June 4,5,6 2008

Los Angeles, California

The weirdest thing for me being in Los Angeles is being here without my Mom.  It's a strange feeling.  And I miss her.

I forgot to say what Lorry and I did the other day.  We went to a dog park.  It's a place where everybody brings their dogs so they can run around loose.  There are also people who are professional dog walkers, and they bring five to ten dogs and turn them all loose.  All the dogs get along, and they all have a blast.  It was fun watching them, and some of them came up and gave us a free wag and a kiss.

Back to staying at Edie's place . . . my goal while I was here was to find a place to "land" after my long cross country journey.  I wrote the Canada place and they never responded.  I wrote to a place in New Mexico and while I was waiting for them to respond, I wrote to Ireland, Scotland, Kentucky, and California.  All of them horse ranches.  Ireland wrote and said they needed me to come take care of their dogs and cats while they were away a week, but I could stay as long as I wanted.  No mention of horses which turned me off.  

But in the meantime, New Mexico wrote back.  In the email that I sent to them, I had included a picture of me on the camel.  Patricia wrote back and said that anyone who rode a camel is welcome there.  After some back and forth emails, it was decided that I could come for a month and if I have good energy then I might be able to stay longer.  I told her that was my criteria, too.  If they had good energy then I would consider staying longer.  We also talked about horses, and I told her of my experience thirty-five years ago, and my four day refresher when I was staying with David and Alice in Missouri.  She seemed satisfied that I knew which end of a horse was up.  

At the same time all this was going on, Edie and I had two lunches at nearby places, and my Aunt Clara took me out to lunch with her daughter-in-law, Louie, and her son, Gary, who I hadn't seen in decades.  Plus, one evening, my cousin, Alan, and his girlfriend who I had never met, Monica, took me out for dinner.