morning, that I can remember. Pulling up to the curb, not ten feet away from me, just like we were in some dumb movie, is our old friend Tom on his big orange Road Glide.

I gawked, dumbfounded. "Tom! What in the world are you doing here?" I greeted.

"Nancy? Is that you?" He sounded equally surprised.

"Geez! We never get together in Arizona anymore, we have to meet at a rest stop in California?" I teased. But yes, I guess that's what was supposed to happen. I kept wanting to shake my head in wonder at all the coincidences that happened along that would result into us running into each other at the rest stop. What were the odds?

But Chuy's reaction was the best. After Tom and I chatted for a moment, he asked to see Chuy, so we walked over to the car and I let the puppy out. Frantically, he leaped out the car door and into Tom's waiting arms, licking his face thoroughly and squealing ecstatically, as though saying, "Gee, Mommy drove me all this way away from home to this hot place just so I could go potty and see my Uncle Tom and give him some kisses!" So because I don't have a better explanation for running into Tom, I'm going to use Chuy's and just enjoy it. Anybody got a better one?

A Sense of Community

We had a car show in Superior Saturday night. The Chamber put on its second annual "Cruisin' Main" and old cars and (mostly) old people turned up to look at them and get nostalgic. It was a hot day, 104 or so, and was taking a toll on folks. A lot gathered in the shade, but still lingered to check out the old cars. Every once in a while, a group would pull away from the curb and drive showily up Main Street, letting us all get a gawk at what Once Was.

We found Bert out in front of his Toast Bistro, preparing to grill some special bleu cheese and chorizo hamburgers for the supper hour. He'd been open since eight that morning and normally doesn't keep the restaurant open that late on a Saturday. But since this was a special Saturday, he was going to serve supper. We promised to return.

Since Bert opened Toast in December, he's been experimenting with his menu and times he's open. A good deal has to do with his own stamina but it's been a tough five months, opening his new restaurant right at the darkest economic times we've seen in decades. One of the things he's dreamed about was keeping the place open in the evenings for the locals to come in and enjoy some of his offerings and talk and catch up with each other.

Well, he achieved it Saturday night. When we got there at six thirty, all the tables save one were filled. And except for one table, all of them were filled with folks from the community. It was Party Time at Bert's Toast and a spontaneous, easy time was enjoyed by everybody, even the group that had only shown up for the car show. Folks were talking back and forth from the tables and chatting and carrying on, all the while enjoying these hot grilled chorizo burgers melting with bleu cheese and served on Bert's singular artisan rolls.

It was sublime. It was great fun. And it's what a lot of us have envisioned for Superior and thought maybe we'd never see again. A bustling downtown spirit, a place where the locals can dine and hang out and share their opinions and a great sense of community. And it looks like, at least at certain moments like these on Saturday night, that we can achieve that which some thought might never be again. Superior rising from the ashes of what Once Was and regaining her rightful place, as Main Street America.

I'm going to hang around for more!