All By Myself – Page 24

To Idaho We Go: Road Trippin’

07.16.2012 by J. Doe // Leave a Comment

We hit the road a bit late. I was aiming for nine; we left at eleven. I’m pretty sure the garage door was down when we left. There are two garage doors, and I’m positive one of them was down – the spring broke a couple of months ago and it hasn’t been raised since. The other one? I’m pretty sure.

I spend much of the ride looking out the rear view mirror at the bikes I have strapped to the back of the car in the bike rack that I mounted all by myself. I replaced my marital suburban assault vehicle with a zippy little used Mini – and then had to get a new bike rack for it because I discovered the universal bike rack left behind by The Departed was missing some key parts that would allow me to mount it to my Mini without ripping the rear door off. This new rack, which the guy at the bike rack store told me he “wouldn’t accept any responsibility for resulting damage” for as he tried to sell me $1,000 worth of custom-installed hitch-mounted bike-rackery.

The bikes wobble a lot. I stare at them and will them to stay attached to my car.

Every so often, I pull off the road and tighten the straps.

Then I get back on the road and go a little slow. Everyone passes me. I want to be excited about the ever-increasing speed limits in my zippy little car, but instead I am fixated on the bikes, mounted on the back. Possibly damaging it. Probably about to come flying off and cause an accident.

I discover I am starving. The Child – too afraid to speak for fear of breaking my concentration, which she has realized is the only thing keeping the bikes on the back of the car – agrees. She is starving too. We’ve been on the road for three hours. She never had breakfast.

I’m a menace to other drivers, and a bad mother too.

I pull off at a town called Ritzville. We’ll have a fancy meal, I tell the child. Ritzy. That’s what Ritzy means.

There’s a sign for the Top Hat Motel. I’m thinking, Fred Astaire probably owned that place once. There’s another sign, for a historic district. This is what I came for: Smallville.

We drive by what seems to be a bike swap. A guy in a wifebeater is selling puppies. A gap toothed child stares open-mouthed at our car as we pass.

No stores are open.

Mommy, I don’t think there is any food here, says The Child.

There must be, I say. I’m thinking, if I can keep bikes attached to my car by sheer force of will, surely I can make food appear when I need it – preferably a 1940s Luncheonette counter with chrome trim. It must be here somewhere.

Mommy, I think they film Hoarders here.

I watch the bikes sway from side to side as I make a u-turn and we head back out of town. A small bird-like thing races in front of me in the road.

A quail! shrieks the child.

You sure you don’t want to eat here? I ask. They have quail. It’s a delicacy.

She glares: I don’t eat quail. That’s meat.

Not that quail, I think.

A bit further up the road, we pass an uninspiring town called Sprague, and a diner that bills itself as “The Home of the Viking Burger.”

I wanted Fred Astaire in Holiday Inn, but I’m pulling up to a truck stop.

I don’t eat burgers, says The Child.

I bet they have grilled cheese, I tell her. We’ll tell them to hold the burger.

We sit down at a table in a place that was last decorated during the Johnson Administration. The child orders fish and chips, which makes me nervous. We’re pretty far from both a body of water and a major hospital. I order the safest thing I can think of, a burger and onion rings.

They are the best onion rings I’ve ever eaten.

Mommy, my fish is really fresh, says The Child. Please tip him extra.

We’re ecstatically happy.

We continue driving.

We are passed by a car with Illinois plates, and immediately after, passed by a car with Wisconsin plates.

Yo, my Midwestern peeps! Peace out! Shrieks The Child.

I turn on my 1970’s disco playlist and we sing along. We seat dance to Night Fever. We wave arms to YMCA. We thank ABBA for the music.

In Spokane, we pass Thor Street, immediately followed by Freya Street. We are bitterly disappointed not to find Valhalla Avenue. We vow to return and quest for it.

We cross the border, and somehow, everything becomes … beautiful.

It looks like Washington, says The Child.

No, it looks different, I tell her. The trees are different.

No they’re not, she says. If you had even a basic knowledge of trees, you’d know that.

Well, I say, fortunately I am unburdened by knowledge of trees or other flora. Isn’t it pretty?

They are but you’re still wrong.

And then finally, we pull off the freeway and into downtown Wallace.

We have no trouble finding our motel: it’s the one with the spaceship parked in front of it. It was last decorated during the Eisenhower Administration.

We check in, and go to the diner next door where we order dinner: a double scoop ice cream cone and a root beer float. We eat them on the spaceship.

It tasted like childhood.

Today I learned: You can go home again, if you know where to look.

Fun on a Budget: To Idaho We Go

07.01.2012 by J. Doe // Leave a Comment

When I was married, I enjoyed one of the few perks that I have ever derived from the marital union: Being able to afford the sort of nice vacations you can afford on two decent incomes. Travels with my first husband included Rome, Tuscany, and a month in New Zealand. With my second, once The Child was old enough to travel easily, it was Belize and Paris.

This year, though, I am on just one income – one that is stretched to the limit trying plug all the holes in the dam between me and financial ruin, the debts and bills The Departed so generously left behind for me to deal with, alone.

Suffice it to say, I didn’t worry too much when The Child’s passport expired last month: She won’t be needing it any time too soon.

But at some point, I realized I need to get away. That point was when my coworker suggested maybe I could use “a bit of a break.”

I cast about for ideas, and rifled through the pile of maps and brochures I acquired at the Seattle Bike Expo. And then I formulated a plan: Idaho. Specifically, the Idaho Panhandle.

I know what you’re thinking: Potatoes. It’s an obvious thing to think, what with “Famous Potatoes” on all the license plates. I didn’t know much more about it either, but a little bit of online research and I learned that not only does Idaho have potatoes and some wicked cool bike trails that are easy enough for even me to handle, it has the retro town of Wallace where you can still eat at a drive-in and stay in an space-themed motel.

I could use a few days in Smallville.

And here’s something else they’ve got in Idaho: Garnets.

There are two places in the world, it so happens, where star garnets may be found: Idaho and India. Who knew?

Not only do they have them, the website says, but you can pan for them yourself. People find garnets as big as golf balls. Or so it says on the intertubes.

Note to Idaho: You might want to consider a new license plate slogan. Glittering Garnets, perhaps?

Now this is all sounding too good to be true. I’ve been spending all this minors schlepping around the planet, and the whole time I could drive through a time warp, and mine garnets to boot?

I call and ask, is this for real? It turns out e garnet mine is run by the National Forest Service, and the park employee tells me – yes, it’s for real. $10 for me, $5 for the kid. We can pan all day.

But, do people really find anything? I ask.

Yes, of course, she says, but you are limited to five pounds each, per day. If you want more you have to come back a second day.

Five pounds?

I ask a few more questions about what we need to bring , which is not much: just lunch and ziploc bags. “They work best for carrying out your garnets. We don’t provide bags.”

Good to know. To Idaho we go.

Sorry, Wrong Number

04.03.2012 by J. Doe // 3 Comments

My phone rang yesterday. I didn’t recognize the name or number, but since it was a local area code, I answered. The woman on the phone says she’s lost her cat and been given my phone number to call for information.

I’m confused, and don’t think much of it, since I have one of those phone numbers that sound like it belongs to a business. I tell her she has the wrong number and wish her luck.

She calls back a little while later, and I don’t answer.

A little while after that, I get another call, this time from a man – also with a local phone number, so I answer. He says he’s been given my number by the Pet Microchip Service, and that The Child had found his cat, which was dead.

I say, there must be some mistake. My Child would have told me if she’d found a cat. We have two pets registered with that same service: The service made a mistake. I hope you find your cat.

A short while after that, the service calls. They had received a call from The Child the other day, they say. She reported finding a dead cat with one of their collar tags a few days ago. She found it at the College next door to our house.

That doesn’t sound right, I tell him. And then it hits me: Yes, I have two pets registered with this service, but in my name, not the name of my eleven-year-old child. And I certainly didn’t mention that I live next door to the College when I filled out their forms.

I call The Child, who’s at school. Her teacher brings her to the phone.

Sweetheart, I say. Did you find somebody’s cat recently?

Yes, she says.

Do you know what happened to the cat? I ask. The owner called me and wants to know.

The cat died, she said. So I buried it.

I’m sorry, what?

Where did you bury it? I ask.

At the college, by the tree, she says. I don’t know. I’m not really sure. I put it in a shoebox and I buried it.

Why didn’t you tell me this? I ask.

I don’t know. I didn’t want to.

Why did you bury the cat?

Because it was dead, she says.

This is all perfectly logical, I think. But is it normal? Do I want to know? Does she need help? Do I?

I call the cat’s owner back and report that, yes, my child found his cat, called the service number from the collar, read the ID to them off the tag, and then buried the cat.

Did she find just the collar? Was the collar on the cat? he asks.

I realize what he wants to know: if the collar was found but not the cat, maybe his cat is still out there.

Except I’ve just told him, my child buried his cat. I repeat this.

That’s … incredible, he says. Then after a pause: Is it possible for me to speak to this child? I’d just like to understand what happened.

Yes, I tell him, call me back this evening after dinner. I’d like to talk to her first.

I pick The Child up from school and in the car, we discuss the cat. She answers all my questions: Yes, she wore gloves when she touched it. She buried it near the tree near the tulips, but isn’t sure she could find the spot again. Yes, it was definitely dead: something had been eating at it. And she didn’t tell me because she just didn’t want to talk about it.

Which I guess I can understand.

Once we cover the facts, she tells me about her day at school and the game she played with her friend. She really liked the Hawaiian bagel I put into her lunch.

That evening, the man calls back at exactly the time he said he would.

The Child says, okay, I can talk to him. I can do it myself.

She takes the phone into another room, and comes back in less than five minutes, done.

I ask, was it okay?

I ask myself, Is this normal for eleven? Is this mature? If so, is that good? And a hundred other questions.

She says, Yes. He was nice. He just wanted to know where the cat was buried.

I say, well, I can understand that. We’d want to know too.

Yes, she says.

I should say something here, but I’m at a complete loss. Finally I try: I think you did the right thing, honey. You were very mature.

She walks over to me, and puts her arms around me, and buries her head into me, and weeps.

This post is linked up with Just Write and Pour Your Heart Out.

To Idaho We Go: Road Trippin’

Fun on a Budget: To Idaho We Go

Sorry, Wrong Number

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