First, I'm a horrible blogger! It's not just here; I'm just as bad on MySpace and Live Journal. I just never add new entries. Considering how much I love to write -- and talk! -- that seems odd to me. I promise to try to update here more often.

It's been raining off-and-on here for over a week. This has, of course, kept Jamus' knee in pain and really hasn't done much for our spirits either. This year's Apache Jii is next Saturday, so I hope the weather clears before then. I want to spend more time there this year. We basically just got to see the Crown Dancers last year. Of course, we shopped a little, too. I bought a peridot chip necklace and a pair of small silver & peridot earrings. I also picked up a couple of tiny kachinas.

We actually had water running in the (usually) dry wash on the property this afternoon. We have two washes, but we can't see one from inside the house, and we weren't quite curious enough to go out in the storm to check it, too. LOL Driving through town a few days ago, we noticed that many of the washes have water in them. Creeks actually look like creeks! It still feels odd living somewhere where most of the rivers are dry most of the year, especially after living in Washington. We miss the water. Back there, a ten-minute drive took us to Puget Sound. We'd park at the marina or at the lighthouse at Mukilteo and watch the water. We'd see seals, gulls, and the occasional whale.

We loved to watch the boats, too. I have a favorite, a lovely sailboat named "Anthea." Often, we'd just park across from her slip and talk and listen to music. We met her owner on one visit. We'd gone to watch her, and she was gone! We had only seen her out of her slip once before, when the marina was being dredged, so I was afraid she'd been moved. Or sold. As we were driving through the marina, Jamus spied her hauled out in the boatyard. We pulled in and found her owner working on her. We talked to him awhile, telling him how much we admired his boat, and got to see his photo album of her. He'd built her himself, and he had photos of the process. As I said, we had only seen her out of her slip that one time before, and she'd been cruising under engine power then. It was lovely to see his photos of her under sail. His sons, he said, have no interest in the boat. He's an older gentleman, too old, he said, to take her out by himself. So, I imagine, when he passes on, his sons will probably just sell her. Or, worse, scrap her. I know that I'm an incurable daydreamer, but I still imagine him handing us the boat's papers, saying, "I'd rather she went to folks who'll love her." Goofy me.... Even if such a miracle did happen, neither of us is up to crewing a sail boat anymore.

I guess I'm just a little homesick for the sea. We so rarely hear running water here. At the casino on the Apache reservation, there's a small landscaped area between the casino and the hotel. It has a koi pond with a waterfall, and we like to sit there and listen to the water. It's silly, perhaps, but it reminds us of the Northwest, even if the plants around it are agave, palms, and cactus.

Happy Mother's Day!

I got my presents from Jamus a few days ago. We dropped by a local rock shop, and I ended up leaving with a bag of little stones (turquoise, peridot, and Apache Tears -- mostly to send to friends,) a couple of small fossils, a big Apache Tear in matrix, a very cool little stone skull, and a book on rockhounding in Arizona. Okay, those are not every woman's idea of fantastic gifts, but they suit me to the proverbial "T." (One of these days I'll finally have a spot to plug in the rock tumbler Jamus gave me one year for my birthday. It was too loud to use in our old apartment, and it's too messy to use here until we get a workshop built.) As you can guess, I'm not a diamond-and-mink sort of woman. My other two favorite presents from my sweet husband are two treasures I'd wanted for decades but would never break down and buy for myself: a lava lamp and a slipcased Lord of the Rings omnibus I'd first drooled over back in college in the early Seventies.

I've had a couple of teeth bothering me this week, so, when Jamus asked if I wanted to go out to eat for Mother's Day, I told him that all I wanted was a real cappuchino. When we moved here last year, Globe had one coffee house, Java Junction. Unfortunately, it was in the old Pioneer Hotel building that was destroyed by fire last summer. Since then, the Copper Parrot has opened in the former Mesquite Bar building. It's a bar that also serves coffee and tea, but we haven't made it there yet. Where I have gotten cappuchino that wasn't made with powdered mix and hot water, like the ones you get at a convenience store, is Antique Perks, a coffee house cum antique shop in downtown Miami. The Sullivan Street area in Miami has several antique stores, but, even though we pay our water bill on that block, we had never seen any of them open during the week except Antique Perks. So we were shocked when we drove down there this morning and the street was lined with cars! Apparently the shops open on the weekend, probably in hopes of enticing antiquers up from the Vallley.

While I got my large capp with shots of Irish Cream & Chocolate Mint from Jessie the barrista, Jamus, who hadn't been in there before, looked around the store. We wandered into another shop nearby, and I found a lovely little English bone china teacup and saucer, white and gold, for the Red Hat Tea next Sunday. Jamus found a couple of old "everyday" pipes and considered a smokestand, one of the old-fashioned ones with a "new-fangled" electric light, an "electric match," a container for matches, and two small ashtrays. He decided it was more than we could spend, but, after schmoozing with the owner (mostly swapping tales of great antique buys,) he asked about the smokestand. The owner was willing to cut it loose for much less than the tagged price, and we hauled our loot to the van.

We were going to work on the scooter Pinky gave us this afternoon, but Jamus felt pretty rough, so that was put on hold. He replaced the original batteries with larger ones yesterday, which means that the shroud (the plastic thingie that covers the workings) doesn't fit now. I got the idea of hunting a plastic storage box we could use instead. We found one that's almost the right size, and Jamus can cut it down to fit over the battery boxes and recycle the back part -- that covers the motor -- from the original one. We'll probably look at good ol' Wal-Mart tomorrow for one that doesn't need so much alteration, but it will be cool either way. I'd already planned to spray paint the original blue a nice textured black, and that will work just as well whether I'm covering the shroud or a storage box.

The plan is to customize the scooter with a seat cover over the grey Naugahide seat. I'd thought I'd get some fabric I found at Wal-Mart (yes, the only "fabric store" in town,) black with flames and gold Chinese dragons, then add a couple of dragon decals and other dragon touches. Today, though, I started thinking that I wish it could be Celtic dragons. After I finish typing this, I think I'm surfing over to eBay. I've seen Celtic-patterned cloth on there before. If I find a yard or two of something suitably "Irish," I'll go that route instead.

I took the scooter out on the road last night with Jamus in his wheelchair. We'd "walked" the dog that way the night before, but we'd changed the batteries in between. It had a lot more "oomph," although it'll never be as fast as Jamus' chair. I miss taking long walks. I lived for years without a car in Southern towns with no public transportation. You see things while walking that folks zipping past in cars never notice. Last night we spied several bunnies, wildflowers, and budding prickly pears. We turn around to come home at a house with horse corrals, but first we visit the miniature horses corralled near the road. When Jamus walks Mickey down there, she acts as if she thinks the wee little horses are bigger dogs. She wants to play with them, but, then, the Mick wants to play with everyone and everything. The horses, for their part, don't seem to quite know what to make of her. Last night, a full-size palomino with a white face in one of the corrals at the back of the lot seemed to think we were there to play with him. He kept snorting and running back and forth along his corral's fence. We sat there awhile and enjoyed watching him run. All in all, a successful scooter test and a good time. I've resisted getting a scooter for a while. I didn't think I needed one. But it will be nice to be able to go to highland games, ren faires, and such and not have to leave early because I can barely move.

Well, off to eBay!

Tuesday night, I went to my first meeting of the Bodacious Belles, one of the local Red Hat Society chapters. The Red Hatters met at a new Italian restaurant here in town. Now, if you're rendezvousing with strangers, it's very helpful if they're all dressed in purple and wearing big red hats. There were eight of us, and I had a great time meeting a few other local women "of a certain age." On the 21st, the local chapters are holding a Red Hat Society Tea in Miami, and I've volunteered to be a model in the goofy fashion show planned for the tea -- one of those shower/party games where "designers" contrive ensembles from trash bags, etc. for their "models." Silly, yes, but that's sort of the point of the RHS, after all. You can pretty much guess that any group that calls itself a "Disorganization" -- and says that it goes against the spirit of the group to have rules -- is not afraid to be silly. Or goofy!

In the supermarket yesterday afternoon Jamus was stopped in the lunchmeat aisle by an older gentleman. This is not an unusual occurance; Jamus' tricked-out wheelchair is a senior citizen magnet. They all want to know how he added the lights, the fan, etc. This gentleman wanted to know if Jamus knew anyone who needed "one of them contraptions." Turns out, he had one at home that his late wife had used only a couple of months. Jamus has been after me to get one, at least to use for outings like highland games and ren faires, because I can't keep up with him in his chair, and my arthritis usually has me limping back to the van in pain long before we had intended to leave. I had finally agreed that I'd use one if I could "Goth it up." When I finally get an old hearse -- my dream car -- I intend to keep it stock, but I still have a yearning to deck some sort of vehicle out with a few skullies and some landau bars. So, the scooter I got was going to get a shiny black paint job and some tasteful yet "morbid" accessories.

We stood/sat in the aisle and talked to the fellow for some time, then made arrangements to drive out to his place later in the day to look at the scooter. I have no idea what his baptismal name is, but the gentleman goes by "Pinky." Pinky lives on the ranch that's been his home for more than three decades, just off the highway to Show Low. We drove about 25 miles to the unmarked turnoff, and found the 5 Bar Ranch. Or what's left of it. While I'm not sure of the details, apparently the BLM has claimed the land, and Pinky has permission to stay on it until his death. He lives in his old ranch house with a small pack of retired cattle dogs and two cats. He uses a generator for electricity and, for a phone, has "one of them little b-----ds," which is pretty much our opinion of cell phones, too. The simple house if full of the memorabilia of a long life as a rancher: rusty spurs, horseshoes, and bits; fading framed photos of prize cattle; old family photos (in most of which at least one of the subjects is mounted on a horse;) a cougar's skin on a wall -- and a photo of Pinky, the dead cat, and his rifle; a steer's skull on which his wife had carefully glued arrowheads....

Outside, scattered among the beds of irises and tulips that his wife planted years ago, there are metates (Indian grinding stones) he's found on the property over the years, old metal milk cans, and old plows. A rusty flat iron sits at the side of the paving stones at the feet of the porch steps. The steps themselves are railed by old metal wagon wheels. Mounted on a rough log frame out back is the bell Mrs. Pinky (and no doubt her mother-in-law before her) used to call the ranch hands for breakfast. To Jamus' glee, it's the bell from an old-time locomotive. Pinky's story is that a relative who had worked at the Morenci mines had "sneaked it out in his lunchbox" when the train it had once adorned and a second engine were abandonned on a side track after the mine changed to electric trains. Pinky added, "If you go to that mine today, you'll still see them two old trains parked there. Of course, the one's missin' its bell!" (And I have to wonder when he was at Morenci last; I understand that most of the old deep-ore mining operation is now buried deep beneath the current open pit mine's mine dump. The Morenci began open pit mining back in the late Thirties.)

The original house on the property sits close by. Built by "Old Man Hess" of juniper logs set vertically, the chinks covered by strips of tin -- old lard cans split and hammered flat -- it's now used for storage. Inside, there are shelf after shelf full of jars of canned peaches, wild grape jelly, and other preserves that Pinky and his father canned years -- decades -- ago. Pinky scooted about picking out jars of delicacies for us to take home. Whether we'll really open a jar of homemade apple sauce made in 1985 is doubtful, but it was a sweet gesture from an old fellow that we found fascinating. When I pointed out an interesting metal sculpture on the edge of the porch -- "Is that a bull rider?" -- Pinky fetched it so we could get a better look. Cobbled together of old railroad spikes, a crescent wrench, and other metal oddments, it's a boot scraper. "You like it, take it home wi' ya. All this'll be gone soon enough. I'd rather have it get a good home wi' someone who likes it than let them b-----ds 'doze it into the ground."

We stayed for a couple of hours, just sitting beneath the shade trees and talking. Mostly, spellbound by tales of life when Arizona was truly still "cowboy country," we let Pinky talk. We have an open invitation to come back anytime: "If I ain't here, come on in and make yourselves t' home. I never lock the door." We asked if we could bring my camera next time. Soon -- perhaps sooner than we'd like to think -- Pinky will be gone, and the BLM will bulldoze his little homestead. What a shame that will be! We want some record of this man's life to survive.

And, oh, yes, we got the scooter.

I am hideous when it comes to keeping up with a blog. So why am I starting one here at Clan Copp? Will I keep at it? Who knows? But it seems like a good way to keep our friends up-to-date on what we're up to.

So here goes....

This weekend we'll be at Miami's Boomtown Spree. Miami? Florida? No, Miami-the-even-smaller-small-town-next-to-Globe Miami. Another old mining town, Miami hosts the AZ state mining championships at this annual festival. Last year, Boomtown was our first local outing, but we missed the competition on Saturday. It should be fun watching the pros muck, drill, and whatever else they do. I'm sure there'll be a page on the Chronicles, so stay tuned.

Globe has another coffee house! Well, it's actually a bar that also serves coffee, but it'll do. The only true coffee house in town was in the old Pioneer Hotel, which burned to the ground last summer. But The Copper Parrot seems like a good substitute. They host Scrabble Night on Tuesdays, a discussion group on Thursdays, and have had special events like an Oscars Party. I still haven't made it down there yet, but it's high on my "to do" list.

The Apache Drive-in should open soon. We saw the date for this season's opening night when we drove by it the other day, but darned if I can recall it now. This is BIG NEWS in Globe. Especially since the walk-in theater -- a real, one-screen holdover -- was in the building beside the Pioneer and suffered a lot of damage, losing its roof. The nearest movie theater is down in the Valley (the metro Phoenix area,) which has been hard on movie buffs who don't want to spend $30 in gas to see a show. The drive-in's the only game in town, and it's only open during the summer. Now, if they just show the new Pirates of the Carribean, all will be semi-right with the world!