Summer's Arrived, But We're Leaving...Again

Time is melting like wax on this fine summer day, as Groom and I pack for Art on the Green in Coeur d’Alene, Idaho. We recently returned home from a fabulous Salem Art Fair and having practically sold out (of stock, not our values), we have what a friend describes as “a better set of problems.” The good news about selling well at an art show is that the rent is paid for another month. The bad news about selling well at an art show is that, ahem, we don’t have any stock!

My nose requires a bandage and is scabbing over as it’s been forced to the grindstone this past week, but I’ll have to take a philosopher’s approach and say at this point, “It is what it is.”

Snow White recently asked me if I’d ever been introduced to the Green Fairy, otherwise known as Absinthe. I scrolled back through the archives to last year and sent a link to the blog when I wrote about my experience with the licorice tasting cough syrup. While rereading the entry, I realized I have been writing with the assumption that everyone has been with me from the beginning. According to our analytics software, this is not the case.

While it has been reported that leaving comments has proved difficult to impossible for most (Double Exposure and Lulu, my faithful friends, you rock!), the amount of “followers” and comments do not reflect the growing number of readers that check in on a weekly basis. It occurs to me, rather late in the game, that I haven’t necessarily been writing these weekly musings as entire stand-alones.

Oh, there’s the regular cast of characters such as Groom, Kimmmm, God’s Minion, King Zolo, Nanny Bee Bugg and the rest that I expect everyone to keep up with, rarely reminding people who they are. Sometimes I share very personal experiences, at other times it’s our photography with apt quotes, and still others are updates on our going-ons.

Right now, as my thoughts are trying to organize themselves in my brain, I am trying not to be overwhelmed by the laundry still on the line, the stuff that needs to be packed, and all the details that must be attended to before we roll out of town. In other words, I’m making believe that I’m an easy-going person. Uh-oh, Groom is laughing hysterically. Glad I could make his day.

As though this next sentence isn’t completely obvious, it’s the height of summer. I selected these pictures to illustrate the season. Summer to me shouts color! Vibrancy, energy and unabashed monkey love.

Speaking of which, it’s almost our anniversary. Oh, don’t worry, this probably won’t be the last mention of it, but looking through our recent pictures for selection purposes, the one with the rose and the daisy caught my eye. It reminds me of Groom and I: A co-dependent hybrid. We’ve still managed to maintain our own separate identities, but have fused into a single entity. As we approach almost two decades of legal binding, I understand the quote, “And the two shall become one.”

I bought a lottery ticket this morning at around 7am after discovering we ran out of milk, so while walking home from the corner store in the peaceful quiet of the morning, I imagined spending our winnings nurturing the animals of our planet.

While I fantasized about doing good, I couldn’t help but smile as I remembered the look of pure joy upon this dog’s face while he was riding next to us on the freeway behind his motorcycle daddy. I missed the money shot. Our car windows were too smudgy, the sun was coming in at a sharp angle, but I did see the most perfect composition and dang! Imissed it. Oh well, it’s committed to memory and I’m easy-going, remember?

No matter how long I sit here, my clothes are not going to pack themselves. I have no idea if any of these random thoughts tie together, but I do wish all of you good health, a joyous week and we love to hear your charming comments. Thank you for tuning in.

Spookaloo

This installment of the weekly serial about Frida’s adventures takes place in Spokane, Washington. Each little segment may not be specifically related, as in theme and focus, but they are tangentially connected by what we saw, observed and experienced in the “Lilac City.”

For instance, did you know that the word “lilac” is an Arabian word for blue? This piece of trivia won’t particularly relate to anything else here today, but it is something we learned while visiting this Pacific Inland city.

Which smoothly leads us to back to the first paragraph. A moment ago, while trying to spell tangentially, I made an error and typed in “tangenital.” Whoops! This mistake reminds me of a conversation I had on the phone this week. Somebody I know received a reminder email, “genitally prodding” her for something, which has nothing to do with anything other than I find that typo humorous and I heard about it while in Spokane.

If you can’t tell, I’ve received some constructive feedback on my writing segues and thematic material. One genital reader is offering to help guide me to better and clearer transitions, so I am practicing by telling you what I’m going to write about, then writing about it, and then telling you what I wrote.

So now I’m going to introduce you to Spokane. Kimmm’s grandmother referred to this Eastern Washington burg as Spookaloo, which I think is a fine nickname and henceforth perhaps I shall call it that, too.

My first introduction to Spookaloo occurred last century, in the year nineteen hundred and seventy-four. My father and I took a road trip in our 1967 Chevy Impala and stopped for the World’s Fair. Remember the big whooptie U.S. fair of the Bi-centennial era? It is the scene of a now funny, then traumatic experience with my paternal figure called The Bumper Car Saga.

My 10-year old self had never ridden a Ferris wheel so big. It was the world’s tallest at the time, or maybe it just felt that way, and the people down below looked like ants. Stop, you say. What does a Ferris wheel have to do with bumper cars? Yes, I can see how this might bewilder. Let me explain.

In the larger context of the World’s Fair, I was about to make a long-term memory (although I didn’t know it at the time). It began with the Ferris wheel getting stuck for a brief eternity. I was riding alone and my open-air bench seat was just cresting the top when the whole thing came to a sudden stop. I’m making the comparison that it was a little frightening to be caught up there while waiting for it to be fixed, but nothing compared to the trauma of The Bumper Car Saga.

In my short history, I had always ridden amusement park rides that were wholly controlled by nefarious looking carnies. It was within this framework that I hesitantly took my dad’s suggestion and got in line for the bumper cars. When it was finally my turn, I had to let go of my dad’s hand and allow the thrill-ride engineer, with his skinny body, meth breath and bad teeth, lead me to a car and lower the security bar.

I waited for him to start the ride, but nothing happened. Abruptly, without warning, the other kids started crashing into me. It was jarring and confusing. My bumper car would not move with the exception of being smashed into. Within seconds, I was the favorite target and like a magnet, all the other cars were aiming straight for me. My body was knocked side to side and I looked up for help. What I saw was worse than getting hit.

Floundering, I had drawn a crowd outside the arena as well. The adults waiting for the ride to end were laughing and pointing at me. But that was not the worst of it. My father was in the lead. He was pointing and laughing at me. I died a couple of deaths. One from being targeted and crashed into over and over again for the entire time and the other from being humiliated in front of many people including the man who was supposed to have my back.

I had no clue that the bumper car came equipped with a foot pedal to power it myself. I was waiting for an outside source to make my car vroom and instead, I was stalled in the middle of a hostile crowd. I was temporarily helpless and I burned with the shame of it.

When that circle of hell ended, I climbed out of the stupid car with as much dignity as I could muster and it was the first time I was more angry with my father than afraid. I did not look at him.

I could not look at him.

He tried to take my hand, but I would not allow it. The joy of the World’s fair was gone and replaced with the knowledge that kids and adults alike could be cruel. The color and fun drained away and I even ignored my father’s offer of an ice cream cone. Epic.

Because I was hundred’s of miles away from home, I eventually had to talk to him and he explained that the exact thing had happened to him as a child and that now, as a grown up, he could understand why the adults had been laughing. That didn’t make me feel any better. Nor did the phone conversation with my mother later that evening when she broke the news that my kitty, Mr. Bojangles, had disappeared.

I cried and felt very alone and let down. That was my introduction to Spokane.

I agree. It was very brave of me to return to the scene of the crime. While at the Waterfront Park, I peeked at the bumper cars and eerily enough, they were cordoned off with yellow caution tape. The arena was empty, but the echoes of laughter still haunt the place.

Shaking off the past, we toodled around downtown, gawked at Spokane Falls and on a whim decided to ride the gondola. We attended the Museum of Arts and Culture and caught a glimpse of the Wicked Witch of the West’s hat just in time for the 70th Anniversary of the Wizard of Oz.

After playing tourista, we visited extended family who live on the lake and we lazily enjoyed coffee and conversation on the dock. A pair of loons nodded as they swam by and then Mr. and Mrs. Duck greeted us. The fish were jumping, an eagle swooped nearby, and a marmot ran for cover.

The extended family includes a hormonal 13-year old boy. Nana says that his “whores are moaning.” The kid is quite active, funny and unpredictable. After the first day, he asked if he could go to Italy with us. We were impressed because that took goolies.

He made up a word for boys who think with their dangly bits instead of their brains and calls them “stupicles.” Nana said his “stupicles” were definitely descending. It is one of those multiple parts of speech words, used frequently in this household to describe both the person and their actions. I will now provide you with an example.

As we walked the short distance from the lake to the house, two young boys buzzed us on quads. I was about to comment on the potential danger when Nana gestured discreetly that one of them had already crashed in an earlier accident resulting in permanent brain damage as well as losing half his face. I’m new to this vocabulary term, but I think the parents were demonstrating stupicle behavior.

Remember, I’m still in thirteen year-old world. He walked around with his iPod, reading us random stupicle jokes. Here are two of them: “Your mama is so stupicle, she brought a red magic marker to the hospital because they needed to draw blood,” or “Your papa is so stupicle, he sold his car for gas money.”

I had a much longer list of things to mention about our week in Spokane, but it looks as though they might need to be put on hold for another time. To follow-up, as you’ve probably already deduced, we did not hit the mega jackpot lottery in last week’s drawing, but someone else, appropriately from Winner, South Dakota, won in our stead. Congratulations!

I told you I would write about Spokane, I wrote about Spokane and now I’m telling you that I wrote about Spokane.

The Green Fairy

Have you ever been invited to a goat’s birthday party? Seriously. Our invitation came engraved on linen paper, egg shell 28 bond with pageant rose ink instead of a multi-purpose desktop version. The words were flourished with Declaration of Independence fancy font, announcing the date, time and location with a request to RSVP.

Baby Goat was turning 365 days old, twelve months or one year, take your pleasure. As I’m not raising kids myself, I tend to get confused when I hear how children’s clothing is sized. Twenty-eight months, thirty-two, forty-seven, I lose track. When do months finally morph into years?

Math quiz: If I’m 543 months old, what size shoe do I wear?

Back to the invitation. I’m kidding. It was a Blue Mountain greeting card, delivered via an electronic mailman named Yahoo!

At the party, Baby and Honey Bunches of Goat were presented with a shredded carrot and almond butter birthday cake to share with a carrot candle planted in the middle. Most attendees behaved well, although there was lots of spontaneous pooping going on.

Have you ever seen a goat make deposits? Their tail-flaps lift up and out pop little pellets just like a Pez dispenser. MamaFriend thinks the pellets are the cutest things in the world. I’m surprised she hasn’t had them bronzed for coffee table art or shellacked, drilled and beaded into a necklace. When Grandma pooped spontaneously, it wasn’t as cute.

I haven’t completely made up my mind on the dog issue yet. Keep up, it’ll make sense in a moment. I know a woman who is really, really into her dogs. So much so in fact, when she grooms them, she extracts their fur from the brush, pays someone to spin it and then knit sweaters out of the doggie yarn.

I don’t know if that’s weird or not, where do you weigh in? On the one hand, people wear wool, angora, mohair – a posh word for goat fibers, and polyester. I know, those poor little darlings, does it help ease the guilt to know that polyesters are farm bred for just this purpose??

On the other hand, is there a term upscale enough to make dog hair more palatable? Not that I’d want to eat it, even though I’ve recently nibbled on goat flesh, I mean is there a phrase that inspires wearability? A “lab coat,” perhaps, suggests Groom? He’s a sick puppy too, and that’s one more reason I adore him.

So what happens when Acquaintance wears her dog fur sweater when it’s raining, won’t she smell like wet dog?

As an adopted “Auntie,” I was in the booth with my 15-year old niece when Acquaintance stopped by wearing one of her “lab coats.” When I asked Niece’s opinion, she just stared at me in the way only disapproving teenagers can do and summed it up, “That’s just wrong.”

Which reminds me, Groom woke himself up laughing the other morning. Apparently he was dreaming of Playmate Brandi Roderick’s lapse in language skills and her use of the word “forgooed” to replace “foregone,” and his psyche came up with a joke.

In his dream, Vinnie the Mobster said that a particular situation needed a “four goon conclusion.” Okay, that’s hilarious.

Wait a sec…Groom is dreaming about a Playboy bunny? Why am I laughing?

Oh, that’s because we’re in the car driving up the Columbia River Gorge. We stopped in Hood River, a town very happily hovering in it’s own economic bubble, supported by tourism. Kiteboarding and windsurfing in the summer and snowboarding and skiing in the winter. Their downtown received a large sum of money to improve its looks, and boy does it show!

We pulled over, lulled by the view of the water, the piercing blue sky and lazy breeze. How could we not stop at a place called Passport Café with a French bistro in the front and a British pub in the back?

That still does not answer why I’m laughing. That’s because their specialty is Absinthe, or what is better known as “releasing the green fairy.” I’m told it tastes like black licorice, which in translation probably means cough syrup. Since I’m such a history romantic, if I’d lived in the olden days, I’d be one of those gals sipping laudanaum out of a spiffy flask hidden in my bustier.

If it weren’t for morals and calories, there are many things I’d like to try, but I’m too chicken. The most giddyup I got is playing a rousing version of chopsticks on the piano. So right now, as I’m floating, the fact that Groom dreamed of a Playboy bunny and a “four goon conclusion” strikes me as funny.

As we continue up the Gorge, there’s the Columbia River on one side and a bouquet of rocks on the other. There are many signs to catch our eye, not the least of which is the lottery jackpot coming in at $222 million.

We’ve already done the math.

In order to receive the cash in one lump sum, the winner is presented with half, which whittles the total down to $111 mil. Then Uncle Sam will be the first in line to get his share, so that further reduces the amount by another 40%, so a cool $222 with lots of zeros is magically transformed into a paltry $60.

We could live with that.

The only problem we predict is nobody else will do the subtraction. If the world thinks we have a couple hundred million bucks at our disposal, well, Uncle Sam won’t be the only ones a knocking…

Other signs that tell us we’re heading in the right direction are the ones announcing “Highway to Happiness” and “Vacationville,” which sound good to us.

With six times ten million in our pocket, we’d want to spend a little on shoes, frippery and geegaws, but then we’d do some serious good with the windfall like set up foundations to save the polyesters, provide “lab coats” for equality, or support groups such as “Adult Children of Parents.”

We’d also shower our loved ones with a little of the loot. So if you ever receive an engraved invitation from us on linen paper, eggshell 28 bond with pageant rose ink and curly cue letters and a request to RSVP…

What would you do with $60 million?