Blythe Spirit

All I Ever Wanted

We spent last week in Los Angeles. Our vacation was well timed, taking into account the early summer doldrums of cloudy/rainy Oregon, the end of a busy work period, and the cabin fever that I begin to experience when my little nuclear family hasn’t been out of town together in almost a year.

Three days of Disneyland took it out of us. We ate breakfast with Minnie, we rode the Dumbos, we squealed at and got splashed by the pirates. There were churros and mouse ears and light sabers and more rides on the Buzz Lightyear AstroBlasters than the recommended daily allowance. After finally extricating ourselves from the Pixar Play Parade on the last day, we were undecided about what to with the rest of our time in the sunshine. San Diego with LegoLand and spectacular zoos almost won the day. But, in the ended we decided to stick around Los Angeles and see what we could see.

I love getting to know new cities. My ideal urban vacation begins with spending the first day traveling from one end of the city to another, absorbing the neighborhoods and snacking at the cool bakeries and eating street food and riding public transportation. I follow that up with a boutique and bookstore shopping day and a museum day punctuated with stops at restaurants I’ve read about in advance. I like to stay in a downtown hotel with a groovy bar in the lobby and a doorman.

Even pre-parenthood, my southern California experiences had been the opposite of that scenario. I’d either gone straight from airport to Disney to Knotts Berry Farm to airport, or I’d ridden around wearing a suit in the back of a rental car with a bunch of coworkers with a projector on my lap, traveling from conference hotel to conference hotel. I began to wonder if that image of LA as a wasteland of air conditioned malls and backed-up freeways were true. But in the end, I refused to believe it.

So our L.A. vacation landed somewhere in between a shoe-shopping, wine-swilling poolside retreat, and a traffic-bound dash from complimentary breakfast to theme park and back. We ate some great meals, including a magical Mexican dinner at Border Grill in Santa Monica. Jeff and I traded off sprawling on the sunny lawn watching Theo run barefoot across the grass and taking in the collection at the Getty Museum (a place I’d vaguely head of before, but one that is a must-see, especially if you like spectacular views and cool architecure or gardens). There was no bar in our hotel, but we had air conditioning and Froot Loops at the complimentary breakfast. We drove around Hollywood and Bel Air and Beverly Hills while Theo slept in his car seat. We went to the beach.

We had a great vacation. But it’s good to be back.

The Twenty

Though I sometimes like to pretend high school was miserable for me, it wasn’t. It was, in almost every area, a good time. I had close friends. I liked my teachers and they liked me. I went to a small school where I was involved in everything from drill team to drama to student government. I got good grades. I went to a nice college. I had a date for the prom. But high school memories live in the portion of my brain that still is in high school. It’s the portion that can recite all the lyrics to “Right Here Waiting for You” by Richard Marx, and that is embarrassed that my best friends were always the ones with the boyfriends and I was always sitting in the back seat by myself on the way to the dance, and that flips the personality switch into Tracy Flick mode when I’m not looking. It’s the part that spent too much time feeling awkward and a little ugly even when I probably wasn’t.

So I can understand why people balk at attending their high school class reunions. When the invitation came for mine, I had a second of doubt. Did I really want to see people on whom the last impression I made was a yawn-inducing graduation speech about Following Your Own Personal Star? Or, worse yet, they might remember me as the girl who didn’t even know where the senior kegger was held, probably because there was a suspicion that she might call the cops. It’s hard not to focus on regretful behavior, but someone wise reminded me that it’s a very self-centered thing to do; most of my classmates probably don’t remember the idiotic things I did, or if they do, they’ve got their own litany of idiocy to worry about.

I didn’t let my thoughts linger for too long at the failed pep rally in my head, although it wasn’t because I made a difficult personal decision to overcome my fears and grow stronger in this difficult time. No, mostly I went to 20-year class reunion because I wanted to know the rest of the story. I wanted to see where people were living and how many kids they had and if they had become even more handsome than they were in the eighties (odds were good, considering the perms and Cosby Show sweaters everyone was sporting in our graduation photos). And maybe I wanted the opportunity to shock them all by drinking a beer in public.

Damn, I’m glad I went.

I saw my child racing gleefully through a sprinkler with the kids of one of my dearest friends. She and I were just a year or two older than they are now when we met. It made me a little tearful, until Theo threw a matchbox car at her son’s head.

I hung out with the wives of my junior high school crushes and it reminded me that small town boys have good taste (and so did I).

I heard a story about wrestling a mountain lion, masterfully told by a guy I could never persuade to be the prince in my four-year-old princess pretend games.

I recognized people by their voices and their walks which hadn’t changed in two decades, and I could tell whose kids belonged to whom because they looked exactly like their parents at age ten.

I was reminded once again that I married well as I watched my normally shy husband spend day after day conversing with strangers and politely laughing at reminiscences that made no sense to him.

I saw a lot less bad hair than when we were in high school, but that might just be because there was less hair in general.

I heard stories about children and partners and how great it was to be back in Montana, if only for just a little while. I heard no bragging about jobs or houses or status symbols.

I ate too many cheeseburgers. I drank a beer in public, but no one seemed too shocked.

If you have a reunion coming up, you should go. Ignore the part of your brain that’s embarrassed because you made out with that guy who never talked to you again, or worse because you dated that guy for ages and he might actually be there. Ignore the reminder that you never made varsity. Forget the suspicion that everyone might be skinnier/taller/richer than you. Instead, remember laughing together at your ridiculous World History teacher. Think about the time your car ran out of gas and the intriguing girl you’d never even talked to from homeroom offered you a ride. Expect to hear about the good stuff, the families and friends, because those are the stories that will get told. Don’t skip it because you “don’t want to re-live high school.” There’s no way it’s going to be the same as high school because twenty years have passed and everyone likes a happy ending.

Just go.

Full set of photos here.

The Happiest Place on Earth

I never thought I’d become a Vegas person. You know, the people who go every year and stay at Bally’s and get to know the concierge and can tell you where the highest-paying slots are and which buffet serves the juiciest prime rib. Normally these people are very tan and like to wear flip flops. They also know what “double down” means.

I am and know none of these things. I have ugly feet so avoid flip-flops, the last time I had a tan was 1987 (seriously) and I just don’t enjoy playing cards that much or even trying my hand at the slot machines. But I could happily spend a long weekend in Las Vegas annually. When I’m there, I feel like I am On Vacation. I order strawberry-flavored drinks poolside. I sleep in the sun. I shop for impractical clothing. I send Jeff off to the roulette tables with a wave and nestle in with a book. I sip fancy cocktails at bars on the 39th floor. I use an excessive number of white beach towels on my deck chair.

The Vegas people surround me while I’m there, of course. They talk about taking a taxi downtown, and where to get tickets to see Donny and Marie. They wear sparkly sunglasses. They smell like coconut oil. They possess cards that fit into the slot machines. And they provide the best people-watching on earth. When Jeff and I took a little getaway a few weeks ago, we lounged and gambled a bit but mainly we sat at restaurants and in bars, eating fantastic meals and delicious drinks and eavesdropping. We watched two families meeting for the first time, making small talk while they waited for their engaged children/siblings who were over an hour late for dinner (maybe on purpose?). We witnessed a man trying to coax his bronzed teenage daughter, who was wearing earbuds and lying face down in her bikini, to come inside already because WE HAVE TO CHECK OUT IN TWENTY MINUTES, CECILIA. CECILIA, CAN YOU HEAR ME? We overheard a tableful of Euro hipsters wearing pencil-leg plaid pants (men) and purple eye shadow (women), fighting over the check in their various accents. We must have seen twenty wedding parties, most of whom were on their way to or from taking photos in front of the “Eiffel Tower.” I loved every minute of it.

I’m already shopping for some rhinestone flip-flops and am thinking of signing up for a special affiliate card at Caesar’s. Because despite denying it, I guess I really am one of those people after all. Who needs Europe when we’ve got Vegas, baby?

Let it Schnee

Last week Theo and I barely left the house, mainly just to walk across the street and check the empty mailbox. It started out feeling cozy and ended up feeling a bit like we had been stranded in a snow cave somewhere — well, a snow cave with a furnace and a lot of Christmas cookies. We left Portland Friday morning and after almost being stranded in Seattle and then getting on a plane we were told would probably have to divert to Spokane, we eventually landed in Montana. The temperature here is in the single digits but it feels so much less claustrophobic, with people zipping along the streets, many of them without so much as a set of snow tires, and grocery shopping and fa la la la la.

Apparently we made it out just in time, as our street was featured as one of the most treacherous in the city and everyone we know is huddled near a fireplace as ARCTIC BLAST 2008 dumps more snow everywhere. Even the mall is closed, which is a pretty big deal on the weekend before Christmas.

I still haven’t unlocked the precise reason a snowstorm in the Pacific NW is so different than one in Montana. I know it’s got a lot to do with frequency (duh) and snowplows-per-square-mile, and wet snow versus dry snow and all that. But there’s got to be a psychological component too. All the psychic energy of those schoolkids, willing another day of sledding instead of another day of school, can’t all be for naught.

I’ll be away from the blog for a few days. Have a wonderful Christmas and a great start to 2009. Thanks so much for reading.

Travelin’ Man

I really do have a new post a-brewing for you, but here’s something fun to tide you over until that happens. We’ve been featured in Ohdeedoh’s Adventures and Outings series. Take a look!

Home Sweet Home

We spent last week on vacation, where Theo was showered with loving attention from his grandparents, aunts, uncles, both parents, and many cheerful French people who smiled and patted him on the head. He ate a bunch of stuff I’m not sure you’re supposed to feed to toddlers (smoked salmon canapes? crepe-wrapped sausages? pain au chocolat?), usually while wandering around the room with his mouth open, yelling “MORE MORE MORE.” He was awake when he was supposed to sleep and partying when he was supposed to be napping and sleeping in the car when he was supposed to be eating dinner. He even slept in our bed with us for two nights, something that sounds cozy and nice but he’s the kind of sleeper who bangs his head against the headboard periodically and tries to pluck out my eyelashes one by one while proclaiming “EYE EYE” at 2:30am.

We made it home on Monday, exhausted and well-fed and with suitcases full of filthy clothing. I spent Tuesday doing laundry and trying to get all of us back in our normal routine. All I really wanted to do was upload our photos and find a quiet corner to sleep off the Benadryl I’d been popping due to a head full of allergy snot. So when there was a screaming breakfast rebellion, followed by whiny writhing when naptime rolled around, ending with tears when I refused to relinquish the last few bites of my dinner, I was ready to walk out of the house and return to France, the land of built-in babysitters and puff pastry served with champagne. I think Theo was wondering why he couldn’t go there too, to the place where the snacks flow freely and one can just lie down and sleep any old place.

Today, we’ve both resigned ourselves to being home, and things are much better. There was nowhere to go but up.

Behind Closed Doors

Yes, that’s a hot sauce stain on my jeans. And yes, Theo is humming a George Jones tune while Jeff puts the leftover root beer in the fridge. If you didn’t know better, you might guess that we’ve been to the county fair.

Yesterday, thanks to Christina’s tempting promise of Mexican delicacies, we spent the afternoon at the US military base outside Hohenfels. Their annual German-American Volksfest tempted us to make the drive, and while I’d like to say we attended in the name of international relations, we were actually just on the hunt for some decent salsa.

We arrived to a rainy day and a beerfest tent with a bratwurst stand outside the door. While we’d hoped they might allow us on the base itself (and inside the doors of that mythical stucco temple, Taco Bell), we were ushered to a runway-turned-parking-lot far outside the base’s gates. Theo pointed out the horse-riding area (“Moo! Moo!”), where five or six ponies trudged around a small corral backed by 1970′s country hits.

From nowhere, I caught a whiff of nacho cheese. Jeff must have smelled it too, for we turned in unison and ran, hand-in-hand, toward a row of small wooden huts. Their signs gleamed in the single ray of sunlight that had broken through the clouds: Baked Potatoes; Burritos; Hamburgers; Chili Dogs; BBQ ribs; Tacos. The angels sang.

We scurried from one to another, sampling the chili (Nalley, straight from the can, there’s nothing like it), the Doritos (Nacho cheese flavor), the hot dogs with ketchup and relish. The tacos were decent, the Dr. Pepper and A&W Root Beer made them perfect. Theo scarfed bites of all of it and proved his heritage. He also begged to ride the bumper cars but was eventually satisfied with jamming to dance music and watching the big kids crash into each another.

On our way out the door, Jeff ordered two slabs of barbecued ribs wrapped in tin foil. We inhaled their scent all the way home. You’d think, after eating six lunches between us, that we might have saved them for another day.

You’d be wrong.

Easter in Madrid

The Worst Best Vacation Ever: Part II

Read Part I here.

The air is cool when we exit the airport, our taxicab driver speaks English, and our high-rise hotel has an IKEA in the basement. We are here because we can’t be where we wanted to be, and this is where we could go. And we are so glad to have made it.

After a thirty-second conversation in the Nuernberg Lufthansa office, a team of benevolent airline employees magicked our tickets and re-booked us on an overnight flight eastward (after triple-checking the passport requirements, of course). Jeff would miss his meeting in Thailand, but there was work to do elsewhere as well. By the time our flight landed we had let go of the idea of one vacation and prepared for another.

Hong Kong at 4pm on a Sunday afternoon from a car window is a throng of women, walking and talking and sitting on the ground playing cards. We learn that most are Filipina maids, spending their day off in the city, together. They seem to inhabit every inch of free space in every public park, under every store awning, and in every crowded market and narrow alley between high rise buildings.

Jeff leads us out to find dinner. Since late last year he has traveled here for a week each month. We have missed him and tried to imagine what he is doing, where he is staying and what he sees. We’ve seen him on the webcam in the afternoon – nighttime for him, before he goes to bed – and he has looked tired. All three of us have been weary of being apart. And now, unexpectedly, we are finally here together.

We wander through the bright streets, where huge signs advertising Prada and Gucci hang above someone in a corncob costume standing in the middle of an enormous crosswalk, handing out restaurant fliers. We enter one of the malls – there seems to be a multi-story shopping arcade on every block – and meander, jet lagged and dazzled, past Louis Vuitton, Miu Miu, Kate Spade and Burberry. We see and hear faces and voices from Indonesia, Australia, mainland China, Britain. I try to remember where I’ve been that feels like this, without weather or clocks, daytime during nighttime, and hungry. Las Vegas, I think.

During the next few days we push Theo around the city in his orange stroller and he waves happily at every person on the subway, every street vendor, every designer shoe store employee. We eat room service hamburgers and slurp noodles from a bowl; we dine at California Pizza Kitchen and Outback Steakhouse; we buy deep-fried squid on the sidewalk and a man hands us waffles straight from the iron. We see a view of the city from above and imagine millions of people in sleek high-rise buildings, each over a hundred stories high. We see the lights of the city from the Kowloon ferry after a day of pounding the gritty pavement and being engulfed by throngs of commuters in hordes of traffic.

There is no swimming pool in our hotel, no cooking class, and no cheap tailor to stitch me up the dress of my dreams. But I hardly notice because I am exploring a new place with my two favorite people in the world, and it doesn’t really matter where in the world we are.

The Worst Best Vacation Ever: Part I

The ticket agent looked too long at the screen, examined my passport too closely, and avoided eye contact. Jeff had the car seat, tagged and ready to leave at the bulky baggage drop, in his arms; he bounced the stroller with one foot but Theo was getting bored and starting to fuss. Our luggage, full of swimsuits and flip-flops, had already disappeared down the conveyor belt.

Finally, she looked at me. “You can’t fly to Thailand on this passport, it expires in two months.”

“But I’m coming back in a week,” I said, thinking she had mis-read my itinerary.

“Thailand requires your passport to be valid for six months after your departure from their country. See?” She turned her computer monitor toward me so I could read the rule for myself. I stared at Jeff and he started to talk to the agent, trying to see what could be done. Because of course we were going to Bangkok tonight, we had two guidebooks, a laminated map, and a cooking school reservation on Tuesday.

The agent called her supervisor who quietly told us there was nothing he could do for us, and that they couldn’t let us on the plane. Jeff kept talking to him while I closed my eyes and performed my most powerful negotiating tactic: I burst into tears.

The airline supervisor politely averted his eyes from me and offered to call the Thai consulate, the American consulate, or anyone else we suggested. Jeff left with him, and Theo and I huddled to one side of the ticket counter with our bags that had reappeared on the conveyor belt. I collected myself as the agent tried to go about her business, not responding to my mutterings about guidebooks and plans and learning to make Pad Thai.

The demise of a tropical vacation isn’t exactly a tragic life event; I wasn’t missing my best friend’s wedding or even forgoing the return to a place that I loved. I hadn’t been that excited about Bangkok until a couple of weeks earlier when Jeff suggested we join him on his business trip. But I stood there watching people receive their boarding passes and drying my eyes and realized that I was crying tears of disappointment, yes, but they were mainly tears of embarrassment. I, who like to believe I’m an organized, well-traveled person, had screwed up in a major way. Jeff’s business trip was becoming a mess because of me. We weren’t sure what would happen with our expensive airline tickets. I would have to tell my friends, who had armed me with photos of lovely clothing the Thai tailors could sew for me, that I was still sitting in Germany. And, worst of all, I would have to confess to The Internet that I ruined our trip.

Later, after we were invited into the airline office to reconsider our plans, Jeff got on the phone with the travel agent and I fed Theo a banana. Of course, at 6:00pm on a Friday evening, there was no hope of reaching anyone who could help us at the Thai or American consulates until Monday, when it would be too late. I started to think about what we should pick up at the grocery store on our way home since we’d cleaned out the fridge in our pre-vacation glee.

Jeff hung up the phone. He gave me a questioning look.

“Our bags are packed,” he said. “Why don’t we just go somewhere else instead?”

(Story to be continued.)