Bakersfield California
When wood gets wet it swells, and when it dries, it doesn’t unswell. Nevertheless, I have spent the entire day standing on the bubbles, in the hope that I will make a difference in our now bumpy lumpy floor, the product of a flood caused by my dwindling mental faculties.
Standing on the bubbles doesn’t work. Not that you shouldn’t try it.
The good news is that while our four-month-old floor will have to be replaced, our RV insurance apparently covers things like this. Oh Hallelujah. Oh thank you Jesus. Oh thank you Moses. We are equal opportunity thankers.
I guess you have to go a long way to stun an insurance company. The response I got was, “Oh, sure, okay, fine, just call the adjuster, yes, I know, no problem.”
It was the “No problem” that gave me hope again.
Not too many women/especially creative women get the chance to change up their creative choices after only four months. I feel I am blessed. The black floor they all warned me about … they were right. It was hard to keep shiny. It was easier than the rug to keep clean, but it wasn’t the easiest thing I could imagine. My next choice will be in a lighter color. Say, white. Or cream. I’ll let you know.
So hello from a much happier, less depressed bus girl who is currently stopped in Bakersfield, on her way to the estimate for services that will save her life and her bank account. Not to mention her marriage.
Not that I’ve stopped stepping on the bubbles. It’s the principle of the thing.
Wednesday, December 2, 2009
Tuesday, December 1, 2009
A Flood of Biblical Proportions
Route 101 South
San Jose, California
After a wonderful seven days in San Francisco, during which John had root canal, and Jeff worked astronomical hours, heroically biting the bullet to have dinner with us after a couple of 12-hour days, and I lost my reading glasses and Fedex lost the replacement pair I ordered, we are once again on the road.
My mother always counseled that it was a grievous error to put all your troubles on one plate, so I’m saving this last one for another paragraph.
It seems I went to wash my hands and couldn’t get any water. I jiggled the faucet up and down and up and down and up and got only a small drool. I called John’s name and there was no reply. He was outside washing the windshield and had turned off the water to the coach. No problem. I went to the kitchen, turned on the electric water pump, and washed my hands in the kitchen sink.
With brilliant powers of recall, after I’d washed my hands I turned the switch off so that the pump wouldn’t run and deplete our battery once he put the water back on. I congratulated myself on my foresight, deciding not to mention my brilliance to Mr. Superintendent of the Coach, lest I sound like an excited child bragging to Daddy that she’d finally learned to tie her shoes.
We left for the root canal. Later while we were getting our salt-encrusted car washed (we had been parked right on the water) John’s phone rang. It was the RV Park. Our rig was leaking. A neighbor had noticed, turned off the water and alerted the management. We hurried home.
Now re-read sentence two of paragraph three and you will see that I left the spigot in the bathroom in the up – as in the on – position. In the four hours that we’d been gone, the tap had been running continuously. It filled our grey water tank – which John had not turned to drain – then backed up through the shower, overflowing and flooding our shiny new black floor.
When we arrived, the water was off, the floor had a sluicing of water which we toweled up, and things seemed to be somewhat under control. Then we sat back and watched as the soaked pine under flooring slowly expanded, and pushed the beautiful new floor into a compromising position, with bubbles here, cracks there, and a strange new surface tension that made you feel like you were a little kid in one of those ball tents people rent for rich kids’ birthday parties.
This morning at 5 I awoke with a start and realized that if the sub floor was soaked, then the storage below was likely soaked too. And I was right. The only real casualties were my new suitcase and all my summer clothes in the cloth suitcase next to it. I will have quite a laundry load when we get to our next campground. I hauled both suitcases out of the bus and put them in the back of the car to dry – along with one of Jeff’s Christmas gifts, which I pray is not damaged inside its box.
So Nick, you wanted me to let you know what I was up to. I’d say, up to my knees and the water’s receding. We’ll stop at a couple of body shops and see if we need to replace the entire floor, or if we can get away with just the worst affected tiles. Meanwhile, we’re both wondering if we have homeowner’s insurance included in our RV policy.
Another dear friend suggested I might want to quit this RV living and get a real house.
Right. If you’re going to ruin a floor, you might as well flood a really big expensive one made of oh, I don't know, some rare African wood and make it worth your while. No, I'm much too dangerous at this point in my life.
And now, I’m going to go stand on a bump. Don’t laugh. It could work.
San Jose, California
After a wonderful seven days in San Francisco, during which John had root canal, and Jeff worked astronomical hours, heroically biting the bullet to have dinner with us after a couple of 12-hour days, and I lost my reading glasses and Fedex lost the replacement pair I ordered, we are once again on the road.
My mother always counseled that it was a grievous error to put all your troubles on one plate, so I’m saving this last one for another paragraph.
It seems I went to wash my hands and couldn’t get any water. I jiggled the faucet up and down and up and down and up and got only a small drool. I called John’s name and there was no reply. He was outside washing the windshield and had turned off the water to the coach. No problem. I went to the kitchen, turned on the electric water pump, and washed my hands in the kitchen sink.
With brilliant powers of recall, after I’d washed my hands I turned the switch off so that the pump wouldn’t run and deplete our battery once he put the water back on. I congratulated myself on my foresight, deciding not to mention my brilliance to Mr. Superintendent of the Coach, lest I sound like an excited child bragging to Daddy that she’d finally learned to tie her shoes.
We left for the root canal. Later while we were getting our salt-encrusted car washed (we had been parked right on the water) John’s phone rang. It was the RV Park. Our rig was leaking. A neighbor had noticed, turned off the water and alerted the management. We hurried home.
Now re-read sentence two of paragraph three and you will see that I left the spigot in the bathroom in the up – as in the on – position. In the four hours that we’d been gone, the tap had been running continuously. It filled our grey water tank – which John had not turned to drain – then backed up through the shower, overflowing and flooding our shiny new black floor.
When we arrived, the water was off, the floor had a sluicing of water which we toweled up, and things seemed to be somewhat under control. Then we sat back and watched as the soaked pine under flooring slowly expanded, and pushed the beautiful new floor into a compromising position, with bubbles here, cracks there, and a strange new surface tension that made you feel like you were a little kid in one of those ball tents people rent for rich kids’ birthday parties.
This morning at 5 I awoke with a start and realized that if the sub floor was soaked, then the storage below was likely soaked too. And I was right. The only real casualties were my new suitcase and all my summer clothes in the cloth suitcase next to it. I will have quite a laundry load when we get to our next campground. I hauled both suitcases out of the bus and put them in the back of the car to dry – along with one of Jeff’s Christmas gifts, which I pray is not damaged inside its box.
So Nick, you wanted me to let you know what I was up to. I’d say, up to my knees and the water’s receding. We’ll stop at a couple of body shops and see if we need to replace the entire floor, or if we can get away with just the worst affected tiles. Meanwhile, we’re both wondering if we have homeowner’s insurance included in our RV policy.
Another dear friend suggested I might want to quit this RV living and get a real house.
Right. If you’re going to ruin a floor, you might as well flood a really big expensive one made of oh, I don't know, some rare African wood and make it worth your while. No, I'm much too dangerous at this point in my life.
And now, I’m going to go stand on a bump. Don’t laugh. It could work.
Thursday, November 26, 2009
Where in the World Am I
Happy Thanksgiving everybody. My good friend and erstwhile conscience, Nick Nardullo, told me today that I had a responsibility to let my friends know where I am on a regular basis.
I allowed as I hadn't had much to say in recent weeks, but he allowed as that was just a lame excuse for laziness and as long as I had started this blogging thing I had an obligation to keep it up. He, at least, was using it as a method for tracking my madness.
So here I am to fill you in on the meanderings of the two nutjobs living in a bus. We went from a Lake Tahoe vacation with Jeff in mid October and drove north as far as Sequim Washington. Stayed a couple of days in Portland, then Bend, Oregon, Shasta, California, and at some point stopped one night for dinner in SF with Jeff, then headed down to Pismo Beach in early November for a nice stay of a week, after which we took a second week in Pacific Dunes in Oceano, the town below Pismo. I did write a blog about Pismo and Dirty Ernie, and except for my brother Richard and my sister Sue, I don't think anyone else in the world has any idea what I was talking about. Ah well. You had to live in our house growing up to understand. We did "bits" at the dinner table -- everything from Dirty Ernie to Gabby Hayes to Uncle Miltie. No wonder half my family is in the theater -- and the rest of us wish we were.
On November 23 we headed north to Pacifica, the town just below SF, where we are in close proximity to Jeff and Keith, his roommate since college, who happens to be a major cook. We'll go to their house at 1:00 today and with 7 friends, partake of over 20 different dishes, then sit back with bursting stomachs and watch football, more football and more football. I may bring a book.
I promise to be better about locating myself. Nick said, "Just write a sentence. One sentence! Just let us know where you are."
Obviously, this is an impossibility for me. But I'll try. God knows, I'll try.
I allowed as I hadn't had much to say in recent weeks, but he allowed as that was just a lame excuse for laziness and as long as I had started this blogging thing I had an obligation to keep it up. He, at least, was using it as a method for tracking my madness.
So here I am to fill you in on the meanderings of the two nutjobs living in a bus. We went from a Lake Tahoe vacation with Jeff in mid October and drove north as far as Sequim Washington. Stayed a couple of days in Portland, then Bend, Oregon, Shasta, California, and at some point stopped one night for dinner in SF with Jeff, then headed down to Pismo Beach in early November for a nice stay of a week, after which we took a second week in Pacific Dunes in Oceano, the town below Pismo. I did write a blog about Pismo and Dirty Ernie, and except for my brother Richard and my sister Sue, I don't think anyone else in the world has any idea what I was talking about. Ah well. You had to live in our house growing up to understand. We did "bits" at the dinner table -- everything from Dirty Ernie to Gabby Hayes to Uncle Miltie. No wonder half my family is in the theater -- and the rest of us wish we were.
On November 23 we headed north to Pacifica, the town just below SF, where we are in close proximity to Jeff and Keith, his roommate since college, who happens to be a major cook. We'll go to their house at 1:00 today and with 7 friends, partake of over 20 different dishes, then sit back with bursting stomachs and watch football, more football and more football. I may bring a book.
I promise to be better about locating myself. Nick said, "Just write a sentence. One sentence! Just let us know where you are."
Obviously, this is an impossibility for me. But I'll try. God knows, I'll try.
Wednesday, November 11, 2009
There Ought To Be a Law
Pismo Beach, California
(Why are all California beaches foggy and rainy when I get there?)
We drove the 220 or so miles from San Francisco to Paso Robles today, planning to stop at Pismo Beach for the night. And if the phrase “Dirty Ernie” just popped into your head, you and I are the same age, and if you didn’t, then you missed one of the funnier bits in early television. Sid Miller was partners with Donald O’Connor, and earned himself several appearances on The Colgate Comedy Hour, where he did a drunken monologue about “Dirty Ernie” who never did show up at Pismo Beach. John remembers the one Dragnet show he was on, and neither of us knew that he directed a lot of the Mickey Mouse Club. But I digress.
After yesterday, a day of living Hell on the twisting, steep and narrow roads through the mountains and along the coast of Northern California –- which netted us a broken tree limb wrapped around a rear wheel, an exhaust pipe packed with fresh dirt, a car with a frozen steering wheel and a road of no return that twisted unceasingly up the side of a mountain and was all of one lane wide -- we opted for a nice, recently paved, wide road south. That put us on the 101, otherwise known as El Camino Real.
South of San Jose, the road takes up residence in the most beautiful valley in California, between the Coast Ranges on the left, and the Santa Lucia Mountains on the right. It is one of the most productive farming areas in the State and I couldn’t get over how big the farms were. There was a 20-mile stretch of beautiful brown dirt, nurtured, rich, and ready for planting. There were miles of vineyards, acres of avocados, and hectares of artichokes, in other words, lots of So-Cal produce. Not so many oranges; it isn’t all that southerly. We saw many more fruit trees around Los Angeles.
I saw big stretches of one type of plant ready for harvesting, a vegetable I presumed, with an abundance of raggedy-edged leaves. John guessed arugula, but I didn’t think so. Then we spied a group of farm workers standing around a makeshift table and lopping off the raggedy leaves to reveal – cauliflower. Had I not seen that tableau, I would never have known what it was. Which leads me to the point of this story, which is, I think they ought to make it a law that every farmer in America must plainly identify the crop being grown.
Think of how many accidents could be avoided if people like me didn’t have to go abruptly from 65 mph to 15 to get a better look at what’s peeking up from the ground.
Think of all the intellectual discussions that could go on as a result. Geez, Louise, I didn’t know artichokes grew like that! Or, say, Cornelius, how do they get those grapevines to twist around those little stakes? Or even, why the Hell are they growing so much damn cauliflower?
Now don’t get me wrong. I don’t hate cauliflower. I like it raw, with globs of onion dip all over it, so you can’t taste it. Occasionally, I like it cooked, as long as it’s creamed, with lots of butter and cheese, so you can’t taste it.
Cauliflower goes into my reject bin along with those little cabbage thingies, what the heck are they called anyway? Brussels sprouts, that’s it. They don’t look like sprouting anything, and they don’t taste like schnitzel, so what’s up with that name. No wonder I can never remember it. And oh yes, Swiss chard is in there too.
Beets are another polarizing vegetable, as is broccoli, isn’t it, Mr. Bush. I love both, but my son Jeff knows that my worst attempt at parenting happened because of beets. I actually made him sit in front of a plate with two tiny slices of beet for over 45 minutes one night just because he wouldn’t put even one half a slice in his mouth. Why winning that test of wills was so important to me, I can’t say.
But I was paid back in spades last night, when Jeff – who never ate anything green, crunchy or for that matter, healthy, when he was growing up – took us out for sushi and insisted on ordering. I ended up eating the “Two Spoons” appetizer, one of which held a glob of uni – horrid yellow stuff – and a raw quail egg. Payback is wonderful isn’t it, son? To be truthful, it was delicious.
I just smothered it in butter and cheese, added a dash of onion dip, held my nose, and swallowed the thing whole.
Betty
(Why are all California beaches foggy and rainy when I get there?)
We drove the 220 or so miles from San Francisco to Paso Robles today, planning to stop at Pismo Beach for the night. And if the phrase “Dirty Ernie” just popped into your head, you and I are the same age, and if you didn’t, then you missed one of the funnier bits in early television. Sid Miller was partners with Donald O’Connor, and earned himself several appearances on The Colgate Comedy Hour, where he did a drunken monologue about “Dirty Ernie” who never did show up at Pismo Beach. John remembers the one Dragnet show he was on, and neither of us knew that he directed a lot of the Mickey Mouse Club. But I digress.
After yesterday, a day of living Hell on the twisting, steep and narrow roads through the mountains and along the coast of Northern California –- which netted us a broken tree limb wrapped around a rear wheel, an exhaust pipe packed with fresh dirt, a car with a frozen steering wheel and a road of no return that twisted unceasingly up the side of a mountain and was all of one lane wide -- we opted for a nice, recently paved, wide road south. That put us on the 101, otherwise known as El Camino Real.
South of San Jose, the road takes up residence in the most beautiful valley in California, between the Coast Ranges on the left, and the Santa Lucia Mountains on the right. It is one of the most productive farming areas in the State and I couldn’t get over how big the farms were. There was a 20-mile stretch of beautiful brown dirt, nurtured, rich, and ready for planting. There were miles of vineyards, acres of avocados, and hectares of artichokes, in other words, lots of So-Cal produce. Not so many oranges; it isn’t all that southerly. We saw many more fruit trees around Los Angeles.
I saw big stretches of one type of plant ready for harvesting, a vegetable I presumed, with an abundance of raggedy-edged leaves. John guessed arugula, but I didn’t think so. Then we spied a group of farm workers standing around a makeshift table and lopping off the raggedy leaves to reveal – cauliflower. Had I not seen that tableau, I would never have known what it was. Which leads me to the point of this story, which is, I think they ought to make it a law that every farmer in America must plainly identify the crop being grown.
Think of how many accidents could be avoided if people like me didn’t have to go abruptly from 65 mph to 15 to get a better look at what’s peeking up from the ground.
Think of all the intellectual discussions that could go on as a result. Geez, Louise, I didn’t know artichokes grew like that! Or, say, Cornelius, how do they get those grapevines to twist around those little stakes? Or even, why the Hell are they growing so much damn cauliflower?
Now don’t get me wrong. I don’t hate cauliflower. I like it raw, with globs of onion dip all over it, so you can’t taste it. Occasionally, I like it cooked, as long as it’s creamed, with lots of butter and cheese, so you can’t taste it.
Cauliflower goes into my reject bin along with those little cabbage thingies, what the heck are they called anyway? Brussels sprouts, that’s it. They don’t look like sprouting anything, and they don’t taste like schnitzel, so what’s up with that name. No wonder I can never remember it. And oh yes, Swiss chard is in there too.
Beets are another polarizing vegetable, as is broccoli, isn’t it, Mr. Bush. I love both, but my son Jeff knows that my worst attempt at parenting happened because of beets. I actually made him sit in front of a plate with two tiny slices of beet for over 45 minutes one night just because he wouldn’t put even one half a slice in his mouth. Why winning that test of wills was so important to me, I can’t say.
But I was paid back in spades last night, when Jeff – who never ate anything green, crunchy or for that matter, healthy, when he was growing up – took us out for sushi and insisted on ordering. I ended up eating the “Two Spoons” appetizer, one of which held a glob of uni – horrid yellow stuff – and a raw quail egg. Payback is wonderful isn’t it, son? To be truthful, it was delicious.
I just smothered it in butter and cheese, added a dash of onion dip, held my nose, and swallowed the thing whole.
Betty
Friday, October 30, 2009
Baby for Breakfast
Prospect, OR
Crater Lake Campground
Today we popped into Prospect Oregon's one diner, next to its one bar, next to its one grocery and its one hotel (!) and ordered an 11 o'clock breakfast. The place was empty; a waitress riffled through a stack of newspapers and took a couple of sections into the bathroom. Our waitress, a really pretty, heavyset woman in her late 30's, told us breakfast was cut off at 11, and the cook had just cleaned the grill.
We acknowledged his hard work, but told her it was eggs or nothing and we'd just pay for the coffee. She went back to the kitchen for the third time, and on her return she allowed as how the cook was willing to make us breakfast.
Fine. John was annoyed, I was amused and the waitress was delighted. She'd been able to get the cook to change his mind, although he'd probably be mad at her for the rest of the day. A couple of customers came and went, hunters from the look of things. Our breakfast finally emerged, and was served with a big smile. A few minutes later, the waitress returned to our table. She was carrying a photograph.
"Wanna see my baby?" she asked, coyly. She handed the picture to John, and he passed it to me without comment.
There she was, kneeling beside a huge deer, its rack enormous, its forehead bloody. "My first buck," she said, proudly. "He's my baby."
Lady, you just murdered this magnificent creature and you're calling him your baby?
Eeuw. I looked down at the homemade sausage that I'd sampled. It definitely wasn't pork. I think we were having baby for breakfast.
Oregon. It ain't California.
Crater Lake Campground
Today we popped into Prospect Oregon's one diner, next to its one bar, next to its one grocery and its one hotel (!) and ordered an 11 o'clock breakfast. The place was empty; a waitress riffled through a stack of newspapers and took a couple of sections into the bathroom. Our waitress, a really pretty, heavyset woman in her late 30's, told us breakfast was cut off at 11, and the cook had just cleaned the grill.
We acknowledged his hard work, but told her it was eggs or nothing and we'd just pay for the coffee. She went back to the kitchen for the third time, and on her return she allowed as how the cook was willing to make us breakfast.
Fine. John was annoyed, I was amused and the waitress was delighted. She'd been able to get the cook to change his mind, although he'd probably be mad at her for the rest of the day. A couple of customers came and went, hunters from the look of things. Our breakfast finally emerged, and was served with a big smile. A few minutes later, the waitress returned to our table. She was carrying a photograph.
"Wanna see my baby?" she asked, coyly. She handed the picture to John, and he passed it to me without comment.
There she was, kneeling beside a huge deer, its rack enormous, its forehead bloody. "My first buck," she said, proudly. "He's my baby."
Lady, you just murdered this magnificent creature and you're calling him your baby?
Eeuw. I looked down at the homemade sausage that I'd sampled. It definitely wasn't pork. I think we were having baby for breakfast.
Oregon. It ain't California.
Saturday, October 17, 2009
Mojave Thoughts
Bakersfield, CA
Driving across the desert is the equivalent of a morning shower. Now, now, hear me out. The shower is solitary, quiet and somewhat boring, so I do all my best thinking there. The desert is solitary, quiet and really boring, so as I was driving along the 239-mile stretch of open, dusty road from Barstow to Bakersfield, I began to mentally wander.
Some idle thoughts: The Mojave is dry and dusty. It makes the word arid sound moist.
I talked to my son briefly, and he informed me I needed to say the word Mojave right. He contended that it was Moh-Jav. I’m not that gullible, Heff.
Not one hour after having our coach washed in Barstow to the tune of $52, we drove through a swarm of bees. We scored 25 direct hits and countless ricochets. The only thing that makes it worthwhile is that everyone has suffered the same buggy insult, including that annoying vintage T-Bird who passed me on the right and then had the nerve to honk at me for being in the left lane. I would have moved over, but there was an idiot next to me.
We pass a Frito-Lay truck and the driver is eating a sandwich. I think to myself, “I wonder if he’s having chips with that.”
This desert doesn’t look like my idea of a desert. I have a pristine vision in my head: miles and miles of white, sparkling sand, impossible to walk on without snowshoes, but great if you’re on a horse. I guess I’m Lawrence of Arabia. This desert is brown sandy dirt, with brown mountains on the horizon and scrub in all shades of brown.
(The next morning, another wanderer told us to take 99 North to Tahoe for some great scenery. Then he added the clincher. A two-lane road through the desert. Uh, I don’t think so.)
On passing Tehachapi, I think that the language of the Native Americans, with all its iiiii’s and breath stops between syllables is a lot like Welsh with all its consonants and braubrichthinwhichglaglydds that are equally impossible to decipher. So do you suppose the Navajo could learn Welsh faster than we not-native Americans?
Some seventy miles into the Mojave stands a sign that reads, “Land for Sale.” Why? Who would buy some desert? For what purpose? And have they experienced a drop in property values like the rest of us? Could you get it for a real steal?
We pass Edwards Air Force Base, and I notice brand-new tar roads on either side of the highway. What’s up with that? Why would anyone put a black tar road in one of the hottest places in the country? Today it’s 104 and this is Mid-October. When I was a little girl I stepped in tar in the Jones Beach parking lot and was burned so badly the whole car of us had to turn around and go home. Then I realize. This isn’t a road. It’s human fly paper, designed to catch and severely maim any terrorists who might be thinking they’d invade Edwards and stage a coup from there. I feel so much safer now.
After miles of nothing, we hit a town. Eighteen tin shacks, one stop light, and 468 truck, car and washing machine carcasses. What do they produce here? Rust? Then my appetite for the comic is sated when I spot the single store in town. A lean-to with a Coke machine out front. It called The Emporium.
Why do they close rest stops? All they are is a pull-off from the road. Are they trying to get us to rest less and exercise more?
In Tehachapi, amid the miles and miles of brown, there is a swath of green that is surrounded by 16 tall green cypresses. I was so curious at this anomaly that I went on line to find out. Nothing about the curious little park and how it got there. I did, however, learn that Tehachapi’s biggest industry is the California State Correctional Institution. The thought passes through my mind: free labor?
As we head through the last pass through the mountains, I leave the desert and head into one of California’s famous valleys where riots of nuts, fruits and wine grapes are happily growing. So why, I wonder, in the middle of all this lush greenery, is there a town called Weedpatch? Isn't that just a little counterintuitive? Would you want a beautiful orange from Weedpatch?
That thought has barely left my head when I spot two leathery looking men beneath beach umbrellas fishing in a man-made canal. What would they catch? Fish sticks?
Betty
Driving across the desert is the equivalent of a morning shower. Now, now, hear me out. The shower is solitary, quiet and somewhat boring, so I do all my best thinking there. The desert is solitary, quiet and really boring, so as I was driving along the 239-mile stretch of open, dusty road from Barstow to Bakersfield, I began to mentally wander.
Some idle thoughts: The Mojave is dry and dusty. It makes the word arid sound moist.
I talked to my son briefly, and he informed me I needed to say the word Mojave right. He contended that it was Moh-Jav. I’m not that gullible, Heff.
Not one hour after having our coach washed in Barstow to the tune of $52, we drove through a swarm of bees. We scored 25 direct hits and countless ricochets. The only thing that makes it worthwhile is that everyone has suffered the same buggy insult, including that annoying vintage T-Bird who passed me on the right and then had the nerve to honk at me for being in the left lane. I would have moved over, but there was an idiot next to me.
We pass a Frito-Lay truck and the driver is eating a sandwich. I think to myself, “I wonder if he’s having chips with that.”
This desert doesn’t look like my idea of a desert. I have a pristine vision in my head: miles and miles of white, sparkling sand, impossible to walk on without snowshoes, but great if you’re on a horse. I guess I’m Lawrence of Arabia. This desert is brown sandy dirt, with brown mountains on the horizon and scrub in all shades of brown.
(The next morning, another wanderer told us to take 99 North to Tahoe for some great scenery. Then he added the clincher. A two-lane road through the desert. Uh, I don’t think so.)
On passing Tehachapi, I think that the language of the Native Americans, with all its iiiii’s and breath stops between syllables is a lot like Welsh with all its consonants and braubrichthinwhichglaglydds that are equally impossible to decipher. So do you suppose the Navajo could learn Welsh faster than we not-native Americans?
Some seventy miles into the Mojave stands a sign that reads, “Land for Sale.” Why? Who would buy some desert? For what purpose? And have they experienced a drop in property values like the rest of us? Could you get it for a real steal?
We pass Edwards Air Force Base, and I notice brand-new tar roads on either side of the highway. What’s up with that? Why would anyone put a black tar road in one of the hottest places in the country? Today it’s 104 and this is Mid-October. When I was a little girl I stepped in tar in the Jones Beach parking lot and was burned so badly the whole car of us had to turn around and go home. Then I realize. This isn’t a road. It’s human fly paper, designed to catch and severely maim any terrorists who might be thinking they’d invade Edwards and stage a coup from there. I feel so much safer now.
After miles of nothing, we hit a town. Eighteen tin shacks, one stop light, and 468 truck, car and washing machine carcasses. What do they produce here? Rust? Then my appetite for the comic is sated when I spot the single store in town. A lean-to with a Coke machine out front. It called The Emporium.
Why do they close rest stops? All they are is a pull-off from the road. Are they trying to get us to rest less and exercise more?
In Tehachapi, amid the miles and miles of brown, there is a swath of green that is surrounded by 16 tall green cypresses. I was so curious at this anomaly that I went on line to find out. Nothing about the curious little park and how it got there. I did, however, learn that Tehachapi’s biggest industry is the California State Correctional Institution. The thought passes through my mind: free labor?
As we head through the last pass through the mountains, I leave the desert and head into one of California’s famous valleys where riots of nuts, fruits and wine grapes are happily growing. So why, I wonder, in the middle of all this lush greenery, is there a town called Weedpatch? Isn't that just a little counterintuitive? Would you want a beautiful orange from Weedpatch?
That thought has barely left my head when I spot two leathery looking men beneath beach umbrellas fishing in a man-made canal. What would they catch? Fish sticks?
Betty
Thursday, October 15, 2009
Getting High in Albuquerque
October 3-11, 2009
Now I don’t say this lightly.
Actually, I do say it lightly, because this is about balloons. Not little balloons. Big, no, enormous balloons. We were fortunate enough to get to the Albuquerque Balloon Fiesta this year.
Oh what glorious blue skies they have in New Mexico. And to see them filled with floating, drifting, bobbing bacchanalia is to feel your heart burst from your chest and float straight up, untethered by life’s concerns. The fiesta producers called the 2009 Fiesta, “Mass Happiness.” They were right.
Imagine dragging yourself from your bed on a chilly desert morning, well before the sun, well before anything should be moving except the bedsprings. Imagine dressing without your usual shower because you just had to get outside. You put on jeans and a tee shirt, and then you add a long-sleeved shirt, socks, a windbreaker, scarf, gloves, earmuffs and you grab a cuppa joe because you won’t stay warm without it. What could make you do such a thing?
Dawn patrol, that’s what. In the dark of the earliest morning, two balloons would hoist themselves up to greet the rising sun. They would carry American flags, and suddenly the Star Spangled Banner would play over the omnipresent loudspeakers. Over 5000 people as crazy as you would clap wildly, as the balloons drifted overhead and the pilots took measure of the wind. That is the real reason for Dawn Patrol: to gauge the wind velocity and direction for the rest of the balloonists. Nevertheless, the moment always caused me to hold my breath.
Before long, the field, roughly the size of several football fields, would begin to develop a riot of lumpy, bumpy protuberances you hadn’t noticed before. Big mounds of colorful marshmallows, swelling and bobbing where before there had only been flat fabric, easy to overlook. Now they were demanding their piece of the atmosphere as they filled with gas and assumed their shapes.
One by one, they’d fire up, the heat of the fires causing the gas to expand and send them skyward in a slow aerobic ballet. Each balloon has one or two pilots and by my count about 20 handlers. Many are volunteers who come for the sheer joy of holding a guide rope in the freezing cold so the balloon stays in place until it is time to let go. Many get team jackets to wear. All are smiling. Now I understand what it is to be in a job whose only purpose is to make people happy.
At this point, you are probably imagining a sky full of colorful light-bulb shapes. But what is this that’s floating by? Pepe le Pew? A giant can of Pepsi? A United Van Lines truck? Two balloons, or I should say two bees, kissing? These are the special shapes balloons, wonderful variations that are generally bigger than the average balloon. Especially the Parthenon. No kidding. There really was a Parthenon balloon. And the space shuttle, a stagecoach, a huge chicken and a scarecrow (they usually flew together), the perfect clown head, and hundreds of other crowd-pleasers. There’s a competition every year, and this year it was won by the Creamland Dairy, whose entry was an enormous cow that dwarfed its competition and charmed the crowd. How they got that thing up every morning is still a mystery to me.
The biggest cheer, however, came when Darth Vader took off. The movies’ biggest villain always arose to a claxon of approval. “I am your father, Luke. And a balloon.”
Once you’d had your fill of fun, some two hours later, it would be time to venture down onto the field. We had VIP parking, high on a ridge above the field, so that our view of the skies was uninterrupted. But now it would be time to join the day-trippers for a stroll on the midway. Two facing rows of white tents housed vendor row, where people could get breakfast burritos, curly fries, mini donuts fresh out of the cooker, ice cream, chalupas, sopapillas, baked potatoes, free beer!, coffee, hot chocolate, funnel cakes, corn dogs and all the usual carny fare that is so bad for you and so impossible to resist.
There were tee shirts, sweaters, hats, mittens and gloves to be had. Jewelry, both real and fake, made in China, and made on the reservation. And pins. Oh the pins. The big thing at the festival is pin-collecting. Lapel pins, priced from $3 to $300 for the ones from years gone by. Most of the balloons were represented, and Darth Vader sold out on the first day. If you were nutty enough, you could buy a silly hat – a Cat in the Hat, or an oversized top hat, or a Viking hat, or a big Rasta topper – and cover it with the pins you’ve collected. Some jackets covered with pins must have weighed a hundred pounds.
And everywhere you went, any time of the day or night, all would be mellow. Can you imagine somewhere between five and ten thousand people all walking around with dopey grins, even if their kids were wailing, and saying “Excuse me, sorry” if they so much as ruffled the sleeve of your jacket as they passed? Balloons are a natural high.
Midway along the midway, you’d have taken off your jacket, because the sun had warmed the morning and unfrozen your fingers. You might venture over to the Balloon Museum, where you’d learn that ballooning originated in France in the 1700’s and was used commercially for a time. It was the first time ever that man had conquered the skies, so that in itself was a pretty big deal. Some more-industrial nations adopted ballooning fairly early on, but Japan never had its first balloon until 1969. Go figure.
The most famous balloon, of course, was the Hindenberg, but this is a happy chapter, so we’ll leave that alone.
Once your arthritic knee couldn’t take another drubbing, you’d head back up the hill to your motor coach for a hot shower and some down time. But of course, there are the Albuquerque sights to see, so you wouldn’t stay on the couch for long. Besides, whatever you had to do had to be done by 5, because that’s when the cocktail hour started, and preparation for the Glowdeo commenced. The Glowdeo is the twilight event, where the balloons are inflated but stay earthbound, and as soon as it is dark enough, the rodeo master commences the countdown and the fires are lit, illuminating all the balloons for about ten seconds and causing oohs and aahs that will be repeated at 9 o’clock, when the fireworks, as spectacular as any I’ve ever seen, start. You’d walk the field during the Glowdeo and see the balloons close up. They’re much bigger than you imagine and you can talk with the pilots, and ask about the balloons. Kids run around collecting balloon cards, like baseball cards, from each team.
I made the biggest gaffe of the week when I went up to one balloon’s crew and asked if the Koshare (ko-sha-ree) was a Japanese cartoon character. After some good-natured kidding delivered in a faux Asian accent, the pilot, an Albuquerque native, informed me that the Koshare was a Native American totem, a mischievous character who represented fun and good times. Ooops. Kachina, not Pachinko.
And so to bed. You’d retire early, because tomorrow was another day, because you’d now been up and about for 18 hours straight and because with all that heavenly wonder still rumbling around in your brain, the last thing you needed to do was to watch television.
You’d already made your own kind of magic, and Letterman just wouldn’t cut it. Not tonight anyway.
Betty
Now I don’t say this lightly.
Actually, I do say it lightly, because this is about balloons. Not little balloons. Big, no, enormous balloons. We were fortunate enough to get to the Albuquerque Balloon Fiesta this year.
Oh what glorious blue skies they have in New Mexico. And to see them filled with floating, drifting, bobbing bacchanalia is to feel your heart burst from your chest and float straight up, untethered by life’s concerns. The fiesta producers called the 2009 Fiesta, “Mass Happiness.” They were right.
Imagine dragging yourself from your bed on a chilly desert morning, well before the sun, well before anything should be moving except the bedsprings. Imagine dressing without your usual shower because you just had to get outside. You put on jeans and a tee shirt, and then you add a long-sleeved shirt, socks, a windbreaker, scarf, gloves, earmuffs and you grab a cuppa joe because you won’t stay warm without it. What could make you do such a thing?
Dawn patrol, that’s what. In the dark of the earliest morning, two balloons would hoist themselves up to greet the rising sun. They would carry American flags, and suddenly the Star Spangled Banner would play over the omnipresent loudspeakers. Over 5000 people as crazy as you would clap wildly, as the balloons drifted overhead and the pilots took measure of the wind. That is the real reason for Dawn Patrol: to gauge the wind velocity and direction for the rest of the balloonists. Nevertheless, the moment always caused me to hold my breath.
Before long, the field, roughly the size of several football fields, would begin to develop a riot of lumpy, bumpy protuberances you hadn’t noticed before. Big mounds of colorful marshmallows, swelling and bobbing where before there had only been flat fabric, easy to overlook. Now they were demanding their piece of the atmosphere as they filled with gas and assumed their shapes.
One by one, they’d fire up, the heat of the fires causing the gas to expand and send them skyward in a slow aerobic ballet. Each balloon has one or two pilots and by my count about 20 handlers. Many are volunteers who come for the sheer joy of holding a guide rope in the freezing cold so the balloon stays in place until it is time to let go. Many get team jackets to wear. All are smiling. Now I understand what it is to be in a job whose only purpose is to make people happy.
At this point, you are probably imagining a sky full of colorful light-bulb shapes. But what is this that’s floating by? Pepe le Pew? A giant can of Pepsi? A United Van Lines truck? Two balloons, or I should say two bees, kissing? These are the special shapes balloons, wonderful variations that are generally bigger than the average balloon. Especially the Parthenon. No kidding. There really was a Parthenon balloon. And the space shuttle, a stagecoach, a huge chicken and a scarecrow (they usually flew together), the perfect clown head, and hundreds of other crowd-pleasers. There’s a competition every year, and this year it was won by the Creamland Dairy, whose entry was an enormous cow that dwarfed its competition and charmed the crowd. How they got that thing up every morning is still a mystery to me.
The biggest cheer, however, came when Darth Vader took off. The movies’ biggest villain always arose to a claxon of approval. “I am your father, Luke. And a balloon.”
Once you’d had your fill of fun, some two hours later, it would be time to venture down onto the field. We had VIP parking, high on a ridge above the field, so that our view of the skies was uninterrupted. But now it would be time to join the day-trippers for a stroll on the midway. Two facing rows of white tents housed vendor row, where people could get breakfast burritos, curly fries, mini donuts fresh out of the cooker, ice cream, chalupas, sopapillas, baked potatoes, free beer!, coffee, hot chocolate, funnel cakes, corn dogs and all the usual carny fare that is so bad for you and so impossible to resist.
There were tee shirts, sweaters, hats, mittens and gloves to be had. Jewelry, both real and fake, made in China, and made on the reservation. And pins. Oh the pins. The big thing at the festival is pin-collecting. Lapel pins, priced from $3 to $300 for the ones from years gone by. Most of the balloons were represented, and Darth Vader sold out on the first day. If you were nutty enough, you could buy a silly hat – a Cat in the Hat, or an oversized top hat, or a Viking hat, or a big Rasta topper – and cover it with the pins you’ve collected. Some jackets covered with pins must have weighed a hundred pounds.
And everywhere you went, any time of the day or night, all would be mellow. Can you imagine somewhere between five and ten thousand people all walking around with dopey grins, even if their kids were wailing, and saying “Excuse me, sorry” if they so much as ruffled the sleeve of your jacket as they passed? Balloons are a natural high.
Midway along the midway, you’d have taken off your jacket, because the sun had warmed the morning and unfrozen your fingers. You might venture over to the Balloon Museum, where you’d learn that ballooning originated in France in the 1700’s and was used commercially for a time. It was the first time ever that man had conquered the skies, so that in itself was a pretty big deal. Some more-industrial nations adopted ballooning fairly early on, but Japan never had its first balloon until 1969. Go figure.
The most famous balloon, of course, was the Hindenberg, but this is a happy chapter, so we’ll leave that alone.
Once your arthritic knee couldn’t take another drubbing, you’d head back up the hill to your motor coach for a hot shower and some down time. But of course, there are the Albuquerque sights to see, so you wouldn’t stay on the couch for long. Besides, whatever you had to do had to be done by 5, because that’s when the cocktail hour started, and preparation for the Glowdeo commenced. The Glowdeo is the twilight event, where the balloons are inflated but stay earthbound, and as soon as it is dark enough, the rodeo master commences the countdown and the fires are lit, illuminating all the balloons for about ten seconds and causing oohs and aahs that will be repeated at 9 o’clock, when the fireworks, as spectacular as any I’ve ever seen, start. You’d walk the field during the Glowdeo and see the balloons close up. They’re much bigger than you imagine and you can talk with the pilots, and ask about the balloons. Kids run around collecting balloon cards, like baseball cards, from each team.
I made the biggest gaffe of the week when I went up to one balloon’s crew and asked if the Koshare (ko-sha-ree) was a Japanese cartoon character. After some good-natured kidding delivered in a faux Asian accent, the pilot, an Albuquerque native, informed me that the Koshare was a Native American totem, a mischievous character who represented fun and good times. Ooops. Kachina, not Pachinko.
And so to bed. You’d retire early, because tomorrow was another day, because you’d now been up and about for 18 hours straight and because with all that heavenly wonder still rumbling around in your brain, the last thing you needed to do was to watch television.
You’d already made your own kind of magic, and Letterman just wouldn’t cut it. Not tonight anyway.
Betty
Be Careful What You Wish For
Arizona
On the Way to Tahoe
For over a year I have been bemoaning the state of the yellowy-almond colored rug that covered the living area of our coach. It was nice on the toes, but it collected every bit of dust, mud, food spillage, dog tossup, and hair from at least one of the two humans and the canine that collectively live here. At least three times a week I’d have to vacuum, then clean the clogged vacuum, poking at the dog hair and detritus it had just inhaled. And it fit absolutely nowhere, so it was relegated to a corner in the bedroom where it sat, quietly turning us into asthmatics. At least twice a month, I’d be down on my hands and knees with the scrub brush and the bottle of rug shampoo. And for this I’d retired?
We came to a collective decision, although I can’t really speak for the dog, that the rug had to go. It was too dirty, too smelly, and way too much work. So we (I) set about finding the perfect flooring.
It didn’t take long to find my heart’s desire. At a recent convention of motor coaches, there among the many shining examples of coachly indulgence, sat a brand-new 2009 Beaver Coach with a BLACK GRANITE FLOOR! Oh did that shine. Oh did that look elegant! Oh this was the floor for me.
Never mind that the coach was a super suspension, designed to pull much more aggregate weight than my 2004 model. Never mind that granite is one of the heaviest of flooring materials. My sense of the rightness of that floor was set in stone. Unintentional pun.
At this self-same convention, I also walked the exhibit hall and met quite a few converters (RV renovators) who all had the same answer for me: impossible. Your tires will pop. Here, try this nice 1950’s style vinyl tile. It’s easy to keep clean.
I turned and fled that negativity. I was undeterred.
There were other naysayers. People with beige floors, people with rugs, people with envy for my decision. It’ll never be clean, they’d say. It’ll show every dog hair, they’d moan. You’ll be cleaning it constantly, they’d squawk. I’ll do the work, I promised myself, and besides, they don’t know how hard it was keeping that rug clean. Only one woman, forever after my new best friend, thought it was a cool idea. She hates her rug too.
Now here was the problem. I could get very light granite. It was made in Italy, split into thin sheets, cut into nice-size tiles and backed with a kind of foamcore. It needed special adhesive, a special underflooring and might scratch when the slides were rolled closed. And it would cost $24,000. For a floor the size of, oh ,say 240 sq ft. That works out to $100 a square foot, I believe. John, cranky old skinflint that he is, would not go along with this plan.
Would I have acceded to this madness if he hadn’t put his manly clodhopper down on my dainty little toes? I live in this thing, don’t I? Okay, I can’t lie. Of course I wouldn’t have.
So after ascertaining that my number two choice, porcelain, was just as damnably heavy, I unhappily took a look at the kitchen tile I so dearly had tried to avoid. Vinyl. Oh my goodness, they make beautiful vinyl tile these days. All I had to do was choose a nice, shiny black tile that looked like granite and I would be happy.
Not in style, the sales people all said. What you want is the tumbled marble look. In a nice white, or beige, with no shiny anywhere. No, I wanted black and shiny.
For months I looked and looked. I looked in Florida, New York, Texas, and Ohio. Everywhere I was told, “No luck, sister.” It was either the wrong color, the wrong weight, the wrong material, wrong, wrong, wrong.
I got very discouraged. Then one of the coach converters wrote me to say he’d found a company that makes elevator tile (A weight issue here too! Why hadn’t I thought of that?) and they had a granite-type tile that was actually a composite of granite chips, glass and vinyl. It was light, it was tough, and it was black. Not only that, it was $7.99 a tile. Forget that you can go to Home Depot and get industrial tile for 83 cents a square foot. This would be a $7000 floor and not a $30,000 floor – the Italian price had gone up in the months I was deciding.
I now have a beautiful black floor. It was shiny for about a week. I Swiffered it and it got dull. Nothing seems to make it shiny. Not only that, everything seems to make it dirty – walking on it, for instance. We have tried everything to clean it, from dishwashing liquid to shower cleaner to Fantastic to promising the dog a year of running free on no leash if he would only lick the floor with his magic tongue. Zilch. The little bit of shiny that’s under the driver’s floor mat is bleak reminder of all I had hoped for.
But I am not done yet. We bought a bottle of urethane-type finish that the sales clerk said Walmart uses on their floors, and Walmart floors are always shiny. We’ll put it on our floor and see what happens.
Truth is, no matter how it turns out, it’s still 100 times better than that smelly old rug, and six times easier to clean than the white bricks with grout that were in the kitchen area. I’m inordinately happy with how things look, as long as I don’t look too close.
Love can forgive anything.
On the Way to Tahoe
For over a year I have been bemoaning the state of the yellowy-almond colored rug that covered the living area of our coach. It was nice on the toes, but it collected every bit of dust, mud, food spillage, dog tossup, and hair from at least one of the two humans and the canine that collectively live here. At least three times a week I’d have to vacuum, then clean the clogged vacuum, poking at the dog hair and detritus it had just inhaled. And it fit absolutely nowhere, so it was relegated to a corner in the bedroom where it sat, quietly turning us into asthmatics. At least twice a month, I’d be down on my hands and knees with the scrub brush and the bottle of rug shampoo. And for this I’d retired?
We came to a collective decision, although I can’t really speak for the dog, that the rug had to go. It was too dirty, too smelly, and way too much work. So we (I) set about finding the perfect flooring.
It didn’t take long to find my heart’s desire. At a recent convention of motor coaches, there among the many shining examples of coachly indulgence, sat a brand-new 2009 Beaver Coach with a BLACK GRANITE FLOOR! Oh did that shine. Oh did that look elegant! Oh this was the floor for me.
Never mind that the coach was a super suspension, designed to pull much more aggregate weight than my 2004 model. Never mind that granite is one of the heaviest of flooring materials. My sense of the rightness of that floor was set in stone. Unintentional pun.
At this self-same convention, I also walked the exhibit hall and met quite a few converters (RV renovators) who all had the same answer for me: impossible. Your tires will pop. Here, try this nice 1950’s style vinyl tile. It’s easy to keep clean.
I turned and fled that negativity. I was undeterred.
There were other naysayers. People with beige floors, people with rugs, people with envy for my decision. It’ll never be clean, they’d say. It’ll show every dog hair, they’d moan. You’ll be cleaning it constantly, they’d squawk. I’ll do the work, I promised myself, and besides, they don’t know how hard it was keeping that rug clean. Only one woman, forever after my new best friend, thought it was a cool idea. She hates her rug too.
Now here was the problem. I could get very light granite. It was made in Italy, split into thin sheets, cut into nice-size tiles and backed with a kind of foamcore. It needed special adhesive, a special underflooring and might scratch when the slides were rolled closed. And it would cost $24,000. For a floor the size of, oh ,say 240 sq ft. That works out to $100 a square foot, I believe. John, cranky old skinflint that he is, would not go along with this plan.
Would I have acceded to this madness if he hadn’t put his manly clodhopper down on my dainty little toes? I live in this thing, don’t I? Okay, I can’t lie. Of course I wouldn’t have.
So after ascertaining that my number two choice, porcelain, was just as damnably heavy, I unhappily took a look at the kitchen tile I so dearly had tried to avoid. Vinyl. Oh my goodness, they make beautiful vinyl tile these days. All I had to do was choose a nice, shiny black tile that looked like granite and I would be happy.
Not in style, the sales people all said. What you want is the tumbled marble look. In a nice white, or beige, with no shiny anywhere. No, I wanted black and shiny.
For months I looked and looked. I looked in Florida, New York, Texas, and Ohio. Everywhere I was told, “No luck, sister.” It was either the wrong color, the wrong weight, the wrong material, wrong, wrong, wrong.
I got very discouraged. Then one of the coach converters wrote me to say he’d found a company that makes elevator tile (A weight issue here too! Why hadn’t I thought of that?) and they had a granite-type tile that was actually a composite of granite chips, glass and vinyl. It was light, it was tough, and it was black. Not only that, it was $7.99 a tile. Forget that you can go to Home Depot and get industrial tile for 83 cents a square foot. This would be a $7000 floor and not a $30,000 floor – the Italian price had gone up in the months I was deciding.
I now have a beautiful black floor. It was shiny for about a week. I Swiffered it and it got dull. Nothing seems to make it shiny. Not only that, everything seems to make it dirty – walking on it, for instance. We have tried everything to clean it, from dishwashing liquid to shower cleaner to Fantastic to promising the dog a year of running free on no leash if he would only lick the floor with his magic tongue. Zilch. The little bit of shiny that’s under the driver’s floor mat is bleak reminder of all I had hoped for.
But I am not done yet. We bought a bottle of urethane-type finish that the sales clerk said Walmart uses on their floors, and Walmart floors are always shiny. We’ll put it on our floor and see what happens.
Truth is, no matter how it turns out, it’s still 100 times better than that smelly old rug, and six times easier to clean than the white bricks with grout that were in the kitchen area. I’m inordinately happy with how things look, as long as I don’t look too close.
Love can forgive anything.
Thursday, October 1, 2009
My new g-string
Cuba, Missouri
Don't ask.
Darling
I just wanted to tell you again how much I love my new g-string.
You’ll be pleased to know it’s had the desired effect.
It fell out of my purse yesterday and my husband looked at me with a question in his eyes.
Oh this? I said. It’s nothing. Just a g-string.
What would you want something like that for? he asked.
Don’t be silly, I said.
When did you get it? he persisted.
Yesterday, I said. When I was in the city.
How much does something like that cost, he said suspiciously. You know we’re on a budget.
I turned his annoying question aside. It was a gift, I said.
Really, he said, mollified.
This man doesn’t have a jealous bone in his body.
I put my g-string back in my purse and vowed I’d find it a good spot among my lingerie so I wouldn’t forget where it was when the time came to put it to good use.
Later that night, he said, so when were you going to tell me about it?
Oh, I said nonchalantly, I wasn’t.
He turned over and went to sleep.
I can’t wait to get my guitar out of storage.
Love
Betty
Don't ask.
Darling
I just wanted to tell you again how much I love my new g-string.
You’ll be pleased to know it’s had the desired effect.
It fell out of my purse yesterday and my husband looked at me with a question in his eyes.
Oh this? I said. It’s nothing. Just a g-string.
What would you want something like that for? he asked.
Don’t be silly, I said.
When did you get it? he persisted.
Yesterday, I said. When I was in the city.
How much does something like that cost, he said suspiciously. You know we’re on a budget.
I turned his annoying question aside. It was a gift, I said.
Really, he said, mollified.
This man doesn’t have a jealous bone in his body.
I put my g-string back in my purse and vowed I’d find it a good spot among my lingerie so I wouldn’t forget where it was when the time came to put it to good use.
Later that night, he said, so when were you going to tell me about it?
Oh, I said nonchalantly, I wasn’t.
He turned over and went to sleep.
I can’t wait to get my guitar out of storage.
Love
Betty
Big Rigs
Effingham, IL
On the road to Albuquerque
This country, in case you weren’t aware of it, is truck-dependent. I’m so used to hopping over to the grocery store, or the mall, or the corner deli, I never even considered just how all those products got onto all those shelves. I mean, I’m not stupid. I just never thought about it much. But traveling as we have, back and forth, up and down, over and about, I have seen the light.
Trucking is huge.
If I had a light attached to every big truck I see, it would show a pattern of lines up and down, over and under, here and there, coast to coast. Actually, some people have already done that with traffic at night. It makes a pretty picture.
If you separate out the big rigs from the roadsters, coupes, SUVs, sports cars, family haulers, RV’s, pickups and other types of small vehicles, and if you tracked only them, you would have a pretty clear picture of how this country sends and receives its things we cannot do without. And that’s not counting the government trucks, army trucks and other non-commercial big boys. Not to mention air transport. But that’s a whole ‘nother industry.
The movers-of-stuff-that-keeps-us-going seem to fall into a few categories: container corporations like SeaLand who use independent cabs, shipping companies like Crete who have their own trucks, and the corporate trucks with names like Walmart and Sunkist. Sometimes it’s hard to tell which is which. All of these are driven by truck drivers, men mostly, but increasingly women, and they come in all shapes, ages and sizes, including the cliché big burly guy, but also the petite little blonde who jumped down from a huge semi at a truckstop, much to the pleasure of the other drivers. I wonder if she carries mace. I would, if I were pulling a million dollars worth of cargo in a truck worth almost as much on a lonely stretch of road. Hijacking is a very real threat. I know of someone whose entire household contents were stolen when their moving van was hijacked on a lonely road between New York and Florida. But that too is a whole “nother story.
There’s even an industry based on just the logistics of getting one product from here to there. These people don’t necessarily ship; they facilitate. Consider a widget made in China that must travel by rail to Shanghai, then by cargo ship to England, be transferred to another cargo ship on a particular day and time, then arrive in Toronto and be transferred with the same accuracy to a trans-Canadian truck and transported, say, by rail, to Seattle and then trucked to Terre Haute.
Miss a connection and you’ve just blown all the profit that widget could have made. It happens. That’s why there’s insurance for just such a thing. And why I know about logistics in the first place, because I used to write ads for that particular form of insurance.
Just for fun, here’s a list of some of the big rigs I’ve seen when I’ve looked up from writing this blog. We see these same names every day, over and over. This does not count an equal number of unidentified cargo trucks, or all the ones pulling things like logs, cement, tractors, industrial pipes the size of houses, and other huge cargo. I mean, trucking is big. Really big.
Arnold
Autobahn
Bridge Steel
Butler
Carman
Carter Express
Celedo
Challenger
CHRIS
Con-Way
Crete
D&D Sexton
Dart Advantage
Dick Lavy
England
FEDEX
Freymiller
Frito-Lay
GDS Express
Glen Moore
Great Lakes
Gully
JB Hunt
Kewpoint
Knudsen
Land Span
Manfredi Logistics
Marten
New Century
Ohio Pacific Express
Old Dominion
Oliver
One Freight
OnLine
PAM
Panther
Penske
Prime
REM
Rex
Roadway
Scotlynn
Sherwin-Williams
Southern Cal
Stallion Express
STI Canada
Sunflower
TSI
Tyson
UPS
Walmart
On the road to Albuquerque
This country, in case you weren’t aware of it, is truck-dependent. I’m so used to hopping over to the grocery store, or the mall, or the corner deli, I never even considered just how all those products got onto all those shelves. I mean, I’m not stupid. I just never thought about it much. But traveling as we have, back and forth, up and down, over and about, I have seen the light.
Trucking is huge.
If I had a light attached to every big truck I see, it would show a pattern of lines up and down, over and under, here and there, coast to coast. Actually, some people have already done that with traffic at night. It makes a pretty picture.
If you separate out the big rigs from the roadsters, coupes, SUVs, sports cars, family haulers, RV’s, pickups and other types of small vehicles, and if you tracked only them, you would have a pretty clear picture of how this country sends and receives its things we cannot do without. And that’s not counting the government trucks, army trucks and other non-commercial big boys. Not to mention air transport. But that’s a whole ‘nother industry.
The movers-of-stuff-that-keeps-us-going seem to fall into a few categories: container corporations like SeaLand who use independent cabs, shipping companies like Crete who have their own trucks, and the corporate trucks with names like Walmart and Sunkist. Sometimes it’s hard to tell which is which. All of these are driven by truck drivers, men mostly, but increasingly women, and they come in all shapes, ages and sizes, including the cliché big burly guy, but also the petite little blonde who jumped down from a huge semi at a truckstop, much to the pleasure of the other drivers. I wonder if she carries mace. I would, if I were pulling a million dollars worth of cargo in a truck worth almost as much on a lonely stretch of road. Hijacking is a very real threat. I know of someone whose entire household contents were stolen when their moving van was hijacked on a lonely road between New York and Florida. But that too is a whole “nother story.
There’s even an industry based on just the logistics of getting one product from here to there. These people don’t necessarily ship; they facilitate. Consider a widget made in China that must travel by rail to Shanghai, then by cargo ship to England, be transferred to another cargo ship on a particular day and time, then arrive in Toronto and be transferred with the same accuracy to a trans-Canadian truck and transported, say, by rail, to Seattle and then trucked to Terre Haute.
Miss a connection and you’ve just blown all the profit that widget could have made. It happens. That’s why there’s insurance for just such a thing. And why I know about logistics in the first place, because I used to write ads for that particular form of insurance.
Just for fun, here’s a list of some of the big rigs I’ve seen when I’ve looked up from writing this blog. We see these same names every day, over and over. This does not count an equal number of unidentified cargo trucks, or all the ones pulling things like logs, cement, tractors, industrial pipes the size of houses, and other huge cargo. I mean, trucking is big. Really big.
Arnold
Autobahn
Bridge Steel
Butler
Carman
Carter Express
Celedo
Challenger
CHRIS
Con-Way
Crete
D&D Sexton
Dart Advantage
Dick Lavy
England
FEDEX
Freymiller
Frito-Lay
GDS Express
Glen Moore
Great Lakes
Gully
JB Hunt
Kewpoint
Knudsen
Land Span
Manfredi Logistics
Marten
New Century
Ohio Pacific Express
Old Dominion
Oliver
One Freight
OnLine
PAM
Panther
Penske
Prime
REM
Rex
Roadway
Scotlynn
Sherwin-Williams
Southern Cal
Stallion Express
STI Canada
Sunflower
TSI
Tyson
UPS
Walmart
Wednesday, September 30, 2009
The Perfect Retirement Home
I just got an email from my good friend although I've never met him, Tim Gilmore,a real estate agent in the Hamptons, which is to say, the preferred vacation area for New Yorkers, New Jerseyites and other East Coasters.
I met Tim on line, when I was searching for a suitable retirement home, one that would allow me to park my bus, put my feet up, and watch the sun go down in cool climax to a lovely Hamptons afternoon.
Tim sent me an ad for a house in the Hamptons that said, “Excellent starter home.”
That was what was in my budgetary framework. An excellent starter home. Tim, I want an excellent ENDER home. Not a beginner. One that represents all that I have worked so hard for all these years. A home with a nice kitchen, a sweet pool, a place to entertain, a couple of bedrooms for the kids and their offspring, and as little upkeep as possible.
Starter home sounds like work, doesn’t it?
It sounds like somebody else lived there first and didn’t do a damn thing to make it prettier, cozier, warmer, or better electrified.
It sounds like the pool has green mold, bugs and leaves around the edges, the electricity is dicey at best, and the frame of the house has some evil inhabitants who have worked very hard to no be evicted.
It sounds like a starter, not an ender. Oh yes, that’s what you said it is.
But,Tim darling.
I don’t plan to put on my overalls and get to work. I don’t plan to evict mudhuts of yellow jackets, warrens of squirrels and nests of raccoons in the attic. I don’t plan to completely rewire this simple little ranch, this unpretentious nest of a darling hideaway.
I just want to kick back, sip my Bloody Mary and grill my steak in peace.
I want to go to a good movie, visit a decent library, and ride my bike from time to time so that I feel like I am truly taking care of my body, although I know in my heart that my body is beyond repair.
And forgive me for this peculiarity, but I don’t want to live in a retirement community because I have some silly idea that a neighborhood with children and teenagers and young marrieds is more my style. I envision myself sipping my cocktail of a Halloween evening, answering the door, acting terrified of the tiny marauders, and handing over my stash of candy. This would make me very very happy. I don’t want big events in my life. I’ve had enough big events, thank you very much. I just want small pleasures. Little children. Sweet evenings. Friendly dogs. Is that too much to ask?
I don’t want to replace the gutters and leaders. I don’t want to repave the driveway. I would love to redecorate somebody’s badly decorated house. I do think I have talent in that area, so that would please me at lot. And if I got stuck I could think of a few friends who have far more talent than I, who would be more than happy to give me suggestions and shopping help.
Once I had a pretty, pretty place, I’d invite my friends over, put out the hors d’oeuvres, turn the stereo to the jazz station, and give one of my very special parties. I was known for them, back in the day.
So Tim, what have you got for me? Have you got that perfect place, that inexpensive, small, but incredibly adorable place that I can call my ender and not my beginner? I’m not interested in starting. I only want to go out with a bang, a thump, a cannon’s roar.
Call me, Tim.
Betty
I met Tim on line, when I was searching for a suitable retirement home, one that would allow me to park my bus, put my feet up, and watch the sun go down in cool climax to a lovely Hamptons afternoon.
Tim sent me an ad for a house in the Hamptons that said, “Excellent starter home.”
That was what was in my budgetary framework. An excellent starter home. Tim, I want an excellent ENDER home. Not a beginner. One that represents all that I have worked so hard for all these years. A home with a nice kitchen, a sweet pool, a place to entertain, a couple of bedrooms for the kids and their offspring, and as little upkeep as possible.
Starter home sounds like work, doesn’t it?
It sounds like somebody else lived there first and didn’t do a damn thing to make it prettier, cozier, warmer, or better electrified.
It sounds like the pool has green mold, bugs and leaves around the edges, the electricity is dicey at best, and the frame of the house has some evil inhabitants who have worked very hard to no be evicted.
It sounds like a starter, not an ender. Oh yes, that’s what you said it is.
But,Tim darling.
I don’t plan to put on my overalls and get to work. I don’t plan to evict mudhuts of yellow jackets, warrens of squirrels and nests of raccoons in the attic. I don’t plan to completely rewire this simple little ranch, this unpretentious nest of a darling hideaway.
I just want to kick back, sip my Bloody Mary and grill my steak in peace.
I want to go to a good movie, visit a decent library, and ride my bike from time to time so that I feel like I am truly taking care of my body, although I know in my heart that my body is beyond repair.
And forgive me for this peculiarity, but I don’t want to live in a retirement community because I have some silly idea that a neighborhood with children and teenagers and young marrieds is more my style. I envision myself sipping my cocktail of a Halloween evening, answering the door, acting terrified of the tiny marauders, and handing over my stash of candy. This would make me very very happy. I don’t want big events in my life. I’ve had enough big events, thank you very much. I just want small pleasures. Little children. Sweet evenings. Friendly dogs. Is that too much to ask?
I don’t want to replace the gutters and leaders. I don’t want to repave the driveway. I would love to redecorate somebody’s badly decorated house. I do think I have talent in that area, so that would please me at lot. And if I got stuck I could think of a few friends who have far more talent than I, who would be more than happy to give me suggestions and shopping help.
Once I had a pretty, pretty place, I’d invite my friends over, put out the hors d’oeuvres, turn the stereo to the jazz station, and give one of my very special parties. I was known for them, back in the day.
So Tim, what have you got for me? Have you got that perfect place, that inexpensive, small, but incredibly adorable place that I can call my ender and not my beginner? I’m not interested in starting. I only want to go out with a bang, a thump, a cannon’s roar.
Call me, Tim.
Betty
Saturday, September 19, 2009
Errata Redux
On Route 80
From Ohio to Pennsylvania
to Syracuse to Tarrytown
1. If you leave the bathroom window open in a motor coach, a brand new roll of toilet paper will unroll itself down to its cardboard core and you will have to decide if it is worth your time to a) reroll it completely b) reroll it until you are sick of rerolling and throw the rest away or c) toss it and feel incredibly guilty for wasting paper and cluttering the environment. I chose b.
2. Somewhere along Route 80 in Ohio, there is a tollbooth operator who hands out doggy treats. This is undoubtedly a dog lover, and the sweet gift is undoubtedly coming out of her own pocket. Makes you want to pay it forward.
3. There is actually a Rutherford B. Hayes Library in Ohio, but William McKinley has a monument but no library. Is it possible he couldn’t read or write? Even the hat salesman, Harry Truman, has a library. What gives?
4. Hudson, Ohio, looks exactly like Westport, CT. That’s probably because at one time, Ohio was a part of Connecticut. How amazing is that. It was called the Western Reserve and was settled by, of course, folks from Connecticut. That name also explains Case Western Reserve University, which isn’t in Hudson anymore, but the prep school is.
5. If you want a black floor in a motor coach, don’t try to buy granite. It will cause your tires to explode. But don’t accept that your floor has to look like a kitchen instead of a grand marble entryway. Look up the people who make tile for elevators. Aha! Elevators have a weight issue too. And if you do install this wonderful faux granite tile that they use in elevators, be sure to invest in a Swiffer. You’ll be using it every couple of hours or so. Especially if you have a white dog. But you will be inordinately happy with your beautiful floor, nonetheless.
6. Once someone has pulled your motor coach apart for a major installation, do not expect everything to work as before. You can expect that when you are 200 miles down the road, the electric pump that powers your slides and your levelers will give up the ghost and you will not see much of your beautiful floor until you can get your pump fixed after the weekend. Motor coaches, like people, tend to get sicker on weekends. I don’t know why that is.
7. I didn’t write this, but I wish I had: More often than not, when someone is telling me a story all I can think about is that I can't wait for them to finish so that I can tell my own story that's not only better, but also more directly involves me.
From Ohio to Pennsylvania
to Syracuse to Tarrytown
1. If you leave the bathroom window open in a motor coach, a brand new roll of toilet paper will unroll itself down to its cardboard core and you will have to decide if it is worth your time to a) reroll it completely b) reroll it until you are sick of rerolling and throw the rest away or c) toss it and feel incredibly guilty for wasting paper and cluttering the environment. I chose b.
2. Somewhere along Route 80 in Ohio, there is a tollbooth operator who hands out doggy treats. This is undoubtedly a dog lover, and the sweet gift is undoubtedly coming out of her own pocket. Makes you want to pay it forward.
3. There is actually a Rutherford B. Hayes Library in Ohio, but William McKinley has a monument but no library. Is it possible he couldn’t read or write? Even the hat salesman, Harry Truman, has a library. What gives?
4. Hudson, Ohio, looks exactly like Westport, CT. That’s probably because at one time, Ohio was a part of Connecticut. How amazing is that. It was called the Western Reserve and was settled by, of course, folks from Connecticut. That name also explains Case Western Reserve University, which isn’t in Hudson anymore, but the prep school is.
5. If you want a black floor in a motor coach, don’t try to buy granite. It will cause your tires to explode. But don’t accept that your floor has to look like a kitchen instead of a grand marble entryway. Look up the people who make tile for elevators. Aha! Elevators have a weight issue too. And if you do install this wonderful faux granite tile that they use in elevators, be sure to invest in a Swiffer. You’ll be using it every couple of hours or so. Especially if you have a white dog. But you will be inordinately happy with your beautiful floor, nonetheless.
6. Once someone has pulled your motor coach apart for a major installation, do not expect everything to work as before. You can expect that when you are 200 miles down the road, the electric pump that powers your slides and your levelers will give up the ghost and you will not see much of your beautiful floor until you can get your pump fixed after the weekend. Motor coaches, like people, tend to get sicker on weekends. I don’t know why that is.
7. I didn’t write this, but I wish I had: More often than not, when someone is telling me a story all I can think about is that I can't wait for them to finish so that I can tell my own story that's not only better, but also more directly involves me.
Wednesday, September 16, 2009
Do you Wanna Shipshewana?
Shipshewana Indiana is known for its Amish and Mennonite heritage. It’s a tourist town, of course, and boasts lots of curio shops, restaurants and lots of homemade delights including noodles, jellies, jams, pies and other equally fattening and delectable goodies. There’s the requisite Christmas shop, of course, and a huge antique mall, but the places that most intrigued me were the ones that sold handmade signs, birdhouses, gewgaws, religious plaques, pictures and simple but exquisitely made furniture.
The trouble with living in a motor home is that you can’t just impulse shop. Everything you like takes up space, and that means I had to forswear the wonderfully painted tin stars (no outside to decorate) the gorgeous quilts (only one bed to cover) all those wise and wonderful semi-religious plaques (no walls to put nails in) the whimsical tin flowers (no garden) the bird houses (ditto) wagon wheels, handmade porch swings, various buckets, firkins (look it up) dolls, and most interestingly, the traditional white caps, sitting so starchily pretty in a closed glass cabinet so they wouldn’t gather dust.
I bought a potholder filled with spices that gives off a lovely aroma when you put your hot pot on top of it. And that was it. Nothing else would fit in the bus.
I did, however, spend a good deal of time touching beautifully rubbed cherry, maple and beech tables, admiring the shine, craftsmanship and aesthetics of each one. There was a young Mennonite salesperson on her cell phone. (I knew she wasn’t Amish because she was using a modern gadget) She wore the starched white cap, a long dress and no makeup. I was the only customer in the store, and couldn’t help hearing her side of the conversation. I expected a lot of thee’s and thou’s and shyly sweet remarks. Instead, as she hung up, I heard her say, “Cool! Catch you later. Cool! Will do. Buh-bye.” I know the strict Amish don’t use electricity, but I guess the Mennonites have TV. That was definitely a SNL conversation.
In another place, I put out my American Express card, and the Amish woman replied, “Oh we don’t take Amex, just MasterCard and Visa.” I had to smile. “I guess you’ve got to feel pretty much ‘in the world’ if you’re saying that.” “Oh yes,” she smiled ruefully, and we both laughed.
The Amish buggies are very much in evidence in Shipshewana, as are beards, flat black hats on the men and towheaded little girls in long plain dresses and little boys in ankle-length pants with old fashioned lace up shoes.
The other interesting item of haberdashery was one young girl’s lace mantilla. I decided she was either washing her white cap or a Jackie Kennedy wannabe, since that was the last time I’ve seen anybody in a mantilla. Unless she was Jewish and this was a yarmulke. Which would mean she was a boy and I was blind drunk. I leave you to decide on that one.
They ask you not to request the “plain people” to pose for pictures with you. I guess I wouldn’t like to be a curiosity in my hometown either. I did surreptitiously get a few of the buggies, which I found charming and sweet.
After the visit to Shipshewana, I went on line to have a few questions answered. I learned that in fact that both Amish and Mennonite derive from an earlier religious group called Anabaptists in Switzerland and Germany. Anabaptist means “born again.” Hmmm. Where have I heard that before? In the 1600’s, Simon Menno broke with the Anabaptists first and thus the Mennonites were formed, and the Amish split happened when a bunch of the Mennonites decided things were getting too worldly and went back to the earlier, stricter teachings, notably shunning, which is what they still do if a professed member of the community breaks the rules egregiously. They don’t baptize until between the ages of 16 and 25, and turn a blind eye towards the young folk who are expected to act up and misbehave for a while. To get it all out of their systems, I imagine, because once you are baptized, you’d better not mess up or you’ll be shunned, cut off from every friend and family member you’ve ever known. Oooh. That’s cold.
The Amish are amazing people. They live with no electricity and no education beyond the eighth grade, at which time they take up the farming that keeps the community supplied with both food and income. They all wear the same haircut: women with center parts and long straight hair, and men with what looks to me like a bowl cut, longish with bangs. But all this is just surface. I’d like to know how they live in the silence of their homes, how they are able to read by gas lamp, and most importantly, how they don’t all weigh 250 pounds from the food. Must be the hard work.
And how they can remain untouched by the world? Then again, maybe they can’t. Maybe it’s inevitable that they will soak up at least some of their surroundings, given the number of people who visit their little town, and the seduction of modern inventions. Maybe that little salesgirl with the cell phone and “Cools” and “Buh-byes” is not the only one who’s joining the modern world little by little.
And maybe, just maybe, someone is sitting by his fire, bemoaning these changes and planning a revolution of his own, back to the old ways. Maybe, this minute, the Amish are about to be born again. It wouldn’t be the first time.
The trouble with living in a motor home is that you can’t just impulse shop. Everything you like takes up space, and that means I had to forswear the wonderfully painted tin stars (no outside to decorate) the gorgeous quilts (only one bed to cover) all those wise and wonderful semi-religious plaques (no walls to put nails in) the whimsical tin flowers (no garden) the bird houses (ditto) wagon wheels, handmade porch swings, various buckets, firkins (look it up) dolls, and most interestingly, the traditional white caps, sitting so starchily pretty in a closed glass cabinet so they wouldn’t gather dust.
I bought a potholder filled with spices that gives off a lovely aroma when you put your hot pot on top of it. And that was it. Nothing else would fit in the bus.
I did, however, spend a good deal of time touching beautifully rubbed cherry, maple and beech tables, admiring the shine, craftsmanship and aesthetics of each one. There was a young Mennonite salesperson on her cell phone. (I knew she wasn’t Amish because she was using a modern gadget) She wore the starched white cap, a long dress and no makeup. I was the only customer in the store, and couldn’t help hearing her side of the conversation. I expected a lot of thee’s and thou’s and shyly sweet remarks. Instead, as she hung up, I heard her say, “Cool! Catch you later. Cool! Will do. Buh-bye.” I know the strict Amish don’t use electricity, but I guess the Mennonites have TV. That was definitely a SNL conversation.
In another place, I put out my American Express card, and the Amish woman replied, “Oh we don’t take Amex, just MasterCard and Visa.” I had to smile. “I guess you’ve got to feel pretty much ‘in the world’ if you’re saying that.” “Oh yes,” she smiled ruefully, and we both laughed.
The Amish buggies are very much in evidence in Shipshewana, as are beards, flat black hats on the men and towheaded little girls in long plain dresses and little boys in ankle-length pants with old fashioned lace up shoes.
The other interesting item of haberdashery was one young girl’s lace mantilla. I decided she was either washing her white cap or a Jackie Kennedy wannabe, since that was the last time I’ve seen anybody in a mantilla. Unless she was Jewish and this was a yarmulke. Which would mean she was a boy and I was blind drunk. I leave you to decide on that one.
They ask you not to request the “plain people” to pose for pictures with you. I guess I wouldn’t like to be a curiosity in my hometown either. I did surreptitiously get a few of the buggies, which I found charming and sweet.
After the visit to Shipshewana, I went on line to have a few questions answered. I learned that in fact that both Amish and Mennonite derive from an earlier religious group called Anabaptists in Switzerland and Germany. Anabaptist means “born again.” Hmmm. Where have I heard that before? In the 1600’s, Simon Menno broke with the Anabaptists first and thus the Mennonites were formed, and the Amish split happened when a bunch of the Mennonites decided things were getting too worldly and went back to the earlier, stricter teachings, notably shunning, which is what they still do if a professed member of the community breaks the rules egregiously. They don’t baptize until between the ages of 16 and 25, and turn a blind eye towards the young folk who are expected to act up and misbehave for a while. To get it all out of their systems, I imagine, because once you are baptized, you’d better not mess up or you’ll be shunned, cut off from every friend and family member you’ve ever known. Oooh. That’s cold.
The Amish are amazing people. They live with no electricity and no education beyond the eighth grade, at which time they take up the farming that keeps the community supplied with both food and income. They all wear the same haircut: women with center parts and long straight hair, and men with what looks to me like a bowl cut, longish with bangs. But all this is just surface. I’d like to know how they live in the silence of their homes, how they are able to read by gas lamp, and most importantly, how they don’t all weigh 250 pounds from the food. Must be the hard work.
And how they can remain untouched by the world? Then again, maybe they can’t. Maybe it’s inevitable that they will soak up at least some of their surroundings, given the number of people who visit their little town, and the seduction of modern inventions. Maybe that little salesgirl with the cell phone and “Cools” and “Buh-byes” is not the only one who’s joining the modern world little by little.
And maybe, just maybe, someone is sitting by his fire, bemoaning these changes and planning a revolution of his own, back to the old ways. Maybe, this minute, the Amish are about to be born again. It wouldn’t be the first time.
Friday, September 11, 2009
City Girl in the Country
Angola, Indiana
Three Weeks at Crooked Lake
While the Bus is Being Renovated
I’m a city gal myself. Believe me, if Tarrytown, where I have spent the majority of my life, were anywhere else in this country outside of New York or California, it’d be a city.
But this is Indiana, as middle America as it gets, and that means farm country. Northern Michigan, where I recently spent three weeks, is cherry country. George Washington would have had a ball with his little hatchet. Here in Angola, the crop they boast the most is corn. It’s everywhere. Even in little neighborhoods, every one of which has at least one mobile home among its ranks, people plant corn.
In Michigan you can’t go 6 blocks without a cherry stand: Clean! Sweet! Fresh Cherries! In Angola you don’t make two blocks without seeing those homemade signs, each inevitably claiming Sweet Corn! $3 per dz! Best Corn for Miles! And sporting varietal names like Obsession.
To me that’s a perfume. To the Hoosiers, that’s prime corn.
And by the way, here’s an instance of Mother Nature’s brilliance. Corn grows in the middle of the stalk, sort of hanging out there for you to see it and pick it. Good thing, because if it were at the top, the stalk would break from its weight and you wouldn’t have “Sweet Corn!” You’d have “Dead Corn!” So if corn is the seed of the corn flower – not to be confused with cornflower, which is something else entirely – then what are those wispy things at the top of the cornstalk? I’ll have to Google that one.
And here, I’ve twice seen cows in the corn. Is that a bad thing? Should Little Boy Blue come blow his horn?
I stopped at a Sweet Corn sign yesterday and as luck would have it, this was an equal opportunity home gardener. I picked up eight of the most beautiful vine-ripened tomatoes I’ve ever seen or eaten. We used to grow tomatoes in our garden when I was growing up, and remember my mother walking outside with the salt, picking a tomato off the vine, salting it and eating it like a fruit. Yum, she’d say, the luscious juice dripping down her chin. This, in spite of the fact that she was allergic to tomatoes, and by tomorrow would have little bumps all over her forehead. Some treats just cannot be forsworn, even if they have troubling aftereffects. Tomatoes, as you might guess, have both a gastronomic and emotional appeal for me. And these babies really delivered. I made a salad of one red and one yellow, dotted it with slices of avocado, and that was my dinner.
As Mom would say, “Yum.”
Three Weeks at Crooked Lake
While the Bus is Being Renovated
I’m a city gal myself. Believe me, if Tarrytown, where I have spent the majority of my life, were anywhere else in this country outside of New York or California, it’d be a city.
But this is Indiana, as middle America as it gets, and that means farm country. Northern Michigan, where I recently spent three weeks, is cherry country. George Washington would have had a ball with his little hatchet. Here in Angola, the crop they boast the most is corn. It’s everywhere. Even in little neighborhoods, every one of which has at least one mobile home among its ranks, people plant corn.
In Michigan you can’t go 6 blocks without a cherry stand: Clean! Sweet! Fresh Cherries! In Angola you don’t make two blocks without seeing those homemade signs, each inevitably claiming Sweet Corn! $3 per dz! Best Corn for Miles! And sporting varietal names like Obsession.
To me that’s a perfume. To the Hoosiers, that’s prime corn.
And by the way, here’s an instance of Mother Nature’s brilliance. Corn grows in the middle of the stalk, sort of hanging out there for you to see it and pick it. Good thing, because if it were at the top, the stalk would break from its weight and you wouldn’t have “Sweet Corn!” You’d have “Dead Corn!” So if corn is the seed of the corn flower – not to be confused with cornflower, which is something else entirely – then what are those wispy things at the top of the cornstalk? I’ll have to Google that one.
And here, I’ve twice seen cows in the corn. Is that a bad thing? Should Little Boy Blue come blow his horn?
I stopped at a Sweet Corn sign yesterday and as luck would have it, this was an equal opportunity home gardener. I picked up eight of the most beautiful vine-ripened tomatoes I’ve ever seen or eaten. We used to grow tomatoes in our garden when I was growing up, and remember my mother walking outside with the salt, picking a tomato off the vine, salting it and eating it like a fruit. Yum, she’d say, the luscious juice dripping down her chin. This, in spite of the fact that she was allergic to tomatoes, and by tomorrow would have little bumps all over her forehead. Some treats just cannot be forsworn, even if they have troubling aftereffects. Tomatoes, as you might guess, have both a gastronomic and emotional appeal for me. And these babies really delivered. I made a salad of one red and one yellow, dotted it with slices of avocado, and that was my dinner.
As Mom would say, “Yum.”
Sunday, August 16, 2009
I Hear You Mom
Hearthside Grove Motor Coach Resort
Petosky, Michigan
We are now at the end of our Michigan jaunt, and have enjoyed every minute of our two-and-a-half-week's vacation of sorts. I say that because if this is a vacation, then I don’t know what we’ve been doing for the past year. Everything has been a vacation.
As usual, we are dogged by mishaps, but that’s only the Universe talking to us and making sure we don’t take this retirement thing for granted. The latest was a missing hearing aid.
My little ear-speakers are extremely light, and I am usually quite unaware of them, until and unless I feel a sort of dead sound in one ear, and then I know I need to replace the battery. I hear sound pretty well, but I just can’t make out words. Teeth could be feet, for instance. And a pain in the toe is a lot different from a toothache, so I need these little buggers. And they are not inexpensive, so when one went missing I was, needless to say, concerned.
I have this big, fluffy, curly hair and apparently when I pushed it off my neck in an effort to cool off in the heat, I dislodged one and sent it flying. I started a search as soon as I realized it was missing, about ten minutes later. I checked the car and came up empty-handed, then the bedroom, then oh god my table with its thousands of little jewelry parts, computer, camera, paperback book and pens, etc. I scoured the mess and came up empty again. John backed the car out so I could search the driveway.
I said a prayer and asked for help in finding the missing aid. Of course I found it right away, on the driveway. John had driven over it. I laughed at the irony and said to God – Ooops, sorry, I forgot to ask that it not be crunched under the car wheel.
I laid it gently on the kitchen counter, adding up the additional bucks necessary to replace it. $2500 for two, so $1250 for one? Or maybe I should replace both with the new supersonic ones my pal Dan, my hearing aid specialist, had recommended on my last visit. They wouldn’t whistle when I picked up the phone. Maybe God was telling me I should upgrade.
I picked up the damaged, crushed hearing aid, slide the battery holder closed and listened. The darn thing was working! God had his joke and let me off the hook!
What was I thinking! That wasn’t God. I should have recognized my mother in that one from the very beginning. First of all, she was psychic, of that I am certain. She could find anything, anywhere. If anyone in the house lost anything, anything at all, she would think on it, then within two guesses, locate it exactly where it lay. Rings, keys, homework, you name it. She found it.
She was also the original make-do woman. Having grown up during the depression, she was a fan of re-use, recycle, before it ever came into vogue. My favorite coat growing up was a maroon wool and velvet charmer with hat and muff to match that she made from fabric she found on sale and lined with my father’s old wool coat. I wore it until my elbows were poking out of the bottom of the sleeves. That wasn’t just recycling, that was love sewn into a garment, hers and my father’s both. How awesome is that.
But back to the hearing aid. Of course my mother lead me straight to the spot it lay on the pavement. And even though it was crushed, it still worked. No one would see it behind my ear, so the decline of its former beauty was of no concern. It worked, for heaven’s sake. That in itself was a second miracle. Not to mention the saving of $1250. My mother was also good on managing the money. And she always enjoyed a good joke, especially if she was the prankster.
Yeah, it was her all right.
Not God. Goddess.
Betty
Petosky, Michigan
We are now at the end of our Michigan jaunt, and have enjoyed every minute of our two-and-a-half-week's vacation of sorts. I say that because if this is a vacation, then I don’t know what we’ve been doing for the past year. Everything has been a vacation.
As usual, we are dogged by mishaps, but that’s only the Universe talking to us and making sure we don’t take this retirement thing for granted. The latest was a missing hearing aid.
My little ear-speakers are extremely light, and I am usually quite unaware of them, until and unless I feel a sort of dead sound in one ear, and then I know I need to replace the battery. I hear sound pretty well, but I just can’t make out words. Teeth could be feet, for instance. And a pain in the toe is a lot different from a toothache, so I need these little buggers. And they are not inexpensive, so when one went missing I was, needless to say, concerned.
I have this big, fluffy, curly hair and apparently when I pushed it off my neck in an effort to cool off in the heat, I dislodged one and sent it flying. I started a search as soon as I realized it was missing, about ten minutes later. I checked the car and came up empty-handed, then the bedroom, then oh god my table with its thousands of little jewelry parts, computer, camera, paperback book and pens, etc. I scoured the mess and came up empty again. John backed the car out so I could search the driveway.
I said a prayer and asked for help in finding the missing aid. Of course I found it right away, on the driveway. John had driven over it. I laughed at the irony and said to God – Ooops, sorry, I forgot to ask that it not be crunched under the car wheel.
I laid it gently on the kitchen counter, adding up the additional bucks necessary to replace it. $2500 for two, so $1250 for one? Or maybe I should replace both with the new supersonic ones my pal Dan, my hearing aid specialist, had recommended on my last visit. They wouldn’t whistle when I picked up the phone. Maybe God was telling me I should upgrade.
I picked up the damaged, crushed hearing aid, slide the battery holder closed and listened. The darn thing was working! God had his joke and let me off the hook!
What was I thinking! That wasn’t God. I should have recognized my mother in that one from the very beginning. First of all, she was psychic, of that I am certain. She could find anything, anywhere. If anyone in the house lost anything, anything at all, she would think on it, then within two guesses, locate it exactly where it lay. Rings, keys, homework, you name it. She found it.
She was also the original make-do woman. Having grown up during the depression, she was a fan of re-use, recycle, before it ever came into vogue. My favorite coat growing up was a maroon wool and velvet charmer with hat and muff to match that she made from fabric she found on sale and lined with my father’s old wool coat. I wore it until my elbows were poking out of the bottom of the sleeves. That wasn’t just recycling, that was love sewn into a garment, hers and my father’s both. How awesome is that.
But back to the hearing aid. Of course my mother lead me straight to the spot it lay on the pavement. And even though it was crushed, it still worked. No one would see it behind my ear, so the decline of its former beauty was of no concern. It worked, for heaven’s sake. That in itself was a second miracle. Not to mention the saving of $1250. My mother was also good on managing the money. And she always enjoyed a good joke, especially if she was the prankster.
Yeah, it was her all right.
Not God. Goddess.
Betty
Monday, August 10, 2009
The Real Petosky
Bay Harbor Motor Coach Resort
Petoskey MI
A few updates to my blog of the other day:
First of all, I never did find the Petosky Bowlarama. I did find the Bay Harbor Golf Club, the Bay Harbor Resort Village, the Bay Harbor Equestrienne Club, four other golf clubs with various high falutin’ names, six other resort villages, all gated so I was not allowed in, the Bay Harbor Yacht Club, the Crooked Tree Golf Resort, our own current homestead, the Signature Bay Harbor Motor Coach Resort, and … you get the message. Oops. Marylou is now Sunny, Fred is now Frederic, and the venue is the yacht club. Otherwise, the story remains the same.
Next, to borrow a bit from Gertrude Stein, Mackinaw is Mackinac is Mackinaw is Mackinac, and everything is pronounced Mackinaw. Something about Mackinac/aw being close to French Canada, claims to this land, and the variations on pronunciation, although I fail to see how a C can be silent, but it is. That’s not to say that Saginaw has a Saginac. No, that just didn’t happen. Phew. That’s a relief.
One of the sweet waitresses here told me that there is a parcel of land up north that is registered in England, France, Canada and the US of A, the last claim being by some “indigent” people from these parts. I’m pretty sure she meant indigenous. Although I would vote for the poor people if I had a vote. They deserve some consideration, don’t you think? And given how hot this area is in terms of real estate, it would be quite a windfall.
Land on Lake Michigan can get into the upper atmosphere, and the views are pretty dear too. And, by the way, it’s only a six-month town. Everything closes down for the “pretty cold” winter, according to that selfsame waitress. I’ll bet. These are the people that invented mukluks, I’m pretty sure. The people who wear animal fur and nobody throws red paint on them. That’s because the paint freezes in the can.
So Petoskey surprised me, and taught me not to make snap judgments. That being said, I have to tell you that there definitely is a Petoskey Plastics Corp. next to the Bay Harbor Yacht Club. And I’m pretty certain that they have a bowling lane for their employees in the basement.
Hey, I saw a Kia in the parking lot. So?
Betty
Petoskey MI
A few updates to my blog of the other day:
First of all, I never did find the Petosky Bowlarama. I did find the Bay Harbor Golf Club, the Bay Harbor Resort Village, the Bay Harbor Equestrienne Club, four other golf clubs with various high falutin’ names, six other resort villages, all gated so I was not allowed in, the Bay Harbor Yacht Club, the Crooked Tree Golf Resort, our own current homestead, the Signature Bay Harbor Motor Coach Resort, and … you get the message. Oops. Marylou is now Sunny, Fred is now Frederic, and the venue is the yacht club. Otherwise, the story remains the same.
Next, to borrow a bit from Gertrude Stein, Mackinaw is Mackinac is Mackinaw is Mackinac, and everything is pronounced Mackinaw. Something about Mackinac/aw being close to French Canada, claims to this land, and the variations on pronunciation, although I fail to see how a C can be silent, but it is. That’s not to say that Saginaw has a Saginac. No, that just didn’t happen. Phew. That’s a relief.
One of the sweet waitresses here told me that there is a parcel of land up north that is registered in England, France, Canada and the US of A, the last claim being by some “indigent” people from these parts. I’m pretty sure she meant indigenous. Although I would vote for the poor people if I had a vote. They deserve some consideration, don’t you think? And given how hot this area is in terms of real estate, it would be quite a windfall.
Land on Lake Michigan can get into the upper atmosphere, and the views are pretty dear too. And, by the way, it’s only a six-month town. Everything closes down for the “pretty cold” winter, according to that selfsame waitress. I’ll bet. These are the people that invented mukluks, I’m pretty sure. The people who wear animal fur and nobody throws red paint on them. That’s because the paint freezes in the can.
So Petoskey surprised me, and taught me not to make snap judgments. That being said, I have to tell you that there definitely is a Petoskey Plastics Corp. next to the Bay Harbor Yacht Club. And I’m pretty certain that they have a bowling lane for their employees in the basement.
Hey, I saw a Kia in the parking lot. So?
Betty
Friday, August 7, 2009
Bowling in Petoskey
Friday Morning
Michigan, on the road to Petoskey
So who knew you were supposed to put lock nuts on a tow bar to ensure that the bolts didn’t come unscrewed and cause your car to roam free as you were driving. Obviously the mechanic that fixed our last episode of wandering Jeep, that’s who.
This time we were on an interstate, but fortunately pulled over in time to stop anything more serious than the car hitting a reflector to happen. Of course the reflector put a huge dent in the bumper, and the bikes on the back of the bus scratched the Jeep’s hood all to hell, but who’s counting.
So after dropping the Jeep for repairs and spending another $2000 to buy a better towing system, we headed up to Traverse Bay in Michigan for a lovely few days. Nice place, Traverse.
We’re back on the road now, and heading to pick up the Jeep before going on to Petoskey, which is actually the subject of this blog.
Petoskey. I have no idea what to expect, but I my mind’s eye, it has lots of bowling alleys. No particular reason, but I just think Petoskey Bowlarama is a likely building.
I suspect that the locals gather there of an evening, especially during the frigid Michigan winters. As I imagine it, there will be several red and black buffalo-check shirts over T-shirts and jeans. And that’s just the gals. They would, of course, be called gals and not girls, the kind of good-time, funny gals who play like guys and drink beer out of the bottle and are great to have around because they have hearty laughs and nice figures.
I can just see these gals and their guys on the alleys of the Petoskey Bowlarama. Marylou is saying, “Jeez, Fred, you’re getting that cheese from your fries all over the score sheet.”
Fred, being a good guy, scoops up the errant cheese with his finger and licks it away. “Humph,” she says, not really caring that there’s now a pale orange smear on the edge of the sheet. “Food coloring,” she thinks, idly.
Of course if the alleys are computerized, all this will have happened on a computer screen and not a sheet of paper. Now that I think about it, Petoskey would not be behind the times in this respect.
There are a total of seven kids at home, the product of the three couples, and they’re all at Fred and Marylou’s house for a night of movies and cheese popcorn under the care of the local babysitter. You’ll note that cheese is a minor theme here in Petoskey. It’s comfort food, you see, and Petoskey would have no shortage of comfort food.
In the next alley, a group of teenage boys is making a fair amount of noise as they bowl, a fact that annoys a few of the older patrons, but not Marylou’s group, who figure their kids will get there soon enough and if making noise is the worst thing they do, their parents will consider themselves very lucky.
Everybody will be home in bed by eleven, the noisy teens included, and naturally the old folks will have been in bed for at least an hour by then. It’s not that it’s a school day, or a workday. It’s just that the babysitter has a curfew. Marylou realizes that even though she’s a grown woman with children, she still has to abide by an adult’s curfew rules. How ironic.
She tiptoes quietly from the bedroom of her sleeping, cheese-fry-sated husband, checks on the kids, then goes through the kitchen to the garage, where she grabs her bowling ball out of the car, brings it inside, and using a damp dish towel, polishes the Bowlarama dust off, then puts it back inside the new blue Plether case she got for Christmas. Not good to have a dusty bowling ball in Petoskey, where everything is neat and clean and the people are nice and bowling is fun and life is good.
Or so I imagine.
Michigan, on the road to Petoskey
So who knew you were supposed to put lock nuts on a tow bar to ensure that the bolts didn’t come unscrewed and cause your car to roam free as you were driving. Obviously the mechanic that fixed our last episode of wandering Jeep, that’s who.
This time we were on an interstate, but fortunately pulled over in time to stop anything more serious than the car hitting a reflector to happen. Of course the reflector put a huge dent in the bumper, and the bikes on the back of the bus scratched the Jeep’s hood all to hell, but who’s counting.
So after dropping the Jeep for repairs and spending another $2000 to buy a better towing system, we headed up to Traverse Bay in Michigan for a lovely few days. Nice place, Traverse.
We’re back on the road now, and heading to pick up the Jeep before going on to Petoskey, which is actually the subject of this blog.
Petoskey. I have no idea what to expect, but I my mind’s eye, it has lots of bowling alleys. No particular reason, but I just think Petoskey Bowlarama is a likely building.
I suspect that the locals gather there of an evening, especially during the frigid Michigan winters. As I imagine it, there will be several red and black buffalo-check shirts over T-shirts and jeans. And that’s just the gals. They would, of course, be called gals and not girls, the kind of good-time, funny gals who play like guys and drink beer out of the bottle and are great to have around because they have hearty laughs and nice figures.
I can just see these gals and their guys on the alleys of the Petoskey Bowlarama. Marylou is saying, “Jeez, Fred, you’re getting that cheese from your fries all over the score sheet.”
Fred, being a good guy, scoops up the errant cheese with his finger and licks it away. “Humph,” she says, not really caring that there’s now a pale orange smear on the edge of the sheet. “Food coloring,” she thinks, idly.
Of course if the alleys are computerized, all this will have happened on a computer screen and not a sheet of paper. Now that I think about it, Petoskey would not be behind the times in this respect.
There are a total of seven kids at home, the product of the three couples, and they’re all at Fred and Marylou’s house for a night of movies and cheese popcorn under the care of the local babysitter. You’ll note that cheese is a minor theme here in Petoskey. It’s comfort food, you see, and Petoskey would have no shortage of comfort food.
In the next alley, a group of teenage boys is making a fair amount of noise as they bowl, a fact that annoys a few of the older patrons, but not Marylou’s group, who figure their kids will get there soon enough and if making noise is the worst thing they do, their parents will consider themselves very lucky.
Everybody will be home in bed by eleven, the noisy teens included, and naturally the old folks will have been in bed for at least an hour by then. It’s not that it’s a school day, or a workday. It’s just that the babysitter has a curfew. Marylou realizes that even though she’s a grown woman with children, she still has to abide by an adult’s curfew rules. How ironic.
She tiptoes quietly from the bedroom of her sleeping, cheese-fry-sated husband, checks on the kids, then goes through the kitchen to the garage, where she grabs her bowling ball out of the car, brings it inside, and using a damp dish towel, polishes the Bowlarama dust off, then puts it back inside the new blue Plether case she got for Christmas. Not good to have a dusty bowling ball in Petoskey, where everything is neat and clean and the people are nice and bowling is fun and life is good.
Or so I imagine.
Wednesday, July 29, 2009
A Dog on a Bus
Long Island Expressway
Bumper to Bumper
On our way to Michigan
A dog on a bus will
Sleep until noon
Protect you from cows
Patrol the perimeter
Run away if possible
Lick your bald head
Sit in your seat
Smell everywhere
Scratch anywhere
Whine to go out
Play for ten seconds
Whine to come in
Know where the treats are
Prefer your food to his
Bury a bone in your shorts
Bury a bone in your pajamas
Bury a bone under your pillow
Rebuff your kisses
Beg for a cuddle
Steal your heart
Bumper to Bumper
On our way to Michigan
A dog on a bus will
Sleep until noon
Protect you from cows
Patrol the perimeter
Run away if possible
Lick your bald head
Sit in your seat
Smell everywhere
Scratch anywhere
Whine to go out
Play for ten seconds
Whine to come in
Know where the treats are
Prefer your food to his
Bury a bone in your shorts
Bury a bone in your pajamas
Bury a bone under your pillow
Rebuff your kisses
Beg for a cuddle
Steal your heart
Sunday, July 19, 2009
To My Cuz in New Zealand
Croton-on-Hudson, NY
Dear Jen,
I almost missed this email! It's been quite a month and I hope not to have another like it for some time.
As we headed to New York for Four Weddings -- and a Funeral, as it turns out -- and the irony of the movie title doesn't escape me, but I digress -- John began a major attack of kidney stones. I'm told they hurt more than childbirth. You'd think so, from the moaning.
We stopped at one hospital for morphine, another for dilaudid, and yet another for another heavy drug. Then he went into renal failure, so it was back in the hospital for a "simple procedure' to get the kidney working again. Well, that didn't work, so it was on to another procedure in another part of the hospital. Two surgeries in one day, that's a tough one. Two days later, he had yet another procedure and more anesthesia.
Between the drugs and anesthesias, he was one stoned puppy, in considerable discomfort, and grouchy as hell. There was a point that I considered throwing him under the bus, but I kept trying to channel my nurturing self. Trouble was, my nurturing was what kept getting me into trouble. He's definitely a hands-off kind of sickie.
Two weddings, a rehearsal dinner, wedding brunch, and one bridal shower later, some of which I attended solo, John is considerably better, although he has yet to pass the stones, which are at this point, more like sand than boulders, having been blasted into dust. I got to be in the observation room and watch them operate the computer that controlled the laser. It's against state law, but fortunately my doctor is a laissez-faire sort and let me in. My only regret was that the stones were pulverized. I was planning on making myself a major necklace, my recent hobby being jewelry design. Now that would have been a conversation-stopper.
So all this hoopla is why I haven't written, so I hope you two will forgive me. In fact, I'm going to take some of this letter and put it on my blog, another thing I have let slip for far too long.
We are thinking of buying a house somewhere, the housing market being so depressed as to offer us an opportunity we might not have again. And yet, we're not going to stop traveling. This year has been amazing and we've gotten to see this beautiful country in a way would never have been able to otherwise.
How was your trip to Wellington? What's the story on the house? Catch me up on the boys, all three of them. My own boy is still happily single at 35. Those California types are so laid back, most of his friends, girls and boys, are still single. Haven't they heard about aging eggs? Their babies, if they ever have them, will come out bald, with pot bellies, canes, and smoking cigars. They'll be Brad Pitt at the beginning of the movie.
Summer here has been incredibly beautiful. I missed the June rain, but July is balmy and blue-skied. We are in a park on the Hudson River, about 40 miles north of NYC. A dog is barking somewhere, and at 9:26 on a Sunday morning, that's about the only sound to be heard. I'm going to take my coffee outside in my nightgown and smell the fresh air.
The dog's not interested in coming outside. He has a tick-borne virus and is very lethargic. He's going to the doctor tomorrow for a shot. It's always something.
Kisses to you and the fam.
Love
Betty
Dear Jen,
I almost missed this email! It's been quite a month and I hope not to have another like it for some time.
As we headed to New York for Four Weddings -- and a Funeral, as it turns out -- and the irony of the movie title doesn't escape me, but I digress -- John began a major attack of kidney stones. I'm told they hurt more than childbirth. You'd think so, from the moaning.
We stopped at one hospital for morphine, another for dilaudid, and yet another for another heavy drug. Then he went into renal failure, so it was back in the hospital for a "simple procedure' to get the kidney working again. Well, that didn't work, so it was on to another procedure in another part of the hospital. Two surgeries in one day, that's a tough one. Two days later, he had yet another procedure and more anesthesia.
Between the drugs and anesthesias, he was one stoned puppy, in considerable discomfort, and grouchy as hell. There was a point that I considered throwing him under the bus, but I kept trying to channel my nurturing self. Trouble was, my nurturing was what kept getting me into trouble. He's definitely a hands-off kind of sickie.
Two weddings, a rehearsal dinner, wedding brunch, and one bridal shower later, some of which I attended solo, John is considerably better, although he has yet to pass the stones, which are at this point, more like sand than boulders, having been blasted into dust. I got to be in the observation room and watch them operate the computer that controlled the laser. It's against state law, but fortunately my doctor is a laissez-faire sort and let me in. My only regret was that the stones were pulverized. I was planning on making myself a major necklace, my recent hobby being jewelry design. Now that would have been a conversation-stopper.
So all this hoopla is why I haven't written, so I hope you two will forgive me. In fact, I'm going to take some of this letter and put it on my blog, another thing I have let slip for far too long.
We are thinking of buying a house somewhere, the housing market being so depressed as to offer us an opportunity we might not have again. And yet, we're not going to stop traveling. This year has been amazing and we've gotten to see this beautiful country in a way would never have been able to otherwise.
How was your trip to Wellington? What's the story on the house? Catch me up on the boys, all three of them. My own boy is still happily single at 35. Those California types are so laid back, most of his friends, girls and boys, are still single. Haven't they heard about aging eggs? Their babies, if they ever have them, will come out bald, with pot bellies, canes, and smoking cigars. They'll be Brad Pitt at the beginning of the movie.
Summer here has been incredibly beautiful. I missed the June rain, but July is balmy and blue-skied. We are in a park on the Hudson River, about 40 miles north of NYC. A dog is barking somewhere, and at 9:26 on a Sunday morning, that's about the only sound to be heard. I'm going to take my coffee outside in my nightgown and smell the fresh air.
The dog's not interested in coming outside. He has a tick-borne virus and is very lethargic. He's going to the doctor tomorrow for a shot. It's always something.
Kisses to you and the fam.
Love
Betty
Thursday, June 18, 2009
Temptation
Florida - Four Months Ago
Being an acclaimed interior decorator in my head, it didn’t surprise me at all when I decided that our 41’ mobile mansion was not up to my personal standards. The rug got dirty all too easily. There was a scratch on the wood where the lounge chair kept scraping it, the direct result of my husband’s attempts to push it beyond its recliner status and turn it into his personal bed. The flooring in the kitchen area was grouted fake brick which retained elements of dinners past and refused to give them up no matter how hard I mopped. Which I have to admit, could be a good thing if we were ever caught in the forest without food. We could simply lick the floor.
And so on.
I put a mental number to my to-do list and set off to find the perfect RV renovator. In Florida, in the middle of discussions with one RV dealer who also did upgrades, John, a creature of no change at all, suggested that maybe instead of pouring twenty to thirty thousand dollars into our old bus, it might make sense to put that money into a newer vehicle with more of the amenities I now absolutely had to have.
Was this my creature of the rock? The man who having decided he was comfortable, never wanted to move so much as a book on the table for fear of disrupting his calm?
At the sound of this, I turned my head so sharply my teeth almost didn’t follow. He was serious. He was looking over my shoulder. I was pretty sure he hadn’t developed a lazy eye overnight, so I knew he had spotted something. There on a mound of earth in the winner’s corner of the lot, poised like the Heismann trophy on Joe Namath’s mantel, was a brand new Beaver Coach, even longer than ours and bearing the wondrous message “Special.”
It was shiny, it was new, it was clean inside! It was $700,000. I decided to look.
The first thing that hit me was the entrance into the coach. These were not my bumpy vinyl rubberized safety steps. These were granite. Shiny, black and as slippery as a grape. They were gorgeous. Now that was an entry, and damn the safety issues. But wait! The entire floor was black granite. Oh how gorgeous. Oh how beautiful. Oh, my practical mind said, how easy to keep clean. Just a little Swiffer and I’d be done for the day. I was in love.
I stepped up into the living area. Everything glistened. No, everything sparkled. I was standing in the middle of a diamond ring, a limpid lake, the sun, even. Every inch of the inside was gelled to perfection. The wood had maybe fifteen hundred coats of urethane. I could see myself in the cherry sheen of every surface. And what wasn’t wood was brilliant black trim. And what wasn’t wood or black was mirror, oh help me Elizabeth I had died and gone to heaven.
There were two bathrooms, two. And a full-size shower with a sliding door. And a king sized bed. And a washer and dryer. And a dishwasher. And everything sparkled. Oh Lordy, my wallet was throbbing to be opened, its cash intent on near-sexual release.
And oh, it was indeed sexual, this castle-in-a-coach.
The ceiling was a cacophony of tiny little lights, swirling wood trim, and mirrors. No wonder everything sparkled. The reflections just kept bouncing from one shiny surface to another and back again. My eyes were bewitched, my senses heightened, my reason impaired.
And then I realized. I was in a whorehouse. All it lacked were the red velvet drapes and the fancy women. No wonder I was so mesmerized, so dry in the mouth, so … I don’t know … turned on.
That was the point. This was a rolling cat house. And like every customer who has ever patronized one of those pleasure palaces, I was going to pay through the nose to stay this high and this excited.
Oh dear.
Suddenly my softy, cushy rug – did I say dirty? How silly of me. It was just colorful. – seemed so inviting. My little shower, so cozy. My sink with its dirty dishes so needful of my tender ministrations. My fake brick floor with its greedy grout so like a grubby, adorable child. My bus, home.
I had almost traded home for a wanton woman. Whew. That was a close one.
My wallet, no longer throbbing, sighed in relief. So did my conscience.
Temptation notwithstanding, I am at heart a good woman. And don’t you forget it.
Being an acclaimed interior decorator in my head, it didn’t surprise me at all when I decided that our 41’ mobile mansion was not up to my personal standards. The rug got dirty all too easily. There was a scratch on the wood where the lounge chair kept scraping it, the direct result of my husband’s attempts to push it beyond its recliner status and turn it into his personal bed. The flooring in the kitchen area was grouted fake brick which retained elements of dinners past and refused to give them up no matter how hard I mopped. Which I have to admit, could be a good thing if we were ever caught in the forest without food. We could simply lick the floor.
And so on.
I put a mental number to my to-do list and set off to find the perfect RV renovator. In Florida, in the middle of discussions with one RV dealer who also did upgrades, John, a creature of no change at all, suggested that maybe instead of pouring twenty to thirty thousand dollars into our old bus, it might make sense to put that money into a newer vehicle with more of the amenities I now absolutely had to have.
Was this my creature of the rock? The man who having decided he was comfortable, never wanted to move so much as a book on the table for fear of disrupting his calm?
At the sound of this, I turned my head so sharply my teeth almost didn’t follow. He was serious. He was looking over my shoulder. I was pretty sure he hadn’t developed a lazy eye overnight, so I knew he had spotted something. There on a mound of earth in the winner’s corner of the lot, poised like the Heismann trophy on Joe Namath’s mantel, was a brand new Beaver Coach, even longer than ours and bearing the wondrous message “Special.”
It was shiny, it was new, it was clean inside! It was $700,000. I decided to look.
The first thing that hit me was the entrance into the coach. These were not my bumpy vinyl rubberized safety steps. These were granite. Shiny, black and as slippery as a grape. They were gorgeous. Now that was an entry, and damn the safety issues. But wait! The entire floor was black granite. Oh how gorgeous. Oh how beautiful. Oh, my practical mind said, how easy to keep clean. Just a little Swiffer and I’d be done for the day. I was in love.
I stepped up into the living area. Everything glistened. No, everything sparkled. I was standing in the middle of a diamond ring, a limpid lake, the sun, even. Every inch of the inside was gelled to perfection. The wood had maybe fifteen hundred coats of urethane. I could see myself in the cherry sheen of every surface. And what wasn’t wood was brilliant black trim. And what wasn’t wood or black was mirror, oh help me Elizabeth I had died and gone to heaven.
There were two bathrooms, two. And a full-size shower with a sliding door. And a king sized bed. And a washer and dryer. And a dishwasher. And everything sparkled. Oh Lordy, my wallet was throbbing to be opened, its cash intent on near-sexual release.
And oh, it was indeed sexual, this castle-in-a-coach.
The ceiling was a cacophony of tiny little lights, swirling wood trim, and mirrors. No wonder everything sparkled. The reflections just kept bouncing from one shiny surface to another and back again. My eyes were bewitched, my senses heightened, my reason impaired.
And then I realized. I was in a whorehouse. All it lacked were the red velvet drapes and the fancy women. No wonder I was so mesmerized, so dry in the mouth, so … I don’t know … turned on.
That was the point. This was a rolling cat house. And like every customer who has ever patronized one of those pleasure palaces, I was going to pay through the nose to stay this high and this excited.
Oh dear.
Suddenly my softy, cushy rug – did I say dirty? How silly of me. It was just colorful. – seemed so inviting. My little shower, so cozy. My sink with its dirty dishes so needful of my tender ministrations. My fake brick floor with its greedy grout so like a grubby, adorable child. My bus, home.
I had almost traded home for a wanton woman. Whew. That was a close one.
My wallet, no longer throbbing, sighed in relief. So did my conscience.
Temptation notwithstanding, I am at heart a good woman. And don’t you forget it.
Tuesday, June 16, 2009
Slow Down!
Lake Chautauqua
Western New York State
One of the consistent rules of campgrounds is a speed limit. This makes sense, because of the children who tend to roam free in these places. There are no stay-out-of-the-road-Tommy imprecations to be heard, because the road is where it’s at. This is not the big city, nor is it even the suburbs. This is the country, where kids are supposed to let go and go.
The other big reason, it seems to me, is the noise and dust that fast driving causes. Dirt roads are the standard in campgrounds, and the only place you see cement is under your rig. If you’re lucky. These slabs are only in the better places, and they mean that your vehicle tends to be more or less level, and less likely to sink into the mud on a rainy day.
But speed limits bring out the worst in people. Or I should say, the worst people. I call them the road captains. By this, I do not mean the camper-workers, generally retired people who work at the campground in return for free rent, and who generally drive around in golf carts being generally pleasant, generally helpful and generally stern about the driving limit.
No, I’m talking about those fellow campers who make it their life’s work to call out to you as you drive along, “Slow Down!”
This, I’ve discovered is a near impossible thing to do if you are following the signs posted along the way. They range from a nerve-wracking 10 miles an hour to a mind-blowing 2.5 miles an hour. Have you ever tried to go 2.5 miles an hour? It is near to impossible. Besides, the effort of keeping at this speed means you are constantly looking at your speedometer and not at the road, so you are inevitably going to plow down little Shaniekwa, albeit slowly.
Most recently we stopped a campground of season residents in Western New York on Lake Chautauqua. It was a nice place, with a lovely, if distant, view of the lake, cement parking slabs, few children since school isn’t yet out, and a fair smattering of porch police. The speed limit was 5 miles an hour and we were at the far end of the big place, which meant that at that speed I had a three-hour drive to the gate.
I was diligent about keeping to the limit. Even so, the minute my car decided it had better move along or it would die of inactivity, somebody would call out angrily, “Slow Down!”
No matter that my speed was now at 6 mph, the difference from 5 mph all but imperceptible to me. They had me dead to rights, and were letting the world know that I was a lawbreaker. How embarrassing. How belittling. How did they know?
I started to think of smart replies: What are you, a cop? Give me a ticket! I was not speeding! It’s Tuesday, fast Tuesday! And my best: Get a life! But nothing seemed either appropriate for the moment or sufficiently devastating. Besides, at this speed, they’d be able to go to their computers and Google “smart replies,” return and shout something equally devastating back at me before I was out of earshot. It was a no-win situation.
So I bore the humiliation with the quiet dignity for which I am known.
Then yesterday, the day before we were to leave, I had brainstorm. I brought my camera. Brilliant. I took a picture of the speedometer as I was driving along. Two seconds later, somebody called out, “Slow down, you idiot!” Even better. This was not just a finger-point. It was an insult, and I was ready.
I stopped the car, jumped out and rushed to the porch. Its occupants, an elderly couple in rockers, a jar of sun tea perking nearby, looked like the proverbial deer caught in the headlights. I’m sure no one had ever stopped and confronted them.
“Look!” I said with authority, “ Look!” I held up my camera. There on the screen was my picture, showing my recorded speed. Five miles an hour on the button. Not a whit more, not a tick less.
But I was not to have my satisfaction. “I need my readers,” said the woman. “I’ll help you look,” said her husband. They disappeared inside.
I stood there, righteous indignation making my heart race, proof that I was innocent in my hand. I had them. I knew it, and they would have to apologize and, hopefully, shut up, at least for the rest of the day.
Five minutes later, I got back in my car. They never came back out.
Betty
Lake Chautauqua
Western New York State
One of the consistent rules of campgrounds is a speed limit. This makes sense, because of the children who tend to roam free in these places. There are no stay-out-of-the-road-Tommy imprecations to be heard, because the road is where it’s at. This is not the big city, nor is it even the suburbs. This is the country, where kids are supposed to let go and go.
The other big reason, it seems to me, is the noise and dust that fast driving causes. Dirt roads are the standard in campgrounds, and the only place you see cement is under your rig. If you’re lucky. These slabs are only in the better places, and they mean that your vehicle tends to be more or less level, and less likely to sink into the mud on a rainy day.
But speed limits bring out the worst in people. Or I should say, the worst people. I call them the road captains. By this, I do not mean the camper-workers, generally retired people who work at the campground in return for free rent, and who generally drive around in golf carts being generally pleasant, generally helpful and generally stern about the driving limit.
No, I’m talking about those fellow campers who make it their life’s work to call out to you as you drive along, “Slow Down!”
This, I’ve discovered is a near impossible thing to do if you are following the signs posted along the way. They range from a nerve-wracking 10 miles an hour to a mind-blowing 2.5 miles an hour. Have you ever tried to go 2.5 miles an hour? It is near to impossible. Besides, the effort of keeping at this speed means you are constantly looking at your speedometer and not at the road, so you are inevitably going to plow down little Shaniekwa, albeit slowly.
Most recently we stopped a campground of season residents in Western New York on Lake Chautauqua. It was a nice place, with a lovely, if distant, view of the lake, cement parking slabs, few children since school isn’t yet out, and a fair smattering of porch police. The speed limit was 5 miles an hour and we were at the far end of the big place, which meant that at that speed I had a three-hour drive to the gate.
I was diligent about keeping to the limit. Even so, the minute my car decided it had better move along or it would die of inactivity, somebody would call out angrily, “Slow Down!”
No matter that my speed was now at 6 mph, the difference from 5 mph all but imperceptible to me. They had me dead to rights, and were letting the world know that I was a lawbreaker. How embarrassing. How belittling. How did they know?
I started to think of smart replies: What are you, a cop? Give me a ticket! I was not speeding! It’s Tuesday, fast Tuesday! And my best: Get a life! But nothing seemed either appropriate for the moment or sufficiently devastating. Besides, at this speed, they’d be able to go to their computers and Google “smart replies,” return and shout something equally devastating back at me before I was out of earshot. It was a no-win situation.
So I bore the humiliation with the quiet dignity for which I am known.
Then yesterday, the day before we were to leave, I had brainstorm. I brought my camera. Brilliant. I took a picture of the speedometer as I was driving along. Two seconds later, somebody called out, “Slow down, you idiot!” Even better. This was not just a finger-point. It was an insult, and I was ready.
I stopped the car, jumped out and rushed to the porch. Its occupants, an elderly couple in rockers, a jar of sun tea perking nearby, looked like the proverbial deer caught in the headlights. I’m sure no one had ever stopped and confronted them.
“Look!” I said with authority, “ Look!” I held up my camera. There on the screen was my picture, showing my recorded speed. Five miles an hour on the button. Not a whit more, not a tick less.
But I was not to have my satisfaction. “I need my readers,” said the woman. “I’ll help you look,” said her husband. They disappeared inside.
I stood there, righteous indignation making my heart race, proof that I was innocent in my hand. I had them. I knew it, and they would have to apologize and, hopefully, shut up, at least for the rest of the day.
Five minutes later, I got back in my car. They never came back out.
Betty
Lake Chautauqua
Wednesday, June 3, 2009
Just Outside of Davenport
I'm not one to generalize. But.
In Iowa
All the views are endless.
All the fields are green.
All the skies are open.
All the towns are two blocks long.
All the names are familiar: Altoona, Brooklyn, Oakdale, West Branch, Moscow.
All the folk are friendly.
All the work is farming.
And all the cars are dusty.
Feels very American in Iowa, if you know what I mean.
Betty
More Iowa Pictures:
Famous Tourist Site that Built an Entire Town. Wall Drug made their success by offering free ice water to travelers on the highway. The complex comprises 25 different stores, including the original drug store and still offers free water. And a lot else, including a chapel for travelers, antiques, t-shirts, homemade fudge, two restaurants and lots of restrooms. We were there on a Monday and it was bustling.
In Iowa
All the views are endless.
All the fields are green.
All the skies are open.
All the towns are two blocks long.
All the names are familiar: Altoona, Brooklyn, Oakdale, West Branch, Moscow.
All the folk are friendly.
All the work is farming.
And all the cars are dusty.
Feels very American in Iowa, if you know what I mean.
Betty
More Iowa Pictures:
Famous Tourist Site that Built an Entire Town. Wall Drug made their success by offering free ice water to travelers on the highway. The complex comprises 25 different stores, including the original drug store and still offers free water. And a lot else, including a chapel for travelers, antiques, t-shirts, homemade fudge, two restaurants and lots of restrooms. We were there on a Monday and it was bustling.
Tuesday, June 2, 2009
An e-mail to Frank
I had just hung up th phone with you when a large bump presented itself. We took it hard, the cabinet flew open, and all the dishes flew out.
Which is fine, since we now have all plastic.
Except that I also had two glass mugs filled with loose change which also came out.
They hit the counter, slammed into my microwave turntable which I had placed in the sink to stop it rattling and broke it into seven pieces.
All the coins went all over.
Of course I'll pick them up.
There's probably just enough there to pay for the turntable.
Love
Betty
Which is fine, since we now have all plastic.
Except that I also had two glass mugs filled with loose change which also came out.
They hit the counter, slammed into my microwave turntable which I had placed in the sink to stop it rattling and broke it into seven pieces.
All the coins went all over.
Of course I'll pick them up.
There's probably just enough there to pay for the turntable.
Love
Betty
Monday, June 1, 2009
Mt. Rushmore
Yesterday, May 30th, we finally got to one of our premier destinations. Mt. Rushmore in the Black Hills of South Dakota. The weather was perfect – 72 degrees doesn’t get any perfecter. The sky was in full blue and the clouds were white and fluffy.
Rushmore was the brainchild of historian Doane Robinson who proposed the sculptor Gutzon Borglum. The memorial was championed to Congress by President Coolidge in 1923. Its work took from 1927 to 1941, when Borglum died and his son oversaw the wind-down of the project. Borglum did no fewer than seventeen designs, and even into the blasting had to make major adjustments when it was discovered that the rock to Washington’s right, originally intended for Jefferson, was unsuitable for carving.
The original model shows a much more complete depiction, but Congress refused to allocate any more funds to finish the project. I think it looks pretty wonderful as it is, but I found a picture to show you its original intent. This is one of his final models in his studio, but you can see it’s not even the last one he did. Congress spent all of $989 thousand dollars, a puny sum these days for something so magnificent.
Washington depicts the founding of the nation, Jefferson its dedication to the rights of all, Lincoln the solidarity of the union, and Roosevelt its leadership in the world. Susan B. Anthony was supposed to have been added, but Congress decided in its wisdom that only the heads that were started should be finished. I guess they figured she had laundry and cooking to do.
Another group similarly offended were the ones who were here in the first place, the Native Americans. Oh yeah, them. Currently in progress is the Crazy Horse monument, about 20 miles away in another part of Rushmore Park. Just the head is in place, but I hope Congress doesn’t wimp out and cut out the horse under him. It should be awesome when it’s completed.
Rushmore was the brainchild of historian Doane Robinson who proposed the sculptor Gutzon Borglum. The memorial was championed to Congress by President Coolidge in 1923. Its work took from 1927 to 1941, when Borglum died and his son oversaw the wind-down of the project. Borglum did no fewer than seventeen designs, and even into the blasting had to make major adjustments when it was discovered that the rock to Washington’s right, originally intended for Jefferson, was unsuitable for carving.
The original model shows a much more complete depiction, but Congress refused to allocate any more funds to finish the project. I think it looks pretty wonderful as it is, but I found a picture to show you its original intent. This is one of his final models in his studio, but you can see it’s not even the last one he did. Congress spent all of $989 thousand dollars, a puny sum these days for something so magnificent.
Washington depicts the founding of the nation, Jefferson its dedication to the rights of all, Lincoln the solidarity of the union, and Roosevelt its leadership in the world. Susan B. Anthony was supposed to have been added, but Congress decided in its wisdom that only the heads that were started should be finished. I guess they figured she had laundry and cooking to do.
Another group similarly offended were the ones who were here in the first place, the Native Americans. Oh yeah, them. Currently in progress is the Crazy Horse monument, about 20 miles away in another part of Rushmore Park. Just the head is in place, but I hope Congress doesn’t wimp out and cut out the horse under him. It should be awesome when it’s completed.
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