Cate Mueller
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Homepage: http://www.catemueller.com
Posts by Cate Mueller
E-I-E-I-O
Feb 14th
My recent mortgage column generated a lot of interest (heh, heh). Thanks to everyone who sympathized and gave advice. I am pleased to report LoanCare was very gracious and professional in accepting one final check from me. If I was math-clever I would figure how much interest I saved by paying off the loan in half the allotted time.
Now, gentle readers, my budget is a bit more open. It is time for me to enter the 21st Century and I call for your input: I want to learn what device or service will connect me to the outside world; specifically the Internet.
I do not want the newfangled version of the Walkman because I need to hear my environment. I cannot tell you how many times I reached for a hose only to have it hiss at me and slither away. Yikes!
Last time I looked at television was ten years ago. After hearing you all talk about what’s on TV, I’m pretty sure I don’t want anything to do with that, either.
Readers, what do you recommend I buy or subscribe to for Internet access? An e-thing or an i-thing? Most important: Will it work in Bouse? This is a goofy area, radio-wise – I’m more likely to pick up Kansas City than Lake Havasu City depending on the weather.
If I want to access facebook, does that “eat bandwidth”? What about U-Tube videos? I hear about Internet providers who ban downloads or charge extra. Perhaps I should buy a raffle ticket from PAACE and try to win one of everything!
One thing my readers have in abundance are opinions. I look forward to reading yours.
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Cate Mueller is a web designer, editor, reporter and photographer in Bouse, Arizona. To visit her website, click here.
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Editor’s note 2/15: There’s less than a day now to get your iRaffle tickets! Purchase them online HERE.
Quartzsite, Ten Years Ago
Jan 26th
Cate’s Column #19
I landed in Quartzsite January 10, 2002. At 41 and a brand new full time RVer, I had no idea what I was doing. Thwarted at my first — and last — attempt to camp in an RV park, I learned that “55+” meant “senior citizens only.” I followed other RVs heading south of Quartzsite and found a sign reading, “Bureau of Land Management — Long Term Visitor Area” without any dumb “55+” logo.
A smiling man wearing a brown vest greeted me warmly. “Howdy! Come on in here, young lady. Welcome to the LTVA.”
I mustered my courage. “C-can I s-stay here?”
“Sure you can! It’s fifty dollars a month or a hundred and twenty for a long term pass good through April 15.”
A month? What if I hate it? “Can I start with one night with full hookups?”
He threw back his head and howled. “You have no idea how often we get that request. No — this area is for boon docking. Dry camping. Is your rig self-contained? Got a generator? Go find a tree you like and park next to it.”
The LTVA pass fit right into my budget. I paid and headed out into the desert.
Within a week the desert disappeared as more and more RVs parked all around me. Hundred thousand dollar rigs turned into off-road vehicles as people jockeyed for camping space. Soon driving into Quartzsite became impossible and I walked everywhere.
One day I walked into a restaurant and waited patiently for a table. The dining room was crowded and every diner sported the same curly white hairstyle. Menus were stacked on the counter and I read one while waiting. A waiter appeared, pulled the menu from my hands, handed it to the poodle heads behind me and led them to a table.
What? Restaurants are “55+” too?
Fine! I walked over to Lamm’s Produce and bought some delicious avocados and a loaf of fresh wheat bread. My lunch was wonderful. I basked in the warm sunshine and decided I was pretty lucky. This “55+” attitude was going to save me a lot of money!
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Cate Mueller is a web designer, editor, reporter and photographer in Bouse, Arizona. To visit her website, click here.
Cate’s Column #18
Dec 8th
I spent the last five years sitting on my hands, doing nothing to incur expenses so I could throw every dime at my mortgage. I cannot stand paying interest plus a monthly service fee; entering into a ten-year mortgage freaked me out. I want out from under it ASAP! Finally, my statement shows I have a little more than $2,000 left to pay and I called the loan company to arrange the final payment. Here’s how THAT went:
Me: “I’d like to get the payoff balance on my mortgage, please.”
Loan lady: “I can’t give you that information. I can give you the payoff principal.”
“Please.” The number she gave me matched the figure on the mortgage statement. “Okay, what’s the difference between that amount and the payoff?”
“The interest and fees will be on your payoff statement.”
“So give me the payoff statement balance.”
“I can’t. You have to request it.”
“I just did.”
“No. It costs forty dollars.”
“Forty bucks? Why — what’s the difference between principal and payoff balances?” I started feeling a little dumb.
“The payoff statement will show all the interest and fees.”
“What fees?”
“The close out fees.”
“What close out fees? How much are they?”
“I can’t give you that amount. Usually two-fifty to three-fifty.”
“Um, where’s the decimal point?”
She snorted, made me feel even dumber. “Two hundred fifty to three hundred fifty dollars.”
“Hundreds! What’s that for?”
“It’s to close out your loan. After all the fees are paid, in a month or so we will send out the Deed of Release and Reconveyance to the county.”
“I just want to pay off my house. I don’t want to pay all these extra, surprise fees. Have you any advice how I can get around them?”
This time she laughed at me. “You can’t. All servicing agents charge a closeout fee.”
You can imagine by this time I felt dumb and mad. ‘Servicing agent’? More like road agent. This company is holding my deed hostage.
Wait, it will get worse: Keith and Juanita have the same mortgage company. What is Juanita’s nickname…?
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Cate Mueller is a web designer, editor, reporter and photographer in Bouse, Arizona. To visit her website, click here.
Cate’s Column #17
Nov 22nd
Thanksgiving 2003 found me dry camping in the desert near Quartzsite in my travel trailer home. I woke to a clear blue sky with air so clean I could see forever. The solar corona appeared thrice its normal size and hurtled hot, white fire. A brisk breeze blew from the north so my back baked and my face froze, a contrast sharp as yin-yang.
Also in sharp contrast was where I planned to be on Thanksgiving — surrounded by thick gray fog, safe and warm in my big old farm house, sitting at a linen-draped table eating fancy food and watching the game — compared to where I was: Full-Time RVing. Things change!
An elderly couple named Sara and Curly who lived in a motorhome invited me to their Thanksgiving potluck. Curly bragged he was a chef announced his intention to deep-fry a turkey in a tall kettle balanced on some rocks near his RV.
Other guests included Chief (he lived in a camper), Slow Poke (conversion van), Bungee (no clue) — who walked by using a Bungee cord to move one foot — Sleepy and her husband, whom everyone called Jerk.
Conversation revolved around roads, RV repairs and rattlesnakes. I felt welcome, as if I was part of an odd gang.
Curly carefully lowered the turkey into the boiling oil, but then he just stood and stared down at it. Finally we started teasing him, laughing about how since nobody had TV we will, by golly, watch anything that moves.
“No, by golly,” Curly defended himself. “I’m a-waitin’ t’see if this thing’s gonna tip over. That breeze is a-pickin’ up.”
Chief saved the day. He found a folding windshield screen and duct-taped it to the front of Curly’s motorhome.
The wind grew steadily stronger and I found myself glad of the intense solar radiation on my back. The turkey smelled amazing. I tried not to drool.
Forty-five minutes later we dined al fresco on a perfectly cooked moist, tender, juicy, delicious turkey dinner. The only sound was clicking of dentures and forks on plates in the desert breeze.
I could not have imagined, or wished, a more delightful day. When we have less, we appreciate more.
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Cate Mueller is a web designer, editor, reporter and photographer in Bouse, Arizona. To visit her website, click here.
Cate’s Column #16
Nov 8th
A Little History: From Poaching to Patton
Here is a little treat in honor of Veteran’s Day for my fellow history buffs.
In 1837 Benjamin Davis Wilson left his home in Tennessee and headed west to try his luck as a fur trapper. He teamed up with the Workman Party and they attended a fur traders rendezvous in New Mexico Territory. The Workman brothers knew how to make alcohol and ordered parts for a still from New Orleans. The teamster who delivered the equipment was Kit Carson. The alcohol became known as Taos Lightning.
Later in Arizona Territory the Workman Party was captured while trapping beaver in the Apache’s world. They were tortured by an irritated Apache war chief named Mangas Coloradas. Coloradas slaughtered everyone except Wilson, perhaps hoping Wilson would warn other trappers to stay away from Apacheria.
Wilson continued west and married the daughter of a wealthy Californian. Wilson married well — very well! — as his bride’s dowry included much of Southern California. Wilson was a generous man and locals called him Don Benito — Sir Benevolent. His supporters elected him mayor of Los Angeles. Wilson’s legacy includes many Southern California landmarks; Mount Wilson, Mount Wilson Observatory, Wilson School, many roads, etc. And one more thing… .
Wilson’s esposa died and later he remarried. This wife bore him a daughter they named Ruth, who married a man named George. Their son was born November 11, 1885 and they named him George, too — George S. Patton, Jr.
A little more than 100 years after the start of my story General George S. Patton, Jr. (“Old Blood and Guts”) established the enormous Desert Training Center in April, 1942, covering much of the Mojave and Sonoran deserts. Camp Bouse was the most top secret of the 13 bases and is right here in our own back yard.
Everyone, thank a Veteran for our freedom this Friday!
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Cate Mueller is a web designer, editor, reporter and photographer in Bouse, Arizona. To visit her website, click here.
Cate’s Column #14
Sep 8th
Remembering 9/11
The September 11, 2001 attack on the World Trade Center is the “Kennedy assassination” moment of my generation. Let us take a moment and remember it together.
Where were you?
What did you do that day?
Looking back over the past 10 years, have the events of 9/11 changed your life?
Log in and share, or e-mail me your story cateqsite@yahoo.com.
I was driving to Sacramento early that Tuesday, the sun was just coming up behind my right shoulder. I had the car radio on and the morning personality was cracking jokes and being a general smart ass. But when he came back from a commercial break he said, “Well, two planes have just flown into — crashed into — the World Trade Towers in New York City. Back after this.”
I looked at the radio and said, “That wasn’t funny.”
National news claimed the airwaves and I listened to disheartening and disjointed reports all morning. When I finally got home later that afternoon I turned on the television and POW! Nothing, no number of news stories could have prepared me for what I saw.
I spent the rest of the day getting ready. I’m not sure for what, but I wanted to be prepared. I made sure all the vehicles’ gas tanks were full, arranged for a propane delivery and filled every spare container with water.
Ten years later I am still in Ready Mode. And I’m still not sure why.
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Cate Mueller is a web designer, editor, reporter and photographer in Bouse, Arizona. Take a moment now and email your 9/11 story to cateqsite@yahoo.com.
Cate’s Column #12
Aug 18th
AM Radio Fun
Remember the movie “American Graffiti” about life – and hot rods – in a small California town? I grew up in that one-horse town. We had exactly one local radio station, KFIV “K-5” AM and it formed the soundtrack of our lives. I remember as a teenybopper lugging around a tape recorder and radio and recording songs from the radio. We teenaged girls huddled around the radio and called the disc jockeys to request our favorite songs – over and over. When the DJs had call-in contests we hovered near the telephone, rotary-dial spinning fingers at the ready. I remember the elation we felt when we actually got through instead of hearing the endless busy signal bawp bawp bawps.
I won a little transistor radio for high points at a horse show and tied it to my saddle. Hoo-whee, was that fancy – a radio along for a ride. One of my long trail rides took me past the K-5 radio station building, way out in the boonies. I felt sure I would find Wolfman Jack hunched over the turntable if I went inside the studio. Alas, I was too shy.
Thirty-five years later I find myself again living in a rural, remote area with exactly one AM radio station, KLPZ AM, with live, local DJs (or is it CD-Js now?). Quite refreshing from the bodiless and boring classic rock stations dotting the FM band.
Flash back and flash forward to August 2011: KLPZ station owners Keith and Juanita Learn are having a contest to give away an Apple iPhone. When the DJs play Jimmy Buffett’s “Everybody’s On The Phone,” it’s time to make a mad dash for the telephone and call the radio station as quickly as possible to register an entry for the iPhone drawing. Telephones dial much quicker nowadays, but the thrill of connecting to a live DJ is exactly the same. Suddenly I’m that giddy teenager again!
My name is among the thousands in the big box quickly filling in anticipation for the August 25 drawing. My friends are teasing me about being a techno-saur and wondering what the heck I would do with an iPhone. Gee whiz, an old dog can learn new tricks.
Oh! Jimmy Buffett’s on the radio! Quick, where’s the phone?!
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Cate Mueller is a web designer, editor, reporter and photographer in Bouse, Arizona. To visit her website, click here.
Cate’s Column #11
Jul 21st
Busted…?
A long, long time ago in a yard far, far away…
My summer job was watering desert plants and looking after my snowbird neighbors’ homes while they were off enjoying cooler climes. My work vehicle was a bicycle, the basket stuffed with water bottles and house keys. My uniform was portable shade — a wide-brimmed straw hat, long sleeved white shirt and slacks. It didn’t matter to me how I looked; nobody was around to point and laugh.
One day I was dragging a hose in my silent world and heard an extremely loud BONNNNK! I dropped my hose and looked up to see a sheriff’s car. A hand appeared in the window and waved me over.
I trudged through the sand, wondering if someone needed directions.
“Sheriff, you scared me! Gee whiz, I didn’t realize anyone was watching me. I wasn’t picking my nose or anything, was I?”
“What’re you doing here?”
“Watering. I … .”
“No.” He interrupted. “What is your function here?”
“W-watering. I take care of some of my neighbors’ yards while they’re away. Why?”
“We’ve gotten some complaints about somebody going around turning off water.”
“Oh. Well, I turn ON water, so… .” I turned to go.
“What’s your name.”
“Cate Mueller.” What the heck?
“Date of birth. Got any ID, Cate Mueller?”
“ID? No. Why?”
“How do I know you’re who you say you are? You could be here to rob the place.”
“Riding a bicycle?”
The deputy radioed my information to central dispatch and had them check for wants and warrants on me. I waited patiently while the records check came back negative.
The deputy looked me up and down and said, “What’s your husband do?”
Ugh! Dang it, I forgot to reinstall my wedding ring after I slathered on sunscreen and now this guy was hitting on me. I prepared to give him a polite turn-down.
“I’m … not … .”
“Married?” He interrupted me again.
‘Interested!’ I was going to say, ‘I’m not interested’!
“Got a girlfriend?” he smirked.
“Sure.” My turn to smirk.
I let the silence hang for a while. “Look, I have a signed contract with the homeowner. I can go get it if you want.”
“Oh. Well, since you have a signed contract you just go right ahead. Go about your business.” The deputy waved me away and drove slowly off into the sunrise.
Days like that made me appreciate living in near-total isolation.
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Cate Mueller is a web designer, editor, reporter and photographer in Bouse, Arizona. To visit her website,click here.
Cate’s Column #10
Jul 13th
A powerful monsoon storm slammed into my neighborhood three miles northwest of Bouse Sunday evening, July 11th, 2011. Wind toppled tall trees, smashed windows, blew out metal garage doors, plucked coolers from rooftops, ripped awnings from houses and tore off a roof from a stick-built home.
“The wind was blowing the rain so hard it hurt,” reported that homeowner. “I went inside the garage to watch all the lightning and I saw something fly past my window. Then something much larger went flying past – I didn’t realize at the time it was my own garage roof! I didn’t even hear it go. The wind also took the roof off the kitchen.”
The roof is now a mangled mess of metal and lumber down hill from the home.
Aluminum panels littered the neighborhood, some flying for acres before wrapping around trees. Wind flattened several carports and uprooted many Mesquite and Palo Verde trees. Storage sheds and their contents were strewn everywhere.
Power poles along Highway 72 snapped, leaving electrical transformers dangling by wires or smashed on the ground.
As is usual for monsoon storms, the electricity goes out with the first big thunder blast. This time the power went off at 4 o’clock Sunday afternoon and was restored about 4 a.m. Tuesday. Kudos to the APS crew! Surveying the widespread jaw-dropping damage, I expected to be without power much longer than 36 hours.
Out here, no electricity means no running water (limited washing and no flushing – ew!), no air conditioning or telephone; much less modern delights such as television or the Internet. Taking nothing for granted!
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Cate Mueller is a web designer, editor, reporter and photographer in Bouse, Arizona. To visit her website,click here.
Cate’s Column #9
Jun 7th
A Salute to All Who Protect and Serve
I listened to Saturday’s Parker tube float play-by-play on the radio — the police scanner radio.
I salute all our law enforcement, medical and other officials who work so hard protecting and serving us. Heck, maybe that should be protecting — and saving — us from ourselves. My hat is off to our drivers, divers, dispatchers, EMTs and every one of you for your consummate professionalism, patience and polite manners in the face of so much rowdy behavior.
The calls I heard! A tuber too drunk to pry ass from tube. Underage consumption. Private dock trespassing. Drunk drivers. Drunk boaters. And one inappropriately dressed tuber screaming, “I don’t wanna to go to jail! I don’t wanna go to jail!”
Hysterical, by both definitions.
Not all the fun was in Parker; many of the calls came from traffic stops miles away on Interstate 10 and Arizona Highway 95. Whatever the situation our amazing officers maintained their professional demeanor. Very admirable!
Maybe the tubers’ antics were so funny because these are all the things we got away with in the 70s. At this point in my life, however, it’s more fun listening than participating. Call me a dud, but I can do without the hangover!
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Cate Mueller is a web designer, editor, reporter and photographer in Bouse, Arizona. To visit her website,click here.
