Good day. I am in Santa Fe with the lovely Shoshana, with whom I visited this fair land in August of 2006. We arrived here Saturday afternoon.

Shoshana: Bleeding.

Me: We both got our periods the day we got here.

S: I can’t remember the first night very well. We ate pizza and then what?

T: We drove over to Piper’s and found out one of the dogs had escaped.

S: We need to list our series of unfortunate events. First Piper was on the phone with Jocelyn who was in the house with a bee and is very very allergic to bees. Like epi pen allergic. You thought you needed to lie down or die. Out of the blue, lay down or die.

T: I dove onto the back seat of the car and passed out owing to the boon of cramps.

S: We were bringing you back to the house and then there was Jocelyn running around crying because the dog got out when she was trying to get the bee out. I was going to leave you in the back of the car on the side of the road just one block from our destination

T: And I couldn’t even walk I was so broken as a human

S: I brought you to the house and then went out to find Rodeo and tried to get someone else’s brown dog to be Rodeo but his owner was like That’s MY dog. I couldn’t remember Rodeo

T: But you had met him before in your life

S: There was a lot of driving and looking and then we found Rodeo with amazing floral perfume all over his head and really bad gas. So we think everything is okay and we go to Whole Foods for supplies and you put on your special outfit

T: I looked pretty great. Vans, skirt, oversized huge quilted hoodie jacket

S: You were large on top, small on the bottom. Not feeling well. I asked if you wanted to wait in the car but you wanted to come in. You had a chance to save yourself. But what was weirder was that you were missing for a while and then there you were like you were in a relay race

T: I came running past fifty aisles and saw you in the hot food area

S: Not helping your nausea, the hot food area……

T: I felt like I was going to barf so I came running through, gave all my groceries to Piper in one giant toss

S: And kept running, running in your puff jacket. I went to retrieve the cart so Piper could unload what you just gave her. Then I walked toward the bathroom. It wasn’t just that there was barf there but that they had already blocked it off, put up signs and were cleaning it up. But you should tell your side of the story.

T: I ran through the deli, past the cafe, into the seating area, all the time with my hand over my mouth, trying not to gag. I was two yards from the bathroom door and right in front of a guy reading all the posted flyers when barf exploded out of my mouth onto my hand which made it splash all over my face and then spill all over the ground, it was like a fountain you would buy at the hardware store. I apologized to the guy, he said it was okay, and I went to the bathroom. It seemed awful to leave such a huge puddle of barf on the ground but I didn’t want to add to it. I freaked out the lady in the bathroom by looking so sopping wet and poorly dressed. I had puke in my eyelashes.

S: Did you barf more in the bathroom?

T: No by then I had gotten it all out.

S: They had those little yellow signs everywhere

T: The “Piso Mojado” signs

S: The guy out there looked like Seth Rogan, the one who was mopping, he wouldn’t let me in to see you. But I didn’t tell him I knew you, I just acted like I wanted to go to the bathroom. I didn’t want to tell him I knew you.

T: You were embarrassed that I had made that mess?

S: Yes. There was no area without barf. I would have to step in it to get to you. I figured you were probably alright by then.

T: I was.

S: Then we took you home. Were you still sick?

T: I was in and out of puking all night (both extreme cramps and food poisoning)

S: I barfed once. That was my version of the stomach flu (she was either less poisoned than I or my case was amped up by cramps and high altitude). In the morning you were still writhing around and vomiting and I was thinking I should just stuff a pill up her butt, I should just put a Percocet in her butt. But if the pill is coated, there’s no stomach acid in your butt to break it down. So we go to St. Francis (the hospital) while you gag into a giant soup pot

T: in the back seat

S: and a miracle occurred that they just took you right in. They put you in a wheelchair with a towel around your neck. We had a really nice nurse. I don’t remember her name though.

T: Me neither

S: She put in IV in, gave you fluids, pain medication, nausea medication. We were only there three hours, it was a miracle. And then we left and you fell asleep for three hours again at home. And felt much better. But I want to cut to the chase about how we ended the day on a trampoline. So much ground can be covered, you can grow so much in one day.

T: We went out for bland soup first, that was a good. Then we got piles of gluten-free cookies. I had to act like I had never been to Whole Foods and vomited everywhere in creation.

S: You looked entirely different, you had a different body shape without that huge sweatshirt. You were svelter, your hair was back, totally different.

T: Okay so also we went to an art opening with esteemed lesbians.

S: Yeah.

T: We sat next to Lucy Lippard

S: and a famous child development lady and a lady who had been hit by a car. She might have been somebody.

T: Surely she was. And we were there for the lady who had paintings showing. And the weirdest DJ of life. First Tina Turner then Mack the Knife.

S: And a salsa song, then an old…what was it?

T: I don’t remember. But every song was dumb. The paintings were great though. And then we went for tea and THEN is when the second strike into Whole Foods happened. Then trampoline time.

S: I want you to say that I’ve been pining for a trampoline for months and of course wonderful Amy had a trampoline that someone donated to her and we got to use it and the stars were all twinkly. I became incredibly out of breath.

T: I didn’t really use it.

S: You used it for a millisecond. So we still were from the ER to the trampoline in one day.

T: Impressive, no matter how you slice it. Then we watched Freaks and Geeks. So good!

S: And slept like normal humans last night. No waking up to vomit.

T: I love that part!

To be continued.