I’m here. Alive. All in one piece.

We’ve been unpacking. Pushing boxes around and walking up and down steps. Reassembling and unwrapping. Pulling and dragging. Arranging and rearranging.

It’s hot, Africa kind of hot. This is no ordinary kind of hot. We were driving in the black truck and the traffic/news/weather woman said the high for the day was 108 degrees. X turned to me and said, “shouldn’t those cardboard boxes we have in the back of the pickup be catching on fire right now?” He’s funny, that one.

We live on the second floor. I figure that in the next month or so, I will either have buns of steel, or they will find me dead at the bottom. That goes double for Murphy the dog. Since we no longer have a back yard to kick her out into when we are too lazy to walk her, it’s up and down the stairs at least three times a day. Every time we come back from walking/peeing (we both walk, but she’s the only one peeing) and have to go up the stairs she looks at me like, “you’re kidding me right?”. There is a dog park here. I’m hoping to meet some nice neighbors with dogs there.

The apartment ceilings are vaulted and beautiful, with windows everywhere. We have a balcony looking through green, green trees and a fireplace. Not that we need a fireplace at the moment. There are pigeons that live on the roofs, clean healthy pigeons, not diseased city pigeons. They sit by the chimney. If you are sitting near the fireplace, you can hear them coo cooing. There are also humming birds all over. I have never seen a humming bird in person (in bird) before. In the next few days we’re going to Home Depot to by humming bird feeders along with supplies for a mister/watering system for the balcony and some sort of a pet door set up so the animals can eat on the balcony and not invite unwanted vermin into the new digs.

I like Vegas. I thought I would hate it. I repeatedly told X we were staying here six months and no more. But now, I’m not so sure. But who can tell, it’s only our second week here. Everything is less expensive and open twenty four hours. We are about a half a mile off of the strip. When you pull out of the complex, the driveway is in direct line of the Bellagio hotel. I found a great yoga studio and X signed up on a hockey team that plays once a week. We have a twenty four hour racket ball court less than a hundred and fifty feet from our door. We’ve been playing every day. My racket ball uniform is cutoff camouflage shorts, a sleeveless t-shirt, and sport goggles. I look tough. You would be impressed. We’ve been playing every day. I think that’s the most fun thing so far.

The most bizarre thing that we have found out first hand is, Vegas dead ends. We were driving down a major road, lots of traffic, businesses and buildings. All of a sudden there was a sign that said dead end road. Then nothing. Just desert. You can look in all directions and see gigantic, looming mountains that encompass the city. They are beautiful and strange. It is amazing and disorienting to have the decadence and extravance of Las Vegas the town in direct contrast of the fierceness and majesty of the desert wilderness so close together.

Another bonus seems to be that the cops appear to be more lax than the hard on suburban type that I’m used to. I don’t think they give tickets for going two miles over thirty, or parking five inches over the sidewalk. I suppose they have other ways of making revenue in this town.

I’m at Starbucks right now. I was thinking that it would be comforting. It is not. Despite all of the fun things going on, and the excitement of a new place, it’s sad to leave all of your friends and familiar places. None of the barristas know me, laughed at my dumb jokes, or even pretended to be nice for that matter. *sigh* At least I have a brown puffy chair to sit in.

We have an extra bedroom. All friends welcome at any time. Just email or call.

I am packing, and packing, and dragging, and pushing, unscrewing and pounding. I am ripping, and folding, and taping, and stacking. I am selling on ebay, creating mountains of trash, taking daily trips to the salvation army and bringing pieces of large furniture to the curb.

I am tired.

Right now, I am sitting in a brown puffy chair at Starbucks. This chair that I have sat in so many times before. This chair that I will be leaving soon.

Bye chair.

When I was about six, we had a powder blue Cadillac. My mom and I were in the front yard. She was cleaning out the cars. I don’t remember cleaning, but I do remember walking around with the black plastic tube of the vacuum cleaner hose attachment with a linty, fuzzy brush on the end.

My mom told me that we were selling the car. I remember holding the vacuum with my right hand and leaning against the side of the car. I was looking at my reflection, while petting the top of the rear view mirror like a cat’s head saying things like, “Well car, it’s been nice knowing you. Don’t be scared because the people you are going to are going to be really nice and will take good care of you. I’ll miss you. You’ve been a very good car”.

In the middle of my teary goodbye, my mom yelled from the other end of the driveway. “What are you doing?” I told her that I was saying goodbye to the car. She yelled back, “Not that car, the other car”. I took my hand off the mirror, “oh”. I walked down the driveway to the green Osmobile, with the vacuum clanking noisily behind me. Pausing somberly, I put my hand on the top of the rear view mirror, and started my farewell speech all over again.

I thought I would be more nostalgic than I am about selling my house. Don’t get me wrong, I have my moments, but overall, it feels very cathartic. Except for the audio tapes. The tapes were a little rough.

In the garage, I had three milk crates of cassettes that I have been lugging around from place to place since the age of 18. I’m turning 32 on Thursday. I went through them and kept only a few memorable mix tapes and a shoe box full of an audio journal that I was keeping with a hand held tape recorder when I was 22.

I thought I would be a good citizen and take my treasured cassettes to the salvation army. I was lugging one of the crates off the back of the truck and the salvation army guy said, in a rude and annoyed voice, “what’s that?”. He came over, picked up a tape and dropped it distastefully back into the bin and said, “We got enough of those. We don’t need no more”. I was annoyed but said, “okay” nicely enough, and shoved the container back into the bed of the truck. I picked up a bag full of clothes and started back towards the donation bin. I was half way to the bin with my back to him when he yelled, “HEY!”. His voice was loud and annoyed. A chill of adrenaline went up my spine and I crazily thought that this guy might attack me. I was turning around while he was finishing his statement of, “I said we didn’t need none of that”. I put my hands up palms facing out with the plastic bag hooked around one thumb. “It’s clothes, it’s not tapes, it’s clothes.” He softened and said, “okay”, and turned to do something else.

That was two days ago. The three milk crates full of tapes are still in the back of my truck. There have been two rainstorms and a tornado warning since then. I know I have to throw them away. I know it. I will….I will throw them away…..tomorrow.

There are two things in this world that I loathe.

Not really. I just thought that that sentence would be a great dramatic starting to this entry.

I’m sleeping (typing) in the blue bedroom. Or bedroom number four if you are my mother. I call the bedrooms, blue, yellow, the one with the big mirror thing, and your (my parent’s) bedroom. She calls them one, two, three four.

And there, laid bare for you kind reader, is the basis of our miscommunications for the past thirty some years.

She hated the movie Amile. I loved it. I thought Moulin Rouge was inspiring and fascinating. She thought it was too jumpy and tiring. She called Oh Brother Where Art Thou stupid. Only she spelled it. “That was S.T.U.P.I.D”. I have the soundtrack. She couldn’t even begin to tell me how funny she thought My Big Fat Greek Wedding was because she was laughing so hard. I can’t even begin to tell you how much I loathe that movie and want to strangle anyone involved with the production of it.

But to focus on a positive, we both did like the Matrix.

She has asked to cut my hair several times since I have been here, telling me that it looks like my head has gone through a shredder. I tell her to lay off and put the salad bowl and the scissors away. This isn’t second grade anymore. I pay top dollar to look like I’ve been through the shredder.

Today we went to the “Russian” grocery store. She had my step dad’s handicapped sign, and pulled into one of the front spots. I said, half jokingly, “Oh geesh, if you’re going to use that, at least limp or something.” I grabbed a cart and went into the store. I waited by the “on sale” strawberry display because I noticed that she wasn’t behind me. It took a minute, but she came through the automatic door with tears almost coming out of her eyes, she was laughing so hard. She told me that there were people in the car next to us watching her, so she really did limp across the parking lot, and it took her a while. She demonstrated what looked like Quasi Motto with palsy, which made me crack up because one, it was funny, and two, I know that she really did walk across the parking lot like that. Then we went shopping for sandwich supplies.

Now is the time in the visit where I should go. But, it is raining. Storming, with ten second flashes of lightning and booming thunder. Murphy the dog really can’t travel 300 miles to Detroit in a wire cage tied down in the back of my pick up truck in this weather. I am checking the weather channel about every five minutes. It looks like I might have to stay until Friday.