Ruth Yunker's Blog, page 2

Road Trip Gone Bad

Rain

So, I don't like road trips in the first place.  Maybe it's because I live in Southern California, and to say I live in my car is not to exaggerate the situation.

But I don't think I ever liked them, even though the childhood road trips were as pleasant as my mother could make them.  These included bi-annual trips from Massachusetts to Kentucky where my parents had grown up.  It was on one of those trips, that I left my blanket behind in one of the motels on the way, and never saw it again.  I was four, and even though my mother promised me the world, and my grandmother immediately sent me two new blankets, I never recovered.  Ever.

One year, now twenty-two, I ferried my younger sisters, the family dog and family cat, with a small sailboat tethered to the roof of the car, from Chicago to Newport Beach, CA, and got a speeding ticket in Utah, or was it Nebraska?  Somewhere.  The memory is hazy.  I do remember the cop telling me to talk louder because he couldn't hear me over the noise of the traffic roaring by us.

I hate all the sitting.  I hate all the junk food I instantly crave at the rest stops.  I hate knocking my head on the window, over and over, as I er…nap.

Raining

Last week I went on a short road trip. From Southern Illinois to Southern Wisconsin.  A mere five hour drive…so maybe doesn't even qualify as a road trip?

I was the passenger with no responsibilities.  I was traveling with my brother and sister-in-law who love road trips and are therefore experienced, and so there would be no glitches.  Also, we're grown-ups, right?  We get along.  And we have long ago learned the arts of patience, compromise and maintaining calm.

It started to rain.  Actually it started to downpour.  I'll give my sister-in-law that.  The window wipers were turned onto warp speed, and then came the thunder and lightning.  My sister-in-law, calm and pulled together in so many ways, immediately collapsed in terror.  Actually, she didn't collapse.  She went taut and immediately began shrieking for my brother to slow down, pull over, to pull off the freeway, pull off this freeway at once, before–

Before what?  I leaned forward and yelled, "Do you actually think we're gonna die?"  This stopped her briefly, but only briefly.   The shrieking began again.   I immediately wished I'd kept my mouth shut, but now that it was open–

Things went from bad to worse, including the storm.  Soon there was total raging within the car as well as outside.  It wasn't pretty–

What did I say about road trips?  Huh?  Huh???

Birdbath

Well okay, so…the storm did end.  Both  within the car and without.  We arrived at our lake destination ragged, like very very young people who have missed their naps, with just enough supplies to make nachos and therefore assuage, to a degree, the chagrin of a road trip gone bad.

Really.  I mean it.  Really really really, flying, with all that obnoxious undressing, is a breeze compared to road trips.

 

 

 

 

Quick Trip to NYC

Statue of Liberty

I blew into NYC last week.  And then I blew right back out.

I think that sounds really cool, the blowing in and out of NYC.  Makes me sound like I do it all the time.

But I don't.  I barely go to New York.  Last time I was there was ten years ago.  This is practically a sin.  New York City is NEW YORK CITY, right?  An iconic place.  An American iconic place.  I should be beating down the flights to fly from Newport Beach to New York!

I was nine years old the first time I was there.  I distinctly remember staring out the car window as my father instructed me to crane my head upward, more upward, and more upward still, to see the top of the Empire State Building.  It was pouring rain, and my little brother had come down with the measles and was back at the hotel with my mother.  Dad was taking me for a quick ride through town, before we went back to the hotel to fetch Mom and little brother and return post haste to Pittsfield, MA.

Horse Drawn Carriage

I was fifteen the next time I was there.  I was newly back in the States after three years in Brussels, and considered myself a world weary traveler.  The cab drove by a theater and out front the sign trumpeted "Funny Girl", starring this brand new star on Broadway, Barbra Streisand. I screamed as loudly as I had for the Beatles.   That was the trip my old friend from Pittsfield came to visit me, and after I'd brought her to the bus station for her trip home, I couldn't manage to hail a cab back to the hotel, to my amazement and fury.

I started writing when I lived in Baltimore, and so there began sporadic business trips up to NYC by train.  I'd leave so early, I didn't want to put my make-up on until I got there.  So I'd put it on in the basement of Penn Station, or at least it seemed like the basement, and all the bag ladies would huddle around me spitting "She thinks she's so pretty."  The station at Baltimore, in a gritty neighborhood itself,  always felt like Disneyland when I got home, wired with NYC energy.

Then there were the occasional trips to visit a friend who lived in Tribeca.  Once there was a trip for a cartooning conference, although my sister and I actually stayed in Queens.  And once there was a plane change at JFK where my jewelry was stolen from my suitcase, and I finally started carrying my jewelry in my carry-on.

New York City

The point is, I don't know New York at all.  I so don't know New York that last weekend when I was there, I stepped out of my hotel in the middle of a bright sunny afternoon, and automatically slapped on my sunglasses…only to see that no one else was wearing sunglasses  because the sunlight didn't reach down to the sidewalk.

I am beginning to feel this need to get to know one of the great cities of the world a little better.  No.  A lot better.

Hanging out on the beach in CA, I will definitely have to think about it.

From Macomb to New York City

La Grange, IL train station

I get away from the beach madness of Southern California in the summer to the quiet countryside of Western Illinois.   But it takes me longer to get from Newport Beach to Macomb than it takes me to get from LA to Paris.  This normally isn't a problem.  The trip happens once at the beginning of the summer.  Then weeks later, at the end of the summer.

But this summer I had to leave Macomb right in the middle of my trip to go to NYC for a week-end conference.   The trip took all day.

I boarded the train in Macomb at 7:00 am.  Three and a half hours later I got off the train at La Grange.  A cab was waiting there to drive me to O'Hare.  The cab was colder than hell because my sister-in-law told him he better have the cab cold or I wouldn't ride in it.  I tipped him big time and asked if he'd be there to pick me up on Sunday to drive me back to La Grange.  He took the tip and said he would.  He smiled, so I believed him.

United Terminal at O'Hare

One time, having made the mistake of not giving myself enough time to make my flight, after the train ride, thereby ending up spending the night at the airport hotel, this time I had given myself plenty of time.  Three and a half hours of plenty of time.  I did the New York Times puzzle, ate a three course meal, and bought perfume for every single person I knew, in that three and a half hours.

Finally we boarded the plane…and then we sat.  We were twenty-fifth in line.  Okay, maybe fourth.  We did, ultimately, take off, and suddenly I was landing at La Guardia, getting in the cab line, then getting in the cab itself, and brought to the hotel, where they put me in a room with a window that looked out onto an airshaft, so I went right back down and demanded a better room, whereupon I was put in the cutest room in the world with a fireplace, except that this window looked out onto…I don't know what it looked out onto because I would have had to stand on the bedside table to see.

But so, by that time it was 10:30 at night.

Then I had to turn right around and do it all over again on Sunday, where I didn't wait at the airport for three and a half hours.  No.  Instead, due to cautious scheduling on my part, I waited at the La Grange train station for three and a half hours, where I had a three course meal…okay, it was across the street, not at the train station where I had this meal, and it wasn't three courses, but it was the absolute best cheeseburger I ever ate.

On the train home, I was surrounded by the shrill buzz of humanity minding its own business.  This is what I kept telling myself as the woman behind me laughed and giggled and trilled for three and a half solid hours, all the way to Macomb.  The fact I didn't finally leap over my seat, screaming like a banshee, aiming for her throat, simply means I'd lost the will to live hour two and a half at the train station.

It was 10:30 at night when I finally got home–

And I'm thinking there's something to be said for the fact that when I go back home to big, huge, sprawling, loud LA, there will be only one measly traffic congested trip down the freeway before I'll be able to crawl back into my very own bed.

Snow in July

The Snowman Who Could

It's the oldest wish in the world.  Wanting snow in July.  Not just any July, but a July that is breaking all time heat records.

I love to visit snow.  In SoCal snow is but an hour away, so yes, that's what we do.  We take day trips on Saturday up into the mountains and pretend we're living back East.

I love snow at Christmas.  I positively adore snow on a ski trip, as I'm sure you do.  I think snowflakes are the seven wonders of the world.  I am completely big hearted about snow.

Especially in July.  In July, and particularly this July in the suffocating Midwest, I couldn't have a higher opinion of snow than I do right now. Snow is virginal, pure, white, ivory,  and above all, snow is cold.  It is itty bitty pieces of ice, it's that cold.  It's frozen water.  I like the word 'frozen' on a day like today in July, Midwest USA, where I haven't heard a sound from outside all day, because I'm locked up inside in the air conditioning.

Lake Tahoe

The best thing about contemplating snow, indeed, adoring snow in July, is that my thoughts don't have to be ruined by the reality of snow.  My thoughts of snow include pine trees, ice skating on frozen ponds, and hot apple cider after a long day of skiing…which I haven't done in twenty-five years.

Snow in July does not include gray snow, dirty snow, old snow.  It doesn't include being caught on the highway in a blizzard.  It doesn't include shoveling off the porch steps over and over again, so that finally my husband and I, living in Chicago, fresh from Los Angeles, young and foolish, stopped shoveling those stupid porch steps, and the post man, unable to get up to our mailbox,  just threw our mail in the general direction of the porch.

I got stung by a bee today while watering my poor dehydrated plants.  It really hurt.  Last time I got stung I was walking into a yoga retreat.  I don't know what being stung by a bee while being engaged in a harmless activity could mean, but what I do know is that it would never ever happen in the snow.

 

 

 

 

 

My Summer Car

My Summer Car

I have a new car back at home.  I love my car almost as much as I love my pets because I'm a Southern Californian and we love our cars inordinately.

But I'm on vacation now.  For six weeks I get to idle my time in the soft and green humidity of America's heartland, far away from the sharp frenzy of the CA's summer beach life.  And while I'm here, the buggy in the picture is my buggy.

She's about ten years old.  She has over 150 thousand miles on her.  She has a rolling gait which is like being in a boat lolling about in the waves.  She doesn't go fast, so that needing to be first in line at the light (like I must be in CA) is a moot point.  She doesn't have to drive me very far anyway, so being first away from the gate is a moot point as well.  Luckily her air-conditioning works.  Luckily the windows do to.  But unlike my new car, they don't roll up with only a brief touch from me.  I have to hold the window opener until the window is all the way open or closed.  The windows open and close very slowly, too slowly as I found out the time she and I started rolling through the car wash before the windows had inched their way up to sealed shut.

She's parked on the grass, under a tree.  It's a big tree, and  provides her with much needed shade.  I do have a garage here, but at the moment it's full of tractors (small) and mowers (large), leaving no room for my old lady.  The tree is huge, and in fact should be cut down before it's blown down on top of the house…but who's going to make that call?  A large storm making a hole in the roof will be the only thing that will get that ball rolling.

I love this car.  It is the anithesis of my sleek LA car.  But there are two things Bessie here doesn't have that my car at home does.  Two items at which I totally sneered when I got her.

One, my new car not only has a camera showing me where I'm backing up, it has a little bell thing that goes off when I'm about to hit something.  At first I was totally put off, as in, I can do this by myself!  It wasn't until I began driving my old girl here this year, that I realized how much I've  come to rely on that alarm.  In Bessie here, I actually have to crane my neck around to see where I'm going.  At my age, that's not always a wise thing.

And the other gizmo is that my car is a 'keyless' car.  Which means all I need is to have my keys in my purse for the car to start.  Pointless bit of technology, right?  What's the big deal with needing to get one's keys out of one's purse?

Well, here on vacation, that has become my biggest (and only) beef with wonderful Bessie.  Every time I swing into the car I throw my purse over to the back seat and turn back to start the car.  And every single time, with a jolt of dismay, I remember the key thing, and have to turn back around (remember the neck issue?), retrieve my purse, and begin the old-fashioned and anxiety producing hunt for my keys.

I suppose I can live with the inconveniences.  Afterall, Bessie has to live with me this summer.

 

 

 

Winter Red in Summer

Beach Red

Reading about winter clothes in Vogue, in the depths of a Midwest summer, has presented me with a challenge.  It turns out I'm supposed to wear red this winter and love it.   Oh, and by winter, Vogue means this fall.  Just so I'm clear.

This fall I'll be in Paris.  In Paris, as all us American tourists have emblazoned on our brains like permanent dye, one wears black.  Not red.   Just ask me about the time I got caught  wearing my red Beijing baseball cap in Pere Lachaise cemetery.

I do love to cater to Vogue.  It makes them feel needed.  It's good for a fashion magazine to feel needed.  But I don't know.  Maybe my good intentions are wearing thin.  Because about this red thing?  I also don't like to wear red.

I wasn't always opposed to wearing red.  I had a gorgeous red winter coat when I was a teenager living in Brussels.  I wore it everywhere, including Paris.  I wore it with a bowl shaped furry turquoise blue hat.  Don't ask.

Candlelight St Germain des Pres

But so, pondering red this hot summer morning surrounded by green fields, in the Midwest, I'm thinking of convincing myself this red thing is a karmically generated dilemma.  That wearing red just might add zest to my life.  Not that I thought I needed anymore zest,  but what do I know, right?  I love wearing red lipstick, and thought it was plenty enough color on my face, but my friends are always telling me it's time to start wearing eye make-up.

Could I get away with a red scarf?  Just to break myself in easily?  I could wear that red scarf anywhere, even in Paris.  Even in CA where I live most of the time.  Even inside, right now, where the air conditioning is on to combat the humidity, and feels so chilly a red scarf would be just right.

Vogue is also yapping about god awful florals and eye-crossing geometric prints for this winter.  Well, I can't even begin to see a big floral prancing up the Champs  Elysees–

Loyalty and kindness has its limits.  I think the time has come for me to exhibit a little Tough Love.  Vogue will have to go it alone where the florals and geometric prints are concerned.

Sloth in the Midwest

Orange Red Farm Door

I'm in this tiny town in Western Illinois and yesterday their monthly air raid siren went off.  It wailed long and strong.  Went on longer than the tsunami siren they've just installed at the end of the Balboa Peninsula.  And at the end, the sound even got creative.  Short and long and short again.

This morning a one- propeller plane flew over.  I haven't heard an airplane in two weeks, let alone a propeller airplane.   I rushed out to have a look, and for one moment, it was 1910.

Then my cell went off, and I rushed back in to have a very modern conversation with my daughter.

Every summer I get out of Dodge, which is Newport Beach, CA.  I run screaming to this tiny town in Western Illinois.  Where, in the peace of the green countryside, the soft humidity and the quiet, I battle sloth and work.   And sloth is winning.

Onion Drying Table

I love sloth.  Love it.  Can eat it standing up for lunch.  Will do sloth for free.  All day long.  Everyday.  Even when it's raining.

Oh I love my work.  And I am here to work.  It's part of the deal.  The biggest part. It should be a cakewalk, right?  No distractions.

Except for that deer sneaking across my yard.  That thunder and lightning storm I never see at home.  The Dairy Queen just a little too close.  That airplane–

Okay, so maybe this is the deal.  I'm slothfully working?

Slothfully working–

A new genre.

 

 

 

 

 

 

SoCal to IL to Paris

Queen Anne's Lace

I just read the name of a recipe.  Pear Tart with Stilton Cheese and Cranberry Rash.  Cranberry Rash?  Ghastly.  Maybe they mean rasher, as in rasher of bacon.  Anything's possible, just off the plane, train and automobile, getting from California to Illinois.

My head clears.  I look again.  Cranberry Relish.  The recipe is for Cranberry relish.

I hope the rest of my stay here goes like that.  My world upside down, but upside right if I read sideways and from left to right.  If I adjust to the sound of the breeze rustling through deciduous trees instead of clacking through palm tree fronds.  Adjust to the sound of the train going through town, which I woke up the first morning thinking was the sound of the waves and I was still at home in CA.

I'm here to work.  To write a book…or to put it more realistically, to scratch out the rough draft of one.  I'm here in the quiet of the IL countryside instead of the noise-infested summertime of Southern California to write about Paris in October.

I love the Queen Anne's lace here.  It's not out yet.  The photo was taken when I was here last year, when the first ME, MYSELF and PARIS was published.  M,M & PARIS DEUX is staggering to it's feet.  So I musn't get sidetracked by such things as Cranberry Rash…er…make that relish.

I was thirteen, and I was in Paris with my mother.  I wasn't happy to be there. Being thirteen had a lot to do with it, and so did the fact we were living in Europe, and all I wanted was to be back in the States.  So, in this quintessentially Parisian cafe, instead of ordering French like my cheerful, and very pregnant, mother did, I ordered something called Filet American.  I prayed I would be served a nice big fat juicy American hamburger–

Instead I was served a mound of raw hamburger.  There were capers on top.  My eyes flew over to my mother.  I loved raw hamburger, but my mother rarely allow me to eat more than a tiny bit of raw hamburger, even though I begged.  Her eyes widened.  She quickly sought the eyes of the waiter.  He was casually serving the rest of the food as though nothing was wrong.  Her eyes moved back to the mound of raw hamburger.  Over to mine, which must have been shining, which would have been a first during the whole trip to Paris.  Maybe she just wanted a peaceful lunch for once–

"Okay," she said.  And my world tilted sideways as I dug into what should have been an American hamburger but turned out to be something called steak tartare which was made of raw hamburger.

So here in the far western corner of Illinois, the breeze doesn't clack through palm fronds, and hopefully it will take awhile before I wake up and know exactly where I am.

 

Airports R Not Me

Airports R not me, see.  That isn't to say I think airports are you.  I'm just saying that, try as I might, try as I am zen-like in my approach to the airport experience, even during the disrobing section of the enterprise, try as I might remain cool and calm by doing my crossword puzzles, taking those strolls down the long, crowded corridors, pulling my laptop laden carry-on along with me, using the angry rest rooms which flush the toilet for you even before you are finished, with sinks that may or may not emit water, no matter how politely you hold your hands underneath the spigot, aligned perfectly to the little laser beam that should tell the faucet you are indeed there, eating that raisin bagel sans cream cheese, although sometimes I crack and order up a cinnabon with extra sauce, not drinking that huge bottle of Evian I'm saving for the plane, and above all, spending time people watching, because there certainly are thousands of people to watch, and because people watching is supposed to be utterly fascinating, but let me tell you people watching isn't fascinating, not at the airport, because all those people are doing exactly the same thing you are doing, with varying degrees of success, largely having to do with wether or not they are traveling with children, try as I might, my heart sinks way down low every time I check my bag at the curb and enter in through those sliding doors.

But then?  The raison d'etre of airports in the first place?  Why, like magic,  the airport survivor is whisked…well sort of…onto the plane, urged to enjoy the flight, and then flown without further ado to a far away place, in a ridiculously quick and efficient amount of time.

Airports, actually, should be featured on my Christmas cards.

 

Kitty and the Guest Bed

Kitty and the Guest Bed

So, does your cat ditch you at night for the visitor?  Do your visitors appear in the morning with a triumphant grin and announce "Gosh, the cat slept with ME last night."  Does your cat eschew loyalty and even good manners for the guest bed only when it is occupied by the guest?

Unfaithful little trollops, who do cats think they are? And furthermore, who does the guest think he is?  I know he feels secretly triumphant the cat chose him over moi.  Let me tell you, dear Guest, it's not you, it's every guest who snores in the guest bed.  Hah!

My cats have all, down to the newest and dearest, shamelessly, spent the night with the guest, right under my nose.  I try not to take it personally.  In fact if they weren't so blase about their transgression, I'm not sure I'd even notice they show up in the morning waiting to be let out and fed (doesn't matter which order), all happy happy to see me, like they'd been purring into my face all night long, when instead, they had been exploring…er…new territory, over there in the guest bedroom.

Then the guest shows up.  They are always in a good mood because let's face it, there's nothing like the aloof cat appearing to take an incredible fascination with you.  I know what my cats act like with others there in the guest room when they think I'm not looking.  I hand the guest their cup of coffee, and wait–

"The cat slept with me all night!  That's so cool.  My cat doesn't go near strangers.  But your cat just seemed to love me.  Yup!  He stayed with me all  night long.  What a cat!"

The cat is ignoring the conversation.  The cat won't look me in the eye.  I vow to give him his least favorite food for breakfast.  At that moment, I don't know who I hate more–the cat or the guest.

One guest I loved though.  My mother-in-law and a woman who always told it like it was.  She came down the morning after the first night in the guest bed.  The cat was nowhere to be seen.  Mother-in-law didn't say anything until early afternoon.  But finally she spoke.  "The cat slept with me all night.  Couldn't get enough of me all night long.  I mean, we're talking true love here.  Now, in broad daylight, and out of the boudoir, she's ignoring me like last night never happened."   Mother-in-law paused.  "Slut," she said.