During My Sister's Recent Visit to California

My sister and I went to Beverly Hills, specifically Rodeo Drive. We walked into a jewelry store, the kind where you have to wait for them to buzz the door to let you in and out. We where the only ones in the store. The owner and sales girl offered us wine and cheese, we declined. I have never felt such desperation as I did in that store. The owner and sales girl kept taking things out of the cases and walking over to us to show us. They really really wanted us to purchase something. I actually wonder when was the last time they had a sale.

My sister and I proceed down the street and walked into a jewelry store that had the doors wide open, no buzzers on their door. I saw a ring that had a brown tear drop shaped stone in the middle with tiny pink stones all around it. The entire ring was set in rose gold. It looked more like a trinket to me. We were told that it was a brown diamond surrounded by pink diamonds as I slipped it on my finger. When we asked what the price was... we were told..... $575,000.00. My sister and I looked at each other in shock. Here is a jewelry store with the door wide open and no security guard any where in sight and this girl just whipped out a $575,000.00 ring and stuck it on my finger. Something seemed very weird. My sister asked me, "What would you think if I bought it for you?" I told her, "I would think you are seriously ill!" and we had an incredible laugh.

We have two great memories to revisit and laugh about... remember the time we felt like we were held hostage in the jewelry store? ..... remember the time I tried on a half a million dollar ring that looked like it should have a $12 price tag on it?...lol...lol...vll...lol..vll

The picture is my sister and I and it was taken at the Bacara Resort in Santa Barbara, CA, two weeks ago.

Ciao

Greeting from Pennsylvania!

Well, we made it! We rolled into Pennsylvania around 7pm.

My sister asked me how it felt to drive out of California. If you know me... I mean really know me... then you would know I was really okay with it.

When we crossed over the state lines to Pennsylvania I felt relieved and excited. I am about to create a new chapter in my life. As I sat in the car I thought about the first day I rolled into California.... I looked around and said to myself, "I only want to live here 20 years." And so I asked myself "How long will I be here?" And I listened and what I heard was.... "As long as you want to be." Which is actually all cool, fine and dandy with me.

About 6 months ago I wondered "What will my creativity be like in Pennsylvania.?" I am not sure if I believe that you can create anywhere. I heard Eckhart Tolle say that he had to go to California to write the book "A New Earth" because of the creative energy there. I did pretty good creating in California.

What I noticed was that the last few trips I made out here to Pennsylvania... the creative neuronets in my brain were firing off the charts... One day I came up with like a thousand and one ideas. It was crazy wild!

I am going to hit the ground running. I have tons of plans and I look forward to implementing them!

The picture of of the state I now live in.

Ciao

Greetings from Morris, Illinois

I am now 1,955 miles from Los Angeles. We are in Morris, Illinois.

Today I got pulled over by a Nebraska policeman. Was I speeding? No. I had a California license plate with a blinged out license plate holder in a black car with tinted windows. Just enough to peak his curiosity. He said the reason he pulled me over was because; 1) I did not put on my turn signal 100 feet before changing lanes (who the hell does?); and 2) He said he saw me "surve" a little (which I didn't not do). It was 12:30 in the afternoon and believe me, my man would have said something had I "surved". I have experience with policemen (those stories are being saved for another day). I know that if you have your license, proof of insurance and registration ready to hand to them when they approach the car... you are less likely to get a ticket. At least I don't when I hand them what they want before asking. He asked me to get out of the car and go to his car. He asked me to get into his car. Then he started asking me 5,000 questions while his partner approached my car and started asking my man 5,000 questions. The two policemen then had a meeting behind the police car and said I was free to go and to be careful. I wasn't upset because I knew exactly why I was being pulled over. It did slow us down a bit. Along with the massive road construction going on in Nebraska and Iowa.

We traveled through 3 states today. Tomorrow we will get on the road at 6am and should be at our destination by 5pm tomorrow.

The picture is of a map of where we are.

Ciao

Greetings from Ogallala, Nebraska

I am approximately 1,250 miles away from Los Angeles.

Yesterday we drove from Utah through Colorado and into Nebraska.

Utah was absolutely breathtakingly beautiful. We drove through Canyonland.

Vail, Colorado was also breathtakingly beautiful. We drove through some snow flurries. It was 39 degrees when we drove through the Einsenhower Tunnel.

I saw a full rainbow from beginning to end in Denver,Colorado. Actually saw 2 rainbows, only one was complete from beginning to end.

Gotta hit the road.

The picture is a small map of where I am right now.

Ciao

Greetings from Beaver, Utah

I rolled out of California 3 years and 3 hours later than I wanted to..lol..lol

I wanted us to leave around 10ish yesterday morning, however, it just wasn't meant to be that way. The girl from the apartment complex didn't show up at 9:30 to do the walk through. She showed up at around 10:45.

I thought that my car was as big as the trailer to hold the furniture and therefore could not fix comfortably everything that I wanted to take in the car. So we filled a big box and went to the UPS store and had it shipped to Pennsylvania.

Then Bella chewed a hole in her nylon cat carrier so I had to find a Petco and get a heavy duty plastic one for the fierce kitty.

By then it was time to eat lunch so we stopped at Whole Foods. All and all, we actually began our drive out around 1:30.

The smog in San Bernardino is so unbelievably bad that I found myself holding my breath while driving. My anxiety level was high as I was wondering how many miles I would have to drive to see clean air. In case you are wondering... it's approximately 300 miles. After you pass Victorville on the I-15 North. The smog made me think of a Mad Max movie.

We drove from California, through Nevada, through Arizona and are here in Utah.

Driving was great. The speed limit was 75 miles per hour on most of our journey. We only got delayed a bit in Las Vegas as we hit it right at rush hour.

When we hit Utah we saw the most amazing rainbow. We actually saw where it began and where it ended. I told my guy, "I am taking that a sign of my new beginning."

The picture is of Beaver, Utah.

Ciao

My Last Night in Los Angeles

So last night my man said "What do you want to do your last night here?" Do you want to do something different, like go to an Ethiopian restaurant?" And I replied, "Wow, that's a great idea." Because I love Ethiopian food and haven't had it in a while.

There are a few blocks of Fairfax Blvd. in Los Angeles that is known as "Little Ethiopia". There are several Ethiopian restaurants and shops in that area. Last night we went to Messob restaurant and it was fantastic. The Ethiopian Honey Wine is unbelievably amazing.

After dinner I drove past my first apartment that I had here exactly 23 years ago.

I then showed my man where I stopped for the woman who got hit by a car.

And then I showed him where I found the dead man on Wilshire Blvd., in Santa Monica, at 3:15pm on a Thursday. BTW, he had been dead for 3 days.

I am getting ready to wrap everything up here and should be on the road in a few hours. I feel that I have ended my stay in Los Angeles very gracefully. Kinda like the way we should end our lives. Feeling that I did what I was suppose to do here and now it is time to move on and I have absolutely no regrets.

The picture is a map showing where Ethiopia is located.

Ciao

Last Day in This Apartment

The apartment is empty except for a blanket, 2 pillows, 2 cats, overnight bag and cooler.

Today I ran last minute errands getting little things we'll need for the road trip that will take us through 11 states.

So far everything has been going pretty smoothly, except maybe in the sleep department. This will change the minute I get to Pennsylvania. For that... I am sure of.

Everyone handles "goodbyes" differently. Some of my friends were eager to get together for one last breakfast, lunch or dinner together. Others have gotten wildly angry with me for leaving and hence no need to say goodbye. I actually thought that this was an age thing, because 23 years ago when I moved from New Orleans to Pennsylvania some of my friends got angry with me for leaving. Well, I will tell you... it's not an age thing. And then of course there are people who will avoid you like to plague just so they don't have to say goodbye. This has been a good lesson for me to accept people as they choose to be and not take any of it personally.

I have also tried to do some fun things that I like to do while having all of this moving stuff going on. Like reading, creating my book review videos. Trying to keep some balance in my life. I have learned that in my younger years I would have only done the moving stuff and then pissed and moaned about it the entire time. Now I evaluate what absolutely has to be done today and that is what I do and then spend the rest of the time doing what I enjoy. Then at the end of the day I feel good. I did what needed to be done and had fun.

I posted 2 book review videos this morning of the 2 books I finished on the plane back here. And then I cleaned the apartment for the walk through tomorrow morning.

I am going to spend the rest of the afternoon relaxing. Tomorrow morning at approximately 9:30am - 10am we will begin our journey to the east coast. 6 hours into our drive we will be in Las Vegas. Too bad we will have the cats with up... or maybe that is a good thing that we have them with us..lol...lol..lol...

The picture of of cleaning stuff..lol...lol...

Ciao