beyond the pale

Driving home to SD, we passed, uhm, I don’t know what. An ostrich farm? Ostrich ranch? Ostrich prison? Is this even an ostrich?

Anyway, whatever it is, we sped past a bunch of them pecking at the ground behind this chain-link fence. We’re in the middle of Nowhere, Utah, basically, and there’s this whole gathering of incongruous creatures and so I yelled, “Stop! Turn around!” and MB said, “Why?” and “Lord, what now?” and “White man’s burden!” which he says a lot when he’s around me. Whatever does it mean?? I cannot even pretend to know.

So he pulled over and, wisely, stayed in the car — well, I don’t know if it was wisdom so much as his long body and broad shoulders becoming arthritic and stooped from constantly crawling over the passenger seat with dignity. Anyway, he sat there, I jumped out with my craptacular cellphone/camera, figuring that all these creatures — ostriches, emus, emiches, whatevs — would scatter, all a’feared of the crazy sweaty lady lumbering their way. And most of them did scatter or just increase their nervous pecking. Except this one. The homeliest one of all. She strolled towards me, turned her head to regard me with one golden brown eye, weaving her skinny neck back and forth the whole time, hypnotizing me, luring me closer.

MB later told me that as he watched it all unfold from his perch in the car, he just sighed to himself, “Well, here we go. She’s gonna get a pecking.”

Well, hmmph. I did not “get a pecking.”

I just got this awesome picture instead:

We’re back! Lost wireless connection up there in Utah. Must rest. Become something close to human again. So so very very hot.

And I cannot stand heat. Wah.

More to come, after the puddle that is me congeals into coherence.

Nighty-night, dear peeps.

Random jotted-down stuff:

~ Oh, Friday night — the day before we were hitting the road — the driver’s side door of the car decided to be a brat and just not open. Pushing, pulling, praying, cajoling, weeping — none of these did any good. We couldn’t get it fixed in time. Took it to Hai, the Vietnamese lady that runs the auto shop we use, and she said, “Oh. Two hunn-ed dollar just to look. Take ’bout 5 hour.” MB, already annoyed about the trip on so many levels that I won’t enumerate here, just said, “Forget it. No way. I’ll just crawl over the passenger seat.”

“But we’ll have to fix it eventually.”

“Not now.”

“Do you want me to drive?”

“No.”

“Are you sure?”

“YES.”

Jeez, Peaches, calm down. Now he crawls over the seat, all 6-foot-3, quite proud of himself for perfecting this totally gay-looking technique, quoting from Singin’ in the Rain every time, “Dignity. Always dignity.”

~ The road from SD to Zion, Utah is basically a deadly drenching bath of steaming air. Temperatures averaged around 112. The air is so heavy, almost lumpy, like grandma’s bad turkey gravy. At one rest stop, I climbed out of the car and died. MB was sad, but he’s moving on, crawling over the car seat, dignified in grief.

~ My sister S told me on the phone that when she and her husband were discussing the car arrangements (they caravaned here with my brother’s family), Piper said, “Will I be in the car with (The Banshee)?”

S said, “Well, honey, we don’t know yet.”

Apparently, there was a pause, then Piper said, “Well …. it’s okay if I’m not.”

So helpful. Hahahahaha. That girl is no dummy, despite my family trying to pin certain labels on her. She knows what’s up with people.

More notes later …..

Because we all miss her so much and stuff. I mean, we know she’s in Zion, Utah, but where? where? where?

So to answer all these pressing questions — which is really just one question, isn’t it, and actually NObody’s asking it, so please allow me to shove this down your throats — I’m hiding out in our, uhm, bedroom suite, pretending to be asleep still.

I am here at this precise moment:

More pictures here.

Actually, more precisely, I’m in this room, in my jammies, on a cozy cushy chair, much like a chair that a certain girl I know is looking to buy. I promise to upload a craptacular cell phone photo of it later, just for her.

MB is still asleep, flopped on the right side of the bed there. Wake UP, MB!! I’m all alone! Suffering in this magnificence! ACK!

This room ….. frankly, I’m almost uncomfortable — it is SO nice. I’m all awkward with it, like those first moments of a first date. I don’t know what to say. I giggle just to fill the space. I want it to like me but there’s no way it will if I keep this up.

I’m to the left of the bed now, in the corner, curled up. Right across from me is the huge white armoire with our own personal TV. All the bedrooms have TVs. The kitchen has a TV! Lordy. I am literally just all freaked out.

Back to this room, though. Further to the right of the bed, beyond snoozy MB, lies what can only be called the Versailles of bathrooms. I get all trembly just going in there. And going in there. Stone floors. Giant glass shower with a pebbly floor that massages your feet — or stubs your toes, it’s all a matter of perspective — when you shower. A separate private chamber for taking care of business. A huge walk in closet with an ironing board, all the hangers you could possibly need or need to steal, a whole wall of shelves stuffed with smushy pillows. There are shelves everywhere in there! I’ve put one thing on each shelf so I feel all moved in. It looks really stupid. A shelf with one pair of socks and such.

I’ll leave you for now with an image of the room behind those massive windows in the first photo:

Gorgeous, no? Downside: It is 943 degrees outside and, uhm, I don’t even want to know the story behind the bubbling cesspool about a half mile up the road.

More later …. when I’m hiding out again.

Will try very very hard to post the results of the semi-finals. I think they’ll be done before we leave. Due to time constraints, I will be forced to be slightly less brilliant in my match post mortems.

So SO sorry. Do try not to be shattered.

Also, yes, thank you to the drive-by commenter who pointed out there are no crazed bee-arrs in Zion National Park. I was being — oh, whaddya call it? — silly.