Category: life in general

And the gist of this gist is:

There is a 99.9 percent chance we will NOT be moving to northern California to run a coffeehouse/resort on the banks of the Trinity River.

Mainly because owner dude has, for three days now, completely ignored the email he asked us to send “listing” our salary requirements/needs if we were to make the move. This, added to our existing impression of him, isn’t exactly sweetening the pot, you know?

So.

Okay.

Well.

Now I am free to tell the story with total abandon.

Hallelujah!

Okay. You will, most likely, notice the disconnect between the title of this post — “photos” — and the complete lack of photos in this post, again, called “photos.”

Although maybe you won’t notice and if you don’t, well, yamahama, Crackie, there be problems and I’m sorry to tell you that you don’t meet the perilously low IQ minimum required to be reading this blog.

But let’s move on, shall we, because once again, I do not know what I’m talking about.

Okay.

I’m going to give you a link to photos of “The Resort That Cost Us 473,578 Hours of Butt Time in The Horrible Rented PT Cruiser.”

You NEED to see photos before I go any further with the whole story and, well, I didn’t take any except with my cell phone — and we all know how good those look — mainly because I don’t currently have a camera. I mean, I suspect that could be a contributing factor to the overall lack of photos.

BUT …. I’m not actually giving you a direct link because I don’t want it traced back to meee and Thee Olde Blogge here. I’m a cagey little minx.

So. Here you go: Type these three words into the URL thingamabob — as one word, of course:

straw
house
resorts

Then type (dot) com.

Okay. Personally, I put the sound on mute when I go to the website because it’s all a little too Tinkerbell for me, what with all the shinga-shinga sounds, but that’s just me. On the main page, click on “Welcome” then click on the “Gallery” icon that will appear in the lower left-hand corner. That will take you to the photos that I would have uploaded and put in this post, but couldn’t because ___________(insert reason here).

All I know is it’s definitely not my fault. It is someone else’s fault, as usual, I’m pretty sure.

I don’t know why, but I’m feeling the need to be absolved of everything lately.

Nothing is my fault anymore, ever, from here on out, okay?

Thankee.

The other morning, as we wound our way through the mountains approaching the resort, I really tried to ignore them — those looming imperial things. Maybe that sounds strange. I suppose it is strange, but they were so beautiful, so green, so full and alive, they literally made me ache. They reminded me of the Northwest, gave me flashbacks of an easier life, of simpler times. So I tried — with all my might — to ignore them. I told MB, “It’s like someone has put the cutest puppy in the world in my lap, telling me he could be mine, and I’m waiting for the catch. I’m holding my breath. I must stay objective about the puppy.”

So that became our catchphrase as we twined past the towering seduction of those mountains: “Don’t look at the puppy. Don’t look at the puppy.”

They were speaking to me, those mountains, luring me, calling me, and I didn’t want to be swept away. Keep your wits about you, Trace. I felt a little undone by it all, knowing as I do that the landscape surrounding me at that moment precisely matches the landscape of my own heart. Somehow, I understand it and feel it understands me. If you can feel a kinship with a landscape, then I do, I truly do. It lies dormant and quiet inside me much of the time because I don’t live in that now, but deep in that greenery, covered in mountains, I could suddenly feel the rumblings and stirrings of that sleeping giant inside me and the rumblings actually hurt. Oh, they hurt. I felt too small and too weak to contain them all: Uh-oh. He’s waking up. He’s waking up. Shhh ….. shhhhhh …. it’s okay … go back to sleep …. back to sleep.

“Don’t look at the puppy. Don’t look at the puppy.”

Life does things to you that you never ever imagine it will. Things happen that make it hard to believe in the possibility of good things anymore. That’s it; that’s the cold steel rod that runs through your core: the death of possibility. You start to live in this suspended state inside, not turning here, not turning there, just dangling, noncommital, practicing an apathy you don’t really feel, but hope to feel because maybe apathy is the answer. Maybe it’s the thing that will protect you from disappointment because the slow burn of regular disappointment feels as if it must be worse than death. Sometimes you think you’d rather die than be disappointed just one more time. You wonder, you worry, When will that final drop fall that starts the deadly flood?

“Don’t look at the puppy. Don’t look at the puppy.”

“Whatever you do, do not look at the puppy.”

The gist of it is this:

We have an opportunity to run a coffeehouse/resort on the banks of the Trinity River in northern CA.

So that’s the gist of it and that’s where we were — checking it out, you see.

Oh, but wait! There’s more.

Oh, not now. Oh, no. Now, I couldn’t possibly. I mean, eventually, yes, there’s more.

Okay. I’m a tease and a drunken slattern, as we all know.

~ California, she is big.

~ We rented a PT Cruiser, accidentally, because it seemed the lesser of the two evils presented to us at the time. And, you know, cross that baby off the list of potential cars to own. Yeccch. The seats are weirdly contoured and paralyzed MB’s left butt cheek and we both remain somewhat bitter about it.

~ The buttons that control the windows in the PT Cruiser are in the middle of the dashboard. Very counter-intuitive and annoying. You basically flail about as if on fire just to open the windows because you cannot remember where the buttons are.

~ Somehow, “alcoholic midsection” became a very popular phrase during our 52,379-hour road trip:

“She’s normal from the front, but sideways? Uh, there’s a real alcoholic midsection.”

“That minimart is just overrun with alcoholic midsections.”

“Uhm, where are we??”

“I think we are now in the alcoholic midsection of California.”

~ “Drunken slattern” also had a regular guest spot in our conversations. It did not matter if a person was actually a drunken slattern; anyone was potentially a drunken slattern. Really, the less likely it was that the person could have been a drunken slattern, the more likely it suddenly seemed to us that, yes, of course, they MUST have been a drunken slattern. That explained everything. Your beloved Gammie? Guess what? Drunken slattern. The only teacher who ever believed in you? Drunken slattern. That nun from your neighborhood? Drunken Slattern. Smoky, your beloved childhood kitty? Total drunken slattern.

~ Obviously, it’s really hard to predict just what will strike your fancy on a 63,591-hour road trip.

~ We did not discuss 50,000-hand piles, but we did discuss — at length, actually — the who’s, why’s, and how’s of the stand-alone mustache. On men, pippa! Don’t be silly. Ladies who have them are, clearly, drunken slatterns.

~ We drove past James Dean Memorial Junction. It was so desolate and empty. That poor guy died in the middle of the most yawning godforsaken nowhere I’ve ever seen. There were no other cars around in either direction but for about ten minutes after seeing that, I swear I was bracing myself for a head-on collision. It was that creepy.

~ Along one stretch of narrow highway, there seemed to be some kind of roadside cherry stand competition. Every hundred yards, on both sides of the road, a couple of rickety tables filled with baskets of overpriced cherries, a handmade sign, maybe an old man, maybe an old lady, waiting for someone to buy a basket of their obviously superior yet strangely identical cherries. Suddenly, we needed cherries, stat. We pulled up to a stand and this 50-something woman bounced up to our car, began rattling off descriptions of the various cherries — even though to me they seemed to be either “red” or “yellow” — and when she was done with that, she said, wiggling all around, “Ohh! This is my first day! I am SO excited!” Well, SOLD, Peaches! I mean, how can you not buy overpriced cherries from someone that excited to sell you overpriced cherries? She just made me happy and I loved that I could eat a cherry and think of how she had nothing but sheer joy about standing behind a rickety table on the side of a lonely highway selling baskets of overpriced cherries.

~ You know, after you’ve been on the road for 77,693 hours, it might be easy to become a real crankypants — or worse — and yell at your beloved. Although your beloved may well deserve it, ahem, it’s best to just avoid potential trap by taking your emotions out on random road signs, like so:

ROCK SLIDE AREA
USE CAUTION

“Shut UP! Don’t boss me!”

REDUCE SPEED
CONSTRUCTION ZONE

“Seriously, shut up. You are so controlling.”

REST AREA AHEAD

“Shut UP. I am fine. How dare you imply that I need rest.”

Ad nauseum, until it bored us, which it didn’t.

~ So “She’s a Bad Mamma Jamma” is basically on continuous play on every radio station we found across this humongous and bankrupt state. Do not even try to find another song. You will fail. You simply will. So you really have no choice but to surrender to its charms, you drunken slatterns, and just sing along. You must decide, within the suffocating confines of your rental car with the torturous seats and the stupid window buttons, that being a bad mamma jamma is now your only goal in life and you must be okay with that. You must believe, pippa, that you have now become foxy classy oh sexy sassy. Believe it, slatterns. You ARE a bad mamma jamma and that’s all there is to it. And the other person in the car with you will love you even more after your louder and louder renditions performed every 33.62 miles. Oh, that is a guaranTEE, Crackie.

~ Uhm, yes, there is more to tell than this. I have to gear up to tell it all and I’m just finding myself more exhausted than I thought I’d be. So expect the story of the trip to come out in parts, pieces, scraps, whatever measly-ness I’m capable of right now. So, woo-hoo, stay tuned for all THAT, peaches!

Approximately. (That’s the biggest hint you get. Helpful, no? Hahahaha.)

Thanks so much for your prayers. I’m quaking in my boots a little bit.

I don’t know if I will or can post while I’m gone.

If not, see you all Monday!

I leave in 48 hours on a trip that could change everything.

Gulp.

Pray for me.

Yes, no details yet. Please still love me.

Or start loving me if you don’t yet.

Or just pretend to love me because I’m a sucker and will totally believe you.

~ Piper showed up wearing a flow-y pink top with scattered sequins across the front. So pretty and bohemian. She nearly knocked me over hugging me and charged at MB in exactly the same way. He handles it better, having that, oh, extra foot of height on me.

~ At brunch Piper planted herself next to MB and they chatted throughout the meal, in their own little world. I sat across from them with my sister and watched. It was just so cute. At one point, Uncle Beloved had his arm casually flung across the back of Piper’s chair, his hand dangling above her shoulder, and she turned and started giving him little smacking kisses on his hand and fingers. She adores her Uncle Beloved and he is so good with her. Not that it’s hard to be good to that kid.

~ She is polite. “May I have another Sierra Mist, please?” Give that girl anything resembling Sprite and she is ha-ha-happy. As we left, she thanked the hostess at the door. The girl, totally startled, smiled and said a huge, “Oh! You’re welcome, sweetie!”

~ At one point during brunch, my dad said to me from across the table, “Hey! Did you see Fireproof ?” Without thinking — a huge, recurring problem for me — and breaking my self-imposed rule never to render an opinion on movies with my family because we agree on absolutely nothing, I said, “Oh! That was SO BAAAD!” As the word BAAAD was flying out of my mouth, three things happened simultaneously: My dad’s eager expression wavered the teeniest bit, I dropped my face to my plate in shame, and MB kicked me swiftly and hard under the table. I deserved it. My family can’t handle my opinions on these issues and I should know better. I do know better.

~ Although, I’m sorry. Fireproof really IS bad. Empirically bad. I’m right. And, honestly, I have to question the aesthetic sense of anyone who liked it. I do. For those who don’t know: Fireproof is “Christian” movie starring Kirk Cameron — the only guy you can get to star in “Christian” movies — about saving a troubled marriage, making it “fireproof” because Cameron’s character is a — wait! — FIREMAN. Hahahahaha. Jesus loves subtlety! There’s a whole post I could write about this movie and “Christian” movies in general, blah blah. But, look. Just because it’s “Christian” doesn’t make it GOOD. Embracing Jesus as my savior does not include embracing Kirk Cameron as an actor worth watching or, frankly, that would be a dealbreaker for me.

~ Piper’s whole family was wearing these cool macrame’d (how would you type that??) bracelets they’d made. I covet them. Did they bring me one? No, they did not. They allowed me to try one on and then give it back to them. Wieners.

~ I like to embarrass my younger nephew by inquiring about the state of his abs. He’s quite the basketball star these days. Fourteen and taller than I am. Has been for a couple of years now. So now, we hug and I step back and say, “Okay. Lemme see ’em.” And he smiles, blushes a teeny bit, before pulling up his shirt because he knows he can’t get out of it. I am relentless on this. Plus, he’s proud of his emerging six-pack and I feel it’s my duty as his aunt to both tease and encourage him. Keep him on his toes so he never knows which one he’s getting from me next, you know?

~ I like to hug-punch my six-foot-one-inch older nephew just because I’m bitter that he’s so grown up. And because he wouldn’t give me his bracelet. Wiener.

~ The nephews and I bonded over our love of Converse All-Stars. I told them I had a pair of black ones that were about 15 years old and they thought this was extremely cool. You know, I have to say it pains me a bit to think that I have to re-educate these teenagers on their aunt’s intrinsic coolness. Hahahahaha. Kid, when you were five, you thought I hung the moon. And I’m still cool! You’re just in a weird phase.

~ There were no Banshees on Easter this year; they were visiting the other side of their family. (The half that doesn’t have me. They could not possibly have had any fun.)

~ Also at brunch, we had a conversation about old family names. Grandpa’s middle name, great aunt so-and-so’s name, that kind of stuff. My favorite family name — that I’d never heard before, ever, and I can’t believe it — was my maternal great grandmother:
Ernestina Wilhelmina. I kid you not. Doesn’t she sound like a character in a children’s book? Ernestina Wilhelmina. I’m writing the book now, I swear. I am in love with this name. I never met Ernestina Wilhelmina, but how can you NOT be a character with that name?

~ My grandpa had a brother named Mello. Pronounced “Meelo.” Which bummed me out a little bit. Pronounce it “mellow”! Come ON! Pippa! I had a great uncle MELLOW! And that’s how I shall refer to him from now on.

~ Back at my parents’ after brunch, after we climbed out of the car and Piper greeted us — again — she and I walked towards the house, hand in hand. Glancing down, I spied a plastic purple Easter egg hidden in the base of the agapanthus bush. Psssssst, I hissed, psssssssssssst, trying to be casual. I waved my index finger down at it as we walked past and Piper giggled with glee.

~ Moments later, I found out that part of the yard was part of the adults’ egg hunt. Piper squealed out at me, “Don’t forget that purple one, Tee Tee!” Hahahaha. Thanks for the help, kiddo.

~ After our hunt, Dad, Older Nephew, Sister, and I gathered ’round the kitchen table while Dad tried to explain to us how to play Settlers of Catan. “We played it a while back with so-and-so ….. I think that …… well, hmmmm ….” He was a bit confounded. Mom walked by. “Oh, THAT game,” she said and kept walking. “Honey, do you remember ….” “No! That game takes forever.” Hahahaha. She wanted nothing to do with it and went off to play Old Maid with Pipey instead. Basically, this Settlers of Catan — it’s medieval Monopoly. Or something. I think. I don’t know. It looks cool. It looks like it might be fun. There are sheep and logs and settlements and ore. And I mean, who doesn’t like that stuff?? Ore, pippa! Yesteryear! Poor Dad, who is usually The Champion of every game we ever play, spent 53 years explaining it until I said, “I can see why this game takes a long time.” “I know!” he said, rolling his eyes. “It just didn’t stick with me, I guess.” Finally, we just began to play our own improvised version that mostly involved protecting ourselves from that despot, Older Nephew. As the game went on, my exasperated sister kept giving us her personal endurance countdown: “I am done with this game in 20 minutes ….. I am done in 12 minutes ….. only 7 minutes left for me ….. three minutes …. okay! I’m done now!” And she got up and walked away. She wasn’t kidding. She left her sheep and logs and settlements and ore. Even her ORE, pippa! ORRRE! Trying to settle Catan had left her utterly spent. Moments later, I actually bartered something with my nephew that I knew would enable him to win the game. It WAS fun, but not necessarily because of the game itself.

~ A few hours later, after my sister’s family had left to beat the Easter traffic, we sat with my parents in the living room, under the skylight, and just chatted. I’m proud of myself, in a small way, because things with my parents have been so difficult — mostly mom — and I’m trying, really trying, to behave as if there’s a clean slate between us. It’s hard if you’ve had a parent ill for 25 years. If that parent has a history of being emotionally abusive. The wounds are deep. Things have been said and done that, now that she’s in a slightly improved condition, she doesn’t seem to remember or doesn’t want to remember. Maybe you want to say something or have it out, but you stop short. What’s the point? She won’t remember. The wounds are for God now, I think. So I’m asking Him for more grace, for the ability to see her with completely different eyes, and He’s really doing that for me. I see her frailty more. I see how she was abused and how she tried, she did try, to do her best with us. I see her humor more now — now that she’s doing a bit better.

But it’s always tenuous. She’s been “better” many times before, only to relapse into …. whatever it is …. so there’s that tightrope the entire family walks and has walked for a quarter century now. She’s softer these days, but I don’t know how long it will last. Still, for the first time in years, I feel like I can see love for me in my mother’s eyes. My parents love me, but they are just bound up inside. Not demonstrative. Legalistic. I must be hard for them — their dramatic expressive free-spirited daughter. I really must be hard for them to take in some ways. I’m trying to embrace — well, no — understand that more. So it was surprising and nice, really nice, just to sit in my favorite rocking chair, watch the tips of the pine trees sway in the frame of the skylight, and talk with my husband and my parents. We talked about current affairs, being afraid, their childhoods, my childhood. Anything that came to us, I guess, as we each rambled around in our own heads. I literally felt grace hanging in the air. Healing things. While we chatted, I made a conscious effort to remember goodness, to mention creative things my mom had done as a mother, to esteem her out loud for those things. That doesn’t change that there are huge needy gaps I have inside me. There were bad things, scarring things, said and done when I was growing up, but I realize more and more that my mom was terribly scarred. More scarred, really, than I. She was needy, too. She is needy. We are all needy. Don’t you know, dear pippa, that that’s what heaven is for? That that’s what Jesus is ultimately about? That that’s why he died and rose again? To someday make everything right. To fill in all our gaps. To free all our bound places. To make us whole.

Finally.