Springtime wanderings

After a cool week, the weather is starting to warm up again and it's just beautiful here right now. Wildflowers everywhere! When we were in Death Valley last weekend the ranger mentioned that they aren't having a very good year for flowers, and I know Lancaster isn't having a very good year with their poppies. But it's beautiful around Ridgecrest.

Today we made our first visit of the year to the Desert Tortoise Natural Area (DTNA), which is outside California City, just south of us. We got there about 10:15 am, and I was sure we'd see a tortoise or two. But no, there were none. The naturalist told us that earlier in the week, when it was colder, they'd had FIVE tortoises walking around, but now that it's warmer, nothing. We are beginning to doubt such stories. "Oh, there was a tortoise here a moment ago, you just missed it," etc., etc. It's like the Monty Python sketch with the man pretending to sell cheese.

Still, even without tortoises, the DTNA is a lovely place, and we enjoyed our walk. We did see several lizards, and that made the boos happy. Here is one, a horned lizard (also known as a horned toad):

There were nice flowers too. Here is a shot of the boos among the goldfields:

It is getting harder and harder to take photos around them, because now they insist on taking photos too. Every time I photograph a flower, Baby A then has to photograph the flower, followed by Baby B. They snap several shots, just to be sure they've got it. Meanwhile, my camera's batteries run down. When I get home and download the photos to the computer I then have to go through them and delete all of the babies' shots.

Here's an example (that I kept to show you). They insisted that I take a picture of a rock with lichen on it. Here's the rock:

And here's their blurry picture of the same rock, with the camera's cord hanging down in the middle of everything:

They insist on holding the camera about 2 inches away from whatever they're photographing. I say to Baby A, "Not so close!" but he ignores me. Then Baby B gets the camera, and Baby A shouts "Not so close!" which makes Baby B nervous, so his shots are even worse than Baby A's.

I guess I could just say "No! It's Mommy's camera!" That's what parents would have done in the old days, when cameras had film. But I figure they're learning, and no one's dropped the camera yet, so on we go.

Later in the afternoon, when we were hanging out in our backyard, watching Daddy work on the weeds, I said to Baby B, "Did you like the tortoise place?"

"Yeah."

"I'm sorry there weren't any tortoises there. But there were lizards."

Baby B said, "And a tortoise picture."

And so there was.

Hidden desert

Today is another windy day, blowing in one last storm. The tortoises were up this morning, but they went down again early. We even have a chance of rain tomorrow. The last two years, I think the last rain came in February! And here it is April. Funny year.

I'm sitting here looking at my to-do list, checking off what I've done and wondering what else I'll do today. Making dinner is probably not avoidable, working on taxes definitely is. As I ponder my list, I'm listening to "Hidden Desert: a Tribute to Thin White Rope." http://thehiddendesert.blogspot.com/ This requires a little explanation.

The first time I came to Ridgecrest, in 1979, for a punk rock concert, I met some pretty cool guys, friends of the friend who'd invited me down. (Actually I invited myself, but whatever.) I lost touch with my friend a few years later and thus with his friends. Flash forward 31 years to last summer, when I wrote a memory piece about that trip. The story is called "Ridgecrest Revisited" and it's included in an anthology my writing club is publishing, Planet Mojave (http://planetmojave.com/).

Anyway, it turned out that another member of my writing group actually knew most of the people I mentioned in the story, because her son was in their circle. She noted that one of them, Guy Kyser, had played in a fairly successful band. After a bit of detective work I discovered that Guy's band was called Thin White Rope, and it was quite popular during the 1980s and early 1990s, especially in Europe.

So I watched videos of TWR on YouTube, and ordered a few of their CDs from Amazon, but I have to admit that what I like best (so far anyway) is this tribute site. Most of the bands who contributed songs are actually European -- French, Italian, German, British, even Serbian. So you get these amusing pronunciations and little funny bits, like the singer counting "One two three, eins zwei drei" as the song begins. The Italian guy who sings the "Triangle" song has a particularly lovely accent. Guy Kyser had a very distinctive voice -- "gravelly" doesn't even begin to describe it -- and I find him a little hard to listen to. Most of these tributes are easier. What can I say? I'm old, I don't do punk anymore (though TWR's sound is actually described as "desert rock").

But Guy's songwriting skills were impressive. Some of the songs are really disturbing and/or moving. I like "The Red Red Sun," "Hidden Lands," "Sack Full of Silver," "Astronomy," and "Up to Midnight." Remember that Guy grew up in Ridgecrest. Many of his songs sound like they're about his hometown.

This little town
will drag you down
Your old car
has broken down
On your right
is everyone
On your left
the red red sun

Welcome to Ridgecrest. I feel as though I've found another key to this place.

And now, for the wildflower enthusiasts among you, here are a few more photos from the field near our house.

This is probably Fremont pincushion. It's something pincushion anyway (there are several varieties).

This is called Brown-eyed primrose (sorry, not a very good shot, but on the positive side, you get to see a little bit of Baby A's shoe).

And this, this is impressive. It's some kind of a Sunray, possibly a Panamint daisy (I need a more comprehensive wildflower book). We were in Death Valley on Sunday, driving on the Wildrose Canyon road into the park, when suddenly I saw this enormous flower sticking out of a rock. I hit the brakes, pulled over, and Rocket Boy and I got out to take a look at it. That's a measuring tape next to it. The thing was nearly 2 feet tall!

And now we have two

When I went out this morning to check on our late-sleeping tortoise, I saw a tortoise walking around in the pen -- and it was her! Tortoise #1 wasn't up yet, but tortoise #2 was up and out of her burrow at last. I was SO glad we didn't have to dig up her burrow. Best for her to come out on her own.

A few minutes later, tortoise #1 emerged from the other burrow. Apparently even though they spent the winter in one burrow, they've decided to separate for spring. Or maybe it was just that night.

Anyway, here is tortoise #2 having her first dousing of the season:

As you can see, she wasn't terribly impressed by the hydration process. After a bit, Rocket Boy came out to see her and he decided she needed a real bath, a scrubbing. I pointed out that tortoises in the wild don't ever have scrubbings, but he was not interested. He filled a big tub with warm water and proceeded to wash all the dirt off her with a scrub brush.

Then we fixed up a little tub of cool water and set it in the sun and her in it. Here she is having her second swim (or third, if you count the scrubbing), while two little people look on.

After a while she walked out of this bath, so we put her back in her pen, upon which she promptly went back down in her burrow. I didn't blame her!

But a few hours later she came up again, and she and tortoise #1 basked in the late afternoon sun. Ah, the life of a tortoise. Little do they know they're soon to move to new homes. We will miss them when they go.

Tortoise update and wildflower primer

"There she is, Miss America..." Actually the song I keep singing to tortoise #2 is "Come out come out wherever you are..." As you can see (I hope you can see), she is alive and moving, and we did not have to poke her. We found a good stick, got down on our hands and knees in the tortoise pen, shone a flashlight down the burrow -- and there she was, looking at us! She's about halfway up the burrow in this picture -- still too far down for us to reach, but definitely closer than she was last night.

So I took a few flash pictures of her (I'm actually holding the camera down into the burrow and snapping blindly), we sprayed a little water down in the burrow to give her a taste of what she could have if she'd come out, and she promptly turned around and went back down. Oops.

So tomorrow we're going to see if she tries again (and there will be NO flash photography and NO sprays of water), but if she doesn't come all the way out, we'll probably dig her out. Then she can have a bath and start waking up a little more. The other tortoise had a nice day today, walked all over the pen and ate some green leaves.

As promised, here are some wildflowers! I finally managed to bring my camera on a morning walk. This was actually taken in our front yard. The yellow flowers are desert dandelions and the little purple flowers are red stem filaree.

This is a fairly common one, not so pretty, but we can't all be beautiful. It's called fiddleneck.

I'm pretty sure this is pygmy-leaved lupine. It's also fairly common in the field near us.

This one is not at all common out here. It's called blue dicks and is found all over the state, but from the pictures I've seen, it's usually much fluffier and prettier elsewhere. This must be the desert version -- small, drab. Figures. I think it's nice, though. Grows from a bulb.

And here we have the tiny yellow flower called goldfields, because they appear to turn fields gold. (Lots of desert dandelions are mixed in there too.)

I will post more photos as we find more flowers. I love this time of year.

Spring is here, and summer too

OK! I haven't been posting here for quite a while, so it feels very weird to be back. But here I am, back.

While I've been gone (from the blog, that is), spring has really sprung here, and now along comes summer. I was driving down China Lake Boulevard today and the electronic sign said it was 90 degrees! On March 31st! I was not happy about that. Tomorrow it is supposed to be 91. It's going to be cooler on the weekend and next week, but really, 90 degrees in March. Not necessary.

We had some fabulous storms this month too, including one about ten days ago that resulted in this gorgeous snow on the mountains west of town (that's the southernmost tip of the Sierra Nevada range).

Pretty cool, no? Our little valley is entirely surrounded by mountains, and after this storm the mountains to the north were also snow covered, but I didn't get any photos of them.

But now it is spring again, or rather summer, and there are wildflowers everywhere. Last spring we were so good about learning the names of all the flowers, and now I find that I have forgotten almost all those names. But there is no time like the present for learning them all over again, and in any case the boos don't know the names and might like to learn them, so we are starting to work on that. Baby B recognizes one flower, the desert dandelion, and as we walk along he points them out, except he just calls them dandelions. I say "Yes!" and then add, pedantically, "DESERT dandelions." I'll try to post some wildflower photos soon.

We have also been seeing quail almost every day, rabbits, and today I saw a lizard. The first lizard of spring, or rather summer.

With all this warm weather, one of our tortoises has decided to come up out of her burrow and rejoin the living. She came up a couple of weeks ago, but then went back down again when it got cold. Last weekend she came up again, so we gave her a bath in order to rehydrate her. Here she is having a bath.

Isn't she sweet? The other tortoise, however, has not made an appearance, and this is unfortunate, since there are folks out there eagerly waiting to adopt her. Tonight we shone a flashlight down in the burrow, and there she is -- she didn't somehow vanish into the earth or anything like that. But she's not coming out. So tomorrow we are going to try to get her out.

How does one get a tortoise out of a burrow, you may ask. Well, the first thing we have been told to do is to poke her with something, like a stick. She is six feet down in the ground, but I am thinking a broomstick might work, or maybe the non-sharp end of a hoe. Rocket Boy is home tomorrow, it being Flex Friday, so we will work on this together. One of us will hold a flashlight while the other one pokes. If the tortoise moves her legs, we will know she is alive. If she does not move her legs, we will know that she is either dead or sick. If she moves her legs, there is a chance that she will then walk out of the burrow. If not, or if she doesn't move her legs, we will probably have to dig her out. Stay tuned for further developments, which I will try to report on tomorrow.

Wind

I believe I mentioned, a few posts back, that it hasn't been so windy this year. That was true, a few posts back. No, it's still true -- overall, it's been less windy. But Sunday and Monday we had a wind storm, so now I'm all jacked up again about Ridgecrest being windy. And since spring is really just getting started, we could have just as much wind this year as last.

Bad winds out here are called "termination winds," because in the early days bad wind storms would cause people to terminate their employment with the Navy at China Lake.

Apparently yesterday it was so bad that they actually closed Highway 14 to big rigs and campers/RVs. A big rig blew over and that was the end of that. The Daily Independent even wrote an editorial about how to drive in the wind, the gist of which was "Don't."

I drove to the grocery store in the wind yesterday, taking care to open my car door slowly and carefully so that all my shopping bags wouldn't blow away, as happened once last year. When I was leaving the store, I found that the automatic doors weren't working -- they were just sort of waving gently in the wind -- so I had to shove one of them open in order to get out. Then, in the parking lot, I heard a scream, and watched as a cart went zooming across the lot toward a car. A man bravely grabbed it before it hit and returned it to a young woman with a baby. I was careful to return my cart to the cart-return place, but the wind actually almost blew it away anyway.

The twins and I tried to take a walk that morning, but the wind got much worse after we'd gone half a block, and we had to cut it short. The boys sat in their stroller and pulled their sun shades down to block the wind, while I valiantly pushed against the wind to get us home.

In the afternoon, after my shopping trip, I sat at my computer and tried to concentrate, but the howling wind got under my skin.

Boulder actually has worse winds than Ridgecrest, but they're not as frequent. And they don't involve dust clouds.

I suppose I should make some comment about the metaphorical wind blowing in change, but it just wasn't a metaphorical wind. That said, change would be welcome.

Another busy Saturday

Another busy Saturday spent anywhere but Ridgecrest.

The liberal salon meeting this month was not on the first Friday night at someone's house in Ridgecrest or Inyokern, it was on the first Saturday afternoon (i.e., today) at someone's house in Weldon. Weldon is 55 miles west of us, in the bucolic Kern River Valley on Highway 178. We couldn't really go to the salon proper, since we'd have the twins with us (though NEARLY three years old, the twins aren't quite ready for long discussions of political issues), but we thought we'd drop by and say hi, in case no other Ridgecrest liberals felt up to making the drive.

It turned out that many people felt up to it -- the place was packed. So we wandered around the gorgeous property for an hour, walked down to the river, ate a few snacks, talked to a few people about health care and how evil Republicans are, and then took our leave before the twins either fell over a cliff or broke a precious art object (both of which appeared likely to happen at any moment).

We then continued west on 178, and then north on 155, because we were hoping to do a little sledding. Now, it was warm today, in the 70s in Ridgecrest. At the salon party we mentioned to a few people that we were going to look for some snow and everyone kind of shook their heads and said "hmm." As we drove up Highway 155 northwest of Wofford Heights, it was very warm in the car and we saw not a trace of snow on any of the mountains around us. Oh well, we thought, might as well drive all the way to Greenhorn Mountain County Park (where we went sledding last year) and then turn around.

But as we approached the park, we were pleasantly surprised.

Even though there was no snow anywhere else, there was a lot of snow on that mountain. So we got out our double sled and Rocket Boy pulled the boys around a bit. The only problem was that Baby A got upset and didn't want to go any further, so then RB just pulled Baby B. Baby A and I walked back to the car -- where I guess he felt safe -- and then spent our time throwing snowballs. Or rather, I threw snowballs. He claimed not to be able to make a snowball while wearing his big mittens. So I made snowball after snowball after snowball, and attempted, at his direction, to throw them at various trees and signs.

After a while Rocket Boy and Baby B returned.

We changed out of our wet things and piled back into the car, feeling pleased with ourselves. Then, since we were all the way up there already anyway, we went over to Kernville and played in the park for a while. And then we drove to Lake Isabella for a quick dinner before heading home.

Here's a restaurant that will be glad never to see us again. Honestly, is it possible that the Threes are going to be worse than the Twos??? Baby B spent the entire dinner standing up on his seat in our booth, smearing up the glass on the window, while Baby A spent the entire dinner UNDER the booth table, occasionally rolling out into the aisle for the waitress to trip on him. When we tried to make them sit in their seats, they screamed.

But the worst thing happened before our food came. Rocket Boy took Baby A out a side door to the smokers' patio just to keep him occupied for a little while. Baby B, who had refused to go with them, suddenly got out of his seat (ignoring me), and walked quickly across the restaurant to the front door. Before my astonished eyes he opened the front door and left the restaurant. I jumped out of my seat and ran after him, but when I got to the front door and looked out, he had vanished. Finally I found him -- he had gone to the patio via a different route. I was so mad at him I was nearly speechless, but eventually I found the words to tell him what a bad boy he'd been. I'm sure it made no impression at all.

All the long dark way home over Walker Pass, as Baby A snoozed, Baby B kept saying to me: "Mommy?"
Me: "Yes, honey?"
Baby B: "Mommy, I got a idea."
Me: "What's your idea, honey?"
Baby B: "Birthday!"

So you can see what was on his mind -- not his behavior, anyway. We're thinking maybe we can't go to any more restaurants for a while, maybe not until they're four. I'll let you know how that goes.

Hello March

The photo above is of a yard on our street in Ridgecrest. We love to walk past this tortoise any day, but especially now, in early March, when he has daffodils and hyacinths in his circle, not just cactus.

When I lived in Michigan I really didn't like the month of March -- drab, gray, cold, muddy, ugly -- and when I lived in Colorado I was too busy digging out from all the enormous snowstorms that occur during March to have an opinion about it. But in California, March is a pretty month. Can be cool, can be rainy, but it's usually beautifully green (even in Ridgecrest) and flowers start to bloom. The desert wildflowers are more toward April, but they're starting. I saw a desert dandelion in our front yard (the side with just dirt) this morning.

So here we are in March, here we are in Year 3 in Ridgecrest. Coming up in a couple of days is my daddy's birthday (he's been gone nearly 22 years now), and then a few days after that, the twins will turn three. We have been talking about birthdays a lot and they seem to be getting the idea. Tonight as I was saying goodnight to them, Baby B said to me, "I got a idea, Mommy." I leaned down and asked him what his idea was, and he said "Birthday!" I agreed that yes, his birthday was coming, next week in fact. I need to go to the little toy store in town and buy some more Thomas trains or something. We'll just give them a couple of gifts on their actual birthday and I think I'll let them open the presents from the San Luis Obispo cousins then too.

Then on the weekend we're going to Los Angeles to celebrate with the rest of the family. Should be quite the social event of the season.

We (i.e., they) are getting so big. Here we are in the field behind our subdivision, in an area we call the "White Rocks" because someone dumped some extra white rocks there once. So many of the white rocks have been removed since then (some by us -- we used them to fill in a hole on our patio) that it hardly still deserves the name. We like to go there and run around on all the little hills. This is the only time all year that it's so green.

The (real) tortoises aren't up yet. Still hibernating, deep down in their burrow (we're almost positive they're both in the same one). I'm quite interested in when they will make an appearance. Both of them are spoken for -- there's a long list of people in Ridgecrest who want to adopt tortoises. We'll miss them when they're gone. Maybe I won't tell the club IMMEDIATELY when they do come up -- maybe we'll enjoy them ourselves for a week or two before bidding them farewell.

I can tell they're not up yet because their pen is full of green stuff (if they were up, they'd be chowing it all down). Come up tortoises, I want to tell them. Come up and eat. Spring is (nearly) here!

Goodbye February

Well, the month of February is almost over and I can't say I'm sorry to see it go. Having said that, I must acknowledge that February 2011 was better than February 2010. Last year I was sick almost nonstop from Christmas through -- April? No, then there was all that strep throat, so it was really more like August. And then Rocket Boy got pneumonia. Last year was a TERRIBLE year for us. This one is healthier, so far, at least for me (Rocket Boy is planning to go to the doctor for another round of antibiotics tomorrow).

Also, the weather has been better. Don't quote me, but I think we haven't had as much wind. And perhaps a bit more rain, which is a good thing (wildflowers!). Ridgecrest is still dull, but it's been tolerable.

From a personal standpoint, though, February sucked. I spent the first 23 days of the month finishing up my entry in the Amazon writing contest and waiting to see if I'd make the first cut -- and the last few days feeling rotten because I didn't make it.

The first cut (where they winnow the pool of contestants from 10,000 down to 2,000) is based on your 300-word "pitch" for your novel, and mine was obviously found wanting. From reading the message boards associated with the contest I've learned that the pitch judging is somewhat arbitrary -- people have entered the same pitch two years running and one year they make it through while the next year they don't. But it's still the gateway for the rest of the contest, so if you don't get through, you're out. And I'm out.

I can't stay away from the message boards, though, and this weekend I studied one of the discussion threads carefully. This was a thread where people posted their "winning" pitches, i.e., their pitches that got through. At first, reading the winning pitches, I felt angry. My pitch was just as good as theirs! Why didn't mine get through? But I went back and forth, reading theirs, reading mine, and I came to the conclusion that in fact mine was not as good as most of the winning pitches. I focused on making mine well written and clear and concise, but I forgot something important: I forgot to make it interesting. There were all sorts of things I could have said that would have made it stand out more.

So now I know what I need to do -- problem is, I won't have the opportunity to do it until next year. A lot of things could happen between now and then. I could write another novel and decide to submit that one instead. I could rewrite this one entirely. I could give up writing, or at least give up submitting my writing to contests. We'll see.

I still feel sad. I'm living in this little window of time right now where I actually HAVE some time to myself -- I don't have a job -- and no sense getting a job if we're going to move soon -- and the twins go to daycare in the afternoons. I probably won't have this much free time again until after I retire. The ONE really great thing about living in Ridgecrest is that it's given me this time. So I am trying to use this time to write. And I feel like I'm failing.

On Friday I was sitting here feeling sorry for myself when the phone rang, and it was my old advisor from grad school. He calls me every month or two just to chat. Ever since we moved to Ridgecrest he's also been quizzing me on what I'm actually doing with myself these days -- "Are you working? Doing anything with your time?" I think it really upsets him to think that I'm not being productive. Of course, I could have told him that I'm doing a lot of writing that no one wants to read, but I couldn't quite bring myself to say that. So I said I wasn't doing anything.

Through all my years of working I was used to having evidence of my productivity -- technical reports, annual reports, press releases -- all of them produced, published, distributed. Doing creative writing for my own enjoyment is more like doing pure, unfunded, scientific research -- years of toil, often with no discernible result, no recognition from one's peers. When I try for a result -- when I submit something I write to a contest or a publication -- and then get rejected, it's really painful. I want all this work to be for some purpose!

But then I start thinking about how I might revise whatever it is. And then I have an idea for a new story or poem. And pretty soon I'm wrapped up once again in the glory that is writing. Even if I never publish a damn thing, writing is still the most wonderfully fun thing in the whole world to do. I guess that's where I am right now.

But I'm really glad February is ending. Onward to March!

San Luis Obispo and some musings on family

We're just back from a weekend jaunt to San Luis Obispo, where we visited relatives and saw some of the sights of the Central Coast -- which is a very lovely part of California. Its beauty was enhanced by the heavy rain we experienced on Saturday -- on Sunday and Monday the sky and the hills and even the ocean had that freshly washed look.

The twins had a great time exploring the area. Here we are on the beach by Morro Rock with Daddy:

And here we are hiking on the hill behind our relatives' house:

Ridgecrest seems very drab and dry and dull by comparison. Not to mention the fact that last night after we got home from our trip, when Rocket Boy and I went to bed, our cat Pie Bear threw up all over our comforter and blankets, perhaps as a sort of special cat welcome. I had to spend all day today doing laundry, and the comforter had to go to the Laundromat and it cost $15.

Anyway. Can't really blame that on Ridgecrest.

An interesting aspect of our trip was the chance to get better acquainted with my second cousin Stefan, a person I had barely even met before this trip. Stefan is younger than I am, but less than 10 years younger, so he still feels like a contemporary. This is interesting to me because his mother (my father's cousin) also feels a bit like a contemporary, perhaps because she and I once took a linguistics class together.

But I was thinking about second cousins. First of all, I wonder how many second cousins I have. Second cousins are the children of one's parents' cousins. I have no idea how many cousins my parents had. They didn't keep up with most of them. Between them, my parents had roughly 26 uncles and aunts (blood relatives) and many, though not all, of those uncles and aunts were married and had children (i.e., my parents' cousins). If most of those children had children, I could have hundreds of second cousins. Well, dozens. Lots.

Not ONE of these second cousins is on my Christmas card list.

Rocket Boy's situation is quite different from mine. His father emigrated from East Germany as a child in the 1930s (before it was East Germany). We have zero knowledge of the relatives left behind, including any and all uncles, aunts, and cousins. RB's mother, on the other hand, was illegitimate, and we have no knowledge of her biological father or his family. On her mother's side she had one uncle and one aunt. The uncle emigrated to America and we don't know what happened to him. The aunt stayed in Germany and had one son, who himself had a son, who is Rocket Boy's second cousin Andreas -- his favorite relative.

So here I am with my thousands of second cousins (or whatever) and I hardly know any of them, and here is Rocket Boy with just a couple, one of whom was the best man at his wedding. Odd how things work out...

Anyway, it was nice to get better acquainted with Stefan. One tiny little connection with my vast network of unknown second cousins. Can it be a network if I don't know them? I think links can exist even if you can't see them.

I wonder how many third cousins I have.

Two years in Ridgecrest

I actually missed the anniversary -- it was yesterday. Two years ago yesterday the babies and I and my two sisters showed up in town. Two years ago tomorrow, Rocket Boy drove in with now-deceased Whiskers. Or something like that. Anyway, this is definitely anniversary week.

I used to celebrate my anniversary of moving to Boulder, because I felt that it was such a special thing to have done.

The anniversary of moving to Ridgecrest seems like something to commemorate, or observe, not celebrate, as one would commemorate or observe the anniversary of a death or tragedy. OK, maybe it's not THAT bad. But still.

Here is a photo of my sisters and the boys in our new rental house, two years ago:

And here is that room today. I guess you could say we've made it our own:

I wish I could say we've made the town our own, but I don't feel that. We've both joined clubs and gotten involved, to some extent. But except for some of Rocket Boy's coworkers (both of whom have since moved back East), we haven't come close to making a friend. The only party we've had in our house was the tortoise club party. No one (except those coworkers who moved on) has ever invited us to their house. The twins haven't had a playdate or gone to a birthday party (maybe a little young yet, I don't know).

It's hard to feel at home in a place where you have no friends or family. Friends and/or family are what make a place a home.

Well, here beginneth Year Three. What will it bring?

Pearsonville

Last weekend Rocket Boy had to go to Colorado to deal with some problems involving our property out there, and the boos and I were left to our own devices. I hadn't had to take care of them for a weekend alone since, gosh, last summer I guess. So I was nervous about it. And my nervousness turned out to be justified. It's hard for me to take care of those two little guys for long stretches of time. In Ridgecrest. Where there's nothing to do and we know pretty much no one, even after two years. But somehow, barely, we survived.

On Sunday, we went for a long stroller walk in the morning -- got the newspaper, had a snack at the Starbucks inside Albertson's, walked over to Subway to get a foot-long sandwich to share, and then went home the long way. After lunch it was time for a nap drive, so we drove to Olancha, turned around, and drove back. On the way back we drove past Pearsonville, where there is a park.

Pearsonville is a tiny community on Highway 395 about 20 miles north of Ridgecrest. Wikipedia says it has 27 residents. It has a Shell gas station with a Subway attached to it. Pearsonville is called "the hubcap capital of the world" and has a huge wrecking yard, but I guess you can't visit that without permission.

Pearsonville also has an old park. Its equipment is aging, but the park is well kept up. Rocket Boy found it on a map and then explored it with the twins. Now, almost every time we drive north on 395 we at least consider stopping at the park. The boos love it and so does Rocket Boy.

I don't love it, actually. I think it's kind of creepy.

Near the entrance to the park is a 30-foot tall statue of a lady. It appears that she used to hold some sort of sign in her hand. I don't like the lady, I think she's creepy. But the boos like her. "See that teeny-tiny park, see that lady!" they shouted from the back seat. So we went to see that lady.

I should note that these photos were not taken last weekend (Rocket Boy had the camera with him in Boulder). They were taken a few weeks before. But it's always the same.

Some of the equipment in the park just looks like stuff I used to play on.

Other equipment is a little weirder.

What you can't tell from these photos is that Highway 395 runs very close to the park. Actually, just outside the park is Pearson Road, and then just beyond Pearson Road is the highway. So you're not really isolated when you're here, even though there is NEVER ANYONE ELSE THERE. I just constantly have the feeling of being watched. I also have the feeling that a murderer is going to appear out of nowhere and either steal the boos or slice them open. Or that the giant penguin cage thing is going to come alive and start walking towards me. These feelings are naturally lessened when Rocket Boy is with us, but do not entirely disappear.

When he's NOT with us, as he was not last weekend, I spend the whole time in the park looking over my shoulder and saying it's time to go home.

On the other side of the park is a big rock with a memorial plaque on it, to Andy Pearson, co-founder of Pearsonville. Someone (presumably his surviving wife) keeps the front of the rock well-supplied with fake flowers.

I hope this is not actually a gravesite, but I don't know. Rocket Boy and the boos like to climb on this rock, but I don't.

I don't know why this place gives me the willies, but it does. From now on, unless Rocket Boy is with us, I think the boos and I will stick to parks inside Ridgecrest city limits.

Poison Canyon

The writing contest is now closed and I have stopped editing. Actually, apparently you CAN still edit your manuscript -- but the contest administrators swear you can't. While they're working that out, I've decided to LEAVE THE NOVEL ALONE and move on to other things...

...such as what we did last weekend. Rocket Boy has been wanting to explore an area between Ridgecrest and Trona called Poison Canyon. So on Saturday we set out to do just that. We weren't sure exactly where it was, so we both looked online, and came up with entirely different directions. Because I am the girl, we followed my directions first.

My directions led us to a place where you can go off the highway (Highway 178 between R'crest and Trona), down across a deep wash, and along a rocky road to the fish rocks.

These are the fish rocks:

Rocket Boy and the twins climbed up on them, while I stayed on the ground and took photos. As I walked around, I noticed pieces of glass all over the ground. I was afraid to put my hand down anywhere, for fear of being cut. When we started walking beyond the fish rocks, there continued to be glass absolutely everywhere, all different colors, embedded in the sandy soil. I commented on this to RB: "It's like people come out here just to break bottles!"

RB: "Target practice."

Me: "Ohhhhhhh!"

I tend to forget how much people out here love their guns.

Poison Canyon, once you get beyond the fish rocks, is a very creepy, funky, interesting place.

More and more I'm realizing how much I love the desert. Don't get me wrong, I like green places too. I like grass and trees and water. But the stark beauty of the desert is pretty mind-blowing.

The boos enjoyed Poison Canyon too. They walked happily through it, and whenever Rocket Boy climbed a rock, they climbed it too. This quickly became very dangerous, because they had no idea what was safe and what wasn't, and they were too quick for me. I had to keep yelling to Rocket Boy that either Baby A or Baby B was in a dangerous spot and could he please go and rescue him.

As we walked back to our car, Rocket Boy climbed a rock and found an old mineshaft (which all these hills around here are full of). He showed it to Baby A, upon whom it made a big impression. For a few days after our trip, both boos talked about "Poson Cannon." I would say "do you want to go back to Poison Canyon?" and they would say "yes!" but Baby A would add, "No like big tunnel!" (meaning the mineshaft)

After quite some time in this area, we got back on Highway 178 and followed Rocket Boy's directions, which took us to another area entirely. Here there was water (Poison Creek, we think).

Poison Creek is called Poison Creek because it contains toxic levels of several different minerals. "Don't drink that!" I said to the twins. "It will make you sick!" Rocket Boy being Rocket Boy, he took a drink from the creek. "Whew, salty!" he said, spitting it out.

So here we have both the pluses and minuses of having Rocket Boy for a father. If the twins survive their childhood, they're going to be very savvy outdoorsmen. If.

February

I was going to have this be a "reading roundup" kind of post, but I hardly read a thing in January. Three books, one of which was that young adult mystery I mentioned earlier. The other two were Book 10 and Book 11 in the "Dance to the Music of Time" series and now I'm reading Book 12, which is the last one. I'm unhappy with myself for doing so little reading, but maybe I was just taking a break.

What HAS been occupying my time, at least the last ten days of it, is the Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award contest (http://www.amazon.com/Breakthrough-Novel-Award-Books/). My writing goal for January was to enter this contest, but early in the month I decided not to. My novel wasn't ready to enter, it was awful. I needed to rewrite it completely, there wasn't time. It was inherently worthless, no one would ever want to read it anyway. I would get knocked out in the first round, and that would leave me so demoralized that I wouldn't write anything for the rest of the year. Etc., etc.

Then, on January 24th, CreateSpace (Amazon's self-publishing branch, which co-sponsors the contest) sent me an email to let me know that the contest was now open for entries. And I thought, perversely -- Hey, why not? So then I spent a frantic week revising, submitted my manuscript, and then have continued to edit it all day every day since. The entry period is January 24 - February 6 -- or until they get 5000 entries (there are actually 2 categories, each accepting 5000 entries, so each category could close at a different time). Once you submit your manuscript you can go right on editing it until they close the contest -- which could be at any moment. Every morning I wake up and think, "I wonder if the contest has closed?" Right now, as I'm typing this, I'm thinking, "I wonder if the contest has closed in the last five minutes?"

Last night I made one last change to the manuscript, uploaded it, and then said to Rocket Boy, "That's it, I'm not touching it again."

"Oh good," he said. "It's probably fine."

As I was taking my shower, I realized that my "pitch" (the 300-word description of your novel that they use to reduce the number of entries from 5000 to 1000 in the first round) was all wrong and that I would have to start over from scratch. I thought about getting out of the shower, going back to my computer, and doing it right then, in case the contest closed overnight, but I resisted. I made myself go to bed and do a Sudoku. Looking at numbers keeps me from thinking about words.

Mornings with the twins are agony. I want to revise my novel but can't, must make puzzle after puzzle, go for a stroller walk, fix snack, change diapers... Also, must ENJOY all these activities, because these are the wonderful times that will be gone so soon and I must EXPERIENCE them to the fullest and not be distracted by how I'm going to rewrite Chapter 8.

I want to make it clear that I really don't expect to make it through the first round of this contest. I'm going to be one of those (up to 8000) people who sit around on February 24th saying "huh!" Therefore I should just chill out and start on my February writing goal, whatever that is.

I wish the contest would just hurry up and close, put me out of my misery.

OK, gotta go, my pitch is waiting to be rewritten.