Just over a year ago my 1993 Volvo kicked the bucket. I wasn’t terribly sad. I hated that car from day one. Apparently it hated me right back. The first month I had it the radiator blew cracking a gasket head and doing 3 grand in damage. For the next three years that car spent more time parked than running. When it was working it inhaled gas like Tony Montana. While the large trunk might have been appealing to border running coyotes, it didn’t do much for the single girl searching for parking in Los Angeles. The best thing about that car were the seats and the sound system. Had it not felt like I was driving a lazy-boy I would have gotten rid of it sooner. So after it sputtered to a hot death at the top of my hill my neighbors and I pushed it into a parking spot where it sat for two months until I made the call and donated it to charity. Since the death of the Volvo I have done my best with a bike and the limited public transportation offered by the city of Los Angeles. I have also had to burden friends with endless requests for rides and as you know I already have difficulty maintaining friends so this certainly hasn’t helped. I believe that though many people now enjoy my calmer, more optimistic (for me) demeanor, they are tired of being my unpaid taxi driver. There is a strain that while unspoken I definitely feel, so I gave up on trips to Trader Joe’s and almost every late night event months back. In the last year the dogs and I have gone on less than 5 hikes, which was once a daily routine. Now our...

Last time I told you all about taking my dogs to Vegas.  On the dog front it was a successful trip, but during the three days we were there we had a few small hiccups. The short of it is, I went to Vegas and I ended up with a new car. On the way up, my husband hit a piece of rubber on the road.  At the end of the trip, when we started driving home, we realized that the road-rubber had hit the lining on the bottom of our car. It sounded like the bottom of the car was dragging on something. We decided to stop at the border of Nevada and California, which is only 45 minutes away from Vegas, to eat and inspect the situation. After we grabbed our fast food, we realized that the lining in the wheel well, above the tire was rubbing on the tire. That is when my pregnancy hormones went into full swing.  Suddenly this debris scraping on a rubber tire seemed like a dangerous idea for a five hour trek into the dessert. I did not want to get stuck, 7 months pregnant, in 110 degree temperature, stranded in the middle of nowhere.  The lining had to be removed.  My husband swore to me it wasn’t that important and a cheap fix.  We called AAA and the only thing they offered us was a tow.  Then we tried duct taping and went on our way.  We only made it one mile down the freeway before we heard the dragging noise again, so we turned around and went back to the border. I called many mechanics, ones that were even open 24hrs and they all said they wouldn’t work on my car until the next morning.  My...

That is the item at the top of my to-do list today. So I spent the morning in the backyard, squatting in the blazing sun, gathering piles of dried dog doo and several pounds of fallen apples, into a giant garbage bag. Ya know – l.i.v.i.n. – livin’. Next on that list is that is ‘run to the cemetery’, followed by ‘biscuits, noodle casserole and cookies’. That may seem like a odd, and random, list of to-do’s, but life out in the country is definitely odd and random. I’ve been in rural Colorado since August 4th, staying at my Mom’s house and helping her recover from hip-replacement surgery. My mom has lived in this house for the past 34 years, things are pretty settled in here. The dog poop creator is a 14 year old blue-healer mix named Belle. Belle is mellow and extremely well behaved, aside from a little age-related incontinence (ya gotta watch where you step if she sleeps on the kitchen floor for over a ½ hour). Belle wakes me up at 5:17 a.m., on the dot, every morning to be let into the massive back yard, where she runs to the very back corner and does what dogs do in the morning. Then she comes back into the house and eye-balls me, weighing me with guilt, until I get her leash and we go on our run. In Haxtun, the cemetery is on the West edge of town, up against a corn field. That’s where everybody walks to and around in the morning. It’s where Belle and I head to before the heat swells up and takes over this tiny town. Once we get there, she is unleashed. In younger days, she would run, heady with freedom and in search...