Tag Archives: travel

Darwinian Evolution

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You should all read this piece because it had the very distinctive honor of not winning the travel writing essay contest it was submitted to. It’s about a time in my life where I had to teach myself to have fun. Nudity is involved. Australians, too. If you read this in the Bangor Daily News, part 2 will follow on Thursday.

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I had been living in Australia for the better part of a year, which seemed – on the front end of the trip – to be more time than I would want, but after enduring the twenty-hour plane ride, it turned out to be the minimum amount of time I would need before I could face it again in reverse.

I had chosen Australia as my place of study on a lark. Seated in my academic advisor’s office, surrounded by glossy magazines with crisp images of the Great Wall, Stonehenge, and the Colosseum splashed across the covers, I murmured, “What do you think about Australia?” He leaned back in his chair, his fingers tapping at his face, as he mentally escaped to a memory Australia had once handed him. A smile played upon his lips before he said, “Well, if you can’t have fun in Australia, you’re not capable.”

That was the word that I needed to hear. Fun. I’d spent the last three years in a ruthless Pre-Med program, struggling to keep pace with foreign exchange students who possessed more intellect in their earlobe than I did in my frontal lobe. Things crystallized inside of that shabby office, and the loftier concepts of history, art, and foreign language felt suddenly short-sighted as compared to the more elemental idea of fun.

Moving somewhere for the pursuit of fun proved complicated for someone who had fallen out of practice with it. What does one pack for a year of fun? How much money do I need to have for fun? What level of SPF is fun? Is living without antiperspirant fun?

It hadn’t taken long for the Aussies and other study abroad students I had made acquaintances with to realize that I was a struggling student of fun. My existence within my new university became startlingly similar to the one I had been living in the United States. I could be counted on to attend class and provide notes to those who had slept through it. I would stay sober and drive the revelers home at the end of the night. Let’s just say that everyone knew whose door to knock on when they needed an extra international phone card or some aspirin. They knocked on a different door when the situation demanded condoms or cigarettes.

When the University announced that there would be a week-long break in classes to allow the students time to prepare for finals, I breathed a sigh of relief, glad to know I’d have ample time to collaborate with my study groups. That was until I learned that all of my study groups were going to be collaborating with the Great Barrier Reef. Everyone was heading north to take in the sights and sounds of the famed Gold Coast. Room after room in my apartment complex was evacuating as though the place had caught fire. Hastily packed duffle bags were thrown into the hallways as students frantically called out to no one, “Have you seen my passport?”

I, of course, knew just where my passport was stored. I hadn’t used it since arriving to the country. I pulled open the center drawer of my desk and saw my passport lying across my Biology syllabus and my return ticket to the United States. I fingered the small booklet distractedly, mentally tabulating how few weeks remained before I would be exiled home. I flipped open the passport, staring at the imprints collected from trips already taken, the memories of each already yellowed and folding up at the corners in the drawers of my mind. A voice from the hallway pierced my silent musings.

“So I guess we’ll see you in a week then?”

I turned to see a friend paused at my door, bag in tow. I looked down at my passport once more before meeting her gaze.

“Actually,” I stammered. “I’ll see you in Cannes. I’m going to hit Darwin first.”

The landing gear slammed against the pavement and the plane shuddered down the runway just as I had finished thumbing through a guidebook of Darwin. I hadn’t learned anything of import other than that absolutely everything in the Australian city of Darwin will murder you. Be it lightning or spiders or snakes, each one a ubiquitous and lethal foe. While the plane taxied toward its jetway, I glanced at the Accommodations section of the book once more and scrawled the address of the first hostel listed across the back of my hand. I was fast depleting my bank account, already taxed before I had spontaneously decided to travel to the land where everything kills. A cheap room bursting with bunkbeds of Danes and Swedes was the only way to keep my ship sailing.

The taxi deposited me at the mouth of a bustling swath of roadway. I trudged along the sidewalk, passing restaurants and nightclubs I couldn’t indulge in, toward the screaming red building that I knew – by smell alone – had to be my hostel. I entered the lobby through a doorway strung with wooden beads. The beat of an American dance song – probably one that had failed to become popular in the U.S. – assaulted my eardrums as I peered over the check-in desk at the top of a head that had not yet swung up to notice me. I cleared my throat. She didn’t budge. I reached over the counter and touched her shoulder. She flew back in her chair, startled, and stared at me as though I was the first tourist to ever check in there.

Before I could inquire about vacancies, she scurried around the side of the desk and scooped up my bag in her wispy arms before turning heel. I worried momentarily that someone might steal my valuables, which were pitiably limited to a bottle of American antiperspirant and a tube top. She dashed back into the room, arms emptied of my bag, and began scooting me toward the door.

“You’re going to be late for the bonfire on the beach!” she screeched.

“That’s okay. I’m not really a bonfire kind of…”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” she interrupted. “There’s free dinner.”

———

Part Two to follow…

Choose Your Field Trips Carefully

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Some people would be surprised if their mother inquired about their interest in touring a miniature horse farm. In my parent’s house, however, this line of questioning has come to be expected. I’d be much more disarmed if my mom asked me what I’d like for dinner. We Donovans are always seeking an outing to pilot us away from the mundane responsibilities of domesticated life. We’re a restless lot, incapable of sitting around the house, with fingers stained by the ink of markers used to circle events listed in the paper. It’s a genealogical anomaly considering Italians are known for lazing around and the Irish have legendary aptitude for doing little more than drinking. Whatever the genesis of this unrest, it drives us into peculiar realms. I knew our latest misadventure fell into such a category when we arrived at the property of a technicolor-painted farm on the far side of Tucson’s Saguaro National Park. We were greeted by the aging proprietor and promptly whisked through the stables to peruse miniature horses and their also inadequately sized goat counterparts. The tour, which was billed as educational, instilled absolutely no knowledge of animal husbandry but has provided 90% of the scenes of a comedic movie I will one day write.

Scene: Weirdest Fucking Farm Ever.  Actors: Farmer. Myself. My mother. My children, ages 4, 3, 1

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Me: So these goats – these Nigerian Pygmy goats – hail from Africa then?
Farmer: No, ma’am. They come from the other side of town.

—-

Farmer: Take care not to disturb that mare over there. She’s about to give birth.
Mom: How do you know?
Farmer: She didn’t eat breakfast. And that’s how you know.
Mom: That’s how you know she’s going to give birth today?
Farmer: Or die. One or the other.

—-

Farmer: Do you have a sandbox for these kids at your home?
Me: Yes, we do.
Farmer: That’s good. I can’t tell you how many of these mothers I get out here who tell me they would never let their kids get dirty.
(pause for awkward nod)
Farmer: Kids gotta play in the dirt. Hey, kids! Pay attention to the horses and stop playing in the dirt!

—-

Mother: Are you the only breeder of miniature horses in the area?
Farmer: Oh, no, ma’am. There’s a real classy operation on the other side of town.
Mother (forlorn): I see.
Farmer: But they don’t do what we do.
Mother: And what is that?
Farmer: Educate! See, that one there. That one’s name is Glenn Beck.

—-
Mother: This must be a lot of work for you to tend all these animals out here by yourself.
Farmer: Well, I got a 4-H girl who comes out here couple a times a week.
Mother: She probably loves the experience.
Farmer (eyeing my 4 year old son with disdain): She’s a hard worker, that girl. I tell you what, I get a boy out here, I’m lucky if he lasts 30 minutes. We’re a nation raising a generation of namby pamby boys. Worthless sacks of shit. Amazon girls. Sacks of shit boys.
Me: That’s an enlightened point of view, I guess. Many still view men as superior in this class of work.
Farmer: I tell this girl to do anything and she does it. She cuts down trees, shovels out stalls, digs a ditch.
Me: I changed out a light bulb this morning. A really high one.
Farmer: What?
Me: Nothing.

—

Farmer: Want to feed the chickens, kids?
Me: That sounds great.
Farmer: It’s BYOB.
Me: What does that mean?
Farmer: Bring Your Own Bread.
Me: Ah, yes, your wife mentioned that over the phone before we came. Hope they like Ciabatta.

—–

Farmer: How do you like to eat your chickens?
Me: I’m actually a vegetarian, but when I cook chicken for the –
Farmer: Why on God’s green earth would you be one of those?
Me: Oh. Well, I guess it’s a bit of inertia at this point, I’ve been-
Farmer: What did you say?
Me: I just mean the reasons have probably changed over the years, but I’ve been one so long now. I don’t really miss meat especially when I see the way it’s handled and processed.
Farmer (sitting down): You have dangerous ideas. DANGEROUS.
Me: I do?
Farmer: Do you know how many people would starve to death if we didn’t have commercial farming?
Me: I understand that food needs to be produced on a grand scale as fewer and fewer people want to grow their own food, but I still believe in higher ethics when it comes to slaughtering animals and preparing their meat for people to eat.
Farmer: Tell me, where do you get your eggs?
Me: I just buy them at the store, but I buy organic.
Farmer: Why the hell would you do that?
Me: Because it makes me feel better about the food we’re eating and the industry I’m buying into.
Farmer: Oh, Jesus Christ, Mary, and Joseph.

—-

Farmer (revisiting the topic):  I take it you’re one of these Farmer’s Market types?
Me: I can’t buy the bulk of my grocery list at one, but I like to buy local produce when I can.
Farmer: Next time you go to one, I want you to study the crates those farmers keep in their trucks. It’s all from the wholesaler where they buy cheap produce and then charge you 4 times as much because you’re stupid enough to believe that he’s out there picking it with him family.
Me: Aren’t you a farmer?
Farmer: I’m a business man.
Me (under my breath): I maybe would have traded in diamonds out of Africa instead of goats then.

—-

Farmer: I just want you ladies to know one thing before you go.
Me: What’s that?
Farmer: It don’t matter what you eat. And it don’t matter what these here chickens eat. It all boils down to the genes that you got.
Me (muttering): Like overalls?
Farmer: Me and my wife had 5 kids, 3 of ‘em mine, 2 of ‘em hers. If you put two bowls in front of ‘em all, one with candy and the other with fruit, her kids would pick the candy every time. Mine would have picked the fruit.
Me: I see that in my own kids, too. But that’s why I force them to eat good food.
Farmer: Well, that’s a waste of time.
Me: Okay.
Farmer: My wife in there – she just went to the doctor and got a clean bill of health. They said she’s real healthy. You know what she eats?
Me: No.
Farmer: Three things. You know those lemon cakes from Costco? Those. And the chocolate chip cookies from Costco. And skim milk.
Me: That’s all she eats? All day, that’s all she eats?
Farmer: Yep. And occasionally a taco from Taco Bell.
Me: Wow. Is that the South Beach Diet?

—-

(Fire truck pulling into the dirt drive)
Farmer: You folks have got to excuse me now. Fire Department’s here.

—-

The Anything But Royal Couple

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London dislikes me. I do mean London, the city in England, not some toddler with a bizarre New Age name. It harbors some kind of resentment that I can’t pinpoint. Perhaps I’m being paranoid, but I suspect London doesn’t care for me and would prefer some other visitor. A thinner, smarter visitor with whiter teeth, not that its own residents are renowned for their dental work. See, the first time I was there I came disastrously close to being struck by a taxi. I stepped off a sidewalk, looking down the street in the direction cars would be approaching in America, when I felt an onslaught of steamy air against my backside and heard the grinding of brakes in my ears. I snapped my head around just in time to put my hands, defensively, upon the hood of an oncoming taxi.

Then there were the occasions that food nearly killed me in London. When I went to visit my cousin, who was studying there, I had my first tango with Indian food. I was young and unadventurous when it came to worldly cuisine. The korma, the saag, the naan, the paratha. It lit up my palette and made tastebuds that had never before been activated spring to attention. And it was so cheap, a multi-course meal had for a Bollywood song.  Following the meal, during the first act of Les Miserables in the famed West End, my digestive system issued that first gastrointestinal warning shot. A slick of sweat covered my forehead moments later sending me fumbling frantically down a cramped aisle, praying my bowels wouldn’t release upon the knees of my fellow theatergoers. Between wondering if little Cosette could scrub her mop and bucket on over to the bathroom and hallucinations of the Beatles dancing through a rainbow of peace signs in my consciousness, I vowed to remain on the straight and narrow of ethnic cuisine for the balance of the trip.

This meant resorting to baguette sandwiches with no mayonnaise at every meal. But in the UK, there is little else more difficult than procuring something without mayonnaise. I could have more easily become the Prime Minister of England irrespective of being an American who can’t identify Simon Cowell in a lineup. After two weeks of ordering my sandwich sans mayonnaise, receiving it slathered with mayonnaise, sheepishly requesting a new sandwich again without mayonnaise but now in a British lilt with the vain hope of surmounting an accent barrier, finally scraping the mayonnaise off the bread of the new sandwich, I had exhausted my patience vis a vis condiments. I called the waiter over to bear witness to my second mayonnaise-coated sandwich. I expected him to seize the plate and offer a sincere and foppish apology, like Hugh Grant would have, but instead he groaned with irritation and said, “Is it really important to you, love?” I’ll spare you the transcript of the exchange that followed, suffice it to say that the word ‘wanker’ escaped my lips numerous times and mostly out of context until I was escorted off the premises.

After the unsubtle messages London has sent me over the years, I should not have been surprised when a terrorist attack was executed as G and I arrived across the pond. Homemade bombs packed into rucksacks detonated aboard public transit systems in staggering succession while we rode the Underground in blithe oblivion. I was utterly unaware of the tragedy that had befallen London because I was completely absorbed in the fallout of the other explosion rocking the city: Jude Law had been cheating on Sienna Miller with the nanny. Accustomed only to the invasiveness of American celebrity press, I reveled in the British no holds barred slander of their media darling. As G marveled at Big Ben and the Houses of Parliament, I was clucking my tongue at OK Magazine’s reporting that the home wrecking nanny was at least 3 stone heavier than Sienna Miller. G snidely pointed out that I hadn’t any clue of the unit of weight that a stone referred to, but that didn’t faze me. Nothing did as I walked, nose buried deep in a glossy, over the cobblestone. The entire city could have slid into the River Thames, and I would have been clinging to a piece of driftwood, like Kate Winslet in Titanic, gasping, “Jude told the nanny he was in love with the way she cared for his kids. No shit, she’s a nanny!”

Despite my tepid reception by London, I was bitterly envious when G announced he would be traveling there for a weeklong business trip. Any woman straining to keep her head from bobbing under the water’s surface of potty training, upper respiratory infections, and toddler Gladiatorial disputes would be itching to escape to one of the world’s great cities. Alas, it was a pipe dream since no one, family included, returns phone calls from the woman who has three children under three years of age, no matter how many plastic Harrods bags you promise in a voicemail. So G went unattended, but he checked in often. The first time to say that he was staying in the chi chi hotel The Savoy. That revelation stung, but easily enough assuaged by his promise to loot all the bathroom toiletries. Then he called again to say he’d seen Pink Floyd in the lobby. My celebrity radar registered a spike but mostly because I was impressed anyone could identify the members of Pink Floyd. I’d even thought the band members were dead so that notion served to intensify my envy since his hotel was so posh that even dead rockers were checking in. A day later, he rang to tell me Victoria Beckham had checked into The Savoy. I gritted my teeth, falsely bemused by his good fortune to run into a high-profile female celebrity who is pregnant, the Holy Grail of paparazzi objects.

But when he called at the midpoint of his trip to report that a model convention – yes, a convention of the world’s models – was underway in one of the conference halls of the hotel, I hung up the phone violently but not before telling to choke on a meat pie.

—

 

Satellites are Run By Martians Who Know Everything

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Satellites. I don’t really get ‘em; I just know they’re up there.  They’re suspended in orbit, beaming essential information like directional coordinates, international intelligence, and Howard Stern’s advice for treating genital warts. When it was time for my mother to join the modern world through the purchase of her first cellular phone, my brother and I went to the Verizon store with her to guide her through the process. As she pored over coverage maps, straining to decipher ‘safe’ zones, the salesman attempted to clarify the way minutes are tabulated. “You see,” he began in a voice mothers use for mentally unstable toddlers, “You’re in Arizona. You can call anyone in Arizona, Utah, New Mexico, and Colorado at no cost. See, they’re colored in y-ell-ow. The rest of these States – the blue ones – are out of your plan so you have a limited amount of minutes.”  As my brother and I considered which Native American reservations in the Four Corners she could call with abandon, Mom thought she’d stumbled upon the loophole that would bring the wireless giants to their knees. “Well,” she started carefully, “My husband travels a lot so he might be in Las Vegas in the morning, where I would call him, but then have a layover in Topeka before landing in Cleveland in the evening, where I might need to call him again. So my point is, sir,” and she really emphasized the ‘Sir’ because this was the part where her inner Erin Brockovich was about to cripple international telecom, “How do you know where he is when I’m calling him?”  My brother, who’d had enough despite his usual boundless patience for my mother, shouted, “Jesus, Ma, it’s called satellites!”

Thus satellites began to take over daily existence. My husband and I dropped our land line in favor of cell phones. We bought Sirius Radio since I decided access to the Greatest Hits of Marky Mark while never hearing another commercial for disposable catheters was well worth the investment. The same brother bought us a GPS system. We spent an inordinate amount of time deciding upon the provenance of our digitized tour guide. G wanted Mr. T’s voice, which I nixed on the grounds I did not want to be called a ‘fool’ every time I turned the wrong way. I favored the Australian bloke, but it became obvious that G needed accompanying subtitles scrolling along the windshield. We both agreed the Indian woman was subliminally compelling us to pick up Chicken Vindaloo.  We finally agreed on the British Chippy based on her non-judgmental declaration of ‘Recalculating’ whenever a deviation from course was made. Like any relationship based on one person giving while the other takes, cracks started to form in the shiny veneer.  G would question Miss Brit but eventually cave when she persisted. I would defend her staunchly since she enabled me to paint my toenails or organize the middle consul, but I knew it was only a matter of time before one of us was going to be dumped in the river that can be found 1.4 miles ahead, turn left, destination on the right.  He stopped using her in time, favoring a hack system of staring at the flow of water, or the angle of the sun against a stick, or forcing me out of the car to ask a gas station attendant I suspected had a collection of Mason jars containing human organs behind the counter.

Our driving differences came up recently whilst out to procure some last minute baby items from a Target of a far away land. We don’t live in suburbia where Target is as ubiquitous as pervy neighbors named ‘Stan.’ When we need to purchase something beyond ‘Socks For the Whole Family’ or a jar of Smoked Turkey Gravy, we must load into the car and drive to the ‘big city’. G was due to catch a flight out of the major airport so he agreed to ferry the family the distance. I settled in to the passenger seat where I could fake sleep through discussions of joint account spending and reasons I’ll never have my own bathroom.

I lifted a falsely closed eyelid when we abruptly stopped on the highway. I’m accustomed to frequent stops when G drives. His personal bumper sticker would read, “I break for Boston Market and any establishment to sell Mountain Dew.” This time we were stopped in a line of traffic as far as the eye could see. 0 MPH. Beads of sweat started to form on his brow as he anticipated missing his flight between the traffic jam and the Continental Cavity Check coming from TSA. I sensed he was about to go off-road.

“Just wait a little longer,” I said reassuringly, “it’ll be cleared by the time you figure out an alternate route.”

So we waited till our respective ropes began to fray, his borne of a need for inertia and mine due to a lack of patience for traffic unless there is carnage I can witness. G gets frustrated at the stand-still that occurs from traffic, compelling him to seek routes that could add hundreds of miles and years to our trip. I become irrationally annoyed at being suspended by forces I cannot see. I just want to know what we’re dealing with – is it roadkill, an overturned bus of kindergarteners, or an impromptu U2 concert?  And if we’ve waited long enough, the only impediment I want to see when we finally round that bend are those mechanized spiders from War of The Worlds.  Nothing less than the End of Days will satisfy me. If I see those deadly spiders spewing fucking lasers, decimating every human in their path, I’d say, “Alright, fair enough. We should have listened to the news.”

Having reached his boiling point, G pulled our car into the shoulder lane and proceeded toward the turn-off. AC/DC is the only entity capable of describing the Highway To Hell ahead. The single lane, pockmarked with holes, wound through hinterland that left me praying, “Please don’t let us be stranded here because AAA will tell us to eat some trail mix and start burning the tires for warmth.” As I prepared my road flares while muttering that I’d be more comfortable in the back of a Hot Wheels, G took turns faster and faster. He failed to realize that a 39 week pregnant gut feels as though it has G-forces pressing upon it with every dip and dive. Traveling with me is like transporting an Orca whale from the ocean to the aquarium. I writhe around, suspended in my lifting device, covered in damp cheesecloth, and I snap at my handlers after the effects of my tranquilizer dart wears off. I need salt water rubbed into my pores and blowhole every 90 seconds while someone dangles fish heads in front of me.

By the time we’d righted ourselves and intercepted the highway ahead of the blockage, I’d asked Kirk Cameron for the Way of The Master a dozen times, but neither God nor Mike Seaver could cure the ache that had taken over my pelvis. We left G – and my uterus – at the passenger drop-off sidewalk as I climbed, stiffly, into the driver’s seat. “Now,” I sighed and said aloud, “How do we get to Target?”  D looked up and chirped, “The car knows, Mama.”  I looked at my two year old as I dug for the GPS.  While my husband and mother may not trust the work of the satellite, my pants-peeing child had the right instinct. The car knows. I followed his command and switched on the British Chippy. Because my bumper sticker says, ‘My toddler is smarter than my husband.’

(Directionally challenged?  Would you die without GPS?)

Time Travel Ain’t For The Weak of Lung

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I went on a voyage this week. An international trek, no less! I complain about road trips with my family and lament the loss of carefree and exotic jaunts in my life, but that’s because I’ve been limiting my travel paradigm to that which happens aboard planes or upon highways. A few nights ago, on the eve of my birthday, I determined to harness all the brain power experts say we haven’t tapped to suspend time and halt aging. I was hoping to block the formation of a few crow’s feet; I didn’t want to convert to Benjamin Button. I’ve got enough babies in my life. If successful, I’d stop the clock on my aging cells; If not, I’d have mustered enough telekinetic energy to at least bend a spoon or levitate a plate, either one gangbusters at a cocktail party.

But so much more happened. I wandered through a wrinkle in time. I warped space-time as we know it. Don’t ask me to explain the mechanics; I’m not Stephen Hawking even if I mumble a lot and drool on my shirt. In the space of moments, I took a trip back through the ages. I passed decades. I reversed through Centennials.  From my window seat in my time capsule, I thought I spied the Grand Canyon, but I realized it was just an era – or was that an epoch? – sliding silently beneath my hurling rocket. I asked the flight attendant for pretzels, but she informed me they have yet to be developed.  How about pheasant and a gill of whiskey? Before I could dig in to my grouse, we’d arrived.

London. The Industrial Revolution. The Victorian Era.

Where are my sweatpants? My recent ensembles have teetered on matronly, but when did I start wearing a bun and petticoats? “Excuse me, sir?” I asked a passing gentleman who resembled the mentally unstable who work at Colonial Williamsburg, “Do you have the time?” He pulled out a gold pocket watch. Christ, these historical theme park employees and their authentic props are irritating. He hurried down the lamp-lit street as a shriveled toadstool of a woman cackled in my ear, “You’d best be on your way, Love. There’s work to be done.” With that I was teleported to the inside of an 1800s textile factory. I choked on the black smoke hanging thick in the air as I plucked lace blouses off the line. The soot, a byproduct of the steam and coal burning machinery, invaded my nostrils and my eyes. I pleaded for a window to be opened, but there was no way to ventilate the room and the overseer kept threatening to keep my two pence if I didn’t stop my belly-aching. I’m no math whiz, but I knew that even despite the power of British currency that Taco Bell pays better. My head spun, my eyes teared, and I realized both that I’d not been flown in for Kate and Prince William’s royal wedding and that Thomas Kinkade was full of shit. I fell into a heap upon the rodent feces-covered floor…

Allow me to be your guide in making this time-travel itinerary your own. It begins with allowing your husband control of all household utilities. Where you would have opted into a home heating contract that includes seasonal cleaning of your prehistoric furnace, he foregoes such luxury. Soon you notice small deposits of soot collecting around vents, which you ask him to rectify urgently since he is the keeper of utilities. He fails to do so before going out of town. The next stop on this guided tour is to wake in the frigid night to find your house has become one of those igloo hotel attractions French Canadians love to visit. Spend the next 8 hours on the phone with a man named ‘Larry’, endeavoring to make him understand that even Palins can’t endure such temperatures without hollowing out a moose carcass to take shelter within. As you eye the family dog and wonder if Google can walk you through the steps of pelt making, a service man arrives to fix the furnace. He informs you the system was overthrown by a coup of oil burning byproduct. What he does not tell you is that clearing the blockage will throw a plume of soot over your home to rival the ash from Mount St. Helen’s eruption.

After the greasy candleblack settles, you will spend the next 2 days vacuuming, scrubbing, and laundering every surface and textile in your home. Dig into your meat pie, folks, because your whirlwind trip to London circa the Industrial Revolution has begun!  The soot will instantly transform your children into Dickens characters, faces smeared with grease, holding up their bowls of ash-sprinkled gruel, “May have I some more, Miss?” No longer will you need to threaten coal in their Christmas stockings because their socks hung by the chimney with care are already filled with it. The Upper Respiratory Infection your family was suffering has been upgraded to more ominous maladies of a Chimney Sweep from the 1800s. Who worries about a little post-nasal drip when you’ve got Coal Miner’s Lung?

Upon my return from the Victorian streets of London Town, I became a more modern literary character. The never-ending billowing of soot had left me delusional, and I became the dark matron tortured by her desire for purity and cleanliness in every V.C. Andrews novel. As my kids screamed in protest, I plunged them into bleach water and vinegar baths so I could rid them of their demons.

Because my husband has been out of town – and not at a filthy textile factory – he has only heard our tales of tribulation through the puffs of our family-pack of rainbow colored nebulizers. After ceaseless wheezing from my end of the line, he asked me to focus on the positive aspects of carbon dioxide toxicity. In the spirit of the holidays, we will take the high road and accept our role as the world’s alpha group in a long-term study of the positive effects of soot. Step aside, Cindy Crawford, those French melons you claim keep your face more youthful than that of my 2 year old are about to be outdone by a cheap smear available domestically. Forget ethanol, we haven’t even needed a battery in a TV remote since our house became its own renewable energy source. We’re really saving on groceries as no one has required a meal in days since soot empties slowly from the stomach. Lastly, if any of my kids show football aspirations, I already know how they’ll look in eye black and a Raiders jersey. Provided the black on the windows doesn’t completely obscure the sun, leaving us with Vitamin D deficiency, we are developing our own adaptation of A Christmas Carol to bring to the American masses. Ebenezer Scrooge and Bob Cratchit will be portrayed by my husband and daughter while I spice up the chorus with my best Dick Van Dyke rendition of ‘Chim Chim Fuck-meee!’  Our son will play the role of Tiny Mutant Tim. With 3 arms and a nasty case of rickets.

God Bless Us, Every One!

I’m Driving With Hannibal Lecter Next Time

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The average American drives 12,000 miles a year.  If you are married with children, you must multiply that number by 28 since each mile traversed is like an uphill climb on a sheer mountain pass littered with glass shards. And you’re without shoes. Or legs. The GPS readout on a family road trip goes a little like this:

HOUR 1:  WHEELS UP aka THE BEGINNING OF THE END OF YOUR LIFE

The hours spent laundering clothes that will be soiled in seven minutes and preparing sandwiches that will be flattened against car windows in four all come down to this moment of emancipation.  Husband has packed the back of the car with a wall of luggage more ominous than the Iron Curtain. You have torn it all down, citing inaccessibility to fruit snacks and the emergency crapper. He rebuilds with shockingly less order and sensibility than the first time. You notice his use of Hefty bags instead of suitcases to contain his clothing. While your bag is squarely on the bottom, crushed under the weight of a case of non-refrigerated milk boxes leaking on your one dressy outfit, he has delicately placed his suit on top of everything with a death threat by caning to all if wrinkling or staining ensues.  Perhaps a garment bag, or some Ziplocs, would have been a wise choice, you mutter.  Children are strapped into carseats with the hopeful expectation of arrival exactly one handful of Cheerios later.  Reverse out of driveway. Gas light illuminates. Husband looks at you as though you’ve revealed a sexual affair with a lower mammal and says something patronizing and short-sighted like, “Your only job was to fill the tank before we left.” You check the glove compartment for the Chloroform you bought from an online medical supply company in Mexico. Just in case.

Window splat on Sandwich One.

HOUR 2:  CRUISE CONTROL aka THE CALM BEFORE THE STORM

The kids have exhausted themselves from hurling their torsos against their restraints, like a couple of criminally insane patients being transported by gurney from one holding cell to another. You only had to raise the whaling harpoon four times. Allowing them to watch Whale Wars has proven to be sound behavior modification. As their eyes flutter closed and their frenzied breathing becomes rhythmic, you and Husband ease into the cockpit, smile, remark about how magical they are and bemusedly wonder why people stop traveling once they have kids. You even hold hands for a little while until his right hand becomes reflexively drawn to the radio dial, searching endlessly for a channel playing non-stop Guns N Roses.  You bury your nose in neglected back-issues of Parents and Better Homes and Gardens, dogearing recipes you’ll later declare ‘a total waste of time’ and methods to get your kids to stop calling you ‘shithead’.  You permit the fourth replay of Pour Some Sugar on Me since, after all, you…are…on…vacation.

HOUR 3:  REVERSAL aka THE FOREHEAD SLAP FOLLOWED BY IRRELEVANT BICKERING

The miles quickly ticking by are interrupted by a sharp intake of breath, forehead slap, and choke-hold to the neck. Husband steers violently into oncoming traffic, while shouting, “What? Where?  Are you in labor?” The kids are awakened by the parental outburst and the bleating of horns and grinding of steel from an 18 wheeler now overturned. You declare dramatically that something very dire has been forgotten.  This something is so essential that without it the entire family, and the thinning sheath of the Ozone Layer and the tidal pulls of the oceans, will be jeopardized. Did we forget a child? Much worse than that: Underwear.  And that flashlight that should blink a myriad of colors but only the green actually illuminates.  The kids love it.  Go back.

You are unsympathetically told to go Commando or to keep alert for a swap meet. As for the flashlight, what kind of kids are interested in a flashlight that doesn’t work properly?  What does this say about their intelligence?  Why are we paying so much money for Montessori if they’re dumb enough to play with broken toys? Why don’t you expect excellence? Why didn’t you pay the electric bill? Is DVR really necessary? Did you use my toothbrush last night?

Your hand reaches for the glove compartment but you realize you’ll have to drive the rest of the way if you take him out now.  Pull hand back. Forge ahead without underwear or flashlight for kids with low IQs.

HOUR 4:  ENGINE TROUBLE aka PARENTAL UNDERCUTS

The winds begin to gather from the backseat.  The Dollar Store toys you believed would hold their fancy for years have lost their luster.  One by one, they are unceremoniously thrown toward the windshield. You tell husband it’s time.  Time for what?  Time to put on the Children’s Music. No, he insists, I will not listen to the irritating voices of children singing ‘I’m a Little Teapot.”  He said the word ‘Teapot’.  Mutiny ensues.  Rather than slide in the CD, quieting them faster than the Propofol injection you are preparing, he begins to draw comparisons to his youth, which sounds like a Susan B. Anthony autobiography. He didn’t have CD players and special kids music.  Nor car seats or air conditioning.  Even if he did, he wouldn’t have used them.  Why do you submit to their demands so easily?  We should be teaching them to live in a democracy in which we all must cooperate. And while we’re at it, why do you allow D to wear pink and to tell people he wants to be a ballerina?

Hour 5:  GAS IN THE TANK aka FEED THE ANIMALS

Husband has eaten all the snack food reserved for the kids. including the contents of the bag marked “This is for the kids should we be stranded without cell service and AAA and are teetering dangerously close to consuming the dog.” We need to stop, you decide.  The kids are hungry and it’s occurred to you that you haven’t eaten in 72 hours preparing for this trip.  Husband consents only because there is an Arby’s. It is un-American to pass by an Arby’s.  Repair to the bathroom where you fantasize that Jeff Bridges is lurking in the adjacent stall, ready to toss you in his trunk and bury you alive like in The Vanishing. You rejoin the family to find Husband elbow deep in three Ham N Cheddars while the kids roll upon and lick the floor.  Consider which is worse: Rest stop floor-induced Staph or hormone-injected fast food beef. Rapidly ingest a bag of pretzels while dropping scraps on the floor for the kids. Return to the car. Fill with more gas. Consider dropping a match in the gas tank…just to see the boom.

Window splat on Sandwich Two.

Hour 6:  TRAFFIC AND CONGESTION aka NOT THE TIME TO QUESTION THE GPS

Traffic begins to grow as do the demands from the kids. Average speed decelerates to a rate a three-legged Alpaca could outpace. You wonder if there are any Alpacas available for hire. Kids love animals and the outdoors.  It’d be good for them to take in the sights of Massachusetts from the back of an Alpaca. They’d arrive months later, expert at herding and making wool ponchos. Husband mutes the GPS and ominously states you will forge your own path, like our brethren of the Oregon Trail.  As the car is taken off road, you recall that everyone on The Oregon Trail died of dysentery. You glance wistfully at the GPS and pray that Husband doesn’t attempt to ford a river or fix a broken axle.

Hour 7:  SCENIC OVERLOOK aka DON’T MAKE A SCENE ON THE HIGHWAY

The declaration every parent of a potty trained toddler fears: Have to go to the bathroom. You briefly contemplate slipping a Pamper under his tush but realize that is the very definition of ‘one step forward, two steps back.’  Child declares unwillingness to go outside unless Daddy goes too. Scout a shoulder location with only a 75% chance of arrest for indecent exposure.  Father and son lower pants in unison.  Son stops short and proclaims this grass to be of the ‘wrong’ sort. Husband looks at you in desperation. You must find different turf as your son is inspired to urinate only by certain blades of grass, you explain. Husband drags son to various patches of land along the side of the road while vehicles passing by slow to take in a scene that appears vaguely criminal.  You yell to Husband to get the job done for phone calls to 911 reporting the Zodiac killer on the Merritt Parkway are being made.

Hour 8:  ARRIVAL aka DID THE DIVORCE PAPERS ARRIVE FIRST?

Arrive to destination more jittery than a pile of mogwais doused by a bucket of water.  Parents are exhausted.  Kids are ready to run. Begin to load 14 bellhop carts with luggage while childless valet stares in horror. Relocate Chloroform to your purse. Check in at front desk.  Will that be one King bed or two Doubles?  Exchange a wordless look.

Two doubles.

(Share your road trip horror stories)

The Hotel Movie Binder of Disappointment

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For those who read this post you know that my family traveled (in a sweetly upgraded way) to Maine this past weekend in part to celebrate my son’s 2nd birthday and in part because we like doing mental things like declaring a vacation and booking flights the night before we need to leave.  We went to the lovely harbor village of Camden-Rockport, a place that we find ourselves visiting often when we head up to see my In-Laws.  We stay in a great family-friendly Inn that offers all the best elements of a B&B (homemade breakfast, in-town location, quaint river views) while avoiding the less desirable elements of a B&B (forced interactions with creepy inn keepers, bedding from the ’60s, and shared bathrooms).   It’s fancy enough to transport me from a world of smeared pants and unwashed hair yet still down to earth that I don’t feel like a criminal of propriety when a toddler escapes the room and takes to the hallway for a nude joyride.

My favorite thing about the place?  It still offers the venerated Hotel Movie Binder.

A truly majestic document filled with laminated pages chronicling movies you not only have seen 10 times, but saw them 10 times so long ago that you can’t even remember what they’re about.  What choice do you have when two babies are fast asleep and you’re in a coastal town in the off-season where everything closes at 9pm?  What?  Read?  Talk?  No, let’s not talk crazy!

I scoured the binder in hopes of finding the DVD library had been updated with a movie or two since the last time we’d stayed there, like with Arachnophobia or ET.

Sadly, it had not been.  In fact, I could have sworn they’d replaced a few more contemporary choices with even older ones.  Perhaps someone had stolen DVDs, forcing the Inn keeper to replace the contraband with videos they’d been using as door stops and fly swatters.

Imagine perusing this list with your husband, straining to select a common choice…

Picture 004

 

Let me give you a few choice remarks made by G regarding this movie list:

- What’s that XXX one? (Me:  Shut up.  That’s a car movie, don’t play dumb.)

- Awww, Notting Hill…I’m just a boy standing in front of a girl, telling her I’ll never watch that movie again. (Me:  You clearly didn’t understand the magic of it.)

- The Holiday…I believe I’ve vetoed that one for 5 years now. (Me:  Which is why I had to waste a perfectly good ‘solo’ TV night to watch it on USA.  With commercials.)

- While You Were Sleeping…I think Sandra  Bullock wishes she’d known more about what was happening while she was sleeping. (Me:  Okay, good one.)

Finally, after much maneuvering and lobbying on my part, he snaps the binder closed and declares:

I’ll watch Wedding Crashers again.
Ah, men and their fondness for movies in which Vince Vaughn plays…himself…over and over.  Which ones would your guy have wanted?