My Honeymoon, Day One

Monday, September 27, 2010

I am in a forest. I love the smell of the pine and redwood trees. The smell reminds me of summer vacations. When I breathe it, I feel my light and airy, like the worries of home have been left behind.

My mother is in the hospital. They want to keep her there until Wednesday or Thursday. I told the doctor about my situation and she agreed that a few days out of town would do me good. Mother seems to be recovering just fine and my sisters are supposed to visit her. I need to sometimes remind myself that she's okay and being looked after by professionals. One of the blessings my father left her is an excellent health plan. I won't have to pay for her hospitalization. Too bad I'm not entitled to the same, but I'm not going to worry about that today.

John and I have been to this hotel before. Since it's our honeymoon, we splurged and are staying in a cabin. It has a gas fireplace (which it's too warm to use) and a kitchenette. The kitchenette has a two-burner stove and a mini refrigerator, as well as a microwave and a coffee maker.

I do not plan to do any cooking here. I am on vacation. And, even though we got married three months ago, this is our honeymoon.

We are in Nevada City, California. Today we wandered around the historic district of this little gold rush town. We ate in a Mexican restaurant. We browsed a used bookstore.

Back in our cute little cabin in the forest, we can't get the internet to work. The indicator says we are connected, four bars, but we can't seem to get online. I don't understand why this doesn't work, the hotel provides free access. It's okay. This is vacation. I don't really need to know what my Facebook friends are up to.

I can just enjoy being alone with John. This is the best relationship I've ever been in. He loves me just as I am. I wish I were thirty years and forty pounds younger.

Day Two

This place has cable television! Shows we've heard of but have never seen!

I still can't connect to the internet. I called the office again today and they said there is no password. They said would restart their system. It gave me the feeling I'm not the first to mention it doesn't work.

Today we went out to breakfast at the hotel restaurant. Half of this hotel has been converted into housing for "active seniors". The altitude here makes me feel weak. I wonder how the active seniors manage on the steep hills. I understand it snows here in the winter.

Today we wandered through the historic district in Grass Valley. I found an early Donald Duck teapot in an antique store for $550. No, I didn't buy it. It was cute, but I am not insane. I liked a cute bear cookie jar better. But my home is too full of clutter and I don't need it. So I didn't buy that, either.

John is limping badly. The walk through the villages was too much for his hip. We need to ask his doctor about this.

The young lady at the front desk told us we could walk up the hill past our cabin and we would come to a really nice garden. I'd like to take a look, but I don't want to cause John any extra pain.

We brought takeout food back to our cabin. We spent the evening watching shows on cable like The Bill Cosby Show and Whose Line Is It Anyway? It was really nice to cuddle together and laugh.

Day Three

This morning, I walked up the road to see the garden. I came to a sign at the top of the hill that said, "DANGER KEEP OUT!" So I walked back. I don't know if the garden is somewhere past the sign.

We had to check out by 12 o'clock. Of course, we got interested in a movie on TV that played from 11 to 1. We're going to have to look for that one on Netflix so we can find out how it ends. It's called HOSTAGE .

When we were back in Sacramento, but not home yet, we noticed a strange vibration in the car. Then suddenly a loud noise. There was something wrong with one of the tires. But somehow, the car rolled along just fine. We took the next exit and pulled over to look at the tire.

The tread had completely come off one of the tires. But the tire was still inflated.

We drove to the nearby Firestone store and bought two new tires. We were lucky that no one was hurt.

Mother will be coming home tomorrow.

<3

the danger of kitchen appliances in a postmodern world

The reports of my injury have been greatly exaggerated. By me. Contrary to what you may have heard, I did not have to have skin grafts. In fact, a few days later, I am pretty much back to normal. Although I can’t say the same for certain kitchen appliances.

Here’s what happened.

It was my youngest sister’s birthday and I decided to bake her a birthday cake. I bought a box of Betty Crocker cake mix, a tub of frosting, and some decorating do-dahs. Although my mother is no longer able to participate in these domestic activities, I put an apron on her and had her watch me from her wheelchair, telling her what I was doing and that she was “helping” me.

All went well until I put the bowl of ingredients under the stand mixer. It’s actually an Oster Kitchen Center from 1977 with a mixer attachment. The beaters started to mix the batter, but then they stalled. I turned the thing off and checked that the beaters were pushed in like they were supposed to be. After trying this and that, and receiving no cooperation from the contraption, I removed the bowl from its grasp and finished whipping up the cake batter by hand.

I told my dear husband that the mixer seemed to be having some sort of problem as I finished up the cake. It probably should have been more light and fluffy, but I’m sure it was all right.

After I showed John how to remove the mixer attachment from the kitchen center base, he took it apart and discovered a white plastic gear, maybe three inches in diameter, that had snapped in two. He said he would fix it later, after we bought some glue.

I bought Super Glue the next time I went to WalMart. John said he’d fix the mixer when he had time.

A week later, I wanted to make mashed potatoes and the mixer still wasn’t fixed. I decided that I’d rather do it myself than nag him about it. How hard could it be? I’d used Super Glue before.

The new tube of glue was sealed shut. You had to use the cap to pierce the top, then put the cap on the tube. I pushed the cap against the seal. It wouldn’t budge. I pushed harder. It was stubborn.

Then all of a sudden there was Super Glue everywhere. I quickly assembled the gear and put a rubber band around it to hold it until it dried.

Then suddenly, before I could wipe my hands off, I found myself stuck. My fingers were stuck together. Really stuck! And the Super Glue tube was now united with my right index finger. When I tried to pull it off, I realized that the bond was stronger than the surrounding skin. And it really hurts to try to pull your skin off. Both of my hands were bonded together.

Fortunately, my dear husband was home. After we both searched in vain for a bottle of nail polish remover, (Darn me and my natural look!) I asked him to please go up to the store and buy some.

He disappeared into the garage and returned with two aerosol cans. “Let’s try this first,” he said. “Hold your hands over the sink.”

I couldn’t believe it when he proceeded to spray black paint on my hands. “This has an acetone base”, he said. “Can you pull your fingers apart now?”

“No!”

“Then how about now?” He added a coat of clear lacquer.

“John, PLEASE go to the store and get me some nail polish remover!”

He got me to sit down and relax and told me not to touch anything. My arms were getting tired from holding my hands in that position. I stared dazedly at the television while he did that errand for me. He was back pretty quickly.

John poured the polish remover into a bowl and I soaked my hands. It stung like the Dickens where I had been pulling at my skin. I managed to get a couple of the bonds broken. The tube was still firmly affixed to my fingertip and it REALLY HURT when I tried to pull it off.

I managed to move the bowl to the dining room table where I had been trying to glue the gear in the first place. I wanted to sit down. As I did so, I looked at the package from the Super Glue there on the table.

“Fingers glued together?”, it taunted.” Soak them in cooking oil.”

John poured some canola oil into another bowl. I rinsed my sticky paws with cool water and then plunged them into the oil. It was quite a relief. The nail polish remover had dried my skin out. It even felt good on the sore places. Soon I was able to peel chunks of glue/paint/lacquer off. Even then, it took quite a bit of soaking and tugging to get that tube off my finger. It took with it a small chunk of skin, leaving a sensitive spot.

I used Neosporin Plus Pain Relief on the sore spots and slathered my hands with thick lotion before putting on some latex gloves so I could fix dinner and take care of Momma. Later, I found some spray-on bandage (I don’t know how old it was, but it worked) in the medicine cabinet that protected my fingertip until it stopped being so sore.

That evening, I discovered two drops of Super Glue on the lens of my glasses. They were way over to one side, so I didn’t see them earlier. Good thing, too. I probably would have glued my hand to them. I went to two different eyeglass places the next day, and was told the same thing – if they tried to remove the glue, my glasses would be destroyed.

When the ordeal was finally over, I asked John to please put the mixer back together. I didn’t watch him take it apart and I didn’t know how it goes.

That’s when he explained to me what I’d done. There was an axle piece that had to go through the hole in the middle of the gear. Since I glued it back together without that piece, it couldn’t be reassembled.

I drew this just for my blog.

Calendar Days

Almost every year, I make the Pile Girl Original Collectible Calendar. The first few years, the calendar featured family pictures as well as cartoons. I printed them on my Epson printer. It was easy to get mixed up as far as which picture is upside down on the back of which grid. And which way to turn each page to get the art the right way. My mistakes spoiled several of the expensive blanks.
In recent years, I have been letting Cafepress do the production. I've made cartoon calendars instead of family ones, although my sisters still get them for Christmas.

I have been working on cartoon art for next year. Above is a sample.
With Cafepress providing the calendar grids, I can no longer print them with family members' birthdays and anniversaries on them. Too bad, because Grandma Pile would be 110 this year. If she were still around.

I've made memorable mistakes on the calendars. One month, the grid skipped directly from the 27th to the 29th. I gave a brother-in-law the wrong birthday another time. I think I did fix the ones with the months in the wrong order.
I sometimes think I'd like to go back to the days I produced them myself. John and I got married this year, and it would be fun to print them up with our special anniversary.

cab calloway and max fleischer present the following for your entertainment

vacationland

When I was a little girl, my sisters and I dreamed of going to Disneyland. I had vague memories of being taken there as a toddler. But not when I was old enough to appreciate the magic of it all.

We lived in Marysville, which is about 500 miles north of Disneyland. When my family planned summer vacations, we begged for Disneyland. Every time, my father would say something like, "Your grandmother is getting pretty old. This may be our last chance to see her. We could go to Disneyland, but Disneyland will always be there and your grandmother won't. She may not be there next year." I think he was talking about both of our grandmothers. It made me think that they both had fatal diseases and that we would be very bad children if we did not want to see them one last time.

So every year that we took a vacation, it was a trip down Route 66 to Texas and Oklahoma to visit relatives. We always tried to convince Dad to take a detour to the Magic Kingdom. It was tantalizingly close on the map when we turned from Highway 99 onto Route 66. (I think that's the way we went, but I can't seem to find a map that shows this.) But he never did.

It was always in the middle of summer. The sweltering station wagon was stuffed with luggage and pillows and four little girls with their parents. Although seat belts were not standard equipment in those days, my mother had my father install them for us. We did have air conditioning, but it was only in the front seat. In the back seat, it was hot enough to make your head throb. We took turns sitting on the front bench seat between Mom and Dad. The younger two were understandably favored for this.
(Above, left to right, my older sister, an adult cousin, me, Momma. I have no idea where this was, but I love the architecture of roadside attractions like this.)

We visited Mother's relatives in El Paso and Dallas, Texas, which was like a sauna in the summer. Then we moved on to Oklahoma, home of my dad's family. I had never been where it rained in the summer. Oklahoma has numerous cousins whom I could not keep straight, living in a small community where each of them knew everyone else in town.

Later, as an adult, I admired my sainted father's patience. I cannot imagine driving a car full of hot, cranky, complaining girls who always need to go to the bathroom (or a cold drink or something to eat or Mickey Mouse) halfway across the country.

Right after I married my first husband, my parents took my two younger sisters on vacation to Hawaii. I was jealous. But today I don't blame them. I was twenty and had a pretty bad attitude in those days.

Meanwhile, both of my grandmothers lived well into their nineties. I was in my thirties when they passed away.

Today, my husband and I take care of my mother. We can't leave her alone to go out to dinner, much less take a vacation. We haven't had a honeymoon yet. I don't like the idea that we have to wait for someone to pass away before I can go to Disneyland. I don't think I could enjoy it that way.

Jesus Saves

California State Fair

As most of you know, I take care of my disabled mother. Every once in a while, I am able to get someone else to stay with her for a while so I can have a little time off. Someday, I'd like to have a longer period so John and I could have a honeymoon. But that is not what this blog post is about.

I want to tell you about yesterday. My sister took care of Momma so John and I could go to the California State Fair. One of the benefits of living in Sacramento is that we have the state fair here. I was especially interested in an exhibit called "Get Animated!".

It was wonderfully inspiring and uncomfortably crowded. (I prefer to visit the fair on a weekday to avoid crowds, but Sunday was the only day my sister was available.) There was a thing that's hard to describe. I think it was called a zoetrope (?) but I'm probably wrong. It was a horizontal wheel in a glass case. Cartoon figures were arranged around the wheel in various positions. The wheel spun while lights flashed. It was synchronized so that it looked like the figures were frolicking around the wheel.


There were wonderful examples of cels and animation art. Gertie the Dinosaur made an appearance. Every here and there is a television set showing cartoons or information about animation or animators. One show stopped me cold.

A man on a TV was talking, I think about cartoon toys. It was so noisy in there, I couldn't hear what he was saying. But he held up a talking Casper the Friendly Ghost. It was exactly like mine!

Santa Claus brought me Casper when I was five. I still have him. He still talks, but he's starting to sound a little blurry. His body is white terrycloth. I played outside with him when I was little. He needs to be cleaned. I've always been afraid I would damage him if I tried. It was eerie to see him on that TV at the fair like that. I knew he was at home.

There was a wonderful selection of cartoon toys for sale. I was tempted by an old-fashioned Mickey Mouse doll. It was $25. They had a Minnie, too. I thought about buying them. But then I thought about what would I do with them when I got home. And I knew that there would come the day when I would wish I hadn't spent $50 on toys.

John is the sort of person who will get into a long conversation with a stranger, especially at the fair. I found him discussing his time with Hanna-Barbera with a gentleman with an animation gallery. John was an in-betweener. I enjoyed looking around while he talked. Later we both met a lovely young lady who was conducting a basic class in character drawing.

John and I have only been married a month. It gave my heart a little thrill each time he introduced me as his wife!

We walked around the fair some more, but everything else paled in comparison to the animation exhibition. We shared a Merlino's orange freeze. Later, we shared a pineapple-orange one. I tried the chocolate-covered bacon. (not a freeze). John politely refused. We saw a life size replica of the Mars lander. There was some sort of dinosaur exhibit that we did not see, because the line to get inside was way too long. Those people were standing in the hot sun for a long time.

We were hot and tired and our feet hurt by the time we decided to leave. We had parked across the street from the fairgrounds to avoid the $10 parking fee. When we finally got to our air-conditioned car (relief!) we went to Sizzler.

This was a rare treat. I don't know if they have Sizzler near you, dear reader. It's a restaurant that has steaks and other nice meals. They also have an all-you-can-eat salad bar with soft serve ice cream. It was heavenly. I got to be there with my sweetheart, eating delicious foods and discussing our wonderful day.

We did have to swing by my sister's house and pick up Momma. She was fine and seemed to have enjoyed her visit.

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Beach Girl