Hello Colorado

I've changed the look of the blog to bring your attention to a couple of changes I've made with immediate effect: I'll be making a new post once a week, on Tuesdays (not twice a week as originally planned). Also, I hadn't realized that the default settings required those who wish to make comments to register with Blogger; this is no longer required.

It's been eleven days since our last meeting here, which is because I have been on the road so much more than anticipated. Since having left Amsterdam Nov. 22, my itinerary has looked like this:

11/22 - arrive Miami 8 pm, spend the night
11/23 - 5:55 am leave for Tallahassee on "the pooch" (Greyhound bus), arriving 6 pm
11/23 - 8:30 pm, leave T. on 3-day train-trip, Amtrak to LA
11/26 - arrive LA 4 pm
11/27 - day 2 in LA
11/28 - day 3 10:30 pm, leave LA on return train-trip
12/01 - 9 pm, arrive Tallahassee
12/04 - 6:15 pm, scheduled departure time Tallahassee - Denver on the pooch
12/06 - 6:30 am, arrive Denver

My old Peace Corps buddy Crystal Brandt picked me up about 2 hours later and now I'm snuggling up to the fireplace, getting used to a new time-zone and trying to recall what it is I'm supposed to be doing next! But first some wrap-up of what's transpired in the past 11 days. So much has happened.

The time spent with my mom was at times a bit stressful. It was good to see her again esp. after such a long time apart, but I finally felt obliged to point out that I no longer really needed or wanted tips on table manners.

Example 1: On the dining car when I was finished eating, I would push my empty plate to one side in order to make room for my arms and elbows to relax a bit. This really annoyed her for some reason, and she kept bringing it up until I told her she had to let it go.

Could you take one more example? [There are 237 to choose from.] This woman Lydia from LA -- a fellow teacher and property manager we'd had dinner with one night and who also had a sleeping compartment in our car -- came back after dinner one night to chat and drink some wine for a while. After she left my mom said, "Douglas, don't you think it's polite to stand up when a lady enters the room?"

At some point during this train-trip from hell the following variation on an old joke occurred to me:

Q: Why did the chicken cross the road?
A: To get as far as fcuk away from his mother as possible! [Well it seemed funny to me at the time.]

Incidentally, I got big laughs the 3 or 4 times I told this never-fails joke: Grasshopper walks into a bar and asks for a drink. The bartender looks at him and says, "Hey you know we got a drink named after you?!" And the grasshopper says, "You got a drink named George?!" [Thanks for sharing it with me, Liv-Liv-Livarino!]

Well I won't go on too much more about the trials and tribulations of my reunion with the maternal unit. Like I said, I was glad for the opportunity to re-connect with the old girl. But she is (still) of the mind-set that if you don't agree with everything she says then you are against her, or she thinks you think the worst of her, in spite of all my efforts to show nothing but loving compassion. The almost unending stream of negativity emanating from her was simply too much for me to continue to bear, and I canceled the idea I'd briefly entertained of settling in her vicinity for a time.

We did have some great times together too, though. My mom had been in Santa Barbara and Los Angeles during World War II and was really happy to show me around some places she remembered. The first night in LA, after we checked into our hotel, we walked back up Grand St. to have a second look at this freaky Jetson-esque building we'd passed in the taxi from the train station. It turned out to be the absolutely stunning Walt Disney Concert Hall. I felt like I was in Bilbao [and yes, Inigo, you can DEFinitely take that as a compliment]!

Right across the street from the gorgeous art-deco Union Station is Olvera Street, one of the oldest parts of L.A.

And on Sunday I easily convinced the old girl to come along with me to Santa Monica, getting off the bus after a 1-hour ride from downtown LA just a block from the world-famous pier. (You might not click on every link, but don't miss this one, a fabulous scrollable panoramic shot).

Santa Monica was sunny and warm for late November (65 F, 18 C), but cold as the water was, I could not resist astriparunandajump into the frothy surf, in honor of my long friendship with one of the most extraordinary humans I have ever had the good fortune to meet. [I won't embarrass him by naming him after such a gushy description, he knows who he is: dude you were SO there in spirit!]

After mom and I had watched people fishing from the end of the pier, where dolphins and at least one sea lion were swimming and jumping, watching the pelicans flying overhead and dive-bombing into the water, the clouds rolling by, playing miniature golf ... a frolic in the surf was just not to be missed. 15 or 20 minutes was all I required, enough to catch a couple of waves and simply exult at the power and beauty of being alive: that's what running and jumping into cold ocean water will remind you of. Better than 50 pages of The Power of Now!

And what visit to Los Angeles would be complete without a star-sighting?!

Mom and I had left the beach and looked for a bite to eat in the food court of a nearby shopping mall. With a couple of hours to kill before catching the last possible bus [19:15] back into downtown, we decided to browse at a Border's bookstore. I'd gone to reclaim my backpack from behind the counter, jumped the line (thinking this will only take a sec') and waited to get the clerk's attention behind the customer he was serving. It took more than a sec' though, and I realized that perhaps the customers waiting on queue were going to be pissy thinking I'd jumped in front of them with a purchase. So I casually glance over in their direction, and who do I lock eyes with -- as my heart skips a beat -- but one of the handsomest tv actors I think I've ever enjoyed watching: did you ever see Queer as Folk [US version]? If you have, you'll know who I'm talking about, the cute-as-a-button Hal Sparks, who played the lead role of Michael (as I was reminded a couple of days later by a gay fellow-Amtrak traveler). He was wearing a black leather jacket and had a chick on his arm. I thought at first it was someone I'd gone to school with or something! Ah I could give a rat's ass about the whole celebrity thing, but I admit it was fun to see somebody whose acting work I'd enjoyed.

It wasn't much more than a couple of days mom and I had in LA, but I'd say we did pretty well at getting about to see a bunch of stuff in a short time.

Back on the train
I'd have to say that one of the few benefits that came out of my mom having been so pissed off so much of the time was the opportunity to meet and get to spend time with fellow-travelers on board.

I knew I'd hit it off with the gay guy who knew Hal Sparks' name almost the instant we met. Mary Lou had gone on to breakfast without me one morning, and when I arrived in the dining car found her seated opposite a handsome and hunky guy named Randy. The old lady had been mid-anecdote when she paused and said, "Oh, I've lost the track ... " and without missing a beat, Randy said, "It's under the train!" I paused from buttering my toast and shot him this withering look that said, "Buh-dum bum, TSCHHHH!" while inwardly I was cracking up. What joy, to meet someone who has the same corny sense of humor I do!

I met another passenger whose company I greatly enjoyed during our second night out of LA, after Mary Lou had gone off -- in a huff, over nothing -- to dinner without me. I wasn't sure when I went down some time later if there would be anyone to sit with or not, and so I'd taken a magazine with me in case I had to dine alone. A woman looking to be in her 40's had just gotten on in Houston, and was the last diner to be seated that night, at my table, just a few minutes after I'd been seated.

Leonora turned out to have just retired (at the age of 65!) from running her own spa in San Francisco for the past 23 years, and was on her way to settle again with family in Mobile, Alabama. When she mentioned that she was a massage-therapist I was in happy disbelief, and pulled out the magazine that I'd brought to the table with me: the latest issue of Massage magazine, which I'd purchased in LA specifically to familiarize myself with current trends in the field, and to get information on which schools might be good to attend. She was only too happy to share her considerable experience with me. I had planned on swinging through Mobile on my way to Colorado to spend a couple more hours with her, but in the end this seemed to be too impractical. She gave me her phone number before she left, and one way or another I will definitely be connecting with this extraordinary human being (dare I say angel?) another time.

Randy was a gem to step onto the platform to say good-bye to me and my mom in Tallahassee. We hugged good-bye and the last thing he said to me was, "Take good care of your mom!" which I thought was sweet. As we walked down the platform and toward the car, Mary Lou said, "That was an uncalled-for remark, what did he mean by that?" And my despair -- at learning the extent to which the woman will twist any of the most kindly-intentioned comments into something to be suspicious of -- deepened another couple of notches.

A couple more days in Tallahassee -- including a visit to the only two gay clubs the Florida state capital has to offer my last night in town (a Friday, with me thinking to myself, "Jeez would LANCE leave Tallahassee without visiting at least one of our people's establishments? NO-O-O-O-O!") -- and by Saturday it was time to catch the pooch for Denver [18:15 actually]. We sat on the bus for another two hours though while we waited for a replacement driver to locate the terminal. The original driver felt too ill to drive any more, poor fella.

Rocky Mountain High
It was fantastic to re-connect with Crystal again. We went out for breakfast after she picked me up at the bus station, and on the way I finally got the view of the Rocky Mountains that had been denied me earlier in the day, as our bus pulled into Denver before sunrise. What a beautiful piece of the planet. [Incidentally, the distance from Tallahassee to Denver is 1334 miles {2146 km} and took 36 hours, due mostly to having to make a number of stops along the way.]

Crystal still lives on the farm where she grew up in Evergreen, which is about an hour's drive west of Denver and higher still in the mountains. Among the animals she tends to are a couple of red Angus cows, one about to give birth in a month or two; six pigs; 3 or 4 cats; and a silly golden retriever named Esoyuk which is Inuit for "small eyes". I think a better name would've been the Inuit word for overbite 'cause I have rarely seen a dog with a bigger one than Esoyuk's! But she's good-natured and high-spirited and will go retrieve a stick just about as many times as you will throw it.

Crystal, her nephew Chaz and 2 nieces Leslie and Penn' have opened up a coffee house The Bean Cycle in a college-town called Ft. Collins about an hour's drive north of Denver, and she and I will drive up tomorrow and spend 3 or 4 days there. We will decorate the shop for Christmas, and help out the young-un's who are running the shop alone, from 6:30 am till 10 at night, 7 days a week. I've begun a search for massage schools in Colorado, and am attempting now to figure out how soon I might be financially prepared to start studies.

Know any gazillionaires with hearts as big as their wallets? Anyone? Hmmmm?!!