Our adobe is in a small but sprawling town in the middle of the desert southwest. The thermometer hits 90 degrees in May and just gets hotter from there. As we were buying the property, one of the minions of town officials, that drive around all day in a fleet of brand new, air conditioned Ford trucks, informed us that, according to regulation, 234-gh22-b, (I did make that part up), our house reverted back to commercial zoning status, when the last occupants moved out. In order for us to actually live on the property, we require a zoning change.
Across the arcing summer, we have to travel out 
there three separate times for three separate meetings in case any questions crop up during the three scheduled public hearings.
Our new home town has a population of 21,769. 82.8 percent of the population is male. Single ladies, before you pack your trousseaus, please be advised that much of that imbalance is related to the fact that the eastern edge of town is the location of a humongous prison.
Because of this, the dwindling share of state aid allotted to our new home town, is greatly skewed by the additional inmate population. The result of this boon is that the city always has more money than it can prudently handle. In other words, expenditure-wise, if it is related to infrastructure, we got it. This proves to be ripe with irony. The town itself, at least the main drag, seems to have stopped in time, as if Alan Ladd is about to walk out of one of the colorful saloons, jingle his spurs into the middle of the street and draw a blazing six-shooter on a menacing Jack Palance. It is that quaint and cowboy. Chances are good, however, if Mr. Ladd were to attempt such a feat today, he'd risk being mowed down by a retiree on a motorized wheelchair.
One of our town's charms is the ancient adobe homes that pepper the dusty lots. With the stream of hot and cold running cash running through the municipal coffers, you' think the new civic architecture projects might replicate, or at least compliment, the old style that has been so lovingly mummified by the hot sun. Instead they are more inspired by the design of the temple of Dendur than the time-tested thick walled and rough timbered adobes. The county courthouse, a majestic, turreted symbol of Roger's and Hammerstein's American back country has been abandoned in favor of a complex of looming, brown, air-conditioned cubes. The town government, which seems to be the second largest employer in the area, is housed in a characterless, earth-toned, gunnite-encrusted town hall at the dead end of Main Street, a location ripe with metaphor.
It is through the pneumatic doors of this building that the Planning and Zoning meeting was assembling. The huge main meeting room, the grandest of grand ballrooms, spread out for miles around. The vastness is so large as to require microphones be wired onto all the participants in order that their voices reach the maximum potential audience. On this occasion I was one of five members of the assembled crowd.
It appeared, at first that the meeting was not going to happen at all. After a long, expensive flight, and the rental fee for a giant Japanese luxury desert yacht, The one commissioner necessary to make up a quorum had not showed, and bylaws only allowed for so much wait time. As the minutes ticked by, I could see my presentation in tiny pictures on a distant laptop that was wired to a projector to better describe my plans to the open meeting.
The missing commissioner arrived at the last possible minute and the two presentations in front of mine were delivered to the board. I assumed that the other four citizens were (literally) locked and loaded and ready to clamor at the dais when a public forum was opened to complain about my requested zoning change. No hands were raised. The board asked only that I describe the location of the property, by which each member had driven on the way in that night.
The P and Z unanimously recommended that the mayor and town council accept my request and off in the distance I could hear, with the aid of a modern PA system, the sound of a gavel hitting the simulated wood grain podium in front of the chairperson.
I called Mellisa with the good news from the parking lot. We'll have to show up in person at two more meetings over the summer. We are taking turns.
As I drove back to the air-conditioned safety of my father's cozy guest cottage, I went by the old adobe and basked in the evening heat as the sunset dyed the horizon an almost unnatural combination of orange and purple. The possibility of transplanting our lives to this place had moved one step further along. The possibilities were as endless as the pile of money it would undoubtedly take for us to bring it back to its nascent glory. The vision was so real I could almost see Alan Ladd lurking in the lengthening shadows.
Smile when you say that.
