We came home from our trip at the beach where the mayor of Cayucos had cleaned our toilet and changed the sheets and then later, got drunk with us. She was wonderful and must have Wally sitting next to her for the next Fourth of July parade. Wally, of course, is very accepting of being the star of any parade, even the ones to visit the chickens in the late afternoon. I think I might rent him out, his permanent smile and award winning ways of listening intently with an occasional nod of approval has opened the doors to royalty. The royalty being in the Hollywood crowd but still a Queen is queen wherever you are in the world.
In Freedom, by Franzen. There is a scene discussing Walter's life and the motel his parents bought where he was raised. One Fourth of July when they could count on the motel being full, the NO VACANCY sign had been left on and they didn't figure out why they had vacancies until after the fourth. That's not the case on the central coast. A NO VACANCY sign apparently means you hunt down the innkeeper and ask if there is any vacancy. The mayor was always polite, an admiration I admit after hearing that she was woke at five in the morning with a couple wanting a room because they seen the sign that said, NO VACANCY right at the entrance to the motel. I would have directed them onto the beach. "That's right, go down the hill and turn left. You will see a dirt road in front of you that will put you on the sand. Do not worry, go directly forward then follow the beach until you see a house of your liking. Inspect it and if there is no one there, feel free to use it."
It was a lot of fun on our annual Holiday. We enjoyed it, I got some writing done but when we came home it was over ninety degrees in the valley, in fact it was ninety-eight, cooling to ninety-six at the house. And when I opened the door to a home I left in really good shape: lawns mowed, chicken coop cleaned, fresh linen on the bed, clean counters, inviting-well maintained and watered garden, I saw dead and ready to die vegetation (the Maiden Hair fern that people had said to me, "How do you keep it so healthy?" was very-very dead. Marigolds dead, vegetables shriveled and the plant wilted, it took my breath away.
Pete the Meat was busy with his new found love, Fetish Photography, while here he met up with other fetish people and went to a fetish party in the heart of Fetishland, the San Fernando Valley where we live. Well, it seems, after infecting my desktop computer with twenty-two virus/spy ware programs and after I had to boot and reboot until the Norton system kicked in and spent the rest of day cleaning up the shit he waded in looking at Fetish sites, I got my computer back, finally running the other day.
It was like someone punched me in the chest. I couldn't breath walking around in a daze in the hot sun, trying to make room to put the shit away from our trip. Trying to rescue plants, picking the Maiden Hair up from where it lay on its side in the bright sunshine with every frond frozen brown at the time of its death. I walked around like Steve Martin in a daze with my pants down around my ankles clutching at things I wanted to rescue.
I've spent the last three days getting our cottage in the Val back together. And yet like Lazarus, I'll rise to do it again I suppose next year.
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