104. Visit

A long overdue visit to Tucson, after more than a year. We used to visit several times a year when Diane, Curtis' mom was alive. She was unable to travel much in the last decade of her life and we were sure to bring the girls out frequently so they would know her. After her death two years ago, Roger, Curtis' dad started to travel. He often comes out to Los Angeles to visit us - convenient, but in trade we haven't been out to Tucson much.

As soon as I got out of the car and took the giant whiff of warm desert air it felt so right. Always a very welcoming place. Diane always had fresh cookies waiting, and way too much food for us to eat. Since she was immobile we spent most of our visit sitting together in the living room catching up on whatever had passed in the last few months since we has last seen each other. To work off pent-up energy Curtis often took the girls into the desert to turn over rocks and look for scorpions. Or evening swims in the pool in spring and summer. We had our routines and customs - things we did every year just because and even though Diane was sick we made the best of it and had a wonderful time.

So it has been a little over two years since she passed and I was somewhere between excited to return and feeling sad because I knew things would be different. Roger has remarried a neat lady named Peggy.  I knew they have been working on the house a bit, changing things that had been left in desperate need of an update for the past several years. I had no idea what to expect when we walked in the house. How different would it be? I was pleasantly surprised the changes made were subtle and comfortable. It still feels like home --  but with a new even more comfortable couch.