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.

In over my head

One of my jobs as dogsitter the past two weeks was to be the keeper of the swimming pool. Until this season, the pool had been inoperational, covered with a heavy canvas tarp. Over the winter, the homeowner replastered, and now the pool is a sapphire gem, glistening in the blazing desert sun. However, like little dogs, pools apparently don't maintain themselves. When the homeowner described the job, I readily agreed. I hadn't killed the dog yet. What damage could I do to a pool? 

There were multiple facets to the pool gig. I quickly mastered the task of adding chlorine tabs to the floating dispenser. Every other day, I swept the detritus of leaves and desiccated flowers off the pool deck. Then I skimmed the scum of leaves and palm tree pollen off the pool surface with a long-handled net. Next, I emptied the strainer basket that received the leaves that got sucked in through the vent in the pool wall. The strained stuff got dumped into a large plastic flower pot, whose sole purpose apparently was to receive the pool garbage. 

In addition, I had been told to unkink the vacuum hose when it twisted itself into knots from wandering in aimless circles across the bottom of the pool. The vacuum itself, a breadbox-sized plastic canister, attached to a hole in the side of the wall with a short blue hose. This contraption was supposed to hang just below the surface. Unfortunately, it had a tendency to float and suck air, making it ineffectual. The homeowner proudly pointed out his ingenious hack for keeping the canister submerged: He'd hung a flat, round five-pound weight on a hook on the canister.

"Wait until the pump stops and then gently untwist the hose," he said. 

"No problem," I said. 

The first few days of my pool-sitting gig were easy. The pump woke and slept according to a timer, the vacuum cleaner roamed the pool bottom, and the hose remained unkinked. Then one morning I came out to find the hose had pretzeled. The Roomba at the end of the hose was stuck where it had been grinding in tiny angry circles on the side of the pool wall, now frozen in place when the pump timer shut off. I hurried to untangle the hose, knowing the pump would come on around 9:00 a.m. 

I leaned out over the blue abyss and grabbed the floating vacuum hose. A couple twists ought to do it, I thought. What happened next happened in slow motion, but not slow enough for me to do anything to stop it. The blue hose fell out of the slot in the wall. Untethered, the canister sank. As it sank, it turned over like a breaching whale. The weight slipped off the hook and plunged down the side of the pool wall to the bottom of the deep end.

I stood there looking at the canister, now bobbing on the surface, wondering what fresh hell is this? I knew I needed to get that weight back on the canister, pronto. Wait, the net. I got the long-handled scoop net and reached down through the rippling water. I poked at the weight and after some tries, managed to get it partway up the side of the pool toward the surface, before it slipped back down to the depths. Damn. 

I ruminated on my options. 

1. I could wait two weeks for the homeowner to return to find a scummy infected pool. 
2. I could dive down to the deep end to rescue the weight and risk drowning, thereby leaving the little dog Maddie without care for two weeks, whereupon the homeowner would return to find a hangry dog gazing longingly at my dead body (meat) floating in the pool just out of reach.
3. I could try shoving the weight across the bottom of the pool, like I was practicing for a curling competition. 

Because I'm alive to write this blogpost, I think you can tell I didn't choose option #2. As it turned out, the long-handled net wasn't a bad curling broom. After some long hot tense minutes, I was able to shove the weight bit by bit across the bottom of the pool to the shallow end. 

I did a victory dance, shucked my shoes, and stepped fully clothed into the water. Cold! I carefully descended the steps. I wasn't going to put my head underwater (dizzy!). But I was able to hook the weight with my big toe and hoist it to the surface. 

The weight was gooey, a bit sticky, as if the coating was coming off. I figured the chlorine was doing a number on the rubberized surface. Ick. That's when I realized the goo had come off on the pool plaster. I waited for the water to calm and saw with dismay the weight had left a trail of black marks from deep end to shallow, marring the freshly plastered pool surface. 

Oh, no, I said, seeing the end of my life fast approaching. 

Maybe I could rub the marks off. I clambered out of the pool, heavy with dripping water, and put on one sock. I went back down the steps and rubbed my foot against the marks in the shallow end. There were many. I was able to reduce them, but not remove them completely. 

I climbed out of the pool and walked along the edge, peering down into the water. Sure enough, the trail of marks zig-zagged back across the pool bottom to the spot where the weight had fallen. A set of black skid marks down the side of the pool wall showed where the weight had originally fallen. A second set of marks showed where I'd tried and failed to raise the weight with the net. I paced the pool deck, wishing my eyes deceived me. Nope. The trail led all the way to the shallow end, where a flurry of marks showed how I'd tried to maneuver the weight into a position I could reach.

The evidence of my poor pool caretaking was impossible to hide. My mind churned in desperate circles. Maybe the chlorine would eat away the marks. Maybe the stupid Roomba would brush them off. Maybe they would fade in the sun. Right. Maybe I would have to pay for pool replastering. Maybe the homeowner would murder me when he got home. 

I went about the rest of my pool chores like a zombie, until I went to lift the strainer basket and saw a drowned lizard resting in peace at the bottom. I stared down at the speckled body. Could it be alive, still? Did these things live underwater? (Hey, I'm a city kid, what do I know?) I shook the basket. Nope, clearly deceased. Now what? I couldn't put the dead lizard in the big flower pot with the dead flowers. Best option would have been to scoop it up with a doggy poop bag and put it in the trash bin with all the dog poop but I wasn't about to touch the little waterlogged rubbery creature. Ew. 

I carried the strainer basket over to a tall hedge of flowered bushes and dumped the dead lizard in there, thinking it would fall through the branches to the ground and be eaten by its brethren. I didn't care what ate it, actually, as long as it wasn't Maddie. The dead lizard did not fall through the bushes. It fell belly up, arms and legs splayed, and stayed there for the next few days, gradually evaporating. I checked it daily.

I felt bad for the lizard but I felt worse for me. Those marks on the pool plaster were not going away. I got into the pool forums and started reading advice from experts. Don't drain the pool, they said. Try 400-grit wet dry sandpaper, they said. I hadn't slept well, ridden by vague anxiety dreams, fretting about the wrath I feared I would soon be facing. I began preparing my story. Well, you see, when I was unkinking the hose . . . Each time I rehearsed my story, I would get to the part about me shoving the weight across the bottom of the pool and start to giggle. 

This is serious, I kept telling myself. The homeowner is going to be pissed! You might not get your dogsitting payment! You might have to pay for replastering! He might sue you!

I thought about that. Blood from a stone, is what came to mind. The next day I tried and failed to take a nap. After a few minutes, I bolted upright, told Maddie I would be back soon, and drove down the road to Autozone to get some fine-grit wet-dry sandpaper. 

Back at the pool, I shucked my clothes, oblivious to the harsh sun, wrapped a piece of sandpaper around my foot and sunk to my waist into the shallow end, holding onto the steps so I wouldn't lose my balance and forget which way was up. I got busy rubbing the marks at the foot of the steps. Hallelujah! They disappeared! 

I rubbed at the marks I could reach, moving along the path the weight had taken, until my foot could no longer touch the bottom of the pool. At that point, with proof of concept, I was starting to feel as if I might survive the return of the homeowner. I left the rest of the sandpaper in the package on the kitchen counter and proceeded to enjoy my pool-sitting gig. 

Last night the homeowner returned. As he sifted through the mail, he indicated he might be playing pickleball early the next morning. 

"Before you rush off, there's something I need to show you about the pool," I said.

"What is it?" he said in alarm.

"I can't show you in the dark."

"Can't you just tell me? Now I won't sleep," he complained. 

"It's really best to show you in daylight," I said.

"Did something happen?"

"Well . . . "

"Did the weight fall off?"

After that, the story came out. Judging by the homeowner's response, this was not the first time the weight had fallen off the canister. I didn't get to tell the story the way I'd carefully rehearsed it, but at least I wasn't dragging my guilt and fear around with me any longer.  

I still don't think he realizes how bad the marks are. But it seems he will not be killing me or sueing me right away. I'm typing this at his kitchen table. Tomorrow I will brave the Tucson heat to visit my mailbox, my storage unit, and the pharmacy. Then I'm away to higher climes, lest I desiccate like that lizard in the desert sun.

Wandering but not quite lost

I’m writing to you from Bureau of Land Management (BLM) desert land outside of Quartzsite, Arizona. BLM land out here occupies many square miles. You can drive forever on dirt roads, although the further you go, the more you need four-wheel drive. My city minivan would not survive most of those roads. Being a sedate older person not looking to drive off a cliff, I keep to the flats not far out of town.

I am parked about a half mile from the freeway, near a shallow wash and a copse of scrubby trees, about one hundred yards from a herd of half-million dollar Prevosts towing toy haulers. Earlier they were racing their toys around the desert landscape. Now the happy campers seem to be setting off fireworks. I don’t know why people bring their entire house with them to go camping. On the other hand, nights in the desert are dark, cold, and endless. I suppose it helps to have heat, cold beer, and a big screen TV.

Yes, it’s a bit chilly in my car at night, but I’m not complaining. I hear Portland is 16°F, with snow, freezing rain, and high winds. Other parts of the country are suffering extreme winter weather as well. If that is your situation, I’m sorry. Especially if you are living in your car.

Speaking of living in a car, I am not living in my car. Yet. I’m on my second official roadtrip, on my way to Los Angeles by way of Quartzsite, AZ. I have found my tribe here in Quartzsite, but in true apanthropist fashion, I don’t want to have anything to do with them. I got my name badge at the RTR, saw the interiors of Sprinters, cargo vans, and minivans designed by some proud nomads, and listened to a woman in a long gauzy skirt make noise, oh excuse me, soothing healing sounds, by pounding on some large bronze shields with a fluffy mallet. I left as soon as I could.

I did not grown up in a camping family, so camping is a mystery to me. My mother camped with her parents and brother. Then she married a non-camping enthusiast and had four kids. It’s not that my father lacked an adventuresome spirit. He had a boat for a while, a 24-foot Thompson with a throbbing stern drive. He took me out on the Columbia River Slough once. We broke down. A nice lady in a little motorboat towed us back to the dock. Then on the next outing, he hit a half-submerged log and busted the sterndrive. Soon after, he sold the boat. He never talked about it, but I am guessing he was sad the dream ended the way it did.

I never wanted a boat. Neither have I had a hankering to camp. I like to hike, but not if I have to dodge snakes or climb over boulders. I was born and raised a city kid, which is why being out here in the open desert freaks me out. The quality of darkness outside my covered windows is more than I can bear to think about. When the wind scoots under the car, I feel a momentary change in my heart rate. Every little rustle could be a packrat eating my wires. A couple nights ago a storm blew through and carried my tarp and welcome mat into my neighbor’s campground. Anita from Missouri. She parked way too close to me, so I befriended her in self-defense. Widow, two kids, long-time camping enthusiast. I vacated to a more peaceful location the next day, which is where I am now.

I can see why people buy bigger and bigger vehicles. This minivan is a very small space, crammed with way too much stuff. If I were inclined to claustrophobia, I would never be able to do this. However, I’m fine with MRI machines and small minivans. I will probably wake up in my coffin and go ho hum. Not really. I hope to donate my body to science and avoid the entire coffin thing.

I feel somewhat like a pioneer might have felt. Did I bring enough food? Can my oxen pull this wagon? Will my solar panel charge up my Jackery or will clouds get in the way? Where can I dump my trash when the transfer station is only open three days a week? Will I have enough cell signal to get phone service, and how close am I to running out of my monthly quota of data? You know. Pioneer problems.

Why do some people glorify this lifestyle? It’s homelessness. You should have seen the interiors of some of those rigs. They looked like garbage dumps, festooned with fake ivy garlands, carpeted with Persian rugs and fake vinyl plank flooring, and reeking of incense, cooked onions, and poop.

After seeing all that stuff, I am more determined than ever to continue my commitment to downsize. I sense I am headed off a cliff of minimalism. It’s been a gradual slope at first, but the incline is getting steeper as I am coming to accept that I cannot maintain a life full of stuff. I feel a mild panic attack lurking just out of reach. Time to pee in my bucket, turn on my heating pad, and hit the foam rubber. Happy trails.

More free-falling dog days

Today I'm feeling a little like Dr. Doolittle might have felt. A little bird with a reddish chest was checking me out through the sliding glass door to the back patio, as if it wanted to tell me something. I'm not sure what, I refilled the bird feeder. Earlier this afternoon, the little dog in my care sat on my lap for the first time. I don't know what the bird was thinking but I can certainly read the dog's mind. Food, she's saying. Feed me, I'm hungry. 

For such a little dog, Maddie has four hollow legs. There's no end to her quest to scavenge. If she can't get a treat out of me, she hoovers up peanuts dropped by the birds chomping at the bird feeder. When all else fails, she gnashes down some beatup dried-up limes (or are they lemons, who knows, they are still green) or wizened fallen pomegranates that failed to grow into fruit. Maddie will be last man standing, long after I've moldered into dust for lack of my preferred hothouse diet, because she doesn't care what she eats. I've told her if I happen to die of a stroke or heart attack on the premises, she has my permission to eat my dead body. I think she appreciates the offer.

Speaking of moldering into dust, fall is in the air in Scottsdale. You wouldn't know it by the afternoon triple digits, but the mornings are the clue:  The air is almost cold. Well, 75°F feels cold to me these days. My internal thermostat is off. So are my sleep rhythms. Well, admit it, everything in my life is off. When it all goes off the rails, you have to wonder if perhaps you got onto a different track when you weren't paying attention. 

Early in the morning, the neighborhood is quiet. All the air conditioning units have fallen silent. During the day, the neighborhood sounds like an RV park full of rumbling generators, the loudest of which is our AC unit sitting against the house outside. It probably needs some attention, but it works, thank God. The cold air thrums and bumps through air ducts buried in the walls, sounding like a marching drum corps, and spews out through vents under the ceiling, to drift gently toward the floor, the counters, the couch where we are dozing. Gradually, over the course of the night, the house settles. The fridge stops feeling compelled to make ice. The AC unit sighs for the final time around 5:00 a.m. The house holds the heat of the daytime, but I imagine the walls are breathing as the house dreams.

Maddie is a good sleeper until about 5:30 a.m., when she leaps off the couch and twitches vigorously, making her collar and I.D. tag jangle. That is my cue to leap off the couch, fumble for my glasses and sandals, and follow her to the back door. I bring along my camping headlamp so I can see her as she beelines into the gravel labyrinth. I don't think she cares if coyotes could be in the neighborhood. She's a dog on a mission. 

She's efficient at that hour, unlike any other hour. Most of the time she wanders around sniffing things. It's her nature to sniff. However, she understands darkness is for sleeping. It doesn't take her long to do her business. I can practically see her dust off her hands as she trots back inside and heads to the couch. Me, I detour to the bathroom, where it takes me longer to do my business, being still half asleep, not to mention on heart pills. By the time I get back to the couch, she's commandeered the center cushion and is pretending to be completely out. I have to fit myself around her, which I do, no complaints. I am her beck and call girl. When I fall into the temptation of wondering about the purpose of my life, which I do hourly, I keep reminding myself, I live to serve the small dog who made my day.

Time to stop making sense

In my fledgling career as an amateur dogsitter, I can now claim to have cared for three dogs. Juno is the biggest dog, so far. She's an 11-year-old, slow-moving Rhodesian Ridgeback whose head is bigger than mine. She's old and arthritic, which means she doesn't go for walks and she sleeps most of the time. Except during the night, of course, when her bladder or bowels say it's time to go outside (rarely at the same time). 

My schedule is out the window when it comes to taking care of Juno. The dog's 5 am and 5 pm feeding schedule drives the entire show. The feeding schedule drives the poop and pee schedule. I have no choice, unless I want to experience the consequences, which I don't want to do, so I have my alarm set for 5 am. 

It's still dark here at 5 am but dogs' stomachs have their own internal driving force, and I live to serve, so I stagger off the couch and head for the fancy open-concept kitchen and the stainless steel fridge, where I rummage for the frozen veggies that make up one third of this dog's meal. The veggies go into the microwave to thaw. While that is happening, I put my head lamp on my head, click it to the dim setting, and grab a couple training treats, which I use to bribe Juno to go pee. She does, thankfully—like most of us, she'll do anything for treats. I admire the tepid air and the amazing array of stars overhead while she squats in the grass. Then we rush back inside for the main event. 

I get the other two elements of her meal out of the fridge: a huge round flat slab of raw hamburger and a raw chicken drumstick. These two things go into a big metal bowl.

By this point, Juno is going insane. Oh, have I mentioned, I am currently adhering to a vegan lifestyle? 

The thawed veggies get dumped into the metal bowl with the two hunks of raw meat. After a dousing of water from the reverse osmosis filtered water spigot, I feed Juno her two arthritis meds (wondering if they would do anything for my hip arthritis), and then we go outside onto the patio. 

Juno knows to sit, and I've learned to hold the dish high over my head so she doesn't knock it out of my hand. I set the dish on the Mexican tile flagstones, and Juno goes to town. It's a little disturbing to watch her polish off an entire chicken leg in two crunchy bites. She could probably do that to my hand, if she got a hankering for old lady bones. While she eats, I put the raw stuff back in the fridge. I make sure I have enough meat thawed for the next several meals. Finally, I clean up the dark granite countertops with antiseptic wipes, hoping none of that raw meat juice got on anything I care about. 

Juno returns in about 30 seconds. Her dish is licked clean. Juno goes back to bed on her 4-foot wide round cushion, and I wash out the metal bowl, wondering if it's worth going back to bed myself, or if I should just stay up for the sunrise. Usually I just lay there in the dark and listen to the AC system clicking on and ramping up as if we are about to be shot into orbit. 

Speaking of AC, I don't understand how it works, if it's me (residual hot flashes), or if the house is trying to kill me. Sometimes it seems hot in here, and sometimes it seems cold. Yesterday, I couldn't take having freezing feet when it's 108°F outside, so I nudged the thermostat from 78°F to 80°F. It seems better today.

In the evening, at 5 pm, we repeat the entire meal preparation process, sans the pills, and sans me going back to bed to try to catch a few more hours of shut-eye. By evening I'm in a bleary daze, wondering how I got here and where I'm going to end up next. I know that around 1 am, Juno, the pony-sized dog, is going to shake herself and head to the patio door, where she will poke at the glass with one huge black claw. I'm right behind with my head lamp, the beck and call girl for the creature temporarily at the center of my existence. 

I think back sometimes to the arc of this blog. Few of you are around anymore to reflect with me on the vagaries of this journey. This blog started out as a place to rant about the travesties of earning my PhD, oh woe is me, alas, alackaday. After some wandering aimlessly, the blog centered on the decline of my mother into dementia, and eventually her death. After that, what was there to talk about but me, as usual: downsizing, moving, searching for home, healthcare, and hoping to find my balance. It's hard to look back and see not an arc but a line. It all depends on what label I put on the y-axis, though, doesn't it? If I put financial success on that axis, the line descends into negative territory. Danger, Will Robinson! But if I put freedom on that axis, the line shoots out the top of the chart. 

The question remains: Would you rather be safe or would you rather be happy? It's really hard to find the intersection of both. 

July in the desert

July is one of my favorite months. Almost everyone I know was born in July. Well, not quite "almost everyone," but a lot of people, both friends and family. Happy birthday (today!) to Bravadita, friend from Portland. Happy birthday to Phoenix friend C.S., which depending on the day could stand for Crystalline Seeker, Cranium Savant, or Cranberry Sauce. And don't let me forget my big brother R., who no matter how old I get will always be older than me. May you all find peace on your special day, maybe with a little cake or pho or ice cream. My mother's birthday was in July, too. I'm hopeful she is enjoying her favorite dessert, key lime pie, in a heaven somewhere where calories don't set you up for an apple-shaped heart attack. 

If your birthday is in July as well, I hope it's a good one. Meaning memorable for happy reasons, not for stupid hot summer weather reasons. For example, I hope you aren't in Southern Arizona right now. Or parts of California, New Mexico, or Texas. If you are, I'm so sorry, but welcome to the Heat Dome. Again. 

Three years ago, I experienced what happens to a mobile home when the air conditioning goes out. I survived through the miracle of soggy underwear draped over my head and shoulders. So, when the AC went out again last week, I was ready. But you can only take so many days of breathing hot air into your lungs while the wet tanktop on your head drips water all over your keyboard.  Evaporative cooling loses all novelty after the first long searing sleepless night.

When my housemate found out the AC was well and truly broken, we made plans to vacate while we waited for the back-ordered part. In a way, it was a relief to discover that it wasn't a structural problem with the trailer. I'd feared the windows or poorly insulated walls were to blame, but no, it was just the stupid coil leaking coolant. Very expensive to fix, but fixable, eventually, after all the other suffering folks ahead of us receive their replacement coils and get back to the business of living in the desert.

I can understand why people come to the desert. It's pretty nice at certain times of the year. But how many hot summers does it take to make you realize it is stupid to stay here? For me, it's three. But where do you go to escape the summer heat, I ask you? If a heat dome can bring 116°F to the Pacific Northwest, traditional snowbird summer destination, then a heat dome can pop up anywhere. Greenland? The Arctic? No place is safe. We didn't evolve to live underground, but that might be our only hope someday, if you can call that a hope (see the Silo series). Lucky for me, I'm nearing the end of my life, so the amount of time I have left to suffer will be relatively brief. If I were in my twenties, I would definitely be marching on Washington. 

After a week of doing the frog in the gradually boiling pot of water thing, I traded the hot trailer in Tucson for a room in my Phoenix friend's big house. I feel like a critter in a burrow. The walls are thick in this mansion, the windows are double-paned. As long as the power holds out, I'll be cool as a cucumber, spouting my palaver for my anonymous blog and plotting my next novel. It's easy to assume I'm safe here. Do you ever think about the power grid going down? Do you worry that when you turn on the tap, it will be dry? That when you press the thing on the fancy fridge, the motor will grind but give you no ice, neither crushed nor cubed? Woe is me when that day comes. Choosing to live in the desert is like waving a red cape at a bull who is standing three feet away. Like, why would you do that unless you had something to prove? 

Or no place else to go. 

Maybe someday humans will evolve off planet and find paradise worlds with year-round tropical breezes, where the native fauna poops malted milk balls and the rivers run with aspartame-free Grape Nehi and Orange Crush. I hear there are billions of worlds in the Universe that could support life. Maybe we could each have our own, terraformed to our own personal preferences. I know what kind of world I would wish for, and it wouldn't be pink. 

Anyway. What was I saying? Right. Happy birthday. 

I think I'm over the desert

Have you heard it said, "When one door closes, another door opens"? What are we supposed to make of that? It's not a truism, is it? It's barely a platitude. It feels like one of those foundationless, woowoo sayings similar to "Do what you love and the money will follow." Dumber advice probably exists but I can't think of it offhand. And as long as I'm pondering doors, who are these anonymous, faceless purveyors of door wisdom, and how do they know so much about the nature of doors? 

Is it human nature to slap a pithy aphorism on a situation in an effort to understand it? Imagining life as a series of flapping doors might be useful in a glass-half-full kind of way, but claiming when a door closes, another one opens seems like bunk based on wishful thinking. Doors, paths, cliffs, holes in the sidewalk . . . We use metaphors as proxies for the options we face. Do I want what's behind Door No. 3? Do I want to take the path less traveled? How long will I spend wallowing in the messy bog this time?

Speaking of messy bogs, I succumbed to cheese this week. Organic mozarella, how bad could it be? Thanks for asking. Apparently, mildly bad, but day after day, getting more bad. Badder. I hate to throw away food, even if it is possibly going to kill me.

As I drove from Phoenix to Tucson last week, my vertigo waves started accelerating in intensity. I thought, what the heck? Is it the stress of returning to my uncertain life? It's not like being on the road was such a carefree walk in the park. Then I saw the clouds boiling up over the mountains. Since then, we've had a week of weather. Daily, my head is a swamp of vertigo waves. The crackling in my right ear is as loud as a freight train, rolling through every two minutes or less. 

On the bright side, I visited a new ENT this week. I performed more or less adequately on another hearing test and answered yet another battery of questions. I like this new ENT. He studied at the University of Portland. Maybe, if I'm lucky, I will receive some actual vestibular testing and be granted a plausible diagnosis. However, he admitted he'd never met anyone having two-minute oscillating symptoms. I can sense another MRI in my future.

I look fine on the outside, as long as you don't count my ragged hair and shapeless clothes. You have to watch out with vestibular patients. We are unpredictable. I felt the staff in the ENT office observing my demeanor. Am I a crazy anxious patient who will require counseling and drugs? Or am I calm, credible, and worth the benefit of the doubt? Patients with vestibular problems are notoriously ignorable, mainly because vestibular issues are not well understood. It's easier to tell us it's all in our heads. Just do some volunteer work, you'll be fine.

So, apart from the existential question of what is happening in my brain, the next big question on my mind is where to go next. I'm sorry to report, the subsidized housing options in Phoenix have waitlists that are one to five years long. Priority is given to disabled folks and families. The odds of me getting in while I'm still independent and autonomous are very slim. Not impossible, though. 

I could put my name on a waitlist.

But now I realize, I don't want to be in the desert anymore, anyway. I thought I'd never get tired of being warm, but now the temperature is ramping up to brutal, the AC is pumping dry air into my lungs and nose, I'm blowing bloody clots, and I can't go outside except super early or after the sun goes down. What kind of a life is this? I think I am over living in the desert. 

Maybe I'm just cranky because I can't find housing I can afford here. If the desert had welcomed me, maybe I'd love it more, I don't know. I feel like Goldilocks sometimes. Nothing is ever quite right for me. Story of my life. I keep trying to write a new story, but I always regress to the mean. I'm an introvert, I prefer to live alone, I'm an artist, I can't hold a job for very long, and I like being warm but not too warm, dry but not too dry. Somehow, at my age, I don't think I'm going to easily change.

Uh-oh, I feel a cheese attack coming on. I'll catch you next time.

Failing to plan might not be so bad

It might be spring. It's hard to tell, weather is a variable phenomenon here in the desert. Last week it snowed. Today it was 75F. Wet or dry, it's a great relief to feel warm. However, humidity is low, as you can tell from the artist's self-portrait. I need to drink more water. 

One sign that it might be spring is the changeable Rillito River. I walk along the river bike path almost daily. Yesterday, to my surprise, the Rillito deadended in dry sand at Oracle Road. I mean, it simply disappeared, just soaked straight down into the dirt, leaving plastic bottles, tents, and shopping carts high and dry in the channel. I'm not used to seeing rivers just vanish into the riverbed. If the Willamette did that, Stumptown would go insane.

Speaking of going insane, once again, I find myself in plan-and-wait mode. This seems to be a recurring life pattern for me. Always waiting for something to end so something new can begin. It's clear I have a hard time being in the here and now.

Didn't some old-timey dude say something like failing to plan means planning to fail? Old Dude, that is not helpful, even if we all agreed on a definition of failure. The ultimate "failure" is death, but all the planning in the world won't save us from death. What about the things that can't be anticipated? What if I get dementia and can no longer make decisions, as seems to be happening to a college friend? Or what if I keel over from a blood clot, which happened to my childhood friend when she was 51. Or remember cousin Dave, who succumbed to a heart attack at 61? Or my father, who met his end because of a heart problem at 77. 

I used to think my odds of living to 100 were pretty good, considering I've never smoked, I don't drink, and I don't eat meat. I don't think that any longer. I think it will be a miracle if I make it to 75. 

On the bright side, the one who lets go of the most possessions by the time death comes knocking is the winner. I fully intend to win that contest. You can donate the trophy to the thriftstore on my behalf. Thanks.

Speaking of useless trophies, I've learned some new words in relation to my vertigo issues. Peripheral versus central. Peripheral pertains to my inner ears. Central encompasses the brain, the spinal column, the eyes, and the ears. Peripheral problems turn into central problems if they go untreated. It is possible to have problems with both at the same time. I've consulted Dr. Web, M.D., and their colleague, Dr. Google. I'm pretty sure I have both.

Even though I'm doing the next logical thing (heading toward the coast to see if my head will settle), I don't have much hope, honestly. I'm afraid my brain is broken. The good news, brains can be retrained. The bad news, it takes time. My vestibular system might be out of whack for while, even when I'm living in my car on the beach at Leo Carillo State Park. Maybe Death Valley is my next option. Warm, dry, and 282 feet below sea level. 

I'm tired of planning. At some point, you just have to take a chance and go.

My aching back

You'd think I'd be used to change by now, after sixty-six years on the planet. Nope. Still not used to it. Still cranky when things change. Is it masochistic that I keep putting myself into situations that produce massive change? Maybe it's not masochistic. Maybe it's courageous. Did you ever think of that?

Speaking of cranky, I have a bone to pick with Microsoft. They had this nice little program called Picture Manager, really great for editing my drawings. Along with good old Paint, I can take my crummy illustrations drawn on lined journal paper and erase the blue lines, tidy them up, reduce the gray, and deepen the midtones. A few iterations ago, Microsoft stopped offering Picture Manager as part of Office. I have happily used Picture Manager for years on my old desktop but I don't have it on my laptop. 

Picture Manager came installed with MS Office 2010, which is what my desktop system was running, up until yesterday when the graphics card fizzled from dust, decay, cat hair, and old age. In fact, pretty much what has happened to me the past fifteen years just happened to my desktop computer system. Kaput. 

I'm grieving today for my desktop system. I'm also really grateful to the computer gods who kept the graphics card running long enough to finish a massive editing job with a serious deadline. I finished the job at 1:00 a.m. last night, went to bed, and woke up to a dead computer. Talk about miraculous timing. Bummer, my computer is dead, but hallelujah, it picked the right moment to die. Maybe there is a god.

I went to Dr. Google, who has all the explanations for everything, including the answer to the question What are these weird splotches on my arms and legs? and discovered that 2010 Sharepoint has Picture Manager, and I can download it for free. The kind people on the internet showed me what to do, and it worked, and now I have Picture Manager on my laptop. Yay. My laptop is to my desktop as the tortoise is to the hare, so it took quite a while to download (yes, yes, I agree, take my first born), install, customize just for Picture Manager, search for the folders with pictures in them, and then find the image I wanted to use. You can see I didn't get all the blue lines out, but I never do. Now that my desktop system is gunnysack, my printer/scanner will no longer work either. That means no more scanning of my drawings. Now I must use my smartphone to photograph my drawings. No more easy peasy. Everything creativity related now is slower, harder, and grimmer.

Change. You'd think after all this time.

Speaking of aching backs, car camping! When E called it a shakedown cruise, truer words never spilled over the epiglottis. My bed platform was sturdy but hard as only a plastic shelf with a one-inch camping pad and a pile of fleece blankets can be. That is to say, many long moments of wondering, what weird kind of frozen hell is this? Sleeping in a minivan in the middle of a freezing desert? I win the Amana Freezer for insane choices. I was saved by technology in the form of a dinky powerbank, my new boyfriend, Jackery, a 240 watt battery that powered my 70 watt heating pad that kept my feet warm during the night. I would not have made it without that heating pad. I would have been crying long before dawn. 

As it was, dawn was a long time coming. Do you know how dark and cold the desert gets when the sun goes down in the winter? Yeah, you probably do. You probably do your research before you go camping and wisely decide not to camp in the desert during the winter. Not me. I have to learn it all the long dark stupid cold hard way. Darkness comes fast and goes away reluctantly. Those three nights seemed to last forever, with a little bit of daylight in between. A watched sunrise never rises, isn't that how it goes? Something like that. You would make sure you have proper lighting in your car after dark, wouldn't you, you expert camper you. So you could do something productive, like, I don't know, blow on your freezing fingers or something.

I was shaken up good and proper on this shakedown cruise, and now I know I can survive in my car if I have to. I hope I don't have to live a long time in my car, but now I know I can do it. I can sleep (fitfully), cook, eat, bathe (sort of), poop in a bucket (an experience you should not miss for yourself), and stay warm (more or less, with my Jackery) in my car. And it requires much less paraphernalia than I thought. It was strange to wake up, fix coffee, and wonder, where the hell am I? And keep on drinking my coffee.

I understand the difference between low desert and high desert, but I guess I have to experience the difference in order to really get it, if you know what I mean. I whined last week about elevation. I kept trying to pay attention to my head during my road trip around Southern Arizona and into California. My head wasn't perfectly balanced in the low desert, but it went crazy when I got back to the high desert. That should tell me something. 

Okay, enough palaver. My head is reeling, my ear is crackling. That means we are expecting snow flurries tomorrow. 
 

Searching for a feeling

As I was shuffling along the bike path by the dry Rillito River riverbed, I came to a realization that has helped me put another piece of the puzzle of my life into place. Let me set the scene. The riverbed is an energetic entity in this desert town. Its dry sand, green trees, scrubby bushes, and plastic garbage are home to all kinds of wildlife. For instance, last night at 1:25 a.m. I heard a coyote howling close by. It was probably in the wash out back of the trailer but it sounded like it was outside my window. Four husky cough-like barks followed by a perfect-pitch howl, five times in a row. I almost got up to go outside. Then I thought, are you nuts? I did that last time a dog barked in the wash. Do you know how cold it is in the desert in the middle of the night? I don't either, but it's not warm.  

Anyway, the riverbed is an amazing landscape. I enjoy walking on the bike path, dodging bike riders, skateboarders, and runners. During the day, the sun is warm for about two hours. The air feels great, especially if the wind is calm. Toward sundown the temperature starts dropping back toward the upper-30s, so I'm learning to walk while the sun is still high in the sky. The downside is, UV rays. The upside is, warm. I will always seek warmth. I'm somewhat like a lizard in that respect.

So, what did I figure out? Thanks for asking. 

First, let me insert this funny drawing that sums up the week. I drew this in 1998, as if I knew that today would be the day I would need it. 

There you go. Yeah, that seems about right.  

So, okay, thanks for waiting. I am going to tell you my little epiphany. 

But first, a little back story.

When I left home in 1977, I knew my destination. My friend Jenny had preceded me to Los Angeles, and there was no place else I wanted to be. So off I went to L.A. I stayed there for twenty years. 

In 1997, I moved back to Portland. Again, I knew my destination. Where else would I have gone? My family was there. It made sense to return home to clean up the mess of my young adulthood. After some time, I was recruited to be my mother's caregiver. You know the story. 

When I was set free in 2021, once again, I had a destination in mind: Tucson. I'd visited this city once thirty-some-odd years ago. I had a friend here. Actually more than one friend, it turned out, which was a good thing for me, because the first friend died. The second friend gave me a place to land, and now as luck would have it, we are housemates. Pure miraculous divine chance. (Is that a thing?)

Unfortunately for me, my inner ears aren't happy with the desert climate. The relentless fluctuations in air pressure keep me constantly unbalanced. I'm very careful, but I recognize that out here in the desert, I'm a perpetual fall risk. I don't care where I die, but this is not where I want to break a hip. There are other reasons Tucson is not the ideal home for me, but the air pressure variations are the main culprit. I've been researching almost since the day I arrived, trying to figure out where I should go next.

So, here I am, walking along the path, wondering where my next destination will be, and it occurs to me that what I seek is not a destination. What I seek is a feeling. Two feelings in one, really: A physical feeling (inner ear equilibrium) and an emotional feeling (call it . . . serenity). I can't choose a city on a map and move there, hoping that the city will give me the feelings I desire. I need to go out into the world in search of the feelings and then look around and see where I landed.

I'm not starting from total scratch, in case you are wondering. I mean, I could just hang a map on the wall, close my eyes, and throw some darts. I've heard of people doing that. It sounds like fun, but what if, once again, I end up in a place that upsets my inner ears and doesn't make me happy? I'm too old to waste time moving the possessions I still possess from place to place, as if affordable housing were hanging on trees. 

Darts on a map won't work but I do have some data, as I've shared in this blog before. Sea level is least likely to have huge changes in air pressure (except for Florida hurricanes, East coast nor'easters, and Pacific Northwest wind storms). My best bet is Florida (sans hurricanes) and southern California. I bet you can tell which way I will let the wind blow me. 

There's no predicting where exactly I will end up. It's very tempting to look at a map, study the housing opportunities in a city, and say, there, that place, that is where I will go. It worked out when I moved to L.A., but it didn't work when I moved to Tucson. I can't know how my inner ears will react until I go to a place, so choosing a place without visiting first would be . . .  I was going to say nuts, but let's just say, it would be inadvisable. 

I can hear you saying, Carol, nobody in their right mind would choose a city and move there without checking it out first. You are no doubt correct. I never claimed to be in my right mind. I'm getting nuttier by the minute. As a person who up till now has planned long, pondered hard, and taken action much much much later with great caution, I can barely fathom the idea of packing up and leaving without a destination. Who does that? Me, apparently. 

Visualize a perfect life

Howdy Blogbots. Sorry to keep you waiting. I usually post on Sunday evenings, but last night I had a deadline on a work project. I'm trying to catch up today, but the Universe seems to be conspiring to send me back to bed. The morning temperature was below 60°F, which, if you know me, is not in my optimal operating range. My preferred temperature range is 85°F to 95°F. I went out to hunt and gather wearing fleece. One of my neighbors was standing out in the sun waiting for the Sunvan in Bermuda shorts and a no-sleeved blouse. With my hat, mittens, and fleece jacket, I felt like an alien desert Eskimo. She said hello anyway, which I thought was nice. I managed to persevere and get my shopping done for the week. I really dislike shopping, especially when it is cold. 

Shortly after returning to the Trailer of Creative Minds, I was on a What's App call to a friend and the internet went out. Our connection froze and then disappeared. I thought, oh, no, her internet went out. I went over to my laptop to check my email. I was shocked to see the dreaded notice: No internet connection. Oh, no, my internet was out! Lately, it is happening almost daily. Every time it happens I am reminded that I am an addict. Curse you, Universe! I started to Google how to live without the internet and then remembered I had no internet. I took out the recycling to break the broken brain loop. 

The air pressure ebbs and flows like ocean waves here in the desert. The air breathes, and as it breathes, it takes my inner ear along for the ride, up and down, up and down. I usually notice the moments of relative calm after they are over and I'm back in the rocking boat. Then I realize as I'm holding onto walls and chairs, hey, yesterday actually wasn't too bad. I was able to work without the washing machine in my head constantly running on spin cycle.

I don't know for sure if there is a geographical location that might have steadier air pressure, or if being in such a place will actually make a difference for my head, but the only way I will know is if I go look, as my intrepid housemate points out to me. E is undaunted by the challenges of nomadic living. I'm calling it car camping to lessen my fear. Moving at the speed of light, E sees the adventure in overcoming challenges. Life is a puzzle to be solved. Moving at the speed of an erratic heartbeat, I see only my own fears. Life is a spin cycle to be endured.

As my aging body is starting to betray me, I begin to understand why people resort to magical solutions for illnesses. Visualize perfect health! If a dose of licorice is good for what ails me, then certainly cutting that dose into a fraction of the original dose and putting it into a tiny white pill would have to have more power. Right? The remedy doesn't stand up to reason, but it is so tempting to believe in the miracle when a pushy naturopath is saying trust me, it works. (Curse you, Dr. Tony!)

It is so hard to think sometimes with this hissing snake in my ear. I wonder what it is trying to tell me. Probably something like give up, go back to bed. 

I am not a quitter. Maybe I hang on too long sometimes, clinging long past the sell-by date—jobs, relationships, cities, cars. It's what I do, I guess. Drive it all until it drops in a rusty heap. You can learn some interesting things about the power of stick-to-it-ness when you simply refuse to lay down and give up. I complain a lot, as you know. I'm chronically malcontented, after all. But I still get a lot done, for a self-professed pessimist, and I still keep showing up for life, acting as if I were an optimist. Sometimes it actually works. 

Ho hum, another gorgeous sunset in the desert

I don't have much to report this week. Here's a quick follow-up to the ENT appointment from last week. I know you are following the story closely. There is no surefire remedy for the malady, as I anticipated. However, she did offer me something. Can you guess what it was? I wasn't far off the mark. It's the hygienic equivalent of a pencil in my ear! You heard it right (ha). She offered to poke a hole in my ear drum to equalize the pressure.

"It probably won't work," she said. "It will hurt like hell. And insurance won't pay for it."

I said, "Well, when you put it like that . . . "

She booked me for another follow-up in six months, no idea why. Meanwhile, my ears keep on rolling and hissing, sometimes more, sometimes less. For the past couple days, the incline in air pressure has been gradual, more like Portland's graph. My head has been relatively calm. Earlier today, the altimeter hit a peak at 30.13, and now it is dropping again, a little more abruptly than it rose. That means two things. My head is reeling, and rain is coming. How about that! I can predict the weather (for the local area). Very handy talent to have. I probably missed my calling as a meteorologist. Well, I've missed multiple callings over the years. They called. I did not answer. I was hot in pursuit of other pursuits.

Now that I'm back in the Trailer, I am trying to be more active. Sometimes I ride my bike around the mobile home park. Sometimes I walk. Whatever mode I choose, I have found it is best to keep moving. If I stay still, I'm eaten alive by no-see-ums. I hope they are nearing the end of their life cycle for this season, although I fear as long as it is raining, they will keep on hatching. They don't go far from the river, but they go far enough to find me, tasty morsel with uncovered hands and forearms. If I go out while the sun is still up, I bake. If I wait until the sun goes down, I'm eaten. 

It's critter season here at the Park. The human residents I encounter on my evening sojourns often get this funny look on their faces when I get close. That is how I know something is up. Last night a tall old man with a well-trimmed white beard stared at me. I took my earbuds out of my ears to hear what he might say. Good evening? How's it going? Lovely sunset? No, none of those. 

"There's a big javelina roaming around this intersection," he said, pointing toward my street. "Be careful."

People here are obsessed with javelinas, large and small. They are interesting animals, if you like weird pig-like creatures that smell like skunk. They aren't pigs, though, in case you are thinking javvie on the barbie. I don't know what they taste like. I don't eat meat, javelina or otherwise, but you are welcome to try it. They might be easy to catch, if you can dodge the tusks. I hear they don't see well. They hear well but have poor eyesight, I mean. I have neither good hearing nor good eyesight. However, I have the superior intellect. Except with my earbuds in, while I'm listening to oldies on my mp3 player. Then I'm pretty much too stupid to live.

The sunsets here are stunning. Even my sister thinks so. She's a connoisseur of all things cool and beautiful, and she expressed amazement at some of the photos I sent her. The colors are rich and deep. But you have to act fast if you want to capture them. They disappear into gray very quickly. I'm not amazed at the sunsets anymore, ho hum, but it still catches me off guard that the sunset comes so quickly, followed soon after by solid dark. When I say solid dark, I mean pitch black. Except for a few streetlights, the mobile home park is a dark place. If I weren't avoiding no-see-ums and javelinas I would probably spend more time standing out in the street staring up at the stars. 

The Hellish Handbasket goes into the hospitality business

The property management company is upping its revenue gathering efforts. The tenants were forewarned. Yesterday, it was my turn. At ten in the morning, as I was cooking my breakfast, two large scruffy men entered the Bat Cave with the intention of installing water meters on the copper pipes going to the upstairs and downstairs apartments. Instead of adding a flat fee to the rent to account for water usage, now through the magic of Wi-fi, we will be accurately charged for our long showers. Yay, accuracy. 

I moved my electric skillet to a safer location while the guy cut a hole in my wall over the sink. My breakfast cooked and sat on the counter, growing bacteria. Eventually during a lull, I put it in the fridge. My kitchen was a disaster zone, insulation, dust, and roaches everywhere. When the guys left two and a half hours later, I had three plastic-covered square holes in my kitchen wall and some mental images I'd really rather forget. 

One of the holes was under the sink. The space under the sink is a deep, dark, roach day-and-night spa, moody with its gray paint and gentle humidity. I don't keep trash under there but I'm sure decades of tenants did, leaving behind a delicious fetid aroma perfect for roach relaxation. Now there is a 12-inch square of white plastic covering a hole that I'm pretty sure leads to hell, with off-ramps to every roach nest along the way. 

The fun started when a grizzled dusty man named David sawed an 8-inch square hole in the dry wall and started yanking out insulation, also known as bed-and-breakfast for the nest of cockroaches I knew were living behind the electrical outlet. I warned him. I will spare you the details. I am still queasy. 

While he waited for one of his compadres to bring him a tool, David pulled out his phone and showed me the view from his property, somewhere out a road I'd heard of but had no idea where it was, up a hill with a fantastic view of mountains and desert. He had a live camera going all the time, and he checked it periodically as he was working. The sound of wind ruffling across a web microphone kept coming out of his shirt pocket. It was like a baby monitor for his property.

"That's where my house used to be," he said, pointing at a flat bare area of dirt. "Burned down last year."

Terrified roaches fled along the counter, making a break for freedom. I shot them with alcohol. 

"There was a tornado out there. Left a wire shorted out under the roof. Six months later, the whole place burned to the ground."

David went outside to get something and have a cigarette. A beefy guy in a neon vest came in and took over, cutting a second hole on the other side of the electrical outlet. 

"Whoa, I found the nest," he said, dancing back and bumping into the Barbie stove, which was sitting in the middle of my 4-foot square kitchen. "I hate roaches," he grinned at me. He was missing one of his front teeth. 

Soon there were cockroaches all over the counter, running for their lives. I gave the insect spray to the worker, and he nuked the vicinity. I shot alcohol at the ones who got past his first line of attack. 

His brother Hector came in and out to fetch and carry things to the apartment next door. I sat in my TV watching chair, watching the guys work. At one point, they moved outside to show their boss something on their phones and to complain about the fourth worker, Jesse, who went AWOL during the afternoon and was not seen again. I looked at the hole in my kitchen wall and realized I was looking through a corresponding hole in my neighbor's wall, straight into their kitchen. I saw the back of a stove, part of a counter, and further away, the edge of a sofa. Their walls are the same color off-white as mine, and just as bare. 

The workers did not bother to put back the pieces of drywall they cut out. Instead, they covered the holes with pieces of shiny white plastic. One is about eight inches square, the other is a foot square. The squares are shiny white. The walls are glossy off white. One of the squares is screwed into the wall at the four corners with black drywall screws. Do you know what it is like to see something black on the wall out of the corner of your eye? Not good. I feel inordinately jumpy whenever I am in my kitchen.

As soon as the workers were gone, I took wide masking tape and taped up all the edges on the two pieces of plastic by the electrical outlet. The electrical outlet was already well taped around the edges; until I put that tape on there, that was the preferred entrance to the roach bed-and-breakfast that was behind the wall. I know that nest is still there. Some got nuked, but eggs are hatching, and orphan babies are coming. I taped the plastic covers to block easy access to my living space. They will have to come in through the hole under the sink. The gateway to and from hell. I'm dusting off my handbasket. 

Between here and there

When last we spoke, I mentioned that my nemesis, the check engine light, had returned to disturb my peaceful cat-sitting gig in Albuquerque. The day after Thanksgiving I drove to two places in a valiant but fruitless effort to get the problem resolved. One was closed for the holiday, the other was too busy, come back later. I pictured days of delay as I waited for parts and repairs. As it turned out, on Monday, when I started up the beast in the frigid early morning sunshine, the check engine light did not come on. Maybe there is a god.

The theme of my days seems to involve driving in circles. On Wednesday I got lost on my way to the airport to pick up my friend. I knew it would happen. It always does when I drive in the dark in an unfamiliar place, so I allowed plenty of time. My sense of direction deserts me in the dark. I won't mention what else deserts me. Suffice it to say, it's probably time for another eye exam.

I eventually found my way to the cell phone waiting area and dutifully waited with my cell phone on my lap and my feet wrapped in a big towel, thanking that possibly nonexistent higher power for helping me find the place. I don’t know why I fret. I always somehow manage to get to where I’m going.

That track record is reassuring; as long as I know where I’m going, I’ll eventually get there. Driving in circles on the way to my destination is sort of my personal motif. Ask any passenger I’ve ever had. Following a linear route on a map is something I aspire to but seldom achieve. My friend reminded me that there are phone apps to guide me. So far I have not successfully managed to get my old smartphone to talk. Maybe I haven't given it the old college try. My style is perhaps more elementary—I meander, geographically and otherwise, like a kindergartener wanders from puzzles to playhouse to play-doh. I’m okay with that, as long as I’m not in a hurry. Where I hit the metaphorical concrete bridge abutment is that moment when I realize I have no idea where I am going, that there is no destination other than death, and how and when I get to the final destination is almost completely out of my control.

Tucson looks different to me now, after driving to Albuquerque and back. It’s just another city. Just a place where my stuff happens to be, a place to land for a while. I haven’t experienced many cities in my lifetime. I can name them on one hand and still have fingers left over: Portland, Los Angeles, Tucson. Three cities in my sixty-five years. Does that seem like too few? Well, to be precise, I sampled two L.A.-adjacent neighborhoods that were actually cities: Santa Monica and Venice, to be specific. Maybe I’ll find something similar here—the Santa Monica of Tucson. Could that be Marana? Oro Valley? Neither one is a place I can afford, even if they have vacancies. You need real money to live here.

How can I make a decision about where to live if I haven’t lived but a handful of places? I’m chagrined to report, I moved to Los Angeles in 1977 sight unseen because my high school friend J had moved there, and also because Portland winters suck. I moved to Tucson in 2021 the same way. My defense in 1977 was that I was twenty and stupid. My defense in 2021 was COVID-19. I’m a lot older but possibly still stupid. Maybe it’s the way my brain rolls. It’s all or nothing. After Mom died, my choice seemed to be stay in one place and succumb to toxic black mold or pack up everything and move to a new city. I always knew I’d head south once I was free. I’m a creature of the sun. Tucson promised warm weather and affordable housing.

Nothing is every quite as advertised. Tucson has warm weather, yes, and also shocking heat waves, thrilling monsoon rains, walls of dust-filled wind, and the potential for ice in winter. Affordable housing, yes, if you don’t mind living in the demilitarized zone in a roach-infested motel-style apartment with noisy neighbors on four sides and the ever-present threat of burglaries and car thefts. I guess I should put affordable in quotation marks.

I drove for seven hours, crossing the desert between Albuquerque and Tucson, and as I covered the dusty miles, buffeted by speeding semi-trucks, pickup trucks, and motorhomes, I gradually stopped being afraid of Tucson. I found I had gained a new appreciation for this city. Maybe it's more like I achieved a sense of neutrality. I drove away before dawn on an unfamiliar highway into an unknown future and reentered the city on a hot afternoon, moving with the traffic, knowing exactly where to exit and how to find my way home.

Home. I’m using the word home now consciously, wearing it like a loose overcoat, trying it on for size, knowing the definition of home could quickly morph into something else.

I’ve seen a couple shy little dudes since my return. As long as they stay out of my bed, I don’t care. The next challenge to my peace of mind is the refrigerator, which is clearly gasping its death throes. It can no longer make ice or keep my yogurt cold. My new icebox is literally a box of ice. I can’t dredge up much angst. Yes, it is inconvenient, evidence that I unwittingly moved to the third world. On the plus side, the fridge no longer sounds like Darth Vader haunting my dreams. In addition, the ice cooler will be useful if I end up living in the belly of the beast.

Living a life sublime

Howdy Blogbots. You’ll be happy to hear I finally have fast internet. Fast enough, anyway. What a relief. Being on the wrong side of the digital divide is debilitating in all kinds of ways. I’m sure you are greatly relieved as well. Now you can hope I will stop complaining about it.

Here's the story, thanks for asking. After a massive fail by Century Link, I am now a customer of their Tucson competitor, Cox Communications. I’ve learned so much. For example, I now understand what the Century Link technician meant when he said “Cox uses a different system.” It’s cable, dude! Cox uses cable, Century Link uses DSL phone lines. You are probably thinking, duh, Carol, everyone knows that, it’s like the battle between the evil titans Comcast and Century Link in Portland, have you been living under a rock? In my defense, I say, yes, I have been living under a rock of sorts. A rock I fondly called Mom.

Anyway, after a long trek across Tucson to f*ckall woebegone, I found the only Cox store in town, waited in line, paid a $50.00 deposit, and was granted the privilege of renting a cheap plastic modem to take home and self-install.

If you know me, you know that any word with self in front of it makes me quail.

“Will I be able to figure this out?” I asked the rep who took my money and handed me a white box with a handy built-in plastic handle. 

She stared at me over her mask. I could see her mentally shift gears. She opened the box and quickly described the attachment process. I felt like one of those cartoon dogs listening to their owner, where the dialog balloon is nothing but bla bla bla bacon bla bla walk bla bla, except minus the cue words bacon and walk.

I went outside with my little box. I put the box gently on the seat and took a minute to pour a dinky bottle of mechanic-in-a-can into my car’s gas tank. The beast threw a shoe, I mean, a code, that morning. Ding, the familiar check engine light came on, indicating a problem in the exhaust system. Anything from a bad gas cap to an expensive oxygen sensor problem or an even more expensive catalytic converter fail. The light does not identify the exact problem. It’s like when your property manager texts you there’s a gas leak in the building, get out now. It helps to have specifics, like, which apartment do I really live in? So now I have the fun job of trying to discern whether the check engine light problem stems from the work that I had the dealer do on May 19. It’s unlikely that their work is under warranty but it would be stupid not to ask. If they say bring it in, I know what will happen. I have some alternative recommendations for car repair places, none of which is within easy walking distance of the Bat Cave.

My father told me never to fall in love with a car. That is still good advice.

Two steps forward, two or three steps back, then one step forward, then fall in a hole for a while. That is my life in Tucson. I finally get an apartment, but can’t get internet. I finally get internet, but the car goes gunnysack. The neighbors with quiet car stereos have loud car engines and vice versa. The property manager returns from a three-week COVID-19 vacation (yay, she lives!) but fails to respond (again) to my emails. Meanwhile, the waves of vertigo in my head are a constant reminder that I control nothing and nobody.

After a while, does it do any good to use the words good or bad to describe what happens? It’s all just life. Maybe the word stupid would be more apropos. I could equally use the word sublime. Ridiculous and rapturous. Absurd and . . . hmm, I’m having trouble coming up with opposites that express my dichotomous brain. I found some fun words, though: cockamamie, dunderheaded, doltish, nutty. Humans have many words to express their displeasure with circumstance. Absurd, ridiculous, and nutty have a lot of company in the thesaurus. Synonyms for triumphant and celebratory are sparse.

As I walked in the hot morning sun today, eyes on the cracked asphalt to avoid stumbles, I had time to think about what it means to be alone. No one depends on me, not a cat, not a mother, not a sibling, not a friend. Nobody really knows where I am. A few people have my street address, but no one could rush to my rescue, or ask me to rush to theirs. I no longer live my life in the context of someone else’s. I’m effectively alone.

I can hear you, you know. You are thinking, oh, no, there she goes again. She’s going to do that off-putting grieving thing. She’s fallen into that sorrow-shaped hole in the sidewalk. Now the whining will begin and it will take meeting another horny lonely eighty-two-year-old to get her mind off it so she can find the humor in her nutty, absurd, confounding, ridiculously sublime existence.

In my defense—do I seem to be writing that phrase more than usual lately? Argh. I’ll let you decide if grief is a defense for wackiness. Everything has happened so fast (she whined). Ten months ago, Mom went and died, setting off a cascade of actions and events that propelled me to another state. Bam, in slow motion, I'm thrown into a new life. Wait, let's be clear: I threw myself.

I wake up at night confused. I don’t know where I am. What bed, what room, what city, what year. I hope it is grief and not early-stage Alzheimer’s. Nothing makes sense except for the veneer of meaning I paint onto my experiences, and my mental paintbrush lags a disturbing two or more seconds behind reality. (Hence my confusion when I opened the Cox box and saw a coaxial cable instead of a DSL phone line.)

One of my favorite Monkees songs (yes, I’m still a fan) has a grammatically incorrect line that resonates: Where my foot steps down is where is home. Every time I go walking, I look at the blue sky and think, oh my god, how gorgeous, is this my home? It’s a real question with as yet no answer. I don’t know if this is home. And yes, the sky is sublime.

On someone else's memory lane

My new friend Bill at the trailer park called me on the phone. “I have something to show you. Come over sometime. But call first, okay, unless you want to scrub my back in the shower.”

Bill is eighty-two years old. I’ve learned when socializing with old folks, it’s best not to lollygag. They could die before you get around to showing up. Case in point, Bill’s wife Linda died in her sleep. Imagine waking up next to that. Anyway, if you promise to do something for an old person, and you are serious about it, do not delay.

On the day Bill called, I was at the housesit trailer cleaning up the place in anticipation of the return of the homeowner. I wanted to leave the place spic and span, whatever that means, you know, pack it in, pack it out, leave no trace. I don’t want them to realize I slept on my foam rubber mattress on the floor for four months because my back does not appreciate memory foam. I was quite comfortable, thanks for asking. I regret nothing. I consider my four months living out of boxes and bags and sleeping semi-rough to be good preparation for living in my car, should that moment ever come.

After the sun went down, I hauled the bike out of the back of my car and rode over to the clubhouse to mail some letters back to their senders. I’ll tell you the story of those letters some other time, if I remember. Here, I’ll just say that I finally got around to checking the mailbox at my new apartment. That box holds a lot of mail.

From the clubhouse, I called Walt and told him I was around if he wanted me to come over. “I can be there in two minutes.”

Two minutes later, I wobbled around the curve and found him waiting for me on his back porch, delighted to see me. “You look like you are riding more smoothly,” he said.

“Less wobbly,” I agreed. I propped the bike on its kickstand and followed him into the kitchen.

“I have something for you,” he said. He handed me a 5 x 7 color photo of me sitting on his wife’s bike in his driveway. Behind me is a tall block wall and beyond that are the tops of cactuses and trees. Starbucks is just out of view. I am wearing black pants, a white jacket, and my straw hat—my bike-riding uniform. I am smiling self-consciously at the camera. I always prefer to be the one taking the picture.

“Thanks, Bill,” I said with appropriate appreciation and enthusiasm. I assumed he had a photo printer stashed away in the bowels of his trailer, excuse me, mobile home. In one of our conversations, I referred to the homes in the park as trailers. “Trailers have hitches,” Bill had said. “These are mobile homes.”

Bill invited me into the living room. It looked the same as I remembered—altar for Linda’s ashes, comfy seating, baseball game on the big screen television. “Remember those shows I was telling you about? I have them on DVD.” Bill pulled an enormous black zippered disk holder from a cabinet. There must have been three hundred CDs in the thing. He flipped through the sections. “The truth about the war,” he said, meaning Viet Nam. “The truth about Watergate. The truth about the environment.” Most of the DVDs were labeled with the word “Frontline.”

Finally he found the disks he sought. I sat on the marshmallowy loveseat while he queued up a DVD. He stood in front of the big screen, a tall bony man with skinny legs, a slight pot belly, square shoulders, and no neck, pointing the remote at the DVD player, fast-forwarding until he got to the right part. “Here we go,” he said, grinning like an adolescent through his crooked overbite.

The video quality was poor. Someone had set a stationary camera on a table near the open area that served as a stage. In the background, people could be seen moving through a hallway to and from the restrooms. The audio was scratchy, and the images were pixelated, but I got the gist. It was a home movie, amateur documentation of a holiday event of the kind you hope you never have to see again. Bad enough you had to live through it once. Not for Bill. Bill clearly loved reliving his time in the limelight.

It was a holiday-themed party at the clubhouse at the trailer park. MoHo park, excuse me. The year was 2010. A huskier, more limber Bill came onto the stage, recognizable by his overbite and square no-neck shoulders. He was dressed in garish printed pajama pants and a snowman shirt. On his head was a wig made of long stringy black hair. He was joined by three other oddly dressed people. Two women wore tie-dyed t-shirts and the otherman man in the group wore a red plaid sport jacket that looked like it was made from a quilt. This guy introduced the group as the Grandpas and Grandmas. They proceed to lipsync to songs from the 50s and 60s, including Monday Monday, an homage to the Mamas and the Papas. Present-day Bill giggled as he watched his younger self performing. I did my best to be appreciative, although I kept an eye on the clock. It was growing dark outside and I still had to ride the bike back to my car.

“Wait, I have one more to show you,” Bill said, switching out the DVD for another. “This one is a little longer.” I settled back on the loveseat, telling myself if there is a heaven, I’ll have something nice waiting for me there, like maybe some ten percent off coupons to IKEA.

The second event was another holiday party, in the same clubhouse room, three years later. In 2013, Bill looked about the same, wearing the same ridiculous snowman shirt. His associates this year were two women (neither of which was Bill’s wife) and and a younger man. Of course, this is a fifty-five and older mobile home park, so nobody was all that young. I can hardly believe I qualify to live in this place, but whatever.

I was interested to see Bill’s wife on the video. Linda was a short, small-boned woman with narrow hips and heavy breasts. Her gray bubble of hair did not move as she clapped and bounced to the music. She stood offstage by a piano and smiled the whole time. She looked like she had a nice personality. I noticed two things. She had no sense of rhythm, and Bill largely ignored her throughout the forty-minute show.

Bill and his group performed a pantomime to bits of songs from the decades from the 1940s to the 1980s. The audience was in good spirits and clapped and sang along, despite the fact that dinner had been delayed because no one had turned on the pilot light to heat up the lasagna.

The video operator was more creative this year, panning around the large crowded room. At least sixty people sat at long tables in the large meeting room, sipping beverages with a minimum of heckling. It’s a large space, with a piano and fireplace and shelves full of books. I’ve seen that room through the windows but never been inside. They’ve been remodeling during my sojurn at the moho park. I peered inside a couple times as I came by every few evenings to borrow and return paperback books at the book exchange boxes placed on the walkway outside the clubhouse door. During Covid and remodeling, the clubhouse was closed. Now the books are back inside on the shelves, and the outdoor book exchange is gone.

Bill was thrilled to have me as a captive audience to witness him relive his memories. He watched the show with obvious glee. “Here comes the good part,” he said several times, or “Let’s see if you recognize this song,” or “Did you see what I did there?” I did my best to be a good audience member, laughing in the right places, clapping once in a while, nodding, asking some relevant questions to show I was paying attention. I tried not to watch the clock, which was directly above the television screen.

I’ve met people like Bill, people who are desperate to be the center of attention, even if their moment of fame comes in a skit at a mobile home trailer park holiday party. He relished being the star. I got the impression he watched this DVD often. He knew all the lines. He echoed his words as he sat on the couch, chuckling, reliving his moments in the limelight, giving me the play-by-play of the show, explaining what was happening, like for example when the two women suddenly crouched down behind a barricade and started putting on vests and neckerchieves.

In fact, the group had props for all their songs. A lot of effort went into creating this production. The group dressed in cowboy hats and western gear to sing “Long Tall Texan.” The younger man “rode” a horsehead attached to a stick. During another number, they tossed armfuls of stuffed skunks into the audience as they sang “Dead Skunk in the Middle of the Road.”

“I was singing,” Bill told me. “I wasn’t pantomiming, I was singing. I only listened to the song three or four times to learn it.”

During the closing number, a lively Beach Boys tune, some of the audience members near the stage joined the group to dance to the music, Linda among them. She bounced on stiff knees, clapping off-beat, smiling gamely, while her husband Bill ignored her. Other than introducing her once at the start of the show, he never interacted with her, did not look at her, did not dance with her or touch her, did not stand near her when she joined the group on the stage. She might as well have been one of the props.

After the show was over, Bill motioned me to follow him toward the back of the mobile home. I followed him in sock feet along the plushly carpeted hallway as he showed me the photo gallery of Linda with the grandkids, one every Christmas until the last Christmas, when it was just the grandkids alone. Bill led me into the master bedroom, occupied by a king-sized bed and a couple dressers. I thought, if this goes sideways, I can probably take him. He’s built out of sticks. The overhead light was harsh. He pulled out some things from a dresser drawer.

“You might like to have these,” he said, holding out a navy and white machine-knitted winter scarf with tassles on both ends. “And these,” he said, holding out a plastic pack of footie socks. “And these gloves,” he said, handing me a pair of worn black wool gloves. I accepted the gifts politely, thinking oh lord, not more stuff. I put the scarf around my neck. It smelled of perfume.

Next, Bill led me into a large dressing room area. He pointed at a row of bottles and jars arrayed along a counter in front of a wall of mirrors. “Can you use any of that stuff?” I declined, claiming allergies, which is true. I do not wear cosmetics and use lotions at my peril.

Bill led me to a closet. “These?” he said, pointing to several knitted pullovers that I knew were much too small for me, even if I wore that style of clothing. I shook my head. “How about these shoes?” Bill said, pointing to a shoe caddy holding black slip-ons with low heels. I shook my head regretfully. Back in the hallway, Bill opened a cupboard. The shelves were packed with hardback books, most of which were by the psychic Sylvia Browne. Linda had been enamored with the psychic’s writing and performances. Bill offered to loan me some. I declined.

By now it was 9 pm and solid dark. I felt like I’d just missed meeting Linda, like she was just in the next room, just out of sight. I knew her clothes, I knew her smell. I did not have to ask Bill how much he missed her, even as he was jettisoning the last of her possessions. I did the same with my mother’s things before I left Portland. You can’t keep everything, and it’s better if someone else can use the stuff.

We went outside. Bill got his bike out of his shed and rode with me through the warm night air back to my car. Along the way, under a street light, I saw yet another flat lizard, pulverized into the asphalt by a car tire because it paused when it should have hustled.