I’m now three days into the year 2010.
I’m sitting in my pajamas. I’ve spent as much of the last month as I could, in pajamas, enjoying the sheer, family-safe decadence.
Our trailer home is in its usual spot, though early, in Apache Junction AZ. Today we got up early, and saw a dear friend of ours perform in a classic European –style one ring circus (with history back to 1842!). We had some tasty dim sum, and returned home to re-don jammies. But since all that happened after a certain ball descended upon Time’s Square – that’s all gonna have to wait until next month’s journal.
I will however, set the scene: It is 713 PM on the first Sunday of 2010. Scarlett is tearing up her re-vamped living room; we’ve taken out the changing table, and added more dressers and toy boxes. It is dark, and a very comfortable 68 degrees, Heather is rearranging Scarlett’s clothing, and a very distracting movie (Public Enemies, Bale and Depp as cops and robbers) is loudly playing as I write.
Last month’s journal is open… and I am still perplexed by choice to write it as third person (an experiment I won’t recreate any time soon), my calendar is ready to be referred to, and my photos are compiled, composited, and captioned.
The last journal ended and this one begins before the second weekend of the Louisiana Renaissance Festival. Jef returned from Florida and despite the snow that fell in Louisiana on Friday (discouraging the attendance of some of the hard-core southerners); we made a little money and had a little fun.
Having a little fun seemed to be the central theme of our stay in the bayou this year. Besides trips to visit with my mom, (and be her annual computer tech!) I got to have (clockwise from bottom left) : a wonderful dinner with Muggsy/Ded Bob and his adorable girlfriend Colette. Since He is of course in this fan club, let me just write this message to him: We loved CoCo’s brownies, and will gladly eat more of them… and since Scarlett loves you I guess you can come over too! I got to spend some time with my brilliant and beautiful niece Beverly. We walked around the French Quarter, my only trip this year, did a little shopping, a little eating, and had some beignets. My family and Riki also made a trip out to get a behind-the-scenes tour of The Thirteenth Gate. The Thirteenth Gate is an incredible haunted house in Baton Rouge. We were approached last year by one of the set designers/artists who has now signed onboard to dress up our Dungeon museum at the LA fair. I took the tour last year and was only too excited to share it with Heather, Riki and Scarlett. Scarlett was impressed… and fearless, she didn’t bat an eye at the giant monsters, dragons, alligators or the wall of skulls - though to be fair; the attraction wasn’t opened, lit or staffed at the time. If it was, I would have been scared – and there’s no way in hell I would let Scarlett inside! Also with the year winding down we got a lot more family time. I’m constantly amazed by the little things Scarlett picks-up. We’ve started playing “the pony game”, which as my first picture clearly shows; involves Scarlett riding her Daddy like a pony. What startled the hell out her mother and I was that the first time she did this, she grabbed my shirt-tail, and brandishing them like reigns shouted “Ya!”
Ya? Neither of us taught her that… We think she picked it up from The Backyardigans. We think. Backyardigans have really taken over our lives… We play them on the navigation system in the car for long trips (and short trips too). Scarlett has learned to turn on the bedroom DVD player, and does so first thing every morning for her Backyardigans fix. Thankfully the show is clever, charming and has catchy music even for adults. Several times this month, even Heather and I have found ourselves singing one Backyardigans song or another… we’ll look at each other ruefully and ask; “Is this what our life has become?”
Our too-smart-for-her-own-good daughter has also been a bit of a terror for, and too our pets. As my second picture shows (clock wise from the upper right-hand corner) She decided to color poor Inari blue. Before we noticed what was happening Inari was sporting a blue stripe, blue inner ears, and what we suspect might be a blue mustache! It wasn’t only the puppy that was subject to our tiny monster’s attention; for whatever reason Scarlett experienced a phase where the game was: “Let’s pile stuff on top of the kitty!” London has been mostly patient - no repeat of the horrible bite incident from a few months back – I think only Berlin is canny enough to avoid Scarlett. With Inari it is clearly a two-way street; that dog loves my daughter, and vice-versa, and judging solely by the scratches on Scarlett, Inari gives as good as she gets. Look at her, (Inari I mean). I don’t like dogs but she’s undeniably cute… and if I have to have a dog (and Heather says I do) this is a pretty good one to have!
This was also, of course, the Christmas season. Lucky Scarlett got four Christmases, five if you count the trip to sit on Santa’s lap. The next photo shows (clockwise from the upper left) loving/crazy/wonderful/annoying/obsessed, mother and her (apparently) favorite (of ten) grandchild. We made a trip to mom’s hospital, Santa was appearing first for the patients, and then for the family of the staff. Scarlett charmed the entire place – apparently they’re still talking about her, though the feeling clearly wasn’t mutual. Like many children, my mostly fearless daughter was very leery of the bearded fat-man in red. Santa was obviously a pro, he slyly suggested that Heather sit on his lap as a way of maintaining Scarlett’s calm…
The photo in the upper right corner is of Scarlett’s first present opening extravaganza of the year. “Nanny” is the family’s term for grandma… and this part of the montage shows Scarlett and me opening presents at Nanny’s. Also depicted (out of order) was opening presents at Tanya & Kyle’s, in KC and opening presents from my sisters back at home in Louisiana. Not shown; was presents at the Browns. Scarlett got some great gifts, and though we had agreements with all of our friends (and each other) not to exchange gifts, Heather and I got, and gave some pretty cool booty as well. I want to send-out special thanks and recognition to an exceptionally cool/nerdy/esoteric gift Bob Brown gave me. It looks, from the front, like a simple, black t-shirt. However on the back is screen-printed a large, red, first-aid kit. So why is THAT cool? Because it is an exact representation of what the characters on Left 4 Dead look like.
So cool!
But we hadn’t left Louisiana yet in our narrative; that last photo made me jump ahead, chronologically speaking.
Once again, we ended a renaissance festival “Not with a bang, but with a whimper”. Apparently this December was one of the rainiest ever on record in the state of Louisiana. It is a little hard to make money on shows when no one is there. Somehow, even with poor weather we managed to pull off a record-setting final show in Louisiana this year.
I ended-up so drunk too. It’s bad enough that I started drinking before the show started, then folks started bringing beers up for us to chug (which we could still handle), but what pushed me over the top was, since our show is in the full-liquor bar at that show; they started binging shots of whiskey! I barely remember the fireworks, the evening, or the next day.
We planned all along to spend this Christmas in Kansas City; partly because our extended time with my mother the previous year was so trying, and partly because it was only fair. This was especially pressing this year because the rain in Louisiana was relentless.
Relentless
In fact as we were making preparations for departure, I snapped a photo of the flooding on the site. The night before; the lower campground was under water up to the hubs of my elevated truck. Even the next day (We finally got two days of sun to finally send us on our way) the lake level was swollen to the point that the entire site, was a lake... including my maze!
However, in the week leading-up to our departure the forecast for Kansas City was grim. Snow, sub-freezing temps… all the things that make living in a trailer so very enjoyable. As few as five days before our departure the forecast was so bleak that we were discussed cancelling our trip; however as the date came closer, the forecast became better and better. It called for a few days of nice, and slightly crisp temps for our travels, and our first couple of days, a few days of light snow and (barely) freezing temps for Christmas, and then a return to a balmy 40’s so that we could thaw out, and have clear roads for our journey to Phoenix.
I’m angry with the weather service.
The trip to KC was smooth and easy. We stayed in a campground just east of St Louis, and arrived in time to make a comfy set up in KC. The next day was warm enough to make the other winter preparations, including (after years of painful experience), getting the heating pad on the low point drain. Things looked good for our brief winter sojourn except the ever more dire forecasts.
We got time with Bob and Ann (drinking, photos, great food, and of course, killing Zombies!) but on Christmas eve as we were at Tanya & Kyle’s… the weather turned to cold, white poo! The light snow that they were calling for on Christmas turned into the great Midwest blizzard you heard about on all the news. Christmas Eve, we were socked-in and very cold. To make matters worse, unbeknownst to me, the heating pad I have for years put on the low point drain pipe had died… broken, so we found ourselves bereft of hot water throughout the trailer, or any water at all in kitchen. The external fittings had frozen outside, so I couldn’t empty any of the tanks, and the water inlet pipe for our RV site was also frozen… so I couldn’t add fresh water. I spent a long, long time beneath our house with a hairdryer trying to unfreeze the pipes… to no avail. That’s when I finally discovered that the pad itself was faulty.
It gets better
Christmas day I had to venture out for milk, butter (for cookies) and most importantly, a heating pad, so we could hopefully have water, take a shower, wash our dishes… you know fun, Christmas-y stuff. I discovered later that due to the conditions and continuing snowfall that the KC DOT was recommending that everyone stay off the roads.
How was I to know?
I thought that with four-wheel drive, really low gear, and six massive wheels on the ground, that I would be fine. I was wrong. I barely made it out of the RV park; crept, white-knuckled down the main road, And was unable to enter the local Walgreen’s parking lot via either entrance… once stuck for three minutes half in, and half out of the major thoroughfare… stymied by snow drifts. Eventually I found another pharmacy store, got milk, heating pad, and more liquor, and carefully, carefully made my way home.
I spent some more time under the trailer and restored our hot water, The local Chinese place delivered dinner (though the driver had to park outside the park and walk up the hill) and after a much needed shower returned to pajamas, blockbuster rentals, and cuddling with my family. We rescheduled the dinner with Heather’s dad for Sunday, cancelled the plans for seeing Avatar and doing Photoshoot that had been the original Sunday agenda, and made the most of it. The following night when the snow briefly let up, and the roads were mostly cleared, we went to stay at Bob and Ann’s; more drinking, some photos taken of Scarlett, and of course…killing Zombies. Man I hate snow!
Bob and Ann were wonderful hosts. Ann went all out to create a very Christmas-like ambiance for Heather and me. They claimed they baby-proofed the house (not even close) and were very gracious and forgiving even though Scarlett broke at least one glass “something” every night we were there but one.
Finally, and with mixed relief and regret it was time to leave for Phoenix.
The trip was a mix of boredom and anxiety; the first half of the trip was clear, and we stayed the first night in a cozy and oddly unattended KOA in Oklahoma. We had heat, light, and water, and were able to both fill, and empty our tanks. The following night my brilliant wife thankfully forced me to stop at the coolest RV park we’ve ever been just outside of Gallup. She stopped us, even though it was only about 9:30 because even though the forecasts only called for about an inch of snow, there were a few points where it was coming down so thickly that I lost all point of reference. It was terrifying to know I was moving at thirty-or-so miles-per-hour forward; it looked and felt like we were standing still.
The RV park was part of a Denny’s/la Quinta complex right off of the highway. Rather than try to make it some rustic, tree-lined resort, it was just a easy-access way point, a broad flat, parking lot with wi fi, an indoor pool, 24 hour laundry… sweet! We had light, heat, watched Roger Rabbit DVD, I walked to Denny’s the next morning, and best of all. I actually got some sleep.
The snow fell intermittently the next day, mostly not sticking but as we got to Flagstaff, altitude, and weather conspired to make the mountain ascent and descent entirely too exciting. It was weird; as we climbed the last thousand feet vertical elevation south of Flagstaff, we were socked-in, crawling at 20 miles-an-hour or less, wary for the snow we even got to see what must have been a fatal accident. However; just three thousand feet vertically, and a few miles laterally down the mountain, it was clear, balmy, and easy. It was however steep, and a bit chilly.
By around dark that night we were home. Our regular place in Apache Junction. Warm, level, and we get to stay in the same place for almost three months! The next day we did all of the standard trailer stuff, and stuff particular to this spot in AZ, and celebrated New Year’s with steak and lobster on the grill, shrimp cocktail, champagne, and sparkling riesling. We kissed as each of the time zones reached midnight… and it was good.
That about sums up this 2600 word journal. Next time I’ll tell you about Scarlett’s first circus, at least.
Not so many years ago I spent my New Year’s at a swinger’s club in Atlanta… doing a series of naughty things. This year, I was at home here, with my beautiful wife, and my amazing, and funny kid. Do I even need to tell you which one was a better evening?
I hope you all get everything you want, and more than you deserve in 2010. Thanks for reading my journals.
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