Follow that pilot car

This week I've been diligently performing my role as pilot car. Being the pilot car means I'm a leader, not a follower, or I guess you could say, first I'm a leader, and then I'm the ultimate follower, after I pull over into the slow lane and let all the traffic behind me speed by. But until there's a passing lane or nice long turnout, everyone is stuck behind me, and I'm the leader. I take my role seriously, setting the pace just under the speed limit. Except on downhill grades, when with a gravity assist, my old car can get up a head of steam. 

In addition, to being a pilot car, I have other roles I'm diligently performing. For example, I've already mentioned I'm a traveler on the road less traveled. What that means is I don't tend to conform to norms. I live by another set of rules. Oh, don't get excited, that doesn't mean I am a jerk (at least not intentionally). The rules I live by have to do with things like freedom, autonomy, and independence. I guess you could call those principles, rather than rules. Rules are, like, get a good job, find proper housing, and don't pick your teeth at the dinner table. Principles are more along the lines of live and let live, let your freak flag fly, that sort of thing. 

I take my role as a nonconformist as seriously as I do my role as pilot car. When you feel called to do something, probably you should do your best at it. Hm. Well, when I write something like that, being a professional devil's advocate, I always see the loophole punched by Satan, if there is such a thing. Like, if I wanted to be a dictator, should I strive to be the best dictator I can be? Or, if I want to build a house in a sensitive ecosystem, I should strive to build the biggest bestest house I can? Hm. Clarity eludes me. I'm hot. My portable fan died. It gets really hot and stuffy in my car before the sun goes down. It's hard to think coherently, much less write. 

I drove from Bend to Portland today. I've been to Bend once before, in the early 1990s, I think. I didn't recognize the place. It looks like they took Portland and plopped it down in the high desert. Once I got outside the city limit, though, I recognized the high desert terrain. My grandfather used to run cattle on the range outside of Prineville. As I strolled along 97 with a train of cars and trucks behind me, I saw many herds of cattle, but also what looked like groups of wild horses. The land is breath-takingly beautiful, if you like wide expanses of dried grass punctuated by withered trees, dark green bushes, and scrubby brush, with forested mountains in the distance. Nary a cactus in sight. It's beautiful. It's also blazing hot in the summer and freezing cold in the winter. Lucky for me, I happened along on a relatively mild day. Blue sky, fluffy clouds, not too hot once the sun came up. 

I'd forgotten how majestic Mt. Hood is coming at it from the east. That is one impressive peak. Highway 26 winds over it's southern shoulder, uphill and downhill around curves with scary dropoffs. Views of the mountain appear through gaps in tall timber. Sadly, I couldn't saunter to appreciate the sights because of the train behind me. There's not much snow on the mountain this time of year, but this road goes through the snow zone. Glad I didn't have to chain up (I don't carry tire chains), I stopped at the rest area at Government Camp. The women's restroom was equipped with two long wooden benches, I assume for outdoor enthusiasts to remove their skis and snowshoes before using the facilities. 

Last this week, I left Eugene feeling I'd done my due diligence. Not the place for me. I returned to Portland, picked up my meds, and hit the road. I took a day trip to Maryhill Museum up the Columbia River Gorge. I spent one more night in Portland, and decided to visit some towns between Portland and the coast. Then I thought, well, as long as I'm halfway to the coast, I might as well go all the way. I meandered over to Florence and stayed at the Chinook Winds Casino with dozens of motorhomes and trailers, the occupants of which (I assume) spent most of their in the casino gambling, smoking, eating, or whatever people do in a casino. From my perch on the edge of the upper parking lot, past the rooftops of cars and timeshares I could see ocean for miles. 

I took time in Florence to look at a possible low-income senior housing option I'd found on one of those apartment listing websites. The onsite manager laughed when I asked about a one-bedroom apartment. 

"We have 250 people on the waitlist, honey," she said. "Residents have to die before a vacancy opens up. It could be several years. Priority is given to victims of domestic violence."

I realized then something I should have seen weeks ago: All the listings for rentals shown on the apartment rental sites are bogus. It's all a clickbait scam. Not one of those listings has a vacancy, and most of them have closed their waitlists. On the bright side, if there is such a thing, I'm number 29 on a waitlist for a place in Junction City. That's something. Not sure what. 

I went south on 101. At Reedsport, I headed inland to explore Roseburg. From there I drove through Grants Pass, Medford, and Ashland. I spent a cold rainy night at the Welcome to Oregon Travel Center, and from there drove a long lonely road through big trees to Klamath Falls. After eyeballing Klamath Falls and finding it lacking, I moseyed on up to Bend and spent the night parked on a peaceful side street next to the Sheriff's automotive facility. 

I'm done looking for "traditional" housing for now. I've spent a lot of time and gas driving in circles in places I don't care for, just to conform to the be sheltered at all costs mandate that pervades my local zeitgeist. I'm shooing away the black cloud of despair. If I'm meant to be housed, I will be housed. Meanwhile I will keep living my life as creatively as I know how, no matter how many people I piss off, no matter how many cars stack up behind me. I lead the way on the road less traveled. Come along, if you want. Or not. You free spirit, you. 

I choose the road less traveled

As I was sitting at a laundromat in Anytown, USA, yesterday, washing my skivvies with the neighborhood hoi polloi, I saw the photo of my mother that I taped in the front of my calendar. I remembering taking that photo. I was standing outside her retirement home window, which was in lockdown from COVID-19. In the photo, she's smiling and waving at me, as if she hadn't seen me in days (I visited daily), as if I were a long-lost friend, as if I were something special. I look at that photo often.

My mother had many friends, and she kept in touch with them until dementia claimed her free will. I don't know how she did it. Maybe that's because I am a diehard introvert, and she was a diehard extravert. Having friends probably made her marriage tolerable. Having friends probably gave her respite from child-rearing, a job I don't think she really wanted. 

Over the course of her life, she gathered a group of high school buddies, a cohort of nursing classmates, and a posse of librarians, and she took time to nurture those friendships, mostly in the form of sending cards and calling on the phone. Later, she learned how to butcher an email, but by then her brain cells were in tatters. 

She went to high school with a bunch of girls, who met every few years at Shari's for lunch. This must have been an elite bunch. I don't remember meeting more than one or two of these gals, ever. 

I was more familiar with her nursing classmates. She attended nursing school in the 1950s with a small tight-knit gaggle of tough women who went on to work, get married, have kids, and retire. They dragged their husbands to annual reunions, some of which were at our house, spread out on card tables in the backyard under the maple tree. The nursing classmates even had a round-robin letter to keep everyone updated on the news: whose husband had died, who broke a hip, whose kid got into rehab, who got Alzheimers, who was in a carehome, in lockdown, incommunicado. 

The librarians met for book discussions and pie, again, at Shari's, once in a while at Red Lobster. I had moved away by this time in my mother's friendship continuum, so I only knew the librarians by name. 

One by one, the friends died. Mom was not the last friend standing, but by the time she came to the end of her road, she couldn't correspond with anyone. She could barely remember who they were, even with photo-prompting. (She always knew me, a fact for which I am grateful.)

I look at my tiny circle of friends, dwindling year by year, and think, I am not rich in friends the way my mother was. She once told me to have friends, you have to be a friend. I try to be a good friend to the friends I have, but I don't have many. I'm realizing having only a few friends puts pressure on the few I have. With more friends, I could distribute my complaining more equitably, so no one person has to bear the burden. 

I think when I finally find a place to land and settle, I can apply myself to the task of growing my friend circle. If I can stand to reach outside my comfortable solitude, that is. 

Speaking of settling, I spent a week driving in circles in the Eugene metro area, verbally abused by the GPS lady, whose passive aggressive use of the bong sound is starting to get under my skin. I would probably hear that sound less often if I obediently followed her instructions without question, but sometimes that arrogant GPS lady is wrong. I admit, though, as I putter along the neighborhood streets, waiting for the cue "Turn here" and hoping I choose the correct driveway, I'm thankful for her guidance. I can't imagine what my life would be like trying to plot my route on a Thomas guide. The single best invention ever was the GPS lady. If the internet ever goes belly up, I'm going to park somewhere and get a bicycle. 

I don't like Eugene, just to let you know. I did my best to like it. I kind of liked its blue-collar neighbor, Springfield. Cottage Grove, Junction City, and Veneta are kind of charming. The problem is, there's no housing that I can afford. The few facilities earmarked low-income senior housing seem to have wait lists with more than fifty people ahead of me. There's no sense skulking around Eugene, hoping something will come open. It could take years. The fear foisted upon me by friends and family almost made me think I could tolerate the hell of sleeping at Home Depots until some facility called, just so maybe in a few years, I would not be homeless. 

Nope. No can do. Life moves on, and I'm going with it.

This is a very odd life. But it is what I have right now, so it's up to me to live it as creatively as I can, no matter what other people think of my choices.

The gift horse can sometimes tear your lips off

I'm coming to you from Track Town, USA, otherwise known as Eugene, Oregon. The weather finally cooled enough for me to leave the misty gray coastline and head inland to look for housing options in the Willamette Valley. I'm not sure this area is the right place for me, but it feels more right than Arizona or Texas. 

Every time I leave a safe haven, I feel a surge of trepidation. It's stressful not knowing where I am going to park at night. Oregon so far has been much less friendly toward nomads, compared to Arizona. The "no overnight parking" signs are hard to miss. It's clear some nomads ignore them, but I am not charmed at the prospect of getting "the knock," especially after I'm asleep. So, when I see those signs, I check the apps and look for other options in the vicinity. So far, I've been able to find places, although last night I tried three locations before I felt I was safe enough and legal enough to park without hassle.

My much-adored cousin arrived at the beach house on Monday. We spent time walking on the beach. She gave me the tour of the town. I saw some of the local sights. We talked a lot. Well, after a while, she talked a lot, and I listened. She had a lot to say. As I listened to her tell me the minutae of dividing and selling the acreage of her parent's house in Portland, I realized we had never spent that much time together, alone, just the two of us.  

My cousin did everything right in her life. She went to college, learned a useful skill, applied it for her entire career, and retired with a pension. Along the way, she married, had two kids, built wealth, and got divorced. Then she inherited some wealth. Newly retired, she now has two houses and the financial freedom to do as she pleases. Her health is excellent, she said. Perfect cholesterol, no heart problems, no osteoporosis, definitely no vertigo, and what's more, she's recently lost twenty pounds. She was triumphant that her skinny pants finally fit. If only her kids weren't a bit messed up, life would be perfect. (I'm so glad I'm a childless cat lady!)

On Wednesday, I volunteered to help her fetch a carload of firewood from a local friend's woodpile. She planned to use it in her woodstove. As she drove through the forest, she kept up chirpy patter about the houses and the people of the area. I can't match chirpiness. Little Mary Sunshine I am not. Even on a good day, I just don't have the energy. I started to feel a bit bludgeoned by her chirpiness even before we arrived at a huge house recently built on the edge of forestland. New sprinklers watered new grass. Beyond the grass was a narrow forest of tall timber. Beyond that was a view of the Pacific Ocean. 

The homeowners were outside puttering in their yard when we pulled in. My cousin turned her ebullience on them. After introductions, they ignored me. I stood nearby and looked at the trees. 

Eventually we got busy loading wood into her car. Her exuberance transferred to throwing wood enthusiastically into a wheelbarrow and then ramming the wheelbarrow up a short incline to the car. Her movements were punctuated by frequent utterances to show she was on top of it: "there!" she said a few times. "There!" I started thinking maybe I wasn't moving fast enough and stepped up my game. Then I thought, this is stupid. I'm overweight, out of shape, and plagued by an irregular heartbeat. No way was I going to keel over and have them trip the air raid siren to call out the local volunteer EMT. So embarrassing. 

I slowed to a steady pace. As we filled the car to the ceiling with wood, I made a remark about making sure the wood was secure in back so if she slammed on the brakes, we wouldn't get plastered against the dashboard.

"You always look on the dark side, don't you?" she said as she crammed more wood into the car. 

I should have made a joke at that point. If I weren't so irked, I would have come up with something goofy to show I was impervious to her mild criticism. I know she stabbed me in a loving way, as only family can do.

I can't say she's wrong. I do have some skill at playing devil's advocate. It's a special knack of mine. However, having been a school bus driver, I know what happens to precious cargo when you slam on the brakes. That is what I said.

"Oh, I didn't know you drove a school bus," she said. 

Today as I drove through the back country southwest of Eugene (yes, I took a wrong turn, but yes, it sure is pretty country), I thought about how every inch of this land is claimed and conquered by people who were smart enough to be born into wealth or who had worked a good job, saved their money, and bought land. Or who had married someone who owned land. Lots of ways to get a piece of the American dream, it seems. Unless you are trudging the road less traveled. 

"I recognize I come from a place of privilege," my cousin admitted after she described her opinion of the nation's housing shortage. She didn't blame me for my situation, but she didn't have much empathy to offer, either, which is all I wanted. Most of my friends and family wish I'd just settle for some kind of shelter and get on with life, so they don't have to worry about me anymore.

To that I would say (if I were asked), your fear is not making my situation any better. I'm beginning to realize, for most people, fear of homelessness is the ultimate existential fear. Possibly worse than climate change. 

I need to stop whining. My loved ones can't fix the housing shortage, so instead, they try to fix me. That's what loved ones do. It's the American way. 

There's a saying: You can't go to the hardware store for bread. There's another saying: Expectations are premeditated resentments. I brought my own, so I deserve what I get. 

Time out: The search for home hits the pause button

I left Sacramento and drove for hours toward the beach, committed to escaping the heat and smoke of the central valley. I made it to Eureka and found a mall anchored by a Walmart, hoping to park for the night in that traditional haven for weary travelers. No such luck. A polite security guard told me there was no overnight parking. Lucky for me, I had a little daylight left. I packed up, consulted the app that shows possible wild camping locations nearby, and migrated three miles to a nondescript side street that I never would have found on my own. Bless the campers who came before me and took the time to blaze the trail for other nomads. 

 After I left the Eureka side street, I stopped to do a couple video calls in Crescent City, and then crossed the border into Oregon, the state of my birth. In Brookings, I parked at a Fred Meyer, the familiar brand of my childhood. This store was like none I'd ever seen. It was like the Disneyland of grocery stores: two levels, a massive produce section, and a billion shoppers milling around and bashing each others' carts. 

In Brookings, I had my car examined for possible front end problems. I sat in the lobby, choking on the smell of rubber tires, and watched the young dude drive off with my car, trying to be Zen about it, thinking, I really need to be less attached to my stuff. 

"I don't hear anything," he said. I wanted to say, what are you, deaf? But I didn't. He assured me everything was tight, no worries, and I decided to trust him, not being a car mechanic myself (but having good enough hearing to notice unfamiliar front end noises). He didn't say anything about the check engine light, which I took to mean they only do tires, brakes, and front ends. Check engine lights are not their problem. 

I drove on up Hwy 101, through beach town after beach town, getting increasingly tired and wondering if I would ever find a place to park for the night. Finally, after traversing the length of Newport, I found another Fred Meyer. Feeling sick from driving, I entered the big parking lot anbd found it ringed with vans and cars that were obviously there to park for the night. With great relief, I backed into a cozy parking space among my fellow nomads. I nibbled something, cleaned up with baby wipes and alcohol, and went to bed. It rained during the night, soaking the top edges of my window covers, but I didn't care. Clouds! Rain! Cool temperatures!

After stopping to do my laundry in Lincoln City, I consulted my peers on the camping app, which suggested a road along the beach in Manzanita. Based on their recommendations, I parked on the verge with several other cars and sprinter vans and marveled that I had a cell phone signal and a perfect view of the ocean. Nobody bothered me, even though the next day I discovered it might not have been legal to park there after all. This is the dilemma of nomads who seek cooler temps along the coastline. Coastal states are not welcoming to nomads, probably because these states have such a huge population of unhoused. All the rich folks don't want a bunch of decrepit motorhomes and dented SUVs cluttering up their view of the Pacific. Who can blame them? They want what they are paying for. 

I'm blogging at you from my cousin's beach house in Long Beach, WA, on the peninsula, a few blocks from the ocean. The house is old and huge, decorated in vintage furniture, pictures, and knicknacks. She's left instructions for guests: check the toilets to make sure they aren't running, pack out your recycling and compostables, and spray Pine Sol around the garbage can to deter the bears. Last night at 11:30 pm the tsunami siren went off and wailed for a good two minutes. I sat there Googling "earthquake" and "tsunami near me" but found nothing, so I went back to bed. I slept for twelve hours. 

It's barely 3:00 pm, and I'm just now starting to feel myself firming up into a functional human. I didn't realize how tense and taut I was until I had a safe place to perch and rest. Once I felt safe, I turned into a quivery pile of jelly. I am trying to keep my eyes on the goal: to find affordable housing. As soon as it cools off a bit in the Willamette Valley, I'll leave the coast and get back on the road to continue my search for home.

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. 

Please get off my eighth cranial nerve

I cleared out of Bugville on Monday. On Tuesday morning, I arrived at the neurologist's clinic two hours early for my long-anticipated 8:00 a.m. followup appointment. I made coffee on my camping stove in the parking lot. No way was I going to be late. Or uncaffeinated. 

The Tucson skies were blessedly cloudy. Clouds meant higher than normal humidity; clouds also meant relief from the sun, which turns my car into a stifling hothouse. 

Just as I finished forking over my copay, the doctor's assistant called my name. She led me through a maze of hallways to the doctor's office. I sat in one of the visitor chairs. The doctor was already seated behind her big mahogany desk. She pointed to a young woman in scrubs sitting at a laptop by the window.

"This is Sheena. She'll be our scribe today."

"Hi, Sheena," I said. Old 12-Step habit, hard to break.

I sat in the chair, feeling numb and disconnected. I pulled out the 3-part script I'd prepared at the suggestion of my doctor friend. The remedies you prescribed were ineffective. I would like to try an antiseizure medicine now. Which one would you recommend? That's it. Two statements and a question. 

It didn't go as smoothly as I'd hoped. The doctor scanned the report from the physical therapist. I could tell by her snippy tone that she wasn't happy with what she was reading. 

"I didn't ask her to diagnose you," she snarled. "I asked her to treat you for BPPV."

"As I understand it, she found nothing to treat," I replied. "She gave me some good balance exercises, though. And she did the hyperventilation test again. You can see her results didn't match yours."

"You don't have vestibular paroxysmia, you have BPPV and vestibular migraine."

"The NIH literature seems to show that the hyperventilation test is not 100% confirmation of the presence or nonpresence of vestibular paroxysmia," I said. "The sample sizes were small, but not all the patients who definitely had vestibular paroxysmia showed evidence of nystagmous."

She looked at me like I had two heads. At least, I think she did. I for some reason was having a hard time making eye contact with anything but the floor. I was kind of on my last nerve.

"Would you be willing to do the hyperventilation test again?" 

I followed her to the exam room. She put the goggles on my head and led me through an abbreviated version of her battery of tests, which consisted of her grabbing my head firmly in both hands and shaking it repeatedly from side to side and up and down. I knew she was watching on her monitor to see how my eyes responded. I'm guessing they didn't. Because I don't have BPPV. Duh. 

"Okay, breathe fast for 40 seconds." She panted to demonstrate proper panting technique. "I'll stand in front of you so you don't fall."

I held onto the exam bench, blinded by the goggles, and panted fast for 40 long seconds. I ignored her warm backside pressing against my knees. 

"Okay, stop." 

She took the goggles off my head. For a few minutes, she didn't say anything. Then she muttered something about a mild left downbeat, and I knew then that she had seen what the physical therapist had seen: possible evidence of vestibular paroxysmia. Yay, I thought. Finally. At last.

"I'll write you a prescription for lamotrigine," she said. "It addresses both vestibular migraine and vestibular paroxysmia. 

"Great. Can you have it sent to a different pharmacy? I'm going to be dogsitting in Scottsdale for a month, starting the day after tomorrow."

Her eyes lit up. For a second she looked human. "You are a dogsitter? It's so hard to find a good dogsitter. I have two big dogs. It's so hard to get away."

"I just dogsit for my friends," I said. I didn't say it: you aren't my friend. 

"We need to look at your most recent bloodwork."

We went back to her office. Her assistant pulled up my labs. 

"January? Where's the WBC number? It's not showing. Can you get this for me? After you get me that number, I'll send the prescription to your pharmacy. Call me when you get it."

I went out to my car, turned on my computer, and found an electronic copy of the January lab report. The WBC value wasn't showing because on the original it was red, indicating an abnormal number. Bummer. Still, it was only one number shy of being in normal range. I still had hope at this point that I would finally get some relief from the freight train going round and round in my head. I called the clinic and left a message with the phone answerer to tell the doctor the WBC number. Then I made my breakfast and ate it. It was 10:30. 

My phone rang. The neurologist said, "You had an irregular heartbeat the first time I saw you. Did you ever contact your cardiologist?"

"No," I said.

"This drug can negatively affect your heart. We need to talk to your cardiologist first. And you need to get more recent labs."

"Okay. Do they need to be fasting labs?"

"Yes."

I searched for Scottsdale appointments at the preferred chain of labs. The earliest I could get was a week away. While I was pondering what to do next, my phone rang. It was the neurologist's medical assistant, asking for some more information. In the course of our conversation, I found out I could get my labs done at the lab on the premises. She also told me that the prescription for lamotrigine had been sent to my pharmacy. Hallelujah!

First thing the next morning, I was sitting in a chair outside the lab at the neurology clinic, head in hands, starving and uncaffeinated, waiting for the phlebotomist to arrive. She was a few minutes late. When you want coffee, even a minute can seem like an eternity. I left bandaged and bruised but feeling so hopeful I went to Denny's for breakfast. It was either Denny's or IHOP. I chose the closest one.

Somewhere during that day I called the cardiologist's office and left a message. Sometime later someone (not my cardiologist) called me back to ask me what the heck was going on. Apparently they had received multiple messages from my neurologist. 

"Sorry for the confusion," I said. "Basically I want to know, will this drug kill me?"

"I'll leave a message for your doctor."

Later I visited the pharmacy. The pharmacist looked up the new prescription. "I have to call your doctor. This makes no sense," she said. "The instructions aren't clear. And I can't put all that on a bottle." After that, I went to the mall and sat in the air conditioning, surrounded by the din of screaming kids riding tiny motorized cars around the food court. When the sun went down, I chose a parking lot to swelter in for the night, and the next morning I left for the air-conditioned haven in Scottsdale. 

Yesterday I was interrupted three times during a Zoom call by a persistent caller whose number didn't appear in caller ID. Finally, I put my Zoom call on hold and answered it. 

"I never heard back from your cardiologist," the neurologist said. "I can't prescribe anything. Your WBC, hemaglobin, and hematocrit numbers are too low."

So here I am, back where I started. Again. I'm trying to feel grateful that the neurologist cared enough not to prescribe a drug that might kill me. I wonder if she realizes how tempting it is to . . .  nevermind. Not going down that road yet. 

Here I am, back in the present moment, bludgeoned by textbook vestibular paroxysmia symptoms in my head and 110°F heat outside the house. The washing machine in my head revs up for its 15-second cycle once per minute, day and night. For about 45 seconds I'm merely dizzy rather than falling over. I lean to the right if I'm not watching where I put my feet (yikes!). Monsoon is coming. I can feel it in my bones and in my head. I will sit it out in Scottsdale, try to stay hydrated, and let you know how it goes. 

Sleeping with the light on

Update on my housing requirements: I was wrong: Cockroaches are a deal breaker. In last week's post, I waffled a bit. Apparently I wasn't sure. Today, I no longer have any doubts. I can abide cockroaches temporarily (while I actively try to kill them), but I will not knowingly choose lodging that is infested. How did I suddenly become so certain? It's not hard to figure out. I've spent the last week fighting cockroaches.

I'm sorry to say, my friend's happy little house in the suburb has a problem. I discovered it the same way I discovered the problem at the Bat Cave, my former abode in an apartment complex in Tucson. The first morning I found a dying cockroach on its back in the den and a lethargic cockroach that had found its way into my shopping bag and marooned itself in my big green coffee cup. Neither one of these bugs was in good shape. My first thought, as I altruistically rescued them and dumped them in the backyard, was that the extermination fumes were working, and that I was seeing only the dregs of something, which I hoped was that these near-dead vermin were in the throes of succumbing to the work of a competent and thorough pest exterminator. 

My first thought, as is often the case, was wildly incorrect. 

During the second night of my stay, I got up to use the bathroom and interrupted a cockroach family hoedown. The scattering of roach babies on the floor in front of the toilet was my first clue, but it took my bleary eyes a moment to process what I was seeing. Then I saw four large adults—when I say large, I mean about one inch long, not counting antennae—hustling to escape under or behind something. 

I hurried to the laundry room and grabbed the first useful weapon I could find: a spray bottle of Clorox. By now the adults had disappeared, but I mowed down the babies. They are easy prey. First they freeze, trying to look like any other inocuous piece of detritus on the floor, and then when they know the jig is up, they run for it. But they are slow and stupid, no match for me with a bottle of Clorox. I cleaned up the mess with baby wipes and hunted around for anything else that was stupid enough to move, but saw nothing.

My heart rate was nicely elevated at this point. I turned on the kitchen light and tiptoed into the kitchen, Clorox poised. I saw nothing skittering at my approach. I moved my food bag off the floor to the stove. As I turned back, my heart fluttered. An enormous cockroach lounged on the kitchen counter, paying no attention to me. When I say enormous, I mean its body was fully two inches long, not counting the antennae that it finally swiveled in my direction. 

"No, no, no, not happening," I said and shot it with Clorox. 

That got its attention. I am not proud to say, I continued to shoot that poor creature with bleach (gets out stains!) as it attempted to make itself scarce under various appliances on the counter. It was like trying to hide a dumptruck behind a bar of soap. Ater a year in the Bat Cave, my eyes are trained to spot minute movement in, under, and behind things. All it takes is one waving antenna to get my radar twitching. This guy was too big to hide. I soaked it in Clorox until it finally ran blindly off the counter and fell, flailing, onto the floor. I sprayed it until it was on its back, legs futilely scurrying in the air, and when it finally seemed dead, I entombed it under a small tupperware container. I peered at it through the hazy plastic and eventually deemed the fight over, battle won, chalk one up to me. Then I turned off my video camera. Yes, I got the whole sordid episode on video. At that point, I was thinking, I need evidence to show my friend, in case she didn't know already, that all was not right in the happy house.

Since then, the battle has raged, mostly in the bathroom. I pinpointed the infestation to the wall behind the vanity. On Monday, I got two kinds of nontoxic bug spray and proceeded to nuke the baseboards all around the bathroom. Nontoxic apparently doesn't mean without stench: essential oils will scrape your eyeballs out of your head if you don't have some ventilation, I discovered. Still, inhaling pungent lemongrass was worth it if I could get the bugs to stop bugging me.

The next day I acquired a can of Raid and went to town all along the bathroom baseboards. I did the kitchen for good measure, even though I hadn't seen any more action there since the godawful fight with the monster. As the body count mounted, I realized I could not leave the carcasses lying there as evidence. Evidence of what? If my friend wasn't aware the house was infested, then leaving a bunch of dead bugs for her to find would be mean and purposeless. I found a whisk broom and dustpan and did what had to be done.

It's been a week now since I first discovered I am not alone in this house. The stench of lemongrass lingers. I sleep with the bedroom light on. When I venture out to use the bathroom at night, I arm myself with the Zevo bottle. I turn on the hall light and scan the floor. If I see an enemy, I chase it down and spray it until it dies. I leave the body as a warning to others. Then I turn on the kitchen light, just to be sure there are no meandering intruders. Finally, I turn on the bathroom light. Every night so far, I have seen one or two adults recreating on the floor by the vanity. With the bottle of Zevo, I am merciless. 

This morning I gingerly entered the bathroom and found a dead cockroach on the floor, one I did not kill. Unless I have been befriended by an anonymous vigilante superhero, I can now have hope that the Raid is doing its magic behind the vanity. I will not let my guard down, though, because I know what I've seen is probably just the tip of the cockroach iceberg. A few nocturnal wanderers means there are lots of babies and grandpas lounging around in the nest. The babies will grow up to be jihadists.

If God is a cockroach, I'm going to hell for sure. I don't get pleasure out of killing God's creatures. If I have to live with pests, I'd prefer spiders, small ones, please, and preferably not venomous. I don't like spiders either, but they do good, and they don't have an attitude. You know what I mean? If you have been around cockroaches, you understand. Cockroaches are arrogant. They know they own the world and will inherit the earth when humans self-annihilate, which will probably happen in my lifetime. Cockroaches can afford to be cocky. 

I might think I have won the battle to save the happy house (delusion), but I know I will lose the war. Yes, before I leave I will check my bags carefully for stowaways. I prefer to travel alone.

The chronic malcontent lacks the energy to dramatize

I left Flagstaff on Thursday. Now I'm plant-sitting for a week for a friend who lives in a small house in a housing development in the City of Marana, about 30 minutes north of Tucson. Outside of this housing development is raw, rough, scrubby desert, where riffraff like me would belong. I know this because I got lost finding my way here. 

The contrast between have and havenots is stark when I contrast the two neighborhoods. Inside the housing development, residents walk their dogs along manicured sidewalks past tidy gravel lawns. The houses are crammed wall to wall with the barest minimum between them, so I can hear the neighbor's AC unit roaring outside my bedroom window, and they no doubt can hear ours. In contrast, outside this enclave the roads are gravel, the dirt lawns are decorated with dented cars and RVs, and the houses are mostly mobile homes that look like they fetched up on the land in the great flood and have been sheltering generations ever since.

However, no matter where you live in the desert, the odds of living with pests and critters are 100%. Case in point, I'm sharing the kitchen with some American cockroaches. Judging by their condition, the extermination chemicals are still working, but it might be time for another application. I don't care. I had hoped never to have to share living space with cockroaches again, but I'm a transient. I'll be on my way in a week. Meanwhile, I'm keeping my food bag up off the floor. 

After driving over hill and dale last week, I was relieved to finally find free camping in the national forest just north of Flagstaff. It was a dusty campsite, but I relished the shade among the Ponderosas, happy as an impostor camper can be to have cell signal, which means I had internet and could watch my late night talk shows. Yes, I'm an impostor camper. After four days of isolation, I find I get hungry for civilization. Don't get me wrong, I don't want to socialize. But I find it reasuring somehow to rub shoulders with the hoi poloi in some small-town Walmart Supercenter. It feels like affirmation that I'm still part of the human species. Not that I'm proud of that fact (any species that invented big box stores should be exterminated), but now I get it: You can take the girl out of the city, but the city is still in the girl, no matter where she roams. 

Speaking of roaming, I'm pretending to enjoy my freedom, just like I pretend to be a camper. Just like I pretended to enjoy golfing when I had a boyfriend who golfed. Like I pretended to like jazz when I had a boyfriend who played jazz. The truth is, I'm just an unhoused person who is seeking accommodation on my own terms. My terms are not unreasonable: I want a city that is not too hot, not too cold, not too big, not too small, and I want a space with no roommates. It has to be affordable. And preferably have no cockroaches. I'm not sure cockroaches are a dealbreaker, to be honest. In addition, as long as I'm making my wish list, I'd like a place that isn't prone to tornadoes or tsunamis. Or wildfires or earthquakes. Hm. That pretty much excludes every place except Corvallis, Oregon.  

I don't want to live in my car, but I'm glad I have this car so I can live in it while I drive around and try to find a home. Considering the lack of affordable housing in this country right now, I could be driving for a while. I'm predicting I will find something before I turn seventy. 

I was supposed to arrive at my friend's house on Friday evening. We were going to have dinner. I drove four hours, descending from the cool northern climes into the hell of Tucson heat. 

She sent a text: Too busy with work, can we meet Saturday morning instead? 

I texted back:  Sure, no problem (heart emoji). 

We agreed I would come over at 7:00 a.m. That left me to find shelter from the heat for rest of the day and night. I activated my survival plan: I took my laptop to the mall to sit in the frigid AC until the sun went down. (The sun, once my beloved friend, is now my arch enemy.) After sunset, I went to the gym for a little while, pretended to work out, and then drove to the Home Depot up the street. I chose a parking spot away from the store, near some bushes, where I've parked before, and proceeded to put up my window covers. Immediately my car interior became stifling. I busted out my little fan. It's an amazing gizmo: You put water in the top and it pretends to blow cool air on you. Don't underestimate the power of the placebo, people. 

Early the next morning, I was trying to follow the GPS Lady's instructions to get to my friend's house. She got me there, even though I didn't believe her, and thus caused myself to get lost. I'm used to it. Getting lost is how I roll. Anyway, I finally parked outside my friend's house. 

As I was about to text her, she texted me: Can you come at 10:00 instead? (head exploding emoji)

I texted back:  Of course, no problem (heart emoji). 

She texted: Maybe you can get some more sleep (heart, sleep emoji)

The strangeness of my living situation swept over me. I tried to picture it. Go back to the Home Depot parking lot and try to sleep with cars, trucks, and pallet moving equipment coming and going around me? Pee in a jar, hunkered below window level, in broad daylight? Not impossible, but not wise for a stealth camping impostor. 

What do you think I did? Yep. I went to Walmart. After that soothing injection of humanity, I got gas, dumped trash, and refilled my water jugs. I ate breakfast in my car, parked in some parking lot, can't recall now. Walmart adjacent, I think. 

I try not to think too much. It's easy to overdramatize my situation. Lots of people have it much worse than me. I'm lucky to have good friends. And internet. Don't ask me to choose between friends and internet. I know I'm an internet addict, which means I might be an impostor friend. 

Death by mountain

I survived. Obviously, because I'm writing this blogpost. I survived. Seems like I've typed that phrase before. I survived. This is what my life has come to, measuring my success by how close to death I have come. I'm starting to find living on the edge of destruction kind of tedious. Okay, tedious might not express the full range of emotion. Truth: I'm terrified.

This week, I climbed toward higher climes, as I mentioned in the most recent post, which right now means the Flagstaff area. I knew exactly where I was going, the same forest road I visited last fall to escape the Phoenix heat. I found the place easily. I had to go a long ways into the forest before I found an open campsite. I spent one night. I would have stayed longer but I didn't have any bars on my internet phone. No bars meant no unlimited data internet. 

So after one peaceful night, I packed up, consulted the forest service map, and retraced my route south a bit, aiming for a place called Kelly Canyon. I hoped that because it was close to the highway, I might have more luck getting online. The GPS goddess led me there with no mishaps. I steered my car through the trees along a nicely graded gravel road. The few campsites I could see were already occupied. I passed a square pond in a depression in the land and headed up the hill, hoping for more options. Around a sharp bend the road suddenly veered steeply downward toward a gravel pit. A pickup truck was parked in the middle of the pit, a long ways below. I looked at the steep road down and remembered a time in my adolescence when I rode my bicycle down a similarly steep rocky road, holding on for dear life. Letting go of the handlebars would have meant total annhilation. I didn't let go. I survived. 

This time, I wasn't riding a bike. However, a Dodge Grand Caravan is not an off-road four-wheel drive monster. I wasn't about to chance it. Across the pit, a little higher elevation from where I was idling on the cliff edge was the road I had not taken. A smooth, steep wall of gravel led from that road to the bottom of the pit. It looked like gravel was being dumped there to . . . extend the road? Fill in the pit? I didn't know, and I wasn't about to go down there and find out. I carefully backed my car into a 3-point turn and hightailed it back down to less scary ground. 

I parked in a spot I had disdained on the way in, a very small, not quite level clearing much too close to the gravel road. Beggars, choosers. I checked my phones. Still no internet bars. Argh. Oh well. 

Just after I parked, a pickup truck pulling a trailer came by. We waved. He pulled into a clearing near the pond but didn't set up camp. A few minutes later, he came by the other way. As he passed my camp, he paused and smiled, before continuing onward. I thought, that was weird, that smile. A moment later, a large brown cow came around the front of my car. I gasped and closed my side door a bit as the creature lumbered by, heading toward the pond. That's what the driver had been smiling at. He could see I was about to be invaded by cows. 

Another cow rambled past on the back end of my car, avoiding my deployed solar panel. I reopened my door and looked out. A herd of cows was assembling at the pond. The correct term would probably be tank, because it was clearly a rancher-made watering hole. 

I was settling in for a nice lunch when I heard the noise of a growling engine coming along the road. I thought, great, what maniac motorhome owner was coming my way. It was not a motorhome. It was a large dumptruck loaded with gravel. Just my luck.

The driver waved. I waved back. I thought, okay, one truck, a bit of noise and dust, no problem. Within minutes, four other dumptrucks came by. I assume they unloaded at the gravel pit, because minutes later, they all came by again, going back toward the highway. This happened multiple times over the early afternoon, a parade, a grumble, a rumble of dumptrucks, going by fully loaded, returning empty. Eventually they called it a day, and I spent an okay night there, but I knew I had to move on the next day. I needed bars. There's a joke in there somewhere, but I don't drink any more. 

The next day was a day from hell. GPS, iOverland reviewers, the forest road map, and Google Maps all let me down. At one point my sister texted me directions to a place (4 stars! Easy to get to!). Not. No open spaces. I never made it to the supposedly 4-star camping area. I stopped at the sign that said no camping beyond this point, no turn around. I turned around while I still could. 

A little later, I got stuck in construction traffic, trying to find a place to camp along Marshall Lake. No open spots, no bars. Next, I went south on 260 though Strawberry and Pine, after hearing positive things about the Mogollon Rim Road (FR 300). Not three minutes in, the road hairpinned straight to the moon. I almost got run down by loaded log trucks. I headed back south on 260. At a promising turnoff, I almost got stuck in a ditch when I backed up, trying to avoid going down a steep rocky road that would have probably broken one or both of my axles. 

It was close to 100F outside. Every time I turned off the AC, I felt a few more brain cells evaporate into dust. Desperate, I parked under a shade canopy at a community college in Payson to text my Scottsdale friends who have a cabin outside of Payson, begging to park in their driveway. They had invited me to visit in a few days, so it seemed to make sense to ask if I could go there early. Lucky for me, my friend gave me directions to the place. 

Even though I had hit my quota of driving on gravel mountain roads for one day, I dutifully obeyed the GPS lady as she led me up a long mountainous gravel road. I found their chalet without driving into a ditch or off a cliff, parked out front, and opened my car door into shocking silence. The absence of sound was stunning for a moment. Then I heard birds, neighbors doing stuff, a car engine across the road, a door slam, and birds . . . lots and lots of birds. 

The homeowner told me where to find the spare key and walked me through the steps to turn on the water and power. I shucked my shoes and cautiously entered the mountain eyrie, which is where I am blogging to you from, in a lightfilled room, sitting at a kitchen table with room for six, and listening to the soothing rumble of a working refrigerator. (Did I mention I have a portable fridge in my car on this trip? Sadly, I can't find the power cord.)

What have I learned? Flat gravel and dirt roads are doable in a minivan if they aren't too washed out. Mountainous gravel and dirt roads shared with dumptrucks and log trucks are not doable, especially when you have no way of knowing if there will be a place you can turn around when you inevitably encouter a section that seems impassable. It's like sending a blind person out into traffic. Ascending or descending narrow mountain gravel roads is not a good idea; doing it with no cell signal is a an admission of defeat, a nose-thumb at the universe, a behavior just this side of intentional self-destruction. Only a fool would take a minivan on a road dominated by log trucks. Only someone who doesn't care if they live or die would do it without cell service. 

So, now here I am, perched in this mountain chateau. My friends arrived last night, laden with food, accompanied by the little dog Maddie. Right now, they are out hiking while I sit in the comfort of their kitchen, writing this post and trying to process my feelings of surreality and dissociation. So much learning going on. I'm overwhelmed with the immensity of survival. And I live in America! It could be so much worse. If you have to be old and homeless, this is the place to be. Time to take a big bite of that steaming stinky humble pie. 

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.

There will be no rolling

Morning sniff walks with the small dog called Maddie are both tedious and fraught. I can only describe Maddie's approach to walking as conflicted. She likes to be in charge. Unfortunately, she's a very small dog. She doesn't see it that way. I can be sure Maddie will do something crazy at least once during our walk. 

We have a routine before we get out the door. First, I say, "Do you want to go for a walk?" I can't be sure but I think Maddie hears that question as bla bla bla walk? She sits on her narrow bony haunches and looks at me with huge brown liquid untrusting eyes. As soon as I pick up the little red harness and leash, she skulks away into the family room, just far enough so she can still see me in case she needs to bolt under the dining room table if I come too close. I dig a little heart-shaped smoky chicken-flavored treat out of the ziplock bag and hold it up. She looks at it, then looks away, then looks sideways at it. She smells it. She wants it. In her mind she's saying, give me that thing, I will rip your lips off, mine, must have it, but wait, no, no, not the evil red constraint on my freedom, no, no, but wait, cookie, mine, in my belly, now!

"Treat!" I say. She knows the word. She gazes back and forth at the little morsel and then at the harness and leash. 

I step back and point to her crate. "Box!" 

She rolls her eyes and slinks into the crate. I kneel down and hold the harness in front of her chest. Up goes her right paw. I quickly position the harness so her foot will come down in the right place. She stiffly raises the other paw, like someone is pulling her marionette strings. I maneuver the harness. Then I lean in and snap the connection at the back of her neck. With one hand I give her the treat. "Good girl!" I say. With my other hand, I grab the leash and connect it to the rings at the back of the harness. She is now my prisoner. 

With that, our fight is over. She plods along with me while I put on my sunglasses and sunhat and grab the front door key. She follows me to the stairs and waits patiently, licking her chops, as I sit on the lowest step and switch my sandals for sneakers. Out the door we go. As soon as the front door closes, she is energized. She strains toward the wide world of enticing smells as I strain to lock the door behind us. 

Mornings in Scottsdale are wondrous. The air is cool and fresh. The sun, my enemy, is still just waking up, a weak imitation of the fierce moisture sucking monster it will soon become. 

Maddie chooses the path and pace. I follow her lead. I know all the routes now. Thanks to Maddie's shrewd discerning nose, I also know all the canine message boards of the neighborhood. Signposts, big metal boxes that proclaim high voltage, don't fence me in, and, of course, the occasional fire hydrant. Certain bushes, rock piles, and clumps of grass are interesting for some reason. At that hour of the morning, sprinkler systems have just watered the many front lawns. The sparkling green is like eye candy to me, a reminder of home. I mean, my former home.

When we get to the green space, the sniff walk takes on new tension. Other dogs are walking their owners along the winding concrete path, and some are not on leash. When I see another dog approaching, I've learned to stop and watch Maddie closely. If she is starting to rev up for a lunge, I rush her up the grassy slopes to let the other dog pass by. Maddie won't take on a really big dog, but dogs her size or smaller are fair game. Sometimes her tail wags, but usually she is on full-body quiver, ready for anything. Her modus operandi is lunge first before they know what hit them. 

At least once per walk, I am yanking the leash so her front feet on off the ground saying "No, no, no, no, be cool, be cool, no barking, chill out," which I am guessing she hears as no no no bla bla bla.

"Oh, is she a rescue?" someone asked today as they called back their tiny spindly legged critter, who I am sure only wanted to say hello. 

I excuse my high strung charge's behavior by saying, "I'm the dogsitter," which is really my way of saying please don't judge me, it's not my fault I haven't done a better job of training and controlling this neurotic chihuahua-poodle nutcase. The dog owner's expression combined confusion, criticism, and pity. Like, that's such a cute dog, what is wrong with you? 

When we are off the main dogpath/bike path and onto the path that goes along the backs of houses, where an alley would go, we both relax and get busy with the business of sniffing. Walk, walk, walk, stop and sniff. Walk, walk, whoa, stop and sniff, something amazing here! Pile of poop! Dead bird! Oh, the odiferous joys!

A dozen times per walk, Maddie gets a look of ecstasy on her face. She stops. Her shoulder goes down. "No, no!" I yell, hauling quickly up on the leash before she does a full-body roll in the grass. "No rolling, there will be no rolling!" I pull her back to her feet. She grins at me and resumes trotting along the verge of the concrete, nose to the ground, tail up sometimes, sometimes tail down, always quivering at the panoply of smells. I assume. After I pick up her leavings, I close my nostrils to all input. 

I think she likes to test my limits. She's already won the fight over the couch (I'm on a foam pad on the floor), and so she probably thinks I'm a pushover for rolling. Wet green muddy grass rich with the fecund smells of dog poop, pee, who knows what else, what could be more fun than to do a full-body roll in that heavenly stink. I've never tried it so I can only guess.