For a long time, I adhered to the phrase, “you can’t go home again.” Why would I want to go back home? What could I possibly find back home? Didn’t I say I’d never move back home? There was nothing for me in that place of my youth; nothing new, nothing exciting, nothing to do, nothing to see, nothing to, literally, write home about. I was living the good life, the high life, the big city life, the life of Riley, the life of theatre, sailing, swanky restaurants, concerts, endless activities, and never enough parking. I could go to dinner Friday nights, antique-shop on Saturdays, have Sunday morning brunch, and sail under the Golden Gate Bridge whenever I wanted. But I didn’t. Ever. Not once. The restaurants were too swanky, the concerts too pricey, and the sailing? A lot like marriage – completely overrated. So in October of 2002, after spending fourteen years switching jobs, paying excessive rent, and cohabitating with one pompous Brit, I packed up my tripod dog and hit the proverbial road. It’s hard to believe it’s been five wacky, action-packed, fun-filled, tequila-soaked years already. It seems like only yesterday I was packing boxes and burning wedding photos….aaaaah, good times.

So you're a single guy with a buff tan, hanging out at home with the usual suspects, enjoying a sweltering Fresno afternoon. You're lounging in the pool, talking smack, while downing glass after glass of incredibly delicious strawberry margaritas. One minute you're completely sane, and the next, you're inviting two blondes for a weekend ride to your nephew's house in La Honda. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/La_Honda,_California The following morning you wake up in your swimmy trunks, wet, freezing, suffering from a hideous hangover, and a major case of amnesia. What the hell happened last night? What the hell was I thinking? WAS I thinking? Where exactly IS La Honda? And what the ding dang was in those margaritas? Slowly, the day's events come back to you, in fleeting little bits and pieces, like a freakish nightmare, and you come to one scary conclusion; you, my friend, are screwed.

Heavy sigh. Yes, it's the beginning of another year at Cowpoke Alley, and all is well with the world. The casa is still in one piece, we're relatively healthy, and the pork chop dog hasn’t eaten the ENTIRE house...yet. I'm sure it's only a matter of time. The Year 2006 was a good and strange one here on Glenn Avenue, bereft of any natural disasters or locusts or job promotions. The squirrels still torment the mutts, the mutts still torment the gardeners, and our crabby neighbor still torments us just by being, well, her crabby self. They say you should learn from past mistakes, and the New Year is the perfect time for correcting errors, and starting all over again with a clean slate. I'm not sure there are enough erasers for our chalkboard, but we'll try to begin anew with a better attitude, more motivation, and the desire to actually SEE our carpets. I'm not implying there are a lot of dog toys on the floor, or dog hair in the baseboards, or dog slobber in our beds, but let's just say that even the fearless women at Molly Maids run screaming in horror from our cobweb-draped doorway. And it's not even CLOSE to being Halloween. And so without further adieu, let's examine what sort of high-faluttin' stuff we little cowgals have soaked up during the past 12 months...besides the tequila...

Well, it's Christmas time again, and all the frantic shopping and wrapping and tearing apart of toys, electronics, clothing, jewelry, and gift cards will soon be over. Ribbon will be flung, boxes crushed, paper shredded, hopes dashed, and lives ruined, just because there weren't enough iPods to go around. The holiday season tends to sneak up on you from behind, as if you've got a nasty case of the hiccups, and your loopy Uncle Bob is trying to scare the bejeezus out of you. AAUGGHHH!!! Are you CRAZY? I'm not ready! What are you doing?! I almost had a heart attack! Are you TRYING to scare the bejeezus outta me?! You're never ready for it. You don't see it coming. And yet it gets you, every single time. You might as well just face it, whip out that Mastercard, pull on those fuzzy slippers, pour yourself a stiff eggnog, and give in. Give in to the gingerbread, toffee, popcorn balls, nutty fudge, sugar cookies, hot cocoa, candy canes, candied fruit, candied yams, and cocktails a'plenty. Look at it this way, at least you've got a couple months to recover before Valentine's Day.

It has come to my attention recently, that we little buckaroos at Cowpoke Alley have a serious addiction. And I'm not talking about the tequila. I'm talking about the T.V. That little box of cable pleasure which seeps into our living room, casting an evil glow over the furniture and dog-hair-laden carpet, teasing us with nasty thoughts of Dr. McDreamy on "Grey's Anatomy", or the hilarious blue-tinted orthodontia that is "Ugly Betty's" braces.
http://abc.go.com/primetime/uglybetty/index.html Not to mention the toetags and quirky characters on "Six Feet Under", the not-so-subtle nakedness of our love-starved gal pals on "Sex and the City", or the strange and wonderful craving we just can't seem to kick by watching "Dancing with the Stars." I know, it's a sickness.

Ah yes, the ocean. That great swath of blue and green that seems to go on for miles. Time literally stops when you're walking on the sand, and it seems as though you could stroll on forever, your eyes constantly scanning the waves as the tide laps at your feet. Or maybe it's just your underused calf muscles screaming at you. Maybe it just SEEMS like a lifetime since you began your unending journey. Maybe all that seaweed sloshing around your ankles, like some sort of slimy ball and chain, is slowing you down. Maybe you're thinking to yourself, where the ding dang did we start from? The pier? THAT pier? That tiny toothpick tower that now appears 12 miles away?! And then you begin thinking, I can't possibly carry on, I cannot conceivably take another step. I'm going to collapse, in a weathered heap, right here, next to this dead pelican. People will stop and say, oh, the poor unfortunate thing, and try to pluck feathers from your head. It is in this instant, your epiphany appears. You regain your strength. You CAN and must press on. Your legs become weightless, your stride grows longer, you suck in great gulps of salty air, and finally, after climbing endless cement steps...you stop. The Holy Grail awaits you. That sweet elixir of life to tempt and tease you, the burn in your throat that pops the eyes, opens the nasal passages, and gives you the will to FACE THE SURF ONCE AGAIN! You smile as your cowering "let's-take-the-dogs-to-the-beach-it-will-be-fun" roommate pours you a second shot of Cuervo, and prays you don't pummel her into the nearest sand dune.

A hospital room is very awkward. Ditto for rest homes and other healthcare facilities that cater to the elderly. You know you should visit your friend or relative, but you just don't know what to say. You don't want to keep staring at them during those painful silences, so you scan the walls and oxygen tanks for inspiration. Whomever proclaimed that "the art of conversation is lost", must have spent a lot of time in sickbay. The chitchat is idle talk about the family, the weather, and the unrelenting price of gasoline. And you ask about lunch and how dinner was last night, and what flavor the pudding was, and what time is physical therapy, and all the mundane questions you can possibly muster. Even though you probably already know that lunch was lousy, and dinner was limp pasta, there was no pudding, and physical therapy has been cancelled for that day. But what you really want to ask is aren't you just sick and tired of all the poking and prodding, the wheelchairs, the embarrassing peek-a-boo gowns, the crap food, and hey, would you like me to smuggle in a cheeseburger from McDonald's?

Okay, we didn't have a pond, but there was a pool, and no human children were in attendance, but there certainly were some four-legged sons and daughters. And even though none of them were Newfoundlands, they were drooling, yapping, jumping, bucking, playing, running, tails-a-waggin', chase-me-chase-me, dog-paddling mutts. Four of them, all shapes and sizes, tormenting us and each other, whacking their mile-a-minute tails on sunburned legs, and generally wreaking havoc in the water, on the grass, and under picnic tables. Salsa was spilled, Tostitos went flying, and more margos were strewn across the cement than actually consumed. Well, almost. It was Cujo meets a rabid Old Yeller when Cowpoke Alley presents, "Father's Day Goes to the Dogs", starring "Boo" as the amiable Rin-Tin-Tin, "Jasper" as the fun-loving Benji, "Annie" as the giant blockheaded Hooch, and "Mack", as the adopted mutant love-child of Marmaduke and Scooby-Do.

Well it's that time of year again, when the dusty brethren of Red Bluff break out the tank tops and high heels, tattoos and mullets, slap on some extra Raid, and assemble for the great Nitro National boat races. Or as my grammatically challenged ex used to say about questionable members of America's population, "the great unwashed" have come out to play. Red Bluff, by all accounts, is a sleepy mountain town just a stone's throw from Redding, where the women grow big and strong like the oak trees, and bench press their common-law husbands just for fun. Against my better judgment, I acquiesced to my sister Jill's pleading and took the lengthy drive up to Redding, where the road stretches out a like a big piece of flattened black licorice, and the scenery is pretty much non-existent.

So the Oscars are over, and all the golden statuettes dispersed, and every winner will spend the next 2 weeks sloshing their way through a multitude of droning television interviews, and wondering whether to place the coveted naked award in their Beverly Hills living room, or maybe the cushy salon of their Manhattan townhouse, or perhaps next to the reclining Buddha in their thatched Aruba hut. http://www.oscar.com/ It's a big decision you know. I wish I had such meaningful verdicts to pontificate on, but I'm much too busy paying PG&E and trying to figure out if Mac n' Cheez goes better with Hamburger Helper or if Rice-a-Roni is the better choice.

Most of you know that I've spent countless hours at the Club 6019 in my lifetime. There's always a bounty of food, good conversation, and Margaret aptly tending bar. I've lounged by the pool, pumped the pedals of the player piano (wow, say that 3 times fast), viewed a thousand movies, and enjoyed feasting at a multitude of dinner parties. But never, in all that time, have I ever been privy to an exchange quite like this:

So it's the holiday season here in the hinterland, and the reason I know is not because of all the twinkling lights, decorated pine trees, wrapped presents, mind-numbing piped in Christmas music, or shivering-in-line-at-4:00-am-shopping-mall-freaks. Nope, the real reason is that the dreaded tulle fog has arrived. That's right kids, it's time for the pea soup to froth up and steam over and work it's scary, spooky self into the streets and fruit orchards of Fresno, like a bubbling cauldron of witches brew. I was feeling very much like Adrienne Barbeau on the way to work this morning, except for the fact that my chest is a whole lot smaller. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0080749/ Yes, this is the fog of Hitchcock films and nightmarish dreams everywhere, turning the moon into a milky snow globe, and ancient fig trees into replicas of gloomy stick figures. Can you say Tim Burton? http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0107688/ Our fog has a mind of it's own, gently wrapping it's ghostly fingers around car headlights, feeding through the hub cabs, and swimming past the windshield like some terrifying underwater apparition. Weird stuff.