All Weathers

The dog is fine, the house wasn't broken into because Little Sister had a friend stay over, a feral Rottweiler. Excellent watch-dog, wouldn't let me in the house until she bit him on the ass. The actual trip, three days out, three days back, was all about weather. Super Cells, hail, heavy rains, very high wind on the way home, four inches of new snow at Vail Pass. The last couple of days out there was dust storms, and smoke from the Norwood fire. One graduation in the rain, the other with 40 mph wind. Lots of cute young college girls wearing skimpy summer sun-dresses. Everyone I was introduced to would nod, as if to say, so this is the guy, the father. I tried to communicate in simple sentences. Cooked dinner several times for Samara and a roommate, then for several people at the out-going Head Of Department's house. Stayed up late a few nights, bringing the past into the present. Creeks in Nebraska: North Skunk, Middle Raccoon, Middle Skunk, South Raccoon. Flooding on the by-pass at Peoria. At a Scenic Overlook in Nebraska I'm looking at a thousand, many thousand, acres of newly planted corn; a hazy green stumble into the far distance, like an asparagus field in western Mass. The eye, once trained: in western Colorado, I kept noticing something out of the corner of my eye. The wild asparagus along the fence-rows. Became my lunch of choice. Stopped at an Arby's for several pouches of their horseradish sauce and ate sun-warmed raw asparagus with cheese and crackers. Renting a motel room for a week, having a retreat, saves me; I watch old movies and the weather channel, then fix dinner for starving people. I'm an NGO. I have a laminated card I carry around my neck. It looks official. I'm nothing if not almost honest. Maybe I stretch the truth, but I'm always looking for a bass line, something that ties to something else. So exhausted I fell asleep writing the last two nights. One of the last nights in Junction saw two plays with Samara and Kaylee at Mesa State, "Zoo Story" (Edward Albee) and "Riverside Drive" (Woody Allen). Both were pretty good, the acting better than that, but plagued with technical difficulties. Having made a small career in technical theater and a lifetime in technical everything else, it's not really fair for me to be critical, but it is in attention to detail that a decent show becomes better. The lighting sucked. Uneven, especially at the edges, where a great deal of both shows played. The tickling scene in "Zoo Story" is very difficult to stage, here, it was just short of painful, should have been shorter and maybe more hysterical. Detail. College life and bedbugs. As advertised, I'm nothing like what these kids have ever met... an old coot who lives alone, without running water, writes for several hours every day, by their standards has read everything, works at an art museum installing shows... but they like me. Back at the motel, as if to make a point, a late night movie where the janitor is the only one who knows where anything is stored. I surely seem to sound exactly like what I am. A wonderful evening cooking for Samara's outgoing head-of-department and a few students, talking with mostly Rich way into the night, talking about technical fires we'd put out. An immediate bonding. Had to stay too late (not really too) and drink several cups of coffee to get safely back to the motel room. As I was leaving Rich said I affirmed his decision to leave a tenured position because he hadn't had a conversation like that one in years. Occupying a motel room for a week is interesting. A sub-culture, not to generalize. Cable TV, running water. Assumptions about the other tenants of longer than a single night. We meet in the office, early morning, for the free coffee and scones. Reading Guy Davenport, at a Motel 6, just outside the airport in Grand Junction, Colorado. Last day there, I walked completely around the airport, several miles, into the adobe hills. Nine days into the trip it's time to move the base of operations to Montrose, Rhea's high school graduation. The winds are huge, blowing the over-grazed dust from Utah at a steady 50 mph. A fire, on the distant horizon (The Norwood Fire) adds smoke to the mix. At the dual graduation party, the Saturday before Rhea flips her tassel, the kids mostly stay inside the garage, where the food is and the wind isn't blowing and I can spend some time with old friends. Almost but not quite nostalgic. I'm brought in as a ringer. The enigmatic actual father. As a cook as well. There are certain dishes that it is necessary I prepare, and kitchens are made available to me. I enlist assistants, my older daughter, her soul-mate and we cook some decent meals. I'm distracted by being the father on display. At one point Samara cautions me to not be quite so funny because everyone is laughing so hard and loud (I was recounting a Missip story) that she's afraid the cops might come, a noise violation. This is what happens, when you bring an old dog to a new place. He circles for his bed, wondering where he should lay his sleeping head. Down pallet on the floor. Mississippi John Hurt. I leave, after a few hours, way more socializing than I'm used to. Out to Ridgway, for dinner and drinking with John. One of my favorite houses I ever built and one of my favorite people, a strict vegetarian and an extraordinary cook. Best dinner of the trip, and after cocktails and two great Zinfandels with dinner, we close the night with brandy and a last cigaret. Next day, I find myself in a bleacher, top row, with a 45 mph wind right at my back, not able to actually hear a fucking thing, because the wind is screwing up the microphones, but I recognize Rhea's beat-up cowboy boots. I would have cried, I swear, but the humidity was 8% and the wind was blowing. Moisture was literally sucked from my eyes, virga, that rain in the west that never hits the ground. No time for tears before the final party, where I account well for myself, talking with the former wife, and her husband, Mark, who I quite like; but I exit that party early, to go seek a motel room, closer to where I'll cross the great divide.