RAH RAH RAH !

I'm ready to write again. I'm prepared to stop walking aimlessly, turn to my three or so known readers and describe some of what's been going on these last three months. Actually, I won't belabor the last three months. I'll just tell you about a few things.

In that time, I've actually had the Blogger post window open on many occasions only to close it out after a while. I've just not been motivated to share anything.....even opinion.

To add to what I wrote about back in early February, the body of this post will consist mostly of "The Mexicali Chronicles".

I did make it out to my uncle and aunt's 50th wedding anniversary. It was all a very good and great time. My cousin Grace from Cancún (pictured above lower right) re-introduced me to all her cousins on her mom's side. I hadn't seen any of those cousins of hers since I was a child more than thirty-five years ago.

I don't recall ever being around so many women at any one time who were so gracious with me. To tell you the truth, had Wifey been around on this trip, she would have definitely found herself a little defensive with the way that one of them, Letty (top row third from left), was not only so very gracious but a little too frank with me regarding her personal life.

Obviously, some alcohol was doing some of the speaking for her at this function that she herself catered from her own catering company. I heard that she insisted on taking on the task herself. Frankly, she did a very good job with the food and all the decorations. I also heard that she got a great deal from the best hotel in the area. The Hotel Araiza.

The conversations I had with her are of the kind that one intimates with closer family members or friends. I was surprised that I had suddenly become one over the course of just a few hours.

Widowed, divorced and now unaffiliated at age forty-two with a nineteen year old son.

I don’t know how we very suddenly became very good friends. I’m a grown man and she a mature woman, and I know where this could have very easily have gone. To a very very awkward place where her couth and discreetness were variables that I was in no position to judge or cared to test. I felt like Chris Rock in that movie: "I Think I Love My Wife".

We exchanged addys and numbers and she insisted that I drop by to see her the next time that I may be in town. She hasn't e-mailed. I haven't either. I get the feeling it may be another thirty or so years.

On to cousin Rogelio.

Cousin Rogelio took me under his wing and did what he does best whenever I'm out there to visit. He parades me around to his friends and then gets me intoxicated with them. This last time, he even arranged to have the earth shake to commemorate my visit:
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,330353,00.html
http://earthquake.usgs.gov/eqcenter/shakemap/sc/shake/14346868/#Instrumental_Intensity http://kxoradio.com/earthquake/5.4-magnitude-earthquake-rocks-mexicali-calexico.html

We were at some bar on a Friday night. I only remember it as the "Bud Light Bar". That's the only beer everyone seemd to be drinking. The beer and tequila flowed and the mariachis were blasting. It was all laughs and fixed smiles. The din of a festive and crowded bar's atmosphere abounded, until what seemed to have been the sound of a huge commercial truck pulling right up to the side of the building began.

At first, I did not think anything of it. But it was clearly obvious that everyone quickly realized what that sound was. I was new to me.

That sound roared over and above all the music and cackle and it elicited an immediate deflating silence.

The building and the floor shook and the entire bar's patrons and employees all quieted in unison. The shake lasted about 10 or so seconds. During the shake, I heard a woman's voice a few tables away, in a calm and conversational volume that pierced through the silence, calmly utter the obvious: "está temblando". No shit sweetie.

The shake stopped and the roar of the anywhere Friday night bar erupted again, mariachi music included. It was a minor break of stride on the way to blotto-land. Start to finish, a surreal total of fifteen to twenty seconds it was. Twenty seconds that appeared to have been rehearsed. Very well rehearsed.

The very next morning, Wifey back in New Jersey calls me up after seeing that "The Today Show" reported on the seismic event. She promptly asks, "What the hell were you and Roge (above) doing last night?" Way funny. The Savages got on the phone and demanded that I tell them exactly what happened and what it felt like so they can tell their buddies at school. I told them all that I wish that they had been around to have experienced it.

Earlier on that same Friday, Roggie took me to some honky-tonk bar. As honky-tonky as you can imagine. I'm convinced this place is the kind of place that Ernest Hemingway would have made legendary and would have been a regular at. Brothel upstairs. Older and middle-aged Mexican men. Some wore cowboy hats. Oddly, it seemed no one was smoking.

The men's room has four urinals. Two on one wall and two on the other. There's a sink outside the entrance to the room with the urinals. The ladies' room was locked. Perhaps for good reason. At that one end of the bar, by the back entrance and under the neon Third Reich-like Tecate brand beer sign, was a large boiling pot with dozens of ears of corn cooking in it. No bar-peanuts at this place. Once the corn is cooked, it is there for the taking for anyone who's hungry for some.

At the other end of the bar, at the end of the row of booths, at the end of the bar itself by its front entrance, is the jukebox. Its speakers are accustomed to the sounds of Norteño music whenever there isn't a game to watch on television. As a matter of fact, the juke box was what was playing at the time.

Roggie asked me whether I had any requests for the juke box maestro. Maestro? Yes, there is one drunk who goes around asking people what they want to hear. He walks around jingling spare change in his fist. He does introduce himself and informs the new guys (me) what his job at the bar is. The guy seemed harmless.

The rule is, if I want anything played, I have to give him the money so that he can insert it into the jukebox and then he can make the selection. Some of it he pockets until he has enough to soothe a thirst.

Thinking that I'd throw the urchin for a curve ball, I requested Led Zeppelin and gave him a five dollar bill.

To my astonishment, ten or so minutes later, following the sound of an accordion punctuating the end of some number, Jimmy Page’s famous riff at the start of "Whole Lotta’ Love" thundered away. No one in the place flinched. Led Zeppelin playing there seemed like the most out of place thing I could imagine.

For lack of a better way to describe what I was experiencing at those very moments in that obtuse and obscure corner of the universe, it all seemed like a very unusual dream. The kind that one would wake up from and say, "That was one weird dream."

Cervesa, tequila, fútbol or béisbol on the TV and corn-on-the-cob. In one little corner of the world that's livin'.

In the last fifteen years, I’ve been out to see this hemisphere of my relatives a number of times. This was the first time, however, that I went out there by myself. It did have a different and distinct flavor. For one thing, I didn't speak a word of English for about sixty hours.

Before I went out there, Wifey had mentioned that it’s probably a good thing to go out there by myself this time. No Julio distraction or debauchery. No Wifey and Savages to tether. In a way, she was right. But, I truly do not like traveling by myself. For me, it is not as much fun. I find it to be insular and the experience of it can never be adequately shared with anyone that wasn’t along.

For me, traveling with an eight-year-old is supremely preferable than going about it alone. Traveling alone is like going to a movie, the theatre, out to dinner or an amusement park by one’s self. Some experiences are just meant to be shared. You can lump sex in there also.

Anyhoo, after everything, when Sunday morning arose, after a long hot shower and some long looks in the mirror, I gathered-up for departure at my uncle Rogelio's home. My uncle and aunt had my laundry done and had a full and overflowing breakfast prepared for me and my cousin Marcia.

I had not had a chance to see her. Yet, she got up early and came over just to see me and bid me a farewell over breakfast. My uncle and aunt have a maid and she took care of all that for all of us. That was a nice touch because I certainly did not expect them to have that done for me.

I was thinking coffee and dry toast and I got concierge style service for one morning when I could really use it. It truly was a great way to start that Sunday and a great way to start a three and a half hour drive back to Phoenix.

It was my aunt Elvira, uncle Rogelio, my cousin Marcia and me at the breakfast table. They knew that I had a drive ahead and that I would lose an hour on the clock crossing back into Arizona, but because of that, the conversation with a time constraint over breakfast was very enriching. Being short on time was good. It elicited some juicy talk. There were no pauses.

I was told some things about my father and about my mother and about my grandparents whom I did not get to know well or unfortunately as an adult. Marcia was candid about her plans now that she’s solidly detached from her husband. I was stunned when she told me how well financially she had settled with her ex.

In the course of the spirited morning conversations, coffee, eggs, salsa, freshly made tortillas and fresh fruit embelished that pow-wow. It was a delightful send-off breakfast. While delicious and stimulating, it was a sweetly sad affair because I had to leave. I’ve mentioned before about how it is that I feel whenever I leave this place many months ago here in this blog.

So, it’s a queue in the car to get out of Mexico. That morning, it took over an hour to get back into the USA. The first picture shows traffic attempting to cross. The brown wall on the right is the dividing line between both countries. It is made of steel and the brown is the natural color of the surface rust on it.

The other picture (below) is of me waiting for the car in front of me to get the OK to pass into the US. It is then that I have to talk to a U.S. Immigration official and state my citizenship.

Once I pull up to his kiosk, he crunches my car plates into some super uber secret federal database and then I provided him with a passport. It is then that I get the feeling that I may be his most unusual pass for the day.

He was surprised that I hailed from New Jersey. He asked me what I do for a living. He asked what was my business in Mexico and where it was that I entered that country. He asked how long I had been in Mexico. He asked if I had anything to declare that I may be carrying in the car. Then he asked where I was headed. He then asked if I can prove that to him. I showed him my airline's boarding pass. It was then that he said to enjoy my trip. I thanked him.

I thought I'd also share some of the pictures that I took after I left The Imperial Valley. The speed reading on the car's instrument cluster is legitimate. The speed limit in Arizona is 75. When there is little or no traffic, fudging the speed limit is easy to do on smooth long stretches. I've rented cars before, but I have never been a rental's first driver (I wonder if I'll ever be fortunate enough to have that ever happen again). The car still had plastic on the seats and sunroof!

I talked to the car and she said, "Push me , Jerry!". 90 what she wanted to do. I have a feeling that had I hit one-hundred, some GPS bug planted in the car would have found me getting a rental difficult the next time.

The picture to the left here is of a pick-up truck hauling this driver's weekend passion: his dune buggy. Not discernable on the back of the buggy is a bumper sticker that reads: "Got Sand?" This fellow wasn't the only one I saw towing their hobbies. There were dozens driving back to Phoenix on Interstate-8 this Sunday. I wonder if that's what I'd be doing on weekends if I lived in that area. I would like to believe that perhaps the answer is yes. I have a feeling that the cost of gasoline has tempered this fellah's hobby some. A couple of years ago I bet this guy had his and hers buggys.

This picture to the right was taken about 30 miles east of Yuma, Arizona. I-8 was contructed to go through some short mountains at that point. It's one of my favorite five miles along this region. One literally drives through the mountain and one can see and appreciate how this mountain may have been blasted many years ago to create this stretch of highway. I have a feeling that the feasability of going around this mountain range was too expensive. The image that you see is at the peak on the road. The descent after this is like a smooth roller coaster ride down and out to the wide open Sonoran Desert.

The following two pictures are intended for you to appreciate The Imperial Sand Dunes National Recreation Area. These two little pictures, however, attempt to do that inadequately. These sand dunes lie in California, near the city of Yuma and near the Colorado River. The picture also shows the brand new Dodge Calibre rental. If I were to title these two images I would name them: "Stopped to breathe some clean desert air enroute to Phoenix at eleven thirty in the morning while listening to the Arizona State at Arizona basketball pre-game on the radio."

In the picture above, you can make out the campers at the dunes with their buggys or ATV's. At this hour of the morning on a Sunday, traffic is very light on the highway. The cars that do zip by are actually a welcome cadence to the hollow in between. In the distance you can hear the sounds of revving engines from the dune buggies negociating the top of a dune.

The weather is perfect and The Wildcats will tip-off soon. At that point right there, on that day, at that time, there was very little else that I could have used or imagined for enjoyment. You're thinking that I'm in the middle of nowhere and that I still have to drive a significant distance across The Sonoran Desert. My answer to that is, Yes!

I consider myself to be very fortunate to be able to have done what I did that weekend back in February and, to have done what I did on such short notice. I chose to taste (and sniff) life and not lock myself into a cloistered comfort zone. I knew that fewer than 48 hours after I had stopped taking these images, I would be somewhere so very far removed. A place where what I did for the weekend would be difficult to describe or explain unless you were there.

I do have a regret to mention. It is the reason why I haven't serviced this blog for three months.

This whole four day weekend, however, began by stopping and going out to see my in-laws in Tucson.

After I landed in Phoenix on that first day Thursday, I got the rental and raced down to Tucson to see and evaluate my in-laws for a very brief time. At the time, my mother in-law was undergoing treatment for lymphoma that she experienced a recurrence of after it had been in remission for eight years. She looked great then.

Two days after I got back to New Jersey, Wifey and the Savages went to Tucson to see them.

Sadly and regrettably, my mother in-law's health began to deteriorate soon afterwards. For five weeks, Wifey had a foot in Tucson and another in New Jersey. There were a couple of occasions that I had to take The Savages to work on a couple of Saturdays because Wifey was out in Arizona.

I was stressed and Wifey was stressed.

I never saw my mother in-law after that short look-see before Mexicali. Wifey's mom and The Savages' grandmother passed on the morning of the vernal equinox.

So, we all have been in mourning for a few weeks. The atmosphere at home has been as if we all have been walking around in a fog for weeks. I have caught both of The Savages quietly crying about it weeks afterward. Wifey has a hole in her heart.

Many of our friends, our neighbors and my colleagues have been so very helpful, so kind and sympathetic. I have been very distracted being the Big Ameliorator to Wifey and The Savages since February.

I'm still very stressed. Wifey called a few hours ago to tell me that her father was hospitalized last night.

The wreath remains hanging.

*!*

posted by JerryNJ @ 11:43 PM 0 comments