Doing our part

I have been away in Arizona. We came to attend a benefit for the new hospital in Loreto and to visit my mother and sister who live in Mesa and Tempe. The event was held at El Charro, an old landmark restaurant that has Camelback Mountain for a backdrop. It's old Scottsdale. An endearing place for it's lost-in-time quality. No glitz, no million dollar remodels. The event turned out nicely, something over $100 thousand dollars was raised. More importantly, we all got decked out, something that doesn't happen in Loreto. We spent the afternoon in the Biltmore Fashion Mall on a lunatic hunt for something decent to wear. I hadn't navigated a mall in months. We managed to get hopelessly lost from each other for over two hours. I kept returning to the car to look for Robert. On my last attempt I peered inside the dark tinted windows to make sure I was indeed looking at my mother's car. There was Robert, the seat in total recline, asleep. He'd been waiting inside the whole time. Ahhhggg!

Tomorrow I will leave with my mother and Allison to our home, while Robert heads back to our "other" home in Loreto. We plan to stay just a few days to take care of business and get some visits in with friends and family. I haven't been back since early December. I hate leaving Loreto for even a short break because I fear it will break the nice rhythm we've established there. It is such culture shock to re-enter our old lives in America. I miss a lot of things, but there's much I don't.

"Stop this ride I want to get off" is a phrase that comes to mind on returning to the U.S. We move so fast here. We spend enormous time in our cars. Everyone walks around talking on cell phones. And everybody is buying something. There is so much stuff out there. Then we go home and watch television and catch up on what else there is to buy. In Mesa, you soon discover that all the best stuff to buy is in Scottsdale. But the problem with living in Mesa (my mom's) is that there's no straight route to Scottsdale. A huge chunk of land separates the two areas--a Pima Indian reservation. Relatively barren land with few through roads and dotted with concrete block houses, litter, and trash, it has been encroached and surrounded by Phoenix Valley's uncontainable growth so that it appears like an unnatural land mass, an obstacle to sensible traffic flow. We have to go all the way around. Darn those Indians. What are they holding out for?

Well we did our part to boost the economy while here, buying things we needed for our home in Loreto Bay. We shopped a lot on Monday, May 1st, which was the day designated for immigration reform protest by Hispanics. I don't think the local economy missed a beat. Costco was as packed as any other day. It takes a heck of a lot more than hundreds of thousands of angry Mexicans to stop we, the people from shopping.

I may not post much in the next few days. I have to return to reality and do some "real" work at home.