Ch. 36
Tilt and Whirl. I Am Dizzy
So I remember as I am driving along in the
CJ-7 up the Redwood Highway and thinking about Darla and the reasons why I am
here in the first place. Partially because of my friendship with Lee and Ann
and suddenly it all seemed to make my head spin. Is this destiny that brings me
to this point as changes make you take different paths, yet in reality it is
who you are that leads the path destiny takes? Is Ann playing cupid again begging out and
with Lee and giving me space at the same time Darla comes in. Or am i just
blowing everything out of proportion and if I don’t produce then all this
including a chance at love will be stripped away as fast as I received it or
faster.
Love was so much simpler when we were kids
as I knew some girls in my second grade class would fall in love with just a
simple piece of paper secretly slipped along by a group of friends privy to
what you had planned and who were willing participants in your scheme. A simple do you like me on a piece of paper would
get you a smile across the room and gather you attention all day long from the
red haired girl. Then the next day she would ignore you as yet another so
called friend gave her a new note and then would steal her affection away from
you. Can’t really remember getting so upset over the red haired girl and our
lost love, yet now in my old age I can’t seem to get over Leann, and now it
seems as if Ann is playing cupid as well while she is playing an anonymous donor to save the
farm land for future generations. Only
she is going to make me work for any of this, when I am at that point I thought
I was retired. I guess destiny brought me to this point, and it’s up to me to
figure everything out and make it work. I always like a challenge. Now my
challenge is going to be working with Darla and try to make this foundation,
charity or tax write off work for the good of man. It isn’t about me or Leann
or Darla or even Ann only because she makes it possible that I am doing this.
It is going to be about leaving something for the future. Something to say we
were not all screwed up back then.
I arrived at the Road Warrior and powered
up Ann’s laptop and booted the satellite. I installed surveillance cameras on
all four corners of the Road Warrior and quickly checked the video to see if
anyone tripped the motion detectors lighting up the outside and it looked as if
a bear had visited Road Warrior while I was gone, but couldn’t really find much
to tear up or mess with as I keep everything closed when I am not there. Other
than that there was nothing. Next I did a search for northern California property
for sale, and picked five within a close proximity to look at and discuss with Darla.
We need to see twenty properties a week and make up a list of eligible
properties based on certain values I have yet to determine. Well it sounds like
I know what I am doing. And we need to just do it and get our feet wet. Need to
make it work.
I need to keep my relationship with Darla
on a professional basis, I have no idea if she is even looking for anyone. We
both accepted to do Ann’s work and by chance we have to work with each other. It
is work and nothing more. I must remind myself of that. Well I have a list and
if history is anything imagine Darla would be out here early again in the
morning. I needed to sleep and soon fell asleep but before I did, I still had Darla and Leann running through
my mind. And I thought before drifting off, maybe by morning it will all work
itself out, or won’t make a damn I say to myself, as I tried to fall asleep.
Again the next morning I get a phone call
a little earlier from Darla saying she will pick up some breakfast or make something
if I like. She missed having breakfast yesterday as I offered her none , I just
forgot , what a way to impress a lady I thought to myself , so today I guess
she is going to one up me and offer me breakfast. I usually don’t get up and
grab breakfast instead drink coffee eat my meds and write in my blog. Sometimes
I will smoke a joint before breakfast as I hear the, oh no’s, from the crowd as
he really does that? And yes I do. I am more of a brunch kind of guy, so this
getting moving stuff is getting old already. But then again , I imagine Darla
is a driven woman who rises early has everything in place the night before and
is out the door by eight for a half hour
commute to Gunnite if that and is at her desk rearing to go by eight thirty at the latest. I’m still scratching,
rubbing the sleep out of my eyes, sitting in front of the puter in my undies
typing aimlessly. Not as pretty a sight as one can imagine, as it was years ago but still a sight none the
less .
I do have a list of properties in a basin
north of Crescent City , and will just take her for a ride up the coast. Maybe
head up into the mountains and just get a feel for this area. One of the
updated features of my CJ 7 is a Garvin GPS I added from Wal-Mart. It works
well and gets me there, and it may help me if I’m lost as I like to be at
times.
So after Darla fixes breakfast or brings
it we will heading out, and check out some properties. I checked my messages on
the puter and on my phone, and forgot about my neighbor Clyde calling as once
again he left another message saying it was urgent he talked to me. He was telling me I had a package delivered to
my house and the Fed Ex man just dumped it on the front step and since I wasn’t
home he took it inside my house along with my mail.
I called Clyde and reached his voice mail
and I was glad as I could hear that slow drawl of Clyde saying
h-h-h-h-e-e-e-l-l-l—o—o—o this isss C-l-y-d-e-. Clyde is a slow talker, not
that he is dumb. Just in no hurry to get on with conversing. I am a fast talker
in comparison and when I lived around
the Marietta area before couldn’t beg, borrow, or work for free, as soon as I
opened my mouth and started talking. I lacked a southern drawl and at the same
time the patience these people in this area seem to have as they become
accustomed to slow talkers . They would pride themselves in their ability to
slow talk sometimes taking hours to say what I just did in seconds. I don’t
have all damn day to sit and listen to these people form words and sounds and I
tend to finish sentences for them. They would say I –went- to -
the, and by now I have list of options like park , grocery store ,
amusement park and morgue as to how to
finish their sentence. I would go on a job interview and say to myself, ‘sorry
we are not hiring’, soon after the the
interviewer would start their slow parade of words , just to alleviate my mind
from the terrible guessing of the inevitable . The only slow talking I could
stand was from those southern gals when you asked them for a favor and by the
time they got around to saying no you already had your way with them . Ah yes
the good old days.
So in my best slow voice I told Clyde he needed
to take my package and my mail to a UPS shipping center and they can put it in
a larger box and send it to me here at the Crescent City RV park. that I will
be here till I get the package. I provided him with a street address and a lot
number where I was at. I told him to overnight the package and I was sending
him a check and expenses for doing it. I dug his address out of my address book
and found an envelope and would stop and pick up a money order today while Darla
and I are out.
After taking care of Clyde I heard a door
slam on a car and again Darla must have been buying groceries at the RV campground
grocery store as it was no time till she was here and I heard the doorbell ring
and I was still in my underwear three quarters to seven eights naked and she
was outside the door. I Rushed to the bedroom and found my shorts and slipped
them on and hurried back and opened the door and said.
“Hi Darla we have got to quit meeting like
this.”
She laughed as she stood there with a bag
of groceries in her hand and I said.
“Come on in , can I help you with that?”
She
says to me “No Guy, I can get it.”
As I stood there bare chested and my
paunch of middle age spread out before me. Hardly the sight I hoped to impress
her with but she didn’t seem to mind and she came on in and soon was putting
stuff in the frig as if it was her own place, making herself at home. I ran
back to the bedroom and grabbed a loose shirt and slipped it on and came back
and talked to her a few seconds before heading off to a shower.
“So did you find everything you needed for
breakfast?” I asked .
Darla returned with. “Yes but forgot the cream cheese.”
“ I would hate to ask what it was for but I
am sure it was good if It had cream cheese in it. It was probably too good.” I
added with a smile.
Darla looked at me and smiled and said, “Why
yes, Guy everything I make is good , and no I don’t eat cream cheese all the
time, just on special occasions.”
I asked. “Why is this so special, never
been to California before? Or you are celebrating something? Or is it that it is Monday and that is good enough?”
She laughed. “It is because you took me out
to dinner and I enjoyed your company so thought I would reciprocate.”
I laughed and said. “Wow there you are
using those big words again surely you must be from up north Dear.” As I let a word of endearment slip out. I should
have thought more before using that one.
Darla laughed sensing what I said but not
responding to it, but instead pushed on with the breakfast thing, and asked if
it was OK to just go ahead.
I said.
“Go for it. In fact I am headed to the shower and get ready, and you can
have at it. Ann stocked the Road Warrior and had things like corkscrews and
cheese graters I would never use even though I like to cook. I would have never
thought to bring them along. Anyhow we did have some cream cheese in the frig
so Darla you can go ahead with what you are fixing.
She said. “ I thought a veggie omelet with
cream cheese sounded great.”
I agreed as I sat and watched Darla go to work and soon
she ushered me off as I was making her nervous watching her, so I took my
shower .
I came out of the bathroom and some
country music was playing on the stereo and Darla was singing to it. As soon as
she saw me she became quiet and just watched her omelet frying in the pan.
I said to her, as I seemed to have caught
her in a moment, “You can go ahead and sing if you want I do whenever no one is
around.”
She said. “Of course not silly, maybe
someday when I know you better.”
I laughed at the thought of her wanting to
know me better. Heck by that time, I thought in my mind you will be running as
fast as you can away from me like the rest , and will be to wind busted to even
think about singing. She looked back at the frying pan and just hummed the
words.
She fixed my omelet and then told me to go
ahead and eat, I said no I was going to
wait for her . She explained there was only one pan so she could only cook one omelet
at a time and mine was getting cold. I told her to hurry as I was waiting she laughed
and went on with hers. We ate and I did the dishes as she looked over my list
of properties I had found.
I found one farm in the area for around
750000 for 100 acres or 7500 /acre. And then in the same ad saw one farm of 80
acres for 39000 dollars , quite a difference in price . One was coastal
California and the other was desert in Nevada. At 75oo per acre for coastal
flat land, one would have to really justify that purchase .We need to see this
land for ourselves.
Darla
asked if we should contact the realtor and I said I prefer to look at the land
first and see if it is one we would want. I set the alarm on the Road Warrior
and made sure the security cameras were working and set out to begin looking at
properties with Darla in the Jeep. I left the top up but took the doors off and
threw them in the back of the jeep. Darla produced a ball cap and a pair of sunglasses
and had jeans with a jean jacket over a nice white lacy looking blouse and was
looking the part of an explorer today we set out for our first property having
put the coordinates in my Garmin GPS.
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