Mars opposed to Mercury

With optimism bordering on idiocy, I took one half-read New Yorker, one un-read same, an almost finished copy of Three Men in a Boat, an unopened copy of The Daughter of Time and two letters (you know, those sheets of paper covered in ink marks that come in oblong-shaped paper sleeve things with more ink marks and a little square picture in the top right-hand corner) I have been *supposed* to answer since Christmas up to Santa Fe with me for a less than 48-hour stay. By the time I left, I'd read nothing but half a page of the already started New Yorker, but did manage to write and mail a four-page response to one of the letters, marveling all the time at the wonders of astrology.

I was a little alarmed at the thought of starting the drive back to Silver with Mars coming to oppose Mercury at the end of the five-hour trip, but the first part of the journey went so well - L in the lead in the nondescript rental with Mabel, the pug puppy, me following in the Volvo with Finn the standard poodle, keeping L in my sights all the way and following her off the 25 onto the exit for Socorro, meeting in the plaza for coffee and dog runs - my vague thought about paying more attention to what kind of car the rental was went out of my head completely as our little convoy set off towards the highway again, with plans to go over the Black Range to get home.

L was in the lead as I'd told her the Volvo started doing 90 on the highway with no conscious help (or hindrance) from me, and she wasn't sure the rental was up to that. As it turned out it obviously was, and she sped off into the distance with me and Finn in hot pursuit, pardon these truly terrible cliches as here comes another one - imagine my surprise when the exit for Hillsboro and the Black Range appeared and L kept on speeding right past it.

OK, I thought, something's come up and we're going the longer and more boring Hatch to Deming way, and savoring the irony of me being the only one with the cell phone I fell in behind her again. Imagine my even greater surprise when she sped past the Hatch exit as well, heading straight for Las Cruces, which set off a bit more of an alarm bell for me. She must be sick, I thought, or Mabel has been taken ill and we are off to the hospital or vet in Cruces, although I thought it more than passing strange that she didn't pull over, as we'd arranged in case of an emergency, to tell me exactly what happened.

Instead, I pulled over and put on my hazard lights, which the car I was following ignored completely a) because as I found out when I read the manual and pulled out again, what I had actually switched on was my rear-window defroster, and b), because the car I thought contained L did not contain her at all, as every astute reader has by now figured out, but which dawned on me only as I followed it onto the "Hospital" exit - honest - and then to a Bank of America ATM at which point two elderly Hispanic women got out.

At that point there was nothing to do but dredge up every memory I have of Cruces, find my way to the 10 and give the Volvo its head to get me to the kennel in Silver in time to board Finn, who had been asleep in the back throughout all this, lifting his head briefly when I pulled over and defrosted the rear window. I pulled into their driveway at 5:55 pm, just as they were about to close. Time of perfection of Mars opposed to Mercury: 5:56 pm. Two more cliches: All's Well that ends Well and You Had to have Been There.