Cafe Hitch-hike

2023-11-10

My visit to the foothill-ville

I was so relieved to see the green fields of the rolling hills and the colored leaves as the plane landed.

The work email was pelted with emails, including one that said, “meeting at 1:30.”

The pace of things already felt slower. The people weren’t in a rush. They spoke slowly and in normal tones. Parts of the freeway were carved in a mountain with layers of rock as walls on some of its sides.

My phone rang at 1:37 PM and I was asked to meet although I was a few states away and on vacation.

I later went to a UFO museum which made me laugh. It was a museum in the basement of an old Carnegie library. It was only $4.00 to enter and the most entertaining part was reading an old new age version of Reader’s Digest from 1971. The issue discussed how psychics predicted 1970 and quite a bit of it was kind of right on.

It was an emergency meeting. Right when I thought things couldn’t get worse, they did. The grand pubahs did some fact-finding and got a lot of bad news. Maybe it wasn’t fact-finding but instead, an autopsy or forensics. They are halting a major project because, well, they are just trying to keep the f*king place functional at this point. I guess they discovered some serious ruptures of sorts that none of us were aware of, and continuing on the major project would hurt us at this point.

We walked in the downtown of my friend’s small town in the mountain foothills and found a nice gem store. I bought a few things and we chatted with the teens who hung out there after school. If I got there the day before, I could had met someone who’d read my cards. Huh, I was surprised they allowed it in this county.

I really did have to be at that meeting and I attended via Zoom. Since I’m what they consider ‘essential personnel,’ which means I’m the last to leave for a disaster and the first to come back, so well, I had to be there. Well, this meeting was because of a disaster. My head was spinning.

I talked to my friend’s lovely neighbors Michelle and Mike. I’ve met them in my visits here. They have a crazy golden doodle dog named Maverick who belonged to their adult son, but the dog decided he wanted to live with them instead. Michelle dad will soon be going into hospice. I felt bad, Avery’s brother Ervin just entered hospice and their sis Stephanie flew in from California.

I wanted to cry, my head was spinning. The people who report to me are having difficulties with the changes that we have to make, they don’t even know half of it. I’m convinced that what needs to be done is for the building to be struck by lightning and burn down. I just can’t believe the depth of rot that set in and now we’re seeing it fully. I always knew it was a lot but never like this. I pray it doesn’t get worse, but I realize it kind of can.

We made a pit fire in my friend’s back yard. I built a nice little fire and we had smores. I took a picture of my friend from behind, and he was pointing to the sun setting in the west in the valley in front of his acres, over the hills, with the fire pit between him and the sunset. He was pointing up when I took the picture and it caught the bald spot I didn’t know was growing. Heheh, well, the lines around my eyes are deeper, I have more gray strands of hair, and I need my glasses more. It was a very nice picture, and I took a few more of the foothill valley.

I had a fitful night of sleep and had to take a 2 1/2 hour nap the next day. The spin in my head continued in my dreams.

There’s a Mexican restaurant nearby that everyone raves about, and I happily devoured a lengua (beef tongue) taco and then a chicharron chalupa (a pocket tortilla with pork skin). Yep, it was authentic and a delightful find in this foothill-ville. My friend and I will go to Bob Evan’s for breakfast tomorrow. A nearby Baptist church (there’s plenty of those in these parts) is having a community activity with a silent auction and we’ll probably go to that. My friend’s cousin is an usher there. I’m good with that, they are usually quite welcoming.

I woke up with some anxiety after the fitful sleep. I was kind of pissed about getting dragged into that phone call. When I laid there and thought it over, yup, I had to be in on that call. It was information I needed to directly hear. As the anxiety dulled and I heard my friend’s little dogs barks echo through the house, I thought to myself that if I got a 50% grade on the damn job, it would be an improvement to the failure and neglect.

I’ll be returning home in 2 days. I don’t know if Av’s brother will be gone by then. Michelle the neighbor’s dad may soon enter hospice. Oh, yeah, and the big boss’s mother is in a coma and isn’t allowed to see relatives because the mother’s vitals jump all over. Maybe I should pray for the big boss, too. They don’t deserve anything that’s been pulled on them. The big boss was trying to determine the extent of damage done to the place and I’m sure with what they discovered and their mother’s health issues, they aren’t in a great place. I really was at a pause when they halted a project that was near and dear to them during that emergency meeting.

I once asked if it was me or did others hear a death rattle. No, it was me and it seems only the very sensitive heard it, too.

My friend is alive and well and so are neighbors and their dogs. This little foothill-ville is alive and well, too. I am alive and well. Avery and Stephanie are alive and well. I’m glad to be here and hopefully I will be heading to my hometown for a short Thanksgiving holiday.

Maybe I should just let myself be still, hold my bit of ground while in brace position, while so much crumbles around me. Let it shake and rumble, and when it’s done, be there to start the recovery in whatever way I can if I’m not injured. Yes, be there and start the recovery when the coast is clear.

downwind | upstream