Lunch today was less expensive fare, all you can eat lunch buffet. It is certainly popular with the locals, as lines were out past the door when we left. The Sunday after church bunch, no doubt. When I was a youngster, Gramma, Dad and I always ate out after church, and such places were popular with them as well, for the abundant cheap variety.

Stomachs full, Laura is again trying the bike route. She's still aware of her emphysema here, however it doesn't have the strangle-hold it does in Crudsville.

While sitting in the car, eyes occasionally glancing towards the bike trail, looking for signs of Laura, I'm checking out radio stations. This prognosis is less stellar, ten radio stations, four of which are Spanish (no doubt coming from across the border), two religious, two rock, one country, and one 'top hits' pop. No classical, no 'easy listening adult contemporary', no jazz. Well, I couldn't expect them to have jazz, not even Tucson has a jazz station.

I'm quite grateful for our sizeable CD collection, to say the least. But, oh the air smells good. It does.

Pardon the whiff of 'new age' jargon, but I feel 'grounded' here. Maybe I needed the years in Crudsville to be able to appreciate New City. All five years in Crudsville, I kept longing for Tucson. Crudsville is, pardon the term, 'butt-ugly', and that was before the stinky power plant. Here, I can put all that Tucson-longing behind. It will be good to feel 'at home' again.

We have, though, already rented one small piece of space in Yuma, all of 4 by 8 inches big - yes, that's right, a Post Office box. So at least that tiny part is finished. I keep the key to it on my key change, next to the other gold key for our box in Casa Grande. To distinguish the two, the C.G. key has a small ring through it.

Next remains the task of getting assured I will be transferred to a convenience store in Yuma. That's one of the advantages of working for a nationwide chain. Julia, well Julia can wait until we arrive to do any job hunting.

The apartment we've applied for, um, it can best be called 'COZY'.

only 672 square feet big

I can hardly believe it. We're doing it! At least we've well begun.

A flurry of guilt settled over us like a blanket. Laura cried. She doesn't want to leave everyone here, but is so afraid with the worsening of her health, she would leave them soon, in a permanent way. I cried. If we had moved to Yuma five years ago, as we had been considering, before setting on Crudsville, her present traumas would have been prevented. Perhaps her Mother, James, Anton (and Cynthia) would have joined us there. Maybe Anton would not be now suffering with pneumonia. Maybe Laura's emphysema wouldn't have worsened so. But the job prospects for seamstresses did not look good there. And I was too afraid to try something else. Too afraid, and so, the wandering mind wonders, did I, because of my inflexibility, become a little less flexible in my joints, and then be forced to learn something other than sewing? That's a bit new-agey sort of reasoning. I don't really think fate is fiddling with us that way. But then a part of me wonders. Still, if we'd have never come to Casa Grande, we'd have never met Shayna, Serena and Richard. No, we must have been 'meant' to have sojourned here. We will miss our dear friends here, but they do understand Laura's vulnerability. We'll keep in contact as best we can.

This morning we awakened early, and Laura felt not quite as bad as last night. A glance out the door revealed no ugly plumes of smoke. Always, we can tell before we look, whether they are spewing or not. And now, we can hear rain pitter patter on the tin roof. A slight reprieve. It does no good to fret, for we cannot change the past. We can only work with the present. And so my firm resolve strengthens me.

Washing hair, watching that silly soap (Did Erica really murder her daughter's lesbian lover? Or is she just saying she did, thinking she's protecting her daughter, who had come upon her lover with a boy in bed? Who really shot the girl? Three people with access to Erica's gun, could it have been Chris Stamp? Is he not the nice guy he appears?)

And then a rush to readiness for a dinner at Laura's Mother's house. The three of us came into her cozy place, to find a very attractive round table, set with clear cobalt blue glass dishes. Even the goblets were cobalt blue. A salad of carefully cut dark green lettuce, with tiny tomato slices and a plate for each of us with roast beef, potatoes, carrots and green beans. The roast beef was so tender and tasty. Her Mother admitted to beginning cooking it at 4:00am, to get it so perfect. And then dessert awaited us in small round white cups, a lemon pudding like what goes into lemon pies, topped with whipped cream.

She'd been planning to have us over for dinner, since summer, but it was too hot then. With us leaving, she wanted to make sure to have the dinner. It was a pleasant visit, and Eleanor even played her electronic piano for us. Her arthritic hands did quite well with the old tune, one I'd not heard before, but one Laura knew, as she sang a bit to it.

But there will be things left behind, tons of things. There are bags of clothes I'd set aside, for when I got thinner, cabinets we won't have room for, a treadmill, endtables, good grief, we just can't take it all.

But as we move our 'hermitage', if we're in the right mindset, nothing of importance will be left behind. And truth to tell, by the time I will fit those old small clothes, I'm apt to be a shiveled old lady, and those things 'too aged' to use. So it's best they go now to someone who can use them.