Welcome to Roswell Earthlings

We have had the usual controlled chaos here. On August 5th, we left Matthew home in charge of Samuel and the dogs (remember what happened LAST time we left the dogs with someone?) and drove William to New Mexico Military Institute, or NMMI as the cool people call it. It was supposed to take about 13 hours to drive there but with typical Keliipuleole luck, we had a tire blow out on the freeway and had to stay overnight in a sleazy Motel 6 adding 9 hours onto our travel time and spending over $600 buying four new tires, plus the motel stay. And, I think the front desk clerk at Motel 6 thought I was a hooker. Obviously, not a very profitable one since I really don't think there is much of a market for bitter-over-40-fat-and-saggy-football-mom hookers!

BUT, that's another story for another time...Okay, this is not really us.

Why, do you ask, did we buy 4 new tires when only one blew out?

Good question. 14 months ago I bought 4 new tires from Moreno Valley Goodyear, at the cost of $579, and have had two blow outs and one continually-flat-defective tire in the last two months. Using my college math I came up with 3 out of 4 tires gone "bad". Freaky. I went back to Goodyear after the first blow out (it's always on the freeway, going 70, in the fast lane, with kids in the car) and Goodyear charged me $87 to buy a new tire. WHAT? Why did I buy the road hazard protection plan? How did that save me any money? It must be all that estrogen clouding my tiny girl brain because THAT DOESN'T MAKE ANY SENSE!

Alan's theory is that since my Astro takes an odd-size tire, the tires Goodyear sold me were probably old. I heard that one of those expose-evening-news show actually did a piece on old tires that blow out because they have begun to disintegrate. Our tires didn't just pop and slowly go flat, they EXPLODED and shredded. They didn't blow out because they had a nail or shrapnel or even flotsam and jetsam embedded in it, the tire exploded through the sidewall. Scary. The shredded tire looked like a scarf for the Michelin tire mascot! And really, maybe one blow-out we could blame on fate, but TWO?

My tire that continually went flat? The Goodyear employee said, as he couldn't look me in the eyes, that it was a defective valve stem. Very rare, he added. Right. If you believe that, I have some great swamp-land in Florida for sale if you are interested...Oh, and the tire should be replaced at a nominal cost of $87...

SO-we bought new tires from Cathedral City Firestone who put on all four in 40 minutes! Wow! Now, there could be the remote possibility they might have been moving at the speed of light since I was really honest and open about being ready to break down and cry right there at the front desk. Men don't do well with an almost-hysterical woman who is supposed to be in New Mexico at a parents orientation for her baby's first college experience who all ready bought 4 new tires a year ago and had two separate blow outs on the freeway endangering her children not to mention her husband who had to change said tires as the semi's roared past...sorry. Got carried away there.

By the way, the auto mechanics are completely right. Don't ever hit the brakes when your tire explodes on the freeway going 70mph in the fast lane at midnight trying to get 3 lanes over to the other side safely through the speeding semi's with your husband yelling at you on how to drive...oops, I did it again.

Needless to say, our guardian angel is working overtime and she is exhausted!

The rest of the trip was uneventful. We made PB and J sandwiches in the car, ate way to much junk food, drank too much soda and listened to William's CD over and over (Viva La Vida by Coldplay) as the miles rolled by. Alan would be happy to never ever listen to that CD again but I love it!

The week before, William and his friends played Viva La Vida when I drove them down to Escondido to play paintball. That CD will always remind me of William and his friends singing at the top of their voices to the title song, Viva La Vida. We adults forget that life is an adventure and I think that sometimes we need to be reminded by the youth that it's good just to be alive.

Front gate of NMMI

NMMI is in Roswell, New Mexico, home of UFO's and aliens. Many people don't believe in extra-terrestrials but, as you can tell from the picture below, they are here and they are among us! Can you tell which aliens are from our planet and which ones are just visiting?


We went to a McDonalds which had a space ship theme and to the local Super Wal-Mart for our $5 tourist alien t-shirts. I got the same look from the Roswell locals as I was snapping pictures at Wal-Mart that we Californians give to the tourists here when they see palm trees and Disneyland! Of course, I played it off and pretended I couldn't speak English...

Beautiful Lea and gorgeous Alana at the McDonalds in Blythe

Our trip back was quiet--safely driving on four new tires--with only Alan, Alana and I to talk to each other. (Coldplay was there too, over and over and over...) We drove straight through to California, leaving New Mexico around 7pm and arriving in Blythe about 8:30am. Lee, Maribel and our beautiful, smart and perfect granddaughter Lea, live in Blythe so we called and met for breakfast at McDonalds. Fabulous air conditioning! (It's been years since I've eaten at a McDonalds and then I go and eat there twice in one week...Go figure. I LOVE those fish fillet sandwiches. .)

William can have contact with the outside world in 21 days. I know I will be his first phone call because he loves me the most and misses me more than anyone...and wants his cell phone mailed back to him.

"One minute I held the key
Next the walls were closed on me
And I discovered my castles stand
Upon pillars of salt and pillars of sand"
Viva la Vida Coldplay

Coldplay video of Viva la Vida
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P5TNK-TvIcI