PALOMINAS TRADING POST

When the economy slows, it's interesting to see what business are effected.

My brother, a full-time piano-tuner, can tell you when a whisper of economic distress is in the wind; other than professional musicians, most people can easily and without any pain put off paying $100 for getting their piano tuned.

Restaurants feel the punch, when people discover that, yes, they can eat cheaper at home and no, Kraft Macaroni and Cheese is not just for college kids.

Even with us 'regulars' who frequented the Palominas Trading Post, some of us just weekly for Saturday morning breakfast, some every single morning (grumpy old men huddled over their coffee, reading the local newspaper and communicating only by grunts), the money simply wasn't enough to cover costs.

So Pam, one of my favorite people in the whole world, the owner/cook/manager, decided that she should clear out restaurant stuff and have a 'yard' sale (even though it's being held inside the empty restaurant).

Not a bad idea.

However, Pam also decided this would be a great time to get rid of all the extra stuff FROM HER HOME at the same time.

OMG.

You have to understand, those of you who have not had the honor of seeing the PTP, what the, er, interior design is like.

Popular in many restaurants is the antique, old-utensil decor, in a sharp, expensive Martha Stewart style.

At the PTP, there are many, many antique cooking utensils.

But here, they are USED.

It's not just a look - it's economical.

But it adds up to hundreds of coffee mugs, plate, salt and pepper shakers, napkin holders, bread pans, pots, pans, vases, glasses, syrup dispensers....
Add to this Pam's accumulation of STUFF over the past twenty-years - such a used watercolors, yarns, buttons, slide displays (remember slides? Little itty bitty photos than you needed a projector to look at?), dozens of old VHS videos, photo albums, cassette tape holders....

Then you get an idea of the upcoming yard sale on Saturday.

Please - stop by.

THERE IS A *W*H*A*T* UP MY ASS?!?

WARNING - WARNING - NO ILLUSTRATIONS PROVIDED - If you only like picture books, do not bother reading any further.

"A colonoscopy is used to view the inside of your lower digestive tract (colon and rectum). "

Translation - a CAMERA gets stuck up your BUTT and take PHOTOS which get posted on YouTube, FoxNews and the back of every milk carton in the state of Tennessee.

Okay, maybe not the milk cartons.

But they COULD.

It's suggested that once you hit 50, you should have a colonoscopy done - just to check if cancer is lurking somewhere in your digestive track.

And I have a friend whose father died kinda early from colon cancer, so she has undergone one of these every year since her early forties.

Okay, let's get it over and done with.

My own physician readily agrees, and refers me to the local gastroenterology office (number 1., I can't believe that is a a real word and number 2., yes, I did spell it correctly).

After the first appointment, I should have been smart and simply canceled the whole thing.

Some doctors have a wonderful, welcoming attitude that makes you want to pour out your innermost digestive secrets immediately.

And there are some who don't.

The doctor came into the exam room with an entourage of fluttering nurses surrounding him, wearing a smug face of pure arrogance - was my ass going to be good enough for him to stick his camera up?

While his Porche or Hummer is being paid for by MY health insurances.

Perhaps I had assumed that someone who deals daily with anals, rectums and fecal matter would automatically have some humility.

The procedure was scheduled, and I procured the required medication to begin at 4 p.m. the day preceding the exam.

From here on is where you do not want any illustrations.

Slightly larger than a gallon container of milk, and empty except for an ominous layer of white powder on the bottom, the pharmacist kindly offered to put it in a bag for me.

When I inquired as to why, she blushed and stammered out "well... so people don't know what you are having done!"

After a full day of only fluids, I was able to choose from four different flavorings (I still can't believe they did not have chocolate), filled the container with water, vigorously shook it until all the powder was dissolved and then...

(** shudder **)

... drank a 8 oz. glass of the somewhat thick and mildly repulsive tasting mixture EVERY FIFTEEN MINUTES until the ENTIRE amount was gone.

I didn't throw any of it up... but man, did I want to.

Now the actual procedure was a breeze - I slept through it all. In fact, I was asleep before the anesthesiologist has administered more than a couple of ccs of whatever the white stuff was he put into my I.V.

I didn't even see the arrogant doctor - at ALL.

However, I am counting on all of you to inform me when the photos are posted in any sort of public forum.

A ROSE BY ANY OTHER NAME

During my first pregnancy, I knew it was a girl I was carrying, and I knew that her name was going to be Alison (only one 'l' - very important, that one 'l').

My husband had been enamored with "Nathan" as our first boy's name for years.

I had learned early on that you need to be very careful to select your battles, and while I was far from thrilled with "Nathan" (image of Elder Tanner would always come to mind - tall, dry, and far to the right), I could live with it.

And maybe I could stick in a cool middle name which (eventually) we could switch to.

But a healthy, 8 lb. 2 oz., 21 inch baby girl was born, a week and a half before her due date (thank goodness) AND . . . .

Damn.

She did not look like an Alison.

At all.

Bill had brought up the name of "Harmony" early in my pregnancy, but I immediately refused. It was so sixties - Bob Dylan lyrics - flower power.

And she would HATE it.

But when this sweet little baby was placed in my arms, I was appalled by one thing only - she looked like a Harmony.

Oh, no.

I held out for about six hours, despite the nurse's repeated urging to get the birth certificate completed.

But then gave in.

Her name was Harmony, and she had only herself to blame.

Turned out not only to be a wonderful name for her, but, as Harmony herself puts it, "you can't make fun of it and it doesn't rhyme with anything!"

Joy, on the other hand...

I thought it would be fairly easy to space our kids apart. I was not ready drop a baby every ten months, but I was also not willing to leave it up to chance. My husband, therefore, was the one required to wear 'protection' (hey, I was nursing, I could take the pill or anything, right?!).

So when the time was 'appropriate' for #2, we began... baby-making.

(It was always interesting how the testosterone levels increase when there is actually a purpose for sex)

I got pregnant, surprisingly, RIGHT away.

(It's been kinda easy to tell when I've 'caught' - morning sickness IMMEDIATELY - like the next morning. I swear that it's just because I am allergic to being in the 'family-way')

But with this one pregnancy, I also shortly miscarried.

And it seemed 'meant to be' - Bill had received his orders, much earlier than we had anticipated, to go to the counter-intelligence school at Fort Huachuca, Arizona (sound familiar? like where he works now?). It was going to be six months in there Arizona, and then on over to Okinawa.

Now, the military usually pays to move the family only when the service member is going to be there for more than six months. Less than six months, golly gee, you just get to hang out where ever you are, or go home to visit your folks.

A pregnancy in the midst of this would be, to say the least, awkward. We had planned on Harmony and I going for the six months that Bill would be in Arizona to stay at my mom's in Torrance.

With a pregnany right in the middle of all this, I would be too far along with the pregnancy to be allowed to fly to Japan when Bill was finished with school, and would have to remain in L.A. to have the baby (although the concept of having another Californian in the family was attractive, I must admit).

So, 'losing' the baby seemed to perhaps by the best way around it.

After Bill left for Arizona, Harmony and I drove up to Michigan to hang out with my dad for a couple of weeks.

My dad has always been one of the neatest people I have known. A musician, a writer, incredibly popular with middle-age female piano students (and a few male one - I mean. his name was Bruce, so yeah, he'd have some guys hit on him) AND ate every single meal OUT at Bill Knapps restaurant (which I honestly don't know if exists anyplace outside of Michigan, Illinois and Indiana), which is GOOD FOOD.

Harmony got introduced to all my dad's Michigan family, and, more importantedly, all dad's STUDENTS. Harmony was my dad's first biological grandchild.

But the whole time in Michigan, I didn't feel great. Like a mild case of the fun - I was just tired, and queasy and moving slow.

My dad asked if there was any chance I could be still be pregnant.

I said, "No, no way... well, maybe..."

So when we got back home to Manhattan (Kansas, not New York), I thought, well, hey, let's make certain.

My neighbors to our immediate left were, as 95% of all our neighbors were, a married couple, both students at Kansas State University. We lived in a complex of rowhouses, which you 'owed' and paid 'mortgage' on. I have absolutely no idea how it worked legally, but we got a tax break living there, and the mortgage/rental price was great for a two bed-room place.

Joy and Dan Thompson were a strong youth Catholic couple - we got into some tepid (as opposed to 'heated') discussions of religious differences between Catholic and Latter-Day Saints).

Joy did volunteer work for "Birth-Right" - a group opposed to abortion that offered alternatives to young women.

And she had access to free pregnancy tests.

Guess what.

Yes.

And yes.

By the time our third pregnancy came around, the "Nathan" name had died out (thank goodness - and without much help on my part), and we kicked around a lot of names still in the hope that this would be a boy (although I would have been perfectly happy with a third girl - her name would have been Patience).

Some German names crept in for about thirty-two seconds (birth was going to be in Frankfurt - although Joy would have been Joy regardless of being born in Torrance or Okinawa... and actually ended up happening in Monchengladback, West Germany).

Joshua was the final choice for a boy's name.

And then Josiah was Bill's great-grandfather's name - and it just sounded cool.

But it was going to be his middle name - it seemed to likely that 'Josiah" would get shortened to "Joe" - which I hated.

Joshua Josiah was born in December of 1983.

And in March of 1984, moved in Michigan.

And in April, Oregon.

In August, Hawaii.

(Really would have been cool if he had been eligible for frequent flyer miles back then)

But when Joshua began pre-school in Honolulu, there were FOUR Joshuas. The name was even listed in "Most Popular Baby Names" books - yuck!

And then in kindergarten, there were FIVE Joshuas.

On the flight in 1989, leaving from Hawaii and moving to Maryland, I asked Joshua if he liked his middle name, Josiah.

He was Josiah from that moment on.

'ELLO, GOVEN'R!

Why are foreign accents so adorable?

British, especially. Probably because I can understand what they are actually saying...

Well, most of the time.

But everything with a French accent sounds romantic - everything Spanish sounds rapid-fire and immensely important like disaster bulletins - Indian (east Indian - the original India) is so... Indian.

I like Japanese because I can imagine subtitles running below whatever is being spoken. Russian sounds cold - I know, I know, it's just a matter of association. And anything spoken in Chinese makes me hungry.

I didn't completely understand other pople finding American accents 'cute' until I lived in a British community, and found my neighbors hanging on my every word. It was extrememly embarrasing at first, but then it was sort of fun.

Because someone from London sounds completely different from a Yorkshire native - or a person from Wales is highly insulted if you mistake them for someone from Bristol.

After a while you pick it up.

But to them, a southern drawl and New Yorker... well, it's all American, right?

I just love it.

THE ILLUSION OF CONTROL

This seems to happen to all of us at different times in our lives

You notice, just out of the corner of your eye a shopping cart beginning to run down the slope... and then you realize it is YOUR shopping cart full of $235 worth of your family's meals.

You see a group of kids climbing to a dangerous height in the local oak tree... and then you recognize that the child serving as the ringleader and highest climber is YOURS.

Your nose wrinkles as you smell something disgusting... and then become conscious that it is emanating from YOUR baby like evil death rays from an alien's weapon.

Tonight I had one of those experience.

I saw a beautiful black and white horse galloping wild and free across an open field.

Unfortunately, it was MY horse, completely out of control, racing about a half mile away in the opposite direction.

Both horses have been reasonably well-behaved walking a ways down the road with me and then grazing for a half hour on the sparse growth that exploded out of our sand from the latest 0.000035 inch downpour of moisture (in other words, completely symbolic rain that still encourages what plant-life we have to germinate - it's an Arizonan thing).

So I felt comfortable about taking them out right after sunset in the falling light to munch a little bit of greenery.

Silly me.

My horse, Najale, suddenly decided about half-way to our regular grazing point, that he needed to go on a little field trip.

All by himself.

For those of you who are unfamiliar with horses, control of a 800+ lb. animal is 98% mental.

You have to convince them that:

1) you are smarter,

2) you are the one who makes all decisions in the relationship, and

3) you are in control of every single situation.

(Hmm... sounds depressingly like the husband-role in the 50's)

Unfortunately, my horse occasionally doesn't think my controlling decisions are very smart, and once he jerks control out of my hand (the lead rope attached to his halter), there really isn't much I can do.

Thankfully, he has always come back... eventually.

And he did tonight... after galloping around two neighbors' houses, getting one other local horse into hysterics trying to join him, and driving the mare (who I was now somewhat desperately holding onto) into a whinnying frenzy trying to join him.

At least my neighbors got a nice show to watch this evening.

A DAY IN THE LIFE

Problems expand to take up any available space they are allowed.

If you have a huge amount of problems, they will take up as much as your life as you let them.

If you have very few problems, those few things can become enormous, and will infect as much as you as possible.

I live in a house. I have food in my cupboard. I have heat in the winter and air conditioning in the summer. I have electricity. I have a microwave. I have a refrigerator. I can walk on my property without fear (well, occasionally with a bit of anticipation if it's 11:30 p.m., pitch black with no moonlight, and there have been two groups of illegals rounded up by the Border Patrol since sunset).

So when I have a "horrible" day, I need to sit back and realize how just a few things have been inflated by my little fragile ego and blown up to become completely unmanageable.

Today, I allowed myself to get irritated about time, traffic, and a movie theatre. I got frustrated with having to provide a meal for someone who had had back surgery - a meal that I had volunteered to take in. I was bothered by my husband following me around this evening - following me around because he wanted some company.

I was not in danger. I was not homeless. I was not hungry. I was not hiding for my life.

But I have allowed multiple inconsequential things to blow up and become important when they in reality were actually incredibly meaningless events.

50 years ago, little fair-skinned girls such as myself played outside all day without any sun screen.

As teenagers, we stayed at the beach all day, slathering baby oil on the skin that a bikini left in sight. I was persistently sunburned from 1971 to 1975 on my shoulders from wearing tank-tops.

And I cannot count the number of times I would suddenly become aware that I was absent-mindedly peeling my burnt, dead skin off my leg or my arm.

So we are paying the price now - checking our backs for abnormal moles or sores - having skin biopsys (I know, I know, it's supposed to be 'biopsies', but that just doesn't look right, and I don't have to follow any one's rule's here... right?)

But I have a question for all of you young, eager minds out there (it's either that or look it up on wikipedia - I trust you three regular readers more):

Is skin cancer now a major concern because we are:

1) Living longer, and have more time to develop (and die from) things like cancer,

2) Becoming more informed about health issues, and are looking for things like skin cancer, or

3) Are allowing ourselves to get all excited about something that causes 2.9 deaths per 100,000 (how in the world do you have 2.9 fatalities? The left toes are still alive?)

Now, before everyone begins screaming at my callous and heartless attitude, let me try to put this in perspective...

Well, okay, maybe this is a little callous and heartless - the left toe comment, if nothing else, was insensitive.

I guess I'm just looking at the larger picture. That things like seat belts, blood pressure and not chewing your potato salad enough so you don't choke - these are things much more likely to kill you.

The only person I know personally who has died of skin cancer is John Matthews. He was a great neighbor, who took care of the road grading every six months, and had to put up with the chronic 18% of all residents who refuse to chip in - "We only drive one car, Bob should be charged more because he drives three cars," "Why don't you make the county do this?" or simply "No, we're not going to pay."

John actually died from basal cell nevs syndrome, which is a genetic disorder which greatly increases susceptibility to skin cancer.

But it was still a horrible, painful disease; his face was literally eaten away by the cancer. Bit by bit.

But I do know quite a few people who have died from cancer - my cousin was killed in a plane crash - several suicides - people killed in Iraq.

I'm not, although I certainly sound like I am, trying to downplay skin cancer. My daughter has had skin cancer removed from her back - a friend from high school just had surgery on her back to have skin cancer removed - I've had three biopsies myself (yes, I'm going back to the correct spelling).

But after another high school acquaintance underwent surgery Tuesday morning for melanoma, I am just beginning to wonder -

Why are we just now becoming aware of this?

Most skin cancers appear after age 50, with the actual skin damage occurring in childhood. And I know darn well my parents' generation didn't use sun screen - where are their skin cancer statistics?

I am actually asking a question here - am I just being skin-cancer-paranoid, sounding like the medical profession is running a bit of a scam, or aliens are actually using the government to infect us with some sort of skin cancer virus?

Okay, now that I've actually asked the question, sounds pretty stupid, doesn't it?

People of my great-grandmother's genereation didn't died of cancer - people didn't generally live long enough, to get it and if they did, no one knew how to diagnois it.

This is one of those things that we now know what it is - and if caught, this is something that is treatable.

So shut up, Hope.