Category Archive

Dear Sporty Red Car in Front of Me,

Do you understand that you’re on the freeway?  Do you wonder why it’s been so long since you saw a traffic light or stop sign?  If you do realize that you’re on the freeway, why are you driving 40 miles per hour?  Seriously, why would you do that?  What possible reason could you have?  Fifty miles per hour is one thing–sure, it’s annoying, but at least it’s in the neighborhood of what other freeway drivers are doing.  Forty miles per hour–I’m sorry, but I just don’t “get it.”  What’s your motivation?  What kind of statement are you trying to make?  Is this some kind of hip, ironic driving that I’m too square to appreciate?  Please, enlighten me.  I really want to understand. 

If you’re having problems and can’t go faster than 40 miles per hour, at least not without a note from your mechanic, please, do yourself a favor and take the side streets.  The freeway is no place for a delicate engine such as yourself.  At least put your hazards on.  I mean, you look like a nice vehicle.  It would be a real shame if a driver less alert and conscientious than I were to smash right into you because he wasn’t expecting a shiny metal box to just be sitting there in the middle of the road like it was festival parking at the Pink Floyd concert.  It would be even more of a shame if some sicko were to become enraged by your tortoise-esque pace and, God forbid, do intentional damage to your auto body because he was just so effing sick of being stuck behind your lazy bumper while the rest of the world passes him by at 55+ miles per hour. 

I know, I know–trucks get away with this crap all the time, and it isn’t fair, but that’s the way of the world.  Might makes right, as sad as that may be.  Like the Darwin fish says, survival of the fittest, baby. 

Of course, the only reason I’m writing all this instead of cursing at you is that I’m in no particular hurry to get where I’m going this morning.  I’ll tell you this, though–you’ve given me a lot to think about today.  You really have. 

Sincerely,

Madhousewife, aka the American-made Minivan in Back of You

When I was growing up, my mother used to sing a song called “Dead Skunk in the Middle of the Road.”  I think it was a novelty song from the era; I have no evidence that she made it up out of whole cloth.  I could Google it, I suppose, but … oh crap, I’m doing it, I’m Googling it.  What’s become of me?  It’s a real song, written by Loudon Wainwright III.  Well, of course it was.  And now I’m Googling Loudon Wainwright III.  Good lord, where does it end? 

It ends here.  I was blogging.  I have a point.  My mother used to sing this song, and it is burned into my memory.  I think of it every time I smell a dead skunk on the road.  However, I have never in all my 36 years actually seen a dead skunk in the middle of the road–until today. 

Well, technically it wasn’t in the middle of the road.  It was more off to the side.  Actually, it was halfway onto the curb, which makes me wonder:

1)  Who hit this skunk?  Was it a cyclist?  Or perhaps a motorist under the influence?  Why was he driving so close to the sidewalk?

2)  Perhaps the skunk was struck by a moving vehicle in the actual middle of the road, but was not instantly killed.  Maybe he crawled over to the sidewalk to die.  Or was he trying to live? 

Here’s the other interesting factoid:  I have oft smelled a skunk on the road but never seen one.  Today I saw one but did not smell him.  Perhaps he was hit long enough before that the stench of traumatized skunk had already dissipated.  Perhaps he was hit by a truck of Febreeze.  But there’s also the possibility that this skunk just didn’t stink.  Maybe he was a skunk misfit, a skunk freak, if you will.  Maybe that’s why he threw himself in front of that bicycle.  The point is, we don’t know.  We can’t know. 

And so it is with God.  Just kidding.  I had no larger philosophical thesis, I was just excited about my first dead skunk sighting.  You understand.  Or probably you don’t.  Probably you resent me for reeling you in with that Loudon Wainwright III reference and you can’t believe you wasted all this time reading my Deep Skunk Thoughts.  Here, watch this YouTube video, you’ll feel better.  (Or alternatively, take my God poll.)

Sometimes I have to wonder about these folks who get the personalized license plates.  On the freeway this morning I noticed a SUV with the license plate EMBLMR, and I thought, “Emblemer.  What exactly is an emblemer?  Someone who makes emblems?  Does this person have his or her own embleming service?”  And then I realized that it probably wasn’t “emblemer” at all but EMBALMER!  Embalmer, well, I know what an embalmer is.  And then I thought, “Why does this person want to advertise the fact of being an embalmer, and why would he advertise it on his SUV?  I assume he is a professional embalmer.  I don’t think he’d be advertising his amateur embalming, as I’m pretty sure amateur embalming is frowned upon in the legal world.  I don’t have proof of this, of course.  He could be an amateur embalmer, but let’s say he’s a professional embalmer.  Why should the rest of us care?  Are we really supposed to be driving down the freeway wondering who we’re going to have embalm Aunt Sally when out of nowhere this SUV-driving embalmer cruises into our lane and all our problems are solved?  Where is his 800 number?  Or is this supposed to be some kind of threat–’Tailgate me and I’ll embalm you!’  But isn’t that illegal, too?  Oh, look, there’s my exit.”

It seems that a lot of people who have vanity plates put their professions on them.  There are many dentists with vanity plates in this area.  Registered nurses, too.  I don’t have any specific data to back this up, but I suspect people with professional degrees are more susceptible to the temptation to put those degrees on their license plates.  That’s because it’s hard for your fellow drivers to read the fine print on your diploma if you post it in your rear windshield.  When I was a young teen I saw a psychologist whose license plate read INTJ PHD, which alluded to both her advanced degree and her Myers-Briggs personality type.  Perhaps it was her way of asserting herself in the world.  (The “I” is for introvert, you know.)  Anyway, with all due respect to my former psychologist, who was a wonderful human being for whom I retain much affection, I think it’s a little obnoxious to put your PHD on your license plate.  If my husband is ever of a mind to get a vanity plate, I will have to put the kibosh on any design that contains the letters PHD (at least in that order).  Unless he wanted one that said ELMRPHD because that might be kind of funny.  But that’s not really his style.  And plus, it’s probably taken.

It must be very disappointing to come up with what you think is a brilliant and unique combination of letters for your vanity plate only to find out that some other jerk had your idea first.  That’s why I feel sorry for people with vanity plates containing misspelled words when there was obviously space enough to spell the words correctly.  Because you just know they had their hearts set on saying whatever they were saying only to have their dreams crushed by the DMV official who informed them they needed to be a bit more original next time.  It’s especially sad when the license plate says something like 2KOOL4U.  Because what are they, twelve?  And if so, do their parents know they’re spending their money on vanity license plates?

My mother went back to work when I was in high school, and she told us that her new boss had just written a book, which he was very excited to have published.  When it finally came out, she brought home a copy of it.  Her boss was a scientist, so I’d expected it to be a science book, but actually it was a book about vanity license plates.  I believe it was called VN8TPL8.  It didn’t sell very well.  My mom’s boss blamed the booksellers, who tended to stock it in the Automotive section, when it really should have been in Humor/Novelty.  (Or better yet, by the cash register, as an impulse item.  You have to admit he had a point.  Would you buy such a book on anything but an impulse?)  Anyway, I read it.  As far as books about license plates go, it was pretty good. 

My mom’s boss was a very talented scientist, but he did not have a Ph.D.  He had a Master’s degree.  Which was not why he was reduced to writing books about vanity plates.  That was just a special interest of his.  No, what I was going to say was that I’ve not noticed many people with Master’s degrees putting their educational credentials on their license plates.  This is probably because they would be too easily misunderstood.  People might assume you had multiple sclerosis, or alternatively, if you’d studied the humanities, that you had children.  Of course, if you had a Master’s degree and multiple sclerosis, you could put MS SQRD on your license plate and there would be no confusion.  Theoretically.

In Oregon there are many vanity plates referencing the Ducks.  I bet the first person to grab GO DUCKS as a license plate feels pretty pleased with himself.  By the same token, the poor sap who’s stuck with GO DUKS probably feels like a chump every time he gets in his car.  He certainly looks like one.  No offense to him.

My mom’s boss dedicated a whole chapter in his book on people who try to get naughty license plates, but the DMV has censors to prevent state-sanctioned obscenity on the roadways.  Quote from a lady who was in charge of weeding out the pervy plates:  “You’d be surprised at what people try to get away with.”  No, dear lady, I bet you’d be surprised at what people do get away with.  Which makes me wonder how often in Oregon do OSU fans have their license plates rejected out of hand?

Full disclosure:  When I was a senior in high school, my parents bought a used Datsun 260Z, and they got a vanity plate for it.  Because if you’re going to get a nifty sports car, you should get a nifty license plate to go with it, eh?  They considered several options, including one that said NOIZMYN.  I thought that was too esoteric.  Eventually they decided to go with a play on words involving our last name and the letter Z.  It was only moderately clever.  People who didn’t know what our last name was thought that it was trying to say “sleazy” (or rather, “zleazy”), but that wasn’t it at all.  Eventually my parents gave this car to me.  I loved that little car.  I named it Fred.  If I’d been in charge of buying it a vanity license plate, that’s what I would have put on it, FRED.  No one would have misunderstood that.

As newlyweds, my older sister and her husband got a vanity plate for their pickup that said LDS CPL.  I didn’t really understand why they would want to do that.  I don’t believe in advertising your religion or your political affiliation on your car.  Because we all make mistakes sometimes, and do you really want to be responsible for giving your whole group a reputation for bad driving?  Let’s face it, no one remembers the license plate of the courteous and competent driver.  But I can easily envision our poor (bike-riding) missionaries showing up on someone’s doorstep and that person saying, “One of your people cut me off this morning, so you can go to hell!”  Because we all know what keeps most people from becoming Mormons is that handful of crackpots driving too slow in the fast lane and forgetting to shut off their turn signal whilst spreading the glorious gospel through their license plates.  Oh, wait. 

The thing is, I’m pretty sure I don’t want anything on my car drawing attention to me.  I certainly don’t want anything on my car distracting other drivers from the important business of safely transporting themselves from point A to point B.  Which is why I think it’s foolish and in some cases dangerous to own a vanity license plate that says something totally indecipherable on it.  I can’t tell you how many times I’ve sat in traffice looking at something like SFJDKEO or WERCIRU and wondering what the heck I’m supposed to make of that.  I know it’s probably not for me to understand at all, which is why it’s called a vanity plate and not an amuse-the-world-at-large plate.  I just don’t like being confused.  I’m a word person.  I must make order out of alphabetic chaos.  I just know that one of these days I’m going to miss my exit.  Stupid vanity license plates.

I just found my mom’s boss’s book on Amazon.com–nine used and new from $.95.  I’ll have to ask my dad if he knows where our copy went, but I’m sure he doesn’t.  I hope they didn’t throw it out–it was autographed!

You are now at liberty to contribute to the discussion with personal anecdotes, rumor and innuendo.  Proceed.

So last night on my way to tap class I had the opportunity to share the road with one of those cars that sports the "If You're Not Angry You're Not Paying Attention" bumper sticker.  I admit I never appreciated the depth and veracity of this bumper-sticker expression until I noticed that the driver of said car was indeed not paying attention, nor did she seem particularly angry.  I, on the other hand, was paying attention and therefore was a bit miffed.

But I got over it.  (My social conscience isn't what it used to be, and my husband has enough road rage for both of us.)

Speaking of bumper stickers, you remember those from the Clinton administration that said, "Don't Blame Me, I Voted for Bush"?  I've been wondering if I could get my hands on one of those so I can paste it on my car, only with the "Don't" blocked out.  Because I wonder how good my insurance policy really is.

Speaking of nostalgia, though, one of the reasons I was in such good humor last night–aside from the fact that I have the perfect temperament for commuting–was that I was in the car all by myself and could listen to whatever music I wanted.  In the car all by myself is really the only circumstance under which I may listen to the music I want because no one else in my family will tolerate it.  Well, I take that back.  Sugar Daddy will tolerate it, but only if he can make fun of it and disparage my taste while he's doing it.  The children simply will have none of it.  Princess Zurg prefers classical music, and the boys have inherited their father's penchant for theatrical heavy metal.  So far the baby hasn't offered any opinions one way or the other, but being in the car with only a sleeping baby is almost like being alone in the car.  Is that my way of saying the baby doesn't count?  I suppose it is.

Anyway, my current CD of choice is Todd Rundgren's Nearly Human, which SD so graciously bought me for Christmas.  And not just so he could make fun of me.  No, just because he wants me to be happy.  That's all.  You see, I had the album on cassette for many years, but a couple years ago I lost it, and I had been unable to find it again in any format.  Because who wants a copy of Todd Rundgren's Nearly Human unless you're a Todd Rundgren fan, and a Todd Rundgren fan would have bought it on CD back in 1989 and never let it go.  Or something.  Anyway, SD got it via the internet somehow and then a week after Christmas he found two copies of it in a bargain bin at a used CD shop for $4 each.  He bought them both, just on principle.  But I digress.  So I have Nearly Human again (three copies, actually), which may not be Todd Rundgren's best album, but I heart it anyway, and I heart my husband for buying it for me even though it encourages my musical dorkiness.  Now all I need is for someone to reissue Joan Armatrading's Back to the Night on CD and I will be in dork heaven.  (As long as I'm in my car by myself.)  Right now the only copy I have is on vinyl.  I know!  Could I be any older?

Well, obviously I could.  I knew that I had entered fogeyville, though, when I started hearing Van Halen on the "classic rock" station.  Okay, maybe that was just a sign of our instant-nostalgia times.  Maybe I really knew I was getting old when they started having radio stations which exclusively played '80s music, and I found I preferred to listen to Journey's "Don't Stop Believin'" for the millionth time rather than whatever Noise The Kids Are Into These Days.  Isn't that just wrong? 

I really knew I was old when I started liking bands from the '80s that I hadn't been able to stomach when it was the '80s and there was an excuse for such things.  Now my only excuse is that these songs invoke bittersweet memories of my youth.  How, you might ask, is Duran Duran's "Hungry Like the Wolf" at all evocative of my misspent adolescence?  Don't get all technical on me.  It's a Pavlovian response.  I don't claim to understand it.

What's the most incriminating item in your record collection? 

EDIT:  By "record collection" I really mean music collection–not just vinyl media.  Sorry, old habits die hard.

Last week the Madhousehold visited some of the grand attractions of our fair state,
Oregon.  We started on Tuesday with our first visit ever to the

Enchanted
Forest in
Salem.  You must understand that I grew up in Oregon, have lived here as an adult for several years, have made the Eugene-Portland/Portland-Eugene drive down the I-5 approximately 50 billion times, and have seen from the freeway the Enchanted Forest and its poor amusement park neighbor, Thrillville USA, and every time thought to myself, "That place looks creepy."  Thrillville, in particular, seems always to be deserted, like the rides haven't been operated for years, and looks like a great hangout for child molesters.  My impression of

Enchanted
Forest, which is visually a tad more obscured (because it's in a forest), has always suffered from that association.

 

However, I had it on good authority that the

Enchanted
Forest was not a dump or a hangout for child molesters, so I opened my mind to visiting, as did Sugar Daddy.  We're very glad we did because the place is really, really quite charming.  It's sort of a poor man's
Disneyland.  A really poor man.  But one with lots of gumption and a pure heart.  The kids were especially taken with

Storybook Lane

, which has life-size replicas of scenes from various fairy tales and children's stories.  There's an Alice in Wonderland rabbit hole you can crawl into, which becomes this long, very small tunnel, completely pitch-black until you come out a giant keyhole on the other side.  Elvis must have gone through there a dozen times.  I couldn't follow him because my adult-size, pregnant self probably would have gotten stuck, and that would have ruined the enchantment for everyone.  You can also visit the Seven Dwarfs' mine and climb into the mouth of a giant witch's head and come out on a slide.  Elvis did that about 37 times. 

 

Eventually we got to Western Town, which was a little less enthralling for the youngsters, who didn't care to have their pictures taken with Abe Lincoln (what he was doing in the old west, I'm still not sure, but he was very authentic-looking; even the beard was real).  SD and I did pose for pictures with Abe, and we got to wear Confederate uniforms and carry guns and everything.  Why we were posing with Abe Lincoln in Confederate uniforms with guns, I'm not sure either, but it was fun. 

 

Less fun was the Haunted House, which SD insisted on taking the kids to.  He was going to leave Elvis out of it, but the kid threw such a tantrum about wanting to go inside that SD and I both consulted our Bad Parent manual and concluded that it would be less traumatic just to take him after all.  I know, I know, you should never trust the Bad Parent manual.  I'm going to burn mine one of these days.  Well, anyway, the Haunted House was scary.  I don't know if I would have been scared all by myself, but walking through with Mister Bubby and Elvis and wondering what gruesome sights and sounds I was going to have to shield them from was terrifying.  Interestingly enough, I think Elvis was doing okay up until this skeleton head rushed at me and made me scream.  That was the beginning of the end, which unfortunately took much longer to come than one would expect.  I rushed through the rest of the evil tour trying to cover both my sons' eyes and yelling, "Don't look!  Don't look!"  I didn't look, but I can't vouch for the boys, who may end up in therapy someday wondering why their mother was such a freaking idiot.  Bad, Bad Parent manual.

 

Overall, however, the park was worth the price of admission.  It helped that it was a lot, lot cheaper than
Disneyland.

 

After leaving the park, we drove down to scenic Eugene, where we visited my good friend Melissa H. (she of the Hong Kong Chicken fame) and her family, who were to watch the kids whilst SD and I gallavanted off to Newport for our 3-1/2-year belated 5-year anniversary getaway.  First, though, I had a baby shower to go to, where I got to see some old friends and win a lot of candy bars playing a baby shower game.  None of them were candy bars I'm really crazy about, but I enjoy winning stuff anyway.  Well.  The next morning we met the H's for a swim at the Amazon Pool.  MB drew a picture:

 

 

 

(L to R, Mister Bubby, Elvis, Princess Zurg, Sugar Daddy and me.  I don't look very pregnant in that bathing suit, but I might be hiding a couple fetuses in my left arm and leg.)

 

After swimming, SD and I took off for
Newport, where he had booked us at a bed & breakfast that was a Big Secret That I Was Not To Know About So I Could Be Surprised.  Which I was, because I'm not into discovering big secrets that are supposed to be surprises.  We stayed at the Sylvia Beach Hotel for Booklovers, which is an absolutely delightful establishment.  Each of the rooms is decorated with a different author theme.  SD had originally wanted to stay in the F. Scott Fitzgerald room, but it was booked through September, so instead we were in Poe.  Which I suspect was cooler anyway, so I was hardly disappointed.  I have pictures of that too, but I can't freaking find them on my computer, so you'll have to use your imagination.  Perhaps that will be best anyway.  So whatever.  They have a wonderful family-dining style restaurant, Tables of Content.  The food is excellent, and we spent several hours in delightful conversation with three other couples we'd never met before.  I was sad to leave because I knew it would be at least a couple years before we could return, but next time we go we will certainly spend a couple more days there.  Maybe we'll get to stay in Fitzgerald then.  (I just know I'm not going to sleep in Willa Cather's room–too much frontier privation.)

 

So we returned to
Eugene the next day to reunite with children, but we also went on a dinner date with the (adult) H's to our favorite restaurant in
Eugene, Chef's Kitchen, where I had duck for the first time.  It was good.  (Quack.)  After bidding our final adieus to the H's (all of them), we took a little tour of our old haunts in
Springfield.  I found this more than a little depressing.  I'm not sure why.  I have many fond memories of our time there, but also a lot of un-fond ones, and I can't help mixing up the two into one big awful kind of memory of things I desperately miss and things I desperately wish had never happened.  Fortunately,
Springfield isn't a very big place and we went back to the hotel, where Elvis instantly fell asleep.  Score.

 

The next day we drove down to the Wildlife Safari in Winston.  The drive-through part of this park is very cool.  I got to see a lot of giraffes.  And ostriches, which are very cute.  And baby ostriches, which are even cuter.  The rest of the park is eh, whatever.  SD and the kids rode elephants.  Overall, the price-to-good ratio was not as favorable as that of

Enchanted
Forest, but when one place is dirt cheap and charming and the other place is expensive and south of
Roseburg, it isn't really a fair comparison, I guess.  The interesting thing was that on our way out of the park, looking for a place to eat, we saw this Noah's Ark Restaurant, which boasts among its many attractive attractions a full-scale replica of Moses' Tabernacle.  It's possible that the place was owned by some Jehovah's Witnesses, who had a Kingdom Hall right next door.  As curious as we were about what Watchtower Cuisine might consist of, we thought perhaps it wasn't the best choice to take tired, hungry and irreligious children.  Maybe next time.  You know, if we ever have occasion to be in Winston again as long as we live.  Which I don't plan on.

 

We had dinner at Denny's.  Then we went home.  Now SD is back at work and the children are back to making me old before my time.  Oh, wait.  They never stopped.

I know you're all waiting with bated breath to hear–or read, rather–about my exciting trip to Virginia and Maryland, but unfortunately there just isn't that much to tell.  I had a good time, if only because I was not changing diapers or smelling diapers for six glorious days.  Let me tell you how easy it is to get used to that.  Very easy.  As easy as breathing.  Deeply, for the first time in years.  But I digress.  My plane ride over there was uneventful, noteworthy only because the pilot was a woman.  Yes, I know that sounds lame, but to my knowledge I had never been on a plane piloted by a woman before.  Sure, I figured women pilots had to exist theoretically, but now I have proof positive.  And as I said, the flight was uneventful, so I guess that just goes to show We Girls Can Do Anything, Right, Barbie?  (The pilot could have been inspired by Barbie as a young girl, for all we know.  Don't be dissing Barbie to me anymore, kids.)

 

So while I was in the Commonwealth, the Old Dominion, the First Colony, I didn't do much except hang out with my friends in a manner totally unremarkable to the casual observer.  Even the careful observer would have had trouble being impressed, I think.  I hadn't seen any of these people for eleven years, and I just wasn't interested in doing anything but talk and eat and laugh together.  My friend in Front Royal had four young children when I last saw her, and now she has five children, the youngest of whom is eight.  I suppose it should have made me feel old, but what it actually did was give me hope for the future.  Someday the youngest of my (four, not five) children will be eight.  No one will be in diapers (theoretically).  Everyone will be able to feed themselves.  I can leave them at home alone sometimes and not be breaking the law.  The world, in short, will be my oyster.  Sort of.

 

My visit with my friend in
Richmond, who is still single and doesn't have any diaper-clad people in her life either, was similarly low-key.  She caught me up on all the latest gossip about our alma mater, which just lost its affiliation with the Virginia Baptist General Board due to being too darn radical, which is amusing to me.  Apparently the catalyst was the Gay Pride Week organized by some students in concert with the school's Baptist Student Union.  Let me tell you, kids, the alma mater and its BSU have certainly changed in the last eleven years.  Such a turn of events would have been impossible to foresee back in my day.  So anyway, in addition to finding out who got married and who was fired, I also found out that my former advisor was a lesbian.  Not that it makes any difference in my life.  Just another bit of useless trivia taking up valuable real estate in my brain.  Anyway, I don't know what the college is going to do without all that Baptist money.  Probably go out of business, but oh well, I wasn't using my degree to impress anyone anyway.

 

I'm glad I didn't waste any of my time sight-seeing or going on outings because my visits were too short as it was, what with the amount of driving I was forced to do.  A friend of mine says that a visit has to be at least twice as long as the time it takes to get there in order to make the trip worth it, so I think I succeeded on that criterion, though just barely, if you count all that time in the stupid planes.  I had never actually driven, as in my own car, in this area of the country before, and I'll tell you, I was not missing much all those years.  I don't know why people complain about driving in
Los Angeles.  I've said it before and I'll say it again,
Los Angeles is like a paradise compared to most of the other densely populated areas I've had the misfortune to drive in.  There's one thing to recommend
Southern California sprawl:  plenty of space to put freeway off-ramps–and on-ramps.  Not to mention an abundance of two-way streets.  You get off a freeway in
Southern California, you can get back on again, usually without looking too hard.  (You can make U-turns, too.  I know, they're just a bunch of hedonists out there.)  Get off a freeway in
San Francisco, D.C. or
Boston, and you'd just better be on good speaking terms with God, because He's the only one who can help you now. 

 

So anyway, something I've noticed while driving and riding about in
Virginia and
Maryland that I've never encountered in the West is this practice of naming one road Route Numeral and a completely different road Business Route Same Numeral.  What is up with that?  What's the difference, or rather, I don't know, what's the similarity between Route 29 and Business Route 29?  Why can't you just give them their own numbers, since they go completely different places?  You've already got roads numbered in the quadruple digits, so what the heck?  I know I'm making myself sound like a hopeless
Oregon hick, but what I don't understand annoys me.  I need education.  Well, it probably wouldn't help.  I realize that many of these cities were built before there was such a thing as cars or people wanting to go places anyway, so it makes sense that the infrastructure looks like it was designed in a patchwork fashion on a whim with some spit, or whatever, but I'm just getting old and cranky now, don't listen to me.

 

I saw my brother, the youngest in our family, graduate from the

University of
Maryland.  My brother and I are not especially close, but I love him, so even though graduation ceremonies are just slightly less entertaining and edifying than C-Span on a slow day, I'm glad I could be there, since none of the other sibs were.  Since my dad was taking pictures, I had to do all the clapping when they called my brother's name.  I don't think I was quite up for the job.  And no, I don't do that wolf-whistle thing.  It's just not me. 

 

Conversations with my father and brother are usually kind of awkward because it's such hard work coming up with stuff to talk about.  Given that we're the three most laconic members of the family anyway, I'm sure you can imagine the effort it took to maintain conversation for the several hours we were together this weekend.  My brother really would have benefited from having a greater number of males in the household.  I would have benefited from having my garrulous husband around to relieve the longer stretches of silence.  I probably need to learn a lot more about video games and computers.  Or cars.  Or something.

 

The least enjoyable part of my vacation was the trip back, and no, it wasn't just the sense of impending doom that bothered me.  I had a layover in
Denver, which was having thunderstorms or something, so our plane just sort of took an extra hour and a half moseying around the skies of
Colorado, waiting for permission to land.  Of course that delayed the flight going out of
Denver as well.  I was feeling sick and very tired, and I really just wanted to lie down and pass out and wake up in my own bed and go back to sleep for several more hours, but 'twas not in the cards.  I had finally acclimated myself to Eastern Standard Time, just when it would do me no good.  I didn't get in until close to midnight PST, so I'd been awake about eighteen hours straight, which is about 67 in pregnancy hours.  At least I think so.  Let's see, function of x, blah blah, pi R squared, carry the one–yeah, that's about right.  Needless to say, I am still recuperating. 

 

This concludes the dullest travelogue in history.  I hope you all enjoy your Memorial Day weekend.  It will be raining here.  Home again, home again, jiggidy jig.

Whoever thought up putting DVD players in cars should get the Nobel Peace Prize.  Too bad those silly Swedes never ask for my opinion.  For a split second I felt guilty for pacifying the monster with television rather than family sing-a-longs and lame find-the-license-plate games, but then I asked myself, "Do I feel guilty for not washing my clothes by going out to the river and beating them against a rock?"  And then I was okay.

Interstate 5 is a really boring road.  A reeeeeeeaallly booooooorrrrrrinnnnnnnng road.  And a long one, too.  Reeeeeeeeaaaaallllly looooooooonnnnnnnnng.  And boring.

If you're ever in
Ashland, Oregon…  You should know that Big Al's Drive-In is not really a drive-in.  Which is kind of a rip-off, in my opinion.  But the food's not bad.

What's the connection?  Part one

1.  LAPD officers

2.  Ronald Reagan

3.  Sugar Daddy's hometown

Wisdom from my mother-in-law, aka Nature vs. nurture

She says our children are going to grow up to be axe-murderers because we let them watch The Rescuers.    This is of course the same woman who gave us such gems as "They named their child Kipland Kinkel.  What did they think was going to happen?"

She also says that if she ever gets old and crazy like her mother, we're supposed to slap her.  (We won't, of course.  Our names are perfectly normal.  The real ones, anyway.)

Every day my husband gets closer to his premature heart attack

"Good news,
Mad.  Tommy's will now freeze a gallon of their chili and ship it to you overnight."

A few minutes later…

"Of course, we're going to have to buy a deep-freeze first, because I'm going to want to get more than one gallon…"

What's the connection?  Part two

1.  Keanu Reeves

2.  Water slides

3.  My dad's condo

Grandchildren-spoiling

My stepmother took each of my three children into the Build-A-Bear factory.  Princess Zurg built a fairy unicorn named Magic.  Elvis built a football player puppy named Don.  (Shrug.)  And Mister Bubby built a pink tie-dyed bear with a purple evening gown and matching handbag and named her Ursula.  She is now happily married to his teddy.

Food I can't get in the Northwest that I stocked up on whilst in
California

1.  Cactus Cooler

2.  Knorr Arroz con tomate soup mix–yes, more than one serving has enough sodium to poison you, but it's just so freaking good.  Why?  I don't know.

Food I didn't stock up on because it seemed impractical but I'm going to be sorry later

1.  Padrino's No-Salt Restaurant Style Tortilla Chips

Technically, one shouldn't number a list of one, and technically one does not a list make, but I don't have any other regrets.

Two things you don't want to happen while you're on that section of I-5 known as The Grapevine, and definitely not at the same time

1.  Vomiting

2.  Potty emergency

Try to avoid that, okay?  Don't say I didn't warn you.

The Apricot Tree restaurant in
Firebaugh, California has an extensive collection of vintage lunch boxes (and thermoses!)  From Hopalong Cassidy to Rambo, it's all here.  No, I don't know what kid takes a Rambo lunch box to school.  But I don't know what kid was taking a Waltons lunch box to school, either, and there it was.  I can't recommend the food at this place, though SD said the apricots were delicious.  But my favorite thermos was the Bionic Woman one, because it also featured her Bionic Dog.

It's possible that I may have lost my mind entirely because I have allowed Sugar Daddy to convince me that it is a good idea to take our three children–ages 6 1/2, 4 and 1 1/2–on a sixteen-hour car trip to California.  We visit
California every year, but up to now we have always flown.  It's more expensive, yes–significantly so since it became necessary to purchase four tickets at once–and flying with young children is a pain, but it's a pain that lasts for significantly fewer than sixteen hours.  And when you do the math for a round trip, that's a significant pain savings indeed.  I have always been reluctant to pooh-pooh the importance of avoiding pain.  There's already so much suffering in the world, after all.  Lately, however, we've been feeling the pain of our Visa bill with enough intensity that we've started to wax philosophical about the nature and purpose of our suffering.  In other words, we can't help but wonder if the devil we don't know may be better than the devil we do know.  Or in other words, debt has made us loopy.

When Princess Zurg was three and a half months old, my dad and step-mother talked me into taking a trip with them to my grandparents' farm in
Idaho, where we would rendezvous with my three sisters, who hadn't yet met my baby.  Since SD was going to school full-time and working two jobs so we could afford the luxury of me staying home (oh, how I hate that phrase), I thought, eh, what do I have to lose.  And off we went.

The first day of our journey took us from
L.A. to
Salt Lake City.  Princess Zurg was remarkably good-natured during this "leg" of the trip.  Until we got to
Provo.  From
Provo to

Salt
Lake she screamed her head off, and who can blame her?  The sigh of
Provo's enough to make anyone scream.  Fortunately
Provo is not very far from

Salt
Lake, where we were able to disembark the minivan and take a much-needed, lengthy rest.  Man, that was a relief.  I was so glad that the drive from

Salt
Lake to my grandparents' house would not be anything close to fifteen hours.  As it turned out, the exact mileage was neither here nor there because as soon as we put PZ back in her carseat the following morning, she began screaming her head off again.  And didn't quit until we got to the farm.  Lucky for me my father bought us a plane ticket home, but as soon as SD strapped PZ in the car in the LAX parking lot, she began screaming again.  As she would continue to do each time we put her in the car for the next two weeks. 

Since then I have not been terribly keen on long car trips.  I have, however, occasionally worried that my wussiness in the travel department is depriving my children of some life-enriching or at least character-building experiences. 

My parents never flew us anywhere.  They would have soiled themselves laughing at the suggestion.  We took long car trips every year.  Every single freaking year.  All seven of us, crammed into a station wagon, no air conditioning–yeah, no air conditioning.  I know it wasn't standard in those days, but I was convinced we were the only people on earth idiotic enough to drive in
Las Vegas traffic at noon in the middle of July without it.  (That was the summer we visited every friggin' contiguous state in the Pacific and Mountain time zones.  I was 15.  Can you tell?)  Anyway, yes, we suffered through many a long car ride together, and did it make us a closer family?  Who cares?  Wait, that's my inner 15-year-old talking.  But seriously, who hasn't taken a long car trip when they were growing up?  Who hasn't endured extended periods of forced family togetherness which causes them deep-seated problems with intimacy for years to come?  Everyone has to do this kind of stuff.  Don't they?  Isn't it a law, just like the law that says you have to go camping, too?  I hate camping.  My mother also hated camping, but she went anyway, for the sake of the family.  At her funeral my father admitted that it took him several years to figure out that it wasn't her love of the outdoors that made her sleep on the hard ground and go without running water every summer.  But am I the martyr my mother was?  No.  Not yet, anyway.

So we are about to embark on our first 16-hour car drive with three young children, and thus I must bid you gentle readers adieu for the next couple weeks.  

Yesterday the kids made me so crazy I was positively giddy about getting in my car and driving in traffic for a full 40 minutes so I could get to my tap dancing class.  My class is held at a rec center which is, as the crow flies, not so far from my house.  If the crow took the freeway, it might slow him down a little bit, but seeing how he wouldn't be bound by silly things like "lanes" and "laws" against mowing down other cars, he could probably get to the rec center in 10-15 minutes. 

Unfortunately, said rec center and my house are both located in the Portland metropolitan area, and proximity means next to nothing.  Having spent my formative driving years in Southern California, I'm used to heavy traffic, but L.A. traffic is different from other traffic.  I mean that in L.A. you have a multitude of choices as to which route to take from point A to point B.  If the 10 is backed up, take the 60.  If the 210 is backed up, take surface streets until you get past the 605 interchange.  You get the picture.  There's always an alternative.  The traffic is always lighter somewhere else.  Freeway hopping is like a religion with us.  The truth is out there.

My husband always extolled the complex L.A. freeway system as brilliant civic engineering, but I never appreciated it myself until I had to drive in Oregon.  Eugene was especially frustrating for me.  If the L.A. freeways were designed by benevolent geniuses, Eugene was designed by evil monkeys.  (Not the smart ones that know sign language.  I'm talking about Curious George without the man in the yellow hat to keep him out of trouble.)  There's no rhyme or reason as to how they connected the streets down there.  There's a preponderance of one way streets, two-way streets that randomly become one-way streets and then two-way streets again four blocks later, one-way streets that run smack dab into other one-way streets going the opposite direction–and no freeways.  Oh, there's one freeway, I-5 (they make fun of us Angelenos when we call it "the 5"), but the only reason you'd take it is to leave town, an impractical option when you need to do the grocery shopping or mail a letter.

Complicating matters in Eugene is the fact that it's chock full of bicyclists, some of whom think that just because they're saving the earth by not burning fossil fuels they must have the right to run red lights and stop signs, cut in front of you, and not use the bike lanes that were paid for with car-related taxes.  But even the ones who are obeying the law get on my nerves because they're just…so…slow.  You'd think it wouldn't matter in a city where the speed limit never gets over 35 mph, but when you're in a hurry and actually need to go 35 mph, someone is always pedaling where you want to be speeding.  You can't cut in front of them because that would be wrong (and dangerous–to the bicyclist, anyway), so you wait…for them…to pass.  Which probably adds a whole ten seconds to one's trip, but I'm afraid that after navigating all these one-way/two-way/dead-end/whatever streets that I swear they've changed the signs on since last I drove there, taking wrong turns and not being able to make U-turns (what the heck is that about?  even God allows U-turns), I've been known to scream at innocent cyclists from inside my vehicle, "Get a car, dammit!"  Fortunately, I always had the windows rolled up because it was raining.

The worst thing about Eugene, though, was that there was only one way to get anywhere.  In Mormonism we call this Satan's Plan–because there's no free will.  If there's an accident on the Ferry Street Bridge, oh well.  Bring a novel.  Or the materials for a correspondence course.  Earn your degree while waiting for them to clear four wrecked cars off of a two-lane bridge that the city refused to widen because they preferred to build a $4 million bike path (located right next to a bike path already in existence but not quite as stylish).

But never mind that.  Now we live in Portland, which has some freeways, but not nearly enough for its own good.  Well, the freeways they have might be adequate if they just had more lanes.  This is coming from a California driver who thinks anything less than five is roughing it.  But really, Oregonians for some reason are extremely reluctant to widen roads.  They keep hoping they can squeeze people out of the city.  They seem to think that if they can't guilt people out of their cars, they can at least drive them to the loony bin, where their driver licenses will be confiscated while they undergo "re-education," with a two-zone bus pass serving as their diploma. 

Now I have to say that I love Portland's public transportation system.  When I was eighteen I lived in Portland without a car and without much trouble getting where I wanted to go.  But I was single then.  With kids, it's different.  I mean to say that in some ways I have just gotten lazier.  I'll admit it.  I'm lazier, but I feel like I've earned it, so get off my back and widen the damn freeway so I can get to the dentist before next week.

So last night I was driving to my tap dancing class, and the freeway was a parking lot, which is to be expected at 6 p.m., so I was taking surface streets.  Ah, yes, an alternate route.  Not that it probably made much difference.  Taking the freeway might have gotten me there just as fast, but the difference would have been that on the freeway I would have felt claustrophobic, with no hope of escape.  On surface streets I was claustrophobic, but I comforted myself with the knowledge that I could always turn left–or right–if I needed to.  Not that it would have gotten me there any faster, but that wasn't the point.  It was the freedom to act and not be acted upon that mattered.

So there I was on a major thoroughfare going south.  Three lanes (woo-hoo!  three lanes!  and it's not even I-5!) are going south, three lanes north.  There are two solid yellow lines dividing us.  Someone pulling out of the gas station on the west side of the street wants to go north, crossing three lanes of heavy traffic and the double yellow line into three more lanes of heavy traffic. 

Now, as a former Angeleno, I'm a big believer in assertive driving.  And to me the question of whether it's legal in Oregon to cross a double yellow line is academic at this point.  But here's the thing.  You're in the middle of rush hour traffic.  Why do you want to do this?  I can appreciate that you want to turn north and do so efficiently, but give us a break.  The world won't come to an end if you go south then west or east then north like a reasonable Oregonian.  Isn't that what the legislators intended when they made U-turns illegal?  You aren't supposed to drive efficiently.  You're supposed to suffer like the rest of us, not worm your way into traffic and rely on your personal charm to keep you from getting killed by a vehicle with the right-of-way.

Of course we let him do it.  A couple blocks later we let someone else do it, too.  In Oregon we'll tolerate anything on the road except California plates.

This was a lot of ink, so to speak, spilled over an experience which is really only mildly annoying compared to the driving experiences in other cities.  San Francisco and Boston come to mind.  But it's the culmination of five years of mild annoyance, which can wear on a person.  And now I'm over it.  Deep breath.  Thank you, I needed that.

Now I know you've all been waiting with bated breath to hear how my tap dancing class is going.  I am proud to report that I am no longer the worst dancer in the class.  I am easily only the second or third worst dancer in the class.  I'm still not as good as the seven-month-pregnant lady, but in all fairness, she has taken the class before.  I would say my primary challenges are these:1)  Overcoming the fear of slipping and falling.

2)  Overcoming my extreme right-footedness.

3)  Overcoming the fact that after three pregnancies, my knees are completely shot.  Oh, and I have plantar warts on my left foot, which are killing me.  (It's so embarrassing to admit I have warts of any kind, even plantar warts, which you can't even see.  Because they grow inside your feet.  Ew.) 

But I am confident that with enough practice in my garage (which makes a much better dance floor than the laminate in my kitchen) and enough nights when I can't get to sleep because all my brain can do is think dig-brush-step-dig-brush-step-dig-brush-step-out-in, I will emerge triumphant and even somewhat graceful.  We shall see.