BACK IN THE SADDLE AGAIN

What I am missing already:
- Kate laughing
- Chasing Colin
- Late- night chats with Harmony
- The Prius
- Hearing Blake practice the guitar
- Incredible high-speed Internet
- The garbage disposal

What I am appreciating at home:
- Murray's laughing face
- Pandora very casually asking to be petted
- Najale knocking me over so he can rub his ear
- The computer already being set up for all my favorite sites
- My own bed

I'm just a little bit homesick for Hawaii.

ANY LAST WORDS?

I am leaving Hawaii early tomorrow morning and am being forced to deal with many conflicting emotions. I will leave it to you, dear reader, to determine which category each of the following should be placed in:

- I am leaving the company of the two most intelligent, beautiful and mischief-making children in the world.
- The aforementioned children have caused my normal blood pressure reading of 118/65 to run regularly to 190/133.

- I am leaving the island of Oahu, the community of Ewa Beach, and community of Honolulu.
- I am leaving humid temperatures than normally run around 85 degrees Fahrenheit.
- I am returning to a winter of an arid 85 degrees Fahrenheit during the day, and down in the 20's at night.

- I am leaving the pristine island beaches of Ko'olina just a 20 minute drive from my daughter's house.
- I have actually been to the pristine island beaches of Ko'olina just once in the month I've been here.

- I leave well educated in the pluses of membership with Costco, especially when living in an incredible expensive environment such as Oahu.
- I am returning to a locale where the nearest Costco is over two hours away in Tucson.

- I am leaving Wow Wow Wuggzy, Crash Van de Coupe, Blues Clues, and 23 repetitions of Itsby Bitsy Spider every evening.
- I am leaving diapers. In particular, dirty diapers.

- I am leaving having a DVR to record any show I miss, tune into late or just don't have time to watch right then.
- I am leaving my daughter, who is my favorite person to watch "The Office", "Desperate Housewives", "Project Runway"... in fact, just about any television show with.

- I am leaving huge, front-loading brand-new washer & dryer mounted on the accompanying albeit expensive pedestal so it is a reasonable height for an adult to load and unload, which is normally loaded with five extra large white bath towel, two sets of children's pajamas, three pairs of jeans, fourteen socks that have no match and keep getting thrown into the washer in the vain hope that somehow the missing socks will materialize from the thin air they have been hiding in for the past two weeks.
- I am returning to a huge, front-load washer which is not on a pedestal, and a regular old dryer which is normally loaded with my latest pair of filthy jeans, 13 dirty white socks, and a hand towel that was used to mop up all the water which Delilah spills on the floor every time she gets a drink.

- I am leaving a household which literally stops if a certain young lady does not have her pink and brown polka-dotted flannel blanket when it's time for her to go to bed.
- I am leaving a bed right next to my grandson's bed which, if I go to bed any later than his 8 p.m. bedtime, is normally occupied by my grandson, forcing me to literally roll him over three times to get him back on his bed.
- I am returning to a bed which is for me alone, and has my required five pillows (head, 2 for my shoulders, knees and to brace my back).

- I am leaving my daughter who still had six stitches in her right shoulder and is still in pain.
- I am leaving limited access to the Internet.
- I am leaving driving my grandson to and from kindergarten.
- I am leaving having a grocery store, drug store, Starbucks, Subway and TCBY within five minutes of the house.

I am trying to focus on the positive reasons to leave and go back home - and I am having trouble with it.

MOONLIGHT

I am realizing how much the phases of the moon affect me when I am home.

No, no, not in that way, you silly - my uterus has been gone for several years now, and believe me, I do not miss it in any way, shape or form.


But now I live a ways outside of civilization. The smallest area that you can build a house on is four acres, so even your next-door neighbor isn't very close.

There are no streetlights... NONE. No lights at intersections or even on the main highway. Houses are supposed to have only 'shaded' lights, ones that are directed only towards the ground and not emitting 'light pollution' - a term I used to view as a sissy word that tree-hugged used until I moved out in the country.


Not any longer. I will fight to keep my night sky and the thousands upon thousands of stars I can see at night. Growing up in the peak smog years of L.A. County, I had no idea of why the Milky Way was called that - something to do with the candy bar?


The moon dictates some of my daily activities when I am at home. My husband goes to bed right around 7 p.m. Well, no, he doesn't actually go to bed, he takes his sleeping pills around 7, and I have forbidden him to come OUT of his bedroom once he has taken them. Because then he gets relaxed, and then chatty, and then snacky (if there is such a word), and you can't him to go back to bed.


I've always been a night owl, so around 11:30 p.m. each night, I take both dogs, a bag of carrots and go outside to say goodnight to Najale nd Sally. The dogs get their business done before bed, the horses enjoy their treats, and I get to look at the sky.


So if the moon is at all in the night sky, I can walk out without any artificial light all the way to the corral. Even just a sliver of moon is enough. But if it's already set or has yet or has yet to rise, I either trust my instincts, sense of direction and rely on just the starlight - or take a flashlight with me.

Having a flashlight is fun, however. You know how you can get a cat to chase the light from a small pen light? My dog will do that with any sort of light, even a big floodlights, and never seems to tire of it.

But when the moon is out as it is tonight.... It's beautiful. But right now I am surrounded by houses, streetlights, driveway lights, car lights....

I kinda wanna get home and see it from my own back yard.

PRIDE AND PREJUDICE

Inspiration from a neat blog, http://oneminutewriter.blogspot.com/, prompts my daily 'writing assignment' on my other blog. But my response to yesterday's "What is your greatest source of pride?" is a little bit more complicated, so I am going to expand on it here.

Pride, according to Encarta dictionary, is 1) satisfaction with self, 2) proper sense of own value, and 3) feeling of superiority.

And the number of the day today is . . . . number three!


I'm amazed how many times I find myself bragging. When I am pointing out how stupid/ uneducated/ boring someone else is, I am boasting indirectly about how I am not as stupid/ uneducated/ boring as they are since I obviously can see it in them.

An old adage is what bothers us most in other people's behavior is what, consciously or unconsciously, we also hate in ourselves. For example, if someone is talking about you behind your back, you may begin talking about them behind their back - if you feel someone has snubbed you, you will snub them - etc. etc. etc.

So we don't prove we are better, we just stoop to their level to get back at them.

I used to brag insistently about my horse. And I do adore him, and take a great deal of joy in his simple existence and the companionship we share.

But suddenly I realized that when I am talking about Najale to people outside of my family they are hearing and feeling "Wow, I have a horse, and you don't."

I am fond of pointing out that you cannot control anyone else's reactions or emotions, only your own. And I definitely do NOT want other people to feel any sort of "na na na na" (is there any way to write this out musically so you know what tune I am referring to?).

But people do feel this. And while I cannot control or change this, I do not have to keep dropping Najale's name and/or his species into casual conversation with the grocery store cashier and people at church. I do not have to refer to him when I am with anyone who MIGHT be offended or feel I am bragging or just a little tiny person with no emotional control at ALL.

At least for this morning.

PEDAL TO THE METAL

Los Angeles was not designed with public transportation in mind. In the age of cheap gasoline and cars, Los Angeles grew up wide-spread orange groves, scenic mountain and beach views and always the dream of the future right on the horizon.

So public transportation, at least in the 60's, was underfunded and unwelcome. I do remember benches at bus stops, but they always seemed to have a drunk sleeping on them or desperately poor Mexicans waiting for something.

An automobile was not a luxury by any means but a simple necessity. The cars of my childhood were long, wide and always very, very clean. Seat belts were there, but I can't recall ever using them. Air conditioning was rolling the windows all the way down and driving fast.

The Pasadena freeway, the first real freeway in L.A., was designed at a time when 35 mph was speedy. So on-ramps were non-existent, multiple curves were not considered hazardous, and speed was king (again, with 40 mph pushing the limit).

I vaguely recall my dad teaching me to use a stick-shift in the huge parking areas of Santa Anita Racetrack, and I know I could ride my brother's motorcycle when I was 12. Yes, 16 was the legal driving age, but since I was already 5'10" by 13, no one even thought to question me about minor things such as a license.

So when my dad was teaching from the home studio, I was free to take the keys and just go. It is amazing that I didn't get in more trouble than I did - no one ever kept track of where I was.

But to get a license, you did have to take the driver’s education class in high school. And Mr. Penn was the instructor.

Back then I still had a complete brain, so I could doze through the classes and still pass the exams. The actual on-the-street driving was only interesting when one of the other students got to drive. Her first time behind the wheel, my friend, Robin Yamamoto, literally floored the gas pedal to get the car moving. And others would wander all over the left and right sides of the road, although I only recall jumping the curb once.

Even then, I could only assume that any teacher got some form of hazardous duty pay for classes such as this.

But Mr. Penn always let me drive last, drop off all the other students' at their homes, and then drive myself home while he graded papers. And then I would jump out, and more often than not, hop right into one of my dad's cars and drive myself to my friend Annette's or McDonalds.

Guardian angels of naive underage drivers, thank you again for all your protection. And allow me to call on you, especially when my granddaughter turns 12.

CONFESSIONS OF A RECKLESS DRIVER

Bless me, Father, for I have sinned. It has been, well, about 38 years since I last attended confession - one of my best friends in fourth and fifth grade was Catholic. And I just loved all the candles, and the Mass - the Latin was so pretty, this was back when Mass was just in Latin, not in English...

Oh... wait, what? Oh, my confession. Well, okay, this it.

Driver’s education was, for me, an exercise in pure boredom. I had been driving for several years already, and while a few of the legalities were new to me (why is passing on the right illegal when sometimes it's the only way to get around an idiot driver?), most of it was fairly old hat.

Oh, no, that's not my sin.

Somehow the one rule that amazed, stunned and remained with me was FLASHING RED LIGHTS ON A SCHOOL BUS. I never rode a school bus actually to school, just for field trips. And growing up, I never once remember seeing a bus have the whole flashing red lights thing going on.

But where I live now, there is only one two-lane highway connecting Sierra Vista with Palominas, Hereford and Bisbee. So I see school buses with red flashing lights ALL THE TIME.

And traffic obediently slows down, stops, and patiently waits until the flashing red lights are turned off and the school begins to drive again.

But today. Oh, today, Father, I have sinned.

I'm in Hawaii, which exists on an entirely difference universe of aloha shirts for business wear, muumuus for church wear, leis for any reason at all, and people always riding in the back of pickup trucks.

And generally you can spot the Mainland drivers anywhere - they are the ones flying through, rapidly changing lanes, hitting all the open spots and then just as rapidly slamming on their brakes when everything on the highways comes to an abrupt halt.

Otherwise, most local drivers are doing the speed limit; they know they'll get where they are going, so why rush to get there early?
Yes, Father, I'm getting to that.
But as I pull out of the local shopping area (everything to sustain life; a grocery store, a pharmacy, ice cream, Starbucks, dry cleaning and Blockbuster) onto the main thoroughfare, there is a bus WITH RED FLASHING LIGHTS ON.

Without even any conscience thought, I hit my brakes and come to a complete stop.

Now, granted, this thoroughfare is 'divided', but this school bus is definitely on MY side, it has SCHOOL CHILDREN getting off of it, and THE RED FLASHING LIGHTS ARE ON.

But I am the only car stopping. Everyone else is just cruising by, most about forty miles over the speed limit.

And Father, I let myself be swayed by the dark side of the force, and I DROVE BY THE BUS WITH THE RED FLASHING LIGHTS ON.

What should my penance be? Serve as a school crossing guard for the rest of my life? Go into epileptic spasms every time I see a red flashing light?

Wait a minute, you mean I have to TO DRIVE A SCHOOL BUS FOR THE REST OF MY LIFE?!?

Forget it, Father. Just send me straight to hell. That'll be easier.

CRIME AND MAIL

My daughter has a mailbox. A real one.

Out on her curb. Has the little red flag and everything.

And I thought they were illegal now.

When I was in college (yes, back when dinosaurs roamed the earth), the apartment complexes had those skinny envelope boxes that opened with an annoyingly small key. I quickly found out that (in my complex, at least) my key would also open every third mailbox, but that's another story for another time.

In Germany, our mail came through the American Field Office - sometimes in three days - most often three months - one letter was actually over a year late. But it came into Germany in Heidelberg, routed through our embassy at Koln, where the British picked it up for us and dropped it off at the office where my husband worked.

So no mailboxes at all.

Since then, most places we've lived have a ''panel' of mailboxes, making it less trouble for the mail deliverer. Saving time and gas, I guess. And there are four largish boxes when they can lock up any boxes delivered, and then leave the key for that in your mailbox.

Where I live now, that makes sense. I mean, our roads are bad ("how bad are they, Hope?") they are bad enough that the local newspaper (well, local by 18 miles) refuses to deliver out here.

Our nest of mailboxes alone probably cover 10 square miles. Yes, not acres - heck, I live on 8, but MILES.

No one ever explained to me, growing up, that mailboxes were not your own. We left notes for other people, that's how you got Tupperware invitations out, birthday cards for someone local... then someone told me it's a federal CRIME to put ANYthing in a mailbox.

So either way I'm looking at some serious time in the federal pen, aren't I?