So. We got in the two rental cars about six o clock that evening and agreed to meet halfway to San D

Update: for another great Mercury retrograde alaska heritage tours story with a hilarious, wondrous ending, see this . And friend Stephanie told me her story: of going to Chicago, where her cell phone didn t work. Was supposed to meet a friend using cell to set time and place. Instead, her seat mate on the bus not only lent her his cell phone, but he personally escorted her to where she wanted to go. Hmmm. Seems like the universe is utilizing this Mercury retrograde period for a spell of divine humor. And always, the lesson seems to be trust. Trust the universe; trust the people around you. You are not alone. You don t have to figure out evcerything on your own! We are all connected.
Home again, from two weeks in Seattle/Portland and Los Angeles/Santa Monica/San Diego. Surprised I m still intact. During especially the second week of the trip — which churned by too fast and furious to blog — things were flying off me and to me in the midst of a whirlwind of time and space snafus while getting used to two rental cars (one in Washington, one in California) while remaining determinedly focused on staying in the correct lane out of eight lanes while trying to read signs speeding by in time to change lanes to exit, all the while trying alaska heritage tours to figure out how my iPhone app works to get me from the promised point A to point B.
Mercury goes retrograde three times per year, for three weeks each time. During alaska heritage tours this time, expect snafus in both travel and communication. Of course my trip, filled with, not only miscommunication and no communication with my Dad , but unusually complex logistics during the second week, occurred during a mercury retrograde period. Mercury returns to direct motion August 8.
Just landed in Seattle, on shuttle to rental car place. Oops! I forgot to bring the documentation!  Actually, alaska heritage tours I brought the wrong documentation: grabbing my plane docs, I thought the papers under it were for the rental. Nope. I had grabbed How to grow blueberries.
I stand in line. First the Avis line. Then the Budget line. Then the Hertz line. Each one takes 10-15 minutes before I see an agent who tells me there is no record for Kreilkamp. And to book a car that day would be $65/day! Oops! Can t do it over. Need to find the original booking.
I don t usually buy clothes new, preferring Good Will and swaps. But I d been thinking about getting a flowery orange tunic that I saw on a rack in a store near Mount Saint Vincent  on one of my forays out during my four-day stint with the folks.
I didn t want to buy it on impulse, so I waited, to see if it still stayed with me as a desire. It did. What a wonderful way to see in my niece Bridget s wedding and reception in California two days hence!. I ll just get it, and pick out a pair of slacks alaska heritage tours and a scarf to go with.
Okay! Done! Not too expensive ($115 total). alaska heritage tours And I had fun with the clerk. And it s the kind of outfit that will last for years. I actually feel a bit proud of myself. (When I was a kid and Mom would take me into stores to try things on, I would get an instant headache. Just wasn t into the outside. Wondered why everybody seemed to value the outside more than the inside. Later, when I started the magazine alaska heritage tours Crone Chronicles , one of my definitions alaska heritage tours for Crone was she who lives from the inside out. )
The next morning, I go out to the car with my overnight bag, thinking to bring in my new outfit to show Clarissa. Oops. Not there. alaska heritage tours Gone. Disappeared. Stolen? But I know I locked the car. (Or did I?) And if it was stolen, why didn t whoever it was take the computer?
Needless to say, this mystery left me somewhat alaska heritage tours rattled. And I find it especially interesting that it happened to stuff that I felt proud about, even, yes, attached to, because of the pride. Meanwhile, on this trip I had been offering perspective to all and sundry on the events of this time, telling people that we need to learn to pivot on point, integrate alaska heritage tours shock as time accelerates by letting go of all expectations, attachments. . .
Terrified of driving on Los Angeles freeways. I do it anyway, and do okay, with my iPhone app now a trusty guide. Luckily, the house six of us have rented is not far away. Just take Lincoln Street to California and turn right, then left on Beethoven Street, about 13 minutes. Oops! I discover alaska heritage tours that a niece and her husband have driven from Reno, so no need for such a big car. (I hate big cars. Besides the gas, they re hard to park, and feel clumsy.)
Back at our rented house, sisters Kathy and Mary ply me with clothes and jewelry from their luggage, not just for the wedding, but for daily life. (And, except for the earrings, they insist that I keep them!)
The next day, my son Sean, his wife Sue, and grandkids Kiera and Drew and I all go out to the Getty Center, to see the traveling Gustav Klimt exhibit, But really, I realized once we arrived, just to experience the architecture! I took at least 100 pictures out there, but will spare you most of them. It s an extraordinary place, free to the public, but built on the backs of peasants whose lands were confiscated for oil.
Hard not to notice the contradictions. My brother-in-law John and I compare notes. alaska heritage tours Just how evil is it? And then we let go and enjoy the glorious day in this glorious human creation that blends art with nature just as Chihuly  did, and like Chihuly, required an enormous ego to boost it into being.
During the days that surrounded the wedding, alaska heritage tours various family groupings (six of us siblings and spouses were present, plus assorted nieces, alaska heritage tours nephews and old friends) would agree to meet somewhere for dinner and these plans would form and reform, firm schedules dissolving into dust, only to be replaced by other people, timing, and locations. Each day we would wonder, who is really coming for dinner? Everybody was fluid, alaska heritage tours in motion,  flowing with change. Even so, not one dinner held less than a dozen people!
I had planned on seeing my old friends Dick and Judy (Dick had been my high school boyfriend and second husband in my 30s) in Oceanside, and had booked my return trip from Orange County Airport rather alaska heritage tours than LAX for this reason. But, on Sunday morning, the day I was to drive down to Oceanside, an early phone call startles alaska heritage tours me awake:
Annie! We were so looking forward to being with you today and tomorrow. However, this morning we both woke up with the flu. Vomiting. The same thing our grandkids had. You re welcome to come anyway . . .
Wow, talk about a pivot point! And talk about an attachment that I didn t know I had. I had really been looking forward to our meeting also. It was to be a welcome finale to this madcap trip. Okay. Here we go again. The pivot point. Now what?
Well, it turns out that Sean and Sue were going to be in the area also for the next two days, and that, oddly enough, we were all due to fly out Tuesday morning. Sue made a call to their motel in San Diego. Yes, we could change to a bigger room with a fold-out couch for me, only $20 extra per night.
Okay! So we spent the day at the Santa Monica beach, including a two-hour bike ride that put me into an altered state again, this time, not because alaska heritage tours of how the forest greeted the ocean, alaska heritage tours but because I finally alaska heritage tours grokked the magic of southern alaska heritage tours California, after kvetching about its car culture.
I got it, I got it. It s the people, the teeming masses of humanity, all colors, all languages, all in the sun, and surf, and sand, all happy, and smiling, and passing each other with good-natured greetings alaska heritage tours and apologies (for getting in the way), and so on. Mile after mile of people watching and mingling as we rode the boardwalk of the beach.
alaska heritage tours And the sand, so much sand, so deep, such a long, wide beach, and guess what, Nobel Prize Winner Elinor Ostrom is right, the so-called tragedy of the commons is false; alaska heritage tours people will keep the commons safe and protected, when they identify with it. That sand, mile after mile of it, was clean, cared for, not littered. It reminded me of Yellowstone, where the same thing holds. People do not litter Yellowstone. It means too much to them.
So. We got in the two rental cars about six o clock that evening and agreed to meet halfway to San Diego, for dinner. And it s then when I got my final lesson in attachment, in my own pretensions of detachment. When I got out of the car to go in for dinner my computer was not in the car. Not anywhere in the car. Not in the trunk. Not in the back seat, not on the floor.
I went into shock. Looking back, this experience reminds me of when my husband Jeff died, and my trip back to Massachusetts to see Sean and Sue soon after. How shocky I was the whole time there with them. How nervous, rigid, stilted, whacky my behavior. how patient they were with me then. So too, here.
Sean suggested I call my brother-in-law to get the number for the rental agent, who agreed to look for the computer in the house the next morning. Then Sue suggested I call Gil, a dear son of my old friend Nancy, alaska heritage tours who just happened to have eaten with us at one of our surprising, quickly formed dinner parties, and who lived in the area. Yes! He would pick it up and Fed Ex it that day.
The final Mercury retrograde episode occurred when the plane landed in Indy. The plan was for me to call Jim, who was taking care of Shadow in my absence, and who would pick me up in my car. But the number I had for him was wrong! Now what? I called my son Colin. Did he have Jim s number? No. Colin suggested I get a cab out to the cell phone lot where Colin had told Jim to wait until I called him. Instantly, I thought no. What if Jim had started in to the Arrival area when I didn t call, looking alaska heritage tours for me?
One final note: Jim had forgotten his cell phone, so there was no way I could have called alaska heritage tours him even if I had the right number. He was doing what we all used to do, circling the airport until I came out the door.
In retrospect, what I notice about all these snafus is how they all not only resolved so suddenly, usually with the help of family and friends, but that they actually ended up being little miracles in their own ri