Would that be one rock or ten thousand?

During my first winter away from apartment dwelling, in a house, a real house, with a fenced-in yard and a driveway with a mailbox at the end, we had a snowstorm. I’m not talking about a little snowstorm. I’m talking a 22-inches-in-24-hour blizzard.

At first it was so cozy, just me and the dogs around the fireplace. I had stocked up on groceries so there was no problem there. We languished about and watched television coverage about how horrible the storm was and how many people had ventured out in it (say what?) and had slid off the road and what a terrible mess it all was. I was feeling quite smug, and warm and delicious as I watched huge flakes continue to fall outside.

Around noon, the mailman came. I guess that saying is true about the post office, by golly, I had mail! I bundled up in ski bibs, a parka, hat, gloves, scarf and waterproof knee high boots. If something happened to me during my stone’s throw roundtrip trek, I was not going to become a statistic. Cell phone in pocket, I took off to the mailbox. It felt wrong violating the virgin snow, but I had to get the mail that had been so bravely delivered. I reached in and got it and made my way back to the house. Crisis averted.

Upon leafing through the stack, I came upon an ominous pink slip. There was nothing on the front to indicate that I had a parcel. Hmmm… I turned it over. Two words I’ll not soon forget, scribbled in Neanderthal mailman scrawl: “need rock.”

Need rock. Need rock? What kind of Neanderthal mailman did I have? What kind of rock did I need? What did I need it for? I gazed outside at the mailbox. Maybe he needed a rock to stop his car from sliding too far in this deep snow? It was really all I could come up with. I decided I needed a large rock that would stop his car at just the right place so he could put my mail in my mailbox in this deep snow.

Wow. It was a little, um, deep outside for me to find a big rock right now, I mean, we WERE in the middle of a blizzard, but I guess if I wanted to continue to receiving my mail I needed to follow Neanderthal mailman’s request. On go the bibs, the boots, the parka, the scarf, the hat and the gloves. The cell phone goes in a baggie in my pocket this time, realizing this might take a while.

Beyond the back of the house was a thick stand of trees. I knew the snow would be shallower there, so I headed out to find the rock. Several hundred yards and down a steep hill I found the perfect one. It looked like it would remain upright even if a car bumped it. I picked it up. My word, it was heavy! I managed to carry it about twenty feet before I plopped it down. Off to the house for rope.

I returned with rope and made a sling and started pulling. The darn rock kept getting hung on things, and battling what is now close to three feet of snow, I’m cold and exhausted. Time for the dog. Off to the house to fetch Molly.

Molly is the loveliest dog, a lab mix and she loves the snow. I knew she’d be up for a little Dr. Seuss-like adventure, with a bundled-up me and Neanderthal mailman rock in the ravine out back. Sure enough, she was good natured when I tied the rock to her harness and asked her to pull and made a big game of it! She actually managed to pull Neanderthal mailman rock all the way to the end of the driveway. What a good dog!

So now I have to calculate how much room I should put between this rock and the mailbox. My own car is pretty average and his car is pretty average, so I measure my car and apply the same measurements and decide just where to place Neanderthal mailman rock. After some heaving and some hoeing, I manage to place it just where I think it should be.

Whew. Thank goodness that episode is over. It’s taken the greater part of my afternoon to comply with my mailman’s cryptic request. Time to settle in.

The next day breaks with even more snow. As I work around the house, I’m pretty proud that I was able to pull that one off yesterday. Being a single woman in the country isn’t so bad, in fact, it’s kind of fun!

At some point around mid-day, the mailman arrives. I quickly run to the window to watch to see if everything goes will with the rock. I see him writing something, which I’m certain is a thank-you for such a speedy response, then he deposits the note and the mail, puts the car in reverse and takes off.

Bibs, coat, hat, scarf, gloves, boots. Off I go. I fetch the mail quickly and bring it in. Going through it I find Neanderthal mailman’s note. “I meant gravel.”

California cats prefer Buicks

Many years ago I took off from NYC For LA, sick of the city and ready for a case of beach-head, I packed up the essentials, shipped them to my parents’ house and flew there.  After spending some time with the folks, I packed up the car my parents let me park there and away I went.

I was fortunate to have friends with a house in Topanga Canyon who invited me to crash while I looked for a place.  It was a great place, tucked away in a lush, green setting…a rambling old farmhouse with no farm.  More of a has-been commune.  So charming.  No neighbors to be seen.  Coyotes heard running through the canyon at night.  Very different than where I’d been.  

During the day I took the boulevard to the Pacific Coast Highway and rambled into L.A. the lazy way. I loved catching dolphins playing in Malibu where the boulevard ends at the coast. This whole L.A. experience was exactly what I needed. I eventually find a house on the Venice walk streets, but my stay with my friends was magicalWhile staying with them, I didn’t unpack the car, I just took the essentials into the house.  My car was still jam-packed with clothes, accessories and shoes. The small trunk was filled with photographic equipment.  Hey, you don’t drag everything into someone’s house when you’re sleeping on the couch. At least I don’t.

One day as I left the house, I approached the end of the long driveway and there stood a strange woman, in a caftan, with a long, gray braid. She held out her hand for me to stop.  I did.  She came to my window.  

“Good morning” she said.  “My cat has been missing for a week.”

“Oh, I’m so sorry,” I said, remembering those coyotes and those canyons.

“I’ve consulted my psychic about it.  She said I’d find him in a car.  He’s in a car around here somewhere.”

“Oh,” I said, “well, I’ve only been here a couple of days, and you can see my car is pretty full.  There aren’t any cats in here, but you’re welcome to look.”

She walked around the car a couple of times, peering inside it.  Then she looked at me with squinted eyes.  “Can I look in the trunk?”

I get out and open the trunk for her.  She pokes and prods around. Then all of a sudden she springs up.

“What kind of car is this anyway?” She asked.

“It’s a Porsche.”

Her entire demeanor changed.  She totally relaxed.  “Oh, well never mind then!  The psychic said it would be a Buick!”

When helping hurts

I don’t know why I found myself talking my ex down off a ledge.  He’d called and had been distraught.  The girl he was dating, the first one I’d heard him seen actually interested in, seemed to be blowing him off.  He wasn’t himself.  He really seemed to…care.

 A couple of years earlier we had had a brief affair followed by the most bizarre and terrible breakups I’ve ever gone through.  Why I still talk to this guy is a mystery to everyone in my life, but I kind of find if hard to be mean to someone I loved so much.  Maybe I shouldn’t use past tense there.

 At some point after said breakup I contacted him to let him know just how badly he had hurt me.  Somehow, Prince Charming had managed to turn that into a “hey, let’s get together some time” and sure enough we did.  Since then, I’ve watched him go through an endless string of women, finding something wrong with each one of them, and every time I’m reminded that this must have been the process of elimination I was subject to. Every time he breaks up with one of them, he breaks up with me.  All over again.  

 I gave him my best advice this time.  Talk to her before you blow her off.  He has this magical way of putting two and two together and coming up with five.  If he was ready to throw it away, what harm could it do to talk to her? Ask her all those questions that were bugging him, instead of deciding the answers and throwing her away.

 I got an excited call this morning, thanking me.  He had taken my advice.  Things were okay.  I had been right. There hadn’t been anything to worry about after all. I congratulated him.  How great.  

 Than I spent the day crying.  Why hadn’t someone been there to talk him down when he decided my faults added up to five?  Why hadn’t I just stayed out of it and let him make the same mistake again? Instead I helped him, and it hurts.

It’s not over until someone asks for a phone call

Gee, where to begin? I think texting is the death of modern romance.  Chivalry is in fact dead, via text.  

 

In my dating experience, and there has been plenty of it, men like visuals, and they don’t hesitate to ask for them.  “Send me a pic.”  It’s a common cry.  Being a woman, and being all to eager to please, I’ve complied.  Never nude.  Just pics.  Pics that leave enough to the imagination.  Tasteful, I think.  Enough to satisfy their need for visuals, but to leave my dignity intact.

 

For some reason though, if a woman asks for a phone call, instead of a text (we’re talking early on here), it’s as though she’s just gone and asked too much.  Whaaa? You want me to CALL you?  Strange excuses ensue, or none at all, but no phone call is forthcoming.

 

Men may be visual, be we girls get our cues from a lot of different things.  I like hearing a man’s voice. It’s never a dealbreaker (or hasn’t been) it just adds something to the pot. I like to hear the words he chooses, or doesn’t.  I like to see if he laughs easily, or doesn’t.  If he’s comfortable, or uneasy.  All of the things that you can’t read on a text. *It’s important to note here that I run a few businesses and am competitive in sports.  I don’t have time for lengthy confabs.  I only want, oh, four minutes max.  Thanks

Just this past winter, I went out with, let’s call him Mr. Perfect.  Our first date was amazing.  We got along great.  Conversation was stimulating, but not jammed with a lot of filler.  Nice.  He was exactly my type:  tall, thin, very, very smart.  The evening went SO well that it ended with his car, heated seats, his cold hands being warmed under my legs and some good old-fashioned making out before being dropped at my front door.  About a half an hour later, my phone chimed.  Incoming text.  “The bed’s too big without you.”  Sigh.   If only he had picked up the phone.  That flat little text left me feeling lonely instead of what it intended.  His bed might have been too big, but the world seemed a bit too big for me right now.  A lot bigger than an  hour before.  I stayed in.

 

I liked this guy.  I really liked him.  I just couldn’t get over the texting thing.  Moments that could have been shared between two people in a real, personal way kept being sent to my iPhone and it was somehow living my life for me.  

 

There’ve been other attempts since, but no one who has come close to Mr. Perfect.  The important thing is that they have been reluctant to call, and it’s weird. I guess I should be content though. A man who won’t give a woman a small thing that she needs BEFORE he even meets her probably won’t have any trouble dismissing her needs after they’ve met.  If you know what I mean.  

 

Vote for Pedro.

Bliss, get a move on

Things happen quickly.

 

Funny how life’s circumstances can make a lot of decisions for you that you might not have otherwise made for yourself.

 

I have decided to concentrate my efforts on equine pursuits and not pursue fashion at this time.  I’m going to be riding, competing and starting my new portrait photography business, specializing in people’s portraits with their horses.

 

I’m going to teach dressage.  I’m going to compete more.  I’m going to go for my L license, and I’m going to keep making my silly little videos.  Most importanly, I’m following my bliss, as well as I can, right now.