UP NEXT: Meet...The Single Mom of Cactus County!

Motherhood is the most important job there is. To do it singularly is quite a feat! Up next, meet Toni of the Desert Southwest. Through the sands of time, I will never forget her.

SOUTHWESTERN BELLE / No Resume Needed

The line went out of the glass doors of the lobby. Young women in dresses, students in shorts, housewives husbands formed the line that snaked through the lobby into a huge cafeteria like room. It moved fast and she signed the book and entered the room, careful not to make eye contact. An overweight woman with long hair sat at a table. Debbie looked at her, hesitated, then joined her. Her smirk did not escape Debbie's glance.

"You can wear shorts," she explained. "I've been to these before. It was for an administrative clerk."

"Yeah, I'd much rather wear shorts. I brought them," Debbie said. She looked down at her nicely pressed navy skirt, her black sleeveless with string of pearls. Outside the large windows, young men walked around the outdoor employee patio in shorts and tee shirts.

The woman smirked, her eyes far away. "See?" she said.

"They say NO RESUMES NEEDED but I always bring mine. And they always take it," she nodded.

Debbie looked into her eyes. They were aquamarine with a crazed, unfocused look.

"I was at McDougal Douglas for six years. Making fifteen dollars an hour. They layed us off and the next thing, they had hired all temporaries in our place," she said.

"If I don't get this job, I know where I can go. Up the street. Picking oranges for five dollars an hour," she smirked.

"It's a job," Debbie said.

"They called me," she said. "I couldn't believe it. They wanted me to work in Casa Grande. You know where that it?" Debbie nodded, concealing her tiny pink address book. "They wanted me to work the third shift," she said.

"The job no one else wants," Debbie said in understanding.

"My daughter...she wants to move out. She's eighteen. You know how much her friends want? They live in California!" she said.

"Does she have a savings?" Debbie asked.

"No," the woman smirked.

Debbie wanted to leave. She didn't want to take the test. She just wanted to get out of there and go home. She thought of the plane flying out of this desert. But she did not want this woman to see her walk out. She wanted her to stop talking.

She filled in the answers quickly, in the circles, with her pencil. Some of the questions, she did not bother to read thoroughly. Some, she did. When she knew the right answer, she darkened the corresponding space.

The woman started to erase vigorously, blowing off her paper so that Debbie could feel her breath on her hands, her cheek.

Debbie calmly finished the tests and stared at the clock. At four twenty, she left without looking back, through the glass doors, past the employee patio. When Debbie was sure the woman had gone, she returned to the patio and waited for Carlotta. She took off her heels and took her thongs out of her packed pocketbook.

"That was ridiculous," Debbie said as she got into Carlotta's car. But she knew Carlotta would not understand. The test was too confusing to explain.

As they reached the huge grocery store parking lot, a storm was kicking up. The sky was darkening. The sparse trees were being whipped around by the wind. In the distance, lightening struck. On her small enclosed adobe patio, Debbie watched the trees and wind in fascination. She grabbed her black Izod sweater to pull over her white halter top. It poured for exactly twenty minutes and then it stopped, to rain no more for a long time. That was it. At the first bar, cowboys wandered restlessly, indistinguishable from each other in their big cowboy hats.

"Meat!" Debbie said. They left quickly. "The Lonely Cowboy Bar," Debbie joked. "Maybe they'd take us back to their ranch. Make us their wives."

Carlotta frowned in distaste as she drove to the next bar.

"My parents always say, do what you like," she said.

"Mine don't. They say, make money," Debbie said wearily.

"My father doesn't have a very high opinion of reporters, anyway," she said.

"But you've showed him," Debbie said. "You got promoted to Editor."

"Yeah, I think he's gotten used to it," she agreed.

"Someone took my chair. There were four chairs and somebody took all of them!" an irate girl shouted in Debbie's ear.

Debbie turned to her. "You do not own this chair," she said. Carlotta was on the dance floor.

"What?" she said.

"You do not own this chair," Debbie repeated.

"I'm not saying I own it! I'm just saying that we were sitting there!"

Debbie slipped off the chair and walked away, not desiring a fist fight before she left Arizona.

Two young men were talking to them. They wanted to go to another bar.

"You're sure you'll be there," the young man asked Debbie.

"When Carlotta got in the driver's seat, she asked, "Do you want to go there?"

"No," Debbie admitted and they decided to go home.

"My friends tell me I'm too paranoid. When this girl moved here from New Jersey a year ago, she was found in a park. She was de-capitated. It was really sad. We figure she had a fight with her boyfriend, went to the park, and wanted to be left alone. It was really sad."

"I don't think you're too paranoid," Debbie said.

The next morning, she heard the cat's incessant, haunting meowing in the apartment next door. A sad, crying meow behind the locked door.

Haunting.

"Oh, isn't that annoying. I'd like to get rid of that cat," Carlotta said.

"No, I feel sorry for it. It sounds so sad."

In the outdoor jacuzzi that night, Debbie announced that she was going home.

"I drove her away," Carlotta said. After a few minutes, Debbie caught Carlotta eyeing her sadly through her long hair and tanned face. She looked away.

UP NEXT: Meet...finally...THE SINGLE MOM OF CACTUS COUNTY!

UP NEXT: Southwestern Belle :)

See ya here next week. Same time, same place. Live from the Groton Library, home of the raaaaams! Baaaah! Naaaah!

(Denise...Denise Dances...19 years later!)

THE JOB INTERVIEW

He sat behind his desk without lifting his head. He frowned. He picked her resume and writing samples from a pile of papers.

"What did Carlotta tell you about this place?"

"You didn't do much writing at that place in New York," he whined, as if in afterthought.

She did as much writing as she could. She wrote a report on Stress Management. She attended a seminar on stress management. She wrote a report and it was distributed to the staff. She wrote letters and memos. She used her writing as much as she could. As she explained all of this to him, she could see his eyes wander.

He gave her three tests. He asked her where she'd been.

"Desert Botanical Gardens," Debbie answered in awe. A faint smirk appeared on his frowning face.

He described the job. Half reporting. Half copy-editing and layout. Saturday work. Fridays were spent in the office, getting the paper out.

"A production day," Debbie said.

"Things get a little raunchy around here on Fridays. It's casual. You can wear shorts. Why do you want to go into the newspaper business?" he suddenly asked.

"That's what I always wanted to do. I was on the school paper in college. I majored in English. But I got side-tracked," Debbie answered in surprise.

When she finished the three quizzed, Debbie returned to his office. He was on the phone. She waited. She returned the tests, thanked him, looked him in the eye, and said goodbye, feeling puzzled.

Debbie entered Dirtwater Springs with Carlotta and Rob, the photographer for the Apache Junction Independent.  The editor who interviewed Debbie had refused Carlotta's invitation to lunch.

Old bottles lined the shelves near the high ceiling in the large, rustic establishment. Dead flies lined the deep windowsills near their booth. But it did not matter. The burgers were excellent. The fries were tender and well done, so much better than the fries back East. They were shaped like chips, cooked just right.

Debbie chatted about the interview.

"He's hard to read," Carlotta said of her former boss. But she liked him. A woman's opinion mattered to him, she said.

"What did he tell you about that place?" Rob laughed. He said it was good that Debbie liked photography and the Editor would like that.

"I guess I'm not very positive," she admitted.

"Oh, yeah? That's hard to believe," Rob said amicably.

They stood outside Dirtwater Springs, a small wooden establishment in the sand on a long road leading to nowhere. Rob hugged Carlotta emphatically.

"It's not often I get to eat lunch with two beautiful women," he said, his voice slightly sad.

Debbie said nothing. Then they were back on the road.

"Do you want to go to the Mall? I could drop you off, and pick you up when I get out of work at five," Carlotta offered.

But Debbie opted for the pool. Her face was burnt from the walk home and she had spent too much money at the mall.

When the sun got too hot, she sought solace in Carlotta's apartment. The phone rang.

"There's a graduation party tonight. Nothing big. Just a pool party and some food. I think there will only be a few of us," Carlotta said.

"Sure!" Debbie answered.

"It's not dressy; we'll only be sitting by the pool. Wear shorts," Carlotta advised.

"I never get invited to things like this at home," Debbie said.

"You don't get out much, do you? To me, it's just like hanging out," she said.

Carlotta drove past monster malls, with names like "Broadway Southwest," along the freeway, bypassing the lights of downtown Phoenix in the distance. She turned into an elegant Southwestern apartment complex.

"These apartments always reminded me of a birthday cake," Carlotta described the three and four story dwellings, foreign to her in the desert.

They looked like English Tudor style adobe apartments. The girls agreed that the $450 price tag was too much.

"That's East Coast prices!" Debbie exclaimed. Carlotta had shared an apartment with her friend Diane when she first moved back home from New York. But she moved before they started to get on each other's nerves.

"She'll only go somewhere if it's trendy. Then she has a rotten time," Carlotta told Debbie.

"That is such a New York thing to do," Debbie said.

"She's a really sweet person. But she's too nice. She's always apologizing for everything."

"I think I'm too nice," Debbie said.

"Here's what you have to do," the mother of Diane's fiancee was saying. "You like the Phoenix Suns, right? Say, hey, did you see the Suns' game last night? And name a few of the players."

Debbie named one. Richard Dumas.

"That's it," she winked.

"But I don't want it to sound so obvious," Debbie countered.

"No, you don't want to be phony. Be subtle. Did you see the Suns?"

She looked at Debbie knowingly. But Debbie looked back at her with doubt in her eyes, as elusive to her in the past few weeks as clouds to the Arizona sky.

"See? You made three dollars already," she said.

Debbie had dunked into the pool, retrieving three one dollar bills, resting on the bottom of the aquamarine floor. No one else had even ventured into the pool yet.

"This is beautiful," she said, noting the palm trees, the surrounding Southwestern apartment.

"To me, it's just buildings," Diane's fiancee, the graduate said. "Why people want to  live this close, I don't know."

He explained how the palm tree was a transplant to the desert. This whole complex used to be open desert.

On Saturday morning, Debbie awoke with a nauseous feeling. It wsa seven o'clock and she had to get ready for an open test sessoin for a temporary job with the phone company. But Carlotta's car wouldn't start. Debbie felt relieved.

She cooked spaghetti for lunch while Carlotta's father worked on her car.

"Don't tell my mother, if she calls. She'll get upset," Carlotta warned.

"Did you ever break down on the way to work?" Debbie asked her.

"Once," she said.

If Debbie worked in Apache Junction, she would have to get a car. She lay awake at night, thinking about this. Her savings. Her mother would have to close her bank account. She would have to get a car.

Carlotta returned to the apartment as Debbie was cooking. She did not expect her for hours. The car was fixed. Carlotta decided not to go to the office.

"No water in the battery," she said.

She was delighted with the spaghetti luncheon and offered to clean up while Debbie got ready for the next available test session at 2:00. She drove past a lone vendor on the lackluster streets of Arizona.

"Selling oranges here?" Debbie laughed.

"Yeah, they still sell them."

"Oh, just like we sell apples," she said.

"An apple is more of a treat to me," Carlotta said.

An orange tree grew in the parking lot of the phone company.

"I wouldn't pick them," Carlotta advised. "If you finish earlier, just call. If not, I'll pick you up at 4:30."

Up Next: NO RESUME NEEDED....(or should I say, Southwestern Belle???...* * * :)

FIND ME SOMETHING TO WEAR

Walkers in Groton, Beware: Town of Groton, Poquonnock River Boardwalk. Runs parallel to Depot Rd, off Long Hill Rd, across from Dept of Human Services. Male, about age 60, ave height, dressed in black or dark brown overcoat and hat. Seen around 1:00pm. I feel it is best to walk in pleasant weather when more people are around. It also seems best to me, to take this walk around 9 or 10a.m. Also best to park your car where you plan to walk. Let others know your whereabouts. When suspicious, there are several "exits," or side streets, leading off the boardwalk onto Depot Rd. Always look around you, walk quickly, but do not run and wear yourself out. Do not give false signals, such as a smile to a stranger. --DH

FIND ME SOMETHING TO WEAR.  Debbie walked across the deserted clean sidewalks. She walked through the vast parking lot across the street from Denny's Salon. She entered the Mall. Pure white, it sparkled before her. She walked cautiously past the stores. She saw one that looked a little less trendy than the rest. She needed shorts. She picked up a pair of denim shorts with a sash printed with the sun.

"May I take those for you?" the sales girl drawled. She followed Debbie back to the dressing room.

"I have another outfit for you to try on!" she shouted in her friendly Southern accent. She returned with shorts, tops, more shorts, more tops, halters, bright colors, clingy pastels.

Debbie separated the piles. She had one hundred dollars in travelers checks in her pocketbook. She added up the pieces. She could only buy two brightly flowered clingy tops. Two pairs of shorts. The most flattering ones.

"Now, you come back and tell us if you get a job!" the salesgirl called after her.

Debbie had only a few dollars left to buy postcards. She found an Arizona souvenir shop, bought a select few postcards, and left. She walked down the wide, empty asphalt sidewalks for blocks. She saw the blue bank building. But she had gone too far. Carlotta's street was nowhere in sight. She turned back. There it was. Longmoor. She had found it, but her nose and forehead were beginning to burn. She ducked into shade. Where there was some shade to be found. Someone rode a bike. A driver jerked forward in her path, from a side street. "Sorry," he called out the window as he drove away.

Finally, there was Emelita in the impersonal stretch of apartment complexes, all non descript, with adobe style appearances and small windows. Signs announced, "$199 to move in." Or, "$149. Move in Special." Indian Springs. Fiesta Villas. Debbie wandered around the tan adobe apartments on the grass, through the parking lots. She couldn't find her apartment number. A young man on a bicycle, black-haired; pedalled slowly by her in the deserted parking lots. She announced angrily that she couldn't find her friend's apartment. He smelled of liquor.

"It's probably behind those apartments," he said. "Some of the apartments are in back."

Debbie followed his advice and was rewarded with the familiar sight of the pool, the black fence, the soda machine and laundry room, the permanent barbecue grills in the middle of the sidewalks. She dropped everything on the floor inside Carlotta's apartment. She carefully locked the door latch.

"Hey, I found this key in the door," Carlotta said when she came home at five or six o'clock.

"What! I was so careful to make sure the door was locked from the inside," Debbie said. She remembered how tired she was when she got back from the mall.

"You walked from the mall?" Carlotta said. "I could've picked you up."

"I know. I just had to try it out for myself. I won't do that again," Debbie said.

(The more things change, the more they remain the same.) {sic}

"Do you feel like you know your way around?" Carlotta said.

"Yeah...a little better," Debbie laughed.

There was a message on Carlotta's answering machine. Her friend Toni wanted to go out. The last of her at-home daycare kids would be leaving at 4:00. In the sunny parking lot, Toni stood outside by her car.

"Are you sure you want to move out here? There are bugs...they don't go away. It's warm all year out here."

"There's so much to do," Debbie crooned.

"I think this is the most boring place," Toni laughed.

UP NEXT: THE JOB INTERVIEW.

See you here next Tuesday.

UP NEXT: Find Me Something to Wear

I will see you next week, live from the Groton Library, land of the rams! Coming up next, on Monday or Tuesday, FIND ME SOMETHING TO WEAR. Does Debbie take her hairdresser's advice and choose to forego the Mall?  See ya next week in the Desert Southwest! with links to these hot places, as well.

Happy St. Patrick's Day to you, too!

Denise

Up Next: FIND ME SOMETHING TO WEAR

See ya back here Tuesday. Same time, same place. Next week. What? Am I boring you? Is my life getting too easy? Doesn't make for good writing, does it? At least, not the kind anyone wants to follow. About 25 hits last Tuesday. Come on, people now! Have I really gotten that....that...boring???...* * * :)

DESERT BOTANICAL GARDENS

On Monday afternoon, Carlotta slipped out of work early. She drove along cactus lined freeways, through some rocky desert. Wandering through Desert Botanical Gardens, Debbie's root beer suddenly seemed sweet and unappealing. She craved water, cold water.

"There are only two seasons here. Hot and very hot," she said.

A chipmunk with long hind legs ran around the desert plants. A sandy mountain dotted with bushes towered over the girls.

"Think anyone would go hiking up there today?" Debbie said.

A brown, rocky mountain in the distance fascinated her. She paused to photograph it. The Christmas film was still in her camera. The unexpected, temporary bank job had not allowed any time for such hobbies. Now she didn't have to worry. She had no job to return to.

Carlotta spoke of quitting the job she had hated in New York. Her father had been against it, just as Debbie's father had argued over her identical decision.

"He said, you're going to come out here; you won't get a job," Carlotta said.

Three years later, Carlotta was now being promoted to Editor of her local newspaper. Her father had not supported her journalism career either.

"You won't make much money at it," she told Debbie.

As she drove along the freeway, "Well, you've survived your first hundred degree day," she said. "Once it turns a hundred degrees, there's no going back. That's what they say," she continued on this tenth day of May.

"Where are those plastic water bottles?" Debbie asked.

"You mean, a jug filled with water."

"No, a plastic water bottle," Debbie insisted.

"They're with the soda."

Debbie walked up and down the mammoth aisles. She had removed her contact lenses, being forwarned of the desert heat. She frowned at the aisles, at the rows of blurred products.

"The ice cream," she said. "There aren't any square containers."

"What difference does it make?" Carlotta snapped.

Debbie grabbed a round container of chocolate, vanilla and strawberry. It wasn't what she really wanted but she couldn't read the other labels. At the check out, she started to unload the cart.

"No. You put it here and she unloads it," Carlotta explained.

"Oh. That makes a lot of work for the cashier."

"Well, she's going to pass them over the scanner and lift them anyway."

Debbie recalled her cashiering days and how much she hated the extra work which all of that lifting created.

The next time they visited the mammoth grocery store, she picked out a huge orange.

"You're only getting one?" Carlotta said.

Debbie picked another one and threw it into the carriage. This time, she had put in her contact lenses and was able to zip through the store and get the ordeal over with as soon as possible. She crossed certain items off the list.

They walked outside, in the bright sunlight of the parking lot. Debbie remembered not to roll down her car windows so that Carlotta could turn on the air conditioner. And not to slam the passenger door.

"Is it starting to look familiar to you?" she asked Debbie.

"Well..." Debbie said.

"I know, you really don't learn until you drive," she said.

"I recognize the bank building," Debbie said, was they passed a towering, modern office building which reflected the blue, blue Arizona sky.

"It's the easiest city in the world," Carlotta's hairdresser was saying. A sparkling Harley Davidson motorcycle stood outside his salon.

"I hope I can find a job," Debbie said.

"Bug 'em. It works. That's what my boss once told me. If you bug 'em, show up at the office and say, "Ilm not leavin', they're bound to hire ya. You been to the Mall?"

"Yeah," she said.

"Malls are fun. They're new. But unless you've got a rich daddy..."

"I have to support myself," Debbie said.

"Whoever thought of that?" he agreed.

"You won't be supportin' yourself for long. You won't be. There are lots of boys here. Lots o' boys. Did Carlotta tell you where to shop?"

"No," she said.

"I know women. I do them all day. T.J. Maxx." He explained how to walk across the street and to cross the intersection. It was the easiest city in the world. North, east, south, and west. The northwest corner of this. The Southwest corner of that.

"Now, your hair would fall like this when you get out of the pool," he said. He demonstrated the search for her natural part. Her hairdressers at home had not been able to master this.

{To the left, slightly off center} {sic}

"And you want the bangs to blend in with your natural hairline. Not to be peanut shaped." He held up a clump of her hair of top of her head. He spoke of "getting our confidence levels going with each other."

"That's a nice motorcycle. My father used to race motorcycles," she said.

"Now that's really living on the edge," he exclaimed in his Midwestern drawl. He suggested that Carlotta and Debbie go to Show Low next weekend. He was riding to a motorcycle rally.

"Show Low. It's next weekend," he said. He stepped out of his emtpy spacious salon. He pointed the way to the discount clothing stores.

UP NEXT: "FIND ME SOMETHING TO WEAR."

Coming Friday afternoon: DESERT BOTANICAL GARDENS

Hey. Got doctor appointments. Been procrastinatin'! Bloodwork at PHC in Groton on Monday and check out new specs at SEARS OPTICAL, Crystal Mall on Tuesday. Hey, didja know that the Crystal Mall is a great place to walk laps? It is FREE, unless you crave food 24-7 like I do.
"Delayed Diabetic," dx'd at 45 years old! (Feb. 2007)  The way to beat the Mall: figure out your budget, as well as your needs. (Doesn't always seem to match up, does it?) Don't take any credit or debit cards with you. If all you can afford is a coffee, which doesn't come cheap these days, then at least you got out and walked, among people, in an extremely safe, controlled environment.  Have at it! Go to the Crystal Mall. Support commerce, but only buy what you can afford, point of sale! If you can't afford to play, then don't pay! Oh. That's why I'm here at the Groton Library today. In order to put my health first, I need to keep my doctor appointments up-to-date. This will take away from my library time, but Health First! (Before the weather gets nice!) Honeeeey, see you at the beeeaach this summer and don't forget to THIIIIINK SUNSHINE!

UP NEXT: Desert Botanical Gardens

See ya here next Monday or Tuesday.  Same time; same place: Groton Library. Take time to visit the....raaaams!  (!haaaaB  !haaaaaN)  -- Didja ever hear of a back-handed ram?

(Denise...Denise Dances...2011!) -- 19 years later.

THE DESERT SOUTHWEST

Tropical music played on the airplane as they landed in Phoenix. Jagged mountains and tall palm trees came into view. Palm trees? Inside the airport, across from the luggage bins, a skinny girl stared at Debbie in question and Debbie looked back at her. She approached Debbie and smiled. She held out her arms.

"You're so skinny! You look like a different person!" Debbie said. Her friend smiled and squinted.

"You won't be needing those," she said of Debbie's long, leopard print jeans and black Izod sweater.

Carlotta drove along the cactus lined freeway. Mountains covered with tiny bushes stood against the freeway.

"You're so skinny. What did you lose...twenty pounds?"

"Forty," Carlotta said. She still liked to eat a lot, but she worked out and excercised alone at home.

She drove past uniform sets of apartment complexes on empty streets. Two story, low, small windows, secluded decks.

"I don't know if you feel like doing anything, but we could walk around downtown Tempe," Carlotta said.

"Yeah," Debbie said as she gnawed on her apple from the airplane stewardess. They sat in her calm, neat apartment of two years. The blinds were drawn to shun the Arizona heat.

"The apartment where nobody lives," joked Debbie.

Delicate mist fell gracefully from the awnings of the outdoor cafe. It was a beautiful day, hot and breezy. The air was pure. But, by August, these sidewalk cafes would become unbearable, the misters a necessity. The girls sipped on fruity drinks. Debbie commiserated over the agonies of smalltown life.

The girls strolled across the Arizona State University campus. An ornate, trellised, sunken entrance way guarded the library.

"There is nothing like this back home," Debbie said. "Nothing."

"At one time, you could just walk in," Carlotta was saying. "Now, you have to go underground to get inside."

A whole new entrance had been created for the campus library. But it was beautiful. Debbie stopped to admire it.

"Oh, isn't that dumb?" Carlotta's mother said at the dinner table that evening.

They relaxed over barbecued chicken, rolls, salad, and shrimp stir fry. Fresh oranges could be plucked off the trees in Carlotta's parents' back yard. Carlotta's cousin, visiting from Boston showed them the rocks she had collected while residing in the bottom of the Grand Canyon.

"How long are you here for?" Carlotta's father asked Debbie.

"I'm not sure...I'll stay if I can find a job!" she proclaimed enthusiastically.

"Are you going to rent a car? What arrangements did you make with Carlotta?" her mother asked Debbie. She gave her five fresh tangerines to take home. Carlotta's father said he would pick oranges for her later.

"I don't feel like it right now," he groaned.

"I would gladly pick 'em," Debbie said. "My parents would love that. I could ship them."

Unlike her parents' home, wine coolers and sodas were passed around the dinner table.

"Wanna go out later? What type of place are you in the mood for? Meat market or the type of place where you sit and talk?" Carlotta asked her.

"Doesn't matter," Debbie said.


MEAT MARKET

Diane changed into a long skirt and peasant blouse. Debbie wore black jeans and a pink, sleeveless, high-necked top with pearl necklace. Hopelessly Connecticut, she thought. Each time they saw a cactus on the side of the road, through the car windows, both Diane and Debbie giggled and pointed.

"I would miss them if I didn't see them," Carlotta said of the cacti.

Outside, they walked past a row of motorcycles in the balmy Arizona night.

"Don't lean against them," Diane warned them. "Not even one."

"I need your ID," the young bouncer told Debbie.

"I just flew in from Connecticut!" she shouted.

She emptied the entire contents of her purse on the ground. She presented her Connecticut ID.

"Sorry. It's the state law," he shrugged.

Her dance partner held up his arms in a round, all encompassing gesture. He was miming the words, "the sun" in the song to which they danced. The hot Phoenix sun. He tried to teach her "The Pretzel" but the floor was too crowded. Girls in denim shorts danced around them.

"You have so much energy," Carlotta said. The jet lag had not touched her yet.

"You look like you're having fun," Diane smiled.

When she returned from the dance floor, Diane said, "I love to exploit men."

"Wanna dance? It's AC/DC!" Debbie's partner exclaimed.

"No," she said. She was tired of dancing.

"Oh, come on! It's AC/DC!" he shouted.

"No!" Debbie insisted.

"But it's AC/DC! Wanna go outside for a minute?"

"No!"

"OK. Fine," he said and stalked away.

"You heartbreaker," Carlotta said.

A fight broke out in the bar. A cold shower sprinkled Debbie's back.

"We had a beer bath!" Diane told Carlotta's parents later.

"A christening," Carlotta said Sunday afternoon.

Debbie wandered outside by the pool. She felt white and flabby in the revealing black and red bikini. Shouts rose from an unseen neighbor's house, across the desert. The Suns were beating the Lakers this afternoon. Hot from the sun, Debbie sank her white body into the bright blue waters of the pool. When she climbed out, her skin immediately froze. She grabbed a towel. Drowsily, she wandered into the living room. She hesitated to sit down in her wet clothes.

"Oh, don't worry. Everything dries," Carlotta's mother explained. "There's no humidity. That's why you're cold."

"Oh, oh, those Seminole winds..." the band crooned at Fibber's Restaurant and Saloon that night.

"My mother would love this!" Debbie exclaimed, as she watched the two-steppers dancing to the country music.

"She's going to move here. I can just see it in her eyes," Diane said.

"Oh, I'd love to get a job here," Debbie said wistfully. "I know what song this is!" she bought a Fibber's tee shirt from the waitress for her mother. She spoke of the trials and tribulations of living at home; of the sad country music on the car radio when her mother drove.

"It sounds like you need to get away from your parents," Diane said.

UP NEXT: Desert Botanical Gardens.

Up Next: THE DESERT SOUTHWEST

Go Suns! Go Debbie! Same time, same place..next week? (Remember: it's my birthday on Thursday, March 3! Niece Julia's too! Happy Birthday to my sister Kelley, whose b-day is March 2!

Boston Maddy!

Across the busy street from South Station, Debbie dragged her suitcase. She entered the only building that looked vaguely like a former hotel. Her friend was not sitting at any of the tables. She sat at the empty bar in the dining room, avoiding the noisy, young, Happy Hour crowd. She sipped on a Corona beer with a wedge of lime in it. She stared outside the windows.

"I think I see my friend," she said to the hostess.

"I'll watch your suitcase for you if you want to go look," she said. Debbie thanked her. When she returned, she told the hostess she had to go. "We're sorry you couldn't enjoy your drink," she said.

"I can't stay here," her friend Maddy said. She had driven around the block because a meter maid had threatened to ticket her. "I said, look, my  friend's coming from out of town and she doesn't know the city," Maddy said.

"Always there when you don't need them," Debbie said.

"The desert. That's far, Madam. I don't want you to move that far away," she said.

From the window of the plane, Debbie gazed over sunny Boston Harbor, the several isalnds swirling in the Atlantic, the small skyscrapers at the tip of the city, the outlying areas. Where was Lowell? She saw rivers, cities, any one of which could have been Lowell. Brick city after brick city. Rivers. Was that the Merrimac River? Were those the canals?

This was God's view. The same God who created and eventually took her beloved cat. She surveyed the peaceful scene, clouds casting navy blue shadows on the flat, flat plains. Orange red swirls and jigsaw puzzle pieces continued for a  while. Must be Mexico. Dark bluish green rivers curved throughout the deserts. Debbie stared outside the window. Red and orange squares and purple pieces gave way to the beige Arizona desert. She witnessed the huge uniform circles in the landscape which her father had seenwhen he flew to California a few years ago. "Go Suns," a landsaped pattern proclaimed from the ground.

Up Next

On this first day of March, stay tuned this afternoon. For then, you will see Debbie meet up with Boston Madelyn before boarding zee plane to Arizona.  But will she return to Connecticut? Find out...this afternoon...after my brisk walk outdoors, in search of my rams!