Writer’s Blech

That was some break, huh? I mean, I’ve taken a few vacations in my time—a couple from this blog; many more from reality—but 370+ days is pretty ridiculous.

I feel compelled to offer an explanation, although I suspect I am alone in believing one is absolutely necessary. But since you’re here and apparently have some time and/or braincells to kill, please allow me to take a stab at it.

As difficult as it will be, I shall resist the impulse to make up a bunch of crap to make myself seem glamourous, worldly, or socially conscious—like my high school classmate and former best friend Lisa used to do every fall when we went back to school after summer vacation, and everyone wanted to know what everyone else had been up to for the past three months. I had no problem telling people I’d been reading, babysitting, swimming, visiting my grandparents, and fighting with my brothers, but she was not content to admit she had been involved in anything so pedestrian.

I haven’t spoken to her since 1986 (when she gushed about having been accepted into a sorority and asked me how many kids I had as if expecting me to say nine or ten with number eleven on the way) but if I were to call her up now, I wouldn’t be surprised to hear her say she’d spent the past year perfecting her Meridional French while quarantining with Sting and Trudie and a few of their friends in Turks and Caicos (Perhaps you’ve heard of it?) or sequestered in some lush and remote location writing the screenplay for a documentary she hopes to make with (insert obscure indy filmmaker name here.) 

To be honest, at this point I’d give almost anything to be able to say I’d spent the past 12 months reading, babysitting, visiting my grandparents, and fighting with my brothers—or even listening to Lisa brag, lie, name drop, or pretend to be an independent filmmaker. Especially since that would mean I had not spent the year avoiding almost everyone—including my children—while washing my groceries and lurching back and forth from wanting to write something that would make people laugh and realizing there wasn’t much about 2020 that didn’t make me want to cry.

Even the election, which appeared to go my way this time around, could not budge my writer’s block. Because the results were not in for what seemed like decades after the polls closed. And when the votes were finally counted, I couldn’t even celebrate or joke about that because first, I am not one to gloat and second, I very much believe in Murphy’s law and I wasn’t going to do one damn thing that might jinx the final electoral college tally. And then came recounts, the legal challenges, that psycho Sydney Powell, as well as Lin ‘I’ve Completely Lost the Plot’ Wood, and the insurrection and—oh never mind. You know what happened. You were there.

In March of 2020, when the Jarhead and I went into lockdown, I was on the verge of writing about our latest renovation project and excited to make fun, as usual, of all the trials and tribulations associated therewith. We had a whole new team of contractors; an entirely different type of house upon which to test our skills and the strength of our marriage; and a completely new set of issues we had never run across before. In short, it should have made for comedy gold.

But instead, the mine went bust. Somehow joking about unreliable contractors, bail-jumping contractors, nonexistent footings and egregious electrical code violations didn’t seem all that amusing. Especially when Covid-19 was literally killing someone every 33 seconds or so. 

Add to that mix the fact that so many people didn’t seem to give a good goddamn. Instead, they were mocking, complaining about or flat-out ignoring mask mandates and attacking anyone who tried to follow or enforce them. Some even called them violations of their civil rights and likened them to being forced to wear the Star of David or a number on their wrist. Wow. What a bunch of drama queens.

As if they were being singled out and mistreated instead of simply being asked to protect the more vulnerable members of their communities. As if wearing a mask is some giant burden. As if surgeons have been wearing them for fun all these years and not for the safety of their patients. As if they don’t wear them for hours at a time during complicated operations without suffocating, all without whining or crying about it. I know. Let’s not confuse the issue with facts.

While we’re on that topic, here are a few points for folks to ponder: If mask mandates violate your constitutional rights, does it not follow that the DNR rules that require the wearing of blaze orange during deer hunting season do the same? And does it not follow that the city ordinances requiring you to cover your junk in public are, by that same logic, unconstitutional?

Seems to me, your righteous indignation is a bit inconsistent and your sudden interest in our beloved constitution a tad convenient. After all, seeing your junk might make me sick, but it probably won’t kill me. Which makes me wonder: if you don’t like laws requiring you to cover your face, how are you remotely okay with laws requiring you to cover your ass?

Perhaps, in addition to flouting the mask mandates, you should also be flouting these other forms of governmental overreach? Perhaps you fellas should skip the pants and underwear next time you head to Lowe’s and march proudly into the store to pick up your wood—I mean, lumber. And maybe you gals should just go topless to the office or the gym. And if someone challenges your right to do so, you can just look them in the eyes (ahem, they’re up here) and give them a quick lesson on constitutional law. What’s the matter? Are you shy?

Perhaps that’s taking things a bit too far. So how about instead you get up a group of people to protest the laws requiring you to wear blaze orange while deer hunting. It doesn’t have to be a big deal. Just convince your peeps to grab their guns, throw on some camouflage and some doe urine and say, “Screw that shit, man. I’m an American, and ain’t nobody forcing ME to wear orange.”

Now THAT is a protest I can get behind. I will not only support your cause; I’ll go to your rallies and help you spread the word on social media. I will even drive you to your favorite hunting spot and offer you a hearty ‘good luck!’

Okay. I probably won’t say good luck. But I will say this: If plane crashes were killing as many Americans a week as this virus has, these people would be singing a whole different tune. If their own kids or other loved ones were dying from Covid-19 as fast as all those anonymous sick and old people they’ve never met; if they had to work in hazmat suits caring for patients as they lay dying alone, they would not only wear the damn masks but also urge everyone and their brother to stay TF at home. But they aren’t living that reality, so they have the luxury of not giving a damn.

Let’s not kid ourselves. The people who refuse to cover their faces may dress it up to be a constitutional issue but that’s only because they could never say with a straight face that it’s a hardship or a sacrifice. At best, it’s an inconvenience or a nuisance. And don’t let them kid you either. They may say they oppose government overreach but what they’re fighting for is the right to endanger the lives of as many of their fellow citizens as they like. They can tell themselves it’s bigger than that, but they’re full of crap. Because you don’t see them strapping on their assault rifles and marching to the nearest state capitol to protest laws requiring them to wear seatbelts, drive a certain speed, or carry car insurance.

Just like the parents who demanded that teachers and other educators ‘do their effing jobs’ and work in classrooms without the protection of a vaccine but who couldn’t do that ‘effing job’ if their own lives depended on it (as many of them proved with aplomb) their interest lies not in protecting the teachers who typically have to manage 20 to 30 children per hour for 7 hours a day, but in not having to manage their own 2.4 children 24 hours a day. I’m not even going to address the stunning lack of empathy it takes to accuse teachers of not wanting to do their jobs when in fact what they want is simply to not get exposed to a deadly virus and die.

And let us not forget the state and local officials and school board members who insisted that it was okay for teachers and support staff to be up to their elbows in germy kids all day even though they themselves won’t meet in person because they’re not willing to sit in the same room with other adults. Ah, how I love the smell of a double standard in the morning.

The worst part is, if we had done what needed doing for as long as we needed to do it, we would not have nearly half a million dead in the US alone. And we might have been out of the woods already. 

But alas, for some that was too much work. Or maybe it wasn’t as satisfying as belittling the staff at the grocery store when they offer you a mask because you ‘forgot’ yours, or as entertaining as the news reports about hospitals running out of capacity. Or maybe it just wasn’t as much fun as dressing up like Rambo and brandishing weapons that you only fire at helpless deer, glass bottles, paper targets or clay pigeons.

I know. That was a low blow. How could I possibly know for sure that all those deer, bottles, targets and clay pigeons are helpless? I actually I have it on good authority from Eddie Izzard that clay pigeons are in fact fuckers.

Which perfectly illustrates my point: Apart from making fun of these people and devising creative ways to punish their ignorance and/or selfishness, there has not been one ounce of laughter or pleasure to be gleaned from the situation that isn’t, somehow, also painful AF.

And yet it seemed every other writer and humorist on the planet was able to carry on. SNL was still making episodes—albeit from their own homes and in their own clothes. And the late night talk show hosts were all still cracking jokes. They just weren’t doing it in front of a live audience for a while. But they still did it.

So what was my excuse? I had never had a live audience. Or a team of writers. It had always been me and my computer. In my own home and in my own clothes. Or more accurately, pajamas.

Maybe that’s the problem. Maybe I need to change things up a bit. Maybe tomorrow I’ll dig out some of the Jarhead’s cammies and storm around the house ranting to my cat about the Bill of Rights and see if I can make her laugh.

I’ll let you know how it goes.

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Road Trippin’ Down Under: Rocking it (or not) in Rockingham

It came as no surprise when we awoke at 4am on Friday morning. Since we had gone to bed so early the night before, I would have been more surprised—and probably a bit concerned—if we had slept any later.

By now it was quite clear that we were taking the Forrest Gump approach to our vacation: When we were hungry, we ate. When we were tired, we slept. And when we had to go…you know. We went.

I knew we wouldn’t win any races or set any records at that pace, but neither would we suffer any stress or strain. With any luck, the reward for this outlook—so eloquently expressed by the Spanish as “que sera, sera” and by the Italians as “va bene”—would be the extension of our beauty, vitality, and longevity. And if not, at least I’d have plenty of material for future posts. (You’re welcome.)

And so, with little in terms of a plan other than to grab some coffee and a bite to eat and head south for the day, we hopped on the elevator and made our way down to the dining area to take advantage of the hotel’s breakfast buffet.

It looked pretty much like any other breakfast buffet we had seen with a few notable exceptions. The most obvious of these was the sheer variety of items, which included not only standard breakfast fare like bacon, eggs, sausage, ham, hot and cold cereals, pastries, pancakes, waffles, omelets, and fresh fruit, but also non-standard breakfast food like roasted tomatoes, hot beans, and mushrooms.

Among the more puzzling aspects of this buffet was the table of raw vegetables that were so fresh that they still had their skins and ends intact, and yet were so clean, colorful, and perfect that I assumed they were fake. In fact, I wasn’t until I saw one of our fellow guests eagerly gnawing on a giant carrot like Bugs Bunny that I realized they were not only real but tasty.

Another difference between this buffet and others was the presence of dogs. And I mean a LOT of dogs. All of them sitting or lying on the floor next to one table or another. Not barking. Not begging. Not running around. Just chilling and being dogs.

“What’s with all the dogs?” I asked as the Jarhead and I assembled our coffee, plates, and silverware at our table. “I counted at least nine dogs in his area alone.”

My companion shrugged. “At least they’re being quiet.”

I seconded that, realizing only then how quiet the place was. Although I have no empirical or statistical data to prove it, it was about the quietest breakfast experience I’d ever had. And quite possibly the most pleasant. Especially compared to certain buffets in the US—not saying which ones—where you can hardly carry on a conversation for all the screaming, crying, fighting and whining kids and their parents who are too busy shouting over them or into their cell phones to actually do something about it.

Compared to all that, this place was Valhalla.

And yet, odd. How could a room be literally teeming with people and yet almost totally quiet?

It must be the acoustics, I decided. Because, as I looked around the room, it was clear that people were moving their lips. You just couldn’t hear them.

Then I looked more closely, and realized that most of those people were also moving their hands. And their arms.

That’s when it dawned on me: these people are signing.

“No wonder it’s so quiet in here,” I said. “At least half of the people in here are hearing impaired.”

“Quite a few visually impaired folks around, too,” the Jarhead observed, indicating with a nod toward tables comprised of people with dogs and wearing dark glasses.

“What a coincidence,” I marveled aloud.

“Or is it?” the Jarhead asked with a chuckle.

“What do you mean?” I followed his gaze a sign on the doors at the rear of the dining room.

Turns out we were sitting in amidst a convention for professionals who work with or on behalf of people with hearing and visual impairments—many of whom are hearing or visually impaired themselves.

Boy, did I feel like an idiot—especially when I looked around again and found almost every single one of our breakfast companions wearing a t-shirt with the organization’s logo on it.

In my defense, the t-shirts came in about four different colors. And they were paired with bottoms of about every color, shape, and fabric under the sun, so it’s not as if the conventioneers were all dressed alike. Still. I felt pretty stupid.

Fortunately, no one was paying any attention to me so no one besides the Jarhead knew what an idiot I was. At least not until now.

Anyway, from there we popped back up to the room to grab a few things for the day’s trip south. We were almost to the elevator again when I realized something was missing.

My splints!

By which I mean the custom fitted, nylon devices that I wear on the outer fingers of my arthritic left hand to keep them bent and out of the way. The very same items that keep me from collapsing in pain any time said digits come in contact with anything firmer than water, and without which I could barely function.

Thus began a frantic search for two tiny, light peach, infinity-shaped pieces of plastic, which I wear nearly 24/7 but usually remove before using the bathroom, putting on lotion, or doing the dishes. Since I hadn’t seen a kitchen in days, I reasoned, the only place I could have left them was on a stand next to a bed or next to a sink in a bathroom. That didn’t bode well considering I had slept in about five different beds and used over a dozen different restrooms in the last seven days. On the upside, the last place I remembered taking them off to apply lotion was in our room right there in lovely Fremantle, Australia—which meant I hadn’t left them back home, in Chicago, or in Abu Dhabi. And because I hadn’t left the hotel since the last time I took them off to use the bathroom that morning, I knew they had to be nearby.

Unfortunately, after turning our entire room inside out and upside down, the splints were still missing, so we decided to check the dining room. Although I didn’t remember washing any dishes, putting on lotion, or using the bathroom during breakfast, because the only place I’d been all morning–other than our room and the elevator–was the dining room, it seemed the only logical place to look.

A few minutes later, after checking our table (which had been cleared and was now unoccupied) and asking the hostess, the servers, and the cashier if anyone had turned in a set of small, light peach, infinity shaped pieces of plastic, I concluded that they’d been thrown away.

And so, with little else to do but get up close and personal with six garbage cans full of discarded food, drink, and god-only-knows-what-else (which was not going to happen in this lifetime, thanks very much. I had enough of that kind of fun thanks to all the happy hours I spent digging though the cafeteria trash in pursuit of my missing retainer back in middle school) we gave up the search and went on our slightly-less than merry way. At least they weren’t expensive.

Trying to hold on to that silver lining while clutching the seat and door handle of the rental car as we cruised down the highway that morning proved no harder than clutching the seat and door handle of any other vehicle on any other day of my life, and in time I forgot about my defeat. There was so much to see outside that car window that I even forgot to be scared every now and then.

The first place we stopped was at a oceanfront park, where we snapped a few photos and made a note to come back when it was warmer and less windy.

Continuing down the coast from there, we stopped in at Bell Park in the City of Rockingham.

Continuing down the shore past the park, we came to a little sailboat harbor and boardwalk.

Although the views were lovely, my enjoyment of them was hampered somewhat by the fact that I had developed an itch in the general vicinity of my cleavage, which was mercifully not constant but still fairly irksome, and which became progressively more annoying as time wore on. Not wanting to attract attention by addressing the situation out in the open, I had resolved to find a restroom or other appropriate setting in which to take action while discreetly adjusting my position and that of a certain article of clothing in the hope of maintaining my sanity.

At a certain point—and with no restroom in sight—I couldn’t stand it anymore. Although the itching itself hadn’t gotten any more intense, something—perspiration perhaps—had caused it to increase in frequency. By then I was roughly as curious as to the cause of the itch as I was annoyed by it, and convinced that knowing the cause was the key to making it go away.

With that in mind—and with the Jarhead having stopped off to buy a soda from by a local concessioner—I gave up and gave in. Expecting to find a bite, or a rash, or bits of sand or salt stuck to my skin, I pulled the neck of my shirt away from my body and looked down to find two small, light peach infinity-shaped plastic rings nestled between my—well, you know.

Suddenly, it all came rushing back to me: where I’d put them; when I’d put them there; even WHY I’d put them there.

I immediately started laughing, recalling a video I had once seen and shared with the Jarhead entitled “Titties are NOT Pockets.”

You can see it by clicking here:

I was still laughing when the Jarhead returned from the concession stand with his beverage. He looked at me as I held up my splints. “Where were they?” he asked with a chuckle.

I pointed toward my chest, and then he was laughing, too.

“Now, Billie,” he admonished. “You should know that titties are NOT pockets.”

From there we made our way back to the car. Along the way, I came across this bizarre sight:

I’m not going to tell you what it is. But feel free to take a guess and leave it as a comment. I’ll give you a couple of hints: They glow in the dark. And they are not pockets.

After leaving the park, we went for a short drive down the coast to admire the architecture and then stopped off to admire the beach and other sights—which included magpies, sand dunes, and about a hundred signs warning visitors to watch for snakes. Apparently, they were just waking up from hibernation and should be expected to be a bit cranky.

After speaking to a ranger, I also learned to watch out for other small animals that might be sitting in the grasses. It seems they will stay perfectly still to avoid detection when they sense a snake is nearby, so if you see one that’s not moving, you should assume a snake is not far away. Of course, they may also sit perfectly still just because you’re nearby, so you never know.

Eventually, we made it back to Fremantle. Not wanting to delay dinner an hour or more by debating what and where to eat, we simply went back to the Monk. This time we ordered burgers, which came with fried polenta. Although I had asked to forego the polenta in favor of a salad, the Jarhead decided to give it a try.

Recognizing right off the bat that we weren’t Aussies, the server, Trevor, asked our names and where we were from. No one had really expressed an interest in us up to that point, and it made a nice change.

Trevor didn’t look like any server we’d ever had—in Australia or anywhere else. With his close-cropped hair, his stern expression, the fitted shirt, and his compact but well-muscled physique, he looked more like Jason Statham in “The Mechanic” than someone whom you’d expect to bring you a burger–never mind the salad or fried polenta. Although to be fair, I probably wouldn’t have noticed the fitted shirt or his muscles had it not been for the fitted shirt and his muscles. (Pretty sure he didn’t get THOSE delivering plates of burgers and polenta—unless he carries a dozen or so plates at a time.)

As I expected, the Jarhead was not enamored with his choice of sides, and asked Trevor to take it away.

Eager to turn things around, Trevor offered to replace the fried polenta with something else.

“Like what?” the Jarhead asked doubtfully.

“How about a salad?”

The Jarhead was less than thrilled by this suggestion—and made no effort to conceal it. “No thanks,” he said.

“He’s not really a fan of salad,” I explained.

“Is that so?” Trevor asked me, before turning to the Jarhead. “What’s wrong with salad?”

It sounded like a challenge, but Trevor was clearly amused, so the Jarhead answered:

“Salad isn’t food,” he declared. “Salad is my food’s food.”

Trevor crossed his arms. “Is that right?”

The Jarhead nodded. “In fact, salad is not only my food’s food; it’s also what my food s***s on,” he clarified with no small amount of satisfaction.

He was being deliberately provocative, and that clearly made him feel better.

“I’m not sure I like you,” Trevor admitted before turning to me again. “Now Billie—she’s delightful—but you…I don’t know. You’re a bit of a pain in the ass.”

I thought I would die laughing.

“He’s really not,” I said, trying not to snort.

“Are you sure?”

“Yes. And we’ve been married 31 years, so I would know. The man is just hangry.”

“Hangry?”

“Yeah. You know. When you get so hungry you’re angry?”

“Right.” Trevor nodded and turned back toward the Jarhead. “I guess I’ll have to take her word for it. Meanwhile, since you don’t want a salad, can I bring you anything else to replace the polenta?”

“How about another beer?’ he replied, smiling.

“You got it.”

That did the trick. Well, that and the big juicy bacon cheeseburger once it finally made its way into his stomach.

We followed that up with brief walk around an area of downtown we hadn’t seen before, and then headed back to our room.

For a change, we managed to stay up until 8pm that night! At that rate, I figured we stood a pretty good chance of acclimating to the new time zone just in time to head back home.

Road Trippin’ 2015: Hunting High and Low

Our last full day in Alaska might be characterized best as a hunting expedition following a search “party,” followed by a wild goose chase. Or some other phrase that sounds mildly interesting and somewhat challenging but not entirely fruitful.

It hadn’t started out that way. In fact, we had a pretty quiet and relaxing day planned—which is surprising since we had planned to spend it with LaVon. But this time, the excitement didn’t involve the federal police, motorized vehicles, or high speeds. Instead, it involved federal land, unmanned aircraft, and high altitudes.

The Jarhead and I had gotten up later than usual and then had to catch up to our host, who had already been up and around for several hours by the time we wandered out of our room and into the kitchen. Having made plans to go bear watching later that day, we grabbed a couple cups of coffees and a few bites to eat, then raced through our showers, into our clothes, and out the door so as not to hold up the train.

LaVon had an appointment to visit her adopted Grandma that afternoon, so we had agreed to accompany her to Grandma’s apartment, say hello, and then do some souvenir shopping while she and two other friends visited with Grandma. After arriving at Grandma’s apartment and knocking on the door, however, we discovered that Grandma was not where Grandmas was supposed to be.

As Grandma is known for her love of routine and devotion to punctuality, LaVon was reasonably concerned. Realizing it was a bit early to be worried, however, she decided to wait a little while and knock again just in case Grandma was in fact home but indisposed. When sufficient time had passed as to render that possibility unlikely, she surmised that Grandma was running late getting back from a previous appointment and suggested we head to the lobby to make a few calls and await her return.

Several minutes later, with no sign of Grandma in the lobby and stull unable to get an answer at the door or on the phone, LaVon decided it was time to worry. Especially after having checked with the folks whom Grandma had seen earlier that day and consulting with two other people who had also tried and failed to reach her, she began to wonder what else could be done to find her. My mind, meanwhile, was going all kinds of places, and I had begun to wonder if it was time to involve law enforcement. I was just on the brink of suggesting we take the somewhat more conservative step of contacting the building manager to let us in to check the apartment Grandma finally answered her phone.

“Where is everybody?” she asked LaVon, since she and the two other friends who were waiting with us in the lobby were now all late for their visit to her apartment. “I came up the back way,” she explained upon hearing everyone was looking for her and how concerned they all were. “Typical Grandma,” LaVon declared. “What a little dickens.”

With all that confusion and the late hour, the Jarhead and I said decided to take our leave and head down town to knock out our souvenir shopping. It was no less difficult to find real Alaska-made souvenirs in Anchorage, by the way, than it had been to find them near Denali or anywhere else in the state. The items we found may have featured moose, bears, salmon, and other Alaskan themes, but nearly all of it seemed to have been made in China. Our efforts eventually paid off, however, and two hours, one Ulu knife, and several lowered standards later, we were headed back to Grandma’s building.

Our next stop—after picking up LaVon and grabbing a quick but delicious Thai food  lunch—was at the top of a hill that overlooked the city, from which bears could be seen some afternoons feeding on berries and trying to fatten themselves up for winter. Although the view of Anchorage from the hill was great, all we got to see there were a bunch of other people looking for bears feeding on berries.

Having struck out there, we headed over to Elmendorf Air Force Base. Apparently bears were known to congregate in the bushes at the edge of the golf course in the late afternoon, and on the hillsides up above the installation, which were covered with acres and acres of blueberries. Although the view of the countryside was awesome, all we found on that hill were acres and acres of people picking blueberries.

After hanging out for a while and talking to a few of the berry-pickers, we decided to take our search for bears to a local park. The sockeyes were spawning in the creek that flows through the area, and there was a good chance that bears might be wading through the water feeding on them.  The hike from the visitors’ center down to the handful of boardwalks that cross the creek at various points was long but lovely, with lots of native trees and other plants to please the eye, and lots of other hopeful bear watchers holding cameras and vying for a space along the railing.

As luck would have it, a bear had come to do some fishing at the second boardwalk we approached. To our chagrin, we had missed him by about ten minutes. This information came to us by way of another tourist, who had the pleasure of watching the bear approaching the creek from a neighboring marsh, only to see him frightened away by some jerk flying a drone. Apparently the dude was flying the damn thing—which he cleverly had fitted with a camera—up and down the water looking for bears and, in the process was rudely scaring them all away.

We hung around the park for a while, moving from boardwalk to boardwalk—and learning more than I’d ever aspired to know about the mating habits of sockeye salmon—until it began to get dark. With a mile or so of trail to cover before night fell, we headed back to the car. I felt bad that, once again, the Jarhead had spent a week on vacation and not seen a single bear.

“There’s always tomorrow,” LaVon offered as we climbed into the rental. “Your flight doesn’t leave until after dinner.”

She was right, of course. And no doubt we would keep our eyes open as we made our way to the airport the next day. But given our luck—and given how things ended on our trip to Yellowstone in 2011—the only bear we’d run across on our way home from Anchorage would be a Smokey from the Alaska state police.