It's christmas time in the western world
Christmas eve we headed for Phoenix to see the one and only Saman...and John’s friend Josh. It was quite a big day as we were finally going to make it out of Texas. My dad had recommended stopping in Bisbee, an old mining town, and John had heard good things as well, so a detour was made. We blazed through the continental divide in New Mexico and just before we hit Arizona we went south on Hwy 80 until eventually we made it into McCain territory. The drive alone was pretty sweet--required music includes something along the lines of the Old Crow Medicine Show and Bob Dylan's Desire, which might be an easy way to get into Bob if he turns you off. You get to see the Chiricahua Mountain Range to the west and north of you as you go through the desert, and it's gorgeous . Finally you get to Bisbee, just a stone's throw north of the border from Mexico. As you come in on the 80 this huge open pit mine is just hangin out, letting you know that shit was dug out of there for a good while. The guide book had mentioned it was the most happening town between San Francisco and El Paso in its heyday.
As it was Christmas Eve, it appeared life was a bit more low key than normal--i.e., the microbrewery was closed. Very sad. Other bars and stores were open, but We walked up and down and down and up looking for a little place to eat at. Finally we had to settle for some pizza. You could tell that most people in Bisbee, or at least who lived and worked in this bustling downtown area, were not native Bisbeeans. Had a Marfa-like feel kinda just more dense and with people actually in the town. Lots of great brick buildings, bars, restaurants, coffee shops, even a travel agency.
Due to the fact that the majority of dowtown Old Bisbee is lower than the mountains around it, darkness set in about 4pm that day. So we soon made our way on towards Phoenix. Passed through Tombstone. Then the car stopped. WTF? Oh yes, the border patrol. Took about 5 minutes to wait through that queue. He asked us some general questions and then brought out the big gun: "Do you have any weapons of mass destruction?" I don't think so. That's just a funny phrase to have asked of you in a semi-serious manner. And we moved along.
Not a big fan of Arizona and it's driving system. They have those radar detectors announcing your speed above many speed limit signs and would even be retarded and slow traffic, on a major interstate mind you, to 45mph at certain stretches with construction, which they had a lot of. Made it through Tucson and finally into Glendale, one of the many Phoenix suburbs. Saw Sam and a friend working on a puzzle as we pulled in and gave a huge, dirty hug before I split a beer with John and headed for a hot shower. We ended up deciding that we needed at least one real beer so we headed off to the Irish bar. One beer turned into at least 5. John called out for a Pogues song from the man playing covers--"You have to know at least one Pogues tune if you're gonna play in an Irish bar"--but he was denied. Finally we were able to take ourselves home and enjoy good sleep in a stranger's bed.
On Christmas day John met up with his old buddy Josh and Sam and I were going to the Spurs-Suns game. First we went to see if any store would be open. Alas, the only thing open on the holiest of holy days is Walgreens. And boy is that a depressing sight. First off the place is pretty ransacked. The guy checking us out told us that Christmas Eve was hellish. Wal-Mart closed at 6pm and they stayed open til midnight, turning the place into a madhouse. When we were in there, you saw people walking away with last minute bottles of perfume or plastic keyboards. I'm not going to analyze that situation any further.
We decided that spending money a professional basketball was much more admirable. At the very least it was entertaining. You do have to deal with way too much fanfare. How many times does the gorilla have to come out in his Santa costume and shoot free T-shirts out to the crowd. Apparently about a 1,000 because people in the stands keep begging for them with screams of "Up here!" Hey, the gun ain't gonna be able to shoot something this high up, lady. But the game itself was awesome. Pretty tight from the second half on and then it just had to end with a buzzer-beating 3-pointer by the Spurs for the win! We high-fived and high-tailed it out of there.
We went off to make some dinner preparations back at Sam's house. He didn't have a large deep pan, so the turkey went in on a baking sheet. This is a very dicey situation as the amount of fat that can be generated by a roasting turkey is quite substantial. Fortunately no scalding juices fell on exposed skin. An occasional amount did spill onto the nice wood floors as we attempted to cut the turkey. Due to time constraints the turkey was maybe 80% cooked but that was more than sufficient. A bunch of Sam's friends came over for dinner, so it was fun meeting them and listening to their take on school life--apparently art theft amongst faculty has an incidence of at least one. One guy who doesn't drink, swears he felt a little tipsy from the Martinelli's. Ultimately we were up til 2am talking and cleaning.
The day after we made it out to Sedona. Got to drive through a pretty sweet little snow flurry for about 8 minutes. Made it into the now bustling Sedona, which I would assume has changed a lot in the past 20 years since people noticed vortices there. Went to one which really just led up to a Church--crosses and everything--but it involved no actual hiking. Then we made our way over to Cathedral Rock. That was a great mile or so hike over some gorgeous red rock with an intense blue sky overhead. Made it up and up to the top which had a great look out to...the other side.
Finally we made it into Sedona proper and stopped into your local oversized new age shop. I recognized a lot of items from my shifts at the bird. Ended up waiting around (and I waited awhile) to get a reading from Victor the psychic/healer. Hadn't ever had one before, so I figured it would be a good time. He was a thin old guy with a long gray beard and started off by looking at my palms with a little flashlight and then inspecting the eyes and then the backs of my hands. He remarked that I've got a healer's hands and then asked what I was doing. He did a lot of laughing. He asked what my sign was--Leo--and my Chinese sign--Ram--and then he laughed and asked me to be gentle in my relationships. But a lot of his intention focused on focusing me. He said that a healer has to tune himself, that you can heal someone by putting your energy into them but that was eventually exhausting. Rather, you needed to allow a person's innate ability to heal themselves play a role and let them tune off of you. He stressed the concept of non-duality, that we are all the same energy, that nothing is separate and that you can find all this in the heart, in you, which is out there. This has come up before. We can think that we have answers but if'n we ever really think we have figured something out, The question has probably already changed. Then I shared with him the gist of the Borges story "The Library of Babel", which he seemed to enjoy. If everything is out there and confined to a certain set of limitations then every combination is made, most of those being meaningless constructs if we try to read through them all. How then do we know anything? Maybe everything isn't out there? Maybe the limitations are only in our head? Then he left me with a little mantra at the end: "Simplicity should replace complexity. Complexity is the memory of this lifetime...which isn't that fun anyway."
We ate dinner at the Oak Brewery in Sedona. The menu looked kinda pricey, until you realized that everywhere in that extorted healing center was overpriced. So we sat down and enjoyed our food. Made the dark drive back to Phoenix with a small desire to watch a movie. On the way we remembered that the television tube had blown and this movie was gonna be watched on a laptop. We ended up watching Totally Baked: A Pot-umentary, which was an over the top re-hash on why pot should be legal. Funny at times, but not really LMAO. Went to bed exhausted and got up the next morning to head out to Joshua Tree. John purchased his ticket home, we did some laundry, sam made a Bionicle Lego man he had gotten as a present, and then we headed off. Back into the white metal box.
As it was Christmas Eve, it appeared life was a bit more low key than normal--i.e., the microbrewery was closed. Very sad. Other bars and stores were open, but We walked up and down and down and up looking for a little place to eat at. Finally we had to settle for some pizza. You could tell that most people in Bisbee, or at least who lived and worked in this bustling downtown area, were not native Bisbeeans. Had a Marfa-like feel kinda just more dense and with people actually in the town. Lots of great brick buildings, bars, restaurants, coffee shops, even a travel agency.
Due to the fact that the majority of dowtown Old Bisbee is lower than the mountains around it, darkness set in about 4pm that day. So we soon made our way on towards Phoenix. Passed through Tombstone. Then the car stopped. WTF? Oh yes, the border patrol. Took about 5 minutes to wait through that queue. He asked us some general questions and then brought out the big gun: "Do you have any weapons of mass destruction?" I don't think so. That's just a funny phrase to have asked of you in a semi-serious manner. And we moved along.
Not a big fan of Arizona and it's driving system. They have those radar detectors announcing your speed above many speed limit signs and would even be retarded and slow traffic, on a major interstate mind you, to 45mph at certain stretches with construction, which they had a lot of. Made it through Tucson and finally into Glendale, one of the many Phoenix suburbs. Saw Sam and a friend working on a puzzle as we pulled in and gave a huge, dirty hug before I split a beer with John and headed for a hot shower. We ended up deciding that we needed at least one real beer so we headed off to the Irish bar. One beer turned into at least 5. John called out for a Pogues song from the man playing covers--"You have to know at least one Pogues tune if you're gonna play in an Irish bar"--but he was denied. Finally we were able to take ourselves home and enjoy good sleep in a stranger's bed.
On Christmas day John met up with his old buddy Josh and Sam and I were going to the Spurs-Suns game. First we went to see if any store would be open. Alas, the only thing open on the holiest of holy days is Walgreens. And boy is that a depressing sight. First off the place is pretty ransacked. The guy checking us out told us that Christmas Eve was hellish. Wal-Mart closed at 6pm and they stayed open til midnight, turning the place into a madhouse. When we were in there, you saw people walking away with last minute bottles of perfume or plastic keyboards. I'm not going to analyze that situation any further.
We decided that spending money a professional basketball was much more admirable. At the very least it was entertaining. You do have to deal with way too much fanfare. How many times does the gorilla have to come out in his Santa costume and shoot free T-shirts out to the crowd. Apparently about a 1,000 because people in the stands keep begging for them with screams of "Up here!" Hey, the gun ain't gonna be able to shoot something this high up, lady. But the game itself was awesome. Pretty tight from the second half on and then it just had to end with a buzzer-beating 3-pointer by the Spurs for the win! We high-fived and high-tailed it out of there.
We went off to make some dinner preparations back at Sam's house. He didn't have a large deep pan, so the turkey went in on a baking sheet. This is a very dicey situation as the amount of fat that can be generated by a roasting turkey is quite substantial. Fortunately no scalding juices fell on exposed skin. An occasional amount did spill onto the nice wood floors as we attempted to cut the turkey. Due to time constraints the turkey was maybe 80% cooked but that was more than sufficient. A bunch of Sam's friends came over for dinner, so it was fun meeting them and listening to their take on school life--apparently art theft amongst faculty has an incidence of at least one. One guy who doesn't drink, swears he felt a little tipsy from the Martinelli's. Ultimately we were up til 2am talking and cleaning.
The day after we made it out to Sedona. Got to drive through a pretty sweet little snow flurry for about 8 minutes. Made it into the now bustling Sedona, which I would assume has changed a lot in the past 20 years since people noticed vortices there. Went to one which really just led up to a Church--crosses and everything--but it involved no actual hiking. Then we made our way over to Cathedral Rock. That was a great mile or so hike over some gorgeous red rock with an intense blue sky overhead. Made it up and up to the top which had a great look out to...the other side.
Finally we made it into Sedona proper and stopped into your local oversized new age shop. I recognized a lot of items from my shifts at the bird. Ended up waiting around (and I waited awhile) to get a reading from Victor the psychic/healer. Hadn't ever had one before, so I figured it would be a good time. He was a thin old guy with a long gray beard and started off by looking at my palms with a little flashlight and then inspecting the eyes and then the backs of my hands. He remarked that I've got a healer's hands and then asked what I was doing. He did a lot of laughing. He asked what my sign was--Leo--and my Chinese sign--Ram--and then he laughed and asked me to be gentle in my relationships. But a lot of his intention focused on focusing me. He said that a healer has to tune himself, that you can heal someone by putting your energy into them but that was eventually exhausting. Rather, you needed to allow a person's innate ability to heal themselves play a role and let them tune off of you. He stressed the concept of non-duality, that we are all the same energy, that nothing is separate and that you can find all this in the heart, in you, which is out there. This has come up before. We can think that we have answers but if'n we ever really think we have figured something out, The question has probably already changed. Then I shared with him the gist of the Borges story "The Library of Babel", which he seemed to enjoy. If everything is out there and confined to a certain set of limitations then every combination is made, most of those being meaningless constructs if we try to read through them all. How then do we know anything? Maybe everything isn't out there? Maybe the limitations are only in our head? Then he left me with a little mantra at the end: "Simplicity should replace complexity. Complexity is the memory of this lifetime...which isn't that fun anyway."
We ate dinner at the Oak Brewery in Sedona. The menu looked kinda pricey, until you realized that everywhere in that extorted healing center was overpriced. So we sat down and enjoyed our food. Made the dark drive back to Phoenix with a small desire to watch a movie. On the way we remembered that the television tube had blown and this movie was gonna be watched on a laptop. We ended up watching Totally Baked: A Pot-umentary, which was an over the top re-hash on why pot should be legal. Funny at times, but not really LMAO. Went to bed exhausted and got up the next morning to head out to Joshua Tree. John purchased his ticket home, we did some laundry, sam made a Bionicle Lego man he had gotten as a present, and then we headed off. Back into the white metal box.