desert gloom

Dark clouds roil over the mountains. The air is dead silent and cold and holds no promise.

A pot of boiled peanuts simmers on the stovetop for Alison. She grew up mostly in Georgia and likes them. So do I.

I usually get raw peanuts from a little roadside market just off the Ten. But the freeze hit the little markets hard and most of them were closed. I drove to Harry's, which is a pseudo-mom and pop store, a corporate chain with fake hardwood floors and ferns hanging from the fake rafters, new age music on the speakers and over-priced herbal shampoos.

Palm Desert has become a personal nightmare, paved from one end to the other with strip malls. It looks like any major street in Orange County now.

Our hedges are dead. The oranges are dying on the trees. Small things, I know, but they seemed a sort of mental barrier between us and the encroaching human stupidity crawling steadly toward us.

It just makes me soul-sick.

In that part of my mind where I understand things, I appreciate that the days of blue skies and diving into cool water are the exception, and it's that which makes them precious. The door to that room gets smallish sometimes, and I need a bit of light to find it. Mostly I'd like to sit like a statue, but Orion needs walks in the cold air, and silliness and conversation.

So, nothing to it but to put on a coat and a good face, head out and look for what might be there.