reason no. 3 to be a morning person, the early runner always finds the bodies

One day I will wake up and go for a nice little run and it will  be so calm and peaceful it will be right out of an orange juice commercial. The End.

Thank god today was not that day....

I had decided it was early enough & cool enough to sneak north. I figured the spiders under the freeway bridge (& the homeless) would be sleeping. What I didn't count on finding was a beaver on the side of the trail.

I finished my run- fast. 

Collected Beach and drove back to the nearest trail head. We had to run a field and hop a fence or 2 (may or may not have included a tiny bit of trespassing) but there it was.

 

Okay, so not quite as dead as I remembered it being when I was there alone 

but still....

 The threat of rabies is always a good topic to brush-up on.

 That would be Beach refusing to come down off the rail after the 'dead' beaver lunged at me while I was taking a close-up.

 Nothing but confidence in her mother's ability to evaluate risk & road kill. 

 Anyway, I was half right, it was mostly dead.

 I can assure you the one thing I will not die from is boredom. 

the most convenient

Did you sleep he asks. His words quiet and slow, caught in a tangle of sleep. In the dark of morning the house sits on the edge of waking up. A dog groans, a cat switches sides on the sofa, and the coffee maker gurgles and seeps.

"Here is the thing," I say with a long pause so he knows I am trying to answer him, "no one should die in a convenience store. There are lots of bad places that are fine to die in but not there. It should never happen."

We hadn't talked about it. 

The news of a fatal shooting at a convenience store within a block of our house had been delivered by one of the clerks from the other store, the closer more convenient one right around the corner. He had come in to our house early Sunday morning bringing the mood of the rain with him.  "I thought you guys should know what happened last night..."

As he talked I remember thinking about life here on 10th. About a place where store clerks know where you live and you them. The clerk carrying the news had borrowed tools and BC's trailer- he had also dropped off beer and an emergency coke or two. 

Most of the clerks are locals. And in fact the clerk who was shot and killed -for our convenience- was also one of us. He lived right on 10th about 5 long doors down. About where the wild roosters like to cross.

Tenth is not a small street. It is a very big place to live... and die.

After the clerk left we didn't mention it again. We set it aside with the other items to handle later. 

We hadn't talked about on the 2 hr misty drive into the back country of Idaho- searching for hot water. 

We were going up for me. One of BC's last ditch efforts to offer me a piece of what I'm missing. Time far away in the middle of nowhere. Time to get cold and dirty and then too hot and not give a shit about any of it. 

A place without the need for conveniences. A place where ghost can whisper without being heard.   

He was seeking shelter for me from the storm I'm not seeming to be able to out run on my own.   

But I had thought about it anyway. Wondering about what happens when you die in the wrong place for no reason at all. Thoughts falling like the snow kissing the windshield, never getting anywhere, never piling up... and drifting away.

He tries again to assess where I am. 

"Misty, you never answered my question; did you get any sleep last night?"

"Tons." I say, because that is the most convenient answer.

the big stars of 10th west

Mickie is a millionaire. A bad copy of a Marlboro man; skin the color and texture of old beef jerky with just for men dark hair, a scruffy patchwork beard of white and shoe polish black. Shirtless, he wears a fishing vest left open and camo cargo pants. He used to wear combat boots but at some point he switched to slippers. And he is always on his three wheeled bike haunting the streets of Glendale. 

Everyone knows Mickie. 

To me, he looks like someone accidentally left behind. Someone who staggered out onto the streets after a couple decades. Decades of what I don't know- war, drugs, the bottom of too many glass bottles. He is the kind of man, had my sister still been alive, she would have been hanging out with.   

We are pretty used to Mickie. I try my best not to run him over. Although we have had some close calls. He's like a stray cat always darting out into the road when you least expect him to.

Yesterday he stopped in our driveway to talk to BC as he changed the oil in the red van for me. This is BC's way of offering me flowers. Little Red is sitting idle again, sidelined with a starter issue and I have been reassigned the Red Van. BC knows this makes me very unhappy but a working car is a working car, complaining would be pointless. So I get an oil change on the car I don't want to drive instead of a new starter in the one I do want. But there is a second reason I am getting so miss pandered to- it's hunting season.

Already I had innocently wandered into the kitchen for coffee to find heavily armed men. I was assured they weren't staying long since they were headed to the gun range to make sure they were all straight..... I assume BC meant their scopes. All this means I will be alone for the month of October- this includes for Beach's birthday, all the Halloween parties, and possibly Halloween itself.

With the hunt so near that dead squirrels are turning up in the trash can ("Oh Sweetness, did you see that, sorry....") BC has long forgotten about the details of domestic life. But he hasn't forgotten how much I love disease and disaster.  So when Mickie showed BC his leg I was called outside to consult. 

There was Mickie the millionaire on his tricycle. His leg gangrenous from mid calf down. As I was attempting to get him to remove his slippers 2 LDS missionaries happened on the scene. That would be BC with his pants particularly belted high- I had almost comment but then I saw how it closely resembled the way the W men wear there pants and I decided that 10th west polygamy fashion had some merit. Especially anything that closely resembled JW (that man is a reason to convert!)....>okay, out the gutter and back on the sidewalk< that was BC, myself the un-doctor, Mickie the millionaire, and now 2 young missionaries, one crystal clear blond, blue eyed, the other short, fat, dumpy, and as he would tell me later from Oklahoman. 

It took some work but I did get Mickie to remove his slipper. His foot had the worst of it. Intervention style we began giving Mickie his choices go to the clinic now with BC or lose the leg. 

It wasn't as easy as you would think, Mickie didn't want anything to do with going. I tried explaining how the clinic we wanted him to go to had a small flat fee for all services. Had I been enjoying any part of being so close to medicine again it was ripped away by Mickie the millionaire's last objection, "I don't have any money."

What the system "can't" know is how bad it is down on the front lines. That the barriers to seek treatment when someone like Mickie who is vulnerable and in pain, sees noway up from where he is, are too high. His choice as he saw it was go from boots to slippers while his leg rotted away. He had done what he could for himself. Help was too far to see. 

And as men in suits argue about healthcare they have no idea the damage they are doing. They go to church on Sunday and on Monday block salvation. Inaction has the same ethical price tag as action- preventing access to medical care, they might as well join the hunt and pull tags for the poor. Same theory as shooting deer- pest control, prevent them from starving, and dying of disease. Not so pretty from down here.  

Humanity fails again.

These days when I run I run the river trail north.  It takes me to the "doorstep" of the very homeless I wrote about in the article that gained me such high praises. The men and woman I interviewed live there hiding in the banks of tall golden grasses. 

Daniel, whose blanket I sat on, a year later nothing has changed for any of us- he is once again staring down a long winter. And I am a broken hope like a ghost skirting the edges of the issue. Sometimes he smiles at me and I smile back. Most of the time we pretend not to know one another while I try not to notice the woman is gone and another is in her place.

The difference between Daniel and Mickie and myself is uncomfortably slim. Daniel lives down the street in a tent by the river, Mickie lives down the street behind Brent's house in a trailer (I hadn't known this, for 3 years I had mistakenly believed he lived with Brent and the boys), and I live down the same street in a little white house. Of the three of us I am the one without hope. Daniel carries a bible and Mickie claims the LDS faith, I believe in absolutely nothing and have faith in even less.

How can things change when we are all so willfully blind to each others needs.  I have been in Mickie's slippers; my sister died in them. Plain sight is a horrible place to suffer alone.

In the end I told Mickie "You can go with BC or you can go to GOD, but only one of them is looking out for you right now." 

And so there we all were, BC the broke Quaker from New England paying Mickie the Millionaire's medical bills, the 2 young missionaries walking off empty handed, and me the un-doctor left standing on the sidewalk wondering about Daniel and when the first snows will hit the valley floor.

~We all want something beautiful, man I wish I was beautiful... ~ Counting Crows 

dog days

At the end of summer some of the recreation centers open the pools up to the dogs for a last of summer morning swim. It is such a good time but it has been a few years since we have gone. Part of the reason is Little Dog doesn't swim. In fact, she is terrified of water. 

But Old Moses doesn't have many summers left so we packed up the dogs and off to the pool we went. 

Style Note:

 Beach is about to turn 11 and fashion is her big thing right now. There was more of a threat of rain than rain and it wasn't cold or even cool out but she has decided it is fall... in New York City....in a Woody Allen movie.

Poo Little Dog!!! She was sooooooo scared! 

Beach tried very hard to get her to go in but nothing worked.

Even puppy love wasn't strong enough to get her into the pool.

Moses on the other hand....

I think at least one of them had a good time.

thug life and nerd justice

"He is stealing things from our yard!?" BC exclaimed and the Friday night dinner of roasted pineapple, grilled zucchini and chicken clanked down hard on the table.... 

There had been a brief foot chase across our property and into the street.  I headed to the front of the car in an attempt to block him and get a look at the plate number.  BC in pursuit of the man himself got a hand on the guys door handle but as the guy picked up speed, BC let go.

That was when I got the chance to make a rare good decision.  Deciding to step out of the way rather than in front of the guys white SVU and overloaded trailer.  

All we knew at the time was he had taken the 2 large west desert geodes. He had taken more. 

The police responded.  They took us seriously. They counseled us on not leaving expensive items out.  But they were landscaping rocks... 

It was agreed this guy was one of the many vultures combing the junk piles lining our neighborhood for the annual neighborhood clean up. He would be back and he hand't gone far.

As we chatted with the officers we were wishing they would leave so we could get on with business. 

This plan was unspoken between me and BC but there was no question about what we were going to do. We had dug those rocks out of the earth ourselves we were taking them back, one way or another. 

Vigilante justice from me is not uncommon. After all I am the mom who has been known to launch soccer balls with full and accurate aim at speeding cars. I am also the one who kicked back open the door to our local meth dealer's apartment to let him know he was no longer going to race up and down 10th west, that his business was relocating.  Which he did. 

BC's temper is much milder than mine and yet he was on board with me.

After the police left we loaded into Little Red to go looking for him ourselves. We weren't going to let this go. 

It became a week long hobby. 

It's not about the rocks, we said, it's about the crime. How close that asshole got to our house, in daylight, he was dangerous and we can't allow him to walk away like that. He has to know we can't allow this behavior not here, not on 10th west. 

Facts filter in. Prior to taking freely from our yard he was approached by not 1 but 2 local gangsters-types asking him what he was doing. Despite being confronted he brazenly responded he was just looking at the rocks. 

Eight days later, Saturday morning, some information about where this guy might live filtered through the 10th west grapevine and we decided to go check it out. Another lead, one of many.

"Do you mind if we listen to NPR while we look..."
"Sure, isn't Wait Wait Don't Tell on now?" BC asked placing a heavy looking pistol on the floor of the car.

This is nerd justice at its finest. Armed with a card given to us by the police with the case number on it, 2 cell phones, a camera, a gun (for protection only), and the soothing voices of NPR." Pretty typical of our drives.

I had already asked a million questions about the gun. It was on BC's belt on our very first drive as he explained why it could not be hidden despite my repeated whiny requests that he do so. The weight of its presence always pressing against the same achy space in the back of my head. A small price to pay, under the circumstances so I stop verbally complaining about it. The way I lean away from it unavoidable.

We drive around for a half hour and end up at the Wayman's fruit stand and buy corn and peppers for dinner. 

Days go by like this us piling in our car, driving, and finding nothing but the secrets of all of our backyards.

Tuesday morning, 5:30 am and I am sick. Really sick. I am scheduled to work every night this week and now along with my sore throat and headache I have a fever. Avoiding the issues being sick will cause I am up this early to workout but something outside catches my eye.

White SUV, trailer, guy going through the pile. I grab the nearest piece of paper and a crayola marker. At first I walk slowly but when I see that in order to see around the trailer and get the plate number I have to get closer than comfortable. I move fast. I walk past him unnoticed. Into the street I circle, find a good spot to stand and write down the plate number, check it, copy it, check it again, run out of things to do.

You can give the rocks back or I can call the police with your plate number, I say. 
In the cool morning air my horse voice is strong and clear.  And it carries.

So startled by me he nearly falls head first into the pile.  

I am now shaking but if it is from fear or anger I don't know.  I repeat myself moving closer to him. He begins the usually I lent my car out, I didn't, you're mistaken. 

Rocks or police I say.  I have come all the way around the vehicle. We stand no more than four feet apart. 

I am in socks, running shorts, and a superman t shirt. I am a woman who often gets stepped on, a woman that allows people to push her around because I am too swamped by my own doubts to stop it. When I stand up for myself 'friends' jump ship reinforcing what I always have feared about myself. 

But with this man I am sure I am right.  There is no doubt as to who is at fault and I stand my ground- shaking.

He rushes away from me, stumbling backwards, not daring to turn his back to me. He manages to back into the drivers' seat and flees still mumbling I have the wrong guy.  His escape is much slower the second time. 

I go inside with his plate number.  I am met by BC half asleep racing down the stairs. He had heard me outside, apparently shouting. It had taken BC a minute or two to decide whether it was a dream or not. Another couple of seconds to find pants. 

I show him the paper with the number on it as we go back outside to stand and look up the now empty street.  

Within minutes a small pack of neighborhoods in various states of sleepwear are standing in the driveway telling their version of my morning.  All of them involve some type of firearm. I seem to be the only one on 10th west who reached for a washable marker.

independence day on the farm

We all milled around in the grass watching them. Everyone of us, dogs, cats, chickens, and people. Captured by the sight of simple minded birds free ranging for the first time. 

Freedom day for the turkeys fell on July 4th.

Turkeys break all the farm rules. They go from nursery coop to yard dwellers.  

All summer in a day. 

 They skip the slow graduation process the chickens go through to gain their freedom. It is their size that enables them to do this. The only thing dangerous to them is themselves. It is so nice to see turkeys in the yard again! 

Free range turkeys are a 24/7 vaudeville act. 

The rest of it is Mayberry... 

Unit it comes to these two wiseguys...