On a Sunday, we shouldn't just stay at home and do the same 'ol thing. 'Should we go to the arboretum?' Nah, we always go there. 'How about the Catalina State Park?' Shayna even made tuna salad for a picnic there. But Julia suddenly developed a reticence to go. She wasn't up for much walking. And soggy sandwiches weren't inspiring. Laura, ever eager to get more books in Spanish for Shayna's and her education, suggested Nogales, with some time in Tucson afterwards. With a bit of coaxing, teasing with promise of good brew at Thunder Canyon and trip to big Barnes and Noble, and even letting her have the front seat, we got Julia to go.

So once we were all washed and dressed decent, we headed down south. Laura and Shayna talked in Spanish the whole way. Although I have no interest in studying it myself, I have absorbed enough to know what they're saying. The last leg of the trip from Tucson to Nogales, Mexico is marked in kilometers, rather than miles.

~ ~~ ~~~ ~~ ~

(Click on thumbnail for larger picture)
To Mexico

Most people park their cars in one of the parking lots just outside Mexico and walk across. A thick line of us waited to enter the gates for passage. There is an invisible line, but I feel it. Like a device out of science fiction, once I cross that line, I'm in another world. The narrow streets are crowded with cars. The low hills are crowded with small buildings built randomly. There are no zoning laws, here, apparently.

"SOLO TURISMO", "ONLY TOURISTS", the small sign said. And, indeed, what little money this town makes must be due almost entirely due to the flood of Americanos flowing in and out daily.

Little streetside shops are scattered everywhere. Most have some sort of wooden shelter to make a wall on which to hang their wares and a little shade for the vendor. But even that isn't necessary. One entrepreneur neatly arranged his merchandise on the ground near a wall.

And it was the shops that were OUR visit's purpose, as well. Some times we've gone to get a stock of penicillin, or to pass the time. Once I even dickered with a saleman on a sterling silver rope chain. They start out quoting a price you'd expect to pay in the states. Feign disinterest, and the price goes down. I probably got the necklace for a third of the US price. But it was BOOKS we were after this time. The small Libreria, or bookstore, was one of the better shops, for it was housed in a real building.

The contents of some of the books might have been a mystery to me, but there was no mistaking what many of the small comic books were about!

I recognized the familiar yellow border on the spanish National Geographic. Some were books on health, one extolling the virtues of ginseng. There were cheap magazines similar to the National Enquirer. One featured a story on a man who used to be a woman.

"OPERACIONES, HORMONAS Y EJERCICIOS LOGRARON QUE OBTUVIERA ESTE CUERPO ATLETICO Y VARONIL."

Another featured an oriental man whose entire body was decorated with tattoos. An unusual percentage of the books were about religious matters. The windows and door of the shop were covered with posters. Some were of the Virgin de Guadelupe, while the door was particularily indicative of the general culture.

We didn't stay long, for the rather strong smell of car exhaust was giving Laura and Julia problems. So we hurried back out. There was a 'duty free' shop just on the American side, where expensive 'especial' Kahlua, and other liquors could be had more cheaply than in the states. But we were told we would have had to walk back into Mexico and go through the entrance back into the states to purchase some. We were all too tired to wait in another long line, so we found the parking lot where our car was, and got on the road towards home.

Shayna made special note of the oddly shaped cacti. One looked like a weary man leading over and resting his arms on his knee. 'Tired like us,' I joked.

 
~ ~~ ~~~ ~~ ~

'Thunder Canyon' menu

Greek God' pizza, with sundried tomatoes, black olives, feta cheese, and walnuts, small piece of bread with honey butter, crust edges dipped into honey butter, 'shandy' (lemonade mixed with beer), iced tea

October 25, 1999

"All Foggy"

I had things in mind I wanted to say today, but after I finished the 'tell' part of yesterday's entry, I didn't have time. Now it's all foggy.

October 26, 1999

"Weird Dream"

I feel sleep drugged. Laura has had the same experience. But we both woke remembering a series of odd dreams. Here is my strange dream:

Book of Poses

Laura is always on the look out for books to help her with her various interests. Besides Spanish, she enjoys cartooning. She came home with a large heavy black book. The "Book of Attractive Poses" invited me to open its pages. On each page, a movie mpeg would play. I could freeze each at any time, and an attractive pose positioning could be sketched or traced. I wondered how this was accomplished, since the pages were no more thick than an ordinary book. The last short movie featured two dark haired seductive women who came into a living room from separate directions and then sat down on the sofa and kissed each other with their sensuous ruby clad lips.

October 27, 1999

"Where My Mind Needs To Be"

Mind in a mood to wander, I'll let it. I put a poetical picture of white flowers against the night sky into the latest chapter of ATTWT where it fits nicely among the poems, learned something new about html regarding tables and poetry, and I'm feeling the warm, quiet, but deep joy I always have when I learn something new. . .

This isn't the first time I've stood at the gate, looking out to the sunlit exterior. Now hope awaits me there. I feel it, as surely as the sun would take the chill from my back and bones. There, there is where my mind needs to be. Enough of the damp basements of despair. JAL,10-27-99

I found this quote in my web travels this morning, and it seems to fit right in with my train of thought today.

Take a look at your natural river. What are you? Stop playing games with yourself. Where's your river going? Are you riding with it? Or are you rowing against it? Don't you see that there is no effort if you're riding with your river? --Frederick (Carl) Frieseke

October 28, 1999

"Farewell To The Old Computer"

There's no doubt my old computer was on its last legs. The fan quit working last summer. Laura took off its metal case and set a small household fan on it. Then, early this year, the CD-ROM would no longer read disks. Laura had wanted this spring to update to a new computer. Julia and I, of course, would get her old computer. "For $800, we'll never see such a deal again! I had a hunch we would. I thought we could squeeze some more use out of it.

However lately, at odd disconcerting moments, it's been grinding harshly. Downright scary, so when Laura called from Sam's Club yesterday, exulting about a $600 computer for sale, I agreed readily. It is as powerful as Laura's current (soon to be mine) computer, and $200 cheaper than the spring model, so we did save money by waiting. We'll have a friend work on the poor thing, to see if it can be rebuilt.

I'll be happy to have a decent, fully working machine. I'll be able to fight ugly monsters in Erathia, while Laura rebuilds her world in Fallout II. But such work transferring files!

When Laura asked me if I got everything off the derelict that I wanted, I hesistently told her yes. There was just so much I'd downloaded from the web in such a disorganized fashion, I didn't get it all moved. I DID get the most important files, and at last created enough subfolders to control it all better, though. Still, when I learned Laura's process of shutdown meant stripping nearly everything off the ancient computer, I gasped. It's too late for those left behind now.

Later this day . . .

Six thirty seven am, and all computer exchanges have been made. Laura has her new computer set up with working printer, and modem. It only took her two hours, although not without a bit of grumbling, "Where's the %$&? and why wont the *&$%^& work" But all is working and found. Now she's begun the process of putting programs up on the newbie.

When did we buy the one, now silent, and all its glowing buttons dark? It seems to me I remember writing about it. That's one of the benefits of journalling. Evidence. Which I've found. It was a rather shortlived computer, only having come into our house March 7, 1997. Sad, isn't it? Barely two and a half years is all the poor thing lasted.

Brick by brick...

 

Reassembling a computer's holdings is a piece by piece, byte by byte thing. One 'brick' at a time. But Laura's left that assemblage for another important project today. She and her son James (pictured above) are assembling these actual bricks for the stand upon which our new evaporative cooler will rest. We are giving up a dining room window for this, but it's worth it. The local electric company (APS - Arizona Power Service) has been getting entirely too much of our money these past few months. We've decided we could do better things with those hundreds of dollars.

October 29, 1999

"Transcendencies of Music"

The two albums I'd sent for from BMG arrived today, and I quickly took them out of their cellophane, and placed the first one into the CD platform. Once I pressed the 'play' button, Sarah Brightman's voice with Andrew Lloyd Webber's songs transported me to heavenly realms. I burst into tears at one song, and let them flow. I tossed the garment I'd been working on to the chair beside me, and just let the music carry me.

"Open up your mind, let your fantasies unwind," the music begged me. Those tasks could wait.

They could wait until I'd spent some time with pencil and paper, while I kept playing "The Music Of The Night" over and over. And, of course, they could wait while I saw the resulting poem into large pale green text on dark teal on my special web corner.

And, naturally, they're waiting some more while I tell you all about it! Important things first, I say!

October 30, 1999

"Halloween Eve"

Over a year ago, Laura and I had camped out at an SCA event. It felt as though we were in another world. Later, she remembered the nightime moodiness of the sky, and got out the colored pencils.

Halloween upon us, I thought again of her picture.

spooky moon against an eery night sky
©1998 Laura Lansberry

We were all set to go to Tucson, but I felt queasy stomached, so my loving family will instead party here so I won't be all alone. To distract myself, I've been playing with spooky images found on the web.

Not content to leave our imaginations only to pixels, however, we've decorated the house to make any ghoul happy.

Orange cascading lights hang from the awnings. Luminara rest on the edge of our concrete fence, along with a sinister grinning pumpkin.

Laura's mother even made a ghost.

And, yes, of course, the vampires were out!

NOTE OF AUGUST 2000: NOW, THE DIET LOG HAS BEEN TRIMMED OUT OF THESE OLD ENTRIES. HOWEVER THE FOLLOWING IS VERY SIGNIFICANT (As you'll soon learn why:

4:00pm - piece of apple flavored caramel, half of a Kit Kat bar

6:00pm - a few swallows of Laura's BUSHWACKER drink - Kahlua mixed with coconut and other liquours - this began my undoing. It tasted so good I forgot all about my queasy stomach

6:30pm - goblet of raspberry merlot over ice - my already hampered judgement figured something relatively light wouldn't hurt me. Boy, did it taste good.

6:45pm - small bowl of tasty lima beans, a few bites of veggie salad with too much dill, a few bites of very rich gourmet cheese

7:00pm - goblet of BUSHWACKER over ice - You, dear reader, no doubt know more than I did what the likely outcome would be.

8:00pm - goblet of BUSHWACKER over ice - The zydeco music is playing loudly, the neighbors are over, Julia and Laura are dancing and showing off their fangs. "What the hell, one more little bitty goblet of the luscious stuff couldn't hurt!"

Go Forward...
Go Back to Archives...
Go Back to Beginning Page...
Go to Index of Joan's pages...