I've left absolutely nothing in San Francisco

Here's what I know: We're not in San Fransisco, we're two days behind schedule, and I'm not altogether sure that we didn't spend the entire afternoon going in circles around a mountain.

How did this happen, you may ask? I don't know. Just like Uncle Billy said when Jimmy Stewart asked how the run on the bank got started in It's a Wonderful Life, "how does something like this ever happen?"

Theoretically, I shouldn't be posting this now. If we were on schedule, we'd be deep into the heart of Yosemite. But the poorly marked roads, dangerous conditions, and lack of infrastructure throughout Oregon brought us into California a little later than expected last night.

Some in our number felt it would be possible to make up the difference today and still make it to Yosemite tonight. That would have required a quickie drive-through style tour of the Redwood forest and blowing off the Pacific Ocean entirely, not to mention meals and San Francisco to boot.

We chose, however, to stop long enough to stick our toes into the Pacific.


Next we walked a 1/4 mile trail through the Redwoods and attempted to take some family pictures.








After that, we found a Target and remembered all the things we kept saying we'd "pick up next time we see a Target."

Then, we spotted a Marie Callender's--a California favorite--(best potato soup in the world!)and of course we had to stop.

Now, here's where stories might diverge a bit, depending on who you ask. But since I'm the only one blogging, you have no choice but to embrace the events I will present here as the official version of what transpired.

Shortly after we departed Miss Marie's establishment, feeling all full and warm inside, my husband said we had to choose between two routes: a fast and direct path to San Francisco, or a scenic trail that hugs the coast. I said it kind of depended on our goals. I quizzed him a bit on what it was realistic to accomplish under the circumstances, and I asked him if we would see the ocean any more if we strayed from the coast at that juncture. We both concurred that we'd meet up with water again San Francisco, and he said, well, we've at least seen some of the coast line today anyway, and he made a decisive turn.

Now, just following the decisive turn, I saw a sign that said San Francisco 199. I know I saw if, because I used the information to calculate the likelihood that we would at least make it to San Fransisco by nightfall, and, it being around 4 PM at the time, I felt pretty good about our odds.

Fast forward a couple hours. We're on this path that outtwisted Hell's Canyon, just without the scary cliffs. It's all scenic and pretty, and at first it's just this little path through the woods--Redwoods, actually, that suddenly reappeared.

Well, this just went on and on--kind of like this post--when suddenly, everyone started feeling pretty wibbly-wobbly, which is a fun quote from one of my favorite movies, but not a fun way to feel at all.

I ask why this quick and direct route was so remote and my husband says in shock, "Because you want to stay by the coast!" So much for what I misinterpreted as a decisive turn.

The route I aparently picked was, hands down, the longest, twistiest road I've ever been on. It made us dizzy. I really didn't think we were going anywhere, and I still don't, for two very important reasons. The first reason is that there were these white mile markers on the side of the road, and every time we passed one, it had a number in the mid-eighties.

The second reason is because after about an hour of this, I saw a sign that said: San Fransico 208.

These facts are not accepted in all circles for two reasons. The first reason is no one else will admit to any knowledge of the post-Marie's sign.

The second reason is, Brad keeps pointing to where we are on the map now and where we were then, and there's, like, and inch of difference that he finds significant.

All I can say is, we started the day three hundred miles from San Francisco, and after nine hours of driving we're about a hundred miles closer. You do the math.

Let it Snow!

Our Journey Through Time took us back a few calendar pages yesterday, as we found ourselves in a snowball fight at Crater Lake.


It was well into the 70’s on a sunny July afternoon and the path we followed to highest point of Crater Lake was lined with snow. Along the way, we stopped to play with chipmunks, take pictures--and throw snow at each other.Most of the day was spent on backwoods Oregon byways. Although we seldom encountered other vehicles, the state of Oregon still felt compelled to issue dire warnings. Every fifty or so miles, they randomly erect a sign that reads “CONGESTION”, just for kicks. We’d be rolling along through forest or farmland and –bam! CONGESTION! It really makes me wonder if the citizens of Oregon would survive I-64 at rush hour.

We crossed the border and are now in California. Just before dark, we went through the Redwood forest, where will plan to return this morning.

Currently, we are registered at a motel that now defines my new standard for low. If Brandon gives this place any stars, he may lose his credibility as a budding reviewer of standard. Upon check-in, the children sat on their bed, fondly remembering the finer points of all our prior accommodations.

“Remember the blankets at the woodcutter place?” Allison said wistfully.

“Remember the hot tub in Idaho?” Brandon sighed.

“Remember Internet?” I mumbled as my connection dropped for the zillionth time.

Literature provided by the facility warns of a previously unconsidered source of potential death. Evidently, we are in a tsunami hazard zone. We’re also told to be on alert for ticks, poison oak and “sneaker waves,” a mysterious force responsible for 63% of weather-related fatalities.

I must sign off for now, as my husband just reminded me that we can either spend more time in this room, or with the Redwoods and San Francisco!

Oregon

I scanned the dusty shelves stocked with bagged and boxed provisions encrusted in a time capsule of dirt. After leaving Baker City, we attempted to secure lunch at what was billed as a convenience mart. I passed on the outdated condiments and the embattled envelope of Lipton pasta Alfredo that looked as if it had spent hard time at the bottom of the rubble in our van.

Signs warned us early on that the scenic byway on which we embarked en route to Crater Lake and California would take us on a “Journey Through Time.”

In that respect, the trail did not disappoint. Indeed, the entire day was a journey back to a time before Internet, modern rest stops, and even restaurants.

My husband pointed out that our route followed the Oregon Trail. “That explains it!” our daughter said, recalling an Oregon Trail adventure play she helped my niece and nephew produce. Her cousins were the only actors, as all the other characters were either dead or off searching for food.

After many hours of pine forest and rocky brown mountains covered in low-lying scrub, we decided to find a town in which to settle for the evening, rather than press on the additional hour to Crater Lake. We naively hoped to follow through on the thought of a night at the movies.

We secured accommodations at a lodge with a rustic woodsman theme. Fake animals and plastic woodsmen aside, the lodge is quite comfortable.

Despite elements such as the rusty saw over the door, the room is well decorated. The furniture is gorgeous, cabin-style wooden-type stuff, and the room is stocked with Seattle’s Best coffee.

The proprietor informed us that wi-fi isn’t standard in these here parts. I actually feel fortunate to have a power outlet that enables me to pre-compose this post in Microsoft Word.

Speaking of Microsoft, my husband keeps claiming their headquarters are nearby, a fact that kept him pressing forward expecting to hit a high tech corridor. From our vantage point outside the lodge, we can see a sign indicating that we must haveblinked and missed the only existing pocket of technology an hour back.

As you might guess from this shot of the main drag, we were not successful in locating a movie theater. In fact, we resorted to emergency Cup of Soup and Wisconsin cheese and crackers for a makeshift in-room dinner.

If you are reading this post, we were likely successful in today’s goal of wrapping up this flashback in time and reemerging in twenty-first city California.

Miles to date: 4066.9
Highest gas price: 3.29 9/10
Creatures: fox (deceased)

The Way Things Are

Leaving Baker City, 11 AM PST

Miles to date: 3728

Miles traveled yesterday: 560

Creatures: alpaca

License plates: 40 states, 2 provinces, 1 US Government

Where we are

Sightings:
A truck full of onions
A sign reading: “Fer sale home grown beef” (not a typo)
An old pick up truck with a cute little log cabin built into the bed, traveling down the highway

In academic news, my supporters in the Graduate Office waved a magic wand and cleared my records of all roadblocks preventing my registration. In a seemingly unrelated development, registration was extended by a day and with a stroke of the keyboard this morning, I am fully registered for fall semester.

Checking out of the hotel this morning, it came to light that Brandon didn’t leave a rating sheet in the room. “You’re slipping,” I said.

“No, they are,” he replied. “They didn’t supply a pad of paper. I don’t even have pen to remember them by.” The oversight cost them a star.

Viewing Baker City from an aerial vantage point on the highway, my husband said "This town doesn't look too bad." He paused. "But the cemetery is huge."

Note to regular readers: Prior posts are continually being infused with more photo journalistic elements as time permits. It never hurts to scroll back and check prior posts for new features.

Baker City, Oregon

“There are so many ways to die here.”

The Idaho countryside changed dramatically as we found ourselves on a steep climb into Hell’s Canyon.

It wasn’t an alarming statement; the children spent our initial drive through Yellowstone making a list of all the ways we could meet our demise within the boundaries of the park. The possibilities included, but certainly were not limited to: microbes, scalding, buffalo goring, and poisoning from indigenous plants.

To my daughter’s delight, she discovered and purchased a book entitled Death at Yellowstone and makes it a point to share the most interesting cases with us in impromptu readings.

Prior to Yellowstone, we’d spent an afternoon flirting with mortality in the Badlands, so it was no shock to learn we were once again on the threshold of eternity.

What surprised me was the fact that the announcement came from my typically calm husband.

Secretly, I’d spent over an hour alarmed by the length of time that had passed since I’d last seen any type of infrastructure. The Yankees vs. Devil Rays game on XM was well into the sixth inning and I’d seen nary a wayside mart since the top of the first.

“My knuckles are white. That’s not good,” my husband says as the dusty road twists along steep, unguarded cliffs.

“It’s just a road, after all,” he reminds himself. “I don’t usually just fall off the side of a road,’ he says, turning the wheel to the left and his head to the right in an attempt to follow the road.

We nervously suggest that if it gets too dark, we might just inflate the air mattress and sleep on the hillside.

Immediately, we pass a sign:

DAY USE ONLY. NO OVERNIGHT CAMPING. My daughter insists the sign was riddled with bullet holes.

Crows swoop in front of the windshield.

“I guess they call it Hell’s Canyon for a reason,” my husband says.

We pass another sign:







Then:

“CAUTION. MACHINERY COULD BE ON EITHER SIDE OF THE ROAD AT ANY TIME.” Directly underneath was a sign with a silhouette of a big horn sheep, with the words BIG HORN SHEEP printed beneath the image.

More signs.








“I want to see the Transformers,” my daughter says.

“What on earth does that have to do with anything?” I demanded.

“I agree with her,” my husband says. “If we can find a way out of here and a hotel next to a movie theatre, I might just be very happy.”

My husband spots a turnout with a phone booth and a map. He exits the car and studies the map.

“Here’s the choice,” he says. “We can go right and the road turns into a rock. Or we can go left and find our way out of this mess in Baker City.”

Heading toward Baker City like the proverbial bat out of, well, Hell’s Canyon, he says “We just may ask ourselves one day if we regret not going up there. I tend to think not.”

Driggs, Idaho

We’re spending the night in a sleepy little town just across the Idaho border. I easily could have used many adjectives to describe the small little hamlet in which we’ve chosen to relax, do laundry, and sleep. Although picturesque, cozy, and quaint all certainly apply, it is not without reason that I have selected “sleepy.”

The first reason is undoubtedly Freudian in nature, as the entire family is exhausted from a prior-to-first-light sojourn back into Montana to use the internet.

Now, before anyone either notes the absence of a prior-to-first light post or sends me links to internet addiction facilities, let me assure you that my mission was long-planned, of extreme importance and that I failed miserably at its completion.

Today was my day to register for my fall classes. Back home weeks ago, it seemed a simple matter to both me and my advisor to grab some wi fi, secure my schedule and be on my way.

However, firewalls blocked key pages. Over the phone, staff from the registrar’s office found flags on my account—missing data, questions concerning prerequisites and the like. The staff from the Graduate office was summoned, emails were exchanged, professors were contacted. Despite the best efforts of a vigilant staff, I remain unregistered for class at present.

But projection of my own state is not the sole reason I describe Driggs as sleepy. No, the weary state in which I have discovered Driggs is due to the underuse of no less than 5 cute little coffee houses that were shut down for the evening before dinner. One place--a trendy little shop with leather couches and pumpkin patina walls was actually pouring coffee down the drain as I entered the store.

So I’m blogging on hotel coffee brewed in a little 8 oz pot.

In other news:

The turkey was found in western South Dakota, beneath a pile of rubble. By all accounts it jumped out of the refrigerator of its own volition and burrowed beneath the children’s backseat accouterments.

Which reminds me that our daughter has yet to use the teal ice cube trays. She simply carries them into various hotels and displays them on chairs and tables alongside her knitting.

The Wisconsin cheese survived, although it has taken on a rather free-form appearance.

My son’s future as the mayor of Brandon, SD is in doubt, as he’s renewed a life-long interest in hotel management and ratings. His trip journal reads like a Frommer’s Guide, each page covering the perks and pitfalls of the various establishments at which we’ve lodged. A page fell out of the car in the Badlands and I rescued it from the parking lot. It seemed to be some sort of diagram of the perfect hotel layout, but I’m not sure. He got testy when he found me looking at it. Evidently, it’s not something he’s ready to go to press with yet. He does, however, leave a star rating and personal comments on the nightstand every time we check out. He’s hoping his remarks will come up at “hotel meetings” and his name will be tossed around in upper circles within the industry.
Dr. M’s nurse called to tell me how normal all my lab work is, and to remind me that there’s still a Pending test they want to make sure I schedule. Isn’t that just my luck. I’m getting chased down about tests I don’t want, and despite the combined efforts of an entire University departments, I can’t seem to get registered for classes and exams to which I’d happily consent.

Today’s stats:

states 3

Total miles since last post: 1025

miles to date: 3169

Creatures: mule deer, elk, coyote, eagle, pelican, antelope, swans

where we are

Things That Happen in the Car

“Can you try it in jazz?” my daughter pleads with her brother in the backseat.

My son instantly breaks into a smoky rendition of Old MacDonald Had a Farm—smooth mellow tones, complete with a well placed improv line from Louis Armstrong’s Wonderful World tossed in after the ducks belt out some bluesy quack riffs.

“Here a (bluesy quack), there a (even bluesier quack)…and I think to myself, what a wonderful world…”

My son’s ability to make noise is rivaled only by his quick wit. He can turn out creative renditions of well known songs on a dime. We first discovered his gift when he was about three and began singing “Row, Row, Row Your Boat” like a choir of toothbrushes. Imagine a lot of swishing where the rowing bits happen. We badgered him relentlessly, asking him to entertain us with renditions of the tune from all sorts of choirs. I don’t remember how many he did, but I do remember that he nailed each one without even pausing.

Last night on the way back to Yellowstone after dinner at the Internet pizza café, we entertained ourselves by challenging Brandon to sing renditions of Old MacDonald to music genres we randomly selected from XM radio. He nailed dance, rap and metal Old MacDonald, but fumbled with Gospel.

Meanwhile, much of our daughter’s time has been invested as the trip secretary. She logs miles, expenses, creature sightings—and all our conversations.

When controversy breaks out, she quietly flips to a page in her log book and begins reading transcripts from earlier conversations about the disputed issue. It’s been long assumed that family life would run more smoothly if we could secure the services of a court stenographer who was perhaps interested in moonlighting with some residential work. Judging from the current situation, it appears everyone would just become very careful about what they say. Maybe that isn’t such a bad thing.

Any time anyone says more than two consecutive words she missed, she frantically calls what was that? or she just simply repeats some preposterous version of what we said so we’ll be forced to repeat ourselves.

Although she’s been pretty observant on the trip, it’s come to light that there’s plenty both she and her brother missed along the way in life. On the way to the stable yesterday, it came to light that my son never knew I had horses as a kid. During the course of that story, we found out that the kids never knew their great grandmother ever lived anywhere other than the house she lives in now. Soon distant relatives were introduced, historical facts were unearthed and history was preserved.

I hope someday they will remember to tell their kids about the big trip of ’07 when they sang Old MacDonald for two hours. But thankfully, if they forget anything it’s all on record.

West Yellowstone, MT just outside Yellowstone National Park

I am sorry to hear that my absence has alarmed my most stalwart readers. We have been deep within Yellowstone National Park for the past two nights, and I am afraid that wi-fi is not included in our campsite package.

We entered Montana moments ago and are currently at a pizza internet cafe. This will be a quick post, as I am paying by the minute for internet connectivity. Accordingly, please excuse any deficit in tight writing or well-crafted wit.


We spent this afternoon on horseback in parts of the park guides tell us are seen by less than 2% of visitors. My trusty mount, Buddy, safely took me alongside a steep cliff with a breathtaking view.


Prior to hitting the trail, we descended over 350 steps deep into the "Grand Canyon of Yellowstone" where an ever-present rainbow presides over a steep waterfall..

The park is teeming with bison and wildlife, although a moose sighting still eludes us.

We have seen dozens of vibrantly colored guysers, and have twice witnessed Old Faithful's blast.We will return to the park for one more night and will head to Jackson, WY and onward into Idaho tomorrow, where I hope to post further updates, stats and pictures!

It approacing prime time for creature viewing so I am off in search of moose.

South Dakota

So…we pull into a little scenic pullover just before the Badlands, planning to make sandwiches. We’d just finished a visit to 1880’s town and had worked up quite an appetite meeting the sheriff, playing with a litter of kittens in the barber shop and touring the set of Dances With Wolves. I was taking a series of panoramic pictures and returned to the news that the travel fridge had somehow turned into an oven.

Evidently, there’s this nifty little switch that, according to my husband “lends versatility” to the appliance by allowing the user to choose to keep foods cold or hot. Trouble is, no one seems to remember choosing to cook our Wisconsin cheese, fruits and certainly not the replacement lunchmeat we acquired during some early morning shopping at our accommodations.

Fortunately, the proprietors of the cheese shop anticipated that a cheese storage mishap might occur on such a complex trip as ours, and had regaled us with cheese come-back stories that make the accomplishments of the 2004 Red Sox pale in comparison. It seems Wisconsin cheese is pretty hearty stuff. In the event of a waxy meltdown were told to just pop it in a fridge and wait for all the goo to absorb back into the cheese. For us this was simple flip of a switch.

Not hailing from the great state of Wisconsin, the berries and lunchmeat didn’t fare as well, and we found ourselves Lunchless in the Badlands—a situation that had all the makings of a good Tom Hanks film. There was tension, miscommunication, even laughter—in the hands of a good director, I’m sure the plot provides ample opportunity for a tear or two as well. At one point, we ended up looking for food in the shop of a Native American artesian. All he had was a box of flat bread mix that I threatened to whip up and cook on a rock.

Once fortified with a pasty chicken salad croissant and a couple of hot dogs from a convenience store, we ventured into the Badlands. By all accounts, temperatures were well into the hundred and teens. We walked a half mile trail, noting the many ways to die. Rattle snakes, falls, and heatstroke were the most obvious.

After exhausting the memory and/or batteries in all of our cameras, we made some technical adjustments in the van and headed to the much-hyped Wall Drug. We’d been seeing signs for this place for the past two days—which careful readers know to be many, many hundreds of miles. Our friend, Josh, advised us to resist, but others informed us it’s a must-do staple of any complete x-country trip. It’s simply a strip of western-style shops along a westerny-looking street. Frankly, it looks like a dozen other places I’ve seen along the way. The one notable difference was a little “traveler’s chapel” tucked in between all the kitsch and baubles. It was the only place that was completely empty. I took a few moments and read devotion from the complementary Daily Bread and enjoyed the beautiful stained glass. It was an ironic moment of serenity in a sea of commercialism.

We watched a storm roll across the distant sky as we drove to Mt. Rushmore. The countryside changed dramatically somewhere between the Badlands and Mt. Rushmore. Pine trees and rocky hills replaced desert-like terrain.

Allsion and I had the opportunty to do a photoshoot with a mother mountain goat and her kid. The goats were photogentic and readily approached us, a fact that a passing ranger didn't seem to understand as he yelled at me for "being way too close."

Back in the car my sister called and with the news that she hadn’t seen the turkey, which left us with the unsettled feeling that it’s lurking somewhere in the depths of the van.

Which brings me to another point. I know a third movie reference in a single post is pushing the format a bit, but I’ve known since Virginia this one was coming.

Awhile back, we watched Are We There Yet, in which a character portrayed by Ice Cube or T, I’m not sure which, takes a brand new SUV cross country with a couple kids. The vehicle is in showroom condition when they embark, and deteriorates exponentially en route. Somewhere on the west coast I believe it goes up in flames.

When we bought our Saturn Relay last year--with an eye toward this trip--the film played out in my mind's eye.

Let me take a moment here to report that we are in South Dakota and the car is covered in dust and smashed bugs and we're surrounded by a heap of rubble that, by all accounts, is harboring 6-day old turkey. I expect the magical converto-appliance will go up in flames just as we hit the coast early next week.

We ended the day at the Crazy Horse monument-in-progress. The Native Americans have really put us the shame here. Without any governmental “assistance”, they’ve been quietly carving out a hillside monument to Crazy Horse since 1939. My son read that just the face of Crazy Horse is bigger than the combined Rushmore quartet. No word on the size of his mount, but thinking proportionally, you can imagine why it’s taking so long. While they’re working on it, they’ve got this whole museum and nightly laser light show where they use the rock-in-progress as a presentation screen for a multi-media show.

If this post seems long, just think what the day felt like. We’re heading to Yellowstone this morning. There are no plans for lunch.

Today's Stats:

miles: 302

Creatures: a litter of kittens, mountain goats, buffalo, wild phesants, chipmunks

liscense plate sightings: 37

Somewhere in South Dakota

“I’ll get you an umbrella. Guess why you’ll need one.”

I was stumped for a moment. We’d pulled off the highway following a sighting of a large longhorn bullhead (later information would confirm it to be the size of one of the Mt. Rushmore heads) and discovered the piece to be the most sizeable artwork in what was billed as a “sculpture park.”

The sketchy grammar on hand scrawled signs tipped us off early on that this was an off-beat enterprise, but the quirky artist and the quiz-show format surprised even me—and I’ve even been called a quirky artist.

My Systems Analyst husband was thoroughly out of his comfort zone, so I had to handle the interaction unaided. I’m traditionally poor at guessing.

“I’ll get sunburned?” I respond gamely. This seemed sensible, as the evening sun loomed large across the open hillside field.

No. Guess again.

“I’ll look picturesque on the hillside?” This seemed a stretch, but, anything was possible at this point.

“Attack birds.”

Evidently some birds were nesting in his sculptures, and after visitors reported being hampered in their observation efforts, the artist implemented the umbrella-weaponry system.

Not far down the path of metal sculptures—which included dragons, winged toads, mythical creatures and the like interspersed with handmade signs bearing witticisms such as “…in order to be wise, one first must be mangled”—I spotted a little black and white songbird. This couldn’t be the attack bird that inspired the umbrella-warfare system.

I pressed on, keeping a wary eye on the alert for crows or large grackles reminiscent of the one I once appeared in the storage loft in my bathroom.

Whoosh—without warning the little black songbird and a small army of minions flew at our heads in a flurry of wings and feet and beaks.

We huddled under the umbrella as the birds continued their assault, crashing into the umbrella.

“This is the kind of place where you try to leave, but you can’t,” my husband predicted on the way toward the car. “The road will end, or will keep looping right back here.”

“This is going to give me nightmares,” my son agreed.

Settled in the back seat, my daughter announced: “This has been the highlight of my trip, and it probably will remain so for the next several days.”

A couple hundred yards down the exit path, we came to a complete stop as herd of cattle surrounded the van.

Chocolate Cheese, Minnesota and the Mississippi, Brandon in Brandon

Chocolate cheese. Chicken soup cheese. Blueberry cheese. Cranberry cheese. We couldn’t leave Wisconsin without stopping a specialty cheese shop. All chesses could sampled for free—I actually like blueberry cheese. It would be wonderful in salad. We made several purchases and headed for the Minnesota.

We ate our leftover Chicago pizza along the Mississippi river at the boarder of Minnesota and South Dakota. We left the highway and dipped into Iowa for awhile. I thought I knew what farmland was from PA—lots of rolling little farms all over the countryside. That’s not true farmland. True farmland is when there are cornfields as far as the eye can see in all directs for several hundred miles. That’s farmland. It’s beautiful.
At a rest stop in South Dakota, Brandon discovered literature about a town called Brandon. We ate West-Mex at Taco John’s in Brandon. A great little town that, according to my son, “has everything I like.” He thinks he may return someday to be mayor.
Today’s Stats:
Miles: 600
States: 4 (Wisconsin. Minnesota, Iowa, South Dakota)
State license Plates: 33
Creatures: Llama, prairie dog, jack rabbit, many cows, horse and sheep
Total state count: 9

Madison, Wisconson--more than cheese

“We’re in Ohio and the turkey’s missing,” I informed my sister’s voice mail. We’d just pulled into a rest area to make sandwiches when we discovered that the turkey was gone.

It was last seen while making last minute adjustments to the cooler in her garage. I picture the package stuck to one of their tires, or perhaps strewn about the yard as bear bait.

This was the first of a series of minor setbacks. Following a hungrier-than-anticipated trip into Chicago we encountered some difficulty locating a pizza place. Aside from being in an unfamiliar city with limited map recourses, location of a suitable pizza joint was hampered by distractions concerning a monster stomach ache I was having. It peaked outside a little dive with a pizza sign and group of thugs discussing the size of the roach in the bathroom. We pressed on.

Fortunately, research paid off and we spotted a Lou Malnati’s—one of the big names in Chicago pizza—and we enjoyed a traditional deep dish pizza along with a thin crust version that wasn’t as good.

I was still plagued by stomach pains when we entered Wisconsin and were greeted by gorgeous scenery and the largest, most vivid rainbow I ever saw in my life. It lifted my spirits at once, and I couldn’t help interpreting the rainbow as a promise of even better things to come.

Today’s stats:

States covered: 5
Total miles: 782
Total spent on tolls: $20.60
Creature sightings: deer and owl
License plate sightings: 31

ABP’s issued on:
a pound of chipped turkey
A Sponge Bob *
A Waterworld video

* denotes later recovery

How Far to Winnebago?

We’ve made it to Danville, Pennsylvania, home of the Beaver Library.

388 miles from home, but we haven’t covered any new territory, so we’ve yet to acquire a genuine sense of adventure, although neuroticism abounds.

In the hours just prior to our departure, I noticed my daughter’s “to go” pile rapidly swelling with an assortment of toys and security items.

“We’re not moving,” I reminded her.

“Yes we are. Anything over a week isn’t a vacation. It’s a mini-move.”

I cited examples of families who took vacations for longer than a week.

“Yes, but they went to a single location,” she answered. “We’re just spending a month pretending we’re homeless. This is major. We could die.” She disappeared to room to post morbid farewell bulletins to her friends on myspace.

It wasn’t until we were pulling off our street that we discovered the teal ice cube trays.

“Why, daughter, why?” my husband asked. Having narrowly escaped having to make the first leg of the trip with a small box of his belongings wedged between his feet, discovery of the ice cube tray 4-pack wasn’t met with enthusiasm.

“We’ll need them. I know we will,” she answered.

We passed a Winnebago on the highway and my husband remarked that his work associates had suggested he rent one for the trip.

“Where is Winnebago? Is it far? Why can’t we go to Winnebago?” Daughter piped up from the backseat. As is so often the case, she picked a single word from the conversation and used it as a building block to develop an alternate reality. I’ll pause the narrative long enough here to remind readers that this is the same daughter who just turned sixteen.

“How far away is Winnebago?” she demanded.

“About three seconds,” my husband said, as we approached another camper.

“Autism is so popular,” I lamented moments later, as we passed yet another vehicle sporting the puzzle piece patterned awareness ribbon. “Why isn’t there a hypochondria ribbon?”

“There is,” my husband quickly assured me. “It’s invisible. Just like your diseases. We have some all over our car.”

“If I get too bored, I’m going to use my ice cube trays to play Mancala,” our daughter announced. “I’ll use gumballs for the pieces.”

It’s now her mission not only to use the ice cube trays, but to employ them in as many ways as possible.

Tomorrow morning we’re heading for Chicago, by way of Winnebago. If you’re traveling west on route 80 feel free to give a honk or wave. We’ll be in the blue SUV plastered in hypochondria ribbons.

Details at 11

As I’m packing for our 25-day cross country adventure, I keep remembering my father’s words of wisdom about travel: a trip can’t really be enjoyed until it’s over.

Not until the car is safely back in the driveway can you take a moment to consider how good it all really was. The engine didn’t blow. No one ended up in the hospital. The house is still standing.

I watched too much news as a child. WAY too much. I’m only in my 30’s, but I remember Watergate, the Symbionese Liberation Army’s abduction of Patty Hearst, and Betty Ford’s breast cancer. These are not things I should know anything about, as I was about 3 when I watched Walter Cronkite’s reports of said events on the evening news.

My father was a newscaster. Current events, therefore, were not only prominently considered within our home, they were also employed to instill the “think twice” maxim into me and my sister.

“Girls,” my father would begin somberly when my sister and I sought permission to do some seemingly routine activity like, say, make toast. “I know it seems that there isn’t much that can go wrong making toast, but I’m sure that’s exactly what Bill Doe thought last week when he went to the corner market to pick up a loaf of bread.”

We’d listen in grave silence as dad recounted Bill Doe’s sad fate, typically a mugging, decapitation or comparable act of wonton violence.

We responded with the dichotomy of emotions that is trademark adolescence—first we’d scoff, then we’d wonder: what if he’s right? What if the world really is a place of limitless danger and senseless violence?

One of my favorite films is a short by director Sarah Watt entitled “Living With Happiness.” It depicts a woman not unlike me who goes through a completely routine morning with her family—making toast and the like—but scenes rapidly shift from mundane reality to images of the protagonist’s morbid fears of the dangers lurking just beneath the surface. As I recall, the toaster goes on the fritz and electrocutes the family. The movie ends when the woman heads to the beach in an attempt at serenity only to get sucked up by a rip tide and rescued by a surfer boy who tells her that the key to surfing—and by extension, life—is “not to panic.”

This, my friends, is the mission on which I am determined to embark throughout our travels. I’ve examined the risks head on. There’s no guarantee that we won’t fall victim to danger on the highway. We could enter Area 51 in Nevada and simply disappear. Why, just yesterday, my sister spotted a grave warning in one of my travel magazines informing us that the Merced, a river we expect to encounter in Yosemite National Park, is, in all actuality, an “unlikely killer.”

On the home front, our house could burn down, our pets could ail, and storms could topple the large pine in front of the house and collapse the roof.

A simple perusal of the morning newspaper is the only warning one needs to understand that life is a risky proposition. It’s a mixed bag of horror out there. Accidents, cancer, poverty, crime, even bread muggings. There’s an endless range of potential disaster lurking under the surface of so-called normal living.

But you know what—if I’m destined to become someone’s screaming headlines object lesson, I’ve determined to enjoy every minute I can along the way.

Reprise on Broadway

I’ve just issued an APB—All Points Bulletin, for readers who didn’t have the opportunity to absorb a lot of police jargon from 80's prime time TV—on a pair of brown shorts.

Things disappear from our home at a break neck pace: Tupperware, clothing, even food vanishes at a moment’s notice.

Up until now, the default explanation for missing items has always been that they “must have been thrown away.”

But now, thanks to the New York Times, I’m aware that all my stuff just may be headed to Broadway.

According to the Times, Gone Missing is “a comic musical review based on conversations with real New Yorkers,” about the things that were here “just a moment ago” but have since vanished.

Now our x-country trip doesn’t currently include a stop in the Big Apple, but I’m wondering now if that’s a mistake. Perhaps it would be lucrative to pay a visit to the director of the show. After all, I can generate at will a complete new cast of missing items should the troupe be interested in taking the show on the road and, say, doing a Virginia run with some local flavor.

Just this week, hours were logged in search of:

My brown shorts
A black flip flop
Several bags of Ceylon tea
The striped blue sheet
Some prescription drugs
A receipt from the vet
My friend Lori

I’m also curious to ask the director if anyone in New York is searching for the Yankees? They haven’t shown up for their past several games and I’m more than a little concerned.

SS Newton

There’s nothing left of the boat. Tides, surf and vandalism have reduced the craft to nothing but a pile of rubble with an open commode plopped on top.

Seems entropy—that stalwart constant of physics—has reared its ugly head once again.

I live in an ongoing state of tug-of-war with the second law of thermodynamics, that scientific absolute that destines everything to a return to an elemental baseline state.

Why just last week, acknowledgment of my fleeting youth caused me to succumb to pressure from my daughter and husband to purchase an overpriced piece of swimwear my daughter discovered in a sporting goods store.

“It’s worth it. It’ll serve you well for many years,” my husband insisted.

“How long do you think I have to look good in a bikini?” I asked incredulously.

“All the more reason to buy it,” my husband said, plunking it into the cart.

With the countdown to the x-country trip in the single digits, I’m fighting to ward off decline on all fronts—home, car, pets, finances, health--you name it.

With the advent of last week’s stomach pains, I became aware of just how once-in-a-lifetime this trip really is. Next summer, I have to take sequential classes that, if missed, will extend my masters program—not to mention my funding --well beyond its natural lifespan.

By the following summer, my daughter will be 18, and who knows what will have transpired in her life or our ours by then? With the ravages of time aging even the children, it’s all together possible that the 3 weeks we’ve carved out of July could be the only chance we’ll have to make this trip as a family.

It’s a lot of pressure to put on 25 days.

So in an attempt to bolster my regained health, I went to see the herbalist.

See, Dr. M is really just for back up. When I really want to see some health-related action, I go to my herbalist, a middle aged woman who practices homeopathic medicine out of her living room.

Last month, when my jaw was on the fritz, she gave me some drops for my water bottle along with a little jar of coconut oil to use ONLY on my legs, and within 24 hours, my jaw was as good as new.

She’s dissolved cysts. She’s cured rampant yeast overgrowth. She’s even dabbled in the murky terrain of the mind with nothing more than a case of vials filled with floral extracts that I refer to as the “psych herbs.”

She even treats animals. With nothing more to go one than a tuft of fur, she diagnosed my cat’s liver issues with every bit the accuracy of the high-tech vet with the high-high bills to pay for said high-tech equipment.

Why, you may ask, do I bother with Dr. M?

Good question. If pressed, I’d have to say it’s for the cheap thrills.

You see,my herbalist--who some of my friends refer to as The Crazy Herb Lady--is ALWAYS right and beats Dr. M to the punch every time. With nothing more than powders and extracts and the combined secrets of tribal and Chinese lore, she’s typically miles ahead of Dr. M.

Which, although fascinating, often puts me in a state of conflict should I choose to consult both of them—which I tend to reserve for my more dire cases.

For instance, The Crazy Herb Lady agrees wholeheartedly with Dr. M that I have some nasty bacteria running rampant in my system, however, she wants to tackle the issue by giving me MORE bacteria--probiotics. Whereas, Dr. M insists on killing the bacteria with—you guessed it antibiotics.

So what am I doing? Taking both. I’ve researched it. It can be done. The key is staggering the introduction and eradication of the bacteria, so you’ve got this microbiological battle of good and evil waging.

No doubt the bacteria will all manage to snuff each other out and I’ll be stuck back at baseline.

Happy Feet

So right before my visit to Dr. M, I went to Target to shop for the gift I had to bring to the dice-and-gifts event.

I decided to play it safe and purchase something I’d be happy with, in the event that I ended up going home with whatever I brought.

Good thinking.

I selected a pumice scrub and file and a shimmery nail polish, because contrary to some propaganda I read on the label of a beach-themed exfoliant, walking on the shore every day gives one rough calluses, not “soft, smooth, beach-worthy feet.”

I figured a do-it-yourself pedicure made a nice, summer-themed gift. Which brings me to a key point. All previous yuletide connections to said event were merely personal flashbacks to the Women’s Ornament Exchange, a scarring event from my distant past. To paraphrase a common disclaimer in the front matter of novels, any connection to actual events should be considered purely coincidental.

So I wasn’t really expecting a lighted Christmas tree. I didn’t think I’d sit beneath a tinsel-framed window, and I definitely didn’t picture drinking coffee from a Christmas mug. But I did.

It wasn’t until I dried my hands on a Christmas bath towel in the restroom that I realized the Holiday theme was not connected to event, but rather a reflection of the decorating preference of the hostess.

Eerie coincidence aside, I had a wonderful evening, despite the fact that I lost 26 rounds of play—27 if you count the consolation round in the end where all the unclaimed packages are paired with unlucky players. I drew the joker and was stuck with the solitary, unclaimed package.

I took my pedicure kit home, thankful that my calluses were all I needed to smooth over. I may have finished last, but this time I didn’t lose. I’d buy my own gift and play with those gals any day of the week. In fact, my fingernails are looking a little ragged. Maybe they’ll call again soon.

I'll take the "0"

“These tests aren’t for you, they’re for me,” Dr. M explained. “We’ll do them all now, so I can use them to reassure you for the next 20 years.”

Summer always seems to begin with some type of medical melodrama, and ’07 would be no exception.

Last summer, skin cancer struck violently in the course of a single afternoon. A legion was discovered, and all of my moles grew exponentially in circumference and darkened ominously. Fortunately, Dr M had an immediate opening and well-trained nurse who removed the embedded tick that was masquerading as a melanoma.

Prior to that was the summer of The Cough, preceded by the summer of the glandular tumor and that of the broken toes—you get the picture.

This summer, either colon or ovarian cancer—or perhaps both—brought on abdominal pain that mysteriously worsened the more I thought about the possibility—yea, even the likelihood—of canceling our trip for major surgery.

Every so often my husband makes me see Dr. M so he can “talk me down,” as Dr. M has proven adept in his ability to reason with me without the panic-inducing jargon of his predecessors. We’ve had to let so many go over the years, most notably the ENT who announced that my plugged ear “could be a tumor, cancer, or worse.”

Nice. Even a normal patient would be hard pressed to carry on in the face of such a prognosis. But a hypochondriac? He’s just lucky my husband didn’t sue for pain and suffering—his, not mine.

On the contrary, Dr. M repeats mantras such as, “This is not a time to worry. If there ever is a time to worry, I will tell you and we will worry together.”

This time, he wanted to ease his pain and suffering with tests, but I’m not comfortable with things that are “Pending.” Tests that can be done in the office are fine. Anything else is Pending—which is the same as Looming. And everyone knows that Looming is ominous.

But Dr. M said this wasn’t a time to worry, and I think that’s all I really needed to hear. I stopped worrying, and my stomach feels fine. Which is good for me, but not for Dr. M. The tests aren’t happening, which will probably make his job a whole lot harder down the road.

Double Jeopardy?

So the New Friend that invited me to the Not-A-Public Speaking event spirited me away to camp for the afternoon yesterday. I left the house thinking I was just going to drop off my final assignments to my computer professor, but I ended up several hours from home peering into the disheveled contents of a camper’s suitcase in an attempt to assemble an outfit for an ‘80’s-themed prom.

“Just think of it as research,” my New Friend said, casting a new light on the impromptu trip.

Of course. Research. After all, I am writing a series of teen novels set at summer camp. No matter that emails would go unanswered and trip preparations would be stalled—-writers will drop their keyboards at a moment’s notice for an opportunity for in-the-field research.

Not to mention that this was a chance to forward the whole female bonding thing prior to the dice and gifts event.

Conversation on the two hour drive to camp drifted to our respective prior experiences at the camp that had, somehow, never overlapped.

I was surprised by how quickly the conversation led to tricky ground.

Two years ago while volunteering at said camp, I found it necessary to kidnap a puppet, an event that subsequently incited hysteria among a group of chauvinistic men and led to a mock trial with the entire camp in attendance. The case went unresolved, hampered by a hung jury, tampered evidence and contempt of court.

As soon as I opened my mouth to recount the tale, I could tell that it was too soon to have introduced the Puppet Affair. New Friend looked puzzled. I spent the rest of the drive fearing I’d put too much strain on the budding friendship, babbling about puppets.

I have a handful of tight female friends, but they’re people who have had a long time to get used to me and my quirks-—my sister, for instance, and Lori, who is well acquainted my dysfunction but chooses to love me anyway.

Evidently I don’t really have a feel for what girls REALLY like to talk about. After a mere five minutes in the cabin, we knew who was constipated, who was experiencing monthly distress, and what cup size each girl wore.

Now I'm not sure how useful that research will prove, but the camp’s 80’s week theme was a gem and stalwart readers should take note to look for above influences in future Camp Edson adventures.

And—as a bonus—I discovered that the Puppet Affair has gone down in camp lore. New Friend introduced me to a counselor who connected some quick dots and exclaimed:

“You were the one who stole the puppets! I’ve always wanted to meet you, you’re my hero!”

The jury is still out on whether or not New Friend thinks I'm a lunatic, but I felt acquitted.

Christmas in (almost) July or A Midsummer Festivus?

I’ve received an invitation. At first, I thought I was being asked to participate in a scholarly gathering of public speakers, as I was invited to “substitute” at what I mistakenly heard was a “keynote meeting.”

I seem to recall reading somewhere that most people would rather die than speak in public; so theoretically, I should have been alarmed from the outset.

In reality, my palms didn’t begin to sweat until I discovered that the event (kee-no??) involves cards, dice, gifts and a dozen women.

Last time I got involved in something like this, I ended up with a one-winged angel and a low tolerance for excessive estrogen exposure.

The Women’s Ornament Exchange of ’97 played out like a Seinfeld episode. This was not a gathering of refined ladies exchanging adornments for the yuletide. The events that transpired more closely resembled lost footage from the “Festivus” episode. As you may or may not recall, "Festivus" was a late December holiday consisting of the “Airing of Grievances” and “Feats of Strength.”

You may find it difficult to see the parallels if you haven’t had a series of reindeer, moose and snowmen forcibly removed from your person by a pack of rabid women.

I believe I’d been promised “an evening of food and fellowship and a keepsake reminder for my family tree.” However, the event coordinator had to sift through the rubble in the evening’s aftermath to unearth the naked, fractured cherub that was ultimately presented to me.

I’d like to tell you that I found the token to be endearing and tended to its wounds and salvaged it as an inspiring symbol of triumph over rejection, but that simply wouldn’t be true.

The plastic dollar store bauble was disposed of at the scene.

Young and impressionable, I subsequently steered clear from grown-up events that were gender-specific.

But unlike the kitschy cherub, I get another chance to embrace this whole female-bonding thing. If it doesn't work out, at least I'll get some great material I can use if I'm ever asked to give a keynote address.

Fire in the Hull!

"Fire!" My daughter yelled as we turned off the wooded path and onto the beach. Indeed, the grounded sailboat--illustration from my previous post, site of last week's beach breakfast, and topic of ongoing speculation--was ablaze.

Drawn to flame like campers brandishing marshmallows, the children--my two plus a friend--broke into a sprint, managing an on-scene response time we certainly don't see on routine calls.

By the time I arrived--I believe my response time officially classified me as a "secondary unit"--the blaze was what Peter, my firefighter friend, would refer to as "fully involved."

"You guys can't be serious," my husband said in disbelief as my daughter, her friend and I each plunged an oyster shell into the sea and ran toward the flaming craft.

Meanwhile, my son found an empty beer bottle and got to work--undaunted yet hindered by the lime wedged in the bottle's neck. In no time at all, the flames were tamed. The smoke dissipated. The air cleared. Miraculously, the vessel appeared untouched by flame.

The rest of us cheered, but my husband just shook his head, staring at the embattled and partially burried remains of the shipwrecked craft.

"He really salvanged it," my husband said. "He saved it from being a complete loss."

See Food?

“You don’t want to start out with a handicap,” my sister said, tossing out a witty reference from yesterday’s blog in an attempt to tip the scales in a debate that was waging over two contradictory sets of plans.

I wanted to stick to my Usual Plans and attend the Creation East festival. This is what I’ve done the last week of June for most of my life. But my sister says that since I’ll be away for July and she’ll be on vacation in August, the last week in June will be the only time she can come to my house this summer.

After reading my post, she doesn’t seem to think I can handle a mere 3 day buffer between returning from Creation and leaving for the X-country trip. Go figure. Besides, I’ve been having a terrible time finding friends to go with me this year, anyway. Everyone seems to have jobs and obligations, or they’ve gotten married or had babies. Incredible, the excuses people will come up with.

So I’m trying to talk my sister into going with me, with all four of our kids. I’d chipped away at several layers of excuses when she decided to take the opportunity to use the “complete honesty” format we chose for the conversation to announce that she doesn’t even like going to the festival.

For some reason, she doesn’t seem to think that sitting in a field with 99,000 people for three days under a blazing sun sounds like fun. She’s not much for the dust, or the cold kitchen-sprayer showers. She’s not even game for weathering the occasional freak storm or the porta-potties—which, I must say, they maintain with near-shocking precision.

Besides, events of the morning had already established that I was no stranger to starting from a deficit. It wasn’t even 9 a.m. and I’d already extracted a tick from my left forearm and discovered that my chief source for an imminently due article had--as six seasons of
24 have shown sources are so wont to do--“gone dark.” Not to mention that I’d run out of coffee.

I briefly considered joining the 7-11 will work for coffee program, but a peek inside my refrigerator revealed a breakfast deficiency to boot. I grabbed a croissant and iced coffee at the Dunkin Donut and headed to the beach in hopes of abandoning my troubles like flotsam and jetsam on the shore.

Sitting beside a wrecked ship that washed ashore last week, I realized the problem with changing my plans was the same as the one in my fridge: I am severely challenged by the assembly of delicious yet flexible menu options.

As much as I like to bill myself as an adventurous, off-the-cuff sort, I really don't stray far beyond a stable rotation of proven selections.

Food is a struggle in our home. I’d rather listen to nails on a blackboard than hear a child ask, “What’s for dinner.”

No one really likes anything. I’m no friend of the meats group, and my husband hates fruits and vegetables. I promote salads; he pushes pink strips of dripping flesh. No one eats seafood. There are about four dishes everyone can collectively appreciate.

Every couple of weeks, we have “the food talk” where family members are forced to suggest two meal ideas. Eventually, everyone writes down the same two ideas—me: pizza and pasta, my husband: grill and “don’t worry, I’ve got it covered” and the kids swap out which one requests the mac and cheese and chicken nuggets and which asks for tacos and chicken. Some smart alec will invariably choose “leftovers.”

Every now and then I’ll rally and pull out the cooking magazines—I have an entire cabinet devoted to back issues—and assemble a whole new plan.

New menu items are seldom readily accepted, as likely as not to be referred to as things like “casserole” or “hearty soup” with disdain for years to come. Even a recent batch of muffins fell victim to rejection when the kids discovered the origins of the recipe. I tried to conceal the torn-out magazine page from view, but my daughter got suspicious at the sight of wheat flour. “Is it from Prevention?” she demanded.

“Prevention Muffins” didn’t make the menu.

Now, there are the occasional bright spots. There was a successful dumpling dish introduced last winter, and a homemade soup my son and I patterned after a Panera offering. Following a daring move at a local buffet, the entire family is considering the purchase of a salmon for possible grilling. But more often than not, it’s easier to just follow our European roots and just buy food everyday than go through the “food talk”

Which brings me back to the end of the month. For me, the Creation festival is a huge bowl of rigatoni with crusty bread and salad—a staple that’s withstood the test of time. Anything else is received with as much enthusiasm as “the food talk.”

But I’ve decided to rise to the occasion on both fronts. I’m thinking when my sister comes, it’s time to grill the salmon. I also just got wind of a local jazz festival. I think I’ll score some tickets. Here’s to an expanded summer menu!

Par for the Course

"We can't let it turn out like the mini-golf affair," I say to my husband over chips and salsa this afternoon at the only Mexican restaurant at which we can agree to eat.

A portion of my own post yesterday really grabbed my attention. A month from today, our X-country road trip could actually be in progress. I say could, because we haven't actually set a firm departure date.We don't have a firm itinerary. We have no reservations. We are, by design, flying by the seat of our pants.

Now, this isn't to say we haven't given the trip any thought. We chose this summer to drive across the country with the kids three years ago. Six months ago, I hung a US map on the kitchen door, and purchased color-coded stickers for family members to mark their must-see destinations. Today, I've just returned from the library where I procured a copy of Steinbeck's Travels With Charlie. Thinking, we've done. Planning...well, let's just say we want to be surprised by where we sleep each night. We're bringing camping gear and we're packing a cooler. Dr. S, the professor for which I will begin working in the fall, feels confident that this is a safe plan for American travel. She's currently in a small Central American country. I suspect she planned better.

However, I awoke today plagued by memories of spontaneous date nights on which my husband and I have embarked. These typically end on the couch with a rented video and a package of break-and-bake cookies by 8:30. Unfortunately, my husband and I have demonstrated no real aptitude for unplanned jaunts. Oh, there's the occasional success story like the weekend trip we took to Texas or the Niagara Falls excursion of '89. But the overall failure rate of our dates is pretty high unless we've secured advance tickets for a play or made reservations at a hotel or other higher-level arrangements.

Perhaps the worst of these dates took place on a recent evening when we took off with the vague idea of trying to locate a mini-golf joint we remember going to in the mid-nineties. We spent about 45 minutes tooling down strips of road we thought "looked familiar" and resorted to calling our son for help. Now, I love my son, but the boy is no bastion of resourcefulness. We sat in a darkened parking lot for about 20 minutes coaching him through the Yellow Pages. After attempting to direct us to any number of alternative pursuits, he finally succumbed from exhaustion. “Sorry, guys, I just can't help you."

We didn't even bother with the video store. We watched the second half of the movie we put on for our son before we left. A month from today, I may be posting interesting observations from somewhere near Chicago. Or I might just be on the couch with The Back to the Future trilogy and a tray of chocolate chip cookies.

Juanita Valdez

Absolutely nothing can be taken at face value, as I discovered today at the 7-11. Stopping for a cup of coffee on my way to computer class, I noted the standard handful of regulars huddled in front of the building, coffee cups aloft as they engaged in good natured banter.

Although later events would cause me to realize that, if pressed, in say, a line-up type situation, I could only ever identify one member of the group, I assumed the gathering was merely regulars stopping for a chat on the way to work--a sort of blue-collar coffee klatch.

While fixing my coffee, a thin mustachioed man next to me began counting the creamers as I dumped them into my cup. Although it’s risky, I’m actually going to go on record with the assumption that he was perhaps an engineer, and not say, afflicted with a dissociative disorder, as the text of the story could imply.

The mustachioed gent started murmuring something about the Coffee Queen. I assumed he was talking to me, but before I could determine a response, he continued with phrases like “Outside today, I’ve never seen her outside,” and, something that sounded like “Hometown Hero.”

Now, the Daily Press pays me good money for scoping out feel good little stories from the neighborhood, so I figured it might be worth being a few minutes late for class if there really was a Hometown Hero right in front of the 7-11.

“Who?” I asked in my Journalist Voice. If I actually had my digital recorder, I would have flipped it on then in there between creamers 2 and 3.

“The lady out there with the frizzy hair,” he said in awe, indicating the leader of the klatch. Clearly, I had underestimated this group. In fact, I noted, attendance did seem up a notch today. Who was I dealing with? Should I run home for my recorder?

Mustachio lowered his voice. “She doesn’t really work here you know,’ he confided.

“Oh?” I said casually. I never had mistaken her for a worker, but then, I saw her outside every day, too. Was she undercover? How deep did this story go?

“She just kind of hangs out,” he said. His voice dropped another notch. “I think she’s got a deal.”

“A deal?”

“Free coffee,” he whispered. “She just kind of hangs out—doesn’t really work here mind you,” he reiterated, “and they give her free coffee.”

“Hangs out?” I repeated, my voice and my story falling flat.

“Yes, just hangs out. And helps,” he added, perking up and pointing to the window. “Look at her go! She’s got boxes!” he cried in admiration as Klatch Leader moved a stack of empty boxes past the door.

I paid my buck-forty for my coffee and headed out, wondering how my editor would view a free trade coffee expose with a local angle.

I Was Wrong

Years back, a once-ubiquitous televangelist published a book bearing the same title as this entry. Now, although this writing is unlikely to have the same volume of readership or cover infractions of the same scope or breadth, I feel it is cleansing to admit one’s inaccuracies.

For months, I have been convinced that I have seen the face of pure evil—in the form of a principled-yet-crusty financial officer. We’ll call her Midge. Let’s say she works in the accounting office of a school I attend. As I am currently enrolled in two institutions of higher education, this seems an adequately anonymous way to showcase the relevant events.

Following an Unfortunate Incident last fall when my view of my billing status did not match Midge’s analysis, it seemed to me that my account fell victim to no end of mysterious inaccuracies. In my mind, Midge burned the midnight oil dreaming up new ways to foul up my account. She would hack into official files. Alter paperwork. Misfile documents. All for sport. All for the sheer pleasure of making me sweat—which regular readers recognize as an ongoing issue anyway.

Over the weekend, I received troubling documentation that led me to believe that Midge was at it again. Poised to pick my pocket right smack in the middle of my family’s upcoming cross country road trip. I couldn’t believe it! How did Midge catch wind of our travel dates? Even family members on the hook for pet care duty haven’t been able to pin us down on the scope and sequence of our itinerary. Quite frankly, we’re less than a month from our projected departure and WE don’t even know. Darn, Midge is good!

I fired off an email to Midge. I received the following prompt response:

Ms. Davis:

The payment plan you selected is not offered by our school, as noted on the Payment Preference Sheet you received in your enrollment packet. However, as a courtesy to you, I will adjust your agreement for the dates of your choice.

Assuming the worst about people probably isn’t anymore accurate than assuming the best.

For weeks now, I’ve been pulling for my Computer Classmate. Poor misguided soul. The class as a unit, including Prof C, coached her out of despair when an English professor wouldn’t accept the hand scrawled scrap of embattled notebook paper she called an essay. We encouraged, informed and educated even as she struggled to type said essay into MS Word during Prof C’s MS Word lecture. Of course, she didn’t hear the lecture and we had to collectively navigate her though the material all over again.

Anyway, I just told myself that someone who would navigate the public transit system—the same system we’re told is responsible for her inability to complete lab assignments--to acquaint herself with technology she hasn’t seen “in all her 36 years,” well, I just knew she’d look back on all this from her 16th –story, hardwood paneled office in a few years and laugh—and remember us all fondly as she sipped martinis at power lunches.

Well, she didn’t show up today, missing the entire Power Point unit—a deficit from which the concerted efforts of all of us won’t be able to bring her back. But then again, I’m assuming.

Maybe I need a more baseline view of humanity—you know, kind of avoid my extremist tendencies. Computer Classmate probably just got some troubling documentation in the mail from Midge and missed the bus while sorting it all out.

Dusty Covers

It’s approaching 11 a.m. and this is troublesome on several fronts.

First, despite a looming deadline on a news story and ample computer homework, all I’ve managed to accomplish is confirming a lunch date and starting this blog entry. You can see how productive I become from here simply by checking the post time at the end of this entry.

I’ve been sluggish in my work today, having nearly fallen victim to several meltdowns in the wake of my daughter’s 16th birthday. Now, the birthday itself was fabulous. Despite sustaining a second degree burn cooking dinner and nearly blowing the surprise portion of the surprise party with an ill-timed remark concerning my expectations of seeing one of my daughter’s friends later that evening, it was all a smashing success.

But really, how can I possibly have a 16 year old kid? I’ve lived my entire life under the premise that people with teenagers are just on the sunny side of false teeth and Depends.

Just last week the girl--I say “girl” because I assumed she was my age--who sits beside me in computer class mentioned her 20-year old son and I exclaimed in shock, “I had no idea you were that old!” Then I realized that I’ll have a 20-year old in just four years.

Computer Classmate responded with the news that she’s about to be a grandma. Unsettling though it was, I comforted myself with the thought that I have a solid four years before I had to worry about anything like that.

Yesterday, she let her age slip out during one of her increasingly frequent rants— giving us the stats on how long she’d lived without touching computers before she signed up for the class.

She’s two years younger than me.

Now math isn’t my strong suit, but best I can figure she must have become a mom when she was my daughter’s age—which somehow doesn’t comfort me, either.

The second reason why I’m concerned about the hour has just turned down my street. Right on cue, the mail man’s here. And I’ll bet he’s got magazines for me.

You may ask why this is a problem. After all, magazines are innocent enough—chock full of stories and recipes and glossy pictures.

I know. I subscribe to a wide range of wonderful publications--Art and Writing magazines….Travel…Animals…Cooking… perky little inspirational magazines—I get them all. Some are gifts from my husband. I’ve ordered a couple. Others, like Prevention, of all things, just show up unbidden. What kind of sick person sends Prevention to a hypochondriac? Like I need new diseases to prevent!

Problem is, I don’t have enough time to read them. At least as thoroughly as I’d like. See, often, I pick up a magazine and fondly recall this article and that picture—-but I still can’t recycle it, see, because I haven’t gotten all the way through it.

It’s an OCD thing. You’re cheating your brain if you don’t read the whole thing. I’ve already compromised on skipping articles that simply aren’t interesting. I’ve made peace with that. But toss out a magazine with an unread spread about exotic places I may never get to visit? I simply can't do it. Ditto for neglected writing tips. Then there's ignored plights of rare species, foods I might want to try--toss out an unread magazine, and there's no telling what you might miss.

Now, my sensible friend, Lori, says “They aren’t books for crying out loud—you don’t read them from cover to cover—you flip through and pass on!”

I make deals with myself. I set goals—I’ll read and recycle five this week! Do you know how hard this is? Now I can plow through a Reader’s Digest or a Guideposts in under an hour. The bite sized articles are manageable and I can work through a couple of those before bed each night, no problem.

But the Geographics and the Smithsonians? Meaty stuff. I want to read it. I know I’ll get to them all—even the issues that came in the week following the Great Purge of ‘02. The problem is, even if I could lower my expectations to say, two a week, the numbers are staggering, when the new arrivals are taken into account. I may have mentioned my lack of math prowess, but I think we’re dealing with statistical improbabilities here.

Which is why the approach of the postman gives me pause. I know my dysfunction will be exposed any day when glossies quite literally burst from my closets. I currently have high volumes of magazines stashed in no less than 7 locations around my house. We're well into the hundreds of under-read issues, but who's counting? I am running out of options.

Maybe I should start reading a new high end magazine that has just debuted in SoHo. The latest in boutique journalism, its features include blank pages! Even I could manage to finish each issue before the arrivial of the next. The sense of accomplishment I’d feel as I breezed through each issue would be worth every bit of the $70 cover price!

I think I’ll just be happy as long as postman isn't bearing a sample issue of Modern Maturity.

Does this Look Like David G?

One of my third grade art students—we’ll call him Jimmy H.— once posed the question concerning his portrait of classmate, David G.

Now, this class was populated with more doubles than a pack of Topps baseball cards. Two Peters, two Laurens, two Davids—you get the idea. For convenience, every kid simply went by first name and last initial.

Jimmy H. was the opposite of his counterpart. Jimmy A. just rolled with the punches, but Jimmy H. was a tad intense. Cooperative and pleasant most of the time, but not a jokester.

If memory serves me correctly, at the time he was still mad at me for writing too much in his yearbook. Said I took up too much space. Apparently, I was expected to merely sign my name over my picture. No, “Have a nice summer.” No, “Nice work on your pottery this year!” None of that.

I took pause, then, when confronted with Picasso David G. Double noses and additional eyes—visible in an earlier draft—notwithstanding, a positive critique wasn’t the problem. Any art teacher who can’t muster up some flowery prose about the almond-shaped eyes or the texturization techniques employed on the hairline just needs to pack up the paints and turn in the brushes. It’s the name of the game.

But Jimmy wasn’t the sort that was going to be satisfied with that type of critique. Never mind that we don’t even attempt to cover portraiture in the curriculum until 6th grade. Jimmy just wanted to hear that he’d nailed it on the first try and produced a 10-minute dead-ringer for David G.

I averted his stare and swallowed hard, suppressing the urge to launch into an impromptu lesson on the Cubist movement.

“Well, Jimmy,” I said in my Serious Art voice, “I think we have some decisions to make about this piece.”

“Like what!” Jimmy was alarmed, already not liking the way this was headed.

“Is it a straight on pose or a profile?” I asked him.

“Does it matter?”

“It does if we want David to have the right amount of eyes.”

“Say it’s a profile,” he said, “which eyes do I keep?”

That day, I had to sell Jimmy on the idea of a work in progress, and that’s a tough sell in any market.

It occurred to me how often I find myself in front of the keyboard with letters scattered across the screen, modifiers dangling, ill-formed one-liners lurking around the margins thinking, “Does this look like an article?”

As a novice writer, I wanted to nail it the first time, too. I wanted editors to swoon at every sentence that rolled off my printer. I wanted to believe that inspired text just flowed from my fingers and flew across the screen—each phrase as meaningful, as witty, or as incisive as it was in my own brain.

Only recently did I realize that David G., pencil on drawing paper, was more than a metaphor for writing, but life in general, too.

We don’t always see life as work in progress, of where we are now as a starting point or a bridge. We think answers are better than questions, that there is better than here, and accolades are more valuable than exertion.

Contemplating the beginning of a new week, things look messy. There are unfinished projects lurking. There’s the cryptic email I received from my editor just before she disappeared for the weekend suggesting that she wants 5 separate cover stories from me by Friday about subjects that aren’t more than question marks as I write this. My daughter has a birthday. I need to send gifts to friends who have had special occasions.

Looking at this mess, I ask “Does this look like life?” and I have to smile and admit that it does.

Jimmy H was kind enough to let me make a copy of his portrait. I may have made a vague reference to possibly wanting to write about the picture sometime.

I don't think he cared--just as long as it wasn't in his yearbook.