Family Vacation

Scenes from our camping vacation to the Redwoods, also the celebration of our ten-year wedding anniversary.
--
(As we greet a blackberry bramble enveloped in fog and mislabeled by California State Parks as our campsite)
Me: Honey! It’s where I always dreamed we’d awake on our ten-year anniversary!
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Chicken Noodle: I am afraid all of these trees are going to fall on my head.
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Chicken Little: I don’t want to hike. Carry me.
Chicken Noodle: You start hiking down the trail this instant or I’ll put you in time out!
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Captain Daddy: Do you think this fog is a metaphor for our marriage?
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Chicken Noodle: I am afraid a bear is going to eat us up.
--
(I come around from the backside of the truck to find Captain Daddy violently shaking a water jug over open flames burning in green grass five feet from the fire pit but two feet from the tent. His face is the color of chalk.)
Me: What did I miss?
Chicken Noodle: Daddy started us a fire.
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Me: So, what do you think of your vacation so far?
Captain Daddy: I think it’s a good thing I didn’t have any expectations.
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Chicken Noodle: I am afraid the ocean is going to drown us.
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Me: So, the way I see it, we could pack up, hug one more big tree, and blow this joint.
Captain Daddy: Oh, baby, you turn me on with your words.
--
(At one more big tree)
Chicken Noodle: I am not getting out of this car until we get to a motel!
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(In the pool of a motel on the freeway in Grants Pass)
Chicken Little: This is my very favorite part of our whole trip!
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(Back at home)
Me: Next time I guess we’ll just skip the whole national park thing and go straight to a Best Western on I-5.

For a similar story, see My Hawaiian Vacation in Quotes

The Ghost in the Machine

I went to a writing conference over the weekend. The chickens stayed home with Captain Daddy. Mysterious incidents ensued.

Each time I braced myself and called home, not one person screamed at me from the other end.

No one called me screaming. Not once.

In fact, at one point, someone sounding a lot like Captain Daddy called me, reporting to be in a jewelry store, and asked me what kind of ring I might have in mind for our ten-year wedding anniversary, which is this Thursday. After I hung up, I stared at the phone for a long while, wondering about that three-planets-in-a-triangle thing from last week which I didn’t really pay attention to. Had it opened up some kind of freakish space warp, and if so, how long it would last?

When I got home, my grocery list had suspiciously vanished from the countertop. The items that had been on it were in the cupboards and refrigerator.

The chickens reported that they’d gone swimming, taken a bath and consumed at least one vegetable in the previous 48 hours.

The tear in my favorite yoga pants had been mended.

My hot tub had been drained, scrubbed, refilled and reheated.

Gear and food for our vacation, to commence today, had been packed.

Hmmm, I wondered. Curious. But I couldn’t ask Captain Daddy about all of this odd business, because he’d left for his day job, saving the world.

I was left alone to ponder whether I would have to hire a special kind of exorcist to deal with ghosts who know what kind of hot dog buns I like, love my children, are good at sewing and wish to buy me jewelry.

Then I came to my senses.

PS Is this picture predictive these things? Or anything else that’s happened in the last decade, for that matter? I think not.

PPS No, of course we were not drunk at our own wedding.

PPPS Okay, just a little.

Chapter 59, In Which My Family Legacy of Tree Hugging Veers Off the Tracks

Chicken Little on camping:

"Mom, do you think nature is beautiful?"

"Yes. I think nature is very beautiful."

"Well, nature is not beautiful to me. Stupid trees."

Shades of Blue

A piece I wrote about Summer Lake is on the Travel Oregon blog.

Click here to see more of my Travel Oregon posts...

For the Bird(er)s

A new story of mine, The Way of the Wing Watchers, is in the current issue of Oregon Lakes and Rivers Magazine.

It Was Fun While It Lasted

Chicken Noodle’s obsession with death continues. Here are some of the latest utterances from my five-year-old Mistress of Doom.

On the couch, cuddling
Chicken Noodle: Mom, I don’t want to grow up.
Me: I know, baby. But you know what’s the best part?
CN: I am going to get old and die?
Me: Umm, no, baby.

--
At the park
CN: When people are alive, it’s way more cozier to be outside than to be underground, like later when you’re dead.

--
On the deck, eating dinner
CN: What if a tree fell on our house right now?
Captain Daddy: It’s not going to happen.
Me: You are totally safe.
CN: But what if it fell right here on my chair and then hit my dinner plate? What if it smashed my macaroni?

--
At Grandpa’s house
Grandpa, to Chicken Little: You’re getting so tall!
Chicken Noodle: I’m taller!
Grandpa: Yes, but you’ll probably always be taller, until you’re grown.
CN: Yeah, but I’ll die first.

--
In the backyard
CN to my mother: What if a meteor hit our yard while we were outside playing?
(My mother shoots me an alarmed look.)
Me: What can I say? She’s got a little Armageddon in her.

Happy New You Part IV

Long overdue for an update to my blog profile. I've been confusing people with the whole book burning thing.

So here's me, modestly refreshed:

Me: mother, wife and writer watching 40 climb the front steps like a peddler pushing time and me with nowhere to hide. The writer part used to come first, the 40 used to be a 30, and marriage and motherhood were abstract activities I thought I’d try someday. Ah, growing up. If only it was the thrill promised when we were six.

I started this blog to chronicle my quest to publish a book. I’ve published all sorts of other things—articles, essays, even poetry. I wrote a first book. Then I set it on fire. I am now neck-deep in edits on a second book, and have a publisher interested. But as my mother says, “It ain’t over ‘til the fat lady sings.”

So the question remains—will I bloom, eventually? Or will I ditch the whole writing thing, adopt a xanax habit, abandon my own identity and live the rest of my life vicariously through my children? Hmm, let’s find out.