The Burrow

Her message said she needed a place for her mom. I'd been there.  I'd felt that.  My friends had shown me the way.  When she called, I wasted no time; I called her right back.  Telephone tag and two hours later I was wandering my house... my yard.... my kitchen as she brought me back to the days before G'ma was settled.  I couldn't sit still. I needed to do something, anything, because to do nothing was untenable yet there was nothing I could do. I listened to her talk. Her mom needed..... her dad was..... and then there was her own family... and a relationship-by-marriage... and she was just so tired. Her own kid was finally getting settled.  She was in charge of so much, and so little all at the same time. So, I listened to her talk. Her parents are there and she is here.  Should they move, she wondered?  Would they agree to move, I wondered right back at her.  She didn't say anything for a while. Making decisions is wher...

As those of you who were dry enough to be here yesterday know, Miss Margo and I were listening to some pretty fine tunes on Sunday.   We heard eight acts in six hours There was very little down-time between sets. Encores were allowed but not encouraged. The early acts were amazed to be awake; "I didn't know that there were two 10:30's in a single day." There was lots of gospel and a maddening urge to get up and boogie. The music touches something in my soul; G'ma loved Woody Guthrie and I'm wondering if it's genetic.   There were contest winners  like Desert Heart, who won a spot on the bill by coming in first in the Friday Night Band Contest. Two are married, all were smiling. The music was fine.  Margo and I enjoyed their joy.   Mark Phillips (in black) & IIIrd Generation  got the crowd up and dancing. A classically trained musician does have a smoother sound than someone who learned at Gran...

without the banjo?  Margo and I looked and smiled and said "Country."  Then we laughed. It was that kind of a day at the lovely outdoor AVA Ampthitheater next to the Pascua Yaqui's aptly named Casino del Sol. Look at all that sunshine, denizens.  Why in the world are you living along the Eastern seaboard?  Have you not checked The Weather Channel?  You won't be seeing skies like this in the forseeable future.  Margo and I sat outside, in shorts, for six wonderful hours today.  I wish you all could have been there, too.  There were plenty of empty seats. Sponsored by the Desert Bluegrass Association (which deserves the shout out for putting on such a wonderful show at such a reasonable price), we saw eight acts, most of them from the front row. And then there was the festival food. Margo was trying to be healthy; there are veggies under the salsa. My Sonoran Hot Dog (no beans, please) made me very happy.  The su...

I've written about home teams before.  Moving as often as we have, the whole concept seems vaguely irrelevant.  I felt close to MJ's Bulls teams and Jim McMahon's Bears and I'll always have a soft spot in my heart for the Cubbies, but considering any of them a home team... not so much. It's World Series time and the San Francisco Giants are battling for the title. I lived there for 15 years. I watched Big Cuter buy every logoed 49'ers item for sale under the Super Bowl Items Here tent at the corner of the strip mall.  I never really cared that much. Daddooooo took me to see Joe Namath's Jets in their championship year. We had a neighbor's season tickets, three rows up from the field.  I could see the frost on the helmets; I don't remember feeling cold, though.  There was a different kind of energy, a big, masculine, powerful pulsing of yells about things I didn't understand.  I can conjure it up even now.  The Jets were my dad's team.  He...

There were three of us, then four, then five fit, strong women with perfect form using the machines facing the mirrors.  There was no conversation, there was no hair flipping, there was no adjusting of clothing.  There was concentration and breathing and, lurking in the background, a shared sense of purpose.  And then there were the men.  Clustered around the kick-back machine I use to strengthen my hamstrings and reawaken their connection to my glutes, five of them were discussing politics.  Actually, it was less of a discussion than it was pontification at a raised volume.  Over the D'Oyle Carte Opera's Pinafore on my iPod mini, over Buttercup bemoaning her fate, over the orchestra and the stomping of sailors on the foredeck, I was distracted by their laughter and their nonsense.  Did they think that they were the only ones in the room?  Apparently so. Their clothes were sweat drenched; they'd finished their racquetball game and ...

Google Maps told me it would take 53 minutes from the kids' house to O'Hare. They weren't counting on the drizzle, I guess. Going uphill when the roads are slick seems to touch a  slow down and take care  button in certain drivers, which wouldn't bother me if they slowed down 5 or 10 miles per hour. Tooling along in the left lane at 30mph in a 55mph zone makes no sense to me. ***** And then there were the gawkers. A sedan rear-ended a sports car. The tow trucks and the police were on the scene. All the vehicles were on the shoulder, lights blinking. The officers were taking information as the mechanics were attaching hoists to undercarriages while the drivers were waving their arms and trying to stay dry. How do I know all of this? Because traffic slowed to a crawl, delaying progress for miles. I zipped past as the road opened up in front of me, otherwise I'd have been able to tell you the make and model of the vehicles involved. I let the other cars dawdle...

The memories don't take long to come flooding back. Every corner pricks another part of my history, reminding me that once, a long, long time ago, I was young here. There's no more free parking at the Lincoln Park Zoo; the city is charging to drive down the road on which we always used to find a spot. My parking karma never failed me on Cannon Drive; spaces would materialize before my eyes. Friends were amazed, perplexed, bemused. I knew that the city and I had a special relationship when it came to visiting the seals. I'd been a fan since I moved to the Midwest for graduate school. Impoverished, living on mac-and-cheese and spaghetti, the free zoo was a great escape from the problems I encountered in my social work world. Today, in the rain, I could only drive by and sigh. Paying $18 for a quick trip in to bark back at the pinipeds felt self-indulgent. Of course, the rain may have had something to do with it, too Yes, it's raining. Not a Tucs...

Detroit Metro to Midway is such a quick flight that the flight attendants barely have enough time to serve and collect the complimentary  beverages.  I left one adventure and began another before I had time to finish my Coke. The newlyweds met me at the bottom of the escalator and enveloped me in hugs. Did I mind going to the mall so that they could return some duplicate wedding gifts and spend some of the cash and gift cards they'd received? Not at all... so off we went to Crate and Barrel and Pottery Barn, where pillows were selected and tested before they took me to their new home. They are delightfully house-proud. The prior owners were full of loud parties and drunken teens. The neighbors are delighted to have the kids instead. Fall in the Midwest is much more colorful than that which arrives in the desert Southwest.   These trees and bushes  were at the end of the parking lot at Garden Ridge...... which was not the garden su...