you can't have my cheetos

I'm back home long enough to wash the underwear and pack for San Diego.  I throw in swimsuits, books, booze and drugs.  Yes, I have a kindle e-book but I still like the sentimental feeling of turning a page and inhaling that lovely ink smell.  I bring my own liquor because I don't expect friends to pay for my fondness for Kentucky whisky.  Also, extra anti-depressant pills and probiotics in case of flight delays or a plane hijacking. I can think of nothing worse than some guy named Ishmael holding a gun to my head and me being depressed and having chronic diarrhea. Did I cover everything?

I take my seat on the plane and the pilot announces there will be a thirty minute delay. This is a concern because my connecting flight is forty minutes after I land. I got distracted making those computer connections.  I was watching an old rerun of Friends and Phoebe was singing that "Smelly Dog" song and this was in the coffee shop when Rachel was still chubby but with the great haircut and that strange little gnome-like fellow who ran the place had this crush on her but he was rude to everyone else, well, you know the rest.

I try to relax as the minutes tick by and the guy next to me puts down his ear buds to visit the necessary room and I can hear the lyrics of this stupid country western tune, "Shoulda seen the rack on the gal I did last night la-la-la."  Thank God this flight is only thirty minutes.

 I am zipping through O'Hare with my heavy computer case, my really heavy backpack and my flimsy flip-flops and I'm mowing down old people and unattended toddlers left and right. I am applauding my intense exercise regime which allows me to move at this pace and in two minutes I am again sitting on a plane watching the runway disappear beneath me.

 Soon I will be lying on the beach watching sandpipers leave tracks in the sand and giving threatening looks to any seagull eyeing my cheetos.

 

and here I thought Indiana was such a dull state

 I am jogging down a wooded path in Michigan and there are scary rustling animal noises all around me, lions and tigers and bears oh my.  I am city born and bred and I only like nature in small controlled doses.  I also am a former dog bite victim with a chunk of tissue missing below my left knee so I am doubly cautious.  I stoop low to breathe in a delicate wild rose and then quickly pull away. There could be poison ivy lurking about and I cannot spend another summer dealing with weepy skin lesions and being strung out on steroids. I have no faith in nature, she's out to get us.

We are visiting my son Jim and his family. We have traveled four states to get here, Iowa, Illinois, Indiana and now Michigan. We were only in Indiana long enough to clear my throat and usually we make it through without peeing, but not this time.  We  pull over to a state rest stop right next to the Valparasi Vasectomy Clinic and I'm glad we did.

 There were about a hundred index cards pasted above the sinks and they had comments from travelers to the cleaning staff. At the bottom was a section for your name and phone number if you wanted a staffer to contact you about your restroom experience.  And I'm thinking how lonely does a person have to be to do this? I am finding all of this terribly amusing and the Illinois rest stops cannot compete with this place. The Land of Lincoln restrooms have enlarged insect models the size of a shoe box and this bug is destroying the local ash trees. There are several glass and wooden boxes showing the larvae cycles and they are made out of, well - ash.
.

 

Jim is a pediatrician who dabbles in oncology and hematology and he is happiest when sitting in front of a microscope staring at a drop of blood. His wife has a doctorate in microbiology so we spend a lot of time talking about their two laughing daughters or the weather or what's for supper. What else can we do.

 

always the misfit

Christ, another wedding shower. We are invited to too many things, I grumble at the husband as we pull up to a ranch house in the western suburbia of my city.  He's my driver and I'm making him stay because any gathering which has only one gender in attendance makes my nervous. And I don't like this neighborhood. All the ranch houses have varying shades of mauve siding, who knew there could be so many and there's too many yuppies which means too many BMW vans to manuever around. The hostess greets me at the door and asks, "Mimosa, Bloody Mary or coffee with Bailey's creme?" Well, maybe this won't be too bad.

The postcard invite said "Stop and go shower, 10:00 - 12:00."  Cool, this won't take any more time than going through a McDonald's drive-thru and that means no excruciatingly painful shower games. I've never wanted to construct a bridal veil out of toilet tissue or guess what articles would be in the bride's honeymoon suitcase.

 We would just deposit the gift, chug a couple of drinks, hug some women and leave, but this was not to be. The living room was filled with elegantly coiffed and fashionably attired guests and I shuffled in wearing jeans, my unisex all-purpose grey sweatshirt and Nike flip-flops with the stuffing coming out of the sole. Alas, always the misfit.

I tried to hide behind a crystal vase filled with six-foot bamboo reeds but my sister-in-law found me, the chatty one and dragged me over to the huge dining room table populated with females from my husband's family. I made the mistake of marrying a man with too many relatives and I am paying the penalty. A week doesn't go by without somebody getting baptized,  married, playing t-ball or dying and we get invited to it all.

There are over 80 women at this soiree and we stay an hour. This entire time the bride, resplendent in a champagne-colored chiffon dress covered with raindrop rhinestones and matching pumps, is opening gifts. I just know she was opening before I got there and will be opening long after I leave.

"It's 12:08!" I whisper fiercely to the husband, "this party was supposed to end at noon! Why aren't these people leaving?"  He finished his drink, shuffled over to the mimosa dispenser and I had to look for a new place to hide.    

i don't remember the last time i was lonely

I am standing in line with my granddaughter waiting to buy a ticket to see another granddaughter perform in a cheer leading program. The granddaughter with me today will herself be playing the lead in Annie tonight at a grade school in Wisconsin. Her long blond hair will be covered by a curly red wig and I don't know how these children do it.  Putting their bodies and voices on display for strangers to scrutinize and critique. I tell her she's welcome to go stand with her parents who are several people ahead of us but she says no, I'll stay here with you. I don't want you to be lonely.
I smile in spite of myself.  I don't remember the last time I was lonely.

I define myself as an introvert. I am not shy in fact I am quite adept at social gatherings. That is a skill, being good at something you loathe and it's still kind of a surprise when people seek me out at parties.

My husband is always introducing me to people and I tell him enough, I know enough people, in fact I hit my quota about 1996.  He has a goal of meeting one new person each day, ouch and sooner or later he drags some chatty soul over to make my acquaintance. Oh, you'll like her, he gushes, she heads a charity agency that sends doctors from the University of Iowa to Jamaican hospitals and I protest but suddenly she's there, a perky little blond and I knew she would be. Tiffany (shudder) talks about her life using lots of hand gestures and I can't help but admire her perfect French manicure. But I'm losing interest fast as I realize she just wants to talk about herself and her very public achievements and is using the goodwill program as a springboard for her notoriety.

Enough, I say enough. Where are all the pure spirits, I ask, those honest janes and joes who plod along quietly performing noble duties and avoiding that limelit stage?  Well, they're not looking for people to dance ceremoniously in front of, better believe it.

i fought the law and the law won

The Department of Transportation has relieved me of my license for thirty days.  I  always hated the DOT, I know how deviant these guys can be and the reason I know this is because I am a former government employee.  I used to sit behind a desk, point to a triple-carbon form and say sign right here, you can trust me and the saps believed me, every time. By saps I mean welfare clients who were committing fraud with their state benefits.  I never walked to my car after work without an escort, a large muscular male social worker if I could find one.  I was not real popular in the downscale neighborhoods. I saw a lot of corruption and deceit and manipulation in those state and county offices. And I'm talking about management. When I was up for a promotion they asked me, would you agree to an action your supervisor requested even though you found it morally corrupt and I said yes.  I would never do that but I wanted the job because all the other applicants would answer yes and mean it.

They say I broke a law with my car, I passed a stopped school bus. I don't remember the incident.  I was adamant about pleading not guilty and I told that to the cops at my front door and the nice court lady and later to the assistant county attorney. And that last guy told me if I insisted on my innocence I would be accountable for subpoena costs, time spent for those police officers and the Rambo bus driver, all the extra paperwork and court officials' time. I decided to plead guilty, seemed less costly. But then I got a letter informing me of the suspension and a $600 fine. I appealed and won. And then the department overhauled the decision so I talked to an attorney who was nice enough not to charge me and I appealed again, won, another overhaul and now I am sitting in the county attorney's office and he said the department made a mistake, they don't understand the law, you should not lose your license.  Here's what you gotta do, hire an attorney and file an administrative appeal and at that point I stopped listening. I was getting sucked further into the black hole and I'm already $600 poorer and this has been going on since last August. Enough, they win, where's my checkbook, I'm outta here.

 

the boys are back in town

 

 Lynard Skynard is coming to town and Crazy Tom is planning a pre-party for the occasion. I remember the last time I heard these guys. It was a small county fair and REO Speedwagon was sharing the ticket. You could not find two more diverse bands. The REO's are tiny little fellows like the oompa-loompas only thinner with highlighted puffy 80's hair. They are dressed in immaculate white jump suits with sequins and when the sun shines it is like the clouds opening and celestial angels have descended to the stage.

 The Skynard boys stride on stage all dressed in devil black, high-heeled boots and long leather trench coats, greasy hair tumbling down their backs, matted beards and you know remnants of their chicken-fried steak dinners are stuck in there somewhere. They smoked and belched down bottles of Jack Daniels and never offered any to the audience. They resonate pure evil and unhealthy lifestyles.

The guy sitting in front of us is wearing an armless t-shirt and I try not to look at his dangling pit hair and he penned something on the back.  I don't remember but it was the worse thing I ever read on a t-shirt and it had something to do with the smell of tuna fish. He was loud and stupid and had difficulty remaining upright and I could feel Big Dave's growing irritation as we tried to watch the show and I prayed my guy would keep his views to himself but that was not meant to be.

Now Himself has always lived in a white bread Catholic Republican society where everyone followed the rules and dental check-ups were routinely kept. But the buffoons in front of us are from a different neighborhood and my years at government welfare offices taught me you don't mess with these boys in their own territory. Dave never learned this lesson and next thing I know tuna guy has him by the neck and I'm thinking we're all gonna die. I put my old lady body between tuna guy and spouse and hold my breath and the moron lets go. We are quiet church mice for the rest of the show.

 Tom, I will come and drink your cheap beer and then I will go home and lock the door. The boys are back in town.