I could just scream. A lot.

I stumbled across an article today about a mom whose foul mouth had her toddler whipping off with some pretty intense language.  She didn't think it was funny, understood it was a problem.  Sadly, like me, she's not sure what to do about it.

I have a foul mouth.  I'll get that out of the way here--I can make sailors cry with the utter vulgarity that leaps from my lips.  No kidding, some of my favorite words would make even the most seasoned folks blink.  Now, I'm not like that in public, of course--I've never sprayed a waiter or a police officer or a professor with "obscenities" (in quotation marks because I think pretty much all words, including those, have their place).  I'm not going to go off and level your grandma with my dirty mouth.  But at home?

Oh, at home I am a mess.  It's almost compulsive, really.  And interspersed are things like, "Oh, for goodness' sake" and "Holy cow, REALLY?"

We knew early on we would have to work with our boy in order to keep him from mimicking mommy and daddy.  And we've done a fine job--in fact, until just today, he'd never thrown out any of the big ones (not since toddlerhood, anyway).  Today was a bad, sad, and special day.  I hope we don't repeat it.

Anyway, when our boy was, oh, maybe four years old, he and his Daddy were driving in Ogden, Utah.  Cruising down Harrison Boulevard toward 12th Street/Canyon Road.  As they approached the intersection, at speed limit, it became obvious that a truck full of teenagers was going to try to make a left turn into their path.  Hubby romped on the brake and screamed, "Oh, don't you do it, you stupid f***ing sh*t!"  (yes, I hate having to mask that like a child, but them's the rules).  Our boy piped up from his seat in the back, "Stupid F***king SHOOT, Daddy!"

See, we'd had the feces talk with him.  We hadn't had the "F-word" talk.  Hubby almost died.  Laughing, that is--he managed to keep the car and my beautiful family out of the path of the teens in the truck.

Cried myself so stupid today that now, three hours later, my head, eyes, and face still hurt.  I sure do hate fighting with that boy.  What I really hate is losing my temper to match HIS loss of temper.  I needed to use the screw driver to open his bedroom door (he wouldn't let me in), and when we were done, I walked out and THREW the screwdriver, which embedded in the bathroom door.  Seriously, it flew about six feet and embedded like a carnival dagger.  No WAY I could have done that intentionally.  If I hadn't been crying, I'd have laughed.

So, I was on a news site yesterday when I came across an interview with Jimmy Carter.  I've always liked Mr. Carter, always felt he was an intelligent, caring, fair-minded man.  My sister used to think the same (worshiped the guy, actually)  until he spoke out against the apartheid actions of the Israeli Government.  She then pegged him a racist, an anti-Semite, a fool, a crazy old man, and a sell-out.  This is her reaction whenever anyone speaks out either against the Israeli Government or in favor of the Palestinians.  It's immediate, she dismisses them as bigots, implies that any opinion they may have is borne of a hatred of Jews and/or Judaism, and refuses to entertain the idea that maybe, just maybe it's possible to disagree with the actions of a GOVERNMENT without hating the PEOPLE.

It's exhausting, it's so far beneath her.  You can't even say you dislike an actor's performance without her jumping in with, "Well, you would--he's Jewish."  Gah.

Anyway, I came across this story on CNN, commented that I like Mr. Carter, and was met with the battiest flurry of absolute crazy I think I've ever seen.  After the guy got done whining about the failed hostage mission (give it up--if it had succeeded, you'd say it wasn't Carter, it was the military, if he'd refrained from the attempt, you'd have vilified him for inaction, and by attempting and failing, you condemn him for that),   he started talking about how Jimmy Carter is a Nazi, an anti-Semite who so worships Hitler that he's had both Hitler and Eva Braun exhumed in order to have them re-interred in a place of honor at the Jimmy Carter Library and Museum.

I know, right?  Just how much scary-crazy CAN you fit in one skull?  Just when I think I've seen the limit, here comes this guy.

I broke my own heart today.  See, my first guitar was a lovely, barely worn 1960 Fender Stratocaster.  My mom bought it for me when I was 13.  She got it from a pawn shop, and it was SO not the guitar I wanted.  Amazing rectangular tweed hard case and little twin reverb Fender amp, and I was so unimpressed.  I, of course, wanted a Les Paul with a Marshall amp.  How else was I going to grow up to be Steve Perry (whose politics I can't stomach, but boy, I loved his playing back in the day)? Sadly, while she got me the guitar, she refused to get me lessons.  I struggled, I tried, but there was no YouTube or other source of instruction, just me and some chord charts.

I tried for a while, was taught, rote, a few songs, but I never actually learned to play.  I could mimic if given enough instruction.  I wound up selling the guitar to a meter reader who spotted it down in the basement.  For $125.  Yes, I realize now the guy totally ripped me off.

How much is it worth now?  Oh, gosh.

Maybe $30,000.  No, that's not a typo.  Thirty grand.  I've found one for $58,000.

Here's what it looked like, exactly:

We won't even talk about what the amp and case would be worth.  Not as much as the guitar, but together as much as we owe on the new car.

I may cry myself to death.  Stupid f***ing shoot, indeed.

Not really a lot more to say.  I've started on Pinterest, trying to bring in hits for my reviews over on Epinions.  Hope that works.

Oh, the Girl Scout cookies came home with hubby today.  I couldn't keep my grubby fingers off them.  Thought I had eaten more than I had, panicked over what I thought was going to be a disastrous blood sugar spike, so I dashed downstairs and spent 40 minutes on the recumbent bike.  Hey, that's something, right?

Oh, one last quick note--hubby just found a black widow in the toaster.  Guess we don't have toast often enough, huh?

Do not reprint without permission. © KAQ

An Itty Bitty

So, I'm in the middle of this epic blog post, and I realize there's no way I can finish it in one night.  Very photo intensive.  So I figure I'll take a few minutes on the iPad before bed to just type up a "'til then" sort of thing.

Weird dreams again last night.  Dreamed hubby and I were touring the Wasatch Front in a small motorboat, cruising a strange, interconnected series of canals, rivers, and swamps running between Ogden and Provo.  A lot of white water and wishing I had a life jacket.  Oh, and the boat?  A small metal motorboat.  I was the motor.  Don't ask me how that worked.  Dunno.

Had to pull a tick out of hubby last night after he and our boy went bush whacking around some old batteries near DC.  Pics with tomorrow's entry.  Including a pick of the tick.  I hate ticks.   This was a deer tick, which is a change from hubby's usual lone star tick predilection.  I, of course, have now got the hopeless itchy-crawlies.

I was blog-crawling tonight when I came across a blog from Northern Utah.  My first urge, if course, was to leave a "Howdy, ex-neighbor!"kind of post, but I rethought it when I saw the "happily sealed for time and all eternity" bit on the side.  I'm an atheist.  I don't have an anti-Mormon thing going on, but I hesitate to put myself on folks' pages when I fear they would likely be pretty solidly offended by my atheism.  Maybe that's not fair, but, in my experience, the faithful do better with my atheism when it comes up later in the game, after they've gotten a chance to know me.  I dunno.  Maybe I'll throw caution to the wind and drop them a "how do?"

Hubby's nephew (we call him "Bad Rick" to distinguish from my cousin's son, who shares the name) has got yet another baby on the way.  I think this is number three.  Barely 18, works fast food when he works at all, didn't finish school, his mom had to go to court for custody of the first baby.  Anyway, he's got a new "baby mama" (wow, I hate that term), who is, if her Facebook can be believed, just as dramatic, immature, and dim as the last one.  She's four months pregnant, and they've chosen the name "Celica."  Yeah, like the beat-to-hell brown rustbucket my old roommate drove in college.  The one that required a screwdriver jammed between the terminal and the cable to start and would take a vicious hard left if you let go of the steering wheel.  "Celica?"  Heck, why stop there?  Why not "TownCar" or "Land Rover?"

Or Suburban?

Stupid baby names piss me off.  Names chosen because they're painfully cute or represent some insipid inside joke for the parents with no real thought for how that child is going to fare being named Pilot Inspektor or TeeLeeAnne or Celica.  I may just be hyper-sensitive about that.  Heck, I've always been driven batty by the "eight kids, and all of their names start with the same letter" gig.  Just seems uninspired and gaggingly cute to me.  Of course, of my four legitimate siblings/half-siblings, three have names that begin with the same letter/sound as mine.  And, yeah, I think it's lame and uninspired.  At least I'm the oldest "K" name.  That's some small consolation.

Forgive me if you're the parent of Jared, Jason, Jenna, James, Jocylin, Jesse, Justin, and Jello.  I'm sure you had your reasons, and my opinion on your kids' names probably means nothing to you.  That's likely as it should be.

The car is still in the shop.  Really liking the Camry (hey, maybe Bad Rick's next automotive baby name!), though I think I like the Sonata more.  Seats are more comfortable, seat belt less of a hassle.

And that's that, I think.  I'll wrap up the entry I'm working on tomorrow.  G'night!

Fall Again

So, it's been over a year since we moved here from Utah.  Northern Virginia (or NOVA, as we locals call it) is amazing, nasty rat children not withstanding.  Our concern over the longevity of the car has kept us closer to home than I would like, but we've still visited amazing places like Occoquan Bay National Wildlife Refuge, Mason Neck State Park (ticks!), Virginia Beach, Washington DC more times than I can count, both Air and Space Museums (DC and Dulles/Chantilly), and other mundane-seeming but actually really cool places like Wegmans (both in Fairfax and in Gainesville), the dog parks in Vint Hill and Reston, an amazing little bakery in Arlington (http://www.heidelbergbakery.com/), and a cheap little greasy spoon in Manassas with surprisingly good diner food and perhaps more than a few flies in the summer (http://www.ashtonfamilyrestaurant.com/).

Things aren't how I would have them if I had the power to make it all wonderful. The kids in this neighborhood are scary and unpleasant (they've taken to stalking our boy on his Play Station Network and ridiculing him--we only just figured out today that he can block them), and the money situation is always tight, but, all in all, here is absolutely better than Utah.  The constant blooming of trees and plants, the greenness, the amazing sound of cicadas and frogs in the night (spring peepers!  Tree frogs!  Leopard frogs!), the astounding array of birds (including our hoped-for cardinals), and the way that wind actually cools you off.  Not like the hot desert blasts of Utah summers.  Here is absolutely better, even if it's not yet perfect.

Sadly, there has been one really bad thing--I'm gaining weight.  Pretty quickly.  I have got to find that place in my head again or I'm going to totally blow this, and I'm not sure my health can take that again. 

Anyway, here are some pictures of our beautiful new world.  Love!

Half Life

It's been a while since I've written, and things have changed.

Drastically.

The dream of escaping that dinky-assed dustbowl slum? Has come true in a big way. We left Utah on September 3rd, arriving in Prince William County, Virginia September 7th. Just in time for Tropical Storm Lee to kick the east coast's ass. I wish I could say without doubt that it wasn't my fault. But I can't--disaster seems to follow me, precede me, and otherwise all-around associate itself with me. Just a short time before we moved, I was talking to my Utah insurance agent about moving here. She said, "But you've got a hurricane coming!" I laughed and said, "Sure, we may have to dodge the occasional hurricane, but at least we won't have to worry about EARTHQUAKES anymore." Ten minutes later, a major quake hit Virginia.

Me and my big mouth.

So here we are, finally on the east coast. We have cardinals partaking of the feeders out back. We have a flowering dogwood, which I've wanted since I was a girl, right out our front door. It'll spend its fall blazing scarlet, its winter covered with bright berries, and its spring awash in riotous bloom. We have a brilliantly magenta fall-blooming Crepe Myrtle right outside the back gate. We have mourning doves, jays (REAL jays!), sparrows, finches, a squirrel or two, and a SKUNK!

I have a flower garden, already laden with mums and a profusion of tulip, daffodil, and alium bulbs (some a gift from the lovely lady next door).

It's amazing. Been here a month, and we've already taken Sean to the Udvar-Hazy Air and Space in Chantilly, the National Museum of the American Indian, the Air and Space Museum in DC, and to an airshow and the beach in Virginia Beach. What an amazing place, how much happier I am!

There are people I miss in Utah, but I don't long to be there with them. I long for them to be here. Because here?

It's better.

Cheech Doesn't Live Here Anymore

Back in the bad ol' days, before my name was ever on a lease or my feet had ever walked a college campus, I was a bit of a stoner. A wastrel, you could say. Not someone who indulged daily or who lazed about on a stained sofa, giggling stupidly at the TV screen while cramming munchies into my slacker mouth, but someone who was known to partake when the occasion arose.

Those days are so far gone. My stoner life ended 27 years ago, and, while it was certainly fun (or at least funny), I don't miss it a bit. Chemically-induced stupidity is only entertaining for a while before it either becomes second nature or lands your ass in jail. Neither of those were on my top ten list, you know?

So, imagine my surprise when, yesterday afternoon, I find an envelope tucked in my door. From our apartment complex property manager, no less. The letter enclosed came exactly one nut hair shy of openly accusing us of smoking pot in our apartment.

Us. Smoking pot. If you knew us, even a little, you'd know just how utterly ridiculous the idea is. Our faces positively ache with how clean our noses are, and not only do we not smoke weed, we don't hang out with people who smoke weed. The strongest substance in this house, since the Vicodin for my back poofed without a trace last month (and wasn't replaced--I haven't taken anything stronger than Advil for the back in a year) is--well, Advil. Oh, and Nyquil. That pretty much covers our cache of "hard-core drugs" in the place. I know, how boringly domestic of us.

Anyway, letter. I call the office, no one home. I leave a scathing message that I delete before "making permanent." Glad I did. Brushed my teeth, changed out of the super-baggy sweats, and headed to the office. No one there. Wound up waiting a half-hour for the manager to return. I was sure the report had come from the loud-assed, wife-beating drunkards who just moved in behind us, but no. It turns out it was a general "I smelled pot smoke in my bathroom" complaint that, according to the manager, did not come from the loud-assed, wife-beating drunkards who just moved in behind us. In fact, it turns out she handed out multiple copies of the letter--one to each unit that in any way shares a border/wall/floor with the bathroom in question. It was a friendly meeting, throughout which I stressed that we do not smoke pot, we do not entertain folks who smoke pot, and that our goal in apartment life is to be invisible. We want to be the folks known as "The nice, friendly, quiet folks in 101 who don't make trouble and always pay their rent on time."

While I can laugh now, I'd be lying if I said that the letter didn't initially knock the wind out of me. See, on the 3rd of July, those loud-assed, wife-beating drunkards had a heck of a party. One that became increasingly loud until, at quarter to midnight or so, it hit an unbearable pitch of angry shouting and wrenching sobs to accompany the blaring music. Understand, the town we live in has a 10 pm noise ordinance. Rather than call the landlord or call the police, I rapped on the wall. Not hard, not with plaster-cracking force, just a light rap. The noise stopped immediately. I hopped in the tub, and, about ten minutes later, was stunned when someone began banging and kicking on our front door. Know that this is a quiet complex, stuff like that doesn't happen. I crept to the bathroom door and opened it, and could hear the very same drunkards yelling and laughing ON MY DOORSTEP.

I was scared to death. But, being the peace-loving girl I am, I didn't call the cops. I thought, "Okay, fine, you got yours, we're even, now it stops." When the letter turned up, I felt certain it was the result of a "spite" tip. You know, your neighbors piss you off so you narc them out on a fabricated drug complaint? But the manager insists that's not the case.

I sure hope not. I don't need that kind of drama in my life. Somewhere along the line, I got old. I grew up and discovered that peace and quiet beats out drama any day.

Happy Birthday, or "Why is Kris so Pissed?"

Yes, I said "pissed." You'll get it, read on.

Sunday night, I got a vicious burn/itch/pain in the ol' urinary tract. While I've never had a UTI, as a diabetic I didn't want to mess with it, so I made an appointment with my PA-C. Urine test, blood work. Woman told me I was wrong when I told her how much weight I'd lost ("that's not possible, you couldn't have lost that much"). When I asked her to weigh me, she said she didn't need to--no way I’d lost that much weight. I actually said, "No, really, WEIGH ME." She wouldn't. So I said, "Well, you won't mind if I weigh myself, right?" I weighed myself, and my scale is spot on with hers. Which means I've lost the weight I said I've lost. Anyway, that's not the issue. She looked at my urine lab work and said, "No bacteria, no leukocytes, you don't have an infection." She literally sings the praises of my wonder-urine. Sends me home with a worthless script for phenazopyrid, which didn't do a damned thing about the burn, but did turn my urine a lovely color.


Today, I manage to reach her office to fetch the results of my blood work (after six tries--they don't believe in answering phones or returning calls). She won't talk to me (though she's sitting right there, telling the assistant what to say), but her assistant lets me know that my A1c is down from 6.9 to 5.7. In two months. But no, I’m lying about the weight loss.


After hanging up, I take a nap because I haven't been sleeping well. I wake up with a wowser pain, starting in my lower back toward the hips and radiating up and forward, settling viciously right over my lower abdomen and bladder. I call my PA-C's office, only to discover she's already left for the day. Early. So I make an appointment with another PA-C, and, with an agonized shuffle, head to the clinic. The first thing I'm told? I'm someone else's patient, so they're probably going to refuse to see me. I goggled, I was stunned. Then the receptionist leans forward and says, "Don't you let them turn you away. You MAKE them see you." My fear, of course, is that I have kidney stones, and I am in agony--even if you can't fix the stones, fix the pain, please! They tell me to wait, and I walk away, actually start to cry. I sit down, Tommy and Sean with me, and Tommy says, “Don’t sweat it, we’ll just go to the damned hospital if they won’t see you here.”


Nurse/assistant for someone else (not the promised PA-C) comes out, and she starts telling me that, while there’s nothing they can actually DO for me, they’ll certainly SEE me if I insist. I insisted. I expressed my concern that it might be kidney stones. This woman says that it can’t be a kidney stone because my urinalysis the day before didn’t show a bacterial infection. I say, “Are you sure there has to be a bacterial infection?” I asked because I know that’s not true—you can have a kidney stone with no infection whatsoever. She insists, and I’m too damned tired and hurting to argue, figure she went to the same school as the “fifty test strips, testing twice a day, should last you 45 days” creature. They grow ‘em stupid out here. So I give a bright orange urine sample to the lab (same tech as yesterday, she actually said, rather sardonically, “Oh, wow. Happy day after birthday, huh?”) Indeed. So then I see the doc (a REAL DOCTOR!) and he sends me down for a CT scan to look for kidney stones after giving me a shot of Toradol. I come back upstairs post-CT, and the Doc comes in and says, “No kidney stones.” Understand, that doesn’t rule out having already passed one. Then he looks at my urine numbers and says, “Well, your PA-C doesn’t seem to have finished her notes here, so I don’t know what antibiotic she’s put you on, but your bacteria numbers are even higher today than we saw yesterday –“


WHAT? According my to PA-C, my “bacteria numbers” were ZERO yesterday, so I was sent home without a script for abx.


So here I am, a week’s worth of Cipro on the desk in front of me, feeling like utter crap while Tommy and Sean have popcorn and sodas at the “Two Towers” showing. If that silly bint had just given me the damned antibiotics YESTERDAY, I would already be 3-4 doses into it and likely feeling a whole lot better than I am right now. I would also not have had to pay ANOTHER co-pay because I wouldn’t have required another visit!



I have never had a UTI in my life. I’ve had the itchy-burnies, but I’ve never had urinary-related radiating, dull, unbearable pain while just sitting (and utter agony on urinating). Two things—first, next time someone says they have a UTI, they have got ALL my sympathy, and second, I am done with my PA-C. All done. Had hoped to hold off until after the move, but I just can’t trust myself to that careless git any longer. Tomorrow morning, I call and ask for my file to be transferred across the hall to my new doctor.

**UPDATE**

That Cipro? From hell, folks. Each dose left me feeling increasingly awful, until, by three days, I truly felt I was poisoning myself with each pill. Nausea, grinding waves of pain in the back, sides, and belly, and a shaky unsteadiness that left me fearing I was going to go down any minute. This is all on the day we were heading out of town for a few days to catch the airshow. I called the new doctor's office (he's actually at the clinic until late afternoon AND his office answers the phone!), and in 20 minutes they had a new script (for Macrobid) waiting at the pharmacy for me. While the 3 hour drive was still rough, I felt mostly fine by the next day. Thanks, Doc!

**UPDATE-ER**

That snotty, awful PA-C?  Wound up getting busted for DUI with alcohol and drugs, evading, reckless driving, and driving left of roadway when prohibited.  And yes, I positively CROWED with joy.  Does that make me awful?  Maybe, but that woman condescended, patronized, was all-around disdainful and, worst of all, careless with my well-being.  Glass houses, Madam PA-C. 

Strippers and Fractures and BILLS, Oh, MY!

Back in the day, I was a tender of bars. I’d been doing it on and off for a couple of years when I wound up at a particularly oogy dive. I’ll call it “The 4th Concerto” to protect the not-so-innocent. This place was a cesspool in all senses of the word—no phone (owner hadn’t paid the Bill), no beer distributor (owner hadn’t paid the Bill, which left us buying beer at the grocery store to stock the coolers), no heat or hot water (owner hadn’t paid the Bill), and an inch of ice-cold standing water behind the bar due to a broken drain pipe from the sinks. The only thing that redeemed this job was that my best friend and roommate was also my co-bartender. She could make just about any crap situation better.

One of the classier forms of entertainment offered at “The 4th Concerto?” Strippers, of course! Not just the pasty-twirling type, either! Oh, goodness no! We had “male exotic dancers,” too. Three, in fact (if you don’t count the psychopath who came in one night wearing a banana g-string and scared all the customers into the bathroom). One was a tall, aloof, oh-so-cool Nordic type. I’ll call him Ringo. Johnny Ringo. The second was an amazingly handsome Asian man who doubled as a martial arts expert. I'll dub him Lee. Bryce Lee. Yes, Bryce—come on, how obvious do I need to be? And the third mythic “dancer?”

An impossibly built, long, smooth, lean black man I’ll call Brian. If we switched two letters in his name, it’d be “brain.” But those letters will forever remain unreversed. Believe me.

It was a typical night at the ol’ Concerto. Cold, wet, loud, with a rowdy crowd of women working themselves up for the strippers. As something of a safety measure, we had women accompanied by their boyfriends or husbands in the very back to reduce clashes between our male strippers and our male customers. In addition to our usual gaggle of customers, we had a very special group of guests—a friend, whom I shall call Petra, had brought her older mother in to celebrate her 65th birthday with some “exotic dancing.” Her mother spoke almost no English. Let’s say she was from Azerbaijan. She wasn't, but let's say she was. Not a lot of male strippers in Azerbaijan, so she was in for a surprisingly good time.

Or not.

It took only a short time for disaster, in the form of a particularly coke-and-steroid intoxicated Brian, to strike. Rather than grinding it for the girls up near the stage, Brian decided to head to the absolute back of the club and press his junk right into the face of a very married, very accompanied-by-her-husband woman. The husband asked Brian to back off, and the fight was on. It was like watching a 6'5" badger with fists.

It made a Tiger Shark feeding frenzy look positively kind.

Understand this man had no chance against Brian. Even if Brian weren’t 6 inches taller and a good 70 lbs of testosterone-laden muscle heavier, he was also full of enough coke to chew a hole in God’s Holy Septum.

I began to shout for my “male” (I use that term SO loosely) coworkers to charge in and save the customer. To no avail. So I grabbed my keys, locked up my cash register, and flew over the bar with my co-bartender/roommate/best friend to break things up. With no shoes on (try tending bar for 8+ hours in spiked heels ), the first casualty was my feet—broken glass from the brawl. The second casualty?

Petra’s 65 year old mother’s face. They may not have male strippers in Azerbaijan, but taking a table to the face has pretty much the same effect everywhere.

Blood flew, and not just from our poor Azerbaijani woman. Our wife-defending husband was, by the time we arrived, on the floor, curled up, and in danger of being beaten to death. I looked around—every male in the place had backed off ten paces and was watching warily (or eagerly, depending upon how kind you want to be). I looked to the other dancers, but neither was willing to get in Brian’s way—Johnny Ringo because he knew he’d get dead, and Bryce Lee because he didn’t want to kill anyone. My roomie and I took a deep breath and jumped in, placing ourselves between the flying fists of coke and the victim. Brian threw me a smile that involved ALL the teeth, then cocked his fist to take me out next.

And then came the holy hand of Wayne, saving the day.

I’m not changing Wayne’s name. He probably saved my life that night, and credit where credit is due, you know?

Wayne, who was a good 10 inches shorter than Brian, grabbed Brian’s wrist and shook his head. He said, in a surprisingly quiet voice, “Dude, you know I love you, but I’ll kill your ass if you hit her.”

Turns out Brian and Wayne were lifting buddies. Also turns out Wayne and I had been pals in high school, though I hadn’t seen him in four years. Fortuitous, huh?

Brian stalked off, somewhat deflated, while Wayne smiled at me and said, “Boy, you’re still too stupid for your own good, aren’t you?” My co-bartender/roommate and I coddled Petra’s mom, cleaned up the mess, and encouraged Mr. Pulpy-Husband to leave. I bought Wayne a beer, and we spent some time getting reacquainted while the bar crowd staggered to find its rhythm again. Wayne wandered off to shoot some pool, and all was as well as could be expected in my world.

For a minute.

It was only a few minutes later that my roomie came dashing toward the bar, shouting that Brian had our earlier victim out on the sidewalk and was killing him. I shouted for her to call the cops (from the pay phone--no bar phone, remember?), and I dashed outside with no clear idea of what I was going to do, other than not let someone die if I could help it. I burst out the front door to find a crowd of men in a circle around the killing action. None making any move to break things up, many of them CHEERING. Yeah, I still remember your stupid faces. Brian had the man by the hair and was slamming his head against the curb. I did the only thing I could think of doing.

I launched myself at Brian’s back, grabbed him under the arms, and threw myself backwards. I was a skinny girl back then, but there was enough of me to drag him away. We wound up in a pile on the sidewalk, me on my ass and Brian on me. I remember very clearly thinking, “Okay, now what?” But, of course, there was no “now what.” I was going to die.

Please remember that Brian was a stripper. He was oiled, and wearing only a g-string. Oh, and sparklies in his hair. How’s that mental picture for you? I have some Tums here if you need.

Just as Brian, a deep, rumbling growl growing in his chest, managed to slip-slide out of my grasp and whirl around for the kill, Wayne appeared again. Like an angel, he scooped me up and scooted me behind him. Brian, choosing to not tangle with his lifting buddy, stormed inside. Screaming at the Concerto’s owner, he cried that I was all sorts of awful things and demanded I be dead or fired by the next Wednesday, else he’d be shaking his well-oiled booty somewhere else, thank you VERY much!

Interesting stories almost make crap jobs in crap places working for crap people worth it.

Almost.

Oh, for the record? I was almost fired that night--for pissing off a dancer and, more importantly, committing the sin of telling my partner to call the police. Guess saving someone's life just isn't a good enough excuse when there are Bills to pay.

All I Want for New Year's is a Shiny New Home

Well, here it is again. Came frighteningly fast this time, didn't it? When Stephen King spoke of “short time” for the grownups, he sure as spit knew what he was talking about. Time moves so fast anymore it brings me to tears. If it only took this few blinks to get from bright-eyed 18 to here then here to dead must only be a flash away, you know?

Weee! How very positive of me!

I’m really not that negative a person. In fact, I am brimming with hope for this new year. Sure, I have the usual hopes: be more patient with our son, lose weight, write more, write better, exercise more, get healthier. But I have one more hope, one very special desire this year. One resolution that I can’t imagine surviving failure.

What is it?

Gettin’ the hell outta Dodge. That’s right—after spending the better part of 38 years here in Utah, I am OUTTA here with the people I love the very most! Back to where I came from, back whence my family came, back to where the world is green and the air is alive with possibility.

I won’t lie—I’m not just running to something, I’m running away from something. Away from dysfunctional relationships that have sucked the joy from me for years. Away from the dry and the yellow, brown, and grey. Away from being forever the outsider, the one who must join fringe groups and minority cliques in order to be not alone. Away from almost everything Utah is for me.

I know I seem to be “dissing” Utah. What can I say? I actively dislike this place. I know some say, “Well, if you only KNEW Utah!” I do—and familiarity has bred just a bit of contempt. From Grafton to Logan, from Vernal to Vernon, I’ve driven, hiked, backpacked, camped, and all-around explored this place. And I’m all done with it. I’ve been here. I don’t want to be here anymore.

Let me say from my heart that I’m not “dissing” the people who DO love this place. Great! Seriously! I am absolutely sincere when I say that I am very glad that you love Utah, that Ogden (or Salt Lake City) rocks your world! I think it would be terribly sad if that weren’t the case! The way you feel about Utah? That’s how I feel about the East Coast. The warm pride that rises up in you when you think of Snow Basin, Ben Lomond, the Union Station, or the Pie Pizzeria? That’s how I feel about the Franklin Institute, Sturbridge Village, the beach at Wells, Maine, and Pat’s King of Steaks. They’re mine, and that’s where I want to be. Where I need to be.

I’m not saying that Utah has nothing to offer. I’m not saying that there’s nothing beautiful or worthwhile here. Of course there is! What I’m saying is that I’ve done that, and I don’t want to do it anymore. My heart isn’t here, and I need something else. I need my home.

Be happy for me. Please. Don’t wrinkle your nose and declare that I’m “missing out.” Instead, understand that we’re all different, and what works for you is killing me. Love your Utah, make it everything you can, and spare a hope or a prayer that my dreams for the east coast come to pass and are everything I wish for. Will you do that for me? I don’t want a whole lot. Just new home with my wonderful husband and magical boy. Please, cross your fingers and wish me luck!

Train Now Leaving on Track Five!

My first escape from Ogden, Utah came in the form of a car accident. Or the proceeds of a car accident, anyway. When the insurance adjuster handed me that big (ish), bad (ish) check, I made the (insane) decision to grab my then boyfriend (now husband), our too many cats, and pack it all up for California.

That’s Cal-ee-four-ny-ay!

Not really understanding that there were other truck rental choices out there, we went with that orange and white disaster we all know and despise, U-Haul.

Because we were moving, in effect, two households, we snagged a 26 foot monstrosity of a truck that handled like—well, like a 26 foot truck. Tacked onto the tail-end was a 17 foot auto transport for my newly put-back-together and freshly painted 1973 Mustang.

My joy.

According to U-Haul, a move from Ogden, Utah to Los Angeles, California should take, load to unload, five days. In some universes, that may actually be possible. Not so much in ours. In fact, by the time we hit the road, we were three days into that five day rental. No, we didn’t have an apartment lined up or any sort of employment planned. Ah, yes, those heady days before parenthood. I get all reflux-y just thinking about it today.

Aside from a back-and-fill disaster in a really bad part of Vegas, our U-Haul experience was surprisingly trouble-free . . . until that famous killer of moving trucks, Cajon Pass. It was there our truck decided that gears are for wimps. In fact, it decided it had only two gears—reverse, and a rather sad first gear that topped out at a whining 15 mph. Yes, even downhill on Cajon, 15 mph was our maximum speed.

Have you ever driven rush hour freeway in SoCal at 15 mph? We didn’t dare establish eye contact with our fellow highway-mates for fear of being shot. No, I’m not joking. Californians take their freeway speed very seriously.

Not wanting to be stuck on the side of a busy interstate, we decided to take the first likely exit to come our way. It only took us about an HOUR to get there (at 15 mph): Rancho Cucamonga.

Rancho Cucamonga, did I say?

Yes. Yes I did. And until that very moment, I had spent my life believing that Rancho Cucamonga was a creation of Looney Toons. You remember, don’t you? “All aboard! Train now leaving on track five for Anaheim, Azusa, and Cuc... amonga!" Almost immediately, I realized that the make-believe Rancho Cucamonga was bisected by the equally mythic Route 66. I had that momentary, “Oh, hell, I’ve wound up in another David Lynch movie” feeling as Tommy hung that right turn and put us smack in the middle of . . . not a lot.

No, not a lot. In fact, it took us half an hour (at 15 miles per) to find a gas station. Apparently, Rancho Cucamonga doesn’t believe in gas stations. They also, we discovered, don’t believe in pay phones with return numbers. I guess that’s to discourage the bangers and drug dealers. Unfortunately, it also discourages U-Haul’s customer service folks, who refuse to deal with anyone who can’t provide a return number. We wound up having to call someone back in Ogden to act as go-between for us. No, the gas station basta—uh—clerk (ahem) wouldn’t let us use his phone, either. But we managed to bypass the hassles and wheedle a third-person promise from U-Haul that someone would be “right there.”

Four hours? Yeah, that sounds about right. Four hours stewing on the grass, dying for a bathroom (yes, that same phone-denying "clerk" wouldn't let us use the restrooms, either). And when the magical tow truck from U-Haul DID show up, it was . . . itsy? We had a 26 foot truck with a 17 foot auto transport, and they sent a converted Ford Bronco to tow it? Hello?

Hello?

More wrangling, more hassling third-person, and we’re told, once again, that they’ll be “right there.” Mmm. We weren’t nearly so impatient this time around—we knew what to expect, wait-wise. We walked over to a Jiffy Lube and used THEIR restrooms. About an hour into our new wait, as it became dark, there was a shout from the gas station and a teenage boy ran out at top speed, right toward . . . my CAR. My freshly painted, gorgeous Mustang up on her auto transport trailer. The kid leaped up on the trailer, planted a hand in the middle of the hood, and vaulted over. Forgetting that I was in Southern California, I launched myself from the grass and gave chase, shouting, “Hey, you #$@!, that’s my @#@! CAR! You %$@# up my car I'll take it out of your @#$!"

Stupid is as stupid is, right?

The kid was caught (trapped between us and the basta--clerk from the gas station), the car un-dinged, and no one got shot. Sadly, none of the ugly possibilities had gone through my mind as I dashed after our young shoplifter. That’s the crazy thing about traumatic brain injuries—sometimes they do a real number on impulse control and the like. Heck, sometimes it's so bad you toss all your stuff in a U-Haul and take off with no real plan.

Now, I know this all sounds terrifically UN-lucky, but that’s not the case at all! See, the new, big, wowser tow truck came and the driver/mechanic (who, upon learning were were homeless, slipped us a business card for the apartment complex he lived in) determined that the truck was utterly unbailable. That being the case, they dragged the whole mess to their tow yard (in Rialto, another fictional place), then helped us unload the car and place the contents (for free) in one of their locking storage sheds.

They then informed us that, because of the mechanical failure, they would hold onto our stuff for as long as it took us to find a place, and then drag the broken-down disaster to our new place at our convenience for unloading. Oh, and they’d pay for our hotel room, too. That took us from “oh, hell, we only have until tomorrow morning to find a place, unload the truck, and get it back before the 10 am deadline” to taking a few days to find a place with no time limit and no additional charges. So the breakdown wasn’t bad luck at all! In fact, it bailed our sorry behinds!

Funny thing is, after a few days of apartment hunting, we wound up calling the number on the tow-truck driver's card, and two days later we were moving in . . . U-Haul delivered as promised, and picked up as promised when we’d finished unloading. Were we in Los Angeles, our original destination, our dream? Nope. In fact, we never made it anywhere near. We were in Fontana (often called Fontucky, and for good reason), a good 45 miles east of L.A.

But we DID manage to get our kicks on Route 66 every time we headed to L.A., the beaches, Hollywood, or really anyplace worth going. And th-th-th-that's what it's ALL about, folks!

Looks Like We're Camping Here

Hubby and I have a long history of sleeping in tents together. I think all of our camping experiences have been interesting, but some might not be categorized as "fun" by normal people. In fact, some could be termed horrific by those more attuned to what is and isn’t healthy and pleasurable.

The boring folks, in other words.

Back in ’94, when we were still fairly new, we took a little, bitty, baby camping trip. Our first--just a few nights, some rockhounding, a “getting to know you” sort of trip. We were fully prepared to head out early, scope out a campsite, then spend the rest of the afternoon whomping on whatever outcropping of stone caught our beady little eyes. Of course, being us, it didn’t quite work out that way. Really, when does it?

It’s not that we didn’t pack in a timely fashion. Heck, we had that little Corolla Wagon packed to the gills early on. No, the problem came when we tried to leave. Or rather, when we tried to close the hatch-back so we could leave.

It wouldn’t close. It stayed stubbornly aloft, one brow raised. Sneering. Really. No amount of cajoling, urging, begging, WD-40ing, threatening, or obscenity-flinging worked. We blew hours on that bastard, actually UNpacked the car in hopes of finding the problem and fixing it. No go. After way too much time, Tommy and I stepped back and nodded grimly at each other. And then we did it—we grabbed that bugger tight and yanked our hardest, dragging it closed. It cracked, it crunched, it snapped and groaned. And then it closed.

Sort of.

What it really did was BREAK, but I’m not going to let a little thing like semantics get in my way. Twenty minutes later, hatch bound shut with much orange twine, we were on the road.

Starting out so late was just the beginning of a trend with us. We are wicked bad for not finding a spot to camp until after dark. Yes, it’s stupid. And?

We cruised through Vernon (not to be mistaken for VERNAL), Utah well after dark, and were approaching Eureka when our cryptic map let us know that we wanted to “turn right at the second set of railroad tracks after the dirt road next to the power poles.” Being smarter than we look, we managed to hang that turn on the first try. Weee!

Speaking of that cryptic map, it also spoke of dirt roads that turn “bottomless” when waterlogged. Really, “bottomless” was the word. Goodness. Who thought THAT up?

We turned onto the dirt road parallel to the railroad tracks and headed toward the pretty lights in the distance (those pretty lights would be THE CHEMICAL WEAPONS INCINERATOR, but we didn’t know that). The road was a bit bumpy, with a little puddle here and there, but certainly passable. At first. After a few minutes, the puddles began to come at us faster and wider and deeper, and Tommy began his fancy slalom driving, keeping up the speed to keep us from bogging down. Perhaps a mile shy of our destination, we came over a rise to see an ocean of muck in our path. Side to side and at least forty feet long with no time to stop. Thinking fast, I shouted, “Shoot for the grass!”

Tommy looked at me, perplexed, and said, “Do WHAT?” Remember, the car was still careening toward our soupy doom.

I practically screamed, “THE GRASS! SHOOT FOR THE GRASS!”

Tommy shrugged, gripped the steering wheel tightly, and shot directly for . . . the very middle of the morass?

Wha-fuh?

The car splashed, squidged, slid a bit, floated for a moment, and then sank. Straight down, waves lapping at the rocker panels. The tires whirred ineffectually in the goo, spraying icy grey water all about.

I moaned. I gestured helplessly. My lips moved, but no words would come. I closed my eyes, breathed deeply through my nose a few times, then turned to glare at Tommy, my expression dangerous, I’m sure. I tilted my head, brought my hands up before me, palms up, and near-whispered . . .

“What the hell was that?”

Tommy stiffened, hackles rising as he made to defend himself.

“You said shoot for the grass!” He pointed to the very center of the sea, where three or four sad, small blades of grass were poking up through the mud.

I goggled. I gestured expansively at the grass all around us, the meadow to either side of the sinkhole. I cried, “GRASS, Tom, GRASS! It’s ALL AROUND US!”

Tommy blinked. He looked around. Then a slow, sheepish smile spread across his face. “Oh, yeah. That makes a LOT more sense . . . so, what do we do now?”

I shook my head. “Looks like we’re camping here.” That became something of a camping mantra of ours in years to come. Yes, we did find ourselves stuck here and there pretty frequently.

Remember that map? The one warning of “bottomless” roads? I remembered it, too, as I pushed my door open, creating a wave of mud and chilly water. I stepped into the pond and found my shoe instantly grabbed. It was a heck of a tug-of-war, but we managed to free our feet with footwear intact and unload our gear. Getting the car free was out of the question. We hoped that the cold night air (and it was getting very cold) would thicken things up a bit by morning.

Lemme tell you something about setting up camp around Skull Valley in late springtime—it’s tough. The cheat grass is high and dry, and the nighttime winds are relentless. Not wanting to be one of those folks who torch 40,000 acres in their pursuit of the perfect weenie roast, I spent almost an hour just prepping a fire spot—fifteen foot radius of no torchable vegetation, a hole in which to put the fire, sides built up with rocks and dirt, then a screen placed over the fire itself. Anal? Sure. Beats dead or responsible for mass destruction, right? Best thing is, this sort of fire building leaves no sign when you’re done—fill in the hole, replant the plugs you took up, and a week later the spot’s invisible.

Oh, before you think Tommy was just lazing around while I cleared a fire-safe spot, know that he was busy dragging equipment from the gently bobbing car, pitching the tent, and setting up the gear. Tommy never shirks even an ounce of camping work. The man is a camping machine.

Dinner followed tent construction. Hamburger patties dropped into the dirt by accident (pretty sure it was an accident, anyway). Being broke and miles from town, we scraped them off best we could and ate them anyway. Grit aside, they were quite tasty.

Exhausted, we put out the fire (that involves water, stirring, more water, more stirring, yet more water, even more stirring, then a full burial with dirt, rocks, and sand), and climbed into the tent for some well-deserved (or at least greatly needed) sleep.

Sleep came, too—pretty quickly for me. I usually struggle for an hour or more before finding my way.

And then it came.

A blaring, deafening WHOOOOOOONK, the blinding glare of headlights, and the unmistakable roar of approaching death. No kidding, that’s got to be what death sounds like. Nothing else could push that much adrenaline into my blood in that short a time. No time to get out of the tent, no time to think, really, beyond the bleary, stunned “Oh, hell, the hicks have come to kill us!” We’d just watched Deliverance on video a couple of weeks earlier, and it was, apparently, still in my head. I scrabbled around in the tent pockets and found my handy, dandy bang-bang stick. Just a 38, not enough to stop a rampaging truck bent upon flattening us in our tent, but perhaps enough to put a hole in the radiator or take out a headlight or two. It’s not much, but when you’re about to die, you go for whatever little bit of something you can that will leave a sign of your once existence. The roar, the spectacular glare, the ear-splitting horn peaked . . . and then Dopplered. I don’t know any other way to describe it, but you know what I mean. It was obviously passing us. Quickly. We staggered from the tent to see the TRAIN rounding a bend a little ways away.

Yeah, train. Remember those tracks? Yeah. Sure glad I didn’t shoot a hole in the tent, huh? Or the train? I hope that engineer got himself a darn good laugh. Once we got all the piss washed out of the tent, we thought it was pretty danged funny, too.

Fireflies

When I was just shy of six years old, my family made the wrenching move from Hallstead, Pennsylvania to Ogden, Utah. I remember it quite clearly. Probably more clearly than I should.

I remember moving from the “endless mountains” of Pennsylvania to the ROCKY mountains of Ogden, Utah. Where was the green? Where were the TREES? Where were the lush meadows and gentle morning mists? And what the HELL was with those sky-high cliffs overhanging our helpless little house? Those aren’t mountains! Mountains are gentle, verdant, rounded things alive with cardinals, jays, and white-tail deer. These were angry, snaggle-toothed beasts! What’s that you say, Dad? We now live on a seismic fault? Overdue for “THE BIG ONE?” And what’s that falling from the sky in JUNE? Is that SNOW?

And what do those kids mean when they say they can’t play with me because we don’t go to the same church they do?

How did I feel upon arrival in this “Pretty, Great State?” I think it went something like this:

Oh, Christ, I hate this place. It’s utterly foreign, like Mars! The mountains are going to fall down on my house when “THE BIG ONE” hits! It snows in June! Some kids ask me what “ward” I’m a part of, and when I can’t answer they don’t play with me! The people don’t even speak the same language! They laugh when I say things like “drapes,” “shears,” and “davenport!” They think Box Elder bugs are fireflies, and they get mad at me when I try to explain that fireflies LIGHT UP!

Really, they do light up. They glow gold or green (or red, in some mutants). And, while I’ve heard rumors of some out Plain City way, fact is I’ve never seen a firefly in Utah. It’s something I’ve missed most bitterly. I can’t even describe how sad I was when we left the east coast at the end of our last vacation. After sitting on the damp, green ground near the Susquehanna River at dusk and nearly crying with joy at the sight of my fireflies (fireflies I hadn’t seen in 25 years), we left.

We left. Every mile west we moved, the harder it became to breathe. By the time we were back in Utah, I could barely bring myself to get off the train.

I know Utah has a lot to offer. I haven't spent 38 years glowering balefully at the mountains. I haven't steadfastly refused to partake of what Utah has to give. I don’t sit around looking at the leaves falling from my trees and think, “Oh, it’s rubbish, I’ve seen it all before!” I don’t breathe in the heady smell of our autumn grapes on the vine and think, “Pffft, it’s crap, I’ve smelled better!” I’ll miss these trees—hell, I had a hand in the planting of almost all of them! I’ll miss those grapes—we waited years for that vine to become something worthwhile. I think the desert is striking, and I’ve spent many nights by the campfire, listening to the coyotes sing in the breathtaking dark.

But I’ve done 38 years of desert, and I need a change. A return to something I love even more than howling coyotes and skittering lizards. I’m done living with greys and browns. I’m done living with prickly pear and dust. And I’m done having to search for my small treasures. I’m ready for lush woods, gentle mountains, salamander and crawdaddy catching, flaming fall colors in blinding profusion, and green everywhere I look. I’m ready for summers with rain, rivers of size, massive museums with world-class exhibits, and rockin’ mass transit. Ocean beaches, real Philly Steak sandwiches, vineyards, a multitude of lakes, and beloved relatives I haven’t had nearly enough time with.

And fireflies. I’m so ready for fireflies.