The Kitty is a Tramp

dandelion in my back yard (photo by Rusty Storbeck on April 11 2010)
isn't this photo by Rusty heaven
I love it
my backyard is filled with dandelions too now, April is dandelion season on the desert
Today is April 14th
Rusty took his dandelion photos 3 days ago
and guess what! Priscilla, the cat from outside who Bill adopted
had her kittens the same day Rusty took the dandelion photos
maybe at the same time
How sweet of Rusty to bring flowers to the new mom and her 4 new kittens
I just discovered the new kittens now! they are right here in my computer room
in a back corner in midst of all my clutter
I kept hearing little mews while I was on my 'puter this morning, and wondered where the kittens were?
I had no idea they are here in my room, a few feet behind me
I got up for second cup o' coffee
and Priscilla must have left for a drink of water
And I saw them!!!
there are 4 of them 3 days old, two tiny orange ones, two tiny black ones, all cuddled together because Mama left
but stretching out with contentment, their little bellies filled, they had just been nursing
they are adorable, I fell madly in love with them
below is the tiny story I wrote year and a half ago when Priscilla had just arrived
(she arrived out of nowhere, a stray who walked in our backdoor, and made herself at home here)
I see in story I am calling her "the cat" so it is before Bill named her Priscilla

October 2, 2008 6:55 am
A cat adopted Bill

It’s a very pretty early morning on the desert in Tucson. We are blessed with the weather. Last year at this time it was still hellishly hot, instead now it is divine. In fact it is even a little frosty delicious right now in the very early morning, delicious like a fountain drink.

Bill argued with the cat a lot last night. He really does not come in to cook his dinner till quite late, and he decided to cook exquisitely, so he was in there long time. And apparently the cat was in there the whole time. I must have been in back room watching tv with doggie, but I muted all the commercials and during that silence I heard all of Bill’s arguing with the cat.

At first I wondered “who is he talking to in there?” and then I realized the cat has joined him in the kitchen.

As usual the cat won all the arguments, since practically the last thing Bill said to me before we both went to sleep is, “she got 4 cans of food from me, and tomorrow we have to bring in the cat food we bought which is still in the truck, I am down to one can.”

I find it so funny he thinks he can win these arguments. I hear him so earnest so serious laying down the law, saying exactly what he will do and will not do, and what she must do.

“Leave me alone!” I hear him say.

“Enough is enough!” I hear him say.

“I am not going to feed you again” I hear him say.

“I am cooking my dinner, leave me alone!” I hear him say.

“Stop winding yourself around my legs!” I hear him say.

“You are a nuisance” I hear him say.

This went on for quite a long time until she got him to feed her 4 cans of cat food. Then I guess she left to carry on her own life.

In afternoon he read his book on Roman history (he finds it fascinating about fall of Roman empire.) He read it all late afternoon (after we got back from swimming) in his art studio, while I was watching detective tv shows with doggie in back bedroom.

I got up once to fix myself a soda on ice and to my surprise, on the windowsill behind Bill, was the cat. She was there the whole time.

“Did you know the cat is behind you?” I asked.

“No” he said. “She is waiting for me to go to the kitchen, she wants her food.”

Or she might just want to hang out with Bill all afternoon.

She is a stray alley cat kitten, so she must be so strategic when she comes to house to hang out with Bill or get him to feed her.

Because of course THE DOG! It is like "Jack and the Beanstalk" when Jack has to hide under the giant’s wife’s skirts. Kitty has to come into house which has an OGRE in it.

Altho she doesn’t hide when she is discovered she hightails it out of it like lightning. In the evening Beanie patrols the back patio, so she can’t come in. Which makes no difference to her whatsoever. She simply comes in the art studio window.

She has brought so much mystery adventure excitement to our home. Really her coming is a great advent. We did not see hide nor hair of her all weekend, but there was a major cat party going on in some yard very closeby. Bill heard the screaming and caterwauling all Friday night, all Saturday night and all Sunday night. She is definitely a party girl.

And when she finally returned for food, Bill had to feed her 10 times, her party weekend gave her huge appetite.“She is starving” Bill said. That night she slept on Bill’s bed with him, and in the morning she was still so sleepy, she forgot to get up.

It wasn’t till doggie went in there to go under the bed for his morning nap and discovered her, that she had to fly out of the house. Bill said “what an awful rude awakening for her!”

All I know is it is thrilling to discover those beautiful huge yellow eyes staring at me, when I least expect it and in places I least expect. I go over to the plant table by the window in art studio to water the plants, and there are those eyes. She is lying on windowsill right outside it. And once on top of refrigerator. Which explains the mystery of why she knows Bill arrives in kitchen at the exact instant he does. She simply flies down from the top of the refrigerator, or wafts down like a feather.


Well on my political forum there are all new alliances and enemies. To my surprise I am actually liking this whole new forming of new alliances. I don’t mind that the ones I was in alliance with before now tell me I am the stupidest person on the planet.

I am finding it so interesting and enjoyable becoming friends with and close to and getting to know the posters in my new alliance. When I was in my old alliance these are the posters who made war on me, but now butter can’t melt in their mouth when they post to me. They sign their posts to me with ooooo and xxxx, we are having a love fest. Whereas before they were always trying to run me off the forum.

But you know how it is, when love springs up where love never was before, it really is special. I am thrilled with the new blossom of love with the posters who used to hate me before.

Plus some in my old alliance, that I hadn’t noticed before, for some reason they hadn’t been on my radar or come into my view, they are taking advantage of all these huge changes in constellations on the forum, to become my friend.

And I admit I adore them. There is always something so wonderfully special about a brand new friend. You are both in awe of the awakening of friendship and affection and communication. They could easily hate me too for my new views but they have made an opposite choice. To simply enter into communication with me. I love it.

A forum is such a microcosm of the world, and it is such a fun place to be on.

Love, Anne

Awake Before Dawn

another beautiful dandelion photo by Rusty Storbeck on April 11 2010
April 14 2010
I wrote the below teeny peculiar story exactly 2 years ago
it hit me yesterday that we are now 2 years away from the Mass Awakening on our Planet
since this is the most powerful thing to ever happen on our planet
of course it was already affecting everything hugely 2 years ago
But what hit me yesterday, now that we are so much closer to it
can you imagine how it is affecting every single thing now!!!

May 7, 2008
Awake before Dawn
4:33 AM

It is still pitch dark out there. I guess I woke up two hours before dawn. When I woke up I thought it was the middle of the night and I planned to go back to sleep.

Obviously a new energy packet must have arrived the evening before last. Because suddenly out of nowhere I was very thirsty, then very hot, then I wanted to collapse on the bed.

I don’t remember what happened after that. I must have fallen asleep and woke up in middle of night very uncomfortable. And finally drank hot milky fresh coffee, buttered toast, and watched a movie on tv. And relaxed and fell back asleep.

But yesterday I didn’t want to go anywhere. I didn’t go swimming. I did not set one foot out of the house, except into my backyard. Altho I felt fine when I sat down at computer and began to work. The concentration of editing my story I wrote on Friday seemed to help me. I like doing all that work.

Then in the late afternoon the weather changed to totally stormy. I could not believe it when I went into my backyard and looked up at that stormy sky. And all the cold air it brought in with it. I watched tv in the evening and then fell out as I was waiting for a show to come on. When I awoke in middle of night, I realized I had missed the show.

In the evening I answered the emails I had found in the morning when I woke up. They had been written the night before. And Nancy Cantor said about returning home bone-tired in the evening, and Jan had said almost the same thing. And when Jim had called me in the afternoon, I said “I didn’t go swimming today, I decided to stay home.” And he said “me too, I am tired today.” And suddenly I put it all together, and realized a new energy packet had arrived on planet, else why were we all plotzing!

And so this morning I opened up the email I had gotten from a girl who channels Divine Mother. I had requested to be on her email list and to read her newsletter.

“I think I’ll read it,” I thought, “something must be going on."

And sure enough Divine Mother said “this is a very intense time on our planet, but be assured all is well, this is the moment you were born for.”

Which I found very reassuring to read. It is very encouraging, when your mind feels too intense and your body is plotzing, to read “this is the moment you were born for.”

What would we do without the New Age! There is too much discomfort to keep lying in bed. Either I am coughing or gagging, or want to throw up. I am a girl who really needs to hear “this is the moment you were born for.” Otherwise I would think “I am a mess.”

It is a few minutes before 5 am. And the first light has come into the sky. And I don’t think the morning doves went to sleep at all. I hear them calling loudly now, but I heard them calling as soon as I woke up. Hahaha, maybe they too are having the moment they were born for. They were too uncomfortable in their nest to fall back asleep.

Gremlins and bill collectors

tumbleweed (photo by Rusty Storbeck)
7/27/09 Monday
Gremlins and bill collectors

Well it’s Monday morning and I’m happy. Usually I’m not crazy about Mondays, it’s a transition. It’s nice to be relaxed and happy and realize it is Monday, instead of feeling a little off and noticing “it’s Monday and that explains it.”

Yesterday now seems like a dream-- maybe because after I got up at 3:30 this morning and fed the kitties and fed Beanie and put up the coffee and opened the windows in the truck, I slept in a little longer.

I did not do what I did yesterday when I woke up at 3:30. I was so delighted to be up in cool dark air that I just stayed up. I got the mail, I put up the dishes, I had my coffee and toast outside, I watered all the outside plants.

I had actually planned to work on my book when I first woke up, formatting it for publishing, but I picked up a week’s worth of mail, and one of the letters was from a collections agency which threw me for a loop. It must be from the same bill collector company which the guy called me from last week, since they want the same money $369.

It is all so mysterious to me because I finally figured out which hospital and emergency room visit this is for. It is 3 and a half years ago, and that hospital has sliding scale based on income. The bill was so reasonable when it arrived, I just paid it in full right away. I never got a separate doctor’s bill from them, I assumed it was all included. But according to bill collector, there was doctor’s bill for $300 which I did not pay, and which the doctor sold to bill collector, the $69 is interest.

What is odd too is I never got any letters from bill collector dunning me to pay. What I got was that awful phone call two weeks ago, that was the first I heard about it. And now sometime this week a follow-up letter from them arrived, a form letter saying since I chose to be uncooperative they are thinking of taking legal steps, and underneath was some kind of receipt thing, that I should enclose to them with my check for $369.

My first thought was to investigate it all. Call the hospital, have them look up the records. But I didn’t. When I called her at the time (back then) she said everything was included in the bill I paid, x-rays, doctor, everything. I paid it right away and never got any separate bills from anyone.

It makes no sense at all that I am now being dunned for $300, supposedly for the doctor who examined Bill during that visit. Which doesn’t add up since it seems to me the whole bill I paid was for $300, which is why I had been delirious with joy it was so reasonable. And would a doctor in hospital emergency room charge a low income patient $300 to look at his back. Nothing but nothing makes sense.

And would anyone pay a dunning letter like the one I found in mail box yesterday, which gives no information on it, does not give name of doctor, name of hospital, date of visit, service rendered. Merely said “since you chose to be uncooperative we are intending to take you to court.” Under that seems to be the file number they have for me at their dunning company and a place to write out the check to them.

And Jan, who has always paid every doctor’s bill on time and in full, has been getting strange dunning phone messages from bill collectors too. The message on her machine says “if you call us back we will charge you less.” Which Jan said makes no sense to her because "who would call back a bill collector!" Plus she doesn’t owe anyone any money.

Jan has been getting these odd phone messages same time I got my odd phone call and this letter, all over the past month. I get dunning phone call about a bill I already paid, paid in full, the instant it was rendered 3 and a half years ago; and Jan is getting dunning phone messages when she doesn’t owe a cent to anyone.

It has to be gremlins! what else could it be! the bill collection agencies now have gremlins in their system. They are under some gremlin attack!

I got this (gremlin) idea because 10 years ago I read Preparing for Contact by Lyssa Royal. The ET who communicated that book to Lyssa, or channeled it, Sasha, is in charge of contact. Sasha said a lot of preparation is gone thru before a planetary civilization finds out they are not alone in the universe. Sasha said it starts out with movies, dreams, popular songs, the idea of ETs is popped into popular culture in all kinds of ways.

After we are primed that way, next step is to show ETs are benign, they do spectacular rescues to help people. I guess á la superman, save people from burning buildings etc. Sasha explained they can’t do that with Earth because of our “problem.”

Apparently way back in pre-history on our planet, the ETs were here and did wonderful kind helpful things, and the people who were on our planet then mistook them for gods, and worshiped them.

LOL apparently Sasha, who is in charge of contact, thinks we will make the same mistake again and is taking no chances. Which makes me laugh, since no way would I mistake an ET for God, no matter what spectacular abilities they have, or how magnificent their kind and helpful act. I know God, I know Who God is.

Sasha did tell in Lyssa Royal’s book about one planetary civilization which had a huge problem. It was time for them to be prepared for contact, to find out they were not alone in the universe. And so everything was done to prime them for it, to open their mind to this idea.

But they flatly refused. The more effort which was put into opening their mind to the idea, the more they resisted. Finally the pressure to open their mind to the idea and their resistance became too great, something had to happen to relieve the pressure.

Sasha likened it to the water going into a water hose being turned on full pressure, but that planetary civilization refused to let the water flow out. Sasha pointed out when that happens to a garden hose, it finally develops pinhole leaks to let the pressure of the water out. And what happened to that planetary civilization is that they had epidemic of gremlin attacks. That was how the pressure was finally let out.

So that is my only explanation now of why the bill collector agencies are flipping their lid, dunning Jan who never owed money on a doctor’s bill in her life, dunning me for a bill I paid on the spot at the time it was rendered 3 and a half years ago. Their whole system must be under gremlin attack.

It makes sense to me because the Mass Awakening scheduled for our planet is 2 years away now. The enormous pressure to choose love instead of fear, which is what the Awakening is all about. Who of us have not been under that constant pressure until we finally made that new choice, we chose love instead of fear.

And those people and agencies who are fear merchants, will no longer be on our planet after the Mass Awakening occurs. These people will have to choose love in order to stay here. If not, another planet is prepared, hologramically identical to Earth, for those who want things to stay as they always were, and do not want the new change. They will be offered they can go there, and have what they have always had.

Bill collectors are human beings, they have been under the same pressure as everyone to choose love instead of fear. They are fear merchants tho. Their activities and businesses will be suspended in 2 years. But the pressure to change for all has grown exponentially and continues to grow exponentially. I guess that pressure is now being released in bill collection agencies by gremlin attacks.

Which doesn’t mean the letter from bill collector threatening me with taking me to court, did not upset me, it did. To distract myself from obsessing over it, I did not go to work on my book, instead I went to my political forum. It was still only 4:30 in the morning here in Tucson, I had been up for an hour. I guess the juice wasn’t in it for my political forum tho yesterday morning. None of the topics really interested me. I posted what I could, answered posts when I could. And finally at 9:30 when the big heat arrived and I was sweating at my computer, I said to Bill “I am going in to read, that part of the house is cooler.”

I got the gremlin idea partially because Helen’s Higher Self said the day before on the phone, the change is so intense now, that things are folding back on themselves. She described it like looking at graph paper, all those tiny blue boxes, and said the lines are all being redrawn, they are now all about 1/3 off, or 1/3rd different from how they used to be. She said this means things which used to work before, like “work hard and get ahead,” don’t work now, none of the old ways work.

She said another effect is those we used to hate suddenly we love, and those we used to love suddenly we hate. I guess she means those we thought were our enemies, suddenly we love them, and those we used to love, there is a break.

I see this clearly on my forum. The poster Client 9 and I were in constant warfare all these years and now suddenly we can’t love each other enough, every post to me he has hearts love and kisses in it, and he always made war on me before.

And I have noticed actual bona fide tender swimming love and identity with my mom, who everytime I thought of her before, I saw her as judging and criticizing me. Now I see her as wanting to love me, and her being same as me. It is 180 degrees different, and what a wonderful lovely welcomed and unexpected change.

And I see there are changes which went the other way too. In the past month I have had two phone calls with two very old friends, from before college days even. I was the one who made the calls, I am the one who pushed the renewal of the friendship, and when I got off the phone I realized the friendship was over. They had zero interest in me. One I realized never had, and the other if she had, it ended so long ago; that for both of them I simply didn’t exist for them. Both of them just wanted to get rid of me.

So I would describe my own experience-- what did Helen’s Higher Self say? hate changes to love, love changes to hate-- I would describe my experience as love blooming where it hadn’t before; and where it had, that flower has had its day, its bloom is over.... It’s odd there was no sadness, just a fresh brisk feeling, like making space in my mind, like doing yardwork raking up dead leaves. “They don’t like me, maybe they never did. They have zero interest in me, maybe they never had. Out with the old, in with the new.…”

And with the new tender awakening love, where I had never felt it before, it was sweeter than the sweetest pink rose, the true real pink rose of love, there is nothing like it...

Moving to Tucson

desert weed (photo by Rusty Storbeck)

Sunday, November 18, 2007

Moving to Tucson

I didn’t tell anyone we were leaving except our two families, my father provided the funding for it. And I wrote to Bill’s parents in San Diego to tell them.

Altho I did tell my friend Irene, we were on the phone all day together back then, we were best friends and we talked about my move a lot.

But I didn’t tell my neighbors, or all my friends and acquaintances in the neighborhood, because I was in shock about the move. I thought it would help me if each day was normal, until we actually did it. I didn’t want it to be the topic of discussion with everyone. I wanted to be treated as if I was still living in New York and always would, so things would not change.

I told one person, Joey. He was the big brother of a guy I knew in the ‘60s, Victor. And I used to see Joey a lot while I was walking the dog, we had become friends.

I said “I am moving to Tucson,” this was in the school playground where I was throwing the ball for my dog.

“So what else is new!” Joey said.

He didn’t believe me for an instant. Back in New York everyone says they are going to move, but no one ever does move.

It was very interesting being faced with complete and total disbelief. I thought “there is no way to convince someone who doesn’t believe you for an instant, what can you say, ‘I am really going to do it!’ they would just laugh.”

So we had parallel conversation until I happened to mention “the address of my new Tucson apartment is on East 2nd Street.”

And all of a sudden he said, “You rented an apartment there! Then you must really be going to move! Wait this is big, let me buy us both a container of coffee, I want to treat you.”

And I was gratified that now Joey believed me. He came back with coffee for both of us, and he said “I know all about Tucson.”

“Tell me about it! What is it like?” I asked.

He said “it is middle class and you will have to dye your hair.”

And I tried to picture dying my hair red. Everyone dyes their hair red when they dye their hair for the first time. We must all secretly long to be redheads.

The old lady, Mary, had all her stuff set up on the sidewalk in front of my building to sell, and some guys were helping her. And I told them I am moving to Tucson and one of the guys said he had been there.

“What is it like?” I asked.

“There are not many trees” he said.

Which is all I knew about Tucson before I arrived. That I would have to dye my hair and there were not a lot of trees. Altho my Tucson aunt, in one of her conversations, had mentioned something about “on the desert,” so I realized I was moving to the desert. So I pictured Tucson as Arabia as I had seen it in movies.

Which is why I was so taken aback and floored and delighted, when I arrived and found all the flowers here.

My friend Helene, I had told her, she still lived in my neighborhood then, offered to give me the phone number of her friend who has a car service, to drive us all to the airport. And so I called him and the arrangements were made.

And you can imagine my surprise, the Sunday morning before we left (we left in the afternoon of that Sunday) -- when I had Clio at the handball courts and was throwing the ball for her, the young man who was sitting there, who looked a little wasted, as if he had been up all night-- every morning when I threw the ball for Clio at the handball courts, he came in with a container of coffee and looked wasted and talked with me.

I said to him “I am moving to Tucson.”

And he said “I know! I am going to drive you to the airport.”

I was so surprised! But I liked it that someone who knew me and who knew Clio was going to be our driver.

I didn’t tell my neighbors till the morning I left, that Sunday morning I told each one. Altho I must have told Carmine the day before, because when he told his friends in the saloon, he couldn’t remember where it was I was moving. So he said “here! write it down for me,” so I wrote down Tucson Arizona, so he could show it to them.

I didn’t tell my neighbors because I was so close to them and had so many emotions about leaving them. And I didn’t tell the people I was closest to in the neighborhood for the same reason.

And when we sat on the floor in the Newark airport for 5 hours, waiting for our plane, at some point I did start to cry. That is when it hit me for the first time. Before that I had just been thrilled that we had actually succeeded in escaping New York. I had wanted it for so long, and it had seemed impossible, and now I was doing it.

But in the Newark airport it hit me what I was leaving. “I am leaving behind all this love” I thought, and began to wipe away tears.

But my Higher Self said “I would never take you away from love, Annie, you will have even more love in Tucson.” And that reassured me, comforted me, and calmed me down.

A red sun was just setting in Newark when we boarded the airplane. Clio was in a dog carrying case in the baggage department and of course my heart was with her. I had made sure we took a flight which did not involve changing planes because I did not want Clio lost in the changing of planes. Altho we made two stops, where passengers deboarded and emboarded.

We flew thru the night all across America. Altho I still remember seeing all the lights of Phoenix when we stopped at Phoenix.

We were such inexperienced travelers, but luckily my aunt had arranged for the guy who picks her up in his limo, to wait for us in the Tucson airport and drive us to our apartment. It was comforting to us he had one earring and looked like a punk rocker from the East Village. And he helped us find the baggage department so we could collect Clio. Then we got in his limo and drove thru the dark to our new apartment.

After living in our tiny tenement for so long, we were breath-taken by the beauty of the apartment. I could not believe my luck.

“I wonder how long we will be here?” Bill said, as we saw what a great apartment it was.

I was dumbfounded by the question. “We will be here forever” I said.

I had lived in apartments my whole life. I assumed if you find a beautiful apartment at a bargain rent, of course you stay here forever. It is a dream come true..

But exactly one year later we moved into our house. I hadn’t realized Tucson was a place where you could expand.

Letting my hair down

The crow is eating (photo by Rusty Storbeck)
Then the crow flies (photo by Rusty Storbeck)

July 4 2006 “Letting My Hair Down”

In my dream before I awoke this morning Franny and my aunt Celia were having conversation. It was intellectual conversation. They were both very intelligent and intellectual. Celia is the youngest of my father’s siblings. She is 12 years younger than my father, and 13 years younger than Esther, the eldest. Franny is Celia’s Tucson friend, a few years younger than she. Franny was also my first friend when I moved to Tucson. Because she found the apt. for her friend Celia's niece, me. And lived in the same apt. complex, and befriended me when we first arrived.

When I first decided to move to Tucson, I called my cousin Pete and asked him to find me an apt. which accepted dogs. My aunt Celia was in Tucson, her son Pete was in Tucson, and the youngest of her 4 children, Jimmy. Her other two children were living in California. I chose Pete, because when my dad was driving my aunt Esther and me back to Manhattan after a family gathering at his house, my dad and his sister gossiped in the front seat. All their concern was about their baby sister in Tucson. When her husband left her, they took over worrying about her and being in charge of her. It was the ‘60s, and they were very concerned about Celia’s report that her son Pete was now living with the Jesus freaks. My dad said “but they have a good record of getting kids off drugs.” And my aunt Esther said “but we don’t know Pete is on drugs.”

I was so young myself then that I had no judgment about my cousin Pete in Tucson living with the Jesus freaks. I merely thought it was interesting. But by the time I decided to leave NYC and move to Tucson, Jesus was a big part of my life. And it made me feel close to my cousin Pete in Tucson that he believed in Jesus, which is why I chose him to call and ask for help.

I confided that to Pete after I had been in Tucson for several months I told him why I chose him to call and ask for help. There was a long silence and finally he said, “that was an embarrassing episode in my life and I don’t believe in Jesus.” So much for having so much in common. But I guess it served its purpose. I needed to feel close to someone to ask for help.

It had made me feel close to Pete. And Pete had delivered help. He had found me an apt in apt complex called Willow Brook which accepted dogs, and which was the price I wanted to pay, $300 a month. But it fell thru because dog could not weigh over 33 pounds and Clio weighed 37 pounds. But I was immensely encouraged. Then I got phone call from Celia saying Pete had tried and not succeeded so he had turned the job over to her, and she had consulted apartment finders. “It is not easy to find apt in Tucson which accepts dogs.”

Then I got the phone call the apt had been found. I had asked for one bedroom for $300. I was sure I could not afford bigger apt. But Celia had found 2 bedroom for $330. “Great! take it!” I said. “Drive right over, put down the money and take it, I will send you money order for it.” And that is the apartment we moved into two weeks later.

It turned out Celia had been visiting her friend Franny and said to Franny “what I really want for my niece is an apartment like yours, Franny.” So Franny said “let’s go over to management and see if they have any.” And sure enough they had the two bedroom for $330. And when Celia called me, I said “grab it, drive over now and put the money down.” And Celia drove over and put the money down. And when she got back home she said “the apartment is yours.” And I said “great!” We had already started packing up all our stuff in boxes, but we now had an address to send them to.

And when we walked into our new Tucson apartment in the middle of the night two weeks later there was a note from Franny with a jar of salsa as a gift. The note gave helpful hints and welcomed us. Unfortunately Franny had forgotten how old-fashioned NYC is. We shivered at night in the Tucson apt. for a whole month before Franny showed us how to turn on the heat.

Back in NYC at around 5 o’clock on cold winter nights, you would hear the reassuring gurgle of the steam in the radiator. It meant the landlord had turned on the furnace. And at 5 PM in Tucson, when Sun went down and it turned ice cold, I listened for that reassuring gurgle but it never came. I had no idea there was a dial, which you could set at any temperature you want, and be as toasty warm as you wanted to be, and didn’t have to wait for the landlord to decide to give you heat.

Franny had walked with me a few mornings when I walked my dog. She was the only person I knew in Tucson, I was grateful to have her as a friend. Franny told me all about herself, and I did learn a lot about Franny’s life as a result, altho I could not absorb any of it at the time. She did say one very practical thing tho. She pointed to the mountains which were always in view, and said “that is north.” After that I stopped worrying I would get lost when I took my dog out in the morning, I knew I could always orient myself from the mountains.

When we were here 3 months we ran into troubles. And when Franny passed by, instead of hiding my troubles, I confided all of them to her. And a very remarkable thing happened. Because I had let down my hair, Franny let down her hair, we became very close. Before that I had been her best friend’s niece in her eyes, and she had been my aunt’s friend in my eyes. For both of us the other was an extension of Celia.

The wonderful thing about that conversation with Franny at the table was how much we laughed about all our troubles. I said “come in Franny sit down, I’ll make us a cup of coffee.” And as soon as I poured the coffee, she said “Where’s Bill?”

I said “Bill got drunk on his night job, and passed out. They didn’t know he was passed out from drinking, they called ambulance and took him to the hospital. Then Bill got home and for 3 days he raged at me ‘call up your family and have them find you an apartment in New York City, we’re going back.’ And I refused. Finally the neighbors called the cops on Bill. The cops took him to jail last night. This morning, Ron from apt. A4 and I went to the Pima County jail and picked Bill up when he was released. Then Ron told Bill about the Lark, a treatment center for free. Ron told Bill it is very nice there and they all have a lot of fun. So Bill said ‘OK I’m willing to go.’ So Ron drove him there. He will be there for two weeks. So that is why I am alone, and you can sit at kitchen table and we can talk to our hearts content.”

And I cracked up at everything I said. I laughed uproariously at every step of the misadventure, and especially laughed at the point when Bill was hauled off to jail. Of course none of this was funny while it was happening, the whole thing from beginning to end had been one long nightmare. But confiding it to sweet Franny across the table, and laughing my head off about it, was the sweetest experience in the world. I was girl who needed a friend. And Franny was willing to be my friend.

Obviously this changed the entire atmosphere between me and Franny. Instead of being the impressive niece, which is how Celia had billed me to her friend, of her impressive friend Celia, I was just a girl with problems up the bezum. My husband had just been taken off to jail the night before, I had spent the morning hanging out at Pima County jail waiting for him to be released. He had gotten drunk on his first Tucson job, passed out and taken to hospital. I was alone friendless and broke in Tucson. Franny and I drank coffee and laughed and laughed and laughed. We let our hair down about everything.

Then Bill, surprisingly walked in the door. I guess he didn’t like Lark, he didn’t find it so much fun. And Franny left. And phase two of our Tucson life began.

Bill said everyone at Lark was just like him, and one thing he learned from listening to them all, is Tucson is a place where it is very easy to start your own business.

And that afternoon he and Ron started their business as handyman. And when Ron did not want to keep doing it, Bill started his own business as yard worker, which he did successfully and full-time until he started art school.

Becoming an artist was Bill’s dream, and he decided to follow his dream. As Grant Lewi, my favorite astrologer, wrote, “One moves to New York to fulfill a dream, and one leaves New York to fulfill a greater dream.”

Girl lifeguard at my swim pool, cartoon by Billy Stampone

Bill and the baby kitten

Desert wild flower (photo by Rusty Storbeck)


A cat from outside adopted Bill. He named her Priscilla. A few weeks ago she had her kittens. We never saw them till night before last. I found this photo on the web, because it looks so much like our Priscilla, but of course her babies are tiny.

7:57 am, Thursday, April 9, 2009
Cupcake

I forgot that April is my favorite month. The name is so pretty, April. And it’s my birthday month. And here on desert April is all about the green leaves on trees. They get their leaves on April 1 and each morning is a new glorious sight, because desert is “Jack and the Beanstalk” land. A weed which is one inch tall in the morning, by next morning is 6 feet tall.

Our glorious sunshine makes everything grow so fast. A week ago the new green baby leaves were still so young and small and yellow, chartreuse with lots of yellow still in it. Now the world out my window is lush. The leaves are Kelly green and they are much bigger. They went from baby duckies to second graders, self-assured 7 year olds starting off for school. It’s a whole other world, a transformed world, than the view from my window all winter. Now it is the world of green leaves against the blue sky and it sure is pretty. And green leaves wherever you look. You are always looking into green leaves.

It hit me last week or maybe the week before, that Priscilla did not have her babies in some secret spot in our yard that Beanie (our dog) cannot get to, but instead she has them in the house. Bill turned that second living room, that huge huge room, into an art studio, and in the dark corner by the fireplace all the canvasses are stacked up. But because of the way they are stacked up, I realized last week there would be tunnel thru them. A tunnel big enough for a cat to get thru but not for my Beanie.

And I don’t know why it suddenly hit me that that is where she has her kitties. It seemed such an inaccessible spot, safe in the house, dark, inaccessible to Beanie, and would explain why she is always around. The instant Bill would take Beanie out, she would appear for her food and to say hi to me. And the instant Bill and Beanie were back and Beanie went under the bed for his nap, and Bill was alone in the kitchen making his breakfast, she would appear to hang out with her beloved Bill. And at night when Bill sat down to play chess with the computer and Beanie and I were safely in back room, she would spend all evening with Bill. “She loves chess” Bill would tell me.

The instant I told Bill “Priscilla had her kittens in our living room and not in some faraway inaccessible spot in the yard,” he denied it.

He said “NO! I don’t want her having her babies here! It is not safe from Beanie. I want her to have her kitties outside!”

He was so emphatic in his denial, “I don’t want the kittens in the house, they are not safe here, they are safe outside.”

I took it back, I said “I am sure she has her kittens outside.”

And the odd thing is that when Bill denied it when I told him, and I went along with his denial to please him, the odd thing is that my mind slipped into denial. I completely forgot that I had realized Priscilla has her kittens in that remote corner of Bill’s art studio where everything is stacked up and Beanie can’t get to it. I actually went back to thinking she has her kittens somewhere outside in the yard. And when we drove back from the pool, along our alleyway, I kept my eyes peeled at our easement, our yard, the yard across the way, wondering if I would get a glimpse of the kitties.

And then the night before last while I was reading in my bed and Beanie was stretched out on his featherbed next to me, I heard Bill call out from the second living room/art studio in an urgent voice. “Anne! come here! what is this! Don’t bring Beanie!”

The way he called out “What is this!” I assumed that Beanie had brought in the stale fried chicken I had thrown out in the yard, left it in the middle of the carpet, and I was going to be yelled at about it. That he would say “That is not how you feed Beanie, you break up the food very nicely, take out the bones so they won’t hurt him, and put it in a nice bowl for him.” And then he would say “Why isn’t Beanie eating his food? Does he have stomachache? What did you feed him!” That is the usual kind of emergency for which I am summoned in that urgent voice, “Anne come here! what is this?”

I just didn’t understand why he said “keep Beanie away!” But it wasn’t about the old fried chicken lying on the carpet. Bill had something small and black in his hand and it was meowing lustily, it was incessantly meowing, calling for its mother.

“It’s Priscilla’s kitten” we both said.

“How did it get in here?” Bill said.

It was meowing so hard I said to Bill “Put it back!”

“Back where?” he said. I forgot Bill had denied the kittens were born and being cared for in some spot under all his canvases, where it makes an archway tunnel.

“It must have walked in from outside” Bill said.

“O yes right” I said keeping up the fiction.

Fortunately wherever Beanie was, he did not come. Bill had that black cupcake in his hand, meowing its head off, and didn’t know what to do with it. And neither did I. And the next thing we knew I saw Priscilla trotting in from somewhere way in the backyard. She wasn’t racing but it was determined-face trot. The instant I saw her I went right to my back bedroom to make sure Beanie was there, he will stay where I am.

And Bill reported to me a few minutes later that Priscilla instantly took the kitten by back of neck and moved it to where she wanted. Of course Bill thinks she took the kitten back outside to its nest. Altho he said “I didn’t see her go out with it.” He was just so happy and pleased and relieved that Priscilla arrived so fast to rescue both Bill and her kitten, as neither were happy in that situation. The kitty wasn’t scared in Bill’s hand, but she sure was crying her head off for her mother. And Bill was absolutely flummoxed. “What should I do with it?” he kept asking me.

It took both of us two hours to calm down afterwards. If it weren’t for Beanie this business of the kittens would all be sheer delight for everyone. But we just don’t know if the kitties are safe with Beanie. That is why Bill wanted to believe so badly Priscilla has the kittens in an alcove in the yard which Beanie can’t get to, and is why Bill still believes that. He has not changed his story, he actually thinks that kitten found its own way into the house looking for its mother. Bill said “I heard it crying the whole time I was playing chess, but I thought I was imagining it, and then finally I went in to look, and there it was.” “She took the kitten away in her mouth” he said.

But I remembered when I used to have a cat which had kittens in my apartment in the Lower East Side. I had made spot for her to have her kittens in the closet, but she wanted bottom drawer of dresser. And each time I put the kittens back in the box in the closet, she took each one by the neck and moved it back to the drawer. After this happened 3 times I gave up and let her have drawer for her kittens, so I knew Priscilla had taken her kitten by the neck.

And the next morning, yesterday morning, when we were all calm and happy again, Bill said that’s what Priscilla did, she took the kitten by the back of the neck.

“You said it was black?” I asked.

“Not exactly black, but very dark charcoal.” He said how the kitten wasn’t really scared in his hand, just bewildered. “She trusted me” he said, “she knew I was safe.”

And we both realized Priscilla only did determined trot, and did not fly across the living room, when she saw that Bill had her kitten, because she knew the kitten was safe with Bill. “Priscilla came in and rescued me” Bill said, “she knew I didn’t know what to do with the kitten, she solved everything.”

And we both realized that is why we have not seen Priscilla around so much for past two days. As long as all her kittens did was sleep and nurse, she was free to hang out with Bill as much as she wanted when she wasn’t actually nursing. But as Bill pointed out, now that the kittens have gotten rambunctious she has much more work to do. And it is true. Before, as long as Priscilla felt Beanie was not around, she could be hanging out with Bill or me or her house, occasionally she took recreation in the yard, I would see her thru open window in the sunshine. But the evening Bill found the kitten was after a day we had not seen Priscilla at all. Just for one minute in yard, while Bill was out in front yard with Beanie.

I wonder what Priscilla does do all the time now. I guess she has to hang with her kitties. She lets them crawl around in whatever space they are, but when they go too far, out into middle of big living room, she has to bring them back. Unless of course, after that episode, she did change their spot. It’s always possible she did bring them to some safe secluded spot in the yard, we will never know. That small black meowing thing in the palm of Bill’s hand is the only real evidence we have of the kittens. Everything else is deduction. She used to be so fat, now she has her figure back. She used to spend all her time on top of the refrigerator surveying everything, now she only comes at designated times.

When we got calm and relaxed and secure about the kittens yesterday, got confidence that Priscilla would manage everything perfectly and we didn’t have to worry, that she knows Beanie and would know how to keep kitties away from him, Bill said “you know, if we adopt that little kitten I will name him ‘Cupcake’ because it was exactly like having a chocolate cupcake in my hand.”

Junior High School

Desert wildflower (photo by Rusty Storbeck)
hahaha the truth is we are all unusual desert wildflowers, junior high is when we try to conform, but it has a happy ending, we take the long way around and wind back at our true selves...

April 5th, 2009, Sunday, 9:10 am
“Junior High School”

8th grade had been quite a year for me. I had started out junior high school in a Rapid Advance class, which means doing 3 years of junior high in 2. My dad had done Rapid Advance way back when he was young plus skipped so many grades, that my aunt Ruth told me he graduated high school still in short pants. My mom did not want me to take Rapid Advance. She pointed out there are social things too, that because my birthday was April 4th and the cut-off date for starting school was April 30th, I was already youngest girl in my class and Rapid Advance would make me even younger, I would now be 2 years behind socially the other girls in my class. She thought that would be a mistake.

I had zero interest in any of her considerations. I didn’t even know what she was talking about when it was that time in 6th grade to take the test for Rapid Advance. It is a city-wide test, every 6th grader takes it every year. Rapid Advance was originally invented as a solution for overcrowding in NYC public schools. I don’t know when it started, very early I guess if my dad took it too, maybe when the huge immigration arrived. It meant doing junior high school in 2 years instead of 3. Everyone wanted to “make” Rapid Advance, I am not sure why now, I guess if you pass the test and make Rapid Advance it is like a Brownie badge, you are officially a smart kid. I don’t think I cared about doing Junior High in 2 years instead of 3, I couldn’t wait to start junior high. My idea of junior high was paradise because to me it meant being a teen-ager. I just wanted the ego of being labeled a smart kid and being in the smart kids class.

And I guess because all had worked out for my dad, he overrode my mom’s objections, I was allowed to be in Rapid Advance after I passed the test. All my cousins passed the test too, but I wonder if they took it. I assumed at the time they did, but now I realize they all graduated high school at the normal time, nobody skipped a year, and Rapid Advance would mean graduating high school year early.

But in fact I found Rapid Advance too hard. The work was too hard. I did not "get" French, I did not "get” science, which were both given in Rapid Advance but not given to any other 7th grader. And it was all I could do to understand the 7th grade version of geometry which was taught then. I knew I was failing and I had never failed at school before, I had been good at it. I became desperate and finally my mother realized what was going on and came to speak to the Assistant Principal and next day I was informed I was no longer in Rapid Advance, I was in a regular 7th grade class.

That might have been in the Spring. Since everything taught in my regular 7th grade class I had already learned in Rapid Advance, I just dreamed my way thru those last 4 months. I had to absorb the shock of what happened to me, my failure to be a smart kid. I saw all my classmates from Rapid Advance in the hall but kept away from them, I think I was ashamed. And I didn’t really make friends in my new class either. Altho I did become friends with Irene, she was an oddball like me, altho I was trying to fit in and I don’t think Irene was. We discovered we both liked to read so we would walk home from school together and talk about books. At that time I was just reading teen-aged romances which I took out of the school library, but Irene had read “Gone With The Wind” and kept raving about how great it was. So one day I took it out and read it too. I liked it.

When 7th grade ended, my mom said “regular 8th grade has a lot of special classes too, you can be in one of them.” The logical thing would have been to put me in Creative Writing, since writing was the one thing I could and liked doing. Maybe it was filled or maybe she didn’t want to listen to me, because she had enjoyed playing the flute so much in high school, she decided to put me in the orchestra class. And we spent that whole summer up in the Adirondacks with me trying to learn to flute.

And when 8th grade began there I was in Orchestra Class. And then my troubles began! That class had been together in 7th grade, was together now, and would be together in 9th grade. Each one played an instrument and they were all good at their instrument. However I had zero talent for music and zero talent for the flute. LOL again I was up against something which it was clear I would fail at. But that wasn’t my biggest problem with that class. My biggest problem was the year before there had been a very pretty girl in that class with very pretty clothes. And they had all tortured her to death and that Fall she changed schools. I wasn’t aware of it till I joined that class.

Altho I had remembered seeing that girl in the halls. I had liked all her petticoats. She would wear a skirt with many many crinolines, I liked it. But it didn’t take me long to find out that the previous year they had all worn “I hate Natalie” buttons to class, her name was Natalie, and made her life a hell. And I understood perfectly what went on because they were doing the same thing to me. My crime had been being in that smart class. They could have put two and two together and realized if I was no longer in that smart class, which now was a 9th grade class instead of an 8th grade class, it meant I couldn’t keep up, and I am sure they knew I had been taken out of it. But maybe logic has nothing to do with it. I don’t know why they made the decision to tear Natalie apart, maybe just because she was cute and dressed so cute, the ringleader of it may have resented that. And who knows, maybe it wasn’t because I had been in Rapid Advance that the ringleader got everyone after me. I always assumed that was my big crime but maybe I was just a new girl in class and there was bloodlust.

They tortured me for a long time and it was hard. I didn’t tell my mom, I didn’t tell anyone. But going to school was a nightmare for me. The instant I got home I put my nose in a book, I just wanted to escape. My mom didn’t understand and wanted me to go outside for fresh air. I refused. So finally she physically forced me off the couch where I was reading my book, and pushed me out the front door and locked it. And I just stood there. I guess you could say I had reached bottom.

And then one day the orchestra teacher had us each play solo so he could see how good we play. I was dreading it because I knew I could barely play at all, was faking it. The ringleader, Arlene, also played the flute, so did Marilyn Weiss. Marilyn Weiss was the best at flute, the ringleader was second. And really I was not in their class, I was in no class, I didn’t get music at all. And so when I had to play the flute alone, my terror came thru in every note.

And looking back at it now I wonder if that is what saved me. At the time after we put our instruments away and were on the steps Arlene came over to me and said “I really liked the way you played Anne, it made me cry.” And I said “thank you.” But it made no sense to me. I was a disaster. But now I think it liberated me. I mean I think the reason Arlene had organized “I hate Natalie” is because she had decided Natalie was stuck up, because she was pretty and wore pretty clothes. Arlene would have liked to be pretty and wear pretty clothes. She and Lynn were the two popular girls who got invited to all the boys’ Bar Mitzvahs, but I think Arlene was so popular by dint of personality. Lynn was a beautiful dresser and lovely girl. And I guess Arlene had decided I was stuck up because I had been in Rapid Advance. But after I had been such a colossal failure in music in the music class, a public failure, everyone in that class had held their breath in pure pity for me as I played. I guess Arlene felt it was no longer necessary to continue with my destruction. The torture campaign against me ended. Hahaha it turned out to be a wise move on my mom’s part to put me in that orchestra class after all.

Because very soon after that when I answered a question in science class right (we had Mrs. Simon for science, the same teacher I had had before in Rapid Advance for science when I could not “get” science and could not understand anything, now a year later I was starting to grasp what she was teaching) -- Arlene got excited when I answered the question right and asked me if I wanted to do science project with her. Of course I said yes. And she invited Lynn and Marsha to do it with us too. She and Lynn were tied because they were the two popular girls, and Marsha was included because she was Lynn's best friend.

And so we began to meet at my house on Friday nights, or whichever night it was, to discuss our science project plans, and we all became friends. And of course nothing could have been sweeter for me, after my long period of ostracism and torture, to be friends and have friends. We had a wonderful time at our science project meetings. We didn’t talk about our science project, that was quickly decided at first meeting, what we talked about was sex, which we were all hugely interested in.

And one Saturday morning we all went into the city together to the Museum of Natural History to look at their dioramas, we had decided to do dioramas for our science project. And we enjoyed that so much, we went back to the city another Saturday to go to the movies at one of the fancy movie palaces. We saw “Teacher’s Pet.” And then went for ice cream sodas across the street at Howard Johnson's. And another Saturday we came in to see “Bell, Book, and Candle” and had ice cream sodas again across the street. I don’t know who picked the movies, they were not ones I would have picked then, they were quite grown up. But interestingly now they are my two favorite movies, someone in that foursome had very good taste in movies.

Altho as a 12 year old, I did not become 13 till that April, my taste in movies ran to “Tammy” or “Roman Holiday.” I liked movies about runaway princesses or a young girl. “Teacher’s Pet” was about a very successful career woman, and it was in black and white, when I liked color movies. “Bell, Book, and Candle” was odd too.

I don’t think there are any words to describe my happiness that Spring. I was now included in my class. I became best friends with Marsha, we started to play squash together at the neighborhood playground. And I was getting interested in boys. The boys came into the handball court and that made it exciting. And Marsha’s great friend was Stefanie, they lived in same building, and Stefanie and I found out we had a lot in common. We both liked to read plus we liked each other a lot. I never did become close to Arlene or Lynn, a little closer to Lynn, but Stefanie and Marsha became my two best friends and I loved them and they loved me. And I stayed best friends with Stefanie all thru high school and to this day I miss her.

St. Patrick's Day 2009

Desert wildflower (photo by Rusty Storbeck)Happy Spring to all

8:17 am
St Patrick’s Day 2009

Maybe I am imagining it but I see the first clump of green leaves out there. It is St Patrick’s Day, which is a day Bill always celebrates. He wears green on it, the day before he chooses green for playing chess on the computer because he says “St Patrick’s Day is tomorrow.” I don’t think he remembered it was St Patrick’s Day today when he forced himself out of bed grumbling, as only he can, to take the truck to the mechanic.

It began last night when I went to bed at a normal reasonable hour, hoping this time I will sleep thru the night and not spend hours of it up in the middle. He said “be sure to get me up at 7 tomorrow so I can take the truck in.”

“Don’t worry, I will” I said.

Which is why I was so surprised when I woke up at 1:30 am to get myself iced water and saw that he was still at the computer playing chess. I didn’t say one word, but he sure did.

“I lost every game! and it was all the truck’s fault! I was so bothered about having to bring it in tomorrow, I couldn’t concentrate right!” He was in a fury.

When 7 am came this morning I overslept, but he was up.

“I’m leaving now” he called to wake me up.

“Wait, I’ll put the carabineer on the door.”

“Don’t take all day about it!” he said. And at the door he had a lot to say about how he didn’t want to be doing this.

“I love you and give my love to Mark” (Mark is the mechanic) were my last words, just to say something to sweeten the atmosphere. But that set him off more, he couldn’t be sarcastic enough in his comeback.

Then I went back to bed and next thing I knew he had returned. He wasn’t cursing anymore, and greeted the dog in a friendly way, he is always nice to the dog. He said “I’m glad I brought it in so early, before the traffic started, because it rode so rough.”

And then he said he’s going back to bed. And I got up and made the coffee and made a hotdog for me to have with my coffee on a roll all nice, and two hotdogs for Beanie, one cut up in little pieces and one a whole hotdog to have in his mouth.

And I had my coffee and hotdog out in yard and woodpecker arrived to peck at the bread I put out yesterday, and Beanie enjoyed both his hotdogs so much. So now both Beanie and I are up on this beautiful morning, with sky so blue and sun so bright, and woodpecker still in my yard with his red head and speckled feathers.

Bill is in bed. And Priscilla (Bill’s cat from outdoors) must be somewhere with her babies. She is no longer around very much, only comes to the house in the evening when Bill is playing chess to hang out with him, and Beanie and I are safely faraway in back room. Where her babies are I do not know. But two mornings ago Bill and I both commented to each other “Priscilla is less fat,” and we both said “she has hardly been around.”

It seems like such a metaphor for my life that somewhere I don’t know where, Priscilla has had her babies. That I am only deducing this because she is no longer spending her whole life on top of my refrigerator, and because the day before yesterday, when Bill was out with Beanie, she came in for such a long drink of water, and because she did seem less fat. (O I see what the woodpecker is pecking on. Last night I threw out the last 3 of the very very stale glazed donuts in the yard, he’s pecking at that.) Why I would feel I have a whole other life going on, when only visible signs are comparable to I do not spend every minute on top of the refrigerator and took long drink of water at water trough two days ago, I do not know. It just seems odd to imagine whole earthshaking life for Priscilla and think “I probably have one too.”

Bill took me swimming at Jerry’s pool yesterday and he took me early, because he promised to go over to Jim’s house after swimming and help him cut down all his weeds. It was nice arriving early instead of late and knowing I could have my whole swim and we each got our own lanes which was huge treat. And water was nice temperature, sky was very blue, sun was very bright, and it was all filled with light. Nice!

Jerry was back. He is not there on the weekends and it was nice to see him presiding on deck as usual, he’s such a little king. When he returns after the weekend there is no awareness that the pool ran just fine for the two days of the weekend with just the girl lifeguards around. When he returns he is such a big-shot, he seems in every way indispensable to everything. But it is still a nice sight to see the king back. This is the only pool with a king, because Jerry is king of all the pools, but this is the pool where he lives, this pool is his castle.

I was swimming for 10 minutes when a man arrived and said “can I share with you?”

“Are you a gentle swimmer or a vigorous one?” I asked, “because if you are very vigorous I will give you the lane and push my husband over and swim with him.”

He said “I am in the middle.”

I said “OK let’s try it.”

He turned out to be a perfect swimming companion, he was way too modest. Because he swam exactly like a fish. You hear that expression “swim like a fish” all the time, and all anyone means when they say it is a person is a good swimmer. But that is not what I mean. It was exactly like swimming next to a big fish. He swam so elegantly and exquisitely, he never broke the water, it really was exactly as if a big fish were sharing my lane, he literally made no waves, just a nice whoosh in the water.

I don’t know how he did it. It was like he was there and invisible at same time. It was like swimming with those exquisite lake fish, a bass. I no longer like to share lanes with those who come for their workouts. They punch the water when they swim, literally, it is some new style, to beat it and punch it with every stroke, and then kick hard and make huge splashes. It was like swimming with a tornado, I just try to be as far away from them as I can. Which is why I offered to give him the whole lane and shove Bill over and share with Bill, when I saw him arriving with all the work-out paddles. But he wasn’t like that at all, it really was an honor to swim in same lane with someone like him, the most exquisite swimmer in the universe.

post script at noon, Bill is now up and in good mood, and telling me about last night's show on Coast to Coast. George had Bob Curran on (from Ireland). Bob Curran knows all about the leprechauns and fairies, and said the leprechauns are not always so nice. Bill said this means they could come up and kick you, or overturn the milk can in the barn, or let all the animals out and the corgis would have to round them up, or upset the dogs.

My French neighbor back in NYC

Drawing by Layla Edwards, from her Gallery


Wednesday, February 4, 2009
"Simone and I are now friends on email"


Simone was my next door neighbor the whole time I lived at 81 First Avenue. We shared a wall together and heard each others whole life. When I sent her the last story I wrote few days ago, the part she responded to in the story was how I stopped at Walgreen’s on way home to buy new nail polish. She wrote back:

WOW you are wearing nails polish? i am surprised you would do that in the Bundoock, or maybe you have a very social life or just having fun or bored or plain sophisticated? LOL

And for some reason yesterday afternoon I emailed back about the nail polish. I said “you introduced me to nail polish Catherine and I have been wearing it ever since, I love it. And I dress differently in Tucson than I did in New York. I wear skirts and tops, not jeans, and most of my skirts have ruffles on them, and they are all summer clothes and pretty.”

In fact in New York I dressed in rags. I don’t know why? It was a habit I fell into and once I fell into that habit I stayed there.

But in Tucson my Higher Self wanted me to shop to buy pretty clothes, to buy new clothes and to dress pretty and so I have. And it turns out to be very good idea for me. It really lifts my spirits and adds tingle to life, like seltzer, makes it more bubbly and elated, adds oomph. I like wearing new pretty clothes now.

After I wrote Simone that little email about wearing nail polish all the time, it makes me happy, and how I dress differently in Tucson, it makes me happy, I decided I would find the tiny little story I wrote two years ago before I was on email with Simone about my last day in New York and leaving New York for Tucson. I thought she would enjoy reading it. She is a part of that story even tho she is not in it. I spent my last morning in New York in Simone’s apartment. I had brought in all my house plants to give her, also to tell her I was moving to Tucson that day. Hiroko was there visiting. I lived in apt 3B, Simone was in apartment 3C, she shared her other wall with apartment 3D which is where Arthur and Hiroko had lived when they lived in New York. Then Hiroko had a baby girl, and then Arthur got a teaching job in Ojai California and they moved there. But we all stayed close with them, me by mail, and Hiroko (who was a painter like Simone) would sometimes come to New York and stay with Simone. Altho sometimes the whole family came in. And when I brought in my house plants and to tell Simone I was moving to Tucson, that day Hiroko was there, she was staying with Simone visiting. I brought in the tiny little very pretty evening bags Irene had given me and gave them to Hiroko and she loved them.

And I guess that was the last time I saw Simone. We were on the phone quite a bit when I first moved here, but really not that much, maybe 5 short phone calls. Our relationship was neighbors, not on the phone. We saw each other 20 times a day on the steps or in front of the house or in her apt. or mine, but we had never had a telephone conversation before. And our conversation when we saw each other was mainly “show and tell.” She would show me the new thing she bought for her apartment or the new nail polish she was wearing, or her new perfume. I would see her outfit and how pretty it was and comment. Simone never wore jeans, only pretty skirts and pretty tops. Really our whole relationship was about clothes. We both love clothes. And of course nail polish, perfume, and lipstick, which we both love. Altho Simone wears all of the above, and at the time I just dressed in rags.

The other half of our relationship was the unseen half. Which was that the wall between us was paper thin, so we each heard each others whole life. So really we were more like sisters, each having our own room, and our own parallel lives. She had her friends and I had mine. Altho there was one friend we shared, Micheline. And I guess Hiroko. Altho Hiroko was much closer to Simone than me. And I guess Randi who moved in when Arthur and Hiroko left. But Randi became best friends with Simone, whereas Randi and I had small bud of friendship. But Simone and I shared all the neighbors, and in our tiny tenement all the neighbors were very close. Most of the other neighbors had been born in their apartment and grown up there. They were part of the immigrant wave to the lower east side.

After our 5 phone calls our first year, my first year in Tucson, I rarely talked to her. Occasionally when I wanted to buy a gift for my mom-- since Simone always wore expensive French lipstick, I would call up and ask “What shade are you wearing now? What do you love most?” And she would say the Dior shade she is wearing for winter and the Dior shade she is wearing for summer now. And I would find an expensive department store in Tucson which sold fancy French lipsticks and buy both for my mom.

But that was ages ago. And then in November my Higher Self suggested I call her. I didn’t recognize the voice on her answering machine, I thought maybe she had moved to North Carolina, I had found out she bought a house on the beach there. But I left a message anyway. I didn’t expect her to call me back. There was some point when we each obtained the other’s email address and she never emailed me back. But to my absolute shock, she did call me back this past November, two months ago, and we had a really nice conversation, and we gave each other our new emails. And this time email took. We do correspond on email.

It was so close to the election when I called her, maybe a week after it, that we each summoned up our courage and told each other our politics had changed, and we were both amazed we both see things the same way now. That made a very close bond. Because in the circles Simone moves in in New York, and with me with all my old New York friends, how Simone and I see politics now is taboo. It is grounds for being an outcast. We are “one of them” instead of “one of us” -- the awful evil people, the dullards and the despised by all sophisticates and intelligentsia, the trailer trash redneck contingent. Which is so funny considering that Simone is a little French girl, and I am a little Jewish New Yorker whose parents were Reds, a bona fide red diaper baby. And Simone comes from the French aristocracy originally, altho she and I became hippies in the '60s, even tho she was still a stewardess then for the French airlines. I don’t think Simone was from high up aristocracy, her dad worked for French NATO, and Simone grew up in Morocco, her dad was stationed there. But her parents went to all the balls and dinners at the French embassy, it was classy life.

But in New York she met John, who had a nice life back then and was a photographer. They moved to the French countryside and had their two children, I guess they married there. And then came back to live next door to me. When I met them it was a just quick stop-over. John’s sister had found and rented the apartment for them, they were en route to New Mexico. But it is almost 30 years later and Simone is still in that apartment, her daughter is married and living in Brooklyn, I don’t know where her son is now, he was two years old when they moved in. John’s life in New York did not work out. Eventually Simone forced him to leave. And the last I heard he was living in Woodstock. But Simone told me on the phone in November he is now in Heaven. Which is OK, John refused to make a life for himself when his wife kicked him out. He was always completely in love with Simone, he always wanted Simone. He chose to sink into a life of misery when he couldn’t have her, it is better he have all the happiness Heaven offers, the world held nothing for him without Simone.

But I think that is a part of our tremendous closeness now, I mean the sisters aspect between us. We each lived thru with each other all the trials and tribulations our marriages went thru at the same time. We each heard it thru the walls and saw it happening for both of us. Simone and I have no secrets because we each were witnesses to everything the other went thru. And you could say as a result we each know each other’s strength. Simone had to rebuild her life from scratch without John and I had to rebuild my marriage from bottom up. We each rebuilt our lives from bottom up and we each saw the other doing it.

But any time we attempted to be regular friends, to share thoughts with each other, it never worked. We were never able to click. Which is odd, because we each clicked with Randi, with Hiroko, with Micheline, but we never clicked with each other.

But we did click on the phone in November when we talked about politics. We each were amazed we saw it all the same way. Isn’t that interesting. It is politics which has brought me and Simone together as friends. Now we email together like regular friends.

Swim on cold rainy Easter Saturday

I found this photo on web called "Our Palo Verde in Bloom"
Easter Sunday, April 12, 2009 7:27 am
Swim on cold rainy Easter Saturday

The sky is looking bluer and I think the sun is coming out. The ground is all soft and wet now from rain for a night and a day and a night, and I am sure the trees are a million times happier. They did not have a drop of water to drink for a month and a half. For 6 weeks it was paradise out my window. Golden sun, blue sky. It was a treat unbelievable. And then out of nowhere in the middle of the night, the night before last, huge rumbling thunder, a huge incredible downpour. And it never went away. The world turned cold and dark and very rainy. O there is a drop of water glistening on the leaf out my window. What a miracle!

Now there is a lot of blue in the sky and sunshine splashing into yard, but still dense white wet clouds over mountains. But I think the blue sky and sunshine have won the day, today may be a nice day. It is so odd that for a full 6 weeks every single day was a glorious Easter Sunday, but now that Easter Sunday is here, it should be so trepidatious the way the sun and blue sky come back after their absence, like a timid knock at the door, so unsure of their welcome, when of course it is all we want. A tentativeness is the way it comes at first. It was such a bewildering rainstorm, something out of nowhere like that, and interrupting paradise. You knew every instant it was a good thing. So much vegetation and all of it in green spring finery now. The plants have to have their water, their leaves have to be drenched. And the earth around them had turned very hard too. Now it is moist just the way they like it, moist mushy sandy mud. Roots like that, roots drink in their water that way. Yes heaven watered the whole desert! And not sparingly either! Huge huge drenching rain, followed by another one, and then after that, constantly non-stop, for night for day for night, either sprinkling or raining or drenching rain. Rain rain rain in total abundance. O that must be the quail pecking at the stale bread I put out. They are all out, the sparrow, the big quail with their red helmet and plume, I even saw my woodpecker. It is the after-the-rain breakfast buffet.

I don’t think Bill and I would have gone swimming yesterday, it was no swimming weather! But the signs said “all pools closed for Easter Sunday.” We knew we wouldn’t be able to swim today, so we grabbed our chance to swim yesterday. And I had errands I wanted to do on way to pool and way home from the pool if we were not going to go out at all the next day.

I had bought skirt at Factory 2 U when we were at Sunflower market on Wednesday (Factory 2 U is right next door). There had been 2 skirts, different colors and patterns but otherwise the same, and both were a size too small for me. But I was in experimental mood. I asked the girl at check-out “which one should I get?” and she pointed to the one with the blues in it. She said “it goes with more things.” I had been attracted to the one with the colors of autumn leaves, but I went with her choice. And there had been little purses made by “Hugs and Kisses,” which had xxxoooo all over it. They were different shapes tho. And I let her choose which she thought was the prettiest shape and I got that. (O there is red cardinal! Sight for sore eyes! That flash of red! Absolute beauty!) And to my surprise the skirt fit! Not really fit of course, I have to leave the whole top open, but fit enough so I can wear it. And to my huge surprise I love it, I love wearing it. It is a cheap skirt, no lining, simple inexpensive poplin, but maybe because of that I like its feel, so light and airy. And it just happens to have a nice cut, I look down and I like the way it flows. Instantly I wanted the other one too, I knew they were skits I could live in all thru the hot blistering desert summer. So when Bill told me yesterday morning that he had tried to eat the spaghetti and meatballs I had gotten at Sunflower on Wednesday, but when he opened it up for supper the night before it was bad, so he ate the pot roast I had cooked for Beanie and had rice with it and made himself delicious stew instead. So I said “good! we will stop on the way to the pool, I will get my money back for the spaghetti and meatballs and there is something I want in Factory 2 U, and then on the way back from the pool we can stop at the other shopping center, I will buy bread at the bakery, kitchen sponges at the hardware store, and books to read at the charity store.”

The manager at Sunflower was wonderful to me. I had actually plucked the carton the spaghetti and meatballs had come in from out of the garbage can where Bill threw the whole thing, so I could show it to him when I asked for my money back. But when I got in the car I realized I had forgotten it by the sink. Bill said “Forget about it! Just tell him!”

The manager had a beautiful huge tattoo on his arm of the Goddess Vishnu, and on his wrist a beautiful big turquoise and silver bracelet. I told him the story of the spaghetti and meatballs, and showed him my grocery receipt, and instantly he said “Do your shopping and I will take the money off at the end!” I said “I don’t want to shop now, I want to go to Factory 2 U and then go swimming.” He said “OK, I'll write it all on your grocery slip and then you show it to them when you shop next and they will take the money off.”

It was while he was writing on my grocery slip that I noticed the beautiful bracelet and tattoo. “What beautiful turquoise!” I said, “where did you get it?” He said “it comes from India.” “O!” I said, “that is Indian turquoise, my own bracelets are Arizona turquoise and New Mexico turquoise.” I looked at it very carefully. “The bracelet is from India” he said, “I got it to go with my tattoo, it is the Goddess Vishnu.” The tattoo went all the way up his arm. “Wow!” I said, “wow, that is beautiful.” “So you’ve been to India” I said. “No” he said, “I asked my friend to get it for me, I wanted it to go with my tattoo.”

O I get it now, he had tattoo of Indian Goddess so he must have asked his friend to bring him back beautiful Indian bracelet to go with it, and that is the bracelet his friend chose. It is beautiful, the silver work is lovely and there is a lot of it and it gleams, and many beautiful large turquoises.

Then I signaled to Bill who was waiting in the truck near Factory 2 U, I made my fingers go in a circle to show him it all worked out, success! And I found the other skirt in Factory 2 U which is also size too small in the other pattern, and next to it another one. Neither is beautiful, neither is the one I am wearing now, but they are nice patterns and colors, and I just like the flow of them. And walking back to cash register I saw a pink purse also made by “Hugs and Kisses,” and it was the day before Easter, who can resist a pink purse made by Hugs and Kisses. The same girl at cash register was there. I told her I loved the purse she chose for me on Wednesday. She said “good.” “What do you think about this pink one?” I said, “I know it’s silly to get two purses, you always wind up using one and the other sits there, but if you think it’s very cute I will get it too.” She said “it is cute.” I said “OK, you only live once.” And I showed her I was wearing the skirt she chose for me, “I love it” I said. “Good” she said. “So I am getting the other 2, it will be cool in summer.” “Yes” she said.

“I bought myself Easter presents” I said to Bill when I got back in the truck, “and the manager in Sunflower was very nice, he didn’t want to see the carton, you were right about that and he wrote on my receipt to take the money off next time I shop.” “Good” Bill said, “Good.” He was very pleased.

And we took off for swim pool. “O no!” he said, “I see lightning over the mountains, they’ll shut the pool.” “We don’t know” I said, “the pool may be open.” But when we got there there were no cars at all, I didn’t see lifeguard in the stand. And when Bill went to talk to them, they told him “we are on stand-by.” So I got out of the car to find out what that meant. She said “we will be closed for at least a half an hour and if we see more lightning we close for another half hour.” “Forget about it” I said, “I am not that compulsive about my swim.” And so Bill and I set off for shopping center with bakery, hardware store, and old books.

“I’ll buy the bread, I’ll buy the sponges, and then meet you by the books.” Bill had just finished reading “Tom Jones” which he had bought there and loved it so much. “It is the best book I ever read” he said. I knew he was looking for another book. And I had enjoyed the mystery by Patricia Moyes so much, I wanted to see if they had any more by her. We were both looking forward to looking at the books.

But it was clear as soon as we drove up the charity bookstore was closed. It is St Vincent de Paul, I figured Easter was such a big deal to a Catholic organization they had to make a weekend of it. So I went to bakery. The rain had started up again as we were arriving from pool to shopping center. The girl in bakery said her friend just called, she is staying with her friend, and her friend said “you left without your umbrella and your raincoat and now it is raining hard, I will come and pick you up.” And she said how she appreciates it because as soon as she gets home she will have to walk her doggie in the pouring rain anyway. They must be living in an apartment if she has to walk the dog before and after work.

To my surprise Bill was in the hardware store when I arrived for sponges, he was getting stuff so he could start up our evaporative coolers for when the big heat arrives. So then we reached home with our purchases and Beanie ran around in circles, he was delighted to see us. Then to my huge surprise, Bill who had grumbled when we first got into the truck to go swimming, “I am only doing this for you, the last thing I want to do on a day like today is go swimming”-- to my huge surprise Bill said, “It looks like it is starting to clear, call the swim pool, see if they are open, we’ll go back and have our swim, if you don’t want to go I’ll go by myself.” “I want to go! I want to go! What a great idea!” I said.

I called the pool and they reluctantly admitted they were open and I could come over to swim. I understood their reluctance admitting it. It was freezing cold, terribly damp, very overcast, they did not want to sit up high up on lifeguard stand and watch swimmers. They wanted to be warm cozy together in lifeguard house. I thanked him very much and said “I am sorry to inconvenience you this way” and he said “that is what we are here for.”

We were sorry to disappoint Beanie but we were thrilled we were going to have our swim after all. And as Bill pointed out “now we don’t have to make any stops on way home.” And it really was freeing to throw down my purse, all my purchases, and just march out the front door free as a bird.

And my swimsuit was on under my clothes from when we had first started out the first time, so I said to Bill “here is my swim bag with shampoos, here is my towel, here is my clothes, leave it all by the bathhouse when you go in to change, I am just going to dive into the deep water.” The lifeguard still seemed a little grumpy when he came out to go up in lifeguard stand because I was going to dive into the water. He had been so merry and happy when he said “pool was closed” earlier on, he was not happy that now pool was open and he had to sit up in the cold and guard the swimmers. I said “I don’t have to be guarded, I am a Junior Lifesaver, you can go back into the house, if I need help I will call you.” But rules are rules. When we swam at private club there was never any lifeguard but at public pools, Willy, who is charge of all the lifeguards, makes them guard no matter what. Which to be honest makes no sense to me, as one of the lifeguards once pointed out “many of the lap swimmers were swimming before he was born and are better swimmers than he is.” And in fact I found out many of them used to be lifeguards.

“Is the water warm?” He was in no mood to gloss things over for me. “No!” he said, “it was a cold rain.” “Which is the warmest lane?” I asked. “I don’t know” he said. Naturally I was the only one there. I thought ‘This is exactly what it was like swimming in the Adirondacks, I would stand on a cold beach before I went in, about to dive into cold water, with heavy dense dark clouds all around the mountains, just the way they are here now.’ No matter how nostalgic I get for the Adirondacks, standing on that cold deck on dark cold cloudy day, facing cold water, I knew I would never return to that world. Once the girl has gotten a taste of sunny hot desert, she does not want to be cold and damp and chilly and uncomfortable; she likes to be happy in the warm dry sunshine.

But O I am so glad that Bill arranged for me to have my swim after all, when I had totally given up on it, I had decided it would not happen and I would accept it. It was such a surprise to be swimming when I hadn’t expected it, and it did feel good to swim, to stretch out in the water, and the water wasn’t that cold, it was fine. And I had long glorious swim.

And I saw another woman arrive for her swim. Pool is open till 4 pm on Saturdays, we had arrived at 3:20, the woman arrived for her swim 20 minutes before it closed. But she is smart, 20 minutes is not the longest swim in the world, but perfect for doing the trick. Bill was in lane next to me.

Few minutes before 4, I swam to the bathhouse, had nice long swim, and naturally at first it was freezing in there, there is no roof, and water in shower came out ice cold. But then it turned hot, delicious! And I washed my hair and soaped up, and then went to the middle area, since there was no one there, to towel off, spray on perfume, and a little vanilla cream at back of my heels, elbow, and knees. And I dressed. The girl lifeguard came in and she called out to the boy lifeguards “Don’t lock up yet! Anne is still in here.” It turned out they had locked up everything. “We found you just in time, Anne” she said, “else you would have been locked in over night.” I giggled and said “then I would have been the only one who swam on Easter Sunday.” I felt glorious when I arrived back on deck, there is nothing like being all fresh and clean and all refreshed, and warmed up from swim and hot shower.

We drove home so happily. “It’s always smart to go swimming if you have the chance” Bill said, when we got in the truck and were driving thru the parking lot of Fort Lowell Park. “Truer words were never said,” I said...