Posted on

This is one big country

I was thinking this today as we continued to drive across it.

After manic packing all last week, the moving truck came on Friday.  It was a long day for us, especially for my husband, who packed absolutely non-stop the whole time the movers were moving.

We had gone to bed the night before, exhausted, at about 3 am.  We just couldn’t do another thing, but there was still lots to do.  Luckily, we had some help getting the kitchen packed up (you know who you are!), and that really helped us over the hump.

Then, after a couple of goodbyes, we finally hit the road at about 10 pm on Friday night.  Incredibly, the girls fell soundly asleep, and Dwayne and I chatted about this huge move we’re making.  We made it to Barstow, CA at about 11:30 pm or so and checked into a Holiday Inn Express.

The next day we slept in late — we all needed the rest! — and then we grabbed breakfast at a Denny’s and headed out for the Grand Canyon.  We will try to avoid Denny’s again if we can.  I thought I remembered that Denny’s was pretty OK food, just cheap, but it’s not, really.  Blech.

Since we had come into Barstow in the dark, it was really amazing to step out of the hotel and to see it in the daylight.  We were staying next to a bunch of outlet shops, but other than that, there was the highway and then, desert.  I really felt that our journey had begun when I saw that desert and felt the heat beating down on us at only 9 am.

We made pretty good time to the Grand Canyon and got there with enough daylight left to check in at Bright Angel Lodge — we were staying at Thunderbird Lodge.  We walked along the paved rim path, enjoyed the sunset and then got some yummy dinner.  I had a delicious red pepper cream soup.  (I took a picture of it since it was so pretty, but unfortunately, I realized that we didn’t pack the software necessary to upload pics from Dwayne’s camera onto my machine.  I can probably find the necessary software online, but I just don’t feel up to it right now.)

This morning, we took a ranger walk and learned about fossils.  He taught us about some different kinds of fossils and then let us go hunting for some.  They were 250 million year old fossils from the time when the Pacific Ocean had submerged the place where we were standing.  I didn’t realize that at one time, the Pacific Ocean had covered the Grand Canyon.

Then, after the fossil walk, we walked down a little ways and saw some beautiful petroglyphs.  The ranger had told us that only 5 percent of Grand Canyon visitors venture down below the rim, so just by going down a few hundred feet, we became part of the elite few!  (I also took pictures of the petroglyphs, but I’ll have to post them later.)

Then we had lunch at one of the Canyon restaurants, spent too much at the gift shop and hit the road.

We made our way on Route 160 through Navajo country.  We stopped at a few of the roadside stands to look at jewelry, rugs and pottery, but the prices were really high.  We were surprised because so many people had told us that the prices were reasonable, even cheap, but this is not what we found.

Life on the reservation looks very rough and very poor.  I could not see any economic infrastructure to speak of, except the roadside stands.  I didn’t see much ranching, or farming or any other type of means of earning a living.  Most of the homes were either RVs or trailers or octagonal yurts of some sort.  But most of the homes had pretty nice-looking trucks or SUVs parked outside, which was so weird, given the poor condition of the homes.

We didn’t get to go to Four Corners because the park was closed when we passed by.  Right now, we are in Cortez, Colorado.  The girls swam in the hotel pool, and then we gave them a bath.

Dinah and Djuna seem to be enjoying the trip so far.  They do ask often how far we are from our new home, and they’re very excited to get there.

Everyone is sleeping soundly, while I type this post and enjoy a cup of hot herbal tea made with hot water from the hotel room coffee pot and a tea bag I found in my back pack.

I think I’ll go join my sleeping family.

G-night.

Posted on

OK, now *that’s* disgusting

Short post here, but I just had to take a minute in the midst of packing hell to share this.

There is a new tenant in our building, and she seems to be, uh, a troubled sort. Late at night, she brings home drunken men, and there have been a number of scenes in the parking lot behind our building. Once, one of her friends threw up all the way from the parking lot to the woman’s apartment, so we were treated to piles of vomit when we came outside in the morning.  Excellent.

Last night, though, her friends topped even that.

I was packing like mad yesterday, and I got tired at the end of the day and left a few things outside of the storage space — a few bins of Christmas ornaments, a few empty boxes, and a bin of bike helmets and bike gear.  I vaguely thought, at one point, that I should go outside and put everything away, but I was just too tired.

So I left the stuff outside and did a little more work dismantling my office.  I did think a couple more times that I should go out to move the stuff in, but I just couldn’t propel myself in that direction.  

A little later, around 12:30 am, I heard the woman pull in the parking lot, and a few guys poured themselves out of her car and started staggering around.  I heard them all, cursing, talking loud, and one of the neighbors yelled out of her window at the drunken revelers to shut up and watch the language.

Then, I heard a scuffle on the side of the building, and then one of the drunk guys said, “Dude, [garbled name] just pissed all over the [garbled description of something or other].”

I knew in my heart that one of the drunken idiots had just peed all over my Christmas ornaments.

I ran outside, and sure enough, there was a fresh wet spray on the wall.  The amount was impressive, I’ll give him that.  The liquid was pooling on the ground, threatening the neatly stacked boxes.  I couldn’t even bear to look at the bins of ornaments.

I scooted out to the driveway just in time to see the woman running to her car from her apartment.  I guess she knew that she needed to leave before the cops got there.

I called the cops, explaining that a drunken fool had just urinated on my Christmas ornaments.  It was one of those moments when you don’t know whether to laugh or cry at how completely bizarre life can be.

When the police came, the nice officer shined his flashlight on the bins of Christmas ornaments, nicely illuminating the drops of pee, and explained that there was nothing they could do since the car and the dudes were gone.  

So, my husband and I got water and doused the area and moved everything inside, which I should have done in the first place.

I guess the lesson is: you never know when someone will pee on your Christmas ornaments.

Posted on

The long goodbye

We are living in a pure chaos of stacked boxes, errands, goodbyes to friends … it’s frantic.  It’s happy, sad, heart-wrenching, exhausting.  I’ve been trying really hard to face the goodbyes head-on, and in the process, I realize what a rich life we’ve had here in Southern California for 12 years.  

Though this is overall a happy move, you can see that we are all stressed out in the silly, klutzy accidents that have been happening.  For example, just today I dropped my beloved camera and trashed it, I’m sure.  Stuff like that always happens when I’m running around, stressed.  I remember how I sprained my ankle moving out of my apartment the night before I graduated from college. 

I’ve been trying so hard to get around to everyone to say goodbye, but ultimately, I know I won’t be able to get to every single person on my list.  This is a very difficult realization for a perfectionist like me.  I want to hug everyone who’s touched my heart, let them know how much they mean to me, ask them to join Facebook if they haven’t, let them know what their friendship means.

Back in April, I fantasized that I could do it.  But I know today that I cannot. Dammit.

Posted on

Barrettes for a previously bald chick

I got some barrettes!

This is a very big deal for me because at this time last year, I was bald.

I remember the first time after cancer treatment that I felt the wind in my (very) short hair.  What luxury!  It was a luscious feeling after months of being bald.

Soon after that, I needed to actually run my fingers through my hair in order to tame it.  And more recently, I’ve needed to use a comb or brush.  All of these are incredible sensory experiences that I’m sure I took for granted before my cancer treatment took all my hair away.

All my life, my hair has been a statement because of sheer volume and lots of curls.  Now that it’s growing back from chemo, it’s even curlier than it used to be; I hear that this is not uncommon for post-chemo hair.

Since it’s so curly, it’s starting to look a little goofy, but I’m not ready to have it cut or shaped.  After we’re on the East Coast, I figure it will have enough length to be worth shaping.  So for now, I figured that barrettes might tame some of the goofier curls, and I swiped a couple of my daughters’ clips to test them out.

Today, I needed a little retail therapy because the goodbyes to my friends and workmates (our move is only about two weeks away) are getting more and more overwhelming.  A Target stop was in order, and I got a few new barrettes!  I stood there in the hair accessories aisle at Target and got all choked up to be lucky enough to be there with all the other ladies with hair, doing something so mundane as selecting and buying barrettes.

The thought of having hair long enough to use barrettes is really something.  Really really something.

Posted on

Movie review: Up

If you want the short review: yes, go see it.  It’s not the best Pixar movie, but it’s well-worth the price of admission.  There are very poignant moments, imaginative moments, funny moments.  It’s entertaining and offers some good things to discuss with the kids after the movie is over.

Here’s the longer review:

We went to see the 3-D version at the El Capitan theater in Hollywood.  The El Capitan theater is owned by Disney and is right across the street from Graumann’s Chinese Theater, so we got to visit the handprints and footprints.  I was particularly interested in seeing the Harry Potter actors’ prints (they did handprints, footprints and wand prints!).

We saw 101 Dalmatians at the El Capitan back in January 2007 when the movie was refurbished, and we had a great time, so we wanted to make sure to take our daughters there one more time before we leave California at the end of the month.  

When you walk in to take your seat, there is organ music playing.  Then, before the movie, there is a goofy stage show.  So, seeing a movie there is a complete, um, experience.

By the time the movie started, I was exhausted from fighting the crowds and sitting through the stage show and the previews.  But the movie was lovely and worth the wait, the high ticket prices and the crazy crowds.

Up is the story of Carl Fredericksen, a crotchety old man whose house is being threatened by the encroaching city.  Carl is trying to hang onto his house, which is an anchor to memories of his life with his beloved wife Ellie.  

The first 15 minutes or so of the film consists of an elegant recap of Carl’s life from boyhood, when he meets Ellie, all the way through their marriage, life together and Ellie’s death.  The vignettes are emotionally wrenching, but visually subtle.  My 5 1/2 year old daughters understood that Ellie died, for example, but they did not catch that she was unable to bear children, something that was revealed only by an image of Ellie in a doctor’s office, her head in her hands.

This tableau of images worked well to protect young kids from material that was too emotionally sophisticated.  They understood enough of the sad material to make out the plot, I think, but not enough so that they cried as much as I did throughout the film.  Which was about 20 times, darn Disney.

The film’s action begins when Carl engineers a way to escape — with his beloved house — from the city that is about to devour the last tether he has to his past life.  

You’ve seen the previews and ads, so you are already aware that Carl uses his equipment from his days as a balloon man at the zoo to make the house go up, up and away.  Unbeknownst to him, however, is the little boy, Russell, who is an unwitting stowaway on his porch.  

The rest of the film consists of the adventures Carl and Russell have as Carl tries to fulfill his promise to Ellie that one day, he will relocate the house to Paradise Falls, a destination Ellie had longed to visit her entire life.

The adventure section of the film was rollicking, funny and imaginative.  I loved Kevin the bird and Dug the dog.  Some of the plot gets a little unbelievable (like the unlikely ability of an old man to hang on to a hose dangling in the air below a house; or the age difference between Carl and the movie’s villain Charles F. Muntz — Muntz was an adult, maybe in his 30s, when Carl was a child, so seeing them both as similarly-aged old men was confusing; what happened to Russell’s father, and who was his mother?)

The last thing I’ll add is that 3-D is not my favorite way to see a movie.  Those glasses gave me a headache, and I just couldn’t get used to them.  I took them off, put them on, focused and re-focused my eyes; even when I had a couple of minutes when the effect worked for me, I just couldn’t understand the purpose.  The 3-D doesn’t make the visuals more appealing or real for me.  I guess I am just not hip enough to appreciate it or something; maybe I don’t play enough video games, but I like a well-done 2-D movie just fine, thank you very much.

All in all, I’m glad we had the opportunity to see Up on the big screen.  I’ve thought about the movie a lot in the last few days, something that, for me, means that the movie has some sticking power.  The emotions and poignancy of the film still resonate, my girls and I are still talking about how funny Dug the dog was, and my daughter Dinah thinks the head bad dog, Alpha, was handsome.  

But that’s another story.