Desire and Obligation

REBEL GIRL spent the last weekend before the semester at a family holiday party in Parker, Arizona, on the banks of the Colorado River, some six or seven hours across the desert. As you may know, the Colorado River is held hostage by technology. This baffles Rebel Girl. The result this weekend was that the river was "low"–too low for boat rides, too low to gaze at and have one's spirits raised. She gazed instead at the television screen and watched a football game between the Green Bay Packers and some team from Seattle that was played in a raging snow storm, which added something, she must admit, to the spectacle. She opined to the cousin nearest her that her mother used to root for Green Bay way back in the late 60s. They were good then, the cousin confirmed.

Others headed out to the infamous Desert Bar where they drank and shot at things. Upon their return, yet another cousin confided that, at the Desert Bar, he was told that his grandfather had had a vasectomy BEFORE his own father was conceived, which suggested that his bloodlines to the family were perhaps thinner than originally believed. That means that you can go home NOW, Rebel Girl said but he didn't seem to hear.

The next day, on their way home, on the California side of the river, they drove past the Wyatt Earp Post Office. It's something sitting there, in the middle of nowhere. She wished she had a letter to mail. Next time she'll stop.

Meanwhile, the new semester begins.