The tent diaries 3

Now onto part three of this adventure, in which Missouri and Kansas treat me well.

I regret not writing about Hannibal, Missouri, Mark Twain's boyhood town. Folks in Hannibal say the town is the setting for Twain's most famous stories.

Tom Sawyer. Huck Finn.  Becky Thatcher. The whole wonderful lot sitting by the Mississippi riverbank in Hannibal.  

Did you know the Unsinkable Molly Brown was headed to Hannibal when she boarded the Titanic 97 years ago on my birthday?  

Speaking of famous Missourians. I camped in Brad Pitt's hometown of Springfield for three nights. It was one of my favorite (and largest) campsites, in a hayfield managed by KOA proprietors Scott and Diane King, off a stretch of rural highway, along the hot and dusty outskirts of town.  

In Springfield, I met up with a friend of a friend for drinks at a Mexican restaurant. She loaned me a book about Albert Einstein and burned me two folks CDs that carried me through to Idaho. It was the first time we'd ever met, and we got along so awesomely I was sad to move on. Every time I opened the Einstein book I thought of how happy I was in Springfield, Missouri, drinking beer with a good conversationalist, talking about books, music and Mexican food. 

Come to think of it, I did write about Hannibal but the story only ran in the newspaper.

--

Wednesday, June 13, 2007

Branson, Missouri
It is Wednesday, June 13.
I'm happy to say I'm not in Branson. I'm in Springfield, MO. And I love this campsite! I praised Jesus for this campsite because earlier while intending to camp in Branson, Missouri I discovered Branson is a honky-tonk clusterfuck of rotund old people driving $75,000 RVs. A Barbara Mandrell, Yakov Smirnoff clusterfuck of bellbottom-wearing, bibbed overall, red plaided, eat-til-you-puke, Aqua netted, cake-faced hoe-downed, imitations of the imitation Donnie and Marie Osmond cabaret of overpriced performers. I could've spent $30 a night to camp on a black top slab in Branson or … I could be here — in Springfield, Missouri in a cow pasture by the railroad tracks, in my tent under the hickory tree by the white picket fence, shooing fireflies out of my tent, my pug once again snoring, filled up on the couscous I cooked for dinner and the white Sunbeam bread from Jasper County, SC I toasted on Zac's super duper one-burner camp stove.

--

Thursday, June 14, 2007

Springfield, Missouri
I feel compelled to write something on the nature of roughing it. More than once I've been asked how I'm managing without bathrooms, showers, manicures, matresses, hair dryers and shopping

Let me be clear. I am not roughing it. At least not in my sense of roughing it.
I have not gone a single day without a shower. I love showers! (Ask Zac.) Every campground has a bathhouse. The facilities are better than those of the Hawkins Court cottage I lived in for a year. The bathhouse in Asheville had brass racks for your toiletries. The bathhouse in the Smoky Mountains had granite vanity tops. In Hannibal the shower stall had a shampoo/soap holder hanging from the shower head. Here in Springfield, MO the facilities are kickass. I took a shower this morning in the handicap stall, which is apparently the perfect height for me plus I could sit down and let the water pressure hit my back in all the places I have bug bites.
The worst toilet I've encountered thus far was in Branson West at a gas station staffed by a woman with black teeth and a good sense of direction. (Thank you black toothed woman for heading this lost-in-a-paper bag bozo out of Branson and in the direction of Kansas City.)

Cubbie poops in plush green mountain grass instead of dirt and gravel driveways in Sarasota. He's psyched about that.

Here's where I've had to "rough it" and hardly at that:

I accidentally grew a mullet. I promised Joe I wouldn't cut it on the road. But it's killing me. So I had Kevin cut off the mullet tail in Chicago. (I'm still growing it! And yeah rat tails in The Ozarks are like boob jobs in Miami ... but I'd rather not do the mullet.) 

I'm too cheap to purchase the following items so I steal them from gas stations:

- tiny International Delight coffee creamers
- sugar packets
- napkins
- salt & pepper packets

Rather than moisturize with Bath & Body Works Berry Bananza lotion or whatever I moisturize with OFF! Deep Woods Sportsmen bug spray.

I'm eating better than I did in Sarasota because I'm forced to make wise choices when I stop at Piggly Wigglys for groceries. I buy berries. I buy bananas. I do not buy chips or cookies. Chips and cookies hold me over for about an hour and then I'm hungry again. Cookies are gifted to me by all midwestern moms and dads I've stayed with so far. (Thank you Mr. & Mrs. Schnelle.) Besides, I won't buy anything Cubbie can't eat and chocolate upsets his stomach. I think.

My biggest complaint right now is that I don't have my bicycle. I couldn't fit my fat pug into the basket Betsy gave me so I left the bike at home. I'm going through withdrawls. I despise jogging and so does Cubbie. So I suppose I'll have to be content with the amount of physical activity I get from schlepping my cooler into the shade whenever the sun changes positions and putting up and taking down my campsite in the sweltering, swamp-assing heat of the day.

Anyway. Ro just called. Yeah, I'm on the phone writing emails from a picnic table in southern Missouri. I'm getting a tan and really ... I'm not roughing it at all.

When I've crapped in the woods I'll let ya know.

--

Monday, June 18, 2007

Kansas City, Missouri
Kansas City is posh. The shopping is upscale and chic. The houses are enormous and cheap. Everyone seems to have a deck, a furnished basement and a subbasement. Kids marry young in Kansas City. Not to suggest that marrying young is in any way abnormal or problematic. Not in the least. It's just the way it is. I'm envious a little of how every young, adorable couple I met had their lives under control. Their careers, their domesticity, their Maytag appliances … for every lapse in my judgment, for every second guess, for every fickle move I made in the past or to come … the couples I met in Kansas City were so well put together I hoped that just by brushing elbows with some of them, their clear-headedness would rub off on me.
KC was my last stop in the Midwest. Phew too! I was aching to go west. (I saw more of Missouri in one week than of my own home state.)

I arranged to stay with my friends Meg and Cory, who moved from Kansas City to Sarasota and then back again over a year ago. I miss them! I want them back! I realize now that there are only three ways around missing Meg and Cory. Clone them, visit them or insist they visit me. I love these two. Cory talks slower than anyone I know. He has an interesting vocabulary and is funny in a very understated, what's-so-funny? kind of way. He used to wear flannel pajama pants to work (European Marble.) Betsy used to ask if he was stoned. (He wasn't.) Although Cory did not make many friends in Sarasota, on the night before he moved to Kansas City he got schnokered and (almost) admitted to wishing he had. Meg reminds me of Jennifer Aniston. She walks the line effortlessly between ever going overboard on any of her hugely gracious characteristics. She listens so well and offers such good advice she should break from designing Hallmark's catalogs and write their greeting cards instead.

Cory and Meg's house is enormous by Sarasota standards. The carpet is plush and super soft on my feet even though Cory plans on ripping it out. Meg has paisley-printed dishes and dishtowels so pretty I could tie them on as headbands. They have big, comfy suede sofas that we saved one night from her cousin's "I'm OK to drive home" puking friend. We (sort of) cooked dinner for her dad on Father's Day. We lied out on the deck in our suits and read Cosmo. We (sort of) shopped. We drank Sangria. We ate Pizza Shoppe pizza with her mom. We highlighted my road atlas along all the routes I've traveled so far. We rented chick flicks and ate frozen custard at Sheridans, a custard stand that has hula-hoops hanging up for people to hula with while they're waiting for their orders. We ate pasta and drank great wine with the Kansas City Chief of Police. I played fetch with a golden retriever whose name is slipping me right now. I had such a good time I decided to stay an extra night. When I left early Monday morning Meg was heading out the door for work, Cory's alarm was going off, Cubbie was splayed out on the kitchen tile, my car was packed with Gatorade, peanuts, Oreos and Oatmeal Cream Pies from Meg's mom, Patty. I had tucked inside my wallet a business card from KC's Chief of Police.
"Take this," he said half-joking, half-not, "… if you have any trouble."

--

Tuesday, June 19, 2007

Quinter, Kansas
I did what everyone told me to do in Kansas. I drove in a straight line from east to west. About an hour out of Kansas City the land flattened into high plains like TV tables in the fields of wheat. It was raining when I pulled out of Meg and Cory's place in KC, Missouri. It was the first time since Tennessee that I had to use my windshield wipers. I was dreading the drive – doubly now because I hate driving in the rain and because everyone I know (with the exception of my editors) said the state of Kansas was one big drive-right-through-it-if-you-can bore.

Cory called me soon after my leaving his place.

"Just checking to make sure you got out of the city alright."
"Yeah, I'm good. It's raining."
"How far are you?"
"A little ways into Kansas."
"Good luck. There aint shit to see."

You were all wrong. Kansas is spectacular. In the same way I respect the pair of cutoff khaki shorts I've had since I was 14, I respect Kansas — for its unfussiness. Whenever I reach a place where I can see so far I have to squint things into focus, my imagination runs wild. And if there is anything in this world I want to run wild, it is my imagination.

Kansas is a canvas.

Wish I had camped in Kansas. Took me a few hours to get through it. Pulled over several times to take pictures. Ate lunch on a dirt road in between the wheat fields. Met no locals and was fine with that.

The sun popped out about half way through. I blasted my radio. Daydreamed. Felt unencumbered. Felt like I wouldn't mind living in such a place. Felt like Dorothy had a good thing going when she said, "There's no place like home."

I pulled over in Quinter, Kansas. Sat on the side of a dirt road that stretched so far into the horizon I squinted my eyes and narrowed it into one gold strand. Imagined Kansas like Goldilocks. Thanked Kansas for its carbohydrates. Sat on a folded bed sheet, leaned up against the car, let Cubbie loose into a wheat field and watched as patches of dusty gray dandelions wisps stuck to his black face. I didn't bother to pick them off at first because he looked so perfect covered in them. I asked Cubbie what he thought of Kansas and he said he didn't understand what all those people were talking about when they said to drive right through it.

--

PS. It was my friend Meg who insisted one night while we were up talking for hours that I write this Lance. I remember her saying, "It's right up your alley. It's free. For godsakes just do it." Thank you, Meg. Your encouragement has always meant the world to me. Visit Mimi & Meg. She has impeccable taste in fashion and interior design. I seriously stopped buying In Style magazine when she started the site. She's what I like to call a cool hunter.  

Anatomy of a refrigerator door

While Joe watched some snooze-fest on Charlie Rose tonight, I diagrammed our refrigerator door. I'm not necessarily proud of this. In fact, there were a million other more productive things I could've, should've done. Ah well. At least now you know I have a framed photograph of my fiancé with his dentist and dental hygienist on the fridge. (And yes, they're posing with balloons.)

Note: This is just the top of my fridge. There's an entirely different collection of crap on the bottom.

Fan mail

Dear Heelya's students,

I'm sorry it's taken me so long to return your letters. They've sat in a pile on my kitchen table for days now.

I've read them and re-read them so many times while eating my morning cereal that I've memorized many of your sentiments.

Per your request, I'm posting your last correspondences on my Lance. Per your teacher's request, I wont use your names.

(FYI: I'm pen-pals with my sister's students in Buffalo. They're elementary school kids and I love getting letters from them. They like to ask me about the pug, the weather, Joe and random things like: Do you drool? Do you like people in your town? Do you like snakes? Or, do you eat Snickers bars? I like to nickname them and ask them how they spend their weekends. Sometimes I draw them maps of Florida and explain where poisonous snakes lurk. One time I drew them a map of my living room with an arrow identifying where Joe usually sits on the couch and where the pug sleeps next him. Sometimes Joe writes to them. Sometimes I send them newspaper stories I've written or pictures I've taken. I like to tell them stories about Ro and I, because Ro is the speech pathologist at their school and they're always blown away by the fact that we know each other. And I always, always tell them to keep writing. Their letters are awesome! They make my heart sing.)

---

Dear Ms. Kurpiela,

Can you come and visit my classroom? I like Spiderman soo much!

Me and my brother went to Disney on Ice. My mom didn't go.

October the 12th is my birthday and then comes Halloween. My hair looks crazy today. My mom didn't finish it before school so I took it out and shook it. Happy Valentine's Day!

Are you glad about your mom? Do you like the people in your town? I like the people in my town.

I can't wait to hear back from you!

Love,

@#!!@&*$

--

Hi Ms. Kurpiela!

I like your dog Cubbie. Yes, I am a clean person. Every day I wear a button up shirt tucked in. I have boots and dress pants. I get in the tub every day, sometimes in the morning. Sometimes at night.

I got new glasses! They are tinted blue. Do you have glasses?

What do you do for fun?

I like to play PlayStation 2. My dad has PlayStation 3. My sister has a Wii. My brother has a silver PlayStation 2 like me. It is so much fun playing it!

We're growing beans in the classroom, but mine didn't grow. Everyone else has beans that are growing besides me.

See ya later, alligator.

@#!!@&*$

--

Dear Ms. Kurpiela,

I am a new student in Ms. Kurpiela's class.

Do you have any dogs? I have a dog. She is a Beagle and is 10 years old.

My sister likes monkeys.

How are you doing today? Do you work?

I love cars.

I am Native American.

I listen to drum CDs and my favorite artist is Johnny Cash. My favorite Johnny Cash song is "When You Get the Blues."

Who is your favorite artist?

I am 7 years old. How old are you?

What is the weather like in Florida during the winter?

Today in Buffalo it is seven degrees! It is freezing!

Nice to meet you.

Your friend,

@#!!@&*$

--

Dear Ms. Kurpiela,

How are you? I am doing good.

I went to a Build A Bear workshop. I made a brown bear. I love him. His name is Chocolate. He has a red bow tie and a book. We got lots of snow yesterday. I like to stay inside when it snows so I don't get cold.

How is Joe and your dog?

You should come visit sometime at school.

Last week I went to Disney on Ice. I saw Mickey, the Ducky, Aladdin, the mermaid, Woody and Buzz and the Chipmunks.

I had pretzels, popcorn and a drink. It was yummy!

Love,

@#!!@&*$

--

Dear Ms. Kurpiela,

I like to say hi to parents, not teachers, that say good morning.

I'm looking at a Monster Inc. Book. Could you send me a Hero coloring sheet?

Do you ever take kids to a playground?

I went to a zoo and the elephants weren't there. I wanted to see if they were falling in the water.

I saw a book about skating at my house and I hope we go soon.

Good day,

@#!!@&*$

--

Dear Ms. Kurpiela,

I like to ride my bike too. I have a big blue and red bike. I ride it really fast, but stay out of the street.

I am in a new class. Write me back still.

Do you watch TV a lot?

My favorite show is SpongeBob. I hope to hear from you soon!

From,

@#!!@&*$

--

Dear Ms. Kurpiela,

I am a new student. I like my new school and my teachers too.

My favorite subject is math. It's my favorite because I am really good at it.

I am good at drawing too!

When I am not in school I like to play in the park. It is sooo fun!

One of my favorite things to do is play Hide and Go Seek and run around.

My best friend is nice and I like her a lot.

I have seven sisters and brothers. They are really cool!

I like Keyshia Cole! I can sing some of her songs.

It is really nice to meet you. I can't wait to get a letter back.

Love,

@#!!@&*$

--

Dear Ms. Kurpiela,

Your job is cool!

There is drool on the floor.

From,

@#!!@&*$

--

Dear Ms. Kurpiela,

What did you have to eat yesterday?

Do you like snakes?

Are you sad?

Love,

@#!!@&*$

--

Dear Ms. Kurpiela,

Do you have a pool?

I like school.

I do not like tools.

I do not like drool.

I am cool.

Bye,

@#!!@&*$

--

I'm still here!

This is my 100th post. It's a post I started at midnight about two weeks ago but fell asleep in the middle of writing. When I woke up the next morning, I was 27 years old, had a 9 a.m. phone interview with a mathematician from Maine, a cover story due about a ballet dancer from Houston and plans to go to the beach (see left) with my best friend Ro and sister Heelya.

I didn't know I had it in me to stick with the Lance. I figured I'd get bored with it. Tire of writing about myself, my friends, my family, the odd ducks and lovable strangers that cross my path and make me laugh, cry, whisper and cuss.

I thought I'd get distracted. Find a new way to spend time while Joe was asleep. Take up abstract painting. Join a knitting circle. Volunteer at a nursing home. Start trading stocks online.

But here I am. Still Lancing. Truth is, I can't shake it. I find a story in everything. So much so that's it's annoying. If you were to ask me to write 500 words on the sound a potato chip makes when it's chewed, I'd give you 600 words and a sidebar on the texture of french onion dip.

In the picture above you'll find me on the left, Ro in the middle and Heelya on the right. Joe took it the night the girls arrived from Buffalo, just before we unfolded the pull-out sofa in his Man Cave and the girls fell asleep in a cocoon of down-filled blankets.

Ro and Heelya like nests. They like to burrow and they like to snuggle. I know because I spent many nights curled up beside either one of them, prattling on about things girls prattle on about.

Ro sleeps with her mouth open and Heelya talks and eats in her sleep. One night, when we were teenagers, I heard Heelya murmur something about French fries. Another night I caught her in the refrigerator, rummaging through the crisper for cheese slices.

Growing up, Heelya and I slept in bunk beds, alternating between the top and bottom bunk every few months. Whenever Heelya slept on top, I'd lay on the bottom with my feet planted on the planks of her bed, kicking her up in the air a good three inches just to aggravate her. One night when I was on the top bunk and Heelya was on the bottom bunk, my mattress fell through the weakened planks and landed on top of her head.

Basically Ro, Heelya and I spent the weekend laughing, catching up on nonsense, drinking beer and telling old stories around the campfire. There's much more of course, but I'd be here all day if I were to write about it all. So I guess I'll write about April 10, my birthday.

We had plans to go out to a Japanese steakhouse – me, Joe, Heelya, Ro and my sister PK – when around 7 p.m. PK, who lives an hour away, called to tell me she got in a car accident.

"Don't freak, Heid. I'm fine," she said, explaining that her car was towed from the scene and that the cop gave her a ride back to her apartment, and that for every day her car was in impound she would be charged a grotesque $100.

To avoid this monetary raping and to get PK up to St. Pete for my bachelorette weekend, I had no other choice but to load everyone in my car, drive an hour south to Sarasota, free the crinkled Escort from the impound lot and pick up PK – birthday or no birthday.

So at 9 p.m., with Joe in the front seat and Ro, Heelya and PK in the back, I pulled off a desolate street in North Sarasota, into a gravel parking lot guarded by angry dogs with no manners, where a Bubba with a belly like a bass drum unlocked a prison-high fence and mumbled that my sister's car could be freed for $250 cash.

(Note: Heelya is in a Sophia Loren sun dress. Ro is in a Doris Day skirt. And Joe is wearing the faux suede gentleman's blazer he reserves for television appearances and birthday parties. Remember, we were supposed to be at a Japanese steakhouse, sipping sake and watching a chef chop onions in the air using a Hattori Hanzo samurai sword.)

So at 9:15 p.m., with dapper Joe in the front seat and Ro, Heelya and ATM card-less PK in the back, I pulled into a SunTrust bank and withdrew enough money to recover a bent 1998 Ford Escort.

PK was pouting. I was bitching. Joe was deciding whether we should refuse to pay the after-hours fee. Ro was insisting the charges be itemized and Heelya was bitching about my bitching, suggesting I should just be happy we were all together.

And to be honest, though I was irritated and driving with night-blindness through a ghetto on my birthday, I was, actually, ecstatic we were all together.

When we returned to the impound lot with money in hand, the Bubba behind the gate barked at another Bubba to, "chain up the Escort and move 'er out," at which point Joe lost his cell phone in the dusty abyss.

As we followed the tow truck driver back to PK's apartment, and as Joe began frantically searching the car for his cell phone, I remarked that my 1997 Honda Civic was dogging it with so many bodies weighing it down.

"Shit," Joe muttered. "I must have dropped my cell phone in the parking lot."

"You sure it's not under the seat?" I asked.

"No," he replied. "I checked there."

"You sure it's not in the glove box?" Ro asked.

"No, I checked there."

"What about in my purse?" I asked.

"I looked through your purse."

"Did you check in the door?" Ro asked.

"It's not there."

"What about under the seat?" Holly asked.

"IT'S NOT UNDER THE SEAT!"

And then the car fell silent until we got to PK's apartment ...

Around midnight, after PK's car had been towed to her apartment and after we had returned to the impound lot for a third time to comb the dusty abyss for Joe's cell phone, and after we had returned to St. Pete, ordered two large pizzas, nibbled on leftover ice cream cake and opened presents, I settled into bed, exhausted, content and three years away from 30.

You see, I've been a little stressed lately. I'm not exactly sure why. I seem to be working things out in my dreams though, because every day I wake up a little less wound. I wonder if it's wedding stuff. Work stuff. Money stuff. The fact that I just paid the government $1,400 in taxes – half of my pathetic life savings. Or that I still can't clear up the pug's eczema, or stick to the novel I suck at writing or finish the novel by my bed I suck at reading.

One things for sure. My friends, my family and my fiance keep me grounded. Without them, I'd lose my head.

I tend to digest life better when I'm driving. I think it's because it's the only time I sit still and concentrate on getting from point A to point B. On my way home from the Tampa airport after I had dropped off Ro and Heelya at Southwest Airlines' curbside check-in, I started sobbing so much my temples hurt.

When I got home, Joe walked with me to the bike shop to pick up my Bianchi and I cried some more. I told him my heart breaks every time I have to say goodbye, and he told me to keep my chin up and sang me a stupid pop song to make me laugh.

And it worked I suppose, because on the walk home I saddled up my Bianchi like Lance Armstrong and pedaled fiercely from point A to point B; Joe running like a bull behind me with my purse slung over his shoulder, trying to keep up, looking hysterical and lovely at the same time.

--

PS. Ro & Heelya – I miss you and love you. See you in June when we ride 62.5 miles in The Ride For Roswell.

PPS. To my succulent readers – I'm alive and well. Thank you all for checking in on me! I received e-mails, Facebook messages, TWITTER greetings, younameit, wondering where the hell I'd gone. Thanks to yesterday's deep tissue massage, I'm back to my narcissistic self. I plan on catching up on all your blogs this weekend from my new Sky Chair.

Cheap thrills.

Meet my new wheels. She's a real Bianchi. 

Light as a feather and the color of a robin's egg, my Bianchi came from Goodwill. She's got pizza-cutter tires and handlebars shaped like my pug's tail.

When I wedged her into the front seat of my Honda Civic, she contorted into a kind of fetal position, which made me think perhaps Bianchi was scared or sad, having just been pulled abruptly from the bike pile at a tidy Goodwill store on 4th Street in St. Petersburg.

She's a 23-year-old Italian with a stubborn saddle, caged pedals, soft tires and a nervous tick. I think her rear break might be chaffing against the rim, but with the proper tools and gentle touch she'll be prime for riding long distances. 

I hadn't intended to get a 1986 Italian racing bike. My sister Heelya and best friend Ro are visiting next week and I wanted a third bicycle so we could pedal the Pinellas Trail together. I've been eyeing a tricked-out mountain bike for a month now and was fixing to shell out $500 for a better (and I mean way better) bike than the one I pedal now, but today's little lesson in negotiation and good will has prompted me to forgo a new model in favor of a more seasoned cougar.

I pulled into Goodwill today with two $20 bills in my wallet, feeling good about myself, my friends and the world. I'm on a new cash-only budget thanks to $3,000 in fraudulent charges at a Panama stereo store. My debit card number was stolen last week (perhaps in cyberspace) and when the bank told me I'd have have to wait a week for my new card, I decided now was as good a time as any to pay homage to my parents by paying for everything in cash. 

Peering into the back stockroom at G.W., I asked one of the employees if there were any decent bikes for sale. One guy perked up and said, "Sure. We got a Tour de France bike out front."

I figured he was pulling my chain, (bike pun!) but as I followed him out front to the parking lot where the robin egg blue Bianchi was parked, the vintage bike stuck out like Christie Brinkley ...                                                                                      

... in a sea of Tonya Hardings.

"It suits you," the guy said.

"I'll take it," I replied, not knowing how much it would cost, but assuming not much.

So I wheeled it into the store and up to the counter, where an employee with a name tag that said JAYME asked, "You buying that bike?"

"Yup," I said.

"Do you know how much it costs?" He asked incredulously. 

"Um. No. How much does it cost?"

"Fifty bucks," he said.

Before I could even get a word out, the man in line behind me said, "No way is that bike worth fifty bucks. Man, you're rippin' the girl off. Give it to her for 25."

A woman standing in line behind the man chimed in:

"Fifty dollars! She's gonna have to put new tires on that bike!"

"It's an expensive racing bike," the Goodwill clerk snapped. 

"It was an expensive bike," scoffed the man behind me. "Man, that thing is old! Being that she's a girl, she's gonna have to pay someone to fix those tires."

Slightly embarrassed by the attention I had drawn, but thrilled by its sitcom appeal, I quietly said to the clerk, "It's OK. I came here thinking I'd get a deal. No biggie."

Upon further inspection of the name tag, I noticed that JAYME was the store manager and as I turned to push the Bianchi back to the bike pile, Jayme sighed and said, "Alright. $35 and that's as low as I'll go."

Forking over my money, I nodded at the male chauvinist behind me, grateful for his cojones. Although I don't usually take kindly to being treated like a damsel, in this case I curtsied, grabbed my bicycle and headed home. 

--

This isn't my first love affair with a 1980s bicycle. I was once infatuated with a clunker 10-speed named Ross. For more on that torrid romance click here.

A little ditty about wedding songs

I had a wedding song before I met Joe.

It was a ditty by a girl on a guitar. Burned onto a mixed CD given to me by my old friend Sarah, whose imaginary cowboy this blog is named after.

I wasn't even sure who sang the song, or what it was titled, until my friend Ricci and I listened to it on repeat one afternoon in my Sarasota cracker shack, and Ricci went home, Googled the lyrics and discovered it was by Rosie Thomas and that the title was Wedding Day.

So much for love

Guess I've been wrong

But it's all right

Cuz I'm moving on

I've got my car all packed with cassette tapes
And sweaters and loose change and cheap cigarettes

The lyrics were neither romantic, nor bitter, somewhere in between Jewel and Alanis Morissette, which suited me just fine from 2005 to 2007.

I was single then. Somewhere in between grounded and orbiting space.

Working in a marble yard. Trying to write a novel. Living in a 1920s bungalow with exposed rafters and no air conditioning. No television. No wireless Internet. Just a black laptop computer that no longer held a charge, that was given to me by my best friend Ro in exchange for one roundtrip airplane ticket from Buffalo to Tampa.

It had been her computer when she was in college. My friend Troy called it my Carrie Bradshaw laptop. Having never seen Sex and the City, I had no idea Carrie Bradshaw had a laptop, much less the fact that it was, according to Troy, a big black one with loud keys.

But I thought it was pretty rad that when I was single I owned a Sex and the City prop, a chic accessory for a girl from the sticks.

I'm gonna drive through the hills
With my hand out the window
And sing 'til I run out of words
I'm gonna stop at every truck stop
Make small talk with waiters and truck driving men
I'm gonna fall asleep in the back seat
With no one around but me and my friends
It's gonna be so grand
It's gonna be just like my wedding day

Ricci and I hung on every word of that song. Blasted it when we'd drive from my bungalow to the public pool to swim laps. Loved that we didn't need boyfriends to have a wedding song. Loved that the lyrics evoked a sense of bliss some girls only experienced on their wedding days.

I'm gonna stop at every bar
and flirt with the cowboys in front of their girlfriends

Obviously, eventually, we got boyfriends.

Consequently, but not on purpose, we stopped listening to Wedding Day. It wasn't that we were making egg souffle for our boyfriends while whistling Dixie. It's just that in general, we spent a little less time together, a little less time driving to the pool to swim laps, a little less time pedaling our bikes, a little less time thinking this song would be our one and only wedding song.

I've had enough of love
It feels good to give up
So good to be good to myself
I'm gonna get on the highway with no destination
And plenty of vision in mind
And I'm gonna drive to the ocean
Go skinny dipping
Blow kisses to venus and mars

When Joe and I got engaged this fall, we didn't start discussing wedding details until months after the Question Had Been Popped. When we got on the subject of wedding songs it seemed neither of us had any one song in mind, so I suggested Etta James' At Last, not realizing Beyonce had recorded a version of it for her role in Cadillac Records, also not realizing the Obamas would dance to it five million times the night of the inauguration.

Recently, I interviewed Bobby Vinton, the 1960s crooner responsible for such wicked ballads as, Blue Velvet, Roses are Red (My Love), I Love How You Love Me, Mr. Lonely, and the 1970s Polish love polka, My Melody of Love.

I did my fair share of Internet research before meeting Vinton, downloading corky love songs my Nana probably loves, leaving Joe voice mail messages to the tune of Blue Velvet. The innocent schmaltz had kind of grown on me – and not in an ironic hipster way.

I started thinking: what kind of love song best describes me and Joe, the couple?

After I left my sunglasses at Bobby Vinton's beach estate, I figured we had to go with a Vinton ballad. It lends itself to a good story and I'll be damned if I pass up a good story, even if I have to dance to a Polish love polka on my wedding night. Besides, Joe digs the fact that Ray Liotta and Lorraine Bracco dance to Roses are Red in Goodfellas.

I'm gonna drive under skyline and sunshine
Drink good wine in vineyards
And get asked to dance
I'm gonna be carefree and let nothing pass me by
Never ever again

This song was my wedding song when I was single. It was appropriate. I could relate to it. I could belt it out in cars. I could be single to it.

What I need now is a song I can be married to.

--

PS. The picture was taken in the first two months of our relationship. We were staying at a hotel in Fort Lauderdale and we had just gotten out of bed. I remember thinking at the moment, I'm happy just watching this man put his contacts in.

PPS. For more on Rosie Thomas.

What a heathen gives up for Lent.

This is Joe's senior picture. He graduated from an all-boys Jesuit high school in 1993 when I was 11 years old. I'm weak for bow ties, so you can see now why I fell for him. I needed some information about Lent, so I figured I'd go to the source.

I was jawing with my best friend Ro last week and she casually brought up this business of Lent. She said she was giving up pasta, and naturally I responded by saying, "What? For Jesus? Jesus wants you to give up pasta? If I were Jesus, I'd be like eat the pasta. It's just a starch."

And she responded (as she does every year) that Lent is a Catholic tradition, that she's been giving up beloved foods since she was a kid, and like all good Catholics, she must sacrifice something she loves for Lent.

"Is it really a sacrifice?" I asked.

"Yes of course," she said. "I love pasta."

So I mulled it over – this hullabaloo over Lent – as I've mulled it over for years. Raised by an atheist mother and a non-practicing Lutheran father, who has an appetite like a bear, I've never been asked to give up pleasurable food for 40 days.

I could give you my heathen opinion on the matter, but who am I to tell gluttonous Catholics there's a chance this ritual pleases Jesus less and Richard Simmons more? I've got plenty of asinine rituals myself (ie: crossing my fingers and kissing them twice before taking off in an airplane), so who am I to knock Lent when I believe crossing my fingers and kissing them twice keeps airplanes in the sky?

So I hung up the phone with Ro, and told Joe I was giving up sarcasm for Lent.

"Why sarcasm?"

"It's something I've been meaning to do for awhile."

"What about food?"

"Nope. Who gives a shit if I give up a food? Jesus? This whole Lent thing seems bunk. If Jesus were in our kitchen right now, he'd make himself a turkey sammie, and tell me that when he gave up sarcasm he noticed a huge improvement in his gospels."

Now understand: Joe is a writer too. A writer and editor at Tampa's snarktastic Creative Loafing. Telling Joe you give up sarcasm is like telling Mrs. Butterworth you give up pancakes.

As I left the living room and turned the corner into the hallway, I shouted, "I want to return to writing more meaningful things! Things that make people sigh!"

Last night I interviewed Joe about Catholic sacrifices. The transcript is below.

Hey Joe? Can I interview you about Lent?

Sure.

Before you became a heathen, what did you give up?

Chocolate ice cream.

You always gave up chocolate ice cream?

I always gave up chocolate ice cream.

Because you love it madly?

I was obsessed with the fact that I could have it for breakfast one day a year.

What day was that?

Easter. I had a deal with my folks that if I gave up chocolate ice cream for Lent, I could have it for breakfast on Easter.

Did you think you were a better person because of it?

I probably dug the God part of it then.

When did you stop giving up chocolate ice cream for Lent?

By my early teens I was off the religion bandwagon.

Yet you continued to go to an all-boys Catholic school? That’s like being a member of Styx and hating your No. 1 song.

Yes it is. It’s like being a member of Styx and hating Come Sail Away.

Why do people always give up food?

People typically give up things they do or enjoy that are frivolous or pleasurable.

Like sex things?

Yes. Catholics give up food and SEX THINGS. Ya know, God, for Lent I decided to give up anal beads.

What did your parents give up?

My dad gave up ketchup.

KETCHUP?

Do you know what a sacrifice that was for him? He puts ketchup on ketchup. You know, on Fridays during Lent you couldn’t eat meat either.

Yeah, I know. How did you survive without chicken and chocolate ice cream?

We had pizza night and tuna fish sandwich night. My mom used to make a giant plate of tuna fish sandwiches with potato chips. It was always more than we could ever eat. It was like nature’s bounty on the table.

I was always jealous of that part. I used to claim I was Catholic when my parents would force me to eat meat on Fridays.

Do you often interview people in a towel?

Only Jared from Subway.

Is that all m’am? I don’t usually talk to the press.

Yeah, I guess I’m done with you.

If you’d like to know what it’s like to eat a pound of chocolate ice cream for breakfast, I’d be happy to fill you in.

--
PS. Joe's senior quote is from Guns N' Roses' Estranged. W.A.R = William Axl Rose. He felt the lyrics were a perfect senior quote. Melodramatic and angtsy ... because nothing says Fuck You like a bow tie.

Roadkill takeout an economic fallout?

What better way to follow up that last ooey - gooey post than with this road kill story - a story that comes courtesy of my hometown newspaper, The Hamburg Sun, where I interned as a 16-year-old under Felice Krycia, the woman whose byline is on this article.

As a kid I frequented this China King in Hamburg, NY. My best friend's mother ordered takeout from them on what seemed like a weekly basis.

As a pseudo-vegetarian, the story makes me cringe. As a reporter from Western New York, it pleases me to share with you a roadkill headline.

Dead deer are a dime a dozen in Western New York.

Once, when the rival basketball team from Eden, NY wanted to piss off our basketball team, they stuck a severed deer head on the cheerleader bus. Whenever a high school boy shot a buck in the woods, the faculty gnawed on venison for weeks.

Our neighbors at the end of Thiel Road liked to bleed their deer from the front porch of their two-story home.

You get the picture.

On that note, bon appetit!
--

(Story courtesy of The Hamburg Sun.)

China King restaurant shut down after dead deer found in kitchen
By FELICE E. KRYCIA

It may have seemed like a good idea at the time, but butchering a dead deer on the floor of a restaurant kitchen is just something you don’t do.

According to Town of Hamburg Police, they received a call about 9 a.m last Friday (Oct. 24) that a dead deer was being dragged in through the front door of the China King restaurant, located in the Big Lots Plaza at 5999 South Park Ave. in Hamburg.

When Officer Joseph Kleinfelder arrived at the scene, he located drag and blood marks from the woods on the south side of China King to the front door.

He then followed them into the restaurant through the dining room and into the kitchen, where the suspect, Tin Chun Cheung, was attempting to remove the head of a female deer on the floor between the sink and the center food prep table of the restaurant.

The deer’s legs had already been removed from the body and placed in the kitchen sink, Hamburg Police Captain A. Daniel Shea said.

“Officer Kleinfelder followed the trail right into the kitchen and saw the man bent over the deer trying to cut through its neck,” said Shea.

According to police, Cheung said he had found the deer dead in the parking lot and was going to take this meat home for his family. He went on to say he had no intention of leaving the meat in the restaurant.

The Erie County Health Department and the state Environment and Conservation Department were called in and along with the violation of a dead animal in the business, they found the walk-in-cooler was too warm and all the food inside it needed to be removed and destroyed.

Cheung was also charged with unlawful possession of wildlife, a violation of the NYS ENCON law. The Health Department then ordered the business to be shut down until all the evidence on this incident had been presented and a determination made by Erie County Commissioner of Health Dr. Anthony J. Billittier IV.

The determination was expected to be handed down Wednesday (Oct. 29), which is after The Sun had already gone to press.

This ruling will outline what Cheung must repair and do to the building before the Health Department will allow it to reopen.

“They will have to repair or replace the walk-in-cooler and have the entire building sanitized,” said Erie County Health Department Public Information Officer Kevin Montgomery. “Once all the issues are addressed, inspectors will be sent to check all aspects of the restaurant and then a determination will be made on if they may reopen.”

The deer, which had been struck by a vehicle earlier that day had reportedly fled into the woods, was disposed of under the direction of the county’s Health Department.

For a video of this story, click here.
--

PS. Happy birthday to Ro, my beloved best friend, who enjoys stories like this more than I do. I would be a sorry, humorless sack without you.

I was born again because of Ross.

This is a story about a bicycle, and the power a bicycle had over my life when I was about 21 years old.

His name was Ross (yes, he was a he) and I first laid eyes on him when I was dog sitting for my Aunt Shirley, who lived next door to my Nana and Papa in Brant, N.Y.

Brant, N.Y. is one town over from North Collins, and it is where all my mother's relatives live. Most of them live on Brant-North Collins Road, a winding, rural, two-lane stretch that cuts through Southeastern Erie County. It is also the same road I grew up on five miles north of my Nana, my Aunt Shirley, my Uncle Joe, my Aunt Helen and so on ...

By the time Brant-North Collins Road gets to my house it is called Langford Road.

Once you pass my house, Langford Road drops down a hill, runs past Crances Superette, past Aaron Skora's house, past the Friedman farmhouse, past Fox Road and the New Oregon Church and ends in a valley, where two brothers named Ed and Mike Snashall used to live.

For the purpose of this story, I will call Langford Road Route 249, which is its official Department of Transportation designation.

Save for high-speed traffic and the usual blind spots, Route 249 is a perfect road for cycling, and its paths through the towns of Farnham, Brant and North Collins have not changed since 1935.

Ross was the first bicycle I pedaled on Route 249 that didn't have training wheels. He was a clunker of a 10-speed I spotted hanging upside down from ceiling rafters in Aunt Shirley's basement. The only fetching thing about Ross was was that under the dust, he actually had a brand name. See here. And here. 

The day I handed my aunt $25, I pedaled Ross home and pledged out loud to my mother that I would bike at every opportunity until I dropped 25 pounds. 

(A side note: At 21 I weighed 25 pounds more than I do now, which is what happens when you party in the woods at 17, 18, 19 and 20.)

Beer-belly up and feeling pretty shitty about it, I stuck to my plan.

Ross and I were inseparable. He was rusty and so was I, and we welded together like fuzzy blue corrosion. He was a boy bike and therefore had the boy-bike bar, and I didn't mind that I had a circa-1983 boy bike with a chain that required so much grease I would go to bed with oil skids on my calves. I only cringed when Ross would, without warning, switch gears every time I stood up to pedal. 

Clunk-clunk. 

But even that was OK, as I bragged to friends that I had found myself the only automatic transmission bicycle in town. 

"You're like a born-again biker," said Ro (the best friend.)

And I was totally evangelical about cycling. I'm certain I logged 300 miles on Ross in one summer. I worked as a recreation director at a day camp four miles from home, and I'd bike it nearly every day with a lock box that contained the day's lunch money on my back - 15 pounds in dimes, nickels and quarters.

Just for the hell of it, I would pedal 30 miles into the suburbs listening to the usual mixed tapes. Ani DiFranco. Indigo Girls. Counting Crows. George Clinton. When the A side would end, I'd flip it to B. Often on these 30-mile rides I would have to flip a tape three times.

A couple months in I recruited Ro, who I forced up Route 249 in 95-degree heat, holding her water bottle out like a carrot, taunting her with it until she reached the top of the hill. It was, she says, the worst and the best motivation she ever endured.

When fall came I was 15 pounds lighter and totally addicted to the road. Sometimes, when I reached the top of a steep one I would cry, not out of frustration but out of a profound sense of accomplishment. And sometimes, on those long even stretches, I would belt out whatever song I was listening to on my mother's little yellow Walkman and glare maniacally at slack-jawed, bug-eyed truck drivers as they banged past. 

When winter came I insisted on pedaling through light snowfall. December air is intoxicating and I used to pop a peppermint candy before a long December ride just to heighten the taste. 

When January came and the air howled through my ears, I would wear a headband to cushion the stabs. And when eventually, inevitably, snow would blanket my town, I would pout about how I couldn't wait to move to Florida, where I would bike every day.

But of course that didn't happen. I moved here in the fall of 2004, 25 pounds lighter and with a Schwinn bicycle I bought a year after pedaling Ross from one end of Western New York to other. 

The Schwinn cost me close to $300, and though it took me on a 65-mile ride around Lake Chautauqua in Upstate NY, and across the state of Rhode Island for a last-hurrah trip Ro and I planned the summer before I left for Florida, it lacked Ross' depth of character. It didn't have an automatic transmission. It's paint wasn't peeling and and it didn't have a name. It was of course, totally tricked out with a tachometer, dual water bottles, a flashing rear light and gel seat, and shortly after I moved to Sarasota it was stolen outside of the Selby Public Library.

Lucky for my waistline, I never chunked on the 25 pounds I lost from three years of devout cycling. And yet the road fever is extinguished. I've tried since to rekindle it (by assuming that if bought a nicer Schwinn it would return) but the compulsion to blaze 30 miles in one day has yet to sock me. 

Until now.  

Two stolen Schwinns later, I'm back at Square One with a $40 Target bike, trying to explain to Joe how important it is that he ride with me.

He's making headway. Slowly. 

Which is another story for another day ...

--

PS. Bicycle photograph by Julie Frame. For more of her work click here. To purchase photographs click here.