Sprinting out of the desert

On Wednesday, I said goodbye to my Scottsdale friends, the blue pool, the little dog, and the 112°F heat. My plan was to go west, but first I had to pick up packages at my Tucson mailbox, so I trekked two hours down the freeway, took care of my errands, and then hit the road, hoping to avoid the monsoon thunderstorms that were about to boil up over Tucson.  

I retraced my route west on I-10, back toward Phoenix and connected to I-8, aiming for San Diego. At Gila Bend, I stopped for gas, got turned around, and ended up going north on 87, which hooks up with I-10 west of Phoenix. It's the truck bypass route. I hadn't planned on going that way, but the window of opportunity to hit the back button on my error closed within a few seconds as the highway turned to freeway with no offramps, and so north I went, thinking, okay, this is what happens to me, all part of the road trip adventure. 

As I ploughed through the desert heat, I watched the thermometer in my car giving me a readout of the outside temperature:  109°F, 110°F, 111°F . . . I stopped at a rest area to text my friends and stepped out of my car into a furnace. The hot wind would have stripped the flesh from my bones if I had dawdled on my way to and from the restroom. 

With the AC blasting, I looked at the map and contemplated my odds of survival. If my car went belly up in the desert, nothing would be left of me but a desiccated husk. My eyes would crack and crumble first. My skin would peel back like parchment paper, leaving only brittle bones and some teeth, four crowns, and a bridge. All the butane canisters under the bed would combust. The conflagration would no doubt be visible for miles, but by the time highway patrol arrived, there would be nothing left but a greasy smoking pile of ash, a few teeth, and the soggy blueberries in my Alpicool fridge (currently working intermittently, depending on the availability of power). 

To the south, Tucson was being hit by little tornadoes and flash floods. To the north of me, Flagstaff was being hammered by gruesome thunderstorms and flash floods. East was not an option, ugh. The only path to cooler air was a hotfooted sprint through the desert. 

If you've ever run a marathon, you know that it takes a while. It's hard to sprint an entire marathon. I knew I was in for it. I knew I might not survive. A blown tire would be all it would take. No way could I change a tire, even on a cool day. Those tires are heavy. No, it was either keep going or bust. I vowed to keep going until the fahrenheit reading on my odometer window dropped below 100°F. Or until the haboobs stripped the skin off my bones. 

I did my best.

Somewhere along my sprintlike marathon, I realized my head had stopped spinning. My ear had stopped crackling. I cranked up country music radio (which is all I can get in the desert) and did some head bopping. No vertigo. I tried singing, loudly, and then more loudly, out of tune. Still felt fine, and when I say "fine," I mean as close to normal as I've felt in about five years. I started laughing then, because then I knew that most likely the med the neurologist had reluctantly prescribed for me had started to kick in. 

I was so happy, I barely noticed as the temperature reading climbed to 115°F, then to 117°F, 119°F, finally topping out at 120°F in Desert Center and again in the Coachella Valley. (Wow, I am so glad I didn't decide to move to Indio or Desert Hot Springs.)

I kept going. My euphoria gradually evaporated. By the time the temperature dropped below 100°F, it was almost 6:00 pm Pacific time. I'd been driving almost nonstop for ten hours, eating mostly crackers.  Driving into the setting sun was starting to get annoying. The moment I realized I wasn't going to make it all the way to Santa Monica, I found myself in an exit-only lane. I thought okay, the Universe says you are staying the night in Claremont. When the Universe slaps me around, I listen. I exited, searched, and found a cheap motel close enough to the freeway so I could find my way back by zeroing in on the roar of semitrucks and motorhomes barrelling over the ruts and cracks in the ancient concrete pavement.

The next day I took the 210 west toward the ocean and spent a cool but restless night at Home Depot in Oxnard. For the first time in months, I was actually cold. What a revelation, to feel 57°F air on my skin. To sleep with a blanket. To start my drive the next morning with the heater on in my car! 

The next day I leapfrogged SUVs and motorhomes on my way north on 101 to the 46 east, then onto the 41 north, and finally to I-5 north. At the beginning of the trek I noticed piles of tomatoes along the roadside. Oh, a tomato truck disaster, I thought. As I went along, I came upon truck after truck pulling enormous cartons filled with thousands and thousands of tomatoes. Dozens of trucks filled with billions of tomatoes, hitting bumps in the road and jettisoning a few random tomatoes into the air. I didn't see any actual tomato truck wrecks. That would have been a marvel. 

I spent a another cool but restless night at another Home Depot, this time in Stockton, within fifty yards of the freeway and a small tent encampment. 

I was dressed and ready to go before the sky was fully light. I got gas. Then the question: Which way? I checked the temperature forecasts, the fire maps, and the routes that would let me avoid San Francisco. Now I'm in Sacramento, sitting in a mall parking lot. The sky here is hazy with smoke from the Park Fire, burning northeast of Chico. Shoppers come and go on all sides of my car. Occasionally they bump it and set it rocking. My head rocks along with it. Unfortunately, the medication apparently takes six to eight hours to kick in and the reprieve only lasts a few hours. My head was spinning hard this morning, worse than ever. I'm trying to stay calm. 

I don't feel like lollygagging here in this city. Helicopters circle overhead. Irritated drivers honk at each other as they compete for scarce parking spaces. Curious people walk past my open door and peer inside. I need to figure out where I'm going to park tonight. Not here. Not safe. 

My route north out of the city takes me through more smoke. I'd rather be out on the road dodging tomato trucks than sitting in a mall parking lot hoping I have enough power to do my next zoom meeting. But such is the life of a nomad. I'm not complaining. I have internet. What's more, the temperature is less than 90°F, with no thunderstorms in sight. I'll take it all and be grateful.

The news of the day

If I weren't a rabid user of the internet, I could almost forget the outside world exists as I sit here in palm-tree infested Scottsdale, watching flickers fight with finches over the peanuts and thinking the hardest thing I've done so far today is skimming leaves off the glistening blue pool. This week has been blessedly critter-free, no drowned geckos, no screaming crickets, no roof rat body parts desiccating in the gravel yard. 

Besides being designated pool boy, one of my daily tasks is walking Maddie before it gets too hot to breathe. Getting her into the little red harness is a production requiring patience and a pungent treat, but eventually we get dressed, we shake off our morning blear, and we head out into the neighborhood. I'm trying out different routes to keep things fresh for both of us. I think Maddie appreciates it. I'm hoping we can both work off a few ounces before the dogsitting gig is over. I don't want the homeowner to come home to a fat dog. 

Like me, Maddie is an avid consumer of the news. I can't detect or interpret the news Maddie reads. Well, if there's a stain on a fire hydrant, I can assume someone, probably many someones, have left their contribution to the news of the day. But there are many news tidbits I'm not able to see or smell. Maddie brings them to my attention, but she doesn't read them aloud to me. I can only guess their contents by how strong she pulls on the leash.

Some articles rate only a cursory sniff. Some spots inspire a comment from Maddie, especially the ones on fake grass lawns. Sometimes she has to do that thing that dogs do with their back legs after they poop. I like to think she's rating the artificial lawn but I don't really know. 

The very best news articles demand quivering attention, a yank on the leash, and if she can get away with it, a roll in the stinky wet grass. That's apparently the right way to really understand what's happening in the world. Roll in it. I catch her up short multiple times per walk: "There will be no rolling!" She shrugs and moves on. She's testing me. I'm a pushover, most of the time, but I don't want to have to figure out how to wash a smelly dog. Ugh.

After we get back from the sniff walk, it's time for a nap. For Maddie, anyway. I go out and skim the pool. Last night we had some wind. I didn't hear a thing, but the evidence now mars the pristine surface. Leaves clump and swirl. The bigger ones have sunk to the bottom and require special effort to capture. Pool water depths are deceiving, and my eyes aren't great to begin with. I jab at them with the long-handled net and discover they are a foot away from where I jabbed. Eventually I lift them into the air and deposit them into the over-sized plastic planter that serves as a receptacle for dead leaves, dried up flowers, and general patio detritus. 

I keep the air conditioner set at 81°F. Sometimes it seems warm in here. When it's over 110°F outside, the AC really gets cranking, and then the house feels cold. Maddie gets cold, too. From time to time, she demands to be let out onto the patio, where she beelines for the hottest patch of sunlit patio she can find and sprawls on the pavement while I pant in the dry hot shade and wonder how anyone can live in this forsaken patch of desert. 

Speaking of forsaken, I've realized there is no place in the entire state of Arizona that would be comfortable for me, with the possible exception of the Verde Valley. All of Arizona is either too hot or too high, or both. This is a state of extremes. Right now, monsoon rains have been hammering both Tucson and Flagstaff. Here in central Arizona, I am in the tenuous eye of the weather storm. I look at the NWS forecasts frequently, and the little photos show nothing but thunderstorms, day after day, north and south of me. I'm really glad I'm here and not living in the undercover parking lot at the Tucson mall. Tucson had some small tornadoes and frequent bouts of torrential rain. Not hospitable for unhoused people, even ones lucky enough to have a little home on wheels. 

I'm lucky that I will soon be free to escape this extreme weather. Being a nomad means you can chase 75 to 80°F, wherever it might be. I could go anywhere, but lately, I've had a hankering to return to Oregon. Some small towns at the southern end of the Willamette Valley have caught my eye. The only way to know if they might someday be home is to go and find out. I'll stay in Arizona through November, I think, so I can vote here, but as soon as I can, I'm gone.

Welcome to Critterville

In my current dogsit, I sleep on my own mattress, hauled in from my minivan, spread out on the carpeted floor of the family room in front of the fireplace. I have found it is better for my character to sleep on a hard unforgiving slab of maximum density concrete-level foam rubber. A 1-inch layer of memory foam on top of the 3-inch foam is my only concession to comfort. And my binky, of course. A few feet away, my 4-legged charge snores on an 8-inch thick round of polyester batting held in place by a zippered cover of plush beige fleece. When she's curled up in the middle, you can hardly see her. To each her own.

A few nights ago, I heard something buzzing. I wasn't sure if it was my ear, which produces a shrill chatter once a minute for about fifteen seconds or some fresh hell descending on my already mildly hellish life. Then the buzzing stopped, but my ear kept on going, and that's when I knew we had a problem in paradise.

"Is that a cicada in the house?" I mused to the dog as I turned in circles in the middle of the room. The sound seemed to come from everywhere. I don't trust my hearing for obvious reasons. The noise echoed from the mantel. I poked around with my flashlight but saw nothing moving. See previous post about my eyes being tuned to spot small critter movements behind decorative objects. I bent down and shined the light up the chimney. The noise stopped.

"A-ha," I said to the dog. "We've found the intruder."

As soon as I turned off the light, the noise resumed. Yelling up the chimney did nothing. Banging my hand on the marble hearth was futile. I didn't sleep well that night, dreaming of giant bugs coming down the chimney and swarming my bed. 

The next morning I Googled "crickets in the house." During the night I'd had plenty of time to reflect on the nature of the annoying noise, and I realized it didn't sound like a cicada. It sounded like a manic cricket, not the peaceful Jiminy Cricket kind of cricket, who sings pleasant songs outside your window to lull you to sleep. This was Jiminy on steroids, a dude with a lot to say and a sense of urgency about saying it. Spotted ground cricket, Google AI suggested. 

The next night, the cricket was back, but I had moved on to my next critter nightmare.

That afternoon, Maddie indicated something was amiss on the patio. I saw a young mouse-shaped thing cowering under a plastic stool in the corner by the round patio table. If it had been a cockroach, you can bet I would have been screaming (inside, don't want to upset the neighbors). However, having grown up with pet gerbils and a white rat, I wasn't particularly grossed out. It was just a tiny gray fuzzy thing with a very long tail. 

"Looks like his eye is messed up," I said to Maddie. She edged closer. "No, I don't think so, there will be no  mouse chomping on this patio." 

We both watched as the mouse ran along the wall. 

"You better not," I warned the dog. I opened the sliding patio door and stepped back to let the dog into the house. 

What happened next happened fast. The mouse scampered along the bottom of the sliding door and slipped between my feet into the house.

"No, no, no, not happening! Maddie, homeland security! Get that mouse!"

Maddie stood and watched as I got my dustpan and whisk broom (recently purchased at Walmart but not for mouse-catching purposes). 

"Good thing it can't see very well," I muttered as I cornered the mouse by Maddie's plush round bed, thinking what the heck? I'll never dogsit again. My dogsitting career is ruined. How will I explain to the homeowner that there is a mouse in the house?

"Come on, Maddie, a little help here?"

The mouse ran under the couch, came out the other side, and ran straight into my foam mattress. Clearly, it wasn't tracking very well. I chased it around the perimeter of the mattress with my whisk broom, wondering what rodent god would inspire that mouse to get on the dustpan. It occured to me it would probably not stay on the dustpan for long. Plan B! I hurried across the room to the side table that held my laundry basket, dumped my dirty laundry on the recliner, and went after the mouse with the broom again. 

Failure was not an option. After some scuffling, the mouse ran into the basket. 

I held up my prisoner in triumph, dizzy and breathing hard. I took it outside and set it on the patio table, leaving Maddie to sniff around the family room floor with a perplexed expression, like, what just happened here? 

The mouse hunkered in the corner of the basket while I gave it a jar lid of water and a few peanuts. I poked half a dozen blueberries through the holes in the laundry basket and covered the basket with a kitchen towel. Now what? 

I Google wildlife rescue near me, called some numbers, left some messages, sent a photo with a text. I texted the homeowner and received a phone call immediately. I explained the situation: found an injured mouse, looking for a rehab outfit, yada yada, more to be revealed. The homeowner suggested I should let it go in the fenced area behind the orange tree.

"I want that thing as far away from the house as possible," I declared. This was before I knew that I'd have to drive that mouse many miles away, otherwise it would find its way back, and not only that, abandoning a mouse outside its territory would be a cruel act that would inevitably result in suffering and death. 

"You should just kill it," the homeowner said. 

"I am not a murderer!"

The next morning the mouse was still alive. I received a text from a critter rescue: "Ah, poor little roof rat. Sorry, can't take it, I'm all full up. Thanks for caring."

More Googling informed me the best course of action was to humanely kill the baby rat by bashing its head in. 

I made a little house out of a cardboard box, furnished it with a dish of water and some paper towel bedding. I set it behind the orange tree in the protected area fenced off from marauding chihuahuas. Then I took the laundry basket over there, tilted it on its side, and watched with satisfaction as the mouse scurried into its new abode. 

"Nothing fancy, but it's home," I said. "Good luck to you."

Two days later I checked the box. The mouse was gone. I had some moments of altruistic self-satisfaction. Yay me, I saved one of god's less offensive creatures. 

Yesterday I was sweeping the gravel off the walkway by the gate and saw some bits of gray fur by the fence. 

"Oh, darn," I said, taking a closer look. The head was quite a few inches away from the tail, smashed in and covered with dust. I couldn't be sure the remains belonged to my former rescue, but it seems likely. 

"Ew," I said and shoved the leftover bits of baby rat under the bushes. 

I skimmed a tiny drowned lizard out of the pool. On the bright side, the cricket has moved on. Silence prevails once again in paradise.

Is the grand experiment really over?

I'm blogging to you once again from beautiful Scottsdale, where the sun almost always shines, and when it isn't, the wind is howling, the dust is blowing, and pools are filling up with scummy dead leaves. It's as close to paradise as you can get in the desert. I'm sure it will be lovely for a long time, right up until the moment when the acquifer under our feet runs dry. Until then, water that lawn! Green is the new black. 

I think I have mastered the fine art of pool maintenance. Maybe I can turn my skills into my next career, if my dizziness ever lets up. Every time I skim dead flower husks and desiccated leaves, I lean over the blue depths and wonder if I fell in, would I ever find my way back to the surface? Maybe I would choose to stay down there, in the cool deep. Two days ago, it was 115°F, so you can see how I might be tempted. 

Around the corner is a store we call "Blue Collar Fry's" to differentiate it from the "White Collar Fry's," which is located about half a mile up the street. Don't ask me why they have two stores of the same brand so close together, unless it truly is to cater to a different target audience. To me, the Blue Collar Fry's is a gorgeous store, with wide, bright aisles well stocked with home goods, clothing, pet supplies, even some furniture . . . anything you want, they've got it. Compared to the pithole ghetto Tucson Fry's I shop at, the Scottsdale Fry's is the height of upscale luxury. 

I don't have much space for backstock, so I pay more per ounce for everything than I would if I had a house with cupboards and shelves. I can't stock up on anything. It's cheaper per roll to buy twelve rolls of paper towels than it is per roll to buy two. But where would I put twelve rolls of paper towels? In the passenger seat, maybe, along with the twelve rolls of toilet paper and the giant box of Tide. Ha, just kidding. 

I use white vinegar to clean my dish and spoon. I put it in a little Walmart spray bottle. So cute. The pink spray bottle is for vinegar. I have a blue one for water, a purple one for alcohol, and a turquoise one for soap. It's so festive. I store small bottles of vinegar, alcohol, and soap under the floorboard where the stow-and-go seat used to be. It would be cheaper to buy a gallon of white vinegar at a time, but it won't fit down there in the hole. 

Same for clothes, food, you name it. You can get discounts when you buy in bulk, if you have a place to put the stuff. Got a big fridge? Fill it with cheese, go on, why not? 

Speaking of cheese, I visited a dietician last week. She was supposed to give me a vestibular migraine diet, but given that my dizziness probably isn't triggered by food, we ended up discussing my protein deficiency. 

"You only eat twice a day?" she said, shaking her head. "That's not good. You are starving yourself. You need to eat more often, small meals three times a day, plus three snacks. Six times a day. With protein at each meal." 

I pondered that news. On one hand, yay! Unlimited feeding! On the other hand, ugh, fat city, here I come.

"You don't need to lose weight," she said. She obviously couldn't see my bulging belly through my giant fanny pack. "You are going to need those reserves for when you get sick."

Uh-oh, I thought, what does she know that I don't? Is that why she's wearing a mask, is Covid making the rounds of the hospital? Why didn't they tell me at the door? Or has everyone just given up?

"I hear what you are saying," I said. "I don't have an off-switch for certain foods. Crackers, for example."

"No problem! Crackers are okay. You need the salt. Just put some peanutbutter on them so you get some protein."

In the week since my appointment, I've been pretending I can eat like normal people. I got yogurt, I got soymilk, I got peanutbutter, I even got cheese. Why not? She said it was okay. It's been fun. I knew it wouldn't last. My body rose up and rebelled yesterday, as I knew it would eventually. I have learned certain foods just don't sit right. I usually can't remember what effect they have had on me after I eat them, but I carry a residual memory of bad times. Cheese, no good. Soymilk, bad. Yogurt, yum, but not pleasant. However, I have special vacation dispensation, which means when you are not in your normal environment, that is, when you are on vacation, you are allowed to eat whatever and whenever you want. It's a well-known fact that vacation food has fewer calories than home food. 

I'm using my time here on my dogsitting retreat to finish writing a book I've been working on for a year. It's nothing great, just a shameless ploy to earn money from the experience I've gained mentoring artists who have deluded themselves into believing that the world wants to buy their art. They are a unique breed that I understand well, seeing as how I am one of them. I speak their language of martyrdom and longing. I never say your art is no good, go get a day job, even if I am thinking it. There's a market for anything, even a stupid rock in a box, if you can just reach enough gullible people and convince them this thing has value. Yes, it's a rock in a box, but for the low low price of $4.99, it can be your loving no-maintenance pet for life. 

In addition to writing (and eating, pooping, and napping), I started another car-home renovation project. I'm restructuring the shelves in the back. The quality of work is questionable (I'm using 5/8-inch mdf) but so far, it's sturdy enough, once I got the screws in the right places. Heavy as a mahogany desk but not quite so handsome. Once I anchor it down, it should outlast the car (and me), should the car roll down a prickly embankment. I might go flying, but my campstove, T-shirts, and soup cans will survive the trip intact, no problem. 

It's not a bad thing to hunker down in the wild for a while. Tis the season for laying low. I'll emerge from hiding to cast my tiny vote and then fade back into the safety of the forest.  As long as some doofus with firecrackers and guns doesn't set the place on fire, I can ride out the turmoil. I hope by the end of the year, any uneasy ripples in the American zeitgeist will be subsiding. I'll be like a packrat in a burrow. I will stick my nose out and sniff the air. If the coast seems clear, I'll mingle with the hoi poloi at fancy Frys or plebeian Walmarts. However, I'm aware half this country would like to kill me. If the grand experiment seems to be headed for the rocks, well, I'll put on my old white lady invisibility cloak, lurk in the background, and do whatever small things I can do to right the ship.