Grown-ups scare me.

Kids can play together and have a good time, but it can get a little complicated if you throw in an adult.

One of my daughter’s best friends is a nice young man from a good religious family. I had met his mom several times and she was about the sweetest person you can imagine. Sounds like Cindy has an ideal friend, huh? That would be nice to assume.

First there was the time he refused to sit next to Cindy at lunchtime because she was wearing black. The black outfit in question consisted of a black t-shirt from Macy’s with a portrait of a brown pony on it, complete with pink trim and finished with a cute pink bow that ties at the collar. She wore it with the matching black skirt with pink trim. Ooo, pink ribbons and ponies – how creepy!

I was a little creeped out that her red Converse didn’t go with the pink ribbon, but I guess we all have our own set of values. I’m glad to know her friend’s parents instilled in him good, solid common sense. I’m sure his aversion to clothing with horses on them will save his soul.

More recently, Cindy was caught off guard by a more baffling accusation. She was visiting the same friend’s house and brought along her bead kit to show him the jewelry that she had made. Apparently at one point he took one of her red beads and stuck it to his forehead. I’m not sure why, or what events lead up to this.

About that time, Cindy’s friend’s dad came home from work. He saw his son with a red bead on his forehead and flipped out. Again, I’m not sure why. Was he mad because wearing a red bead on your forehead is un-masculine? And we all know that good, God-fearing boys always grow up to be strong men who keep their women in line. Or did he think that Cindy was converting his son to Hinduism, something that Cindy knows absolutely nothing about.

While he was yelling at his young son, his four-year-old daughter felt the need to jump to her brother’s rescue by saying that it was Cindy’s idea that he put the red bead on his forehead. It was surely sweet of her to look out for her big brother –how many times have these kids had to protect each other from their father, I couldn’t help but wonder—but next, Numbnuts jumped on Cindy. Yes, Cindy was yelled at and intimidated by her friend’s dad because the kid stuck a red bead on his face.

I admit, I had my guard down. I no idea such people still existed here, in modern-day Los Angeles. In fact, I hadn’t run into such cavemen outside of the Bible Belt in my youth when one of the girls in my English class explained to the rest of us how the UPC codes were really agents of the devil. Apparently the thickness of the lines going in the “skinny skinny heavy skinny” pattern would cause you to go straight to hell. I don’t know how it works either.

I’m sure Numbnuts is well respected at his church. You can tell how important he is because he never has time to get out of his car when he picks his kids up at school, instead he blocks traffic and screams at his young children to run across the street unescorted and load themselves in. All of us losers who have nothing better to do than park down the street and walk our kids out don’t deserve his respect. Maybe he feels like he’s doing God’s work by scaring the crap out of little girls who are guests in his home.

Common sense is my fondest wish for my daughter. I want her to know the difference between wisdom and knowledge, and how to sort out all the gray area between right and wrong. My heart broke for Cindy when her friend’s dad ripped a big, ugly hole in their three-year friendship. How she was made to feel like she had done something bad when she was being innocent and child-like. I hope somewhere in the bigger pond of Jr. High, she can make new friends whose parents aren’t jerks, but it already hurts knowing that her best friend is going to eventually be lost in the sea of faces. Either that or Numbnuts and I are going to have it out.

August 20, 2005

Yesterday was the one-year anniversary of Jones' Big Trip to the vet. I keep kind of grisly records I guess, but we can't all be Mary Sunshines. Somehow fittingly, given that Jones had cancer, today I bought a book called An Atlas of Oncology (in other words, my very own tumor picture book). I have so much fun at Barnes and Noble.

It was also a big day in that I received my second "no thanks" letter for Aerena. Considering that I sent the synopsis and first three chapters to them a few short weeks ago, I am very blessed because they got back to me so quickly. That form letter would have looked really shitty if I had waited six months for it. They replied so fast that I haven't even lined up another publisher to send my manuscript to. Let's hear it for Tor for being really prompt rejectors.

In a few weeks, the new semester starts at LA Valley College. I like to take a few classes every couple of semesters to keep learning, keep my mind stimulated for stories, and to keep from paying back my student loans.

Most of the students I meet at LAVC are actually going for a degree, or at the very least are trying to get an education so they can get something above a minimum wage job. These are not rich people, anyone with money would be at a better school. But no, if you can't afford anything else, you go to LAVC.

That's not to say everyone there is poor. Many, like myself, make too much money to qualify for financial aid. Even if we make too much money to get a grant or a loan, it doesn't factor in the fact that we pay some of the highest rent in the country, some of the highest gas prices in the country, and the cost of living is going up more quickly than the wages. That and the fact that we are going to school leaves us with less time to work each week.

Anyone who is going to the trouble to better him or herself by going to school should be praised, revered, put on a pedastal, and given every leg-up and favor that the government can muster up. Don't expect that from our governor though. He figuratively bent each and every Community College student over and fucked them up the ass by more than doubling the price of tuition in just a few short years. And it's not like the money is going back into the colleges. Did he use it to put his name in those giant gold letters over his office door? Because, you know, that's really necessary. I would gladly fork over my money for that.

Between the rising cost of tuition and the high price of text books -- I usually have to buy over $100 worth of books for each class -- it's becoming harder and harder to come up with the money to take classes. What about the people who are going to school because they actually need the education to get a job? What about the ones that don't already have a degree, credit cards, and generous family members (thanks, John!) to help them go to school?

Thanks for kicking people while they're down. You suck Arnold.

August 16, 2005

One thing I've always wondered: are rude, condescending people attracted to working in public schools or is that just a side effect of having a job where you work with children?

Judging by some of the assholes I've met at my daughter's school, I would have to go with the former. Some of the staff probably used to have jobs where they worked around other adults but they were probably getting their asses kicked all the time because of their snotty attitudes so they wound up, here, where they can lord their superiority over innocent children. How are our kids supposed to learn to be considerate, polite, and respectful of others when they are imprisoned in an institution where the adults have never learned these qualities for themselves? Sometimes I want to smack the school employees around when I come in for a visit.

"Uh, excuse me, I'm not one of the children, wipe that smug look off your face and answer my question without the sarcasm. Thanks."

I had no idea that there were so many grown women out there who were consider wrinkling up their noses an acceptable response, who talk in a baby voice and say things like "icky" and "poop" to other adults.

It was a lot worse at my nephew's school. One day they called me while River was in English class because he was wearing sandals. I had to get down there, right away, and take him home. It's not like we live in Southern California where the weather can easily go over 100º and wearing tennies and socks can be quite uncomfortable and, dare I say, distracting.

I was working at the time and quite irritated. I quickly looked up my copy of the district dress code that was given to me when my daughter started first grade. It said nothing about wearing sandals to school except that they could be inappropriate for some of the activities at school, or something along those lines. Nowhere did it say that sandals weren't allowed at school and the office staff would be calling busy relatives at home to come pick the kid up. Right now.

When River's mom, Kat, got her own phone message from the school and came rushing home from work, we drove to River's school together. We found River sitting in the office where they told us that students are not allowed to wear sandals to school and River had to go home.

I knew from the hateful things River's teacher said to my face about him that she was a lazy, unqualified-to-work-with-children bitch and would do anything to get him out of her class. Rather than do the job that the taxpayers were paying her to do, she found an exuse to deprive him of an education. There is no reason a kid can't learn English while he's wearing sandals, unless maybe they are covering his ears. But if he has that kind of dexterity he could probably get a job as a Chinese acrobat and wouldn't need to learn English anyway.

I asked the office lady to show me where in the school rules it says that students can't wear sandals to school. She showed me the same dress code I had at home, the one that didn't say jack shit about sandals not being allowed in class. I pointed this out to her. She read it out loud to me. I asked her to find the part that says sandals aren't allowed at school. She couldn't, because it didn't exist. She got the principal. The principal came out and showed me the part in the dress code that mentinoed sandals. I pointed out to her that it was pointed out to me already. So now, show me the part that says sandals aren't allowed at school.

But it didn't exist. By this time, school was almost out anyway, the office staff labeled me as "icky," and River went home with his mom.

The way I was treated at my daughter's school depended a lot on the situation. When the principal called me at home to let me know some little boy chased Cindy around the schoolyard with his penis, the principal was charming, funny, and sweet as pie. When I emailed her about the inexcusably horrible behavior of one of the yard duties, I didn't even get a response. Instead, the next day, the yard duty yelled at my daughter about my email. No one had the guts to come to me, instead the principal sicked the rabid dog on a defensless nine-year-old instead of having the rabid dog put out of her misery.

Maybe working in a school is like being a politician. It doesn't matter if you are good or bad, right or wrong, it all boils down to how much crap you can shovel around.

I know that working around children is difficult, a job that can be done well by a select few. That's why you will never find me working in a school, I don't have what it takes. Why can't more people realize this and stay the hell away from schools unless he or she is qualified? It would make it so much simpler for the rest of us. If you can't hack the job market, don't go to work around children as your second or third or fourth choice. They are too precious to be left to someone who doesn't appreciate them.

Oh God, please let Cindy's new school present me with minimal bullshit.

August 8, 2005

Soon, it will be time to go Back to School shopping with my daughter who will be starting Jr. High. She hates it when I call her My Little Husband, but I never imagined I would spawn a child who hated to go to the mall. New clothes? Nah. I don't want to go to Macy's, I like my old pants.

How could this be?

At least I can still go shopping with my friends. Cathy loves to shop even more than I do and we spend a great deal of our time together inside stores. We have a habit of wandering off but keeping the conversation going, no matter how loud we have to yell, and because we are both near-sighted and have big boobs, a passerby might hear a conversation that goes like this:

"Hey! Come look at this!" followed immediately by, "Dammit, get your tit away from me!"

Yep, Back to School shopping, the one time of year that my ex-husband and I spend days at a time driving all over town trying to bribe our miserable daughter with $40 t-shirts from Urban Outfitters. I can't trust picking out clothes to Cindy's dad by himself, the same man who thought a red and black plaid flannel jacket, jeans, and brown leather workboots was a suitable outfit for his three-year-old girl. I got so pissed off at people telling me I needed to cut my son's hair.

August 6, 2005

No, I didn't fall off the face of the earth.

It's just that my daughter started summer vacation and we've been traveling.

First off, Cindy was anxious to spend a week and Gramma and Grampa's house, without Mom and Dad. That's always the condition that means "fun," when her dad or I drop her off and leave her there to wrap her grandparents around her little finger with no parental intervention. I hate to just go home when the kid is out of town, so I always make arrangements to go do something with my friends while Cindy is vacationing in the mountains.

On this particular outing,, Kim and I decided to hit Mt. Shasta. I love Mt. Shasta, one of the most beautiful places in the world in my opinion. Cute little village, good shopping, yummy food, and no matter where you are, Mt. Shasta is looming over you like a protective overseer. She reminds me of my mountain friend I had growing up in Damascus, Oregon (near Boring if you're not up on your obscure geography.) Mt. Hood sat steadily in the distance out our big livingroom window.

If you have a child-like imagination (as I did when I was a child), Mt. Hood appears to have a face on its western side. I always felt like he was my big buddy watching out for me and sometimes I would talk to him. Mt. Shasta gives me much the same feeling although, now that I'm a mature adult, I leave the conversations to a minimum.

Being that planning ruins the road trip for me, I made Kim a little nuts. She secretly made reservations at a hotel in nearby Dunsmuir and printed out maps. We were a little bummed to find out that Panther Meadow, here in the middle of July, was unreachable by car as it was under four feet of snow.

As a consolation prize we drove to Bunny Flats (a sick name, who wants to think of a flat bunny?) and ambled around a bit. I found the bins where hikers are supposed deposit the bags of their own poo they are expected to carry with them when visiting the mountain trails, and decided not to stray too far from the car, considering I had no bags on hand and I don't even like cleaning up after my chihuahua.

Without being able to visit our final destination, Panther Meadow, Kim and I came up with a new plan. We thought that visiting Klamath Falls, Oregon would be a good idea, so we could see the water fall. Doesn't that sound fun? We stopped at the Head Springs on the way out of Mt. Shasta, located in a lovely park that has a sign labeling the flowers. No, it doesn't tell you what kind of flowers they are, the sign just says "Flowers." We drank from the spring and bottled some up for the trip and once again went north on the 5.

When we got to Klamath Falls we found out that there aren't actually any waterfalls there. Shut up.

We drove back to California and went straight to the Lava Beds National Monument and some prehistoric petroglyphs. Absolutely amazing. I was so relieved to find out that Kim was not the kind of sadistic freak who would try to talk me into entering the underground lava caves. When I initially read about the "caves," I was picturing a wide open cavern on the side of a mountain. No. These are minisculre holes in the ground with ladders and signs warning you of bats. I got some good pictures of the holes though.

Also at the lava beds we walked through Captain Jack's Stronghold, where a small amount of Modoc Indians held off a large amount of members of the American armed forces for quite a long time. I was never good at remembering dates, if you want more information you can find it on Google.

Mt. Shasta was on the way home, and we couldn't quite give up on Panther Meadows, so we went back. We stayed in a really lovely craphole that had giant bugs, Cheerios scattered around the carpet, and a layer of grime on the bathroom floor. For a hundred dollars. And here I thought the big statue of Bigfoot out front was cool, but not enough to offset wondering if the sheets had been changed anytime in the last month. It was kind of cool being in room 42, though, for the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy fan in me.

The next day we were assured that yes, the road to Panther Meadows was still closed but we were welcome to hike up there from Bunny Flats. We kicked the idea around a bit but sanity got the better of us. I mean, man, we would have to put on shoes and everything, and what if Kim lost her inhaler? Could I walk back down the mountain carrying her body over my shoulders? Could I live with the guilt of causing my friend to have an asthma attack? Could I find the keys to her brand-new Camry in her purse?

We tried to visit more petroglyphs at Castle Crag but were told that they are on private property and are really hard to find. The "hard to find" part probably put off my road partner more than it did me. Who wants to go hiking with a woman in flip-flops who thinks getting lost is "neat?" We did find a deer standing next to the road eating sweet peas behind a rustic wooden fence with picturesque trees in the background, but we had both put our cameras away, only able to snap a few quick pix with our phones. So much for the shot of a lifetime. All I have to show of it is a little postage-stamp sized photo.

"See that brown blur here? That's the deer. The green stuff is trees, and the purple things are flowers."

Ansel Adams never had to explain.

My next trip started brewing in my mind several months ago when Cindy noted that she had never been to Oregon, the state where her mom was born. I was flattered that she wanted to see where I lived as a child and immediately promised to take her to Oregon at some point this summer. That point came about a week after I got back from Mt. Shasta with Kim. It occured to me that I might have a hard time actually finding the houses where I lived 20-34 years ago, but thankfully my parents agreed to come along.

Once we were about 200 miles from my parents house I remembered, "Crap, we forgot Gramma!" My parents exclaimed their regret, wishing they had thought of her as well. We had left her in the hall closet in the box marked "Mother." She's been in there since 1987, what's it going to hurt if she has to wait a little longer to have her ashes spread at Silver Falls?

Our first night we stayed in, yes, the town of Mt. Shasta. Not at the hotel with Bigfoot out front though, we stayed at a place that gave us brown paper bags, each with a Svenhard's pastry and a bottle of Sunny D inside. "Here are your continental breakfasts," the clerk said with a big smile. I'm not complaining, they had a pool and a hot tub, and the bathroom floor didn't turn the bottom of my feet black.

After breakfast at the (original) Black Bear Diner and blowing money in the shops, we stopped at the Head Springs, filled our water bottles, and headed on. Our first desintation in Oregon was Bend, where my parents moved after I got married but before we started producing grandchildren back in California. Also, my friend Jennie lives there, Jennie my former business partner, also known as Reverend Jennie who got ordained for the specific purpose of performing my second wedding, the one at La Brea Tar Pits where Dave played the Darth Vader theme on the kazoo as I walked down the "aisle" on the arm of my nine-year-old nephew.

After a brief but awe-inspiring stopover at Crater Lake, we pulled into Bend all perky and chipper, aside from the fact that we realized far too late that the only CD we had in the car was a Best of Merle Haggard my brother had tossed to my dad before we left. Cindy and I stayed with Jennie but my parents got a hotel so my dad would be free to engage in one of his favorite activities, running around in his undies.

The next morning Cindy, Jennie, and I decided to go horseback riding through the woods around her house. We walked to the stables where she lives, along with Kristie, who got volunteered to take pictures. After we arrived at the stables and took care of the paperwork, we couldn't help but notice this huge gray plow horse vigorously attacking a bucket. He kept picking it up in his teeth and shaking it around like he was trying to kill it. I had never seen a grass-eating animal with such a killer instinct. He reminded me of my dog, Snake, attacking a warm sock. Guess who was assigned to ride him.

"Watch out for Jagermeister," I was told, thinking the crazy horse's name suited him well. He did, in fact, have the personality of a drunken German with a loaded gun. I remembered an afternoon back in Sweden, lighting dishes of Jager with my brother after we got tired of drinking it. "He'll go nuts on you. Do you know how to neck rein? Good. Well, he doesn't, you're going to have to use a plow rein and be sure, whatever you do, don't let him start eating." By the time I was in the saddle and waiting for the others to mount up, I was wishing I hadn't signed the waiver, turning down the opportunity to wear a helmet. It worked out fine in the end however, I was able to catch Jagermeister each time he tried to turn around and bite my leg.

That afternoon we headed over the Cascades to Salem, where I was born. Now the real history lesson for my daughter was going to kick in. First we took a tour of Turner, the town where my parents lived when they met.

By this time I had the idea firmly planted in my mind that I was going to find a blue spruce seedling at a nursery and take it home with me. Finding out that you can't buy them in California made me obsessed, and hearing a friend talk about her son's bonsai methods made me want one more. I love bonsai trees, and if I take an extra spruce to this guy maybe he would teach me how to cut them properly.

Just as my mom was showing us the spot in the street where her little sister was killed (fun family vacation, I know) I spotted a small nursery in the front yard of the house up the street. I ran up to the front door, only to find a sign saying "Please go to back door." After Jagermeister's beating and hours of sitting in the car, I staggered out back with my sore, rubbery legs and ass-on-fire.

I was delighted to see the colorful plants and flowers and shrubbery growing in this beautiful, idyllic setting and thought, wow, this must be what it's like to have a nursery in your yard, when from out of nowhere, a big red wasp flew down from the heights, stung the living shit out of my arm, and flew off again.

I was in complete shock. I had never been stung before and it hurts like hell. I thought of my brother who swells up like Roger Ebert whenever he got stung. Was that going to happen to me? Was I going to die in the street where my mom's sister had been hit by a car over thirty years ago? I could tell you one thing, my mom wouldn't be going back to Turner anytime soon. I started to hyperventilate a little, waving my arm around, trying to shake off the pain. I looked at the little bubble that was growing bigger and spreading over my skin. Crap, this is it. I'm going to die.

Just then, a man walked out the back door of his house to see me standing there, gasping and shaking in his back yard.

"Are you all right?"

I nodded, blinking really fast so that I wouldn't start crying.

"Can I do anything for you?"

"Stung. Real stung. Got real stung. Bad." My aching hips gave out, I lost my balance, and staggered sideways a few feet.

"Do you need anything?" He looked like he could have been Mr. Roger's lumberjack grandfather.

"Tiny blue trees," I was rubbing my arm furiously now, giving myself an unintended Indian burn."You have tiny blue trees?"

"No, sorry, we don't have anything like that. Would you like a glass of water or something?"

As I ran back to the car, I hoped against hope that he wouldn't look out his front window and see me getting into the car with the California license plates. Californians have a bad enough reputation as it is. Crazy red-haired junkies showing up in people's back yards raving about tiny blue trees. Up the street at the shoebox where my mom said her family did all their grocery shopping, my dad bought a Coke and a box of baking soda and fixed my arm up and assured me that no, I'm not going to die. And would I please take the cold bottle off my arm and give him his Coke back, he would like to drink it.

After that I was suspicious of Oregon. I wasn't on a grandious adventure inside my childhood with my own young daughter, I was in this land that lulled you into a false sense of security with its wide-open blue skies and fluffy green trees and then zapped you when you weren't looking.

Although it seemed to make sense somehow, I was a little dismayed to find the house where we lived when I was born was gone and replaced by the electric company. My house in Damascus, the last house on Foster road before you reach the 212, is now gone and the whole lot is overgrown with blackberry vines. Even our purple plum trees were gone. I saw some heavy equipment in the field next to our old garden and I thought of Duke, Puddles, and the millions of other pets we had that we buried out there. I could have warned them of the Pet Semetary, but why ruin the surprise? They would find out on their own once the ghosts showed up. I got pictures of the asylum where they shot exteriors for One Flew Over the Cuckoos nest, the same place where my uncle liked to meet chicks, drove by various landmarks from my childhood, and got my heart broken when I saw that there was no longer a Rock at Rock Park.

A week later, when we were all back home, my mom got stung by a bee in her back yard. It was her first time too. "Boy, Candie," she said, "If I had known it hurt so bad I would have given you a little more sympathy."

I was barely recovering from the Oregon trip when it was my nephew, River's, turn to go stay with Gramma and Grampa for a week. Steve and I volunteered to go along with Kat to drop River off. We started getting that antsy feeling again, and once Riv was settled we got back in the car and headed for the freeway.

On the way to Squaw Valley I had mentioned that, although I had lived in the San Joaquin Valley for a collective ten or so years, I had never been to Yosemite. That needed to be remedied immediately, Kat insisted. Yosemite was awesome, although next time I'll be careful about the curves and not heat my brakes up, but the place ousted Bend for my idea of the most ridiculously beautiful views. We've all seen one beautiful, majestic, snow-capped mountain hovering over a town, but Bend has seven. Count 'em, seven such sentinels watching over the city.

Yosemite struck me much the same way. As one friend put it, "LOOK! A gorgeous waterfall! NO WAIT, LOOK, there are towering monolithic cliffs, NO WAIT, LOOK, there are beautiful meadows, deer, trees, NO WAIT, LOOK, there are alpine lakes above the tree line, pristine creeks," and so on.

We drove home on the coast and visited James Dean's memorial on the way, near the intersection where he was killed. I liked how visitors left cigarettes for him in a hollow of the tree. We stopped in Solvang to get some location shots of Sideways for Steve's website and ate dinner at Pea Soup Andersens. They won the prize for tackiest gift shop, but you might like to eat there unless you are used to food that tastes good.

A normal person might be tired of road trips by now, but I'm hankering for more. Kat mentioned some vacation time coming up in a few weeks and all I can think is, how far can we drive in a week?