The new address is 301 Park Avenue

I started out my day with coffee, Cheyene, a tennis ball and a swimming pool. Six hours later, my mother, my friend, Sharon, and I would hopefully be at the Waldorf Astoria in New York City. I haven’t mentioned anything here about these plans because I wasn’t at all sure it was going to happen, and it almost didn’t. Getting my friend to say anything nice about George Bush is more probable than getting my mother to get out of bed at 8:00 in the morning. With our flight scheduled to leave at 10:50, at 9:15, Mom was just getting up and by that I mean sitting up in her bed and telling me that she was tired. My niece sat upstairs keeping company with the internet and giggling at my panic when I’d say to her, I don’t think Mom is going to make this trip, and then yell downstairs, Mother PLEASE get up. To which Mom would groggily reply, I just need one minute more.

She did get up though, and we left the house at 9:46 - plenty of time if I can drive 85 mph the entire way. When we arrived at Departures, Sharon stood waiting for us with a Sky Cap, a wheelchair, and somehow our printed boarding passes and luggage claim checks for our as yet to be checked luggage. That alone was worth ten bucks on the spot. It’s 10:30 and our flight leaves in 20 minutes. As Sharon jumps in my car to park it, she heroically says, Don’t worry. If I miss this flight, I’ll catch the next. It was a scene from a movie, though I don’t know what one or if it’s really in a movie, but it should be.

In one of those 12-seater golf carts, Mom and I were driven to Gate E16 which just happened to be in Terminal E and not Terminal C which is where you check in for Continental domestic flights, and which is about five miles away and exactly how it should be when you’re in a hurry and only have 20 minutes before your flight leaves and one of your group is circling the airport in your car looking for a place to park.

When we got to our gate, I asked the attendant if Sharon had already boarded. She raised an eyebrow at me and said, No, is she planning on coming? This plane will be leaving soon. As we wheeled Mom down the jet way, I called Sharon. She was breathing heavy and I could hear her footsteps running, I’m at Gate 10! As Mom got out of the wheelchair at the end of the jet way, I asked the attendant to tell the gate agent that Sharon was at Gate 10 and to please wait for her. Having been with us the whole time, he smiled a smile that said he believed in us and we could make it happen.

From that point on, all we could do was hope.

Just as Mom and I got settled in our seats, here comes Sharon, the last one on the flight, sweat pouring from her brow, an ear-to-ear grin spread across her face. We made it. And really, that’s how I like it: No time to spare, walk right onto the flight, sit down and go.

How to kill the thrill of discovery in six easy steps

When I moved into my first apartment after two long years of campus dorm life, what I looked forward to, in addition to the obvious thrill of independent living, was starting and feeding my very own junk drawer in the kitchen. The kitchen junk drawer was standard in each house we lived in when I was a child. Everything I needed and couldn't find elsewhere could magically be found in the junk drawer, and I have fond memories of my mother saying, Did you look in the junk drawer? when I was whining over being unable to find a single battery, thumbtack, stamp, tape, rollerskate key, a rubberband, the Playbill from a musical my parents attended two years prior.

I think junk drawers are perfect in their messiness, that's the whole idea behind them. But not everyone agrees with me. Both Martha Stewart and Real Simple provide guidelines on organizing your junk drawers with separators or small plastic containers perhaps color-coded for, say, batteries, rubberbands or paperclips. Basically, their advice can be boiled down to this:

1. Dump out the junk
2. Throw away what is trash
3. Sort out the rest
4. Buy drawer dividers
5. Sort the items in the dividers
6. Enjoy your new drawer

Well, hats off to you for your organizational genius - and thank you for scaring me with the realization that some people might not be able to figure it out for themselves and will actually benefit from those instructions - but I think we should be allowed at least one place in our homes that is a total disaster. I think we need a break from this ever expanding kudzu vine of organization. The truth is, I don't want to open the drawer and see what I'm looking for right there in its own color coordinated slot, I want to dig a bit so that I can feel excited and successful when I find it. Rewards, even cheap, are nice to have on occasion.

I opened my junk drawer the other morning looking for Cheyenne's heartworm pills, which I didn't find because I'd forgotten that they were in her junk drawer which is right beside mine and for her things only. Staring at all the crap in my junk drawer, I couldn't help but smile at the goods I've amassed since moving in here five years ago:

Sample of Penhaligans perfume, scissors, six Ace Bandage fasteners, two yellow highlighters, four decks of cards (two opened), shoe polishing sponge, Labello lip protection, red ball that lights up (to attach to Cheyenne's collar at night, and since moved to her drawer), small umbrella, Star Pizza menu, two binder clips, several notecards, pocket knife, photo loop, clothespin, three lighters, Cheyenne's first Rabies tag (since moved to her junk drawer), sunglass lanyard, manual to my cell phone, manual to my old cell phone, bag of Halls cough drops, Ipod headphones, Ipod manual, guidance document for my new Nikon, manual for my first digital camera, as well as the digital camera, clear plastic refrigerator frame, two glue sticks, polarized sunglasses, lined notepad, cell phone cover, tape dispenser, a pack of matches from a hotel in London and a pack of matches from a restaurant down the street, two sleeves of negatives, cables for image transfer from camera to computer (old and new cameras), tape measurer, seven Sharpies - three black, two red, one green, one silver, and one red pencil from the W Hotel.

That's a well-stocked junk drawer, if you ask me. And I am blissfully content with the mess I find there.

Realizing

that the things I love most about weekends are the light, the trees and the dogs.

When and when not

Honestly, I do not care who the Texans picked, Vince, Reggie or Mario. What I do care about is that all three of these guys are running around before six in the evening with diamonds the size of Buicks in their ears. Someone should tell them that's not right. I'm sure that, if she knew how to reach them, my mother would be more than happy to do so.

Due to a combination of private school for several years and being my mother's daughter for all my years, I have certain rules of etiquette ingrained in my head as permanently as if they were tattooed on the back of my eyelids. My personal prohibitions.

The white shoe rule, for instance. In my household and my school the rule went so far as to incorporate white socks. One did not wear white shoes or socks after Labor Day and before Memorial Day. At school, that would get you one demerit. Enough demerits and you found yourself in detention. At home, my Mother, backed by her Emily Post bible, would frown severely at me, and order me to, Go back to your room and change your socks.

The color black? Not allowed to wear it until I was 16 years old.

When I would question Mom about all these rules (and who the heck was Emily, anyway?), she would tell me that they helped to ensure a polite society.

Do white socks or black dresses really translate to rudeness?

Not all the rules she placed on me were color related. There are plenty of etiquette rules that involved the time of day, as in what to wear before or after a certain hour. Such as when and when not to wear your diamonds. According to the powerhouse of my mother and Ms. Post, unless they are in an engagement ring, diamonds should never be worn before six o'clock in the evening. I think though that the rule only considered women. I cannot imagine that that either woman ever figured into the fold that men would wear diamond earrings.

Still, I'm a product of my mother, so I can't help but look at Mario's picture on the front page of today's paper, cringe a bit, and imagine my mother frowning severely, wanting to hurl her Book of Etiquette at him.

C'est la vie, yeah? Well, if your mother's name is Betty.

Dollar dreams

Every couple of hours last night, I'd wake up from a dream, shake my head through the fog, and go back to sleep. I recall doing that, but not the dreams I woke from except for the one I woke from this morning: I got a bonus at work. A big fat bonus of seven dollars. It didn't seem to phase me. With my seven dollars, I went to a store and bought seven Frisbees for Cheyenne. And when I got home, she chewed them all up as if they were a Christmas ham or a wedge of Parmesan cheese left on the kitchen counter. My living room floor was covered in brightly colored bits of plastic Frisbee. Then I woke up. And recalling the dream, I thought, the meaning of nothingness, that's what that dream was about.

This morning at the park, however, Cheyenne found a bright blue Frisbee and pounced on it. She looked at me a minute and then turned her attention back to the Frisbee, which she put in her mouth and started shaking back and forth as if it were a rope and someone else was on the other side of the knot and her mission was to win by destruction. As I watched her, I said to no one in particular but out loud nonetheless, I hope this doesn't mean I'm getting a seven dollar bonus.

A lesson in world history, or how every now and then someone emails me something that I actually find amusing

Every now and then someone forwards me something that I find funny. Those times are few and far between, however, because I have discovered over the years - as I'm sure you have discovered as well - that in reality there are only about 20 jokes that cross the internet and many friends have very short memories and therefore do not remember the first 99 times they read something and forwarded it on to me because they thought it was funny (or were threatened with bad luck, no wishes, no good fortune, the wrath of God, or what have you, if they did not forward within the next five to seven minutes to their entire address book with bonus points after the first seven people).

My friend Carrie just forwarded me a gem I had not seen before. I wrote her back and told her that I thought it was the best thing anyone has ever forwarded me in the entire history of my email usage. I cannot locate the original writer of this so cannot give credit. Carrie also sent her partner the piece, and her partner wrote back to say that she ought to slap us both. So, although the author doesn't get any credit here, he or she apparently does get to avoid being slapped by a seething, red-eyed liberal who does not appreciate the tables being turned on her. (Necessary side note: For those who don't know my friend, what I just did - the seething red-eyed liberal... bit - is equivalent in foolishness to putting your head in a guillatine, or stepping in front of a moving train, or trying to get Cheyenne to move over just an inch when she's hogging the bed at night. So I need to wave a white flag right here and say to her, Just kidding, even though I know it won't stop retaliation.)

Anyway, the piece is titled, Lessons in World History. Read on.

Humans existed as members of small bands of nomadic hunter/gatherers. They lived on deer in the mountains during the summer, and would go to the coast and live on fish and lobster in winter. The two most important events in all of history were the invention of beer and the invention of the wheel. The wheel was invented to get man to the beer. These were the foundations of modern civilization and together were the catalyst for the splitting of humanity into two distinct subgroups: Liberals and Conservatives.

Once beer was discovered it required grain and that was the beginning of agriculture. Neither the glass bottle nor aluminum can were invented yet, so while our early human ancestors were sitting around waiting for them to be invented, they just stayed close to the brewery. That's how villages were formed.

Some men spent their days tracking and killing animals to barbecue at night while they were drinking beer. This was the beginning of what is known as "the Conservative movement." Other men who were weaker and less skilled at hunting learned to live off the conservatives by showing up for the nightly barbecues and doing the sewing, fetching and hair dressing. This was the beginning of the Liberal movement. Some of these liberal men eventually evolved into women. The rest became known as "girlie-men."

Some noteworthy liberal achievements include the domestication of cats, the invention of group therapy and group hugs and the concept of Democratic voting to decide how to divide the meat and beer that conservatives provided.

Over the years conservatives came to be symbolized by the largest, most powerful land animal on earth, the elephant. Liberals are symbolized by the jackass. Modern liberals like imported beer (with lime added), but most prefer white wine or imported bottled water. They eat raw fish but like their beef well done. Sushi, tofu, and French food are standard liberal fare.

Another interesting revolutionary side note about liberals: most of their women have higher testosterone levels than their men. Most social workers, personal injury attorneys, journalists, dreamers in Hollywood and group therapists are liberals. Liberals invented the designated hitter rule because it wasn't "fair" to make the pitcher also bat.

Conservatives drink domestic beer. They eat red meat and still provide for their women. Conservatives are big-game hunters, rodeo cowboys, lumberjacks, construction workers, firemen, medical doctors, police officers, corporate executives, Marines, athletes and generally anyone who works productively. Conservatives who own companies hire other conservatives who want to work for a living.

Liberals produce little. They like to "govern" the producers and decide what to do with the production. Liberals believe Europeans are more enlightened than Americans. That is why most of the liberals remained in Europe when conservatives were coming to America. They crept in after the Wild West was tame and created a business of trying to get MORE for nothing.

Here ends today's lesson in world history: A Liberal may have a momentary urge to respond to the above before simply laughing and forwarding it. A Conservative will be so convinced of the absolute truth of this history that it will be forwarded immediately.

Depending on who you are, the above will either make you smile, or make you want to raise your left hand and start slapping.

Seven minutes brought to me in living color

Cheyenne’s brown ears flap in the wind, her nose twitches at the smells on the warm air. She’s riding in the front seat, hanging her head out the window as I drive to the bank. A man sits on the bench at the bus stop, his elbows on his knees, talking on his cell phone. He has a blue bandana tied around his head. He looks up as we drive past, and opens his face to a smile.

A blue post box is at the edge of the parking lot. I have a letter to mail. Standing barefoot on the sidewalk after dropping the grey envelope through the metal door, I look down at my pajama clad legs. Bright pink, blue, yellow, purple and green cotton stripes.

The neighborhood homeless woman walks toward my car. Hey, Momma, you got any change? Her skin is dark, the deep color of red clay. Her t-shirt is blue, with Fiorucci in red across the front. I give her a dollar. As she walks from my car, she turns back and says, Thanks Momma.

At home I remove the bandage from my arm and toss it in the trash. Fiorucci red blood pools just beneath my skin, making my arm less my skin color and more bandana blue. And purple. More purple and blue than I've seen before. A line of bright sky blue weaves through the cause. It doesn't hurt except to know it's there. I tape a white gauze pad over the stitching and wrap the bandage around and around my arm.

All the color covered. All the color swallowed by beige.

New arrival

It is with great joy that I announce the arrival of my Nikon D70 (from here on out, referred to as my bundle of joy, or BOJ) at 2:30 pm Thursday, April 20, 2005. Weighing one pound, two ounces, and measuring just over five inches long, BOJ arrived safely, with all three perfect lenses and three perfect filters. I believe we will have a very happy life together.

Right here is where I give you a heads up to the harsh reality of the real world that can be found in the next paragraph.

Like many things in life, the timing of BOJ's arrival is not without its own form of irony. BOJ arrived Thursday afternoon and on Friday I had surgery on my left wrist and elbow, resulting in my arm and hand being less than eager, not to mention completely unable, to grab a focus ring and turn. So, for the time being, I have ample time to get acquainted with BOJ's Guidance Manual (as the good folks at Nikon call it) and prepare for what must be a written exam with special certification initials after my last name on the line because the manual is that big and the knowledge within that detailed and that challenging. (Previous sentence is only slight exageration.) Alas, unless I'm studying, until this contraption on my left arm comes off, it'll be one-handed or tripod-shooting for me. Still though, I was able to shoot these and although not brilliant because they're in full automatic point-and-shoot mode, I'm nonetheess feeling so good about them that I just might be able to skip my next pain pill. Well, maybe.

Today is the first day of the rest of my photos

I sat on the fence for a long time when it comes to digital photography. I didn't want to give up my love for, and comfort with, film. I didn't want to give up what I'd learned about developing and enlarging my own photos. But the reality is that I haven't developed my own negatives or enlarged my own photos in over ten years. And the truth is that the part of me that is quite comfortable with my photography knowledge resented the whole idea of digital and hoped it would be a flash in the pan fad like the return of ponchos. Then again, I thought MS Word would never be more popular than WordPerfect and I resisted that as well.

But as digital technology improved, and was suddenly everywhere I looked, I couldn't help but, well, look into it further.

A little over a year ago, I started my digital journey with a Canon PowerShot. I told myself to start out with a basic camera, get accustomed to digital, compare it to film, and see how I like it. And I gave myself a year to find out. If I found that I wanted to jump to the digital side, I could then move on to a better camera and the financial commitment that would involve.

Well, a year has come and gone. I did loads of research on which camera would be best for me, and then spent more time comparing prices. Finally, last week I made a decision. And that decision arrived in Houston at 9:47 last night, and was put on the UPS truck at 6:15 this morning (side note: I think that package tracking is hands down one of the coolest things that the internet provides). Sometime today, this will arrive to my front door, along with all sorts of additional fun things like a zoom lens, a speed lens and a wide angle lens, a filter kit, and an extra battery. Because I don't believe in doing anything half-assed. Happy snapping!

On Mexico time

Highway 200 cuts a jagged path along the Pacific Coast from the Guatemalan border to just north of the state of Nayarit where it merges with another highway and heads for the mountains. In Oaxaca, the highway is a long stretch of nerve-stripping road, damaged and at times barely passable due to the weak pavement's inability to hold its own against the harsh rainy seasons. Between Puerto Escondido and Huatulco, the road intersects with Highway 175, running north to Pochutla and across the mountains to the city of Oaxaca, and south to the backpackers' haven of Puerto Angel. For roughly two hundred miles along 200, Highway 175 basks in its importance of being the only road north.

Many times I've followed 200, taken a right on 175 towards the beach, or a left on 175 to the mountains, or gone straight to the bays of Huatulco. Many times. An intersection of unspoiled remoteness, without so much as a stoplight to mark it, it's part of an important vein through an otherwise dreamy coastal region baked by the sun but having the perseverence to somehow hold onto the green.

I once spent an entire day at the intersection, waiting for hours over a taxi dispute in which about 50 taxi drivers simply parked their taxis in the road to make their point - they wanted to have the base rate raised from just about nothing to next to nothing. Nobody got far that day, though a group of bus passengers did collectively walk across the intersection to exchange busses, and the two busses - one on each side of the line - turned around with a new destination in mind, churning and belching black smoke into the distance while the rest of us sat atop our cars or in the back of our trucks, listening to music, fanning ourselves from the heat, waiting for whatever was going to happen next. Turning the truck around was not an option by the time we realized it was an all-day gig. Hundreds of cars were parked in all directions.

The friend we were going to pick up from the airport in Huatulco that day caught a cab to the strike zone, paid her fare, walked west a while and found us parked in the truck beneath the shade of a palm tree, watching the scene around us, listening to Collective Soul and drinking the cold Dos XX we had packed in the cooler. As they say, Bienvenidos a Mexico.

This morning I heard Collective Soul's Shine on the radio and in an instant I was right back in that day. I swear I could hear the palm fronds lifting in the breeze above my head, feel the heat rising from the street, the sun bearing down on my back, a drop of sweat falling from my brow. I could hear the truck's tailgate dropping, and the cooler creaking open.

It's funny how we deal with a plan thrown off course. Funny how something out of your control that could have made your blood boil, instead turns out to be a day that left you with no choice but to sit back and say it is what it is. And one day years later you find that while you're stuck in traffic on your way to work on an altogether different road, a song will come on the radio, and before you know it, you're catapulted back into a day you hadn't previously classified as perfect, but you do now. Oh yeah, that day is looking real good from here.

But still, no matter what you thought then, you know enough now to be happy you had it in the first place. That? That's good stuff.